(Untitled)

[hooksandlines]

Characters: NPC Orca (hooksandlines) and Axel (seeya_next_life)
Date/Time: August 16th, during the wee hours of the morning
Location: Smoke's Bar
Rating: PG
Summary: While Orca is conducting business as usual Axel has a few burning (hurr hurr) questions.

Comments

[seeya_next_life]

Axel rarely saw Orca come into the bar--for looking so scraggly and off-kilter, he had an eerie silence about him when he wanted to. It was a skill Axel admired on one hand and found annoying on the other. As the last handful of patrons left, he set to cleaning the glasses in the sink, then leaned over the counter, resting his chin in his palm and watching Orca fiddle with the claw machine a moment.

"Can I ask you something?" he said softly, with no lead in, and then waited only a beat before going right ahead and asking anyway. "All this... 'Exile' and propaganda posters and these ridiculous uniforms..." He swirled one hand vaguely in the air. "Entertaining as it all has been, is there an actual purpose, or are we really just playthings to somebody? Toy soldiers?"

He wasn't about to give up the ghost about the theory on Fugue, and he surely wasn't going to name Kagerou as the accuser, but he knew Orca knew more than he let on. Maybe it was time to see if he could get a few answers out of him.

[hooksandlines]

At first when Axel asked if he could ask a question, Orca gave no acknowledgement--from what he had seen of the lad he had an inkling he'd ask whether he got the go ahead or not. It wasn't until Axel fully voiced his concerns that Orca turned around with a crooked, knowing grin.

"What makes ya think the two things're mutually exclusive?" Turning his body towards Axel in a vaguely more comfortable crouch than the one he had been holding before, Orca draped the arm that was holding the screwdriver across one bent knee. "We're the playthings of the Old Man, sure as you and I are standing here. But ya know, there's always been one person who never really did play by those rules. If I'm to guess right, these 'war games' are a visual metaphor, a big overarching theme a' sorts. There's a war been going on for ages, but things're heatin' up. Then a course, there are other tensions building."

He gave a shrug as if to dismiss the seriousness of his statements before adding the qualifier, "That's just how I'm interpretin' it, mind you."

[seeya_next_life]

"So we're toys with some higher purpose? Great, that makes me feel better," he grumbled. Then he hesitated. He didn't exactly trust Orca, but he didn't exactly not trust him either. He trusted the information the man gave him enough, but he wasn't about to expose his back to him.

At least not until he had a better idea about where the man stood.

"Sounds to me like you have no love for old Fugue," he said carefully. He lowered his voice a bit on the final word, like he wasn't sure he was even allowed to say his name out loud without repercussion. Tugging the towel from where he'd tossed it over his shoulder and busying himself wiping down the counter, Axel cast Orca a look out of the corner of one eye. "So what exactly is the war a metaphor for, then, anyway? I mean, it's pretty obvious the people in general aren't happy, but I didn't realize just how divided we were in our overall unrest."

Well, that was about as innocuous and unbiased as the question could get, really. Specificity suffered for the sake of not saying the

[hooksandlines]

Axel's grumbling over being used elicited a rough cackle from Orca. It wasn't derision, not really. It was simply a reaction to a sentiment he had heard many a time, not least of from himself