thefolder | The New Guy

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The New Guy

Who: Shannon and Roze.
What: Meeting the new roomie and a date.
When: Backdated to December 6th.
Where: Apt F3-09 and on the town.

Finishing up with her shower, Roze poured herself into a slinky green dress and her trademark thigh-high stilettos. Piles of long pink hair too wet to be troubled with were whipped into a quick braid and a few rose-shapped twists, then pinned atop her head.

Shannon might not be able to appreciate the effort, but Roze never went out into public with anything less than her best face - normally. And the dress was more conservative than usual - she hoped it might aid in her not making an ass of herself and inspire a little more modesty for the evening.

Probably not, but at least she was trying.

When she exited the bathroom, the inordinately tall girl felt fairly good about her plans, even if they were more spontaneous than usual. She'd be lying if she said she weren't nervous or excited. She loved sudden plans, after all.

"Hey, anyone out there?" she called around the corner into the room.

If Shannon had already left, she'd just kick back on the couch to wait. Otherwise, she strolled out, looming at 6'4" in her heels with legs that didn't quit, hips for grip and a rack capable of hosting a clearance sale. Cranberry-colored nails tapped idly on the scabbard of a long blade as she hummed to herself, finishing the song she'd been singing as she smiled and waited politely for new companions to familiarize themselves with equally new surroundings.

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"Glad we don't have to worry about any of that here," Shannon said thoughtfully. "Just gigantic city attacks and other miscellaneous terrors from the digital deep."

Shannon paused long enough to drain half his cup of water in a go, pausing to wipe at his lips with his thumb before he returned to the conversation. "Generally speaking, even blind people can tell when others mean them harm. It's kind of in the air, you know?"

"No, I don't," she answered honestly, arching a brow. "I only know what I'm told in regards to that. I've never been blind or even had any of my senses stunted somehow. The closest to it was coming here. I don't have my strength or stamina, my animal senses, my bit of magic. Nothing. But its still not the same."

She raised her hand, gesturing for a waiter to come refill his cup and her teapot before leaning back to consider what he'd said.

"Maybe its the fear, you know? when demons know they've been sensed, fight or flight kicks in and they can rise to violence no matter how passive they normally are. I've seen pixies kill people. Its pitiful, but it happens."

Edited 2013-12-11 20:57 (UTC)

"Not like it's fool-proof or anything. We just pay attention to the kind of stuff people take for granted because they think it's all useless information," said Shannon.

"Fear is for kids," Kera said in a moment where his mouth was empty. He began arranging more pieces of sushi for his next dive into the culinary delicacies. "If they're that easy to spook, maybe there's something to your Guardian guys holding the peace."

Shannon was silent on Kera's opinion, but he couldn't help but agree. At least partially. It sounded like the ones being the pests couldn't always handle being pestered back, and that was usually when people realized they should stop playing the game. These weren't people, however, and that was probably where the wires got crossed.

"Well, you're usually pretty scared when your ancestral home is taken over, you have to cast illusions on yourself to survive and people always try to kill you if you're outed," she remarked, trying to keep any defensiveness out of her tone and failing. She sighed, tapping her finger on the table as she counted, cooling off.

"Fear isn't for kids. You'd be scared, if you thought Shannon were going to die. Really believed it. Demons always have to be afraid. Humans just rose up and took over everything in such a short span of time. Demons welcomed them into the world, and then they started massacring everyone. Young demons are stupid and playful and end up in all kinds of situations tangled up with humans, but they aren't usually aggressive on their own. Its like scaring a wild animal and backing it into a corner. They're gonna lash out sooner or later."

Edited 2013-12-11 21:10 (UTC)

"Why not just let 'em fight?" Kera asked belligerently. "If you've got so much on humans and you aren't even a full demon or whatever, I bet you they could give as good as they've gotten."

"Landmine?" Shannon asked after a moment. He had already determined he wasn't going to apologize for Kera. His partner was definitely a free spirit and had very strong opinions, which may or may not have reflected some of Shannon's own, and he would let that come back to smack Kera whenever it managed to happen. Or not, if he escaped the karma. Either way, it wasn't Shannon's business to police Kera.

She sighed, rolled her eyes and shook her head. It was the age old problem of explaining racism to someone who would never really experience it.

"The more demons push or pull, the more the humans will go out of their way to kill them. Humans might not have a lot of power on their own, but they're resourceful and as a young species, they can be careless and cruel, even if they don't know why what they're doing is wrong."

She stopped for a moment, having opened her mouth to continue on about extinction, clans wiped out, children murdered, the unhatched eggs of other species crushed underfoot. It occurred to her then that she wasn't having fun. A date was supposed to be enjoyable.

"Dinner isn't for politics," she murmured after a while, her tone resigned. She could be the bigger person sometimes. when she had to. Or when she didn't want to run someone off and knew she very well might do it accidentally anyways later.

After a few moments of silence staring at her plate she looked up and pasted on a smile.

"How's the sushi?"

That earned Roze a charming smile, Shannon sensing her mood shift. "Yeah, it's great," he answered. "Not many opportunities for sushi out where I live, so this is a pretty big treat. Is there a kitchen in our place? I'll have to cook for you sometime to make it up to you."

"Didn't see one," Kera answered before Roze could do it. "Think it's just the cafeteria downstairs."

Shannon made a face. "I'll figure something out. So, what exactly do you do around here, Roze?"

"The Damemon are usually more than willing to let people use the cafeteria kitchen. I'd be delighted to be cooked for," she remarked, propping her chin in her hand, elbow on the table while running the fingers of her free hand around the mouth of her teacup idly.

"I do whatever needs doing. Sometimes its missions out into the wilderness or the landmarks, sometimes its fighting. This past week its been just manual labor. I might be a chick, but I'm built sturdy and I like the work. I've never been very good at idling. There are jobs though, usually. For a couple months I was teaching at the school, before everything went to shit."

"Kitchens take a lot of prep and familiarity to use," Shannon said with a shake of his head. "And a lot of no-one-else-messing-it-up-when-you-aren't-there. So a public space isn't the greatest for that, but you'll get a meal cooked by me one way or another. Promise.

"Is that an answer to what you do for hobbies, too? You like working?" Shannon asked, all genuine curiosity topped off with actual interest. "What kinds of things did you teach?"

"Well, its teaching the little baby Digimon. In Training and Fresh...really little ones. So mostly I just taught them combat tactics and fighting with Musashi, in between naps and snack times," she laughed, smiling faintly and taking a sip of the tea.

"I have some hobbies, yeah, but I love physical stuff and I can't get a lot of fighting done around here because not everyone is trained or needs to burn off that kinda steam. I read a lot. Watch movies. I uh...like making things. And cooking," she murmured the last, as though it were something of a secret. It was, to a degree. She wasn't a very domestic woman, and doing domestic things was almost a taboo to her.

"Partying, too, when there's anything goin' on."

"They like to get into fights even that young?" asked Shannon. That was an actual question, no judgment. He really did not understand digimon one lick despite his lack of panic or confusion over their existence. He was still processing, still trying to get them put away somewhere in his head where he could react properly to everything that was happening.

For Shannon, the idea of a digital world was an idea of a world filled with nonsense. Where and when he was from meant that computers were used pretty much only for data processing and sometimes for small games of little consequence other than their novelty. He couldn't imagine what else would be in the world aside from some physical copying of the real world to make things like buildings, food, transportation and the like. It was... well, out of his depth. "There a lot of books in the digital world? Movies, too?"

"They really want to be the partners of new Chosen. Its a core drive for all of them and they don't want to be the kind of partners that slow everyone else down. Usually they just bounce around off one another and giggle a lot, but some of them are pretty serious," she mused, eating another piece of a roll.

"Books and movies can be bought and borrowed, yup. There's a big library. If you wanna find somethin' specific you might ask Princess--er. Seifer. You might ask him about it. He went and tore through most of it tryin' to learn about this place. As for movies and stuff that's kinda touch and go. Lots of Chosen had different electronics storing stuff we were able to salvage, too. My books and movies and all are still mostly good even though my Ipod got roasted."

"Have any idea what the braille selection is like?" It wasn't that common for braille books to be stocked in libraries. Hell, it wasn't that common for books to be translated into braille, period. Shannon had had several years of school where his mother would read him his English assignments aloud just because they hadn't been made available to him and those like him.

He frowned into his cup as he went over that last part. Not a whole lot of it actually made sense in how it was all related. "Your what got roasted?"

"My Ipod. Its...a Macintosh product. An MP3 player, mostly, but it stores text files and movies and stuff. And I dunno about the library, but if you like I have some books on tape? They might not be your thing though," she murmured, instantly regretting having offered, considering how embarrassed she was last time she loaned her stuff out.

"And even if there isn't anything at the library, I'm sure the Digimon would get it for you somehow. They always seem to manage meeting a need."

"An MP3 player?" God, Shannon was feeling old. Had he already started to fall behind on whatever new toys were getting pumped out to the kids these days? No, that didn't sound right. It was just a bit too much information all at once, he was fraying. Nothing to worry too much about; next time he could sit still and let it soak, he would catch up.

"I can deal with books on tape," Shannon said with a shrug. Not exactly the most popular of trends, they were still handy when he came across them.

Crap, he said yes. Welp, she'd offered. Stupid.

"Huh...uh...you're from earth, right? Like...with an Asia and Europe and North America...and Pacific Ocean...and Pizza Hut?" she asked, frowning slowly, before arching both brows and holding up a finger. "Ah! What year are you from?"

She'd nearly forgotten differences in times, when worlds seemed the bigger deal. Dante was from the nineties, and he had difficulty understanding some of her references as well.

What was there to worry about with books on tape? Surely it was just an innocent offer of sharing the written word in whatever way possible.

"Earth, definitely. Pizza Hut, absolutely," Shannon said with a nod. Then his brow drew together in confusion as he tried to figure that one out. Alternate worlds and different laws of physics were kind of meshing in his head, sure, but different times was an angle he hadn't considered. "My, uh... my year is 1988. Why? What's yours?"

"2013," she replied, smiling slowly and leaning back in her chair, taking her cup of tea with her to nurse lazily. "That's the problem right there. You don't have all the feather-light laptops, smartphones, wireless internet and black president stuff yet," she chuckled, sipping her tea quietly.

"You ain't even got gay marriage yet. America goes totally crazy after a while. Over in Japan? Totally grooving. Riding the tech high with like...a tenth of the drama."

"So many of those words are foreign to me," Shannon said slowly, "and the rest have absolutely no context.

"I mean, gay marriage. That's great." It was, and he hoped it came through in his tone. He did in fact know some queers back home who would probably break into tears to hear that there was hope in the future for their rights. "But I really have no idea what else you're talking about. What happens in the next twenty-five years?"

"Well I mean, after I was born, nothing all that interesting," she drawled, smirking and rolling her eyes. "But seriously, lemme see. And this is if your world and mine run on any kinda parallels, mind you."

"There's global warming, oil spills, riots in Europe. A war on terrorism. Several buildings in New York are attacked and collapse, and the Pentagon. The war in the Middle East erupts big time. There's gay marriage legalized all over the world - America kinda falling in behind but still. Uhh...you guys vote for the first African-American president of the United States. Technology has computers in just about every house in the world, people can connect with one another across the globe instantly. Toyota made a robot that plays the violin, there's double amputees in the Olympics running on the track, we have a permanent station orbiting the Earth...I can go on..."

Shannon merely went back to eating his sushi for a long moment while he cataloged each item individually. Tried to keep all of his questions from exploding out because it sounded like a whole lot of politics and tonight was not going to be a fun night if they dove into politics again. It was almost enough to give him a headache straight out, and he finally settled on a question.

"Like with the D-Terminals? People connecting with each other?"

"Mhm. More than that. Sharing information, playing game. And its wirelessly accessible like the terminals, too. Pretty much like...in twenty years you've got technological and medical advances that are only really in science fiction in your time. But the world is fast approaching the levels of Star Trek and Star Wars. We don't have long distance space travel yet, but that's no less in the works than everything else."

Setting her teacup down, Roze glances at the mall beyond the restaurant doors, humming to herself in thought.

"Though, while there's been vast advances, there's still a lot of problems. Mostly between people. Still no world peace, so don't get your hopes up."

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