weekend mingle featuring 5 pm brunch because time is meaningless now

[pr159]

[ There probably isn't a single person among them who isn't exhausted after that trial, so it's no surprise that, like last week, there's no party when it's over. Maybe some stay out and mill about the city, while others finally take the chance to get some well-deserved sleep.

Personally, Rideaux is absolutely going to bed now, because it's fucking 10 am or something, and that was a lot.

But when he wakes up again in what is nominally the afternoon, once he's taken a shower and no longer looks like a haggard mess, he's actually going to hole up in the kitchen at the clergy housing and make some pancakes. Just pancakes and nothing else, because this mix is "just add water!" and that's the extent of his cooking skills the most effort he's going to put into anything. Some of them may be slightly burned and oddly shaped, but they're free, so shut it.

There's also some coffee and some (cheap, not his good stuff) whiskey, so if you want to make a half-assed Irish coffee, he's not stopping you.

Is this supposed to be a distraction? Is this actually all just to celebrate the fact that Cumore briefly thought he was going to die and that was delicious to watch? Maybe, but no one has to know that. ]

Comments

[inordertobelieve]

Secondary, though it's hand to hand with my primary goal.

[ A small bite of pancake interrupts this, not to intentionally draw tension, but because this is a casual conversation clearly and he's hungry. ]

My primary goal is to see the Lady bleed.

[pr159]

Technically we already saw a little of that.

[ Ango made your dream come true...

He's quiet for a moment after that, sipping his coffee. He usually makes a habit of aggressively keeping eye contact with whoever he's speaking with, whether they're comfortable with it or not, but he's making no such attempt right now; instead, he just examines his nails, running his thumb along a slightly uneven edge that he needs to file down. ]

What do you intend to do once this is over?

[inordertobelieve]

[ No eye contact is nice, they can just have breakfast in the same proximity and have a sort-of conversation. That's just the level of interactivity that this kind of day calls for. ]

I haven't decided yet.

[ No use in lying, he just genuinely doesn't know. ]

My world is definitely off-limits to return to, so my options are as open as our fates will have it.

[pr159]

I know, you've spoken of that before. That's why I asked. Our situations aren't entirely different.

[ ... ]

Though we're certainly each viewing them through very different lenses.

[ So. It was more curiosity than looking for an answer. ]

[inordertobelieve]

We're very different people after all.

[ Though he does give Rideaux a curious look now. ]

I hadn't actually realized you weren't going to go back either. Do you have a plan for yourself yet?

[pr159]

If I do, I suspect I'll be dead within five minutes.

I don't have a plan, no. I thought I would by now.

[ ...Honestly, he'd always intended to kill someone to try to change it when the time was right, but he's not going to say that to Mikami of all people. ]

[inordertobelieve]

[ Ah. That similar then. That kind of different lense. Mikami cannot ever picture Rideaux as someone who is comfortable giving up on his own life. ]

Apparently the Lady has confirmed that going to somebody else's world is a theoretical possibility. Not all of the places people came from sound like terrible worlds to live in.

That book of world information we've been keeping might as well be a travel brochure now.

[pr159]

[ ...Hm. That makes him think back to a conversation he'd had with Raven the first week here, but he's not sure if that's actually on the table or not. ]

...That's a thought, I suppose.

[ ...Though honestly, as much as he likes the idea of flipping off his entire world and fucking off to someplace else in theory, he's not actually that crazy about the idea, when it means admitting defeat to a world that never wanted him and sacrificing everything he destroyed himself to get.

There isn't really any way to win, though. There never was. ]