Logs:Dumberer

Dumberer
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Rocket
In Absentia Damien	2024-07-05 "Could also be someone just messing with you. Lotta people who say they're magic are just dicks." (not long after meeting Damien.)
Location <PRV> The Belfry - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria
Nestled just below the belfry and above the gardeners' workshop and storage rooms, this penthouse apartment is accessible only at the proprietor sufferance via a special panel in the elevator and a locked utility stairway. The whole of it is psi-shielded, and equipped with a largely unused power suppression grid as well. Spanning one and a half levels, this space could be mistaken for an extension of the conservatory below, with plentiful bookshelves and greenery spilling from every nook, but even a cursory examination will reveal the personal touches that went into its design, softening the neoclassical aesthetic of the building at large with paradoxically fastidious whimsy. The elevator shaft bridging the full level and the loft is, save for the doors, encased in the coral reef of an immense cylindrical aquarium that houses a thriving tropical community. The sitting room immediately adjoining this is bright and airy, open to the empty half of the story above, with a plush circular sectional couch, a low tea table, a sideboard and a bar, its walls covered with lush trellises where not taken up with recessed bookshelves. Opposite the oceanic entryway on the western wall, tall french doors lead to a crescent balcony with views of the waterfront and city beyond as well as the restaurant terrace and garden far below. To either side of the doors, floor to ceiling waterfall windows feed twin pools connected under a thick glass floor panel, an indoor pond lined with smooth river stones and stocked with hardy freshwater fish. On the other end of the apartment, tucked under the loft and behind the elevator shaft, is a large kitchen bracketed by a pantry on one end and a breakfast nook on the other, its culinary conveniences--even the the refrigerator and ovens--hidden behind opaque glass panels that light up at a touch with lists of their contents. An elegant floating stairway spirals up around the elevator cum aquarium, its balusters and those of the loft's railing above twined with well-trained philodendrons. The long wall of the loft showcases a variety of bows from historical and modern, humble to ornate. A no-nonsense workshop at one end of this gallery stores the less picturesque archery paraphernalia as well as a wide range of tools, striking a quaint contrast with the cozier if no less utilitarian study at the other end. Open offset doorways at either end lead to a capacious bedroom with a king sized bed, its walls graced with myriad orchids and other epiphytes in Greek sconces. The generously sized bathroom is tiled with mosaic scenes from classical mythology and has an entire corner dedicated to the antique clawfoot tub. The walk-in closet is similarly generous, with specialized storage for every imaginable accessory, and a hidden staircase leading to the belfry above and the exit below. Upstairs the archery miscellany has been removed from the workshop, and some new pieces of furniture moved in -- an extremely plush sofa that pulls out into a startlingly comfortable bed, a little table with some comfortable cushions for seating, a low set of drawers. The rest of the apartment is relatively unchanged, though Flèche and much of her farrago of canine comforts have been removed for the next several days to a luxury dog retreat in the Hudson Valley, far from the week of nightly explosions. It's probably for the best, because today's array of fireworks have been particularly long and particularly close. L'Entente has gotten a spectacular view of the show, which ended not too long past when the elevator quietly announces that it is on its way up. Lucien is dressed casually, for his general type of Party Attire, some concession to the fact that this is a relaxed summertime sort of party -- unstructured linen jacket in sea green with a Captain America lapel pin, a crisp white dress shirt with no tie, the top button undone, gray linen trousers, and cognac bit loafers. He has an empty teacup in his hands, pilfered from the downstairs cafe because its elegant white porcelain does not match his matte black-and-metallic tableware sets. He slips his shoes off by the elevator, tucking them out of sight into the recessed shoe cubby nearby, and heads directly for the kitchen to wash his stolen cup. Rocket's flight suit du jour is yellow and black, with pouches at both his hips. He's seated at the table. There is a chewed on tea-bag on a saucer as well as a single slice of bread on a plate. A propped-up tablet playing a Hindi language adaptation of 'The Archies' plays while Rocket mumbles unsolicited advice to the characters. All the while, his hands fiddle with an old alarm clock he must have acquired from elsewhere, meticulously disassembling it into component parts. "You guys having a war out there?" he asks casually enough as Lucien enters, "I think it's cool when things explode as much as the next guy. Just don't want to be exploded." "Not currently." Lucien's eyes flick to the windows -- there are still some sporadic unofficial fireworks going off across the city, visible in starkly brighter sparkles against the glitter of the nighttime cityscape. "Mostly just celebrating a war long past. There is only quite small danger of being exploded while inside." He dries the cup off meticulously, wringing it in his dishtowel a bit longer than is necessary. "You are -- fairly extensively traveled, yes? Through a -- range of worlds?" "I'll accept a small chance, there's never a zero chance of exploding." Rocket puts aside the alarm clock and agrees, "Exceptionally well-travelled, yeah." His gaze turns towards the horizon out the window, "Could stand to be a lot more well-travelled, but I keep an ear open when I'm out there for any rumors or stories to know where'd be good to see next." Lucien has stopped wringing at his cup and instead opened a cabinet, but he is looking a little blankly at the neat rows of cups inside. Then at the unmatching one in his hand. Then at the cabinet. His brow creases into a very small frown, and he closes the cabinet again. He's hung the dishtowel back up but is still holding the cup when he leans up against the counter, looking across it at the disassembled alarm clock. "In your travels, have you been to a place called Otherworld? Or -- met any of its denizens?" "Otherworld seems like a half-ass name, but considering the time I spent on a place called Halfworld, probably half-ass names are just galactic standard," says Rocket thoughtfully. He picks off a bit of the bread and bites it, "Tell me some stuff about this 'Otherworld', maybe something'll ring a bell even if the name doesn't. Lotta cultures pretty much name some other world Otherworld at some point, or some kinda variation of it in their local language." "Given that we've called our planet dirt in one of my tongues and world in another I have very few stones to throw about lackadaisical naming." There's a thread of amusement in Lucien's voice here, though he doesn't smile. He turns his cup slowly between his fingers, the pad of his thumb drawing absent circles against the warm porcelain. "I know very little about the world itself. I met a --" His words stutter almost imperceptibly, fingers squeezing at the cup for a moment before he returns to rotating it. "-- person claiming to be from there. He says he is of a fairy race, and that there are many ways to travel via magic between here and his Otherworld. He may possibly have some sort of magic of his own." His eyes have shifted away from Rocket's table to fix on the countertop in front of him. "Common wisdom here says that the fae are simply mythical -- folklore, not reality. But common wisdom also said until very recently that we were alone in the universe so I -- am rather keen to figure out the truth of it." Rocket chews while he listens to the explanation. "Ugh, magic," he says with more weariness than distaste. "I've had drinks inside the hollowed out skull of some dead giant, the size of a moon. Where was the rest of the bones?" He reaches towards the tablet, turns off what is playing, and opens a sketchpad app with diagrams and doodles already on it before he opens a new page and draws a line. "This is the universe, it is," he writes and says, "One, BIG and two, DUMB." He underlines the second word for emphasis. "You had a run in with a parallel reality here before, right?" He draws a line parallel, and then another, then another. "The multiverse is," and here he adds the appropriate letters, "BIGGER and DUMBER." Another underline for 'DUMBER' is added for effect. "These parallel lines, they mostly agree on things like physics. You know, time, space, how molecules like to be. But then--" He starts to strike smaller lines, these ones at various angles, but shorter, and then he adds on more 'ER' after both words, and underlines DUMBERER yet again. "You got this shit. They don't agree on physics, and they aren't parallel, which means there are places they are further or closer, and sometimes even crossing over. Probably all these universes have some of this bullshit cropping up, some more than others, sometimes things that cross over take their gnarly physics with them. Sometimes they just lose their giant heads. That's the simple version." He puts down the tablet, then picks up the chewed on teabag, "Could also be someone just messing with you. Lotta people who say they're magic are just dicks." Lucien is skirting around the counter as Rocket helpfully diagrams this explanation. He takes a seat at the table, cornerwise from Rocket, and through all the underlining and biggening and dumber-ering he looks to be quite earnestly attending. "Yes, the world that collided with ours was -- uncannily similar. This man tonight was the first I had heard about magic." He is scrutinizing these cross-hatched lines as if they will reveal some truth to him. "Thank goodness he was a very average size or my doorways might be suffering." He has set the cup down on the table, but is now tapping his fingers light against its side. "I don't suppose there are any ways to tell? If someone or something is magic." "There's way to tell if someone or something is magic, yeah, but..." Rocket bows his head, expression momentarily pained. "You'd usually need your measuring stick to be magic." He picks up the tablet again, and draws a face that looks like a raccoon with a somehow sleezy expression. "Like if you got a two-dimensional guy, any measuring stick he comes up with... it's gonna look like the lines here. Poor guy's never gonna figure out depth, so he sees one of us, what's he see? We'd look the same as anything else, since he's just seeing a cross-section." He points at the raccoon now, "You and me, we're these poor flat suckers. Anything we'd measure, it's not gonna be catching that whatever we're measuring is tilted." He draws a wizard hat over the raccoon's head and draws an arrow from it to the crossed lines. "But these other tilted guys, they'll be able to figure it out. They can see what they're measuring." He pauses a moment and adds, "Also sometimes they casually drop the most unhinged shit you've ever seen or heard." Lucien's head tilts slightly to the side as he examines the pictures. "Helpful visualizations." He turns his cup again between his fingers, and ventures -- a little more hesitant -- "If someone was magic but didn't -- know it. Do you suppose they could learn. Like training your ear for music or your nose for perfumery." He huffs, soft and quietly amused at this last addition. "That part lines up well enough. Though now I am quite interested in knowing what is unhinged by your standards, I imagine a lifetime of interstellar travel calibrates that scale a bit differently." "Depends where you are," says Rocket, "But if I met someone here and they casually mentioned that they picked up slabs of their friend and stacked them up so that they could go eat together at the noodle shop, I'd be concerned." He takes a thoughtful gnaw on the teabag, "I bet you could learn it. Recognizing it not by seeing it, but how it affects things in weird ways. I bet it smells a little funny. I haven't seen enough of it to really say. I've got a knack for picking up things others don't see, but some's harder than others." "Mmm." Lucien's brow has furrowed just a touch, a small puzzlement in his expression, though he holds himself back from asking if Rocket is taking this example from experience. "Merci. I do appreciate your patience. I am learning -- something of how much I have yet to learn about the universe." He rises, plucking up his cup and dipping his head in a small thankful bow. "... do let me know if you enjoy that tea. I can pick up more."