apostatised | [log] and we'll learn politics and some new party tricks

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[log] and we'll learn politics and some new party tricks

New York is as easy to get to as about anywhere is when your main method of getting around is teleportation (every time he uses the pinpoint, Martel puts 'stables' higher on his mental priority list of necessary projects). He doesn't even argue the point about changing his clothes for the outing, even if he does spend altogether too much time fastidiously pulling at his cuffs and fixing his collar.

All in good time, he ushers Candice into the 'establishment' Ethan gave him details of, standing out about as much as a 6'3" man of military and noble bearing with long white hair tends to regardless of what he's dressed in.

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"Afraid my other tongues are mostly French and Latin," he says, ruefully. "And a few demonic tongues. So I may leave that to you."

He lifts the bottle of scotch, gesturing at the empty glasses.

"Any time, dear chap, I am always in favour of meeting interesting people. And yes, I can see it will be much easier for you like this."

The interest in Martel's (quite dark, for those interested) eyes sharpens when Ethan says 'demonic tongues'--guarded interest, but it's there.

"The scotch you mentioned," he says, with a lilt of almost being a question. As for the interesting people and ease of discussion... "Ah, well. I've mastered simpler ideas, but God only knows how one spells 'apostasy' in English."

Martel's conversations about religion tend to get interesting.

"A lot of native English speakers certainly don't, either," Candice murmurs. She's an ex-teacher, of a sort, and she's generally found her overseas students to have a better grasp on grammar. She does tilt her head at Ethan, however, eyebrows raised.

"Where does one pick up demonic tongues, out of curiosity? I've never had the need to learn."

"On the job training, as it were. And... well. After the first screaming and screeching and near disembowelling... you find yourself motivated to actually learn."

Then he reaches to the seat beside him and slides over a jewel CD case. With a home-burned CD inside, scrawled on with his spiky handwriting. He puts it on the table and pushes it towards Martel.

"Voice recognition software. I thought it might be of use to you: it can take dictation, and you can set the computer to read other things aloud to you. Takes a little setting up but it might be quicker to communicate with it." He grins. "Just don't say I gave it to you, as I didn't exactly pay. Now. Scotch!"

He'd been distracted, but poured one of the glasses whilst fetching said CD, and now pours the second two.

People keep giving Martel things; he finds it puzzling but certainly gratifying, and he takes the jewel case with an oddly amused sort of smile. "You prove a useful man to know," he says, smoothly, snagging one of the glasses with an inclination of the head in thanks (for both alcohol and the disc, probably). "If you do apparently keep strange company." Which is nothing Martel, in his glass house, can be throwing stones about. Even if they're talking about demons.

He is strange company, for one thing.

Candice says absolutely nothing regarding 'strange company', but she does give Martel a look that can only be described as monumentally amused, which she thinks probably says enough. And she thanks Ethan for the drink, quietly.

"Strange makes for interesting," he claims, then tips his glass... and takes a sip.

Yes. Americans can't yet ruin scotch. This a universal good of the highest magnitude.

"I can't argue with that," Martel says, studiously not responding to the look he knows perfectly well he's getting. Given his ... life in general, he's not honestly all that picky about what he drinks, but apparently giving the impression that he is amuses him.

He has an odd sense of humor, to be fair, and an unerring ability to find fault with things.

Still, when he tastes it, he has to concede Ethan may have a point, and furthermore he's fairly sure he recognizes it. (Of course, you can't call something 'scotch' when you don't have a 'Scotland'.)

Candice is reasonably well-versed in alcoholic beverages, but scotch is something she sips at, carefully, because she's also about a hundred pounds and harder liquor will hit her like a ton of bricks.

"I got done with performing an exorcism about a month ago," she tells Ethan, wryly, "Demons are a bit on the mind."

"Oh? Anyone I know?" he asks, trying not to laugh.

"Sorry. Demonic possession... you have to laugh." Or you get your limbs ripped off. Fun!

"Are there demons where you come from, Martel? And oh, Candice, I still don't know where you're from. May I enquire?"

"In a manner of speaking," Martel confirms with a gesture of his glass and a smile that is not, in fact, very pleasant.

"I hope not," she returns, to the first question (however rhetorical), shrugging, "He wasn't very much fun. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota--plain old midwestern girl, nowhere too interesting."

"London, myself," he tells her. Martel already knows.

And his accent. Well it's somewhat telling.

"How did the two of you meet?"

"I was recuperating," Martel says, innocently, although his follow up doesn't help matters, "at a bar we have in common."

"The bar is called 'Stigmata,'" Candice supplies, "It's a quiet place, not very many people in it, usually. It used to be run by a--werewolf, something to that effect."

Werecoyote, actually, but she doesn't know the specifics.

"Interesting. I haven't heard of it. I just wondered with you coming from so... far away."

More scotch. He likes scotch.

Maybe he'll even get drunk.

Later.

'Far away' makes Martel half-laugh like it's a private joke, something sort of odd behind his eyes when he looks up over the rim of his glass. "I do a lot of travel," he says, the kind of bland that usually thinly veils brattiness (not, grant you, the word Martel would choose to describe his behavior--for all its accuracy). "You could call it religious work, though I'm--let's say--retired."

Candice looks rather skeptical of this fact, Martel, or perhaps just otherwise disbelieving; she says nothing once more.

"Oh? Are you knocking on doors bringing the word of your lo-- lady?" He smirks, and sits back, resting an arm camply over the seat behind him.

Sometimes he likes others to talk, too.

"Not hardly," Martel laughs, low. "Aphrael doesn't need my help with her thieving." When he speaks of her, it sounds more like familial affection than devout worship, but then, that's how she tends to prefer things. "I've meandered through a religion or two, started in a military order for the church of my homeland."

"Aphrael has a way of ensnaring people even when they think they've converted otherwise," Candice observes, mildly, "I've met her."

"She sounds intriguing. Gods very often are, in person. Sadly they find themselves let down by imperfect mortal spokesmen, at times."

"Amen," Martel says, mock-piously. His experience with religion is an interesting one. "The holy mother church's definition of heresy gets a little more grey as applied to the militant orders," he goes on, neutrally. "Aphrael's one of the four gods that the church has an 'arrangement' with, so I grew up with her, after a fashion."

"She's certainly more hands-on than the Christian God," Candice says.

Mind you, He hangs around the Nexus sometimes, too.

"Do you have any background in chaos, Candice?" he asks to be polite.

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