bakerstreet | THE DENNY'S MEME

[He winces at that phrasing, and there's a brief flash of magenta in his eyes. Part of the hair at the nape of his neck flickers up in a short spark before fading back to normal, like an agitated flame.]

Let's... not talk about murder and framing, please? It's, um, complicated, anyway.

Eh heh. Well. It's happened to me, I kind of...[She lifts a hand and gestures, black-clawed hand waving through the air.]

I guess it's a cynical kind of joke, coming from me--my name was cleared, but...

[A wry smile curves her lips, then.]

You'd be surprised. Complicated, I can do. And despite being tiny, I'm a tough girl. You'd have to take my word for it though, because you probably wouldn't believe the stories.

[Well, that or he'd think she was nuts, but that's six of one and half dozen of the other, really.]

Oh! Yeah, no, I understand. Something similar happened with one of my friends, but it hasn't been very long since then, so... things are still tense.

[Lewis gives a sigh, running a hand through his hair. Of all the things to stumble into talking about, huh? But... maybe he does need to talk about it. He looks back up at her with a tired smile.]

Well, I don't know about that. I'm no stranger to crazy stories myself.

[Sara has the decency to wince at that. One of his friends...and he's dealing with that? Poor Lew.]

Sorry, reopening newly healed wounds wasn't my intent. [She shakes her head. The waitress is approaching with...whatever this meal is for her, though, and as the woman sets it down, the Au Ri makes appreciative noises before falling in.]

I am sorry. [This is said between swallows.] Could I maybe beg you to speak first, though? It's not very polite to talk with one's mouth full.

[It's a sheepish smile she offers. But if he says no, she'll soldier ahead.]

[Lewis is hardly one to say no. He does hesitate, though, mulling it over as he messes with his hair some more, eventually returning his arm to the table with a soft exhale.]

Well, while we're talking about crazy stories, I guess...

[He rubs his forehead and looks up at her - eyes no longer obscured by his bangs for the first time.

Black pits and glowing pink irises. Yeah that's... that's not normal, for a human.]

Do you believe in ghosts?

[She has practically glowing teal rings around the outsides of her irises; it's not that strange--mostly because she's not a really good cosplayer. Sara does cough once--it's more the colors than the fact he's on the weird side for a Hyur, though. And she's making sure the pot roast doesn't go down the wrong way.]

I do. I've seen them before. [Quite frankly, then. And she leans in, narrowly avoiding draping the ends of her hair in pot roast gravy.]

Are you telling me I am seeing one again, Lewis Pepper? [She's pitched her voice much lower, and the faint, cultured accent she had is a bit more pronounced, now. He probably gets a good look at the side of her head, too--and those black horns go straight in to where her ears ought to be. In a way that does not suggest 'good costume', but simple biology.]

Yeah... yeah. Pretty much.

[He lifts a hand and a small pink flame lights in the air above his palm, moving with it as he swishes his hand about in the air.]

Guess you could say that whole... murder incident was a lot more personal than any of us would have liked.

[Glancing back from the flame to her - oh. Yeah, she's close enough now that even Lewis is noticing that... well, you don't even get a costume that looks that real out of fancy CGI. He gives a short cough himself, glancing self-consciously about to make sure no one else in the restaurant is paying attention to them and adjusting his position in his seat.]

I don't usually talk about this kind of thing with people I just met, but uh... that's not really a costume either, right?

It is not. [So she agrees, with a nod.] Though I only have one real set of...you might call them horns, as they look like that, but they are like your ears. Those are black. The others are glamoured. As are these claws. The rest? I am as you see me.

[Which means, if you come right down to it, she's as human as you are, these days, Lewis.]

I mean no harm and am only dangerous if provoked. [And there, she chuckles, but her expression is sorrowful.]

If nothing else, I am sorry for your losses. Were we on my world, there might have been a way I could bring you back. But it seems my magic is not so strong, here.

[Well, maybe even moreso. She's still alive, after all. But Lewis responds with a small chuckle himself, closing his fist and letting the flame vanish.]

Thanks, Sara. It's not so bad, though. The worst part was, well, thinking my best friend had...

[He trails off, expression dropping as he turns to stare at the grungy tile floor.]

Ugh, sorry. It's still really hard to talk about this.

[She might argue that being alive had little to do with one's being human. But Sara is no thought-reader, just very good at reading faces and actions. And she doesn't want to push poor Lewis, not more than she has already.]

You've made a start, at least. If you need to take a break now, no one can fault you. I certainly can't. Your best friend...

[That makes her grimace. Sara doesn't have many close friends--of those she counted as such, one was dead, and considering she was here, the other three were probably lost to her. At least for the moment. The fact that one of the remaining trio was actually her little sister didn't make that much difference.]

I don't know what I would do, if that had happened to me. It was bad enough being set up by the Syndicate for the Sultana...at least Nanamo is alive and well in the end. They only gave her a powerful sleeping potion...and once I had danced, a puppet on their strings, they gave her the antidote, and I was cleared, hey?

[Save there's still a healthy dose of bitterness in Sara's voice. Most of her meal was finished, and she seems disinterested in the rest, pushing the plate away and simply nursing her lemonade.]

That was supposed to make things all better, you see. It didn't.

They held a hostage? That's awful, I'm so sorry.

[His face twists in sympathetic pain, and he too knows all too well that it's not easy to simply recover from something like that.]

I hope it's the sort of not better you can eventually reconcile. It must have been hard on everyone involved.

It was more than that. They acted as if she were dead, raised me up as the instrument of her murder, and imprisoned her champion in the hopes that they could seize power. In that, at least, they failed, and so they quickly backpedaled to say that the Sultana was ill, and none could see her.

[Sara sighs, then.] I don't particularly want to reconcile with the Syndicate--save perhaps Godbert Manderville, he of them all tends to have the good of the common folk at heart. As for the rest...

[She'd spit, but that'd be rude, especially since this is a restaurant and not the great outdoors.]

Nanamo is well enough, and although Raubahn lost an arm, he's almost his old self again, as well. It's enough, as these things go.

I'd ask about you again, but that's a rough bridge to cross, you say. So what brings you here, then, at this time of night?

Ah, yeah, I understand.

[Surprisingly, he actually gives a sad smile at one point, but sheepishly attempts to hide it behind a hand.]

A friend of yours lost an arm, huh? Sounds like we've got even more in common. And no, it's all right. I wasn't lying when I said I was restless - I don't sleep anymore, and sometimes anything's better than just... sitting around and thinking about it.

[Lewis gives a deep sigh, rubbing at his eyes.]

Like I was saying, the worst part was... thinking my best friend had killed me. I would've... heh, there's no way to say this that doesn't sound ironic, but I would've given my life for him, you know? And to think he'd betrayed my trust out of jealousy...

I came back confused, and hurt, and angry, Sara. That's not pretty, in a ghost.

It isn't very pretty in the living either, Lewis, so I do understand. About a lot of it. I have people I would give my life for, too. Though I couldn't introduce you to any of them, as they're not here.

[She sighs, stirring her lemonade with a straw. It's about halfway, and that means the waitress will be by any moment to ask if she'd like another. Sara waits until that event passes (she doesn't, one is enough, thank you *so* much!), before she continues.]

You remind me of my fiance a bit, and I have a younger sister, back home. [A thought strikes her, then, and she looks back up at him.[

Why do you think your friend did it?

I did because... I saw him do it.

[His eyes drop to the table, hair flickering up slightly.]

I turned around in time to see his arm shoot out, shove me off the cliff. I knew Arthur was jealous of the time Vivi and I were spending together when we started going out, but we'd never really talked about it... I thought that was why he did it. I didn't notice at the time what was really wrong... or that the arm that had pushed me had been replaced by a prosthetic the next time I saw him.

[He smiles, but there's no humor in it, and his eyes look hollower than ever.]

He'd been possessed. Mystery - Vivi's dog - fortunately noticed something was wrong and bit off the arm it had taken before it could spread to the rest of him, but... I didn't know, almost until it was too late. And I... never questioned it either, when I should've had more trust in him.

[Sarangerel grimaces, there. Rough stuff all around.]

Don't be too hard on yourself, Lewis. You went through serious trauma at that point, too. Twelve know you probably weren't thinking clearly then.

I would think you have worked things out, from the way you speak now?

[She tilts her head a little, and offers him a smile.]

THE DENNY'S MEME

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