The Peacock and The Eagle (Gear)

[VeraC]

August 1st, OE 102
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Peking Penguin Chinese Buffet
__________________________

He’s late…

Tian Di sat in her chair at the table, a quite literal mountain of chinese food assembled on several plates in front of her, simply waiting to be eaten. She was going to eat, but she figured it’d be polite for her to wait for Gail to arrive before digging in. She leaned back, folding her arms and legs and tapping her index finger on her arm, somewhat impatient, her mouth at the same time quite salivating at the food before her. Her appearance had quite changed over the last year as well, with her hair growing longer, and her clothes more liberating. Her black dress tightly hugged her skin, showing her appeal off to all who could see. One might even not recognize her from before, both her attitude and appearance quite disconnected from her time in the Cult.

The Peking Penguin, a popular all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet in Hong Kong, boasting a wide variety of delicacies from all over China, and one of the few Michigan-starred buffets in Hong Kong. Located near the city center on the grounds of a former temple, The Peking Penguin was a massive compound, though the maximum capacity was but 100 guests in a single night. While having a delicious menu, the 'interior' of the restaurant wasn't anything to sneeze at either, the rooms all themed around a Zen Garden, with small teahouse buildings serving as the reserved seats for the guests. The price for one person started at about 7000 Yuan, with the more spacious and luxury seats costing even more. While normally one would need to reserve several months in advance to eat here, Tian Di managed to pull some strings with the higher-ups in the directory and snag a reservation a week in advance.

It’s all gonna get cold…

It was a little over half a year since the two last met at Luna, during the grand battle against Volkruss and its Avatars, in which he aided in securing Granzon after having been taken over by God of Destruction itself. She thought the man to be resourceful, if but quite a mystery, though she at least saw him as being reliable in his own way. Even after all she did after these past ten months, it was hard to shake the feeling deep inside her, of what Vayne did, of what he said. Even more than Gail, Vayne was a further mystery that she knew almost nothing about, despite being with him for the better half of her life.

“Hey! Waiter, bring me a bottle of Baijiu... No, two!”

Perhaps the wait was getting to her nerves, she couldn’t quite shake the anxiety within her.

 

[GEAR]

His footsteps seemed... heavy. The man's eyes roamed around the restaurant as he walked unhurriedly, almost ponderously, taking in every sight. Heads turned as he approached to look at him, yet they could not explain why, before returning anxiously to their meals. Perhaps it was the scent of war on the winds, but a general aura of unease seemed to permeate the restaurant, and even Gail O'Brennan himself did not seem unaffected, his usual carefree features more... amibvalent as he walked. He was enjoying it. He was drinking it in, the aura of this place, and its people.

"Tian Di."

At length, he reached the table, speaking the girl's name, and gave a slow, deliberate smile that seemed almost forced. It had been quite some time since she'd been able to reach him - he'd practically disappeared off the face of the earth for the better part of a month, and only recently resurfaced with intermittent communications. He placed a bag beside his seat at the table, slouching into his seat. He looked... tired, somehow, as if all the life that had once filled his vibrant steps had been sapped away - but this did not seem to stop him from admiring the scenery briefly, squinting against the light. Perhaps the bag he had brought contained his oft-used camera?

"It's been some time." He said, picking up a pair of chopsticks and examining them with some interest, as though he'd never seen them before.

 

[VeraC]

As soon as Gail took his seat, it was a sign for her to begin eating, as she started grabbing food from the top of the mountain and beginning to shovel it into her mouth, alternating between the stir-fried meat and vegetables, and the smaller mound of rice next to it. She scant talked for the better part of five minutes, the only sounds coming out of her mouth were those of chewing, swallowing, and momentary sighs of relief and satisfaction. Perhaps to Gail it would be somewhat of a nostalgic moment, a reminder of the first time they met in the Forbidden City. Her looks and personality might’ve changed this past year, but her appetite remained the same.

“Took you long enough…”

She spoke, muffled through mouthfuls of food.

“Except you look like shit. Here, drink some Baijiu and eat some food.”

She finally set down her chopsticks, pouring him a glass of the recently-arrived bottle of Baijiu, the one that happened to be the most expensive in the restaurant. She casually handed the glass over to Gail, and shoveled off a plate of food for him, passing it along as well, before resuming her chow down. While she wanted to talk about what she called him before, perhaps it was better to address his issues first.

 

[GEAR]

Tian Di's comically oversized portion slopped over onto Gail's plate. A pile of glistening, fatty meats, colorful fried rice, and all manner of delicacies that could only be found in China. For a moment he eyeballed it, as though he found it somehow amusing , watching as she dug into her food - and almost instantaneously, did the same. His chopsticks practically blurred as he ate, easily matching the other girl's pace, eating in fevered silence as onlookers turned to look at the two, the sense of unease in the air seeming to grow even heavier.

What were those two? Were they even human.

Clink.

Gail lowered his bowl with a low, satisfied sigh. He opened his eyes... and smiled at Tian Di, the lighting giving it a yellowish, almost catlike gleam.

"Thank you." He said,

"I was starving."

Pausing while the young girl doubtlessly fetched herself more, he dabbed his mouth with a napkin whilst looking out the window at the world beyond once more. There was the distant sound of sirens echoing through the streets, and as an ambulance passed, his eyes seemed to follow it, briefly.

"With each passing day, it seems the people lose more and more hope." He said, thoughtfully.

"I suppose that's nothing new for you... but, not everyone is as resilient."

He picked up the Baiju, and - as if completely thoughtless - downed his not-insignificant glass in one go. Yet, not even the slightest discoloration affected his features as he mused to himself, letting his gaze turn back to her.

"Human beings are fragile things."

 

[VeraC]

“Not everyone had a life-severing contract with an Evil God of Destruction.”

Tian Di returned to their room with another towering plate of food, speaking both seriously yet facetiously. It was still surreal to think about it, the past sixteen years of her life having been spent as but a vessel for the evil god. Every day since, she had wondered about the truth of her life, and what exactly she was to do now. Having lived on the assumption that she’d die at 16, what came after never crossed her mind, it was never a possibility to her.

“I was supposed to die on that day. I was supposed to, yet Volkruss chose Lao instead of me.”

Tian Di’s hand began to shake, and her voice grew somber. She grabbed her wrist and tried to stay her nerves.

“Do you know what it's like to try and have your soul ripped from your body? As if every muscle in your body is being pulled apart, sinew by sinew. Every bone cracked and fractured before being shattered into pieces. A raging inferno assailing every singular nerve in your body. To have your body cleaved in two, yet the nerves still tying the two together; such pain… I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me anymore.”

The pain she felt that day was something that had scarred her body, perhaps a ‘parting gift’ from her former Patron God.

“It lingers, it’ll come at random, that momentary flash of pain. For a singular moment, my body is torn in two.”

She paused and tried to relax, settling back down and swiftly downing her glass of Baijiu in a singular gulp. Using her magic she effortlessly levitated the bottle up and poured herself and Gail another glass, while continuing to eat her food, though at a slower pace than before.

“These people have it easy. So long as they’re living they can have hope for the next day.”

She picked out a thick piece of beef in the mountain of food and placed it over her steamed rice.

“I never had hope. I was tied to a seemingly undeterrable fate. I was, yet here I am.”

She leaned back in her chair with the bowl of rice held in one hand and the chopsticks in her other.

“These ‘hopeless’ people are just pussies. Their ‘woe is me, pity me’ attitude won’t get them anywhere. They just sit and wait and hope an opportunity comes their way.”

She lifted the beef-over-rice into her mouth and chewed slowly, giving time for the flavor of the meat to cover all her taste buds and let the juices fill her with bliss.

“People like that piss me off.”

After swallowing her food, she downed another glass of the baijiu and poured another.

 

[GEAR]

Gail sat and listened in rapt silence, as though he were nothing short of transfixed by her words. The restaurant felt eerily quiet around them, as though people had been slinking out and away, tossing their money onto their tables, though for what reason none could say. Were they perhaps being observed from somewhere else? He closed his eyes as she spoke aloud of her pain, her torment, and if there were words he wished to speak, he held them back.

A heavy silence filled the air once she was done, as Gail's hand came up to his mouth, thoughtfully. Rather than continue with the baijiu, he instead opted to pour himself a cup of green tea, letting the steam vapors rise up into the air from its freshly boiled surface.

"I wish they were more like you." He said finally, as he looked back out onto the populace outside. The sirens were fading into the distance now, and he held the teacup in his hands, letting the leaves at the bottom swirl murkily at the bottom, shifting futures.

"That will of yours... Is such a beautiful thing."

He gave a short laugh, and shook his head. Perhaps, as lousy as he seemed to feel, he was trying to cheer her up? Unprompted, he reached for the bag he had brought with him, sliding it around the table to her side.

"This is what you have been seeking."

Undoing the twine at the top of it, Gail pulled it open, revealing its contents. Within was a small, ornate gold box, about as big as her palm. The dust and dirt on its edges did little to deter the curious, wavy designs carved into its sides - but she would perhaps know better than to look at such things closely, for the yawning, gaping, endlessly whispering faces of the dead looked back from within its reflections. Still, whatever protective curse may have been placed upon it seemed to have either vanished, or been forcefully dispelled.



Nestled within, on a bed of purple fabric was a seemingly ordinary key. Yet, upon picking it up, Tian Di would immediately sense a powerful spell bound to it, the words to which were engraved in the inside of the box's lid. It had a strange, almost luminous gold light to it when turned into the sun, one that seemed at stark odds with its otherwise dull texture.

 

[VeraC]

Tian Di remained unresponsive to Gail’s ‘compliments’, but once he took out the box, her face shifted into one of both disgust and intrigue. Even without peering into the contents of what laid within, she could simply tell what it was. Even more so when it was opened and its contents were revealed, chills ran down her spine, both in anxiousness and excitement. Perhaps it was indeed one ‘key’ to what she was looking for, yet there was still something else that remained on her mind.

“...Damned Crab.”

Memories of Belfast flooded her mind, along with the imprinted memory of the Shiseiten and its seemingly haughty pilot. Tian Di no longer had any connection to Volkruss, and normally, wouldn’t give two damns about the avatar of Lasfitot, yet something within her spurred an ambition of sorts.

A desire for revenge.

She ill-liked the pilot of that machine, and even more so for the damage she did to Granzon. That woman was up in Tian Di’s kill list, along with the knights of Bisen Fortis. She held grudges against the both of them, and would be sure to see that they one day breathed their last breath. Despite all the feelings she felt, she tried to remain calm on the surface, maintaining somewhat of a resting bitch face as she shifted her legs, crossing one over the other and leaning back, using her arm as a brace against the ground.

“To the point. Thank you, I’ll be sure to put this to good use.”

She spoke with the ever-so slightest grin on her face.

“Though, I called you here for one other reason, if you so happen to know.”

She reached for her glass of Baijiu and gulped down the glass once more, showing no sign of slowing down.

“Gramps… no, Vayne; I have unfinished business with him. Do you know anything of his whereabouts?”

Her face grew serious, locking eyes with Gail, awaiting his reply.

 

[GEAR]

"...Ah."

Gail went quiet at Tian Di's question, seemingly unwilling to meet her gaze as he once again looked outside. Perhaps he was thinking of older, more troubled times? Or, had that name managed to stir something else within him? His fingers rested on the cup below, as though he barely even felt its blazing heat upon his flesh. He blinked slowly. Did he even register that they were now practically alone?

"People never seem to learn from their mistakes." He said, giving a rueful smile.

"The only difference between that man and any other..." - He paused to take a drink of the tea, a small rivulet running down his lips, and his chin as it was lowered empty to the table.

"...Is he has learned to revere his shackles."

He poured himself a second cup of tea... waited. Even the cars outside, the crowds, seemed to be thinning, quieting, sucking everything into an innocuous grey.

"When you meet him, what will you do?" He asked, directing his gaze to the surface of the tea, the eyes looking back at him seeming... tired, somehow.

 

[VeraC]

Tian Di quickly downed the next glass of baijiu, a light shade of red beginning to become visible on her face. She pecked at some of the last remains of food on her plate and waited for Gail to speak his part. The man kept talking sideways, always seeming to take the longest route to where she wanted to go.

Tian Di’s eyes glimmered in their golden hue, shimmering, almost giving faint light to the seemingly encroaching ominous atmosphere. Perhaps in response to this gloom, dark energies began to swirl around Tian Di, blackened prana ripe with ichor and malice; no doubt another lingering present from her former association with the God of Destruction.

That said, with each word he said, her thin line of patience was slowly breaking away, as the man kept dodging around the question. She kept tapping her finger against the table, waiting for the man to finish, but eventually she simply just…

BAM!

She slammed her fist down on the table, the glass which she was drinking baijiu from shattering under the force of her hand, her body exploding with blackened energies encompassing the surrounding area. Wind blew in all directions, extinguishing the candle that had been lighting the room. Crackles of prana arced up and down her body, and black smoke rose off her hand and wafted in the air, while her eyes were glowing with an indefinable splendor.

“What does it matter to you what I do when I see him?!”

She stood up, now shouting at Gail, her face seemingly ripe with annoyance.

“And what’s with your goddamn high and mighty attitude?! Enough of your poetics, just speak to me straight!”

After a few moments of eerie silence, the tension in Tian Di’s body slowly began to fade, her face relaxing and her shoulders dropped. She lifted her hand off the table, crimson-red blood trickling from her hand, down her arm then descending to the ground in thick droplets. The black aura somewhat subsided, its reach shrinking down to just that of surrounding her body, her eyes still glowing in the darkness. She grabbed the napkin on the table and placed it on where the blood was flowing from, and applied pressure to the wound, making an almost ashamed look on her face, averting her gaze from Gail.

“...I don’t really have any desire to fight him or anything, I just have questions that need to be answered.”

Her tone was now more meek that before, and her face had slowly become redder. She shook her head gently and grabbed the bottle of Baijiu and began drinking straight from the top, Gail seemingly having had enough for him.

 

[GEAR]

She exploded.

Her voice echoed all across the restaurant, through the empty halls, past the clean, abandoned plates, all bearing down on the man before her. Glass shattered, the wood beneath his fingers rattled - and he didn't so much as flinch. Not even as her voice rose, shouting into his face, did he raise a finger. He simply... sat, with a vacant smile upon his face. It was as if everything were merely being absorbed by him, every impact raining upon what amounted to a giant sponge. Or, did he, like Zivon, truly lack any empathy?

There was a long silence. Was he perhaps ashamed of his words? It was almost as if he were drinking it all in, even as the food beside him had long gone cold.

As the blood trickled down her hand, and she sunk back into her seat, his eyes were on the red droplets, following their movement down her pale skin. Gail rose from the table slowly, silently, and made to leave... but paused as he reached the dividing aperture that separated them from the restaurant, responding almost absently:

"Crescentia." He said, the coldness in the air causing his breath to puff out before him in a peal of white.

"The other world. That is where you will find him."

She might have recalled that name from her studies. Lao had spent long hours reminiscent about it, and had once promised that he would allow her to see it some day. Perhaps what works of his remained would have some clue as to how to enter it? Regardless, he turned his head back, looking at her from one eye. Whatever thoughts about her that rolled about in his mind, perhaps whether he was offended or not... were all but unknown.

"Thank you for the meal." Said Gail, sincerely.

"It was... delicious. We'll see each other again soon... Tian Di."

Without even waiting for a reply, the Angel stepped out of view, the only sound being that of his footsteps receding into the distance. Perhaps he had some other matter of dire importance weighing on his mind?

The streets were waiting.

 

[VeraC]

Crescentia.

Yes, she had heard it from Lao in passing a few times but knew little of what it actually was. Regardless, she had a destination and could figure out some path to get there. It was simply a question of which path was the best one to take. She was deep in thought until she heard the sliding door close behind Gail as he left, snapping Tian Di back to reality. She scrambled out of her cushion and skittered on all fours to the door, wildly opening it and looking out to where Gail had left.

“Hey! Thanks!”

She shouted to his back. Whether or not he heard her, she didn’t know, but at the least she said her mind. She slid back into the room, closing the door and returning to her cushion, She fell backwards onto her back and looked up at the ceiling, taking a heavy sigh, the world beginning to spin around her. She held her no-longer bleeding hand up overhead, shards of glass embedded in her skin shimmering in the lighting that had returned to the room. It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt, but compared to what she felt back at Luna, this was but a scratch to her.

“...What am I doing…”

She took another sigh and rose back up to sitting, and pulled a wallet out of her purse.

“Waiter, check!”

From within the wallet she pulled a black credit card that held both heft and thickness to it, as she placed it on the corner of the table. She frowned and pouted, ill-content with the situation. Regardless though, it seemed like she was going to be busy again. She looked again at the box, once more closed now, and gave it a contemplative look.

She needed to get stronger.