Night on the town (antique, pm to join)

[halen2020]

"Definetely. Now, you know how I said I couldn't control the Heartless? I can't. But Halen on the other hand... Halen, vanguard." He nodded, and gently released Antique. The nice girl gave nice hugs. He stood and held up one claw, and snapped. Thirty Shadow Heartless appeared, in an outward facing ring. They charged off into the district, to do battle with their brethern. "The hotel there might be safe. We should go before Halen's little friends realize they are morons, and come back." Halen held out a hand to the nice girl, to help her up.

[antique]

The wavering light dyed down, returning the girl to normal. There was a slight buzzing in her ears, and a slightly confused look as if she had just waken up. Barely hearing the old man say something, she gently took halen's hand and pushed herself up.

"The hotel?" she said quietly. "It's relatively safe...that's where I'm staying. I'm sure Lady Jadis won't mind if I bring you there..." she said, barely over a whisper. She didn't seem to notice the increase the Heartless that had began popping up.

Stepping lightly, she started heading to the hotel without much of a second thought.

[iuma]

With cautious eyes, Mercator followed the blue haired girl's movement. Seeing how she was in a state of trance. Not fully registering her surroundings.
Concern grew in the old wanderer for her health and safety. While still distrusting Rose and her Heartless companion. It wasn't easy to set aside years of experience for this new phenomena; nor was it wise to do so.

Staying close to the blue haired girl, while keeping an eye on the Neo-shadow known as Halen. Mercator quietly followed her into the hotel. Gazing over at Rose to see whether she would join them or not. The squirming and squealing of the Shadows battling each other was starting to rise up from their surroundings. Giving the Second District an even more threatening feeling.

Once through the door, Mercator halted and took a firm grasp of the handle. Ready to close it on an instance for when all were safely inside.

[halen2020]

"Halen, let's go." Rose took a look at the long walk around the courtyard to the Hotel, then she looked at the wall and the park bench nearby. She hopped up on the bench, then climbed quickly up the wall. Halen went 2D and crawled up the wall next to her. They walked into the hotel. "Alright, lock 'em out."

[antique]

Antique pressed her tiny body up against the door to close it, knowing about the danger they could be in--and how much Lady Jadis would be displeased if her...territory were to be bothered by the shadow Heartless. Hand reaching up to the snow-coloured opal around her neck for reassurance, she realized that her maternal figure was probably out and about. Mikhail was probably asleep.

Antique turned to the three, and lifted a finger to her lips, glancing at a clock on a wall.

"Most people are asleep right now, so we should be very quiet," she said, looking at the door, hoping it would hold it's own. She felt a little bit strange, like her strength was returning because of what Halen had done.

"But we can probably rest in the lobby for now..." she said, and smiled. "Oh, and uhm, my name is Antique vi..." she trailed off, because of some random thought she had form in her head. "Anyway! It's nice to meet all of you."

[iuma]

With a quick shove the door locked and shut the Heartless out of the hotel. An anxious moment of silence followed as the squirming outside died out. Seconds passed by agonizingly slow, but nothing happened. As it seemed they were safe inside the building's walls.

A sigh escaped Mercator's lips as he relaxed his old body. Perhaps it was time to alter his traveling methods a bit. For callously walking around could no longer be done so easily. While peeking out the windows through the curtains. A sense of caution lingered in his heart.

The old wanderer then turned his head to the Blue haired girl who finally found the time to introduce herself. Mercator smiled at Antique and gave her a polite nod to acknowledge her. Remaining silent as she requested. Stepping from the window he spoke softly:
"Well, lets make ourselves comfortable then. It will be a while and there is a lot of explaining to do. But first... tea as promised. I'm sure I can arrange something from the kitchen."

With those words, the elder wanderer left for the kitchen and helped himself to boiling a kettle of water and readying teabags. Also opening up a box of cookies to go along with the hot drinks. Grabbing hold of the sugar and lemon his old hands quickly arranged a platter.
The kettle started to boil as the whistling sound got quickly disrupted by Mercator's quick intervention. The whole ordeal took no more then 15 minutes as he returned with the hot water, tea cups, cookies, sugar, lemon and three bags of every flavor of tea that the hotel had to offer.

Installing it on the little coffee table in the lobby. Mercator sat down in a comfortable couch and started to serve up. "Now then, what flavor of tea do you two lasses prefer?"

[halen2020]

Rose cocked an eyebrow. "I don't. Just gimme some hot water. I'm chilly." She had never really liked tea, and wasn't about to start now. Halen stretched, and sank into Rose's shadow. He wanted to take a nap. "Antique V., huh? That's a nice name. What's the V stand for?" After Antique answered, Rose asked, "So, where are you guys from?"

[antique]

Antique let herself lounge on a large, fluffy sofa. She pulled one leg under her while she let the other dangle freely, toes barely touching the floor. It was like catching a princess when they weren't being prim and proper in front of the common people. Or she was just trying to relax.

She watched the map-maker go into the kitchen to bring some tea, and then sleepily observed as Halen dropped into Rose's shadow.

"Sorry, actually it's Antique vi Faustus," she laughed. "I get sidetracked rather easily...it's a bit of a bad habit I really need to fix," she said quietly. At least that was the name she had adopted while she was in Eucharistia. It was a matriarchal society, so instead of adopting her male caretakers name, she had to take the females. You carried on your "mothers" name instead.

She sat up once the wisened one came back into the lounge, smelling the tea, and eyeing the cake. "The rose hip bud tea, please," she said. She loved that tea--it reminded her of Miles' garden.

"I'm a resident of Traverse Town, but I'm origionally from a world called Eucharistia. It's...well...it's fallen to the same fate alot of worlds have..."

[iuma]

Mercator's blissful expression changed into a loathing glare for a moment after Rose her comment for hot water. The old man didn't like the lack of appreciation for his hospitality. And seriously questioned the red headed girl's level of culture and civilization.

Still to Antique, he returned into that smile that wrinkled his entire face. Showing his age and making him seem fragile and weak. As Mercator poured her some hot water and dipped the teabag with rose hip bud into her cup. Another cup got filled with hot water as he passed it on to Rose. While asking cynically:
"Would you perhaps fancy some lemon, sugar or milk with your hot water?"

For himself, Mercator then poured a cup of Earl Grey tea. Adding a pinch of lemon to the bitter drink. After passing the drinks around, the old wanderer started to cut the cake into slices and divide some of the crumpets and biscuits on little saucers. Handing them over to each of the two girls so they could have a nibble with their drinks.

Calmly and patiently he remained silent as the two young females talked and discussed. Only after Antique's mentioning of her homeworld, the old man continued on her sentence while saying:

"Ah yes, it's unfortunately now a common plague. More and more worlds are disappearing at alarming rate. One just now has been lost as I arrived here. A pity."
Mercator paused as he sipped from his tea. Taking in the fumes through his nose as he savored every moment of it. Letting the hot liquid stay in his mouth, enjoying the flavor until it was cooled off well enough to swallow down.

After the sip he lingered for a moment more before continuing his speech:
"My own homeworld is still present last time I checked. But I haven't been there for a long time now. Traveling about for decades now I have seen and been to quite a large number of worlds. And on all I have seen the same truth over and over again. Namely, where your from is hardly as important as where you are going."

Mercator then crunched down a crumpet, followed by another sip of his tea.

[halen2020]

"You got a problem buddy? I've never liked tea. Where I'm from, social niceties have been suspended for the duration." She tipped the hot water down her throat, and sighed as the heat hit her stomach. The slight chill lifted. "Besides, coffee's more my thing." COnversationturned to the destruction of worlds. "What kind of power could make destroying worlds commonplace? Planets are huge. Hell, at the last check, couple centuries ago, my world weighed in at 16 sextillion tons. That's a lot of matter."

[antique]

Quietly, as if she were contemplating something a little deeper than she would have liked to, Antique dropped a couple of sugar cubes into her rose hip tea. It was a tell-tale sign that the young hydromancer was still a child; children, after all, didn't tend to like bitter things yet. Closing her eyes, she listened to the conversation, and sipped at her tea.

Eucharistia, her world that had ended. The Heart of the world had belonged to the Queen, who bent and changed that worlds reality to her will...at least, that's how she understood it. Her theory could have been wrong...and she hoped it was. As soon as the Queen had been slain...the rest of the world had went with it.

"Namely, where your from is hardly as important as where you are going."

That phrase reminded her of Miles. She looked up from her tea at the old man, her eyes a little bit shocked. "That's what...Miles said...right before the Great Darkness..." she said quietly. The Great Darkness was a period in time where the World hadn't seen sunlight for at least a month. That was when the Heartless had started to invade.

She looked to Rose, "I suppose every world, or planet, as you call it, has a Heart. If you take that away, the entire world just goes poof...from what I understand, anyway," she said, and stood up. "You said you like coffee, Rose? Let me go ahead and make you some."

She just had to move. It was never really a comfortable topic for her to begin with.

[iuma]

Mercator eyed at Antique as she left for the kitchen. Studying her behavior and reactions. He felt that something much deeper was troubling the young blue haired girl. Especially after her light shock of something he said.
But such matters had to wait till more prudent times.
The old man took another sip of his Earl Grey and then glanced back at Rose. Continuing on Antique's explanation.

"Yes, the heart of the world. It doesn't matter how much... euh... 'matter' is covered over it. There is always a door that leads to the heart of a world. The stronger a heart is, the more it attracts the Heartless..."
Mercator's eyes shifted to Halen. While giving it a penetrating stare as he squinted his eyes a bit and took another sip of the hot tea.

"When a heart is overtaken by darkness, it becomes a Heartless. A raw, primal creature of darkness that is only driven by a strong instinct to feed on more hearts. They disrupt the balance between light and dark.
There are only very few exceptions amongst the countless of them that maintain some form of intelligence."

Taking up another crumpet to munch on, the elder remained silent then as he awaited Antique's return and checked Rose's reaction to this science defying explanation.

[halen2020]

"So... It isn't a question of science, it is a question of magic. Sorry, I've never been good at magic. Your going to have to give me a minute to wrap my mind around an aparent paradox..." Rose closed her eyes and began thinking, trying to apply a little logic to the problem. Under her, Halen sensed Mercator glaring at him. Well, tehcnically he sensed Mercators emotions, but the result is the same. The heartless rotated Rose's shadow away from the mapmaker, to under her chair. It was a very subtle diss.

[antique]

Antique shuffled back into the lobby, with a large mug of coffee within her tiny hands. It had been a nice time to get away, especially in the middle of that conversation. She didn’t like thinking about the disappearing of her world…well…not too often, anyway.

"So... It isn't a question of science, it is a question of magic. Sorry, I've never been good at magic. Your going to have to give me a minute to wrap my mind around an aparent paradox..."

As she walked into the room, she set the cup of hot coffee in front of Rose, smiling softly. “It’s alright. It takes a bit to get used to. In my last world, there wasn’t such a thing as magic,” she said, gesturing to the cream and sugar that the old map-maker had already brought out. She did not have a taste for coffee, so she just brought it out black.

“I was only recently taught myself…I know someone that might be able to teach you a thing or two.”

[iuma]

Mercator finished up his tea and placed the cup down on the table. Feeling rejuvenated from the warm drink. He took in a deep breath through his nose that made his chest puff up a bit and then exhaled.

With a slap on his knees he sprung upright from the seat and straightened his trench coat. During this he said to both Rose and Antique:
"Don't mind me lasses, I'm just going to take a peeksy at our situation. Do continue without me."

With that the elder walked out of the room up the staircase to the higher levels of the hotel.

(ooc: exit Mercator continue without me for the time being)