07.19.3013: I Got a Rock
Summary: Demos and Rebecca bump into one another on the Ring. She lends him a hand, he gives her a thank-you gift.
Date: 19 July 2013
Related: None
Demos Rebecca 


The Bazaar — Blue District, The Ring
Stepping off the lift and into the Blue District is almost like stepping into another world. The senses are assaulted with a complexity of scents, sights, and sounds. Light that abscribes to the same hours as the rest of the Ring glows from insets in the dark metal ceilings. The Bazaar is one of the central hubs of the Blue District — also known as the Entertainment District. There are dozens of shops and emporiums that clutter around the outer edge of the bazaar with stands and kiosks making organized chaos of its center. There are some shops that have been there for generations, including the famous — if not a little infamous — Gregor's Strange Meats. This is the place to find the weird and the bizarre. It is known that the Blue District hosts the impoverish and underworldly inhabitants of the Ring, making it not only the most mystifying but also the most dangerous district on the space station. There are several corridor-like thoroughfares that branch off from the Bazaar, leading deeper into the District.
19 July 3013

Another cycle, another Moon, and life on the Ring continues. Demos is walking while holding a small tablet, a holo-display above its surface is showing some sort of lines/graphs/charts or cartogrophy even, with verying levels of blue/green/red/yellow to indicate something. The colors do not align with depth itself, they are more scattered amidst the mixed hiehgts of the lines and dots on dispaly above the tablet. Not watching where he is going, he bumps shoulders, the tablet falls over.

"Watch it," says the man that rubbed shoulders with Demos. The scholar returns, "The same, that is valuable equipment." Demos is bending over to get it, the display is now fritzing and blinking, twinking in and out. The other man, "Not my concern, no time for the likes of you." He continues to walk while Demos is left to fret over the item that may now be broken.

Rebecca shoulders the man who was rude to Demos "accidentally" into a wall. "So sorry," the Rovehn woman says, before she stoops to help Demos gather his broken tablet. "Some people," she quips to him with a faint smile. She's dressed simply, in breeches, tunic, and vest, and has some shopping bags in one hand.

The other man looks ready to say something after the accident, decides against it, pushes his way further from the bumping going on. Demos looks up as the other woman comes to assist. Ready to smile warmly, he stops, as if stunned a moment, "Yes .. no .." A moment of stammer, the smile returns, a slight touch at his cheeks even. "I mean, some people, certainly, but I should have been watching the same. Thank you, thank you for this kindness." A simple thanks, but, a more cocked grin to his left side, "You wouldn't per chance know someting about these things?" The holo-tablet and it being on the wonks. He tries turning it off and back on, it reloads on the fritz, showing a blinking fading colorful display of something or other.

"Not a thing I'm afraid. I'm a bit of a grunt myself," Rebecca notes, rising again and brushing off her shoulder from where she bashed the mean man. "Sergeant Rebecca Mordain of the Rovehn Military," she introduces. "I leave the electronics stuff to smarter people than I."

"As do I," grins the man, saying he knows about as much as she. "Sergeant Rebecca, the pleasure is mine." A hand is offered, whether she takes it or not, he continues, "Demos Osteros, Scholar and Mason. I'd offer to help with the bags, but I wouldn't want to insult your training. Instead, I'll satisfy myself with, glad to bump into you." Even if that bumping was figurative at best.

Rebecca clasps the hand with a smile. "The bags aren't heavy. Just shopping for my daughter's upcoming birthday. They have some great toyshops here on the Ring." She opens a bag for him to show a small child's fairy wand and a plastic tiara. "She has a thing for fairy princesses."

"Ah, a joy I imagine," grins Demos, looking at the wand and tiara, "If I knew more of the culture of fairy princesses, I'm sure I would find these splendid. You can thank your daughter for me," he says then, as that was the cause of this running into one another. "None for yourself, shoppig that is?"

Rebecca laughs a little and shakes her head. "No, all for Sophia. I've pretty much blown my paycheck on her birthday. I'm going to be living on peanut butter and crackers for a few weeks. All worth it for my little princess though."

"Nonsense," says Demos, not about living on crackers and peanut butter. Explaining, he continues, "You can't come here and leave with nothing for yourself. I insist. Not to be overly forward, and certainly no offense made to your spouse, but you cannot come to the Ring without taking something." His eyes look rather serious with his offer.

Rebecca's smile falters. "My spouse is not with us at this time," she says quietly. She refuses to say Ioan is dead. He's missing as far as she's concerned. Missing ten months, but no body, yet. "And thank you, but I don't accept charity."

"What if it was merely something found myself," says Demos curious now, "Nothing paid for, but maybe of its own value? Free to me, free to you, and you leave with something for yourself?" He attempts a smile to warm the offer.

"Well, that I can accept as payment for enacting vengeance on that rude jackass that broke your tablet," Rebecca acquiesces. "What did you have in mind?"

Starting to pat at his own pockets and pouches, "I have just the thing." Tablet forgotten, Demos searches himself. Then he finds the right one, it was already unbuckled and he pulls out a piece of rock. Mostly non-descript of the brown/red variety even. Small, could easily be palmed, not much bigger than a coin. "Here it is. Something to hold onto, or throw away. Its one sample of the rock I was testing. It may well be fragment of 4th or 5th World."

Rebecca takes the rock with a curious look on her face. "How do you know where it came from if you found it here?" she asks, looking back at the man as she turns it over in her palm.

"Ah," grins Demos, a smile warming on his face, "I only said I found it, its not from here. Well, technicality." He ponders how to say it a moment, proceeding, "It returned on the Shadow of Intent after the engagment of the Second Wave … it was on plating embedding into the Hull of the ship, most likely off a Hostile Ship. I had smaller specimens of it, it seems to match 4th World, but I need to further analyze it to be sure."

"Is it safe?" Rebecca asks, looking a bit unsure of the gift she's been given. She has her child to think of. "If you haven't finished analyzing it, maybe you should keep it until your research is finished?"

Smiling, then pausing a moment, Demos shakes his head, "Good Rebecca, I assure you, it is not contaminated. If that were the case, it wouldn't of made it to my lab by now or I wouldn't be walking out with it. In, fact it would either of been quarantined on the ship or jettisoned into space before I could even get to the small samples." Then a ponder, he pats at other pockets, "Perhaps another gift, not so exciting as that one, perhaps some agate, or onyx?"

"I think I'd feel better with something known, than something unknown," Rebecca admits. She's a creature of nature, more or less, born of the plains and trainer of living things.

Continuing his pat search, Demos doesn't object to the rejection, he knows full well he's one of only a few geeks when it comes to rocks and rarity. Instead, he pulls out an agate, a green, slightly see through sort of moonstone, with dots of black with spider-web like traces on them (small 'explosions' trapped in the green part is what it might look like). Holding it out, "Fair enough Rebecca, how about an agate, it is from a canyon on Nubilus, retreived by a drone. I polished this one, but on some planets they are found in dry river beds and oceans." The same hand will retake the small sample of 4th world, as his other hand still holds the defunt tablet.

Rebecca looks relieved that he isn't insulted, and she coos over the agate with bright eyes. "This is so lovely, and I'd love to get this set in a pendant for Sophia for her birthday. Her dress for the party is green." She smiles warmly at him. "Are you sure this isn't too expensive of a gift to a stranger?" she asks.

Shaking his head, Demos grins, "Not expensive at all, it is from my own collection. Once we are through with a research project, the samples …" He drones, realizes that's probably boring enough eithout full details, "It was free to me, it is free to you. If you give it to your daughter in turn, it is your decision. I'll feel guilty you didn't have something, but the same, it is yours at this point. Besides, I have the pleasure of this occurance, us meeting. I imagine the agate will make you happy in giving it to your daughter, and if not happy now, she may come to appreciate the joy of a rock like that later."

"Thank you, Mister Oseteros. There's a small cafe over there. Would you join me for a cup of coffee? I'd like to hear about your work," Rebecca invites, gesturing towards the Daily Brew.

Nodding, Demos offers an arm out of politeness and says, "I could be happy for the company and the coffee, but I wouldn't be so certain that the details of my regular job would become boring. Then again, maybe that's why your suggesting the coffee, else I might put you to sleep out of sheer boredom."

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