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| 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. |
| Jan 24, 3014 |
Though it's been some time since he's made his way to the Ring, eventually there comes a point where all work and no anything-else starts to work against you. Despite the urgency, Jor forced himself away from the vid screens, the holo-novels, the research, and all the assorted trouble he was concocting, and came here. The intention had been to just unwind and take a look around, but so far that has accomplished absolutely nothing. Even with the eccentricities that can be found here in the Blue District, very little of it calls to him, to the point one could say that Jor is just wandering around window shopping, staring at nothing. He's got a drink in his right hand, but ever since purchasing it a half hour back, he's hardly touched it. Lost in his thoughts, he just… wanders, a frown on his face set so severely that passersby may well duck out of his way, as though fearful that the scowling brooder might well start a fight with them just for making eye contact.
The Bazaar is like a dysfunctional ant hill in the middle of a congested brain. That is likely the best way to describe it-and being what it is, all manners of people move through the corridors of humanity like lost and blind ants weighed down under the pressures of job, life, and anything under the fucking stars-really. As traffic ebbs and flows, like vomit being slushed out and sucked back in, people move-some get out of the way. Others do not.
Luke "Crowseye" Grantham doesn't, but he is not so much above the rest, as he makes sure to cover himself in humanity. He comes bubbling out of a bar as if pulled by some tide he doesn't know, laughing out smoke, as he stinks of his own mix of beer and people. Out into the flow-and into the moving rock in the river that's Sir Jor Aeldan. Or was Sir Jor-and is Now Jor Aeldan, formerly convict X15678-0990c.
"Pardon, fuckall." rambles out easily as he tries to collect himself mid stumble.
Even a rock diverting a river of humanity can be eroded with time, if not outright dislocated, but this particular boulder of badass doesn't budge when another current adds its flow to the course. That glower goes right to you, especially after the diarrhea that changes course at the list minute and comes out the wrong end.
"No, excuse /me/," he replies, the faint rumble of annoyance reverberating out from his throat. Jor hasn't been in the best of moods lately, despite his attempts to keep it down during his day job. It's as much a sign of his focus on what he was looking into as anything else. Prisoner X15678-0990c was not particularly known for being patient, in the early stages of his term, let alone composed. It was one of the reasons he never saw a glimmer of "good behavior" release early, anger and disbelief left at a constant boil for fifteen long years. Some of that pops out now, in those sarcastic words, along with a grimace to his lips and a twitch to his fingers, narrowly avoiding shoving you away with his free hand, even though the mental rehearsal in his head was of far more than that, a moment of irritation and all of it transpiring in the space of three heartbeats.
Luke snorts, it is not pretty, given that he hacks up some smoke, before he's flicking his cigarette away with a muttered fuck. Bleary eyes blink and he looks over to the rock of man, that refuses to move or allow him to perch on it like some old crone like bird. Black eye and Blue Eye focus, and Luke tilts his head slightly. "Well, I say-chap. It was an honest mistake, not enough room in there." a thumb jerked back to the little side slot of a bar, wedged in-between stores. Still there is something about Jor, that keeps his keen attention.
"You remind me of someone I once knew of-not knew intimately, mind you, but of." a shake of his head. "No, you're not him. Not bald enough. Anyway, carry on. I am sure you have some children or else to scowl at." slightly dismissive, but the other knight isn't exactly turning away from Jor, either.
Twenty years ago, people would have never said that Sir Aeldan had the temperament for wantonly punching someone for what they said and did to him. Jor himself would have been included in that list of people who would disbelieve such acts of sudden violence. He was too soft-spoken, too calm, and likely to blush at direct flirtations. There was even some question of why he had wanted to join the Watch in the first place, given some of the hard work they had to do in civilian interactions.
That was then, this is now. Again his hand twitches, and that stern feature hardens even further at your words, not seeming off-put at all by the disparity between Sky Eye and Crow Eye. "If you're fucking done shitting out your mouth, get moving." No, he's not going to be the one to walk away from this; he wasn't the one who nearly tripped into someone else, after all, to say nothing of your current state of lucidity.
Eyes narrow, if you can call the dull look given to Jor as a narrowing of eyes. There's a faint tick of his cheek, even if the rest of the man and his face remains stonewall. A lick of his teeth, before he settles his stance. But there's no cock up or bow up from the knight. INstead he seemingly stares for a second, as one brow raises. "No- I do know you." and there he brings up a hand to scratch at his face. "You were the watch knight, that got imprisoned, weren't you? Mind you-your arms weren't as big as they are now."
Odd the things you remember-and for some reason Luke remembers the size of Jor's guns, so to speak. "Well, I am glad to see you're out-though one wonders what an ex knight does?" there is no maliciousness-or really any tone behind the thought. "Wandering the Ring seems to work."
The rapidly angering face before you gives its own tick. There's no hiding the grimace, and for a certainty Jor's eyes /do/ narrow. Something low, something feral rumbles in his throat, but he says nothing. The features before you bear little resemblance to the man who had been escorted from that trial, where everyone in Haven that watched could see his disbelief over the verdict. They'd also been witness to quite the spectacular slap to that tanned cheek before you as well, though the woman who had administered it could not be heard in whatever she had said before storming away. Whatever had come from her lips, Jor had called after her by name before he had been escorted away, almost dragged with how much his steps had faltered after that, the very image of shock.
There's no shock in the much older man standing before you now, though, those fifteen years to which he had been sentenced having pried out a great deal of the boyish qualities he had possessed in those days in the Watch. "Clearly more than you," he replies coldly. "Not seeing how much I can fuck myself up, to name one." It should go without saying, that his hand has a deathgrip on that untouched drink, and that same animalistic rage has made it to his eyes now, as though he were tempted to lash out here and now. With his temper, and the choice of subject, it shouldn't take a genius to realize just how thin his patience is right now.
"Oh, I think that is a stretch." Luke says with a faint smile. "I have been doing a lot other than trying to fuck myself up-though that is a fun past time." And there he brings a hand into his leather jacket, before he produces a pack of cigarettes. Eyes in this time do not shift from their place on Jor. Rather they remain in that self same honed in tear. "Calm down, Master Aeldan-I am not looking to insult you further.." Added with a faint half grin that doesn't reach, nor has the force of cockiness behind it. A shift in his stance, ever so slightly-but one combat trained could easily pick the shift of weight-perhaps the knight wary of attack puts oneself ready for a blow.
"You're going to break your cup." Luke notes before he waggles the cigarettes in Jor's direction, clearly an offer to the man, as a few show themselves through the tear in the top. "I doubt there are many out there, hiring you-unless you look to the House of Lucian." A cough, idle as he glances down to his smokes. "What are you doing?"
"That's nice." It's a nasty response, that, with how Jor's inflections inject about 20cc's of highly concentrated sarcasm into two simple words. For all that you say you're not looking to insult him, his mouth, and fingers, twitch yet again. It doesn't help that you maintain that insincere showing of teeth, either, especially given the obvious if subtle adjustment to posture that clues this man into another possible fact as well, one that doesn't improve his mood at all.
He does relax his grip on the drink in his hand, when you mention it, but aside from the barest flicker to it, his eyes don't shift. The whiteness at the knuckles reduces all the same, though, even if Jor's left hand looks ready to spring into action, such as taking that cigarette and giving you new meaning to the term "smoke inhalation".
"Who the fuck wants to know?" is all he has to say to you back, now with his index digit in full tapping force on that poor, potentially abused cup.
"I do, fuckwit." There's a bit of emotion there, annoyance and anger that comes out in a quick flurried motion as eyes now show emotion and narrow, but that flicker leaves as soon as it perched on his face. "Clearly, I fucking do, because I asked the question. Unless there is someone else behind me saying the same exact questions-that I don't know about." There's a brief look over his shoulder and the back. "There isn't." dead pan, before he is pulling out a smoke and placing it to his lips. "You can take one, unless you don't smoke."
"If you are wanting my name." he knight mumbles along his cigarette, before he is producing a lighter in the other hand. "It's Luke Grantham.." flick to life and a drag. "Or Crowseye-which ever you prefer." added before he inhales, and then exhales. "I want to know-simply because It is not every day you run into an ex knight-or an ex con who is not already involved in the nefarious." A motion to the cup. "I'd figure you to be drunk or a user by now if the system beat you." He doesn't comment further. "So, shall I repeat myself-or will you answer?"
If your sole goal was to see just how many buttons could be pressed before the volcano erupted, no doubt it would be quite the research endeavor. As it is, the face before you darkens somewhat, and there's no small grimace this time when you give your name.
"I think I get it now, /GRANTHAM/. I don't give two fucks whether you think I did it or not, or how bored you are that you have nothing better to do than insinuate I'm more crooked than your cock is, like that stupid Khournas whelp who thinks he's hotter shit than Ignis. Get the fuck out of my way, Grantham, or we start seeing just how ready to die the Ash Legion really is."
"Do you?" Luke asks, as his brow raises dully. "Because, I don't recall asking you, if you did it-nor do I recall insinuating if you're more crooked than my cock-which right now, you are. Nothings bent that out of working order." Now that gets a grin before he is taking a drag of his cigarette, and putting both pack and lighter away. "Nor do I think, I am overtly Hot shit-though isn't all shit hot at some point? I mean I've seen it steaming outside of someone's combat armor before.." shake of his head and he glances back, eyes back to half lids.
"I think I asked what you are doing-because Jor Aeldan, believe it or fucking not-I am curious. You were sent away-when? Thirteen years or so ago? I don't care why." And now he shuffles his hands inside his pockets. "But, I do care about those who come out. Some of my fellow knights in the Legion are such, just men." He pauses again. "What do you do? Because if you have nothing-I can offer you something. Call this spur of the moment-or maybe I just like how fucking horrible you are to people."
"You don't have anything I want /or/ need, Grantham." One might well mistake Jor for a citizen of Niveus, in how his words resemble the glaciers found there upon. "Your Legion can go fuck itself - you can definitely fuck /your/self since everything is in working order - and oh, right. You wanted to know what I do. Let me answer that too."
It's a telegraphed warning, those words, plenty of opportunity to give you warning of what he's up to. If you expected the left hand to be the one that aims for your face, however, Jor will prove quite the disappointment. Instead, he tosses that cup at you and aims with his right, straight for your bleary-eyed insolence, a right hook that will doubtless feel like a hangover if it should connect.
"No, I guess, I don't have a good kick in the ass." Luke mutters, the rest that comes spilling from Jor, is enough to catch a dull stare from Luke, as if to ask if he is indeed finished. His mouth opens lazily as if to respond, but it's the cup that causes brows to flash upward. Cup and whatever is inside splashes to his face, causes him to blindly jerk his hands out- one arm going to his eyes, so as to wipe them clean, as a grimace shows through clamped teeth.
The Punch half connects, as the other knight is quick to move, but it does knock the cigarette lose, and will likely leave bruising. Spit-smoke, as Luke keeps his footing, his next move is quick, as his free hand balls up-and goes moving for the other man's hard stomach, though the trajectory changes as the Crow tries to move that blow more for the big man's ribs.
Apparently-this is what Jor does.
What Jor does is technically more lawful. It's a matter of temper, that led to his striking the first blow. The last thing he needed a reminder of, at this particular slice of time, is of what he /isn't/. All the needling and frustration demanded a release, and he was nowhere near a facility to unleash his mood in a more constructive manner. In the absence of being able to exercise, or squires with nothing to do, he settles for you. There's a shifting of his stance, his free, left hand coming to intercept that blow, but like the one with your face, he doesn't quite make it fully, too blinded by his annoyance to think straight in this particular altercation. There's a pained grunt, a loud one, and by this time someone in the crowd has recovered enough to start calling for law enforcement. That doesn't stop Jor from wanting to continue getting some of his own back, though. Your cock isn't crooked and bent out of shape? His knee will be happy to oblige.
Yes, but Jor also started a fight with a Knight-Granted a knight that has spent his fair time in a holding cell for various infractions such as these. Infact the law enforcement on the Ring know him quite well. As for his cock suddenly becoming crooked-Luke is all about keeping that from happening As it is his next punch is moving for that rising knee-which in turn is likely going to hurt the pair of them if it connects.
As for Luke, his own strikes are more self defense and sudden risen anger, than anything else. Arm down now that eyes are free of their obstruction-they lock onto the big target that is Jor Aeldan.
Jor may be dimly aware, in some corner of his mind, that it's a very stupid idea to get into a brawl with you in public - he's never before done the like in his life, outside of training and select other incidences - but that's the problem with losing your temper. The good news, though, is that he's had fifteen years of practice with changing the color of his vision from red to… something a little more transparent. So it may come as a surprise when, after the collision of knuckles and knee, that he suddenly endeavors to try to shove you away, either way with the result of breathing heavily and favoring his other leg… and glaring at you.
"You… are a fucking. TWAT." As if he wasn't the one to throw the first blow, let alone liquid refreshment, Jor's eyes blaze as they stare at you, visibly striving to regain better control of himself while simultaneously working to ignite those remaining cigarettes through the power of his angry irises alone. That's about when the peacekeeping friends of the Ring arrive, shouting their usual C&D platitudes.
You shove him back, and to Luke's point he only lounges once- mainly to make sure you keep back. There's a grimace as he's grabbing his hand and pulling back. His own breathe heavy and heady with fight. His own success in bar fights has been due to matching tempo and to pressing the advantage when it's there. He's not reckless in that manner. "Oh eat a cunt.." Crow fires back, as the Ring's protection arrives, a glance over his shoulder and he's laughing. "Always late to the party, boys…" Always fucking late.