2019-12-20 - Dinner with Death

There is something to say about planning, and Yule? Certainly understands the intricacies of that deliberate setting up of a dinner. It's an Indian Fusion style restaurant, an actual sit down with a server sort of place rather than the more simple takeout style of the Thai place in the strip mall. It's not large, the sort of small local one would expect of Gray Harbor, and the M.E. has managed to secure a booth off against a wall where the modern Indian pop music isn't quite as loud, leaving it a perfect conversational atmosphere. It's run by a local family that are first generation americans whom migrated to Seattle previously, before moving out somewhere far cheaper to make a go of running their own restaurant.

Yule has arrived early to make certain that table is found without problem after the series of text messages were had to confirm the location. He's dressed in a pair of faded black jeans, a pair of black, ankle high boots, with a crisp, white button down dress shirt wit the top couple of buttons undone. Over it he wears a navy blue blazer. His phone is out, placed upon the table in front of him, while those brown eyes remain alert and watchful for the person who procured the dinner with the medical examiner.

For a young woman who constantly lives on takeout, and currently, but temporarily lives with a man who does the same, the fact that Isabella Reede has never heard of this place is very surprising. Some part of her has managed to convince herself that she's run the gamut of the available takeaway places in the area, and that eventually, she will have to circle back to the pizza place where she started. The fact that Yule has managed to find this place at all speaks highly of their chances of having, at the very least, an interesting conversation.

When she walks through the door with her businesslike strides, the indelible stamp of bigger and more metropolitan cities in her pace, there's very little fanfare. She's young, not even in her thirties, taller than the average woman, dark-haired and set with green eyes flecked with gold. Lips are set with a ready smile when she espies the booth and doesn't hesitate approaching the person she finds there. She doesn't seem to fuss overly much with her appearance, either; her style straddles the line between functional and fashionable, clad in a loose, ruffled top, dark, fitted jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a reddish-brown leather jacket. She wears very little jewelry, the only prominent accessory being a luminous moonstone pendant that swings against her clavicle when she walks. Long tresses have been swept up in a loose, somewhat disheveled twist that appears more artful than actually messy.

"Yule?" she identifies, extending a tanned, long-fingered hand. "Hi, I'm Isabella. Alexander's told me a bit about you. Awesome pick for a restaurant, by the way."

It's an easy enough spot to find Isabella as she approaches, and a faint smile touches upon the corners of his mouth. It might be small, but there is an undeniable charm to the man with it, all given the calm, collected demeanor he possesses. Out he slides from his spot in that booth, hand extending out to accept her own in a handshake. "Yeah. Yule Duchannes. A pleasure to meet you Isabella. Alexander has mentioned you as well, which given the amount he is normally willing to divulge about people?" This has that smile returning, a touch more and with amusement that creases his features, if momentarily, "Must mean you are well worth knowing. Please, have a seat."

Indeed, he'll wait for her to settle in before he takes the spot opposite of her, one shoulder lifting up into a hapless shrug, "Benefit of the job, you could say. Find yourself hungry at odd hours, in all parts of the city. Came across it my first week back in Gray Harbor." Those brown eyes study the woman for a heartbeat, taking in both appearance and means of style, before that warm voice picks back up in that casual, inviting tone, "So, what made you decide to bid on dinner with the medical examiner? If I had to take a stab in the dark, I'm guessing you aren't a necrophiliac," Up his hand lifts, two fingers crossing in a hopeful gesture that he is right on that count, though it's all playful banter, "A desire to hear school boy stories about Alexander? Or making sure the people he's talking about aren't going to get him into too much trouble?"

Over the waitress comes, flashing the pair of them a smile, all at the ready as she asks, "Something to drink, Miss?"

"Well, I don't know about well worth knowing," Isabella banters back with her easy grin, the cant of her head slanting her gaze towards him under the dim light of the restaurant. "And between you and me, he can be a touch biased on that end. But never fear, tonight, I'm giving you an opportunity to form a more objective opinion." She takes a moment to simply observe him - height, coloration, the way he's dressed and the understated charm imbued in his own return smile. "Even if he didn't mention that you came back from New York, I would've been able to tell," she confesses with a laugh. "You wear the big city on you."

He doesn't have to ask her twice to take up his invitation, sliding on the seat across from him. Slender shoulders shrug out of her jacket, to drape it at the back of her chair, and when she turns her attention back to Yule, it is direct and unwavering - there's something bold and defiant in the way she meets the eyes of another. "I bid on a few things in the auction, including the Mystery Box." A hint of a playful grouse there. "To increase the chance of coming away with something after all that effort. I was under the weather that day." She's not about to tell the man that she was tag-teamed by demonic fruitcakes and lost. "I recognized your name in a few of the prizes and thought why not? I'm in the middle of my dissertation writing, so you can imagine just how many opportunities I get to meet someone new in the last few months."

She stops to place her order for a drink - a Scotch, neat, and nothing younger than eighteen years. "I see you wear your occupation well, also, when you're launching your interrogation already before we even looked at the menu." Her grin flashes at him, mercilessly bright. "I'll happily take those school boy stories, but from what he tells me, he doesn't really have much, and as a good girlfriend, I ought to trust him on that end." Pause, beat. "So if you know anything absolutely adorable and embarrassing, tell me immediately and I'll make it worth your while. He's up two to my one on our personal scoreboard."

She props her chin on one hand. "In all seriousness, I was curious about you and considering much of the strangeness that happens around here, and the things I tend to fall into, I thought acquainting myself with a network of experts couldn't hurt. I heard that you slipped yourself in the inquiries related to a few related deaths, recently, as well as some interesting experiments regarding ability luminol. What say you, good doctor?" Her brows lift in an affably challenging fashion, the devil's inclinations playing over the line of her mouth. "Up for a bit of quid pro quo?"

"As a member of the scientific community, I'd hold myself to no lower standard than forming my own judgement upon someone through whatever means I must undertake," Comes the mostly reassuring commitment from Yule, those brown eyes twinkling with a touch of mischief. He pauses only briefly in his retort towards the woman as drink orders are placed, and it is Isabella's choice that has his gaze sharpening, a clear if brief look of approval for her choice. "The same. My drink of choice, when it comes to it. Nothing like a sipping scotch. My favorite? Is the Macallan 18 year old that I'd fallen in love with a year or so ago."

But with the drinks placed, it's back to the conversation, a soft snort of amusement coming from him. "Twenty years in NYC. I've certainly adopted the education and some of the habits. And I truly missed all the weird, interesting places to go. Museums dedicated to about anything of which you can think. But others? Never quite rubbed off on me. Never bothered with looking for a fancy apartment. I prefer to keep very few things, but those few things I do keep? Are very nice." A testament to his lifestyle, no doubt, and so clearly seen if one were to catch a glimpse of his car or trailer. "Yeah. I get that. The bachelor's degree? Wasn't too bad. Med school was a slog of so little social life. And the residency and fellowship? Man. Brutal. Not only did you have all of the time sucked away, but you were dealing with dead bodies, rather than people you could talk to."

Despite those words, there isn't a hint of resentment to be found, and a lazy smile curls to the corners of his features. "I like to be direct and upfront. And questions? Are the favorite tool of my trade. Even the bodies answer me, in their own way. One just has to know the right questions. Think you can imagine what it was like for Alexander. I didn't come into the knowledge of what really goes on around here until about a year ago, on a trip back. Besides, I dislike idle gossip about people not present. So," A hand lifts, a single finger extending to point towards her at the very last of her words, "that sounds far more enticing. Alexander had mentioned to me you were interested in my experiments. Yeah. I'll answer questions you have in exchange for answers of my own."

His gaze keeps hers just as easily as she gives it, never once falling to the temptation to look around at the going ons of the restaurant around them. "You bought the dinner, so it's only fair that you get to ask first." It's that faint smile that shows he knows he'd already gotten the first questions in, even as tangential as they were, but leaving it to Isabella to direct the conversation where she wants.

Their first commonality discovered, Isabella's resulting expression is a visibly approving one, framing the growing openness of her grin. "I didn't used to drink," she confides. "I barely did in Boston when I ended up there for my undergraduate years, but when I got to Oxford, my mentor told me that I won't be able to get anywhere in Academia if I didn't know how to drink like a man. It's a ridiculously antiquated notion, but Oxford is very old, in turn." She winks at him from across the table. "My go-to is a Glenlivet 18, but the best Scotch I've ever tasted was a Balvenie 40. It's delicious and incredibly expensive, so I've only had it once in my life." She laughs lightly. "I might splurge for a bottle, though, if I pass my defense early next year."

Twenty years in New York has the young archaeologist making quick, mental calculations. "So you left when you were...eighteen, nineteen? So why New York? Admittedly, I'd be the last person to judge anyone for that. I left when I was sixteen, and ended up in the very opposite coast. New Orleans, actually - I suppose it could have been worse. I only spent a year there, but I loved it. The city was broken and imperfect, but beautiful because of it, not in spite of it. And the food was great. Ended up in Boston after that and stayed there for a while, so under normal circumstances, you and I would be terrible rivals. I get that, though...all the work. Once I hit England, I was all over after that. Greece, Morocco, at some point I ended up in Sumatra which birthed an incredibly embarrassing incident involving monkeys that I might tell you if I get enough scotch in me. Lived out of a suitcase, I put in more hours in the field than the classroom."

And she loved it. If she bemoans the lack of stability, she doesn't show it. Those expressive eyes take on a faraway cast, imagining the beautiful, blue domes of Santorini from a distance.

"I'm not much of one for gossip, either," she tells him, her approval skyrocketing at the words. "I'm actually, ridiculously, notoriously late once it's time to get on the social hamster wheel. Alexander's more in touch there than I am, which should illustrate for you just how engrossed I am in different projects. Though I do try to stay connected."

She quiets when the server returns with their drinks, and she plucks her tumbler off the table and offer it to him in a toast, clinking her glass against his if he allows. "Cheers. So, you mentioned that you weren't clued in until about a year ago? May I ask what happened there, or is that too personal? Because if it is, you can start with elucidating me on your process with the luminol."

"Very good choices all around." Be it about the scotch or the school, that is, Yule doesn't specify as he lifts a hand, propping it against the side of his cheek, thumb tucked beneath his lightly bearded chin as he watches hers. "The old rituals of schools that are long past their lifespan, yet continue in the name of tradition. A wise man, it sounds like, your mentor." But once the proverbial pandora's box of questions has been opened up? The M.E. is only too happy to delve in with both answers and a return volley of his own.

"Eighteen. Right after high school. I knew I wanted to be a doctor. At the time, dreams of being a surgeon. I got a scholarship to NYU, and mom? Wanted me to get out of town. I don't know if she new things or not, but in retrospect? She was super supportive about having me be as far away as possible, in good ways. I found I really loved a lot of the city. Like I said, all the things to do." It's a beat of a pause, considering the woman before him, "So why Boston for you? Then Oxford... working on your PhD. So certainly in the academia circles. Travel. Anthropology? Archaeology?" Comes the deduction from the man, before a warm bit of laughter spills from him, "Never had gotten the chance to travel, myself. Out of the States, that is. Been promised a tour of as many scottish distilleries as I can manage sometime in the future, however."

"And so why back here to do your paper. It seems like we /all/ get pulled back, yeah? You are probably old enough you went to school with," A soft 'mmm' comes from, "Noelle and Ellis. The youngest of my siblings." The Duchanne twins that are twenty six years old, that is. "Or would have graduated with them, if you hadn't gone to New Orleans. So what was with the move? High School is always one of those brutal times to uproot someone to go halfway around the country." Those brown eyes soak her in, all of the minutia of details of her features, his voice a lovely, calm lull of curiosity and interest.

His fingers take his tumbler as well, hefted up to let that clink take place in a toast, "Cheers. Yeah. Came back a year ago, and noticed the," His features contort, a twitch of his nose given before he settles on, "glimmering of certain people. Had my first Dream. It was," His lips purse there, weighing the matter, before he murmurs, "personal. Hit really close to him, figuratively speaking... which brought me back here. Too the better part of a year to get everything arranged. And how long have you known? Before you left, or only since you've returned? And just how long have you been back in town, then?"

Ahh, but that last bit. Yes. Experimentation, the scientific process, the application of all those years into something that is so strange and new, while his voice keeps that same warm tone, there is a deeper passion that kindles in his gaze. "I started by trying mundane chemical reactions first, once I knew I had samples that had been exposed to glimmer. Nothing happened. Not surprising. So, a vial of water as the base. It's like... Supernatural Chemistry 101," A touch of amusement at that, one shoulder lifting up haplessly, "Started with imbuing it with spirit, which I know I can use to gauge how strong others are. Figured that makes sense, yeah? Didn't take, not at first. But combining it with a physical reaction to change the compound of the water, like... hooking a spiritual element up to H20 to create a new compound element. That worked. Finally. Though with three major issues. Not certain if Alexander told you all about those results."

"So what made you decide to go the medical examiner route and not a surgeon? There's more prestige in the latter, more money, more exposure," Isabella wonders, the glowing embers of her curiosity duly sparked, taking a quiet sip of her scotch. Her eyes, however, remain on Yule as he shifts on his seat; at some point she has straightened up - the better to look at the taller man directly. "And wow, on scholarship? Me, too, in both institutions. I wasn't the genius my twin was, but I worked my ass off. All I wanted to do when I was younger was get out of here. Boston because it's old, the history is staggering and Boston University is an incredibly great school, if you could afford it. Got it in two, though." She laughs. "Classics in undergrad, archaeology in Oxford. I specialize in maritime archaeology, with an emphasis in Ancient Greek and Roman culture. I was a diver all my life, it just meant that I got to combine two things I absolutely loved, eventually."

The prospect of touring Scottish distilleries draws another laugh. "It's more fun with a group," she tells him. "And if you can get past the cold and the perpetual mist, Scotland is incredibly picturesque. Lots of lore, lots of stories."

She takes another pull from her tumbler, before she continues. "I remember Noelle and Ellis, though I didn't know them very well. They were sophomores when I was a Junior, which was my last year here in Gray Harbor." When asked about why she had left, however, there's a quiet and contemplative tap of her finger against the rim of her glass. It is the first moment when the radiance of her dims, but not by much. Her lips ease into a more rueful bent. "My twin disappeared and my mother was in the know," she tells him straightforwardly. "Nothing confidential, most people know about it..my mother died during the Gohl murders last summer, so there's word that my family might be a bit touched. Anyway, she was fearful for my safety, so she sent me away to live with my aunt. It's only when I returned here that I realized that it wasn't all that exaggerated, what she feared. My mentor sent me back here on a consult - a ship that was last spotted in Gray Harbor Bay in 1895. Since I was local, he thought of me, and here I am, completing my dissertation while working on that, also."

It has been months, and it is only the passage of Time that keeps the simmering embers of her temper and frustration in a low glow, smothered further as she focuses on his voice and diction, and the way his subtle attention absorbs the details of her. "Are you in any danger?" she asks, frankly, when he reaches the general details of the Dream that brought him home. "They can be like that, it's Them. They feed off of fear, or so they say, so it's likely that if you're Talented that you're already in their radar, somehow. As for how long I've known...I've known all my life. My mother had it, my ancestors before her. My father's side, also. He's not Talented, but my aunt is. Caused and got into a lot of trouble because of it. And my twin..." She pauses. "I already told you that he was a savant. He was in that aspect of our lives, also." After another swallow of her scotch, she supplies, "I've been back a grand total of seven months." She even seems surprised once she's forced to make an accounting. "...wow. Has it really been that long already?"

Perhaps it's the sudden rise in his intensity that she senses - like calls to like, and her irises undertake a diamond-sharp focus when his clear passion for his extracurricular projects emerges in the next stage of their mutual inquiries. That is when she eases away, in spite of her relentless questioning, leaning against her seat as a set of fingers lift to toy absently on the moonstone pendant gleaming against the scarlet ruffles of her top. "It makes sense," she allows. "I have enough of the mending aspect to be able to detect them in others, though this is honestly the first time I've heard of it being used this way...to add properties in an existing substance instead of just replacing what had been lost, or simply breaking down the base structure." She drops her moonstone and reaches for her tumbler again. "I think he mentioned that the initial compound was unstable, that it tends to destroy the surface you apply it on. He also said something about perhaps trying it out in the Veil? There might be some merit to that - I know that objects from here get altered whenever they stay through a Door for a certain amount of time, and I know that things that have been brought from that side to here tends to have profound, but ultimately temporary effects - the only exception I've managed to find was something with a conscious mind behind it." Her expression darkens faintly in memory. "Anyway it suggests to me that maybe there's something about the atmosphere across a Door that might allow such endeavors to be more stable....or the opposite. Equal odds, really. But it's not called an experiment for nothing. It's very interesting, though. I hope you succeed, it'll be a useful thing to have."

"Medical examiners do pretty well for themselves, especially when they keep their little flat they shared with roommates in medical school," Comes Yule's first quip, a glimmer of mirth touching in his voice as he listens to her thoughts. "It was the end of my second year in Med school. I had to," A pregnant pause, his tongue dipping out to wet his lower lip as he leans forward a touch, arms resting on the table, fingers curled around his tumbler. "go and identify someone. Someone with whom I was close. I talked with the M.E. for a while after that, and I came to realize that you are still healing people. Still giving them life. You are helping the person who passed find closure, and helping their families and friends move on by finding answers. And a surgeon? You might be far richer, yeah. Doing the same procedure over and over again. But the puzzle of autopsies, the investigation... there is always something new and different to understand."

His hand lifts that glass to give it just the barest of tips her direction at the mention of touring, a soft snort of amusement coming, "If it happens? I'll have someone with me. And if I had my way, I'd walk from distillery to distillery to see as much of the land as possible."

Recognition comes for the mention of Gohl, his lips pursing in contemplation, something unspoken at least initially as he listens, it all filed away. "Sort of interesting. Know people who have it, but none of their parents did. Others who it seems get it passed down from generation to generation. Disappearances seem all to common, unfortunately. My sympathies for your loss, Isabella. But equally, people returning here, like you or i? So many coincidences that it feels far more like the pulling of fate. Some force that tugs on a string, and try as you might to keep out of the whirlpool, it will suck you in." His index finger taps against his glass, before up it is lifted, a small sip of the scotch taken, those brown eyes dropping to a half lidded state to savor it for a long second.

"Time here has a way of getting away from you, doesn't it?" Comes the murmured response to her own surprise at things. It's the combination of several of her questions that all get rolled into his answers as they flow from the tip of his tongue, graceful and certain, "Yeah. Unstable. The compound only lasted five minutes before the effect diminished to uselessness. The second issue is it deteriorated inorganic material substantially. The third issue? It attracted the attention of Them," One shoulder lifts up, a hapless gesture as Yule considers that particular aspect. "I'm not sure I'm in more danger than anyone else in this place. In some ways less... I've seen enough death and the worst of humanity that a lot of things don't rattle. But damned if I'm too curious though." At least he knows his own short comings, even if he doesn't seem to be willing to draw them in. "I don't know what others have tried. But the trick of it was combining two different... methods, whatever you want to call them, between physical and spiritual. The end result was like... putting too much acid in your compound, unfortunately."

"Which brings us to further experiments. I'd like to look at the blood of a few people, myself included, if I can get some people to volunteer. See if I can't use spirit to identify any particular thing in it that might give me a better idea of what I want to..." It's always a difficult thing, trying to combine science with the unknown supernatural, head tipping one way and then another, "isolate and create a reaction with. I also wonder if potential ingredients can't be found Over There, to mix with the solution I bring with me, so I can bring it back. I equally wonder if context is meaningful. It got Their attention, yeah? Because it might be able to expose it to anyone, even if you don't glimmer. If my context is, and effort is, to have it react so only people who glimmer can see it... will that lessen their interest in what I'm doing. There is so much more I'd love to try out, too. But," It's dangerous. It's seen in his eyes, that ghost of a smile that curls to his features, before those pointed questions are directed back her way.

"So what are your thoughts. How did you find out you can mend people? Do you get concerned that it's potentially like a drug... with unknown side effects both to the person using it, and whom it is used on, that may not manifest for five, ten, fifteen years? It's an ethical struggle, yeah? Want to help people, but in my case? I let modern medicine do it's thing, unless it's clearly a life or death situation." One can tell he Knows he shouldn't ask, but true to his nature, direct and honest with his curiosities, it's only the softness of his voice that makes it clear he gets it, that he knows it is surely sensitive, "You looking for him? What happened to your twin?" Equally, the next question that comes is to give her an easy dodge, if she wants to take it, "And what is the ship you are looking for? After the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Too early to be a ship dealing with the gold rush up there. Passenger or cargo liner of some sort?"

That earlier hint of approval only intensifies the more Yule speaks; there's a slight incline of Isabella's head when she regards him from her place at the table. "Same," she tells him. "I love what I do, what I decided to pursue for a career. It may mean that I'm never going to be as wealthy as certain other friends of mine, but I've essentially signed myself onto a life of constant learning and adventure. Fulfillment in the job is definitely a thing - besides, you know what they say. If you love your job, you never have to work a day in your life." She takes another careful sip of her scotch. "I'm sorry for your loss," she adds, quietly. "I was spared that, in the case of my brother and my mother, my father made sure of the latter. I can't even imagine what it's like to identify someone you cared about on a slab." Green and gold eyes fall on the tumbler in her grasp, reminded of a recent conversation. Her fingers clutch tighter around it, slightly. "Still, it sounds like you found your calling. Your purpose. It's funny how tragedy tends to be inordinately talented in driving people to that, sometimes." Another thing that they have in common, though she doesn't go out of her way to clarify just how.

"Alexander's one," she supplies, instead. "Neither of his parents have it, but I know for a fact that at least one side of his bloodline has plenty of users, so it might just be that in his case, it skipped a generation or two. I'm not presently convinced, however, that it's genetic, or if the Talent does run through whole families, I don't know if it necessarily means that there's a biological component involved. Not without further investigation and analysis." She smiles at him; it's a slow and faintly calculating one. "Want to help me try and find out?" She lets the query hang, before she continues with, "I'm uncomfortable with the idea that our lives are preordained. It renders the concept of free will moot, in a way, and I'm not a fan of anyone else but me dictating my own destiny. But I know what you mean." She searches his expression in that moment, as he savors his drink. "It's hard not to feel that way. I felt..." There's an open grimace, which she attempts to suppress against her glass. "...called back here, before I even got my consultation job. I tried to fight it. I resisted coming back home, but..."

She heaves a quiet sigh, though she is alert again when he offers up the three issues regarding his experiment for her perusal. "I'd go with what Alexander suggested and try creating the compound in an environment conducive to strangeness." The last word is dry, but delivered with a faint smile. "Though I have to wonder why it attracted the attention of Them and whether the attention is due to your using, or because what you're attempting to do is unique. We have a few investigators, healers, a couple of explorers and plenty of researchers and analysts, but I don't think I've actually come across a mad scientist sort. We definitely need one, around here. I know for a fact that there is one over there. An entity called the Vivisectionist. If you like I can send you a list of her ongoing projects. They're...I can tell you for a fact that they're all geared towards certain aspects of the Talent." By the way those fine lines shift over her face, however, he can anticipate that they're not pleasant ones.
After a moment, she looks up at him curiously. "How did you find out that you attracted Their attention?"

She accords the rest of his words with the attention they deserve, her focus there as rapt even as her air shifts to a more contemplative sort. "If it'll give you a better idea, you can take my blood," she tells him with a shrug. "It wouldn't be the first time I gave up my body for the sake of data. I know what it's like, entertaining recklessness to satisfy one's curiosity." Her mischief returns, unfettered and unapologetic. "But I think I can trust you with my biological material, you're a doctor, after all. Besides, if your research can answer the the question as to whether these abilities are inherited or developed, or a combination of both, we might even devise a way to track potential users using public records, like the census. Though I suppose...even if you found a way to mitigate the risk, I don't think it'll deter Them all that much. Like anything else beyond the Doors, they jealously hoard their secrets." Her sunkissed mien takes on a more serious cast. "I normally encourage discovery - I'm an explorer by trade, after all, but I wouldn't recommend transporting objects from Over There to here just yet. The effects they develop after transport tend to be very unpredictable, the last time it happened, the entire city was swept by a viral pandemic that affected you biologically and psychically, and killed your access to your abilities while intensifying your Dreams. So imagine getting stuck in one of those without everything at your disposal to be able to defend yourself."

Spurred by his deluge of questions, however, she laughs, and pushes a menu towards him. "We should probably get some food before the owners decide we're only here to drink," she teases him, eyes mirroring the mischievous curve of her mouth. "I'm an all arounder. I didn't used to be - when I was a child, I had a special affinity for the moving Talent. My brother made a game out of blindfolding me and seeing if I can maneuver my way through a room without knocking anything over, or tripping. A smattering of the reader's skillset, a pinch of mending. These days..." She falls silent. "I'll never be able to reach those heights again, but my infirmity there has compensated itself in other ways. Now I have enough of all three to be able to detect most things - space, objects, emotions, life energy, to name a few. The sensory input is a little too much, some days. I'm still re-learning control. I haven't touched my gifts for over a decade until my return." Shadows collect within those striking irises. "I'm not concerned that it's potentially like a drug. I...know it is. It's why I don't use unless it's absolutely necessary. Some people are susceptible to treating it that way, I think. More than most. My brother was. So am I."

You looking for him?

Her finger taps on her glass. "It's an old story, a very cold case now. My brother disappeared the night of our Junior Prom," she tells him. "As for the ship..." Her more ebullient expression returns, enhanced by a shard of sharp, bright laughter that takes over her entire face and sets her eyes on fire. "That I definitely can't talk about. Not that I don't want to, and honestly I've been dying to tell someone about it since I arrived, but the outfit I'm working with made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. Unless you're part of the project, I can't tell you anything. That's how marine exploration companies operate, these days, especially with what happened to the Black Swan Project in the early 2000's. It nearly bankrupted Odyssey because they weren't careful."

A soft mmm comes from him, Yule's head dipping into an understanding nod as that passion for her own career comes alive. His fingers slowly turn his tumbler upon the table as he listens. "Even when it means that work? Always comes first. Odd hours, the calls. It certainly plays havoc on relationships. But at the end of the day? It is the commitment one signs up for in this particular line of work." Out his tongue dips, touching against that lower lip as his brown eyes so steadily hold Isabella's own, a ghost of a smile fleeting across his features, this one far more somber. "Tragedy is like that. Moments that define us, yeah? In my case, it was my fiancee I had to identify. Fucked up my personal life for way too long, but sure set my professional one on the right path. Some people let those moments haunt them far too long, and others use it as motivation to move on."

"I always appreciate help. Any good science needs other sources to validate and assist with the work, yeah?" A beat of a pause, his eyes glittering with a touch of mirth as he quips, "Aw, stop it, you are going to make me blush with such ravenous compliments," When she says she thinks she can trust him with those biological materials, a soft snort of amusement coming from him. "It was actually something Alexander mentioned to me the other day. A difference of points of view on what goes on here. He said that all the weird stuff? Is natural. Just because we don't understand it, doesn't mean it isn't part of nature. I'm not ready to buy into that, given it is isolated to just one place, and perhaps not even of /this world/, this not natural. Colliding dimensions, or other things that my head just can't bother to fathom. But, it did spark the idea... why aren't we treating it like any other science experiment. Pretty sure the people at work? Are going to start calling me Spooky Duchannes at this rate, given the cases I ask for. But, long of it? Yeah. I'll happily take a donation of blood."

It's a deep breath that is soaked in when she asks how he knew about that particular brand of attention, and his voice drops absently a touch lower, "You are an attractive woman. I'm sure you've experienced that sensation of /knowing/ when someone is leering at you, even without having to see it. That sensation of hairs on the back of your neck standing up. Eyes lurking in the darkness. That's exactly what it was. The moment the little experiment actually worked, for as brief as it did, and I knew if I did it again? It would be dangerous to try it again." His glass is lifted, paused just a couple inches shy of his mouth so those rich, chocolate pools can peer at the woman from over the rim, considering. It's an intense thing, that watchful gaze, calculating and considering before he answers, "Which is why, as awful as they probably are? Information on experiments things Over There have done? Will be useful. Data is data, and if you can get me something from this Vivisectionist? I'm all ears. Though I'd be quite curious how you can across this list of her projects, given the look on your face when you even mentioned it."

Out Yule's other hand comes, giving a little tap on the menu as he explains, "I picked out what I wanted while waiting for you. Best to be prepared, yeah? I never play fair," Comes his warm, resounding statement, "And fate? I don't think everything is predestined. Not even most things. But sometimes a string of coincidences is just /too much/. Yeah. We could have resisted the call to come back. I think," It takes a second of contemplation on that, before he continues, "But it would have been hollow. Empty. Knowing you were missing something you should have answered." His shoulder lifts into a hapless shrug, unable to explain it better than that. "The shahenshah chicken, by the way. A boneless chicken tikka tandoored with spices and yogurt, served on skewers. It's amazing."

Up one brow arches, but it isn't a look of surprise that enraptures him when she mentions that she can't talk about the ship, but rather even more curiosity. Still, it is stuffed away, at least mostly, "Well, if they find dead bodies and need a consulting M.E.," A flicker of an innocent smile creases those features before Yule leans back, giving a push of his finger against that menu to slide it back towards Isabella's side of the table. "Figure out what you want, and then we can order... and you can ask your next set of questions. Though I didn't want to bring something from Over There here... it is more curious if I take things with me from here, and alter them there, what happens when we bring them back. I take the base of the formula with me - the mundane one - experiment over there, what happens when I return with it. That has to be done... else, well, you'd always return to this side naked cause even your clothes would fall off, yeah? But, regardless. I'll happily draw up a list of ideas for experiments I have and share them with you to get your ideas."

"You strike me as the same brand of workaholic I am, anyway," Isabella observes, but not without a good measure of humor. "So I trust that the odd hours and the calls are less of an issue for the likes of you and me. The content of said calls, however..." Her voice trails off, toying absently with her tumbler of scotch. "...between you and me, no matter what it is, I'd rather get them than not." Her smile flares briefly over her expressive mouth, snuffed out ultimately by the personal offering he sets on the table between them. Her startlement is quick, and unsuppressed, lips parting faintly at the gravity of the loss. "...Jesus, Yule, I..." The words leave her in a breath, as formless and shapeless as spectres.

There's a moment of silence punctuated only by the surrounding noises from their environs, the clatter of silverware and the strains of a Bollywood musical number, registering faintly if not just because Yule remains in the center stage of her unyielding focus. And it continues as her mind and imagination attempt to wrap around the concept of doing that - of walking into a cold room, to look down at a beloved's face and somehow find the words to confirm his or her identity. "...which one are you?" she asks, finally, because she can't not. "Haunted or motivated?" Lips turn upwards, but faintly - the somberness of the moment doesn't allow her for more than that. "Though you could be neither, or you could be both." And that's understandable, too, from a woman who acknowledges her own difficulties in letting go of anything, anyone.

"Well, I'd hope that you'd take the mad scientist crack as a compliment," she says, another quiet laugh escaping her as she sinks further into her seat, folding one leg over the other by the knee under the table. "I would, if I were you. As for your suppositions that this is isolated to just one place..." Teeth nibble delicately on the cushion of her lower lip. "I don't think this phenomenon is limited here. I know there are a few thin points in Portland, and some around the world. I've never come across them, myself, though I've heard rumors. But I think Gray Harbor might be the only place in the world, or at least the only one I know of, that's actually inhabited. The only one where people are born, grow up, live and die. For all I know, that may very well be the reason why effects here are so potent, when it's powered by so many souls." His acceptance of her blood has her tilting her head. "Alright, you got it," she says, without hesitating at all. "Let me know when and where. You have a lab space?"

She draws the tumbler to her again, unable to help but grin faintly when he calls her attractive. "I'd return the sentiment but you're obviously not a woman," she quips, her earlier mischief surfacing again, unable to be held down for long. "But if attractiveness is a magnet for Them, that's one I've not heard before and would explain why They started sniffing around you." Innocence so exaggerated that it's miraculous that it hasn't called a police raid into the restaurant curls over her face, complete with a batting of her lashes that looks absolutely incongruous to the rest of her. It's simply not a thing she can pull off convincingly, but that doesn't stop her from trying. "In all seriousness, if you want the list, I can get you the list, but as to how I came across it..." And there it is, that grin - open enough for her teeth to flash silver in the dim lighting and cut through it like a razor; coupled by the way her lashes lid, the expression is downright chesire. "I paid for one dinner and that sounds more like a second or third dinner conversation."

I never play fair.

She laughs. "Neither do I. I don't believe in fighting fair, either." She lifts a hand to flag over the server. "I'll have what he's having." The sort to jump into the pool without even looking for the bottom, clearly, going by what the man orders without knowing his preferences, before he even explains what he gets. Her open grin lances ruthlessly towards him. "I knew you wouldn't lead me astray. Faith in humanity, duly restored!" She presses a hand over her heart dramatically and feigns a swoon. "But I'll let you know, if we do find the wreck. Chances are there would be bodies, though they'd be hopelessly dessicated by now. Nothing that will probably deter or circumvent you, you have that look in your eye. If you're feeling adventurous, however, you could always try to go down there with me in the event that we locate it, if you want to examine said skeletons in their present grave." She hands the menu over to the server, who is staring at them, now, having caught some of the tail end of their conversation; a look that she returns only with a winsome smile.

When the server leaves, she returns her attention to Yule, not that he has any trouble maintaining her interest - it only heightens with every exchanged word. "That arrangement's going to have to be monitored very carefully, we don't know how stable that all gets and I only know of one artifact at present that's been through what you suggest, and it's...terrible. Killed two people over the summer. I can give you a brief on that, if you would like. As for my other questions, I could probably spend hours picking your brain about your work but while we wait for our food, how about a palate cleanser?" She sets her tumbler aside. "Tell me about your family. I didn't get to know your siblings very well, when I was at school. Parents? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?" Her smile curls upwards, somewhat slyly. "Multiple friends?"

"Married to the job, yeah? Which has led to more than one past horror of a relationship, I can assure you." It's when her features sink with that weighty admission he had offered that a faint smile, ever so barely seen, creases his features. And for once, those eyes flicker down, focusing on his scotch as it is lifted up. "Both. Completely haunted at first. For several years. Slowly figured shit out, and now it motivates me. Mostly. There are still moments," Up those brown eyes coming, giving her a knowing look, as if suspecting that those reminders that catch you by surprise are something she may be all too familiar with.

"There is a reason I ask to be on the crazy cases," Comes his soothing, reassured voice as he puts the focus back upon the weirdness of work, that tumbler lifted so he can savor the amber liquid, eyes closing shut for a long moment. "It's interesting. Hadn't heard of it being anywhere else. Wonder if they are temporary or permanent things, these other places, or if there is some underlying cause. But I digress," It's a broader, knowing smile the M.E. flashes to Isabella as those eyes open up, his brows offering a small waggle of mischief, "I can get quite off track in my curiosities. And it has to be an intersection of multiple things... so much more fear in places so much darker and larger than here, full of people, yeah?"

A small burst of laughter, warm and rich comes from him when her hand goes to her heart, and there is an unapologetic look cast towards the woman, "I would absolutely, without hesitation, lead you astray. But I would support you all the way, so that you would get the most out of it." Comes his promise, that smile twisting into something of lazed restraint when she gives that twist of the requirements of how she came across that particular list. "First, I'll take the list. And second," Yes, it's a mark of approval, his head dipping into a faint nod, "Good. I do so hate casual things. A woman must keep things back to maintain her allure, and a man must do the same to retain his air of mystery." It's that pause for the server to get their order, he as well keeping that focus towards the waitress until she leaves, upon which time that attentive and intrigued attention plants squarely back upon her. "I'm always up for trying something once. After all, what could go wrong in performing a dive to a shipwreck full of long dead bodies in Gray Harbor? Count me in."

That question is so clearly rhetorical, an answer not even wanted to be considered about lurking zombie mermen or whatever the damnable place would toss up to them. "Five siblings. I'm the oldest, though half of us? Adopted, so Natalia was the first one named, for Christmas Day. Mom snuck that one past dad," He explains, a bemused look creasing his features which becomes so clear to understand why as he goes on, "Then you have brother Winter - an ecologist in this area, fighting the good fight to save bats. Sister Snow, the nicest person you might ever meet, and volunteer at the animal shelter. And then the twins, Noelle Ellie and Noel Ellis. We call him Ellis, for obvious reasons. Dad died while I was in high school. More I think about that? More it feels..." His features scrunch up, the smile fading as it gets to the part about his parents, "off. Not right. When I was getting my Bachelors, mother passed away from breast cancer. Nat took over the family business of running the Huckleberry Trailer Park."

A warm bit of laughter comes from him, and up his hands lift in a sign of mock surrender with the very last question. "I've given up on the whole monogamy from the outset thing. Between my past loss, and being married to work? That from the start creates way too much strain. Always felt like it had to work. That said, I don't do casual. And I haven't given up on finding /one/, but I just am not expecting it. There are two women in my life right now that I rather adore."

There are still moments.

Isabella doesn't say much to that, drawing her finger over the rim of her tumbler, though she manages, somehow, to meet the knowing look with a more inscrutable one; it isn't the lack of emotion that makes it so, but her features are alive with so many things that she is incapable of expressing at the moment, and she drowns this, carefully, with a strategic swallow of her scotch. She lets the silence hang, also, as comfortable with it as she is with meaty conversation. "I can't fault you for that," she says, finally - a statement equally applicable to what he says about being haunted and motivated, and his insistence on the complicated cases. "And that's a good question, but we'll never know unless we venture out there." She winks at him there, draining her glass and setting it sideways for the server to refill whenever their food arrives. "My defense is early next year, while I'm in Europe, I'm thinking about finding a thin point somewhere in the UK and doing a little bit of investigating. I'll keep you posted, see if I can find anything. But I agree..." Amusement blossoms over her more sober face at the waggling of his eyebrows. "I don't think that any of this has one cause." She falls silent for a heartbeat at that. "...whenever I look into something, I try to go back to the beginning and work my way out." Her eyes slip away from him to look towards the nearby window. "I still might," the last murmured as an aside.

It's his laughter (finally!, she thinks) that draws her back to his company, her impishness brought fully to bear at hearing it. "Oh, will you!" she banters back. "Please, do lead me astray! First, chicken skewers, the next...?" She waggles her eyebrows back. "But I'm very happy I've managed to secure your support in whatever endeavor being led astray will take me. If nothing else, working together would never be boring." She finds her smartphone again, puts the list on a text, and fires it off to him. His words about casual affairs, however, earns her laughter this time, draping a loose arm over the back of her chair and her chin adopting a more defiant angle. "And here I thought I was only getting by because I'm witty and charming and not at all very secretive, but I suppose there's absolutely no harm learning from a mysterious man how to be more mysterious. After all, who better to teach?" She lifts her brows at him in an inquiring fashion.

...and they raise higher when an offhand comment is suddenly accepted. "....wait," she says, lifting her hand, palm forward. "So you do want to. Go down there, I mean. In the deep, to hunt for a mysterious wreck that nobody has probably laid eyes on for over a century to poke at old uniformed bones in their last known location, nevermind that you've never tried breathing through a regulator before." She searches his face, perhaps to find traces of a man willing to humor a woman over dinner, but finding none, her grin returns, unabashed and wry. "You know, I often have to do some convincing before anyone would go down there with me, and it's not as if it's not understandable that there'd be hesitation. Anything can happen when you're down there. If you're serious, however, sure. I'll teach you. But I'm not a monster....we'll do some trial dives when it's warmer."

His family life sparks just as much interest as his experimentations, the twist to her smile faintly wistful as he describes each of his siblings. "Holidays must be hectic," she says, when he runs through the names. "Sounds like your parents really like Christmas and the Winter. My mother did, too, and it's my favorite time of year. I feel like it's my way of making up for the fact that I hate Halloween - at least in Gray Harbor." She flicks her fingers against her earlobe, tiny little crystals gleaming like snowflakes glinting from the loose, darker tresses of her hair. Curiosity tempered by more loss suffuses over her face, though she can't help but ask, "Tell me about it," she says, leaning forward and folding her arms over the table. "Why you think something 'off' happened to your Dad?" After watching his expression carefully, she adds, and more gently, "Only if you want to. Maybe I can help."

Mock surrender? She'll take it! Triumph washes over the fine lines of her youthful mien like a tidal wave, and the blazing grin she turns towards him puts distant galaxies to shame. She even lifts a hand, extends a finger, and draws down a single line into the air, to mark 'one point' on an invisible scoreboard that he might not've realized was there. But there always is, where the archaeologist is concerned. "Maybe one day I'll learn how to allow myself that kind of thing," she tells him. "I've never held a serious relationship in my life, until recently, I was all about the casual nonsense because I didn't have a lot of time for anything else. Coupled by the fact that I'm incredibly picky, and ridiculously jealous? No matter how casual I got, I didn't have much by way of that, either." Itch that needs scratching, but otherwise it was work. "Intimacy of any kind just wasn't a priority." She falls quiet at that, on the verge of saying other words in her tongue. Instead, she lifts her head when the server arrives with their skewers.

"It looks good," she murmurs, leaning towards her plate once they're settled, closing her eyes and taking a breath, inhaling the perfume of a variety of spices sailing with the steam, her entire self invested into the act of it, a tactile creature who constantly, willingly, enslaves herself to the whims of her physical senses. "Mm." Eyes flicker open, grin curling up. "You know, for all this talk about leading me astray, you." And here she lifts a skewer and points the tip at him. "Are, so far, on point."

It's that thought of her visit overseas, and that desire to experiment that has his mouth pursing, head tipping to one side as he considers. Those fingers curl about his tumbler, thumb trailing over it's top as he loses himself in that contemplation before he finally speaks, "And what about people who glimmer? You've traveled. I never saw anyone in NYC that I recognized as Talented, as you put it, but then I don't think I was Awakened until a year ago, truly. That first dream. I wonder, if one were to search the records, with how many people have left Gray Harbor as the foresting industry fell, if their children born away from the city who have never been here glimmer as we do." Impractical to chase down, surely, but it lets that lapse of her silence fall comfortable upon them both until she is brought back by.

That smile that slides to his features is telling, full of trouble and experience as the server puts down their food, "A good guide into the devious natures of this world is one whom makes you think it is perfectly normal, are they not? In letting temptation be recognized far too late in the journey is to make it that much more difficult to say no to. First chicken, and then," His mouth parts, something ever so present on the tip of his tongue, but instead his lips close, one dark brow arching upwards as he lets the thought linger with a pregnant pause, all to have imagination fill in the blank rather than his own voice to leave one guessing, as is proper in keeping potential mysteries.

"And see an old shipwreck that hasn't been seen by other eyes in a century and a half, a chance to piece together a puzzle of what transpired?" One dark brow arches upwards as he leans in, voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, "I sorta cut up bodies for a living, all to piece together what happened to them," Though the gleam in his brown, rich gaze that peers over at her is warm, knowing full well she is aware of this. "The lure of a mystery is the proverbial sirens call to my ears. Besides," He straightens, even as his fingers reach out to adjust his plate, pulling out the cloth napkin to lay it over his lap, "This spring? I want to get a boat. I've always loved the thought of sailing. I should add on diving to my list of things to learn, too."

"Don't know," Comes his conclusion about what happened to his father, and not an ounce of deceit is in that admission, "I never knew /much/ of what happened to him, to be honest. Mom always said it was a stroke, but he was always so healthy. No clue what Nat did with all of their stuff, and part of me," One corner of his mouth curls down, head tilting quizzically to the side to see if she understands, "Doesn't want to know. He and mom were great. And opening up that box of questions might just lead to things best left buried." Up a hand lifts, a single finger extending, as if granting her yet another point on his own board of approval, "Christmas? Is the best time of the year. I certainly adopted my mom's love for it."

Ahh, but now those looks turn into a knowing thing, his hand lifting to rake through his hair, pulling a few of those unruly locks back behind an ear as he watches her. "That was myself back getting my bachelors. Free as could be. Focused on studies, dating casually. Changed in Med school, yeah? And now," Unabashed at pointing it out, Yule is clearly a man that plans to grow old gracefully, letting it settle like a mantle to be proudly worn, "age has done wonders to improve my point of view on life and relationships. Jealousy is a matter of personality, but equally honesty. Up front about things, sharing what one wants to hear. And it isn't just people that can cause it. I learned that work, the fact it comes first and often? Can create a jealousy of a different kind. Dangerous, that word, I have found. But once I accepted it, understood it, I could deal with it."

"And intimacy? Is something I have to have," A beat of a pause to let that thought sink in, the potential for assumptions to be made or not, before he drives the point home, "But I don't speak of sexual intimacy. Not just, at any rate. To get there? One must engage the mind and the spirit. Peeling back the layers of a person, figuratively speaking, to truly care and know about whom they are. That is what I crave." Pickiness in people, especially in such encounters, is something that they so clearly have in common as well. "I still leave the possibility open I'll find the one that I'll sail off into the sunset with, so to speak. It could happen. We are, after all, leaving in a fairy tale, aren't we? Even if it is a rather horribly dark and grim one. I'll root for the lighter side too in it."

"I honestly don't remember," Isabella confesses after a long, drawn out pause; perhaps she's waiting for her scotch to be refilled. She plucks it up from her side of the table and lets her eyes fall into it. "I did my best not to use after I left Gray Harbor and there were some points during those years when I nearly fooled myself into thinking I was normal. But then something would...remind me." She contemplates her glass for a few moments longer before looking up to meet his dark chocolate irises, lips hooking faintly in the corner. "Anyway, I know a few outsiders with the Talent. It stands to reason that they can be born and developed in other places. Do you know Vydal's Patisserie? The owner, Vyv. He's not from around here, but I know for a fact that he's got it. I'm not particularly sure if he's had it all of his life, however, but by the time I discovered he had abilities, he was clearly practiced in it - at the very least he's had it for several years." Her expression takes a more serious cast. "This city has very old bones," she tells him quietly. "And it's so far demonstrated an egregious reluctance to let go of its children. If there are answers to be found on that end, as someone else has told me before, we won't find them on this side."

His telling expression has that lopsided smile cutting broader into a fuller curve, the devil in her pushed outward. "Is this the part where you tell me that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist?" she teases, if nothing else outing her not-so-secret love for cinema through the reference. "There's something to be said about hiding the trap until it's time to spring it, and walking into the trap willingly just to find it." She lifts her tumbler towards him in a toast. "So here's to us, two reckless travelers digging into inadvisable mines in hopes of striking gold."

First chicken, and then...

"Pork?" she wonders; that air of unconvincing saccharine innocence is back, but she doesn't even hesitate in saying the word, always ready to jab someone with the end of her wit. She takes a bite out of her skewer then with relish, smiling at him between chews.

"Anyway, I'd go further and say mystery pork, but I think they already have a word for that. They put them in cans, with 'SPAM' right across in yellow letters."

She sets her empty skewer on her plate, picking at the vegetables and the sides that come with it, listening intently to his views on finding old shipwrecks. Her expression twists, almost pained, agony and ecstasy twined inexorably until one is just as potent as the other, indivisible and unable to be separated. Her passion for her work rushes forward with all of her signature intensity, burning like a nuclear furnace and radiating enthusiasm. "That is exactly how I feel every time I'm down there," she tells him. "The world is three-fourths water, and the world underneath can be just as alien as anything we can see through one of the Doors. Many souls have been lost in the drink and while we've only been getting better with our capabilities of seeing what's down there with ROVs and other modular equipment, there's nothing better than actually being down there, seeing it with your own eyes and knowing that anything can happen, including the find. The discovery. The simple, sheer possibility that you might find something that nobody's seen for hundreds, or thousands of years. And even if you don't, the hunt is just as exciting, and has its own allure." She grins, teeth clasping over her lower lip, the pristineness of their color blunted, faintly, by the man's lean forward, looking up at him. "And I do so love the chase."

The future plans for a boat puts a more comical air around her. "Doctors and their boats," she grouses playfully. "I'm teasing, I live in a houseboat and I've always sailed. The paternal side of my family has made its fortunes through the sea for decades - my father's a navy man, so is his father before him. I've taken up the family tradition, but in a different way. So if you want to get a boat and learn, I am the last person in the world to discourage you. Spring's perfect - warm enough to do it, and the city's not so flooded by tourists that you won't be able to find a place to dock her. Though considering I'm availing myself to you on your first adventures underwater, I better be invited to her christening. Deal?"

Shared love for mysteries and Christmasses aside, she is all ears when he confesses his lack of knowledge about his father's death. "Well..." she begins. "A stroke can really take anyone, no matter how healthy they are." A faint hint of skepticism lingers on her face - it seems to her that Mr. Duchannes may have died of natural causes, unwilling to default to any other conclusion unless there's a way to swing the thought of it otherwise. "But I can understand the desire not to know. It's rare, in my case, as it probably is for yours, but when your instincts are telling you not to flip that lid..."

The details of his more mundane life has her listening intently, too, her field if nothing else touches on sifting through the remnants of history in an attempt to discover how other people lived. Socially, she adopts the same principles, no matter how deliberate or unconsciously made. "You make it sound like you're sixty instead of just almost forty," she ribs him. "Though I'm teasing, I don't know what you mean, but I can only imagine. Me? I'm jealous all the time. I won't deny it. But as you said, it's a matter of personality and I'm competitive by nature." She smiles faintly as she tugs on her utensils. "I'm surrounded by absurdly talented people day in and day out, so the urge to keep up asserts itself constantly. It doesn't translate that well to relationships. Not that I could opine with any credible expertise on that end, either."

She finishes her meal, she must have been hungry, though she's clearly a multi-course consumer when she takes her menu again and looks through it. "Intimacy is something I crave, but I tend to crave it from people who are often too difficult to make overtures on that end easily." Her smile turns into a self-deprecating one. "And I recognize the hypocrisy of knowing that, and saying that, while acknowledging to myself if only privately that I don't make it easy with certain, glaring blind spots, also. The fact is people are messy, Yule, and some of us tend to fail when it matters most on that end. But I'd like to think the fact that we keep trying is a good sign." She draws her scotch back to her lips again, smiling against it. "Some Grimm's Fairy Tales do have happy endings, you know. If mine won't end up that way..." And she doesn't seem bothered by the prospect of that, also. "...maybe yours will. Equal odds, yeah? Anything can happen in Gray Harbor."

"Which doesn't rule out genetics, I suppose, if it is a long line of ancestors that hail from here at some point. But," He still doesn't seem convinced, all worthy of experimentation without jumping to conclusions, even if the means of methodology escape them at the moment to complete such a task. "I haven't met Vyv himself, though I do know one that works for him. Corey, at least tangentially, having met once or twice." He murmurs, and it is that last point of the reluctance of the city to relinquish it's children that has a grunt coming from the man as he begins to pick apart his skewer. He's a neat eater, if efficient, wasting little time but still finding the chance to enjoy the meal while he listens.

"Yet his genius was in spinning tales from nothing, certainly a quick wit. I prefer the devil who tempts with the truth, finding ways to speak directly, plainly, yet in a way that draws you deeper towards that trap. And who knows, once sprung? One might find they actually quite like it," Yet the toast has him pausing as the last of his chicken is finished, fingers curling around his tumbler to lift it up in a toast. With the last sip of his scotch taken, it's a dip towards the waitress, a waggle of his for both of them to bid her to bring a refill. "A worthy cause. I'm certain we shall find success in our endeavors." Oh how that mouth curls up, a brief flash of white teeth in display.

A soft snort of amusement comes, a rumble from within his chest as she puts pork out there, followed by a gentle and reproaching tsk. "I had such high hopes for your imagination. I'd have expected some decadent dessert as an offering, not another main course. Pork? No, it would lead to Gulab Jamun," Those tasty, delicious balls that are like soaked donuts in taste, "A sweetness to savor in your mouth, something you know you shouldn't, but surely, with how small it is, one cannot hurt. And the next thing you know? The whole pile is gone, and you are in a sugar coma of ecstatic bliss." But his laughter grows, brief and bright once more as she outlines further her thoughts upon pork, the enrapture of a mystery into her food of choice for temptation drawing a small nod of approval finally from the man.

It's that passion, the light in her eyes that burns as bright as any fire that has a simmering smile not just appearing but remaining as he leans back into his side of the booth, resting comfortably while picking at the vegetables and rice in a more measured fashion. "The hunt can be wonderful, as long as you allow yourself to enjoy it. Yet," His eyes close, as if some fleeting memory as been brought to life, and that smile turns a touch sweeter as he murmurs, "there is something about that one particular moment of the hunt. When you have the pieces. You see the connections. You are on the verge of the proverbial pounce to place your teeth around your quarry and claim victory. Will you? Won't you? Sometimes, it can be just as enjoyable to stop and admire it for what it is,a puzzle that might never be solved.. or a ship that might never be found."

"One dinner, and inviting yourself to the boat that exists in my imagination for its christening?" Those brown eyes flicker, brighter in the light that catches them momentarily, pleased at the deal put fourth before him. "Very well. It's a thing that always appealed to me, yeah? We'd go out to the beach during summer, see them out at a distance. Not that we could ever manage it ourselves. And I like giving myself the freedom of travel, even if it might be an illusion, given the pull of our town." It's the matter of his father that he lets slide, before one brow arches upwards, his features contorting into one of gentle innocence, "Isn't forty the sixty of Gray Harbor? Surely the average life span here is so much shorter." He teases back, accompanied with a playful wink from the man.

A low breath is pushed out, those brown eyes opening to a half lidded state as he listens to her own thoughts upon relationships, that calm, easy demeanor pointedly ignoring everything but the woman across from him. "I'm glad Alexander found someone like you... or you him, however it happened. A good balance for him, from what I've been able to pick apart of you tonight, Isabella. Even if I find myself mildly jealous at his good fortune." Yet there is no true malice in those words, only a bit of playful humor as he breaths in deeply, letting his focus drop briefly to the menu she looks through. His for is used to stab another vegetable, waiting until the server has dropped off their refills before he muses, "Nonsense. If we don't believe in fate, in things being preordained for us," He recalls back to her own words earlier, "then we will both have our happy endings, and figure out a way to tip the scales into our favor."

"It doesn't. Though..." Isabella pauses, chewing on her bottom lip, snatching up the traces of the blend of spices that have been used to flavor the skewers. "I have my own theory there. I'm nowhere near a scientist, mind, but feel free to laugh at me anyway if it sounds ridiculous." She takes a cautious sip of her scotch, as if to lubricate the passage of the words to follow, before she continues, "Maybe it's not genetic, or at least...not really. I'm not thinking about bloodlines, or anything like that, but what if every human being has the potential and it just takes a certain set of parameters to catalyze the ability? So that would be the biological component - being human - but the catalyst itself can be comprised of a variety of factors - childhood, geographical location, life experiences. It's a thing of the mind, so it stands to reason that whatever affects the mind triggers the change. Unfortunately, I don't even have anywhere close to the background to test that." Her eyes meet his, holding there. "You do, though."

The concept of the Trickster Devil has her grinning faintly. "That wouldn't be the first version of him to walk the Earth," she tells him simply as she draws back to sink into her chair once more. "Several other belief systems predate Christianity by hundreds of years, but you'd find similar beings within all of them - Loki for the Vikings, Anansi for the Akan, Blue Jay for the Quinault, Set for the Ancient Egyptians. The Devil has donned different guises over the course of human history and..." Her expression tempers there, that brilliant green-gold gaze hooding visibly as she remembers a few recent encounters. "...I wouldn't be surprised if the things that inspired the creation of those beings in the human imagination would be found through the Doors, also. She's around, you know." She takes a quiet sip of her scotch. "Erinyes. I'm not sure which one, but I see her around when I least expect it."

His passion for dessert may even rival his work. And for a moment Isabella stares at him as he waxes poetic about it, rendered speechless for a moment or two. But then she tilts her head back, and laughs, her hand loosely splaying her fingers against her ribcage. "I knew it was too good to be true," she laments dramatically - if she was even moreso, he'd expect her to find a skull, gesturing with it in a flourish; Alas, poor Yorick. "Our first impasse, my good doctor." Her mirth subsides, but only to replace it with an expression that's more girlish than anything. "I'm not fond of sweets. Even if I did have dessert, they'd be rather mild, or spicy or savory in some way to counteract the sweetness. And I have some very good, very vain reasons for it, not in the least of them being that wetsuits? Are especially unforgiving to a careless person, every flaw highlighted by clingy, ruthless, merciless neoprene. The last thing I want is to actually look like a seal down there, and seals make for very tasty meals to some prehistoric predators in the deep."

He's not wrong about what he says next. "Ah, yes, the 'oh snap!' or the 'eureka!' moment. That's very exciting, too," she tells him, her laughter playing over her words. "That's when the heart really gets going and it feels like you're being burned from within, this volatile, organic burst just attempting to worm out of you until it hits your brain and you find yourself in that brilliant moment of crystal clarity where everything fits, and it takes your breath away. It's like sex, but only more." Mention of missing ships has her grinning again. "Though if you want missing ship stories, I can fill an entire evening with them. That's too easy, though." She gestures at him with a fork. "I'll trade them, instead, for your collection of medical mysteries, though don't be surprised if I hammer you with questions because I am in no way a scientist of any sort."

Called on her shamelessness, the look she gives him is utterly unapologetic, that trickster's grin blossoming over her face and with the stubborn, defiant tilt of her face, she is the very portrait of youthful incorrigibility. "Yep." As always, never afraid to go after a whim once her imagination is seized in such a way; denial or the prospect of rejection doesn't seem like much of a deterrent. "I like boats, and like I said, Yule, tonight's theme is quid pro quo, so if I'm going to be teaching you how to dive, I get to see whatever glory in which you intend to invest on the water. Besides, if you're going to do that? You have to do it right. I come from a maritime family - any nautical pursuit is rife with superstition, I'm very simply availing my familiarity in assisting you in your fledgling navigation of those tricky waters. For instance, you're not supposed to christen a boat on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, and a certain day in April and August. And if you actually want to rename a boat into one of your choosing? That's even more complicated." She leans over then, touching her own chin. "Besides, does this face look untrustworthy?"

There's a pause, and she laughs. "Actually, no. No. Don't answer that!"

She re-settles in her chair after that, reaching for her glass, but his following words has the radiant look of her tempering slightly, green-gold eyes dropping to her scotch. "You say that because you're only starting to get to know me," she tells him simply. "I can be a handful." Lips twitch upwards in a self-deprecating fashion, unable to help but remember the last few days. "More than a handful." Her viridian stare lifts at that, youthful and filled with rue. "And difficult. I think it's probably too early to envy him in any way. I'm not quite certain if he's necessarily happy to find someone like me, and maybe he's only sticking with me because I exhibited an interest first, but..." Her voice trails off and he would glimpse it then, how everything about her seems to embrace it when she thinks about it - how her heart races, how thoroughly she castigates herself for every misstep regarding him, how the thought of him makes her smile in spite of the lingering reminders of her own inadequacies, because she can't help it. All that passion and intensity, all that fire, somehow directed to one man - and only one - who, for some strange reason she can't divine, willingly burns himself with it despite every justification she has ever given him - especially lately - to let go.

She doesn't know. Men can be confusing, too.

But the words are palpable, even while unsaid: I'm lucky to have found him.

"Besides, I ought to be telling you that," she tells him mildly with a laugh and a teasing slant of a look across the table. "You must be something if you managed to get two and probably incredible women..." Given the man's clear inclinations. "...to agree to share you. No easy feat, considering I'm one myself and I know for a fact that the winds can change at any time."

"A difficult thing to prove with determination. Genetics is easy, markers to be found, generations to be traced, traits tracked. The combination of things you suggest - which I find no cause for disagreement - in geography, environment, upbringing. It's like trying to pinpoint the links of certain foods to diseases. At best, it becomes a game of probabilities. But being able to detect it, at least? In some meaningful, medical way? That is a start." It's been one of those things on Yule's mind, given how he speaks of it, and it is some earlier inquiry she asked that the conversation draws back to his mind, "I've been using the M.E. lab for my work, what I've started at any rate. At some point, it won't be enough. Either new equipment specifically for what we are doing to be made, or just too many questions that are asked. I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there."

"It's fascinating," Yule agrees, all about those deities of old, "the migration over time from primarily polytheistic religions to monotheistic. Of course, one still has Hindu in the world, a large following. And those gods of old were, in general, so much more fickle. You say there was an equivalent of the Devil in them all, but I'd say that the devil was in almost all of those gods. Take Zeus himself, yeah? How many mortal women did he trick into sleeping with him, seducing his way. Fickle fortunes were the way of the stories, back then. If that inspiration - Over There - dwindled over time, shrinking into the few pockets such as Gray Harbor it can now be found in. But it also begs the question, does it not, of what was the inspiration for the heavenly side? "

A warm bit of laughter comes from him as the words turn to desserts, and his head shakes ever so slowly, "I gave but one example. I am indiscriminate in the tastes of my treats, as long as they are indeed tasty. Sweet, savory, spicy. All can be perfectly marvelous, in their own right. And I? Am more than willing to run a few extra miles to make certain I maintain my girlish figure after a particularly large feast." More rich laughter, a longer burst, one that has a note of pleasure from deep in the back of his chest comes as he pushes back into his booth at the call out of wetsuits, a soft 'mmm' of consideration coming. "I'll have to make certain, then, that I keep that in mind for our diving lessons. I'd hate for you to have to explain to my family that I just looked like too tasty of a seal treat to one of the predators that lurk deep within the sea."

His eyes shift down, watching his tumbler as he lifts it, the refilled glass studied with interest as fingertips send the liquid swirling gently around within it's glass confines. "I'm always happy to swap stories. It's fascinating what it's lead me to learn, over the years, researching the oddities found in or on bodies, coupled with my own natural curiosities. NYC? Gave me so many crazy things to see and figure out. Whereas here? It's just plain weird," Two very different things, weird and crazy, the way the medical examiner says them, and weird? Is at once spoken with a tone that is truly fascinated and dreadful all in one go at what he's already experienced in his couple of months back in his home.

"Well, if that's the case," He concludes about the ceremonies of ships, "I'll be certain to extend you an invitation. Woe to me and my poor luck, should I christen it upon a Monday, using a bottle of red wine instead of what is appropriate, end up capsized and my seal suited self looking ever so appetizing while I wait for my improbable rescue." A waggle of his brows comes at that, those words crisp and clear, each enunciated with a warm playfulness that reflects the acceptance the archaeologist has already found in Yule's good books. "And as for your face,"

But then she's telling him not to answer that, and so she is only gifted with a serene and enigmatic smile, and no further words to finish that particular thought.

"First," A hand lifts, a finger extending to tick off these ever so important points, "I quite anticipated this to be the case, and would point out that those are the sort of women I tend to gravitate towards. But enough of my tastes because two," This one requires a sip of his scotch, those brown eyes narrowing slightly, and it's clear judgement is coming fourth, the layers he's managed to peek beneath and reveal, those glimpses forming a picture already in his mind. "you do a disservice to yourself, selling your own self short. And I'll get to my thoughts upon love in a moment," Because, certainly, he shall, unabashed in giving his own opinions and perspectives without leaving anything to guess. "As third? You don't give Alexander enough credit. He's a sharp man, and in spite of his living a life of isolation in many ways? I do not find him so wanting in human connections that he'd stay with somebody only because they made the first move. I heard him, when we talked about Christmas, and the fascination he had that this year? He had someone to buy gifts for. There was a certain bit of fear there too, but that? I believe was because he wants to make certain he does well."

"What is good for the goose is good for the gander," Gone is any interest in the menu, those brown eyes holding a certain age to them that their molten chocolate depths often do well to hide, a touch of resignation of those past failures when it came to romance. "There is no expectation of exclusivity on their end, either. I learned, eventually, that any woman in my life is going to have to share me with work. And that can ask... a lot out of a single person. Put on top of that the immediate expectations of seeing only me, and how damn difficult I can be? Trust me. That was a great recipe for disaster. Many times. But the two? Are amazing. Even if it was just knowing them as friends, I'd count myself lucky to have known them." That earns a smirk, a heft of his glass to sip from in.

"Love can have many moments of being easy, but it's always difficult. And the best people worth knowing? Are the complex, confusing ones. Because they have depth. And maybe, just maybe, Alexander gets that too, and is willing to take the highs and lows, just because it's worth it, yeah?" With his own thoughts upon the subject spoken, his head dips towards the menu, "Anything more you'd like to get?"

"Indeed, which is why I'm bringing it up to someone who knows exactly what sort of challenges that kind of query poses," Isabella tells him. "Though I suppose you can always start with the easy route with the resources you currently have - eliminate the genetics possibility first. If you can't find any sign after an adequate sample size of blood from willing donors, move onto the next possibility. Because compared to what I'm suggesting, blood is easy. If you like, I know a few who belong to certain of the older families in Gray Harbor - they might be willing to provide a sample. I come from two of the oldest bloodlines in the area, you can start with mine. As for the rest..." She purses her lips. "You might want to privatize that, maybe. Find someone who's willing to finance it, or take out a loan."

She nurses her scotch as she listens to the man sitting across from her, paying rapt attention to his own views on mythology. "I have it on good authority that the myths will probably not hold a candle to reality," she tells him, dryly, and speaking from the point of view of a woman who had managed to strangle a Fury with his own tie until he perished. "Something tells me that the human imagination has colored their images over the centuries with the biases of their own experiences. Considering we are where we are, I'm very certain that it's much worse. Thankfully, we have Indian food and good scotch to blunt the infernal edges of that sordid reality." She winks at him at that, and presses her lips against the crystalline rim of her tumbler.

He likes treats and she laughs again, brows lifting in inquiry. "You know, I misjudged you," she tells him easily, leaning forward and letting her chin find the cup of her hand again. "By reputation, they say you're a good conversationalist but reserved. I didn't expect to share dinner with a hedonist." She's ribbing him, clearly, and calling it like she sees it. "It's fine, I could be, too, if I'm not working - all of that steam has to come out somehow if work doesn't drain it all away. As for the comment about the wetsuits, well, if it went that way, I'm afraid I'll probably be the one having to deliver the explanations to your family. Luckily, I've several hundred dives under my belt - a master's certification requires you to keep up. So don't worry. I'll keep you safe. And if a piece of paper won't set you at ease, maybe a harpoon gun will."

The future, if not somewhat theoretical exchange of stories earns a pleased sound from her when their glasses are refilled for the third time. "So what delineates crazy and weird by your accounting?" she wonders curiously. "And which do you prefer? Or does both fall under the general label of 'interesting'?" And therefore, something that he prefers. But she waits for an explanation anyway as she absently swirls the scotch around in her glass. There's another pull from it.

Yule's ridiculous scenario about a boat christening gone wrong pulls another peal of laughter from her, grinning broadly at him. "Well, I don't know, maybe you'll manage to save yourself after all if you manage to run off the possibility of looking delicious and seal-like the moment you hit the water, so I would suggest making an extra effort of burning off those treat-related calories if you want to save yourself from such an incredible disaster. Running. Calisthenics." Brows lift, the wicked slash of a grin slanting over her mouth. "Pole dancing? But yes, please do. We're only starting to get to know one another and the last thing I want is for your maiden voyage to end up in disaster. What kind of a responsible acquaintance would I be if I simply let that happen?" Another pause, another beat. "I would never let that happen to a boat."

And as for her face? An index finger pokes at her cheek, eyes wide and lips shaped in an exaggerated fashion, as if to tell him what, this face? but it's obviously not serious and when he refrains from elucidating, she laughs again. "You're awful," she tells him, though by the way she says it, she means it as a compliment. "That's alright, if you're really kind and obliging in the next few minutes, I will happily blame it on the scotch and you can continue life being a responsible gentleman."

His air must've changed, because he looks like he's gearing up for a dissertation of a kind, and with her plate finished, she pushes it aside to make more room for her drink. Leaning back against her part of the booth, fingers absently play with her glass as she listens, saying nothing else until he's finished whatever else he has to say. "First," she tells him with heavily exaggerated gravitas. "I'm not particularly sure how to take that, when you tell me you've gathered immediately that I'm all those things." This is obviously a jest, judging by the look on her face - people only need three minutes with her to learn that, really. But when he confesses that it's catnip (Yule-nip) of a kind, she laughs. "A sign of the times," she observes, dryly and with plenty of humor. "A far cry from our grandparents' days where the ideal partner was someone who knew how to pick out kitchen appliances and made a killer Sunday dinner. But you..." And she nudges his foot with her own under the table. "Should give my self-awareness some credit. I'm definitely not selling myself short, it's absolutely the truth - I'm most definitely all these things, and it's...rather difficult to think otherwise when the man himself has told me that he doesn't get interested unless someone else expresses an interest first. So what does someone do with that information, really? Do I interpret that as mutual interest when it kindles some hope that he has a chance? What does that mean when other people express an interest first, does that mean he also gets interested though he won't act on it?"

And am I hampering him after all, if it does...?

Words she doesn't say, thoughts that remain buttressed tight in her brain; normally this is the sort of thing that she would be slipping into her and Easton's last call confessional, but with him suffering in his own relationship troubles, she hasn't done that, and while she may be incredibly insensitive at times, she is not a monster, unwilling to place this on the lap of a friend who would probably want to have such a conundrum. And now there's a third scotch in her hand, easing the passage of things she wouldn't normally communicate. But just as he is demonstrating all the signs of entering her in his good books, she returns them, also.

"But you're right, my good doctor. I'm just..." Dwelling on my missteps, my losses, as per usual and projecting them outward like a massive fail beacon. "If there's anything Alexander's not, it's dishonest and insincere." A rueful smile tilts into her scotch. "He calls himself selfish in many ways, and I think that's true in some degree but I think it's the very fact that blinds him as to how generous he actually is. He gives so much of himself to the people he cares about, all the time." Something softens in her then, and while affection is there, a hint of melancholy is there, also. "...it'll destroy him, also, if he's not careful." And she's not confident, either, in her ability to prevent that from happening. She is almost certain that she will fail, because she always does when it absolutely matters. But that doesn't mean that she won't try, and try, and try. "...it's fine, though." She tilts another smile over at Yule. "I don't know how to quit. It's as much a blessing as it is a curse." This tendency to bash herself against the foundations of some insurmountable Everest until she gets through, or reduces herself to paste in the attempt.

He doesn't seem inclined any further to eat, and she doesn't seem to do much of that either, engrossed in conversation and unaware of the passage of time. The weight of experience blankets over him like a death shroud, and while she has yet to fully immerse herself with the true form and shape of his own accumulated hurts, she is in no hurry to pry into those depths, electing instead to turn her attention to what he says on the subject. "At least you know what your limitations are, and I'm certain that awareness didn't come without some trial and error," she remarks. "And when you say that you're not the casual sort, I suppose you mean, then, that your involvements aren't casual because of whatever degree of intimacy you've reached with both your partners? Otherwise you'd be back in your bachelor's degree days." Humor dances over her smile, keeps her eyes lit like emerald embers. "But I'm glad to hear it, after...everything else that you've told me, something tells me you need that, even if it's not easy. I've found that following the beats of one relationship is already difficult, to include other bodies and hearts into it when it's already complex and with no small degree of volatility? On top of work? On top of all the crazy trouble I fall into?" She gestures at him emphatically with her glass. "Maybe I should be the doctor, and you should be the professional adventurer, because it sounds like you're a braver person, or at least more adventurous person than I, Doctor Duchannes."

Glancing at the menu, it's almost an absent gesture. "I'm fine with the drink, thank you," she tells him. "Though I could use a cup of coffee, but I could either get that here or elsewhere. Since you brought it up, now I'm absolutely curious. What makes you difficult, exactly? As far as all of that goes? You don't exactly strike me as the type of man who's blind to his own flaws, either. But now that you've opened the door, I'm toeing right through it." Brows lift in a challenging fashion. "Or is that more of a later conversation to be held possibly during diving lessons, bloodletting, or properly executed boat christenings where you will hopefully not be consumed by some ocean predator for looking tasty and seal-like?"

A tip of his glass comes to her thoughts, and it is just the barest of smiles as he murmurs, "I get the feeling you are purposefully dangling challenges out there to bait me. How horribly, awfully," A beat of a pause, those brown eyes widening just slightly for a moment, "wonderful of you. Thankfully for me, in this case? It already lines up so nicely with the questions I had." It's the thoughts of myths, of that element of human imagination, and one dark brow lofts upwards as he muses, "Perhaps. But does that not assume, then, that Over There has stayed static throughout the centuries of humankind, all the way back to the origins of those myths? We have so many stories and legends of the fallen, after all, of missing places of wonder such as Atlantis. Why eliminate the possibility that Over There was at one point a paradise? Even Eden itself? Or some balance of things, only to have succumbed to.." Up his free hand lifts, fingers uncurling in a gesture of, 'take your pick of reasons', "becoming what we now see today. Corrupted. Menacing. If only there was a long lost library Over There, like that lost in Alexandria, that we could find and browse its history, hmm?"

A warm bit of laughter comes from him at that ribbing, and only a coy smile, brief and fleeting, greets her words, choosing instead to focus on her next words first. "Crazy is within the means of current scientific reasoning. Crazy is what people, in all their cruel imagination, can do to each other resulting in deaths that, as tangled as they might be, can be explained if one has a mind sharp enough." It's a flash of that ego, a lofting of brows to say that yes, he is indeed that sharp, before he compares that to weird, "Weird, on the other hand, defies current explanation, and while it might be at the hands of humans, more often is not, or utilizes Talents that most people will never have access to. As for my preference? Each has their place, their intrigue, but I will admit I am drawn like a moth to the flame with the weird... but perhaps that is merely because I've already seen so much of the crazy in New York."

Up his glass comes in an offering of a toast, those brown eyes sparkling with delight and mirth momentarily at her tease of not daring to let that happen to a boat. "To our future endeavors and stories then, Isabella. May the prove fruitful and not filled with sharp teeth." Out his tumbler comes to offer to clink it to hers before Yule settles back, "I am very responsible, and sometimes a gentleman," He gives as way of correcting her surmise of his continued life, that broader smile confirming that he can be, indeed, awful and revel in it, in that teasing sort of fashion. "Comments about faces? Is certainly a third dinner sort of conversation." He concludes, a look of pure innocence creasing his features for a heartbeat before those features fall into their more generally calm, composed set.

"If wanting to try everything once, and sampling the joys one find in life make me a hedonist? Guilty as charged. The trick to it all, however, is knowing when to stop. Enjoying just a bite, not the whole plate, both literally and proverbially depending upon what one speaks. My reputation is best encountered first hand, because it?" Certain. A challenge, even, though one that she has already met, realized or not, all to his approval. "Depends all on the questions one dares to ask of me. If I am reserved to others, it is because they are shy, fearful, reserved themselves in what they want to inquire about to me. I tend to be quite open about what questions I'll answer... and am equally pointed in the questions I give back, once I am intrigued. Your adventurous spirit has gotten you to what you now understand of me. Which brings us to," It's the way his chin tucks down, those eyes narrowing a smidge, as if able to see right past the words she speaks, the ones she leaves out, pieces clicking together in that always working mind.

"You. Selling yourself short. You will not dissuade me otherwise, yeah? Yes, everything you spoke is true, but it is only one half of it. You are passionate. You care about Alexander greatly. You harbor concerns for his welfare, and would do much within your power to help keep him safe. Your inquisitive, adventurous nature helps to expand his horizons, getting him out of his comfort zone but in ways that he feels it is worth it, a testament to how he sees you, and how you treat him." It's that tap to his foot that is returned in kind, one brow arching upwards in a dare to correct anything he's put together thus far about his understanding of the pair, not that it slows him down from his reasoning. "And while relationships are difficult, complex things... you are latched onto the wrong one. You find tangled webs when the truth is it is merely a straight line. He's had a life of people thinking him overly paranoid. Weird. Had I lived through what he had in school?" It's just a small shake of his head, a faint frown in retrospect for /his/ own lack of reaching out to Alexander, way back then, knowing what one knows now. "I wouldn't want to make the first move either. But that doesn't mean he wants to respond to everyone who bothers to initiate a potential romantic interest with him."

A sip of his scotch comes, and as he savors it, those brown eyes close, a sanguine smile curling to his features, "I've had a lot of dumpster fires of relationships with past girlfriends. Especially the last several years after," That thought isn't finished. She can put two and two together, those brown eyes opening to rivet right on her own gaze, holding it steady, for this? Is the one truth that he knows, to share with her now. "The universal secret of a good relationship? Is the same for keeping two as it is for maintaining one. It's communication. Healthy communication. Venting, discussing the highs, the lows. All of those thoughts - whatever they are - that I can see percolating to the surface of your mind as we talk? You should discuss them with him. And the second universal secret? Is trust. A topic that is at once so extremely complex and difficult, and yet, down right simple." Yule is all too happy for that conundrum, the unapologetic smile that creases his features making no amends for that potentially conflicting point of view.

"Who knows how trust builds between individuals. So many doubts, questions, jealousies," That has a finger extending from his tumbler, giving a point right towards her. "and yet? Your choice is so simple. If you let all of those things rule your emotions and your thoughts, you'll never find real happiness in the relationship. It's a monument built upon crumbling, unstable earth that will not stand the test of time to be witnessed by future generations. Or? You can have faith. Like our ancestors of old in their myriad of mythologies, like many today have in the Devil and God. You can place your trust in the relationship, to believe what he tells you. Yeah, it might bite you in the ass at some point. It could end in spectacular fireworks. But someone that I have come to admire," Not even a batting of eyes, or a look of shame at using her own words in such a way, "said the fact we keep trying is a good sign. Would you rather have three years of great memories, of someone who touched your life in the best way possible, even if it hurts in the end? Or would you rather have fifteen years of doubting misery, a small trickle of continual torment that haunts you until the end." And in that? One can see that weight of years on him briefly, of so many experiences in both the good and the bad that comes from having lived through both of those examples, in his own way.

"As for me? Let us define what is meant, so that we are on even playing ground, yes? Casual is merely an interest in sex. A fleeting thing, or a reoccurring thing, but with little regard for getting to know the person, to become emotionally invested in them. In some ways? I am that old fashioned gentleman, if but for selfish reasons. Sex waits for the third or fourth time, at the earliest. My mind has to be engaged, my spirit, and I find discovering someone on those levels is what is truly exciting. Be it a shared love of long car rides to the middle of nowhere, of spanish poetry, or of unsolved cases that are some of the most difficult puzzles to solve. And I try to follow my own advice. I know that the ones I'm currently in? I have no idea how they could end up in happily ever afters," Comes his admittance, a ghost of a smile curling to his features, "I hope to be surprised. But each has their challenges, yeah? But I thoroughly enjoy my time with them, communicate clearly as I can, and hide nothing. Still ups and downs, but, that's just life."

"Coffee, elsewhere." Comes his sure response, "At least for me. I'm as picky with it as I am my scotch." In truth, he's as picky with everything as he is with his scotch, but it doesn't dissuade him from buying coffee for her, if she wants it. "But if you'd like? Feel free. As for my difficulties," A low breath comes out, his glass put down on the table, "There is a difference in being self aware of your flaws, and being able to control them. How many people have knowingly witnessed their own destruction, and been unable to stop it, hmm?" That tumbler is slowly turned in place, letting the remnants of his amber liquid swirl with it, "Work we've already discussed. I have a tendency to poke and pry without remorse, and it never relents. I was at a gala recently, and we received a tarot reading," Yes, the man of science is clearly intrigued by the cards, given his tone, the small aside of a story to further it, "for my desire? The card flipped over was of peace and perspective. A darkness within that could consume me if I let it. There is truth to that, in my line of work, in where my thoughts often dwell, and sometimes? It's harder to deal with than others in the fears it manifests." Those specifics aren't spoken about, with only one last addendum, coming even softer, "And in Gray Harbor, with Dreams? I think it's going to be even harder to manage."

There's an exaggerated gasp; it sounds very much like a how dare you. She even lifts her hand to grasp at her moonstone pendant, because she does not have actual pearls to clutch. "Would I be the sort of person who would do that, good doctor?" Isabella wonders with wide eyes. "The kind that would provoke?" Clearly all drama and artifice when her smile turns back up immediately after that, brows lifting as she relinquishes her hold on that precious jewelry, especially when he claims that to be wonderful. There's a mildly exasperated tip of her head backwards against the seat, to direct a flash of amusement towards the ceiling, before she settles in to listen.

"I wouldn't call the Veil static. If nothing else, it's very much alive. For all I know it's an entirely different dimension that encompasses the world, and may have been there since the earliest human beings. I suspect that there's some symbiotic relationship between the two, and what happens in one might be affecting the other in some way. No evidence there just yet, at the moment, but I'll have some data to share soon - a couple of weeks." There's a faint smile. "I'm as reckless as any explorer, but any endeavor on that end is a dangerous one and I'll have people with me. It would be fine if I was by myself - not so much so with others." Her eyes hood. "But I didn't consider that - what other things that the Veil may have inspired, or was, in the past. I'm not convinced the entirety of the Veil is a fraught horrorscape also. Like this world, it has its good parts and the bad." She takes another contemplative sip of her scotch. "Though I wouldn't consider it anywhere close to the biblical Eden, though it would be interesting if the Veil inspired that, too." Her smile curls upwards. "I wonder if it'll have the Tree."

He mentions the lost library of Alexandria and she grins there, broad enough to push out the normally hidden dimple on her left cheek. "I have no doubt that a library could be found in the Veil, there are areas there that are fond of bureaucracy so records are at least organized and catalogued. But you might have to be prepared to come away with a devastating infirmity if you attempt to read any of them." Judging by the look on her face, it's clear that the archaeologist, being her typical self, had dared, and paid the price for it. That is a story, perhaps, for another time because she's moving on with a toast, taking in his opinions about crazy and weird in good stride - those pass without comment, she had only asked for his opinion on that after all. Her glass hits his with a crystalline ping. "Only sometimes?" she wonders with a laugh. "Well, I suppose if you were perfect, then you'd be ridiculously boring and we wouldn't have much to say to one another at all. I don't know if there'll be any other Jell-O auction events for charity in the next few weeks to justify a third dinner, not to mention the fact that I'm a working academic and I'm not all that liquid, but I can always donate my blood to your experimentations in exchange for them."

Views on moderation aside, she takes another drink of her scotch. "Everything in moderation, then," she observes. "I don't know if I've ever subscribed to that - or at least, not yet. But I'm young and stubborn and I'm sure that'll bite me in the back end eventually. There are some lessons worth learning the hard way." A creature of extremes - either all in or nothing at all, applied to various aspects of her tangled life...and that probably won't change either. People don't really change. "And if questions are a barometer of the depth and complexity of your interactions with others, I hope you're prepared for a deluge of them, though..." Another one of her more open grins. "...certainly all of them wouldn't fit a single encounter. And I am serious about saving yourself in any ill-advised attempts to christen your hypothetical boat without expert guidance." Her brows lift and waggle at that.

He turns the conversation back to her and she groans comically; even lets her head hang limply at the back of her chair. "Perhaps not, my good doctor, but that won't necessarily stop me from trying to," she grouses good-naturedly, cracking a single eye open at him at the angle of her head, nothing more, at the moment, but a glittering verdant crescent. And part of her almost does it - to outline every single misstep she has made since she decided to pursue it, a very determined creature in the best of times even in this, because of course she would chase it. There is no frustration, however; her dinner companion does not have the full picture, and like the scientist he is, can only form logical conclusions based on the data that she presents to him. And whether he intends for it or not, his attempts at reassurance softens her aura. "You're generous too, Yule," she observes at the end of it, quietly and with a warmer smile that is softer than its usual bent. It unfairly pairs well with her eyes. "Even to one that you're just starting to get to know. For all that you're just rekindling your acquaintanceship with him, it seems that you hold him in some esteem. Sometimes I wish he recognized that, more. Compared to what I've heard growing up to what I know now, he's different now from how he was then...and I think for the better. But that is something that he'll have to conclude for himself. There's only so much external factors can influence." Especially in his case.

There's a contemplative taste of her scotch, the tip of her tongue absently touching the glass; he'd get the impression, however brief, that she has sunk inward within herself, turning his observations over with mental fingers and inspecting them from every angle. Ultimately, it's not something she ought to reflect on when in the presence of company, so she sets it aside. But the moment she steps back into the present, his eyes are on hers and speaking seriously about communication. There's a wry twist to her mouth there, tipping the tumbler against her lips for another savoring pull. "Easier said than done," she tells him simply. "He's avoidant and I'm not all that forthcoming, either, when it comes to my own unless anger or desperation spurs it out of me. Not to say you aren't correct in your assertions - I've no doubt in my mind that you're absolutely correct on that, but it's certainly a challenge to try and fit one's broken pieces to another." She rotates the glass in her hand. "The Japanese call it wabi-sabi. The recognition of the beauty of transience and imperfection - the philosophical principle behind kintsugi." Fitting broken pieces of pottery with gold or some kind of metal, she's learned enough about ceramic and stonework throughout her career. "I suppose that should have been my first indicator all of that requires a certain art to it and I'm absolutely devoid of artistic ability."

She pays rapt attention to what he says about trust; she has her own notions about it but it is more fascinating to her, at the moment, to hear how another views the conundrum looking from the outside. "Don't get me wrong," she tells him in the end. "I do trust him - he's unfailingly honest even if he's secretive." Something twists at her stomach there, remembering the last few days. "He's never given me any cause to distrust him on that end, I recognize fully that the jealousy and the doubts are all internal and all caused by me, and not really anything he has ever done. These are my issues, not his, and I wish that there was an easy way to..." She waves a hand. "Insulate him from all of that. Protect him from the worst parts of myself, but something tells me that he wouldn't appreciate that, either and it would be hypocritical, at this point, to demand it from him and withhold it on my end." Her eyes fall on the tumbler in her hand. "I'm an archaeologist, Yule. My entire career is a huge and devastating reminder than nothing lasts forever. But I'm driven, and I'm stubborn, and I'm madly, ardently, furiously, frustratedly, aggravatingly in love him. He is the first, and knowing how I am and how absurdly recalcitrant and picky and decisive I am, he might very well be the only and some part of me is terrified of the possibility that he is. I might not love him well, and I may be incapable of that, but..." She sighs. "Obviously it hasn't stopped me from trying. And to try to hold onto it for as long as I can." His shameless use of her own words back at her though gets a lift of her eyes, frustration and unease slipping away, scorched to ash - at least briefly - by the smile she spears into him. "I see what you did there, though. That's how it's going to be, hm?"

It's the weight that catches her attention there; he isn't telling her anything she doesn't already know, however she acts that she doesn't out of instinct and inexperience - she finds it difficult to divorce herself from her passions, also, just as inherent to her makeup as blood and bone, especially when she's riled and thus blind to everything but her feelings and wounds. But away from such a volatile state, other things are clearer to her and the burden of experience, or how he managed to secure it in the first place, solidifies itself like a boulder, pressing on the portrait of him that she is painting within the expansive galleries of her. Fifteen years of doubting misery - the exact number is enough to tell her, with her usual temerity, that had happened to him personally and while her face is too expressive to hide the fact that she catches onto it, she doesn't pry. There is sympathy, instead. She knows the kind of hole that implies, though the shape of it is different. Her hand nearly reaches out then, to rest on top of his nearest set of knuckles, but it manages to keep by her plate.

She seems ready to leave all of that behind, however, pushing the subject aside in favor of the next. "So my next question is how you managed to keep anything casual at all when you place such an intense emphasis on intimacy of a different kind," she observes. "Though I acknowledge that perhaps it hasn't always been that way, considering the track you took in college - not to mention being a scholarship student comes with its own set of exorbitant pressures." And she would know, she funded her schooling with scholarships. "But if that's the case, if this was an epiphany that you reached later in life, what triggered it?" She tilts her head at him, somewhat bird-like in her mannerisms there, wondering eyes cast over his darker features. "As for the relationships you're currently in, nobody would ever judge you, I don't think, if you simply just enjoyed them. The holes torn out of us aren't easily mended, especially in the manner you spoke of earlier. They may never be repaired but that doesn't mean you can't fill them with something else in the interim before you're inclined to patch them up."

Coffee, elsewhere, he says, and she lifts a hand to signal the server, then. "Let's do that, then," she tells him, eyeing the state of the snow easily glimpsed out the windows of the restaurant. "We can use the warmth, I hear it's going to be record inches this year - meteorology can be inaccurate, but I have no doubt that Gray Harbor'll be buried before long." Impish eyes fall across the table at him. "You know, the deal was for dinner. I think it's only equitable if I pick up the tab for coffee." She takes another swallow of her scotch. It's almost done, listening intently when he outlines his thoughts on his own flaws and failings. "The difference between knowing and understanding can be an entire gulf," she observes. "Intelligence versus wisdom, I suppose. Or even just the simple willingness to change." She's unable to hide her surprise when he mentions a tarot reading at a gala - but really, should she be? He might be a man of science, but considering his interest in the supernatural, a fascination for divination isn't wholly beyond unexpected. "You're surrounded by death every day, Yule," she points out quietly. "And you've sought out a position, deliberately, to be planted right in the middle of it - not to preempt it, even, but to mitigate the damage it causes, in a way. By the time the bodies get to you, it's too late to do anything about them. That'll carry something, whether anyone wants it or not - the human heart can only be so burdened. But I think that's how it can swallow you, if you're not careful. The work. Despair is...without the right buffers, you can drown in it. And while it might sound trite from someone you're just starting to get to know, I hope that doesn't happen to you, and if I can help prevent it, I would. You needn't but ask."

With that said, she smiles faintly. "Shall we get that coffee?"

It's an ever so satisfied smile that graces his mouth at that reaction, as faux as it is, that he garners from the woman. Back he lounges, the glass held up, the roll of her eyes in amusement only creating an air of casual ease within the man he considers the liquid, letting his thoughts turn to the nature of the Veil. "Questions for another day, I think, upon that subject. It deserves it's own whole slew of time dedicated to the topic. Perhaps one day we shall know enough of the nature of /us/, that we can delve into the history of the place over there, the Jean-François Champollion and Karl Richard Lepsius, so to speak, of our times, albeit with better foresight of preservation and safety, or so we shall hope." It's a tap of a finger against the glass as he considers those books she had found, and there is a sharpening of all of his features, a silent commitment that yes, that? Is a story he'll have from her one day, but not tonight.

"Yeah? No more Jell-O auctions that I'm aware of, no. But truly, I'll keep an eye out for other worthy charities to submit my name towards, offering up my seldom free evenings for the betterment of causes of which I approve. Which means," His head tips, eyes drifting down to that dimple when it makes its rare appearance. It's an attentive thing, the man's aura, at once soaking in every minutia he can manage while seeking to put the other at ease, to get every last bit of conversation and thoughts he might that would be well guarded. "I have to endeavor to make sure you get the most out of your diner, so you will share with others how wonderful it was, so that even more can be raised next time. Far be it from me to leave a lady disappointed." Up that glass comes, draining away the last of his scotch before it finds its place upon the table, a single finger sliding it away and towards the middle in a show that he shall not have another. "Furthermore, it warrants upon you a responsibility to convince me to be friends, so that we might have dinner, or lunch, or a venture into the depths of the unknown to have further conversations, no bidding required."

It's a moment of pause as Yule pulls out his wallet, and it is cash that is used to pay as the waitress slides the ticket towards him. It's looked at, the quick math needed for a healthy tip, and once the bills are laid down, he leans forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Between you and me, yeah? Two secrets. One? You are well on your way towards that," Friendship, that is, a ghost of a smile flashed her way as those brown eyes have richer flecks that catch the light. "Second? I wouldn't go so far as to say /everything/ in moderation. In people, in particular? I find I can quite easily lose myself. Work as well. So, let us just say, for me? Moderation in food." His head dips, a few of those unruly locks of hair slipping against a cheek, all to accept that offer to assist with the boat.

"A combination of things, and generous implies purely altruistic motives. Some of them are," He'll admit, doing nothing to dissuade her from thinking he is, at the heart of it, purely a selfish being. "But some of them are for me. Sins of the past. I wasn't one of the ones who picked on him in school, but nor did I do anything to stop it, or to reach out. Connections. It's good having someone that understands the things that are out there, and is willing to share, and can keep up on an intellectual level. While Alexander and I might have differing perspectives on the use of our Talents, and other things, that? Is far more refreshing rather than challenging." It's then that he slips out of his side of the booth, his long, navy blue coat pulled out and slid on over his outfit to help ward away the coming cold that heralds the snow storm that is supposed to land the following day. It's a methodical means, every motion accounted for as he dons it, before his focus goes back towards her. "I hope," He murmurs, one dark brow arching upwards with meaning, "That we all are different from how we were, back then."

"Imperfecciones perfectas," Comes the roll of Spanish from his tongue, a warm rumble of laughter coming from him as she speaks of it all being easier said than done, the difficulties of relationship, of her own issues. "I cling to to my imperfections, as the very essence of my being," He quotes of Anatole France, one shoulder lifting up into a hapless shrug. "Don't hide them. Put them out for him to see. Because in the end? If he doesn't want to accept the bad with the good - and the same for you - then you aren't worthy of one another. And I fully believe that he - and you - deserve the chance to be believed in, because it's his decision to make about you, and vice versa. I don't think he'll disappoint you, Isabella." It's that example she gives, those little tidbits of trivia that the man so truly adores and loves that are filed away for future remembrance that has him contemplating it all, before he says, "In saying it's a challenge to fit both of your broken pieces together, you overlook one important aspect. The sum? Is greater than the parts. It's not forcing those pieces together.. it's building new pieces, together, that are both of you, to bridge the gap between incomplete parts."

"It is," He says, all with a firm, unwavering tone as she turns that playful smile towards him as he uses her own thoughts against him, "And we? Don't believe in fate, remember? So it is ridiculous to subscribe to the notion that in this whole world, there is only one person for you. That is simply borrowing trouble you don't need. Which doesn't mean," Up a hand lifts, a single finger extending skywards in a just a moment gesture, "that you both might not live happily ever after, each the love of your respective lives, and the only one you know. But I would be in dire straights in my life, should I think with all of my own difficulties, that love should strike only once, that a true chance to spend it with The One is what we are meant for. My chance? Would have already lapsed, and I should simply toss in the towel, hmm?"

Hands thrust into his pocket, ready to depart with her, all in a slow walk towards the door, just as that conversation leads him naturally to the answer of the questions she asks of epiphanies and means of things being casual. "I don't. I don' town much. What I do? All has a point, a purpose, a need it fills in my life, from my trailer to my car to my espresso machine. And I am picky about what I let fill those voids. It's the same with people. I'm with Alexander... in both cases? They pursued me, took the initiative of the first step. Even if it took a bit of ribbing with one." That draws a devious smile to his features, "I don't have time for people who don't want to /know/ me, don't add value to my life. Yeah, a shitty thing to say, I'm sure. But I want to get something out of the relationships I maintain - intimate, friends, or otherwise - rather than just... having it because of some unspoken rule that you have to have them. Loss," He murmurs, his voice dropping a touch as he reaches the door, giving a sidelong glance towards Isabella, "Is a great reminder of how fleeting things are. It was when I lost my fiancee, after grappling with that void that I knew I wouldn't have traded all that heartache away, because it'd have meant giving up all the great memories we had. Give me emotional and intellectual investment any day of the week over transient, fleeting pleasures of lust or material goods that add no meaning to my life."

"I like the scars. Not the holes," He murmurs, as to those past voids and wounds of relationships and love, "Mended, yes. But I'll keep my imperfections they have left me with. Never to be filled, only to be added to." His lips purse, listening to her own thoughts about that tarot reading, of his work and its implications. His head dips into a faint nod, an indication she isn't all that far off in some ways, more gaps of information to fill and connect the pieces. But that? "I think fears and darkness is too weighty for a first diner. Especially when it leads into morbid thoughts best left to another time." Once outside, his eyes glance around. Coffee? Yes, indeed, it is just a matter of how. "I haven't the foggiest what is around here immediately that has good coffee. I'm happy to drive if we need it, or to meet you there if you've your own ride."

"Yep. Questions for another day. And preferably a day when we're completely, utterly sober." Isabella wiggles her tumbler towards him with a smile. "Alcohol is conducive to conversation but not so much the exercise of picking apart theoretical concepts of things that exist beyond the mortal ken." The sharpened look delivered to her upon what she says about records in the Veil earns him a smile, and no small measure of delight in baiting his curiosity, comfortable in her tendency to be a provocateur, and true to her relatively shameless nature, she doesn't seem to hold much shame in that also. She knows she is.

"As for spreading the word as to how an excellent dinner companion you are, you needn't worry there, I'll happily spread the word," she teases him with a laugh. "Admittedly I've been told many times that I have unusual taste in companions. The masses might turn skeptical eyes and ears to what I might say about it, spending an evening with 'Spooky' Duchannes." Mischief returns flush on her mouth, the curve of it sharp but well-meant. "And I'm sure my tastes are suspect now also considering..." She gestures to the side vaguely, as if to point at all of the last few minutes. "But convincing you to embark on a potentially ill-advised friendship with me is a challenge I'm rather enthused in taking, though once I get going, you might not wish you invited me to do so." There doesn't seem to be any real fear there, when mirth plays so freely across her expression. "Caveat emptor, dear doctor. But to confirm a question that isn't really a question, this lady is far from disappointed. This was great, Yule."

The bill paid, as he leans forward, she tilts her head in his direction, to better hear his quiet conspiracy, but what he says puts another one of those flashfire grins on her. "Your secret is safe with me," she tells him gamely. "And I wouldn't harangue you much there, your lack of moderation with people. People and how they live their lives are interesting to me, too." She reaches out, though not to touch him, her index poking the air lightly at his angled temple. "And how they think. Not to peek into their heads, exactly, but opinions, viewpoints and how they approach something complicated. It isn't just because I'm nosy - I've been a learner all my life, and I'm always willing to learn from others, especially those with considerable more experience than I do. Even with life. Though I'm not going to lie...your science is very interesting."

Sins of the past, he says, bearing those quiet hints of regret, now that he is older and knows better. "You've nothing to atone for," she tells him. "Both of you were young and by his admission, he didn't exactly make himself all that easy to approach, nor to be friends with. There's nothing to fix, from my perspective, but there is something to build upon and I think you recognize that, yourself, so I'm not going to insult your intelligence by opining on it in depth." She rises in time with him, so she can take her shorter, more casual jacket and shrug it on; the battered and obviously well-loved thing has seen almost as much travel with her as her moonstone pendant has, and it settles on her like a comfortable second skin. She drapes her scarf around her neck at that, and digs out her large knit cap, pulling it over her hair and leaving dark, tousled wisps to frame her face. His quiet murmur draws a subtler smile. "I hope so, too. Human beings aren't meant to be static, either," she says quietly.

"I'm most definitely not disappointed, though he might think that inevitable," she says, lifting her fingers, as if she could physically dissuade him from treading that path. "If anything it might be that I'm too much for him - too temperamental, or perhaps too inexperienced or emotionally selfish to meet the challenges he presents with any amount of grace." She certainly wasn't graceful the last two weeks; she's nothing like August, or even Yule, himself - men who have been through the gamut of different and complex interpersonal relationships that they can speak of them as if they are masters of those perilous terrains. "And while I don't believe in fate, I believe in myself...and I know myself well." For the first time this evening, those emerald eyes shot with gold wander away from his dark-eyed look, turning to the snowfall outside and how it drifts against the distant windows. "It isn't because I believe in the existence of the One. The one person, the one love." After a moment, she looks back at him, and while the twist of her mouth is rueful, her eyes are melancholy - resigned in the knowledge of a specific, stubborn and personal constant. "I don't know how to let go, Yule." The words are soft. "I never have."

It isn't to say that she would ever imprison Alexander in a basement if he ever wanted to leave; from her perspective, she would be trapped, and he would be free. And somehow that alternative is acceptable to her, so long as he was happy - words that she would probably never say. "And I think I'm not...I'm many things. I just don't think it'd be justifiable to know that about myself, and have some poor soul go against that tendency. It wouldn't be fair." She angles her head towards him, canted diagonally, a feline smile angled up to his comely profile as they move for the door. "Your odds are better than mine, really." And the acknowledgment of the fact is said with nothing but a warm, and sincere hope that he finds what he is looking for; she doesn't seem particularly fussed if she doesn't. "You have the experience to navigate missteps before you even start - but if you're looking, I hope you find it. And if not, I hope that you at least have plenty of fun in the attempt."

With his hand on the door, she waits for it to open and when it does, she steps through, listening even while she tilts her head back and watches the snowfall cascade around them, flurries catching on the length of dark lashes, melting into dew the moment they find her cheek. "I'm never one to hold back in going after what I want," she tells him with a laugh, brows arching as she looks at him. "And wholly investing whatever's left of my body and soul once I realize what it is I want, no matter what that means for me, even if I can't see the bottom of the pool. Rejection was never much of a hurdle, so long as it's made clear. I never feared that, or the pain that could bring, or what could follow, so long as I got to experience it. In many ways, I think you and I are very much alike there. For all I know, we could be kindred, and it took a Jell-O wrestling match for charity to discover one another." Her grin resurfaces. "And considering what you do for a living, I'll take that over whatever other ghastly alternative is there. All of what you said is reasonable, and I can't find any fault in it." As she said earlier, she is ridiculously picky. "It seems to me that you're fully aware of what it is that you want, also. You're fortunate there, too. There are those who've lived whole lifetimes without knowing what that is."

Regarding the coffee, she laughs. "I was responsible and took an Uber," she tells him. "I knew I was going to have a few drinks, so if you're okay to drive, we can hit Espresso Yourself and I'll sort out my ride home from there." She waits for him to lead the way, before she follows, falling into a companionable step next to him as their twin shadows cut through the snow; it seems that she is respecting what he says about the rest of it - fears and darkness being too weighty for a first dinner, taking it as a sign, as with the rest, that this wouldn't be their last.

"And when we get there, you can oblige me by answering a few other questions - like whether you cheat at Jenga."