2020-07-28 - Free Wi-Fi!

Writing a blog post on a cell phone is not the most efficient way of going about things, but when one lives in a backpack and a tote bag, lugging a laptop around is just a way to ask somebody to steal it. Hence, Ravn endures typing one letter at a time and quietly wishing murder and mayhem on Autocorrect. The only nice thing the Dane has to say about this morning is that at least the coffee is good -- if American. Anyone looking over his shoulder wouldn't be much wiser; it's a Wordpress graphical interface, that much is obvious, but the lettering is decidedly foreign -- a's with little bubbles over them, slashed o's and combined ae's. Ravn frowns as he writes, and in doing so, achieves a resemblance to stereotypical tortured poet that would have made him proud, had he but been aware of it. He does look the part; thin, pale, and all dressed in black.

The writer frowns a lot, and tabs out every so often to check something on Wikipedia or Google. Sometimes he backspaces, and sometimes he just shakes his head as if whatever thoughts he is dismissing were simply too ridiculous. Every so often he glances at the front page of a local newspaper lying on the table, and once or twice he turns a page in it, not really looking at it. And quite often, one gloved hand picks up a small packet of powdered sugar and toys with it as if it was some new and shiny acquisition that he can simply not leave alone for a moment.

Lyric doesn't computer so any thing on the screen would more than likely be lost on her. She phones though! It's there, sticking out of the back pocket of her jeans. Entering quietly, she goes to the counter to place an order. "Yeahhh," she says after being asked. "I want a strawberry smoothie and a.." the display of pastries catches her eye but she dismisses it and shakes her head, "Just that." The money is given, all coins, as she pays for the smoothie then turns around to see who all is there that she can bug today.

Oooh, a somewhat familiar face, but he was frowning and kinda grumpy looking. With a sly grin, she motions towards the table there for the staff to know she was going there. Then she does! Flouncing over, she slides into a seat without preamble, a cheerful grin on her features. "Good morning." Or whatever time of the day it is! "You look kinda crunchy this morning. Did you have a bad Dream?" A quick look over him to make sure he was fine and unharmed. "Sorry I had to go yesterday so fast."

The Dane looks up at being addressed and practically beams -- he clearly is more than a little relieved to be interrupted in whatever he was doing. "Hey there! I slept fine, but I'm still trying to wrap my brain around some of the things I saw and heard yesterday. How are you?"

He is in one piece at least, and fairly recently shaved -- it's hard to tell if the scruff on his chin is an oversight or a deliberate affair. From the darkness around his eyes though he could have done with an hour or two more asleep but he's hardly pushing the midnight oil. Sleeping rough, perhaps, or more likely from the looks of him, having spent most of the night having a one-way conversation with somebody's ceiling.

"Oh I'm doing super good, thank you for askin'." Lyric drops her eyes to the beam and can't help but to respond in kind. "What did you see and hear? Maybe I can help you? I never got to answer about the shiny thing but yeah. Just be careful of Dreams. Bad dreams. Never automatically assume they're not really happening."

Today she's wearing jeans again, but the shirt is a different one. It looks to be black, from what can be seen beneath the hoodie she wears over it. The hoodie is My Chemical Romance and seems worn more for comfort than fashion by any means. With a critical eye cast over him, she observes aloud, "You look kinda sleepy still. You sure you didn't have any bad dreams?"

Ravn shakes his head and grins slightly. "Just spent the night thinking. I'm the kind of guy who overthinks things." He puts the cell phone, pink cover and all, down and leans back on his chair. "You know, I think I didn't even catch your name in passing -- went home thinking of you as the girl with the white hair."

It's possible he owns more than one turtleneck in black. He doesn't smell, so it's even likely. But it certainly looks similar.

"I think it was mostly the... thing. With the sugar packet. Though that was after you left, I think. I have this hustle I've used every once in a while, when money got tight for some reason. The other lady -- Vic -- asked me about it, and I sort of figured I'd show off a little." He grins sheepishly in a fashion that clearly indicates, hey, I'm male, a woman was watching me, ok. Then the foreigner frowns and looks at the sugar packet he is indeed still toying with, letting it wander over his gloved knuckles much like a stage magician might with a coin. "Anyhow, you know how it goes -- three cups, spin them around, where's the nut? Only in this case the nut was a sugar packet -- this one -- and she spotted it instantly. Never met anyone who could do that."

"Yeah you're Ravn, I think we did names but there was a lot going on. I'm Lyric Bates. Band name is Augmented Reality. But only because all the good names are taken." Lyric gives him a cheesy sort of smile when she gives him more information than he had asked for. "But you can call me the white haired girl and I'd probably answer anyway."

Ohh! Smoothie delivery! It deflects her attention from him however briefly and she gives the barista a tip.. of coins. When she goes back, Lyric dedicates her full attention back to him.

"Sugar packet?" Genuinely interested, she drops her eyes to the one in his hand and puzzles over it as he explains. Glancing back up, she notices the sheepish smile and a spark of interest finds her eyes, perhaps reading into the showing off for Vic thing. "That's not hard to do though," she grins, "Not to you know, diminish what she did. Or what you did. But it's not hard to see what is where. Not really. You could do it."

"It's not?" Ravn offers a small, crooked grin. "Funny you should say that -- because that woman is the only person ever who's managed to do it to me. I mean, I'm not David Copperfield but I'm not a complete amateur, either."

He catches the barista's attention for a moment too, asking for an Americano -- yes, half espresso, half hot water, no syrup, no whipped cream, no hazelnuts, no peppermint, nothing but pure caffeine and water, please. One could get the impression he's had a traumatic incident in a Starbucks at some point, judging from the seriousness with which he places that order.

Then Ravn looks back at White Haired Girl and chuckles. "She said something along the same lines too, though. People here just... Do things like that. I'm still not sure whether to believe you all."

"I could show you. I could even teach you." Lyric tucks her lower lip between her teeth as she contemplates that though. There's a surreptitious look around though, but she doesn't follow up on it as he places his own order with the barista. The rather deliberate order only has her shaking her head, "I think Mountain Dew has more caffeine." Cheesing another smile towards him as she tucks her straw into the smoothie and gives it a sip.

"Most of the people here do things like that. Sometimes I think that's what bring people who shine here. You shine a little, but I bet if you focused on it, you could make it brighter. But once you do, or if you get the attention of the wrong people, some bad things could happen. You don't have to believe us, you'll see and hear it soon enough." Lyric looks a touch rueful at the prediction, but she doesn't retract it.

"You didn't have time to answer that yesterday," Ravn notes, looking after the barista as she wanders off. "What do you mean, people who shine? I think I asked if it was an R.E.M. joke, but it's obviously not."

Then he returns his gaze to Lyric's face, steel grey eyes studying her -- quite likely to determine whether she's taking the piss, as a Brit might say. He seems to decide, eventually, that she is not. "How does that even work? Half this town is psychic, or something? I mean, no offence, but that sounds like a very bad Hollywood movie."

"I didn't get to answer it. I don't mean like.. I don't know. Maybe you could see it in me, if you looked closer. Most people with it can see it in others and mine is super strong. Maybe you'd see it in me and know what I am talking about. Yours is a little dimmer." A lot dimmer. "But it's there." Lyric struggles to explain, finally resigning herself to a loss of words for it.

"Not psychic, really. It's different than that. Deeper than that. Some people are really good at mending people up. Some are good at sending and receiving thoughts with their minds. Others are good at seeing things, or you know, doing things. Moving things." With a brief look around, she doesn't see anyone looking, so she lifts her straw up out of her smoothie and lets the striped tube hover there before lowering it back in. WIthout touching it. A shrug follows. "You could do that."

Ravn watches the straw hover. Silently. Unblinkingly.

After a few moments he cedes, "That's... hard to argue with."

After another few moments, he gets around to, "I never realised anyone else could do things like that. And certainly not so... casually."

The barista wanders back with his requested hot beverage and Ravn looks at her in an almost grateful fashion, accepting it and cradling the cup because it is normal, it's made of cheap porcelain, it's hard and solid and turning hot from its contents, and it's not in any fashion supernatural.

"I've always... I guess I always figured it wasn't me. That it was some kind of... thing. That followed me around. And sometimes does things if I want it to. I feel a little... stupid now," he murmurs lamely.

Lyric is as empathetic as the next girl and his hesitation as he speaks alerts her that maybe she had done too much too quick and rocked his world a little. A hand is reached a towards him before she withdraws it as the barista returns. She patiently awaits the departure before she begins speaking again.

"So you have felt it." Glad for the realization he makes. "Please don't feel stupid, there's no reason for you to think you got something like that. Just please, be careful with it. The connection between this world and that seems super thin here and that can be dangerous. The dreams are the worst. Not dreams but Dreams." She studies his features, tries to find and meet those steely eyes of his. "If you get hurt in the Dreams, you get hurt in real life. Will you take my number though, in case you got any questions or anything?"

Ravn picks up his cell phone and slides it across the table. "I think I'd like that. Didn't manage to catch that last night, either -- those two people, the lady and the tattooed fellow, there was a lot going on unsaid between them. Couldn't help feel like I was being evaluated, somehow."

He cradles the coffee in his slender, gloved hands and looks thoughtful. "Is that why people are... like that? I mean, if everybody here can do... things. It's the place? Some sort of... I don't know, just feeling like I ought to be staying for a while, and everyone keeps telling me that, yes, I will be, pretty much whether I want to or not. And you're not making dreams sound like some kind of hallucination, either. Woman last night made it sound like how the Celtic peoples talk about the faerie realms -- you can walk into another world more or less by accident. Is it... something like that?"

The Dane is obviously trying to wrap his head around things. It's just that things(tm) sound like the premise of a questionable American TV-series, the kind in which the coloured guy dies first, and then it's the pretty girl who decided to have sex. In the end only the average, easy to identify with white guy is standing, and there's probably a lot of bodies.

Reaching for the cell phone, Lyric taps out her digits into it and saves it beneath the name Lyric for him. Then with a smile of pure mischief she snaps a selfie (with the requisite peace sign) and assigns that photo to her contact information. It doesn't take terribly long before she slides it back across to him and she takes out her own phone, just placing it on the table without glancing at it. "Can you shoot out a text so I'll have yours too?"

With a thoughtful expression she considers his question and picks through the response carefully. "I think people like us are drawn here cause of what we are. This place brings us, because of what it is. Vic is right. You can go into the other world. It's dangerous there. It can sometimes be funny there, but it's always dangerous. You can even get lost in there. The sawmill is a place people go in or out sometimes. I can open a door to that place. Or from that place. Who was there with Vic? That tattooed person you said?

"Some burly, Spanish-speaking bloke with tattoos, yes. From the way the two of them were glaring at each other, I'm going to wager that they were married or they're going to get married. He didn't say his name, I don't think, but from the way he reacted to me mentioning an idiot trucker in a red MAGA cap, I'm thinking he wasn't native born either. " Ravn smiles vaguely; perhaps it's a far safer thing to contemplate, whether Spanish speaking fellows and hard-eyed brunettes get together, than whether one is actually, literally sitting a kilometer or two from the thing one dedicated a decade in University to study.

The folklorist in the man wins out, of course and he looks back at Lyric with those intense, grey eyes. "The Irish would certainly advise against going out to visit the faerie," he murmurs. "Where I'm from, we have a ton of stories about people who are lured away or seduced by supernatural entities too. They do come back, usually, but there's always something wrong with them, or it turns out they've been gone for centuries. Is that why people keep warning me against the sawmill? It's literally some kind of gateway?"

The tone of his voice is still a strange mix of this is one big, fat joke, isn't it and except it's not but I should probably be smoking peyote if I wanted to make sense of all of this.

"Spanish speaking. Did he drink tequila?" It's the only burly tattooed Spanish speaking person she knew that hung out in Two if By Sea. Lips twist into an amused sort of grin at the mention of the trucker in the MAGA cap. "If it's the Captain, then I'd say no, he's not gonna marry the bartender. He's already got a boyfriend who I think wouldn't be too happy about that. Remember Rosencrantz? The guy we mentioned yesterday. That's his boyfriend if it's the person I think it is. Ruiz de la Vega."

"People disappear from here all the time. It's what I meant when I said when people leave here a lot of the time it's involuntary. They go missing and are never heard from again. So it may be just the same thing." Lyric slides her phone back into her pocket, not one to mess with it when she's in the company of others, just for etiquettes sake. "I think it is. I fell into the veil before and then I had to find my way back out. I came out at the sawmill. Now I learned I can come out of an opening I make. And I can bring things with me out of there. I've got a shard of onyx and some other things."

His tone of voice equally alarms her and concerns her so Lyric ends up studying him a little more than she should, to try and gauge his true reaction to the info dump.

Ravn fiddles with his cell phone, eventually sending a gif message to the number that Lyric left for him; the familiar dog sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, eyes large and dark, saying Everything is fine.

"Shard of onyx? That sounds... Meso-American," Ravn says absently. "I might go look for some cold steel or iron, just in case. Never met a vætte that didn't shy away from cold iron. Never met a vætte, period. It's a little... unsettling. I know a lot of these stories but no one has ever suggested to me before that they're real, at least not anyone who didn't also bury rose quartz at the barn door and pay people on Facebook to teach them how to make dream catchers."

Then he snaps back into focus; one could get the impression that the Dane has a habit of thinking while letting his mouth ramble on of its own, distracting the audience. He studies Lyric again before asking, "What's it actually like? Fairyland?"

Her phone chimes but only after Ravn had done something with his phone. Lyric withdraws hers and checks the send since it was from him and there's a smile playing over her lips as she adds the contact info. Then yep! She snaps a photo of him without permission and saves the photo as the contact picture for the number. "Thanks," she murmurs before pocketing the phone again.

It's about then that she realizes she still has her smoothie and gives it attention as he rambles a little. With an indulgent look in her eyes when she lifts them to his again, she smiles. "Shadowy. It's shadows and the sky is mostly gray. Sometimes it's so bright and blue and vibrant. Sometimes stormy. It's like being in a dream. You can't create what you see, and it's never always the same. It's like a nightmarish world, definitely not like a fairyland. Unless it is that time. It's ever changing. It can be everything there. It can be nothing. There can be others you know and if you see them once you wake? They remember the dream too. It sucks people in. There are monsters. There is water, or lava, or greenery, or desert. It's all of these things."

Realizing she was the one rambling now, she shrugs, giving him a lopsided smile. "It's not a safe place."

"Actually, that does sound a lot like how people describe the faerie world, when people aren't Disney employees," Ravn murmurs. "Very individual. Changing. Fluid. Like a dreamscape, but in the terrible kind of way where your subconscious pulls up all the things you really wish you had actually forgotten. I've got to admit, I think I'd be a lot more comfortable reading about this than actually seeing it. Is there any way to avoid these... experiences? I mean, seeing as that getting on a fast bus out of town is apparently not really an option."

"Fluid. That's the best word for it." Lyric immediately jumps onto that word for the label since it makes the most sense. "It's best to read about it but the stronger your shine gets, the more likely you are to be drawn into one. You can get really hurt in them. Sometimes they are funny, like races that are kinda Mario Kart like. Those are so fun. Others.." she shudders and lowers her eyes before giving another nod. "You could leave, but you still have it inside of you. Even before you came here it was inside of you."

Refusing to stay in the moment of melancholy, Lyric puts on a more cheerful look. "What's your favorite song this week? One of them, I mean." Apparently hers changes depending on her mood. Or the week.

Ravn cants his head, still studying the white-haired girl with those steel grey eyes. "So you're actually saying that I should be glad I apparently shine like a plastic night lamp on a dying battery compared to more, ah, talented people, and make sure to stay that way, huh."

He shakes his head and goes along with the change of subject, perhaps with a trace of relief. "I've been humming Devil Went Down to Georgia all week for some reason. No one's offered me a fiddle of gold, though."

"No.. no not at all." Lyric's brow furrows slightly. "I could teach you things. Or someone else could. I'm not amazing at any of it or anything." After a sip of her smoothie, she stirs the contents with her straw before looking back at him again, the frown still there as she silently watches him for a moment. Finally, she says more on the matter. "I'd rather you know more so that you could protect yourself more if you were taken there, into the veil or a Dream." One and the same.

Letting the change of topic happen more fully, she gives another smile, perhaps slightly less beaming than previous. "It's a good song. Probably for the best there's no fiddle of gold though. Guess there'd have to be a devil with it, or something."

"Ah, but if there was, we could wager with him on it," Ravn grins. "If your band mate is as good as you say, I'd certainly be up for hearing that duel. Might learn a thing or two."

Alas, the sombreness of the situation cannot be dismissed by a few quick quips about golden fiddles and boys wagering they're the best as ever's been. He leans back on his chair, coffee forgotten, and steeples those slender, black-gloved fingers under his chin, looking Lyric up and down. The scrutiny is not unfriendly as such; it's just plainly evident that Ravn has a lot to take in, process, and decide what to do with. Given the topic of debate, perhaps that's not very surprising at all.

"Let's say I was to ask you to... teach me things," he says at length. "What would you suggest? You'll have to hold my hand a little here because I've never even talked to anyone about these things before I came to Gray Harbor. I've known, intellectually, that I'm obviously not the only man on the planet who claims he can bend spoons or swipe house keys out of people's pockets but... there's knowing, and there is knowing."

"Oh yeah for sure Itzhak would win. He's so excellent. I've never heard him make any mistakes. We duo things sometimes, like at Tibs." Lyric uses the shortened name of the bar before realizing. "I mean, Two if By Sea. We call it Tibs sometimes."

Under his scrutiny Lyric doesn't squirm or anything. She's a take her as she is or not kind of girl. Though she does take the opportunity to study him in return, that body language, the way he looks in silence and contemplation. There's an ever so slight lift of a corner of her lips as she openly regards him.

"The first thing I would say is there are people who are much better at things than I am and probably better at explaining things." With a brow waggle she teases, "I'm good at hand holding though." Back to the more solemnity of the moment though, she gives a slight nod of understanding. "It's a lot to take in, I know. I've known since I was like, five or six, so I've had a long time to get used to it and to learn."

"Heh. Yes. The only thing I knew at five or six was how to open the latch on the window in my room so I could run off and scare the heck out of my mother," Ravn replies with a chuckle. "It ticked her off to no end that she couldn't figure out how I did it, because I did it -- well, that way."

At first glance, the Dane just seems relaxed in general. When one looks closer, though, there are subtle hints that perhaps, this is a choice. That beneath, he's someone who pays a fair bit of attention to how he carries himself, what signals he sends. It may be a survival thing -- travelling on the road and accidentally sending out the wrong vibes can be quite dangerous. Might just be that he's a self-professed academic too -- one probably doesn't get a PhD in anything without having to institute at least some level of personal discipline.

"Well..." He looks at the woman straight on, not at all unfriendly but yes -- reserved a little, in the fashion of someone who's still wondering if his coffee contained any mind altering substances that he was not aware of. "You're the only person who's actually explained anything solid. So I think I might trust you with holding my hand for a bit if it came to that."

"Sounds like you knew what you wanted and made a way to get it." Lyric smiles at the imagery he gives with his glimpse of the past. "So you had it a super long time too, the powers." That takes some thinking about as she ponders her own past and his. "Is your mom still alive? Or your dad?"

Sure, it's a random and pretty intrusive question or two, but she does look genuinely curious about it. Her eyes drop to his clothing, his gloved hands, that precise coffee he orders. A glance over the newspaper to see what page it was on. After a moment, she lifts her gaze again to study the slight nuances of his expression, certainly looking closer, curious about this foreigner.

The silence builds, not an uncomfortable one for her, but when he breaks it she gives another touch of a smile and bobs her head once. "You can trust me. I'm sure anyone would say that though, but you can. I'll try and teach you."

Ravn shakes his head, not seeming bothered by the inquiry at all; whatever caused his lack of living relatives, there seems to be no grand emotional dam waiting to burst on being asked about it. "No, they're both gone -- I'm pretty much the family I have, as far as I'm aware. Might have stayed in the old country if I had roots there, you know?"

He smiles at the head bobbing. "Well, yes, I suppose that most people would say that if you asked them. But, it's not as if I cannot walk away if I don't like your lessons. So when's class, miss, and do I bring apples?"

"Me too, I haven't had family since I was six." Lyric doesn't seem all broken up about it either, it is what it is. "So, it's just you and me kid." A smirk at using that old line. "I guess I know what you mean, it's what I meant about Dante yesterday and him getting his roots back. At least the place that belonged to his family for ages."

With a soft laugh, it changes her demeanor entirely, eyes brighten at her genuine amusement. "Um.. I could make you not walk away. I could make you stay in one place." She crinkles her nose at the confession before shrugging her shoulders and ducking her head slightly. "Apples are optional, but I prefer strawberries!"

"And when you say that you mean... you know. In some strange way. Not stapling my feet to the ground or kneeing me in the fork." Ravn watches, and more so as the woman's whole body language seems to change. So far, everyone has presented all of this as a terrible, terrible thing; but the way she carries herself when she talks about what she can do is that of someone who knows a terribly exciting game. "How would you actually do it? I mean, can you actually show me?"

He backtracks a moment to her words about the horror writer and then nods. "It's just property, you realise. If you don't feel it's home then it doesn't really matter. My home's a conference centre these days and I don't even know what the fellow who runs it looks like."

"I'd never hurt you. Not on purpose." Lyric reassures, "No staples or anything, nothing to alter you in any way." With a touch of mischief in her eyes when he does the whole prove it thing.. at least she interprets it that way.. she laughs again and doesn't do anything but sit there and look at him. What she does is hold his clothing down to force him to remain seated, he can't even lift his hands since they are covered, gloved, his arms covered with his turtleneck shirt. He's not weighted down, he just simply can't get up or move. Well, his head he can move if he chooses to.

To prove that she can still hold a conversation while doing that, she continues on, "I think you're right. I guess if I wanted my moms home, I'd still live in the trailer park. So I guess I do see what you mean about the house and all. I don't really have a home so much as a place where I sleep when I can."

The Dane's blue-grey eyes widen somewhat comically as he realises just what is actually going on. He tries to wriggle his fingers; nothing happens. Then, shifting his feet -- with the same outcome. Shifting his seat on his chair -- for a moment it feels almoooooost, nope, not happening.

Then Ravn looks at Lyric with an expression that's part admiration, part disbelief, and part horror. "I'm... impressed. If I didn't believe you before... I certainly believe you now. I've never been able to pull something like this. Just move keys, switch a few cards in a deck, disappear a walnut from under a cup. Definitely not something like this."

Oddly enough, he's not knocked off course by the way that two conversations are going on at once, between the same two people; switching from one topic of debate to the other without much consideration or effort. "That's it, pretty much. To me, my home is just a big, old house that requires a lot of maintenance and staff, and unless I want it to be one big, financial drain too, somebody needs to run it. And that somebody is not going to be me, because while I'll gladly scrub floors at Tibs, I'm not going to stand around in a suit, welcoming self-important Chinese businessmen and playing old world aristocrat to entertain them. I don't mind getting my hands dirty, but I pick what on, you know?"

Watching him a moment, there's no sort of triumph in her eyes or anything, just the patience as he learns what she has done to him without him being aware. "You can learn to detect when someone is using magic around you." Her smile returns and he is free to move at will again, her hold on him gone. "Just don't be afraid of me or anything, I really wouldn't hurt you. You can learn to do things too, other things. The more you learn the more you can do. More than the little things."

His explanation of his own home does enlighten her more, but she doesn't try and be intrusive. Instead, she follows his lead and nods in agreement. "I think you'd be good at Tibs. Also, you at the Platinum Cabaret, it's a strip club with bouncers and all. That's where I work, but I don't dance t here, I am a DJ."

Ravn nods his understanding. "I don't get the impression at all that you're trying to scare me. This is pretty scary but let's be honest -- if you really wanted to intimidate me, or creep me out, maybe a public coffee house wouldn't be the obvious choice of scenery?"

He blinks at the mention of the Platinum Cabaret, then shoots Lyric a look that's a tad sheepish. "I've never actually... I mean, I've visited a few places in Copenhagen but, if Hollywood movies are something to go by, what you call a 'strip club' is a hell of a lot more, well, naked women and shady people than anything I've ever encountered. Pretty sure I wouldn't have the first idea of what to do with myself in a place like that."

"The Firefly Forest. That's where you can go if you want to be afraid. Or sometimes the Gray Pond near the church." Apparently the only church in town that mattered, the Catholic one. Lyric again smiles her reassurance to him though, "I think you'll learn easy."

Oh then he has that confession and Lyric is absolutely delighted with his reaction! "Naked women, shady people, lots to drink, folded money, excellent music, lap dances. It's everything that you'd imagine to see in an American strip club." Perhaps the shock factor there is something she was having fun with. "Well, unless you prefer guys, you could go any night. If you prefer guys you could go on amateur night. Sometimes the Kelly twins go and dance."

"The Grey Pond was the first place somebody warned me against here. I think I might just avoid it for a bit though it was indeed suggested that I go look for dumped bodies if I got bored." Ravn is listening to Lyric's very serious words, and then suddenly, naked strippers and gay twins.

He can't hold back a small laughter that's part amusement, part embarrassment on his own behalf, and then shakes his head. "Don't knock it until you tried it, I know, but no -- I'm not gay. Please tell me that at least there's not lines of cocaine and an inevitable police raid. I wasn't joking when I said I get my knowledge on a lot of things from Hollywood movies -- that's one of the reasons I'm here in the first place, I kind of want to see the real America."

The Kelly boys aren't gay.. not that Lyric knows of, but they are super hot! "Gray Pond.." there's a hesitance when she says it, a touch of somewhat fresh emotion there that's ever so brief. "It's best to avoid, really. Especially ice skating on it in the winter."

His laughter has her hesitating and she finds it contagious as she returns it too, "There's not drugs, not that I seen. The acting Chief of police goes there, and there are bouncers and more DJs and other things like that. It's safe to go to. You could hang out with me at the DJ booth sometime if you ever wanted."

"I might do exactly that," Ravn cedes, still smiling. "I am here to see things, after all, and nothing beats having a native guide. Is there some kind of dress code? I believe I'm already going to have to pick something slightly more... upscale, if I want to go explore our friend the British horror writer's club at some point."

His lip twitches slightly at the memory of Dante. "I'll admit, that was one man I did not expect to meet in a place like Gray Harbor. A real Eton boy."

"You can help me pick the music between the sets of the dancers." Lyric offers, "I think you should do lots of new things while you're here. Make it fun and learn things and just everything." Her eyes drop to his clothes then a brief glance down to her own. "You're dressed a lot better than I am. There's a boutique if you like those things. Or the second hand shop." Again a look of mischief, "I can take you to the secondhand one, but not the boutique. We can try on silly clothes and take goofy pictures."

The mention of Dante and it's her turn to look sheepish. "I don't even know what Eton is, but it sounds kind of snooty. I'm glad the writer isn't snooty. He seemed super nice."

"It's a simple trick," Ravn says with a grin. "Everything I wear is black -- and black always goes with black. Didn't fool our Eton man, as you noticed. And, why not? I have this general philosophy that if it doesn't hurt anyone, it's worth trying at least once. I'm game if you are, worst case scenario I'll pick up a couple of shirts I end up not wearing after all. I'm apparently working at the, uh, Tibs in the evenings some days but that means I got the days off to explore."

He does seem pretty laid back, really. May be in the very deep end of his twenties, possibly even a bit older, but definitely not settled into boring middle aged guy yet.

"Eton's a boarding school," Ravn explains, answering the question in much the same spirit it was asked. "Probably the fanciest boarding school in England, and by extension, most of Europe. Never been there -- but it's pretty guaranteed that if you've gone there, you're old world bigwig with all that it entails. He does seem like a pretty easy going bloke, though."

"I wear a lot of black too but that mostly goes with being in a band, I guess. I like what you were wearing yesterday. And today. How come the gloves though?" Lyric asks without looking down at his hands. His agreement surprises her and she looks eager at the idea of it. "The store it is then and it'll be fun. I bet they even have Halloween costumes. I mean, it's coming up in a few months." The cheesy grin gives away that she's not serious in that part at least.

"Oh." Is said if Eton. "It does sound fancy. I bet the writer is really smart . But you seem to be too. I never really made it to college or anything but I did graduate high school." She says casually.

"I bet you'll be good working at Tibs. Bartending or something? You could play the fiddle there. Or the violin, Whichever you like. I'd go and listen," With her smoothie almost gone she sighs somewhat unhappily. "I gotta go check on Emma, she's my ex-neighbors daughter. I'll be around a little later though."

"I'll be right here," Ravn says with a smile. "And if I'm not, it'll be because I went to Tibs to wash floors -- haven't quite upgraded to bar tending yet, I believe one needs to know how to mix drinks for that one. Maybe I'll see you around? I can buy you a shot of whatever you like and tell you how school doesn't make a man."

He asks in a way that's not nearly as much flirtatious as it's I'm a foreigner who knows no one and you seem friendly.