Roleplaying
2004 Archive
2005 Archive
Seminars
| When: | 16 March 2005 |
| Who: | Damien, Sandra |
| What: | Damien meets Sandra for lunch. They get to talking, and Damien spills the beans about most of his background. |
Fado Irish Pub and Restaurant
Fado's has become a hotspot for many of the locals. The place is split between three different sections, the bar and tavern in one room, another room for the restaurant, and an outside patio area as an extension of the restaurant; all of which are no smoking. The owner, Tyrr Ceallaghan, opened Fado's two years ago and has advertised and made enough deals to watch it grow.
The bar and tavern room has a counter top bar where any of the patrons can sit and talk with the bartenders or their fellow patrons. Near the bar there are a few tables where anyone can sit with friends, share a drink, and just have a good time.
The restaurant and patio area is your classic walk in dine-in restaurant, with different celtic elements on the walls and in the way the rooms are built. The waitresses and waiters are dressed in all black, and always very courteous, as the owners insist on top quality customer service.
Sandra has arrived early, and staked out a table with a good view of the door. She has several stacks of paper in front of her, and is filling them out as she waits, with a kind of disgruntled efficiency. Her shoes have been taken off, and are tucked under the table.
Damien arrives fashionably late by about 5 minutes, just enough to be fashionable -- he's always fashionable except when he's not. He swishes into the bar, looks around, and spots Sandra. With a smile on his face and his customary sunglasses tucked away and gone for once, he slides into the booth across from her and says, "Good afternoon, Sandra!"
Sandra smiles. "Good afternoon, Damien. I hope this wasn't an imposition on such short notice?" She sets the paperwork aside, sweeping it neatly off the table and onto the booth seat beside her. "How does the day find you?"
"No imposition. I made arrangements," Damien says. "The day goes productive. It's been pretty good to me so far today. You? You look busy. Correcting papers?"
Sandra gives the papers a look of unfiltered loathing, but her tone is calm as she replies, "Expediting paperwork for some of my clients. I remain unsure why it is required to fill out five dozen forms, in triplicate, to be entered into an adult literacy program. It would seem to defeat the purpose, don't you think?"
Damien laughs, and says, "I'm sure someone I know built that system for maximal pain for minimal results. The people I know are terribly good at being ironic and insufferable."
Sandra quirks an eyebrow in amusement. "What a coincidence. I wished to talk to you about the people you know. Or may know, I suppose." She raises a hand to catch the attention of the waiter. "Shall we order?"
As the waiter walks over, Damien says, "Sure, we could." He looks up at the waiter and says, "Um, burger and fries, make it medium well, just a little pink. And a diet coke."
Sandra orders, "Bangers and mash. And a Coke, please. Not diet." She wrinkles her nose at the very thought. When the waiter is gone, she steeples her hands in front of her and leans slightly foward. "Kingmaker, you would be considered wealthy, yes? Well connected with the business elements in this city?"
"I know hardly anyone in this city," Damien says, "Since I just moved down here and I spent all of December in New York and then January and February, uh,indisposed. But money, yes, I have money."
Sandra sighs, pulling back. She looks disappointed. "I'd hoped you'd met him, or at least had a...a dossier? Or something. Were you listening to the news last night?"
Damien shakes his head. "No, sorry, I was crazy with work. I'm a little behind on my news."
Sandra tuts. "Too much work. There must be time for rest, as well." As the waiter brings their drinks, she gestures to the outside. "Last night, there was a riot in the area outside this building. I was, by happenstance, caught up in the circumstances."
Damien raises his eyebrows. "A riot? But it's not even March Madness yet."
Sandra tilts her head inquringly. "Oh, basketball. Yes. But no, this was centered around a man named Lyman. Nicolas Lyman. I believe there are additional titles, but I didn't bother to remember them. A large group of people seemed quite determined to tear him limb from limb."
Damien frowns a little, as he asks Sandra, "Did they? Rip him limb from limb, that is?"
Sandra shakes her head. "He seems to have large, strong supporters, and he was able to drive away. Some people were injured and the police were called out. My car was damaged," she points out unhappily, then shrugs. "I wished to know about why they would gather and attack him like that."
Damien just says, "Dunno. I dunno. I don't know anything about this guy. I can make some phone calls, though."
Sandra smiles. "Would you, please? I have tried on my own, but didn't get very far. Somehow, I do not think social workers attempt to contact Mr. Lyman or his 'people' very often..."
Damien reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cellphone. He dials some number and talks into it. "Hey, Marsha? It's Damien. Yeah, can you call some people to do a background on a guy named Lyman from Austin, Texas. Local news would be fine. Can you get back to me tonight?" Pause. "Thanks." He hangs up his cell. "Okay, we'll look into it."
Sandra grins. "Marvelous! Thank you, Damien." About that time, the food arrives...Fado's appears to be pretty quick on their feet, service-wise. "So, tell me what you have been up to? Do you have any beratings scheduled for today?"
"I always have beratings scheduled. We're still working on some of those creationism school board seats in Montana, Kansas and Pennsylvania. I have a guy covering the Homeland Security briefing today for whatever we can get out of that. Uh, that's about it. Looking for office space," Damien says.
Sandra mmms, and bobs her head. As she attacks a sausage with her deadly fork, she asks, "So, you are...trying to get slots for creationists for school boards, or?"
"Oh definitely creationists." Damien looks dreamy for a moment. "Intelligent Design is basically a capitulation to Evolution. It's saying, 'we don't like your monkeytheory but we can't come up with a better one so, uh, here! God!' It's a retreat from the whole Garden of Eden business. So they want to teach kids that their parents and teachers are actually uneducated baffoons who fear scientific fact but they cloak it in the deception of 'critical thinking.' It's hilarious! The fundies are so cute. Like rabid bunnies." Damien seems to find this whole setup amusing.
Sandra cuts her sausage up into progressively smaller pieces. "You disagree with the premise of their attempt to gain office, but aid them in gaining office nonetheless?"
"And I can walk and chew gum at the same time," Damien says. "My personal beliefs have very little to do with my job."
"Isn't that stifling?" Sandra asks, as she busily mixes the various foodbits into a unrecognizible hash. "It would seem like if you kept putting your own beliefs aside to do the bidding of others, eventually you would forget what it was that you actually believed."
"I don't believe in the Beatles," Damien quotes, reaching for his Diet Coke. "I just believe in me."
Sandra stabs a mash-covered piece of meat. "Belief without action is a shadow, and will not sustain you in the night, kingmaker." She raises the food to her lips and chews gloomily.
Damien picks up his hamburger and says idly, "It's been a long night."
Sandra reaches over the table, intending to ruffle Damien's shaggy hair, if he doesn't pull away. "You should do something," she suggests.
Damien doesn't pull away. "There's not a whole lot to do but work. But working's okay."
Sandra slumps back against the booth. "Find something that's more than okay, Damien. You deserve it, and work isn't worth unless you're /reaching/ for something...what are you reaching for?"
Damien says helpfully, "My sandwich," as he reaches for his burger and takes a bite. "And now I'm reaching for my coke," he says as he reaches for the diet coke. "Perhaps next I will reach for... the salt!"
Sandra bursts out into brief laughter, shaking her head. She lifts a shoulder. "Lecture over for the day, kingmaker, my word on it." Still chuckling a bit, she works on her own meal.
Damien considers. "I could tell you a story. It's kind of a lengthy story."
Sandra wipes her mouth with the napkin. "I like stories. Tell me?" She settles into an attentive posture.
Damien considers for a moment. "Well, once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. Are you sure you want to hear this?"
"You're stalling, Damien," Sandra says, her voice soft. She gestures for him to continue.
Damien reaches over and grabs the salt. He starts playing with it. "Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. They were from very different places. They were very different people. He was a Jew who believed with all his heart in Law, and she was a daughter of the Sand and she believed in the revealed Word of God as given to the Prophet. But they were mad about each other, and they chased each other through the sand in Syria and Lebanon and Palestine and Egypt and Tunis and Algers and Morocco and Moorish Spain. He had to stay and work and she flitted like dust through the air. One day, the boy got called away to work in Venice, and the girl returned to Damascus to hide among her cinnamon scented silks. And when the girl was away, others played, and she gave up her poetry and song for the sword while the boy preached the Law. The girl believed fervently in the Word of her Prophet, you see, enough to kill for Him and God when she felt beckoned, and she felt that it was time for Jihad. But the girl killed the wrong people, she killed good people, she killed innocents, and the boy raced across the desert sands searching for her, in Spain and Morocco and Tunis and Algers and Egypt and Palestine and Lebanon to find her in the sands of Syria outside of Damascus. The boy did reach her, oh yes. The boy tried to persuade her to come back to him but the boy's friends and family and King decided the girl could not be saved and that they must do what they do. It was hard for the boy, but he chinned up as he wandered through the moonlight. And he was good and loyal until he could be good and loyal and darkness was more comforting. And that's the story of the boy and the girl."
Sandra looks down as the story is over. "That...is a very sad story, Damien. I can understand how the darkness might call to a boy in such a case. Darkness is a great comfort. And sometimes, a shell around the heart seems to be the only way it can heal." She reaches up and starts playing with her left-hand braid, her eyes sad.
Damien says, "So the boy, today, he works. Alot. All the time. Because it's easier than thinking about the girl. I'm sorry; it's a sad story. I'll think up a Funny one."
Sandra quickly reaches over to try and lay her finger on the bridge of Damien's nose. "Don't. Don't mock it. Don't you dare."
Damien says, "What, mock Rem's memory? I wouldn't do that."
Sandra withdraws. "Don't mock yourself or your pain, either. Some things are not meant to be funny," she says, in serious tones. "Thank you for telling me the story, Damien."
Damien picks up the salt and waggles it at Sandra. "I have no idea why I told you that story. I hardly tell it to anyone."
Sandra smiles crookedly. "I must just have that kind of face." Her voice is solemn, but a hint of amusement dances in her eyes. "And, perhaps, it needed to be told."
Damien sighs and puts the salt away. "I miss her terribly, you know. It's a big old Rem-sized hole in my soul."
"Love does that," Sandra replies, sadly. "How long has it been since she was...?"
Damien says, "Since she died? Um... this is going to sound insane, but a few hundred years."
"Oh." Sandra considers that for a very long time. At least a minute, closer to two. Her voice is hesitant when she starts again. "And...how long since you... Fell, Damien?"
Damien asks, "What's the year? 2005?" He pulls a pen out of his jacket pocket and grabs a napkin. He does a little math. "248 years."
Sandra grimaces. "I see. I was, you know, hoping that you'd look at me like I was crazy and say you were joking." She leans back and crosses her arms over her chest.
Damien shrugs and slips the pen away. "I suppose I could have. I probably _should_ have. Safer for everyone involved."
Sandra chuckles. "I'm glad you didn't, now. Safe is boring, anyway. I don't think I have to ask who, exactly, you served or used to serve." There a short hesistation, and then, "In case you're wondering, we're still friends. If you would like to be?"
Damien says, "I guessed what you were yesterday. And yet I'm still here. So yes, I'd like to continue our friendship."
Sandra looks abashed. "Oh. Now I feel silly. I thought the Role was working well...it was the car, wasn't it? I have to remember not to talk about cars."
Damien smiles a little. "It was that you couldn't seem to sit down."
Sandra purses her lips. "Damn. I try to keep enough stuff going in my /head/ that the vessel doesn't quite have to jitter so much. But sometimes I leak." She shakes her head. "I'm surprised that you didn't run screaming. I could be like a Kung-Fu master, or something."
Damien laughs easily. "I've died before, and dying among books on Jewish Civ seemed apropos enough. No, I wasn't going to run screaming. I'm not afraid of angels."
Sandra sniffs. "I wouldn't kill you in a /bookstore/, anyway. It'd be rude, and frighten the other customers. And you shouldn't be. Well, generally. Some you really should."
"Oh, I know there are Malakim in the city, Sandra," Damien says. "And I know that a devotee of Michael owns this bar. Another demon gave me a pretty decent breakdown a while back. But I know how to survive, and I try not to do anything that requires me to get my head chopped off. Besides, other demons are a much bigger problem than angels. I'm trained to be a diplomat and a politician, not a fighter. But whenever I want to strike a peace for the good of all of us trying to work in close quarters, some jackass with a vendetta has to go moon the local malakite and all hell breaks loose."
Sandra stares. "A /Michaelite/ owns the bar?!" She ducks her head down quickly and looks around, apparently having missed everything after that.
Damien laughs long and hard and laughs so hard he has to hold onto the table for balance.
Sandra squnches in her seat. "It /isn't/ funny!" She keeps sneaking little peeks around as if expecting axe-wielding men to descend upon them.
Damien reaches up to wipe a tear. "It IS funny! It's funnier because it's true!" He wipes his eyes. "YOU are a non-combatant, I see. So what, Flowers? Dreams? Creation?"
Sandra sighs. "I serve the Queen of the Night, of course. And I am /not/ a non-combatant, exactly. Just," she flaps her hands, "Warriors give me the creeping heebie-jeebies. And they're disrepectful to the White Lady. The former I can stand, the latter is intolerable." She eyes him. "You...you accepted an invitation from an angel to lunch in a restaurant that you know is owned by an Angel of War. And you /didn't/ know that I didn't know. Damien, are you quite sure you're not looking to get smooshed?"
Damien says blithly, "Well, sometimes the funny comes to me, and sometimes, I go to the funny."
Sandra snorts. "Smooshed Damien isn't funny. It's not even artistic. It's just messy." She crosses her arms on the table, and slumps down, her head resting on her arms. "So, the kingmaker is not only older than I, but on the wrong side, to boot. Well, I suppose it at least absolves me of the sin of meddling too far with a human."
Damien thinks for a moment. "I think, I'm not sure but I think, that I'm about 2500 years old. There was an awful lot of training in the beginning. The first time I stood on Earth it was, it was, uh. Before Islam. Um. Third century after Christ? The year was 4172. It's 5758 now. Um, four hundred something. Justinian, I think."
Sandra sighs. "Very much older than I." She wobbles her head back and forth on her arms. "You've been a demon longer than I've been alive, almost. So...before the Crusade, even, you've been around. Wow. Most of the time on Earth?"
Damien thinks more and says, "No... I was on and off and on and off as need be. I didn't wrest independence from my Triad until almost tenth century, when I gained enough trust to work alone. I didn't start hiding out on Earth permenantly until I became how I am now."
Sandra nods. "I see. I have been on Earth a very little time at all...just enough back in Houston to understand the weight of it. Then to here." She smiles. "It's a short story, I suppose."
Damien says, "Nothing wrong with short stories. Sadly, you ran into me as your maiden voyage. I wish you would have run into others; they would make your life more black and white. Demons BAD. Angels GOOD. Go GOD."
Sandra laughs a little, herself. "Do not think, Damien, that I do not subscribe to those ideas. Every night I fight against demons who torture humans for pleasure, who would see every one of their bright and beautiful souls chained in filth and mired in despair. It is the teachings of the White Lady that reminds me that even they, despicible and desolate though they are, have some spark of brightness buried deep within. But they, and you, choose to bury your own light. Do not think that I forget that, Damien, however much I like you."
"And I take people and use them as puppets to satisfy my Boss's neverending need to be lifted from his desolate nihilistic boredom and despair," Damien says. "That's my job. Luckily, I've only met him in person once, ever. We don't believe in the War. We don't believe in the struggle. And it's boring and stupid and tiring. But I'm a diplomat, I'd rather talk than fight, have friends than enemies, and I work because that's my job and working is better than dwelling on what I've become. I used to be one of those demons who torture people for pleasure, by the way, but I got over it."
Sandra sighs. "I know. I know what you do, Damien." Reflecting on this seems to sadden her, and she looks up and away to trace the scrollwork on the walls with her eyes.
"I wish I could change what I do, Sandra," Damien says, "But I just don't believe in God or the War anymore."
Sandra doesn't look at him, her eyes still turned upwards. Maybe it's not the scrollwork she's looking at, after all. "Why?"
Damien looks down at his empty plate, and heaves a great sigh. "Because I killed Rem. Because I was part of that Triad, and I had asked to be assigned to it to bring her back, and it was granted, and I wanted so badly to save her. She was, she was, there was no Rem left, Sandra. When I pulled her off her horse, she ran me through. There was no Rem left. Belial killed her soul. And my Brothers cuffed her and dragged her home and we pronounced sentence, I did with the rest of them, and then she died. And I have felt nothing inside ever since except my own voice. That shouldn't have happened, and nothing outside changed for a very long time. I worked my job just like always for, for another century, about. But eventually I could no longer live with myself and I left, because I just wanted to leave, and sit, and be done with the War."
Sandra ducks under the table and wiggles over to sit on Damien's side of the booth. Wordlessly, she opens her arms and offers him a hug.
Damien returns the hug, tenatively at first, and then a real hug. "If we're going to be friends," Damien says quietly, "and we're going to be friends like this, then I want you to know the truth, and this is the truth."
Sandra hugs tightly, and sincerly, although her nature makes her wiggle out of it when she can bear no more. "I would rather truth than pretty lies, Damien, whatever the Michaelites might think."
Damien says, to brighten the mood, "Oh, I can do pretty lies, too!"
Sandra reaches out to ruffle his hair again. "That, my dear boy, does not surprise me. You're a meta-politician, after all."
Damien says brightly, "I served as a representative to the House of Representatives during the Cival War for the State of New York! I made a point of showing up to work every day drunk and standing around drinking on the floor. Very dignified! Now that was a fantastic job."
Sandra buries her head and her hands and lets out a low, dramatic groan. Then she giggles. "I'm sure you were a sight. Although I doubt you were the only one showing up drunk...just possibly the loudest about it?"
Damien says proudly, "No, but a Democratic Congressman from Ohio beat me with his walking stick on the floor during a bill debate one day."
Sandra's giggles turn into real laughter. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...it's just," more laughter, "You seem so /proud/ about it!"
Damien puffs himself up. "I am an official Footnote in American History!"
Sandra snickers. "Yeah, but, it's getting hit in the head with a stick! You could have gone over the Falls in your underwear or something!"
"No way. Getting hit on the head by a nasty old man from Cincinnati is the way to go," Damien says. "Some poor fool has no doubt done his PhD thesis on me."
Sandra grins, and nods. "No doubt. If you like, I could check the Ephemera for you. Although that'd only catch the ones that didn't get finished. It's still like to be...amusing to see what was written."
Damien smiles. "You should. Who knows what weirdness lurks out there about me. Not that I do anything to encourage that sort of behavoir."
Sandra gives him a mock severe look. "I'm /sure/ you /never/ encourage anyone to think strange and bizarre things about you, Damien. And I'll check. What was the Role name back then?" She chuckles. "The Ephemera isn't terribly well-organized, so it might be more useful than a date."
Damien says loftily, "Zachariah Lancaster. The Third."
Sandra mmms. "The Third. Were you also the First and the Second?"
Damien says, innocently, "Maybe. Possibly."
Sandra mmmhmmms. "I'll check. It may take a few nights, even for me. Er, and remind me. I go in there, and I get...distracted, rather easily."
Damien waves a hand. "No rush, really. No rush. Just curious. I got out of being the politician at the turn of the century anyway. Too much work."
Sandra reaches over the table to snag her soda. "I can't say as how I understand that, exactly, but okay. So now you have less work, but you do it more often?"
Damien looks a bit more sober. "No. Now instead of running for office and making an ass of myself, I run people for office and make an ass of them. It became much easier in the 80s with the invention of the 24 hour news cycle, but there was always a way to make someone look stupid."
Sandra takes a long drink before replying. "Yes, there always is. And sometimes, a little piece of their soul shatters into pieces when it's made a mockery of."
Damien says blithly, "They weren't using it." He looks over Sandra and sighs. "I was alot more into this being a demon thing when I was angrier."
Sandra swirls the liquid in her glass. "I would say that every lie has, at its heart, fear. And anger is fear that has taken up arms. And demonhood is a lie to the soul. Perhaps, as the anger starts to wane, the truth can shine through."
Damien stretches out his legs beneath the table. "Maybe I just stopped being quite so stunningly angry. It's been a while. Time heals all wounds, even mine."
Sandra smiles. "Maybe. What are you going to do when the anger is all gone? I mean, it sounds more like you do your work because it keeps you from thinking than out of any real sense of joy."
Damien shrugs. "Keep working, I suppose. That's what there is to do, so I'll do it. Sometimes I find it intellectually interesting."
"Damien. I do this as your friend." With that rather odd statement, Sandra leans forward and attempts to upend her soda glass over the poor guy's head.
Damien sits there and drips. An ice cube runs down his face, off his nose, and thunks onto the table. "Ah," he says.
Sandra sets the glass down with a thunk. "Never say 'that is all there is to do'. That is what you /choose/ to do. Whether that choice is right, or whether it is wrong, own up to it. Choice is the greatest gift in the universe." With that, she dives down under the table and comes up on her side to gather her paperwork.
Damien eyes Sandra. "Well, I choose to continue to be me for now, and I have all my little selfish reasons."
Sandra tucks the paperwork in one arm, and fishes out her money for the bill and tip with the other. "I know. So long as you're clear that it a /choice/, and it's not because there aren't others out there." Her smile is lopsided. "Be safe, Damien."
Damien says, still sitting in the booth, "I will. You too, Sandra."
Sandra eyes the dripping wet demon, then turns and trundles away, and out of the restaurant.
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