Roleplaying
2004 Archive
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Seminars
| When: | 21 October 2004 |
| Who: | Bridgit, Megumi |
| What: | Megumi distracts Bridgit from enjoying a lunch break by giving her a lecture on her civic duty to bats. |
The University
The campus of the University of Texas at Austin stretches over several square miles. The most striking area of the campus is the clock tower, which looms over the rest of the campus and glows depending on when the school wins a victory in something it considers important. The West Mall is also another large part of the campus, housing the school's Union and having an open grassed area in front of it with enough trees to give it suitable shading.
The southwest corner of the campus is where the Harry Ransom Center is. A massive library and archive area that has several rare books and artifacts that make it of special interest to Yves. Finally, the last place of major interest is a Tokamak reactor buried deep beneath the Math and Sciences Building; the reactor a source of constant interest by both servitors of Jean and Vapula.
Megumi likes books. She likes them well enough to -pay- for them, it's really amazing! And thus, she sits on a bench near the Harry Ransom Center, reading a book. The book is called....DRACULA... and it's by Bram Stoker! Next to her, on the bench, are two more books which are opened, but facedown. One is called JULIUS CAESAR and the other is TITUS ANDRONICUS and they are, certainly, made by the same author.
Kicking her feet lazily, Megumi opens up a packet of cigarettes and chews on a cigarette.
Lunch break. It really is a gift from God, Bridgit decides, as she wanders along one of the paved pathways through the picturesque university campus. Satchel slung over one shoulder, the redhead wanders cheerfully through the occasional knot of students who pass by her on their way to class. She likes taking her lunch break here; amongst the trees and the students, she feels far more relaxed than when she snags lunch while working. Even she needs to destress.
Megumi lowers her hand and cigarette, which she's most certainly not smoking, and stares intently at Dracula. The cigarette, having been chewed, droops in her fingers for a few moments as she flicks through a page quickly....and then lifts up her other hand, and bites it a little, instead of the cigarette. She doesn't seem to notice Bridgit immediately, but that doesn't stop her from scrunching her cigarette up, totally wastefully, and flick it over towards the top of Bridgit's foot.
The flying butt makes Bridgit doubletake as the wadded-up bit of nicotine bounces off ehr neatly polished boot. The redhead arches an eyebrow, lips twisting into a vague expression of irritation, and then kicks the butt back at Megumi as she passes. "There's a law against littering, y'know."
Megumi lifts up her foot absently nad steps down on the cigarette to catch it. She lowers her book, and glances on over to Bridgit. She wrinkles her nose a bit, and seems a bit disgruntled for a moment but it fades from her face quickly as she asks, "What, are you a police officer...?", she opens her mouth to say more, seems to reconsider it, and then with a bit of special emphasis, she adds, softly, "Ma'am...?", she lowers her hand towards her foot all the same, though.
"Does it matter if I am?" Bridgit asks grumpily, actually stopping in her walk and putting one hand on her hip. Her eyes are hawkish behind her glasses, and appraise Megumi sharply. It's just a kid. Hmph. No respect for the law these days. "Just ... watch where you throw crap."
Megumi says, "Oh no, no, no... I'm just surprised to see an officer care about littering these days, you see all sorts of nasty things about police corruption in newspers and on TV and on the radio these days, and how they take drugs, and so forth. You must...mmn...", she seems to be searching for the right word, "Be pretty proud to have avoided all of that.", she picks up the cigarette and shows it to Bridgit to show off that she did, in fact, pick it up.
Bridgit isn't all that surprised that Megumi's already pegged her for a cop. She looks the part, and yeah, she's acting the part by picking on a teenager about something as frivolous as littering. Ah, well. "It's like apples in a bushel," she notes with a shrug. "Just a couple spoil and it makes all the rest go bad. The good ones stay above all that crap and remember they've got a job to do, like me." She nods to the display of the cigarette, and quirks a smirk. "Thanks."
Megumi says, "No problem, ma'am, I wasn't paying attention when I should have been paying attention, but I couldn't really help it.", she pulls up Dracula and offers the book to Bridgit, "Dracula, by Bram Stoker, the amazing part is how absent Dracula is, don't you think? Makes your imagination do the work.", she leans forward and murmurs, "I know how that is, at least a little, I suppose. To put a lot of work into something and have everything fall apart because of a few rotten eggs. It can be very discouraging."
"Yeah. Thing is, you just have to keep on going," Bridgit answers with a shrug. "You can't just let one little thing put you back. It's a learning experience, I suppose. See what screwed you up, then fix it so you don't get screwed by it next time." The redhead shifts her strap for her bag a little, peering at the book. "Never read it. Never liked vampires much," she admits.
"Do you believe in Vampires?" Megumi asks, "Or do you just find them icky?", she lowers her book, "Oh, that's exactly what I did. It took me a while, but I saw it eventually, so I take some comfort in that. Thank you.", she smiles cheerfully, "The neat thing...Well, I should say... The horror about vampires and such is that you don't have to be willing. If you get turned into a vampire, Bam! Your soul is gone, and entirely against your will too. It's not so much the sucking blood stuff. Why, I hear Dracula doesn't even say 'I vant too sack joor blood' in this.", she blinks and then coughs, "Ah, excuse me, didn't mean to go on a little voyage there. You said you didn't like them."
"They don't exist," Bridgit notes derisively. "Vampires, 'cept maybe for the bat kind in like South America or something, don't exist." She shakes her head at that, smirking a bit at Megumi's hyperbole. "It's all right. I think they're pretty stupid and I never understood why people were so afraid of 'em, but hey, some folks'll be scared of anything if it makes their heart beat a little faster."
Megumi says, "There's a story about a vampire whose head got twisted the wrong way and he totally couldn't figure anything out.", she hesitates, "Bats are cute. Especially the bumblebee bat." all of a sudden, as if this thought had just come unto her. "Have you seen pictures of bats?", she gathers up her books and stands, "Not like drawn ones where they make them out to be evil and so forth, but real pictures of bats. Cute ones. They're cute.", she watches Bri very, very carefully, gauging her reaction. "If not...", she says simply, "You must see them right away."
"Real bats? They're not so bad. They eat mosquitoes and bugs and things," Bridgit comments with a shrug. "They don't bug me as much as some people seem to get bugged by them." She eyes Megumi as she seems to get so interested in talking about bats. Kids. "I've seen a couple photos of 'em in National Geographic, and on the Discovery Channel, but that's about it."
Megumi says, "Yes, they don't eat people at all, but a lot of bats get killed and stuff because people think they're scary and so forth, did you know that?", she suddenly has this INTENSE look in her face! "Would you like to join a group to protect our winged mouse friends?", she hesitates, "Oh, I'm sorry, I came on too strongly, but I can gather some research, and you can take a look at it, and...Well, if someone doesn't do something about the survival of the bat population if we don't?", she smiles very, very brightly.
"Uh." Bridgit arches an eyebrow at Megumi, and gives her a wary look. "I dunno about joining or anything like that, but I guess I can look at a pamphlet or something like that," she offers. This girl is kind of freaky. Something about her makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. "And I've never heard of a bat eating people. That'd have to be one damn big bat."
Megumi bobs her head, "Oh, yes, most def'. You'd have to be a very large bat to eat a person, that's what's so horrible about people killing bats because they're afraid they're going to turn into Dracula. My good friend Remy says that we should remember that Fiction is Fiction, and Fact is Fact, and the Fact is that people are killing bats for no good reason whatsoever. I don't have any pamphlets with me, but perhaps another day I'll bring one over to you?", she licks her lips a bit expectantly.
"Yeah, if you want." Bridgit shrugs at that, seemingly dismissing the whole conversation out of hand. It's just bats. She really doesn't care much about them. "And your friend Remy's right. Fact is fact. Truth will set you free, and all that crap."
Megumi says, "And all that crap," simply, "There are a lot of species of them, did you know? There's the California Leaf-nosed Bat. I think those are found in California. There are really small bats, bigger bats, and they don't mate often, so if we kill a lot of them, they'll take a long time to recover.", she seems to notice the shrug a little belated, and she sighs wistfully, "Ahh, you're not really interested."
"Well," Bridgit notes, feeling a twinge of guilt for brushing Megumi off, "I'm on my lunch break 'fore I need to put in more hours at the precinct. So I kinda wanna sit down and eat, y'know? As neat as it is to talk to you, and all."
Megumi waves a hand, "It's okay, it's okay, it's a hard battle to fight for the glorious bat with all the negative stereotypes floating around everywhere about them.", she lets out a grandoise sigh, "I don't suppose you'd even let me come to the Department and set up some fliers around there..or at least pass them around? I'm still new to driving but I'm sure I could find my way there, somehow."
"It isn't far from here," Bridgit comments, pointing back along the path she's come. "If you want, I guess you could put up a poster or something on the community announcement board, but you'd hafta clear that with the desk sarge, not me. It wouldn't bug me."
Megumi seems a little suspicious of the desk sarge, "He doesn't...hunt, does he? I mean, not criminals, of course he hunts criminals, but he doesn't hunt animals...such as the bat, does he?", she chews at her lip, "I don't suppose...well, he might feel a little weird even so if I just came up to him, after your break, could you give in a good word..or, well, no. Just mention it to him, so it doesn't come off as sudden?"
Bridgit peers at Megumi now, eyebrow arching. "Who the hell hunts bats? I don't think you can eat them, and it's not like they're trophy animals or anything," she answers with a snort. Then she sighs, and rolls her eyes but with a touch of a smirk at the corners of her lips. "I suppose I could talk to the old bastard and see how he feels about it all. I doubt he'd care, but yeah, I'll ask."
Megumi says, "Absolutely -Horrid- people," softly, "That just like to shoot -things-.", but when Bridgit gives in, Megumi throws up her hands happily and says, "Thank you, thank you, this means a lot to me. I won't forget this.", she bobs her head excitedly. "Don't let me keep you from your lunch break."
It takes so little to make people happy. Bridgit bares teeth in a half-hearted attempt at a smile, and then nods, taking a step back from the girl. "You're welcome." You're also very freaky. "Although yeah, I don't get the whole hunting thing either."
Megumi says, "My teachers say I should apply myself, so once we got on bats, and I remembered you were a cop, and I saw a grand opportunity.", she bows her head to Bridgit, "I can't thank you enough."
"It's, uh, it's okay, really." Bridgit blinks at the bow, then shrugs again. "Civic duty, and all that, right? Gotta protect the bats."
Megumi seems happily surprised, "Yes, yes, that's it exactly. Civic Duty."
"Ye-ah." Bridgit purses her lips slightly, then takes another step backwards. "So I'm gonna go have my lunch, and then get back to doing my civic duty."
Megumi says, "That's a wonderful idea, Miss...ah...oh, I never got your name, did I? How rude of me..."
"Campbell. Bridgit Campbell," the redhead introduces herself to Megumi with a little smirk. "I'm a detective at the precinct across the way."
Megumi says, "Megumi, nice to meet you. Good afternoon.", she reaches for her Dracula to go back to reading.
"Nice to meet you, Megumi," Bridgit replies, before shaking her head a little and adjusting the strap across her shoulder, heading further up the path to her usual lunch spot. She's got an appointment with an oak tree to keep, even if it's got to be a short one now. "Kids are so weird these days," she murmurs under her breath.
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