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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 28, 2008 16:50:08 GMT -5
Tsuzuki shot her a distinctly unhappy look at the reminder, his mouth twisting in distaste. "Not where I come from," he complained, but quietly, pouting a little. It really was best he hadn't been there long enough to find out where the alcohol was, because Tsuzuki was no more sparing with sweets than he was an opportunity to get drunk. "Is there any place you'd really like to go for dinner?" It was only polite to ask, as she'd rescued him from an uncertain fate. Still, Tsuzuki hoped she'd choose someplace cheap. So far he had 256 more years to go before he'd paid off the damages he'd caused in the occasional (accidental!) fight, or demon possession, or summoning of one of his shikigami who weren't always careful about the Meifu's property...and Tatsumi wasn't generous with his food budget.
It was so very sad, really. At the start of the night he'd thought he was getting free food.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 28, 2008 17:26:04 GMT -5
Xiu did not know many restaurants well, stealing food more often than not - particularly as she mostly ate in her fox form. Nor did she ever pay for food, even when troubling to go out in this form - or at least, she did so very seldom. There were some people, very poor, hard-working, honest people, that she did not like to trick. But usually she had few qualms about trickery of that sort. A little bit of flashy glamor, and no one ever knew they were not being given actual money.
She smiled at him, and tilted her head down the street. "The first one that catches your eye," she said, jewelled eyebrows lifting gently. "I am not accustomed to French cuisine yet."
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 29, 2008 12:00:24 GMT -5
Tsuzuki nodded his head in assent and began to walk, head turning this way and that in search of food. He couldn't really understand much written French, so he looked in the windows of the places they passed and concentrated very hard on smelling his way to some food. Once he thought he smelled some vaguely familiar spices, and veering from their path he found himself of a tiny Thai restaurant. But he was in Paris, wasn't he? They were known for their food! So he turned back to Xiu, pausing for a moment to see whether she'd prefer to go in or whether she'd wander with him some more.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 30, 2008 17:17:41 GMT -5
Xiu stood in the street, wind whipping her hair and pale robes, and smiled softly at him. Was this what one might call a keeper? He certainly was an odd form of chivalry - probably needed rescuing every few days and was, nonetheless, at the same time a perfect gentleman while in the Paris streets. And he probably was very good to show off when one was seen and wanted to be seen with someone.
"Of a truth, I need very little mortal, material sustenance," she admitted. "You choose where you would like and I will take care of things."
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 31, 2008 0:08:18 GMT -5
Tsuzuki brightened. She was going to pay for it! That made his night all kinds of wonderful, and it was with a considerable bounce in his step that he whirled and continued his search. Within a few minutes he'd detected some mouth-watering aroma tracing back to one of the numerous small cafes, this one set slightly lower than street level; it was not terribly full, but neither was it completely empty, and the only word Tsuzuki could recognize written on the window was PORK.
"That one!" he cried, pointing and making a beeline. Just before he reached the door he remembered, hesitated, and made the effort to be visible to anyone who looked. Hard to order when the person couldn't see you, and Tsuzuki usually forgot until his fifth frustrated plea for food.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 31, 2008 16:13:49 GMT -5
Xiu's grudging smile became harder and harder to conceal (or deny, for really, it was not that she was hiding it from him, but that she didn't want to acknowledge he was making her smile) as he continued on. A love of food wasn't as unsophisticated and gluttonous or revolting to a fox as it would have been for a human lady, who would have been supremely embarrassed under those circumstances. Xiu was very posh, of course, but a fox nonetheless, and eating was not so unusual for them. Nonetheless he seemed more and more of a kit as the night went on. She wondered if he wished on stars and candleflames and similar things, too, like a child.
She gathered all the material she could around herself to give herself physical shape, which, unfortunately, made the air around her feel cold, for she'd eaten little material food for some time, and had to draw upon the warmth in the air; she would have to order a little something for herself, or Tsuzuki might begin to suffer a chill and stay away from her. She followed him in and exercised a bit of glamor on the minds around her that no one would find either of them or their attire odd, deciding to stay a few steps behind and allow him to choose where to sit.
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Post by Armand on Jan 1, 2009 11:44:27 GMT -5
Tsuzuki seated himself at a table rather happily, hands coming to rest on the edge of the table as he glanced around at their surroundings. "Are you going to order anything?" he asked Xiu, remembering that she'd said she didn't need anything but dubious that she wouldn't. He gave an unconscious little shiver and shifted a little in his seat, wishing absently that he'd had his greatcoat with him; it made him look rather scary, he'd been told once by a giggling Wakaba-chan, and like a pervert by Terazuma who hated him anyways, but he'd never asked any of his closer coworkers and at the least it was very warm.
He didn't care about anything really other than the dessert, but when the waiter came over he ordered some soup regardless, something hot.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Jan 1, 2009 19:37:20 GMT -5
Xiu smiled slightly, not quite kind, but not something that would be deemed unpleasant by his standards. Xiu was never in human establishments except to be tricky and it was usually dangerous for her, and so she felt rather strained inside the restaurant, feeling a need to keep up several disguises - one to close off suspicion from the other customers, from the mortals, one to put up for Tsuzuki, and this was not simple, considering that she was not ready to give herself over to any of them and would like to maintain her own personality beneath them rather than give herself into acting the part. She was, therefore, already a bit tired.
And the glamor was draining. Yes, she thought she would have something. She nodded solemnly and ordered what he had from the waiter. What it was didn't matter, but it had to be something.
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Post by Tsuzuki on Jan 2, 2009 19:59:04 GMT -5
Tsuzuki also ordered some wine, because he had a long-time and flourishing love affair with alcohol. He sat back to wait, surprisingly not fidgiting, his hands now folded in his lap. "How long have you been in Paris?" he asked Xiu, partly because he felt as though he should say something and partly because he was geniunely curious, and he couldn't remember if she'd already told him.
There was something about Xiu that he really liked. Despite that she was a fox, a fact which he had mostly dismissed because she wasn't doing anything particularly fox-like, he felt comfortable around her for reasons he wouldn't have been able to name right off. Those reasons were, in a variety of conscious and subconscious ways, that she was pretty, that she had kept him from harm, that she was Asian and so had a bit more grasp on his culture than anyone else he'd yet to run into, that she was offering him food now and seemed content with his company, and, the most influencial and comforting one, that she was not human either. Tsuzuki hadn't considered himself human for a long, long time, although it was a different sense of the word that he applied to Xiu. She was not human in a more supernatural way, and therefore could undoubtably understand his powers and abilities where a normal human would not.
Although he would hesitate to tell her exactly what he was- too much horror, too much pain in the people's faces that he told, distrust and hate that Tsuzuki unconsciously magnified if there was anything other than confusion there at all- he wouldn't refuse it to her should she ask. He really hoped she wouldn't ask, though. He'd like to pretend he was normal for a bit- he was on vacation, after all, no souls taken, no one hurt, not on vacation.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Jan 3, 2009 15:34:23 GMT -5
Xiu could not delve into other's minds like some supernatural beings could, but she might have been flattered and surprised to find what was in Tsuzuki's. She was well-disposed to him as well as it was, for similar reasons, although somewhat in the reverse. Xiu spent a lot more time at Lady Zilia's these days than was really wise, even she thought so; but among those folks, she was highly aware of her own power and that which lurked in everyone else. Everyone was; they were sort of flaunting it to each other when they went there. Tsuzuki seemed relatively normal by comparison; there was so much less to him, so much less to be suspicious of. He did not seem to be even very aware of it, so it would have been surprising to her to see that it was otherwise.
"Hm. Not long. I suppose it depends on your standards, though..." Xiu smiled almost apologetically. "Will you be in Paris much longer?"
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Post by Tsuzuki on Jan 3, 2009 16:09:02 GMT -5
"As long as I can," Tsuzuki said, laughing a little. "I'd never left Japan before- well, no, I've been to a few other places, very close by, and I didn't have time to look around much. But I like it here. It's so different, which is, you know, kinda confusing sometimes, but it's still fun."
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Jan 3, 2009 16:21:30 GMT -5
Xiu smiled, although there was perhaps a trace of sadness in it, and a bit of incredulity.
"Truly? You can't be very old then. In fact you must be a positive infant." It was not said cruelly, but with a touch of deep fondness that unconsciously demoted him to a lower, more naive level. Or maybe he was so naive as to not notice that and simply be embarrassed by her dimply little smile as she regarded him in this new light.
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Post by Tsuzuki on Jan 4, 2009 20:06:13 GMT -5
Tsuzuki was a little embarrassed, and a little surprised. "I- I'm sorry?" he spluttered, eyes widening, unsure whether to laugh or frown. He'd never been called an infant before, and maybe a small unconscious part of him resented it. He was the oldest in his district- but of course there were older things than he, and she'd stirred his curiousity. He leaned forward, unwittingly fascinated. "How old are you?"
He didn't, to be truthful, know exactly how old he was, or how old he'd been when he died- the years blurred together or alternatively dragged on, forever and ever, the change in time only recognized by the strings of partners he went through and the occasional gruesome or touching case that rose above the rest. But that was embarrassing too, to admit to not knowing exactly his own age- 1900, he was born in 1900, wasn't he? Maybe 1901.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Jan 5, 2009 13:38:46 GMT -5
His little spluttering response only made his youth shine out all the more. Of course, Xiu herself looked young, at first sight - to Western eyes particularly, she'd noticed, at her small stature and with her round Asian face and features. But when one looked on, usually a grace, a white smoothness stood out above other things. No, Xiu was not at all young.
"I will have my eighth tail in less than a decade," said Xiu with a hint of modest pride, although far from boasting, who was very old indeed by human standards. They were just, generally, particularly difficult to see unless she was showing them off. "I have had children that would call you young. So you see," she said, a little more kindly, "you are very young-seeming to me."
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Post by Tsuzuki on Jan 5, 2009 21:42:13 GMT -5
"Your eight tail?" Tsuzuki's eyes shone. He remembered that part of the legend. "Wahhh, that's so awesome! I guess I would seem pretty young to you in that case...you're a mother?" Now he seemed surprised- the idea had never occurred to him. That she was a mother fox...but maybe that was painful for her to think of. He raised his hands in supplication, as if to let her know he'd been too eager with that last question and she didn't have to say anything.
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