evillurks | Informal visit (For Metody)

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Current Location: Rettigue Apt., Manhattan, NY

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Informal visit (For Metody)

The Shadow is hard at work coordinating things from the Rettigue apartment, today. The break from hunting out Khan's activities in his alternate's world is merely an opportunity to chase criminals in his own. Unavailable to gather forces for multiple raids and without the time to head up those operations himself, he's stuck compiling information and passing it to legal authorities through very careful channels. It's a lot of paperwork, and very tedious, but it gives him a physical rest he needs from his other activities.

When Metody arrives, he's in the most worn spot in the whole place; the center of the black plush sofa, bent over the coffee table. He regards his visitor over the rims of his reading glasses. "You've looked better. Coffee or tea?" The paperwork is shuffled neatly into a folder, out of sight.

The apartment is spacious and spartan, with sleek dark furniture. There's a grouping of the sofa and a few black armchairs around a black metal coffee table, all arranged on a vast Oriental rug. A bookshelf built into the wall opposite the sofa holds a television set that is archaic by Metody's standards, fewer books than one might expect, a sleek stereo system, and in spots of honour a card bearing Chinese calligraphy by Myra and the wrappings and knife Metody sent for Christmas. A floor to ceiling window dominates another wall, but the drapes are only open a crack. Apart from the kitchen doorway and a hall, there's little else to be seen in this room. It has quite a bit of open, empty space and the feel of somewhere that is only sporadically lived in.

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"Oh. It wasn't an intentional offense."

"It seems odd to muck good wine up with dead animals. Me, I'd put it in the cheap crap and sell it to macho idiots."

A pause as his mind wandered off along that path of thought.

"...of course there's brie. I guess that's the same thing."

He gives a quiet chuckle, and a wheezing cough. "Some of them are supposed to be aphrodisiacs, and others are meant to... I don't know, illustrate machismo. I'd rather have coffee."

He laughs, lifting his coffee.

"'Hooray boys, a cat fell in this batch! We can sell it for double now!'"

He drinks.

The Shadow makes a faint grimace, but he's not about to refute the joke. "He was pleased by that part, anyway. I'm sure he'd remember you." The scent of chemical pollution does tend to linger in the mind, after all...

"I could bring him alcohol with something really horrible in it for him. There's this mushroom called Dead Man's Hand. 'S got woody bone-like things inside and all. Or mice. We're very big on variously preserved mice."

One eyebrow quirks, but he considers the offer with a perfectly serious expression. "Do people in your world drink that kind of thing? Alcohol with those in them, that is?"

He laughs.

"People in my world eat anything that can be eaten. In the US, there's tabboos on cats, dogs, certain kinds of snails, pregnant non-placental mammals, and some other animals during particular times of the year, but other than that, if we can catch it, we will eat it, and if we can brew it, so much the better."

"....we also have a bit of a mouse fixation, I'll admit. They're not much worth eating, really."

"...Fair enough. He'd probably like it. You've left me questioning some of the food you've PINpointed here, though." There is no malice in his tone, and he continues to look mildly bemused. Even if Metody sent him mouse stew, the chances are quite good he's eaten something worse.

"I don't much like mice, to be honest. They're all..." He gestures, the motions a bit spastic. " - crunchy. It's mostly been meat I've shot myself, or my family has. I've learned what's standard and what isn't, for the most part."

"Even in this world, standards vary from one country to another. In Asia they're willing to see a wider variety of animals as food, and I've traveled too much to be picky." He may not eat enough, but he will eat whatever is available when he's hungry.

"We have a pretty good mix of cultures in the US. Maybe that's what did it - lots of cultures to say 'this is okay to eat' plus lots of lean times. Makes you more likely to try what's available."

He props his chin on his fist, considering this.

"They try to pride themselves on that here, especially in New York, but the majority would still be distressed by what you just told me." He is not, himself, but The Shadow is extremely well-traveled and lived through two world wars, which were also lean times.

He shrugs a little. "It - that would be an odd thing to be distressed over, really. Home is so different from here that we may as well not even be the same country."

"Your world is a far parallel from mine." He nods in calm acceptance, and makes a gesture to the huge window beyond the dark drapes. "I imagine the city out there isn't quite like the one you've described, although we have our share of air pollution. Those people don't believe in spirits. Not most of them..."

"Very far. Very...divergent." He looks up, and his eyes have the same focus they do when he's looking at The Shadow's bones.

"You may as well not believe in the rain. It falls. Nothing but dictators and politicians care about belief back home. You just - you learn how to deal with the more common kind back home, unless you are the sort of helpless person who can't also manage balancing a checkbook and putting on pants every day."

That gaze always makes him slightly uncomfortable, but Metody has already seen whatever secrets his bones might hold. He is too schooled in concealing his emotions to betray any sense of unease.

The Shadow gives a mild shrug. "You're preaching to the choir. I've seen more things than most, even before I ever found the Nexus."

"It's just...odd to think of places where something's power depends on belief. Though our gods fluctuate according to worship, so I suppose that is similar."

He turns that gaze onto the walls, as if he could look through them. In a limited way, he can.

"And odd to think of a world with no gods. Or no gods like we have at home. In Paris, I can pray forever and nothing answers."

The Shadow turns his mug slowly in both hands, thoughtful. Through the walls Metody may detect other residents, moving about their daily private lives in the assumption that their neighbour is a retired investment banker.

"I don't know about that... we may have gods. The people I learned from later in life had faith in a wide pantheon. It would be hard to dispute it with them, their belief was so strong. It's very different from what I was raised with..." He hesitates there. "I try to worry about the basics of this life, what I'm doing here and now. I focus on my work. If there's an afterlife, I'll worry about it when I get there."

"Maybe they are different gods than what I'm used to. You guys don't seem to have little local gods, not like we have at home."

He tilts his head, listening thoughtfully. "My particular religion is overwhelmingly concerned with what we do in this world, not the next. There's one branch of thought that says there is none, and it's only what we do in this world that matters. I tend to stay within that one, really." He grimaces a bit, turning his mug around and around. "My kind - we don't really get an afterlife, anyway."

"Not in modern America, but in other countries there are, still." Although it's been a long time since he's been back there, The Shadow is aware that in parts of Asia the old traditions of local gods of places, and hearth and home, persists.

"Your kind..." It's a quiet echo, rather than a question. It has taken him some time to see Metody as something other than human, but it also makes little difference to him. "I'd say that what we do in this world matters, either way, so you might as well focus on that." The Shadow is fairly certain that he believes in an afterlife, but he's not certain which kind. Certainly there are moments he suspects if there is a hell, he's destined for it, regardless of the grander intentions of his work. There is a great deal of blood on his hands, and he cannot honestly bring himself to feel regret for it.

"That's comforting to hear. I know the Greeks had something like what we have. Or some of the Greek-like people did."

He spreads his hands a little, just barely managing to not slop the coffee out of his mug in the sheepish gesture. "My kind. No soul, no afterlife. So - like you, I focus mostly on this world. Or these worlds."

"That's a little before my time." He nods, but allows himself a thin smile.

"Careful." The apartment has hardwood flooring, but the chairs where they sit are arranged on a huge oriental rug, and chances are it's quite authentic. "I don't usually think much of the soul, but I find it hard to think of you as not having one."

Metody looks briefly apologetic, putting a hand over the mouth of the mug as if the coffee might leap out all on its own. "Bit before mine, too."

"It...a soul is a funny thing. For us, it's a kind of - oh, a kind of holy tally. Or scales. Scales might be a little more accurate. All the weight of sin presses it down, all the loft of virtuous deeds lift it up, and depending on the weight of things at the end, you either sink to hell or rise to heaven. So, in an unphysical way, it is like a physical thing. Like being born without legs, or eyes. You can adapt and learn a different way of walking. Or seeing."

With the spill averted, The Shadow's expression remains thoughtful, and his face hovers low over his coffee mug. "That sounds like an oversimplification. Even after seeing the Nexus, meeting other interpretations of these things, other gods, you have complete faith that what you've been taught in your own world about that is true?" There is no judgment, merely curiosity from a man who half converted to other beliefs when he was around Metody's age.

"In regards to the mechanics of the soul and sin, it is an exceedingly simple religion. We don't have eternal damnation or any kind of redemption. It gets trickier when you start involving the actual gods, though. But - " he frowns at the coffee and the mug.

" - we live really close to our gods. Really close. The main one I worship, Indian Summer, she walks along the great forests, and we can track where she moves. It's important to know, because if a person looks on her and her retinue, you don't ever come back. But if religious doubt paralyzes you, and the signs that answer prayers aren't enough, you can go see."

"And - I did."

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