Vacation Day (for Myra)

[evillurks]

The appointment has been set for very early in the morning, a reminder that he keeps all hours, not just the late ones. The coordinates he's sent Myra land her somewhere that the very first and overwhelming impression is one of fog. In her day and age, only a daring pilot would dream of taking off in it, but this is a modern airport with a very small, if often unmanned control tower, from which it's already clear this is simply a low-lying and temporary blanket of mist that will burn off quickly once the sun is truly up. Already a watery light is filtering through.
The building at her back is a shabby hangar, and is no different from any she's seen in her own time, if just a little more weathered. On a private airfield, not much changes but the planes.

The Shadow, dressed in a button-down shirt, light jacket, and jeans, is holding two thermoses. It should be easy to guess the contents, but he looks fairly alert already. "Morning." He has either slept a little better, or is simply covering for it well. Possibly there is some combination of the two.

Comments

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

He regards her thoughtfully, albeit mostly in his peripheral vision. It's wise to keep half an eye out for air traffic at all times, just in case. The sky is a more populated place than once it was. "I'm in no position to judge, of course. Your approach does seem closer to mine than theirs, however. It seems some of them even try to keep their work a secret from family and friends. It sounds to me like a fast ticket to a nervous breakdown."

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"I can understand trying to protect your family and friends, but after a point, keeping that sort of thing secret from them seems more foolhardy than telling them."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

"Being a vigilante is inherently dangerous. Friends and family will be at risk, that's almost unavoidable, so it seems unfair not to make them aware of that risk at least. Your family knows what you do for a living, I assume." He unscrews the cap and takes another long swallow of coffee, watching the fuzzy blue line in the horizon.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"Of course. My Father nearly died when he found out the Bureau accepted me. He would have called in a favor to get me rejected if my Mother hadn't calmed him down." She grins wryly at the memory, it had been a trying time for her and her Father, but they had made it through. She sips the coffee and looks out of the window as well. "Now, he keeps me updated on events over in China. He has a nearly unparalleled inside scoop on the situation over there, and it gives him an excuse to write to me often."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

Her story makes him smile faintly, a slightly nostalgic expression. If the Myra of his own world ever told him about the struggle with her parents over joining the Bureau, it was a very long time ago indeed, and even The Shadow can't remember everything. "It sounds like it turned out well. They ought to be proud."

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"Thank you." Was she blushing? Myra prayed that she wasn't; so few people gave her compliments of that caliber, she honestly hadn't been expecting it. Coming from the Shadow only tripled the effect of it as well. She hid her face in her thermos as she sipped at the coffee, just in case she'd been unsuccessful at hiding the faint coloring of her cheeks.

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for Myra, those sharp blue eyes take in nearly everything but small print, and he catches the attempt at hiding and then the reason for it. Because he is neither tactful nor empathetic, The Shadow laughs. The sound echoes and rolls in the cabin of the small craft.
"I'm sorry, should I insult you instead?"

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

Myra comes out of 'hiding' at the sound of his laughter, the red coloring is gone from her face. It wasn't his mirthful laugh, but she still enjoyed it. It was one of her favorite trademarks.

"I prefer the compliments." She quips back with an amused look. "Even if they do go to my head a bit quickly."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

"I'll use them sparingly." He smiles. "Who do you talk to in the Nexus?" Always working, he wants to know what sort of alliances she's formed in part because he might someday need to make use of them. Creating some sort of network in the Nexus seems inevitable.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"I have passing acquaintances with a handful of people. A couple heroes, a few villains even." Myra smiles slyly as she watches the horizon. "I've only seen fit to exchange contact information with two people so far, but their skills are still questionable. One of them is a new axquaintance, and the other has a curse that turns him into a loose cannon."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

"I've met a few suspicious characters, too, but in those cases I usually try to avoid asking. I know myself. It would be all too easy to carry my policing tendencies across dimensions. Ah, barring the recent incident." He is doubly aware that having made an exception once already, it will be all too easy to do so again in the future.
"What kind of curse?"

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"John Blaze? I believe I mentioned him in passing at one point. He's possessed by a demon of Vengeance." Myra shrugs. "It's a curious situation that I'm still investigating. It seems to be both a symbiotic and parasitic relationship." Myra shakes her head as she watches a few of the dials in the cockpit. "As a stunt rider, I imagine Johnny could be useful, but I'm not so certain about the demon, Zarathos. I haven't met them away from the AVF in the Nexus, so I can't say how much or how little John can actually police the demon."

"Otherwise, I haven't made any significant contacts as of yet. I'm still in the process of getting my feet wet."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

"I think you did. Having fought one demon already, I'm not in a hurry to meet another, but... if he could be trusted he'd make a powerful ally." He frowns thoughtfully. "You know Green and Crumrin, now, and there's Allen. But I'm not recruiting, of course." His tone and the sideways glance make it clear that he knows what a joke that protest has become.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

Myra gives an amused glance at his statement.

"Of course, but then, you cheated on that issue when I arrived."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

The Shadow watches the sky, but while the rest of his face remains impassive, the lines about his eyes and particularly at the corners are deeply creased. His truest smiles tend to show there, where no scarf can conceal them. "Technically that's not true, I recruited you decades ago, it was merely resumed."

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"Technically I don't work for you, but an alternate. Even so, an agent is always an agent, even across dimensions, and time differences." Myra smoothed a small wrinkle in her jeans. They felt a little awkward, but she had to admit, they were comfortable. "Besides, my service hasn't been that long, my hair isn't turning gray yet." She ran a hand through her hair teasingly.

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

"There's nothing wrong with grey hair." His own is the silver that comes of hair already grey going paler towards white.
"But there you are, you recruited yourself, in a sense. Not to mention the latest case was my helping you, even if it would have likely come around to make trouble in my world eventually." As traumatic as that final battle was, he's enjoyed working with her again, and in an earlier age.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

Myra laughed brightly as an idea struck her.

"If you look at it from another angle, someone could almost say that I recruited you." She shakes her head at the thought, amused. "At the very least I think I brought you officially out of 'semi-retirement'."

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

A whispery chuckle shivers off the walls, just over the hum of the engines. "One could. And that is a joke, isn't it... I should know better than to try curtailing my own activities, it's never worked before."

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

"The day you actually retire is the day I settle down and take a secretarial job." Myra closed her thermos and held it between her knees as she took another look at the map and glanced out the window, using the landscape to pinpoint their progress.

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

The Shadow gives a slow shake of his head. "I made that mistake once. I'm never retiring again." He refrains from alluding to the alternative, this time. That the job will someday kill him seems inevitable, and yet he's made it this long.
The mountains are already a bumpy blue line, the contours beginning to show on the horizon, but they still have a while to get there. He'd forgive her if she dozes off in her seat. The last comment has left him in a contemplative mood.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

For as much talking as she can do, Myra enjoys the drone of the engines as the plane moves towards the horizon. She prefers not to doze, although the sounds of flight do make her lids feel heavy, she keeps herself awake by watching in studied silence. She notes the dials, the scenery, even the corrections to the plane's path made by the Shadow as she remains aware, but little more than the silent observer. She is also taking the opportunity to reflect on things, and to relax.

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

His stores of small talk exhausted, The Shadow sits silent and thoughtful, sparing enough attention from his private ruminations to keep the plane safely on course. On the horizon the line of blue thickens, slowly rising and darkening into separate mountains of green. The morning fog is long gone by the time they are over the rolling hills that skirt the Catskills. As the plane begins a slow descent, the mountains seem to grow until they are first level, then rising above to one side of the plane. The view out her side is breathtaking, while to the pilot's side the land sweeps away lower and gentler, back the way they came. What he is angling down to is not precisely an airfield so much as an abandoned strip that only private pilots in the area even know exists. There is no tower, not even a hangar, simply a long strip of dirt and an empty shack that seems on the verge of collapse.
The landing is gentle but swift, the mountains grown from fuzzy shapes to gaze down upon to looming giants in a matter of minutes. The Shadow taxies the Beechcraft to a wide swathe of dirt at one end of the strip, and rolls to a slightly bumpy halt.

[myra-reldon.livejournal.com]

Myra watches out the window in awed silence, remaining silent as the Shadow lands the plane and brings it to a stop. She's still staring out of the window at the scenery, her eyes wide and a smile playing faintly on her face as she tries to keep her natural excitement in check.

"Wow." She whispers, leaning in her seat to get a better view out of the window. To a vague extent, it almost reminds her of the mountains back home.

[evillurks.livejournal.com]

These are nowhere near the mountains she's familiar with in height. In Tibet, these would be considered mere foothills. All the same they are an impressive sight when you're up close to them, dwarfed by the sheer mass of earth.
The Shadow flips switches and cuts the engines, unstrapping as the propellers slow to a lazy whirl. "The only bad part about flying is sitting still for so long." It's the first thing he's said in roughly an hour, but his tone is as casual as if they've just been talking. "Time to stretch our legs."