twiststheblade | Angels: Act Two

from here

Yokohama.

Japan's biggest port city.

Hub of trade, export, and import.

Modern, classical, new and ancient. If a thing is new 'it was done first in Yokohama'.

It is late by the time the two bikes purr through the suburbs, heading for the heart of the financial district. Late, and the rain has stopped. The surfaces are slick with water, lights reflecting off anything and everything, a shifting kaleidoscope.

The buildings are an odd mix. Darkened office buildings, except for the odd window where a worker is up late into the night. Bars, restaurants, the odd shop, spill light and sound and smell out into the streets.

Eventually, Miho waves an arm, slows, and pulls over to the side of the road. She hops off, braces the bike, and smoothly uses her entire body-weight to lift it onto the stand. She pushes her visor up, and smiles.

"Well, this is it."

There are two buildings that stand out. One is rounded, almost like a tower, stabbing up into the night. Next to it, seperated by only a narrow alleyway, is a mirrored tower-block, curved frontage, glass elevators running up the outside of the building. It has an enourmous lobby, brightly lit, edged by small shops, and a few restaurants.

"That's the one we want," she says, pointing to the rounded building. "And this is the one I thought we could go across from."

She grins.

"Anyone for sushi?"

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"As much as I do," Goldy replies with a chuckle. "I suppose six hundred years in residence there qualifies me. And I have inherited many of the cultural tastes over that time."

She gives her head a curious pat. There's a smile of approval at the results of Alanna's touch.

Much better.

Miho laughs.

"I guess the two of you are even less western than I am, but for our purposes I guess so."

She watches the hair-arrangement curiously.

"Neat trick."

Quickly - sooner, in fact, than a few people who had arrived before them - the server returns, passing the hot towels, followed by a second waitress with flat plates of various titbits - a wide variety of maki- and nigiri-suchi.

Miho chuckles. "A bit of everything."

Alanna shrugs. "I certainly didn't think so when I was younger. All I wanted was change my hair and eye color. I tried once and knocked myself out for quite some time."

Her eyes widen again as the server hands her a hot towel. It's like someone read her mind. Smiling blissfully, she wraps it around her hands.

The food, although unlike anything she has ever seen, fascinates her. She sees rice. Rice is good.

"I'll let you go first, I think."

Goldy lets out a little laugh at Alanna's story.

She uses her towel as well, while the waitress pours some chilled sake into her diminuitive cup. She takes a sip and surveys the food offerings. Then, without any fuss, she primes a pair of chopsticks between her fingers and plucks a seaweed-wrapped cylinder from the plate.

It's salmon and she seems to enjoy it.

She tries an oblong of rice and tuna next, which meets with even more approval.

"Why did you want to change how you look?" she asks Alanna. "I love your hair."

...Goldy is eating with sticks.

Alanna watches very carefully, trying to discern if there is a trick to it. Eventually she picks up a pair of chopsticks as well, spinning them between her fingers.

"I was trying to blend in. There aren't that many violet-eyed redheads where I'm from. I just wanted to be like everybody else. Every day, I asked why I hadn't been born a boy."

She fumbles her first attempt with the chopsticks and pops a piece in her mouth with her hands.

It's really very good.

Miho watches Goldy with a smile, and raises an eyebrow at Alanna. "Why'd you want to be a boy?"

Flipping her chopsticks in her fingers, she picks up a shred of ginger with the blunt ends, and offers it to Alanna. "Here. Try."

"Because I wanted nothing more than to be a knight, and if I'd been discovered as a girl, the King and Duke Gareth never would've allowed me to try for my shield."

Face solemn, she takes the ginger and looks at it a moment before tasting. This she recognizes.

"It's good for your stomach. Jack gave me a ginger root to chew when I get seasick."

Goldy is concentrating on the bluefin tuna chunks. She follows each delicious morsal with a sip of sake.

"Seasick, eh? How do you feel about heights?"

Alanna sniffs the sake, makes a face and opts for water instead.

"How do I feel about heights? I avoid them until I can no longer do so, and then I just don't look down."

Safety harnesses are very primitive in Tortall.

Well, now. This could be interesting.

"Would you trust us if we said you couldn't fall?"

Miho's drinking jasmine tea. It's good. And eating gyu tataki, which had been ordered with Alanna in mind, but is really good.

Alanna's stomach does an odd little flip.

"Yes," she finally replies. "I would. If I can't trust you here, who can I trust?"

She keeps trying things, appetite suddenly voracious.

Goldy breaks from her eating and frowns at Miho a bit.

"Let's not make any overly rash promises, sweetness," she says. "I'd love for our safety to be guaranteed, but whether she falls or not is pretty much in her own hands."

The building traverse part of the plan had been sketchy at best, basically because it couldn't be properly formulated until they got up there.

"Not quite what I meant," she says. "The equipement is perfectly safe. You can drown in two inches of water if you're stupid enough."

She glances around the room.

"Pas d'evant les enfants, hmm?"

"I have no intention of falling," she says stubbornly.

The french is unknown, but the meaning is clear.

Sweetly, "please pass... those things. And those over there."

Goldy quickly grabs the last of the ōtoro chunks and hoards them. Only then does she pass over the platter with an incredibly sweet smile.

"I think it's going to be fun. I haven't been abseiling in an age."

When Goldy speaks of an 'age', it could be well be a literal one.

Sweetly, "you're both pigs."

But the gyu tataki is all hers.

( Scene 2)

Angels: Act Two

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