estoria | ( OPEN ) i don't want a mental suplex, i want quality customer service

Who: Elliot Nightray (

meriter) and you!
When: IC 11/25—11/27
Where: Residential District (primarily the CERES Gymnasium) + Shopping District (anywhere)
What: Elliot has a terminal allergy to common sense: a lesson in three (four) parts, comprised of psuedo-drowning, Machiavellian swindlers, and terrible book taste, respectively speaking.
Rating/Warning: None, probably.

1. INSERT SWIMMING PUN HERE (ceres gymnasium.)

[ In reconciliation of every self-deprecatory impulse in his body, Elliot actually shows up for lifeguard duty for the first time in two weeks.

He'd been staving off the financial necessity of having real credits on hand to buy very real things for a long while (like microwave dinners, for one thing, considering he'd survived thus far on a diet of refried peas and mashed potatoes with the consistency of clumping dirt). Monetary gain: the true motivator of any stalwart teenager in these trying, trying times. It wasn't as if he was going to turn to his brothers in some prostrated act of weakness. Just because he'd been hairsplitting nebulous concepts like coming to the gym during his technical shift and maybe staying the whole period instead of flat-out leaving whenever it suited him didn't mean he was a stranger to manual labor. Not at all.

So. It's just another routine day at the swimming pool, and by the third hour he's sweating bullets attempting to get a grip over his genteel, strait-laced Victorian morals. There are just so many exhibitionists about in the afternoons, all in varying levels of undress, and he's blistering red up to his ears keeping his gaze trained at all the patrons without turning away at the sight of scantily-clothed bodies. Literal lingerie, at that — it was nothing short of incredible that Vessalius hadn't succumbed to utter debauchery, exposed day in and day out to water-slick forms and all manner of loosened morals. He'd always been a weird kid, anyway.

But his tension reaches a culminating point hits when someone's apparently spritzing out at the deep end of pool, an arm stuck out and frantically waving him over. Reluctantly, Elliot strips off his jacket and cravat and strides over, peering down at the swimmer in question with scrunched eyebrows a stare tipped toward palpable disdain. ]

[ Too bad he doesn't have any sense of peripheral awareness to comprehend the rather peculiar grin he's shot with until the stranger's got their hand grappled around his, and then — ]

again

[ — he falls in. Panic briefly settling in his lungs, he spends a second or two in slantslide vertigo, water rushing around in some great, disorienting deluge before he kicks up, hard, breaks the surface with audible frustration. ]

I HATE THIS JOB!

2. CULTURE OF THE YOUNG AND VAIN (around, somewhere ...)

[ When his mood considerably sobers, he takes his paycheck for a supermarket splurge to refuel his stockpile of frozen dinners and comes away with several plastic bags full of cheap, cholesterol-inducing foods. Normally he'd head straight for his apartment, but Elliot decides to take the scenic route and ends up finding the kitschiest merchant stalls known to man. One minute he's minding his own business, and the next he's surrounding by a copious amount of creams and lotions purported to rejuvenate youth, like he'd just been plunked in the middle of a health ad and was ethically obligated to spout off some hypocritical drivel about the losers who'd buy into such scams. Seriously.

Well, beggars can't be choosers. Elliot wastes no time forcing his way to the front to blithely jab a finger at one of the offending vendors in question. ]

[ You know, because there's nothing wrong with waxing poetic on insurrection to the merchants. With this kind of bullheaded mentality, Elliot's lucky he isn't get his ass hauled away by security guards right this minute. ]

3. LMAO, SPOILERS (still around ...)

[ Wayward hellion of paltry exasperation that he is, Elliot Nightray can't get by without self-gratifying himself on one of the finer things in life. Namely, literature. So he makes a habit of scanning the shelves of the bookstore with a probing fixation at least once a week, turning up his nose at the YA section and heading for the classics to spend hours turning through the pages, scouring the contents for answers, or maybe just a quick read.

Only — today it's different, because he's currently engaged in some kind of weird, heated argument with the cashier. On closer inspection, it's composed mostly of angry, one-sided outbursts, like: ]

at all

[ Or: ]

Holy Knight

[ If nothing else, bystanders can at least pick up on the fact that there's a very frustrated fanboy hogging the front desk to blather on and on about the most emotionally bloated, self-indulgent novels to ever grace the Latowidge Academy library. ]

4. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (wildcard!)

~~i didn't put him in school~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ This is why Elliot has trust issues?! He can't possibly expect genuine earnestness from anyone who doesn't immediately pick up on his ego complex and his propensity for yelling because he lacks any other viable way to communicate that actually gets the point across. ]

I've never heard of stories like those! I thought they lived out at sea and dragged sailors to their death. [ NOT THAT HE'S SEEN ANY DO THAT, much less seen any mermaid period, but she can't possibly expect him to understand societal norms, much less supposedly mythical creatures. ]

Then why don't you enlist help and take it back? [ LIKE THAT'S SO EASY. ] Are you stupid or something? Don't overgeneralize people! You won't win anyone's good favor by insulting people who are perfectly willing to help you find your tail.

Only some. [is she joking or--

A scoff.] Enlist help from same people who tried to destroy me? Do not be stupid. Why would I trust them again after that? Who would help? You? [Oona draws herself up, which considering she's only about 5'2'' isn't saying much.]

Will you find my tail? Volunteering?

[ He's not even going to dignify the former statement with a response, you probable old hag. Mermaids are always quoted as being hundreds of years old in the old stories; for all he knew, she was housing a deathly pair of incisors beneath that mouth.

Still, his pride dictates he has to entertain that ludicrous notion for at least a good ten seconds ... ]

How ungrateful can you be? Human beings who would be completely be willing to help you not for their benefit, but yours. You can't just generalize people as unanimously bad. [ A sneer. ]

Would you even be able to accept my assistance? It sounds like it isn't even in this world anymore. To find it, you'd have to comply with CERES until they offered you a way to return. People arrive all the time. I assume the same can be done in reverse, whether or not those same worlds have been "fixed".

[ Yeah, he's getting played. ]

Did you not just generalize, as you say? Mermaids draw sailors to their deaths and so on? Do not lecture me when you do the same.

[But she tilts her head up defiantly.] Would. Accept your help, I mean. Am not so prideful that I would not; my tail means more than you know. Getting it, going home and seeing my family again mean more to me than the loss of pride at cooperating with a human.

Am fine with waiting until I return. Waited very long time, waiting a little more is nothing. Time goes in a blink to me.

...Besides, have already asked CERES. It is nearly impossible, I think. [Oona shrugs, but it's clear it bothers her.]

They're widely told stories for a reason. It's more of a hypothesis than anything else, anyways.

[ Brows creasing, he straightens to his full height, as if that adds social traction to his response. ] Ask properly for my help, and I'll do everything I can to assist.

[ ... which isn't much, but he is sincere about his efforts. While Elliot's blunt, rude, and kind of dumb, at least he's earnest. ]

Have you tried investigating the Research Tower? You might be able to find answers to why we were brought here over the rest. I hardly doubt it's happenstance.

[ A slow blink, like he's still processing her request, and then: ] Why? They have the technology to create artificial beings that can move and interact on their own. It doesn't seem likely that they wouldn't be able to make you a replacement for your tail in the meantime.

[She wrinkles her nose] I do not even know you that well. If we become friends, will ask for help. Will not get on knees and beg stranger for it.

[But Oona shakes her head at the question. Nooo idea what the research tower is, it's not like she pays much attention to anything that doesn't immediately need it. Andthen a shrug at his second question.]

Is what they said. And that I would possibly have to choose, staying as human or staying as mermaid. Could possibly change me permanently to mermaid, but would not be wise in place like this. Limit movement too much.

Is what they said. If they are lying, I would not be surprised, though I do not know why they would.

Then you obviously don't need it as much.

[ SORRY ... OONA ... he'd definitely help her out without the added ego boost if she was conspicuously dying from the loss of that particular extremity, but as she seems perfectly fine with her human legs for the time being, then finding her a makeshift fish tail isn't on the top of his priority list. ]

You could use the pool. Maybe the gardens. I've seen lakes there. [ Boy, does he love pointing out the obvious. More importantly, though: ] They probably want to test something out on you and see if they can apply it to the masses. Instead of relying on someone else to save you, why don't you figure out your own means to find that tail again? You won't find it just standing around here.

( OPEN ) i don't want a mental suplex, i want quality customer service

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