spira_rp | Killers everywhere, it ain't no place to run.

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Killers everywhere, it ain't no place to run.

The Desert Palace, all in all, wasn't such a bad place.

Tyki rather liked it. It was almost lively under the near funereal, subdued air. There might have been a fog hanging over everything, the heavy weight of a member missing, but underneath that was a subtle layer of anticipation, a mountain-stream burble of excitement at what the meeting might hold. For those normally resident, the reaction to strangers was mixed. Some approached the situation with their heads held high, giving no indication one way or another how they felt about the sudden intrusion. Others seemed nervous, the unknown quantities enough to frighten them, not that they broadcasted it. For the minions, there seemed to be a novelty to it. It almost seemed to take the edge off the fear the Arrancar were harbouring.

Almost.

Neliel, however, apparently Sosuke Aizen's biggest fan, seemed positively mired in it. There were moments when she came out of herself a little, but it was obvious that he was on her mind. Him, or her precarious position.

The young girl Road had taken to seemed less concerned, but it was possible she didn't understand the gravity of her situation. The short man with the pet Malboro covered whatever worries he had with a bright veneer of smirking sarcasm, but Tyki could practically smell the fear on him. The lanky Tag with the attitude problem didn't give anything away, instead choosing to sneer one-eyed at everybody, teeth grit and bared like an animal caged, as though he didn't care whether he lived or died so long as he got to sink his teeth into somebody. It was possible this was the case, but Tyki had rarely seen somebody who didn't care when it came down to it. Perhaps he'd get to see his real feelings on the matter after the meeting's conclusion. That might be fun.

The others hadn't presented themselves for inspection.

Tyki found himself enjoying it all. Road was keeping an eye on things, doing her best impression of a precocious young girl there under Tyki's watchful eye, but the reverse was probably more true. She knew more than he did, about everything. It was her who told him what would become of the Arrancar if things went south, her who told him about the members he had never heard of, who he'd never bothered to read the backgrounds of. He simply watched and enjoyed.

What had surprised him was that the majority of the members present and, indeed, those expected, were natives of their own floating continent, and not Ivalice. Some of the residents were certainly lowerworlders, but all of the visitors seemed to come from Niflheim, Lucis or the Jyllandi Union. Was it merely a trip for them, a chance for the to size each other up on neutral ground, with Aizen's imprisonment serving as little more than window dressing? That was possible. None of the had any real personal investment in the man, nor his continued safety, or that of his underlings. He suspected Kreeth was simply there for the holiday.

There hadn't been any newcomers for a few days. The last had been the two from the Union and before those, the Lucian envoys, apparent nobodies there in the stead of somebody important. It was probably fortunate the absent lowerworlders didn't send the same in their places, or the palace would run the risk of being standing room only, with underlings turfed out of their rooms to house the temporarily higher-ranked dogs of members. Road said they were still waiting on a woman from Reseune, a town that bordered the two major halves of the Niflheim Empire, and some mid-tier noble from Nagapur who Road, all full of childlike delight, was expecting to kick off at some point during her stay.

There had been some arrivals last night, but they'd come in without fanfare, or announcement. They felt familiar, so Tyki assumed they were residential minions, gone and returned. He'd soon find out, anyway. He'd left his hat and cane in his room, but still made sure to dress nicely. His white side wasn't welcome in such a place, and the black was far, far classier. He found himself gravitating to the kitchen without effort and he was almost surprised how quick such a thing had happened. Perhaps that was how the palace got you.

He pushed open the door.

"Good morning," he said.

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It had been a long trip out with Yylfordt and his cadre of hangers on. Szayel had objected to going when he'd been told. After all, he never went out on forays into the wider world with Yylfordt and the rest normally; it was obvious that Nel was just trying to get rid of him while the other Khamja members arrived.

Not that he objected to collecting Arc and returning him to the Palace. One more pleasant face in the building wasn't to be sniffed at, and knowing that he was here with Arc, while Aizen was so unfortunately locked away... well. The imagination just ran riot.

He'd woken at his usual time that morning, but took rather longer in the shower, and then with his collection before he'd prepared himself for seeing the rest of the Palace. The Ragnarok wasn't the most comfortable, or secluded, of lodgings, and while Szayel wasn't shy, others had complained that the walls were thin.

With his hair perfectly done, he'd ventured out. There were others present, of course there were. He didn't know if the meeting had already taken place, or if it was still to occur, but either way, the Palace bristled with new reiatsu signatures.

Two of them were in the kitchen. One of them made Fornicaras uneasy, which Szayel casually ignored because the petulant squirming of his Hollow was beneath his attention.

He entered to find four people seated around the table. One in glasses, one with grey skin, and the other two of little significance to him. The kitchen smelled of cooked food and coffee. Good coffee, like he kept in his workspace in the infirmary.

"I'm here," he declared, shooting Nel a pointed look. She'd been so eager to get rid of him, after all.

"Ugh, why?" Apache asked, putting her elbow on the table and resting her cheek on her hand.

She was sick of him, more than usual. His stupid smarmy face, his ridiculous pink hair, those unforgivably terrible glasses, his repugnant personality... just an hour without him, that's all she wanted.

"Knew we should've dropped you out over the Naldoan sea," she griped.

He'd complained on their trip, but that wasn't much of a surprise. He hated all of them, not least his brother, and being cooped up with the group of people most likely to stove his head in, save Nnoitra, for a lengthy period must have sucked for him, but not as much as for them. He'd been less aggravating when they'd picked Arc up, but only because he'd left bitching at them alone in favour of picking on the boss's kid. Or whatever he was doing with him. She didn't really want to think about it.

Tyki looked up as another person walked up, and in. He watched the greeting unfold in front of him, not hiding a small smirk of amusement. Given their familiarity, it was very possible that all three of these people were Arrancar. The newcomer was tall, pink haired, and he would have been easy on the eyes if it wasn't for the expression he wore on his face. Tyki had seldom seen a look like that on anybody but a brothel madame. It was a self-assured look, like he looked down at everybody else as if they were an object, a punter, or scum beneath his notice.

If they were associated, there was no love lost between them. The girl didn't seem to enjoy the man's company at all, so he looked at Nel, waiting to see her reaction to him. Politics weren't his forte, but people were.

"Good morning," he said, putting down his knife and fork and wiping his mouth on a hand after finishing his breakfast. "That was wonderful," he said, to Ignis. Well, it didn't hurt to compliment the chef, even if he was a Lucian.

Edited 2018-10-08 21:54 (UTC)

Nel felt Szayel approaching, and braced herself for it. Which didn't stop her from internally groaning when he walked in and declared his presence.

All right, maybe she was going too far in assuming that Ignis batted for Szayel's team. Ignis was a little flamboyant, but he didn't exactly sand in doorways and fill the room with a fog of utter fab.

"Good morning, Szayel," she replied, with a lack of enthusiasm. "Nice to see you survived." Her tone couldn't have been flatter if a steamroller had passed over it, but it was obvious he was trying to needle at her by drawing attention to his presence.

Ignis blinked, slightly taken aback as a man, around his own height, entered the room and promptly declared he was here. Ignis took a second to rake eyes over him. He was a Selkie, of course; there were a number of them, and he'd met Marluxia, so pink hair on a man wasn't new. It was everything else about this man that stood out. He was skinny, and wore white framed spectacles, and looked as if he belonged in a house of ill repute, rather than this kitchen.

And Nel and Apache seemed to know him, and were weary of his presence already, despite the fact he'd only just walked in.

He bowed his head to Tyki instead of addressing the newcomer instead, ignoring his use of his hand to wipe at his own mouth, although he couldn't be blamed when they hadn't been provided with napkins. "You're welcome," he answered, in Jyllandi. "I'm always happy to cook for an appreciative palate."

No matter where it originated from. Through such means were inroads to diplomacy made, after all, even though diplomacy with the Noah was likely a fruitless endeavour.

"Good morning," he said, then, to Szayel, switching back to Ivalician smoothly.

"Good morning to you," Szayel replied, although his tone suggested he meant 'good morning to me' as he cast a definitely appreciative eye over first the speccy nerd with the ridiculous hair, and then the dark skinned charmer.

He followed it up by flashing a poisonous look at Apache. Too many weeks in too confined a space with her had ground on his last nerve. She was as objectionable as Yylfordt, and her presence made Yylfordt a thousand times more objectionable still because the ridiculous idiot clearly wanted to stick his dick in her and hadn't. Szayel had no patience for that sort of stupidity either.

"But you didn't," he pointed out, and then sauntered past to the kettle to make himself a coffee.

"So," he said, as he flicked the kettle on. He turned around to lean against the counter and make eye contact with the newcomers. "Who are you?"

Tyki looked up at Szayel from his seat at the table.

He had yellow eyes, like his, if a slightly different shade. They didn't stand out quite so much in his pale face. And it was pale. It was more than just white-skinned Selkie, it was the pale he associated with those who didn't get much sunlight, like plants kept in the dark. Only Lumi had been paler.

"Tyki Mikk," he said, simply. "Here for the meeting, though that probably goes without saying."

The palace was hardly a holiday destination, after all.

Ignis moved to retrieve the emptied plates from the table before he answered the question of who he was. "My name's Ignis," he said, politely. There was no point in using his surname; it wouldn't mean anything to anyone that wasn't Lucian, and if it did, then he probably didn't want them to know it.

"A pleasure to meet you, I'm sure," he added, giving Szayel a polite smile as he stood to transport the plates to the sink.

Now that he was standing, he was on eye level with Szayel, which meant that Szayel was likely an inch or so taller than himself once you accounted for footwear. And yet skinnier, and decidedly flamboyant.

Szayel let himself look Ignis up and down as he stood. Lean, toned, not badly dressed, although Szayel's eyes fell to the man's shoes and stayed there for a second. Hopefully that could be blamed on foreign sense of style. Ignis sounded more Archadian than Arc, or Aizen, in a way that was more like a comedy Archadian accent than a natural one. And yet he'd clearly spoken in another language when Szayel had entered.

Tyki didn't have the same accent at all.

"Oh," Szayel said, looking at Tyki. It was hard to decide which was easier on the eyes. "I haven't missed it then." Despite Nel's best attempts. Good.

"We're still waiting on some ... late arrivals," he said, giving a shrug.

He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his cigarette case. He'd rolled as many cigarettes for the day as he thought he'd smoke, but if the delay went on much longer, he did run the risk of running out of tobacco. He wasn't entire sure how Ivalician varieties stood up to his tried and tested cheap and nasty Überwaldean brand. He pulled one from the silver box and put it back into his pocket, pulling his matches -- also running low -- out inside.

"Any idea who they might be?" He asked of Ignis, in Jyllandi, getting to his feet.

He knew better than to smirk in the kitchen and face Nel's wrath. Tyki hadn't been there to see her douse one of the other members with cold water, but Kreeth had gleefully recounted the tale to them one evening.

Edited 2018-10-08 23:51 (UTC)

Apache looked at Szayel with a flat expression. He was far, far too happy about that. She didn't know why. Szayel having not missed the meeting only gave him more opportunities to be killed by somebody who hadn't been given a long enough period time to get used to his aggravating and abrasive nature.

She looked at Tyki as he spoke, again only to Ignis.

At least some of them were kept in the dark as well. It was possible there wasn't a full list of attendees, or that only Kuja had it. Or whoever it was that worked above Kuja, always unseen.

Ignis cast a sidelong glance at Tyki as he spoke in Jyllandi. Did the Noah know? Sir Integra hadn't known of any other parties affiliated with herself due to arrive, although it was always possible one would arrive unexpectedly.

"Since attendance isn't mandatory," he replied, also in Jyllandi, "I'm afraid not." There certainly wasn't anyone else due from Lucis, but Ignis was only here as an envoy in any case, so no one could reasonably expect him to know of every member that might attend. It seemed unlikely that Niflheim's interests would be represented solely by the Noah, but who else in Niflheim might be with Khamja remained to be seen. Then there was the rest of the Jyllandi Union, and anyone else from Ivalice that might choose to attend but prefer not to take the extended stay in the Palace that the Jyllandi members were.

Szayel listened to the conversation going on with his eyebrows raised. As if speaking in a language others couldn't be expected to understand wasn't simply rude. It wasn't as if Jyllandi was like Al Bhed and taught in schools here.

He looked to Apache. Well, at least she'd serve some purpose with all the other rude Jyllandis around at the moment.

Nel kept her eye on Tyki's cigarette, and lighter. She'd had to enforce the no smoking rule already, and didn't want to have to upset Tyki by enforcing it with him, too. Although so far, people had been quite good about doing as they were asked and refraining from smoking in the kitchen.

She knew when Hojo had passed through, because Hojo was just ignorant like that, but so far, his wanderings aside, the kitchen had been free of the scent of second hand tobacco.

"I hope you're taking that outside?" she asked, her voice lilting and playful, even though she meant it. Tyki probably didn't need a hard reminder.

Apache made eye contact with Szayel and gave him a pointed look, just a narrowing of the eyes. It wasn't as sophisticated as whatever quasi-telepathy some people in the palace used to communicate without speaking, but it adequately communicated that he should Shut Up and Not Mention her shared knowledge of the language in front of them.

She hoped.

"No, I just like to smoke standing up," he said, not being able to keep from being sarcastic before his first cigarette of the day, even to Nel. "Of course," he added, stripping back the tone he'd used and just leaving the smile. It wasn't an unfriendly one, either. "I wouldn't dream of smoking in your kitchen, certainly not after hearing what happened to a certain professor."

He made his way to the back step, striking the match on the abrasive paper that came with the book it had been attached to. He wasn't much good at traditional magic, and he didn't quite trust himself not to burn himself, or something else, or everything else, when trying to light his cigarette with it. He'd sacrificed a cuff to his ineptitude in the past and he didn't fancy spending the rest of his time in the palace singed as a result of a second failure. As such, he kept cheap books of matches, something of a rarity, on his person for the purpose instead.

"It looks like it will be a surprise to all of us then," he said, indicating that he did not, in fact, know who was supposed to be turning up either. "It'll be like Hogswatch come early. ...Lucians do have Hogswatch..?"

He really wasn't sure.

Edited 2018-10-09 00:51 (UTC)

So the Noah didn't know either. Or did they, and Tyki was too smart to tell Ignis that? It really could go either way. Unless the incomers were more Noah, it wasn't likely to make any big difference anyway. Khamja were disparate individuals with occasionally aligning interests, little more. There were alliances and rivalries within the clan that formed and fractured as if with the push and pull of tides, and with approximately the same regularity.

"We do," he confirmed. Hogswatch was a borrowed holiday, and not their only one. It wasn't the highlight of the Lucian festival calendar as it was for others, that honour went to Nocte Deae, but, "Never let it be said that Lucians will pass up an opportunity for family and feasting." Especially in midwinter. Hogswatch came just after Long Night, which meant that some parts of Lucis rolled from one party almost straight into another.

He placed the used plates in the sink, and began running the tap to get the water hot enough to wash up.

Nel caught the snark, and the immediate reining in of the snark, treating Tyki to a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk. He made Gamuza cower just by being present, but Nel had learned to be around men that scared her, and one of the tricks was not letting them know you scared her.

Bringing up Hojo made her scowl though. "If I catch a certain professor smoking in here again, a glass of water will be the least of his worries," she said, before turning her attention back to Apache. The 'speak and die' look she was wearing was subtle, but there, and doubtless something Szayel had encountered many times before.

Ignis and Tyki's dialects weren't that difficult, then.

Szayel caught the look from Apache, raised both eyebrows, and then shifted to push his glasses fractionally higher up his nose instead.

Well then, he hoped whatever they were saying was juicy enough to warrant his use of patience. In the meantime, he required coffee or he was going to get narky.

"So," he said, addressing the room, and eyeing up Ignis in particular because he was closest, "are all the members that have arrived this delectable?"

Tyki lit his cigarette as Ignis spoke, and opened his mouth to respond on the subject of Hogswatch, but stopped, blinking at Szayel. Well, that was rather forward, wasn't it? The way he asked, without embarrassment, not-so-subtly commenting on them as he did it, made him think of Sherril, and his unfortunate tendency to ... comment. And touch.

Tyki rather hoped that he wouldn't touch. Having to play up to this high society noble family refinement nonsense was exhausting enough without needing to deal with that too. Still, it didn't hurt to be polite.

"No," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke out of the door. A light breeze took it, perhaps a little faster than Tyki thought it would. The trees were barely moving. "Not unless you're into young girls or winged Tags."

Apache rolled her eyes at Szayel's question. Didn't take him long, did it..? Less than five minutes and the creep was already perving on the visitors.

She stiffened slightly at what the Noah said, though. For somebody who looked like him, to say that... rankled. He hadn't said it cruelly, but he'd still used the word, one she hadn't heard in a while.

"Winged?" She asked.

An Aegyl? Or a Gria? Or was that their mutation?

Ignis cleared his throat at Szayel's question. He was much more forthright than anything Ignis was accustomed to, that was for certain.

He refrained from mentioning that Szayel hadn't seen Gladio yet. There were some things that didn't need to be said out loud. Not that Ignis particularly wanted to set Szayel on Gladio's trail. Gladio was his friend, but he might have cause to change his mind if Ignis did that. He was reasonably certain that Szayel wouldn't be Gladio's type anyway, since he was neither female, nor Nyx Ulric.

Nel grinned at Apache. "Kreeth," she said, answering the question of who was winged. "She's an Aegyl." Her wings were quite impressive. "A bit creepy," Nel admitted, "but she's a scientist and she hates Hojo, so she's all right."

That was the benchmark, as far as Nel was concerned. If a scientist hated Hojo, they were probably okay. If they were like Szayel, and practically spaffed themselves over Hojo, they definitely weren't.

So there was an Aegyl here, was there? Szayel's eyes widened with barely restrained delight. He was so lucky he hadn't missed all the fun while he'd been forced to be away. It would be a disaster if he'd had to miss the opportunity to study an actual Aegyl.

And a scientist, at that. Fascinating.

There was just one question. "What's a Tag?"

Apache almost answered the question, but she kept her gob shut on the subject. It wasn't common knowledge on the lowerworld, the fact that Mistants were responsible for wearing and maintaining an identification tag. It had never been mentioned, even once, since she'd arrived, not even when her nationality was made clear.

It was the one major difference between the continents, besides the language.

Hers were in her room, in her belongings. They were in a bag, screwed up and stowed in a box, with a key, in her wardrobe.

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