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(no subject)

WHO: Gil (

invoking) & Natasha (

latrodectus)
WHERE: A nice but somewhat bland business luncheon establishment.
WHEN: Some ordinary weekday afternoon.
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Gil and Natasha have an Awkward Business Lunch.
FORMAT: Whatever.

Natasha was enigmatic by nature and by design; maybe that was why she'd decided to take Gil to lunch.

It was a very beige affair, this restaurant, with heavy cream curtains and a light touch of gilding to the chairs. The tables were spaced wide enough for talking and the waiter (who called himself Mark) wore a black vest with a suitably pastel tie. Without glancing at the menu, Natasha could tell the food would be competent, but lacking in imagination.

Business as usual.

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"I don't run a sweatshop." It had been a long time, for Natasha, but she was still not very good at accepting kind words. Kindness had cost her a lot, and if anything her gestures grew smaller, more imperceptable.

"The chef isn't bad."

"I've mostly been cooking my own food since I was brought back." He didn't mind it. It was something he felt confident in, especially when he baked. "But everything is packaged or um... what did they say? Processed? It has a different taste."

"It's processed if you buy the processed food. You can get just about anything in New York, though." She was still in the habit of calling this place New York.

"New...?" There was a moment of confusion before he realized what she meant. "Ah, the name of this city in your world?"

He didn't understand the name change in this one... or rather, its lack of one.

"Old York is in England." Which probably didn't explain much, but Natasha was used to giving answers that didn't.

He could pretend he understood that and smile and nod, but he didn't get what England had to do with America. There was no way this place was a capital city-- he read that much.

And capital cities don't move across oceans.

"What?"

"They tend to just call it York, though." Another small bite of her fish, another quiet sip of water.

"... Why is this place just 'the City' then?" He wasn't following anymore.

"I have no idea." She supposed it was better than the Big Apple.

Many things didn't make sense here. It was most likely a combination of the time period and it being some "alternate" universe, but that didn't hinder anyone from what he'd noticed. Or had been told.

Strange, yet people carried on with their lives. When he thought about it, it was a little like home.

"I guess... there isn't an answer for everything."

"That's the answer for everything. It's very Socrates: I know one thing, that I know nothing."

Of course, Natasha believed she knew a good deal more than nothing. She was supposed to, that was what intelligence was. But you can't discover much if you only see what you think is meant to be there.

It was a terrible thought, but he wondered what Duke Barma's expression would be hearing that. A duke obsessed with the power of knowledge and truth.

He took a larger bite. Perhaps he was hungrier than he initially believed himself to be.

"But not the answer everyone would like." He had his own complicated relationship with the truth.

"They did kill Socrates. Made him drink poison. Hemlock." She took another sip of her wine, like that was some kind of punchline.

He nearly knocked over his glass as he reached for it.

"They? And... why would they do that?" He couldn't tell if there was something deeper behind those words or Natasha was just spouting random facts.

"Socrates was a philosopher, who spent his life asking why, and came to realize that a great many men who thought themselves intelligent were not actually so. The people of Athens sentenced him to death, and Socrates took it willingly, because no philosopher fears death, it's just another great unknown." She paused. "The real thing about Socrates is that other writers like to think things about Socrates. He's a parable."

After a minute, she added. "I think he must have been insufferable, personally."

He turned his gaze back on her with renewed interest. It was true that back home, questioning everything could garner negative attention. Unless you were Pandora or from a noble family-- you could get away with it to some degree.

"Socrates sounds much like Duke Barma," he said, a little unimpressed. Insufferable was almost accurate in his friends' eyes and he didn't fault them for that.

Edited 2012-09-23 09:09 (UTC)

"A philosopher-king?" That was Plato's thing, but really so was Socrates. She actually was curious to hear more about Gil's world, even if that information didn't hold much use.

"The head of the Barma dukedom. He's always in the pursuit of knowledge." It was helpful in their quest to find the seals, but Duke Barma wasn't always pleasant with them. "There are four noble families... so Barma is one of them."

Edited (awkward edits) 2012-09-24 00:36 (UTC)

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