trans_9 | (no subject)

Laurie looks up at the sound of his voice, eyes widening in the slight dark of the room. "Oh, h-hey there. Yea, some nice boys showed me around and then I just took a peek in."

She can't really see the person above her because of the darkness, but still, he sounds nice.

Goliath's low-light vision is about as good as a human's during day, so unfortunately if she's having any difficulties in seeing in the dimness, they're going over his head.

"You will find it accomodating."

What she can probably tell is that he's very tall, and seems to be wearing some sort of a cloak. His diction is formal, tinged with the archaic.

"What you wrote about yourself, your . . . mutation - I had a few questions I thought to ask, if it is not impolite to question that subject."

"Oh...no, no, you can ask. We're crewmates, right?" She carefully picks out the cloak and height of the person above her. Perhaps he's a mutant and is sticking to the ceiling? Like Spider-Man! Or maybe some other possible way...?

For sure, he reminds Laurie faintly of the statue gargoyles she'd seen around the outside of the mansion.

"You are very much unlike the mutants I know of from my Earth. I wondered, if one such as yourself is considered a mutant in your home, what is considered normal? Are you from a planet where humans are not the most populous species?"

"I guess it is because we're different. We have these abilities that make us special, but also set us apart from the people who do not. The people who do not, they don't like us for it. They fear us for what we can do with our abilities and would rather have us locked-up or gone from earth completely."

There's a sigh from above her, a grating, low sound like the edge of a growl.

"You sing an old song, young friend."

The grim voice is edged with compassion now.

"I wish it were not so familiar."

Laurie nods feebly. "It isn't fun being called a freak for being different." She reaches up to move back a strand of blonde hair to behind her ear.

"I wish people would stop seeing us as monsters."

There's silence above her for a moment.

"You look no different from a normal human to me." There's more of an edge of a growl to his voice now. "I have trouble believing one such as you could be called a monster by your own people."

She's a child. No child should be called a monster.

And it's bad enough that his children have been called monsters. But for humans to go after even their own kind with such antagonism . . .

For a moment, all he can think of is Angela dying on the floor of the clock tower. And the third Hunter, who never regretted it.

"I wanted to think better of the human race."

"People can be cruel when they are afraid," she answers grimly, thinking that it summed up the entire matter quite nicely (though ironically the matter was not nice in any way).

"And so quck to fear what they do not understand."

Another sigh.

"This is stern discourse for a first meeting."

He looks down at the datapad in his talons and shifts one claw over the screen. The backlight flares as he considers the object briefly, the dim light highlighting craggy features and wickedly pointed talons in shadows and eerie green light, as well as that whatever Goliath is, he's not clinging to the ceiling - he's just really tall.

He looks back to Laurie, with an expression seeming permanently set to grim. "In the city, there is a castle that served as my ancestral home. The library there is not as extensive as this, but the books are real. You may visit and make use of it, if you promise to have care with the books. Some of them are very old."

"I don't really mind..." she nervously says, rubbing her elbow a little nervously.

She squints a little up at the ceiling, picking out the distinct details of the person's figure. She bites her lower lip to keep back a nervous sound when she realizes...he is like one of the gargoyles from around the outside of the mansion.

"Th-thank you," she says, nervousness spilling out in her slight stutter. "I would like to be able to feel the hard-back covers and the paper as I turn the pages again..."

"With so many here who give their acceptance as freely as they have, dwelling on prejudices of the past is not how I intend to spend my time. I would rather focus on preventing it in the future. And on remembering those who, even in the past, did not give in to fear when faced with things they did not understand."

His voice softens as he goes on - "Nor hatred, when they did understand it."

He pulls in another deep sigh as the light from the small datapad fades. Another new round of humans. No sign of the one who, out of all of them, gives him reason to keep his faith in the whole of the race, merely by existing.

Or having existed.

He looks up at the human girl again. "I can show you the way there, if the hour is not too late for you."

Laurie takes in the lines with care, blinking when she's finished. "That's...that's a beautiful summary you made. Do you perhaps read Shakespeare or Faulkner?"

She thinks for a minute. Turning her head this way and that... - maybe she should call Sofia over the comm to tell her where she is and where she's going? - and then back up at the person.

"O-OK. Um. I'm Laurie."

He smiles, touched by the compliment as well as the references.

"Thank you. That is kind of you to say. Shakespeare is a favorite of mine, but I have not yet read the works of Faulkner. If his words are comparable to the Bard's, I think I would like to soon."

He has a lot more time for reading, after all, here on the ship where very little of the crew is awake at night, in a city with much less crime to fight. Half his nights, it's the only thing keeping him busy.

"It's good to meet you, Laurie. My name is Goliath."

He steps around her and towards the door to the media lab, accompanied by a sound like flapping leather. The cloak he's wearing must be heavy.

"Faulkner was a fan of a stream of consciousness in his works. He wrote highly emotional and yet subtle lines." She wrinkles her nose a little. "He didn't like slavery or depression."

She nods her head and follows him. "Umm...sorry if I sound rude but...are you a gargoyle?"

"That is not rude at all, and you are the second on this ship to recognize my kind."

He turns another smile on her as he leads her out of the media lab.

"And this Faulkner sounds as though his words are worthwhile. I will look for him in my castle's library. Forgive me if I am the one who seems rude this time, but you are the first young person I have met who seems so well-read."

"Oh!" Laurie blushes. "Th-thank you very much. I'm sort of a bookworm. I would spend a lot of time in the library, reading and reading." Because the library was the safest place for her to be where she couldn't accidentally leak her pheromones on anyone.

"Perhaps we should exchange titles, then. I have not had time to read much of what you would call 'modern' literature, but I am fond of much of the classics. Dostoevsky, the Greek playwrights. We spoke of Shakespeare already."

The city opens up before them, the early artificial night still a pale blue over the buildings. Goliath leads her down the open streets towards what could only be called the castle district, looming in the distance.

"I meant to ask, as well - if there is a well-documented history of your Earth, I would like to read it."

"Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, Xonophon," Laurie lists. "Philosophy and Greek tragedies..."

She hugs close to Goliath, eyes looking left and right at the scenery in the dark, and barely-there lights cast a sort of glow on some spots of the streets. The castle district is a large shadow over the young girl, and she desperately doesn't want to get lost in the dark.

"There isn't any in the Media Library?"

"It seems there are infinite variations on the same planet. More often I meet someone from one of the Earths before I find a history of it."

Going through Earth histories is like stumbling across a single beech tree on a forest planet and not knowing its immediate significance, as the rest of the trees are also beeches of slightly different variety.

By now, he's noticed Laurie's discomfort with her surroundings, and is looking at her curiously, moderately concerned. Were it he who still intimidated her, she wouldn't hover so close.

"These streets are usually safer than those I was familiar with in the cities of Earth," he says, meaning to calm her. "A boon, perhaps. I once wondered what a quiet night looked like. Now I think I have seen enough."

A peaceful night would be better. Quiet isn't lively enough, it turns out.

"Y-yea," Laurie says, looking back to Goliath. As long as she keeps her eyes trained on him, she'll be alright. It's just that from her experience, there can be evil and horrible things lurking in the dark. And the silence only put emphasis on the fear.

Horrible things like . . . giant winged warriors who exist as flesh and blood only by night?

The good side of dark has its champions, too.

"Does the dark concern you?" he asks, looking at her over his shoulder. Rarely does he have the opportunity to speak to humans who are not already as used to it as he is.

More like horrible, often insane, people who hide in the bushes with big snipers, waiting to kill mutants.

"A-a little," she admits.

"You have the look of one who has been hunted before."

So has he, but being able to crush sniper rifles in his bare hands does a lot to keep that possibility from worrying him more than it should.

He slows his strides. "You need not fear this darkness. If there were anything lurking in this city, I would have found it by now. And if there were enemies lurking in these shadows, I would not allow you to come to any harm."

He pauses, waiting for her to catch up. "I understand my kind appear . . . intimidating, but we are a race of protectors. You may walk beside me if it would bring you comfort."

"Yea..." She looks to the dark, biting her lower lip. "You can say that..."

She actually feels safe with the gargoyle. He's logical, nice, and seems like he could very well protect her from whatever could be lurking in the dark.

"Thank you," she says, coming up to walk next to him. Her nerves suddenly feel a whole lot better.