Glitterbombed [Closed] - Printable Version
+- alonimi (https://alonimi.net)
+-- Forum: Contemporary (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=71)
+--- Forum: Valesport (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=86)
+--- Thread: Glitterbombed [Closed] (/showthread.php?tid=707)
+- alonimi (https://alonimi.net)
+-- Forum: Contemporary (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=71)
+--- Forum: Valesport (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=86)
+--- Thread: Glitterbombed [Closed] (/showthread.php?tid=707)
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-19-2017
Ruka not a rat, Phoebe pointed out, apparently not considering this self-evident. Perhaps because she seemed to consider Ren at least partially rat. She seemed to believe Ruka's good intentions, but was just pointing out it wasn't the sort of natural thing. More of an oddity, like a nursing cat who adopted another species for unclear reasons. Friend is suspicious, she reminded Ruka, a mental image of rats scattering. Ren was smart, like her. And maybe even more skittish. Rens tended to be. Ren's eyes lit up like a sunrise at the prospect of stuffing a backpack full of things. The backpack alone would have gotten her excited. A good backpack was a lifeline, and she had lost hers when she'd been kidnapped. She'd had good stuff in there, a lot of good stuff, collected over years. Starting over was always hurtful, but it looked like she'd be getting a kickstart. Always good.
She got them now and then, a kind stranger who understood the importance of cash, or a chance visit from a charity that gave out shoes. But it had been years. She'd stayed away from homeless charities, too worried that it was the obvious place to be found.
"That sounds great, yeah," she said, trying not to sound too much like a backpack full of clothing was the kind of thing that would change her life. She gave Phoebe a grateful little skritch. Those rat instincts. You could always trust them.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-20-2017
“Ruka not a rat,” she agreed. “Ruka is a people. Nice people. Promise. No hurt.” It might have been too much info, but the scattering image of rats the rat had sent to her troubled her a bit. That and the ‘friend is suspicious’. Oh, not the rat. She meant Ren was suspicious. Ren = friend. “Ren is smart,” she said next, “Good to be suspicious. People sometimes hurt.” It wasn't always easy to tell what and what wasn't too much information for animals.For all the chattering she did over the telepathic link with the rat, Ruka didn’t miss the way Ren eyes lit up, brightening—grateful. So grateful. Like a child on Christmas. Good. She hadn’t lost her touch. She’s done something right. Some coffee and a few fried eggs would do wonder yet, but time enough for that later.
“Wonderful,” she said before turning and exiting the office. She waited until Ren left the room before turning the light back off and shutting the door behind them both. She waved a hand once, smiling in a manner that was more a kin to mischief. “Have at it.”
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-20-2017
Phoebe agreed. People were dangerous, to rats and Rens both. That was probably why they stuck together. She'd never really thought about it before. It was just a thing you did. She didn't seem to be particularly aware of what Ren was doing, beyond all the movement, but could tell she was feeling happy and secure, which was enough for Phoebe to feel content curling up and napping. Rens could take care of themselves most of the time. Ren had, against all odds, been in a clothing store before. People actually bought her clothes with some regularity... ie more than once. Anything the same happening more than once was regularity to her.
She'd never just had free run of even a small shop, though. Actually, she'd never had free run. People had been more tolerant of her when she was with Clarke, but "free" wasn't even in his dictionary. Not when it came to her, anyway.
She scampered around, managing to find the biggest backpack in the store. It looked like it had been designed for a man. A big man. It had a lot of pockets, and a thing on the side where she could put a water bottle, for if she ever got water bottles. There were a lot of zippers and a lot of clips and straps. She could make this work.
For now, however, she simply unzipped the biggest section and then went to town--reasonably--in the shop. She didn't want to overdo it and get in trouble.
It took her a while to figure out how sizing worked. She looked, confused, at several pairs of identical black leggings, holding several up against her waist in an attempt to discover which would fit best. Someone else had always picked out her clothing for her before, every time this had happened.
Each article of clothing that she did select was folded and then rolled up very carefully and very tight before being crammed in the bottom of the backpack. She had a lot of experience with making things fit. Leggings, what she thought were leggings but were helpfully labeled "yoga pants," shorts, and even a few pairs of pants, then a few different shirts, tank tops, a cardigan... She was a bit confused to find that the underwear didn't come in bulk plastic bags the way she was used to, and self-consciously picked out some of the plainest looking ones. And some sports bras. Socks. Like, a lot of socks. She knew the value of socks.
Even after all that, the backpack wasn't even halfway full. She was pleased with her packing skills. It allowed her to pick two pairs of shoes, one the toughest looking sneakers she could find that fit her feet, the other a pair of heavy boots. They could have been heavier. She wouldn't have said no to steel toes.
Somewhat out of sight of Ruka's watchful eyes, she offered Phoebe the chance to find a home in the backpack, but she seemed fine in Ren's hoodie pocket. So Ren zipped up the backpack and swung it onto her back. It was still very light. She'd fix that, over time. If she could keep it from being stolen, a backpack like this could probably last her the rest of her life.
Although she had a short estimation for that, as always.
She wandered over towards Ruka and the door, not sure how to best indicate she had raided to her heart's content, or close to it. Now she was wondering if they would have a similar regard to food. Infinite pancakes was resting heavily at the front of her mind.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-20-2017
As the rat went silent, sleeping and curling into Ren’s hoodie, Ruka decided to quit bothering her. It was a bit difficult so sleep if you had someone pestering around in your head trying to make conversation. Thus, as Ren went about filling her pack, the traygon silently went to the front of the store and grabbed an envelope, a pad of paper, and a pen. Elaborate writing, perhaps more Victorian in style than anything else, swept along the page as she explained to Bianca that she’d brought by a friend who needed a few things.Ruka hesitated, considering, as she tapped her lip with the pen and her brow knit.
While she could tell what Ren was nabbing, the specifics of the brand and size were unknown to her. And Ruka didn’t want to go through her bag before they left. She supposed it was good Bianca was apt at keeping inventory. It would take her a day or so, but she would figure what had been purchased, and, Ruka would owe her a little more for the trouble. The silver-haired woman shrugged once, and made additional notes—something to help. The number of each item and roughly what type it was. Then explained further; vaguely, but all the same. Next she indicated that, as usual, Biance should charge the card Ruka had left on file.
In a sweep of motion she removed the paper from the pad, folded it, and placed it in the envelope. Her named and Bianca’s were written on front with the usual To and From before she placed it in the cash register drawer in an empty slot. Well, they were all empty until the shop opened tomorrow...
As she finished, Ren showed back up, seeming done herself. Which was good, because Ruka very much wanted a cigarette.
She came back around, grabbing her suit coat off the counter as she did so. “Ready to go?” she asked and she put it back on and flattened out and wrinkles.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-20-2017
Ren had no real idea how any of this was being paid for, but she kind of just assumed that Ruka would leave a stack of cash somewhere or whatever it was that fancy rich people did. To be honest, she didn't really care. She wouldn't even care if she was being lied to and this was all theft, because at the end of the day, she was the one with clothes. "Yeah," Ren said brightly. Were they going to get back in the car? She sort of hoped so. They might also walk; but that was fine too, because she had shoes. Good shoes. With arch support. "Where are we going?" She hoped it involved pancakes, personally, but she'd go anywhere that wasn't a house or a hotel or something creepy like that. Just because she was appreciative didn't mean she wouldn't have sex in exchange unless she absolutely had to.
Honestly, she just wished people would make those sorts of things clear at the outset. But they never did. It was always oh, let me buy you some dinner, oh, let me give you a lift, and also, would you touch my penis. Although she supposed fair was fair--she would have said no if they'd started with the penis part, unless they were offering something really good. A shitty jacket from the trash was at least a jacket you wouldn't be thinking about unpleasant fellatio every time you saw.
Regardless of where they were going, Ren paused to light up her cigarette the second they were outside the door. She didn't know how long she'd have these for, so she was gonna just chain smoke while she had the chance.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-20-2017
Ruka quickly put in the security code so it would reinstate the alarm system in about sixty seconds; then she unlocked the door and let Ren out—as well as herself—and locked it back. She glanced over at Ren briefly as she toyed with the keys in her hand.They could drive to another location, but there was a nice little French cafe a short trek from her car just down the sidewalk. And they had wonderful coffee, cakes, pastries, as well as breakfast. The owner was French, but she’d retired and her children were American-born. So they’d added things to the menu, like pancakes, that weren’t too fancy. Ruka wasn’t sure Ran wanted fancy, but the traygon liked expensive food. Not because it was more expensive, but because it tended to made her mouth feel like fireworks were going off. Usually. Sometimes things were just over-priced.
“Breakfast,” she said, jutting a finger as her mind was made up. She considered offering to let Ren leave her bag in the car, but she probably wouldn’t go for it now that she had much needed supplies in hand. So, she pulled out her unopened pack of Skydancers, a cheap lighter, and set about lighting up before moving to walk in the direction she’d decided on. “You wanted pancakes, yes?” She asked around her fag as she held the lighter up to the cigarette, covering it with her hands to keep the flame going. A benefit of Zippos was that they really didn’t have a problem operating in the lightest breeze to even the worst wind. Most people just didn’t like refilling them with fluid or replacing the cotton and the wick.
“It’s not far,” she said through an exhale of smoke. Far enough to finish her smoke, she guessed, but they could sit outside at one of the tables. "And I seem to recall offering unlimited pancakes." Glancing over at her, Ruka revealed a candid smirk. "Unless you've changed your mind?"
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-20-2017
Ren nodded eagerly at the idea of pancakes, visions of little diners on the side of the road dancing in her head. She'd been in them before. They were open 24/7, most of the time, so you could go in on a cold night and order something really cheap and nurse it until they kicked you out. They even had bathrooms, and it was nice not to have to poop in a bush sometimes. She used to have a Dennys she practically haunted, because if she could get two dollars together, she could sit in a corner nursing coffee all night, if the nice manager was there. Sometimes she'd even been able to sleep in a booth towards the back without being poked out with a broom.
Come to think of it, that was where she'd met... Ah well. No need to think about that when she was about to get pancakes. Although the idea of sitting across from another pair of pale blue eyes in a place like that gave her a brief shiver despite her new hoodie.
Focus. Pancakes. Food.
"Pancakes sounds good," she said with a smile she hoped looked genuine. "Especially unlimited ones." She no longer thought Ruka would regret that offer, because it appeared they had unlimited money. And she certainly didn't mind walking; she knew she could outrun any Richie Rich, any day.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-20-2017
The walk wasn’t far. Ren was pretty quiet, it seemed, and, she half wondered if that was normal for her. It was possible that she talked an awful lot, but rarely felt comfortable enough to do so. Ruka didn’t mind the quiet, but she was curious about what had happened to Ren. It wouldn’t be fair to push, of course.Even so, as she tapped ash onto the sidewalk, she thought she had a pretty decent idea about how to get the young woman to open up. There was no guarantee Ren wouldn’t lie, but Ruka liked to think she was fairly good at spotting one of those. She also wouldn’t mind it too terribly if Ren did lie, but she hoped she wouldn’t.
Soon enough they were coming to the front of a little shop painted in whites and yellows with flowers growing along trellises that were framed around the windows, over a white wooden archway in front of the door. Iron tables were set about, each with a tea light in a flat-bottomed clear orb; they also had a few flowers as well, forget-me-nots and daisies in a vase. The flowers that climbed on the trellises were bougainvilleas—rightly cut and trimmed so not to grow out of control. Two colorful flowers donned the vines, blue and an almost neon pink/purple.
A small sign painted above the establishment named it simply stated Le Chef Pâtissier. Translated to—The Pastry Chef. The name came off with a bit of ego, as if to say the only one worth mentioning, but Ruka imagined the owner had done it as a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing. It also smelled amazing—the scent wafting from the open door. sugary things, baked breads, coffee too. She inhaled deeply, eyes closing.
There was only one couple out this early at a table. A man and a woman, the man reading a paper while the woman spoke to a waitress dressed in a white blouse and colorful shirt that billowed and nearly touched the ground. Ruka briefly waved as the passed to let her know she had new customers. Then she took a seat at one of the empty tables, motioning for Ren to join her directly across in the only other seat at the same table.
Idly, she tapped ash into an ashtray set on the table as well. “This should be fine, yes?” she asked, one brow arching as a barely-there smile showed, as she had her cheek resting propped on an open palm, elbow on the table--leaning just so.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-21-2017
It was a nice neighborhood to walk down the street in. People here probably did it for fun even though they had cars. They probably rode bikes around and stuff. Ren fantasized briefly about convincing Ruka to buy her a bicycle, but it would be a waste of time and money--even with a lock, it would be stolen. She was not the kind of person who could easily defend her things. Given enough time here, she could just make another skateboard. She had done it in the past. She was very handy with tools, it was just a matter of finding tools. She was starting over from scratch now... She would probably miss her screwdrivers the most.
Ren enjoyed her cigarette as they walked, pretty blissed out and thinking about pancakes and diners and diner pancakes.
She froze, however, when they got the restaurant. It was definitely not a diner. It was... fancy. The name was in French... Le Chef Pâtissier. There were flowers and trellises and candles and very nice tables. There was a man in a very nice dress shirt, reading the newspaper.
This was almost certainly a place she was not allowed to be. She panicked a bit, wondering how to explain to a rich person that she would almost certainly be arrested for walking down the street across from a place like this.
No one was staring at her yet, which meant they might not have noticed her. A small miracle. Then Ruka waved at a waitress and oh no she was going to get into so much trouble.
But the waitress just sort of glanced over the two of them--mostly Ruka--and smiled and nodded. And Ren remembered she was in new clothes and new shoes and she had been scrubbed clean for two weeks by human traffickers. Other than how gaunt she was, she probably looked slightly close to normal.
Nervously, feeling like she was part of a great deception, she followed Ruka to one of the iron tables and sat down across from them. She sat stiffly, small in the large chair, and glanced around to try and look for cues as to how she was supposed to be have. In the end she just sort of settled for mimicking Ruka and hoping that worked.
She took a deep puff off her cigarette, hoping it would calm her down.
Smoking in a place like this felt weird. Existing in a place like this felt weird.
"It's... very nice," she said, trying not to sound like this was her first time being allowed to exist tangentially to a fancy restaurant with a French name. Would the menus be in French too, oh no, her French was soooo bad. She had never taken to it the way she had to Latin, to her "teacher's" infinite irritation.
But fortunately, when the waitress brought menus over--and Ren was terrified of the waitress, who, unlike Ruka, was probably aware of the Transient In Her Midst--they were in English. Mostly. There was some French, which was probably food names since she didn't really recognize the words.
The dollar amounts were whole numbers without any cent indications. This felt significant somehow.
She tried not to visibly panic at the prices. Her eyes traild down the menu, glazing over items like "Omelette Provençal, tomato confit, pistou, robiolina." She knew two of those words. Her eyes latched onto one item at the bottom of the menu. Lemon pancakes with fresh berries. Yes. She knew all of those words. She had never had lemon pancakes before, but she knew she liked lemons a great deal, and also pancakes a great deal.
There were sides she recognized as well, like "bacon Maison," though she didn't understand why it was house bacon or why it cost eight dollars. it must have been a lot of bacon. But if she was understanding correctly, she could almost certainly get pancakes and bacon. And eggs, although they were advertised as Two Farm Eggs Any Style with pommes de rôtisserie which she assumed to be an extremely fancy version of apples. They had to be, because otherwise there was no reason for two eggs to cost that much.
There was more fruit on this menu than she had expected.
She looked up at Ruka with wide eyes, wondering if there was a polite way of asking for them to order food so she didn't have to speak to the waitress and somehow betray the fact she did not belong here in the slightest.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-21-2017
Ren didn’t look comfortable. There was a stiffness in her frame—an edginess—that Ruka could spot from across the table. The way she paused halfway through her response as well... hmm... Ruka’s gaze and attention were tugged away, however, when the waitress brought the menus. The telepath exhaled downward and to the side, smoke barely wafting, before she put out her cigarette and took the offered list; the paper wasn’t covered in plastic, but made in a sturdier ply. Not quite cardboard, but just barely card stock. “Thank you,” she murmured as the waitress asked if they wanted anything to drink.She scanned it briefly, just to see if anything had changed since the last time she was here. “Café latte with soy and a water.” She looked up to see if Ren had decided on a drink, only to be met with wildly wide eyes—terrified in a way. Her own softened at that, wondering if the darker-haired woman felt overwhelmed.
It might have been better to go to something... more greasy? Maybe. Ruka just hadn’t wanted to get back in the car and drive further, making Ren feel boxed in once further. So it had been a choice—weighing one option of the other. Walking-distance-semi-fancy-place, or, get in the car and chance Ren’s nerves being fried more. At least here the younger woman felt she had an escape. It was outdoors and there were people.
Safe.
So while Ruka didn’t feel guilty, she did feel as if this were the lesser of two evils in terms of comfort-level.
She looked up at the waitress, smiling that soft smile of hers as she decided Ren’s wide eyes were a sign for Ruka to order for her. “Can you make an orange juice for my friend? And... ah...” she glanced at the menu once more. “Can you make that macchiato a caramel iced macchiato?”
“With whip cream?” the waitress asked, jotting things down on a pad.
“Yes.”
She nodded, still scribbling. “Do need more time to decide on food or did you only want the drinks?”
“How many pancakes come in the lemon pancakes and fresh berries?”
“Two.”
“Can you bring a stack of six to start? On one plate? We may order more after.”
“I can and that’s fine. I’ll let Chef know.” She looked up at Ruka, “Do you want the berries on a separate plate?”
“That would be lovely. And lots of syrup on the side.” She glanced at the menu once more, “For myself...” She didn’t like heavy food in the morning. French toast was when she was really starving. “The yogurt, granola maison, with mixed berries.”
The waitress was nodding once more, writing. “With this be on one check?”
“Yes.” Ruka handed her menu over and took Ren’s from her hands to do the same.
“It shouldn’t take long,” the waitress told her, smiling. “I’ll be back with your drinks post-haste.” And then she was gone, slipping back into the restaurant as if gliding.
“You can breathe...” Ruka said quietly as she caught Ren’s gaze, both elbows on the table as she leaned forward slightly and clasped them together, fingers woven between one another.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-21-2017
Oh thank god, Ruka was ordering. Ren tried to keep up. Orange juice, good, she knew what that was. "Caramel" and "iced" were definitely words but she wasn't convinced "mah-key-ah-toe" was. It wasn't French though. Well, whatever, Ruka was probably ordering it for themselves so it wasn't really Ren's business. Not that that had ever stopped her in the past. The important part was that she was getting at minimum six lemon pancakes. And afterwards she could probably convince Ruka to get her some bacon if she was still hungry, assuming house bacon was actually bacon and not something weird.
She was very excited at the prospect, though still quite nervous. It helped that the waitress hadn't batted an eye at the strange order, even though it was abundantly obvious that Ren intended to eat enough pancakes to physically fill her entire body, if possible.
She tried not to think about math and how much six pancakes might cost.
Being rich must be completely wild. She couldn't really grasp it. She had this concept of her mind of it meaning you could just do whatever you wanted, but clearly that applied to things Ren had never even considered.
Ruka's words snapped her briefly out of her excitement-horror cycle and into a bit of embarrassment, which in turn made her irritated, mostly with herself.
"I'm generally not allowed places like this," she grumbled, having given up pretty much entirely on the pretext of being a college student around the time she'd excitedly shoved half a wardrobe into a backpack. "I keep feeling like she's going to catch on and throw me out, or give me my food in a dog bowl to make a point or something." And Ren had had more than enough of that particular lesson on her place in the grand scheme of things.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-21-2017
Ruka lit up another smoke, flame bursting to life as she cupped her hands over it and held the cigarette betwixt her lips. Icey-blues seemed fairly focused, if not a little lazy as well, on the endeavor. As she exhaled, she set the lighter down on top of the pack. Both were on the table. She was still leaning forward, elbows on the table, as she listened to Ren explain, a quirk of a smirk curling across her features. Things felt a bit less tense now for her—seemed to be that way Ren—so her body sort of took on this lazy-cat kind of aura. Strands of silver-white fell along one brow, brushing barely. Her eyes half closed, but they weren’t narrowed—more like lulled, in a way.Ruka chuckled as she tapped ash in the plastic tray for that sort of thing. “New clothes help,” she acknowledged. “But I wouldn’t have let her kick you out anyway. I would have asked for a new waitress and paid her double just to prove a point that it doesn’t pay to be a bully.” She rolled the end of her smoke in the ashtray next, looking at it as it came to a sort of point. “I know someone who once liked to dress a bit like a hobo and go out to eat. Not too badly dressed, mind, but he came off like someone who worked in construction and didn’t make much more than he needed to make due.
“Anyway... he’d go to a steakhouse and sit down. Sometimes the servers would fight over who was going to have to serve him. And if he got one that acted like it didn’t matter a wit, he’d tip her a few hundred dollar bills just to piss off the rest of them off for being quick to judge.” She was still smirking as she looked at Ren once more. “Did I order what you wanted? I wasn’t sure about the iced caramel macchiato, but I figured you could try it. If you don’t, you can just drink the orange juice.”
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-21-2017
Ruka was looking very relaxed, which made Ren a little nervous, actually, but despite her discomfort with the situation as a whole, the promise of pancakes would keep her firmly glued to the seat. Ren took another long inhale off her cigarette--she was getting towards the end, but she ran these things for all they were worth. Then collected the butts to re-roll, or trade to someone else with papers. Waste not, want not, and all that. "That's a good thing to do with a lot of money," Ren agreed, though the idea of a "$100 tip" was mildly mind-blowing to her. She tried to calculate it in terms of how many months of tampons it would buy. That was one hundred cheeseburgers.
"I, um..." Ren flushed, looking more irritated than embarrassed even though she was definitely feeling embarrassed. She didn't want to admit she didn't know what a macchiato was. "Yeah. It all sounds really good." That seemed like a safe bet. She didn't have to admit she had never had pancakes with lemon or macchiatos or whatever passed for orange juice here. Probably they squeezed the oranges by hand at your table or something completely ridiculous. She paused, then glanced around conspiratorially. She might never get another chance to ask.
Quietly, she whispered, "So, um, I've kind of always wondered... are $20 pancakes actually better than $3 pancakes or is it like a... weird..." she waved her hand vaguely, looking confused. "Status... thing? Like how at the store they have store brand stuff that's always cheaper, but people still buy the expensive things? Or how some stores charge like, twice as much for everything because it keeps people like me from shopping there?" She fiddled with the slim remains of her cigarette. She'd never been sure about the cause and effect. Did it cost more to keep people like her out, or did people want her out, so they made things hard for her?
She supposed the end result was the same and equally hurtful, but she'd had a long time to come to terms with the fact human society as a whole would prefer if she just... didn't. Didn't anything. Didn't sit on the sidewalk, didn't eat their garbage. Didn't exist.
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - Blade - 03-22-2017
“It’s a valuable tool that can open a lot of doors for people,” Ruka agreed in her own way on the topic of money. She was still puffing away rather lazily at her smoke. “Not sure I would use it that way, but I suppose it’s funny.” It was, honestly. But she’d tried not to act too amused the first time Saint had told her about his little adventure from several year ago. Not because she thought it was wrong, but more because he didn’t need any more encouragement than he already had.She watched as Ren flushed about the coffee comment. “You said you’d never had a fancy coffee drink before, right? Or was I hearing things before?” The juice was fresh squeezed in a juicer; that made the process quicker. But Ruka had no way of knowing Ren’s thought patterns, so there was no opportunity to explain this properly.
A single silvery brow rose as Ren looked about—as if trying to spy for... well, spies, Ruka assumed. Eavesdroppers. And then when she asked the question Ruka understood. She didn’t want anyone to know she might not ‘belong’.
“Not always,” she admitted. “Sometimes it’s a status thing—like pizza made with gold paper on top. Because some people want to say they ate it—that they spent five grand on it.” She frowned at the very idea, nearly snorting. “But food is usually a matter of taste and palate; to put it mildly—what makes a happy dance on your tongue. Sometimes very expensive food does that, other times...? It’s just overpriced.” She shrugged. “More expensive food is supposed to be more expensive because it costs more to make—the ingredients make it taste better, they’re harder to get because a lot of people want them—supply and demand, or, it’s better for you, or a combination of all three. Sometimes the dish is just hard to make period.
“For instance, frozen berries are not going to taste as good—as sweet—as fresh berries. Or... processed cheese—like the kind of cheese you get on a fast food burger for a buck—won’t taste near as flavorful as cheddar right from a farm where it’s made by hand with no fillers or unpronounceable ingredients.” She paused and took a hit off her cigarette, taking a moment to perform a French inhale as she considered. “You ever looked at the back of a carton of ice cream?”
RE: Glitterbombed [Closed] - SolitareLee - 03-22-2017
Ren fixed Ruka with the look only a very, very impoverished person can give a very, very wealthy person when the subject turns to money. It had potent similarities to the face of a women who had just been told she "wasn't like those other women." Combined, perhaps, with the expression of someone trapped at a family dinner with their racist uncle. Tired. Unimpressed. Wondering if it would be worth it to try to explain or an utter waste of time and effort. A valuable tool that can open a lot of doors.
Right before taking about a pizza with gold on it that cost more money than Ren had ever had, probably even if you added up all the money she'd physically owned in her lifetime up to that point.
Money being spoken of as if it were a set of lockpicks was... Ren could not decide if it was amusing, telling, or just made her better understand the man who had once put five bucks in her begging cup and sagely informed her to "eat the rich." Money was life. Money was death. Money was everything and anything. Nothing could be accomplished without money, and how much of it you had handily determined your worth as a human being. Those who had it could keep those who did not as easily as one might purchase a novelty dog. Money was what determined whether you lived or died. Just money. Nothing else. No amount of skill or luck would help unless the skill or luck got you near a person with money who would give you the money, or, like Ruka, use it on your behalf for an interesting afternoon. Finding a person with Ruka's hopefully-good intentions would have been a sliding scale of usefulness based completely and entirely on how much money they had. A poor person whose heart bled for the little homeless glitter girl in nothing but a hoodie could, perhaps, offer pocket change. That did not make them a worse person than the wealthy; in fact, it arguably made them better, because that pocket change they were giving had been for bread that week. It was the difference between them walking to work or being able to take the bus, on a day below freezing. But it also didn't change that it was infinitely less useful than what a wealthy person could do without it impacting their life in the absolute slightest.
She put the remains of the cigarette out in the ashtray before tucking it into a backpack pocket. Then she reached into the tin and immediately pulled out another and lit up, because this was the sort of conversation one required nicotine for. She regretted asking, even though her question had, in fact, been answered.
She decided to, briefly, latch on to the safest of possible conversation topics. "Yeah. Just black or with milk," she said, in regards to coffee. That explained what a macchiato was and why she'd never heard of it. So some sort of 'sweet' coffee drink, that was cold, with caramel in it. Well, caramel was very sweet and good. Perhaps it overpowered the coffee flavor? Ren had once tried putting honey in but it just tasted like coffee with honey in it and and that point she wasn't sure why she wasn't just putting the honey in the warm milk and skipping the bitter-tasting middle man. "I'm excited to try it," she said, and it was the truth, though she was having a bit of trouble sounding enthused while her mind was pirouetting around on such dark topics.
She took a very, very long draw off her new cigarette. "The ingredients that taste good," she wagered. "Cost more because they taste good, and people can charge more for them because the wealthy will buy them." She considered this for a moment, taking another drag. "I would posit," she said, politely but a little sourly. "That the people who pay ten dollars for yogurt--no offense--" She was lying. "Have never had a fast food burger for a buck after three days of not eating. Because I can promise you it tastes better than a five thousand dollar pizza, no matter how much nice handmade cheese you put on it."
Another long inhalation of the cigarette.
On the plus side, she no longer felt even slightly bad about the concept of eating sixty dollars worth of pancakes. In fact, she was going to feed as much of it to Phoebe as the little rat could physically eat. Today, two rats would dine like kings--or at least dukes.
"No," she replied a little belatedly, and a bit more bluntly than entirely called for. "There's no point. The sell-by date is useless because if it's been out longer than like twelve hours you'll just make yourself sick."