taxonomites | [location :: wilde :: the world rolls under the long thrust of his heel]

Meanwhile Eric spends a lot of his time exploring the city. Now that the sun isn't as deadly a factor in his day, he doesn't have to sleep nearly as much. There's also the fact that between Dawn and Sookie staying at the nest at the moment, a vampire needs to get out and be elsewhere.

So here he is in Wilde, and when Doul runs by, Eric arches an eyebrow. "Bit early for such endeavors, don't you think."

"If I did, would I be here?" Impassive as always, Doul stops running and takes a drink of water from a small canteen. Along with his waterskin, Eric can probably tell that he's got at least one knife (and a spare) tucked away somewhere.

"True. Unless you happened to be a dedicated masochist." He shrugs, looking over the man carefully. Eric notes the weapons, but doesn't much care - even if this man were to suddenly go after him, it wasn't as if Eric would let him get that far.

"Uther Doul of Bas-Lag," he says in that soft, singer's voice overlayed with an odd accent. The vowels are affected, but the most obvious thing is that there's something wrong with the way he paces his speech. "I was dedicated to my employers."

For the most part, Doul smells human. Although, there seems to be a nigh-scent that follows him; the verbal equivalent would be a word that rests on the tip of the tongue but can't be recalled.

That scent is what is keeping Eric's attention now, more so than the original 'what the hell are you doing' factor. It's strange, which makes it interesting and thus worthwhile. The accent matches the scent. Oh, Eric so liked mysteries. Gave him something to do with all the time he had.

"Eric Northman. Sheriff." The title means little here, but it was still his. His detached curiosity turns into smug disdain as he continues. "Dedicated to my queen, but that's no longer the case."

"Yes, I've come to understand that we all must adjust to this." Which is to say that the Liveman hates this damned place and as soon as he can find a way free of it and back to Bas-Lag he will be gone. Ignoring whatever tone or airs that Eric decides to put on, Doul continues, "Are you from Earth?"

It's not just the fact that he's a virtual prisoner here, but that it's all so different. Other than what he's hatched, there's nearly nothing like the world he knows.

"Some adjustments are easier to make than most." Which is to say Eric isn't exactly devastated that he no longer has to kiss Sophie-Anne's ass, fabulous though it may be.

"I am. I assume you're not, as I've never heard of a Bas-Lag." And he knows just about every place on Earth there is, and has probably been there at least twice. Eric gets around.

It's not wise to stall your run for too long and so to keep moving, Doul is going to start walking.

"A popular world." Among some people. Ahem. "I've been told that Taxon is very much like it. In appearance and ways. What do you think?"

Eric keeps pace easily - between having extremely long legs and vampire stamina, he's good to keep up... Oh, for quite some distance if Uther had a mind to go that far. Not that far means much in this place. He shrugs at the mention of Earth being 'popular'.

"I haven't exactly taken a poll, so I couldn't say one way or the other. As for likeness..." Eric spares a glance for the sun, weak behind the autumn skies of Taxon. Even after a few months here, there's still some instinct hissing at the base of his skull to get anywhere away from the light, dig a hole in the ground, and just sleep until the dark came again. "It has elements of the place, but there are a great many differences. But those differences do make this place bearable."

"I see." No, he doesn't. What do these creatures do with all their time? If there are no overseers willing to crack the whip, then where are the escape plans? All sailors have heard of lost tropical islands where men go and never return, too lost in whatever pleasure they've found. Could this be one such island? "I never thought I would see the day where I would ask for the chymical hiss of Booktown or the constant bickering of the Curhouse."

"True. It does get a little quiet." Not that Shreveport was terribly noisy for the most part. Bustling wasn't really the word one picked when discussing northern Louisiana. "But that's only incentive to find something and make noise of your own."

Someone else might have given a rebellious wink or some kind of teasing tone, but Eric's voice is rather blank. Under other circumstances, he might have led the party in trying to get the hell out. But... He shrugs.

"I've never been a loud man," he says with a quirk in his voice that could be a smile on someone else. His mother was put down after he left home, so he never had need to use sign language with her, but like any good child, Doul learned the silent forms of Quiesy.

"Have you wondered why the hatches can make eggs but no chickens?" Hello and welcome to non sequitor time.

"I couldn't tell." And there's that sarcasm, nice and reassuring and familiar. It's easier than the uncertainty of maybe enjoying being kept as a bug in a bell jar.

Eric blinks at the seeming randomness of the new subject before shrugging again. "I've never attempted hatching one. Neither is exactly to my taste." All he'd attempted to hatch thus far were various types of blood and new clothes as he'd needed them.

"It's something worth thinking about." The food that the hatches provide keep them alive, so they must have all the same parts that 'real' food has. Moreover, there's very little difference in complexity between an egg and a live chick. What does this tell us? It's unlikely that the hatches bring in materials from the outside world, but rather they create them. But from what? And why can't they reproduce the spark of life?

"Perhaps one of the more technologically-inclined residents could look into it." And despite his mad texting skills, Eric is not one of those residents. Adaptable, yes. But why muddle about with those circuit boards when you could pay someone to deal with it?

According to Doul, it's not a matter of technology, but philosophy. Where on this continuum do plants lie? The Extras? If the Creators of Taxon can't make living beings with souls, is that why they've been brought here?

"Perhaps."

Eric has never been one for philosophy. Things either were a certain way, or they weren't. Yes, he's always been good at foreseeing at what people will want or need (it's what makes him a damned good businessman), but there's a difference.

They walk in silence for a bit, but Eric's always been overly curious.

"Never heard of a Bas-Lag."

"I'd never heard of Earth. There was an unpopular theory that there could be life on other world, but no one had any proof or way to tell." Long ago, Doul had been heavily involved in the scientific community that espoused those views. There's probably even a paper on it in some dusty Teshi archive.

"There's been similar speculation in my own world. Not exactly unpopular, but so far unproven." Eric wasn't exactly disbelieving of aliens, given there was so many supernatural things humanity hadn't scientifically proven.

"I've thought of returning to my studies. Do you know if there's anyone else doing the same?" After all, what else do you do with a glut of time and resources? It might also be enough to distract him from the loss of his home.

"Not personally, no. But such people probably wouldn't be frequent posters on the network, which is what I spend my time watching." Eric may have been good, but even he couldn't be stalking everybody in Taxon. At most, he'd probably be able to handle... Half. Maybe two-thirds.

"Should you come across anyone, I'd be pleased to know about it." Doul is fairly good when it comes to paying attention to the network but he's not familiar with Earth culture and might miss whatever signifies 'science' to the people there.

It's not unusual for Pam to wander the streets of Taxon, but she was didn't really make it a habit to talk to many people. She'd found a place to stay and all, but she'd been keeping to herself mostly, still trying to work her brain around the fact that, yeah, there really was no way to get back home (where home was, at this point) and she somehow had to restart her life here. In an alien city.

She was mapping the part of Taxon called Wilde with her feet and her brain. She occasionally itched for a sketchpad to try and mimic some of the beautiful architecture here, but had so far refrained. For the same reasons that she'd been keeping to herself. She was so out of her element in this place.

She was brought out of her silent reverie when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a man running in her direction. She panicked for a moment, then realized he wasn't doing it out of danger and stepped out of his way, giving him a smile as he reached her.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to be in your way."

Let's just assume that Doul runs into Pam on a different day than he saw Eric; otherwise, this would be just a short 'mphf' and he'd be on his way and that makes for a dull scene.

"It's no trouble," he says while stopping to stretch and have a drink of water.

She wasn't expecting him to sound like that, for one. Not that he was hard to understand, because that wasn't it at all; she could understand him perfectly well. He'd stopped, though, and Pam thought it might be rude to breeze past him. Though, with Pam, it would be more like scurry than breeze.

She smiled at him again and nodded, sliding her hands into her pockets. "Have you been here long?"

In any other circumstance, the question would be an odd one, but given their location and how it was they came about to be there, it seemed like a perfectly normal one to ask.

With his strange accent and unfairly lovely voice, his speech voice is the most striking thing about him. Although, Pam can probably see that there's something curious and finely cabled running up his right arm and under his shirt.

"A little over two weeks." Or thereabouts. He's still adjusting to the seven day week and the completely bizarre systems of months. "Yourself?"

Pam decided to make it a point to herself not to ask after the odd-looking something along his right arm, going on the thought that usually people don't like to be asked about physical features. At least not during the first conversation you have with them.

"Ah. Only a little less than that." She blushed and shrugged her shoulders. "Still trying to get used to it all, I guess. It's kind of a lot to handle."

She might be able to see the wires that curl around his wrist and embed into the back of his hand. That ought to explain a little more about the nature, if not the purpose, of what it is.

"Yes. Are you from Earth?"

The curiosity still chewed at her brain. The way the wires curled made them seem so delicate and her fingers curled into her palms as she tried to ignore the urge to touch them. Something that seemed to go into his body could NOT possibly be that delicate.

"Earth? Oh, yes." Because Earth was not the only inhabited planet, she reminded herself.

"Uther Doul of Bas-Lag." He doesn't offer a hand to shake, but given what is woven throughout it, would Pam really want to?

With his water finished, he makes a gesture that should convey that she's welcome to join him while he walks. He's willing to answer questions but usually doesn't have much to say for himself. Having been raised in a silent city, Doul's not particularly averse to company but he's not very good at small talk.

"Bas-Lag?" she repeated, curious. "What is that like?" It didn't even sound like English, so it certainly wasn't on Earth. Uther sounded familiar. Not that it wasn't an unusual name, but she knew she'd heard it, or something similar at the very least.

At his gesture, she falls into step beside him, only after a short pause.

"Varied. The technology is different: we have electrical and chymical propulsion, but it's not as advanced as I've seen here. Humans are only a small percentage of the people that fill my world. Thaumaturgy and hexwork are common, elementalists less so, but they're by no means unusual." How do you describe a whole planet in a few sentences? "Men arrange themselves in all manner of governments from the Cactatae and their solar queendom to the witchocracy of Tesh, the flawed 'democracy' of New Crobuzon and the thanati of my homeland."

Pam stared at him for a long moment, slightly nodding.

"I... see." She saw the flaw in her question when he gave his answer. How easily could you truly describe the place that you live to someone who knows nothing about it? Obviously not very.

"It sounds interesting." And it truly did. Probably for the simple reason that it was so unlike Earth that it almost sounded like a novelty. She doubted it was, though.

She smiled at him as they continued to walk down the sidewalk.

"I can't imagine a world that isn't." Until coming to Taxon, Doul never thought that a world could be as uniform as Earth. Although, to be fair, he knows that's a snap judgment and its possible, even likely, that he'll end up surprised and pleased with something he learns about that world.

"How did you fill your days on Earth?" It's better to be a bit circumspect than outright ask if she was used to work.

"I was a receptionist for a paper company," she rattled off without even thinking. "By title only, though. In truth, I was a prank extraordinaire." She paused. "Well, maybe extraordinaire is a bit over dramatic..."

She laughed to herself, thinking of Jim and... Yeah, she was thinking about Dwight, too.

"A prank?" He's not entirely sure what the word means in this context. Maybe whatever it is that translates their speech is glitching on them.

She was puzzled for a moment, until it dawned on her that, duh, things are not the same everywhere, Pam. This guy is from another world, so how can you expect things to be the same?

"Yeah. A prank," she chuckled. "Like a trick, I guess."

"I'd never heard the term apply to a person before, just an action." Doul isn't sure if he likes the implications of a living creature existing as a joke or trick.

"Oh.. Well, I just mean that I did them a lot," she explained. "There was this one time? When Jim and I spent the whole day convincing Dwight that it was actually the next day. That was so much fun. He totally believed us, too."

Siri stands some feet away, silently observing. She hadn't seen too many people around Taxon who kept active and it was pleasing to see that she wasn't the only one who kept up with fitness, nevermind that's not what the man's doing; but from where she's standing, it seems that way, and Siri's far too polite of a person to go invading the minds of others, just to discover details of everyday moments of their lives. Why he was running was his own business and she was content with simply watching.

Unless some external action forces him to speak to her, Doul will just keep running by on a daily basis. He's always been a bit of an ascetic and being in Taxon hasn't changed that in the slightest.

Perhaps one day it's a little warmer than usually and he needs to stop and ask her for a nearby water fountain?

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