[EP] Learning about Humanity - OTA

[st_paladin]

Adrian had found a lot of the 'guests' at the Inn were quite pleasant and he wondered if that was how his father had found them in the beginning. When they had no idea he was a vampire, just a wanderer among them. It fueled his curiosity and he wanted to learn more about humanity. The only examples he ever had was his mother and the other villagers, besides what he had encountered here.

The best way to learn, was to observe. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, so he settled onto a small table in the restaurant area with his ever present notebook beside him. It was what he used to take notes, trying to decipher turns of phrases and words that were foreign to him. Up until this point he'd used a pencil, but on the way down he'd realized that he didn't have it with him. Instead, someone had offered him a writing utensil, they called it a pen but it looked nothing like a goose feather and he couldn't understand how it wrote without an inkwell.

As he pressed the end to the piece of paper there was nothing. Adrian's thumb accidentally moved across the end of the pen and he heard a click sound. Suddenly a point appeared at the bottom where there had been nothing. "Odd." Curiously, he moved the end over the paper and gasped when a mark appeared. Was the ink hidden?

Comments

[st_huntermom]

Mary was sitting at a table adjacent to where Adrian was sitting. From her advantage she could see the entire restaurant. Despite not being a hunter anymore, and the inn being relatively harmless, old habits died hard.

His reaction to the pen did not go unnoticed. She smiled a little. "New to the inn?" A little nicer than asking him about the pen outright.

[st_affofthemoon]

The Tiefling sat at a table directly across from where he sat. In front of her was a bowl of salad, but there seemed to be more chicken than salad. Zahra was picking out the chicken and every time she picked up a piece to move it as far away as she could reach, her face looked like she was pained and about to throw up. Once in a while she would even make a bit of a groaning sound as if vomit was threatening to escape.

[st_paladin]

Adrian looked over to the woman that spoke with a sheepish expression. He thought about the number of full moons that he'd seen since he arrived. "I have been here only one month." He held up the list of words that were confusing on the paper, "I was given advice to make a list of the words that confused me as well as items." There was a quick flash of a smile, "I think I must add this writing utensil to the list."

[st_paladin]

There had been rumors and talk of an otherworldly being, but this was the first that Adrian had seen her. She had a look of one of his father's demons but there wasn't a darkness to her.

It was the look of pain that brought him to his feet, much quicker than a human and was by her side. "Are you all right?"

[st_huntermom]

"It's called a pen." Mary did note he looked a little different than the others at the inn. He seemed like he was taken right out of history. "I have a list of words, too, though just in my head." Like, what was a twitter?

"Would you like some help with some of the words?"

[st_affofthemoon]

It took her a second to compose herself. "Why does everything have to have chicken on it?" She looked disdainfully at the chicken, then closed her eyes for a moment as if to wipe the memory of it from her mind and opened them again to focus on the man.

[st_igmatized]

It was the white of his hair that drew Sunny. Finding another albino in Lillith had been an important moment not just in her time at the inn, but in her life. So when it seemed like maybe there might be another, of course she had to have a closer look. He could be like her. Or he could be like Alcuin, whose eyes were far too dark.

The reaction to the pen got a little smile out of her. "You're not from around now, are you?"

[st_paladin]

"I would, yes." Adrian nodded, and turned the paper closer so that she could read it. There were phrases such as what's up, that's awesome, cool. Next to the last word he has a note that says not temperature.

"English is not my first language, and while I can understand the words, I do not know their meaning." He pointed to the first - what's up. "Someone asked me this and I said ceiling. They looked at me as I had spoken another language and I knew that wasn't the right response."

[st_paladin]

"I suspect it is because chickens are plentiful and inexpensive to raise." Adrian gave her a literal reason for it. "When you have limited resources, you will gravitate toward the most easily replenished." He suspected the chickens were enchanted to expand their population magically.

[st_paladin]

The question was worded in a way that he understood it easily and it was accurate. "I am not." He admitted a bit sheepishly. Adrian tucked his white blond hair behind his ear but was still careful not to show his fangs as he spoke in his soft British accent.

"I am from the 15th century, many things are quite different for me."

[st_igmatized]

"Oh. Wow." In the grand scheme of things, Sunny really didn't have much to complain about compared to some. The inn was still recognizably, if regrettably, something of her own world. If she'd been born after the technology used here had become obsolete, she was still ahead rather than behind and any learning curve hadn't been very steep at all. To her, being here (ignoring the boundaries of the world part) was still more or less how things were supposed to be.

That wasn't the case for everybody. And before she got too down on anything, it'd serve her right to remember that. "That's got to be more than a little disorienting."

[st_huntermom]

Mary actually felt for the guy. Maybe she wasn't as bad off as he was, but she understood the idea of being thrust into a different time and having to play catch up around you.

"It's slang. We have a bad habit of taking English and making it mean different things. My father once explained to me the true meaning of terrific when I was a kid and I was blown away." She paused, then decided to explain. "Now it means great, but before it meant filled with terror." She looked at his list. "What's up is something like, 'how are you doing?' but you might not always be looking for an actual answer. Sometimes it's kind of like 'hi'. "

[st_affofthemoon]

"Or the chef is out to kill me." She said wryly and decided to push the whole plate away - her appetite was entirely lost.

"Although I'm sure most people would find this delicious on a normal day."

[st_paladin]

"There ware times when the smallest of things seem insurmountable." Adrian admitted, but then added, "and other times, I am glad to see some things haven't changed despite the centuries."

[st_paladin]

Adrian took what she said about terrific and filed it away, along with blown away which he took to mean surprised. He would write both of those down later.

"It is a greeting without expectation of an answer." He nodded, "such as when someone asks how are you, but doesn't wait for an answer or listen for a response."

[st_paladin]

"I have noticed one chef has a preponderance for chicken, more so than the others." Adrian admitted. "Would you wish for something else to eat?" He took in the way she pushed the plate away. He'd seen the expression a few times on the humans his mother treated. "Or would you rather be far away from any food?"

[st_huntermom]

"From what I gather, since the computers became really popular people sort of stopped talking to each other a lot." Mary shrugged. "I'm from a time where phones were still really basic"

[st_affofthemoon]

Zahra sighed. "I'm still hungry, but the thought of food makes me want to hide in a deep dark hole." She managed a faint smile for him though

[st_paladin]

Adrian ducked his head, amusement clear in his voice, "the first time I saw the phone I thought it was magical. It took a lot of explanation before I understood how it worked."

[st_paladin]

"How does the thought of fresh air sound?" Adrian offered. "Would you like to join me on a walk outside?" His mother had always said that fresh air, helped when healing. Except in the winter time when the cold could do more harm than good. But it never got as cold as Wallachia at the Inn.

[st_igmatized]

That got Sunny curious. Her head tipped slightly to one side. "What kinds of things haven't changed?" Other than people being dumb, panicky animals, that she assumed had been true through all of human history.

[st_paladin]

"My mother was a healer and enjoyed the sciences. I have met others here who also embrace the sciences. I think human curiosity is much the same no matter the century." Adrian said, then more serious, "and I believe some other parts of human nature remain the same though I have not experienced it at the Inn."

While his mother wouldn't be burnt at the stake in this time, he was under no illusions that some other punishment might be mete out for those that were viewed as 'different'. He'd listened or overheard too many tales of others speaking of their home worlds and times.

[st_huntermom]

"What time are you from?" Because it was definitely further back than the 1980s if he wasn't used to phones in any form.

[st_affofthemoon]

"I think that sounds lovely, actually." She stood up, trying not to curse the plate of chicken or the man who made it. "My name is Zahra, by the way."

[st_igmatized]

"Curiosity would be the reason we made it out of East Africa," Sunny agreed. She decided to sit down, at least for a minute, if for no other reason than., small world, her mother was a doctor. "I'm Sunny, by the way."