2014.01.09 - Wooden Trees

The diner that Lily Crane works in is nothing particularly special; it's locally popular, but you won't see anyone driving from miles away to eat there. Low-key, it enjoys a modest enough popularity. Hey, it's still in business, right?

It's midafternoon, and Lily herself is-- at the end of her shift, actually! Though it's obvious she does work here, given the outfit - while she's wearing a grey peacoat, her skirt is striped in the same shades of blue-and-cream that the diner is done up in, and today her hair is shoulder-length, curly and an attractive shade of bright orange. She's gathering up her things to head out, which consist primarily of a purse and magazine, and either she's in a hurry to get somewhere or in a hurry to get out, since once she does have everything she's all but rushing out the door-- and directly into the customer coming in through the doors.

That customer coming in the door just then? It’s Zen, Intergalactic Ninja. Or, just ‘Zen’ as he’s known around town, and even YouTube by now. He’s wearing his regular cargo pants and spaceman boots, but he’s also taken to wearing shirts and stuff around town, because, the blue alien with no face wants to try harder at ‘fitting in’. Good job, Zen. He’s wearing a white ‘I heart NYC’ shirt, but instead of a heart, there’s an image of Dr. Who’s blue Tardis phone box. Over that is a bright orange New York Knicks zip-up hoodie, coincidentally the same shade of orange as Lily’s hair.

The hood is up, and his head is down when he enters, which is probably how the alien wasn’t watching where he was going. He bumps into Lily and says directly into her mind, |"Oh shit, my bad. Sorry about that! Oops..."| His ‘voice’ comes through as a rich, male baritone, speaking in the language she’s most comfortable in, and has the additionally odd quality of the niggling feeling that his voice has been heard somewhere else before.

In his embarrassment he hurriedly produces a little 3x5 index card. On it has been printed in English and Spanish this message: —My name is Zen. I can only communicate with you through your mind. But I won’t without your permission. I can’t /read/ minds. May I speak with you?—

If nothing else, Lily does manage not to drop her things when she hits Zen, but does stumble backwards a bit, almost losing her footing. Once she's got herself re-balanced, though, she brushes herself off and looks up and up and up at Zen. "Wha-?" It takes a minute to realize that the speech had been psychic in the first place. The card is taken silently, then, and scrutinized with some confusion, which eventually fades into an amused little smile. "Oh, um.." There is the hint of a Parisian accent to her voice as she speaks. "I wasn't watching where I was going, it was my own fault."

Fidgeting a moment, she then suddenly remembers the card, and holds it up suddenly. "Oh! Ah, do you need this back? It's-- you can talk with me, you don't need my permission." There's that amused smile again. "Anyway, um, are you alright? I didn't mean to run into you like that, it's been kind of a long day so I was kind of rushing out."

Zen shakes his head, and makes a smile of sorts. This is a little tricky in that he lacks a nose or mouth, but the corners of his eyes tug upwards the way anyone else’s would. The expression also comes through his thoughts somewhat. |"No apology necessary."| He takes the card back with a grateful nod and says, |"It’s a shame you have to run off though. Ever since about ten seconds ago, I’ve been wanting to buy you a coffee. New Yorkers are always in such a hurry."| He holds the door open for her in case she wants to continue with the leaving, but his expression is equally focused on following her to a seat in the diner if she goes that way instead.

"Oh!" Lily actually /blushes/ at that line, the blush fading into a wide smile that, while she tries to stifle it, comes through regardless. "I'm-- not sure if you can relate, but it was really a matter of wanting to get away from work.." She waves a hand vaguely. "Since it's the end of my shift and all. To find someplace else to sit down for a while. But I could sit here." And so the girl is turning right /back/ into the diner, grabbing a pair of menus, flagging down a hostess, and pointing to a booth that she then leads Zen to. Sitting herself down, she opens her menu, and remarks, "We do a really good reuben if you like those, or--" Pause, frown. "--Actually, um. I don't mean to be rude but do you /eat/... human-food?"

Zen makes his unique kind of smile again, and nods. |"Yeah, I can totally relate. I mean, I've never worked a job like this one before, but I understand wanting to leave work behind. We can go-"| he's about to offer, when he's already being ushered into the diner and sat down. Zen can't blink, with his eyes being membranes instead of eyeballs, but he sure looks like he /would/. Blink. Right now. He glances at the menu before setting it down, nodding again. |"I do like human food. I like the food pretty much everywhere, but I don't really taste it the way you do. But that makes it fun to eat /with/ people. With locals, I mean. Because, you taste it with your mind."| He looks out the window for a moment and then back. |"Sorry, I know that sounds weird. But, would it be ok if I just order what you order? That's always really fun for me. Also, do you have green tea here?"| Zen doesn't have any obvious weapons on him, but something about the way he moves, his musculature, just radiates the fact that he's capable of being very, very dangerous, while at the same time not coming off as threatening.

"I'm not /really/ sure I understand," Lily answers slowly, choosing her words carefully. She's at least making apparently comfortable eye-contact; either she's used to conversing with 'odd'-looking people, or she's just naturally at ease with conversation in general. "But yeah, we can do that. It'll probably make more sense demonstrating than trying to explain, huh?" There's a laugh there, along with a more comfortable smile.

And serendipitously, it is at this point that a waitress, 'Moira' on the nametag, comes by to check on them. "You just can't get away from this place, can you, Lil'?" She jokes, Lily responding with a grin and a sticking out of her tongue. "What can I get you two to drink?" "Green tea for him, I'll have a Sprite, and we're actually ready for our food orders; he and I will both have the Bavarian, no pickles." "Naturally. I'll get those in for you and be back with the drinks in a minute."

Zen nods and shrugs. |"That's ok,"| his telepathy says, in that almost-familiar mental voice again. |"It kinda… doesn't /make/ sense, so I think that's the right response."| His laughter is a mental sound as well, but is oddly unaccompanied by the body language one would normally associate with laughing - shaking of the chest, head tipping back - he only makes his odd faceless grin. He watches quietly as Moira takes their order, slightly tense just in case she reacts poorly to him, but relaxes when she takes his presence in stride. |"I guess the easiest way to put it, is that I don't have taste buds. And humans in particular, seem to /really/ enjoy their food. On an emotional level. It broadcasts, for most people eating something they like. It's fun to pick up on. And it makes the most sense in my head if I'm eating the same thing."| He nods when Moira drops off their drinks, and he drops the bag into his hot water, watching as it slowly sinks into the steaming cup.

When Lily's drink is dropped off, she leans back in her seat, lifting it to her mouth to sip through the straw slowly and nodding as Zen speaks. "I think I get what you're saying." She still has a bit of a pensive look on her face, though, and eventually she leans forward, setting her glass back down and looking Zen up-and-down. "But like, physically, what do you do with the food?" She holds her hands up, gesturing with them in an attempt to illustrate her point. "I mean-- I'm really sorry if this is rude. Although if it broadcasts.. didn't you say you can't read minds? Or is that different?" There's a sheepish smile as Lily asks that; she doesn't seem /upset/, just genuinely curious. "I don't really have much experience with... psionics, I guess is the word."

Zen nods and stirs his tea, four-fingered hand gripping the spoon. |"Yeah, it's different I guess. I can't read what you're thinking, or like… your memories. But I get what you're saying because you think the words as well."| He reaches out and taps the menu. |"And I can't read that at all. English is a disaster, by the way. No offense."| Zen shrugs and looks mildly apologetic. He pulls a device from his pocket that looks like a fairly thick smartphone, with an unrecognizable manufacturer's logo. |"I'd be helpless without this thing."| He waves it over the menu in a manner that clearly implies the device can translate it for him. |"But to answer your other question… It kind of goes like this."| Zen holds his free hand over the cup of tea, and the level of water lowers, as a stream of tiny particles rise up to be absorbed into his hand. Each individual particle is too small to be seen individually, but the group is clear enough. He 'grins' over at Lily as he finishes his 'sip' of tea.

There's a few slow nods there as Zen explains, and Lily finally replies, "I think I get it. And don't even get me started on English," she adds. "I spent ten years hardly ever speaking it, it was pretty killer trying to get used to it again. My family lived in France for a while," she adds, without prompting, and leans back to sip on her Sprite again. And when Zen starts doing the 'drinking' trick, she just watches, enraptured for a moment, then looks back up to him with an easy grin. "I kinda thought maybe it'd be something like that, but that is still... that's totally wild."

Zen's mental voice chuckles again, and he puts his hands back on the table, idly turning his smartphone round and round. He nods at the phone and says, |"Yeah, I think I've got most of of the human languages logged now. All the major ones at least. Plus, I only need it for reading. So."| Zen just shrugs. |"I've been meaning to check out France. You can tell a lot about a race by it's art. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre… I'm real curious. I just hear um… maybe aliens are less common over there. Everyone said New York is the place for outsiders."| He shrugs again and grins. |"Plus, I don't know my way around Paris. I'd need a guide."| His tone is almost… is he /suggesting/ something?

Lily is apparently at least a /little/ quick on the uptake, because her instinctive response is to raise her eyebrows with some amusement and ask, “Are you /suggesting/ something, Mr. Zen?” Her smile is still easy, though, as she sips from her soda to give herself a moment to think her words over. “When I was there, it does seem like there weren’t nearly as many… out-of-the-ordinary people as there are here. But it’s also been, gosh, ten years since we left? And I was still a kid when we /were/ there… I don’t imagine I’d remember much of anything.”

Conveniently, this is when Moira happens to come by, with two elaborate meaty sandwiches on pretzel buns, and a side of fries for each. These are dropped off along with a Sprite refill, before the waitress is off again.

Zen 'chuckles' again, in his way, and says, |"I was, actually. /Am./ On the other hand, it's probably very rash of me. You could be an axe murderer and kill me in the dark corridor of some museum somewhere. I'm very frail, you see."| The corded bunches of muscle visible in his neck and forearms pointedly mark the sarcasm there. He looks like he's about to say something else when the food arrives. |"What did you say this was called, again?"|

"The Bavarian," Lily replies, her tone taking a dramatic shift. "Pastrami and a hamburger on a pretzel, with mustard. I guess that's what they eat in Bavaria, where the trees are made of wood." She shrugs faintly, choosing to start with a french fry, which she chews on delicately for a moment, then settles into a smile. "I am kind of glad you said that, though. About it being forward. No offense, but that was what I was thinking, was-- I mean, you really do seem nice! But, well, a girl has to be careful these days."


 * "The Bavarian,"| Zen parrots back, considering the sandwich. |"Where the… wait, what?"| Zen looks up from his sandwich, studying Lily's face. |"Aren't… all the trees here made of wood?"| This concern seems to completely have derailed the far-traveler.

Blushing, Lily shakes her head, holding her hands up, palms outward in a defensive sort of gesture. She then covers her face with them and tries to stifle a laugh. "Sorry, it's-- a joke from a TV show. Sometimes I say things without realizing not everyone's going to understand." Shaking her head a few more times, she takes in a deep breath and lets out a slow sigh. "Trees are all made of wood. Yes."