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Cafe Fina, Sunday

Today, Warren figured, was going to be a relatively quiet day at work.

You could tell that he figured this. It was easy, as he was sitting off in a corner, reading a book. And sure the book wasn't for him, he'd brought it in case Rikku stopped by to pick it up, but it was passing the time.

Today's Specials:
Try the Shrimp and Okra Gumbo
With a Slice of Pecan Pie!

The dishes were starting to whisper suspiciously amongst themselves. Warren hadn't burned a single thing yet.

[Flying OCD free today. Have at thee!]

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Just in case there were patrons, Momoko was trying to be quiet and subdued as she entered. But she soon spied Warren and she bounced over excitedly. "Warren! Warren!" She set down the small box of chocolates she'd gotten from the booth at the Market, clapped her hands, and smiled. "Guess what I got yesterday? Guess! Guess!"

Rikku was going to peek her head into Fina, glancing around and grinning at Warren.

"Hey," she said. "What's gumbo?"

"Think soup," Warren replied, shutting the book and looking up at Rikku. "Thick soup. Not too bad. Spicy. Want a bowl of it? Probably goes well with a book on African-American History."

He stood and held the book toward her.

"I think you'll be a fan of Rosa Parks, myself."

"Aside from chocolate?" Warren blinked up, and then grinned faintly. "How many guesses do I get?"

"You can read minds, you dirty liar! It's totally chocolate. Handmade truffles, look!" She opened the box and showed him the truffles. She'd somehow managed to only eat one more last night. "Want one? I met the most wonderful chocolatier yesterday and she had a spinning plate and it had a dragon on it and she said 'dark chocolate raspberry is your favourite' and she gave me one and I'm totally moving to France to work for her, now. Hope you won't miss me." She handed him a truffle and sat down with a smile.

"I might miss you. Especially if you keep giving me chocolate."

Well. Warren really wasn't the biggest of chocolate fans. That whole melting thing and all. But he had to admit, that was a damn fine truffle.

"And is it your favorite?"

Momoko rolled her eyes. "You can't just EAT a handmade truffle. You have to do it right! It's not like a store-bought candybar, all machine stamped, identical to the twenty stacked under it, and wrapped in generic tinfoil because it's older than it should be."

She shook a finger at him, then picked up another truffle. "You have to do it slow and make sure you appreciate the fact that someone's hand made this alone; each one is different. And then, to eat it, to really appreciate it, you have to take a bite. Taste each flavor. That's a deep dark chocolate shell with a faint raspberry essence and the filling is smooth white chocolate." She took a bite and sighed. "And yes, they are my favourite. What's yours?"

Warren tentatively reached for truffle number two, eyeing it warily for a moment before looking back at Momoko.

The truffle could wait a second. It would be kind of melty, but it could wait a moment.

"My favorite? Fortune cookies."

No, they weren't chocolate. But heck, it was a weakness.

"What are you waiting for? Go ahead, first just see how it looks different than a storebought chocolate? Admiring it pays respect to the person who made it. Then a small bite to taste. Then you can eat it for real!" She popped the second bit of her own into her mouth. After she finished, she smiled. "Oh yeah! You did say you could bake fortune cookies! It must be nice to be able to make your favourite snacks."

Warren took a moment then to... admire the chocolate. "Sure looks like... chocolate," he mused. See, he was being agreeable! And now it was time for a nibble. "Tastes like it too. Not bad."

"I don't make them often anyhow, though. The fortune cookies. It was kind of something I picked up from my last job." Ah, The Paper Lantern.

Now he was going to pop the rest of the truffle into his mouth.

"Fine, fine. I'm friends with a food heathen. See if you get anymore, then, Mister 'not bad'." Momoko laughed and closed the lid on the box. "So how was your week and weekend, then? Do anything interesting?"

"Nothing at all," Warren mused. "Went to the paper meeting. Introduced Rikku to American history. Still have no idea what to rant about for this week's article. Mostly, I've just been laying low."

Which... wasn't any different from usual, really.

"One of us is going to have to do something someday other than class and work. Well, your work, since I don't have one. Oh! I read your last article! It was good, although I did wonder about how bad your last school had to be to make you throw fireballs in the cafeteria." She rested her chin on her hand and grinned. "American history? Why American history? Was it for a class?" She made a mental note to save a truffle for her big sis.

"She was kind of... reluctant about the election that happened this past week, actually," Warren replied, not sure how many details he could safely give on the topic while still respecting Rikku's privacy. "So I picked up this book for her. I think it's something she's going to need to see."

A book on the history of African-Americans. Actually, it was a pretty interesting read.

"My last school isn't too bad anymore. The... uh. The fireballs in the cafeteria weren't really about the school itself. That was a personal complaint."

"There was an election!" She frowned. "That's right, Rikku mentioned it in her article, too. I kind of got distracted that day by the elephants and donkeys. Plus I don't live here. And I'm not old enough to vote, even back home, so I didn't really pay attention. It must have been special if there is information in your book about it."

"I like spicy," she noted, taking the book. "Thank you. I'll be careful not to take notes in the margins or anything. So. This is ... what happened to these people? After they got made into slaves, up until now, when one of them got to be in charge?"

She couldn't imagine a world where an Al Bhed was allowed to rule Spira.

... one specific half-Al Bhed, maybe, but that was only because Yuna was Yuna. People didn't quite believe Yuna was half-Al Bhed, anyway, no matter how many times she pointed it out.

"She and I got into a conversation about human rights and how they've changed in America over the past couple of centuries. This last election was a big deal because of how badly the country needs help, yeah. But it's got a bunch of huge historical points that make our new president-elect something really special, too."

He paused, and then shrugged.

"That, and the man sure knows how to talk. I couldn't vote, either, but I can't complain about the guy that won."

That was close enough. Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas, and there were people out there who wouldn't believe that.

People were weird.

"Not up until right now, no. It's not the newest of books, it's missing the past couple of years. But... Yeah. It's actually a really interesting read. Good to see that things are looking up, or whatever."

She opened the book and flipped through a few pages at random.

"Do you think ..." She hesitated. "It might help? I mean. It might give examples, you know, what to do, what not to do, if you're trying to get people to start working together."

She closed the book again and smiled at him. "It's an interesting read, either way. I mean. I'm not just using it as research, I ... I want to understand. You know? I looked up that speech-thing you mentioned, and I felt like crying, watching him talk, and I didn't even know why. I want to."

"There's no quick-fix. I don't think the book has one of those, either. But... Knowing what happened couldn't hurt, if you're looking to try to improve things. What turns the tables might be something as simple as somebody sitting down when they're expected to stand. That's just... how people work, sometimes."

Warren shrugged. "Keep the book, anyhow. I think if anyone around here deserves to understand why his speech felt like that, it's you, from what you've said."

"We don't have a president. In Japan, I mean. We have a Prime Minister and an Emperor, and neither of them are elected. Well, not directly. We elect the people who elect the Prime Minister." She smiled and shrugged. "It's really bad of me, I know, but I don't really pay attention to the national level. I have enough to worry about just keeping up with Tokyo City and our mayor."

"If this America needs help from a special person, does that mean that the new president has powers? Should we offer to help?"

Warren chuckled faintly at that.

"America needs help from someone who knows how to help. He isn't a superhero or anything. I mean, not that I know of. We probably would have learned about him in my old school if he was. But I can't picture him turning down help, if he ever needed it."

Warren shrugged. "Right now, I think it's mostly a matter of seeing where things go from here."

"I try ..." Rikku looked up, weighing her words carefully. "I try to ... not hate them. A lot of them were lied to, and a lot of people were really afraid, you know? Things were bad for everyone, and if someone says, it's all because of those people, they're the reason all of this happened to you, and you believe it ... that might mean you let yourself do awful things. So I can't ... I'm not gonna hate them. For what they did to us. Because ... then it'll just keep going around. Won't it?"

She still couldn't stay the night in Guadosalam. Even when the alternative was camping out in the constant storm of the Thunder Plains.

Her fingers brushed over the cover of the book again. "They ... used them as slaves?" she asked. It made her feel sick just to think about it.

"Well, if the new president does need help, he just has to ask. I like this world and its America. Although," she smiled, "in my world, Americans are supposed to be large, loud, powerful, rich, violent, overly proud, and rude. The idea that a country full of that kind of people would need help is kind of weird."

"We're not all rich and powerful," Warren agreed, "though I'm willing to bet that a lot of us like to believe we are. Maybe that's why we need so much help in the first place. Too many of us think we're invincible."

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Cafe Fina, Sunday

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