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The Perk - Thursday mid-morning.

Another day of datamining, another day he needed enough caffeine to jumpstart his heart. Kaidan headed to the Perk. "Not strawberry," he joked with the barista, "Maybe do a turtle mocha?"

She shot him a slightly petulant look. It wasn't fair when he came right out and asked for something like that.

"Don't worry, I'll be having more than one," he reassured her, "You can make the next one wacky."

Satisfied, she went to make him a large hot turtle mocha with a staggering amount of whipped cream.

Kaidan took his coffee to the comfy chair, settled it on the table at his elbow, and fired up his Omni Tool. The datapoint was still bothering him. Why Ilium? So now he was running down all of the shipping between Camala and Ilium for the prior ten years. It was sparse.

He couldn't actually drink the coffee until he worked the whipped cream down, so every few moments, he was taking another bite out of the mound and trying not to get it on his nose.

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"You've, ah, got a little something..."

There was a clawed green finger pointing at a similarly green nose, mouth pulled into a bit of a smile just below it. In his other hand, a coffee. Apparently, Amaya was giving Fjord an education in sword-making and a caffeine addiction.

"Kind of hard not to," Kaidan sighed, scrubbing a hand over his nose to get the whipped cream off it. "I think they emptied the can over my cup."

He nodded a thanks. "How've you been, Fjord?"

"With the exception of Tuesday?" Fjord shrugged and shook his head. "Settling in, I suppose. I'm trying not to think of Tuesday."

Because Tuesday had been horrid in ways that would mess with a budding warlock's head right away.

"Yourself?"

He pulled up a seat at a table not far off.

"Tuesday was wacky but benign," Kaidan said, "I'll take it."

He powered down the Omni, not wishing to be rude. "I'm doing ok. Trying to get ready for the silly season."

"The silly season," Fjord echoed. "That'd be the one with the, ah, the sweaters?"

Miguel had mentioned the sweaters. Fjord was not looking forward to that bit, really. How would those even go with his armor?

"Mmhm," Kaidan agreed, "Sweaters, decorations, holiday music all up in your everywhere. Apparently here, voyeur mistletoe.."

He was really not happy about the mistletoe.

"Voyeur... mistletoe."

Yeah, Fjord was just raising an eyebrow at that. Taking a mouthful of his coffee.

"I had really been hoping, when people mentioned the 'holiday season,' that they were referring to that Halloween thing. That one was okay."

Kaidan threw him a lopsided half-smile, "Welcome to Earth, we have holidays every month, just about. Next one shouldn't be that bad, American Thanksgiving in a few weeks. That one's mostly about eating and watching sports."

He made a noise in his throat and sipped his coffee. Now that he was down to the coffee. "Voyeur mistletoe," he confirmed with a small scowl. "Apparently it sneaks up on people and ties them together until they kiss. Whether or not they're interested in kissing anyone. I'm upgrading my Omni Tool with an inferno mode."

"... Good to know. Staying away from people through that entire season, then."

Fjord wasn't in the market for any kissing stuff at the moment, no.

It would also be difficult for him to make good on that threat, what with the three jobs.

"My plan is to burn any plants that come creeping near me," Kaidan said, "If that fails, well, I have a knife. I have certain views about consent."

Radical views, like: there should be some from both parties.

"Apparently blowing people a kiss also works," he noted. Thanks, Liam, for that info.

"Well, that's... reassuring."

Yeah, it would probably turn out better than throwing eldritch blasts around at creeping plants, anyway.

"Why are there so many holidays, here? Are the humans of Earth a particularly celebratory people?"

"Many different cultures," Kaidan explained, "and they all like to share their holidays. I suppose it makes sense. There's a lot of ugly in the world, taking a day or so a month to remind yourself there's some good.. probably not the worst thing that could happen."

"Mm," Fjord mused, "I suppose it isn't, at that."

He fell quiet, taking another mouthful of coffee.

"I suppose it'll be interesting to see the local festivities. Even if I won't be in much of a position to understand what many of them are about."

Kaidan sipped his coffee again. "Mostly, they're about enjoying the company of family or friends for a day or so. Some people might be devout, but a lot of people just like the excuse to have a day off and have some fun." He tilted his head a little, "They have snow where you're from?"

Fjord smiled faintly at that.

"I've seen snow," he replied. "I've been plenty of places during my time serving on merchant ships. It's not entirely unheard of in my hometown, but it's far more common in the northern settlements of the Dwendalian Empire."

He shrugged faintly.

"I know how to prepare for it, if that's what you're asking."

"Nah, I was just curious," Kaidan admitted, "I have another friend who's never seen snow in person and he's been threatening for weeks to run completely amock once it hits. Snowball fights, snow angels, skiing, skating.. Should be a time."

Well, that got a chuckle out of Fjord, right there.

"Now I feel like I ought to ask who this friend is, so that I can brace myself for incoming snowballs."

Generally, it was a bad idea to startle a warlock or a half-orc, and Fjord happened to be both. But at least so far as either went, he was generally quite level-headed.

So far.

"Hernando," Kaidan answered easily, "He runs the tea shop. Guy's from the country south of this one, doesn't really snow there." He chuckled a little, "Not sure he's going to pitch them at people randomly, but I also don't put anything past him."

"Ah, the pleasant gentleman with an affinity for art, if I'm not mistaken? That reminds me, I need to stop by his tea shop again at some point, take him up on his offer to introduce me to the local art."

Local being Earth.

Beyond that, Fjord might have missed any other implications behind that invitation.

Kaidan took a loooooong slow drink of his coffee. "That'd be him, yes. He, uh, invited you to an art gallery?"

Honestly, could go either way. Hernando was an art geek. He was also a completely shameless flirt.

"Initially, yes," Fjord agreed easily. "I pointed out I might have, ah, some difficulty when it comes to taking in tourist attractions on the mainland for any extended period of time. So he invited me to visit his hotel room, instead."

... Which had to at least give an idea of how long it had been since the invitation.

Look, Fjord was a D&D character. He left plot hooks hanging like it was a lifestyle.

Kaidan very deliberately did not choke on his coffee. "Well," he answered mildly, "for one, he's not living at the hotel anymore. He's living in an apartment attached to his shop."

Just don't ask him how it was attached. Thinking about it made Kaidan's head hurt.

"He's an art professor so I'm sure that'd be an educational experience."

Probably in more ways than one.

Kaidan just could not let Fjord walk into that. He asked slowly, "Can I take it, from your comment at the bar the other night, that you're also not really interested in that whole flirting and dating thing?"

That... seemed to come a little out of left field, yes.

"Not particularly, no," Fjord said, mildly suspicious, now. "Why do you ask?"

Curse that low wisdom stat.

"Hernando is one of my best friends," Kaidan explained after a moment, "So I'm not trying to insult him in any way."

He took a sip of coffee. "He's a flirt. He's a completely unrepentant flirt. However.. he's also really good about respecting boundaries when he knows they exist. That being said, even when he means nothing, listening to him talk about art can be like listening to someone talk intimately about a lover. It's an experience. If it gets uncomfortable, just tell him and he'll dial it down for you."

"Oh." Blink. "Um." Another blink, and Fjord leaned his head back a bit in mild surprise. "I, ah, appreciate the warning."

Because wait, what? With him?

But why?

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The Perk - Thursday mid-morning.

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