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The Perk- Saturday Morning

Connor had mostly recovered from the Holiday. He didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving and even if he did it wasn't like there were a lot of people he could easily get together with. But he and Rex had definitely enjoyed some good food so far so there wasn't much to complain about!

Right now though, Connor was sitting at a table by the window, a large mocha mint drink beside him, and laptop out and running as he alternated between watching out the window and typing away at his research notes.

(post and coffee shop open of course!)

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With the morning's training and another frustratingly aimless day ahead of him, Ignis figured time at the coffee shop, at least, was rarely time poorly spent. And so he was there, getting himself another latte as dry as his sense of humor, and taking a moment, once he had it in hand, to listen around for which area of the cafe seemed the quietest to find a table, or for any traces of familiar voices already there or even directed his way.

"Morning Mate," Connor said with a nod toward Ignis. He didn't know Ignis but again, he still didn't know most of the people on the island so that would likely have been the case regardless of who it was that walked in.

The greeting caught Ignis' attention, and he paused, waiting for the moment to hear if there was a response to determine if it had been directed elsewhere, to someone else. Since no reply seemed to follow, he felt it was safe to assume there was a good chance it may have been intended for him, so he nodded in the direction of the voice, fairly certain he was not familiar with this one.

"Good morning," he responded, in kind, and, with a touch of a smile, he lifted his cup as if in a toast. "And an even better one, surely, once I have this. Thankfully, the Perk rarely disappoints in that respect."

"I hear ya there," Connor said earnestly. "Nothing like a tasty cup of caffeinated goodness to get the brain up and running. Lord knows I need it to get through this research" he added with a small laugh.

Ignis' brows lifted slightly, intrigued by the possibility of a topic that may extend beyond just the usual rote coffee shop small talk and banter. "Oh?" he asked, with a note of approval for anyone choosing to be so studious on a Saturday morning. "And what is it you're researching, if you don't mind me inquiring?"

"Not at all, Mate," Connor said. "Doing research on the portals and all around here on the island. We had something similar back home that was my main focus and all. And my... " Connor caught himself there as he almost said 'boyfriend'... were they? was that what he and Michael were? damn stupid labels complicating things... "they guy I'm dating, he's got a big interest in things like this as well."

The intrigue that had initially started in Ignis' brows now seemed to spread through his entire posture, the slightest straightening of his shoulders (there wasn't much room for them to straighten more, really) and a tilt of his head, with regards to...several aspects of that answer, really.

"Have you discovered anything particularly interesting?" he wondered, and the pause before this next part was substantial. "...Or useful?"

Which he felt showed an incredible amount of restraint on that topic.

(And as for the topic of labeling, well...one might presume Ignis to be a man with a particular fondness for such clearly defined parameters, but there were some things in which he felt such distinctions were far more trouble than they were worth, really).

"Right now it's still a lot of just trying to figure out how the heck they work and all" Connor admitted. "Back home we had something similar we called Anomalies that were causing a bit of a panic."

Connor gave a glance to Ignis then the table and he pushed the empty chair back a little with his foot. "Can get a bit involved if we start talking portals and all" he said with a light chuckle, knowing all too well how he could get at times. "Have a seat if ya want."

The sound of the empty chair moving across the floor immediately caught his attention, and he was grateful for it, because it meant there would be very little (if any) fumbling around for the back of it to find it himself. He pulled it out just a little bit further so that he could sit down, nodding his appreciation as he did.

"Thank you," he said. "Unfortunately, I've had some of my own troubles with portals, although my experiences lie less in figuring out how they work, and much more in why they sometimes don't."

And, since he was now at the table and could gauge fairly well by the sound of his voice where the other man was sitting, he felt confident enough to offer out a hand in his direction.

"Ignis Scientia, by the way," he said. "I don't believe we've met, though you'll have to forgive me if we have. I've....been away for some time."

Edited 2022-11-26 12:52 (UTC)

"Connor Temple," he said returning the handshake. "Been here about... six months now actually" he said with a small laugh of disbelief because it really didn't seem like it had been that long.

"And yeah, the portals here really do seem to have a mind of their own in a way. I mean even Summer's portal gun can't go everywhere and doesn't always work" Connor said with a shake of his head. "I made trackers for the Anomalies back home so we could tell when they were opening since it was totally random and couldn't be controlled the way the portals here seem to. Been trying to make something similar for the portals here to try and figure them out... but it's been slow going."

There was a small wince in the smile at the mention of Summer's portal gun, which Ignis washed away with a sip of his coffee.

"Well," he offered, "they do say that slow and steady wins the race, especially when dealing with a somewhat...tenuous subject matter. My friends and I, for example, went from being able to take portals back and forth from this world to ours without a hitch on a weekly, if not sometimes daily basis, to not being able to access them at all. And then," he nodded a little, "ten years later, three separate incidences of an undetectable rift brought us back here, only to find access to our own world restricted in just the same fashion."

Normally, he wouldn't bother boring a person he'd just met with such details, but if Connor was researching the topic, it seemed quite the sort of anomoly to perhaps be relevant to his data.

Connor listened intently with rapt attention and made a couple of notes on the pad of paper next to him. No way of knowing if it would impact what he and Michael were working on but couldn't hurt to keep it in mind.

"See with the anomalies back home we were working on a way to close and lock them while also trying to find a rhyme or reason for them to open in the first place. Back home they were opening to prehistoric times, for the most part, and all sorts of ancient critters, none too friendly either, were coming into our world through them. Our team's job was to find the anomalies, deal with the creatures, and close the access points so nothing else could come through."

'Ancient critters', in particular, seemed to have wedged a wry huff out of Ignis as he sipped his drink. "I suppose, then," he mused, "we should consider ourselves lucky that the only things coming through the portals on our end was us, and not our own brand of...ancient critters, although, thankfully, that would no longer be a concern."

Or, rather, if it did happen, they would have far bigger issues on their hands, no doubt.

"Were you successful, then?" he wondered, the contrast of one dimension trying to close the portals while another was so desperate to have them be opened feeling particularly ironic. "In closing the access points? And did you merely close them, or did your team ever dare to venture through and see what might be waiting on the other side?"

"We figure out how to close them and to somewhat try and predict when and where approximately they would appear" Connor offered. "I developed trackers that could pinpoint when one opened and then a few tools that helped lock them and record where they had appeared previously."

He gave small sigh as he added. "Sadly we never figure it all out and then they just started happening less and less and it's been a long while since a single anomaly opened up. Which is part of why I came here to see if there were any anomalies or things here across the pond."

"The...pond?" asked Ignis, for a moment, his memory mostly just pulling up images of the duck-and-flamingo laden pond in the very park on the island, before it jogged with something else and he made a small, acknowledging sound. "Ah, right. Colloquial term used for the Atlantic Ocean. You're from Europe, then? England, specifically, if I were to hazard a guess?"

"Aye, London specifically. That's where the Home Office was. Never got out much, and only been here to America a handful of times for research trips and such in college. What about you? With the talk of portals and all seeming to be familiar to you I take it you aren't from around here?" Here meaning earth in general, which was something Connor was still trying to wrap his brain around fully.

"A different world entirely," Ignis confirmed with a nod, despite sounding like he'd actually be right at home in London himself. "Called Eos, though it shares a remarkable similarity to Earth in many respects, and then, in others, barely any all. The differences, though, are minor enough that I've rarely felt out of place here."

"That's good... I can see how a place like this would be hard enough to adjust too morally, not without adding a 'new universe' level of oddness to it all!"

"I also had the benefit," Ignis added, "of knowing someone who'd been here before. This place has oddities well beyond its multidimensional aspects, but even those are a little easier to deal with when you're well aware of them in advance..."

"Like the whole 'people turning into animals thing'? Yeah, I had been told but I still wasn't prepared. Somehow my brain had taken that to mean some people have the ability to shift to animals. Not that it would randomly happen to anyone" Connor winced slightly, the whole 'seeing your former professor and best friend naked after being a cat for a week' was gonna take a bit more time to not be awkward.

"I have one friend who actually turns into a plant instead," Ignis offered with a cool lift of his brow. "Apparently, he has a scar on his back from when I tripped over him and broke his vase."

Obviously, he had to take everyone's word on that one.

"A plant? Really?" Connor asked, his eyebrow doing an impressive lift at that. "I guess it might be easier than running after a cat or something else for a week... As long as you are not like, prone to killing plants..." Which he totally was!

Edited 2022-11-26 19:06 (UTC)

"Thankfully," said Ignis, who was not prone to killing plants regardless, thank you very much, "the gladiolus is an exceptionally easy plant to take care of. Very low maintenance....and quite sturdy."

And yes, that was a deeply amused smile he was hiding behind his next sip of coffee, even if he suspected he was the only one in the conversation to really understand what was so humorous about such a description.

"That's good," Connor said with a nod, unfortunately not being in on the wonderful pun and irony of the gladiolus plant. "I think if anyone I know turned into a plant on me, I'd have to drop them off at that Plant Parenthood shop in town. I'd likely make them sick by doing something wrong if not come close to killing them."

And it wasn't totally his fault, he was just a bit distractable, and if it wasn't something that could remind him of its existence he tended to forget about things. Dogs, cats, Rexy.... those were good. Plants tended to die a slow withering death if he was responsible for them.

Ignis made a soft, amused sort of sound. "That certainly would add another layer to the name, wouldn't it?" he mused. "One could hardly be blamed for expecting some sort of....plant daycare to be among its services..."

"Eh if nothing else, they should at least know how to keep a plant from dying for a week or so," Connor pointed out. "I'm pretty sure they grow plants there among everything else."

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