singillatim | a late summer catchall

Really? What kind of stuff?

[ Said with genuine, non-criminal interest. ]

Stuff that's lost, mostly, or hidden. Before I got taken here I was in India retrieving an artifact for the Ministry of Culture.

[She’d only decided to offer it to the Ministry at the end, after everything had happened, but whatever. They're getting it.]

Oh, that already sounds way cooler than rugs and statues.

So, did you find it?

Yeah, but it got sold out from under us and then almost exploded. We got it in the end, though.

[ A blink. ]

Exploded? That sounds pretty dangerous for an artifact.

I'm glad you got it, but what was it anyway?

Oh, not because of the artifact. [Honest mistake.] It was in a helicopter when it crashed.

It was a piece of elephant tusk, inlaid with gold and some kind of blue stone. A symbol of the Hoysala kingdom.

[ Another blink. ]

You know, I was right. That's way cooler. Sounds more like an action movie than any work I did in trading.

[ Boy do his eyes light up at the mention of Hoysala-- ]

Really, Hoysala? Wow, I understand why they wanted it so bad if it's that old.

We didn't deal much in originals like that. [ read: knock offs. ] Was able to visit some of their temples though. But I'm guessing you already know all about those?

There were some real marvels of engineering out where we found it - a lot of water-powered mechanisms like elevators and even a statue that moved.

The big temple in Belur unfortunately also exploded and then half of it got flooded but it wasn't my fault at least.

They really were something else. Places like that give me hope for all of surviving here, to be honest. We can do a lot even without technology when we put our minds to it.

Huh. The big one in Belur? That's funny, I don't remember it being destroyed or flooded last year. Maybe we're thinking of different ones?

You'd have definitely noticed. They were shooting rockets at me in there.

[Rude as hell, in Chloe’s opinion.]

Though maybe we come from different timelines or something. Do you remember the civil war in Ahmedabad? When I first got there they had half the city blockaded.

Was that before or after the helicopter crash?

Oh, I don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure they had some a long time ago, but nothing that recent. You know, before this place I wouldn't have believed you about different timelines. Now I think you're probably right.

After. The guy took the artifact from me in the temple that blew up, and we crashed the helicopter while we were getting it back.

I think it probably made the news. I had to sneak onto a military truck to even get into that part of the city, and the army was doing honest-to-good bombing runs and stuff.

I'm starting to think your kind of trading was a lot more dangerous than mine.

[ He says it as a joke, before tilting his head to ask-- ] Wait, didn't you say it got sold out from under you?

[ There's a moment where he squints and looks like he's trying to think back that far. ]

No, I'm sure I didn't see that on the news. Huh, so I guess we really are from different timelines. Actually, that's not that surprising anymore.

[Chloe laughs.] I should hope so!

And yeah, it did get sold out from under us. The crash involved the buyer. I don't even know what he thought he was going to do with it.

Yeah, it's weird how normal that seems now.

[ Her laugh sparks a brief but genuine one from Makoto in turn. ]

Poor guy. [ He doesn't sound that sympathetic, actually. ] Sometimes people like collecting things for no good reason. Maybe he just thought it was pretty?

Now that you mention it, a lot of stuff feels normal now. More normal than it should, probably.

He traded a bomb for it so I hope he got his money’s worth in the twenty minutes or so that he had it.

[She kind of doubts it though. Whatever. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.]

Right? Werewolves and stuff.

Doesn't sound like he did, if you ask me.

[ Somehow, trading with the yakuza seems safer than what she was up to. ]

Yeah, like that. How many werewolves do you think live around here anyway?

I think with that last round of powers they were distributed pretty evenly, so like… ten? Twelve?

[ His expression says this might've been a spit take if drinks had been involved. ]

That many-- you really think so? Do you know some of them?

I've seen some around, but you can't really tell who they are unless they change back.

That's why I keep my distance from any wolves. But I guess it makes sense most of them don't want to make it obvious.

Yeah. I think after the way people talked about the runners back in June, people are a little warier about sharing.

I can't really blame them, but it's not like anyone really chooses these powers in the first place.

If you ask me, we should be working together to help people manage them.

[ Big words from someone that had a broken nose for a while. ]

Yeah, I agree, but I get wanting to keep it in a smaller group. You don't know what people might do to you.

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