[ Before the Guard, Nile Freeman had been a grand total of three places in her life. Southside Chicago. Basic Training. Afghanistan. Six months in a family of four immortals and she's been more places than she can count; criss-crossing her way across Europe and Asia on missions while the boys and Andy pretend like they aren't keeping her away from America, and she pretends like she doesn't notice exactly what they're doing.
Hong Kong, though? Hong Kong's quickly become one of her favorite places they've settled--the press of bodies, the sharp sweet smell of stores, the loud calls in the markets, the contradictions of impossibly modern structures surrounded by bamboo scaffolding. She could get lost in this city for decades, she thinks, time spinning away from her and back again, slow spirals before anyone started to notice she looks the same as she did the first day she arrived--
--maybe it's always like this for Them. Maybe that's what it's like, when you're staring down the barrel of forever with an unending mission at your fingertips. Maybe that's what keeps you from going mad with all of it; falling in love with the places they pass through and the people that inhabit them.
It's that or be swallowed by the inevitability of a life that outlives everyone and everything she knows. Love seems like the easier of the two options, in the end, even if it means sacrificing the parts of her that are the most familiar and trying to embrace the world that's unfolding, step by step.
Point of the matter is that Hong Kong is Hong Kong and it lends itself to contradictions and sometimes she's lost in existentialism of forever and sometimes she just wants a damn drink because she was once a Marine and supposedly that means she always will be.
So she's here, in a bar filled with voices that could almost be familiar, various accents on English, nursing a bottle of Budweiser like it's a lifeline. It's as shitty here as it is back home, but it does have the advantage of tasting like something she knows. By the time Daisy makes her way to the bar, Nile's settled in a back corner booth (good sight-lines, hard to notice from the door) and gone through a beer and a half and is doing her best to reduce the label of the second to a pile of scraps.
They're both watching the crowd, interested or not, and when their eyes inevitably eventually meet, Nile tilts her head and cocks an eyebrow, curious despite herself.
It's not like the bar is crawling with people their age and, well, Nile's not opposed to making an interesting acquaintance. The second eyebrow joins the first and she tips her beer forward, toward the empty seat across from her in the cramped space; an easy invitation if Daisy wants to take it, but subtle enough she can pretend she missed the cue if she's got other plans.
Nile's voice, when the other woman is close enough to hear it, is warm even for all that it's guarded ]
You don't seem like the usual clientele for this kind of place.
[ The invitation is unexpected but entirely welcome. The other woman is who she's come here to see, after all, and being invited to join her is so much easier than Daisy trying to casually shove her way in. If the woman in question hadn't been at the bar that night, she would have asked around and gone on the hunt, so to speak, so she's counting herself lucky that the stars have aligned in her favor for once.
(It probably won't last. This sort of thing rarely does for her, but she'll make the most of it while she can.)
Winding her way through the crowd, she offers a friendly smile when she finally reaches the table with her drink in hand. ]
Neither do you. I guess the other under 40s are somewhere more... not like this. [ She slides into the seat across the booth and offers her hand. ] I'm Daisy.
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Hong Kong, though? Hong Kong's quickly become one of her favorite places they've settled--the press of bodies, the sharp sweet smell of stores, the loud calls in the markets, the contradictions of impossibly modern structures surrounded by bamboo scaffolding. She could get lost in this city for decades, she thinks, time spinning away from her and back again, slow spirals before anyone started to notice she looks the same as she did the first day she arrived--
--maybe it's always like this for Them. Maybe that's what it's like, when you're staring down the barrel of forever with an unending mission at your fingertips. Maybe that's what keeps you from going mad with all of it; falling in love with the places they pass through and the people that inhabit them.
It's that or be swallowed by the inevitability of a life that outlives everyone and everything she knows. Love seems like the easier of the two options, in the end, even if it means sacrificing the parts of her that are the most familiar and trying to embrace the world that's unfolding, step by step.
Point of the matter is that Hong Kong is Hong Kong and it lends itself to contradictions and sometimes she's lost in existentialism of forever and sometimes she just wants a damn drink because she was once a Marine and supposedly that means she always will be.
So she's here, in a bar filled with voices that could almost be familiar, various accents on English, nursing a bottle of Budweiser like it's a lifeline. It's as shitty here as it is back home, but it does have the advantage of tasting like something she knows. By the time Daisy makes her way to the bar, Nile's settled in a back corner booth (good sight-lines, hard to notice from the door) and gone through a beer and a half and is doing her best to reduce the label of the second to a pile of scraps.
They're both watching the crowd, interested or not, and when their eyes inevitably eventually meet, Nile tilts her head and cocks an eyebrow, curious despite herself.
It's not like the bar is crawling with people their age and, well, Nile's not opposed to making an interesting acquaintance. The second eyebrow joins the first and she tips her beer forward, toward the empty seat across from her in the cramped space; an easy invitation if Daisy wants to take it, but subtle enough she can pretend she missed the cue if she's got other plans.
Nile's voice, when the other woman is close enough to hear it, is warm even for all that it's guarded ]
You don't seem like the usual clientele for this kind of place.
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(It probably won't last. This sort of thing rarely does for her, but she'll make the most of it while she can.)
Winding her way through the crowd, she offers a friendly smile when she finally reaches the table with her drink in hand. ]
Neither do you. I guess the other under 40s are somewhere more... not like this. [ She slides into the seat across the booth and offers her hand. ] I'm Daisy.