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[shootsharp]

MASK OR MENACE, HEROPA; floating in a most peculiar way.

[ The mood of the street changes when it begins to rain with a cheerful summery patter that is nevertheless relentless enough to cause a stir. Umbrellas bloom and raise. Footsteps quicken, and the open-sky mall clears of people as they change their trajectory for cover.

Except for Teddy Flood.

It's been some minutes. Water gathers between the crevices of the bricked ground he stands on, boots fixed in place, and rain strikes off the wide brim of his hat, finding a path to run and coming down at a intermittent trickle down his back. The flare of his jacket only barely protects where his conspicuous revolver hangs at his hip, because he's making no effort to do so. He's making no effort at all, still as a statue. Not even breathing.

His blue eyes seem both blank and focused on some mysterious point in the air, raised up, roughly towards where the city skyline looms up into the patchwork clouds above. He is midstep, one hand raised, his expression relaxed into inscrutable.

Some pause to take in the sight of him, as if judging whether or not this is some kind of street performance. Someone's shoved a five dollar note into his breast pocket. Others snap pictures.

Teddy doesn't notice, watching the sky. ]

MASK OR MENACE, NETWORK; the stars look very different today.

excuse me i seem to have fallen
off the beaten trail you wouldn't
happen to know which direction
lies sweetwater would you

MASK OR MENACE, HEROPA; planet earth is blue and there's nothing i can do.

[ Metal-shod hooves click and plod on wooden planks as Teddy slowly steers his horse across the boardwalk. He cuts a distinct figure amongst the beach-going Floridians, boots dusty, hat unironic, good form in his saddle and an openly carried gun at his hip. The novelty drags some glances his way, and he tips a nod to those nearer without too much in the way of conviction.

Because he is distracted.

A subtle redistribution of his weight in the saddle is enough to stop his horse from his slow meander to a halt as Teddy looks out over glittering blue ocean. After a moment, he swings his way out of his saddle, touching down with the subtle thump of boots on plank, the jingle-jangle of horse tack. Keeping leather reins wrapped over his knuckles, he moves closer to where wooden railing bars off the drop onto the yellow sand that stretches off into the frothy waves. ]

Comments

[indocile]

If I'm buying, I want to ride on your shoulders if I win,

( immediately. how long has margaux been looking for an opening for this precise thing? possibly since they've met. it's not an impulse unique to teddy, to be fair, sort of the same impulse people who like climbing mountains have when they see a big one. )

heropa.

[villieldr]

( Magni Fjorleifdóttir has no love of this place. The people stray too close, lingering at a distance even if they retreat with some haste. The sun beats down too readily, and nothing is at it should be. There is an emptiness in her head where so often there had been a warm presence before, even if there had been silence, and though she had been flung far from the home of her ancestors when they took to the seas, now she wondered if this place was the gods damning her for their arrogance. To be bold and strong and ready was one matter. To see so many lives lost, stolen by the seas? To be the last survivor?

Aye, she was damned, if this was the place where she had been sent. There was no Valhalla for any of their number. Only madness, and only this.

She snarls at the footsteps that venture too near to the boat - this flimsy excuse for a sea-going vessel was poor at best, but better this than none. )

Away. ( Her voice is harsh, her hair in braids that are as grimy and blood as the rest of her, though her hands and legs at least have been cleaned a little by the touch of seawater. )

[shootsharp]

[ To his credit, he's fairly sure that five whole dollars could buy the whole bar a round.

(No.)

Teddy looks askance at her proposal, a ripple of amusement in his own calm, quiet demeanour. ] They ride cowboys in place've horses where you're from too?

[ That didn't sound like refusal. More than one woman's probably made the same request of him in the past, even if he doesn't remember. ]

[indocile]

Save a horse, ( she says, glibly. whether she picked that up here, where she might've heard the actual song, or if the saying lingered at home - it absolutely does not matter nearly as much as her palpable glee at having that exchange with a real live (sort of) actual cowboy. )

Go on. It'll be fun. Also, you might be drunk and agreeable.

[shootsharp]

His hand is pliant, lax in her hand. Warm, like a person's would be, made of stuff engineered to resemble it. Pupils shrink, expand, as if light were flashing in and out of them. The command to improvise, improvise, improvise flickers through his processes, and her nudge, just in time, breaks the loop before it can error out completely.

The next breath in is sharper, his hand twitching in hers.

"Monsters," he says again. When he resumes, it's ever so slightly halting, but as if attempting to resume the conversation like there was no break. "Problem being, they look a lot like regular men."

[shootsharp]

[ Teddy, to his credit, at least halts -- and while he can conduct himself like a gentleman, he isn't one, and doesn't obey the lady's short, sharp command. He looks at the boat, first, and then at her, blue eyes curious beneath the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat.

To most, she probably looks strange. She does to Teddy, but a different kind of strange, and less than the locals, in his opinion. ]

Didn't mean to disturb you, [ he says, in his easy, lilting accent. ] I was just admiring your [ he flicks a glance at the vessel ] acquisition.

[redshoerevenge]

Her fingers curl a little more against his hand as she peers at him with a little wrinkle of a frown. This is more than a little troubling and Mako refuses to leave him alone if he was going to freeze up like this.

"The monsters look like men from your universe?" Mako asks very softly, afraid that's not the best question to ask right now. But if she has to ease him out of another loop, at least she can. The word monster has been around longer than human beings have had speech. Men could be monsters the same as Kaiju were monsters, different in their ways, but similar. Mako pauses for a moment. That wasn't really important.

"You went away again."

She tugs at him gently in an attempt to get him to sit in her chair. He isn't physically damaged, so that can't be the issue, but there is a pretty big something going on. Like he's off track.

"Please sit? If you need to, you can tell me about them, I'll be here."

[villieldr]

( It should be noted, possibly, that the women of Scandinavia some thousand odd years ago were not famed for their height; tall for a shield maiden meant only being north of 5'2", and though she is— the fact remains that she has to look up at this man more than she has to look up at many men of her own homelands save the very tallest, and that irks her. She is a raw, exposed nerve wrapped in leathers and chain mail, and at his words, at his lack of distance, she leans into the boat to draw up her sword, directing the point towards the stranger with a motion that is both easy and tense. )

And mine it shall stay.

( His hat might be the single most offensive thing at this point, and she taps the edge of the brim with the sword's tip. )

See first to acquiring yourself a better helm.

[shootsharp]

[ Her sword goes up, and his hand goes down, settling at slight hover where his revolver is holstered at his hip. Teddy doesn't all the way grasp it, and doesn't need to -- being a fast shot has, he thinks, saved his skin several times in his murky past. The tap does move him to step back a step, and then raise his other hand to nudge his hat back into balance on his head. ]

Shouldn't touch a man's hat, ma'am, [ he says. ] It ain't polite.

[ He nods to her. ]

And you can keep your boat. I just never saw one like it before. [ He drags another look over her, up and down. ] I take it you're not from around here. Neither am I.

[maevelous]

[ Maeve had wanted to get out, but this certainly wasn't the sort of departure she was expecting. Her hands were still coated in the reassigned Clementine's blood as she darted through the street. The madam had been very eager to get away from her captors at Cape Canaveral, but this has led her to something entirely new. A great, new world. And no detonation charged vertebrae could keep her contained. Except she was still locked in a memory and couldn't exactly focus on her surroundings -- the memory of running from those who would capture her back in Sweetwater.

That was, until, Maeve ran straight into Teddy. Literally.

And only after the collision did she notice the rain, the people gathered to take pictures -- and Teddy, standing there mid-stride and solidly frozen in place. How he had gotten here with her, she doesn't know, but her eyes sweep the crowd before she leans in toward him, mumbling. ]

Upon seeing a familiar face, the man decides to be chivalrous and get Maeve someplace warm and safe -- away from these untrustworthy wretches and reprobates.

a wet dream

[blackhat]

“Hell, Teddy.”

There’s a sigh in the voice that hazes through the rain behind him, patience drawn deep from a well of dry brick and old mesquite. Warm. Familiar, in a way. Bleary figures pointing phones in his periphery disperse when the shadow that drawls past him flashes iron at his own hip, black holster, black jacket and black hat.

The same hand plucks a bill from Teddy’s breast pocket.

“Five dollars?”

Face to face, he flicks it into his puppy nose and reaches to twist the robot’s gun from his holster instead. His eyes cut in casual aside as he thumbs the latch. Rain runs loose off his brim.

“I’m insulted on your behalf.”

[shootsharp]

Teddy moves in a way that is both compliant with what Mako is urging him to do -- that is, sit down, which he does, obedient as a dog. Unlike a dog, his focus is elsewhere, still, slow to return to wherever it went when those errors broke him from his improvisations. He reverts to script while the white noise resolves into sensory input of the present.

"The Devil walked this earth in the guise of a man too," he continues, like she asked him, like this is the conversation they were having. "Looks, they are deceiving."

The next breath in is deeper, and his eyes focus once again, looking up towards Mako. He sees her concern, and he asks, "Is something wrong?"

[shootsharp]

[ Maeve doesn't need magic words to summon Teddy back to life -- her voice is just enough, and he draws breath as if he hadn't ever stopped. But magic words give him a sense of continuity and purpose, pupils dilating, shrinking, finding focus. He sees a familiar face, and not for the first time in his life, or what counts as one, he decides to be chivalrous.

Or at least look the part.

His hand goes out to take her elbow, not roughly. ]

Here, [ he urges, his voice low between them both. He scans a look out at the onlookers, and gives the nearest huddle his shoulder, turning away and inserting himself between them and the madam. ] Best we move on, ma'am. Let's get you someplace warm.

[ He means safe, a sensible dose of distrust simmered in his voice. ]

i don't see dolores anywhere

[shootsharp]

That Teddy is frozen on the spot does not necessarily mean he isn't a little operational. Muscles and bones hold him upright in place, even if he stands a little slack-jawed and stupid while what constitutes for him as a brain whirs and processes whatever rabbity loop its trapped itself within. But all the while, his senses are exposed, taking in everything, affecting response to nothing.

Not until given righteous cause, of course. Like a man laying his paw on his gun.

More offensive than nose flicks or even that voice, recollection lodged somewhere beneath layers of memory, dormant but present. There's time, anyway, a split second when indignation and realisation calcify into grit, and Teddy's bare hand goes for the gloved one making off with his weapon, coming to life.

His reflexes are good, fluid, accurate. Enough to present a challenge, at least. But his vision is full of darkness, this figure he's contending with more shape and shadow than man.

[shootsharp]

[ Whatever fault in his coding -- or whatever upgrade, depending on your perspective -- gives way to reverie and imaginings of lives lived, hen parties in which he carried many a small drunk and agreeable woman on his bare shoulders somehow do not take such a hold as to interfere with the moment now. His smile is modest and sharp at the corners. ]

Then you best ask me when I'm drunk and agreeable, [ he counters. ]

of malls and men.

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Hardly performance art, is it? Not when the performance is unwittingly performed."

His voice circled as he walked a crescent behind Teddy's back, pitiless and focused, a vulture caught on the scent of carrion. This man had captured his attention, and that fact alone made him worthy of unsought analysis. Unwanted observation could come as cheaply as oxygen when psychiatrists were concerned. Frankly Frederick Chilton's gaze had been drawn even before those frozen minutes had clustered a crowd, before the rain made its debut for the day, before the cell phone cameras thundered with lightning photographic flashes. He had watched because he had noticed the details of difference that electrified this man's evident persona. The antiquated clothing. The foreign caution. The dusty gait. All evidence of a potential imPort -- or something just as dangerous.

Chilton had his own hunger to sate.

"I know a place that might be able to help you," he said. His hospital, in Maurtia Falls.

[indocile]

All right, then, ( all loose-limbed insouciance, bouncing ahead and walking backwards in front of him, thumbs in the belt-loops of plum coloured trousers, ) I will.

Saying yes to things makes life interesting, you know, Teddy.

( saying yes to margaux will probably do it, for sure. )

[shootsharp]

In the first instance, there is something borderline off about the way Teddy sets Chilton in his sights, like a living doll turning its head, unseeing until abruptly in focus. But it's only a split second, because he's breathing, and the hand that wanders to hover near his revolver looks like a twitch borne of instinct, and the tip of his head of curiousity. There is a moment of fluttery-blinked re-calibration, chasing some sound -- a distant car horn, or a helicopter, or music flooding out of a storefront -- with a twitched glance.

But Frederick has command of Teddy's attention. Anyone who addresses him so directly gets that privilege.

"Help me," he says in a question echo, but too flat to earn a question mark. "Just what kind of help do you suppose I need, stranger?" The casual lilt in accent and tone makes that epithet not unfriendly, just like the hand resting on the hilt of his revolver isn't exactly a threat.

The look up and down is definitely assessment, though, committing him to memory. A new guest.

me neither ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[blackhat]

A split second’s head start is plenty in quarters this close -- the man in black’s caught fast, stiff through the wrist, grip bit down like a wolf on a throat around Teddy’s piece.

He grunts -- pushes and twists -- slow, testing resistance. Doesn’t take more than an initial failure for him to settle into stalemate low between them. Keeping his claim without wasting more energy than it's worth.

“Whole lotta innocent bystanders out for a walk in the rain today, Teddy. Sidewalks all slick and clean.”

Salt rakes coarse in his appeal -- primed for rubbing in raw wounds at a lazy remove. His eyes are marble grey in the gloom, watchful for familiar stirs of weakness. Minimal effort.

“You wanna hold hands, there’ll be plenty of time for that once I’ve seen what we’re working with.”

[redshoerevenge]

"I am concerned for your wellbeing," Mako says, her voice quiet. "You have moments where you are not present and it worries me. Do you know my name?" She hasn't let go of his hand, not even as she drops down to a crouch on the balls of her feet next to him.

The contact helps. Somehow.

[maevelous]

[ Maeve is pleased to know that it still works here. Wherever here is. She falls into step alongside Teddy, the sway and swagger of her hips so ingrained that she doesn't even notice she's doing it. With Teddy leading the way, Maeve's eyes veer around the streets with a hint of suspicion. Whatever is going on here is almost too much to process -- too much for words. She's not sure what to make of it.

As a car floats by, she can only stare after it in amazement. How much of this is Teddy taking in? How much is he processing? ]

Seems like we're both a long way from Sweetwater. What do you make of this all?

[ Maeve regards him with curiosity. ]

[shootsharp]

Teddy breaks that close-quarters stare off first -- a glance that tracks after what the man in black points out, that flicker of uncertainty. These innocent bystanders aren't what he pictures -- gentlemen ducking for cover, women clutching their pinafores -- but are strangers who are content to watch the spectacle of two cowboys in a mud crab lock over a shining revolver. Strange though they are, they're still as the man in black says. Bystanding.

Innocent. And Theodore's not willing to watch anyone die today, not by a bullet gone wild or something more sinister, but nor is he about to give up his weapon.

That grip between them is sure and strong and joined by a second that comes to close its jaws around the gun and twist it from the man in black's grasp, baring his teeth briefly. "You look like a guilty son of a bitch to me," is shoved across the table, but Teddy isn't raising his gun.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Seemingly rehearsed, nearly mechanized, admittedly precise -- witnessing Teddy adjust was like playing audience to an unnerving ballet. Chilton didn't yet have the diagnosis to coat him in, but he knew that his own instinct proved itself as a psychiatric divining rod. Something was different about this man.

"Doctor Chilton," he replied. "I am Doctor Chilton."

He offered no hand for this introduction.

"You had just suffered what appeared to be something of an episode." Psychotic break, sensory overload, catatonic event. Words he wouldn't toss around carelessly, not while this man and his gun were roaming around on the outside of a straitjacket. "This world can be an overwhelming place for its... Visitors. I would very much like to help relieve any stress you are suffering."

[shootsharp]

It's his hand caught with her hand that Teddy looks to next in a sort of mild curiousity, but he doesn't pull his out of her grip, simply looking again at her upturned face. "You're Ms Mori," he says, helpfully. Then, after a beat, he amends, "Mako."

Not present. He hesitates. The limitations of his script are such that there aren't a lot of ready responses for deeper thinking outside certain themes, but he's not without ability to improvise, even if it takes him some seconds.

"I don't mean to cause you consternation. Sometimes a man's mind wanders far when he's reminiscing."

[shootsharp]

I suppose so. But I reckon boring's got its charms.

[ What other people might class as boring, anyway. Silences before sunset, drinking alone, the wild west rolling out its golden carpet out the window of his train into Sweetwater. ]

Not that I expect a lively young woman such as yourself to agree on that score.