The Luxurious Life of O'Leary

Central city is, by nature, a very busy and bustling place. It is full of people from all walks of life, from the homeless to the filthy rich and everything in between; to watch them walk on the streets, one could probably assume something about every single one of them just by looking at what they carry on them. For instance; one sees a man in a black and grey or blue and yellow uniform, and the first assumption that pops into one’s mind is that the man they are looking at has decided to serve his country. He is part of the Amestrian military. One looks at a woman in a frilly dress, a big hat, and with a fat old dog bumbling along beside her, and one could automatically say, “This woman has lots of money. She probably has it coming out of her ears. I bet she uses that dog as a foot stool.” There is always something that a person can assume about another person just by glancing at them, and they wouldn’t have a second thought about it, not even if they were to think something terrible.

This was not the case for Imogen O’Leary; She was completely conscience of her thoughts. She knew that she wouldn’t harm anyone by thinking badly of them, but she certainly made herself feel uncomfortable when she offhandedly judged someone. It always came back to bite her right in the butt.

There was a time when a boy would come in the store every single day and not buy a thing. He was tall, lanky, with honey colored hair and blue eyes typical to Amestrians. He would come in, walk awkwardly about the store, look in the refrigerated cases for a few minutes, and leave again. She had been absolutely convinced that every time he came in, he was stealing something; the way he glanced back at the counter at her and then pointed his head in the other direction or looked down at his shoes as soon as she glanced in his direction made her wary.

One day, she tried to confront the boy about it. She’d seen him pick up a small trinket, a fake gold chain with a rose hanging off of it; He studied it closely for a while as though he were making an incredibly tough decision, and without putting it down, he continued to browse the store, looking contentedly at the yellow roses they had on display for the Spring. It was at least another ten minutes before he started to head for the door, and Imogen called him out.

“H-hey! Aren’t you going to pay for that necklace?”

The boy turned back around, his pale face suddenly turning a pink color. He was blushing like he was embarrassed, like he’d been caught in the act!

“Didn’t you hear me?” Imogen said. “Y-You can’t just walk out with things, you know. It’s wrong to steal.”

Her voice faltered; she didn’t usually speak above a quiet tone, and now she felt as though she were shouting at this poor boy even though she was just talking like normal people do.

“Why, you must think I’m terrible”, he replied after a few moments. He looked ashamed. “I had forgotten it was in my hand.”

“Oh”, she said. Now she felt bad. He hadn’t meant any harm.

As he walked back to the counter to return the trinket, she asked, “Why do you come in here all the time, anyway? You never buy a thing. You just look at the flowers like they’re some kind of foreign object and leave.”

The boy turned a very deep shade of red, like cherries. He rubbed the nape of his neck, staring down at his shoes.

“Well.. I mean.. I-I liked to come in to see you. You always just stare out the window like there’s something important out there. I thought about speaking to you, trying to make you smile maybe, but I was just too shy. Now you think I’m a thief and probably a creep, too..”

He put the necklace down on the counter in front of her and walked out before she could muster a word. She’d made that poor boy feel terrible for coming in to see her, when really he was just shy like Imogen herself. After that, the boy never came in again, and she couldn’t ever apologize; it taught her a valuable lesson about thinking ill of others.

She contemplated this story as she stared out at the sunlit streets. She could hear patrons talking loudly from the café next door, but she couldn’t really make out what they were saying, so it wasn’t interesting at all. The shop was slow today; it was the middle of the week, and no holidays for the next few weeks either, which meant no customers until the weekend or until the next holiday. Her boss walked out from the back storage area, a tall, statuesque woman in jeans and a white tank top with her long, blond hair tied into a knot. She smiled kindly at her younger coworker.

“Imogen, why don’t you go enjoy the weather? It’s slow today, and I know you could use a day off.”

She blinked and looked over, as though coming out of a daze. “Are you sure you don’t need me here to take requests?”

Her boss nodded, and gave her a “shoo fly” motion with her hand.
Imogen waved goodbye as she walked out from behind the counter and toward the door.

“Have a great day! Thanks for the free afternoon.”
Imogen was pleased; she walked out into the sunshine in her yellow dress and flowered boots, ready to take the scenic route home.

Varod whistled slightly to himself as he walked down the street, hands deep in his pockets as he fiddled with a bouncy ball hidden within the depths. The pocket was sort of like Varod. It was deep and dark, yet there was something nice at the very bottom.

Looking around, he noticed a woman walking ahead of him for the first time. It was a rather out of the way area with no one around, and they were coming up on an alleyway. He immediately noticed two things. One: the alleyway was dark. Two: there was the flash of a blade within that darkness. Drawing Cel from his belt loop, he rushed forwards just as two knife-wielding thugs emerged from the alleyway, straight at the woman. Twirling his four-pronged spear, he twirled it faster and faster, tapping the transmutation circle on his sleeve and calling a whirlwind from the spinning weapon. The two men were tossed backwards, and he ran forward, spinning his weapon so the blunt end connected with one man's head and then he slammed it upwards and behind him to hit the other one in the chin. Both men hit the ground hard and didn't get back up.

The woman was clearly fine, as he'd done his thing just in time, so he immediately began to check the unconscious men. All they had were the clothes and knives. "You alright?" he asked, standing up straight and sliding his weapon into his belt loop.

(Coincidentally, your character looks just like the one I described in my post I didn’t realize til after I asked you to write. I’m gonna play it up :D)

There were times where it seemed as though Imogen were absent minded—times like when she forgot one of her boots as she walked out the door, or tripped on an electrical wire while waving at someone—but honestly, she couldn’t deny that. She was the essence of forgetful most of the time, in every extracurricular task she participated in. When it came to work, she was more than able to focus. She was on her toes. When she read and practiced her alchemy, she was more than competent. But when it came to everyday occurrences, she was a klutz and sometimes even a little destructive to herself.

Today being a strangely odd day, she didn’t expect anything bad to happen. Oh, maybe a little mud on her boots, a tear in her tights, or even a bug in her food just to pay her back for her good karma—after all, Murphy’s law was her best friend—but that was all she expected and nothing more.
Imogen walked out of the open front door of her work and walked lightly down the sidewalk; she hadn’t ever really walked home this way before, but considering how nice the neighborhood was around the flower shop and café, she expected that the next couple blocks would be the same way—prosperous, hard working people who enjoyed their jobs, or boutiques, or SOMETHING.

She hardly noticed that as she made her way a few blocks down, the buildings started to be less cared for; some had cardboard in the windows, or even news papers. She hadn’t a second tought about it. She was too busy watching the white clouds pass above her head and thinking about her fantastic day and what she might do with the rest of it.
She hadn’t really planned on getting mugged, though.
As a matter of fact, she didn’t even notice the mugging. She nearly walked right through it—before hearing an immense wind behind her and looking over to see two big thugs wielding knives. The color flushed from her face; but at the same moment the immense wind she heard behind her came up and around, knocking the baddies to the ground easily. They didn’t get back up, either, but groaned with a mixture of pain and embarrassment.

It took her a second before she took a chance to look at the young man who had saved her before she even knew she was in trouble. She had kind of stepped back with a timid gesture of surprise as she’d seen the men, and wrung her fingers a little to help gather her thoughts. Her clear, darkish green eyes were big, thinking about how she might have turned out if that man hadn’t knocked them both out.

“You alright?”

She stared for a second, then cocked her head to the left a little and her auburn hair fell over her shoulder. She snapped out of it and nodded, putting on her customary smile.

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine”, she replied, but she seemed to recognize him.

“Do I know you? You look very familiar..”

Varod glanced around, looking nervous and attempting to make sure nobody would get the drop on them. He heard her ask him the question, and it took him a moment to respond. "No, I don't think so. You see, I only arrived in the city recently from Kanama, so unless you lived there then you don't know me." He kept the fact that he was a thief on the run a slight secret, but that was to be expected. Fiddling with his bouncy ball, he cocked his head to one side. "I'm Varod, by the way, Varod Gilther. The Free Runner Alchemist. I'm in the city to become a state alchemist hopefully. So, I've told you my story. What's yours?"

He examined her closely. "It is odd, though, but it feels like I know you. I know for a fact I've never met you before in my life. Hell, I haven't ever been to central before in my life."

This boy is odd, she thought. She felt like she’d seen him before but couldn’t put her finger on where or when, and she hadn’t really left Central except for her overseas studies in Cretan in middle school. It simply didn’t make any sense, even if she was forgetful. As she studied this over in her mind, trying to remember where she might have met him, she also looked over at the two men he’d knocked down, still groveling where they’d fallen in the first place. She felt bad that they were beaten on her part, even if they were about to threaten her at knife point.

“Kanama? Oh…” She looked down at her shoes, and over at the two men that were still groveling on the ground where her savior had left them. She thought they were probably pretending to be injured and stayed on the ground so the man wouldn’t beat them to a pulp; even if that was the case and they weren’t as bad as they were acting, she still felt bad that they’d been beaten up on her part. Although, they were going to come at her with a knife…

“An aspiring State Alchemist?” She asked timidly, and wore a slightly more curious face now; this might be the most time she would ever get to spend with someone even close to being a State Alchemist. They didn’t often strike up conversation with anyone they didn’t need information from, and she couldn’t picture any real, live State Alchemist needing to question her in the near future. Almost instantly at the mention of his intentions, she wanted to ask him all about his plans. Of course, with her quiet nature, she probably wouldn’t, but that was besides the point.

“I’m Imogen. Its very nice to meet you.” She put out her hand to shake his and gave her usual bright smile, as was taught to her was polite.

“You know, maybe we should walk the other direction , away from those big brutes… I work a couple blocks from here at the florist’s shop, and there’s a café right next door.”

She had never been this straightforward before, and it made her blush; but he was going to try and be a State Alchemist, so he couldn’t be too bad. That, and she was excited to get to hang around someone else who practiced alchemy. Not that she would ever admit that she took part in the fine art.

“If you’re not in too much of a hurry, m-maybe we could sit down for an Italian soda or something and figure out where we’ve seen each other before.”

She turned a little pink in the face; she realized after the fact that what she’d said sounded like a cheesy excuse to go on a date, and she hadn’t meant it at all that way.

I’m so awkward with people…

“But if you’re too busy. Y-Y’know, that’s fine… In fact, forget I said anything, I don’t want to bother you with a bunch of questions..” She muttered the last part to her shoes, just loud enough for him to hear.
She started to turn the other direction, obviously embarrassed she’d said anything at all. Imogen wanted to go home and crawl under a rock.

"Yes Ma'am, been looking into it since I got to Central. I'm just trying to perfect a specific technique to show them that is somewhere impressive, but I haven't gotten it down quite yet." Varod smiled, both hands in his pockets. "A florist shop? And a cafe, you say? Sounds like just what I need. A nice sit down before I head back to my hotel." She blushed and this caused him to blush slightly.

Dammit, why did she have to go and blush? he thought, feeling silly. Then she turned to go and he smiled again, walking up next to her. "You act like I have somewhere important I need to be. I really don't. So, where to lovely lady?"

(Sorry for the short post, I did what I could before work xD)

Lovely lady? she thought. I’ve never been called that before… And he’s being so nice! Wait….

“W-wait, you actually want to go?” she asked in a quiet, but somewhat excited tone.

Imogen was genuinely surprised that he agreed to her less-than-smooth invitation; she didn’t usually even get a good “Hello” out with most people, but for some reason she’d already had a full conversation with this man and even invited him out for a drink. And he wanted to go! She wore her astonishment like a bright orange bow tie with a black and white suit.

“Well, here, let’s walk… I’ll show you where it is… It’s a quaint little place, and they make decent coffee too. Believe you me, decent coffee is hard to find in this city; I’m lucky that it just happened to sit right next to the floral shop.”
She shook her head and smiled.

“Listen to me babble on. I’d really rather hear about your technique. That was an incredible use of the air.” she said. Then she remembered—“Oh, you did ask my life story, haha..” She said this jokingly, hoping he wouldn’t really take her up on it. She really wasn’t interesting, and hated talking about herself In the first place.

"Yes, of course!" Varod told her with a smile. "Of course I'd love to! I could use a pick me up. Life is kind of slow recently, compared to my previous life."

He immediately flashed back to his old life, the life of a thief. Leaping through Kanama, he launched across buildings, his latest prize in his hand. This time it was a lovely four-pronged spear, which he was infatuated with. Taking something so large was a massively stupid idea, but he loved the weapon which had the word Cel engraved on it. He would keep that as the name, not knowing if it was a family name or what.

"My technique, eh? Well, most of my alchemy works on the principle of expanding atoms. I allow some breeze to build up in front of my weapon, then I expand the atoms right behind the breeze, causing the wind to shove forwards at a high velocity. My other technique, Air Running, is what gave me the name the Free Runner Alchemist. I expand the atoms right behind me as I jump, giving me a nice lift to get across buildings."


OOC: It's fine, my posts have been kinda short recently myself.

This Varod character seemed like he was a nice boy; trouble, but a nice boy. Even Imogen--one of the most oblivious people in the world--could read the mischief in his features. As he talked about his "previous life", she donned a sort of grin. It made it seem like he'd died and come back to life again as someone else. Like he could still remember all this previous lives before; it was a silly thought, but it was amusing. Maybe it was something that could be written, turned into a series of popular novels or something. The story of a young man who met with trouble often but had a good heart. It sounded like all of her favorite books and fairy tales.

She wore her amusement for a moment, until he started to mention his alchemical method, at which point she gave him her undivided attention. They walked slowly and she listened intently to his rather simple explaination; even as simple as it was, she was definitely intrigued. She hadn't chosen air as her element of choice, truth be told, but it was still fascinating, as she didn't know all that much about it. Imogen absentmindedly rubbed at the transmutation circle hidden under the frilly white decoration on her hand, wishing she could openly share her theories.

"That's fascinating! I don't know very much about alchemy myself, but it's so interesting to listen to people talk about it."

They made it the few short blocks to the cafe, which was tiny, but a comfortable looking place regardless. There were tables stationed outside with umbrellas over them to sheild it's patrons from the sun while they enjoyed their drinks and discussed whatever they wanted to discuss; considering it was a coffee shop, most of the discussions were being held by intellectuals. At least, people who thought they were intellectuals.

Inside, there were big, squishy looking chairs that could probably hold two people, as well as very laid back looking staff members and patrons. They had a big old espresso machine with cute little magnets all over it and a menu drawn by a local artist, depicting an Alice in Wonderland scenario around perfectly written script. There was every coffee and italian soda combination known to man on the menu, as well as lots of healthy things to eat.

"This is it! I love this place. Military men won't admit it, but they come here all the time. State Alchemists too." She smiled at Varod and she walked up to the counter. "They even stop in to my shop to order little things for their girlfriends. Its cute, they get all embarrassed and stuff.."

Imogen spoke with the barista at the counter in her shy manner, like she'd never met the guy before, but she was obviously a regular. She new exactly what she wanted (a lavendar italian soda with cream) and led Varod to a comfortable sitting area, where she sat with perfect posture and one leg crossed over the other. She offered her cup over to Varod.

"You can try some if you want. It's delicious. Also, tell me where you've been! You came here from Kanama, so do you travel a lot? Maybe I met you in Cretan at some point."

The fact that he was an alchemist made him one hundrend percent easier to talk to; she had opened up a lot simply because of curiousity.

"Well, see, the only reason I use it like I do is because the knowledge I needed for my Air Runner technique was all in books I happened to find while Free Running over the Kanama Rooftops," he told her as they entered. He scratched his chin, a little nervously, as he'd never actually been inside a nice cafe like this one. Not exactly sure what to order, he murmured, "I'll have what she had." He then sat down in a chair next to hers, a little to nervous to sit in the same one with her.

"No, I don't travel much. Though I recently returned from Resembool on a trip to the country." What he didn't tell her is that the reason he'd been out to Resembool was to wait until the police had finally finished searching Central for him. He was still a little worried, though, and certainly too nervous to ever return to Kanama. According to that Furor woman, there were some still looking for him. And they wouldn't be all too nice. Taking a sip of his drink, his eyes went wide. "I think I just had a...drinkgasm. That was amazing!" He drained his glass in a couple of gulps and ordered a second one.

Imogen sipped slowly on her drink. She didn’t even notice that he’d finished his until he got up to go get a new glass—at which point she tilted her head and thought two things; the first thought that popped into her mind was along the lines of hehe.. Drinkgasm. The second was, he found books on the roofs of houses? Do people in Kanama hang out on their roofs a lot?

As he came back and sat down, she smiled and enthused about Resembool, having always wanted to go there.

“I idolize the Elric brothers! Resembool is where they were from and I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go and visit the site where they burnt their house down. When I was little, I always thought I might dig something of theirs out of the dirt.” She giggled at the mention of such a silly childhood venture. She hadn't thought about it in ages.

“I heard it’s still as small as it was when the Elrics’ were kids. I bet it’s so green this time of year, too..” She had a content smile on her face as she imagined stepping off a train into Resembool like the Elrics’ had, many a time. Nowadays, it would be a light rail train. It was a dream of hers to visit Resembool and see Rockbell Automail, too. Winry was also a famous historical figure, of course. Imogen had heard that her family still owned the place and did tours every so often, showcasing Winry’s fine work as an automail engineer. Indeed, automail had advanced since those days, but nothing quite topped seeing the original model that Winry had put together at Fort Briggs especially for the eldest brother, Edward. It was the arm that Edward himself wore. It was busted up, of course—Edward wasn’t famous just because he was an incredible alchemist; he was also well known for being very careless with his metal parts. This carelessness had almost killed him multiple times throughout his life, according to his biography.

Then again, mentioning your dream of seeing a disembodied arm was something you kept to yourself if you didn’t want to get funny looks from people.

Imogen studied Varod’s for a few moments before finally putting her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“I give. I have no idea where I’ve seen you before or if I’ve ever met you at all.”

She put down her hands and spoke through a grin, “I think I may have mistaken you for someone else. But it did give me an opportunity to meet you, so I don’t mind. I needed to meet someone new.”

Varod saw her confusion and chuckled. "I fell through a weak roof into an abandoned warehouse, which eventually became my home," he informed her. Then she mentioned the Elrics and he smiled once again. "It didn't even cross my mind to visit the site, however, I read a lot about them in one of my books and their feats were pretty amazing. Transmuting without a circle? That's something any alchemist would love to do, and it's something I'd like to myself.

"It's really beautiful, yes, I absolutely loved it. I met my friend, Lucrezia there. You should definitely visit it sometime." Then she mentioned not knowing him, and he blushed. Why? Well, if you asked him he'd respond with a resounding "SHUDDA FUDGE UP!" but that's besides the point. What he said to Imogen, however, was: "I'd most certainly like to get to know you." He mentally slapped himself. I hope that didn't come off too terribly strong... He was feeling oddly attracted to this woman, despite barely knowing her. He fiddled with his hands in his lap and looked down.

Imogen watched as Varod quickly grew uncomfortable; it started with blushing, at which point she was worried she said something to embarrass him. Her concerns were instantly invalidated when he said, “I’d most certainly like to get to know you.”

She blushed the same pink color that she had before, and now they were both kind of looking at their shoes and twiddling their thumbs. She wasn’t offended; not at all. In fact, she liked talking with Varod; he was a lot of fun. He was intelligent, he didn’t mind answering her questions, and he had saved her from a couple of goons. What was there not to like? The only thing that nagged at her was the suspicion that he may have been hiding something. Then again, who was she to go after someone for hiding something? She hid something every day, something which was clearly tattooed on her body. If she were to question him, she would be a hypocrite.

She smiled, tilting her head down so that her eyes met his.

“That can be arranged, you know. I’m never busy.”

She sat back up into her perfect posture, hoping that he wasn’t so embarrassed anymore. She had seen a slight twitch in his features when he said he wanted to get to know her. What was so wrong with people being straightforward, anyway? Just because she was socially inept, that didn’t mean everyone else had to be. Hell, if everyone were like her, things would never get done. She didn’t feel the need to analyze everything a man said like it was terribly important to decode his words, not like the rest of society. Sincerity was something she generally regarded as a good thing. It was rare.

There was a small gap in conversation—not an awkward silence, just a lack of speech; It was weird, because being comfortable in silence had never been something she was good at. She was awkward, yes, but silence was just unsettling for the most part. However, she didn’t speak until she had thought of a question. Incidentally, this didn’t talk long, so it wasn’t much of a silence anyway.

“When you fell through the roof—did you get hurt? That kind of thing probably would have killed me with my luck, haha.”

Varod's eyes lit up as he looked at her. "Really?" She was pretty, smart, nice, all the things that were good about people all rolled into one. "Well...we can start right now if ya want." He smiled and moved to plop down in her seat. There was about an inch between them, an inch he longed to cover. "Is...it okay if I sit here?"

When she asked about his fall, he chuckled and shook his head. "Nah, I didn't get hurt. It did sting a little bit, but there were some nice cardboard boxes that broke my arm, I mean fall," he joked, smiling at her. This woman intrigued him. She was a good person, and she didn't require much. That was rather the opposite of him, as he was a thief who longed for much more. He couldn't honestly deny who he was any longer. "To be honest..." he said a little nervously, not wanting to move forward until he admitted his secret. "I used to be a thief. You may have heard of me. They called me the Wind of Change in Kanama. I helped people out and such and stole from people who had way more than they needed." He said this in a hushed whisper so that only she could hear.

As Varod moved to sit by her, she did blush a little, but she didn’t mind at all. In fact, he was pretty warm, and she’d been a little chilly anyway.

“No, I don’t mind. Make yourself comfortable.”

As he told her about her fall, her eyes got all big and she cringed. She knew how that felt; she’d fallen out of a tree when she was a little girl broken her elbow. It took months to heal, and in the end, she had to have screws in her arm to hold it together. If one were to feel the joint of her elbow, they would feel a bump where the screw was.

“I know how that feels. Broken arms are the absolute worst. I had to ask people for help all the time because I broke my right arm and couldn’t write; it was a pain for everyone involved.” Imogen chuckled, feeling the screw in her elbow as a result of the memory.

As he leaned in closer to whisper his secret, she couldn’t help but give a little “eep” noise.

“You’re pretty famous!” She said quietly. “You’re like Robin hood. Or Bonnie and Clyde! How cool!”

A big smile stretched across her delicate features as she began to imagine his escapades. She’d heard about the tridentesque spear he stole, how clever he was and how he got away, and she realized now that that was what he had been carrying the whole time. This was incredible! She hadn’t ever met anyone famous before. She wanted to know all about his past now, and was about to start on a series of questions—but she paused to ask one simple question first.

“Did you ever have to hurt anybody?”

Varod blushed and had a small, mental war debating whether or not to move closer. Eventually, his romantic half won over and he relaxed his body so that their shoulders were rubbing against each other. Famous? he thought. For it was not something he'd ever been called before. He was trying to remember when he first started thievery, but he realized he'd been pickpocketing to feed his family for his entire life. Whether it be small children he was giving shelter or the people who'd raised him, he'd always fought to support someone.

When she asked if he'd ever had to hurt anyone, his eyes grew downcast. "Yes...yes, I have. And I'm not proud of it." His mind flashed back to that time...

The guard lay moaning on the ground, the slice from V's weapon having caught his gut instead of his arm because the man had twisted at the last second. The man was crying, sobbing, begging for Varod to find his wife and tell her he loved her. The man's final act had been to push a picture into V's hand of a woman holding a small baby.

Coming out of his revere, he wiped his slightly wet eye and blushed. "You must think me weak, shedding a tear like that."

As they continued their conversation, it began to get dark outside. The sun just barely shone any light on Central City anymore, and the street lights were beginning to turn on. She had left work around four o'clock, after all. They days had started getting shorter as the seasons went by, which she didn't mind at all because it meant she got to wear more of her winter apparel. The only downside was that she would have to take much better care of her boots.

As Varod relaxed his body, she could feel the heat radiating of him. It was nice; most of the people she knew were cold like herself, not that she knew many people. Mainly just her mother and boss. Maybe it was just a girl thing to carry a cold temperature around with her, even when it was warm outside.

The patrons of the cafe had all migrated to the other side of the shop, a group of friends who were paying little to no mind to the two nobodies sitting across the room. This was a good thing, because if anyone had heard their conversation, they probably would have been in trouble. Especially as her counterpart admitted to assault. A normal person might have gotten up at that point and said adieu, as per instinct. However, Imogen was compelled to stay, especially as Varod's cheerful disposition turned into utter sadness. Even a tear. (ooc: a single tear. xD http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m537c8M9RH1qcrcni.jpg)

She hadn't meant to make him sad--clearly she'd crossed the line by asking him such a question. It was rude, and it was probably hurtful. It also wasn't any of her business. She needed to think of a way to remedy the situation--she thought that maybe she should share a secret in return, but the only real secret she had was her alchemy, and she definitely wasn't ready to share that just yet.

"You must think me weak, shedding a tear like that."

As he said this, she felt even worse; she wished she was a snail or a hermit crab so she could just go hide in her shell. Of course, there were always circumstances in which a person might need to harm another person--she completely understood that. She also knew of all the good things he'd done.

"I don't think you're weak at all. You're compassionate."

Of course she said this not knowing that he'd actually killed someone, but again, it wasn't any of Imogen's business.

"I'm sure it was necessary. But look at all the good things you've done! They call you the Wind of Change for a reason, you know." She said the last part in a whisper, as it wouldn't be good to announce his title as both a hero and a criminal. Militants did frequent this place, after all.

"Look, its starting to get dark", she said, pointing outside, trying to distract him from feeling bad.

"Why don't you come over for dinner? My apartment isn't far from here. Its pretty close to Central Command, but no one will be patroling my street, I guarantee it."

Varod smiled as she called him compassionate. He realized it was getting late as he finally glanced around, after having been rather entranced by Imogen. "Yeah...yeah, they do," he responded, remembering when he'd first heard that name. "I'll tell you the story...

As I walked down the street, hands in my pockets, I noticed a paper on the wall. It was a wanted poster, with an image of a young man rushing across rooftops. I immediately recognized it as myself, but no one else would have unless they personally knew me. It read:

The Wind of Change
A highly dangerous wind alchemist who has been stealing from prominent people in our society. The name for him on the street is, the Wind of Change.

But what made me happy was all the writing beneath it. There were all kinds of things, "thank you" was the most prominent, along with "we're all here behind you" and "thanks for the food!" I used to steal food for certain needy children. All they saw of me was a blur as I launched across the rooftops, but now they know me as the wind of change. I think...I think what they meant by that was that I represented freedom, and gave people hope. I'm happy for that.

He whispered his story when no one was paying attention, and then smiled at her. "Inviting me to your house already? Well aren't you quick on the draw."

As he relayed the story to her, Imogen let her perfect posture go, but not very much; just enough to lean in and hear his whisper. It was interesting to her that he had been into free running before he’d even become an alchemist. She couldn’t imagine the physical strength it took to support oneself the way free runners had to, or the sort of hand eye coordination it took to jump off of very tall things and not get hurt. She wondered if maybe in the time that he’d been in Central, he’d happened to scale her apartment building recently.

She gave him a sort of “I told you so!” smile as he told her about the notes that were left on his wanted posters. He had helped people more than he knew, or gave himself credit for. Hope was more than enough to get people up in the morning. It helped people stand up when they were afraid to, fight when they didn’t have the will to do so, and stay alive when they thought they didn’t deserve to. The civil rights movement and the current equality struggle were both a testament to that.

As he replied to her invitation with “Inviting me to your house already? Well aren’t you quick on the draw”, she blushed bright red, which she’d managed to refrain from doing until now. She gave him a good punch in the arm (which probably hadn’t really hurt him at all).

“H-hey! It’s not like that! I just wanted to make up for making you sad. It’s the least I could do.”

Varod practically relived some of his old moments in his mind for a second, and then stood up, stretching as she punched his arm. He rubbed it in mock horror. "You hit me! I think I might be dying!" he told her with a smile. "C'mon, if we're going to your apartment let's up and go!" He held out a hand for her to take. "I should take you free running sometime. It's so much fun. Though, I won't have you building leap. It takes a long time to get that right. I broke my leg many times attempting to get the technique down. Then I discovered alchemy, and instead broke my toes because I landed wrong after what always feels like a small explosion."

He laughed at the memories of his first escapades. "Besides, you didn't make me sad. You made me happier than I've been in a long time. I really don't care what it IS like, I'd just like to spend more time with you. As much as possible, in fact. If that's alright with you, of course..." He turned bright pink as he finished this statement, never having been quite this forward before.

“You hit me! I might be dying!”

Imogen laughed, and pulled her right arm up, patting her tiny biceps jokingly. “Now you just be careful or I’ll have to do it again! You don’t want another invitation to this gun show.”

She took his hand and got up from the squishy chair they’d been sitting in. If she’d have sat in it any longer, she might have been entirely swallowed by how comfortable it was and never gotten up. However, she had gotten up, and how she was looking into the face of a cute vigilante boy talking about his broken stuff. She cringed at the mention of broken toes; they were such tiny bones to break, one would think it would hurt an incredible amount to smash them up once, not to mention multiple times.

She smiled meekly up at him as he mentioned that she’d made him happy. She thought she’d said all the wrong things in the back of her mind. Of course, doubting herself was something she did constantly. It was why she didn’t really speak to anyone.

“I don’t mind. I like hanging out with you.” She gave him a shy smile, seeming to completely disregard the fact that he was blushing; she didn’t mind that he was a little embarrassed. It was nice to see a boy flustered over her.

“Come on, I’ll show you where I live.”

She led him out the door, tossing her now empty cup in the trash can and walking out onto the street just as the last of the sun disappeared behind the horizon line. The sky was purple, slowly melting into shades of gray and blue. The moon was visible in the sky even before it was dark, and it was waning into a crescent. Only a sliver was there for them to see, with the vague shadow of the rest of the moon behind it like the backdrop on a stage.

“Look at the sky”, she said. “Isn’t it pretty? I wish I could go up there.”

Her observation finished, she lingered for a moment to look at the moon, and turned to walk down the street. This was the way she usually took, and unlike the “scenic” route she’d chosen to take earlier in the day, this was only a short distance from her one bedroom apartment near Central Command. As they entered her neighborhood after a few short blocks of walking, it was obvious that it was a well cared for neighborhood. They were small houses, but they were old and beautiful. They here made of brick in various colors, most with ivy growing up the walls and around the little white four-paned windows. While they were all the same basic style, they each had an identity.

There was a community garden coming up ahead with a large, sort of out of place apartment complex next door coming up on the side walk; it was for stories tall, and had four windows going up and four over, one in each apartment overlooking the garden. There were little colored lights all over the garden whose little colored lights were fed by the sun during the day. They shone brightly in blues, yellows, pinks, and oranges, like Christmas lights that were out of season. Ivy grew up and around each window. The overall effect of the building was charming, to say the least.

“This is it”, she said as they made their way up the walk way, toward a flight of metal stairs. “I take care of the garden when everyone’s away. I even put in those little lights.”

Each door was marked with a number. Once they came to apartment 12, the last apartment on the third floor, she unlocked the door and stepped in.

It was small, very small, containing a lot of bookshelves. The walls were lined with them. The shelves were all full, too, and it wasn’t light reading. She clearly coveted the collection, because it was all alphabetized and the books were well worn. There was also a comfortable looking futon with a little coffee table littered with some new graphic novels in front of it. There was a lamp on the table that had been left on, and music in the background from the radio that she’d also left on in the other room (ooc: Just for kicks and because it makes my post sound like something from a cheesy noire, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjoPrlWP2e0). Between a two bookshelves was an entertainment center with a small tv in on top of it. There was another closed door that led to her bedroom just inside the door.

“Its tiny, but I like it” she said with a sort of embarrassed smile.

"Bleh, guns, my spear owns your guns!" Varod told her with a small laugh. The chair had been so comfy, and he wouldn't have minded staying there sipping coffee with her all night. She told him she liked hanging out with him and he mentally punched the air, thinking YES! Then as they walked, she eventually stopped to admire the sky. He looked up for a moment, then held his hand in the air. "I will go up there some day. I want to fly, I want to be free from the shackles that are the ground. But the closest I'll ever get is air running, sadly." He smiled, a little longingly, towards the clouds. He let his arm fall to his side as he held her hand tight. Then, turning his head, he examined her for a moment. "Yes, it is pretty. But you, Imogen, are beautiful." Smiling at her, he put an arm around her as they continued to walk. Looking around the neighborhood, he looked mainly at the roofs. "Seems like I know what I'll be doing tomorrow night," he joked, examining the rooftops closely. "This place is perfect."

Then they got to her apartment and he looked around. "You take care of the garden all by yourself? Wow!" He looked admiringly at her. "I've never been able to keep anything alive. I guess you could say I have a black thumb. Never been able to raise even a single flower. It stinks, but eh, that's what you get for living in Kanama.

"This looks like my kinda place," he noted as he looked around. "Put some video games in the entertainment center and it'd be perfect. And those books! You've got a small library here! I used to practically live in a library. So...uh...what now?"

(You’re the cheesiest man alive xD Literally, this shit is nachos)

Imogen watched him admire her apartment and smiled at the compliment. As he asked what was next, she looked around for a second. Her eyes met a cabinet at the bottom of her entertainment center.

“How about dinner and a movie?” she asked, although didn’t wait for an answer as she walked toward the kitchen. She was in a very good mood, as having guests wasn’t something she got to do every day. Most of the time, she read a book, ate a sandwich, and went to bed early. Tonight would be fun, though. She was off work tomorrow and could sleep in, so if Varod meant that he wanted to spend a lot of time with her, he had better have been ready to have a Die Hard marathon with the most delicious zucchini spaghetti ever.

The living room and kitchen were actually the same room, but with an island and some tiles separating them. It was decorated with a couple of art nouveau prints that described the seasons with gorgeous old fashioned women, and book pages from very famous old classics that held her very favorite quotes. There was even a page from Oliver Twist that almost accurately described Varod himself, not that either of them had really taken the chance to read it since they’d been in.

She went about making dinner and it was done in about half an hour, at which point she dished it up and set it down on the coffee table, then crouched down to get into the cabinet where she stored her very small movie collection.

“Okay, I have all three of the Die Hards, and the Lord of the Rings extended series. But I doubt we could finish all of those in one night.” She chuckled as she said this; the LOTR extended series were all upwards of two and a half hours long.

“I don’t watch movies all that much, so sorry for the limited choices.”

Varod looked around at the nice apartment and plopped onto the couch, not really used to having a regular home and thus not knowing any kind of "other peoples' home" etiquette. He kicked his shoes off and placed them next to the couch, glancing around. "It really is a nice place. Dinner sounds great, but a movie sounds even better." Listening for a moment, he heard cars pull up outside. "Shit," he whispered. Running to the window, he glanced outside. At least twenty cop cars had pulled up outside the apartment complex. They had but seconds before the cops would be on them.

"Imo!" he whispered. "There are police here!" Bounding over the sofa, he looked outside one of the back windows and saw more behind. "Damn...how am I gonna get outta this one..." Thinking through all his alchemical, scientific, and thief knowledge, he came up with a plan. But he had to know one thing first. "Imogen, is there another way out of here? I need to know. I need to find out if I can make a better plan or not. Because as it is now, my plan would leave this place in ruin."