judgementor | [Aefenglom IC Inbox]

[Leave it to Steak to leave part of his uniform at work. How does this even happen? She could just send him a message to come get his stuff, but it's unseasonably cool out when she leaves work, the sun disappearing behind some dark clouds for a brief reprieve from the summer heat, and she makes up her mind to go deliver it directly.

Unfortunately, dark clouds and dipping temperatures spells rain, and the last leg of her trip is spent running, holding the package of goods above her head to shield from the sudden downpour, and when she knocks on the door of his house, it's with an urgency.]

Leave it to Steak to not be home right now.

[Steak might not be home but, luckily for Allura, someone else is. Red Wine opens the door with the mildest expression of surprise on seeing who is standing bedraggled on the doorstep, and he immediately steps back with a small gesture to suggest that she come indoors.]

I assume you're looking for Steak.

[He recognises her, but just for the moment her name is eluding him.]

He isn't here.

[She looks just as surprised to see him on the other side of the door, but she doesn't hesitate in taking his offer to come in out of the rain.]

Teaches me not to arrive without sending a message first.

[Huffing, she wipes some of the rainwater from her face, taking a second to recall where she recognizes this other man from.]

You're... I saw you in Steak's memory. Or. Your memory I suppose. [Frowning,] The one with the ridiculous arm-wrestling.

That was mine, yes.

[He shuts the door once she steps through, having no desire to stand there letting the rain and cold into the house. Of course, that's where he knows her from. He can't recall asking for her name. A strange breach in etiquette for him, but the situation had been a very peculiar one.

Red Wine looks her up and down, and decides against reigniting the debate about whether or not he and Steak should have been assisting Turkey and his companions in their fight. Instead, he softly clears his throat.]

Come in, I'll fetch you a towel. You can't be comfortable like that.

[It's probably for the best. She doesn't want to argue about it either, and she's more surprised that they're living together, after how competitive they'd seemed in the memory.

Then again, she lives with Lance and Keith under the same roof. Maybe it makes more sense than she thinks.]

Thank you...

[She follows him in, swiveling her head to take in the kind of home they kept.]

I don't think we had a chance for proper introductions before. My name is Princess Allura.

[The home wasn't theirs to begin with. It's a grand place, once belonging to Caren Hortensia, and he and Steak are not the only two people who reside here. Despite the number of residents the place is relatively tidy, with the tell-tale signs of multiple occupancy dotted about the place. Red Wine ducks quickly into a downstairs cupboard to retrieve a clean towel, offering it out to her before he gently ushers her into a sitting room.]

It was a peculiar place to meet.

[First impressions can be strange ones, never mind when they are given in a place which could not quite be said to be real. She gives her name and he bows smartly, briefly dipping his head as he does.]

Your Highness. My name is Red Wine. [He straightens, and smiles at her.] It's my pleasure to make your acquaintance in a more comfortable setting.

[It's nice, she thinks. To see the tells of many people living together. It felt a little like home. Even if all of her friends came from the same reality, she was as different from Lance as he was from Shiro. Not to mention Kolivan joining their ranks now.

She thanks him again, and she doesn't make too much of a fuss over his court manners - although she does mentally raise an eyebrow. He certainly is different from Steak. But she offers him a polite nod before she takes the towel before following him and finding a comfortable spot on the edge of one of the sofas.]

Ah. I know. [Sheepishly, she smiles, before starting to towel off gingerly, dabbing at her neck and face delicately.] Steak has talked about you a lot. Still, it is nice to have a face to match the name.

[He is very different from Steak, thank you very much indeed.

It doesn't surprise him at all that Steak has spoken of him a lot. The other knight has always been somewhat obsessed with him in that way... and he couldn't say he doesn't sometimes meander into talking about Steak as well, even when it isn't warranted.

Not that he's going to admit that right now.]

Is that so? [He arranges his face into an expression of mild surprise that is mostly convincing, if one doesn't look too close.] And just what did he have to say about me?

[She smiles,] I shouldn't divulge private conversations.

[Little by little, she takes her hair down from the sopping wet bun on the top of her head - drying it off in sections so that it won't make a big wet mess all over her clothes or the couch. It's. A lot of hair, but she's well practiced in dealing with it.]

If you ask Steak, I'm sure he'll be honest with you.

[Not said facetiously. She didn't know Steak to be anything except bluntly honest.]

[Normally, that kind of comment would have drawn a derisive smirk and some kind of snide half-meant comment about Steak's honesty, but not this time. Things between them have been strange lately, after all, and it's enough to make him think twice before he cuts off this avenue of investigation entirely.]

Perhaps. [He settles on eventually, pressing the tips of his fingers together and absent-mindedly rubbing the index fingers against one another.]

But you can't blame me for being curious. Steak and I communicate mostly in insults. [Here, he grins slightly.] Though I don't expect that what he would tell you would be much different to what he tells me to my face.

Well, if you’re very curious, [She leads, sounding half distracted by wrapping a portion of her hair in the towel-] I think the phrase ‘conceited bastard’ has come up from time to time. Complaints about pranks…

[Saying that doesn’t seem too dangerous for sewing unpleasantness between them, given how Red Wine is smirking about all of it. It must be like Keith and Lance’s friendship – marked just as much by playful (?) insults as it is words of care.

Finally she sets the towel in her lap,] One might assume you hated each other, if you weren’t living in the same house.

[Casually calling you two out.]

[He huffs out a gentle laugh and doesn't meet her eyes, instead drifting his attention to the room's window.]

We've been standing together for a long time. [Red Wine quiets then, thinking, the tips of his fingertips pressed lightly together and a tiny frown on his face that clears almost as soon as it appears.]

I do hate him, because I know him well enough to hate him. [Then, he shakes his head.] But I'm used to him, and no one knows me better than he does.

[Here she gives them an odd look, shaking her head.]

I cannot understand that. [For Allura, hate and like are so clearly opposite, it’s hard to conflate the two,] If I hated someone, I wouldn’t be living with them. Or standing together, as it were.

[She thought of Zarkon, someone she once trusted, now she’s convinced she would gladly end his life if she had the opportunity. There was no space for affection there.] Are you friends, or are you enemies?

We're--

[Complicated. Gods, they're so complicated and especially now, but he doesn't know Allura nearly well enough to...]

'Rivals' might be the best word. It isn't right, but it's close enough.

[But rivals for what? They never really had anything to fight over - something that they both wanted but only one of them could have. And yet, they were rivals over many things. Enemies, though? No, never that.]

I have enemies and I don't count Steak amongst them. When you spent two centuries with someone you grow accustomed to them... and how you act when you're around them.

[The lines of her frown grow deeper, and she shakes her head slightly. Complicated isn’t even scratching the surface.]

I can’t pretend to understand that stance.

[Honestly. Let it never be said that Allura doesn’t speak her mind.]

If you enjoy being around him, then you are friends. Do you enjoy your time spent with him? If not, then why would you spend two-hundred years with him?

No, I find that most people don't.

[Understand it, that is. Most people don't have the 'benefit' of having been around someone for the length of time that he and Steak have, while maintaining their particular, peculiar relationship. Or having been around them for long enough to see how they are together, even through their arguments.

He shakes his head. It isn't as simple as enjoyment. Would he say he actively dislikes being around Steak? Well... no, or he wouldn't spend time with him.]

Allura-- Have you ever had someone in your life that you know that you would be an entirely different person without? Someone who has defined you for as long as you can remember existing? That is what Steak is to me. I despised him from the moment I first laid eyes on him, but at the same time... I wouldn't be who I am if he wasn't with me.

[Someone who has defined you for as long as you can remember existing?]

No. I don't know what that is like. [Her voice takes a more somber, heavy tone, gaze flickering down, and looking somewhere far beyond anything in the room. Aside from Coran, she's outlived everyone she's ever know or will know. Well, save for one,] And the only person I know like that, I would gladly kill him, if we ever crossed paths again.

[Good talk. She shifts in her chair, letting some of the gravity drop from the conversation, as she considers what he's really talking about.] But... I think I know what you are talking about. I have not known them for long, but Keith and Lance - the humans. My life would not be the same if not for them.

[He makes a soft sound.]

There is someone I would gladly bleed the life out of, as well... [Though Food Souls don't die quite so easily as humans do, and it might be a task to get the job done... he'd see it through one day.]

But maybe you do understand a little. [Red Wine tips his head slightly and smiles at her.]

I wouldn't call Steak my friend. The bond we have is far deeper and more complicated than that.

[She has to resist shaking her head at the melodrama. Red Wine isn’t so different from Steak, she decides. Just in a different way.]

I think you both might benefit from making it less complicated.

[Said with a small laugh. Suddenly remembering herself, she shifts on the couch, picking up the package,]

That’s right… I came here to deliver this to Steak. He left it at DiplomaTea. I trust you can see that he receives it.

[She isn't wrong, though neither of them would easily admit it.

He reaches over for the package, lifting it out of her hands and setting it to one side. It's not his business what's in it. At least one of them has a sense of the others privacy.]

I will, thank you. I'm not sure where he is now, but I can't imagine he'll be too long. Did you want to wait?

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ITS NOT STEAK > Action. Some time in July

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