mogget_cat | OOM: Open-Mic 2

Yrael and Teja step through the door and out into a deserted alleyway in New Orleans. It's evening, here, around eight o'clock with the sun just having fully set. The people in the street before them haven't noticed them yet.

"All right... to find a clothing shop."

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Teja observes, fascinated.

"Men mentioned cars and planes to me," he says, "fire arms, and electric. Why did nobody ever speak of those? They are -- amazing! I wish they had been invented at my time!"

"They are quite useful, I've heard. Publicly available transport for long distances, some of them, if one does not have a car or the money to ride in a plane. Most, though, are used for transportation of goods, coal, livestock, lumber, metal, cars, food... to get them where they need to go, hundreds and hundreds of miles away in only a few days."

It's one of humanity's more sensible ideas, he thinks.

It takes about three minutes for it to pass fully. They watch until then.

"They are," Teja agrees.

Pause.

"What one might do -- how one might run a realm well, using those! Be it war or peace, supplies for an army or traded goods, workers that go where their hands are needed..."

Pause.

"And all men tell me is, 'Oh look, you dead barbarian, we have things that go bang, and things that go whoosh and things that go beep to amaze you'. This, however, is a new invention that is indeed truly useful!"

"It is. I intend to ride one, some day."

Yrael shakes his head, bumping his shoulder against Teja's before heading into the mall-like area and towards the stairs.

"Come on, you dead barbarian," Yrael says, fondly. "I have flimsy and cheap cotton tee-shirts to amaze you."

Or something.

Teja gives a brief, fond chuckle at that. "Ahhh - but you introduced me to trains, also," he says, following.

"And I am going to introduce you to jazz, as well. The shirts are just a bonus, then," he grins.

Some people take the escalator up to the second floor; Yrael take the stairs. Something about escalators make him worried that his tail will get caught in them.

Whether he has a tail at that moment or not.

It would not occur to Teja not to take the stairs. He has seen escalators, and also elevators, in his forays to the modern world; but secretly, he thinks they're for old women with heavy bags, and for young women with small children, respectively.

Not something he would wish to use.

The lazy bit of Yrael (which is most of him) would like to take the escalator. The cat bit of Yrael (which is also most of him and overlaps quite a bit of the lazy bit) doesn't want its tail to be caught.

It's the same reason one will never see Yrael sitting in a rocking chair.

"Here we are," he says, heading into the large entry under a sign proclaiming it to be the Big Easy T-Shirt Co.

Teja follows him inside, and looks around.

The choices are quite amazing.

"I would have one that is black, if that is permissible?" he says.

Yrael glances at him, eyebrows raised, from a row of hangers that have dark red shirts with angry things written on them.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I do not know -- perhaps one should wear colours for such a concert?" Teja says. "I know not much about the symbols and colours of those clothes, and what opinions and loyalties they represent. Only that they seem meaningful. Eirene gave me one with her symbol on."

Pause, during which he browses the racks. "What, for example, would this one mean?"

It is brown, and says 'ARCHAEOLOGISTS DO IT DOWN HOLES'

Yrael tilts his head at it.

"I think it is meant to be suggestive. Archaeologists dig up ruins and things to see how people of the past lived, so they do dig holes. The pun is that they dig holes, but they also might have sex in those holes... with another pun on the word 'hole,'" he explains.

Teja quickly puts the brown t-shirt away again. "I would have nothing to do with it, then," he says. "For the innuendo -- the digging up of old things might be interesting. I was told that the lost cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, that Pliny wrote about, have been found again -- the men who did that would have been archaeologists?"

"They would have been, yes," Yrael says, picking up a black T-shirt with a red dragon coiled on it, fangs and claws much in evidence. Hmm.

He puts it back.

"That one was grim, but a bit garish," Teja says.

Pause.

"What kind of tea shirt would you think would be right for me to wear?"

"Anything you find that you would like to wear," he says. "I've only done this once before, myself."

He turns to a green shirt with Japanese characters on it.

Yrael, of course, can't read it.

It could say I forded the river and my effing ox died, and he'd never know. He puts it back.

"It looks strange," Teja says. "I might like to wear this one."

He has found a black t-shirt that say, in dark red, GOTH.

"Why would they write that on a shirt?"

Yrael tries to suppress a smile.

And fails.

"To let people know?" That seems like a safe answer.

"But there are not many Goths around," Teja says, "unless they mean the sort of goths that are -- what do they call it -- a sub-culture?"

Pause.

"It is amusing to you?"

"I think they mean the modern subculture, yes," he smiles.

"Those of the modern goth subculture often brood, are grim and wear black... I had not thought of it, and it made me smile."

That makes Teja smile a little. "I often brood, am grim, and wear black," Teja says, still holding the t-shirt, "but not many of my people were -- most liked their ale and their women, were blond and strong and cheerful, wore linen and wool in nice colours, and rarely brooded. I was the one who was different, among them."

Pause, and Teja smiles more, amused.

"One would not assume the entire sub-culture was named after me alone?"

"The inspiration of the entire sub-culture," he grins. "As the one that stood out, the memorable one." As far as Yrael knows.

He picks up a sleeveless shirt of dark red. Hm. He might want to try that one on. Vaguely, Yrael wonders what size he'd wear.

"Would this be the right size for me?" Teja asks. "And where would one hange, before the concert."

"There will be restrooms where one can change," he says. "It won't be a problem."

Yrael looks conflicted for a moment, as he was just about to try on the shirt (since he can unmake the shirt he's currently wearing)...

"I'm going to find a fitting room, and try this on to see if it looks good." He takes one of each size of that shirt, just in case. It's not like he knows what size he wears.