XRia: He was just different, you know? He knew all kinds of stuff, an'... I thought I'd be different too. Wilder. More grown up. But instead I'm all stressed out an' sneakin' round an' my friends teasing me that I got no boyfriend and I can't tell them, an' nothing changed. My life is over and it was for nothing.
Zeke: 'My life is over. Madre del Santos (mother of the saints), don't let me have been this whiny and stupid at seventeen.
Ria: I am not whiny!
Zeke: Sooooo....
Ria: Or stupid! I gotta spend the rest of my life a freak, weighed down with some kid, watched over by these cangrejos --
Zeke: No you don't.
Ria: What choice do I have? Name me one!
Zeke: Move. They got aliens living on O'Donnelly, honey; you think they gonna care about a Greenie girl?
Ria: ...I --
Zeke: It's the cangrejo part that bothers you, Stroud would take you kid an' all; they ain't half so fuckin' stir-crazy there. Loose the kid and even the Tallboys'd have you. You ain't sure where you wanna be? Ve de paseo (go walkabout). The Blues'd foot it for you. Got a job you always wanted? Anything you always wanted to see? Anything you wanna --
Ria: Okay, okay. I get the point.
Zeke: Go to school -- real school, not the government crapfeed they got on the Wharves -- grab a Kariami stake, tour with a gateboat --
Ria: I said I get the point.
Zeke: 'My life is over. Madre del Santos (mother of the saints), don't let me have been this whiny and stupid at seventeen.
Ria: I am not whiny!
Zeke: Sooooo....
Ria: Or stupid! I gotta spend the rest of my life a freak, weighed down with some kid, watched over by these cangrejos --
Zeke: No you don't.
Ria: What choice do I have? Name me one!
Zeke: Move. They got aliens living on O'Donnelly, honey; you think they gonna care about a Greenie girl?
Ria: ...I --
Zeke: It's the cangrejo part that bothers you, Stroud would take you kid an' all; they ain't half so fuckin' stir-crazy there. Loose the kid and even the Tallboys'd have you. You ain't sure where you wanna be? Ve de paseo (go walkabout). The Blues'd foot it for you. Got a job you always wanted? Anything you always wanted to see? Anything you wanna --
Ria: Okay, okay. I get the point.
Zeke: Go to school -- real school, not the government crapfeed they got on the Wharves -- grab a Kariami stake, tour with a gateboat --
Ria: I said I get the point.
When last we saw.... Ria - Zeke
stuff kat likes:
An assassin, a disgraced paladin, and a ninja accountant walk out of prison. Their mission: find out the secret of the Clockwork Boys. Not dying is optional.
May 11, 2010
Mrrr. You know, when I write, I try to avoid the sort of craptastic soap-opera pileup that my workplace is currently experiencing as unrealistic and overdone. You fail at originality, universe.
Comic references: O'Donnelly Isle, better known as the Imperial Isle, is the seat of the Imperial government and -- as Zeke suggests -- very, very cosmopolitan. Both Stroud and the Tallboys have been mentioned before; all you really need to know here is that they're primarily Sunlander states. 'Ve de paseo' means, essentially, to go walkabout. Kariami is the wealthier and better-established of the two legal extrasolar colonies; it's extraordinarily difficult to get citizenship there, and impossible for non-citizens to own land, but an Imperial citizenship opens more doors than most. A gateboat is any weftgate ship, mercenary or trader, that routinely moves outside the three systems with human settlements: a risky and not always profitable venture, but with a great deal of appeal and romance for some.
Zeke imitating a teenage girl in panel one is, alas, something your imagination will have to fill in for itself. Stupid limitations of textual mediums...
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