2017-07-28: Owe You A Drink

• Log: Owe You A Drink
• Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Jude Moshe
• Where: Hilton
• Date: July 28th 2017
• Summary: Josie catches up with Jude to repay what she feels she owes.

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<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Somewhere else in the world, the final match of a tournament is underway.

Josie? She's not there, having left the city weeks ago, shortly after the Lacour Tournament of Arms had commenced. She's got her reasons for skipping the spectator's seat to instead press her luck and spend her time elsewhere -- and in the end, they don't much matter.

To be honest, Josie's not doing much but killing time these days. Working the odd job, sure -- a girl's got to eat -- but until they can figure out the best route of attack on the blockade and from there get the plan underway, there's not much left for her on this part of the world.

Well, aside from settling debts.

It hadn't been hard to find out that a certain reporter hadn't perished in Adlehyde.

It also hadn't been hard to figure out where he was spending much of his time, and even easier still to make the slow trek up the Silver Coast to Hilton.

Gulls scream overhead, streaks of white against a too-blue sky. Shading her eyes against the sun, Josephine Lovelace glances up the rise of the city streets along the hilltop. Down to the harbor, up to the town, or something like that. Not a bad decision, considering the height of some waves sometimes.

Now that she's here, she's got a little bit of a dilemma, though.

'If she were Jude Moshe, where would she be?'

Holed up in whatever hotel he's boarded up at this time?

Hanging out at one of the establishments in town?

...Out of town?

Sometimes that lack of planning will bite you hard.

"Well, what do you think?" Josie asks the bird, hunched up on her shoulder.

Penelope just gives her a long, unblinking stare.

"...Well, you're not much help, are you? Well, how about I cut my losses?"

Which, translated, means: she's going to go to a bar.

Luckily, Hilton, being a harbor town, is just lousy with drinking establishments, of various quality.

Naturally, Josie being Josie, she quite deliberately selects one of the more dubious-looking places, a short distance down and closer to the water.

Without so much as a moment of hesitation, she walks inside.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

If you were Jude Moshe, where would you be?

Holed up in whatever hotel he's boarded up at this time?

It's a bit of an open question even now; for as definitive as his presence has been in Hilton ever since he recovered from the events in Adlehyde, it's not been a constant one. The reporter seems to come and go as he pleases, often bouncing back and forth between Hilton and Lacour; ostensibly, to cover the tournament.

Debatably, to make some money off it, as well.

Those gambling rings aren't going to set themselves up, after all.

-That- much has managed to get the poor, redheaded journalist and his partner in some minor spats of trouble during his time in the port town, yet still he lingers. But he's not at his hotel room. He's not in Lacour, either, despite this being the perfect time to be there, especially for someone ostensibly there to cover the tournament. But no. So where is he?

"You ever hear of the fox and the goat?"

It's a familiar voice that greets Josephine Lovelace as she enters that bar on the seedier side of town; shards of light from dingy windows half-illuminate the smoke-filled haze of the establishment, smelling well of stale alchohol and staler cigarette smoke. That voice is like a cool contrast to the musty cheapness of this place, comparatively speaking. Affable, easy going; ineffably noncommittal. And it belongs to a man with dark red hair, sitting at a table with several others, playing cards. Like it was any other day.

Where is Jude Moshe?

Maybe he's at the first place you look.

"The fox is walking along one day when he slips and falls into a well -- now, normally the fox is a bit more sly than that--"

"What's a fox?"

"Don't worry about it. Anyway--"

"Oh! They're like those dogs, right, with the ears?"

"Sure. Anyway, the fox falls into a well; he tries like hell to get out, trust me, just about anything he can think of, but it's still no good. He's there for hours -- maybe days -- when a goat happens upon him. The goat, confused by the sight of the fox in the well, asked him if the water in there was -really- that good. And the fox knew opportunity when he saw it.

"'Finest in the whole country,' said the fox, 'why don't you jump in and try it?' And so the goat, without even thinking, dives right in."

"And? What happens?"

Jude Moshe looks up. He catches Josephine Lovelace, dark brows lifting in unison at the familiar sight. A smile tugs at his lips.

"To be continued," is all he says, before he lays down his cards and pushes up off his feet. "Oh, and Carl's got the winning hand. He's just been goading you into laying down a big bet."

"Dammit, Jude--"

And just like that, the reporter leaves that game as easily as he had entered it, offering little more than a friendly wave of greeting as he approaches Josephine.

Serendipity, hard at work.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Sure, it would be just as easy to go to a better bar. Her wallet's not hurting badly enough that she needs to hit up a place like this just to wet her throat.

But reputable bars usually aren't as fun.

It's dark in here, just the way she likes it. Pausing just inside the door, she lingers there for a moment or two as her eyes adjust to the lighting, which is followed by a quick survey of the occupants. Maybe she doesn't do planning, per se, as a general tactic, but it's a basic Drifter survival tip at its finest: see who is most likely to cause you some trouble.

Her gaze hasn't even crossed the room when a familiar voice floats through the air.

One pale eyebrow lifts.

Well, she'll be damned.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

She doesn't move immediately. No, the archaeologist stays put, gaze finishing its lap across the interior of the bar.

The story of the fox and the goat, huh...

Her gaze meets Jude's. As if to wordlessly say 'well, what can you do', she smiles.

And just like that, Jude lays down his cards and departs the gambling table.

"I think I remember that story, you know," she murmurs when he approaches her. She smiles still, though it's a touch less 'cheerful' or 'sheepish' and a little more edging the border of 'pitiless'. "It didn't go so well for the goat."

Penelope lifts her head, tilting to squintily peer up at Jude.

"A little bird told me you might be in town. ...Well, not Penelope. You know what I mean." She pauses, looking him over. "Guess you were too stubborn to die, too, huh?" Lopsidedly, her lips tilt in a much brighter smile than before.

"Anyway," she says, cutting to the chase, "it looks like I owe you one for Lily. So, how about a drink?"

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

It didn't go so well for the goat.

"Usually doesn't, when a fox is involved. One of the little truths of life."

An ambivalent shrug rolls its way across Jude Moshe's shoulders as if to punctuate his lazy declaration, complete with that indifferently lopsided smile to match her own.

"Or something."

For someone who had what might as well amount to a near-death experience, though, Jude doesn't seem much changed -- he falls into those patterns as easily as he wears that frock coat of his, an affable if not perpetually lazy smile here, a light word there. No -- he looks for all the world to have been wholly untouched by the ordeals of Adlehyde. Like water off a duck's back.

"I dunno. Sometimes I think maybe I did die." And just as prone to those wry wonderings of his; the reporter tucks a hand into his frock coat as he speaks, casting Penelope a sideways glance and something approaching a conspiratorial smile as he pulls out that cigarette case of his. "It'd explain some of the insanity I see lately. Part of me hopes I am. It'd be an easier pill to swallow." The words are light despite the morbid implications of them, coupled with the effortless flash of a grin as he offers up a cigarette.

"What do you think? Alive, or dead?"

... Though he doesn't see fit to offer a light just yet.

A promise is a promise, after all.

Even if Jude's track record on those are spotty at best. Usually.

"Those birds sure are chatty, huh? I feel like Jacob and Penelope have been getting together behind our backs to exchange state secrets." The tilt of his head towards an empty table; the easy pivot of his heel. "I'd act surprised about it but... honestly, that's pushing the limits of credibility, even for me. C'mon. I'll let you buy me that drink." Generous to a fault, he is.

But, gentleman that he is, he'll pull out a seat for Josephine -- an act that seems completely incongruous with the state of the place their in, which might be why he even does it to begin with -- before he takes his own, slumping leisurely back into it as he locks hands behind the back of his head. "You know, I still feel it, off and on," he says, lowering a hand to tap against his chest -- that spot where the Metal Demon had all but bisected him. "I keep telling myself I've had worse, but. I dunno." Amber eyes roll towards the ceiling. He heaves a sigh.

"I don't think my pride's ever gonna recover."

Truly, the greatest concern.

Slowly, that amber gaze rolls towards the poker table. His tongue clucking against the roof of his mouth, he considers for a moment. "So she found her way back to all of you, huh? That's good. I figured she probably wouldn't stay where I left her for too long." Because he doubts she trusts him -that- much, goes unsaid, because it hardly needs to be. "So, what're you doing all the way out here when there's a big tournament going on? I'm gonna feel touched if you came all the way out here just to see me."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Foxes usually are trouble, in her experience.

"Funny you should say that," Josie says, wearing the approximate expression of a very smug cat as she tilts her head to one side.

She and him both, though it's rather less likely he's heard this particular story. Yet. He might have had the honor of attempting to hold the line in Adlehyde; Josie on the other had just had a very unfortunate (and nearly terminal) encounter out in the wilds.

But it has changed her about precisely as much as his experience changed him -- beyond a half-tempered desire to see the man who attacked her dead, of course.

If fate happens to bring them near to one another again.

Penelope blinks, a slow movement from a rather disgruntled-looking (but when is she not?) pigeon. The bird shifts her weight on Josie's shoulder, feathers ruffling slightly, but...

There's no sign of Jacob, despite the way that Penelope almost seems to be psyching herself up for some sort of altercation. Almost disappointedly, she settles back down, her gaze never leaving Jude.

Josie, meanwhile, just glances sidelong at her bird, slightly puzzled. And then shrugs one shoulder. Birds.

"Hmm," Josephine considers, accepting that cigarette when it comes, "Well, that's a little dark, isn't it~" It's... all sing-song and everything. "You should really learn to think more positively, Jude." It. Might be hard to tell if that bright smile she's wearing right now is earnest or in jest.

"Alive, for sure. Remember, a person can keep on living just fine, even in hell."

No light's forthcoming, so that just means Josie has to provide her own. Passing the cigarette over to her right hand, she fumbles in her pocket for some matches. The light flares brightly in the dingy tavern, and briefly, Josie's glance tilts towards the early drinkers crowd.

"Well," she says, after taking her first drag, "You know what they say about birds." Her gaze follows his body movements easily, and moments after she takes off towards the empty table in question. "Ever the gentleman, I see."

...What do they say about birds?

Though, to be fair, he does pull out the chair for her first, which she settles into as if it were an easy chair and not a somewhat-rickety and definitely-seen-better-days chair in a dive bar. Leaning across the table, she plants both elbows atop it, almost pensive as she smokes. "Sounds like you had it rough, huh," she murmurs, her eyes hooded. Only to smile, as he claims his pride is the worse off. "...Heh heh. That's much more like you."

Penelope takes this moment as her opportunity to just... hop off onto the table and peck curiously at the abused wood.

"...Sure did," Josie says, only take the moment to sigh overdramatically and gesture, outwards, with the hand holding her cigarette. "Kiddo's really good at getting herself into trouble," as if Josie herself isn't, "but that one really took the cake. Glad you were there to bail her out."

It's almost as if she just might care about Lily's well-being in some fashion.

"Me? I'm not interested," she says, waving her free hand dismissively. "Besides, I've been busy." With planning a seriously dangerous attempt to punch right through the blockade at the border. "Colleagues to speak to, ruins to visit... you know how it is."

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Funny you should say that, notes Josephine, looking like the cat that caught the canary. Jude's dark brows lift in tandem.

"Let me guess, fox trouble?" ventures the reporter, tentatively. "There's been a real rash of silver foxes getting up to no good, lately. I hear they're mostly harmless, though." A pause follows, timed just so.

"Mostly."

Josie's tribulations in the wilderness of the ruined Adlehyde is something that Jude goes wholly unaware of, for the moment. Instead, he just turns that amber gaze Penelope's way as she seems to just... scope out the bar, as if for a potential sighting of her elusive rival. His brows scrunch together. Lips purse.

"Well, maybe my theory about the two of them is a little off the mark," he decides, half to himself.

Jacob, however, remains Penelope's white whale; the aviary automaton is absent from the bar itself, nor is there any sign of it by those murky, dirt-smeared windows -- anywhere he might find himself. Maybe busy on an errand for the reporter; regardless, the redheaded journalist in question just shakes his head, hands lifting palms up into the air.

"Star-crossed," he declares, complete with an apologetic smile for the bird. "Maybe next time, Penelope. Keep a weather eye out. Never know when he might be lurking in the shadows -- Jacob's tricky like that."

Birds.

The flick of nickel against fingernails, the slide of paper. That cigarette is produced and passed before a second is tugged free of its contents, for now left to loosely hang unlit from Jude's lips as he speaks. "Hey, come on now. I'm a beacon of optimism," he protests half-heartedly, even if that amused smile directly contradicts that exasperated tone.

"It takes a really optimistic mindset to think the real world has to be less crazy than purgatory."

Eventually, though, he just tips a two-fingered salute to the white-haired woman in deference, his voice relaxed as he decides, "Alive in hell it is. Guess it's not so bad, though. I'd be pretty disappointed if you ended up just being a figment of my imagination, after all."

You know what they say about birds.

Jude Moshe nods, as if in absolute, unspoken understanding of just what Josie is talking about.

"Yep. Truer words never spoken."

And they are, never spoken. At least not by Jude.

What do they say about birds??

"I guess I was just re-learning a lesson I thought already got drilled into me at this point in my life," Jude mentions off-handedly as he settles into his chair, leaning his weight into the back of it until the front legs lift off the floor with a rickety groan and an unpleasant sticking sound as it separates from the mysteriously encrusted ground. "'Never get involved in things above your paygrade.' Serves me right, trying to play hero, huh?" Pointless, weightless lamentations, delivered and forgotten in the span of moments as he offers up a grin, jovial in a reserved way. "Kinda hard to be the charming and gallant do-gooder when you've got fire in your lungs, in any case."

And with that, perhaps somewhat pointedly, Jude pulls free a match to strike it off and bring the flickering flame to his cigarette without so much of a peep as to the irony of the gesture.

"You know, when I first met her, I thought she was the smart one of their duo," he asides to Josephine, good-naturedly. "But I think her boyfriend's rubbing off on her a little bit too much. Or maybe they were both always the types to bite off more than they could chew, and I was just seeing what I wanted to see." He muses over these possibilities, smoke trailing in spreading wisps of gray as his shoulders lift in a good-natured shrug.

"Don't mention it," he ultimately declares. "Those kooky kids have a bumpy enough road ahead of them without throwing tangling with horror stories and urban legends into the mix. You should've seen it. A whole building. With his bare hands. And the guy treats it like he was swinging around a bat or something." He gestures with that cigarette-holding hand, smoke whipping this way and that as orange embers spill from the tip.

"Now that's the definition of 'above my paygrade.'"

Still, as she explains her plans, generic as they are, Jude seems to take it all in good stride and at face value; one hand locking behind the back of his neck to rub the kinks out there, he lifts the other holding his cigarette to flag down the bartender, amber eyes focusing off in the distance as he speaks. "I hear you. Busy times for everyone, y'know?" he commiserates, just as vaguely. "Offer still stands, though. You ever find yourself needing some help, I've got some connections in the area. Making friends and accumulating favors is kinda a tool of the trade in this business. It's strange, isn't it? You sign up for a job because you love doing it, and then it turns out about eighty percent of the things you do really have nothing to do with the job itself in the long run." He shakes his head good-naturedly, heaves a sigh of a similar nature.

"The hoops we hop, I guess."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

"Mostly harmless," Josie agrees, on the subject of silver foxes. "Very fond of alcohol, though."

That had been a hangover to remember, but well worth it. Particularly since she hadn't had to pay.

Try however Penelope might, Jacob just isn't anywhere to be found in the bar. Between the pigeon's encounter with Cat a few days ago and the very probable realization that the mechanical bird she certainly had not at all taken to could be close at hand, it would seem that the avian is eager to let off some steam, so to speak.

Perhaps Penelope's days as a (technical) pacifist are coming to an end.

"Hmm, I wouldn't have thought Jacob her type," Josie opines, shaking her head sadly, as if at the folly of youth. "Besides, I'm not quite ready for her to leave the nest quite yet." She, yes, grins at her own joke. Her own very bad joke.

Thoroughly ruffled -- how much does she understand of what he just said, if anything at all? Can pigeons understand speech? -- Penelope settles down on Josie's shoulder, as if entering a sulk.

"Oh, sure, sure." She can't help but smile, can't help but toss him a particularly knowing look as he claims -- without much force behind it -- that he's a 'beacon of optimism'. "But we all have our moments." And in spite of her teasing before, the smile she wears now -- easy, matching the gentler cast in her eyes -- is quite possibly the most honest one she's given him to date. Perhaps it's meant as encouragement, of a sort.

One that splits quickly thereafter into a more-typical-for-her wider, amused near-grin. "What can I say? We've all got our flaws. Besides..." Dark eyes skim off sidelong, and she shrugs, that smile of hers growing briefly a little more subdued. Her gaze meets Jude's in the next heartbeat. "...Purgatory, if we're lucky, huh?"

He's almost certainly one of a kind with her. Or at least close enough to count.

"...But right now we're definitely alive. Trust me." And there, once again, her usual self returns, carefree as always.

"And hey, who knows? As long as you're alive, there's always a chance."

What do they say about birds?

It is a mystery.

Leaning on her left arm, smoke trailing up into the air as he explains, Josie nods once, closing her eyes briefly. "Well, you tried, didn't you? Even if it would've been smarter to run." Her gaze tilts downwards, and she stares for a moment at her right hand, loosely curled where it rests on the table. "...It's not like I can claim the moral high ground here, anyway. You're not the only one who's bitten off more than they can chew these days."

Penelope pecks at... something she's found. Josie hopes that it's gum and not something else. She reaches over, nudging her away from the whatever with a pair of fingers. "Shh. Leave it alone," she murmurs, before then moving her hand to stroke the top of the bird's head with the stiff fingers of her right hand.

"You know what?" Josie says, with a sigh that just might be long-sufferingly so, "That's what I thought, too. But lately..." She can't help but sigh that sigh again, closing her eyes as if she's suddenly been stricken by a headache. "Well, they're just kids, really. I guess I can admire that in them, and they'll figure it out eventually." She pauses.

She thinks, for a moment, of the machine the pair are hunting.

And she closes her eyes tightly, grimaces as if stricken suddenly, and groans.

Oh, hell, they're going to get themselves killed.

It's not a feeling that decreases, precisely, especially not when Jude goes on to explain exactly what Lily picked a fight with. "...No kidding," a much less happy Josie comments. She's going to smoke that cigarette she holds like it was her last.

As for her plans, at least that's a happier (by contrast) place to discuss. "...Oh, right, yeah, so you did." Dark eyes flicker upwards, resting on the bartender. Well, drinks here probably weren't at a premium, even if he picked the priciest one. "With everything that's going on..." She shrugs, a little bit of ash spilling onto the tabletop with the motion. "...Actually, there might be something you could help me with. When you say 'the area', what do you mean? Just around here, or..."

Somewhere else. Such as somewhere much further west, for example.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Besides, I'm not quite ready for her to leave the nest quite yet.

Jude Moshe, at least, good sport that he is (when it suits him), grins just as easily for Josie's own joke. Her own very bad joke.

"Well, no one's ever ready," he asides, casually. "But y'know what they say: when it's time for the baby bird to leave its nest, you just gotta let 'em spread their wings and fly." A second passes. Jude considers Penelope carefully.

"... Though if I'm being honest, she seems like a bit of a late bloomer."

We all have our moments, she points out with that gentler look, and he pincers his cigarette between his middle and index fingers, taking a slow draw of it with as the paper slowly burns in an orange crinkle. That menthol cools at his throat as he just smiles that noncommittal, wry smile of his, closing his eyes.

"Guess we do. I'd just like to think my moments still have a certain amount of charm to them."

Her smile wanes, just a little, and amber eyes creak open to peer at her sidelong as she muses. He's silent for a long moment before he finally lets his gaze roll towards the ceiling, to watch the cracks that run along the wooden beams as he speaks. "If we're lucky. Don't worry though, Josie -- I trust you. That's the problem, really -- now I have to start wondering just how much crazier things are going to get."

He casts her a commiserating kind of smile, head cant to the right.

"Demons, some kind of moon cancer," not his words, "... Truth really is stranger than fiction sometimes, isn't it?"

Arms slide back until his elbows can rest comfortably on the back of his chair; Jude's attention shifts towards the tabletop and its less-than-stellar condition. Lightly prodding it with the toes of his boot to watch it rock, the respectable reporter just scoffs good-naturedly at Josephine's words. "It's infectious. Like a plague." And here, with truly sublime timing, he slides a pointed stare to Penelope trying to quite literally attempt the act. "Might just become an epidemic soon." Biting off more than you can chew. He takes a long drag of his cigarette, the smoke billowing from his lips in heavy, fading plumes as he speaks.

"Then we'll really be screwed."

It just makes the revelation of Lily's recklessness all the more damning, one met with the resigned shake of the journalist's head. They'll figure it out eventually. "Well, it's either one way or the other way," he says, off-handedly. "But they've got at least part of a good head on their shoulders between 'em. They'll probably be fine." Probably.

"Still, never hurts to have a Guardian Angel looking out for you, right?"

Not that, if the affably indifferent shrug that follows after means anything, Jude is one to view himself as such. Despite all evidence to the contrary. "That Lily's got some talent, anyway. Just not on the level of any of that. Not by a long shot. Still... I guess you've gotta give her credit for staring down boogie men and walking away mostly in one piece, huh?"

Mostly being the key word.

But the subjects turn, and as they do, Jude lets his chair lower back down to the ground. Ash hanging heavy from the tip of his cigarette, he taps out the precarious bundle of burnt paper and tobacco over the ground behind him, bringing the cigarette back to his lips as he speaks. Just around here, or...?

"Around here, there, everywhere. Not the first time I've had to do coverage in Ignas. I made a few contacts in the Adlehyde region, but mostly my focus has been out west. Badlands, Kislev, Aveh, y'know -- the no man's lands. Knowing the right people out there is the difference between a friendly conversation and getting buried in a shallow desert grave. And I already hate the desert enough, I'd rather not end up rotting in it, to boot." He shakes his head, allows himself a dry little smile for his cynical joke. "I'm about to head that way soon, anyway. They want me covering the war now that the whole Gebler thing's turned it all topsy turvy." Amber eyes slide her way, thoughtful.

"Why? You got business around here, or...?"

'Somewhere else.'

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

"Everything moves on someday," Josie says, dipping her head in a short shallow nod. Even pigeons, though?

And then she leans her head to one side, and stage-whispers to Penelope, "Hey, Penelope, he thinks you're immature for your age."

If Penelope understood a word of that, there's no suggestion of it -- the pigeon just blinks, and continues to stare.

"See? Things are looking up already!" Josie says, smiling as brightly as if the clouds parted to let in the sun. "Just keep thinking that way. A positive attitude's worth everything, if you can keep it up."

Assuming the last part is achievable, anyway. Even someone as doggedly purposefully cheery as Josie can be (when she's not being a little bit jaded instead) can... have trouble in this imperfect world.

Case in point: "And that's not the half of it, judging what I heard about Old Petra," Josie comments, leaning forward onto one hand. "Men with Gears wielding buildings like a featherduster, huh? And that's not even mentioning the men with Gears interrupting tournaments, or the men with swords interrupting poor innocent travelers' campsites," she says, with a scowl that is not entirely just for show. "People from the moon, ruins that sing to the people who venture inside... somehow, it seems like everything that could possibly happen has decided to happen all at once."

That smile of hers is lopsided again. "For years I wandered around ruins and just about all over the desert, and, you know... I saw some weird things, but never as much as this, all at once."

She pauses. Her smile, impossibly, brightens further. "Well, may we live in interesting times. At least life won't be boring."

At least she's not the only one. Taking a drag, Josie just shakes her head. Smoke again rises ever upwards to the ceiling, only breaking to drift here and there on occasion. "It'd be a little unfortunate if it became a habit... Well, here's to recklessness on the job--" She cuts herself off, glances down at the mostly empty table, then gestures again with her (mostly) free left hand, also attempting to get the bartender's attention. They're missing the most important part of the toast, here.

Penelope demonstrates some impressive prudence -- for once -- and desists from attempting to eat... whatever that is stuck to the table. That or she's just distracted by the gentle rocking of the table and Josie prodding at her. Instead, the bird hunches slightly, as if relinquishing herself to the slightly awkward petting Josie attempts to provide.

"...I guess so," she relents at last. "There's no such thing as growing without taking a few hits first. Heh... Run and then walk?" She shrugs. "It's probably my fault for getting attached to begin with, honestly... Still..." Still, she's not about to let them off the hook on their foolishness that easy.

"Maybe the young are supposed to be fools, but that doesn't mean I'm about to stand there and watch them make that jump over the edge on their own."

...Does she mean she'd jump with them, if that's the metaphor she's going for?

And when the subject turns towards Lily, she...

Scowls some more. "I guess," she says, with unusual grumpiness for a woman who is usually fairly carefree and pretty damn reckless herself. "The way she goes about it, though..." She hasn't yet put her finger on the pulse, so to speak, but she has inferred some of the symptoms. "...Good thing she had you to drag her back. ...Out of curiosity, Jude..."

And here Josie leans forward. "What made you change your mind about them?"

Which is to say, 'what made you stop trying to collect their bounty'.

Call it idle curiosity, on both counts here.

"Hmm. I guess a journalist is a handy person to know, when you put it like that. Especially since a lot of my contacts out there have either forgotten me or, well... 'forgotten me'." She wiggles the fingers of her right hand stiffly. The sort of 'forget' that only a large bribe will bring back. "And funding's tight this time on excavation, if you know what I mean."

Her brow creases, and she taps a boot on the floor. She leans in, lowers her voice a touch -- enough to prevent it from carrying TOO much but not so much as to automatically scream out 'suspicious conversation topic coming up'. "Out in the Badlands. I can't tell you too much here," and she makes a pointed sidelong glance, "but I'm onto something big. Question is, can I find the site again quickly enough..." This smile's apologetic. "The desert's good at recovering its secrets, you know. So if, say, someone knew some locals who might know something..."

It's laying it on thick, but she doesn't care.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Penelope stares, blinking. Jude Moshe whistles in response.

"Now that's probably the most intimidating look I've seen in a long time," he observes, so off-handedly mentioned it'd be hard to tell if he was joking if not for that lax smile of his.

One arm slung over his chair now, settled into a comfortable lounging position, Jude lets his attention drift to the smokey, dirt-encrusted window nearest them, as if he could somehow glean the outside world through its opaque boundary. The right corner of his mouth tugs upward into the hint of a lopsided smile as Josephine speaks, casting that hapless glance her way.

Just keep thinking that way. A positivie attitude's worth everything, if you can keep it up.

"Maybe I should just let you do the positive thinking for me. Y'know, outsource it. I'll handle the rational cynicism. Between the two of us, we oughta be able to keep our bases covered. Seems like a whole hell of a lot less effort, if you ask me."

Not that either of them are quite always paragons of either of those traits, when push comes to shove.

Josephine continues on, discussing all those calamitous or at least portentious recent events. And as she does, Jude produces that cigarette case once again. Quietly flicking it open, he tugs free one cigarette, pinching it between thumb and forefinger before he guides it to rest upright on the surface of the table. Another is pulled free, and set after the first, and another, and another... until all those unlit cigarettes are assembled into a comfortably curving line along the table.

"You ever play with domino tiles? Just arrange them into a long line. They're all standing upright, you know, but it's all just an illusion. Each tile is just a problem waiting to happen, whether it be by gravity or some other fluke or a purposeful hand..." He reaches out, and just flicks that first cigarette--

--and they all topple over in a manner much messier than dominoes might, rolling haphazard across the table in a chaotic cluster.

"... all it really takes is one little push to set everything else off to a point of no return," he concludes with simple ease, as one of those cigarettes rolls inevitably off the table to rebound off the ground.

"Used to think those were kinda fun as a kid, now they just kinda give me a headache." He shrugs, helplessly, offering an apologetic stare Josephine's way.

"Guess what I'm saying is, a lot more things are gonna come tumbling before the mess settles down."

She adds her little addendum. And Jude can't help but laugh, even if he shakes his head in the same breath, voice wry as he speaks again.

"Amen to that. Never a dull moment, right?"

She begins her toast, only to pause; it earns the mild, teasing cluck of his tongue as she flags down the bartender, but as easy as it comes, it goes just as much as he shifts to look over the edge of his chair to help catch the bartender's attention. When it's gotten, he'll order a whiskey on the rocks, before returning to his cigarette, burning away more of that smoke into his lungs.

"Well," he asides, voice comfortably glib, "disaster averted."

Eventually, his arm unslings from the back of his chair; knocking a few stray chunks of ash free from that stick of tobacco, he turns his gaze towards Josephine as he rests hands comfortably in his lap, adopting all the appearance in both tone and expression of listening to an old friend reciting war stories. "Even kids who grew up in their kind of situation don't really know their limits until they hit that brick wall face first," he observes, mildly. "... Hell, I'd say that's especially true of kids in their situations. Army brats don't exactly get many momentous occasions to know what it means to stand on your own two feet. Not all that much different from a family that expects you to always work for it than yourself, I guess. Was never really my style."

But, she speaks more, and a dark red brow lifts. He looks at her from the corner of his eye almost questioningly, as a second of silence passes between them.

"... Well, I guess there's something to be said for getting the chance to relive your youth, vicarious or not, right?" he offers, his lips pulled in a teasing if friendly smile.

And yet...

What made you change your mind about them?

"My weeping heart." A pause. The flash of a smile.

"Everything considered though, between them and that metal monster they're fighting... There's some kinda story hiding in there, don't you think?"

Ever the journalist, of course.

"Besides... who wouldn't be rooting for a pair of lovebirds like that? Guess I'm just a sucker for a good love story, in the end."

There's a look of understanding that crosses those amber eyes when Josephine so demonstratively wiggles her fingers, though. "Jogging the memory can be pretty resource intensive," he commiserates. "I hear amnesia's been really going around lately. Situations like that just require a creative kinda touch sometimes."

Josephine continues, and Jude listens; there's a quiet sort of understanding of someone who's been in their business long enough to know when discretion is the name of the game -- a quiet that lingers a little while longer when the bartender arrives, glasses sliding across the rough wood of the tabletop. Onto something big, in the Badlands. His brows lift. He shares a muted but playfully conspiratorial kind of smile.

"Yep. Think I know just the person for the job."

And with that, he stubs out that cigarette, and grabs his glass. Ice clinks against it as his wrist shifts with the gradual forward lean of his posture. "I'll get the details from you somewhere else, where there's a bit less ears in the wall," he offers easily. "I'll be at Hilton until it's time to move back out to that desert hellhole. Until then, though..."

That glass lifts upward towards Josephine.

"Here's to recklessness on the job."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

"Just 'leave all the rational cynicism' to you, huh?" Josie shakes her head, shoulders shaking as if in a mild fit of laughter. "You know, that might not be a bad plan. That way, I can focus on my strong points! So, how about it?"

The phrase 'know thyself' also applies to knowing where your strong points can fall short, though, or where your self-contradictions can rear right on up and make themselves known.

Everyone has their moments.

Neither does she stop talking, not even as he one by one assembles that row of cigarettes -- all standing on end -- across the rickety table. The silent question in her dark-eyed gaze is likely crystal clear even to anyone just casually listening in on their conversation:

'What are you doing?'

Even Penelope pauses, cocking her head to one side as Jude finishes planting the last cigarette. It might wobble a bit -- on a table this unsteady -- but it doesn't fall. For now it's balanced.

Josie stays stock-still, barely daring to breath too heavily lest one topple over.

Because, as he explains: they're a standin for domino tiles. "I think I remember. I was told the game was to match them number to number, but..." As much as she dares with his display hanging in the balance, she shakes her head. "It was always more fun to line them up and let them... aha."

As plain as the nose on her face, perhaps.

Her expression is rather serious by the time he flicks the one cigarette...

And the rest go tumbling over. They'd never been well-balanced to begin with. Even a shake of the table at the wrong time would knock them all over.

"Well, damn," is Josie's final, unusually sober comment. Then she shakes her head, shrugs, and laughs. "Never a dull moment."

A lot of things are going to come down, even ones she's unaware of yet. In a way, it'll be interesting to see what's left when the dust settles.

This calls for a drink. She'll have what he's having, or at least once they finally drag the bartender on over, or at least get his ear. Might as well, if she's the one paying. For the one drink.

She settles on back in her seat similarly, stirring only long enough to once again attempt to deter Penelope from... you know, there's really a large problem with dives like this and it's called 'mysterious lumps and stains'. "Don't eat that," she chides.

He speculates on what their life would be like; Josie is somewhat mute on the subject, her attention shedding to focus at some distant (and unstained) spot on the table rather than Jude. She looks for a moment a hundred miles away. "Mm. I didn't think of it that way. I wonder what went through their heads when they realized they had to bail on it..." She takes another hit of her cigarette, then shaking off a little loose ash off the end herself. "Changing your direction in life suddenly's tough, especially if you never did it before."

At least she's somewhat less grumpy about the whole situation when he makes that point. In spite of her mood, she shrugs, dips her shoulders, and smiles. "Guess so. Though hopefully, it'll be a little less misspent for them. I'm not sure I'm up to dealing with another one of me in ten or so years..."

She shakes her head.

There's some kinda story hiding in there...

"...Looking for your next big lead? Hmm, might not be a bad one, considering what they've been through. Though," she adds a moment later, a thoughtful look taking over, "Hopefully this story will have a happier ending."

Josephine pauses. "...What can I say? I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic myself. Besides, with everything that's happened..." She shrugs again, as if to suggest, 'what can you do'.

She stubs out the end of her cigarette on the table, leaning back as he explains to her that amnesia seems to be 'going around' lately. "Interesting," she says at last, crossing her arms over her chest. "Now that I think of it, I did hear something like that. --Oh, but don't worry. I can still remember my childhood."

For better or for worse.

This is a bit of a dance she's more familiar with -- showing a bit of her hand without being too explicit, but also trying to entice a little interest. She'll need the assistance when the time comes -- a change from the woman she was even a few months ago, unwilling to reveal even a single card lest the whole business go bellyup into the air.

"Oh, good."

Drinks arrive, set neatly on the uneven tabletop. Barely a second passes from the bartender passing the glasses along to Josie lifting it up a moment, swirling the contents thoughtfully in the dim light before setting it back down.

Miracle of miracles: it's a clean glass.

"Another time," she agrees, dipping her head in a nod. "Perhaps I'll meet you at a little town I know out west sometime." Her lips part in a brief grin. "Unfortunately for you, it's in the middle of the desert. ...Did I ever mention that my mother was descended from one of the desert tribes?"

Probably not. But it would go a ways explaining her attitude towards that wasteland.

She lifts her glass.

"To recklessness, and an equally foolish younger generation."

Now that's a toast she can get behind.