2019-05-29: A 90 Percent Legitimate Blood Drive
- Log: 2019-05-29: A 90 Percent Legitimate Blood Drive
- Cast: Marivel Armitage, Ivan, Seraph Lanval
- Where: Luca - Port District
- Date: May 29, 2019
- Summary: Ivan and Seraph Lanval come across Marivel running a blood donation booth. Marivel is all too willing to disclose exactly what happens to the blood, leading to some discussion of vampirism.
===========================<* Luca - Port District *>=========================== Luca is the largest port and second-largest city in Spira, located the southern tip of the archipelago's largest island. Its location as the central port for Spira's surrounding islands has turned Luca into a thriving economic hub; Besaid, Kilika, and a dozen smaller islands all send their goods to Luca for sale, and even the Al Bhed are known to trade here from time to time. The port district is an immense, bustling area. The largest port in Luca brings in ships from across Spira -- from small fishing ships from Besaid to Al Bhed salvage ships to large sailing vessels from Bevelle -- and a massive market to match. A large seawall keeps the waters at bay, with piers extending out past the seawall into the water. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CIlRCYnZcg
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Man! What happened in Operation Mi'ihen really sucked! There's more wounded than healers can get to and that leaves alternative methods of treating the wounded available...but what can be done??
Marivel, who is dressed like a WWII nurse, has set up a table in the middle of the Luca Market along with a large strange box of unknown material that seems to be some sort of COOLING BOX nearby. A sign on the front of the table says: 'BLOOD DONATIONS FOR THE WOUNDED'
And underneath that (90 percent of donations go to wounded crusaders)
Marivel is sitting underneath a large parasol that seems to be keeping off most of the sun off her. She has a big fangy smile on her face and seems to be waiting patiently for any takers!
This is obviously all above board, completely legal, and totally legit.
Spirans seem largely perplexed by what's going on here but there are SOME milling about looking to see what happens. There's no (apparent) machina about so who cares right??
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Blood donations for the wounded? Ivan has never heard of any magic or medicine that specifically subtracts blood from the healthy and adds it to the unhealthy, but he's probably seen weirder things in the past few months, so that... might as well be real, sure? He slows curiously as he passes the woman and her unusual outfit and her sign, leaning down to peer more closely at the setup she has going.
"...How does it work?" he asks.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval happens to be along, for any number of circumstances that begin at 'he is strangely infatuated with this stretch of Luca's roads' and also happen to end at 'he is strangely infatuated with this stretch of Luca's roads.' The problem is that all of Spira is basically Resonant enough to know he's there, and also to trip over him. This has proven a tricky, tricky problem. It's a water thing, it's hard to understand, but that road feels so good.
Anyway this is the third time he's been thrown off that stretch of road today by guards, and with a stern warning not to show up there again, he's stuck trying to find some other patch of road that's almost as good, and just ends up back at the blood donation booth.
He plops down on his seat near it. It's a fine piece of market real estate, the road here just doesn't feel as good. He opens an eye half-lidded as Ivan draws nearer, being just as curious about how it's all supposed to work despite having already circled around here a few times in his quest to lie on the road.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Oh Lanval!" Marivel calls over. "I have a spot here you can lie on the road if you want!"
But is it as good as the portion of the road he is already laying down on?? Maybe not. Maybe not at all! Maybe Marivel doesn't care about which length of road Lanval is laying down on so long as it's not blocking the path to the blood donation... table.
Aw who are we kidding, she loves this kook, but it would really be more convenient if he happened to lay down closer by rather than 'in front of' the stand.
Luckily there seems to be one gentleman who is interested! At least mechanically. In what Marivel is offering. Which is an offer to take your blood away.
"Ah! If it isn't the young man who kicked a fish." Marivel says. "Thank you for your hard work in protecting the Crusaders from an aquatic assault."
She nods once. "I can explain it to you--would you like the simple explanation or the complicated one? I am always eager to lend voice to the inquisitive mind and share my wisdom."
She pauses for a moment, glancing over to Lanval, perhaps wondering if he is carrying a fish inside of him or something but elects to not make that scientific inquiry.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ah...!! It's that guy! That seraph guy! Ivan is armed, today, with more knowledge of seraphs than he had before, but it probably won't be very useful since it's mostly about stuff like how seraphim choose their moms and stuff. If only he were into small talk, he could absolutely make some awkward small talk with that.
The fish-related question causes his gaze to snap back to Marivel in alarm.
"People noticed that?!"
Disrespectful of the dead though it may be, he was hoping that particular humiliation might've died with Ghaleon.
But not only did she see it...! She's... poking fun at it! Ivan's bruised dignity wins the day. "You know... I'm not sure I want to know about your blood thing anymore!"
Ivan doesn't leave, but turns instead to Lanval. "Lord-- uh, are you a lord? Lord Lanval! What's new in your life? ...we met before when you were in a box, I don't know if you formed any new memories that day." He was slurring so badly he could barely be understood...
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Ya doooo?" He lifts his head up with a growing and even more stupid smile, because that's nice! It's nice to have a spot in the road he can lie down on... so he just rolls over, lazily, like a log, and ends up face-down on the other spot. He exhales and just lets himself sink, a bit. Which doesn't really look any different from any other overweight fellow just lying face down on the ground, but there are nuances! For reals...
...
He goes and lies up on his back, because he'd rather look up at the sky. There's a whole different kind of ground he should be lazing about on that he can't.
Whether he's carrying a fish or not is an interesting query. In theory he could, maybe, he's water. Maybe one day he will accidentally end up as someone's walking aquarium in his continued service to Schturdark, but that might've been more a Lucadia thing. Maybe the world will never know...
"Aww, ya should, it'sh kinda neat," Lanval tries to pipe up in defense of Marivel's blood banking practice, "'m not shure why I didn't think of shomethin' like that..."
While he's busy slurring and basically being a bit of a pest for partaking in one of his favorite existential activities, Ivan turns to look at him.
"Mmmm... yeah, I go by 'lord,' shurrre," he slurs with a stupid smile, stretching arms out as he resituates himself to better look at the skies above. Too bright in the day to really clearly see it - Filgaia - but any sight's a good sight.
"Mmmm... what'sh new... well... the guardsh threatened ta throw me in jail if they caught me on that road again, ha ha ha!" He laughs, as though this were a pleasant and/or novel thing to discuss. He rolls back and forth to sit up and make sort-of eye contact with Ivan, which is tough when both of his eyes are closed.
"...I get a loooootta daysh, shometimesh they kinda... blend."
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"What!! No I'm sorry!" Marivel says, making this face right here: https://66.media.tumblr.com/acc13ab58900945bdef20603944d9cf5/tumblr_ofhw7vLaq51r5dp2do2_250.png. "Let me tell you all about the blood thing! Okay I'm telling you all about it so pay attention! And because you seemed to notice the details, I will be sure to go into the complicated version!"
"Ahem!" She says before looking towards Lanval, about to go Ahem at him just as part of the act but he circumvents her by actually saying it's really interesting. "Oh. Yes. See, even the chosen Seraph lord of water ecetera is saying you should listen. Anyway perhaps it'd be best if I went into blood types first."
Rapidfire exposition begins now with the text box moving at like 5x the normal speed.
"For most people there are 7 blood types available. They range from O-, O+, B-, B+, A-, A+, AB-, and AB+. AB+ can donate to all blood types, AB- can donate to O-, B-, A-, and AB- which as you might've noticed is all the negative blood types how amazing is that! After that there's A+ which can donate to O-, O+, A-, and A+. And that's it! A- can only receive blood from A- and O- whereas B+ can donate blood to O-, O+, B-, and B+. Are you with me so far? B- can also only donate to B- and O-. and O+ can only receive blood from O- and O+. Finally O- can ONLY take blood from other O- sources! That's why back in the day it was always in short supply!"
"Now one method of transfusing blood is to do so directly, but thanks to advances in refrigeration and anti-cogulants we can make blood last in storage and transfuse it into those that need it! Such as wounded soldiers, or my stomach!"
"Are you considering donating your blood today, my friend?" Marivel asks. "It is quick, easy, painless, and sanitary! I assure you 90 percent of the blood donated today will go to wounded soldiers!"
The rest goes to her stomach apparently.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Yeah, I guess they would," Ivan says to Lanval. "Hundreds and hundreds of them, right?"
Guards yelling at him for lying on the ground sounds a lot like what was probably happening the day they met, too. Ivan suspects it has been happening the whole time in between.
But Marivel does not seem to have taken Ivan's refusal to listen very seriously, and a rain of words crashes down. Letters! Rules! Pluses! Minuses! More rules!
"But what IS an A or an O or... the other thing!? Who has which blood? How do you know...?"
Did she say her stomach?? He points at her stomach, questioningly, kind of frozen doing that for a while after she's moved on with the explanation. "Why does your stomach need blood! ... do you have one of those illnesses where you cough it up?"
Charitably harvesting blood to replace what you've lost and taking a cut off the top is... kind of clever... Ivan has misunderstood the situation a little but it's probably okay.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Ushed ta think there wash jusht the one type, too, I mean... red," Lanval chimes in like the simpleton he sometimes actually is. "Sheemsh ta me it'sh misshin'... a looooootta lettersh, though..." Why does it go from, A, then B, to O? It's weird. He couldn't really tell the difference looking at it.
This 'simpleton's' grasp on preschool-level common language alphabets aside, he nods a few times at Ivan's assertion about the hundreds and hundreds. "Yyyep... don't ya worry, though, I remember that one... 'caushe... it happened not long ago." Even then it's suspect that this is a reason he actually wound remember, sometimes.
"Yer shtomach needsh blood too, doeshn't it?" He says to Ivan, tilting his head a bit as he scratches at his chin at one hand. "...Sheemsh reashonable enough ta me, I mean... mosht of the time mortalsh jusht leave it on the ground anyway..."
Beat.
"Heyyyyyy, 'm thinkin'," Lanval doesn't have a brain so these are dangerous words, he only thinks he's thinking and... um. Okay that sentence is just making things weird. Moving on. "Should I pick shome up off the ground next time I find shome, then..."%
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Oh the letters correspond to the type of antibodies are in the plasma and the antigens in the cell. Honestly if I went into full detail, it could probably take all day but suffice it to say it works."
"Oh, I feed on blood." Marivel says casually. "If I don't drink it eventually I'll starve. It won't kill me or anything--I can't die barring a few very specific circumstances--but I will probably go into a blood frenzy and barely be able to contain an insatiable thirst for blood until I take it from whatever nearby source happens to be available. So really, I am doing everybody a favor in two ways. You're welcome." Pause. "Do you want to donate?"
"Exactly!" she points a thumb towards Lanval. "It's wasted all the time and I think you'll find I'm the best suited individual to decide what is done with it rather than leaving it up to folks who just splatter it everywhere without any consideration for those who need it."
She looks towards Lanval and shakes her head. "I'm afraid not! Once it hits the ground it's useless because of all the gross ground stuff that's getting in it. If you try to give blood that has fallen on the floor to a patient they will probably get an infection and die!"
She looks towards Ivan. "So save a life today." She tells Ivan. "Even you can do it through a simple process of donating blood."
She pauses. "Though mm--actually it was ABC originally, I believe? Not sure why they changed it. I can actually tell you your blood type if you donate it, eventually."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I guess it does..." Ivan admits, when Lanval makes his point about stomachs. "But not like, in particular. I don't think?"
Ivan's knowledge of blood begins and ends at the most efficient ways to get it to gush out of people.
What follows then is a breathtaking confession of vampirism, right out in the open. Like it's just a thing that happens sometimes. It gets a slow blink from Ivan, who then looks at Lanval to confirm what he's heard before realizing Lanval is probably one hundred percent useless as a barometer of normalcy. After a weird few seconds of silence, he asks. "Like a monster?"
Rude, Ivan. But it's not like he can't relate to a parasitic dependence on other people's life essence, and apparently she doesn't even kill anybody for it! (or, well, maybe she does, but why bring it up just to tell half a lie?)
"Well, whatever. I can probably spare some blood, why not," Ivan says. It's not like it's something precious, like money! Though it's possible she will be too offended to proceed after the monster comment.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Ohhhh... mmm. That shoundsh like me 'n beer. I can undershtand that..." Lanval has a contemplative sip from the drinking gourd. He is feeling a pang of emptiness from being this far out from Filgaia, but it's not something that can be defined as a sort of hunger or thirst - but a sense that he's just away from where he needs to be. Having a sip of the very water of Filgaia eases that a little.
Marivel, eventually, corrects him about why he can't pick up blood off the ground and transport it to her (somehow), and an eye opens half-lidded as a hand strokes at the waterfall-like beard, and then... a sort of dejected "ohhhh... that'sh too bad... mmmmph. I ushed ta eat food 'n drink that got on the floor," he explains, harkening back to one of the rougher times of his existence. He speaks of it less as a thing of misery and a bit more casually, though, like it were sort of... normal? "I conshidered it an offering... ha ha ha!"
If he didn't... well, that's somethign that can be gone over again another time.
"She ain't a monshter," he says to Ivan with both eyes open half-lidded, as if on the verge of a more severe set of words to speak. The problem is... is that this patch of road is kind of comfy. Almost too comfy to be truly offended.
Still doesn't hold a candle to that patch. If there was one piece of this land he could take back with him, it would be that road.
The half-lidded stare fixates on ivan for a while until he goes 'well, whatever,' and he eases up into another sip from his gourd.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"That is also disgusting," Marivel tells Lanval, "But less hazardous. I still love you though."
She reaches down to ruffle the Seraph's hair before looking back to Ivan.
"That's correct," She tells him, "Because I am a monst--"
She ain't a mohnster.
Marivel raises an eyebrow, wondering whatever she did to earn that. The first time today she got thrown off her game is when Ivan did what any self respecting human did and say he wasn't interested anymore upon being teased. The second time seems to be Lanval's own brand of kindness. Not that Marivel ever denied being a monster. The term means something different to her.
"Well, the proper term for my people is 'Crimson Noble'." Marivel says. "Let us say we have a close affinity to monsters, particularly certain types."
Does Marivel kill people? If she was the type, this sure is a lot of trouble for it. Certainly she imagines she does have enough indirect blood on her hand to count as being as much of a slaughterer as most. She elects to not worry about that.
"Well that's mightily gracious of you." Marivel says as she draws out a needle, blows fire at the tip a moment (RUBYVENTION) and approaches Ivan with the needle and some sort of cloth that's covered in--alcohol apparently. She must have predabbed.
"Lend me an arm?"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"You go into a frenzy without beer?" Ivan asks. While this does track with what he's heard of people with heavy drinking tendencies, it is difficult to imagine such an outrageously relaxed person going into any kind of a frenzy over anything.
Marivel lets the monster comment roll off of her more easily than Lanval does, and it surprises Ivan to draw a sharp reaction from the Seraph. In truth, though, for all the potential of the words to cut, he just meant it plainly. Monsters are his only frame of reference for creatures that feed on blood.
"Crimson Noble..." he echoes. "Is it a noble house, then?"
The idea of a bunch of blood-sucking nobles is somehow more sinister than the idea of an ordinary person who's a blood drinker... although it's not exactly a deep mystery why.
Marivel offers Ivan a needle, then, and a chance to show off (for who...?) how exceedingly unafraid of needles he is. He offers his arm, working on making his face a mask of Absolute Total Cool Indifference.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval's hair ruffles like one might expect a tiny fountain to, disrupted and wavy but then straightening out to flow as it will. As she raises an eyebrow, he returns one of his stupid cat-like smiles. Monsters don't give him endearing headpats! (...His reason for saying this would be much different than that, though.)
"...Well, truuuuuuth be told~" Lanval says as he starts to laze back, "haven't gone long enough without it ta be shure... ha ha ha!" Let's never find out!!! Ever!!!
He eases up and quietly watches as the delicate process of taking excess blood comes into play. That, or he might be eyeing a bottle of rubbing alcohol for a 'tasty' treat...
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel says, "That is a bit of a complicated question." with regards to being a noble house. She takes hold of Ivan's hand (her gloves are cold, even through the gloves) and she turns his arm over. She taps at his arm a few times before grinning and rubbing a spot on his arm with the alcohol.
She then fixes a blood pack to the needle and, if she's not stopped yet, will stick Ivan with the needle. Only then does she start gabbing again.
"My people did not tend to rule the lands of man." Marivel explains. "Humans had their emperor, and the Elw ruled themselves of course, but--ahh, well, you don't need me bothering on about matters that will probably never mean anything to you."
She looks towards Lanval, smiling at the seraph. Maybe she is reconsidering him in light of what he has said, though how--well--how is a mystery even to her.
"Would be quite the hangover, best to avoid it then."
That little bottle of rubbing alcohol is unattended.
He could take it.
HE COULD DRINK IT ALL!
"Where was I? Oh yes. At present I am affiliated with House Valeria but I hold no formal station."
She tilts her head. "How about you? Are you a noble, my generous friend?"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Where do you get enough to never run out?" Ivan asks. A man who spends his days lying in the road for long enough stretches of time to get the attention of law enforcement can't possibly have a steady flow of income. "Do people give you tributes? ..Or is it magic?"
Marivel takes Ivan's arm. Ivan forgot that getting stabbed with a needle would also involve human contact, and accidentally reacts to that part by making a couple of uncertain and uncomfortable faces. But the stabbing itself, he is chill about, and weathers calmly while she starts to explain the finer points of her homeland's politics and then kind of gives up and stops explaining them.
"Are you from... very far away?" he asks, when she suggests her local matters are unlikely to ever become his concern.
She asks if he's a noble, then. And he makes a dismissive noise. "Nope, not at all. I'm the guy who the nobles tell who to stab-" dammit, that sounded too much like his real job. "I mean, I'm a sellsword."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"...Ahh, I work shometimesh," 'sometimes,' he says. For Fox Company, this is a huge upswing from 'basically I lay around and only help out at critical times of need.' He has always been notoriously kind of lazy and easy-going. "...Mmm. I ushed ta get tributesh, kinda... it wash a reeeeeeal long time ago--"
Marivel takes hold of Ivan's attention as she takes his arm, and then, there is the distraction. The urge. Alcohol is power, to him. A liquid, charged with fire-aligned energies, that he can convert to raw power. A common Seraphim trick in which to enhance the potency of their artes - using a focus based on the element they're strong against. It's right there.
HE COULD DRINK IT ALL!
Lanval starts to reach out with a hand towards the unoccupied rubbing alcohol bottle. He comes within an iota of getting his... grubby? His manifestation of hands of indeterminate grubbiness on it, as the water of Filgaia percolates in him from that recent sip.
Lunar was - is - a land of plenty. Few want for anything in terms of food... water... just the splendor of life in general. Simply taking was second nature, there was more than enough to go around. As Ivan said - and Lanval sort of hinted - it used to be that he was given tributes just by watching over a people. Something that has sort of formed the almost universal bad habit of Seraphim being awful petty thieves, simply because there was so much to go around. It takes him back to nostalgic days. Nostalgic days that took an early sad turn, but nostalgic...
...Let's fast forward, to Filgaia, the place of his exile. The dying, nearly barren planet full of miserable, sometimes even hopeless-seeming people who have trouble finding food or drink... or work... or shelter... as the oppressive desertification and ravenous monsters further outline.
Part of his pledge to Schturdark was a genuine desire to see Filgaia flourish again. Carefree and silly as Lanval can be, even if sometimes it is a distraction from some of the more serious things he doesn't have an immediate answer to...
Life is different now. He knows the plight of the water of Filgaia, and what it means when the water itself suffers. What it means for those of it, who have to make out what living they can.
If he goes on ahead and indulges in his gluttony right then and there, Marivel stands to starve. Devoid of the necessary means in which to safely extract blood - what she needs to live life under her control and not be overtaken by the need to feed - what would happen there?
In pledging to be of aid to the planet of Filgaia in its darkest hours... that means he is, in a way, pledging to see that its people live happier, fuller, more satisfied lives without nearly as much want by proxy.
He slowly draws his hand back. He won't subject a devoted protector of Filgaia to that sort of want or need. A devoted protector of Filgaia isn't one to ever be called a monster, after all, and to act in a way that might render her to need to act as one... well, that's just plain against his nature on all fronts, isn't it?
Such is the responsibility he has to bear, he thinks, as he scooches back and has another sip from his gourd. (He will promptly forget this epiphany the next time he catches Jay with a full vat of Brewte Force.)
Doesn't stop Ivan from calling him out for trying, if he's of the mind.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"I come from the land of Filgaia," Marivel says without thinking too much about it. "Which your people call the Blue Star. Tis a harsh world. Countless wars have made their mark upon that land. Even my own people..." She trails off for a moment. "Even my own people, for as mighty as they were, could not prevent the damage. Perhaps t'was destiny for our home to fall to such ruin. Tis the destiny for all that lives to die."
Shen then adds without looking towards Lanval though, as luck would have it, she says the next bit as Lanval is reaching towards that bottle of alcohol. She could not have possibly seen it, yet the words seem pertinent.
"Even the immortal shall find their path to oblivion." That seems to be enough blood. She pulls the needle out and places that cotton down on Ivan's hand. "Lanval could you be a dear and fetch the bandages? Should be on the table."
Perhaps it's an out of sorts, a friendly offering to be helpful in this moment to someone who nearly succumbed to temptation. It couldn't have been a test, could it? Likely not. Marivel was not lying when she said she loved Lanval as platonically so it may be. Maybe the offering of an opportunity to be helpful is simply because she knows Lanval is one of the helpers. He never would have taken that bottle. Not while the possibility that doing so would have harmed Marivel, would have harmed Filgaia.
There's plenty of alcohol in Spira no doubt.
"But that explains it. I wondered why the smell of death lingered about you." Marivel says. "Unfortunately that kind of karma cares little for who gave the command, even if you can always catch the faint whiff of it from those who give orders."
She looks towards Ivan's eyes with her own red.
"But for today."
If Lanval has brought the bandages over, she wraps it around the cotton and puts a sticker of a heart with a bandaid on it and the words 'THANK YOU' around it. The heart has a smiley face.
"Today you were a good boy. No doubt you saved a life today."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
It really didn't occur to Ivan that the rubbing alcohol bottle might be considered an irreplaceable component of Marivel's continued control and survival, so he simply finds it mysterious that Lanval abandoned his gambit to snatch it. Perhaps he remembered he already has a perfectly good drinking gourd that's probably got something way more potable in it.Marivel tells him she's from Filgaia--the Blue Star has quite a few cast offs in Spira, doesn't it? As she tells him of its fate, she seems to take on a completely different attitude, almost as if she's reciting something. She also tells him she can smell death on him.
"You can smell that kind of thing...?"
Ivan is suddenly uneasy about much she may know. He didn't know the world even had vampires who could sniff out your biography.
Finally, she gives him a cute little sticker and tells him he has been good. Ivan responds with a faintly nauseous smile-cringe. "Ha. Great. All right, good luck with your blood harvesting..."
He hurries off quickly, before she has a chance to smell any more biographical details.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Mmm... over there? Shhuuuuuure, I can do that fer ya," he has that stupid cat-like smile, the momentary stretch of the word as though he wondered if he were caught. He slaps his hand on the table a few times, like he's not quite coordinated enough to get his fingers on-- there we go.
The humor of him being so blasted that he might not have been able to get the bandages for a few seconds aside, he hands them to Marivel without further incident, giving no commentary to Marivel's read of Ivan's karmic balance as a-- sellsword. As a sellsword.
As Ivan gets his sticker, Lanval's right eye opens almost all the way as he turns his head.
"Mmm... shay... two thingsh," Lanval says, "there'sh that weird guy with the white hair comin' again..." He saw what that guy did to an eel once. It is one of the most disturbing things he'd ever seen from a mortal and he knows by now which ones are really trouble. Definitely nothing having to do with that guy.
"...'m gonna make shure he doeshn't passh out, too," Lanval says, which is probably more a convenient excuse to avoid any sort of contact or interaction with the former and leaving Marivel holding the bill as just around the corner of the street - as Lanval ambles off - is...
Some guy in white hair, dark skin, and appropriated Al Bhed clothing because... why does he make it a point to dress like a member of a culture that is not held in high esteem, no matter where he goes? It takes him exactly however long it takes for Marivel to make the necessary precautions she does for their arrival.
Before long, they stand before Marivel's booth with arms behind their back as they stand at attention.
"So is your communal copper-infused tomato juice fermentation project still a B+ grade today, then...?" They ask, their words almost devoid of emotional inflection but doubtlessly inquisitive as though this were something worthy of scrutiny.