196

[impure_tale]

Monsieur Riddick, is it? I believe we have delayed long enough, and I crave a proper introduction.

Comments

[with_my_teacup]

Honestly, I try not to get attached.

[impure_tale]

Get attached, then if you go home you'll have something to bring with you to make it better.

[with_my_teacup]

I'm not the world-bettering kind. I wouldn't know where to start.

[It's a very calm refusal.]

[impure_tale]

Now, I didn't say anything about bettering any world. If it is something you enjoy, why not continue to enjoy it wherever you go?

[with_my_teacup]

Because you don't get to keep shit where I'm from. It'll get ripped away from you. You'll be back living on nothing in ten minutes.

I like keep sharp. Not get dependent on little luxuries.

[impure_tale]

Perhaps that's something we can work on.

Appreciating something does not imply that it is a luxury.

[with_my_teacup]

On the contrary. Anything I don't need to keep breathing is a luxury. Don't believe me, you hit up a cute little single-max like Tangiers. You'll learn real fast what you can live without.

[impure_tale]

If you only wish to have the bare necessities, I can oblige you, but I think that would be counterproductive.

[with_my_teacup]

I won't die if you spoil me. I won't die if you don't.

What happens here, it doesn't matter. Getting back there to my own little shithole, that matters.

I hope the admiral didn't tell you I was going to be easy.

[impure_tale]

You certainly sound it to me.

[Smirk]

Why are you so eager to go back, then?

[with_my_teacup]

You've got my file, Marquis.

How much is the admiral dangling over my head? You tell me.

[impure_tale]

You're dead, Riddick. That's what's dangling over your head. You finish here and you can go back and not be dead. You don't graduate, you stay dead and go wherever it is the dead go where you come from, if they go anywhere.

[with_my_teacup]

[He's not sure if his new warden is playing coy about Kyra, or if the file doesn't say anything about her. So he smirks, and plays trouble. It's what he does.]

I don't know. Dead here seems like a pretty good deal, most of the time. Food. Room of my own.

[impure_tale]

But you appear quite eager to leave, nonetheless.

[with_my_teacup]

What can I say. It's a hobby of mine. Force of habit.

[impure_tale]

You're a poor liar.

Unfinished business?

[with_my_teacup]

Really. Got some dead prison guards who say I can make them think what I want them to think if I have to.

[impure_tale]

None of them were me.

[with_my_teacup]

I like a challenge.

[impure_tale]

So why are you trying so hard to find a way out?

[with_my_teacup]

I'm allergic to something in the local clothes detergent. Gives me hives. Sensitive skin.

[impure_tale]

Then don't wear clothing.

[with_my_teacup]

Well, if my warden says so.

[He leaves the comm on the desk and starts to strip briskly.]

[impure_tale]

[Color him impressed]

I don't see even so much as a rash.

[with_my_teacup]

[He sits back down again with the comm, unselfconsciously naked.]

Maybe I was lying.