3805/People in a park

People in a park
Date of Scene:	14 October 2020
Location:	Bethesda Terrace
Synopsis:	Blake and Bucky meet up in a park and talk about long lives, trauma and how to move forwards after having been at the will of bad people!
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Blake Riviere

---

James Barnes has posed:
Humans shouldn't be that old and look that young, right? But this one does. He might well be a grad student of some kind, in his middle twenties. Or some recent veteran of the eternal wars in the Middle East. He dresses like one of the latter, in a canvas military surplus parka, old jeans, battered combat boots. A ball cap with the embroidered insignia of some veterans' charity sits on the terrace steps beside him, next to a roll of colored pencils. On his other side, there's a German Shepherd in a service dog vest, watching attentively as he sketches the fountain. It's a dark silhouette against the dim glow of the night sky; New York is never truly dark, after all.

Blake Riviere has posed:
If Blake was one to dress her age...well, safe to say that fashion had moved on over the centuries. Yet she too seemed perpetually presenting the form of someone in their early twenties at best. Despite her love for some perhaps more outlandish attire, the pale woman with the long black hair was dressed much more 'normally'. Black jeans, a slim leather jacket and a deep red blouse beneath keeping to her usual colors while not quite screaming a love for the gothic.

Her path was slow, a lazy walk in the moonlight as Blake made her way through the park. The one thing she had was time after all, and that enabled the odd indulgence in contemplation and comfort.

Still, the sight of the figure and his dog? It brought a turn of her gaze, a sniff of a familier scent mixed with that of the nearby canine diverting her attention.

James Barnes has posed:
Even his scent is an oddity - warm mortal flesh and blood, but with that mingling of metal and solvent. The tang of gun oil, he's armed, and the civilized scents of soap and shampoo. The dog is all clean fur....even as the Shepherd lifts her head and turns to prick her ears at the newcomer.

Her human's gaze follows her own, and Buck pauses, pencil above paper. He regards Blake with a kind of neutral patience, though there's that growing glimmer of recognition there. He doesn't greet her, not yet.

Blake Riviere has posed:
Sometimes animals are known to feel a little unnerved aroung vampire, particularly younger ones...but Blake wasn't exactly young, and she'd gotten quite good at suppressing the more obvious signs of her nature. That meeting of eyes? It's met with a raise of her hand, a greeting offered and question asked all in one. Reaction itself would make it pretty clear if the man was seeking solitude and she'd be easy enough to turn away after all.

James Barnes has posed:
"I remember you." There is the faintest note of surprise in his voice. Enough so to have the Shepherd turn her face his way, ears pricked attentively. Like there's something in his tone she should divine by. "You're....you're like Olivie, right?" As if Buck didn't dare call her what she is. Not out on an autumn night. Like it might be rude....or might summon more of her kind.

Blake Riviere has posed:
"I am," she speaks, a smile crossing her painted lips. The vampiress moves, making to lower herself onto those same steps beside him, Blake lazily folds her hands in her lap. "Blake Riviere," she offers in reintroduction before offering a soft chuckle. "I do not believe we were introduced back in France, if we crossed paths at all. But yes, I am...like her." If she gleaned amusement from his hesitation to use the "'V' word" she wasn't going to call him out on it. After all, even in a world with mutants and aliens, some still prefered to think of monsters as fantasy and fairytales.

"How are you fairing Mr Barnes?"

James Barnes has posed:
There's a little moue of apology on his lips. "I'm not sure I remember, in France," he confesses. "My memory....it's not what it used to be." The Shepherd settles back down, lays her head on his thigh, and he ruffles her ears. "I'm all right." He seems to be - he looks and smells healthy enough, despite the oddity of that metallic note in his scent. "How about you? It's amazing how many people turn up from that war, I mean, that I meet again."

Blake Riviere has posed:
"I am well," Blake shrugs, but one might have caught that blink. It was normal enough for people to ask a fellow human in greeting 'how are you?', it was basically a cultural norm. TO be asked by someone who knew what she was other than Ariah was...less so. "I make my way in the world well enough, company and experience where I can. If you stop trying to appreciate the world around you, a long life becomes far less pleasent."

James Barnes has posed:
That, funnily enough, makes him smile. The grin peels away that wary stillness, drops his apparent age back down to that twenties again. "I guess you had to live through all the years Steve and I missed. How do you do it? How do you not get....tired and jaded, I guess?" An odd question, perhaps. An odd conversational path to veer down, but then, how many people can James talk to that remember that war? Remember that world?

Blake Riviere has posed:
Her turn to smile, the woman leaning back a little further onto the steps and giving a soft chuckle. "Who says I did not?" she shrugs, gesturing to herself. "I am...older than I look. When I became what I am at first, I was...under the influence of another. Every terrible story that you have heard in your halloween tales was sport to them. When I freed myself of this influence and ventured into the world...I was not immune to malancholy. Witnessing the fracturing of this country's union. Or the 'war to end all wars' that did nothing of the sort..."

She turns her gaze back to the man, offering another smile. "I found things I liked, things I enjoyed, I marvelled in how much some things -did- change. Culture, food, arts...I mean, cinema, Wifi? Impossible magic to the 14th century. I suppose I found excitement, and that was a start."

James Barnes has posed:
Buck's idly toying with the dog's ears, as she sighs contentedly. His expression is still musing. "That old, huh? I know what you mean, and my life has only covered a hundred years or so. But what a hundred years. Man had just learned to fly when I was born....and now people go to space like it's a trip on the subway...."

His smile turns rueful. "Hard to believe, isn't it? How far we've come?"

Blake Riviere has posed:
"I know, I'm looking pretty good for my age, no?" she offers with a wink, turning her gaze skywards. "Humans, humanity, are amazing. And they always will be. It is exciting to see where things may go next, whichever direction they take." A pause, she looks back to the man, a tilt of her head. "You and Captain Rodgers, you had this...disconnect. Things changing on you seemingly suddenly, everything different. It is one thing to watch things fade and age for eternity, but to literally blink and find them all so different...Well, you have been 'dealt a rough hand' as it were."

James Barnes has posed:
The smile fades, a little. "I....wasn't as bad off as Steve was," Buck notes, as he buries his fingertips in the dog's thick ruff. "I was....I was kind of out and about in the world. I learned things. I saw technology change. It was more the ....personal memories that were gone. That doesn't mean I'm not still amazed at a lot of it. What I learned mostly had to do only with what my masters needed me to know."

Blake Riviere has posed:
Masters, there's a little fade of her own smile. Of course, she could more sympathize with having one's thoughts controlled and manipulated. Being a 'Bride' or a manipulated assassin, both was far from a pleasent experience. "And now? What is it that you do to make new memories?"