There once was a bar at the end of the universe, and there one could find all sorts of mysterious patrons.
Dante found it about an hour ago, and after finding out what the heck had replaced the door to the front of his house, decided to make use of it to confirm his suspicions about his world.
He's currently sitting at the bar, frowning at a rather old book.
Someone comes in through the side door, stepping into the bar and looking around curiously.
"Hello?" she calls. "I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone lived around here."
She is very pretty, with beautifully braided hair and delicately pointed ears.
He looks up from the book and greets her with, "Hello! Uh, no, this is – um, a bar."
His hair… is definitely shorter than it should be, naturally.
She notices. She makes an abortive sound of what is probably dismay, averting her eyes and turning a shade of pink.
"Um - that - okay, um. Are you okay?"
He looks behind himself, then back. "– Uh, yes, is there something – wrong?"
"I'm… not sure what's leading you to believe I'm not okay but I'm pretty sure I'm okay…" Pause. "It may be worth mentioning that this place gets a lot of different cultures frequenting it?"
"I am really not seeing what different cultures has to do with anything, you must be in astonishing pain, I am so sorry, you are handling it very well, I can try to get ahold of a Maia?"
She is still not looking at his face. Well, hair. But face, too.
"– I am pretty sure that whatever way you think I'm, uh, injured or disfigured or such, is not actually causing me pain? That I can detect?"
Blink, blink. "... Okay? Um. Are you just so used to it or -" she sneaks a look at his face, studiously not looking at his hair as much as possible. "... Wait, um. Are you. Not an Elf?"
"I can possibly cheerfully tell you I am not – I'm a human, instead. Unless being an Elf is the kind of thing one might not know."
"I, no, if you're not an Elf that explains the." She apparently is unable to put to words the thing, and instead waves her arm expressively at him. As if that explains anything. Her eyes are still averted. "I um. Apologize. For being rude."
Pause. "I, uh, thanks but I don't think you really need to apologize…? I'm Dante, by the way."
"It seems kind of like it'd be distressing to have a stranger show up and flinch at you! I don't have to apologize but I'd like to!"
Still not looking at him, nope.
"I mean, it sounds like – you had good reason to?" He doesn't really know what to do about the fact she is not looking at him and feels a little embarrassed. "Should I find a hat? … Or a balaclava?"
"I don't know what that is, um -" she catches the image in his mind, considers, and nods. "- that would solve my, um. Inability to cope with different quirks associated with different species."
"Thanks," he says, to Bar, and then looks at the item he has been given. "… I have never worn one of these before," he mumbles, before fiddling with it a little and managing to get it on just fine.
She looks at him and smiles a little, then blinks, alarmingly.
"... Do you not mean to broadcast that much, then, since you may not be familiar with osanwë?"
He looks at her and frowns. "Broadcast – howso?"
Gosh she's rather pretty isn't she.
Okay ignore the thoughts that he probably doesn't mean to be open to the public.
"Like -" this. Elves can do this.
"Elves usually only send what they want to send and I, I am getting the impression that you are sending more than you'd perhaps prefer? Unless I'm being confronted with another cultural difference."
"Ummmno mind reading is very much not a – thing – where I'm from."
He is quite clearly counting, in his head, starting at one and moving on quite swiftly. It's interesting how he's trying to draw a picture in his head at the same time; must be trying to keep busy.
(He tries not to let his embarrassment come through quite too clearly but he has no idea how to stop that. This fact may just be making him more embarrassed.)
"I'm not reading you now," she assures, "um, you should be able to distinguish private thoughts from public ones - imagine a sort of, barrier? Between the ones you'd like to keep private and the ones you'd like to share? And once you've had enough practice at that it should come as second nature, and your mind will be less, um, open."
"Imagining one, yes. And thinking of the private thoughts as separate and safe and behind it."
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