Lindraeus sighed softly when he heard Feyda's counter-argument, unsure of his own argument at that point. She had some good points, but her conclusion of a malign force at work seemed a bit rash, given the nearly insubstantial evidence to go on. How could she be so certain of a connection between the waitress and Duugre from Zantaric?
But then, he considered, what were the implications if her suspicions were correct?
"Ok, I see where you're coming from Feyda." He paused for a second, nervously trying to find the right words, "I just, uh, don't want to start a witch-hunt out of this, you know? If there's no need-"
Lindraeus stopped talking immediately when Feyda got in her last remark before leaving the table. He looked around and scratched the back of his neck, and straightened his hood out of anxious twitch.
His shoulders dropped a little when Latira talked to him, and he breathed a little easier. His mouth sunk into a dissatisfied frown when the dragon-lady mentioned their objective, and he murmured, "Ugh... I hope we never find her."
Meanwhile, Neseraph and Insera disengaged once again from their long lip-lock, and Neseraph had to distract Insera with her wine in order to be able to breathe for a couple minutes. He didn't know what had gotten into her, but he was too drunk himself to really question his favorable turn of events. There was something about that very first kiss of the night from her that was just more electrifying than the subsequent ones.
He would have time to search for that wonderful spark again later; right now, the good bard Dante was finally telling a story of his own, even if it didn't exactly involve him in a stupidly hilarious situation like Neseraph would have liked. Chastity had been right on cue with the next pitcher of beer, but Neseraph still had to finish off the first one, and Vivante was more than happy to attack the new pitcher on the block.
Finishing up a big gulp of booze, Neseraph, glancing over Insera's wobbly head at Dante, said unnecessarily loudly, "Yo man, I can't be thinkin' that hard with all this alcohol goin' to my head. Yeah, yeah, you and Vivante chat it up, that's the spirit. Hey, Viv, where ya goin' man? Ah ha, you're an idiot man, toilets are that- yeah, that's right."
After Vivante was well on his way to do nature's business in a socially acceptable manner, Neseraph had time to answer Latira's cryptic question, replying in a manner that was anything but serious, "Hey baby, I am on fire! You see this shit? Check it out, check it out."
Testing his abnormal luck of the drunken Insera, Neseraph cupped her chin and faced her head toward him, grinning as he did so. Her unfocusing eyes found Neseraph once so prompted, and just as before, she inexplicably leaned into him and kissed him.
Victoriously, Neseraph tossed Latira a thumbs-up sign, then closed his eyes to savor the moment again.
"I am so sorry for the delay!" said a new waiter who came up to the table then, carrying the plates of food everyone had ordered on two big trays. As he started to place the plates onto the table, he continued courteously but couldn't mask his slight embarassment, "I'm Adam, and I do apologize for the service tonight. Your orders were sitting in the kitchen for several minutes now. Rest assured, I'll be having me a talk with your server tonight. Could you please tell me who was your waiter or waitress tonight?"
Lindraeus felt a little creeping dread crawling down his spine. "A waitress by the name of Chastity was serving us."
"Fuckin' nice girl too. I'd tag it," said Neseraph, coming up for a breath of fresh air before going back to tongue-wrestling Insera.
The waiter Adam squinted his eyes a little bit, thinking for a moment. He shook his head. "Huhm, that's weird. We don't have a waitress by the name of Chastity. Are you sure that was her name?"
Lindraeus went absolutely slack jawed for a second, and he glanced over at Latira: She and Feyda just might be onto something, and, as much as he didn't want to believe it, it just might be something dangerous.
"No, um... I'm not sure. Not sure of it..." He looked over toward the hallway of bathrooms fearfully.
Chastity was at the other end of the bathroom when Vivante opened the door, looking up at the ceiling still. She was pleasantly surprised when Vivante actually wandered into the same restroom she was in, anticipating instead on having to get into another restroom discreetly, but it was a welcome turn of events.
She smiled slowly when he looked at her, and sauntered past him happily while he did his business in the marble commode. She casually shut the door and engaged the latch lock, followed by the chain lock above it. She sauntered back toward him slowly, taking her time to cover the short gap inbetween them, staring intently at the corner of his eye that she could see.
Then she lashed out, spinning him around by his shoulder haphazardly before pressing her body against his. She snaked her left arm around the small of his back to pull him into herself as well, leaning in to kiss him deeply. Her right hand ran wildly through his hair, up and down, trying to feel every inch and every strand during their embrace.
Chastity spoke longingly once she was finished, keeping close to Vivante still with her left arm in place, "We were both waiting for that, weren't we?" She flashed him an eager grin and continued, "That was quite some story of your's. You lost something very dear to you in Zantaric, didn't you? Give me time, and we might find ourselves in Zantaric again, and we might find something that you will cherish."
She gradually slid her arm out from behind Vivante, staring relentlessly into his eyes the whole time. "You're so beautiful, especially up close. I said I would touch your hair... it's a shame I've already spoiled my appetite, though. Hmmm... how did you like it? The taste of my flesh. You remember, I know you do."
Taking a step back, Chastity pulled a small knife out of her sleeve and twirled it around in her fingers, never breaking eye contact. "I want to show you something. I want to show you my world: A world that cannot be trusted, cannot be believed, and cannot be denied. I want to show you that your eyes betray you, that your ears lie to you, that your nose toys with you. I want to show you that truth and deception are one in the same. I want to show you our world.
Smirking excitedly, Chastity brought the knife up to her own left ear, breaking the skin with the point of the blade. "Let's see what's really hiding behind this mask, shall we?"
With surgical precision, she sliced a neat incision down her jawline and back up to her other ear, blood oozing out of the large cut. Laughing a little, Chastity dropped the knife and grabbed hold of her face, slowly peeling the skin off of her head. With a sickeningly wet snapping and ripping sound, she tore her own face off.
But there was another face underneath the mask, one that was more familiar. As the mask came off, her skin went from pale to darkly tanned all across her body, the blue in her eyes drained out and was replaced with red, and her hair blackened and flaired out slightly at the tips.
She carelessly threw the organic mask away, and wiped off the remaining blood on her face in a single pass.
"Hello, Cyan Man," said Anima with an eager grin.