Division of Worlds

Eager to get the discus, Vèspat had spewed information on it but mostly on what the inscriptions were supposed to say. It was all menial information that Jocelyn needed to know but not necessarily so quickly. At the building Vèspat remembered being the one she came out that morning, he stopped to stare at the gaping mouth of the elevator she stepped in, his head cautiously poking in.

“Well, come on before it takes your head off!”Jocelyn said as she pulled him by the front of his robes into the cabin. The inertia lifted them up, Vèspat holding onto the railings unsure about how to take this new feeling of being lifted up by the contraption. “Not so scary now huh?”

“This strange contraption is nothing compared to my home plane’s otherworldly devices.”Vèspat huffed, straightening himself out for dignity’s sake. “You would be clinging to the saddle of a Silphit.”

“What’s a Silphit?”Jocelyn asked, now intrigued.

“If I told you now it wouldn’t be fair. I know nothing of the strange metal things your people sit and glide in.” Vès smirked, following after her quickly.

“A Car?”Jocelyn rolled her eyes at him, leading him to a plain metal door and opening it up to a modest living room with a few sort of modern framed pictures.


“Is that what it is?” He questioned, stepping behind her and immediately going to the living room to sit down with a long sigh. Jocelyn went to lock away her precious find where she hoped the foreign being couldn’t get into it. In the living room, she hung her red, white and black plaid poncho and black scarf on a coat rack, removing her shoes soon afterwards. Vèspat watched her routine, noting how she adjusted things in her home that seemed a little out of place and did everything in a certain order according to the room.

“You are very much a neat person…”He commented, lying perhaps a little too comfortably on the couch.

“It’s a curse…I can’t help it. Shoes off the couch.”Jocelyn said, moving to his feet and swiftly pulling the strange boots off of his feet and setting them in toe with her own shoes. Vèspat curled his toes, the sound of bones popping a little as he stretched them out. She curled her lip a little at the sight of his tights and wrapped feet that seemed to be red, sore and blister-covered. His boots had been nearly soaked through since it seemed they really weren’t meant for water.

“Your feet look terrible. Those boots are no good.”She said standing and going to make something hot to drink for the time being. They both were a little soaked from the lack of cover and the walk back even with Jocelyn’s car taking them the rest of the way, they hadn’t really dried off.

“They’re perfectly fine…your world is far too wet.”Vès yawned.

Jocelyn rolled her eyes again, using a paper towel to clean the water spots off of the frames and placed them squarely back onto her face. Placing her tea kettle on the stove, she flipped the heat on and let the water go to a boil, joining Vèspat in the living room with two towels in her arms.

“Dry off…I guess I can give you a pair of spare clothes or something until those dry out…Don’t have anything that would fit someone as tall as you but I guess there must be something…”She offered him.


Vèspat took the towel and started to work on relieving his thick blonde locks of hair of the water weight. “I should be fine…Your ‘apartment’ is fairly warm. Now about the Discus…”He poked, looking to the archaeologist who stared at him with squinted eyes from at least what he could see.

“Locked away for safe keeping. I’m not saying where and you won’t get it quickly enough if you keep giving me information without me writing it down somewhere. Geesh…”She grumbled, using the towel to dry her feet some from her sopping wet socks.

“Good.”He said bluntly.

“Huh?”Jocelyn questioned him. “I thought you wanted it so badly back in the alley…Change of heart?”

“I wasn’t the only one looking for that thing. There will be others like myself trying to seek it and locking it away was very wise. I’m guessing their senses will be dulled by this world’s atmosphere as well so their abilities will be weakened to where it will become increasingly difficult to find it.”Vès explained as he removed his cloak, tossing it on the back of the couch behind him and then removing the layers he wore one at a time.

“Great, just what I need. Another stalker…”Jocelyn sighed as she watched him, eyeing the wet robes a bit as she stood for the tea kettle when it started to whistle. The elf nearly jumped out of his skin from the high pitched whistle, his hands going to cover his ears, his face contorting.

“Cursed…Such a noise woman, silence it!”He growled, his face contorting.

“Ah, I’m sorry it’s just the tea kettle. I guess those ears aren’t just to make you look foreign.”Jocelyn poked a little fun at him as she removed the kettle from the heat. Vès scowled and sat back down, rubbing his ears which were already red from the cold outside coming in to the warmth.

“Funny, hilarious as I’ve heard in your world’s tongue…”He scoffed in his usual high and mighty tone he gave her. Un-phased, she sat down with two mugs of tea, a bit of milk and sugar in both cups. “What’s this?” The already bitter man asked.

“Tea. It’ll warm us up some…I’ve got to change clothes anyway after this...”She said, picking up her mug of tea and taking a drink from it. Lemon tea. It worked for entertaining as well as for anybody who was, or would possibly, get sick. Vès tested the tea with a small sip, his face contorting a bit with the heat and since the taste was pleasant enough. Sort of sour but with a sweet sort of grainy feeling in it.

“It’s decent…”He complimented a little plainly, taking another drink of his tea and setting the mug down.

“Gee… thanks…I’ll find you a bathrobe for now until those clothes dry off. Are the machine washable at all?”She asked him as she stood to start gathering them up, a little wary now since now the knife in its sheath was now exposed to her vision….along with Vespat’s codpiece on his leggings but that was another thing entirely.

“Machine?”He questioned.

Reddening she took her mug with her, a small shake of her head as she went to her bedroom to change into some comfortable clothing and find a robe for him to wear for the time being. She changed from her formal work attire to a long sleeved shirt and a pair of pants that went to her knees as well as a good sized men’s bathrobe she kept around from a previous roommate and former fiancé. Out in the living room, she tossed it to the Elf and then went to take his clothes to the laundry room to hopefully dry out which ones she could and hang dry what couldn’t be. There wasn’t exactly tags so explain how it was to be cared for so she did what she could. Vès leaned in the doorway of the laundry room, watching her and making sure she didn’t do anything careless to his richly colored clothing.

“It seems like I’ve got much to learn about your world…”He smirked with a short chuckle.

“Everything can be explained somehow…”Jocelyn responded as she hung the richly decorated robe over a line she had in the room to hang dry some things to save on water and electricity.

“A philosopher?”

“No, a person who knows to start from the bottom up and sometimes, in this case, the top down.”
“Ah…A female enlightened thinker…My world lacks such people.”Vès gestured a bit towards her with the mug. “Of course, there are no women in my world or at least my home dwelling…”

Jocelyn’s head whipped around when she heard him, her eyebrows rising with surprise. With his tights hung up and things in the dryer, she crossed her arms. “Oh, how does your world survive?”

“Easily enough without them. We don’t keep them around long enough to know what they really think…”Vèspat said briefly, stepping into the laundry room to start poking and sniffing around at some of the items in the room. Jocelyn answered his unsaid questions of what he picked up or pointed to.

“Why?”

“It’s a belief there that women are to be kept on their own except during the turning of the solstice where the flowers bloom. Mating season. We fair well enough without them as they do us. They live in several large colonies miles sometimes even countries away from a Male Plaza.”Vèspat said, picking up and testing the smell of a dryer sheet box.

“That must be hard on the children…”She mumbled.

“They visit time to time during the Great Festivals or market days…”He said, setting the box down.

“Do you?”Jocelyn asked her head inclining as she leaned against the unused washing machine.

“No. Never had the time or the interest to mate with a female. I find them curious in their actions and wiles but nothing more. None seem to carry out a long conversation.”He said, leaning against the door way again and watching her as she stared at him.

“Some are like that in this world…Whatever. Your clothes will dry in a few hours…Let’s do the research tomorrow…”Jocelyn said, staring for the doorway only to have terry cloth block her way out.

“I never got your name.” Vespat teased.

“Jocelyn. Not Jocie. Not Lynn. I prefer my whole name and not the shortened versions.”She answered, her arms crossing before she wriggled past him to clean up the dishes from tea and take care of the rest of her apartment: Moping up the water they pulled in, doing some of her own laundry, double checking locks and so on.

“Jocelyn…”Vès parroted, putting a hand to his chin. “Weird foreign name.”

“It’s English.” She called at him as she heard him.

“It’s common dialect.” Vespat argued. “For both our worlds, you speak the common language and your name is common. Common woman.” He now teased.

“I know it is…Go…Go nap or something. You’re just in the way now.”She pushed by him with a laundry basket in her arms, stomping down the hall. Vespat watched her annoyance in amusement, his eyes following her figure before it disappeared around the corner to another room.