[Day Four - Early Evening] A Hard Day's Work

[Imogen Baker]

"Hah, no. We were talking about aliens from outer space when we first met on these fields. The sort that come from outer space and land on earth, leave dust crops and abduct people. You'd be surprised but there's actually a place beyond the heavens." She smirked.

[Jean Wellspeak]

"Of course there is." Jean frowned before his eyes widened. He was almost certain he knew what she was talking about. "The Heavens. Realm of God. His Angels visit us often, carrying messages and carrying saints to heaves." He blinked, realizing exactly what she had said. "Never heard the angels doing anything to crops, really." Truly these were strange times.

[Imogen Baker]

Imogen couldn't help but take a moment to thumb toward Jean and turned her head to glance at Tiffani as if to say wordlessly 'see what I'm talking about here?'. "Well, I guess they might be as real as your angel. Nobody has seen them in person recently and they tend to be at the forefront of some really bored people's minds. It turned out to be a hoax, of course, but the idea is that large saucers from the space would descend down on farm fields. Some people are so fanatical about their existence is that they thought it was a good idea to storm a military base in the middle of the desert just to see the aliens. I think it turned out to be a cool party in the end."

[Tiffani Noelle]

"Your fellow humans, hmm?" Tiffany said in response to Jean. "Is that what we are? I know we were human once - but after that fight - I dunnae anymore."

She continued fiddling with her corn in an odd sort of way, separating the kernals from each other and acting as though she were a bit apprehensive about eating it. "But I can't disagree - it was quite a day. There was a moment in the beginning when I wasn't sure if we were going to win - despite our strength in numbers." A tremor ran through her body and she almost dropped her fork. "And it'll be back."

Tiffani pauses as she shovels some of the other food in her mouth, but she scowls slightly. "Bloody hell - eating food outside in the winter is like having lunch inside your refrigerator. All the food is cold. They should have served up something that's actually good cold - like - cold cuts. Boston cream pie. Pudding, maybe?"

"Anyway, Jean, yeah, Zeta Reticuli is a star system out there in space - but you can't see it from here. You can only see it if you're below the equator like ... South Africa or Australia or southern Chile or Argentina." Another pause for food. "I know it'll take you awhile but ... perhaps one of these days you'll stop letting religion define the world for you. However," she shrugs, "that's up to you."

"It's too bad about no UFOs, though," she snickered at Imogen. "Hey, that's one of those cameras that develop instantly? Like - you can actually see the picture right after you take it in that little window? Can I see the pictures you took of me?"

[Imogen Baker]

"I wouldn't lose sleep over what we saw back there. Sure, it'll be back but we don't know exactly when. It could be tomorrow or it could be 10 years from now. Either way, you can't let it get the jump on you that easily. Especially when you're tired from being on edge all the time. Besides, that ringing in my ears is still doing a number on me. And I was really hoping to catch the rest of the Crown on Netflix tonight too," she sighed as she looked inside her beer to see if there was any left before taking a sip from it.

"I guess you didn't hurry and wolf it down when you could," she smirked as she glanced around. "After a few days of seeing snow, this weather is practically tropical. If this is the warmest day of the year before winter, I'd be tempted to go in my shorts and tees. It would probably cause some old ladies around here to have heart attacks when it comes to modesty, I bet."

After a moment, she nodded at the request. "Sure, wait a tick," she said as she pulled her camera backpack closer to it and unzipped it to take out her "work" camera. After turning it own and fiddling with a few buttons, she showed the picture of Tiffani she took at the field. It was as she said about pictures before, Tiffani would appear in her mortal mask than her mien.

[Jean Wellspeak]

Imogen couldn't help but take a moment to thumb toward Jean and turned her head to glance at Tiffani as if to say wordlessly 'see what I'm talking about here?'. "Well, I guess they might be as real as your angel. Nobody has seen them in person recently and they tend to be at the forefront of some really bored people's minds. It turned out to be a hoax, of course, but the idea is that large saucers from the space would descend down on farm fields. Some people are so fanatical about their existence is that they thought it was a good idea to storm a military base in the middle of the desert just to see the aliens. I think it turned out to be a cool party in the end."

Any and all cues that Imogen might have given to Tiffani were lost to Jean, the not-so-young man merely smiling happily. "Why there would be plates in space? Everyone knows that the Heaven is organized in spheres?" He was getting really confused again. "And what that has to do with the Spanish?" Spanish and the angels were not the same thing, that much Jean did know.

"Your fellow humans, hmm?" Tiffany said in response to Jean. "Is that what we are? I know we were human once - but after that fight - I dunnae anymore."

She continued fiddling with her corn in an odd sort of way, separating the kernals from each other and acting as though she were a bit apprehensive about eating it. "But I can't disagree - it was quite a day. There was a moment in the beginning when I wasn't sure if we were going to win - despite our strength in numbers." A tremor ran through her body and she almost dropped her fork. "And it'll be back."

"Anyway, Jean, yeah, Zeta Reticuli is a star system out there in space - but you can't see it from here. You can only see it if you're below the equator like ... South Africa or Australia or southern Chile or Argentina." Another pause for food. "I know it'll take you awhile but ... perhaps one of these days you'll stop letting religion define the world for you. However," she shrugs, "that's up to you."

"It's too bad about no UFOs, though," she snickered at Imogen. "Hey, that's one of those cameras that develop instantly? Like - you can actually see the picture right after you take it in that little window? Can I see the pictures you took of me?"

"Well, we aren't demons and for sure we aren't angels." Jean replied with a certainty only a small mind could possess. "If it comes back we'll give it a good beating." he thumped his fist to his chest. "Though, I wish we had steeds like it had. Would make the whole fighting thing lot easier. Less running that way." he added, rambling. "But you don't see horses around really."

"So, uh, Tiffani. What is a star system? Also, where are all those places? Asia Major?" he tilted his head to the side, both confused and literally lost. Next next words brought up his ire though. "If not for faith, what would we have?" Jean huffed. "Nothing but sin and damnation." Though, Imogen picking out her magic box distracted him from the topic, Jean leaning over to see what was going on in this small, strange box of hers.

[Tiffani Noelle]

"No, that's true," Tiffani said to Jean. "We're neither angelic or demonic. But that doesn't make us human, either. I don't know - it's just something I think about once in awhile. "

She smiled a little then. "I've never ridden a motorcycle - not even as a passenger. Uh ... I mean I've never ridden steed like that. I'd probably wreck - but with that sword you have, yeah, you would probably do well. I've never ridden a horse, either, but horses are obsolete. Most people only own and ride horses these days for pleasure, not as their primary transportation. I've heard they're expensive to keep."

Tiffani had the corn scattered all over her plate now - then gave a little sigh when Jean asked about star systems. "Uh ... hmm ... well ... a star system is like ... the sun and all of its planets, like earth. When you look up at the stars, what you're actually seeing are other suns, a lot like our own, but ... impossibly far away. You could live billions of years and never reach them, that's how far they are. But we can still see them because they're so bright - like our sun."

She looked over at Imogen with a little "help me out!" look. Tapping the blunt end of her fork on the table, she thought for a few more moments, then shrugged. "I dunnae how else to explain it ... oh, and they have absolutely nothing to do with Spaniards. Trying to explain extraterrestrial aliens ... ugh ... I'm just not sure I could explain that, but don't worry about it. You won't be seeing any ... uh ... aliens or Spaniards any time soon."

Tiffani gave Jean a rather piercing look - not hostile, simply intense, as if she's trying to drill it into Jean's mind with but a stare. "And Jean ... I'm not saying you should give up your faith. Not at all. Just remember that there is an .... earthly realm, too. Heaven is not up there," she explains, pointing up at the sky. "It's somewhere else entirely. So ... I suppose I'll ask you straight. You seem like a curious chap who wants to learn about the modern world. I know it's asking a lot ... but the only way you can learn is if you put away all the things you think you know about the universe. "

She retains her intense stare. "Nothing I would teach you threatens your faith. Understand?" Then she suddenly grins and exclaims, "Oh, I've got to see this!" She slides a little closer toward Imogen when she brings out the camera and looks at the picture of herself. No wings. No elven features ... none of the telltale marks of Arcadia. Seeing herself as she used to be affected her in ways she never anticipated. Her grin dropped immediately and she actually reached out and touched the little digital screen as if she could physically touch what was in the picture.

"Uh ... wow ... I guess I wasn't prepared to see myself like that," Tiffani said listlessly. "As I was before ... you know. Hmm, so that's how people see me?" She chuckles a little. "The cold and wind didn't do my hair any favors."

[Jean Wellspeak]

"What else there is?" he asked. "We are god's creation, taken to hell and twisted, but not beyond redemption." Jean glanced at the demonic Imogen and the 'what if someone wanted to make an angel but was jesting instead' Tiffani. "No-one of us are, seeing we are here." Just how one could escape hell, he did not know. He only knew it had happened. "Uh, when I lived we thought that the stars go around the earth. I mean, they showed me a video about a knight on the moon! Moon! Can you believe that! Un petit pas pour l'homme... incredible. It's a lot to take in." Jean did his best to follow Tiffani's explanation.

"I hear they fear Spaniards here, though. With the king wanting to build a wall on the southern border." Jean interjected. "That would be a one really, really long wall. I am not sure if they have accounted for ladders." he added with a chuckled. "A wall with no man in it is nothing." Someone had hastily explained to Jean that latinos were more or less Spaniards, and that had stuck with him.

"Yes, earth is here." he sighed as if she had pointed out the obvious. "But after we die, we either end back to hell, or we will be taken to Heavens. I know which I'd prefer." Jean explained, meeting her gaze head on. "No, I am a man of faith. People can question my faith all they want. I know where I stand. Nothing I learn will change that." he was smiling innocently. "I know I don't know much, but I have my faith and that is enough for me."

[Imogen Baker]

Imogen crossed her arms and rested them on the table as she looked off slowly. Despite having looking off, she couldn't help but roll a few of her eyes as the talk of God and spiritually took more of the forefront of the conversation. While she wasn't a big believer, she knew that picking a fight with someone like Jean was like stirring a hornet's nest of debates. She would have been in the mood for sarcasm if it wasn't for all of the fieldwork earlier.

"Heh, pretty neat isn't it?" Imogen turned her attention after a beat when she realized that Tiffani was talking to her about the pictures, smirking at the picture on the digital display. She had taken her own picture on several occasions but she knew the novelty behind it. "I suppose we still have some idea of how we look like, but the camera more or less shows you, as a second opinion. You might need it as much but it's pretty helpful when it comes to dressing yourself and the like. I know I've had to use my laptop camera to arrange my face sometimes."

There was a time where she tried wearing hats but that experiment didn't go as well as she would have liked. That was something she unfortunately had to give up, save for opened-top visor caps. She thought a mesh back baseball cap would have been nice around here to fit in with the locals.

[Tiffani Noelle]

Tiffani wanted to roll her eyes as much as Imogen - and once or twice - couldn't help herself and did just that. She was down to her last few swallows of beer and knew she wouldn't be getting any more. Shoving her mostly empty plate away, she held the bottle daintily by its neck and gently swirled the beer.

"Like I said, Jean - I'm not here to debate whether God exists or Heaven or Hell or anything religious is true. What I'm trying to explain is that where we are now is the mortal realm. All of it. Earth, the sun, the planets, the other stars - as far as you can possibly see. Even with a telescope." She paused in thought. "Hmm, I think Galileo had invented the telescope by the time ... wait, no, never mind, it wasn't invented until 1608. Okay, never mind about telescopes. That'll only complicate things. Just ... remember that everything you see is part of mortality. Looking up at the stars isn't looking up at Heaven."

While she talked to Jean, she still seemed slightly distracted by the picture she had seen of herself. Granted, she was from 1985 not 1485 so she was well aware of technology - there was nothing magical about Imogen's camera. But seeing herself as she once was - before the durance - it shook her to her core. Even in mirrors she could see herself as some sort of ridiculous DIsney fairy, but that picture ...

"This doesn't have anything to do with redemption or judgment or anything religious at all. Everything I'm telling you pertains only to the mortal world. For instance, yes, putting a man on the moon was a great achievement - and that doesn't have anything to do with religion."

Tiffani had been on the road almost from the moment she returned to earth - she had had no desire to stick around in frigid Moose Jaw even if Canada was a commonwealth country. Therefore, she was more or less unaware of the influx of Latinos across the border, or the current "king" wanting to build a wall on the southern border. Sure, she knew Trump was president, but that wasn't altogether surprising since, when she was taken, Ronald Reagan was president. She assumed that Republicans have this "thing" for making politicians out of celebrities.

She was about to say something about Spaniards, realized the historical gap in her knowledge, and decided to simply let it go. Maybe in this case, Jean actually knew more than she did.

"I can give my Keeper credit for one thing," Tiffani said to Imogen, switching subjects, "At least when she gave me these accursed wings, she somehow made them in a way that don't interfere with my clothing. I mean, since it all takes place on my back, I really can't see what's happening. All I know is that I can wear shirts and jackets and things without having to stuff the wings through little holes cut in my clothes. It's almost as if the wings aren't quite ... there, if you know what I mean."

She looks over one shoulder, looking at one wing critically. "I thought about decorating them with ... like earrings and stuff."