Maize

The motel was a dreary place, even if the bed was one of the most comfortable Jean has ever slept on in this world. It wasn't as comfy as the bed he had had back in Montreal, but it was a lot more comfortable than anything he had had back in France. While the magic-image-box provided him with endless amounts of pictures, it also often left him confused. This evening he was wondering why group of men, running around while holding a ball was so popular in this kingdom. Jean had concluded that the young men were some sort of knights errant or squires trying to prove themselves. Everyone wore the colors of their fief, so this seemed the most logical conclusion.

Feeling overwhelmed and feeling still something haunting him, Jean headed out and shuffled to the bar, sitting down by the counter. He ordered the cheapest beer they had, which turned out to be another Coors. This brought smile to his lips. Coors was a skilled brewer, for his beer was clearer than anything he had seen before.

Tiffani stealthily climbs onto the bar stool next to Jean with some kind of mixed drink already in her hand. The dangling silver charms of her bracelet clink musically against the glass she holds, alerting him that the stool next to him is no longer vacant.

She leans her head on her elbow looking up at Jean, her curly hair falling like a waterfall down her arm. "Jean, isn't it? I have a knack for remembering things." Tiffani sets her glass down on the bar in such a dainty fashion one would think she was afraid of breaking it.

"Don't get offended, but I was sitting at one of the back tables and watching you for a little while. I'm not even sure quite why - aside from the fact that you're easy on the eyes if you know what I mean. Plus, there aren't many people in here thanks to the carnival. Hey, did you win anything? I couldn't believe how many games I won - I mean, I'm usually horrible at carnival games, but - damn - I really cleaned them up!"

Jean may be able to tell that she had had a few before he came to the bar, that perhaps she'd been sitting at that back table long enough to end up just a little tipsy. Not drunk by any stretch, but she was obviously feeling the buzz.

"I ended up getting an inflatable unicorn ... yeah, a horse with a corncob growing out of its skull." She shook her head just slightly and a soft tinkling could be heard issuing from the gold earrings dangling from her earlobes.

"Yeah." Jean nodded. "That's me." He recalled Tiffani from earlier, mostly thanks to her looks and then wings on her back. She too was one of the damned, though as he measured the degree of damnation but the corruption of the body, Jean had determined Tiffani to be less corrupted than Imogen or Reina, or any other of their kin in the town. Yet, seeing him reminded of the hell they had all gone through. Hell that changed them all, within and without. "Easy on the eyes?" Alas, Jean did not quite understand what she mean, his eyebrows raising even as he contemplated what she could have meant. Whatever she had meant did not sound like an insult at least. "Ah yea, I got some strange sword thing and a small doll." he replied with a hint of pride in his voice. "I mean, it's not a real sword." Jean had no idea why the made swords from plastic when people killed each other with magic sticks capable of unleashing death from hundreds of feet away. it all seemed so unfair.

"Uh, yeah ... easy on the eyes," Tiffani said reluctantly as if now she regretted saying it in the first place. Alcohol made a person say the strangest things. "It means ... well ...." Her face flushed a little crimson, displaying her embarrassment and discomfort for Jean to see quite plainly. "It means nice-looking, attractive, handsome?" She cleared her throat and took a drink - a drink she seemed to need at the moment. "Sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable since ... umm ... women in your day probably weren't as forthcoming with their opinions."

She continues watching Jean, though not to the point of staring. At one point she takes to organizing some paperwork in the small bag she carries - but she doesn't seem to have an actual purse. She hated carrying around a damn bag everywhere she went. Must be nice to be a guy and just stick a wallet in your back pocket.

"Anyway, I've heard it said that it isn't good to drink alone. I'm starting to understand why." She shouldn't be drinking at all considering she still had two more years yet before she was technically old enough to drink. Fortunately, the Autumn Court furnished her with a new life on paper - drivers license, social security, birth certificate. They even finagled for her a so-called green card so no one would question her citizenship. Not that Jean would know about all that bureaucratic nonsense. Sure, life was simpler in his day, but also far more brutal and violent.

"So ... what's your opinion on this place? The weird cornfield stuff. And that stench, my god ... did you smell that this morning? I don't mean to be insensitive, but, it ... it calls to mind visions of the Holocaust and what I often imagined it must've smelled like. Aweful, ya know?"

Jean tilted his head to the side, her blush finally registering in his mind. "Umm." he murmured, blushing in return. When he had last seen a blushing maid? It had been in Orleans, a lifetime ago. There had been no blushing ladies in Arcadia, only demons and their shrill cries and laughter. Beautiful as the demons might have been, they were inhuman and without mercy. "Uh-huh. You are too kind." he bobbed his head to her, his curls dropping on his forehead. Straightening himself, Jean brushed the hair back with his hand. "Um, well. Not in public." he admitted, though did not dwell into details.

"They do?" he asked. "Why?" Jean sounded puzzled. "Why would they say that? But if you think so, you can drink with me." Realizing that she did not have beer or wine, Jean squinted his eyes. "What are you drinking? That's strange color beer." He had had very little exposure to bar crawls, the Changelings of Montreal having focused on teaching him how to use a credit card, manage public transport and such. Getting wasted had been less crucial.

"This place, uh?" Jean scratched the back of his head. "It's a place." he noted, having to come to a conclusion, though she might have found it rather lacking. "Though, now that you mention, yeah. It did stink out there. Maybe they were slaughtering cattle? What's holecoast?" he added, confused. "Why would a coast with holes stink?"

"Well, I certainly didn't mean to embarrass you, but" Tiffani shrugged one of her small shoulders, "I tend to say what I think. I'm not much for game-playing, ya know? Surely throughout your life you must've been flirted with by enough women to know you're attractive, right? Anyway, I won't belabor the point, I guess."

She then reopened the small bag she carried and carefully, almost methodically, counted the small amount of cash she had within it. Then she straightened up, no longer leaning on her elbow.

"So, in answer to your question - I guess it's because alcohol is a depressant - meaning it can actually make you feel sad, alone, even miserable without a friend to keep your spirits high. In fact, some people can find comfort in being drunk all the time. It helps them forget all the problems in their life all the while not realizing that drinking all the time is only making those problems worse. Does that make any kind of sense? "

"Yeah, so ... it's probably not a great idea for me to drink alone. In fact, I'm not even sure why I came in here after visiting the carnival." She paused for a few moments. "Actually, that's not really true." She looked up at Jean, shrugged again. "I think I was looking for comfort in a bottle like a lot of people do."

Then TIffani smiled beauteously, her voice slightly more animated. "But now I don't have to worry about it since I have you here, right?"

She slid her somewhat reddish colored drink a little closer to Jean. "And this ..." she said, pinging the glass with her finger making a dull ringing sound, "is an Alabama Slammer. Technically its considered a cocktail. Made from ... hmm ... it has orange juice in it. Southern Comfort. Sloe jin. Uh ... Amaretto ... and I think that's it. Oh, and it's supposed to come with an orange wheel and a cherry, but here, it looks like you only get an orange wheel."

At which point she took the orange wheel stuck on the rim of her glass and sucked all the juice out of it. She tilted her head toward the drink. "You can try it if you want. Don't worry, I don't have cooties."

While Jean decided whether or not he would try the drink, Tiffani continued. "I'm not sure what you mean by stinking coast holes ... I have to admit you have ... oh wait ... yeah ... you wouldn't know about that. Hmm. It's not holecoast. It's Holocaust." She then spells it out. "And uh ... let's just say it was one of the most horrific events in human history. It happened between 1940 and 1945. To tell the truth, it's really not a great discussion topic so, yeah ... you might want to look it up sometime because it is worth knowing. Or we could get together sometime and I can tell you about it." Was her voice just a little ... suggestive then? It would be hard for Jean to tell.

"Uh, maybe." Jean shook his head. "I was a godly man. I would not touch a woman that was not my wife." he added, speaking mostly the truth. Some women had touched him, most recently in the place he knew as hell. There had been all too much touching and very little of it had been pleasant. Memory of it made him shiver.

He was not prepared for her answer - at all. Suddenly the small the small fucked up angel was blabbering like she was a priest in a pulpit, except that Jean could not understand a word of what she was saying. OR he could understand some words, but he had no idea how they went together. So followed with a best approximation he could and merely nodded. "I see." He just hoped she would not ask him about that ever. "I think it does. But, if you drink only a little, it's fine, no?" Jean added, hoping his answer made sense. "It's an affront to god to be drunk." This much he could remember the priests telling him. "For the cups lure the devil out. Makes people do what they would not do otherwise. " He sounded rather confident as he spoke, speaking with a conviction born out of devotional life.

"Even with me here, you shouldn't drink too much." he nodded, his tone serious. "We may have been to hell, but there is no reason to invite devil to us." That was when she started to explain what was in her drink. Jean, again, was utterly lost. "Juice and stuff." Recalling the juice he had had at Horton's tavern, Jean nodded again. "Juice is good. I have no idea what the other things are though. Sounds like witchcraft though." He looked at the drink, sounding suspicious. "You sure it's good for you?"

"Holo-coast." he did his better to keep up with her. "People have always done awful things. Englishmen raped and burnt most of France in my time. They called it reclaiming their lands." Jan shrugged. "This hole-coast had to be something pretty impressive." Unfortunately for Tiffani, he was all too naive to miss her cue.

"Well then, I'll just have to make sure I don't touch you - even accidentally." There was a decidely neutral tone to her voice which would make it difficult to tell whether she was joking, being sarcastic, or absolutely serious.

When she was explaining things like the ingrediants to her Alabama Slammer or when she tried to steer him away from a discussion about the Holocaust, she could, at times, read the confusion in Jean's face. He was far more out of touch with the modern world than she had at first surmised. It started to feel as if the two of them spoke a different language with only a handful of words in common. She turned on her stool at that point, facing the front of the bar more than she was Jean, and folded her hands primly on top of the bar.

"I don't usually drink at all," Tiffani said at length as she absorbed what Jean was trying to say. In truth, she couldn't care less what an ancient Palestinian god wanted or didn't want as far as drunkeness was concerned. She knew there were consequences to alcoholism that were quite real and quite close to home. She found herself feeling slightly guilty drinking in front of Jean. "As for it being good for you," she shrugged, "I've heard a little bit can actually be healthy. It's just whether you can continue with just a little bit. Oh ...," she again nodded at her glass, "it's not witchcraft. It's not alchemy. It's not the mixing of an eye of newt with the tale of a rat. What I said were just different kinds of alcohol - which we have now. It's not just beer and wine anymore."

She left the glass where it was, still waiting to see if Jean was going to try it or not. Otherwise, she was going to take it back for herself. "I don't put much stock in the devil, Jean, to be honest ... but that doesn't mean you aren't correct in some things. Like ... alcohol does make you do and say things you wouldn't normally say. For instance, telling a man you just met that he is easy on the eyes."

"Now, as far as the Holocaust is concerned ... uh ... I guess that depends on your definition of 'impressive.' People were murdered by the tens of millions, Jean. To say nothing of the war that was taking place at the same time that involved every major nation on earth. That's why you are sitting smack-dab in the middle of the only surviving superpower on the planet right now - a nation that didn't even exist in your day. A lot has changed - so much that I couldn't even begin to begin. Anyhow, the Holocaust was an attempted genocide arranged and carried out by someone named Hitler. Um ... if you're truly interested, I can help you research it."

There was a pause then, her eyes looking straight at the wall opposite the bar. "That is ... if you would take any help from an Englishwoman." Yes, in case Jean hadn't noticed before, Tiffani was definitely from England, her accent as pure as if she had just gotten off the boat yesterday. "I don't know anything about land reclamation since my medieval history is somewhat weak. It probably had to do with the fact that England ruled over Aquitaine for a long time - you might know it as Guyenne. None of that would've happened, I think, if Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Louis VII hadn't had their marriage annulled - meaning Eleanor went off and married King Henry II of England."

Tiffani then giggled - then laughed in a highly amused way. "I wonder how many people at bars discuss French and English medieval history."

"Good, good." he clearly saw no problems with her statement, nodding. He might have not known if she was sarcastic or serious, but seemed to assume the latter. "I don't think that touching is sin, unless you do it with..um.. sinful intent. But better to be careful. The devil tempts us all." Jean offered Tiffani a pious smile. "Alchemy, witchcraft, what's the difference?" he asked, plainly unsure of the distinction. "Alchemists are charlatans, saying they can turn lead into gold." Jean added, sounding serious. "We had spirits back then, too." he rushed to explain. "Vicious stuff, making people senseless or making them fight. Or worse." Jean shook his head, recalling some of the nights during the siege. People desperate to escape reality would do all sorts of foul things.

"You don't? But girl, you have been to hell. How you can say that the devil does not exist when you have see them." Fervor was burning in his eyes. "Dear lord. " Jean swore, barely managing to stick to English. "How naive you can be!S Sacrebleu!" Jean tossed his hands in the air, frowning as he did so. "It was all too real." He pointed at her wings, not realizing that anyone looking at them would see him pointing past the girl.

"A lot of people die in wars." he nodded, more somber now. "Cities burn, women weep." Jean left tactfully out why they might be weeping, trying to be a gentleman. He wasn't doing very good job with it, however. "Uh... yeah, someone mention Hitler to me. Some guy in Holy Roman Empire. Started a war?" That was the extent he could remember. He pressed his hand to his temple, frowning. Jean's eyes drifted a little. This was all a little too much, too quickly for him. Having hard time to grasp what had happened to him, trying to sort out the history that was his future was getting confusing. The future was the past, and the past was chasing him.

"Well, I am sure you are a good person, Tiffani. They don't suffer fools in this kingdom. I hear their sheriffs kill people just in case, especially if they are moors." Such incidents had been in the news and when Jean had asked the other changelings about it, this was what he had understood. "It's not like you invaded my country. Your grand-grand-grand-lots-of-grand-might have. But you haven't." he paused. "I hope."

Tiffani ran her hands up along her temples and up over her head, both hands meeting at the top of her skull. This causes her mass of curly hair to lift from her neck and face to pile on her head. Then she took her hands away, letting it drop back over her shoulders. There was something about the gesture that somehow indicated a bit of frustration - somehow - but there was nothing overtly telling. Nor was there any indication as to why she may be frustrated.

"That's the trouble with sin," she finally says, deciding Jean isn't going to try the drink thus taking it back for herself and taking a rather long pull. "Ah, yummy alchemy," she says a bit sarcastically. "Anyway, I keep forgetting that back in your day women were just chattle ... another piece of property to be bartered and traded for political and financial gain. In fact, girls far younger than me are cruelly married off to people far older than you. Therefore, there isn't any courting or flirting or dating before the marriage. You just ... get married. To complete strangers most of the time. Even a little harmless flirting is probably seen as some kind of sin. As someone who enjoys history as much as science, I've always wondered how women could even stand to live under such conditions."

"And there aren't spirits floating around in the way you mean. People weren't being possessed by demons and made to do horrible things. No, people were panicking. Some were probably going half-mad with fear. Not to mention the various unknown mental disorders they may have been suffering from."

"Plus, we actually can turn lead into gold. It's called nuclear transmutation and happens whenever an element's number of neutrons or protons within the nucleaus of an atom are changed. Thus turning lead into gold can be successfully accomplished by leaving an element or isotope inside a nuclear reactor for long periods of time - however - you're not going to get rich doing that so no one does it. Because the cost of running the reactor actually exceeds the value of the gold you'd get from a piece of lead."

"Don't worry, Mr. Jean ... I know you don't understand a word I'm saying. I'm not even sure why I'm explaining it. Not because I think you're dumb - not at all. You just don't have the background knowledge, at least not yet, to make heads or tales - I mean, to make sense of what I'm saying."

"Oh, and yes, cities burn and women weep - they weep for their dead husbands and they weep because of the raping and pillaging. Look," she says, turning in her stool to face Jean directly, "the war Hitler waged was nothing like you could even imagine. In Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia by Germany - involved over 6 million soldiers on both sides. This country? The United States? It had over 11 million soldiers in the war - and was the only country to have successfully fought a war on two fronts - and the fronts were thousands of miles away in opposite directions. France, I'm sorry to say, was defeated by Germany in about 6 weeks - because the French military had an abysmal command structure. However, France was later liberated by the United States and Britain. Yeah, your old enemy saved your country."

"And Arcadia was not Hell, Jean. It felt like it, yes, and I can easily see why someone as religious as you are would see it as Hell. But it wasn't. I'm just sorry that the fey took advantage of your beliefs the way they did. It was unfair and ... cruel beyond words. But think about it, Jean. If Arcadia was really the Biblical Hell, why are you here? Now? Hundreds of years into the future sitting here having a drink? Doesn't the Bible say that Hell is eternal? Do you think God let you, me, and the rest of us Changelings escape Hell? And ... if I'm a good person like you say, why was I in Hell to begin with? Why were you there? In addition to all of that, my ..." she almost called it her durance but changed her mind, "my Hell was not fire and brimstone. There were no demons and devils, no lakes of fire, no gnashing of teeth. It was completely different than what the Bible says - and ask any Changeling. Their Hell will be different from both of ours."

Tiffani made a little noise then - a sort of gasp or grunt perhaps - that indicated a feeling of being overwhelmed. She reached out to touch Jean's arm then thought better of it and immediately withdrew.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm throwing information at you too quickly so ... don't worry about it. Problem is, I have this ... I don't know what you want to call it ... a talent? An ability? It allows me to remember just about everything - everything I see, read, hear, experience - it's all up here," she points to her head, "and I can remember it years later with near infallibility. Sometimes I get a little carried away when people ask questions."

She waved one of her hands dismissively and turned her eyes downward toward the bar, spiral-shaped locks of gold falling over her left eye. "Just ... never mind me. I guess I'm not a very good drinking buddy. Or partner. Or whatever. Sorry for ... snapping at you the way I did."