[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mess Hall (C) -> Education Center (M) [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The low-rumbling ambience of chatter, feet stepping on the concrete floor and cutlery scraping against plates and tables, felt all to familiar to the old veteran again. Only Manny's voice managed to hold Alexander back onto their plane of existence or whatever the hippies back in the 60's used to og and on about, holding the mental line against a barrage of small-arms fire from a very known enemy, yet unseen and unnoticed to the naked eye. Only Manny managed to keep him in his old, yet sane shape, not the broken down soldier who served for too fucking long. He was still broken, but Old Mugsy had one thing Young Polawski did not. Hope. Alexander lifted his gaze up from his platter of fish, chewing quietly with his mouth closed, unlike some miserable idiots he'd eaten with before. He couldn't remember name, only faces and the sound of teeth chewing violently on a beef jerky too much like rubber. Thankfully Manny continued where Alexander had left off, answering him about fish filets, boating, fishing and…husband? [color=662d91]Then you'll be glad to have an old Illinois seaman by your side, peg-leg and all! I'll teach you the ropes, whether you like it or not."[/color] Alexander joked initially, scooping in another spoonful of fish grub into his mouth as he continued to listen to Manny's answers. He listened closely, friendly to what little experience Manny had with the ocean, not failing to see the parallels between his father's relationship and that of his fellow Baby Boomer. He was ready to get some experience under his belt, now that the world had ended and it seemed like a good opportunity to get a good sea-leg, so to speak. Then again, Alexander found a question he felt an urge to ask, as innocently as he possibly could. [color=662d91]"Wait, husband? You had a husband, Manny?"[/color] It wasn't meant in the way it must have come out as; gays and homosexuals, he'd spent his fair share of time around those through his life. Honestly he didn't care about whoever you loved, Catholic or not. He'd spent so much of his life pushing away those who loved him and vice versa, that he'd reconsidered that part of life by now. He just…hadn't expected Manny to have had a husband. Then again, he probably missed him as much as Alexander missed Judith… Alexander cleared his throat after that awkward question, turning to what Manny had actually asked about. [color=662d91]"Outside of the Army? My father and I spent many summers out on Lake Michigan back in my youth. We used to fight like Hell back in those days, neither understanding the. But when we were out fishing? Was the only place we could get along…before I went off to 'Nam back in '70. Afterwards I didn't sail until I met Judith. We'd spend many a summer outside of the Coast of Florida actually, those were the Good days…I miss it, you know?"[/color] Time was up though as dinner was over, and Alexander followed Manny's suit to clean up and head back to the trial. Fish shoveled into his mouth and chewed on like Hell as he limped over to deposit his tray, Alexander wobbled after Manny out of Mess Hall, following by his side until they got back to the Auditorium and found their seats. [color=662d91]"And for the sake of argument, I was in the Army, not the Navy. Never spent any time on boats over there, neither blue nor brown. Not sure if they had it worse than us or the other way around. At least we could take cover, but they could only duck down in their river boat and pray to God they'd get back alive. Probably something you could ask Thana about though."[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mess Hall (C) -> Education Center (M) [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It was a most interesting conversation to have, even for the lack of verbal elaboration which Thalia decided to give to either Nigel or Shears about the origins of her armed prowess. The settlements designated Tender of Hair had a fair assessment of Thalia's origins, connecting her fairly well to the man Nigel had unexpectedly become aquainted with earlier; The Shakespearean Joaquin who now was destinied to cross blades with the Neo-Roman scholar. Now that was still an event which the chronicles had yet to put to paper. After his little skirmish with Thalia, Nigel wondered how fighting her kin would fare him. He didn't comment on it though, fairly certain that the spectacle they'd made in the Mess Hall a week earlier had been far enough. Quoting Shakespear and promising to dual with a CMB native, that was sure to stick to your memory. No, Nigel was far more interested in Thalia and her legacy, only giving Shears a brief look of acknowledgement and a [color=#B8860B]"Now that is what I call an Athenian Sacerdos Dente. I hope I never end up at his arm's opposing side."[/color] Again Nigel focused on Thalia and their brief conversation, still curious as to her background and what little historical documentation she gave him to work with. Catholic? Checked out, her name sounded befitting one of Peter's Flock from Rome, though her mention of him being another Horseman intriuged Nigel. What else would he be? The only one he thought fit, was Conquest. He didn't voice his mental musings however, simply giving Thalia a silent nod of approval and continuing to eat his meal. Perhaps Thalia's demenour was rubbing onto him as well, or he was getting back at reading people. He thought it best not get on the One-handed Amazon's bad side either way, or better yet get on her good side before they met for an armed duel. He looked forward to having her as a proud sparring-match, and to fight by her side. It was at this point Thalia decided to show him the card, giving him the briefest of time to deciphere it's coded content before he could give an answer. [color=#B8860B]"…many hands make for easy work, yet this one…Forgive me for asking bluntly, but have you asked Cook about this? It sounds like a phrase connected most fittingly with those inhabiting the Cantine. Too many cooks, you know? If not, I'd like to help if I can, Thalia."[/color] Before he knew it, dinner was over and their presence was required back at the Trial. Nigel hurried to finish his long-sought after meal, clearing away the tray and making his way back to the Education Center and Auditorium. It seemed like most others arrived around the same time, and Nigel did his best to find his previous seat besides Ashton, giving him a polite nod as he scootched past others to take his seat. There wasn't much to say between Nigel and Ash, so an eire silence commenced as he waited for the Trial to recommence.