A chance encounter of opposite personalities...

East Elson Commercial Sector and Waterfront

Motels, movie theaters with posters of scantily-clad women, and even a few posters of nudes, and bars are interspersed with stairways leading to dilapidated second stories or downwards into basements. Women saunter along the western streets of the distric t, around Third and Fourth Streets. In the area around Second, a profusion of graffiti markings of black knives or the words 'The Blades' are scattered along buildings and sidewalks. A little further eastwards beer cans are scattered around the entrance t o one bar with, if one looks through the window, several pool tables in enthusiastic use for several hours a night and even occasionally during the day.

Dylan makes his way up from Regan Street to the south. Dylan has arrived.

Dylan

Tall - perhaps 6'2" - and much too thin, this man has an appealing, angular face and something in his expression or movements reminiscent of someone much younger than he appears. He has the weathered hands and well-lined features of a man in his m id forties, but his wide grey eyes hold a calm innocence that is rare even in children. He wears baggy, smoke-grey pants and tunic, soft and heavy and fairly new. His hair is sleek and dark, reaching almost to his waist, loose but for four narrow braids e ach ending in a blue glass bead. A bronze pendant gleams within the collar of his shirt, and a small, dark-hilted sheath-knife is strapped to his calf. Four narrow tracks of pink scar tissue twist across his right forearm. His feet are bare, calloused as though they have never known shoes and his scent is almost entirely of the woods.

Salem leans against the dirty brick wall of the Rialto, near a dark alleyway. There's a cigarette in his mouth and a sour expression on his face.

Dylan makes his way down the street, bare feet making no sound and leaving little trace in the hard-packed, blackened city snow. The wind unravels his hair out behind him and he has his face turned toward it. Though his bare feet are strange, his long hai r and archaic clothing conspicuous, perhaps what is most strange about this middle-aged man is his slow pace. In a city full of people getting from place to place, he seems to be more interested in the process of walking.

Salem's attention is arrested by the sight, and he takes the cigarette from his mouth, straightening from the wall to watch Dylan more closely, eyes narrowed. In comparison to Dylan's in-born innocence, Salem's expression is that of a devil sick of sin, h ardened and cold.

Dylan's eyes catch the movement and he pauses mid-step, searching the dhadows out until he has found Salem's eyes, and then smiling in greeting. "Hello." His eyes track the glowing end of the cigarette for a moment, then return to the Ronin's face.

"Hello." Salem's tone is neutral, searching, the cigarette held between two fingers and trailing a thin line of grayish smoke. His voice hardens. "Doing a bit of slumming, are we?"

Dylan tips his head to one side. "What does that mean?"

"You don't belong here." Salem brings the white stick to his face and inhales, making the orange ember glow brighter for a moment. "What asylum did you escape from?"

Dylan smiles slowly. "An asylum is a place with walls," he observes, as if in aswer or objection. "Do you belong here?"

Salem doesn't return the smile. One might imagine, by the set of his face and the vibrating tension buried within his flesh, that he doesn't know how. "No," he answers, "but I can fake it."

Dylan nods. "And I cannot," he says, understanding. "That's all right. I...apologize, if I am intruding on someone who...does belong here. I am merely looking for a place where I may come during the day to play my flute."

Salem leans back against the wall again, affecting an air of nonchalance that's betrayed by the rage lurking under his skin and glaring out behind his eyes. "I don't belong anywhere," he replies with bitter cynicism. "So I can hardly object to your presen ce."

Dylan smiles again, barely more than a crinkling of crow's feet wrinkles around his eyes. "Do you wish to? I will not ask for your qualifications."

Salem frowns. "Do I wish to _what_?"

"Object," Dylan answers.

Salem's frown deepens, the eyes - suspicious, angry - narrowing. "Are you trying to be funny?"

Dylan shakes his head. "No. I am trying to ask if you want me to leave. You say you have not the right to ask, but if that is what you want, I do not care about your rights, I will do it any way. Do you find that funny?"

Salem's visage turns to thunder at the Stargazer's convoluted speech, upper lip curling up from his teeth. It strains against the bonds of willpower, turns his voice harsh. "No, I don't find that a damned bit funny."

"No," Dylan says slowly, watching the man fight himself. "No, you seem to find it angering. I am sorry." He dips his head in what seems to be a leave-taking, and moves to continue his walk, unhurried as ever.

Salem watches the other man leave, angry eyes glaring daggers into Dylan's back.