[ti]private[/ti]Moyll yn laa mie fastyr

Pace was an extrovert and always has been, in every way imaginable. As a toddler, even, he would choose to leave the boring familiarity of his mother or father and clamber onto seats beside strangers, telling them in delight that he was going to the park, his name is Pace, he has a cat, where do you live, do you have a cat? At college, perhaps to his detriment, he spent a great deal of his time socialising moreso than any studies or revision, and... y'know, sure, he dropped out, but that wasn't the whole reason why. Suffice to say, Pace gained his energy from contact with others.

His father and his mother, too - one a mild-mannered neighbourhood jolly-fellow, and the other a spiteful gossip - still were very social, in admittedly different ways. Was it any surprise that Pace - and so, Ibis - had learnt before anything else that conversation was the greatest bond-builder, the most golden treasure he had?

So when Ibis found himself back in UNOVR and witnessing, in the distance, the tell-tale silver mane of someone on his friends list that he hadn't seen in a long time, would he be being true to himself if he did anything expect go over and disrupt him? It was fate, surely! Of all the areas to explore, of all the forest to get lost in, they had come across each other here? For Ibis, it was the only possibility. Muin was a delight, after all, if not a little... stoic. He'd be glad to see him, surely!

Not to mention, things like "peace and quiet" were torture in Ibis' mind, so of course he thought to himself, "Poor Muin must be so lonely, out here all alone. I can cheer him up!"

And so out of the gentle whistling of the wind in leaves came a less dulcet tone, of a voice so painfully loud, so very American. "Muin! It's Pace! Ibis! Whatever. How's it going, man? It's pretty out here, huh? But man, it's quiet!"

At least, it was.

For a second, Ibis watches Muin watch the sky and leaves above, head back and eyes half-closed like a lazing cat. The canopy above, all kinds of gold and russet and flame gently swaying. It was pretty amazing, really, and Ibis is mindlessly led to stare up at it too, although much less handsomely than Muin did, with his mouth uncouthly agape. His friend, with that silver hair and those deeply purple eyes, who watched nature as though he were a silent part of it. In times such as these, Ibis - and Pace - is finally pulled to take time out to look, to really look, and pay attention. Rushing around 24/7 meant missing views like these that many took for granted, even when Ibis had been through this route plenty of times before.

He shakes the awe and wonder off for a second, long enough to realise that Muin had just spoken to him. His head turns back down, away from the natural beauty of an entirely digital world, and back down to the digital beauty of a pretty, pretty, so pretty boy.

"Oh yeah? You seem like that kinda person" It's the kind of phrase that slips so easily off of a tongue that never means meanness, so easily that the words can come across as exactly that - mean. What kind of person likes quietness? When someone with confidence and loudness says that, it's too-easily linked back to schoolyard bullies, teasing and prodding the quiet kid - of course he likes it when it's quiet, they may say, it's not like he has any friends to hang out with. But Ibis had never been that person, had never spoken cruelty outside of a little gossip here and there. So to him... he meant it. Muin did seem like the kind of reserved, put-together person who could sit quietly and enjoy it, without swinging his feet or tapping his fingers and having his mind buzz uncomfortably, like Pace's did.

"...it's nice" He adds. Talking, presumably, about the quiet itself and not the "kind of person" Muin is. Who's to say?

Ibis takes a seat, a little closer to Muin than many strangers would, and meets his gaze with a smile and golden eyes crinkled slightly alongside. "I'm good. Been busy, finally getting some time back in the game. Catching more guys! Stuff like that" His hand subconsciously runs along his bag strap, where his pokéballs lay comfortably tucked away.

"Don't need a thing, just wanted to say hi. It's been a while, huh - life, am I right?" He throws his hands behind him, rustling the grass with his fingers as they pass through it, and leans back to look up at the golden canopy above. Maybe the quiet wasn't such a bad thing, after all. Not that Pace knew the real meaning of quiet, but this was quiet for him, at least. Quieter than the city, indeed.

"What about you? Going good?"

Muin's silence means very little to Ibis, who has no reason to assume it's anything more than the silver-haired man's regular way of being. He's quiet and particular with his words, so this is no different, of course. No harm done, like a dog knocking fine china off of a shelf by wagging its tail, free and loose in it's naivete.

It had been months, hadn't it? Ibis would have barely realised it if he hadn't had the occasional ding in his mind that remembered the silver hair and purple eyes of the player he met for one quest, months ago. Life gets away easily, and much faster than he'd have liked, but at least the game remained in the back of his mind, and with it came Muin. He'd not had a chance to really. really talk to many people at all in the game. Considered he couldn't stream it and so didn't have to ham himself up for chat, Ibis was... surprisingly chill, honestly. Perhaps that was why Muin stood out so much - an actual friend. Whether Muin considered them so or not...

Where Ibis wonders for a brief, brief moment if the quiet Manxman may simply sit quietly and give curt responses that suggest he wants Ibis to leave, instead Muin replies with full sentences. He's been busy, had a long day. Ibis fixes his eyes back down to meet the other man's, away from the autumnal shades of the leaves.

"Oh, long day, huh?" He shuffles up a little, sitting more upright. "What made it long? Work stuff?" As sudden as a whipcrack, Ibis realises that he actually know, erm... absolutely nothing about his New Best Friend™ in the "real world". No name, no job, does he even have waist-long silver hair?! That last one was kind of unimportant in the grand scheme of befriending, to be fair, but still!

"Y'know, I just realised you know my name and I don't know yours" he chuckles, and the question gets a slightly lighter air about it in response. Could it be seen as pushy, over-questioning, creepy? Maybe! But Pace was in Labrador mode. Although saying that implied he ever left Labrador mode, which was untrue.

Muin's difficult day resulted in a faintly furrowed brow from Ibis, who took his strongest tongue-biting to not just blurt out WHAT DO YOU DO?, since if it had been so difficult, maybe Muin would have preferred to not discuss it. The information was pushed back just a little, instead, filed away to a "remember this" pile that would almost certainly not be remembered in any moment past the next hour or so.

Pace's own job was stressful too, but to complain about it seemed fake and annoying. Who wanted to hear a streamer complain about how difficult it was entertaining strangers, playing videogames and showing cleavage through a wifebeater into camera at every opportunity? It was like a half-timer complaining about the workload to a full-timer. Pace had learnt pretty quickly to act like his job was all rainbows and giggles and didn't involve any kind of brain labour, since if he ever hinted at anything otherwise (or, god forbid, made reference to the fact that he worked this hard and still lived in a shitty flat paycheck-to-paycheck), he'd have know-it-alls on Twitter coming for his ass harder than 50 year old men on Grindr.

"Yeah, got me there, dude" He smiles, moving on from his busy thoughts as easily as sunlight peeked around a lone cloud. "...Percy" Ibis speaks it slowly, feels it in his mouth, like tasting a mouthful of wine, and then he's back to beaming. "That's pretty English, huh? Not in a bad way, I mean, I like it. Suits you" Pace, Ibis, both perfectly trained, hold Muin's gaze for just a second longer than someone usually would.

With that, Ibis flops down on the grassy ground, arms folded behind his head as the canopy casts leafy shadows across his face. The sun that filters through the gaps between finds purchase on his skin, dappling it with gold. He closes his eyes and lets the warmth flood over him, lets out a gentle sigh and then opens one eye to look back up at the silver and amethyst sat beside. Sleepy, sunshine.

"...Y'know, where I live we have parks and stuff, but nothing like this. It's kind of hard to believe that anywhere in the real world could look like this, y'know?"

Pace had not only grown up in the American public school system, but also with unmedicated ADHD and a general penchant for sports instead of anything booky, so if Percy had mentioned being Manx, he would've received a blank stare or a puppy-dog head tilt. To Ibis, Muin sounded English. But saying that... there had been that certain inflection, hadn't there? The first time they'd met, Muin had added a little lilt, an extra flavour to the way he'd said it. Muin. At the time, Ibis had recognised it as the same way he said Farah, or Kharuf, or even Mahmoud. The absence of American - or in Muin's case, English - that reared it's head with the purposeful pronunciation of a language that was not the average in his country. It was something, just a little something, that Ibis felt resonate in his chest between the two of them. A little unspoken bond.

"You should tell me what that means sometime" He says, unprompted and unrelated, with his eyes lazily half-shut and no more than a brief gesture of the hand towards the name that floated above Muin's head.

He listens as his conversation partner speaks, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he rests in the warmth and comfort of a cosy spot and a nice conversation. It was the most Muin had ever said to him all at once, and it didn't go unnoticed. Ibis nods a little, eyes still sleepily shut, and smiles faintly.

"That sounds really nice. I can't imagine growing up next to a big forest like this..." and, he truly can't. They'd driven out into the sticks in the past, found hideaways to go fishing or diners in the middle of bumfuck nowhere to order pancakes at. Anywhere they could avoid his mom's bad tempers, but it was only temporary - to have a little safe haven forever beside your childhood home? To have grown up not as a child faced with tarmac and flat, paved roads with a fast food joint on every corner? It seemed a neat little fairytale.

"I'm from Detroit" He offers "Or... I live there now. I'm from Dearborn, you probably haven't heard of it" Ibis chuckles lightly, like the falling leaves that the grove is bursting with like snowfall.

Pace excelled in those - non sequiturs. Especially when he had forgotten his meds, or just couldn't afford to get them refilled, it wasn't uncommon for him to hold a conversation and sudden split off at random from it. The first thought that enters his head. It worked wonders and curses during flirting, as well - small talk could quickly become "You know how gorgeous you look?" out of totally nowhere. For a lot of people, if the conversation had already been going well, quite liked that. To the point, punchy, everyone knew where they stood. Others still got intimidated by it, or simply disliked him being so upfront.

In all honesty, Muin was lucky that Ibis hadn't said something similar instead of simply asking about the meaning of his username. He was very good looking, after all, but this wasn't just a potential club hook-up, they were friends, so said their friend list. If Ibis blurted something stupid out, it could actually make it so he lost someone he enjoyed hanging out with. Could you say you enjoyed hanging out with them if you'd only really met twice? Instead of allowing his mouth the prospect of getting itself into more trouble, he answered simply.

"Yeah."

It's a conversation to finish later, though, as words turn to Michigan, and Ibis perks up a little bit in interest. Turning his head to Muin, he smirks. "Look at you knowing what's in Michigan. Yeah, Dearborn's there, right outside Detroit. So it's not a huge difference in terms of like... distance. But it is still pretty different, for sure"

His thoughts turn to living alone versus living with his mom. Fancy Dearborn and Fancy Detroit weren't too dissimilar, neither were Poor Dearborn and Poor Detroit, but moving from Fancy Dearborn to Poor Detroit? That was pretty different, yeah, pretty different indeed. From a four bedroom to an apartment above a laundromat. But instead, he shifts to Muin again - it's far more entertaining that languishing after all.

"You don't like it? I always thought London sounded pretty cool" But he could imagine it, watching Muin now - under the trees, surrounded by infinite autumn and positively glowing. All of this, in a city like that? "...that's why you came here, huh? 'Cos you can't get this in London"

Two places were always different indeed, and full of different faces and different attitudes. It was one of those things Pace rarely tried to think about, let alone speak of - the sudden lack of the culture he'd grown up with. For all intents and purposes he'd often jokingly proclaimed himself a "bad Muslim", but he'd grown up in mosques and around imams. It wasn't as if Detroit was full of WASPs - all the white flight had put an end to that, no matter how much young hip influencers attempted to move in and cutesy the dying neighbourhoods up - but to move to somewhere where he didn't see his own face in other people was a surprise, and even more so that it had only been a twenty minute car ride away.

He was assuming, obviously, but Ibis reckoned by Muin 's choice of avatar that he might not understand that exact situation. It made Detroit both exciting and frightening, and also a breath of fresh air, and a stifling novelty all at once. It was quite a lot to try and get across in a few sentences with someone he's barely met, so Ibis lets out a sigh to make way for thoughts.

"Good question."

He laughs lightly, despite a thousand things bouncing around in his mind. "I would like Dearborn more if I didn't grow up there. If that makes sense" Ibis leans back a little, turns to Muin and smiles, catching those few seconds of a soft smile on his new friend's lips like a glimpse of sunlight over the river, gone as soon as the clouds catch up.

"I can imagine. We should bond over our gray cities sometime"

Gazes are held, and Ibis nearly speaks up to say something else, something stupid, but he's cut off by Muin answering a question from a few thoughts ago then says nothing else about it.

"Grape vine..." Ibis swirls in his mouth, as though the fruit had already fermented and matured on his tongue "Why's that? Big wine guy?" It's accompanied with a grin, as though teasing.