Lucas, Venus, Selene and Robert made small talk as they ate.
"Excuse me..."
Lucas looked up. A scrawny demon in a three-piece suit stood in front of her.
"Yeah?" - She asked.
"My name is James Norritt. I wanted to apologize."
"Is this the bit where you apologize for something you're about to do?" - Asked Lucas, blinking - "Because at least three of us would have none of it."
"Wait a minute..." - Said Robert - "You're the one that wanted to taunt the protesters..."
"Yes, yes. With the anti-angel slogans, too..." - Said Norritt - "That's what I'm apologizing for."
"Ah, you're apologizing to me, personally, for it? Quite nice, but it's fine. I'd have done the same thing if I wanted to bait a bunch of fundies." - Said Lucas.
"You... Understand?" - Asked Norritt.
"Well, all for the best that it changed into something more benign, but yeah. I'm not against this kind of method per se, anything is valid to avoid oppression. Problem is you get another group pissed at you if you do that kind of thing. A group that gets way more cred than you due to looks, too. So... Dude, you're forgiven because I understand why you did it and so on, but ya really gotta learn to think things through." - Said Lucas.
"But you just said you'd have done the same thing in his place." - Said Robert - "Why are you now criticizing his methods?"
Lucas paused.
"Yyyyyeeeeeah, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this seeming paradox. Neruite. Will you kindly take that question for me?"
"She thought things through as she spoke." - Said Neruite, giggling.
"Yeah." - Said Lucas - "Anyways. Norritt, was it? What did you say you did for a living?"
"Corporate lawyer." - Said Norritt.
Lucas smiled, pulled a bunch of cards from her wallet and handed them to him.
"Translator. English-Brazilian Portuguese. And there you are, with all kinds of access to all kinds of corporations and feeling all guilty about something you did "to me", so to speak. Why let it go to waste?" - She smirked.
Norritt chuckled.
"And here I thought angels were more uptight."
"And here I thought demons were more remorseless." - Said Lucas, smiling.
Venus watched the conversation with some amusement. Lucas seemed to enjoy this kind of banter - even more, to enjoy talking like that, joke or no joke. She remembered what she had seen from the angel's mind.
The feeling of talking like an adventurer or a mercenary - a bit as if she were doing things solely for her own gain - was as close as she had gotten - up to the last week - of playing that role. Of course, Lucas kept it under enough control so as not to let others notice any strangeness, but Venus could tell what the angel was doing.
Mortals seem to enjoy these... Escapes. A change in discourse, in speech patterns, alters their mood for the better with scant reason...
Celine smirked.
Yes, sister, they do. Granted, Lucas is way less common regarding this, but such a pattern is in every human. They comfort themselves with small things. - She thought to Venus.
Venus paused.
I never wondered why...
Norritt left the four to enjoy their meal, Lucas seemingly getting quite into the food of Robert's particular subculture.
