route_1065 | Vacation's where I wanna be

Scar is somewhat off to the side for the majority of the fire. Why he's staying this late, he isn't entirely certain. But there's a sort of familiarity to sitting in the sand, surrounded by chattering people.

Even if he doesn't like half of them.

Miriam shuffles into his lap, tired from the day. The Ishbalan does what he does best, in social circles. Calm but not entirely content, he sits back and watches.

You know, maybe he shouldn't approach the grouchy Ishbalan again, considering the last time he did he got completely blown off after a spectacularly stupid attempt at flirting, but Greed isn't really the sort to give up even when it's in his best interest.

Flirting, though, is distinctly over. "Pleasant evening, isn't it?" He takes his seat next to the man, giving a pleasant smile. There's no edge to it suggesting that he wants something, though it being Greed... he always wants something. Even if that something is company.

"It's been a long time since I've spoken to you one on one. April, I think it was?"

Edited (typo) 2014-07-21 03:30 (UTC)

Scar isn't keen on talking to Greed, especially right now, but he isn't about to make a fuss about it, either. He's mellowed out considerably, in his time here.

"Pleasant enough." Enough food was laid out that he can comfortably help himself. He dislikes the wet, salty air, but the sand beneath him is a pleasant familiarity. Even if it isn't the same. He watches the fire rather than Greed.

"One on one, yes, if you would prefer to discount the public embarrassment that occurred last month."

Really, that night had gone well from Greed's perspective. The pickup had been a dismal failure but the rest of the night had been fine. Still, it's not exactly worth arguing about.

It's cold, tonight, but the fire is warm.

Little things like that-- like being able to notice temperature are something he never thought he'd take for granted, but now he is. It isn't a faint, far off sensation. It's real.

"I'm not keen on repeating that," he says by means of apology. He's quiet for a moment, watching the fire before he turns to look back at Scar. "We're from the same world, but I know very little about you. You like keeping it that way, don't you?"

Scar turns his head to look at Greed properly, his face still stuck in its perpetual frown.

"It has little to do with you. Nobody does." And yes, he does like keeping it that way. It's for his own safety. But he can't even begin to guess what Lust has told them.

Knowingly or unknowingly.

"What could you possibly gain by keeping people out?"

Greed doing it himself doesn't count-- he's not entirely aware of when he does it. And when he does, it's different because if there's one thing he hates, it's talking about his long list of issues.

"Well that's something, I suppose. I'm not special enough to be the only one shut out." He sounds faintly amused at the idea. Except that meant that Lust was being kept out, too. No wonder she suffered so much. But it wasn't exactly his place to lecture Scar about that. Not when Greed...

Well. Whatever. He could shove that aside at the moment, too. "You're from Ishbal, correct? You look it. You'll have to forgive me, my information about your people is severely out of date."

Scar shoots Greed a suspicious glare when he brings up Ishbal. He says nothing further to that.

"I have done things that warrant my keeping to secrecy." That isn't the only reason. Scar is extremely private by nature. But it's the last nail in the coffin, when he knows that there's at least one soldier roaming around this world.

The transgressions of his past life still haunt him. Even here.

"You likely already know more about me than most people," he offers, leaving the statement open for interpretation. It's mostly referring to their first conversation. Mostly.

Edited (UGH I CANNOT TENSE) 2014-07-21 04:30 (UTC)

Really, everything he knows about Ishbal could be incorrect now. It's over a century out of date. So he's not going to ask or bother to speculate. It's all pointless, now, because it's not like he'll retain that information.

"I see," is all he says to that. Greed is a killer. An assassin. An instigator of war and misery. It's what he did for as long as he was loyal to Dante, and to be honest, it was what he continued to do after he broke free of her prison. He doesn't have the energy to judge Scar for whatever he did back in their world.

"Is that so?" and just like that, he goes back to being fairly casual. "Well, believe me, I don't go talking about other people's secrets." And for all the chatting he's been doing about things, they've mostly been about what Greed did himself, or talking about Dante. He'd never sell out the other homunculi, or people close to them. "No one is getting anything about you out of me."

It's not a request for more information. It's simply a statement.

Scar makes a small grunt that's nearly an unamused laugh. And what is the point in telling him that?

"There is nothing I wish to share with you." If that isn't already obvious. Much of what he keeps from the world is for his own protection.

"Though the fact that you do not recognize me the same way as the others tells me that you are not from Amestris." Scar frowns. No, there seem to be a lot of things Greed 'doesn't know.' What they are, exactly, he can't quite tell.

"Of course there isn't," Greed agrees. He's learned enough about Scar as it is. That he's an Ishbalan alchemist-- something that is highly unusual and outright taboo, that he was chased into Liore by Archer, and that Dante had been manipulating him in particular in order to create the Stone. He knew quite a bit about the situation, though he didn't know everything, and he was missing almost all of the context.

Kimbley and the chimera had verified a war with Ishbal, one that was more than likely instigated for Dante's benefit, though of course Greed had never told any of them about that.

"But I am from Amestris. The same version of the world you are," he says, cheerful, gesturing at the fire. "But I never did learn about you in particular back there. I had been out of the picture for a very long time by the time you showed up." It doesn't bother him. It wouldn't have done him any good to learn, anyway.

"Out of Dante's picture, or out of Amestris entirely?" Scar looks back to the fire. That's why Greed doesn't know the things Envy and Lust do. He was 'out of the picture' for a time, whatever that meant.

Of course, Scar realizes that he hardly has a right to ask questions when he refuses to answer them. He just doesn't care.

"I was always in Amestris," is the response. He shrugs, apparently content to leave it at that. There are too many things he doesn't know about Scar to mentioned that he had been imprisoned under a laboratory. To tell him that he had formed a gang of prisoners would involve Greed trusting Scar more than he did currently.

"I was tossed aside when it became clear I was no longer going to be playing by her rules." Which, despite everything, he looks distinctly proud of.

Fine, if he wants to be mysterious, Scar has no right to question. Tossed aside? His eyes unconsciously dart to Lust for a moment. She had run, too. But she had died for it.

"That sounds too forgiving. To 'toss you aside' rather than finish you off."

He shrugs. "I think," he says in a tone that isn't nearly as smug now, "I was used as some sort of warning. 'If you don't follow the rules, you'll end up like Greed.'" Though more likely, it was because locking Greed away had been the more devastating punishment.

That sort of weakness wasn't something he wanted to share. That someone who was more monster than man had been effectively crippled by being cut off from humanity was something he was aware of, but couldn't bring himself to admit.

"It's a more effective threat to keep me alive."

"So you were imprisoned?" That makes more sense. And Scar supposes he has a point, that he could be used as a scare tactic. What could be more frightening for an immortal than an eternity locked away and alone?

Miriam stirs in Scar's lap. She's fallen asleep.

"That's right," he says. He's trying to continue to look proud about it, but it's a calculated front at this point. He hates talking about this-- the sort of weakness that makes it obvious that homunculi really aren't much different from humans.

Though he isn't going to say how long he had been locked away for, it isn't a stretch to assume that it was a very long time ago.

Greed glances down at Miriam, giving a warm smile that is very quickly hidden.

"It would have been too much effort to kill me."

Too much effort? Scar knows that a homunculus cannot die easily, but he also knows their weakness. Perhaps there hadn't been any remains. That had been the case for Lust, before he had gone and desperately dug them up for entirely different reasons.

What an idiot.

"So death isn't the last thing you remember before coming here?"

"No," he admits without hesitation.

That's not to say that he doesn't know that he dies. That much is obvious-- he's had it confirmed for him already. And he'd gone to the house knowing it was going to happen. He was just lucky enough to have been pulled away in time.

He's heard of people falling into a deep sleep, though. Falling asleep and then being aware of things that happened after they arrived here. He'd be content never knowing how exactly he dies. He isn't sure he'd do very well experiencing that.

"It hardly matters. I couldn't have done anything in the end."

Because Kimbley had stolen his skull to make sure Greed couldn't come after him and Dante had kept the rest of his remains carefully hidden away. It really was the perfect way to keep Greed trapped. To ensure he did exactly what he had done in the end.

"Does that mean you were marked for death upon your escape?" Why Scar is so interested in all of this, he can't quite place. Maybe it was just because Greed is a homunculus, and he's relatively loose-lipped about it all. At least when he isn't dancing around the answers.

Too bad he had been out of the picture by the time Scar was targeted in Lior.

"I would have had more time, but someone had to go and be sneaky," he says, shrugging. He's fine talking about his death. He knew it was inevitable, with everyone around him dead. And he hadn't exactly wanted Alphonse to die because of something that was Greed's problem. Why, he couldn't place. He'd been planning on killing the kid initially-- and he still didn't regret that original plan.

"But I was marked for death. It's the fate that awaits anyone who tries to escape."

And yet they still run. Scar doesn't question that at all. He doesn't need to, not when he so willingly walked to his own death.

"Sneaky?" Does that mean he was betrayed by someone? Who possibly could have betrayed him? Scar is starting to put the picture together in his mind. Greed isn't entirely like the others. There's something off, in both his story and his attitude.

That would probably be because Greed is leaving a lot of information out, though he's also less than willing to actually talk about what he's leaving out. "It doesn't matter. I hear he died not long after me." Well, okay, he never got 100% confirmation for that, but it seemed damn likely.

He hadn't minded being around Kimbley in May, anyway. Which was probably a bad sign, but even with full powers he hadn't felt the need to murder his former friend so he'll deal with whatever that means at an even later time.

Vacation's where I wanna be

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