First [Lucy]

What had begun as a simple excuse to get some fresh air and maybe meet somebody new to ease in the process of taking Junction in had devolved (or evolved, depending on who you were to ask) into a lonely expedition throughout any places on Junction’s map that Lucian found particularly attention grabbing. He’d always enjoyed strolling around a city, especially if it was one he’d never been to before (Disguised and with bodyguards, of course), but this particular exploratory stroll had proved to be… well… like everything else in this god-forsaken city, impossible. There were just so many places, each with so many ups and downs and lefts and rights and centers that Lucian had given up on searching for the specific places he wanted to visit. As it stood, he simply strolled along the commercial district for now, waiting for the next public terminal to pop up so he could ask which way led back to the tram. At the very least, his eyes had no reason to be bored; the sight of all these alien species had initially been reason to feel unnerved, but to Lucian’s pleasant surprise, it soon became fascination. Everyone was so… different and varied. For a second, he almost felt… free. There went a bipedal gazelle, an eight-legged anthropomorphic reptile of some sort, a…. ball of hair, and his eyes even spotted a fortune teller. Not that the last one was a rarity of any sort when compared to the rest of the things he saw, but it was intriguing to see that the craft of fortune-telling wasn’t exclusive to his homeworld, at least with such a familiar appearance. Recollecting his thoughts and redirecting his eyes forward, Lucian continued to walk down the street, past all these mentioned individuals.

Lucian’s pacing was interrupted by the sound of a painful yelp nearby. His head turning on pure instinct towards the source of the noise, he saw the fortune teller he’d glanced at before run behind an alleyway and… oh… well, that was unfortunate. Even non-humans suffered from stomach problems every now and again, it seemed; he just hoped alien food wouldn’t be as daunting a task as alien sightseeing was. Whatever, usually he would offer assistance, but… something like this was a tinge more private, and he doubted he would’ve been wanted. It was none of his business, so the man would continue walking down the commercial ward.

A few seconds later, and the man found himself slowing down, every second slowing down more and more until he completely halted. He contemplated something for a few good seconds, a look of conflict adorning is face, before deciding to head back and help the fortune-teller after all. He peeked his head into the alleyway, spotting the aching boy not too deep into it, kneeling in front of a garbage pail. He slowly approached him, making sure not to seem too intrusive. “Excuse me, sir?” He began. “Do you need help?”

“Hey now, no need to be sarcastic.” Seriously, he was only trying to help. Lucian stood on his toes to peek over the boy’s head and get a look at the trash can he’d been puking into, onl- Holy hell that was a lot of vomit! In fact, he was fairly certain that was just about all the gastric acid a stomach capable of regurgitation could hold. And… were his veins glowing black? Lucian’s expression of slight annoyance was quickly replaced by vivid concern. Well, this was sudden and unexpected if nothing else. “Uh… stay here, I’m going to call for a doctor.” Stay calm, Lucian. What kind of sickness would even make one’s veins turn black? Though he realized he was in an alien city which would imply alien diseases, he genuinely hoped whatever this was wasn’t anything serious. The idea of someone growing deathly ill so suddenly after having looked so at peace (at least, the fortune-teller looked content the first time he saw him) was an unsettling and upsetting thought, to say the least.

In all honesty, the boy’s attempts at delaying conversation felt more like incoherent rambling to the president before him. It was almost like he couldn’t properly string together a sentence, a sign of loss of consciousness… wait, consciousness? Was this a sort of fever? “If I may…” Lucian’s hand moved forward for half a second with the end goal of feeling the temperature on the fortune-teller’s forehead, before he realized that if this was a sort of sickness, touching the boy outright would be a stupid move. Lucian’s hand reached back into his coat’s inner breast pocket and pulled out a custom-made handkerchief, which he wrapped around his own hand as a sort of makeshift glove. Now assured, Lucian’s hand would wait for a moment to give the boy time to reject contact before sweeping aside his bangs and feeling the heat on his forehead… or lack thereof. The boy had no fever to speak of, but he was outright cold, like, unnaturally cold. “Why don’t you want to go to the hospital? This could be serious!” He didn’t buy this boy’s act of status quo; from the way he ran into the alleyway he could tell this was no normal occurrence.

Hmm… “…Alright, if you’re completely sure.” Lucian offered the fortune teller his hand to help him get back on his feet. He kinda figured this boy wasn’t human, at least not human as he knew it, but to belong to a race of empaths? If strong emotions caused this amount of trouble for them, he wondered what a society built entirely of them would be like and how it would function; at least this particular Virtue didn’t seem to be lacking in emotion, so he could only imagine what sort of problems arose. “You should probably seek hydration, though. Natural reaction or not that amount of lost gastric acid can’t be healthy.” Had they been in Lucian’s home territory, he would’ve been able to offer him nearly any drink. He’d definitely miss that privilege.

Lucian quickly put his hands forward to catch the stumbling boy, managing to put his shoulder forward as a support before the boy in question managed to regain his balance. “Hey, don’t make any sudden movements; give your body time to recalibrate.” The coloring of the fortune-teller’s veins still bothered him, but… if he claimed it was a natural thing, there wasn’t much he could object to.

“I was just doing my duty as a person to help another, I don’t think there’s much there that needs to be repaid.” Honestly, were people in Junction just more indifferent than was the standard in Scarred Earth? Well, Scarred Earth in all technicality was a whole different level of indifference, but… that was a different subject and not what Lucian was trying to reason. “Now then, I think I should be going. Take care, okay?” And with that, Lucian took his leave.

As Lucian left, he couldn’t help but notice the lack of people coming in to take his place. The boy had set up a stall and was ready to serve customers even in the face of serious illness… and yet nobody seemed to be coming in for a reading. Lucian couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt, and well… now that he’d drawn attention to his mishap, he might’ve been adding wounds to the scar. Eh… to hell with it. Lucian sighed and made a u turn, approaching the fortune-teller once more. “Actually… do you think you could give me a reading? I’d pay for it, of course; I’m not expecting this to be that repayment.” He didn’t really believe in destiny, but it couldn’t hurt to help out a start-up business.

Free? Odd, if he was doing this out of a kindness and not a need to make ends meet, then either did this only as a hobby for amusement or he genuinely believed in his fortune-telling abilities. Not to mock his beliefs or his culture – there was no way of knowing if fortune-telling was deeply ingrained within it or if his alleged fortune-telling powers were even as fallacious as Lucian suspected them to be – but it was a recurring theme for people of said profession to simply use it as a means to exploit people out of their money. It was nice to see this was based on genuine belief, at least.

Lucian held the fortune-teller’s hands and closed his eyes, listening intently as the boy gave his explanation of what he saw in his future. Doom and fortune? Well, in Lucian’s eyes this could’ve accurately described any event at all; everything had a fortunate side and a doomful one, though some were more attuned to one side than the other while others seemed to have an equivalent balance. For the sake of simplicity, Lucian assumed this latter example is what the boy meant. “I see…”

Now, Lucian knew a lot of people who he would call emotional, but none that he knew would shed a tear from seemingly out of the blue. Now, as stated before, Lucian didn’t believe in fortune-telling or empathy or anything of the sort… but, the city around him was cause enough for him to suspend his disbelief. If he could accept the existence of Junction, he could accept the possibility that what the boy might be saying about fortune and about his empathic powers might be true. This, however, only made Lucian concerned about the reaction he’d had to his fate; he didn’t want to outright accuse of withholding information, but if there was something tear-worthy even for an empath in his future, he felt it would’ve been a decency to let him know. “Is there anything else I should know?” He asked inquisitively.