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Yuuki Kuran August Kohler is not so well off as to not have to wait in line at DEETZ Coffee, especially since DEETZ blew up on social media as the latest hip place to be...

A coffee hipster... at?

Well, whatever. After getting his coffee however he liked it and shouldering through the other people in line, the outside air was a bit brisk and wintery. The soft jangle of the bell on the door (electronic, of course, but meant to sound like a real bell, because of the awful lies of Capitalism) leads August outside onto the street.

Where people pointedly avoid a large black dog waiting a few feet outside. It is certainly not a normal dog, lacking many distinct features - instead, it feels like "the shape of a dog", even if it pants out misting breaths into the air like a real dog - with a cream letter envelope carried gingerly in its teeth.

On the facing side is 'August Kohler', and if plucked from the dog-thing's mouth, reverses to reveal a red wax seal holding it closed. On the inside is an invitation and instructions:

    'Dear August,'

    'I would like to have a sit down with you today: please follow enclosed instructions or my familiar if you prefer. I'd prefer if you came alone, but you don't have to leave all your' the pen pointedly stops here, as if a hanging thought, and then continues on with a smudged drop from the tip of a fountain pen breaking up the space ' stuff behind.'

The dogwolf-thing familiar sits patiently while August reads, but once finished, it starts padding off.

DOWN THE STREET, sitting outside a bakery with a fenced patio, is Yuuki Kuran, wearing a pair of sunglasses and a fluffy snow coat, nibbling at the corner of a croissant.
August Kohler August Kohler is absolutely a coffee hipster, and if he realized that, it'd depress him. He's dressed pretty nicely compared to his old battle uniform of 'grey hoodies everyday', bundled in a warm gray winter jacket, a light undershirt, and a pair of jeans, winter gloves over his hands more to hide the horrible burn scars than to actually keep his hands warm. His coffee is pretty much entirely dolloped with sugar, some sort of mocha frappuccino or something, when he steps out and sees the dog. It's interesting, at first...

Until he sees it has a letter with his name in it, and squints. His first thought is 'I'm being summoned by the Devil', as he opens the letter, reads over it, and checks that he's still armed, pistol and knife concealed in his jacket, mirrored bracelet on his wrist his most important weapon.

Once August finishes reading, he folds the letter closed and places it in his pocket, and then sighs. "Lead the way, dog."

As he reaches the bakery and sees Yuuki Kuran, August raises an eyebrow, but to be fair, 'a Director of the Concord' is a fitting master for some sort of hellhound who brings letters. August moves to see if this is in fact a coincidence by waiting to see if that's where the dog and instructions brings him, and if it is, he steps over towards the patio, either taking a gate or moving around through the building if necessary.

When he approaches Yuuki Kuran, August is respectful, if ever so slightly confused. "Director Kuran. I got your letter. May I take a seat?" Standing in the cold kind of sucks.
Yuuki Kuran The 'hell-hound' acts more like a German Shepard - smart as a tack... for a dog. It is expressive in the way dogs are but, unfortunately, lacks many of the key features for direct, empathetic understanding.

Like eyes.

The dog trots along after the instructions are read, coming to a stop and plooping down next to the small fence around the bakery's outdoor area. Yuuki's hand absently moves down, dangling to run the tips of her fingers against the dark scruff at the top of the dog's head, as her eyes visibly track August's movement. "Kohler, you got my message." She begins, her brow lifting slightly. Largely in recognition. Of the letter. In his hands.

"I mean, if you'd like." She answers his inquiry, gesturing to the second chair at her little table. It's still outside, in the cold, though, so...

August can take his time stepping over the knee-high fence or just walking through the entire bakery like a nerd. A DWEEB!

Once seated, Yuuki places her croissant down on a crinkly piece of baker's paper and slides her sunglasses down a bit, her brow tightening slightly as she does. "Is this strange? Bad? We're just having coffee!"
"Well..."
"You are."

Yuuki sighs. "It's strange, isn't it?"
August Kohler August decides to just step the fence when he appraises how high it is, rules be damned. He takes a seat when welcome, not really a fan of standing pointlessly, able to warm himself better sitting down even in the cold. The dog only slightly is weird to him, he's way more of a dark and shadowy cat person.

"Well, since we barely know each other and usually oppose each other, and you invited me through a strange dog familiar, it's a little weird." August speaks bluntly, but follows it up. "But it's not bad. I wouldn't have come if I didn't want to. I don't think you're, uh, the type to have bad intentions with something like this, I guess?"

Being an expert teenager wrangler, Yuuki may realize something: despite no longer technically being a teenager, August pretty much qualifies as 'awkward teen' despite being a Multiversal terrorist. Or perhaps that's related, who knows. The redhead takes a sip of his coffee, moving to try and look friendly, and well, not tense. "I assume you wanted to talk to me about something in particular, though. That's usually how these things tend to pan out. I mean, if not, that's fine, just..." Yeah, August has little idea how to handle this, though his awkwardness is also because he first went through all the ways she might be trying to kill, injure, or humiliate him and could find none that made sense so he decided this was absolutely just a social call and is treating it accordingly.
Yuuki Kuran The whole situation is awkward, and cold, and a little confusing.

The feeling is mutual.

"Well, we don't usually oppose each other, do we? Really."
The long-haired girl considers this for a few moments. "Ghirapur was somewhat of an exception. We disagreed - we didn't oppose each other. I think it's very important to remember that. But, more than that, I think it's important that we understand each other, don't you?"

A breath, and a bite of croissant later, Yuuki adds a bit to that thought. "Well, without screaming at each other and other messy things. Have you ever thought about what it means to be reliable? People who aren't reliable are dangerous, but what's 'reliable'? What's 'dangerous'?"

Offering a faint smile, Yuuki exhales slowly through her nose. "I'd like us to be, at least, reliable to each other. Consistent. So what drew you towards what you do, now? Why do you do it? What is most... core, to you?"
August Kohler "I guess that's true." August takes another sip, listening to Yuuki and thinking over what she has to say about Ghirapur. When he finishes his sip and after listening to her, he nods. "You're right. With the positions we're in, and the fact we keep coming up either disagreeing or working together, like with the Choir...being reliable is useful. Alright. I can't say 'what's reliable, what's dangerous' without getting into subjective beliefs, but I can say my part."

August coughs a little, covering his mouth as he does, before taking a breath. "I was a bullied kid who played a midnight mirror game and got dragged into a world of monsters, death, and injustice. Thinking I could be useful to others, I decided to fight with the powers I was given, and tragedy after tragedy led me to realize that was all I was good for, fighting." The way he says that sounds like he might not believe that as much as he says it, but he probably believed it once.

"I was a Union Ally, and when it imploded, I had already been failed by the law and order and red tape enough times that I joined the Watch to have somewhere I can do what's right. And then I saw the injustices that happen to people. People supporting and trying to befriend monsters that actively harm people, trying to literally song and dance their way through hard problems, and I realized I wasn't about that."

"So I became a monster slayer. And then I became a leader. And I'm trying to learn to lead. But I do it because I want to help those who can't help themselves. The little guy, the man on the street, the one who wants to rebel against the authority pushing him down and carve out a life for himself but is stepped on and doesn't have the strength to lift the boot, so he seeks help. I'm that help."

August takes another drink, and then meditates on it, before answering the last question. "What is core is directness. I don't have time for long games or waiting for things to be terrible now and good sometime later when everyone's already suffered. If I can cut gordian knots, I will. If I can stamp out injustice where I see it, help people where they ask me, be something of a...hero, maybe, to them, that's all I want in life."

August seems earnest, if sad. Maybe he expects Yuuki to disagree, perhaps vehemently. In his mind, most people do.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki listens with an intensity bordering on feverish at the start, but as August speaks, that same intensity wanes to a trickle, and then a disinterested set of picking at her croissant, fingers peeling off single bits of crispy shell to nibble on with just her incisors.

"I was a Union Ally too, a long time ago. It was simpler, but I still didn't understand. But things were different. We didn't have a choice. The first of many 'injustices', wasn't it?"

"Injustice is strange, though, isn't it? I think the word is inherently dishonest. It's... It's too cheap, too effortless, to roll off the tongue. It justifies anything, at any time, for anyone."

Yuuki adjusts herself in her seat, brushing a bang behind her shoulder, and looks into August's eyes, and hangs on a single word.

"Tepid."

Her hands clasp before her, in her lap, and her shoulder sink. "It's nice, though. Wrapped up with a bow, but it avoids the question. Let me try."

Drawing a breath in through her nose, Yuuki begins with a deliberate, thoughtful pacing to her words. "What I've learned through my time here, in the Union, across many worlds, and having so much time to think about it, I've decided that 'Good' and 'Evil' are the exceptions to things. Oh, certainly there can be good people, or they have gentle and kind hearts; and certainly bad, for there are those that dream of gaining pleasure from torment or the like. I had an uncle like that, in fact."

"He wanted to eat me." She adds, matter-of-factly.

"So I don't try and think of 'Good and Evil', or even 'good' and 'bad', because I am certain I can turn a bad person to useful ends. Selfishness is one of the most reliable traits."

Yuuki's right index finger begins tapping the back of her left hand. "If someone doesn't kill me, August, I'm going to live forever. A dreary eternity of loss. 'Forever' is such a long time, and living may become too much to bear. But that's fine - that's how it should be. I think Priscilla is a little farther along than me, so we get along about that. Both of us aren't interested in the little gains, because they don't count. Bringing down a flag doesn't matter - a hundred years from now, they'll be new flags anyway. It's about... Finding those enjoyable things in the world and protecting them. Making the world better to live on in, rather than worse."

"Injustice is that someone is cursed with forever and others are not. Injustice is the power you wield, over those people. Injustice is someone from outside tipping a balance that had been tipped, or unbalancing a scale. Injustice is all these things, and nothing. It's all relative. Tepid, fake. Why do you struggle? Why do you bring your gun and your knife? Those are injustices, I don't have those. But you want them. You have them. You have powers, a group around you, dreams for tomorrow, instead of laying on the ground and waiting for some end. Why? Is it... because death is scary?"

"Well... I suppose it still is, to me, too."
August Kohler August frowns a little when Yuuki calls it tepid. She asked, and he gave what came to mind, what came to heart. It's almost discouraging, but August isn't going to allow that to discourage him, not when he can meditate on it while she speaks. No need to argue over her, when he can try and come up with a way to answer her questions that shows who he is. That's the purpose of this, isn't it? So they can understand one another enough to be 'reliable'.

As she finishes speaking, and also revealing she's sort of immortal, August leans into his coffee again, cup mostly finished at this point. "Maybe injustices is too subjective. I know what I mean by it, but it's not something everyone agrees on the definition to. I won't say I have some super complex philosophy like Septette Arcubielle or George or whoever. I follow my intuition, my heart, and let that guide me."

"But I know that I don't want people to have to wait a hundred years to be happy, to be safe, to have better lives than the types I see in worlds where boots are stamped on their head. I'm going to die sooner than that, and so are they, and I want to give them a chance too." August could probably go into it more, but it might sound roundabout, and honestly, there's a more important question to lean into.

"I struggle because to do otherwise is to die, yes. And that scares me. And also, if it happened, I'd prove several people right. I'd prove them I was incapable of making the changes I want to see. Incapable of helping people. Of making a difference at all. And maybe that's selfish. I'm probably a pretty selfish person, if we unwrap me."

August finishes off his coffee. He considers, closing his eyes, before speaking again. "Is that too tepid, too? Maybe I'm not the best at sharing my thoughts and beliefs. But I try to follow them regardless."
Yuuki Kuran "Septette and George... Oh, Septette is very unique, isn't she? I think I could say that she's reliable, though."

Yuuki's tiny smile returns. "She is reliably herself. George and the rest of the Flotilla are the same way. I'm sure if I asked them what their core identity or driving force, they'd have a clear answer. Reliable doesn't mean..."

Yuuki lets her head droop, fading a bit of laugher. "I'm not trying to convince you my way is better. I'm just trying to figure you out. Maybe I'm trying to put you into my own box."

"Suffer the injustice, please."

Her chin rises. "You are a person with power. Power enough to enforce your will on the world. You can live a life of hypocrisy - which is what I think 'fight for the little guy!' is, or have a purpose. A guidepost. You may already, even. It may be in there, and we're both victims of a world where our first experience with a tremendous tapestry of the infinite cosmos was the Union and the Confederacy. The entire, infinite, unknowable forevers of so many worlds, and it's rendered down into 'Good' and 'Evil'."

"Maybe it's cliche, but in the face of forever, in the face of all of that, I decided to stick to something simple. To help my friends, and those that rely on me. To help myself, and make a better world that is kinder and gentler, not just today, but tomorrow too."

Yuuki moves as if to extend a hand, to touch August on the shoulder, but stops barely a quarter of the way through the motion. "Kohler, I think anyone who thought you weren't powerful, too, were jealous, or trying to control you. Were those who would shout injustice at what you were capable of. Proving them wrong... Well..."

Yuuki settles back down, a serene chill passing over her expression. "I also came to terms with the fact that the chattering of my lessers is something that people with power have to put up with. But, as equals, then, is your fear of death why you live for today? Why you struggle for today? Because tomorrow will always swiftly become today for you?"
August Kohler "Yeah, they both are reliable." August just agrees with Yuuki, before his sort of standoffishness disappears when she says she's not trying to convince him of something. He'd probably never agree with a Concord path, so that's a relief that this conversation isn't going that way.

The part about hypocrisy gets the redhead to raise an eyebrow, as he places his empty coffee cup on the table, on his side. It was good coffee, but now it's gone. August considers what Yuuki has to say, flinching ever so slightly when she moves out towards him but stops, before deciding whether or not he'll answer her question. She's, arguably, opposition to him. She's asking questions objectively to understand him better, which might not be the best thing if she realizes she knows how he acts and can plan around that. But August wants to understand himself as well, so...

"You're probably right about the superfactions. And I do have a purpose, I know that much, even if I've yet to fully realize it in my own voice."

Sometimes, August considers if maybe he should model himself around being a knight, if some sort of edgy knight, but that's still a small thought and would be silly to say to Yuuki Kuran of all people.

"I don't view those people as my lesser. I can't view myself as greater than the common man when I know just what I did to get here and everything I am, intimately, and that I'm just like them except I have a robot in my brain. But I can answer your question, because..."

August swirls his finger around the side of the coffee cup, which is patterned. He traces it absent-mindedly as he speaks. "I'm lucky if I'll live ten more years in this occupation. Not that I don't want to be doing this, I could easily live a comfortable and peaceful life if I wanted to. I don't want to be immortal, or live forever, because I've read enough stories to know how isolated that makes you. To lose all your family and friends, leave them behind."

"But I don't want to roll over and die. I would have never gotten the power I have if I was the type to do that. So I want to make a world that I can see works out, while I'm alive. That I can see other people happy with. That other people can enjoy, and maybe better for their children, but have a better world for themselves first and foremost. The future generations may be important, but they're not /my/ concern. Someone has to worry for the present. We already have others worrying for tomorrow."

And then August kind of just, says it, running out of things to say and realizing he's repeating the topic a bit. "Kind of like...a knight for the people, is what I want to be, if that helps you understand me. I guess..." It's just as awkward to say as he thought it would be. Feels like boyish dreams, almost.
Yuuki Kuran "If you are swooping in to help another, they are less than you in some way. Less capable. Less positioned. Less powerful. Less willing! Temporarily or actually, the capability to render aid means you're greater. Perhaps greater in lunacy, but greater." Yuuki adds, the smile growing. "'Except'. It took me too long, too. Years and years. But it's okay to be different. So many people make their entire lives about being different. If it makes you feel better, some of the greatest powers are those of 'injustice' anyway. The injustice of will, the injustice of birth, the injustices of nature and nurture, aren't they?"

"Living like there won't be a tomorrow... Well, I don't think I'll understand it. It's a choice, isn't it?"

"Living like you're going to die is something people have to have some sort of guidepost for. You're not 'going to die', you just doubt yourself. If you just focus on the inevitability of death over 'what it means', then you'll live with abandon."

Yuuki pauses at that, to exhale. "Perhaps I'm lecturing you. But all the words you're saying, it doesn't really sound like you believe them, you're just repeating them. I think that works for followers, you know? People who aren't in charge."

"But you don't have the luxury of indecisiveness, merely time. Pick something that you feel strongly about, that's simple. Like knighthood, sure. That's not bad at all. Some of the most consistent people I know are knights - Like Seifer, or Zero. People who have very well-defined ideas."

Standing up, Yuuki pushes the rest of the half-a-croissant into her mouth. "It's not about how the Watch has you as a leader - it's about how you're the leader of the Watch. You inform it, it doesn't inform you. It's too dangerous for a group to be internally defined 'by its own image', because images fade, and blur, and need maintenance. Think about it."

Yuuki steps over the little fence and scoops the large dog-familiar up in her arms, a patently absurd dangle of elongated body and black fur. "Call me when you figure it out, okay?"

With that, she starts walking off.
August Kohler As Yuuki speaks, August is a bit disheartened, because he agrees with her. He doesn't have the luxury of indecisiveness. It's true he doubts himself, it's true he needs to help better define the Watch as a leader. The Watch needs him to be consistent. It needs him to be reliable, more than Yuuki Kuran does.

August says nothing as she moves to escape, though he does nod at her last sentence. He sits at the patio for several moments, before moving inside the warm bakery to get a brownie or something. This is going to eat up his whole day, if not week. But he'll get through it. Or at least, he'll /try/. And that's important.