as written by Script, Ottoman, Krysis, and Runic Blade
The waiter serving Javier maintained a smile through the man's boisterous approach to ordering his food and drink, noting down the order and slipping away to retrieve it.
In the meantime, Elian returned to Angel and Albert's table with their own pitcher of water and a pair of glasses. "Here's your water, sirs," he said, smiling as he set it down. "Have you decided if there's anything else I can get you, or help you with?"
He cast a glance in Javier's direction at the rather loud proclamation regarding mining, but had little interest in the prospect himself.
____
"The military would probably be the best choice." Siemens mused to himself, not quite sure if he could manage anything else half so well. There were times, back home, when he'd thought of going into something else, but if one wanted a family the best way to make that happen was martial service, at least back in the Supremacy. "I... wouldn't know the first thing about farming, Ángel, but I figure you're right." It was better to double check to see if there was more opportunity elsewhere, though...
With the military practically devastated from this little revolution, there was nothing but opportunity there.
"Ah," Albert managed, pondering the thought for a moment, looking to the menu before Javier's words reached his ears. Why, an apple turnover did sound rather pleasant right now. Why not two? "... two turnovers, please. Apple. Say, do you have a pencil we could use?"
____
"Really, Al? I mean, military service is usually the refuge of those that can't do anything more useful than walk and carry a gun. Well, if that is what you want, I will not stop you." Ángel scratched his head and shrugged. "True, now is the time to become an officer. They get to wear the fancier uniforms and the funny hats, and rarely get shot at."
Zamorano barely glanced up when Javier came in. After all, the tea shop had to be busy, and with people dirty and tired from the battle the night before, and the clearing of rubble that was still going on. At least most of them had the courtesy to wipe their feet before they came in. Of course Ángel knew the Montaño family, at least by reputation, but he kept his opinions to himself for the moment.
"Coffee, for me, Elian. Was there anyone you wanted to check the list for? I have one of the most recent versions here." the farmer asked, giving the waiter a mildly concerned look.
____
After the waiter took Javier's order, he sat quietly, resting, while awaiting his drinks and food. The calm environment of the cafe was a welcome change from the revolution's chaos outside. Leaning back in the seat, Javier rested his weary back and neck. Having spent the prior day digging the entrance to the mine had taken a lot of strength out of him.
He overheard one of the other customers make the exact same order as him. It attracted his attention. Javier continued to listen to the conversation between the two men at the other table. One of the men he recognized as a local farmer, Ángel, but the other one was definitely a foreigner. Perhaps the foreigner had been involved in the military uprising.
When the waiter returned, the ice clinked when he sat the pitcher of water on Javier's table. Condensation dripped down the sides of the chilled pitcher. Javier gulped down the first glass of the water and poured another glass for himself. He packed the coffee away in his rucksack—that was for later—he'd need to caffeine to give him a boost while climbing back up the mountain trail to his mine.
Picking up his glass of water and the plate with the apple turnovers, he walked to table with the two men.
“Hello, amigos,” he said, interrupting their dialog. “I couldn't help but notice your fine choice of food.”
Javier lifted his own plate in the air and smirked to the foreigner. He grabbed a chair from the nearest table and dragged it across the floor to sit at the end of the booth with the two men. He saw a paper on the table with a list of words on it, but he wasn't able to get a good look at it without drawing too much attention to his curiosity.
“I hope you two don't mind if I join you. I heard some mention of work? Well, the military is a fine profession in my opinion. It teaches you bravery and orderliness. Those are important traits in my profession as well—mining.”
“If only more people knew about the wealth they could obtain in the mineral industries, I am certain that there would be less fighting and more digging! Ah, but it is not so. I struggle to find employees to help in my mine, despite the fortunes that lay within a few shovel's reach.”
“However, we can be thankful of the military's fine work recently. Anything to get rid of that corrupt president!” Javier shook his head in disgust. “Arce was a true embarrassment to this island.”
Realizing that he might have intruded in the men's conversation too much, Javier stopped talking and pierced a chunk of his apple turnover with his fork, lifting it to his mouth.
____
"Of course," Elian reached into his pocket and pulled out a spare pencil, proffering it to the two men before using his own to note down their order. When Zamorano spoke up regarding the list, the teenager's smile faltered.
"Ah... do you mind? There is someone."
While the miner came over and spoke, Elian took the offered list in hand, doing his best to reform his smile.
"Tal doesn't normally wake up till afternoon anyway," he noted with a small laugh, shaking his head. "The lazy ass that he is. So it's not unusual that he hasn't answered any texts this morning, but I... you know, when something like this happens, it's hard to stop yourself jumping to conclusions."
Whilst it wasn't exactly common knowledge that Elian and another of the island's youth - Natalio Valderas - were any more than close friends, there were plenty of rumours to that effect. Such was inevitable given Elian's relative femininity (though that was as often attributed to his mainlander heritage than anything else).
Trying to get in touch with Mrs. Valderas would have been a brick wall - she loathed the rumours that their affiliation had spawned, and as a result loathed Elian - and so he remained in the dark as to Tal's whereabouts. He'd promised not to get involved in the fighting, but... Tal was impulsive to a fault, at times.
He was probably fine though. Just sleeping in, like normal.
V... V...
Elian's finger trailed down the list, then drew to a halt as he reached the section he was looking for and started to scan through the names.
His breath caught.
Valderas, Cecilio.
Tal's father. An idiot, through and through. Violent, alcoholic, and the biggest shit-stirrer Elian knew.
Valderas, Natalio.
He dropped the list just as Javier was finishing speaking. "Oh gods. Oh no. No, no. He promised. He promised."
Elian's voice wavered as tears began to roll down his face, and without even realising it, he'd sunk down to the floor, his legs all-but giving out. "This can't be real. It has to be wrong. He promised me."
____
Albert listened politely to Javier, sobered up enough to regain a good degree of his Austran bearing, nodding when it was appropriate and simply looking to the man when it was not. He knew well enough, especially in underdeveloped regions of the galaxy, that mining didn't exactly hold the same unsavory connotations as it did in his homeland, but but he couldn't help the bias that his upbringing had given him - indeed, in many ways Siemens was the opposite of Zamorano in regards to the professional world. The military was typically, nearly always, one of the highest callings one could follow in the Supremacy, unlike here.
Perhaps he should change that.
"I fear I don't know the first thing about mining and prospecting, sir, but if there's some way to get in contact with you-" Albert searched for the term these people used, what was it - telephone? "I'd like to keep in touch, just in case." His mind was already dead-set on the military as it was something he already had something of a resume for, but Siemens wasn't one to burn bridges unnecessarily. Of course, Elian's reaction to what he read took the topic of conversation away from work and into an entirely different direction, Albert taken by surprise for a moment before he thought to react.
The Austran almost hadn't noticed that the waiter had said anything as he was replying to Javier, but few could ignore the young man nearly collapsing before them, and so with a muted sigh the officer moved to stand from where he sat, slipping out of the booth and moving to the local's side. With a firm, but not harsh, hand Albert helped Elian up, and moved the boy around to the booth where Siemens had sat just a moment or two ago. "Take a seat," He quietly offered, not quite sure how to deal with this but figuring that it would be better than the young man sitting in the floor.
Siemens cast a glance to Zamorano, a look that this confused foreigner was rarely seen with in this tropical paradise, born long ago in the distant, frigid peaks of old Austra, the look that had haunted Scatter and its progeny for centuries. An expression born of determination and empathy - for if there was one thing, one feeling, his people knew, it was loss.
Albert knew exactly where he needed to be on this island.
____
It was hard not to sneer at the Montaño boy. Javier might be a man by other standards, but Ángel Zamorano had watched him grow up. Zamorano would always see him as that snotty kid that hung around the woman that mended clothes for a pittance. Considering the bitter nature of the older farmer, and the harsh view he took of other people in general, this wasn't particularly surprising.
Thankfully, Elian's grief saved Montaño from the scathing remarks that Ángel would have been sure to make. The farmer awkwardly slid his napkin towards the waiter, muttering something like, "Maybe it is a mistake. The nuns might know when you lie, but they don't know when you die."
Inside he winced, knowing that sounded crueler than he intended, but really, Zamorano didn't know how to deal with such outbursts of emotion and preferred to ignore them as much as possible. So outside, his expression didn't change beyond a slight, panicked, widening of his eyes. "Wash your face and then you can go ask around and be sure."