Influence People

       Nodding once, Ahana responds, "Yeah. Like in New Orleans. I'm called, Ahana, by the way. Something up with your GPS?" She stands now so that the person outside is better in her view, extending her right hand to Aster to shake while sliding her left into her parka's pocket.

       Out there, Shiny finishes her 360, but she doesn't seem particularly satisfied. From her tacklebox, she pulls a phone, pokes at it a moment, then puts it to her ear. The wind whips her hair; it must be loud, as she plugs the ear opposite to focus. It looks like a vehement, frustrating conversation; nonetheless, it only lasts about a minute before she hangs up, puts the phone in the tacklebox. Aaaand resumes the position she'd taken up before.

       Aster glances over her shoulder towards the window, but does so as little as she can stand. She doesn't want to get caught looking. Her lips purse, and she shakes her head as she looks back to Ahana. "Oh, just... planning my way home."

       "Mmm. Mmm. It is a tricky city to find your way through," responds Ahana as she smiles all the deeper. "So," she says glibly but softly, "Tell me how you are related to the person in the shiney coat. Try radioing a report, pulling any sort of device or enacting any kind of weirdness and I will bury this in your windpipe and be out the door before anyone even notices I was ever here." She lowers her hand and shows that she is holding a knife alongside her wrist, a matte black thing that gleams only along its cutting edge.

       Shiny is -firmly- oblivious to the goings-on in the restaurant; she's hanging over the end of the dock again. Nevermind her, though, knives are in the room.

       Aster blinks, and her face turns white. It's one thing to be wilful and brave, but she knows she's no fighter. If it came to Ahana trying to put that knife somewhere in Aster, she wouldn't come out of it well at all. When she speaks, it's through almost-clenched teeth, the better to keep her voice low. "I noticed she was 'enacting weirdness', as you put it, and tried for a better look at what she's doing." Start with the part that sounds damning, so you don't get stabbed before you finish saying: "I have never seen her before, and know nothing about her other than that she's putting something in the water. Titrating, actually, like it's some lab experiment."