#laur-rants

Eris Morn is in her apartment in the Last City. She is sitting at her reading table in the centre of her rooms. Her eyes are unbound. She is wearing simple comfortable civilian clothes in earthen tones. Sunlight spills in through the stained glass window, splashing geometric colours on the wooden floor. A cup of tea steams on the table beside the book she is inscribing with elongated spidery writing.

On the floor near one leg of the table, not far from Eris' feet, is another teacup containing one third whiskey, two thirds tea.

The Drifter, cross-legged on the floor in ripped jeans and a stained light grey t-shirt, is seated in front of a thin blanket. He is slowly reassembling a machine gun. Each piece of the gun is neatly positioned on the blanket in the order in which it was removed. Each component has been individually cleaned and oiled.

There is a soft clicking sound as the Drifter ratchets another bolt into position.

"Somethin' I always wondered..." he says, breaking their comfortable silence in a way that is gentle and not jarring.

"Yes?" Eris' voice is warm. The interruption is mildly irksome, but the source of it, the reminder of another person in the room, is welcome.

"This tea we're drinkin' right now. It's called Earl Grey."

Eris cocks her head and leans back in her chair, looking down at him. "It is. I am… surprised you know this."

He grins up at her. "And earl is a title, right? Like king or kell or warlord."

"Yes, it was."

"What do you think happened to the other colours of earls?"

Eris blinks all three of her eyes at the inanity of the question. "There have been multiple apocalypses which have afflicted humanity." She leans back over her book. "That information is lost."

The Drifter returns to his assembly. "I wonder if they fought each other." There is a soft clink of metal on metal in his hands.

Eris pauses, confused. "Who fought each other?"

"The other earls. Like Earl Blue and Earl Red and Earl Yellow. I wonder if they had wars over tea." He holds up part of a gun barrel and examines it carefully, closing one eye and turning it slowly.

"I do believe… in the small bits of history which remain… that tea was at one point a valuable commodity enough for wars to have been fought over it, economically." Eris dips her pen into the inkwell beside her and begins once more to write upon the page.

"Yeah," he laughs. "I seen how grumpy you get when you ain't got your tea… no shit wars would be fought over that."

"Tsch."

"I wonder if Earl Grey tea won out because he killed all the other colours of earls and took their tea." The Drifter snaps two metallic components together and examines the fit.

"Hmmm…" Eris continues writing.

"Maybe it's all the other earls teas combined?"

Eris looks up from the book, her three eyes staring straight ahead at the wall on the other side of the room. "As far as I am aware…" There is only the slightest hint of annoyance in her voice. "It is one specific genus of plant and the particular flavour is not actually the tea at all, it is engendered by the additive of another plant."

"Berg-a-mott." The Drifter says the word as though it were three separate words as he twists the barrel, screwing it into the chamber.

Eris turns her head sharply to look down at him again, her attention fully focused on him once more. "You know of it."

The Drifter smiles, not looking at her as he fits a small metal ring into a larger one. "It's a terrible tasting bitter and sour orange… that only still exists because of arcologies off Earth. It's entirely extinct on Earth right now."

"Is it? I did not know this. That explains why it is so difficult to find Earl Grey tea now." Eris places her quill down on one of the Drifter's coins, using the slight height difference between the coin and the table as a pen rest .

"Yeah. I asked Devrim. That man's amazing. He knows so much shit about tea."

Eris takes up her cup in both hands and sips the steaming liquid. "He does."

"So yeah… " He glances up at her briefly and his smile widens at having caught her attention enough to pull her away from her book. "Apparently Earl Grey tea used to be super common in the time before the Golden Age. It was a normal boring tea to people. But after the first collapse when like three quarters of all life on Earth got wiped out? No one bothered keepin' the bad tastin' oranges. They kept the tea, mind you. But not the berg-a-mott. But, before that, tea drinkers got out in all the remote pockets of humanity in this system and, like a lot of things, shit that people kept for comfort in the distant parts ended up being the only ones of those things left."

"Hmmm…" Eris inhales the vapour from the tea.

"But…" The Drifter puts down the half-assembled weapon and twirls a socket wrench in the fingers of his right hand before twisting his wrist so it seems to disappear. "That ain't the best part." His eyes sparkle as he reaches back and picks up his own cup of tea, extending it out toward hers.

Eris gives him a small smile and humors him, clinking her teacup against his in a toast.

"What is the best part?" She sips her tea again as he sips his.

He pulls one leg out from under himself and stretches it out, gesturing with his teacup as he speaks. "The fruit of the berg-a-mott orange tree…the bergamot orange?"

"Yes?"

He leans forward conspiratorially. "It isn't orange."

Eris blinks. "What?"

"It's green."

Eris leans on the armrest of her chair closest to him, resting her chin on her fist and fixes him with a dismissive gaze. "All oranges are green before they turn orange."

He leans forward even more, his elbow on one knee, his eyes filled with amusement as he looks up at her. "It never turns orange. It stays green. The orange isn't orange in the grey tea that isn't grey."

"Hmmm…" Eris sips her tea pensively at this information. "How do you know?"

"Because I found some in the Arcology on Titan and they were green."

"Maybe they just weren't ripe when you looked at them…" She says, her voice slightly condescending.

The Drifter licks his lips as he looks up at her, his grin widening as he drinks more from his cup.

Eris' three eyes narrow. "Why are you smiling like that?"

"No reason." His eyes glitter and his smirk widens, telling her there absolutely is a reason.

"You only smile like that when you're right and you know it."

He licks his lips again, places his teacup back into the saucer at her feet, and slides closer to her along the floor. "I might be right… and I might know it, yeah."

Eris frowns. "But… the only way you would know you are right about the bitter oranges being green is…"

"Hehehe." He looks away from her as he chuckles, his head near her elbow.

"You are growing them yourself."

He turns his face back to her, his expression smug. "Something that rare? Hell yeah. That's gonna be worth something to someone someday. They taste so bad they're inedible, but they sure do go nice in tea. If nothin' else, Devrim appreciates it, and apparently…" He reaches out a finger, slowly and gently brushing it along her arm. "...so do you."

Eris regards him closely.

"That is... wait…" She puts her teacup down and leans down to see his face. "Did you go on an entire expedition… to a nexus of one of the most dangerous infestations of Wrathborn and Taken in this system… just to obtain an obscure inedible orange… in order to replicate a type of tea for me?"

"Hehehe." He looks away again, his expression almost but not quite shy.

"You did."

He looks back at her, his breath quickening as she reaches down with one hand to bury her fingertips in his beard.

The Drifter leans against Eris' hand like a cat, rubbing her fingertips deeper into his beard, delighting in her touch.

Eris curls her hand tugging him slightly closer.

"I didn't do it just for you." He looks lovingly up at her, his eyes telling her the exact opposite. "Rare shit has value," he continues to justify. "I got all kinds of plants that ain't growin' nowhere no more. Soon as I started keeping a garden on the Derelict I realized bein' mobile and able to visit all these places on Earth, and off Earth, means I can keep shit alive that's long since died off."

She turns in her chair and reaches down with her other hand, cradling his face, beckoning him closer.

He rises to his knees, placing his own hands on the armrest next to her elbows.

Eris' three green eyes shift within the scarring on her face, strange yet also beautiful as she stares at him intently, studying his face.

"For someone who has refused to hope for so long… you have saved… and cultivated… and maintained… life. Life which otherwise would be extinguished. Something which both traditionally, and metaphorically, is… often seen as a symbol of hope itself."

"For completely selfish reasons, I assure you." The Drifter turns his head and softly kisses the palm of her left hand, his eyes closing as his lips linger on her skin.

"Hmmm…" The corner of Eris' mouth forms a wry smile at his obvious lie.

"And cuz I don't like starving," he continues, trying to add more evidence to his claim as he looks back up into her eyes. "That's the thing about always bein' hungry, Makes ya start payin' attention to where your food's gonna come from tomorrow, in addition to today."

She continues to look down at the devoted man on his knees in front of her while he continues to insist he is selfish.

"You just said they are so bitter they are inedible."

"Oh I think we both know from experience, Moondust, that damn near anything's edible if you're hungry enou-."