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CD fell silent to ignore the two talkers, but her silence was caused by her engine shutting down. Silencing her until anything decided to fix her damaged oil pipe.

"The scourge king, really?" Arien cocked a brow and regarded man for a moment. "How about I call you..." a grin lit up his face. Even Nathan had gotten to pick Bella's name, when Arien's choice had been discarded. "...Mig? Short for Man in Gold. But what kind of reputation could you possibly have? You look like the kind of guy anyone would feel safe to have around."

Unlike, say Arien, who had a reputation for being a flirt and being hurled out of more bars than he could count.

The Man in Gold shot Arien a look again and laughed; not the snort that replaced his response to something humorous, but the laugh from earlier. It was just as off-putting and disturbing as the last time, and caused most of the people to at least glance in the direction of the unusual noise.

"You've either got a peculiar sense of humor, human, or you're about the densest person I've ever met. Look at me, look into my eyes; can you imagine what I've seen? Can you imagine feeling safe around someone who throws a sword that's capable of going straight through a jukebox across a crowded room?"

He stared at Arien with his good eye, the other one dark and dead from the ugly scar running through it.

"My reputation is about the foulest one could have in the galaxy, and that's no exaggeration. When remote space stations out in the Eagle Nebula initiate their self-destruct sequences because of a rumor about my arrival on a planet 250 lightyears away, you can be that there's no one who would feel safe with me around."

Arien met TMIG's gaze and held it as long as he could. But that wasn't for very long. He shivered and looked elsewhere, at TMIG's shoulder or breastplate or something that wasn't as awe- or fear-inducing as the unfathomable depths of his good eye

"Even the worst sort can still redeem themselves," Arien muttered belligerently. "It just might take a while." But really who was he to be saying all this. "Do you like your reputation the way it is? If not, why not try to change it?"

He snorted again, which was less disturbing than his actual laugh; at least he seemed to be taking all of this in stride. Then he finished his sixth drink of the night, and left the seventh alone on the bar for a moment.

"Fear works. Fear keeps people from trying to sell me out, or screw me over. Respect? Debt? Friendship? They all falter with a gun or a laser to your head and your family held hostage somewhere. Fear works where the rest fail, because as long as the people who do things for me or work for me fear me more than they fear them, I can keep things running smoothly. Besides, with my reputation the way it is, I don't have to worry about going about my quest in a subtle or diplomatic matter; I can cut right to the heart of any matter and skip the pleasantries."

He turned the helmet one way, and then the other; he was slowly feeling the large grey dent in the forehead above the left eye where the gold leaf had flaked away.

"In any case, it's not redemption that I'm looking for. Who would redeem me," he questioned with another snort, "after all that's happened. You? I don't even know you, and you don't even know me. We're just two strangers in a bar, thrown together by Tharyn's grace...or luck, if you prefer...and I'm not looking to pour out my heart."

Arien smirked and shook his head. "I'm hardly one that can redeem someone else; no. But you intrigue me. See," he hesitated briefly and steepled his fingers before him, "I know a thing or two about ruling with fear and the thing is...once they lose their fear, they rebel with everything they have. My father...is one who rules with fear. My friend was another--but she made a lot of enemies in the process. I suppose if you can deal with your enemies, it's not such a bad thing."

He eyed the helmet. "What's wrong with your helmet?" He started to reach toward it and then paused, deciding that he might wish to hold onto his hand a little longer.

The Man in Gold's hand began to go for his sword, but he saw that Arien was already drawing his hand back from the helmet, so the sword stayed where it was. He pushed the helmet a little bit away from Arien, though, just in case.

"Don't touch the armor, human, it's irreplaceable and has saved my life more times than I care to remember."

It was true that the armor would have looked very nice, once. Its surface still held most of the gold leaf, although the elbows and knees were stained with rust and the metal had worn away around those joints. Besides those areas, there were slashes, dents, and burns all over the armor's surface. His helmet, in particular, was the most damaged piece of the set. It had the dent in the forehead, but the black horsehair wig which had been forged into the helmet's top was frayed, singed, and had been replaced many times over. The Man in Gold took the first sip of his seventh drink and looked around the room.

"You know, I once had a problem with rebellions, a long, long time ago. Not when I was a king, mind you, but after that; when I was just starting out on my quest. People didn't know of me, my reputation was still relatively unknown throughout the galaxy. Then I showed them what I was capable of. Do you read human science-fiction books, or watch the television programs? Are you familiar with the concept of an intergalactic council, or some other peace-keeping body for the far reaches of space? There have been groups like that in the past, and I've undermined, outplanned, and obliterated every single one of them.

"If you take down the most visible target, you get more media coverage. It doesn't matter if the target was already corrupt or that it was a badly-instituted version of a terrible plan to begin with; the media will always paint you as the bad guy. Once you've got that sort of a reputation, the rest is easy. Just hit the occasional starship convoy, make sure they see you and send ahead a transmission or two before you wipe them out, and the rumor mill and people's imaginations will fill in the rest. Even if you knew everything written about me in every book, digital drive, computer, and block of stone in the universe, not even a fraction of one percent of once percent of it would be true.

"Still, that doesn't excuse what I've done already, what I've let happen."

He took another drink.

Arien blinked and rubbed his hands together. "You sound like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. And my name's Arien, not human." He eyed the rest of the armor.

"So a king who decided to go journeying instead of ruling. We don't meet your kind often. And you're right, rumors often get spread far in advance of what they should be. But I'm not a philosopher or a therapist. I'm just a regular guy who travels here and there. I don't read a whole lot because, as you said, rumors often get blown out of proportion anyway."

"So tell me, then, what is true?" He nodded towards the bar. "Your next drink will be on me, if you wish."

CD's engine backfired as she attempted to stir awake, failingly.

He was lost. Not just confused and GPS-disoriented, but lost. His GPS didn't even know where to begin to find him, let alone his destination. Until it began to beep and set him on a course towards what looked like an inn of some sort.

He paused in the parking lot when he saw a puddle of oil pooling at the bottom of a car. And then because he couldn't help it, he had to stop and take a look. Slashed tires, a puncture through the hood. "I'm gonna need some spare parts," he muttered, not knowing where he would get them.

The Man in Gold looked towards the car-woman to see if there would be another fight, but after several moments of nothing else, he turned back to Arien.

"It's a long story, but I suppose I can summarize it. I was a king, once. I ruled, once. Then everything fell apart; no more people, no more kingdom. Thanks to one man, a man I once thought of as a friend. Nothing left for me back home to rule, so I took to wandering. I figured that this man was still out there, of course, this was only a few centuries after everything was destroyed, so I was still a young man then, so I decided to follow him. I wanted an explanation for why he'd done it, and then I'd kill him, or die trying.

"That lasted for a few more centuries, I got old; I found draughts which extended my lifespan and slowed the aging process. It turns out, the draughts kept me alive, but there's only so much that they could do. After a while, the arthritis got too bad, the sword and the armor became less comfortable in battle, and the chases were getting longer and longer for less and less results. I took up magic, started moving away from just swordplay. I started finding people who were expendable, rather than dependable, and have them do the small stuff.

"That's the part I'm comfortable talking about while I'm still a little sober. You don't have to cover the drink, they still owe me another five hundred dollars and change on what I paid for someone else's drink and my tab."

CD stirred and backfired again after sensing someone close. The oil squits out right onto Chris, by accident of course.

Arien listened, drinking from time to time. He couldn't imagine half of what TMIG was talking about, although he could relate a little to the swordplay and then magic-handling. "So how old are you then? If you've been working for centuries trying to find this person then you've gotta be close to what, five hundred, six hundred years old?" He made a face. That just didn't sound right. "No offense, but you really don't look that ancient."

He looked down at himself briefly before taking another sip of ale. "Is the armor you wear something from your kingdom? And...gods, how did you manage to rack up such a tab?"

Chris looked down at the oil stain and sighed. "Right, I'll be back." He went into the inn deciding to ask if they had any sort of tools he could use.

That was when he passed by the jukebox. He paused to run his hand over the massive hole in it, the excitement in his face replaced with disappointment.

"Aw man, I haven't seen one of these in years." He punched several of the buttons to test it out, to see if it still worked. Maybe, just maybe?

CD still puttered, as her sister appeared in the crowd. That shiny gleam was taunting, her tires stil shiny. Still that car that everyone could ever dream of owning.

The Man in Gold finished off his seventh drink of the night and was definitely starting to get drunk. No wonder he had been talking so much to Arien, he had let the liquor go to his head! Another drink was set down, just like clockwork.

"How old am I? Certainly not five hundred years old, otherwise I would still be in the prime of my life. No, I am...",he paused as he counted on his fingers absentmindedly, "ten thousand and forty six years old on my planet, which would make me...", more counting again,"about thirteen thousand, two hundred and eleven Earth years, give or take twenty for leap years."

Another drink, man this liquor was good! He hadn't felt this talkative in decades, and he was starting to lose his grip on the worse memories in his head.

"The tab? Oh, it's just something I've had here for a few hundred years. They're very precise about their tabs here, Arien."

Another drink, and now the eighth was finished too.

"The armor was custom made for me by master adamantine forgers of my people. I had it made when I assembled the band of warriors, back when I was a young man. It's perhaps the only thing I have left from those days, and it's served me well," he said. Not grunted, not groaned, not mumbled, but said, in a raspy but civil tone.

Chris approached the bar with a strange request. "Um, excuse me, do you have a screwdriver I could borrow?"

Arien gaped at the old man. "Thirteen thousand years old? Where are you from that you'd have to calculate according to this earth?" Was this guy even playing with a full deck? Of courrse not! He was drunk--obviously stringing him along on some wild drunken fantasy. He sighed and helped himself to a third mug of ale. If he wasn't careful, he'd end up just as drunk as this guy...

Not that he had anything better to do. He eyed the armor again: adamantine forgers? "That must be some armor then to have lasted so many centuries. Can I take a look at your helmet?"

The Man in Gold looked at Arien, his eyebrows less knit, his mouth less severe, and he nodded a little slowly.

"It's been a very long time since I've let anyone hold my armor, but you've been a good and patient listener. Careful, it's a lot heavier than it looks; it's at least fifteen pounds, maybe twenty."

He lifted the helmet like it was a tin can and, without thinking, dropped it into Arien's open hands. Whoops, he realized, that might break something. He moved his hand a little and the helmet stopped just inches from crushing the human's hands. He slowly lowered it with telekinesis into Arien's hands, and then returned to his drink. Then he remembered that he had been asked something else as well.

"The years on my planet are longer; they've got fourteen months of thirty days each. Therefore, I have to calculate the difference between my planet's timescale and Earth's."

Arien winced as he came into contact with the helmet. It's sudden halt in its downward trajectory startled him more than the weight should have. "Wha- Telekinesis? Since when?" he murmured, though he observed the helmet intently. He turned it around, noting the dents and the gold leaf beginning to peel. He frowned and tried to press the gold leaf back into its rightful place.

"If you went to a goldsmith, they'd be happy to patch this up for you," Arien suggested. "And a few blows with a hammer would sort this dent out."

But he turned his attention once again onto the old man before him. "Fourteen months in a year is...unheard of. That would make an awfully long year."