a sweet blind date!

Matentines always went extremely well for Bex, with no issues at all. She always had a partner lined up, and always had just… an absolutely fantastic time. There was never any frantic looking for someone to spend time with, and she’s certainly never gotten her heart broken. 

Of course, those are all the lies she tells herself (and the people nearby her) before she signs up for the blind date program. And so here she is, standing outside of the Church of Sulfur with a slightly dinky bouquet of flowers. That, she does not chalk up to any sort of desperation. The flowers were mostly just a way to establish herself as memorable, just in case she did find someone acceptable. Most people don’t bring flowers to a speed date, she presumes. She hopes her blind date isn’t into flower language, though, because this bouquet reads only as ‘the cheapest bouquet that didn’t look awful’. 

Bex makes her way through the church, subtly dodging anyone trying to make eye contact in her path to the small tea table and chairs in the back. She doesn’t see anyone else out here for now, so she snags the chair facing away from the church lights. It’s better for her angles, she thinks. And if she needs to magnanimously give it up to her date if they complain, that just makes her look better.

The event, this time around, was being held within the Church of Sulfur. Therefore, Damaris ought to have been early - or at least on time. And yet... by the time the sloth succubun had found her way to the event, it was already slightly crowded. It didn't seem to phase her, though. Damaris wore an impassive expression on her face as she approached the tea table and chairs, moving at a slow, languid pace. Her movements, somehow, still managed to appear reasonably graceful.

She was aware that this bun - Bex, if she recalled correctly? - was her first assigned date of the season. She paused for a moment when she reached the table, giving her date a quick once over. Yes, they would do fine for this, she thought. Damaris wasn't particularly interested in the blind dates, but... it was being run by the church and, so, it looked better if she attended. Besides, what else was she going to do with her Matentines?

"Hello," she said, lowering herself into the seat opposite the other bun, making herself as comfortable as she could (comfort was of high importance to her, after all). "You must be Bex?"

Bex is thumbing through the bouquet of flowers, making it look more presentable. She didn’t arrive exactly early, so she is a little surprised when, after a bit of a wait, the bun making their way towards the table was in clear church garb. Did they come from the Church and just got lost or something? No matter, though. She definitely wasn’t in a rush, so it probably wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Yes, that’d be me!” Bex says with a smile. “Then that would make you Damaris, right? It’s great to meet you.” She looks Damaris up and down, trying to glean what she could. Seemed confident enough, not nervous, and some sort of member of the clergy. That doesn’t give her too much, but it’s enough for her to begin to devise a conversational plan.

“This Matentines blind date thing is a real fun idea,” she says. “Makes sense that the Church would want to hold it in their backyard; I’m sure there’s going to be some disastrous dates out of this. Hopefully not this one, of course.”

Damaris offered the other bun a soft smile, leaning forward slightly, elbows on the tea table before her. "Yes, that would be me," she said simply. "Lovely to meet you, as well." She paused when Bex spoke again, every inch of her face and expression giving the image of listening intently - and yet, it wasn't entirely the case. Damaris wasn't bored, per se, but after a long day of work for the Church... well, it would have been nice to curl up on her comfortable, overly plush couch...

"Yes," she said after a slight delay, "The Church does so love Matentines..." Focus, Damaris, she told herself. She wasn't going to be a very good date if she couldn't remain in the present, now, was she? "Nothing too disastrous so far, but I suppose you never can tell..." A question. She should ask Bex a question. The point was to get to know each other, right?

"So, Bex... tell me, what do you do for fun?"

Alright, that question seemed to be an excellent move. Damaris must be very interested in compliments towards the Church’s running, Bex thinks. She takes note of that for later, and mirrors her date’s lean forward. 

“Well, it’s just the sort of thing that I’d expect them to be able to dream up,” Bex says. Realizing she should have presented them earlier, she lays the flowers out on the table towards Damaris. “Oh, and these are for you. No pressure to keep them, of course, I just thought I might as well.”

And as for what she does for fun… Well, now that’s a question. Fun was sort of relative. She had fun making money, but that is not an answer you say two steps into the date. She racks her brain for some acceptable hobby she’s dabbled in a few times, and narrows her eyes as it comes up somewhat sort. Well, time to utilize one of her greatest weapons: just lying.

“Well, I’ve been getting pretty into imp training recently,” she says, tapping her chin in thought. “I recently got myself an imp, and it’s been delightful to see his progress. Do you happen to have any pets?”

People love pets. This will go over perfectly. She hadn’t actually had to do much imp training at all with her phloof, since it mostly just wanted to nap. Damaris doesn’t have to know that though. “And of course, right back at you for the question about what you do for fun,” she adds. “I am interested in what a member of the Church gets up to in her free time. ”

Genuinely caught off guard by the offering of flowers, Damaris tilted her head to the side slightly. She took the flowers, studying them for a moment. Perhaps not the most extravagant bouquet she'd ever seen or received, but she hadn't expected anything from her blind date. Maybe she ought to have brought her own small gift? Ah, it was too late to bother with such thoughts now, and it was doubtful she would have had the ambition to do so, anyway. "Thank you," she said after a pause, offering Bex a small smile. "How thoughtful. I apologise, I've nothing to give you in return."

Imps. Something about imps. Focus, Damaris, she told herself again. But oh, how her couch was calling her! "No... I don't have any of my own at the moment," she said, "but what a noble endeavor. I imagine it must be terribly rewarding. Perhaps I should get myself an imp..." But it would have been so much work...

Ah... what did she do for fun? What  did she do for fun? "I'm quite fond of a good book, I must admit," she said, deciding on the easiest choice. It probably made a better impression than declaring one of her favourite hobbies was napping, anyway. "Do you read much?"

“Well,” Bex says as Damaris considers the flowers. This is exactly the sort of thing she hoped would happen with the flowers; a chance for her to lay on the charm. “It seems your gift to me will be the pleasure of your company.”

She holds the attempting-to-be-charming grin for a moment, before she laughs at her own corniness. “Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. But yes, no worries. I don’t feel slighted by that sort of thing. And imps are very rewarding, if you get one that listens to you. I’ve heard phloofs are quite low maintenance, if you’re more interested in a calm companion.” Bex’s imp was in fact a phloof, but saying that would now undermine her apparent hobby in imp-taming. It’s sort of baffling how quickly the lies weave a web sometimes.

Bex tilts her head, considering the last book she read. This one doesn’t hurt her to be truthful, she doesn’t think. Reading is a fairly neutral hobby, not a lot of bad ways to respond to it. “I typically enjoy non-fiction or instructional books, but yes, I do read. What kinds of books strike your fancy? ”

Damaris looked up at Bex when she spoke again, another smile playing around her lips. Well, wasn't she the charmer? Still... it wasn't every day Damaris heard compliments like that, so she was perfectly fine accepting them, whether they were meant genuinely or not. "I certainly hope I can live up to that," she said.

The sloth bun laughed lightly with her, shaking her head. "I don't mind," she said simply. She tilted her head to the side, considering her words. A phloof, hm? "It sounds like that's the sort of imp for me," she said, contemplating. Perhaps an imp was a good idea, especially if it was low maintenance? Something more on the cuddly side would have been ideal for her, something she could nap with...

"Oh, excellent," Damaris said with another smile. She couldn't really understand those who didn't read - though, she supposed, she wasn't overly familiar with non-fiction or instructional books herself. It wasn't exactly her style. But, nonetheless, reading was reading. "I've always been fond of fiction in general... though, I must admit, I love a good romance or a vampire novel..."

“I’ve heard only good things about phloofs,” Bex says, now a little disappointed she won’t be able to show off pictures of Memmy on her phone. She has this cute one where he’s sleeping upside down in an empty cereal bowl… But no, she’s implied she has some high-maintenance, hard-to-train imp. Cute pictures stay in her pocket. “They’re delightful.”

 “Romance and vampire novels seem like a good pair. I can’t say I’m very familiar with either genre,” Bex says. “But I’m sure there are some good ones out there. I would imagine the Church of Sulfur stocking a fair amount of romance novels in their libraries and files, is that the same for vampire novels? Something about it also seems like a popular genre for the clergy.”

Damaris tilted her head to the side slightly, once again considering. "Hm... I suppose I'll have to look into it." A little bit of companionship with an imo could certainly be a good thing, after all. "What sort of imp do you have that you're training, then?" she asked.

She smiled slightly. "If you're interested, I could certainly recommend a few titles..." she offered, though with Bex's previous statement about what she read, she wasn't entirely sure she'd be interested. "Mostly I read from my own personal collection, but... that would not surprise me. I do believe such novels would be popular among those here... the idea is to encourage your sins, after all, is it not?"

And now she has to make up a fake imp pet. Presumably one hard to train. She racked her mind, settling on one she’s seen being a bit of a bastard. “Oh, I have a Remil,” she lies casually. What did Hutch say about them… “They’re very intelligent, you just have to get to know them.” Great. Now if this date goes any measure of well she has to find a way to get a Remil. She’s in too deep now.

“I would love a recommendation,” she says. “I don’t read fiction as much as I would like, and you can’t go too wrong with anything that encourages your sin, very true.” She leans back a bit, fixing her ear behind her shoulder. “I actually don’t believe I know too much about vampires. Blood sucking, and all that, sure, but what else is fun about them?”

Damaris nodded - a motion that looked sage and understanding but, in reality, was rather vacant. "Yes... they can be troublemakers, that's for certain," she said. The church had had their fair share of run ins with the imps. While she had no doubt they were highly intelligent, they also had a talent for making themselves into a large pest problem. Those imps could get into anything, she was fairly certain.

Oh, she'd like a recommendation? Damaris wondered, for a moment, if she was simply saying that to make a good impression on this blind date - or, perhaps, simply to humour her. But she didn't much mind either way, if she was being honest. So instead of lingering on that doubt, she smiled. "I could make you a list... or I could show you my collection?" she offered. If it was an offer that Bex took her up on, she would have the perfect excuse to finally be at home, after all. And she didn't much mind lending books from her collection - she had read most of them multiple times, after all. "Oh, there's so much more to it... eternal life, drinking blood, shapeshifting into bats... in some cases, if you'll believe it, wolves..."

Bex nodded along with Damaris, feeling soothed by how invested the other bun seemed into her completely false words about imps. Things seemed to be going well enough, disregarding the small tangle of lies Bex ensnared herself in (entirely of her own fault). 

She was, in actuality, mostly just asking to make a good impression. She wasn’t a huge reader, but she can’t say vampire books sounded boring. Interesting enough at least. But an invitation back to a room in the Church to read romance and vampire stories sounded even more interesting. “Well, if you’d be willing, I’d love to.” Bex said with a smile. “You can show me only the best vampires there is to offer.”

Damaris smiled slightly, nodding. "I'd love to show you," she said - mostly meaning it, but partly looking for a reason to retreat to her beloved, overly plush couch. It was so perfect for lounging or napping, and it's call was incredibly difficult for her to resist.

"My collection includes... perhaps some subpar works," she admitted, laughing lightly. "But I will only show you the highest quality books, I promise."

She was... surprisingly enjoying this date so far? Was she still thinking about napping? Certainly, but when wasn't she? Either way, it had been pleasant so far. Bex was not particularly difficult to talk to, after all.

“Well, subpar works are always fun to look at with company,” Bex reassures. “I’m open to whatever you believe will be fun to look at together.” She stands, pushing in her chair and holding a hand out to help Damaris up. It’s only polite, after all.

As the two of them head back towards Damaris’ room, Bex believes that this blind date could have gone considerably worse. Pleasant conversation, a new book genre to peer into, and a secondary location for the two of them to chat in. Perhaps this whole Church of Sulfur sponsored thing was a pretty good idea.