Who to trust?

Kieran had been wandering around in the muggle world all day trying to get information that could be crucial to at least making both sides halt the war for a truce. However it seemed a futile effort.

Everything is a dead-end, he thought with frustration, "is there no one out there with a good clue that actually leads somewhere?

He was weary mentally with all the ups and downs. He decided to get a drink. Even though he didn't actually drink he figured a good way to find information was at a pub.

He arrived at the pub and found a seat that had a view of the whole place, or at least most of it anyways.

"Give me something strong," he told the bartender before taking the seat he had found.

Gene stumbled into the pub and sighed as he read the new attacks on each faction on the newspaper, which he flung aside.

"The stupidest thing to do... Fight among each other when we are all bound together as a human race..." He said in disgust, ripping out the headlines and crumpling it, before ordering some wine, as he looked around and started penning his thoughts.

As a leader of an order to safeguard people... It's high time he did BIG things to stop the war.

Kieran looked up as a man walked into the bar nosily.

He heard the guy saying something about being bound by being human and it perked his interest.

Looks like I am not the only one trying to stop the war, he thought.

He watched to see where the man would decide to sit before he made his next move.

Gene sat down at a corner of the bar and coughed a little, his pen moving across the notebook with furious speed and un-necessary force.

Kieran watched as the man sat in a corner away from everyone.

Should I or not, he thought, This could be the break I was looking for. He seems like a good enough guy and it sounded like he wanted the fighting to stop.

Kieran figured it was now or never so he got up and walked over to the table that the man had occupied as asked "Would you mind if I joined you."

He hoped the guy would say yes but he wouldn't blame the guy since he was a complete stranger.

Gene looked up and saw a man, and he nodded, moving his backpack aside.

"Yes, you're very much welcome." He raised his glass of wine and sipped it.

"Do not waste your youth away... And regret it only later in life..." Gene sang. He was a man of ambition and peace, and he needed the war to end sooner than later.

"My name is Gene Downie. Yourself?"

Kieran was happy when the man said he could sit down.

"Thank you," he said gratefully and took the proffered seat.

Kieran thought a moment on what the man said and was going to reply to what the man said but he wanted to hear more before he made his decision on if this man was a fraud or not. God knows there are so many of them out there promising false hope, he thought.

I am Kieran Reinhardt, but you can call me Kieran or Ker it's up to you."

Lainey moved lightly into the Jug and Bottle, her high spirits translating themselves into graceful steps. That, and her last visit to the pub had turned out rather pleasantly. The redhead grinned to herself.

"I'll have the stew and an ale, please," she told the barkeep. Lainey leaned against the counter as she waited, humming to herself. She would see if there were any familiar faces in a moment.

"Nice to meet you Kieran." He smiled, and bowed his head a little, and his face fell a little when he saw who had walked in.

He leaned forward a little against the table and lowered his voice and spoke to Kieran-

"That lady murdered one of our people. But we can't blame her, that chap was out to kill her for sport. I've been trying to convert her to believe in peace the last time, but a chump fron the anti-wizard squads turned up. Sure... Sure... He would have been easy to deal with, but I'm more interested in peace. So act like you don't know her and don't look her way."

He sat back in his chair and said loudly, "So what do you work as?"

Sienna walked into the bar. It was her day off and she wanted to spend it like she did most days she wasn't at work... Drunk. She saw the girl from the meeting at the bar and waved.

"Hey, it is Lainey isn't it?" she asked as she reached the counter. She turned to the barkeep for a second. "Give us my usual!" she said, meaning a double shot of Jack Daniels. She came here often and knew most people who came in well.

Lainey looked up from picking up her stew and ale from the counter, smiling wide in welcome. "Yes. Hello," she returned. "And you're... I'm not sure if I should call you Sienna or Miss Marshall."

The redhead turned to locate a place to sit and her grip on both the mug and the plate holding her bowl of stew and dinner roll tightened momentarily. Him, again. Straightening, she walked over to the table the wizard from before shared with another man. Lainey suspected he must be a wizard, also. The girl a meter away from them, directing her attention to the man she'd encountered before.

"Rather odd place for you to be, isn't this?" she asked coolly. "I wouldn't have expected to you, of all people, in a..." Lainey gave a meaningful pause, "an establishment like this one."

Kieran saw who is was talking about so he made a mental note to avoid her.

He was about to reply to Genes question when the lady in question walked over to the table and and asked Gene a question. He could tell my the tone in her voice she wasn't being very friendly about it.

"Excuse me M'am me and this gentleman here are trying to hold a private conversation if you don't mind." he said sternly. He didn't want Gene to run off if he was a real lead.

Lainey's expression became all apology as she turned towards the other man. "Oh, dear," she spoke hurriedly, face flushing in apparent embarrassment. "I do apologize - I didn't mean to interrupt. Just wanted to say hello to an acquaintance, this really doesn't seem his sort of place, so I was quite surprised to see him here."

Wide green eyes turned back to her former acquaintance. "I really didn't mean to intrude," Lainey said fervently. "Though, I shouldn't think a pub would be the best place for a private conversation... I'll leave you to it." She smiled sheepishly, then turned back towards Sienna, nodding questioningly towards an empty place several tables away.



((NOTE: Lainey is a superb actress))

As Lainey left, he rolled his eyes and bent forward again.

"Look at her hand... She wanted to grab and kill me all along... She is a great actress. Hollywood might want her. But only if she was to our cause..." He sighed.

"Well? Which cause are you for?" He asked the man seated with him.

Kieran looked at the man for a few moments studying him.

"I believe Wizards and Muggles and any other such races magical or not need to live in harmony. This war has to stop. Not in the future but now." he said seriously.

He sat there for a few moments just thinking and taking an occasional sip of his drink.

Lainey had to force herself not to look over to the table where the two men sat, though she had purposely positioned herself so that they were in her peripheral vision.

The wizard's presence made her uneasy. Why had he come back to London, and to a muggle pub, no less? He suspected her talent, though, he had little evidence to prove anything for certain. All he could really do is speculate. Still... a magical with a suspicion... What if he was acquainted with her captors? They would certainly know about her unusual ability. All the magicals she had encountered since her escape had been caught entirely off-guard by her, though, so she clearly wasn't common knowledge.

If only she could get her hands on that wizard and wipe herself from his memory entirely. If he'd never met her, he couldn't suspect her of anything, after all. Lainey wasn't really a killer. She had no problem with it, of course, but for the most part it was unnecessary and messy - and the fewer bodies, the less leads back to her. She only killed those magicals who attacked her. Otherwise, simply making them forget was far more efficient.

Not to mention, one less sin to stain her cursed soul.

Lainey did not trust the wizard with his soft voice and feigned kindness. Particularly because she couldn't figure out just what game he was playing at. She hoped this would be the last time she encountered him.

The redhead turned her attention to Sienna. "Regular here, huh?" she asked lightly, picking at her dinner roll without appetite. "I found this place recently, myself. It's nice."

"I have the same thoughts. Radical steps must be taken NOT TO DECLARE WAR. But to prevent it... Extreme measures must be put in place to stop our folks from going after them. Or their folk coming for ours. It's time to come together as one human race. Not aliens..." He said bitterly, showing him a stack of paper from his briefcase which consisted of ideas on how to stop the war.

"One way is... Well... Contest with the Minister of Magic... Others are... Sigh... Violent methods to resolve the conflict. But... Knowing muggles? Neither will live while the other survives. Knowing us? We won't take this lying down. Those pure blooded supremacists are causing a heck lot of all our bloody problems... Why can't anyone remember a stupid thing about giving in or BRINKSMANSHIP?" He said loudly, thumping his fist on the table.

"WHY THE HECK DO PEOPLE WANT TO FIGHT! CAN'T WE HAVE P-E-A-C-E?" He said a bit too loudly.

Lainey aspirated her mouthful of ale at the wizard's exclamation. That, again?!

The girl coughed hard, her body naturally trying to expel the alcohol from her lungs. Honestly, who did the man think he was kidding? Perhaps if the bloody wizards would stop kidnapping children and experimenting on those they found a bit interesting, they wouldn't be despised so much. Not to mention those who came to prey upon normal folk for sport. The magicals started all this, exerting their unnatural power upon those who did not possess it.

Peace was a pipe-dream. And Lainey was still half-convinced that the wizard's talk of it was some sort of ploy.

"Yes I agree wholeheartedly with the trying to get the races to live as one and not be so divided. Each side thinks they are better and they are too stubborn or prideful to just let all the differences go and just live...together."

"We kill each other and what does it do," he said, "Nothing but continue a war that will never end unless someone takes action."

"We fight because man has never known a moment when it wasn't," he said, "with power comes corruption and with corruption comes many things that often lead to war massively or small time things."

"Only when we see that we are no different them them and vise versa will we start on the path to peace. We are all humans no matter what makes us different on the outside or even the inside."

"We must end the war... No one can win this war.. In fact, I believe if that it goes all-out? No one can win this war. We must not even start one." He sighed, and poured another glassful of wine.

"We must stop our people from attacking theirs as a form of goodwill first. Then, hopefully the muggle counterparts will back off." He said, shaking his head and sighing.

"Or we can destroy the hate organizations... If only there was a way of knowing who were in them..."

"The war has been going on for years my friend. It has only come to it's peak in that last few years though."

"I am looking for a group that wants to stop this war before more unnecessary death happens, he sighed, "I have been looking for quite a few months but I always get nowhere. All dead leads."

"Peak? This is not the peak my friend. Muggles' peaks are different. Heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2? Now that's not even their peak. One bomb to kill tens of thousands..." He said bitterly.
"I'm in one actually..." He said hesitantly.

Kieran waved off the mans statement before continuing. "Either way there is no sign of anyone quitting anytime soon so we need to take action now."

Kieran was happy to hear that the man was in a group himself.

"If you would rather go somewhere more private we can," he said. "I know that the pub is a good way to get info but it is also a way for eavesdroppers to learn things as well."

"No, I am not leaving until I finish my drink, and when I am utterly and completely sure that lady has gone." He said, sipping his wine from his glass slowly, eyeing the lady.

"What do you work as?"

"I can tell she didn't like you. How are you so sure she will leave? She might stay here as long as you do. I am sure she is spying on us as well," he said taking a drink and looking around at the other patrons.