Feasting at the Fest

Lately Basilio had been smiling a lot more. And these were genuine, kindly smiles rather than the menacing sneers one would expect from him given his stature and scarred appearance. He had realized almost immediately that putting on a front of terror was not conducive to what he needed or wanted to do here in this world that was now his and his son's home.

No more galas and benefit dinners, at least for a while. Now he was going to truly public events, open to everyone and filled with the lowest common denominator. He was one of them too now, he supposed. This food festival was an opportunity however. He had spoke with Officer Genovese (he refused to call him by his first name) and brought a dish himself. Something traditional Northern Italian. He wanted to see what the general climate was like and how others would receive his family's cuisine.

Meanwhile Angelo and he walked around the festival, sampling the varied foods and mingling. It was nice. Good father and son bonding time. He paused at Angelo's question and gave a small shrug after a moment of contemplation. "My classes are just about through with, I believe. I have more history to catch up on, but it isn't necessary that I know all the details of the last dozen wars this world suffered through. How about you? How is school? How are your friends? Your girlfriend?"

"Christ, I can't even imag- well no that isn't true. I've heard some describe holy water like acid." And Basilio could pretty easily imagine the effects of a literal bucket of acid being dumped on a person. He grimaced slightly. "That boy is not welcome in our restaurant, when things get up and running. I am not going to risk losing an entire customer base because of one patron. Maybe if he shows any real attempt to make restitution, but..."

Basilio picked at some food and nodded. It was good for sure. He just hoped that his own food met with decent feedback. "The restaurant is coming along at least. And I think I found an apartment for us, but i'm still waiting on approval for the loan to get the first few months' rent settled."

"I wouldn't call her an angel for certain," Basilio said, tabling the discussion of the crimes of Xavier Joiner indefinitely. "But she has certainly been helpful so far. Dr. Asteria Vrall. I believe you know her?"

"Oh good, that makes all this easier then," Basilio said, sampling more of the food. This was good, at least. She had mentioned Angelo being friends with her child. They had even swapped empty threats at each other about their respective children.

"You'll have to tell me what you know later. Would have been nice to know ahead of time, I suppose. But no matter. We have formal legal documents so there's no messy gentlemen's agreement to deal with. I have a location. Former restaurant that went out of business, so there's at least less construction and installation to have to do."

And that was good because he needed to use some of the money to put the down payment on their apartment and get himself some other clothes that had his shoes' enchantments on them.

"Mismanagement, yes. The old owners were-" how to say it? Basilio's lips drew into a thin, unamused line as he turned from his food to look Angelo in the eye.

"Well, they were a Family. But they apparently never got the memo about discretion. So as far as I can tell, they got broken up and no one really took the restaurant over."

No real loss in his mind. Basilio couldn't stand people who didn't know how to keep private matters private. And from what he had heard the food hadn't even been that authentic. Oh well, no reason to worry about it now. There were other reasons he liked the place, but those weren't really good to discuss at an event like this one.

"Yes, we'll have to talk about her in depth sometime. Other than that, hopefully the paperwork for the apartment should be done soon and we can move by month's end. Like am early Christmas present: us having a place of our own."