Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 28,890 words. I'm way under my daily quota which states I should have been past the 35,000 mark today but then given the circumstances of the last 48 hours, I think I can get a bit of a reprieve. Tobie and I have committed to making this night a writing night and we're going to really push ourselves to get as far as we can. The home stretch is just around the corner! We don't have much time but we're both so close to our goal!

I'm pretty drained on so many levels, this is not going to be one of my more coherent entries. Let's begin.

Work was tiring yet fulfilling. Pretty heavy meeting with the Compliance girls. The 2nd ever Best Practices Forum in the morning.

I traveled along the path of the asymptote to see how close to infinity I could get this time around. I got pretty darned close - close enough to scare me and shave off a few years of my life, but then the time dilation effect made up for that, I suppose. I know I'll pay for traveling so close to the speed of light light that, but such journeys are always worth it, not matter how scary. The risks are always worth it.

I realized something today. I paid a heavy price to come to this realization, but it was worth it. I feel a lot better, but the process took a lot out of me. My willpower bar is at zero and the only thing I have to look forward to is that I was able to stick to virtue instead of vice, and that means I'll get a full bar in return. I'm still waiting for that to happen. I couldn't done it without you, but then it again it is about you so that ultimately makes sense. Well duh.

LRT 1 to LRT 2 is a lot easier than MRT to LRT 1. Boo you MRT.

The trap has been set. The key log has been placed. Now what? Who knows. I've hit the timer so my turn is over. It's up to the other person now - although it always has been. I just changed the parameters a bit more, upped the ante and now...here we are.

It's not easy playing bait. Quack. Quack. Moo.

Why does self-sacrifice have to be so painful? Wait - don't even bother answering that. I was a rhetorical question of limited practical importance (but perhaps is a matter of consequence). Damnitdamnitdamnit.



Refrigerator.

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As I kept saying, we all have our roles to play, not matter how we feel about them.

Happy Birthday greetings go out to my "LA friend" and co-worker, Cathy! Happy, Happy Birthday! I bet you got even better birthday greetings from LA, har har!

Work last night didn't involve a trip to QC, and yet I ended up feeling even more tired. I guess there was just so much going on, it was quite a pain. Agents that needed to be interviewed because they were being transferred to meet headcount requirements one way or another, items to transition, inherited follow-ups several months overdue and meetings up meetings (canceled and otherwise!) - ARGH!!! You can tell how busy / stressed I am at work based on the number of updates I manage to post via Ping.fm to Twitter, Plurk and Facebook. I think today I pretty much had one late update after my first few meetings and a few more towards the end of the day when I finally got to catch my breath. Seriously, my life has gotten a lot busier ever since I started my transition over to the Audit & Compliance Team. I'm not complaining (yet), just making an observation here.

So I got home with what I call MRT legs, which essentially describes the feelings of soreness I get in my feet and lower legs because of the effort of jockeying for a relatively comfortable position in the train along with just remaining upright despite the erratic movements of the MRT and the sheer volume of people crammed in with you that general tidal wave patterns of their own. Despite the feelings of fatigue (both mental and physical), I was determined to cook something nice for breakfast / dinner with Tobie. Plus I needed the cooking to de-stress somehow, beyond the normal de-stressing I manage when I compose these LJ entries.

During my most stressful days, things somehow align such that it coincides when I decide to cook munggo or happen to have the ingredients for it. I know, I know, I seem to be cooking a lot lately, but it's such nice yummy comfort food and not as difficult to make as I thought it would be. Sure, a lot of time is involved in terms of pre-soaking the beans and later on boiling them, but in terms of actual procedural steps, it's not that bad. It's a given that I'm probably not doing it as perfectly as other amazing cooks would, but I manage decently enough and seem to more or less get the taste I want. I just need to make sure I consistently get the right balance of ingredients whenever I do this - I ever have a little too much or a wee too little water. Ah, the wonderful imprecision of the cooking process, nyahaha!

For today's viewing session over breakfast, I loaded one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, The Girl in the Fireplace, which was actually nominated for a Nebula Award and it won a Hugo Award. Ah yes, definitely science fiction at its best. The story is deceptively simple enough but then the twists and turns reveal hidden complexities on so many levels. It's not necessarily an episode with a happy ending and it certainly carries with it a rather somber tone to things, but overall it was just a very good story told quite well. Episodes like this are the main reason I fell in love with the new Doctor Who series and it was nice to be able to share this side of geekery with Tobie.

Now I need to find time to write another Geeky Guide review, read the new Blackest Lantern comics that I've just downloaded and maybe squeeze in a little World of Goo time before bed. Pressure much? LOL

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Sorry, but context is for the weak. I just thought this whole sequence rocked. And made Mike hotter. LOL

At this precise moment, I can smell something burning coming from another apartment. Well, maybe not burning, but definitely generating smells much stronger than it probably should be. The joys of condo living.

Sunday turned out lazier than expected. After getting back home from my family obligations, it became harder and harder to contemplate leaving the Sietch. Naturally Tobie and I weren't at all hungry after all that Mongolian and that sense of fullness never really left us for the bulk of the evening. Eventually when it came time for this week's Fandom Live shooting, it was a small miracle we were awake enough to go down to meet up with the other geeks.

This week's shoot was just okay - we started a new feature called We:Play that focuses on game boards and other fun table top diversions and a We:View of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm definitely enjoying the whole Fandom Live experience. While it remains to be yet another thing that needs to get done in the week along with everything else, it's still pretty light in terms of demands (relatively speaking) and most of all it remains to be a pretty fun side project. Sure, none of us get paid and there are really bad days when we come up with the strangest concepts for episodes, but things move steadily forward. Who knows, perhaps this'll become really big one day, eh?

Beyond that, we ended up not hitting O Bar for the night and just stayed home. We really needed to catch up on sleep, even if it meant screwing up my body clock in terms of work patterns.

Tobie and I finally finished watching Torchwood: Children of Earth and it was...a lot. I know it was only five episodes by the folks behind the show made sure to make it feel as emotionally taxing as a full season. That means the death of important characters, Jack Harkness making cruel yet necessary decisions and subtle jabs at Scottish hooliganism. While I'm glad that the series is getting renewed for a fourth season, I'm not sure if I'm ready to fully accept what was done in this mini-series of sorts. I'm thinking that Jack needs a fresh dose of the Doctor to give him the right perspective on things. Jack has a tendency to become rather jaded and cynical in his actions when left alone long enough so my money's on making sure that the incoming Doctor Who gets to have a run-in with the new incarnation of Torchwood once they decide on their new roster.

I've been working on the DVDs again this weekend and I've gotten as far as the letter M in the collection given he cases Tobie was able to acquire. I still can't believe he was able to haggle the girl down to P60 per 80-disc case. I have yet to decide on how to label these darned things in a way that is stable enough to last a while but not permanent so I can re-assign letters as needed in line with the growth of the collection. The joys of slightly obsessive-compulsive DVD sorting. And we haven't even gotten started on the music and VCD sets. Oh joy!

I think we need to grocery again tomorrow. I've been responsible enough with the existing inventory such that I've cooked most of the stuff and thus it's okay to pick up more ingredients. I think. At least today's beef stroganoff experiment went rather well. My thanks again to my sister for the recipe. Whee! Now I need to learn more pastas!

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Beyond it being a guest strip, this was pretty funny. I miss Day of the Tentacle!

I never seem to have enough time to do everything that I want to do, but I can get pretty determined at making sure I make as much time free as possible. It's never easy given work, chores and all the usual day-to-day things that make up the grind that is life, but I always hold firm to the belief that "you always have time for the things you want to do" and thus it acts as a reminder for being more organized, prioritizing things as needed and possibly sleeping a little less than what is idea, haha!

The task that I really wish I had more time for but always seem to run a bit short is blogging for the Geeky Guide. This is not about turning my "professional" blog into a revenue-earning machine or anything like that - it's just about how strongly I feel about the blog, what it means to me and the importance of getting entries out and keeping the site relevant is what drives me. I can't quite explain it but the Geeky Guide and my persona blog serve very different purposes and it pains me ever so slightly whenever I'm unable to update the Geeky Guide for significant stretches of time.

Speaking of - my formal review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will have to wait for tomorrow. It's a good thing I have a scheduled vacation leave for the night - more time to blog!

Then again, why wouldn't I be running out of time - geeks like us just get into so many things! Case in point - my current thon project, Dollhouse, since I still haven't finished watching the entire first season. Then I have to catch up on the second half of the first season of True Blood in order for me to start watching the second season, which has already started broadcasting in the US. Then there's all the games I play on Facebook (argh), a little Travian on the side and then the usual stuff like work, chores and the like. Life is so amazing in terms of the range of things that we can get involved in and that fact never ceases to amaze me.

One little side project that I'm becoming more and more proud of involves my struggling attempts at cooking. Sure, what I've managed thus far are ridiculously simple and probably all more on the "safe" side, but it's still a lot better than nothing. It's really fun rushing home to try and come up with something new and to watch Tobie's reaction whenever he first tries something I've come up with. We're both learning to cook and trying to figure out what we like and don't like and so the eating of anything created is an inevitable mandate that we're happy to indulge in, regardless of the actual results of our experiments, haha.

As I type this, I'm waiting for him to get home so we can eat - I have reverted back to the usual tuna over rice concept with the addition of diced tomatoes and onions, some shredded lettuce and some steamed okra. These rice toppings of sorts have become our staples in times of need and I'm definitely not complaining - it's a fun experience. Our range of cooking is limited by the use of the rice cooker as the primary cooking tool and I now want to venture into experimenting with various soups and such and see what comes out.

Yes, yes, we'll eventually graduate to having an actual stove.

He's home! Time to eat!

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A pre-movie comic - it's not that far from the truth, haha.

I slept really well today, and thus now I have to rush this entry. You can't have everything, huh?

My mom let me borrow her older coffeemaker over the weekend, and that was definitely a good thing. It's just a basic American Home model that can support up to 12 cups and frankly it's better than not having one. I'm still kind of holding out for a nice Krups model, but I know that's going to set me back around 4k so that'll have to wait for now. I took the time to buy the stuff I needed for the coffeemaker yesterday - filters, coffee grinds and sugar - and finally got to try things out last night.

Every coffeemaker is slightly different from the other and it takes some time to sort of calibrate your ratios with the machine. Heck, the actual coffee you use is a major factor along with the brand / type of filters you buy, whether or not the machine comes with its own filter basket and what not. My first batch of coffee was pretty bad but of course I've been getting better at things over time. I've now settled on a pretty decent formula of sorts, the key to which was taking out the basket that came with the machine and just using paper filters. I'm pretty satisfied with the results so far, although I definitely need to find a better source of coffee. SM Supermarket has always been deficient in terms of brewing coffee options and the BC Coffee Club brand I picked up remains to be decent but not exactly what I'm looking for. The search continues.

It totally psyches me out that the new Transformers movie is coming out next week. I've already started to discuss preliminary plans with Tobie about when we can go see it and for now I'm pretty much set on catching the first screening next Wednesday after work, probably at Gateway, then a second time at the SM Mall of Asia IMAX theater on Sunday after the weekly Fandom Live! shooting. You have to understand just how important the Transformers are to me (this I type as my new Soundwave figure is sitting right in front of me here at the computer table), and so yes, this merits at last two theater screenings in order to be satisfied.

One week to go!

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Seriously, I wonder if the petty hoodlums and major villains have noticed he's different.

First, lemme be a little more gay than usual for the next paragraph at least.

I'm rather disappointed in my MRT commutes every day. It's not about the volume of people or the discomfort of riding in rather well packed MRT cars but it's about the fact that I have yet to see anyone worth watching on any of my trips. Seriously - am I on the schedule with no eye candy? I find the lack of beautiful people a tad odd given the large number of stories written by friends and random bloggers alike about all these chance encounters at the various MRT stations. I'm not even talking about full-blown hooking up - I just want to see someone for a change. Instead I get nothing and so I just lose myself in the music blasting out of my headphones. Seriously, I'm very, very disappointed. This now makes me doubt everything I've read about the significant availability of pretty guys to look at in order to pass the time while traveling across the city. You have failed me blogosphere!

Seriously though, I do find it a tad odd, although don't mistake the last paragraph for a serious cry for such encounters. I've never been the type to deal with such things in person and my fascination obviously just stems from the fantasy world crafted by various blogs and cheap thrill websites, hehe. Oh come on - did you seriously think I'm the type to hook up with random strangers at public places? Shame on you! =P

Today I decided to surprise Archer by making breakfast for him before waking him up. In previous weeks the routine has been to crawl into bed right after I get home, wake him up and then we figure out breakfast together. Given the limited experience I've gathered in the past week from cooking with Tobie, I was fairly confident enough to come up with a quick and dirty menu so he'd have something to eat before leaving for work.

Thus I quickly scrambled some eggs with some roughly diced onions and tomatoes added into the mix along with some milk to make it creamy and fluffier. To complement all this, I just opened a can of tuna, mixed in pepper and some crushed rosemary and eventually added all this on top of the rice I made after cooking the end. For now, we're still cooking everything either in the microwave or the rice cooker and thus cooking time gets a tad extended. In this case, the rice cooker doubled as my frying pan for the egg and eventually for my tuna rice, hehe. Then I heated up some water for instant coffee for both of us and then presto! Instant breakfast! Sure, I wish I had more to work with (in terms of both ingredients and skill) and that at the very least we had ground coffee for the coffeemaker, but beggars can't be choosers. With all this ready, I set the table then ran off to wake him up.

It was priceless watching Archer's face as I woke him up. Naturally he was struggling to regain full consciousness and already I was asking him if he was in the mood for some tuna and scrambled eggs. I got the usual okay response one expects from a person half-asleep and unable to think of any significant reasons to say no to whatever is being proposed, but that changed very quickly. Instead of asking him to get out of bed to start cooking with me, I quickly stated, "then let's eat" and basked in the pleasure of watching his face switch from momentary confusion then quickly into that goofy kind of smile that really shows the person is happy.

He loved the surprise (yay me!) and I'm glad I got to do a little something to brighten his day despite the fact that he had to go to work while I slept. It's one of the challenges of working on two different schedules, but we seem to make do for now. I'm planning something else for tomorrow and I already bought the ingredients today as he left for work. It's nothing amazing and I can only hope I follow my mom's instructions well enough and from there we'll see how things go, hehe.

Oh, and of course I finally picked up some ground coffee for brewing. SanMig Coffee is pretty decent as far as instant coffee goes, but nothing quite beats the real thing. I'm finally going to stop having instant tonight when I wake up! Wahoo!!!

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Dick was always a dick bit of a whiner.

Today's the birthday of two good people, one being my high school classmate Coy and of a work-related friend of Brian |kitchengod|, Cucci. Here's a very hearty Happy Birthday greeting to both of you! =D

It suddenly got all rainy this morning and once again I was too wrapped up in my work to even other opening the blinds and looking out my little window at work. It's always a bit of a bother when this happens since I usually don't have an umbrella on me, but I'm definitely not one to complain since I love the cooler weather. Oddly enough, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, apart from wanting to watch nice movies, this weather always makes me have a nasty hankering for ice cream. I know it's already colder than normal and it wouldn't make sense for my body to go in search of a frosty taste treat, but that's what I feel like. Fortunately, no ice cream is immediately accessible so I guess I'm safe from those particularly unneeded calories. Ah, the reason why we don't normally by ice cream and chips while doing the grocery.

Work was very...tedious today. It was pretty much all about paperwork and reports and it was a major bummer to have to deal with it all. It wasn't difficult work at all, mind you, just tedious and repetitive - the kind of stuff you just wish would go away but of course are still important and need to get done. Double-check your math here and make sure the formula catches all the right cells there. Are all the forms signed appropriately and did the learners fill out all the blanks like they were supposed to. Blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on. To make matters worse, there were all these delays due to other departments in terms of there being insufficient chairs, client IDs not arriving on time, headsets still getting property-tagged.

It's a good thing I'm pretty darned patient and I've learned to keep my cool in situations like this. Well, I keep my cool and make sure they know I mean business and I need results, that is. Don't worry, I don't bite...at work at least. Ewww. LOL

Although the week has only just begun, I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend. Leave approved for Friday! =D



One by one, the black ships materialized seemingly from no where as the fleet completed their jump. The ships ranged from pocket destroyer to full-blown carriers and battlecruisers, all armed to the teeth and bearing the colors of the Caerdine Empire.

In command of the Third Fleet was Tactician Ulsdan Crai, a gifted strategist who had been the equivalent powers of a fleet admiral or full general, depending on the forces he commanded and the arena of conflict. He was a master of all forms of battle whether on a single planet or in the vastness of space. The deployment of the Third Fleet was normally something no race wished to face since it rarely boded well for enemies of the Empire.

From the bridge of the fleet flagship Excalibur, Ulsdan Crai continued to study a running chronometer on his primary display. From his command chair he could not only get updates on the state of the flagship but of any member of the fleet down to the lowliest tug craft. Most commanders would find the wealth of information he manipulated far too much for the human mind to fully comprehend but to Crai it was child's play. For some reason, he had been born with a gift for data assimilation and the addition of the best military-grade neural implants ever developed helped maximize his abilities to the fullest.

"Admiral, the Fleet has completed jump procedures. Your orders?" an ensign reported somewhat sheepishly. The entire bridge crew knew what was coming next - the Tactician was known for his affinity for patterns and his reliability in terms of routine. At least, that's only what it seemed on the surface - he did not earn the title of Fleet Tactician for being predictable. Second-guessing Crai was what many considered to be an exercise in futility but of course one couldn't help but try from time to time.

The chronometer had stopped as soon as the ensign had relayed his report and Crai tapped the armrests of his chair thoughtfully. "This was not one of our best jumps - several picket ships on the fringes did not jump on schedule and we had a vulnerability in their sector of the formation for 3 seconds more than usual." Ulsdan noted in his cool, even tone. "Two carriers need to recalibrate their jump drives since they came out too close to one another and had a 8% chance for collision - more than I'm willing to live with in the middle of a battle. I've compiled recommendations and reprimands for the ships in question along with new jump parameters to be factored in next time. A few commendations go out to rather exemplary execution by a few of the captains to compensate for these lapses."

The bridge crew exhaled a faint sigh of relief. It could have been far worse

"Report" Crai commanded rather tersely, as if he had been annoyed by the relaxation caused by the crew's relief. While the military has always been known for discipline, one could not even begin to compare that to the cold, unforgiving manner Crai commanded the Fleet. While the potentials for glory and career advancement were best realized under this particular command, it also offered the most stress and the least amount of R&R and sometimes sleep. Tactician Crai was known for his nearly perfect logic and seemingly unerring judgment. his ability to understand enemy tactics in the heat of battle bordered on what could only be termed as magical, although he'd hear nothing of the sort. He was a non-nonsense military man and a scientist at that. There no room in his world for emotions, whims of fantasy and other such balderdash.

From his command chair he could affect the lives of thousands of enlisted crew men, technicians and support staff and yet in many ways could never be reached himself. He was a man set apart from the rest of his forces by a wall of independence that no one dared to probe. This was why he was always given the most difficult of missions and challenges - he never flinched and would do anything necessary to ensure success. Yes, opportunities were abound under his command and so was the significant chance of death in battle. It could either be glorious or something quickly forgotten.

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Yeah, killing Cy-Kill was an in-joke for both Dreamwave and IDW. Take that evil Renegade!

Today's the birthday of a dear friend, Deo and possibly of a high school classmate, Aste (only because I have it noted on my calendar but I can't corroborate the details). Regardless, Happy Birthday you guys! I haven't seen either of you in a rather long time.

After last week, it's interesting to note that I now have two options when it comes to my blog entries - my usual style of narration / discussion with comics here and there or the fictional route where I try to stretch my creative muscles and get some non-blog-ish writing into the mix. Or I suppose I could always try doing both and confuse the heck of people even more.

Oooh.



He opened his eyes only to see a world of gray. It seemed like all the color had drained out and all that was left was a pale muted version of things. He looked down at his own hands and found that at least he hadn't turned gray - things still seemed normal. The only other bust of color was his abductor, the red-haired woman with the piercing green eyes. Her hair made her stand out all the more in this bleak environment.

"Where are we?"

"A place where we can rest...for now," she answered vaguely. "With those fanatics after you, it only would have been a matter of time before they caught up with us - you seem to lack the physical stamina to sustain a decent running pace. I had to get us out of there to a place they couldn't follow, and this seemed the best place." She pulled out a device he didn't recognize and started fiddling with it, taking readings of the location and occasionally keying in new commands or perhaps adjusting the settings. All he knew was that she had abruptly ended the conversation and was once again ignoring him.



Last night I hit up Fandom Cafe again for the weekly Fandom Live! recording. There were lot of us there compared to previous weeks, but that only made sense since we had planned like three episodes for the evening. I probably could have sat in all three, but opted to stick to the Watchmen WeView episode just to limit my air time.

There were significant technical difficulties with our usual uStream process and after 2 full runs that failed to record, we ended up switching things around and opting to just record the entire thing without a live stream and possibly upload it later to YouTube or something other. We still insisted on doing the Watchmen piece again while others did a discussion about the recently concluded Final Crises.

I really look forward to my weekly Fandom runs - it satisfies my need for social geekiness to help balance how serious the rest of my work week gets. Plus there's just something about being able to relate to other geeks regularly - I don't think I've had such regular interaction of this nature since high school or something. Weird.



"Hey!" he shouted, "I'm not some pet you can just drag around as you wish and ignore when you lose interest! I'm a person and I think you definitely owe me explanations as to why I'm here!" Despite his shouting, it seemed this realm managed to absorb sound and his cries quickly died a few meters away from them. It's only then that he realized that even the sounds of this place were muted - if they could be described as gray, that would probably fit the situation best.

The armored figure paused in her scans and looked at him briefly, her left eye brow arched ever so slightly. "And what exactly am I supposed to be explaining to you little one?" The sarcasm wasn't just evident in her voice, but somehow her entire body made sure to reinforce that message. Faraker had never felt so small before, even compared to the worst times with the Vohan druids. Her eyes seemed to look past him standing there and that only further reinforced the differences between them. "I'd caution you not to shout so much in the future. While we are safe from the fanatics who were determined to sacrifice you to their goddess, there are other dangers present here. Sound may not seem to carry far, but you will be heard in time. Remain calm little one."

Being called 'little one' only aggravated his anger, but then he focused on the teachings of the druids who had nurtured him in order to fight against his instinctive reaction. As he tried to control his breathing and put his thoughts into order, she simply went back to work. "I'm sorry," he began, "it's been a very strange morning to begin with and I'm just very...out of place, right now. I'm thankful that you've saved my life, but then I think I deserve better treatment than this."

There was a faint muted tone coming from the device in her hands and after a few clicks, she appeared to be satisfied and put it away. "You may want to sit down, I suppose," she said somewhat ominously.



Among the weirder things I got into this weekend was buying 2 pairs of Bench boxer briefs after Brian |kitchengod| prompted that I should do so. I had pretty much stuck to the simpler standard briefs that come in packs of three given they're decent and they're definitely more cost-effective. Getting individual boxer briefs always seemed a tad expensive, but then price does not equal value, as I often teach at work.

Still, I seem to be in the mood for a lot of changes these days and so I took the plunge and had him pick out some for me. They're definitely comfy and not loose like the last few pairs of boxer briefs I had some time before, all of which had been gifts from one person or another. I think I could get used to this, LOL, although I'll still temper the purchasing. The budget will always be the budget after all.

New shirts, new undies - what next? Stay tuned for more details, haha.



"We're in-between dimensions - between planes so to speak. The fanatics have the ability to travel across the universes and so I had to resort to this to keep them at bay. It's no small feat and I can only maintain us in this location for a limited time, but for now we're safe. We have about an hour by my projections." Faraker was doing his best to keep up with her explanation but so many words seemed unfamiliar to him. "We have an hour of safety right now," she continued, "and no matter how eloquent I can try to be, that's hardly enough time to even begin to explain things to one as simple as you."

He wanted to defend himself but she cut him off once more. "Stop thinking with your hormones and your ego," she prodded. "Didn't the Vohanden teach you anything? Even the most novice of adepts learn the fundamentals of control." Faraker sat back, sufficiently humbled.

"The short version of the story," she continued, "is that you're going to be very important in the coming conflict. As in all such struggles, there are two sides who can be roughly termed as light and dark, although which one is which is anyone's guess."

"So you're supposed to be part of the good guys, I suppose?" he asked with a smirk. She simply turned to face him once more with those intense emerald eyes of hers. "I suppose you could say that, young one, but in truth I'm only fulfilling a debt I owe to an old friend. I no longer want to involve myself with the two "sides" of this conflict, but a mission is a mission."

The confusion was evident on his face and so she knew she needed to end this bluntly. "I'm a bounty hunter, Faraker. You are my mission. I treat you like an animal since in a way you are one. You are just meat that needs to be delivered to my paymaster. I'm keeping you alive since you're worth nothing to me dead."

They spent the rest of their time in this plane in silence. One time was up, she dragged him through another portal to bring him closer to her goal.

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It was rather...well-crafted. LOL