on the nature of oaths

[zuhrovet]

[In the current move, Sasha has just accepted an oath of service from Jedao, a relationship Reshad believes is coercive. I'm not sure whether this properly counts as character rp or a new half-move, but I think we all need some new space to deal with the fallout!]

Sasha is waiting outside the antechamber. She has tied her scarf again, and looks as put-together as she ever does. "Are we having this conversation in my office?" she asks Reshad. "Or over tea, with everyone?"

Comments

in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

After she finishes debriefing with the others, and has a real cup of tea, Sasha changes her shirt and heads to the gym. She is dressed as if she's about to bang out a couple of sets with the free weights, and maybe she'll even get a chance to do so, but she has to talk to Seyli before she actually relaxes. She slips into the room quietly and waits for Seyli to finish what they're doing and acknowledge her.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

Seyli's finishing up a series of squats and slowly rises to their feet when Sasha walks into the room. "Sasha," they say with a little nod as she comes into the space. "You've caught me mid work out, will you be joining me? There is room for both of us, after all." They're less tense here than Sasha might have seen them since the interlude with Jedao and the oathgiving.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Prophet's boots, it's tempting. Well, why the fuck not? Seyli knows they need to talk as well as Sasha does. She says, "Let me know when you're done," and goes straight from there into a set of pullups. She'll do weighted ones later; for now, she's warming up.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

It's easier to acclimate to what's coming while they're working out side by side. It also gives them a chance to see Sasha's strength, how she moves. It's easier for Seyli to understand that kind of information about a person than words and motivations. They do a few more reps of squats, with and without weights, before dropping down on a mat to do cool down stretches. "You want to talk, I assume?" they says after a while.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Sasha racks the weights she has been using and perches on the bench. "Yes. Thank you for looking after Ione."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

"It's my job," and had honestly been their pleasure to go after the man. "I'll do it again if I need to." They almost hope they get a chance to do it again, to be honest.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Sasha nods. "And what do you think my job is? Your representation was--somewhat unclear."

She's alert, watching Seyli, but not tense. If she breaks anything during this conversation, she'll fucking do it on purpose.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

"I'm entirely unclear in that point. Leader of some sort, unofficial?" They shrug, not liking not having a clear chain of command on the ship. "A techie of some sort as well."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Bright stars, Seyli literally did not read the memo. "I am in command; Sulen is my second; I report to Ashari. But my background is information security. You should take the emphasis on security, there: my job is to identify and assess threats, of different types and across different timescales."

She leans forward, gripping the edge of the bench. "You're stuck on the short-term threat right now. That makes sense; it's your role. But I need you to understand that Jedao is not the greatest danger to us."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

It's not that they didn't read the memo, it's that it'd been confusing once they settled into the team to see how the flow of power really worked. Even more so with Reshad taking a position that seemed closer to second that Sulen. It's that it's nothing nearly as strict as what Seyli is used to, and they don't like it. When they agreed to be a part of the rebellion, they expected something that wasn't quite as fast and loose.

As Sasha talks security, they stretch. Not ignoring her, but needing to do something with their body. "Just because he's not the biggest threat doesn't mean he isn't still a serious one."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Sasha can recognize a question with Reshad's name on it hanging in the air--it's not as if she hasn't generated her own share--but this is a sequencing problem, and Jedao has an irritating habit of appearing at the start of any sequence. She watches Seyli stretch for a moment and then asks, with as much mildness and openness as she can generate, "What specific attacks do you fear?"

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

"From him or in general?" They lean back on their arms and look up at Sasha. "In general that this whole operation seems to be dubiously put together, that we're an unbalanced team and we might not be able to function well in a combat situation. I'm not expecting or fearing any specific attack. As for Jeado, he's unstable, he murdered his own crew in one timeline, and who the fuck knows what else he did in others?"

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

"Good, you noticed it's a clusterfuck." Seyli's awfully confident of their own behavior, in all those other timelines. Sasha hasn't killed anyone, in this one. But there must be lives where she stayed on Naxarat.

"The thing is, we are not coincidentally fucked. There is someone in Personnel who is carving out a private fiefdom. We came here to find out what she wants. We learned two things: that Jedao is a danger to her plans specifically, and that a Nirai is maneuvering him into killing his people. Do you want to bet that these facts are unrelated?"

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

"I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it's not hard to see this is a clusterfuck." They don't think of their alternate selves, so many of them never made it this far, anyway. They do, however, sit up straight at the information that there is someone playing against them. "The person who sent us here to collect Jedao? They intended us to fail?" Seyli asks, unable to remember the name, but they recall the conversations.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

"Flute didn't give a fuck if we survived, but I don't think she intended us to fail. The person I am worried about goes by the name of Quill. She chose the group of us who retrieved Remi, and she is, secretly, the source of Flute's orders. If it was just the failures in Personnel--some people survive, in any organization, by making sure they look better than everyone around them. But on our first mission Quill gave us a baby fox whose augment was still running Shuos code. He supposedly grows up to be a heptarch--by then, I guess, a hexarch. And this mission has been stranger."

[The information about Quill's interactions with Flute, and the subsequent meeting, is recapped here--I just dug it out.]

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

.Seyli frowns as Sasha talks, taking it all in without really trying to figure out what it means. It's enough to know it isn't good, it's for people like Sasha to figure out what it means. "So in the grand scheme of things, you think Jedao's far less of a risk than anything else that's going on with the rebellion, or at least the part of it that's using us." That doesn't mean Jeado's still not a terrible idea in an already bad situation.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

"It's worse than that. The man Jedao fears, the one who gave him threshold winnowers? I think he is working with Quill."

If Sasha were in Seyli's place, she would punch something now. Or someone. She watches them, bodyweight forward, ready to stand.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

Seyli doesn't quite to rigid as that news slots into place in their mind, but it's close. Someone that Jedao is afraid of. In all of this it'd never registered to them that there was someone Jedao was afraid of, and they'd been there during that interrogation. Instead of swinging into terrified action, their face goes utterly blank.

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

It's out of sequence for her workout, but Sasha does another handful of pullups anyway, because the alternatives are staring at Seyli until their face starts moving and punching something herself. When she's done, she drops down next to Seyli and says, "So. The weirdest fucking thing of all? Right now, we're winning."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

Seyli raises a skeptical eyebrow. "Because we took Jedao out from under their noses when they expected us to fuck up?" They ask. "Which makes him less than a terrible idea, because now he's our terrible idea instead of someone else's?"

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Sasha's grinning with the joy of battle. "Because we know who they are."

She looks Seyli square in the eyes and continues, more soberly, "This Nirai--he wanted something like Hellspin to happen. He set it up. Think what someone like that could do, with the rebellion running errands for him. And then tell me how we would know he existed, if we didn't have Jedao."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

Seyli flinches some at Sasha's last comment, but they're almost certain she's not being cruel with her words. It's a question without any hidden meaning. "Ah," they say, voice soft. "I see."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

Bright wire, what was that?

At least they're listening.

Sasha holds her hands out, palm up. "Everything we do is dangerous. But the work we have--it matters. So we're going to figure it out."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[kese_seyli]

Seyli's quiet for a while before they nod, once. "I am...sorry, I know I've been difficult." And it's not likely they'll get any more comfortable around Jedao, either. They rub their hands down their thighs and then push off the floor to their feet. "I'm not much more than a gun, and not a very smart one at that, but point me at what you need shot and I'll do my job."

Re: in the gym - paging Seyli

[zuhrovet]

The heptarchate can be uncomfortably sloppy about apologies, but Seyli's is fair and freely given, so Sasha says, simply, "Thank you. I will." Then, with a half-smile for the wrench to a new topic: "Could you spot me on the bench, before you go?"