on the nature of oaths
Sep. 17th, 2019 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zuhrovet posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
hexarchate_rpg[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?"
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?"
Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-04 05:48 pm (UTC)"Okay," she says, and takes a long exhale. "So. First to clarify, I do have filters; in order to read him without things getting lost in the space between his field and mine, I would have to be touching him directly." Thus, the gloves: not having hand-to-skin contact with anyone prevents her from being overwhelmed. Or influenced, but that's another story for another day.
"The most important thing I picked up on is that I think it is very important to honor his word, and that it was the right choice to take that oath; I think he sees some kind of escape in it? That will make him inclined to work with us better, I think it's maybe protecting him or -- fuzzy, I'm sorry, but. He was very ... he seems at least actively self-destructive if not suicidal, so I'm not able to discern right now if he's using us as a tool for this or for some other means. It may not matter?" She stops to twirl her hair around her finger again, having to fidget as she wasn't working with a prepared speech. "But he never lied to us and everything he said was sincere - the rebellion's cause interests him, I think. That was washed out, though, by the -- intensity of his oaths and the emotional pain. It's too tangled for me to see clearer, I'm sorry. I could do a closer read but someone would have to be with me and he would have to consent."
Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-05 02:36 am (UTC)Sasha doesn't want to look at Ione, but she makes herself speak seriously and slowly, because if anything else breaks she might have to explain herself to the wolves, as well as Reshad. Hoping she won't fuck things up is nothing like a guarantee, but it's the only strategy she knows. It's easier to break things on purpose.
"I told him that he might have to destroy his other self, and that I will protect my people. I am sure both were factors, in his decision."
Sasha has sworn to protect him now, against everyone but himself. That is--abysmally fucking stupid, by some measures. But she was already involved, and already responsible, and she's half looking forward to identifying her adversaries.
Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-05 03:33 pm (UTC)"I do hope it'll ease working with us," she agrees. "And we must take precautions not to become a tool to hurt him further." There are questions -- so many questions! -- but that, she'd read loud and clear. She listens to the rest, and Sasha's comments, with one hand in the nest. Waiting for a touch that finally does come, a little faerie dragon curious or hungry. She scoops it up and pops a bit of goop into the crimson gape.
"I'm concerned, and not all of it is for him." She turns wide eyes on Sasha for a moment, then glances back down at the hatchling. Bright red scales adorn the hungry little creature, and she smiles at it, a sudden change of expression.
"He threw over his oaths to leaders he considered unworthy. Not easily, I don't think, but once done is easier done again."
"Nor do I think he has context to understand your existing bonds." She waits, but her serious mood is again interrupted as she gives the nipping hatchling another mouthful of paste.
Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-06 01:09 am (UTC)Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-06 02:30 am (UTC)She's half-grateful to Gerae, therefore, for the distraction. She suspects he has not understood the cost to Ione of reading people, so she still leads with "You don't want to scry him thoroughly yourself?" But her sarcasm lacks bite.
Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-06 08:34 am (UTC)Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-06 09:57 pm (UTC)Sasha bites her lip. "What do you really expect to gain, from an active scan? We already know Jedao is dangerous. Ione can monitor passively now, without putting him on alert. If you want a full psych profile, and he's cooperative, we'd be better off asking Remi."
[a couple of possible GM threads]
Date: 2019-10-07 12:40 am (UTC)Also, Sasha's running on levels of stress high enough that her exotic effects might activate again--I don't think it's inevitable, but do feel free to invoke them against her if that seems interesting?]
Re: [a couple of possible GM threads]
Date: 2019-10-07 03:31 am (UTC)Re: [a couple of possible GM threads]
Date: 2019-10-09 09:32 pm (UTC)Re: tea and dragons improve all sorts of moods - paging everyone
Date: 2019-10-09 09:31 pm (UTC)There's a sudden interruption from the grid, translating for the Cantata. "Excuse me!" it says. The grid somehow manages to convey friendly cheer on its behalf. "Is there a reason the cups are shaking? I asked the other voidmoths in the area if it's any of them and they say they haven't messed with our gravity! Since I am your transportation I thought I should bring this potential safety issue to your attention."
stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Ione & Sulen
Date: 2019-10-10 01:32 am (UTC)She gives Chahle another bite of squashed banana. They're so sweet. All the hatchlings are. There's one curled against Reshad now, probably--only the Prophet can guess what will smash next, if Sasha contemplates that apparent softness--so she watches the Rahal, wondering when they will shift from confusion to hostility.
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Ione & Sulen
Date: 2019-10-10 02:11 am (UTC)Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Ione & Sulen
Date: 2019-10-10 02:48 am (UTC)"You might have noticed my control is not ideal." Sasha's smile initially involves a lot of pointy teeth, but she shifts quickly to something more genuine: Gerae is asking just the sort of question she would have asked. "If I could reliably move a deadbolt, growing up would have been a lot easier. I have pretty good luck with electronic locks, though."
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Ione & Sulen
Date: 2019-10-10 03:18 am (UTC)Not, she thinks, that she's finished with it.
She looks curious once the rattling is done. "You can- but how?" It's perhaps impolitic, Sasha showing a surprising amount of teeth to Gerae.
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Alaric and Reshad
Date: 2019-10-10 11:15 pm (UTC)Reshad has her hair pulled away from her face, at least, in some vague semblance of decency. Sasha is still aware of the way it falls against her shoulders. This would be just another part of the constant buzzy distractingness of life in the heptarchate, if it wasn't for Ione twisting a lock around her finger, and the weird lightness of Sasha's own head under her scarf, and the promise she has given. And the fact that she was sitting almost exactly here when Ashari reached out and petted her, as if she was a pseudo-dragon asking for treats.
Eight hells. Ione already knows. Sasha might as well tell the truth. It's a pity, almost: if she had prepared a lie, it would probably make more sense. "This level of disturbance is unusual. Ordinarily, I'm just very lucky. Or very unlucky. I win at cards, I win at darts, if you draw a name out of a fishbowl it will probably be mine. There was--an incident, with one of Ashari's daggers. I don't know how it works, or how to make it stop. It's not Naxorian. That is--I regret the necessity of this language--it is not in the writings of the Prophet. My best guess is, this is like one of my nurse's stories, and I should have gone on a journey, out onto the steppe, and hoped for advice from some mysterious being. Who probably doesn't even exist."
Ione and Alaric are, perhaps, the next best thing.
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Alaric and Reshad
Date: 2019-10-13 08:52 pm (UTC)Gerae, on the other hand--"Is this kind of thing common among your nurse's people? Have you ever tested the range?"
The Cantata thrums. "Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it?"
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Alaric and Reshad
Date: 2019-10-13 10:45 pm (UTC)"Thanks. It's all right." For values of "all right" that mean "Let's get this over with." Sasha lets Chahle curl close against her, and explains: "My nurse was Kirrish, like Yehan. I--I have some of that heritage, myself. But the heptarchate doesn't have a fucking monopoly on suppressing other people's calendars. I don't know what was true and what was only stories. I can affect things I can see or hear or interact with, including through the grid, but it's not predictable and it's not reliable. Ione had some ideas about tests, but we haven't run them yet."
Re: stray hatchlings, stray wolves, stray teacups - paging everyone, esp. Alaric and Reshad
Date: 2019-10-30 04:07 am (UTC)And that sends her thoughts skipping back to Sasha's revelation in the hallway, and wondering how connected they are. It's a difficult situation - this is important, but the situation with Jedao is important, also. As is the matter of Sasha's ties, left still unexplained. Her hands occupied, Reshad pets the hatchling rather than finding any other way to fidget. Mimicking its silver cohort, perhaps, it stretches its neck toward her hair. Gently, she pulls it away, a few black strands coming forward of her shoulder courtesy of the curious hatchling.
"That's very kind of you, Cantata, but in this case there are things we need to know."
"Calendar... normalization, is what they called it, where I came from. But it was suppression, none the less." It's a small verbal circuit, a bow to what Sasha's already said. "As far as I know, exotics from the calendars subsumed failed to work under the true calendar, but I'm no mathematician. Perhaps Remi might be able to help with your testing?" Aware that she's pulling yet further off topic, Reshad tries to bring it back.
Two exotic abilities functioning under some version of the high calendar, though, is enough to distract anybody.
"Ione, does using your ability put you at risk in ways that wouldn't apply to any one of us?" It's an inelegant phrasing, but the question looms suddenly large.
trying not to break things
Date: 2019-10-30 11:31 pm (UTC)The girl looked north, and everything there was flat and white. She looked south, and everything there was flat and white. She looked east, and saw mist rising up, rising as high as she could see, opaque and white. She looked west, and saw the footprints of the person who was also a wolf.
The girl walked west. With her steps, snow fell; from her footprints, snow fell on the world below.
When everything feels still, Sasha opens her eyes and says, "Any human can shift the calendar, over a short distance. With all of us together, from different times and places, maybe the shift is greater. Is that the risk you mean? Or do you want to know more about why Ione wears gloves?"
Re: trying not to break things
Date: 2019-11-05 08:19 pm (UTC)Instead, and instead of offering up that one of her siblings is much more destructive with his breaking things without touching them than Sasha is, which was also tempting, she just tries to answer the question:
"Yes, though to a limited extent. I can get overwhelmed and pass out. I don't just read feelings, I'm actually feeling them, so it's very--tiring, and I sometimes have to work hard to remind myself the feelings aren't mine." She wiggles a gloved hand, in case that was the question. "Skin-to-skin contact turns into getting everything the other person is feeling fed into my head and I find it extremely unpleasant to have happen by mistake. Because of the risk of losing consciousness I prefer to be guarded by someone I can trust when doing it intentionally. I have," with that same hand she touches her hair again, but this time it's just the top of her head, "something in here to prevent being like that around everyone all the time. What we are calling an ability is thought of as a disability by some in my home world."
Re: trying not to break things
Date: 2019-11-06 12:48 pm (UTC)"So. We have some transit time, before we reach our rendezvous with Ashari. Ione, you are likely to spend much of that time with Jedao and Reshad or me, but please be clear about your limits. This isn't a short-term process. We need as much information as we can get about this Nirai collaborator: how he thinks, what his resources are."
[Maybe the next person to respond should start a new comment thread?]
Re: trying not to break things
Date: 2019-11-13 04:14 am (UTC)