Chapter 3.1: The party begins

[yhlee]

EDIT: The base is sited in the year 951, in a very odd timeline that has NO h*archate. Supplies have to be brought in via rift from other timelines. Thread here.

Ashari's new base features variable layout, which has been put to use in creating an extravagant ballroom. Tables to one side boast a variety of foods, drinks both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and the occasional euphoric drugs. Candlevines glow blue and violet, and flower arrangements interspersed with fantastic sculptures of lace-woven wire adorn the tables. The arrangements mean various sarcastic things, if you're familiar with the Andan petal language.

Music plays softly enough not to overwhelm conversation, loudly enough to set a mood complementing the low-key lighting.

Remi is one of the first arrivals from the Cantata, shepherding the mothlings. Because he's a Nirai, he has a slate and is taking notes, although he is happy enough to talk to anyone who approaches him.

The kitchen is currently adjacent to the ballroom. Ashari's voice can be heard, raised in some kind of argument with...a caterer?

Comments

What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen)

[stormglass]

Every day is a game of pretend.

Which becomes another game, one of telling herself that it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s one she’s played for a long, long time.
As if that isn’t pretending itself. As if this is the same as Before.

It’s a game she is very good at.

And for this round, she is going to a party. Which is a hell of a thing, all things considered. But. So. Xiulan goes to a party.

The room and the people already within it get a methodical visual scan as she enters that looks exactly like what it is; she doesn’t bother to disguise it. Theoretically, this isn’t a group that necessitates it.

She doesn’t recognize anyone yet within, but there is something eye-catching nevertheless: small floating bundles of tentacles with silvery...spot-somethings. Pausing and gazing up at them for a long moment, she then crosses the floor to the people standing closest [Remi and Ione, and Sulen if they’re nearby] and gestures upwards at the mothlings. “I think the briefing missed a thing or two.”

There’s a touch of tightness around her eyes, but she smiles as she speaks and it seems to ease a hair in favour of curiosity as the mothlings are studied.

“I’m Xiulan. You’re part of the Cantata crew?”

[First post so going to indulge in some gratuitous description time.

Xiulan is mixed ethnic Han Chinese/ethnic Mongolian on her mother’s side and North Germanic ethnicity (think Scandanavia) on her father’s. She takes most after her mother’s side appearance-wise, but there are some notes from her father. I’ve figured this means she largely looks to a hexarchate citizen like one of their major phenotypes, with a touch of something else. Hafn maybe?

She’s in excellent physical condition and fast (combat specialist). Black hair that falls a little past the top of her shoulders, hazel eyes, ivory complexion, sharp featured. Around 5’6”, 5’7”-ish in height. Hair is currently pulled up, some ‘decorative’ hair sticks in use. (They’re not actually what’s holding up her hair, they just look like they are:))

She’s wearing an outfit - jacket and slacks - that isn’t an outright military uniform but evokes it stylistically in a lot of ways. It’s well tailored to her and is predominantly black. At the neck of the jacket, there’s a span of a red shirt visible beneath it. Polished boots.

The only jewelry visible are dangling scrollwork style earrings of oxidized silver and a ring on one finger. She has eyeliner on and lipstick.

Uh, signifier! Will get back to Sulen on that one. She has a variable signifier, but I need to decide what’s predominant. There’s something Ninefox showing right now, since I believe it was said people not from the he*archate still map to the faction ranges.]

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[bariolage]

Ione nods; actually she nods her head twice, quickly, in short succession. "Camlin Ione, combat medic," she readjusts her name and title for the best way people in the h*archate and environs seem to understand it. Even if she looks more like a fashion doll than a combat medic at the moment.

She has a sociable smile on, bright eyed. "And you have never seen mothlings before, I'm guessing?" She probably had a similar expression the first time she did.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[yhlee]

Remi notices the others and smiles as he tucks his slate under his arm. "Nirai Remi, researcher," he says. "I thought it would be good to continue socializing the mothlings, although they're very friendly already." One of the mothlings has decided to decorate his hair, and makes a very fetching if tentacular hat.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[stormglass]

“Nice to meet you,” Xiulan responds to Ione and Remi, with an air of having said similar things at similar functions too many times to count. “As for my role going forward, well, you may find that out at the same time as I do.” There’s a glint to the quicksilver smile she gives then, there and gone.

“Mothlings? No, I haven’t.” A sharp look flicks up, back down. “As in, like the moths?” There’s a slight pause before she says ‘moths’. She’s not convinced they’re fully equivalent to what she knows as ships. But they also do not look like the bundles flying about the room.

The bundles that apparently need socializing.

“They’re sentient?” she asks Remi. Far from skeptical, she sounds extremely keen and lifts a hand like one might to a cat as a mothling goes fluttering past.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[yhlee]

"Adult moths are used in certain timelines as the biological components of our ships," Remi said. His voice is taut: suppressed anger. "These are little ones--we're not sure what their growth rate is."

The mothling notices Xiulan's hand, orbits it twice, makes as if to land.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[mafyyil]

Mafyyil has dressed up for the party, too: a surprisingly tasteful simple sleeveless moss green dress and matching slippers. She wears her hair in a braid today, interwoven with the peonies growing out of her shoulder and arm. Even the bright pink hairclips in the shape of tiny combine harvesters are unusually inoffensive. She does wear her shoulder holster holding her gun over the dress, but that was to be expected.

Intimidated by the commotion in the kitchen, Mafyyil - who had been planning to find something to eat but thought better of it - decides to say hello to the mothlings instead. Mothlings are cute, after all. And there are new people to meet!

"Hello Remi", she says, smiling brightly. "How are the mothlings today?" She also hums a short melody in the general direction of the mothling near Xiulan's hand in greeting. (She hopes her offkey humming is not too painful for the moths.) "Hello Ione. And hello new person!" She musters Xiulan openly. "I'm Zagfehan Mafyyil, poet. I'd shake hands except there seems to be a mothling in the way."

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[yhlee]

"The mothlings are doing well," Remi replies with a polite half-bow. Several of them hum back at Mafyyil, harmonizing with each other.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[mafyyil]

Quickly, Mafyyil hums a few notes at every mothling present, ending with the one in Remi's hair. She resists the urge to double-check her own hair for stray entangled mothlings and absentmindedly notes that the rhythm of the mothlings' greeting would make a nice pattern for a poem. She shelves that thought; she doesn't have time for writing right now.

Mafyyil doesn't bother to inquire about Remi's wellbeing: Remi looks upset, as always when the topic is moths-used-as-transportation. She unsuccessfully tries to peek at Remi's notes, wondering why anyone would work even at a party. "Can you understand what they're saying?", she asks instead, thinking that when music-talking at moths she wouldn't want to accidentally insult anyone's mom or anything.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[yhlee]

Remi smiles and relaxes a little. "I'm moderately good at music, but my ear isn't quite up to their harmonies," he says. "There's a grid program--mostly Alaric's work--that translates for us. The little ones are mostly babbling and experimenting with their, ah, voices." He squints at his slate. "For example, that last bit was pulsar, pulsar, loud, pulsar, whirl, let's whirl."

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[hoardingpearls]

Reshad chooses the largest cluster of people when she comes in.

The space is beautiful, candlevines and all, and the addition of the mothlings adds a playful air. The presence of intoxicants on the buffet would alarm her far more if they were in danger of mothling mischief, but she's never seen a mothling take an interest in such things.

She takes note: the new woman sharply dressed, the more familiar crew members.

She greets Remi with a compliment for his 'hat' and Mafyyil, Ione and the black-clad woman, with an appreciative glance for her earrings. "Welcome! I'm Reshad. I suppose I'm a field operative." Her faction name no longer applies; her familial name seems irrelevant, so the personal alone will have to do.

[Reshad is a smallish woman with rounded cheekbones and a slim frame. Her skin is medium tan, and her eyes are very dark. Elaborate eyeshadow in shades of gold and green makes that more obvious than usual.

She's wearing an emerald green robe patterned in gold, with a black sash; a sharp observer may see the black cuff of a bodysuit beneath the bright silk. Her hair is twisted into an updo and decorated with filigreed flowers. Her hairpins are fringed with golden beads and their tips are concealed in black metal finials.

Her signifier is Ninefox Smiling.

Edit: sorry, cross-posted!]

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[stormglass]

It doesn’t look like a butterfly, but nevertheless Xiulan thinks of one as a mothling circles above her hand in an speculative way. There is something deliberate rather than reflexive to the way she uncurls her fingers further from her palm to allow a sufficient landing zone.

”Adult moths are used in certain timelines as the biological components of our ships.”

She looks back at Remi, noting his tone. “I’m guessing they didn’t volunteer for that,” she says quietly.

Mafyyil’s appearance - both the event of it and the elements - forestalls a further question. The pistol she takes note of, but the flowers are truly what take a moment to process. They’re attached.

“I’m Xiulan,” she replies. “Pleased to meet you.”

There’s a lot to take in, what with the successive revelations of the sentient ship components, people with flowers growing out of them, a musical language and, here we go, another introduction. She introduces herself to Reshad in turn.

“Do the moths interact with pulsars somehow?” she asks of the group at large. Clearly the mothlings are not a surprise to any of them. “Or, electromagnetism in general?”

[What does a mothling feel like?:D]

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[hoardingpearls]

Belatedly, Reshad hums in imitation of the nearest mothling, with a smile in case they've started to figure out facial expressions. Clever little ones, they are.

"Are we particularly near a pulsar?" she asks, leaving Xiulan's question to the expert - which is to say, to Remi.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[mafyyil]

"I'd love a copy of that program", Mafyyil blurts. "Is a pulsar talking to the moths?" (She has only a very vague idea of what pulsars are; all that her memory supplies her with is Something Astronomy Something. Needless to say, she had failed most of her science classes.)

She smiles and nods at Reshad, thinking she really likes that hairstyle.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[hoardingpearls]

"I helped Remi with some experiments," Reshad says to Xiulan, with a nod to the Nirai. They were his exoeriments, after all. "Trying to understand their sensory abilities and better communicate with them. They're bright children." This with a smile, although she studies Xiulan's response to the statement including mothlings with the group in a protected role.

"But it seems that while colors are difficult, they have some astonishing senses! And they do sing, as you've heard."

A return smile for Mafyyil: the baffling Hafn girl has done so rarely enough that it's worth noting.

"Poet, did you say?" As they're on the same crew, this ignorance would make sense on a larger ship. As it is, Reshad thinks, her only excuse is busyness.

Re: What are those and who are you? (Paging Remi, Ione, Sulen, Xiulan)

[mafyyil]

"Yes", Mafyyil replies, sounding slightly surprised: why else would she have been considered worthy enough to be sent on this kind of holy mission, if not for her achievements in poetry? "I write about legumes, mostly." (She doesn't add that somehow her poem cycle addressing the coagulation of tofu sounds off in the High Language and she will have to revise the translation quite a lot. That's going to stay her secret.)

Legume poetry

[rugessnome]

[I'm not so certain Shess shares this interest, but I am delighted by the idea of legume poetry!]

Re: Legume poetry

[mafyyil]

[A shame; there should be more legume poetry. Mafyyil's masterpiece up to date is "Ode to Soy". It's so, uh, good (even by Hafn standards) it got Mafyyil assigned to flying-casket-thingy.]

Re: Legume poetry

[yhlee]

Remi says absently, "There's a pulsar about fifty light-years away, stable as these things go. Mafyyil, if you want a copy of the translation program, I can load it onto your slate. If Sasha thinks it's advisable security-wise, anyway."

The mothlings are eager to shake tentacles with anyone who's receptive. Their skin feels cool, shadowy, and not entirely substantial.

Re: Legume poetry

[stormglass]

There's a dissonance to the way the mothling feels compared to what her eyes show her; she realizes it as she glances away and then back. It's not unpleasant, but it is unique. She puts her other hand up toward the undulating tentacles and finds herself receiving a 'handshake' of sorts. Not even having had any of the drugs from the buffet, she obligingly bobs her hand up and down a little in reciprocation. Because why not.

"I'm interested in hearing more about that," Xiulan replies to Reshad. Her general demenaour continues to project cordialness, though the shrewdness that flashed in her gaze before has remained. She appears genuinely interested in what Reshad and Remi have to share about the mothlings. Her attention roves during it however, eyes flicking whenever someone else enters the room, Eddox, Seyli, and Jedao each getting a quick twice over upon appearance. It seems reflexive.

The Nirai's comment about a pulsar being fifty light years causes her eyes to flare a little, eye-makeup making it a little more obvious than it might otherwise have been. "Impressive."

The revelation of Mafyyil's artistic pursuit particulars is...yet another thing left out of the briefing materials. "Do you write propaganda poetry for the rebellion?" she asks the Hafn. It is, for intents and purposes, a question in serious garb.

And to everyone nearby again, "Are all space-faring vessels called moths regardless or does it always imply the presence of a biological moth?"


[I have a coworker who was in the Secret Service years ago and eating at a restaurant in an airport with him once was an experience. I have never met anyone else in person who so reflexively checked out every movement in the vicinity. Xiulan is probably not being QUITE that bad about it. Maybe.]

Re: Legume poetry

[mafyyil]

"Propaganda?" Mafyyil is confused for a moment - her native language doesn't have a word for the concept. (They have propaganda, of course; it's just so pervasive it's generally not named.) She internally translates propaganda as motivational poetry, which is something she generally approves of. "Of course", she says. "The one I recently wrote, Glorious Harvest of Lupin Beans, is especially suited for that!"

Re: Legume poetry

[bariolage]

Ione is not going to giggle. Ione is not going to giggle. Ione is -- smiling.

(She is also trying to see if a mothling can figure out fist-bumps. Not that they have fists, but she will take a tentacle-bump to the fist.)

"Is it about a harvest of lupin beans, or is it a metaphor?"

Re: Legume poetry

[yhlee]

One of the mothlings settles on Ione's finger and latches onto the tip, wriggling its tentacles semaphore-style. It hums happily, and doesn't seem to realize it's supposed to let go.

Re: Legume poetry

[hoardingpearls]

"I'm interested in hearing more about that,"

"The fieldwork?" Reshad smiles at Xiulan. "Or the moths?" Possibly, the answer is both, but she's curious which takes priority for the moment. Then again, the presence of curious, interactive mothlings may bias the situation.

Ione asks the obvious question of Mafyyil before she can, and she nods, clearly interested. "And - have you written anything for more general distribution?"

"Are all space-faring vessels called moths regardless or does it always imply the presence of a biological moth?"

"All Hexarchate vessels have a biological moth," Reshad replies. "Hafn vessels..." Her eyes rest on Mafyyil for a moment, opaque. "I'm unclear on Hafn design parameters." There's an undertone to her voice, a subtle discomfort.

Ione's interaction with the mothling makes her smile. "Here-" she wiggles fingers at the mothling, then raises a fist to Ione to bump. "Maybe if we demonstrate?"

Re: Legume poetry

[bariolage]

Ione, meanwhile, is charmed, and wiggles her free fingers back at her new attached friend: "This is kind of like interliked jazz hands, which is also a great secret handshake skill," she says with a grin, but gives Reshad a nod and bumps the offered fist.

Then offers a high-five.

Covering it all in the background of poetry discussion. Ione is humming, too, because she can't help but make musical sounds around the mothlings, even if she can't produce enough chords at once.

Re: Legume poetry

[stormglass]

The fieldwork? Or the moths?"

“Both. Even odds at this point, as to which I’ve heard less about.” She gives a wry smile and shrug. “Both sound relevant. But, we should have time to talk more later, right?”

Xiulan watches the reactions of Ione, Reshad, and Remi, as much as she listens to Mafyyil’s answer about the poetry. The former advises her own - for the moment - and she instead says, “Not sure I’ve had any of that kind.”

She may have, Before. But ‘lupin’ isn’t ringing any bells in the language here; she’s had plenty of other vocabulary to apply herself to the past few years without poring over exhaustive lists of bean culitivars.

Mention that Mafyyil is Hafn returns her attention to the girl. “I haven’t read much about Hafn ships. Do you know what sort of exotics they use?”

To Ione: “Is humming part of communicating with the mothlings? Or, do they just like it?”

[Unsure if Ione would pick this up under the circumstances given her shields and such, but while Xiulan seems near-perfectly casual and polite on the surface right now, underneath, it’s a lot more intense.]