hexarchate_rpg | Chapter 3.2: Old and new friends, old and new enemies

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moves: chapter 3

Chapter 3.2: Old and new friends, old and new enemies

Sasha has distributed flutes of sparkling water and small glasses filled with a clear liquor. She finds a clear place to stand near the edge of the party--Jedao and Alaric are to her left, the cluster of people around the mothlings falls at about 3π/8--and signals the grid to adjust the light so that she is highlighted and the other partygoers are very slightly in shadow. She asks the grid for a ringing sound and waits for people to quiet. Her voice slightly amplified by the grid, she says, "Welcome, everyone. We have a unique combination of expertise, on the Cantata. I'm glad that you are here." (It's a formal situation, so she uses the plural 'you'.) "While we are gathered, let us toast to the success of the rebellion."

Sasha waits for an answering murmur, then raises her own glass and knocks it back. The liquor tastes like snow and homesickness; but these are her people now. A slight gesture of her left hand makes illumination linger on Jedao for a moment, before the room lights return to normal.

Sasha sees Remi trying to explain that shot glasses are not for mothlings, and grins in genuine amusement.

[We have some really fascinating conversations running in the previous move. I don't want to cut them off, but please put new threads here!

Also, an out-of-character public service announcement: Remi is a youthful, apparently non-sociopathic version of Kujen, plucked from an earlier timeline. He has not yet interacted with Jedao.]

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Jedao finally sees not just Remi's face, but Remi gesturing with a shot glass. He freezes for a fraction of a second, then drains his entire glass of liquor. His face has gone white as he watches, making no secret of his interest. Remi, preoccupied with the mothlings, hasn't noticed.

Seyli's still watching Jedao, never getting in his way, never lingering in his space, but always watchful. When the light hits his face from Sasha's toast, they don't look away, not caring if Jedao sees them staring. So they catch that moment of ...panic? With no sense of subtly (not that you can ever be subtle in a sequined dress) they approach the fox. "Problem with someone?" It doesn't quite come out casual, but at the very least Seyli keeps from sounding defensive.

Edited 2020-01-19 19:48 (UTC)

Reshad has a shot of the anonymous liquor, and a discreet sniff has revealed it to be both strong and delicious. She drinks in time with the rest, the cold flavor a reminder: new place. New people. New role, relatively speaking.

Habit sends her eyes sweeping the group, noting reactions and faces, who stands together and who apart. The subtlety of the lighting is not lost, and she spares a smile for it, drawing the gaze to Sasha and Jedao. She herself is in shadow, as suits.

Jedao's face blanches as if he's seen a ghost. Reshad uses her glass, pretty bright crystal as it is, to glint what little light there is, trying to gain his attention. Her free hand shivers in Shuos sign.

Status? She inflects it with the twist of worry.

"Pardon me," Jedao says to Seyli. He is quite formal--almost overly so. "I need to report to Sasha when she is not occupied." He glances back towards her, then to Seyli. "May I ask the name of your scientist with the mothlings?"

To Reshad, he signs, An old friend, with an ironic inflection, but does not elaborate.

see response to Reshad here, in the interests of consolidating the thread.

Seyli doesn't like the formal address, it doesn't sit well. "You don't have to talk like that to me," they say, first, before they absorb the rest of the question. "Remi?" Seyli looks over at scientist, who they'd classified as 'odd, smarter than you, engage with caution'. "Nirai Remi, he's been here since before I joined. Why do you want to know?"

"I'll remember that," Jedao says. "Remi?" He frowns slightly, also looking over at Remi before returning his attention to Seyli. "How long has he been with the rebellion, do you know? Or is this a question I should address to someone else?"

"Without a doubt." They frown at Jedao, hand on on their hip. They don't like him getting interested in anyone in the crew, especially not someone who makes him go pale like that. Seyli opens their mouth to say more, but nothing comes out but a disgusted sound. "Sasha, Sulen, Rashad, they were around when he came aboard." And they should know Jedao's interested, anyway. They don't add that they're going to be watching him, because of course they will be now.

I'm running late again, Istradez thinks fretfully. He slips into the ballroom just in time; he doesn't think Sasha would have approved of his missing out on the toasts, although maybe she would make allowances for slow recoveries from injuries.

The liquor smells great, but he's going to stick to water.

[Istradez (NPC) is, of course, Hexarch Mikodez's spitting image, although Istradez is rather defiantly wearing a pale pink suit with pearly white buttons. He is not making any particular attempt to ape Mikodez's mannerisms at the moment.]

"We semi-kidnapped him from - no, wait, I'm thinking of the other one," Alaric says after swallowing an oversized mouthful of pork ribs that he'd obtained after deciding some protein was in order. "Our first mission, we were sent to retrieve him. He was doing research on the mothlings, which is why we've got that half of our menagerie. He was very concerned about making sure we brought them along."

Seyli practically chokes when Alaric speaks, trying not to laugh inappropriately. "I think Jedao knows we kidnapped him, yes."

"You 'liberated' me," Jedao quips. "Lean into the propaganda." But his eyes don't leave Remi.

"No, I'm referring to Gerae, who I'm pretty sure we also took from that station and stuffed in a cell for a while." Alaric says with a shake of his head. "I'll admit I'm a bit unclear about the exact circumstances; I was busy trying to drug and kidnap our own baby fox at the time and only met him after I recovered Fluffy for him. That entire mission didn't really go as planned."

"Have any of our missions gone according to plan?" They ask this while side-eyeing Jedao.

The little knot of people suddenly around Jedao does a few things: it cuts the lines of sight behind Seyli's glimmering figure and gives Reshad time to think through her response.

She meanders toward the buffet table to set her empty glass down on a tray, liquor still warm in her throat from the last few sips. Awareness of where people are is rarely so useful as when communication relies on vision, and she makes sure to block her signing hand from Remi's sight with her body. Imminent danger? It's a known risk that someone else might catch her signing, but she'd rather hide the conversation from the object of the discussion.

Especially when it could be as simple as mistaken identity. Jedao and Remi occupy two different places on the timeline she's memorized. So: how? She doesn't think he's lying, not unless he's an actor to rival any dramatist. A mistake is possible. Also possible: there is something afoot she does not understand, and the way to address that is investigation.

While she idly chooses dumplings to ballast the shot, she keeps his free hand in sight. That course brings her closer to the lights.

If she hadn't been preoccupied with the lights, with the dramatic reveal of Jedao as teammate, she would have spotted Mikodez sooner. It's near shameful, the degree of relief his face brings.

No - not the Hexarch. The stance is wrong and he's holding a flute of water, but it takes a moment for Reshad's face to catch up to her thoughts. Shock and excitement are followed swiftly by a reassertion of her sociable smile.

She lifts a hand and waves to the man in the pink suit, remembering a conversation with Sasha, the description of him as an evil twin, and a name she'd not heard before. Making her way over to him from the buffet, she bows greeting. "Do you go by Strashik?" she asks. "I'm Reshad."

[For timeline: Reshad will spot Istradez shortly after her sign to Jedao.]

[I'm going to stop worrying about serving the food, because it seems to be getting out to the party-goers without my interference ... the next course was spicy pork ribs, peppered crisp breads (like papadums - vegan), potato curry pastries (like samosas - vegan), assorted sauces/dips, and the Kel-approved spicy cabbage pickle, as well as other, less incendiary pickles. The labels she printed out earlier cover these dishes and also the desserts she prepared herself ... the people who made other goodies will have to pass their own recipes to the grid.]

"Ah, a toast?" Dar has accepted one of the glasses of liquor as they went by. She knocks it back: the strong stuff. Not her favorite, but far from the worst she's had to down in the name of camaraderie.

It doesn't seem to have any effect on her perception of the strange floating critters out in the room, which she was not certain she was seeing properly, but the rest of the crew seem un-horrified. Perhaps these are the alien creatures that were mentioned.

A twitch across the room gets her attention. A leanly muscular fellow is looking startled at or maybe even terrified of one of the group playing with the little alien monstrosities. She isn't sure which.

[Samosas! Yes please...your food description keeps making me want to cook.]

[In real life, I often get overwhelmed by day-to-day cooking, but I do enjoy special occasion cooking, Somewhat on topic: I just made a Tunisian lamb stew with winter squash and cabbage in my new Instant Pot!]

Dar is the one new person Sasha hasn't spoken to yet, and she seems to be looking in Jedao's direction, so that's two reasons to approach her. Sasha wends toward her, whistling a greeting to the mothlings as she passes them.

"Zayit Dar. I am Sasha. Thank you for the spread, it is astonishing."

Sasha hasn't touched the food yet. Prophet's cloak, she ought to know better.

Dar sees Sasha approaching and gives them a barely noticeable once-over. This one is worried and preoccupied.

A memory from the brief personnel files available to her on the grid tickles her: OH. It's their leader—on the ship, anyway.

She answers in a subdued tone, for Dar: "So glad you like it, sir." It occurs to her that she hasn't see Sasha actually eat anything. Still, prodding at a leader who looks that young and that concerned seems both unkind and unwise. "I figure we'd better feast now, 'cause we won't have time later."

"You have a point." Sasha's smile is made half from irony and half from gratitude. "Things are likely to move very quickly, once Ashari shifts out of social mode. How have you been finding the base so far?"

[One of the minor amusements to me in running Sasha is that she is more than a decade younger than me, and physically rather smaller, yet somehow gets mistaken for a teenager less often! "Full steam ahead" has its uses, I suppose.]

Sulen, who's been periodically switching their attention back to Jedao, notices his alarm, and approaches Reshad. "Is everything all right?" they ask quietly, meaning, is the person I'm still half convinced is a ticking time bomb about to go off?

"I can show you around the ship after the party, unless you would rather rest," Sulen says. They make the toast, because after a past cultural misunderstanding with Sasha they are very keen to follow other people's leads when it comes to toasts, but then make their excuses and head off to investigate what's happening with Jedao.

They've eaten maybe half of a pastry, and are definitely not properly appreciating Dar's work.

An interesting lighting choice, she thinks while swallowing clear liquor. It says more about the Cantata’s crew as a whole than an entire heap of words might have.

So does what happens next, but the translation on this one is thus far more opaque.

Jedao reacts to something - about Remi? Others in turn move in apparent reaction. No one makes any sudden motions however and one of the former Kel, Seyli, is nearby. Xiulan frees her hands up by leaving her glass on a table and drifts to a better vantage point, noting Sasha and Sulen’s locations in particular.

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Chapter 3.2: Old and new friends, old and new enemies

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less than subtle hawk hovering

A silent alert (Paging Jedao, Eddox,and other sign speakers)

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Moar fox!

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Sulen & Dar, by the Kitchen

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