station72 | [backdated - closed] jello is disgusting.

CHARACTERS: The Goo Sneaks
WHERE: The Graze, Hyrypia
WHEN: A day? A time?
SUMMARY: Sneaking with goo
WARNINGS: Annie's mouth.

CARPATHANS
Delivered into the hands of a slightly bewildered but coldly grateful Carpathan who seems to be neither a bodyguard or a servant (a diplomat? Is he titled nobility along for the ride? It's difficult to parse the subtle variances of Carpathan social and class structures, so hopefully Murphy hasn't offended someone by gifting the wrong person…). When Annie activates her ability, what she'll be aware of is:

The interior of a tent. The jar has been placed on a sideboard alongside a series of books (the titles are difficult to parse from this angle, but they seem to be run of the the mill non-fiction reading material) and a small assortment of personal items - a silver bowl, a series of dark metal rings, a small black stone carved with roughly rabadocean features. Likely the jar has been set there and forgotten about, not yet cleared away by one of the Carpathan servants. It seems the interior of this tent has been divided into sections by tall folding partitions. These are painted with elaborate smoke patterns forming strange, alien animals. It's quiet. A clock ticks beside the jar.

The curtain denoting a gap in the partition wall parts; two Carpathans enter the room. One is the sarana originally gifted the jar; the other is a farana whose features are obscured by an intricate black lace veil pinned into her hairline. Only her mouth is visible, lips painted a dark and stormy gray.

"Won't you send your boy to watch the entry," she says.

"In the middle of the day? Better to be caught in conversation than to draw attention with a servant standing guard at the door. A whistle will do the same work."

"I'd rather no word of my presence here get back to that creature."

He laughs, sitting there at the edge of the fur laden bed. "And here you are, playing at being cautious with a word like that in your mouth. I'd hate to find your body over such a silly thing." He begins to unfasten the hidden clasps of his high collared coat as his company remains standing there in the center of the narrow compartment. She must be regarding him from under her veil. "Peace. I have a servant across the way watching for anyone's approach. I'm not so reckless as you think."

"What did Casiria say?" she asks after a long moment. The sarana strips off his coat and folds it neatly over itself.

"Merely that the matter has been sorted. You and I and she will see to the meeting as planned at a time that is convenient to our new friends. Naturally we are to speak of this to no one, least of all anyone in Black's retinue."

"Naturally. --'A time convenient to our new friends?'"

"Unfortunately. A game was evidently involved in the negotiation and Casiria now finds herself with a minor debt. Evidently doing our friends this small favor clears her tab." He waggles a pierced eyebrow at her. "Now, are you going to stand there all day or would you rather get on with the pretense of why you're here at all?"

"It hardly seems like a small favor when we carry all the risk," she says, but grudgingly moves to the sideboard. A drawer, invisible to the vantage of the jar opens. She takes a knife from it and draws it from the sheath, trading the latter for the the silver bowl on the sideboard. The sarana rolls up his sleeves, bearing a thousand small scars on his sinewy forearms.

He takes the bowl from her, balancing it comfortably on his knees. He's so good at this and so patient about surrendering to the delicate blade wielded by her hand. But oh, he does flinch when she parts the skin. It's only natural. Pain is such a difficult thing to recall until it's occurring.

"You know, I prefer my blood inside of me," he says, fingers in the dish so the fruit of the cut can run down them into the bowl and away from his clothes.

"Tell Casiria to settle matters more efficiently next time then," she tells him from beneath the edge of the veil.

MERADAN
"--What the fuck."

"So it isn't food then. That's one possibility off the board. Thank you, dear Lysan, for being the willing test subject."

"Good gods. You don't think it's poison do you?"

"If it is, you can only blame yourself. Your tuning has been deplorable lately. I'd have killed you myself if Gildor hadn't gotten there first."

"It's not my fault! This dry air has ruined my poor carvan's neck. Every time I reset the strings, it bends the bridge! --You don't really think he's trying to murder me, do you? Just because I played over him two days ago, that's no reason to kill a person."

"Don't be ridiculous. The man wouldn't hurt a fly. And you know how these Carbauschians are."

"They challenge you to a duel and then get the biggest one to fight for them."

A roar of laughter. Everyone slaps poor, sweet, dear Lysan on the back.

"Maybe it's not meant to be eaten raw," someone suggests.

DESCENDANTS
A light, so bright that it burns with startling clarity. A moment later, the jar is withdrawn from the light source and turned over in two hands - a dizzying handful of seconds then thunk. It's placed squarely at the center of a portable writing desk. Incense burns in a holder at the edge of the desk, a pale pink finger of smoke twisting delicately from the end.

"No idea. But I'm sure it's the thought that counts," says the Descendant whom Kaji gifted the jar of slime to. Her companion sitting at the desk turns her pen over and taps the side of the jar. Tak, tak, tak. The vibration it produces is a distinctly unpleasant telepathic sensation. "Anyway. How are the numbers?"

"I doubt it matters," the farana behind the writing desk says. "If my suspicions are correct, willingness to participate means more at this stage than skill. In instances like this one, a wide net is our dearest tool." She motions toward a case at the back of the tent. It's a large space, empty save for these two Descendants. "Put it there with the rest then return to your rounds, Idran. I'll prepare your remarks for the Admiral."

"Yes, Mistress." Idran sweeps the jar from the desk, inclines her head as is clearly appropriate, then delivers it into the case alongside a half dozen other objects that must be gifts from other minor envoys. She closes the lid over it.

HYRYPIANS
A young sarana is humming a lovely little song. It rises and falls like an easy afternoon breeze, punctuated by the easy chime of the small metal disks embroidered into the sleeves of his simple robe. At the back of the tent is a wooden stand from which a series of complicated heavy acolytes' robes hangs. Their matching headdresses and lovely shoes are stored under each. Between them and the collection of low cots, all dripping with furs and lovely embroidered fabrics, it seems clear that the tent houses more than just this young Second. Besides - this isn't the Second gifted the jar; he must share the space with them. But in this moment, peering down from whatever shelf the jar has been placed on, he is alone as he works.

A series of fine metal components is spread across the low dark table where he kneels on a cushion. He licks the end of a pointed metal rod and dips it into a bowl at his elbow, then scrawls a series of glittering filigree nectar marks onto the components. From this vantage it's unclear whether it's the contents of the bowl of what's on his tongue or some combination of the two that produces the effect. After some minutes, he sets the pointed rod into a black case and removes a series of delicate tweezers and a minuscule screwdriver. With great patience, the young sarana begins to assemble the mechanical components together. There's a loveliness to this, a strange catharsis in the production of machines and the quiet punctuated only by his gentle humming. What a simple pleasure it must be to create things.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She swims as the slime in the jar settles, this way and that way, light swirling through her, around her. It makes her temples pulse with the start of a migraine, sense struggling to keep pace with so much. It does not ease much, even when the jar has gone stationary and she sits with her eyes closed tight somewhere not terribly far from the tent, her back to her target. Her pained expression hidden by her stupid alien burka.

The voices of the pair of aliens are watery, muffled and distant but she makes out what she can of it, observing their odd exchange from eyes that are not eyes, the picture buoyant, in constant movement.

She hears a name. She hears a secret, or two. And she witnesses an exchange.

( Who are Casiria's new friends? )

One question she manages to formulate before it all becomes too much for her and she's puking into the inside of her hood.

"Ugh..."

"Ugh," Annie blanches as the musicians hand the jar back and forth, contemplating its uses. She hears their discussion of whether or not it is to be consumed and... as they select their unfortunate guinea pig, she covers her eyes with her hands. "Ugh! Fuckin' gross! Fuckin' gross!"

And then she's sliding down a throat, through the dark wet interior of a fucking Meradan. She turns a bit green in the face, but knowing she's not going to get anything more from this, she just cuts the connection before it can get any worse. She lies down in the sparse grass behind the tent, still covering her face with her hands.

"Why am I always getting ingested, holy shit, that's two-for-two."

She can almost smell the incense with the lid of the jar open, almost but not quite. The sensation is there, like a tickle in her nose, but her brain does not know how to parse what washes over the slime into an actual response. The tapping on the jar is like someone poking her in the eyeball and Annie lets her head fall back with a sigh.

She hadn't thought this would be such a giant pain in the ass.

She lingers, trying to stabilize herself through the handling, the nausea heating up in the pit of her stomach as she is sloshed back and forth. It makes it hard to listen to the conversation.

Something numbers. Something something suspicions. Something something participation. She can feel herself nearing the edge of puking, fucking again, and stops.

( That one says participation counts. )

It's very still in this tent. Resplendent and peaceful, the current of her mind circulates through the gel in the jar. She's realizing, slowly, that is the cause of the vertigo, the perpetual spinning, and like a ballerina she needs to focus through it all... She watches the sarana in a slow figure-eight, up and down and around the confines of her jar.

He certainly seems happy.

( He put it in his mouth, then in the bowl, and now he's making magic marks on the pieces... )

She doesn't understand any more than that, and she leaves him to his work. Her head aches.

"I need a fuckin' nap..."

Annie has relayed all she has to relay, swimming pictures and fractured words, the few pieces and parts she managed to broadcast while in the flow of things. Now she is lying down in her tent, an arm thrown over her face, mostly just listening to the other three talk...

Edited 2017-09-25 22:54 (UTC)

[backdated - closed] jello is disgusting.

CARPATHANS

MERADAN

DESCENDANTS

HYRYPIANS

CONCLUSIONS AND PLANS