hexarchate_rpg | on the nature of oaths

zuhrovet posting in

[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?"

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From:

zuhrovet

[I think the debriefing conversation will be more interesting if we make it really cross-cultural, so do please join in!]

Having attained the common room, Sasha liberates a clean teapot. She asks Reshad, "Do you like black tea, or green? Or I suppose there's coffee?"

One of the blue hatchlings crawls out of the nest, presumably curious about the noise; another hatchling is poking its nose out. Sasha's first instinct is to shush them, but she knows it's doomed. Hatchlings need socialization, and she is the available adult. Instead she whistles softly and looks for an appropriately squashy banana.

From:

hoardingpearls

Reshad is moving about tidying the sitting area when Sasha, to her surprise, asks about tea preference. "Green would be nice, thank you." She offers a small smile, a measure of peace.

But as she looks up, a cheeping sound, a whistle - Sasha has a banana in hand, unexpected - and a tiny blue nose, not belonging to Fluffy, makes an appearance in Fluffy's nest.

Moving softly, she comes up beside Sasha. "What's this?"

The color and movement resolves itself as she approaches, into what have to be hatchlings. Reshad's mouth makes an 'o' and her eyes go wide. "Oh! You're as cute as a mothling," she informs the baby. Her hands go behind her back, an instant response to the desire to touch.

From:

zuhrovet

"I know I'm terrible at this shit, but I wasn't actually raised by wolverines." Sasha isn't quite smiling, but her eyes crinkle at the corners.

Though she doesn't usually drink green tea, there's a setting for it on the hot-water dispenser, and the grid will time the steeping. She mashes the banana into a bowl with the back of a spoon. "Chahle, baby frog, who's your friend?--You can go ahead and pick one up. It's good for them, to get used to humans."

[I'm not actually sure whether the Cantata's cutlery collection favors chopsticks or forks! Though Sasha's from a knives-spoons-fingers culture anyhow.]

From:

yhlee

[Heh, h*archate would favor chopsticks, but there would be local variations from the low cultures, and anyway, the matter printer can provide whatever cutlery y'all like!]

From:

bariolage

Enter Ione, who looks a little frazzled - her hair is down, and she's changed gloves - and may or may not seem surprised to see other people there. She's just overall somewhat shaken for the time being, but Fluffy's nest is what first gets her attention. Cooing over babies and petting them, and taking the silvery one that's taken a liking to her up onto her arm, comes first.

They're soothing.

"Hello," she says, once she's gotten her pseudo-dragon bearings, and the unnamed silver nestling is trying to eat that hair she hasn't put back up.

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha isn't looking at Ione, not directly. She's not watching Reshad's cautious advance toward the nest, either. Instead, she's balancing Chahle and a spoonful of smushed banana, and hoping desperately that the warmth in her face looks like some sort of reaction to the steaming tea.

She isn't touching the teacups, either, but the one that judders off the shelf and smashes on the galley floor is definitely her fault.

From:

bariolage

It startles Ione, who spins around to look, then glances really quickly at Sasha as if she's trying to confirm the origin; but psionic abilities are a form of medical information, and she doesn't want anyone else to think she's surmised any sort of correlation.

Everything told to her is in confidence unless otherwise specified. Which does not mean she isn't super curious what incited that reaction. She might have to ask later, how awkward.

The silver pseudo-dragon shrieks happily at the smashing noise and tries to imitate it. Ione covers her face with her hand very briefly and holds back a sigh.

From:

hoardingpearls

"Of course not." With a faint, rueful smile, Reshad turns to help with the preparations. "Wolverines can't make tea for anything." Her tone is conversational, but she darts a sidewise glance, gauging how the joke was received.

Five minutes, after all, do little for tension.

At the suggestion to touch the hatchlings, she gives Sasha a delighted look. "Thanks - I wasn't sure it was all right. I don't know much about reptiles, if they're reptiles." She clucks at the blue one, then its silver sibling as Ione lifts it away, and wiggles her fingers at the dragonets beneath.

Her head whips around as a cup smashes, leaving her hand suspended near the nest. A quick assessment shows no threat in evidence, only Ione with hand over face, Sasha blushing - nobody near the cup.

She's distracted from further investigation by a sharp nip. "Oh! Rascal," she laughs, and her attention is suddenly back on the nest entirely.

From:

yhlee

Gerae enters shortly afterward, looks around at everyone's faces, bites his lip, then occupies himself helping feed hungry hatchlings banana-tuna mixture.

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha shuts the cupboard door, passes Chahle to Gerae temporarily, and cleans up the mess. In the middle of that process the tea alarm goes off. By the time she manages to recover Chahle and bring everyone a cup, it's definitely oversteeped. But then, it's green, so it still doesn't taste like much of anything.

Sasha pets Chahle along the spine, for luck maybe, and then asks the question she should have asked first, if she hadn't been so distracted by her own stupid lack of self-control: "Ione. Are you all right?"

From:

bariolage

At first, Ione is going to say something like I was just facepalming because of the fact that the pseudo-dragons think that breaking cups is a noise to mimic but she realizes that's not the question being asked, exactly. Her immediate response to the hatchlings isn't what they're talking about so much as the fact she looks like she hasn't slept in a year.

"Tired," she answers instead, but she's smiling faintly. "Kind of emotionally fatigued because it's -- there was a lot. These guys help." There's another scritch for her friend she hasn't named yet, who has stopped shrieking, and then she turns the smile onto Gerae briefly before focusing it back on Sasha. "Are you?"

From:

zuhrovet

Green saint, Sasha cannot do this, nothing this good can last. She's going to break something else, and she doesn't know when or how.

She watches Chahle decorously inhaling banana for a moment, just to compose herself, and then shrugs. "I'm fine. Nobody has tried to assault me for weeks, it's probably a record. I guess--should we get started?"

From:

bariolage

"We should be aiming for longer than weeks," Ione says softly, but doesn't protest the idea of getting to discussion.

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha's smile translates as "How is Ashari supposed to relax?" but she has enough sense not to say that out loud.

"Ione, if you can give us a more detailed assessment of Jedao's emotional state, that would be very much appreciated. Reshad, I know you have questions. And Gerae--are you part of this meeting or not?"

From:

yhlee

Gerae straightens his posture and almost drops the hatchling he's feeding, who yawps in protest. "I'm paying attention," he says, hastily catching and patting the little dragon.

From:

hoardingpearls

"I do have questions, but Ione's information may well answer some of them." Reshad looks between the women with their hatchlings and Gerae with his, and mimicking, finds some food and offers it to the next nose to emerge from the nest.

From:

zuhrovet

"I'm not going to eat you," Sasha says, in an aside.

From:

venndaai

[Let's pretend Sulen has been there quietly distracted by the magenta hatchling for the last couple minutes.]

From:

slybrarian

[Ditto Alaric, with a different hatchling.]

From:

bariolage

Ione is not laughing at Sasha's response to Gerae. She's not. She has a straight face because this is serious (but okay, there was a little crinkle to her eyes there for a second; Reshad and Sasha may have seen it).

"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."

From:

zuhrovet

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.

From:

hoardingpearls

Ione's description is fascinating on one level, still distressing on another. Reshad grabs for a metaphor and seizes on 'filters.' So, like particulates on a space station, maybe, and her gloves keep the worst of the dust from getting to unprotected skin.

"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.

Edited Date: 2019-10-05 03:34 pm (UTC)

From:

yhlee

Gerae stirs. "I know I'm very junior in this organization," he says, "and that I certainly don't speak for the other Rahal, but I would strongly recommend doing that scan, Ione, if you can secure his agreement. If he's unstable, we really need to know how deep it goes." He flushes and lapses back into silence, ostentatiously petting the hatchling that he's currently feeding.

From:

zuhrovet

"My commitment to the Cantata is the only tie that isn't obvious," Sasha tells Reshad. She doesn't like speaking of this openly: she feels exposed in a way that isn't logical, not when the chain of oaths is nearly military in its directness. Jedao's oath hooks into her own promise to Ashari, and that's almost all there is, that single line.

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.

From:

venndaai

Sulen moves over to Gerae, ostensibly to admire the hatchling he's feeding, but also putting themself between him and Sasha. "Ione's ability sounds more effective than ours, at least in these circumstances." They're not sure they'd really want to scry Jedao even with a full hept. There's something unsettling about his signifier, though Crowned With Eyes isn't one they've had any bad associations with before.