Move 2.7b Recap

The hallway outside Jedao's room: Reshad and Sasha; messages from Sulen

When Sasha steps outside, Sulen says in her earpiece, "Well, that's not how I intended this to go, but it seems to have been productive." Sasha responds, "I hope so. I think I had to, but I don't think Reshad saw it." She takes her scarf out of her pocket and covers her hair again.

As Reshad emerges, Sasha asks her, "Are we having this conversation in my office? Or over tea, with everyone?" Reshad says, "Let's debrief with everyone." Stepping close to Sasha and speaking quietly but sharply, she adds, "But first--Do not assume you know anything about Temuy culture." She then steps back, saying for all to hear, "I'll be there in five." Sasha tenses as Reshad steps closer, anticipating an attack, then says, "Understood. In return, do not pretend you comprehend a binding, when you do not. What you just said to him was cruel, even if you cannot feel it." Flat, Reshad responds, "Would you care to explain, then. How offering hope that things are different in the rebellion than the Heptarchate is cruel; how undercutting it is not."

Remembering her promise to assume Reshad acts in good faith, Sasha says, "You understood, I think, that the way the Shuos heptarch bound him was not clean. She used his strength against him, and she hurt him. I cannot guess the method, but that much was very clear, from how he spoke. You think, if you tell him it should not have happened, it will be a comfort. But it was his strength. He is the person that she aimed at, and he is the gun she aimed, both together. When you say this should not be, you tell him he should not exist. I cannot stand by and let you do that. Not to anyone, but particularly not to him."

Reshad agrees, "Yes; she hurt him. You are correct that I intend to comfort. I can only hope that he did not hear what you did, but rather that the rebellion is not the Heptarchate. I will ask you more about your binding when we debrief. Such ties should be well understood by those who need to work with them, and I am not convinced he knows Naxorian culture." With an inviting gesture toward the conference room, Reshad concludes that afterward, "I will inquire, and see whether I've done more harm than good." Sasha tells her, "I would have sworn to the Nirai, had they accepted me. I thought about the nature of the oath."

At the range: Mafyyil and Seyli

Seyli is at the range, thinking of target practice as a form of meditation. Mafyyil greets them cheerfully. Seyli greets them in turn, sounding strained.

Noticing that Seyli is upset, Mafyyil offers them a muffin with pink sprinkles. Bemused, Seyli says that they "don't think it's a good idea to combine shooting and muffins." Confused by this "barbarian" logic, Mafyyil clarifies, "You're supposed to eat the muffin, not shoot it." Seyli collapses in hysterical giggles. Confused, Mafyyil says, "It has sprinkles." She wonders if Seyli's agitation has a religious source, and apologizes, "I'm sorry I do not know the correct recitals for muffins. Maybe you can speak them, so I can learn?" Seyli laughs for a while longer, before collecting themself and taking the muffin: "No, I'm just being weird. Thank you, I can't remember the last time I ate."

Mafyyil eats a muffin of her own, though she feels some religious scruples about its bright blue color. She says, "Actually, I was going to clear my mind and just shoot some things, but I see you were doing something similar. Is this also about the saint's friend?" Seyli agrees, lacking the energy to provide better context, and offers, "I'll stay with you while you shoot, if you'd like?" Mafyyil thanks them cheerfully and prepares to shoot, putting away the umbrella from her muffin and sweeping her hair into a loose braid. She asks, "Have you actually seen him?" Seyli shows Mafyyil toward the shooting booth and steps back, saying, "Shuos Jedao? Yes, I've seen him. He's...a very unusual man." With real amusement, they add, "I'd like to see what he'd make of you." Mafyyil agrees, "He would have to be." She prepares to shoot, rummaging for various items, and asks with false casualness, "If I decide to write a poem to memorize the occasion, what kind of verse would be appropriate, what do you think?"

Debriefing in the common room: Alaric, Gerae, Ione, Reshad, Sasha, Sulen, and the pseudo-dragons

Reshad and Sasha are the first to reach the common room. Sasha asks Reshad, "Do you like black tea, or green? Or I suppose there's coffee?" She notices a couple of hatchlings peeping out of the nest and finds a banana for them. Surprised by the courtesy, Reshad says, "Green would be nice, thank you." She notices the hatchlings in turn, and tells one, "Oh! You're as cute as a mothling." Sasha remarks, "I know I'm terrible at this shit, but I wasn't actually raised by wolverines." Attempting a joke, Reshad responds, "Of course not. Wolverines can't make tea for anything." Sasha prepares tea for humans and banana for the hatchlings; Reshad helps with the tea. Sasha greets a blue hatchling as "Chahle", and tells Reshad, "You can go ahead and pick one up. It's good for them, to get used to humans." Reshad answers, "Thanks - I wasn't sure it was all right. I don't know much about reptiles, if they're reptiles."

Ione enters the common room, looking stressed. Her hair is down, and she has changed gloves. She picks up a silver hatchling and pets it for a while; it tries to eat her hair. She greets Sasha and Reshad. Sasha is deeply embarrassed by the hatchling in Ione's hair; in reaction, a teacup falls from the galley shelf to the floor. Ione is startled, but considers that Sasha's revelations about her exotic power are held in confidence. Meanwhile, the hatchling she is holding imitates the crashing sound. Reshad looks around, determines there is no immediate threat, and exclaims, "Oh! Rascal" as a hatchling nips her fingers. Gerae enters the room, notes the general tension, and occupies himself by feeding hatchlings.

Sasha cleans up the pottery shards and brings everyone (now including Alaric and Sulen) a cup of (slightly oversteeped) tea. She asks, "Ione. Are you all right?" Ione answers, "Tired. Kind of emotionally fatigued because it's -- there was a lot." She notes that the hatchlings help, then asks Sasha whether she is all right. Sasha is disconcerted by the idea that Ione might care. She answers, "I'm fine. Nobody has tried to assault me for weeks, it's probably a record. I guess--should we get started?" Softly, Ione says, "We should be aiming for longer than weeks."

Sasha opens with, "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?" Startled, Gerae says, "I'm paying attention." Quietly, Sasha tells him, "I'm not going to eat you," to Ione's amusement.

Reshad says, "I do have questions, but Ione's information may well answer some of them." Ione explains that she has "filters": in order to read Jedao "without things getting lost in the space between his field and mine, I would have to be touching him directly." She notes, "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." She warns that Jedao is "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?" Fidgeting with her hair, she concludes, "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." Reshad agrees, "I do hope it'll ease working with us. And we must take precautions not to become a tool to hurt him further."

Sasha says, "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." Reshad scoops a bright red hatchling out of the nest and feeds it, charmed. She tells Sasha, "I'm concerned, and not all of it is for him. 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." Sasha responds, "My commitment to the Cantata is the only tie that isn't obvious."

Awkwardly, Gerae says, "I know I'm very junior in this organization, 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." Worried about Ione's exhaustion, Sasha asks, "You don't want to scry him thoroughly yourself?" with mild sarcasm. Shifting closer to Gerae, Sulen says, "Ione's ability sounds more effective than ours, at least in these circumstances." Sasha asks, "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."

More debriefing: Alaric, Gerae, Ione, Reshad, Sasha, Sulen, and the pseudo-dragons, with interruptions from the Cantata

Reshad is beginning to ask, "Obvious to wh--" when there's a rattling noise in the cupboard. Another teacup shatters. Via the grid, the Cantata says, "Excuse me! 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." Deeply embarrassed at her failure to control her exotic power, Sasha says, "The disturbance is my fault. It should be temporary. Ione, this is not mine to dictate, not in any way, but... If you could keep the hatchling away from your hair, I would appreciate that very much." She tries not to look at Reshad, or the adorable hatchling curled against her.

Excited, Gerae asks, "You can break things without touching them? Does it work on locks, too?" Sasha tells him, "You might have noticed my control is not ideal. If I could reliably move a deadbolt, growing up would have been a lot easier. I have pretty good luck with electronic locks, though." Reshad asks, "You can--but how?" Sasha says, "I don't know." She reflects upon the many sources of her current stress, including her promise to Jedao and the fact that in this room, during the first meeting with Remi, Ashari retaliated against her by stroking her hair. She explains further, "This level of disturbance is unusual." Ordinarily her luck is extreme, for good or ill: "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."

The Cantata apologizes, "As long as it's not a gravity malfunction, then. Sorry for prying!" Gerae asks, "Is this kind of thing common among your nurse's people? Have you ever tested the range?" The Cantata suggests, "Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it?" Sasha thanks the Cantata, but explains further: "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."

Reshad pets her hatchling, which noses toward her hair. She tells the Cantata that though it is "kind", "in this case there are things we need to know." To Sasha, she says, "Calendar... normalization, is what they called it, where I came from. But it was suppression, none the less. 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?" Returning to the previous topic of conversation, she asks, "Ione, does using your ability put you at risk in ways that wouldn't apply to any one of us?"

Sasha worries that, as she reacts to the sight of the hatchling in Reshad's hair, she will break more dishes. She shuts her eyes and tells herself part of a Kirrish folk tale, attempting to calm herself. She then 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?"

Ione tells Reshad that her ability does pose limited risks: "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. 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." She explains that there is a device in her head "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."

notes

Reshad: "She has a brief, spinning moment of wondering if this is what it takes. If aggression in response to aggression is the answer. Distasteful, but - this is not home. This is no assignment, where she can afford to assume and shuck identities like an out-of-fashion robe. " Sasha: "Reshad has a perfect diagram, now: she has seen every knot in the net of Sasha's current loyalties, and she knows the shape, if not the details, of the ways Sasha has been hurt before. Of course, if Reshad uses this to bind her, it proves Sasha was right all along. She smiles a bitter half-smile: that's a stupid way to win."

Mafyyil's religious worries; Seyli really needs some human contact