Ares:
Zhang does a backflip off the short stairs outside, wobbling slightly when she lands it. York gives a clap. She’s getting a bit too old for that one, she’s fronting that wasn’t hell on her knees. York keeps walking, and she skips to catch up to the two of you again, walking in the middle.
“I held my cuffs up to the chains, and York started talking about how easy they were to pick loud enough for everyone to hear.”
“Thought he’d want to know.” York says innocently.
“Then I started talking about how I could have shimmied out of them if I wanted to, but I was on my best behaviour.”
“Really, he should have thanked you instead of yelling at you. Everyone else thought that was a dick move, they were listening.”
“Then we just started asking what would happen if the zine reported on stuff. Like, what we weren’t allowed to say, what the specific threats were.”
“Dude got real fuckin’ mad when I said the threats were on the record, too.” York snickered. “Love that.”
“He was way too careful about it, though. Didn’t even do the mafia routine.” Zhang pouts. “Didn’t even do the ‘for your own safety’ or ‘you better watch your back’ stuff. Just boring legal stuff and blacklisting.”
“We’d get spiked.” York groans. They’re a good double act, feeding off each other’s energy. There’s a smoking-behind-the-arts-block highschooler energy to them like this. York switches to a sweeter vape. The coffee one was just to leave the most obnoxious smell he could. “Still, though. What’d you find out?”
Zhang grimaces. “I just reported myself as maybe having information on the Pump thing. Shit really was that vague. I think they looked at my record and realized what I was doing after, but they were too embarrassed to let me go over it. Would look way too much like admitting they’re doing shady shit to people over shit that flimsy, right?” She glances at Brown’s jacket. “You’re not really a lawyer, right? You really wasted a cup of tea over this? Least I can do is buy you a new one…?” The guilty silence is also the realization she doesn’t have a name for you, now.
Pope:
On translation? “That might be why I think you could be so good at it.” Pope says it like it’s a guilty confession - though what he’s guilty of is less clear. “The comparisons you need to make to make that choice. If that decision were easier for you, if you were less in the middle of it, then you’d have both feet in one side of things. You’ve got one foot in both sides where everyone else I can think of, they’ve got both feet in one.” He drips sympathy about this. Somewhere in his own writing is the phrase; To have a split allegiance is to be a double traitor. Somewhere on his bookshelf, a book is dogeared on a page that says; I will not be integrated into a burning house.
On dancing, he’s more wistful again. “That’s what I’d hoped writing could have been more like. Something you’d think think would be a problem like that, but that you got lost in when you found your own expression in it. Does something in my chest good that you’ve still got things like that. For all the talk I’ve been tricked by an illusion, I was starting to worry I was talking to someone entirely a Chinese room. You're more than that at least, right?”
Fiona:
Wings it is, from here, then.
Not angel wings though, as much as that suits the cleric vibes, she still feels like a guest here. She picks two wide solar arrays with an ion thruster strapped to the plate on her back, trailing blue vapour. It takes her a while to find, it’s at the absolute bottom of her assets list and she’s forgotten what she titled it in the menus.
And then, collision off, she goes right through the satellites. The idea of doing something dynamic like smashing through them just makes her sad. Beyond the consideration of processor power needed to run a kessler cascade, there’s just… what breaking through the satellites, breaking them, would represent. She wonders if this was a right or wrong answer, but at least she’s shown Green something about herself.
“What are you making here?” Fiona calls out to the void behind the satellites, the distant planets and stars. “Why are you making it?” She tries to use the parallax effect of her movement to judge the space between her and the distant planets and stars - are they very far away, or just very small to give the illusion of distance? “Or would you rather just make stuff together for a while? Just point me at some space you haven’t worked on yet.”
Some people loved to talk for hours about their art. Fiona suspected that Green wanted her work to speak for itself - or at least, speak for her. But that was fine, she could spend hours making her sandcastles and learn a lot about Green just watching her make hers. She’s already learned a lot already.
That’s the thing for Fiona, being here. She understands Green possibly the least of all of November, but she loves November and apparently all of her came started from Green. It’s something that doesn’t bother Crystal as much - she doesn’t need to understand something to love it - but Fiona feels like she needs to understand the things that she loves.
She doesn’t have to like Green coming out of this, and she won’t force that. But she’ll firewalk an endless horizon of burning eggshells if there’s even a chance of understanding at the other side.
Zhang does a backflip off the short stairs outside, wobbling slightly when she lands it. York gives a clap. She’s getting a bit too old for that one, she’s fronting that wasn’t hell on her knees. York keeps walking, and she skips to catch up to the two of you again, walking in the middle.
“I held my cuffs up to the chains, and York started talking about how easy they were to pick loud enough for everyone to hear.”
“Thought he’d want to know.” York says innocently.
“Then I started talking about how I could have shimmied out of them if I wanted to, but I was on my best behaviour.”
“Really, he should have thanked you instead of yelling at you. Everyone else thought that was a dick move, they were listening.”
“Then we just started asking what would happen if the zine reported on stuff. Like, what we weren’t allowed to say, what the specific threats were.”
“Dude got real fuckin’ mad when I said the threats were on the record, too.” York snickered. “Love that.”
“He was way too careful about it, though. Didn’t even do the mafia routine.” Zhang pouts. “Didn’t even do the ‘for your own safety’ or ‘you better watch your back’ stuff. Just boring legal stuff and blacklisting.”
“We’d get spiked.” York groans. They’re a good double act, feeding off each other’s energy. There’s a smoking-behind-the-arts-block highschooler energy to them like this. York switches to a sweeter vape. The coffee one was just to leave the most obnoxious smell he could. “Still, though. What’d you find out?”
Zhang grimaces. “I just reported myself as maybe having information on the Pump thing. Shit really was that vague. I think they looked at my record and realized what I was doing after, but they were too embarrassed to let me go over it. Would look way too much like admitting they’re doing shady shit to people over shit that flimsy, right?” She glances at Brown’s jacket. “You’re not really a lawyer, right? You really wasted a cup of tea over this? Least I can do is buy you a new one…?” The guilty silence is also the realization she doesn’t have a name for you, now.
Pope:
On translation? “That might be why I think you could be so good at it.” Pope says it like it’s a guilty confession - though what he’s guilty of is less clear. “The comparisons you need to make to make that choice. If that decision were easier for you, if you were less in the middle of it, then you’d have both feet in one side of things. You’ve got one foot in both sides where everyone else I can think of, they’ve got both feet in one.” He drips sympathy about this. Somewhere in his own writing is the phrase; To have a split allegiance is to be a double traitor. Somewhere on his bookshelf, a book is dogeared on a page that says; I will not be integrated into a burning house.
On dancing, he’s more wistful again. “That’s what I’d hoped writing could have been more like. Something you’d think think would be a problem like that, but that you got lost in when you found your own expression in it. Does something in my chest good that you’ve still got things like that. For all the talk I’ve been tricked by an illusion, I was starting to worry I was talking to someone entirely a Chinese room. You're more than that at least, right?”
Fiona:
Wings it is, from here, then.
Not angel wings though, as much as that suits the cleric vibes, she still feels like a guest here. She picks two wide solar arrays with an ion thruster strapped to the plate on her back, trailing blue vapour. It takes her a while to find, it’s at the absolute bottom of her assets list and she’s forgotten what she titled it in the menus.
And then, collision off, she goes right through the satellites. The idea of doing something dynamic like smashing through them just makes her sad. Beyond the consideration of processor power needed to run a kessler cascade, there’s just… what breaking through the satellites, breaking them, would represent. She wonders if this was a right or wrong answer, but at least she’s shown Green something about herself.
“What are you making here?” Fiona calls out to the void behind the satellites, the distant planets and stars. “Why are you making it?” She tries to use the parallax effect of her movement to judge the space between her and the distant planets and stars - are they very far away, or just very small to give the illusion of distance? “Or would you rather just make stuff together for a while? Just point me at some space you haven’t worked on yet.”
Some people loved to talk for hours about their art. Fiona suspected that Green wanted her work to speak for itself - or at least, speak for her. But that was fine, she could spend hours making her sandcastles and learn a lot about Green just watching her make hers. She’s already learned a lot already.
That’s the thing for Fiona, being here. She understands Green possibly the least of all of November, but she loves November and apparently all of her came started from Green. It’s something that doesn’t bother Crystal as much - she doesn’t need to understand something to love it - but Fiona feels like she needs to understand the things that she loves.
She doesn’t have to like Green coming out of this, and she won’t force that. But she’ll firewalk an endless horizon of burning eggshells if there’s even a chance of understanding at the other side.