Character Inn

[Bar]

Akiel squinted at Havanar, unsure if her choice of question was deliberate or simply more of her customary weirdness. After a moment she shrugged to herself, then answered, "Yeah, pretty good. Just like I remember them, actually. I notice you haven't touched yours- are gluvpaki not insectivores, then?"

[Bar]

Havanar waved her hands in a noncommittal gesture. "Some gluvpaki eat insects," she said. "I don't do it very often. They're rather too... sss... crunchy, I suppose would be the word for it. I'm considering trying these, though."

She looked at Akiel. "Aren't you going to ask me a question? Or was that your question?"

[Bar]

Akiel nodded her angular head once, then folded her arms. "Yeah, it was. Your turn." she said simply, an unreadable expression on her face. Privately, she wondered just where Havanar was going to take the conversation next. She had made an attempt at small talk, which could be a way to diffuse the tension of the last thing they'd talked about, or it could be a sign she couldn't think of anything else.

[Bar]

Havanar blinked, nonplussed. "Um, all right."

She considered, staring at her fingerclaws again. It was growing increasingly hard to figure out what to ask - she wanted to know quite a lot more about Akiel, but she didn't want to risk starting some kind of argument like she almost had. And she honestly had no real idea how else to handle herself here. It had been a half-claw of years since she'd been in a social situation resembling this.

Should I tell her as much? No, wait -

"Um. This might s-sound odd, and I suppose it's more of a request than a question, but would you mind smiling?"

[Bar]

Akiel's eye ridges shot up, bewildered. And just when I was starting to think I was getting used to Havanar's strangeness, she goes and says that.

After taking a moment to regain her composure, she said, "Um. Well. You're right, that's is an odd request. And no, I suppose I wouldn't mind, but- why exactly would you- I mean, what is the reasoning?"

(Bar)

"I want to look at your teeth," Havanar said simply.

[Bar]

Akiel blinked once. "Erm. Okay." Slowly, and with a fair measure of awkwardness, she drew her "lips" up such that she was bearing her teeth. Almost as an afterthought, she turned the edges of her mouth up so that her expression looked less like a murderous glare. This made visible a set of small, white teeth that tapered into incising points, a carnivore's grin.

[Dining Hall]

Steve folded his arms and grumbled to himself in his chair.

Gregory then turned to face Rein. "So, that... thing you just did, with the circle... do you have any other tricks like that?"

[Garden ~ Tea House (Inside)]

"What is peculiar about expecting hospitality?" Blossom asked. "Especially if, as you say, you found yourself here by accident and misfortune." She looked into her tea with a shake of her head. "Even barbarian tribes know this much. Well, most barbarians — there's barbarians and barbarians, as it were. Though of barbarians, the worst are those who try and pass for civilized, using laws to justify their monstrosity. Wouldn't you agree?"

[Dining Area]

Rein smiled brightly. "Hundreds. Thousands, even."

"Rein," Se explained, "is literally the embodiment of most of the remaining knowledge of pre-Fall Belkan technique. She may actually be underselling herself."

Rein waved it away. "It's not that impressive. Still can't manage to give someone without accidentally trying to unison."

[Bar]

Havanar blinked, taken slightly aback. "Oh. You should do that more often."

She then began staring (with rather unsettling concentration) at Akiel's teeth, muttering to herself. "Hmmm. Those are very similar. I rather expected so, but then why - ?"

After a moment she blinked again and tilted her head. "Um. You can stop smiling now. I'm sorry if that was a little odd, but I was just curious to see if our teeth were similar. I suppose it's your turn now."

[Bar]

Akiel stopped baring her teeth, but her mouth was still turned up in a slight smile. I ought to do this more often, eh? "I highly doubt that. Most people already find me threatening enough as it is without me looking as if I want to eat them."

Alright, enough of this silliness. Levity over.

"Alright..." Akiel tapped her chin, "You know, you kind of remind me of Rald. Your interest in other species, I mean. Or- well, specifically me. I could imagine him doing just this kind of thing, seeing if there's similarities and differences- but I can tell you don't want to talk about that so..." She began to fidget, then reached over and took a few gulps of her beer to give her hands something to do.

After a few silent moments, she asked, "Why don't you want to talk about that?"

[Bar]

Havanar considered what to say for a moment. "Um. I don't - I suppose I don't want to start an argument over something that I honestly know very little about. You seem to actually like me - or at least you're more friendly to me than Nyris said you were to most people." (She said this without visual indication that Akiel might find it something awkward to be told). "And, as I've indicated, that's rather uncommon in my original reality. S-so I'm not sure I want to cause any problems by arguing about something I can't see my clawtips in anyway."

She glanced down at her essentially untouched meal, then added "And I suppose I thought your smile was nice from a gluvpaki perspective. I can see why it might unsettle humans - or elves - mine certainly does sometimes."

[Bar]

Akiel narrowed her eyes. "She said that, did she? That sounds like her." It also sounds about right, she thought to herself.

Akiel sat up straighter. "If you're just not interested in the topic, that's fine, but you shouldn't have to worry about offending me. Not at this point, anyway." She lifted a hand to indicate the bartop. "As you've probably been able to gather by now, this isn't a common outcome for me. The only reason I know that this is what you do at bars is because I've seen it from other people."

Joan Reynolds came tumbling out of the portal, landing on the ground in a heap. As she got up and looked around, she realized something was seriously wrong. "Bamboo? What the hell? The contract was to be hunting a djinni in Oman. I must have fouled up the portal spell." She reached into a pocket of her jeans, spending several minutes longer than one would have expected it would take to search such a small container. "Aaaand... I didn't make a spare. That's what, two hard day's worth of reagent prep and a week of simmering? Shit. Oh, well. It looks like there's at least a place to do my work with a roof over my head. There are worse places than Middle of Nowhere, Japan."

Joan walked up to the check-in desk, trying desperately to brush dirt off her new red Sentinel cloak. She reached the desk, smiled as best she could given the circumstances, and said, "Joan S. Reynolds. I'm going to be staying quite a while, so..."

"Oh, no charge for anyone who has nowhere else to go. Room 142." Joan calmly took her room keys and asked, "Now, which way to the bar? I need a couple shots of whiskey to get me through this mess."

[Dining Hall]

Gregory scoffed. "I think my definition of 'not that impressive' is pretty different from yours."

"You can stop with the praise, buddy," Steve butted in, "before you encourage it into trying more of that crap on me."

"You're calling her an 'it'?" Sara glared at Steve. "Weren't you trying to get into her pants like an hour ago? Man, you're petty."

[Character Inn]

Rein turned to Steve. "The correct term is her. And you will use it, or the consequences will be most unpleasant. Or we can start reenacting Disney villain magic stuff right here and now. if you think I'm kidding."

Se winced but didn't comment on Rein's statement. "Our definition of impressive is a bit skewed when we can remember and have seen so much, it's true."

edited 24th Jul '14 7:17:45 PM by Night

[Bar]

Havanar tilted her head, surprised. "Really? Oh, dark, that's even worse than I am. I mean, I've been. I mean - "

She winced as she as she heard it come out - if not offending Akiel was the goal, that was probably an even worse thing to say than discussing the differences between species. Which reminded her of the other thing Akiel had said.

"Um. Sorry," she began, then paused and sighed a little. She'd never understand how other people did this sort of thing. But it did seem like Akiel actively wanted to resume that topic if at all possible, so:

"I suppose I am interested somewhat in the topic," she said hesitantly. "Particularly about the last thing you said. Saying that different species would be so well-suited for certain things that it would create a de-facto caste system sounds rather like the same sort of error a lot of older mammal civilizations made when they argued for gender essentialism. Just because differences exist doesn't mean they're some kind of permanent dividing line - usually they're rather more of a curve. If a species is naturally skilled at - I don't know, programming - then a lot of programmers may come from that species, but there's no reason that should block out others who are just skilled at programming on their own."

(Once again, she displayed no visible awareness that Akiel might not have any idea what programming was).

edited 24th Jul '14 7:53:36 PM by nrjxll

[Bar]

Suddenly, Akiel gave a snort of laughter. "Worse than you? That so? Ah, that figures." She paused to take another drink of her beer. The bottom of her glass hit the bartop with a thunk, now more than halfway empty, and she swiveled in her seat to face Havanar more fully.

Akiel began, sounding slightly tipsy, "Look, I didn't really expect to find someone I could talk to on this trip, so I don't want you to feel uncomfortable when speaking with me. It's the least I can do for what your- for you." She shook her head from side to side as if trying to clear it.

"Anyway, back on topic. I'm not a mammal, so I wouldn't really know about any of that- might be something I'll ask Nyris about later but whatever- point is, this isn't just some theory. I know that Raldism is true because I've used it. Like-" she made a vague gesture towards herself, "take me for instance. I told you I'm a Sahuagin, and the Sahuagin are an all-Kasuar unit for a very good reason. Check it out." Akiel hooked an arm under a "knee" of her digitigrade legs and lifted a foot up to show to Havanar.

"See, one thing us Kasuar got is webbed feet." She splayed her toes, showing the thin semi-transparent membrane stretched between them. "These let us push against the water better than any Human or elf could, makes us much better in the water." She let her leg drop back to the floor, her point made. "Our legs are also stronger than Humans, so our average overland speed is higher than Humans' too."

Akiel patted her thickly muscled thighs with fondness. "Given all of that, there are some clear problems with the idea of letting Humans into the unit. Speed is a vital factor of the kind of fighting we do, and squads need to be able to move together as a basic expectation of maneuver tactics. If we let Humans into the unit, then in order to maintain squad cohesion the Kasuar members would have to wait for the Humans to catch up to them- or otherwise deliberately handicap themselves for the sake of their Human allies. In the middle of battle, this is almost guaranteed suicide." She shook her head again, this time as an argumentative statement, then shrugged. "I don't see a way around this simple fact of biology."

[Dining Hall]

"I don't think so," replied Steve. "Last I checked, that no-violence rule also extends to you. You can't pull any of that on me or that dragon will do it's thing and you'll be history."

"Play nice, you two," Sara butted in.

"It's the one that started it!" protested Steve.

Joan got directions to the bar and pulled up a seat, noticing that the bartender was an oni. She shuddered a little bit. She hadn't crossed paths with an oni before, but she'd heard stories that unnerved her to say the least. Nevertheless, Joan swallowed her discomfort and ordered two shots of whiskey off the top shelf. If she wouldn't have to pay for it, why not order the good stuff?

Joan couldn't help overhearing Akiel explaining why her unit didn't allow humans into its ranks. "Beg pardon, but it seems to me that you hail from a world with magic. If that's so, why not allow in human mages who specialize in physical enhancements? That way they could keep up with you."

edited 25th Jul '14 12:51:50 PM by daird

[Dining Hall]

Sano looked up at Patxi and drank an other sip of tea.

"That bags of yours," he said and paused for some more tea.

"Those ravens steal stuff and they aim for the eyes."

edited 25th Jul '14 12:10:08 PM by m8e

[Bar]

Havanar stared at Akiel for a few moments, then broke out of it and actually considered what she'd said. "That seems like a good point," she said. "Particularly since your society is pre- or semi-industrial - um, at least I think it is - so you don't have technology to act as an equalizer, the way the Alliance Mainstream does." She raked her claws nervously across the counter again; this topic continued to feel very out of her normal understanding. "But don't you think it's also a rather extreme example? Most professions aren't going to be quite as physically based."

She thought about asking about the webbed feet - which had been quite surprising given the further similarities between kasuar and gluvpaki Akiel had just demonstrated - but felt it was an inopportune time.

I'm going to wait for gault to respond to Joan before having Havanar react to her. Also, daird, I should probably note now that we prefer not to go beyond Leaning on the Fourth Wall in the CDTs.

edited 25th Jul '14 12:43:25 PM by nrjxll

[Dining Hall -> Entry Hall]

"I have no fear of birds," said Patxi curtly as he left his seat. His various pacts only referred to his mother and "people", and currently, birds were not considered people. He would rather try his luck with ravens than with possible provokers.

With that, he strode back into the entry hall, and as it turned out, the friend of the provoker had not been kidding about the ravens there.

[Entry Hall]

The six ravens that sat in the entry hall turned to their head to look at Patxi. Unkindness didn't like those eyes nor the glasses protecting them. They moved to surround Paxti but kept their quizzicaly tilted look on him like they tried to figure out what to do once they had surrounded him.

They stopped in a crescent shape around him leaving the opening back to the dining hall.

edited 25th Jul '14 3:07:50 PM by m8e