trans_9 | mr. blue sky please tell us why

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mr. blue sky please tell us why

Red was not sure which was distracting him more...The fact that this city seemed to remind him of everywhere and nowhere at once, or the fact that he was now wearing a skin-tight suit that seemed to pulsate with living veins but smelled of plants.

After the strange creature following him in the Pod Caverns had disappeared, he hadn't seen another living being. Well, unless you counted this entire city. He was certain now that it was a city. Once he emerged onto the surface, he could see the sky and this planet's star...but that still didn't answer the question of where he was. Whatever Stacy was, her exceptionally literal interpretation of questions meant that Red wasn't getting the answers he was looking for.

Hopefully when he found another being, they'd be slightly more helpful. He needed more information on this place if he was ever going to find out what being "chosen" meant, or if he was needed back at the Rebel base. He would have to be careful with any other sentients he came across, just in case they were allied with the Imperials...

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"I don't see how that's possible. At least without leaving some sort of mark." Zelgadis was becoming obstinate about it, and quickly. Then again, he had stone skin, and it would take some doing to actually manage to cram something unwanted into his skull. His nose crinkled, faintly, as he tried to figure out a better reason to refuse. In all honesty, he just didn't want someone picking through his hair.

"Fine." That came out with a sufferer's sigh. No, he didn't feel like picking over Aish-Kar-Yan's scaly scalp. Knees folded, and he just dropped himself into a sit, trying to not even think of what came after. "So what do we do if there's something like.. that? I mean.." Breaking communications with the wise and powerful Stacy might just piss her right off.

Again, Red's nictating eyelids flicked over his eyes. He let out a series of short, low clicking sounds and stepped around to the chimera's side. It would have been nice if there was a medical droid around, but come to think of it...he hadn't seen any droids in this city.

And anyway, Zelgadis might have liked a droid examining him even less than another sentient.

"If there is evidence of an communications implant, we do nothing. It will answer one major question - is Stacy a true telepath, or someone simply trying a fast con. Which it is will determine our later ac..tion..."

He paused, claws closed around Zel's hair. It wasn't at all what he expected, though. It wasn't soft like normal Human head-fur, it felt like the bristles on an industrial cleaning brush. Intruige overcame him a moment and he clacked his jaw in interest. "Is this really your hair?"

Arms had folded over his chest, almost sulkily, and he tried not to stir as the beastman came a little too close to him for comfort. Zelgadis simply liked his personal bubble as it was; large and uninterrupted. Still, he wasn't sure if this creature could hurt him, even if it meant to do so.

"This seems like a lot of work just to trick someone. Considering where we came from, I imagine this Stacy to be from a world foreign to my own." Then the lizard had grabbed a handful of his hair, and then speech began to trail off.

The question.. well, he hadn't quite expected it, but his head turned up to one side, managing to peer angrily upwards from one cat-pupiled eye. "It's coming out of my scalp, isn't it?" An obvious question got an obvious answer. "My body is part golem. Which is why it would be difficult to plant anything under my skin." Unless one had a chisel and some careful aim. Stone skin and wire hair. There was even a faintly metallic glint to the latter. "Can you just get this over with?"

Zel was certainly defensive over his appearance.

With a quick snort, Red released the hair he held in his claws. A touchy humanoid, very touchy. There were worse species when it came to medical examination, he was sure, but not being a medic he certainly didn't know them. He tried to move to lighter subjects momentarily.

"I'm willing to agree that Stacy is alien. That this," he waved a claw at the city, "is all alien. It's not your planet, and it's certainly no planet I know of. Maybe it isn't even Stacy's planet."

He couldn't keep the subject shift up long. Looking over Zel's skin he clicked idly, "It really is stone, isn't it? Not stone-like, but living rock." Red seemed to be speaking mostly to himself as he searched. "This feels like it would have needed a laser cutter, and that should have left a mark. Unless these discoloured patches are marks..." He shook his head. There were too many, they were likely natural. Or close to it.

"No, no," he parted and picked through the hair around the chimera's ear carefully, a rediculous parody of primates grooming. "I think you're right. I'm not seeing evidence of surgery. Although admitted, I have no medical training." He didn't like to put this down as solid evidence, though. He obviously was way, way out of his league with Zel's physiology, and there might have been some other way to hide a transmission device...

He gave up and stepped away, hissing quietly to himself. Frustrating.

If he'd had hackles, they'd have long been raised. This whole mess was simply not his idea of a good time. He'd come looking for answers, not for someone to start prodding him as though he were some sort of laboratory specimen!

"Planet? You mean worlds?" The most he knew of were four, and they all were parallel to one another. Space travel had never actually occurred to him, not when it was magic that let one slip from one reality to another. "Or a plane of existence, like a spirit world?" Could she be a demon?

"I told you it is." Grouchily. Maybe not in so many words, but he had claimed to be part stone golem. "No, they're just.. patches." Another flush crossed his face, one of pure embarrassment. Claws tickled a spot near his ear, and it actually twitched, once. Too damn long and slightly mobile. Yes, well, he was quite unique, when it came to being an example of humanity.

The beastman had finally stepped away, and Zel practically clapped a hand over the side of his head, trying to put his hair back into place. Not that it hadn't been a wild mess to begin with. "Well, that was pointless." So he was flustered and frustrated. It wasn't a good combination. He got to his feet, then, absently brushing at his knees, though he winced as he touched the living material.

"Do you think that there's anyone else here? Someone who might know anything?" It wasn't that he was trying to lash out, exactly. He was simply not a people person.

"Planet, worlds. You speak Basic, the meaning is interchangable." He tried to let the theoretical and theological talk slip past his notice. It had no place in situational analysis. Though the possibility of alternate dimensions existed, he strongly doubted stacy had simply...tumbled through one. Or that he had.

He watched Zel's actions quietly, filing it away. Impatient, and on edge. But restrained. That restraint didn't come naturaly to such a personality, it had to be learned. Maybe Zelgadis himself was military, or ex-military. "Not entirely pointless. And we do now know something. We know that either Stacy is a legitimate telepath, or her medical capabilities incorperate great finesse. Given neither you nor I seem particularly thrilled with our garments -nor the way we recieved them, I presume- I believe 'finesse' may not be one of her strong points. The technology of this place appears primarily organic, nearly floral. Laser cutters likely do not play a major role in it." More click-barks...He was chuckling to himself, but the sound was wholely inhuman and peculiar to those not used to it.

He had new theories as well...but no way to test them. But even if those theories held true, one factor remained. "If it had been a transmitter, we could have found ways to avoid it. To work around it. What it means is Stacy, one way or another, is far and above parlor tricks."

Exhaling deeply, Red looked at the alien city around them, giving the air another sniff. Very distant smells, very faint. Other than themselves and the city, he could only know that others had come here...but in no great numbers. No more than a few.

"Others...may be here. Though when they return, I don't know. I thought that a city would house a heavy population. But by the smell of it, I thought wrong."

Were they? The terms he was using didn't quite match. It was a niggling little difference, but Zel had frowned, trying to figure it out. The lack of knowledge was incredibly irritating, but in the end he had nothing to raise an issue over. Maybe he would learn sooner, rather than later.

He was actually chagrined that the beastman reminded him that it wasn't completely without point. "So it merely cements the fact that we have no idea. In the long run, it could be something utterly alien to all of us." They'd ruled out one option when there were so many others. "Tentacles should belong to sea animals and nothing else." A grimace at the very recent memory. "There is a very living quality to it. I'm not sure what a laser-cutter is, precisely, but the pod rooms and such reminded me of some demonic structures I had seen before."

In the end, they were going to have to just try figure it out. "We don't have enough pieces of the puzzle to get a clear image yet." Was he reminding himself, or Aish-Kar-Yan of this? "I agree. This was not a cheap undertaking." Unfortunately, he saw no humor in any of it.

"Most buildings belong to people. They are built for a purpose by those people. This place.. it's eerie. It feels lifeless." There were no sounds of life, the bustle of a city. "Not to mention nothing matches." As if he were going to be picky about the interior decorating.

Red clicked quietly in his throat. "I was told I would be taken to meet other sentients. This is where I was lead to, but you are the only one I've found. But I agree on the decor. Just like you and I seem to be from entirely different worlds, some of these buildings feel utterly transplanted. Their architecture doesn't belong side by side, their designs are too foreign from one another. As if someone was creating a..." He paused over the next word. The concept of a zoo where sentients were held did not appeal to him in any sense, and he was certain Zelgadis, with his temperment, would be equally nonplussed. He picked a new word. "A montage."

He flicked his tongue out at the city absently, and the air was still calm. It was empty, but it didn't feel like it had been abandoned. Just like it was...unused. Fresh out of the packaging, without the grit of life caked in the cracks yet. Darting out his tongue again, he cocked his head at Zelgadis.

"Any suggestions? Yours are as well informed as mine."

"Perhaps there are more down in those pod rooms." Not yet released, or too afraid to come out? "Though they'd be just as lost." A glance up at the false sky. Even that had a singular odd quality to it; close to correct, but just off enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. "A collection?" He still didn't like the sound of it. "That's not exactly what I'd list under 'great things'. " Though it'd be no real wonder that she'd grabbed the likes of him, then. "Maybe she likes the variety.." Not knowing was the most difficult part.

"All I can figure is that we should continue looking for more people, and see if they have any more puzzle pieces. Perhaps they are.. elsewhere. I wouldn't want to stay here for good, empty as it is." It was creepy. Not that he'd go admitting it.

The Tiss'shar nodded. Awkward looking, like he was franticly shaking his snout up and down. Wherever he'd adapted the Human gesture from, nobody had bothered to tell him that when he did it, it looked wrong. "There were other beings down there, inside the pods. More must have awoken when we did. I heard scratching on the catwalks," He let out a series of clicks which sounded distinctly nasal. "But it retreated, whatever it was."

"Still. Even if they know nothing, there may be a common thread of logic or knowledge which ties us together."

Sniffing the air as he went, Red began to backtrack towards the Hub which had lead him to the surface.

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