trans_9 | Enchanted Aquatica---the Prom [WIDE OPEN Y'ALL]

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Enchanted Aquatica---the Prom [WIDE OPEN Y'ALL]

The day had finally arrived for her big event, and Starfire couldn't be happier---or more nervous, actually. She was certainly not an expert on the inner workings of a prom, but it couldn't be too terribly complicated, right? As long as the people could eat, dance, and talk, it should be a reasonable success.

With that in mind, her decorations sprung from her mind into the large dome all around her, transforming a grey Sensorium into a beautiful underwater world, one with clear waters and free from the possibility of a shark attack.

The first change was the scent of the air, shifting into the comforting salty scent of the seas. Then the ground beneath her feet became a hardened sandstone, maintaining the gritty texture while remaining easy to walk upon---except for the smooth dance floor, of course. The grey dome transformed into a flowing bluish-green, rippling all around with fish of all colors passing in the background. Some of the 'sky' faded into a violet tone over the dance floor, lit by glowing circular lights in every color. Suspended in midair, they almost looked like motionless fireflies, though they sometimes swayed in tune with songs.

Tables arose from coral in all colors, rising from the ground and twisting to provide a flattened surface on the very top---rounded ones for guests, and long tables off to the side containing shell-bowls of food. Chairs were large floating clam shells with well cushioned interiors, some large enough to hold two people. More comfortable spongy places to sit were also littered across the area, notably by the large shell-shaped enclosure that was the promised swimming pool. It too was lit by the floating lights, providing what she hoped was a romantic atmosphere.

Finally, the glowing stage above the dance floor couldn't help but attract attention with its chairs. Six royal thrones and one plush chair of all colors directly in the middle rested in the back of the stage, leaving the front open for announcements. Just off to the side of the stage stood the DJ's table, with even that machine painted to match the soft underwater glow of the scenery.

Everything finally seemed pleasing to Starfire. With one last change, dressing herself in the formal attire of the prom, she sent out the signal to everyone and waited. She hoped they would have a wonderful time.

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"You were on your way," she warns him, head cocked. "I visited your England, while I was on Earth - cameras in every major city. Just a few more years, until the cameras are everywhere, and computer-driven face-recognition gets cheap enough, and linked into the ID databases, and you would be able to find out everything about everyone. Wouldn't that be nice?" Her tone is definitely mocking. "Never meet a stranger again: know everyone's name, their habits, their vices and virtues without even talking to them. Think of how safe you'd feel!" Back to her normal tone. "Safe, as in the opposite of free."

"I don't adjust very well to alcohol either," she confides. "As for Zouichi and jerks - should I add, present company excepted? - considering he was raised for battle, he's surprisingly sociable. And I abused his sociability. My error, and I probably can't undo it. So." She shrugs, palms out and up. The tendrils of her bodice do sort of a rolling wave to stay clinging to her. "Better luck next time."

"I can't decide if I like that idea more or less than just not having any electricity or computers at all. On one hand, I guess it'd make everyone a little more honest if there's no point in lying."

He wrinkles his nose at her. "Did more go down between you than I know about? Because I think it'd be hard to top selling him into a gladiator ring, but the way you're talking, it sounds like you did worse."

"That might be how it started, but consider. You knowing everything there is to know about a peace officer gives you little power over her, but the opposite is not true: there are always ways to interpret the truth and make it suspect. And how much time would it take you to read and think about all the vital information of every person you see? Add onto that corruption, file editing, AIs interpreting and controlling all of that data, and a media that loved scandal and chaos and crime above all things (because that sold the most) and you had quite the poisonous system."

She clears her throat. "Howard, please. I did not know what an 'arena' was and when they said 'exhibit' him, I didn't know that meant 'fight a dinosaur to the death'! How could I? I'd really appreciate it if you didn't use the word 'sell' for the whole ugly affair, because if the Vizsnunishne heard that story, I'd be very embarrassed." Pause. "For about half a second." A longer pause. "Before they shot me in the head for slave-dealing." She presses one finger to the center of her forehead to emphasize.

"Hey, I'm not saying it was a good idea, I'm just saying I see what led up to it. Don't think I'm that naive, Maw." He stretches his arm out over the tables and cracks his neck, still sore from the mission. "Sounds like reality TV only a million times worse. And everywhere. Can't forget the everywhere."

He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head at Anwei. "That's what it was, selling. But alright, if you're that worried about it, I'll call it something else. Just because you whip yourself over it in the Sensoriums doesn't mean it was any less stupid."

Let go of something? Howard? Never!

She snorts. "Poor people would scrape together money to pay for their own cameras, and hook them to the universal feed. You never knew when an amusing fart might make you rich, after all. People willingly gave up their privacy, and their freedom, for money or just for fame. Very much like your reality television."

Her voice grows a little more brittle. "I don't recall you or Zouichi asking any questions about the arena - didn't either of you recognize the term? We were all under stress, and we all just wanted to get out of there." Her dress starts to rise up around her in long curves unpleasantly reminiscent of fangs, and she swats it down. "I agreed for Zouichi to perform a display for them, not knowing what it was. For myself, I'll just blame Stacy's translator." And she glowers at the ceiling for a moment.

"It happened a little fast," he protests, but then shrugs. "Whatever, I'll drop it. It's over and done with anyway."

So much for Anwei's self-flagellation train. Now it really is just Stacy's fault. Howard can't decide if he likes this side of Anwei more or less, but she's close enough to a friend, so he won't push it. Besides, the fangs on her dress really bother him.

"So. Did I tell you I got a cat?"

The dress bothers her too, and she swats it a few more times. Hopefully she'd learn to keep her mind from wondering in here, eventually.

"A sentient cat?" She was thinking of Rhiow.

"God no. You think I like other people enough to adopt and feed one?" Unless Emergency Rations is secretly plotting his demise. Which is possible.

"Oh, I don't know. A cat wouldn't eat nearly as much as a large biped. They could sneak around and spy for you; with nerve-activated weapons you could give it, say, a head-mounted dart gun. And at night, it could just sit on your chest with its tail on your face and purr, purr, purr; bathing you in love and affection."

And the unforgettable aroma of cat farts.

"You almost make it sound like I go looking for trouble, Maw. I'm hoping to never need a sentient killer cat." He raises an eyebrow. "Usually I have to like, restrain her to get her to sit on my chest."

"I think trouble already came looking for all of us, and found us. Ah, how should I identify her, in case I see a strange cat? Does she have distinctive markings?"

"One of those three-color cats, you know, grey and orange and white splotches. I'm trying to get her to answer to Emergency Rations, but I hear you can't really train cats."

"That's - calico, I think?" She listened to how the word came out, and Stacy didn't seem to have any sort of correction, so hopefully that was the right word. "I'm afraid I don't have much advice on pets. I haven't kept one in some time, and never a cat."

The cat's name didn't even raise an eyebrow.

She cocked an eye at the snack table. "I was thinking of getting something to nibble on, speaking of rations. Would you like anything?"

Howard shrugs. "I don't know. Tabby, maybe? I never had a cat before either, but this one bites, and I'm trying to get her to stop. It freaks me out."

He is so not a fan of getting bitten, and yes, that is a meaningful glance at Anwei's mouth.

"I'll come with you. I'm always down for snacks."

"Well if she was hungry I'd imagine that she would chew rather than bite. Maybe she wants your attention, and doesn't know how else to ask? Or maybe she's just crazy. Krazy Kat."

Without going into a tedious and boring biology lecture, there wasn't any quick way for Anwei to explain why her species bit so often.

The snacks were laid out in the themed shell-bowls, but whoever had chosen them (Starfire probably, and she had done a good job) had not limited themselves to seafood. An iridescent-nacre plate soon bears tiny nut cakes and frozen grapes (she liked to start with the desserts), then spring rolls and crackers and cheese; she even adds a little sushi, knowing that she can always think up a breath mint for afterward.

"She only does it when I hold her. Well, and sometimes when I'm asleep, but I found out that she stops when you blow on her nose. I think she might want to eat me if I don't eat her first."

Howard beelines for the more sustaining snacks - nuts and cheeses, fish and carbs. It's not that the desserts don't appeal, but some residual paranoia tells him that protein will last him longer. A large amount of the snacks find their way into his pockets instead of onto his plate, even though he knows that they'll turn back into slop outside the Sensoriums.

"I dare you to eat a spoonful of wasabi, Maw. Plain."

"Well, so long as you know how to stop her, and she isn't hurting you or herself." She wonders if there's someone with a veterinary medical license on board. What if the cat just had itchy gums, and wanted to scratch them on Howard?

Clearly, Howard needs some plastic-lined pockets.

"What, this?" She takes up the green paste - is it minced vegetable? - and the smell warns her just in time. She contracts her narrow tongue back into the floor of her mouth, sealing away her taste buds, and pops in the wasabi.

Humans swallow by drawing things into the back of their throat with their tongue; for Living People, the entire throat swells and contracts, drawing the food away. It let her species swallow large chunks of meat, quickly. So she chews (not that she really needs to) and swallows without a quiver of discomfort.

She slips her tongue back out into fire heat, but her eyes barely water as she says, "Not bad. Care to try a Living People dessert in trade?"

She holds out a cracker that blurs and turns into an elaborate flower, white on white, that glitters like ice.

"You swallow really funny." It's not exactly a helpful observation, though Howard supposes he shouldn't be surprised. It's just deceptive, how normal Anwei looks until she does something Living People-y.

He takes it from her and examines it, squinting one eye like an inspector identifying evidence. "I'll give it a try if you tell me what it is. It's awful pretty for something you're just going to eat."

Howard has never seen the point of towels folded into swans, either.

If you ever need to hide a billiard ball in a hurry, Howard, you know who to talk to.

She looks at the flower and gives what can only be described as a smile of despair. "It's called a ploom. The plant grows for fifty years, then produces this one flower, seeds and dies. If you let it grow with its roots saturated in certain organic solutions for its last year, it slowly transforms the flower's pigments into various flavored sugars. It's supposed to represent every possible variation of sweetness in its petals.

"People guard these plants, in the wild - they don't grow well in hothouses. They fight and steal and lie, because the sale of one flower can feed a family for a year. And on the tables of Fle they pile the plooms up by the thousands at their parties, and discard them on a whim. Devour them without tasting, enjoying the thought of the shorn plant and the wasted years spent watching it, more than the taste. They're a whole culture of wasters, and if you want to spit in their metaphorical eye, eat your ploom slowly."

She gazes up at the water-rippling ceiling fora moment. "It's not a culture I'm going to be proud or bringing back from the dead, actually."

He listens soberly as she describes the history of the ploom. The more he hears about Anwei's people, the more he understands how she is the way she is, all the self-defeating and blame-shifting, and the more he sympathizes. She's not unlike him, a product of her culture, a refugee.

"Who says you have to bring it back? I'm not exactly jumping up and down to bring the FAYZ back, I mean." He shrugs and licks the ploom, trying to eat slowly, but the sensation of food in his mouth is too much temptation. He can't try to savor it; food isn't for savoring. Savoring is a luxury for people who haven't starved before. He swallows it whole, but a sincerely apologetic look crosses his face.

She thinks that he might understand, and she wishes he didn't. With all her heart, she wishes that no one understood her, no one could say 'Something like that happened to me.' Far, far better to live in a universe where you were the only one so hurt (and again, that familiar sting of me-I'm-special pride) and when you described the horrors behind you, people would say, 'Nothing like that ever happens here. Nothing like that ever happened to me.'

"It might be an all or nothing rebalancing. And as well, there's the people outside the Empire; which includes all of Earth, at least when I departed. We may just have to take the bad with the good. I suppose at least I could warn the Earth not to trust anyone from the Empire."

She watches the flower disappear, not entirely surprised. It had probably been a little mean of her to give him the ploom, considering how he inhaled his food, but it was the first vegetarian dessert that had come to mind. "Well...I can spit in their eye, I guess, if they do come back. And if I even come into possession of a live ploom, I will let it seed in peace."

At the very least, he and Anwei come from polar opposite dystopias, in that way. Hers is a world of luxury without value, of wanton waste and frivolity and carelessness. His is a world of want and need, of every drop of rain and every calorie mattering, the catastrophic aftershadow of carelessness. Ironic how two different backgrounds made them so similar.

"It might not be any rebalancing at all," he reminds her. "We may not get anything. I guess there could be world results."

He shrugs. "You can make a garden of them. Zou'd probably help you. I keep thinking I should start a garden but I'm pretty sure I'd just dig the seeds back up and eat them, so."

Anwei had been used to leaning on people, on receiving aid, all her life. Without that aid, she felt short several limbs. But from his background, Howard had learned to be independent - almost dangerously so.

"I don't know enough about transdimensional mechanics - in fact I don't really know anything about them - but there's the saying that nature abhors a vacuum? If you take away a dimension, the ones around it ought to do - something - to react. Get larger, in area or in timespan. Maybe the empty space fills up with something that the Ohm are harvesting, or worshipping, or whatever it is that Ohm do."

Hopefully they were not destroying dimensions just for fun, or to write the interdimensional equivalent of 'Eat At Joe's!' between the worlds.

"A ploom needs a lot of water, like a swamp I think? I'd have to read up on it. I've never even seen one that wasn't already candied and dead."

"Maybe. Or maybe they are just evil. I mean, it exists, pure evil."He's seen it, locked it in his basement, even. "Or maybe they're good. Who the hell knows, when the GIA doesn't tell us anything. Did anyone tell you about the details the GIA just 'forgot' to mention to us on the last stupid mission?"

He shrugs. "Isn't there a ton of water in Hydroponics. I don't know. Maybe they're really ugly when they're not candied."

"I got the general impression that what was not told to the mission team considerably outweighed what was told." She had not actually interrogated anyone in Med Bay, because she always thought it was rude to talk with people who couldn't get away from you. "And of course the GIA might show up and say 'That was exactly what we wanted you to do, so sorry, we thought you'd fail if we gave you exact instructions. Your naivete has served us well, ha ha ha!'" She made that last 'ha' sound particularly bitter.

"Well, since I don't have any ploom seeds at the moment, and I doubt I have its DNA written out anywhere, it will have to wait. If I was going to go to the much trouble of building seeds, I'd be better off making something that the Ohm were allergic to."

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I keep losing your notifs. D:

Re: I keep losing your notifs. D:

Re: I keep losing your notifs. D:

That's what they all say :(

I'm serious! I would not neglect our CR, bb.

Re: I'm serious! I would not neglect our CR, bb.

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