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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

"Pretty much, yeah. The GIA pretty much set it up so we'd get a bunch of our people held hostage and stamped against their will while everyone else was out taking tourist photos. Not to mention they were no help at all when the whole thing went south and Galilee cut our communications. Cute little trick there." He could not sound more bitter if each word was accompanied by a gift-wrapped piece of swiss chard.

"I didn't you know did bioengineering stuff."

"And up here, we get called away to grab some ancient artifact, and when we get back the communication block is up. One of the pilots was determined to make a powerdive onto the planet with her Gundam and start attacking, did you hear that? She didn't even know who to attack!" A hiss through her teeth, cut off by the insertion of some sushi.

"What a waste," she finally decides out loud. "You know that medical database we grabbed from them is encrypted? We might not get into it for months, if ever. And for all we know, all the great Galilee medical secrets can be cut down to 'clone patient, move memories, discard original'."

"Well, it's from all that work on the Vizsnunishne medical database. I know all the terms, I have copies of relevant articles and papers, and I could probably put something together step by step by rote. The equipment's here. But I'm not a genengineer by any means. It's the difference between being able to read and write, and being a writer."

"Oh, yeah, Allenby? Honestly, she didn't have to know who to shoot at. Pretty much everyone was out to screw us over on that planet. Side one sidnaps us, side two makes clones of us and tries to kill us. Side one tries to release more clones, side two bombs a hotel, probably. Side one decides, hey, let's make the short kid cry in from of the rest of the crew, side two is just general jackasses. Planet of winners." He shoves some sushi in his mouth too, hiccuping as he swallows it whole.

"Of course it's encrypted. Of course. Total waste. We should've just nuked that stupid planet and saved everyone a ton of trouble. I'll take that mission where you bit off someone's hand and I got chewed on by dinosaurs over this crap. At least we didn't have to see what a disappointment the Orb probably was."

He tilts his head. "As long as you've got the directions and materials, you can do just about anything. I mean, I made a still back home, and I'm not exactly a professional bootlegger. Or, wasn't. Step-by-step's more than good enough."

She gritted her teeth into a nut pastry. "I wonder what would happen if once, just once, the crew told Stacy that we were going to wait in orbit until we knew for damn sure what was waiting for us down there? We've got magicians in the crew, for god's sake. Are Stacy's orders really so inflexible that she needs to kick us out like we're on fire?"

And threaten to leave without the away team - that had happened to Howard and her, back on Epicurea.

"For all we know, we were just there to get rid of the Orb. But of course Stacy couldn't send down a crew member who could walk through walls, or read minds, or cast a spell that would bring the Orb to them - or dissolve it, if that was the point. Instead she sends three normal people."

So to speak. For certain values of 'normal.'

"I," she paused. "I'm not really that attached to plooms." She makes the ghost of one appear over her plate, then vanish. "I'd be better off sticking to what I know. Databases, AI tweaking, inventory. Strictly white collar."

He swallows another piece of sushi whole. "You'd know better than I would. I just patch people up. You're the one who says Stacy just does whatever the glitches in her programming commands. Unless Council and Command are hiding stuff from us, which, let's face it." He makes a shrugging motion. "Would anyone be surprised?"

He sighs and slumps against the table. "Two people who can defend themselves and one normal person. At least you have that mouth on you, and Zou's, well, Zou. I'm starting to think Stacy has it in for me. It's pure luck that I haven't been turned into roadkill yet."

He cocks his head. "You're not even interested in experimenting?"

She shrugs back. "Not me. Once you can hide information, you do." Even if you were really bad at it.

She pulls a chair for him out of nowhere, gesturing elaborately for him to be seated. "Big deal, I can bite. And if the people of Epicurea had been poisonous to me, you'd have been hauling back my corpse - if the dinosaurs didn't get me. You're the one who went up to the Countess' booth and light-fingered the Orb out from under her nose."

"Experimenting with an AI - well, it's a thought. Problem is, taking what I know about AI programming and applying it to Stacy - well, if I weaken her defenses to the point of collapse, we all die. If I strengthen her to the point that she can delete or ignore the commands of the Daligig, well, that would not make her obey our commands, necessarily. And," she shoots a glance at him, "to do proper experimentation, I'd need to write an AI. It would - to me - feel an awful lot like creating a person here, who would almost certainly die."

"Unless someone presses it out of you." Howard would squeal on almost anyone if given the right incentives, still. The incentives being pain or death. Possibly bribery.

"And if I'd got caught, I'd of what, shanked them with my ballpoint pen? Yeah, right, Anwei, if you're trying to play most defenseless here you're going to have to pry that title out of my skinny little fingers." He doesn't start berating her for almost getting him killed again, though - she bought him pens, she saved him from goons in that Percy Jackson plot, and it's been a while. Time, life-saving and gifts buy someone a lot of slack.

"So, not a big fan of killing your babies." He doesn't know if he could ever bond with an AI. He thinks he could. Anwei and Zou both seem to think of AIs as people, only without the inconveniences of actual people. It's a tantalizing prospect; years of covering for the very human faults of one of his friends has worn his out on that. "I just meant with like, the genegineering. Experimenting for the sake of experimenting there."

"I think pressing the Council would be difficult, even if Stacy let you. Easier to have some telepath," she mimes with two fingers marching across her forehead, "let their mind do the pressing. Question is, will it be one of the crew peeking at them, or one of the GIA? Or Stacy herself, if she can."

"I could teach you some pretty dirty tricks to do with a pen. You were along for the brains, Zouichi for the brawn, and me as a mannequin." She didn't even think of 'beauty' as a category.

She goes cold all over at his next words, and if she could have produced gooseflesh she would have. The plate shivers for an instant in her hands before she makes herself relax. Her eyes flicker for an instant, involuntarily, measuring his posture, his expression, set of his arms, where his feet were. But as he goes on, sounding only curious rather than horrified, she tentatively decides that he doesn't know what he just said.

She let her gaze drift off to the ceiling, and made her voice light. "Every birth brings another death into the world, so they say." Then she looks back at Howard, and narrows her eyes cynically. "Don't tell me you liked the ploom that much. Or was there something special you wanted to bring to life?"

"What, you think the Council's beyond bribery? You got more faith in them than I do." He sits in the seat Anwei got for him, pulling a chair out of thin air for her too. "Besides, doesn't Hiccup have a girlfriend? People will do a lot to save the people they love. Not that I'm suggesting anything, obviously."

He shakes his head, but he does actually grin that she referred to him as the 'brains'. Due to either his age or his special brand of friendliness, his innate intelligence tends to get downplayed by his fellow crew. In some ways it's nice to be able to surprise people, but in some ways it's discouraging. "It's okay. You got to be the brawn in that science experiment gone wrong."

He raises an eyebrow at her, not missing the way she stiffens at his words. He furrows his brow in curiosity, although he knows better than to dig around too much in Anwei's past. It's ugly and if she wanted to talk about it, she would. He can respect that and while he doubts there's much she could tell him that would surprise him or make him change his opinions on her, he doesn't doubt she could tell him things that would give him nightmares for weeks.

"Honestly, I hardly tasted it," he confesses. "No, I'm just talking about trying stuff for the sake of trying it."

"How can you doubt our heroes?" she says cynically. "Or our villains. And what do you bribe them with anyway - a safe universe?" Her expression cools as she sits. "When you put the weight of the multiverse on one side of the scales, and a hostage or hostages on the other - well, let's hope it never comes to that."

"Maybe next time you'll get to dress up in the fancy outfit." She eyes his prom attire. "Something with lots of copper sequins, maybe a crown? Or better yet, there won't be a next time."

"I'm really not that creative a person," she admits with what appears to be honest humility. "It's just not in my nature. My only flashes of genius and inspiration have to do with AIs - and, so long as I make sure I keep my work in a hardened case with a Faraday Cage built into it, there's minimal risk of bringing any harm to the ship."

Especially since she would make certain that the box had no external audio contacts. She remembers a stumbling, hunchbacked figure from her past, and shivers again.

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I keep losing your notifs. D:

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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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