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[truth_is_cold]

[Text | Public]

I'm now staying somewhere else. But if necessary, I can still be reached by the communication system. [If Dylan wants to announce where they're living, he can. But Mr. Paranoid Bastard isn't about to publicly give a location.]

As an aside, does anyone here know how to play chess or any other strategy games that might be available? Are there any musicians from the ship?

[He very desperately needs to learn about the local culture. There must be more than "the Authorities are terrible people and want to render us impotent". Survival situations or not, these people have lived here for a very long time and must have something unique and exclusive to them. They're obviously not barbarians or savages.]

Also, do either of the pilots of the ships that have crashed need assistance?

[Nietzschean style proclamation of friendly interest. He wouldn't offer if he didn't like them.]

Comments

Assume/Spam/Log?

[truth_is_cold]

A good many fathers wish their children were more enthusiastic about things that they appreciate. [He had one and he is one.]

Where should I meet you?

Spamming here seems easy?

[eternaliyah]

Is 'somewhere else' still close enough to the city? There's a building here that would serve - [a roughly sketched map, with a star over the mostly-reclaimed building, still set up with crates and planks for a chairs and a table from Daniel's breakfast with Erik.]

Or I could walk out to the ship, or another midway point, if that's easier.

[Spam] \o/

[truth_is_cold]

The map will be acceptable.

[He leaves and references the map that Daniel gave him to find his way to where he's staying. He has his board under his arm and the pieces in a cloth bag.

He knocks when he arrives a short bit later, and stands oh-so-formally outside as he waits.]

woot

[eternaliyah]

[Daniel tugs the door open, careful of the slight skewed hinges, a knife held casually in his other hand. It's obviously not where he lives, but it's not a random ruin, either. A few coals glow gently in a rough stone-and-grate brazier, and a loaf of bread and a strip of jerky lie half-carved into neat slices on the makeshift table.]

Nice to see you again.

[He ducks his head in a neat gesture, as though he'd be doffing his hat if he had one, and he sits back down.]

Toasted or plain?

[truth_is_cold]

[He's mildly (but pleasantly) surprised by the smell of food. Even if being greeted with a knife in hand almost gives him a start. It's at that point he realizes how shaken he still is by Dylan's reaction when he walked into the settlement.] Likewise. [He says despite that moment of unease.]

Plain, I suppose. [He enters with the Chess board, setting it near the loaf of bread.] I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the lack of games- people have been busy surviving here. But still it was a little disappointing. I enjoy dedicated work but recreational activity is a must.

[eternaliyah]

[Daniel smiles, and has the good grace not to mention Rhade's reaction. He hands over a few slices of bread - food is inextricably linked to being a good host, for him, and being a good host is vital, all the moreso in difficult circumstances.]

I agree. And they have games, I think, just not...the sort we're used to. Certainly not ones with formal rules that require two and half dozen little pieces.

[truth_is_cold]

I haven't seen any of their games yet. Just the ones the children were playing in the south.

[He's pretty well acquainted with sports, he just has a preference for the tactical ones. He pulls up one of the makeshift chairs to have a seat, crossing his legs primly and resting his hands on his knee.]

I'd be happy to learn the local ones if someone would teach me. However- [He holds up a forearm. He wears his differences outwardly. People can tell immediately he's not one of them, and it makes some of them uneasy considering the attack.]

[eternaliyah]

Some things are universal.

[It's not clear if he means children's games or wary reactions to outsiders; both are true. He sets the knife down beside the dried meat and lifts a hand, careful but not tentative. He's curious but not so graceless or foolish as to touch without permission.]

May I?

[truth_is_cold]

Go ahead. [He gestures. The pieces themselves are carved out of soft wood. He didn't have lacquer, so they're well sanded. The board out of much harder wood. Some pieces have been stained, and they're markedly darker. The same stain is used to mark the dark patches on the board.

He reaches for a piece of the bread, realizing that he's not really eaten bread since he came- vegetables, meat, but no grains. He tries not to be too eager with it, and instead tears off a little bit at a time, like he's trying to make it last.]

My Captain taught me basketball, which was his favorite game. If I should meet one of them willing I'd be pleased to see what the locals had to offer.

[eternaliyah]

[He laughs a little, soft and self-deprecating.]

I meant your arm, actually.

[He picks up a pawn instead as he admits it, turning it to admire the workmanship.]

Presumptuous, I know, sorry. I haven't met a lot of people from space until now.

[truth_is_cold]

Oh. [He lightens a bit. He's actually fond of the boneblades, even if they mark him as different here. He stretches out his arm, and as he does flares the boneblades out a bit.]

They're sharp at the tips. [A caution. He fights with them, more than many later would.]

[eternaliyah]

[He runs light fingertips over the edge of one, following the grain toward the point, but stopping just shy of it as warned.]

They're lovely. Thank you.

[He's sand and scorpions inside; he can't help liking fierce things.]

Black or white for you?

[truth_is_cold]

[He smiles faintly at that, going back to picking at his bread. Having them considered like that is novel- he's used to so many other Nietzscheans, that most people know what they are. It's heartening, as it was with the children from the Southern City.

Though he suspects Daniel did not regard them with the same innocence.]

Black. [He's always preferred the darker set- maybe a little stereotypical, but it's always been his favorite.]

[eternaliyah]

[He does and he doesn't; they appeal to the wilds of him, rather than to human attraction. He starts to set up the array of pieces.]

What's it like? Space. We didn't really have a chance to talk about it, before.

[truth_is_cold]

It's what I've known for most of my life. But... on a ship with artificial gravity, it's not that different from being planetside. The air is cleaner. You're more boxed in....

Andromeda, she could have told you. The ship's AI knew as much about what was going on around her as within her.

[He misses Rommie a lot now, frequently. She would have been an excellent rallying cry- a warship, through and through. He can't avoid the fondness as he sets up his pawns.]

[eternaliyah]

[He muses, all subtle, secret self-indulgence and a little wistfulness, wishing his own nature didn't have to be quite so confidential, back on earth.]

Must be nice, being able to talk to your home.

[truth_is_cold]

Sometimes. [Sometimes it's embarrassing, knowing she's always watching. Or that she might be aware of what he's planning, so he has to take great pains to keep her from discovering.]

The Andromeda is exceptional. She's a Glorious Heritage Class warship and extremely fond of her crew. [A crew that he knows he deprived her of in Dylan's future. He doesn't want to, not really.]

Every last person she gives home to is special to her. She can love and she can anger. She can feel loyalty, and take exception to command if she finds disagreeable.

[He still remembers how he's supposed to sabotage her. He doesn't know if he can.] Though you must find the idea of a ship with a personality ridiculous.

[eternaliyah]

I don't. Not at all.

[It's starkly plain, utterly sincere. It sounds even more familiar than he expected, though he can't share that. And after himself, he thinks suddenly of his own little sailboat, his scrap of salt and freedom, his Liron.]

Men have been acting as though their ships could love them back since somebody first shoved a hollowed-out log into the sea. It doesn't surprise me that someday it might come true.

[truth_is_cold]

I imagine if more individuals had to face their possessions or their homes and know that they would be loved or hated for how they treated them, they wouldn't take them for granted.

[His own version of wistful. He did his best to take good care of that ship and make her ready. His very best. No one in retrospect probably even noticed.

He moves a pawn.] Speaking of which, I would like some sealant for these so they could stand up to the elements, but I've not fount anything in the city useful yet.

[eternaliyah]

Most likely, yes.

[His fingers hover for a moment, then choose a knight. His opening is decisive, aggressive without being radically so.]

Most of the carpentry I've seen here is unfinished. Priorities, I suppose. But you could use drying oils fairly easily, if you found enough of the right plant. Someone's got to have a press they'd rent.

[truth_is_cold]

[He's curious about that move, but decides to use this as a game of feeling him out. He'll move another pawn for now.

I could ask Edmund. He seems to know everybody with everything. Though most of my tab is going toward carpentry. [He's trying to make the old house he's in livable.]

[eternaliyah]

It's hard to guess which usable plants are most likely turn up. They're not quite as inexplicably varied as the fauna, but they are enough of them out of place to be perplexing.

I could sketch you a few of the most likely suspects, if you're willing to search through the brush.

[When his pawns are open enough to allow it, he slides a bishop out.]

[truth_is_cold]

[He just gets the most amused look at that. He had food waiting on him here, and he's willing to sketch things.] It seems you have no shortage of talents. You must have no shortage of perspective lovers vying for your attention.

[There will never be apologies for Rhade's bluntness, as much as they should be necessary sometimes, and he pushes one of his favored rooks forward.]

Though yes, it would be helpful. I have no problem with braving the wilderness and hopefully this unusual ecosystem has a greater chance of having it than just any random one.

[eternaliyah]

[He breaks out laughing, bright and surprised. He does a king-side castle.]

Not really. I'm just more used to dealing with the challenges of pre-industrial societies than you spaceship types.

[This is both true and a complete lie; you do pick up a lot of skills in four-hundred-odd years of surviving on your own.]

You'll have to beg or bargain for the paper, I imagine, but I'd be happy to do it.

[truth_is_cold]

I mean more pertaining to the willingness to assist and be a host or render sketches of particular plants from memory. Though admittedly, even though my people were genetically engineered to be pioneers, I don't know that much about Earth plants.

Much of what's here- it's long gone before my time.

[His eyes flick as he goes over moves in his head, before just tending to his bishop.]