February Event - Garden of Woe [Merrymeet]

[pumpkinhollow]

**Plain text version here.

GARDEN OF WOE

To Meet is Merry...

It’s a beautiful day. Normally Merrymeet is held a tad later in the month, but thanks to some predictions from Phil, the festival planning committee managed to snag a date right in the middle of a patch of lovely warm days. A false spring --- there would be another snow by the following week. But it’s the first hint of a true spring waiting in the wings. The sun is shining, the grass on the festival green is slowly waking up, snowdrop flowers wobble in the breeze, and the weather is approaching something akin to balmy. It's as if Celestine herself carried in her opposite-most sister on a warm breeze, just for today.

Partygoers trickle in from all sides, gathering at the Festival Green. Each and every soul is dressed in their spring finest. And when Juniper Sweetwater once again ascends the steps to the gazebo, the crowd falls silent. The procession is about to begin.

Dress to Impress

Generally speaking, the dress code for Merrymeet is garden party formalwear. Appropriate outfits can fall anywhere in the Classic or Lavish categories. Characters here less than 2 months are able to get free rentals if they’d like, but can buy their outfit if they wish. Everyone else is asked to please purchase their outfit (from 300-500B, depending upon complexity).

Short on Brass? Drop by Gourd en Glace before the event and grab yourself a sundae and bring it up to Venka Meridell, the proprietor who also happens to be the local tailor’s daughter. She’ll slip you a coupon for a half-price Merrymeet outfit if you’re willing to taste test one of her unorthodox new ice cream flavors. Her mother, Saraya, will begrudgingly accept these coupons. [Mod Note: Please only take this option if you have 500B or less in your ledger, we are trying to get some of these rich-ass characters to spend their damn money!]

Once you’re all dressed to the nines, please feel free to use the code below to show off your drip in the Fashion Show thread!

<img src="YOUR URL HERE" alt="Merrymeet" style="width:400px;">

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Crowning of the Flower Queen

Once Mayor Poe gives the signal, a band begins to play, signalling the entrance of the Floral Court. A hush falls over the crowd as they watch the nominees enter, one at a time and escorted by their chosen companion. Many beloved community figured were nominated this time, and competition was stiff--- the crowd is eager to see who is named their Flower Queen.

Then, the procession begins in earnest as each member of the Floral Court (Valdis, Ylva, Margaret, Lyubov, CT, Alice, Fever, Magne, Olivia, Anya, and Helena) is escorted through the festival green and up to the gazebo. Standing at the top of the short flight of gazebo stairs is Juniper Sweetwater, a poised and delicate Wood Elf with pale brown hair. Gracing each pair with a greeting of “hail and merry meet”, she places a small ring of flowers upon the brow of each member of the court, and hands each one a matching boutonniere or corsage to bestow upon her plus-one. Juniper lets each pair file into the gazebo to take their seats.

Then some of the other leading ladies arrive and do much the same--- first, Drelasa, who won third place, and then Elsie and Sally, who tied for second. Behind them is Sally’s toddler Gwen, who is “escorted” (carried) by her older brother Yellow, both of whom are invited to join as special guests. Juniper takes a moment to bestow each of the women with a slightly larger crown, and a bouquet decorated with a ribbon indicating their place and a brass or silver charm as a token of their achievement.

Finally, the last to enter is the Flower Queen herself. The music swells as this year’s Queen, Dahlia Leeds, is escorted by her Courtier, Radar O’Reilly. A murmur sweeps over the onlooking crowd of surprise and excitement as Dahlia proceeds through the parted crowd. Once one of the most beloved people in town, Dahlia has barely been seen outside her home since her fall from grace at her birthday gala. And when she has, she’s looked sallow and miserable, a husk of herself. And yet here, today, she looks utterly radiant--- aside from the fact that she is very obviously weeping, utterly overcome with emotion at the fact that so many of her neighbors and friends still accept her. Tears of surprise, joy, relief, and gratitude pour down her face in thick streams that she cannot contain as she makes her way down the aisle with Radar, both of them dressed ornately in delicate blue.

The pair are showered with flower petals as they follow the winding trail, applauded quietly by festival goers before they reach Juniper. Fluidly, she swaps places with Dahlia so that the new Flower Queen is the one stood at the top of the stairs and the prior is on the ground.

“Hail and merry meet.” Juniper curtsies. “Today, just as I was two years ago, you have been chosen by the people of our town to be the Flower Queen. It is my honor to present you with gifts befitting a queen.”

Another townsperson passes her a basket, which Juniper presents to Dahlia. It contains a number of spring-themed treats--- honey harvested from last spring’s flowers, a bottle of specially crafted sweet festival wine to be consumed on the summer solstice, a candle embedded with dried flowers, a blend of lavender and bergamot tea, a charming floral soap, and a necklace with a pressed forget-me-not inside a clear pendant. There is also a medal hanging around the wine bottle shaped like an orchid bloom, engraved on the back with text. “Flower Queen 16:55 - Pumpkin Hollow - Dahlia Anastasia Leeds”. Juniper then passes the somewhat heavy basket off to Radar to carry--- after all, it’s the Courtier’s job to attend to the Queen!

Then, Juniper pins a boutonniere to Radar’s lapel, and beneath it, a medal of his own. “Floral Courtier - 16:55 - Radar O’Reilly”.

“With this sprig of Serannai’s glory, I bestow upon you the honored duty of Courtier to the Flower Queen. Assist her as she needs and ensure that she spends this day as free and joyful as a spring breeze.”

Lastly, Juniper turns back to Dahlia and takes up a crown of flowers, larger and more elaborate than the others, holding it aloft for a moment before resting it upon Dahlia’ss head.

“With this crown, I pass my title on to you. May it bring you felicity and fortune, so that you may share it with the earth as you put seed to soil.”

Before letting them go, Juniper leans in, beaming and grasping Dahlia’s hand tightly with the warmth of someone who has known her their whole life, and whispers, “Congratulations!” Then, she takes a step back, hurrying delightedly off into the crowd, leaving Dahlia to stand and look over the crowd of her friends, her neighbors, her loved ones, so many of whom have still chosen to embrace her. For a moment, all she can do is stand in awe.

Applause rings out over the crowd, music swells once more, and Merrymeet officially begins. Congratulations to Dahlia, and all the members of the Floral Court!

Eat, Drink, Be Merry!

It doesn’t take long for lunch to be brought out, courtesy of some helpful volunteers and the Oak & Iron’s diligent cooking staff. Salads full of spring greens, fresh bread with herbs baked in, puff pastries with fresh cheese and asparagus, egg tarts, chicken sandwiches, and crispy little hashbrowns formed into cups to look like bird nests, each with a devilled egg sitting inside. There are also dozens of little desserts made with flowers and spring berries, like cakes and custards, and even heart-shaped macarons.

And while there is wine being passed around the table, there is also tea. But this isn’t just any tea, and these aren’t just any tea pots. The pots are clear glass, surrounded by ornate silver fixtures, so that you can see the color of the tea and the leaves steeping within. Some are regular tea leaves rolling around in ball strainers while others are blooming floral teas perched in the center of the pots. And best of all, these teapots are enchanted courtesy of Dr. West, looking like chubby little tea puppies walking around on four short metal legs. They meander around between dishes on the tables, bumbling up to partygoers to offer their contents and tipping forward with surprising grace to pour tea into cups. They are helpfully labeled with tags tied to their handles, explaining what they contain.

While a few contain typical tea blends, others are marked as containing enchanted teas, provided by Aeryn Sallek. The enchanted blends are as follows:

Party Enhancer - An energizing and sweet lemon hibiscus tea that makes the drinker able to dance longer, sing louder, eat more, and worry less. Turn down your inhibition and turn up the fun! This is a great tea for people who want a little party boost without getting drunk.

Liquid Courage - Feeling too shy to dance? Nervous about asking that beautiful person to spend the day with you? Want to go for that first kiss but struggling to work up the nerve? This smooth lavender black tea will help!

Romance Reagent - For those looking to be a little more flirty or emotionally open, this rose milk tea has a higher concentration of the “emotional acuity” potion to help you be open with your true feelings and get your cuddle on. And this denser dose of potion will even have the added effect of making you a little more suave, as well.

Sultry Spice - For those looking to find someone nice and invite them somewhere more private. This warming apple spice tea literally just has a mild aphrodisiac in it.

Enjoy any of these with your meal to turn up the mood! While these teas are clearly labeled, it's up to you whether or not you actually read them. Accidents can happen!

Eating isn’t all there is to do, of course. The other primary activity is dancing!

Local musicians will be playing throughout the day for group and couple’s dances, including a local partner dance called the Sunrise Waltz and a classic maypole dance. Feel free to dance the afternoon away with partners, friends, new acquaintances, and more!

There’s also areas to catch your breath and chat with friends, a chocolate dipping station, flower sprouts in tiny pots as party favors, flower garland braiding areas, and plenty of wine! Additionally, there are a few flower-filled tents on the festival green with private seating areas for couples to catch a few moments alone. You’re not supposed to, but if you’re quiet and don’t mind a bit of risk, it wouldn’t be hard to sneak a little naughty fun into your day in these little tents.

And of course, there is the planting ceremony later in the day, so feel free to join Dahlia and Juniper at the edge of the green for this short tradition! With an apron thrown over her dress and a short spade, Dahlia takes a moment out of the festivities to plant a tulip bulb in a half-empty row near the gazebo, right next to the one Mary Dahl planted the year prior, and Juniper herself the year before that.

...But Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Ballad of the Damned

Would any event on a cursed island truly be complete without some sort of unscrupulous paranormal activity? Truly, nothing is sacred (except maybe the Dance of Celestine, once), as yet another of Dahlia’s infernal relatives arrives bearing “gifts” to put a damper on her special day.

As night begins to fall, the afternoon band is finally given time to rest and retire to the party themselves, intended to be replaced by a Council-approved evening band. However, said musical group is waylaid on their way to the stage, and replaced with an act far stranger.

On the left part of the stage, a man with pipes embedded in his chest begins to sing a low note, accompanied by a deep, rich harmony as though his chest were a pipe organ. Perhaps it is. On the right side, an older man who almost looks human, save for the exposed “ribcage” full of harpstrings. And at the front, a pale woman dressed all in white with a veil covering all but her mouth, who sings like an angel over the music of her companions. The man in charge and his large sitar are conspicuously absent.

When Sonata begins to sing, two things begin to happen. The first is that black, thorny vines emerge from the slumbering ground, encasing the performers in thick foliage with gaps only big enough for the sound of their music to escape, and thorns big enough to ward off any interruptions. The second is that anyone who can hear the music will find that the sound floods their mind with memories of grief, pain, loss, and loneliness. So intense are these memories and emotions that even the most strong-willed can barely keep from weeping, with only a few exceptions.

Those with protection from demons will find their suffering great, but not debilitating, and Father Mulcahy’s boon from Mortanne and personal experience combined are enough to offset the more soul-crushing effects of the somber music. However, these things alone will not be enough. With the infernal band protected, the Domain of Sorrow’s Song will continue leeching anguish from the party-goers for their master for as long as they can. The only way to combat them is to cut off their source of power through self-imposed joy--- a challenging task, given the situation.

Luckily, a friend from outside the barrier interested in helping his daughter has sent some friends to help you get started.

March of the Bizzyboys

Five Drainfolk in red uniforms find themselves in a forest. Little teal-furred monkey-folk with long hair and longer tails stand amid pink trees and a gaggle of little fuschia butterflies. Their names are Vibiano, Grujaja, Bananathaniel, Alexei, and Patty--- mysteries, until recently, revealed a few letters at a time. The wind sings like bamboo wind chimes through the pastel branches.

The butterflies swarm together, forming the shape of a person, and from the flock emerges a strange man. With chitinous hands and a face covered in dark pink wings, he steps free of the fluttering mass and onto a stump, wearing long fur robes, and he smiles a toothy smile.

“Hello there, Bizzyboys! I am King Olwylder, Archfae of the Court of Red Butterflies,” he says with a sweeping bow. Then, he leaps down from his makeshift stage, his own enormous wings splayed out behind him. He lands crouching, diminishing his impressive height to get onto their level. “I have a very important favor to ask you.”

“You see, some old friends of yours, as well as my beloved daughter Elsie, have been caught up in a bit of trouble. I need you to go to a little town called Pumpkin Hollow for the evening and help them out. Afterwards, you can stay there a while, or not, if you prefer. But during the flower festival they have going on, I need you five little darlings to do me a very, very important favor, and do what you do best. I need you to solve a mystery. Can you help me?”

Once all five Bizzyboys have agreed, Olwylder shakes each of their fuzzy hands and thanks them profusely, covering their red uniforms in pink flowers before sending them on their very merry way. They ride to Pumpkin Hollow on the back of a black horse, driven by a man with no head, and fan out in search of their old bosses as well as Olwylder’s daughter.

The five original Bizzyboys, played as guest NPCs, arrive at Merrymeet just before the band begins to play, and are immune to all of its effects due to the blessing of King Olwylder and sheer adorable whimsy. Threading with one of them can help you acquire the self-made fun you need to break the spell yourself, which you can then spread to others! These delightful shenanigans have been graciously provided by five helpful players, so please thank Liz, Sid, Mira, Maniette, and Kai for their assistance in making the magic happen! Once the event ends, it will be up to each player whether their Bizzyboy remains in PH or heads back home.

| CONTENT WARNINGS: altered states of consciousness, mildly dubious consent, grief, depression, mood control |

Comments

[2onostromo]

"Right. A different garden party, maybe."

One she'd happily skip, were it to theoretically exist. Instead of Flower Courts and bounding tea puppies, she imagines the Festival Green teeming with gun-slinging aliens; humans decked out in tactical gear flinging themselves across the Court table and ducking under chairs to avoid fire. Admittedly, war isn't within Ellen's wheelhouse and she feels lucky in this department. Glad, at the very least, to have fought only one extraterrestrial enemy as opposed to a gazillion.

Luckily, there isn't any present threat save for people making fools of themselves on the dance floor— a group she's determined not to be a part of. Hopefully. Probably...

"They shot themselves in the foot, even if they didn't know it. Those big cooperations— there's almost always too much padding. They won't feel a bullet until it hits were it really hurts.

Planting her hands on the table, Ripley stands.

"Should we take a walk-around?"

[liesdontfindyou]

And sometimes not even then, CT thinks but doesn't say, wondering not for the first time what it'll take to actually destroy Project Freelancer in her absence. Will it implode under its own weight? Or will it simply keep on, until she gets back and gets the information to the authorities that can make them stop?

No point in thinking about that today.

"Sure," she says, like the thoughts were never there to distract her at all. She offers her hand to Ripley as if to ask for a hand up, not because she needs it but because she's still having fun gently messing with her with this whole courtier thing. "Let's see what's they've got going on around the rest of the green."

[2onostromo]

Right, how could she possibly forget her manners surrounded by such ostentatiousness? Guests set the mood in fashion her world has long and justly forgotten; of Viscounts and Marquesses, embellishments smattered across lapels and skirts as far as the eye can see. Still, it's fun to play a part in all this, isn't it? Or maybe that's just the tea.

Ripley tips her head a little, taking up CT's hand and escorting her out of her seat like a proper gentlelady— whatever that means. She got herself into this mess, right?

The Festival Green sprawls out under the lazy afternoon sun.

A Maypole takes root in its center, reaching flowery hands up toward the sky with multicolored ribbons fluttering. Children squeeze one-past-the-other to reach for them. To twist them in their hands and let them be carried away by warm gusts of air, only to then splash in the fountain. The entire scene strikes her as... Well, she can't quite put her finger on it. Unusual? Uncomplicated? A breadth of giddy life she isn't used to seeing?

Maybe it's the cold that'd influenced her interpretation of her new home. A dead, quiet husk in which snow piles atop life, suffocating it. Or maybe it's her odd work hours, the world still sleeping by the time she makes her crawl to the station.

But never did Ripley anticipate that this place could feel so... Alive.

That she could be viewing something so alive, and in turn feel alive.

She's quiet in all this, watching the crowd play and eat and dance, thinking her silly thoughts.

They come upon a long table with rows of potted flowers for guests to take. To herald in spring in their own gardens. She bends down to give them each a sniff. "My place could use a little color, I think."

[liesdontfindyou]

CT doesn't bother to hide her amusement, going so far as to give a lax little curtsy once she's on her feet, before following Ripley off across the Festival Green.

This is the first time she's attended one of these sorts of events without being on the job. Even at Dahlia's birthday Gala, she attended in the mindset of an enforcer waiting for something to go wrong. Today she's putting in the effort to switch the work brain off, at least a little—maybe something will happen later, as it always seems to with these things, but it's not later yet. May as well play the part of flower court nominee, instead.

She doesn't interrupt the relative silence, as Ripley takes in the festivities. It does feel like spring, now, life reappearing from beneath the thick snow that may come back for it yet but it gone for the time being. A little part of her longs for it—the snow is novel and beautiful, but she grew up on a planet bathed in the heat of summer almost year round, and nothing is quiet so familiar as the warmth.

"Plus a plant adds a bit of life to the place, even aside from the colour," CT echoes in agreement, loosely folding her arms as she casts a look over the table. "Though with your new little wiggler you'll probably want to be careful where you put it."

[2onostromo]

Ripley cracks a crooked grin at the mention of her housemate. The perpetually in-motion Wigglesworth, who she swears spends more time eating than he does actually stumbling around. The fondness she feels for him stuck instantaneously, and no matter how many times she's had to dive across the ground to save him from toppling over, he's nevertheless a worthy companion.

"Good point. He's broken three of my mugs now. He plays it off like an accident, but I know him better."

Little shit. She'd kill a dozen men for that stupid cat.

"Actually, I've been meaning to get my hands on some house paint. I've got no idea what color, but I've been staring at white walls for so long that anything seems like a fine alternative."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Ah." CT laughs. "He's really not letting his wobbly nature stop him from committing all the usual cat crimes, I see."

As is his right. When you're that cute, you get to do whatever you like forever, CT knows that well enough even as someone who's never had the chance to truly own a pet. There's a little Rowlet she looks after here in town, but it's a casual sort of relationship where the little one returns to her house every few days for company and treats, rather than truly living with her.

"They might let you sample the paints, see what colour you like best. Or maybe that's me thinking too modern—I haven't done anything with my place except move things around, really—but still, might be worth asking."

[2onostromo]

"He's wracked up quite a fine for property damages." Ripley jokes, sounding no less affectionate toward the wriggly thing. Keeps to herself how most mornings she debates (with genuine consideration) stuffing the cat into her work bag and bringing him along for any given shift. A selfish comfort she doesn't allow, but that doesn't mean she can't think about it.

"You put that target up, that's something." She ribs. Then, a low hum. "But I think I will. If I'm going to be here for god knows how long, I might as well make the most of it, right? Space travel doesn't leave much room for customization. Really, this is the first time I've ever had my own... place. House, I mean."

This doesn't quite feel like her place. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

A saccharine fountain catches her eye.

"You like chocolate?"

[liesdontfindyou]

"I feel like putting a knife throwing target up in my yard says more about my restless habits than anything else." But point given, that is technically something else. "But I do feel you on the space travel. All our bunks on the Invention were the same and on the Charon... honestly it'd be generous to call that a bunk."

A glorified hole in the wall, really. It never felt like an almost-home, the way the Invention did despite everything else, especially not with the way those months on the run meant hopping from place to place with no reprieve.

Her house here still doesn't quite feel like a home, either. But that's her own damage, in a way she's all too aware of.

"So, yeah. Make the best of it." Says the person who will likely continue to not make the best of it. She's not going to acknowledge that hypocrisy, though, she's just going to try and follow Ripley's eye. "And I definitely like chocolate."

[2onostromo]

She snorts a little at that; "What, I just thought your decor preference included knives. You're telling me that's not the case?" With what she knows of CT thus far, she'd be surprised if the woman actually owns a sofa. Hell, a chair of any kind. As of now, it's a mystery whether she can recline anywhere without work on the brain. Ripley may have to implement the scientific method to find out.

"The Charon; I don't remember if you mentioned that one before. A military craft?"

Make the best of it, she says. Ripley can't promise anything. In fact, she'll probably keep her home the same bland of gray-white until the rift opens and— does whatever mysterious supernatural rifts do... But the sentiment is a start. Maybe a plant will kick things off, too.

Playing her role as a proper courtier, Ripley links arms and leads the way. "Chocolate it is, then. It's been forever. The best thing on our menu back home was the coffee. You should have seen the shit our ship's kitchen-service pumped out. Completely machined."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Well, actually, if I had my old knife collection it would probably include knives." Knives have always been her favoured weapons and she had quite a collection of good knives, both combat-oriented and more recreational. Of course, they're long gone with the rest of the things she couldn't take with her when she left, let alone bring across the dimensional barrier. "But yeah, the Charon was another military craft. Operated by the unit that I had a contact in—they took me in when I fled. It wasn't intended for long-term habitation the same way the Invention was, so it was a lot more... utilitarian."

She rests her opposite hand on Ripley's arm as they walk, keeping up with Ripley's longer legs without any real issue. All this arm-linking and the like may actually be some of the most casual physical contact she's had with anyone else here in... well, months, at least.

"That sounds worse than either ship I was on. It was all stuffed with preservatives and had been in storage for months at a time, but it was all technically real food. There was this chocolate and almond meal bar I used to love."

[2onostromo]

"Why knives?" Ripley asks, genuinely curious. She isn't anything close to a weapons connoisseur herself— in fact, she knows very little about wielding them. Can generally hold a gun and point it, but whether she'll strike anything is an entirely different question... Hauling oil doesn't require the sort of thing, nor is it her first instinct. Brute strength rarely gets anyone anywhere, especially when it's reckless. Her ill-fated crew is an excellent example of that.

"Which, of course, means horrifically uncomfortable? Whoever designs those sort of things deserves a special spot in Hell."

Ripley weaves herself and her companion around a cluster of guests like steering a spacecraft. She's pleased too, in a subconscious sort of way, that CT's able to keep pace. (There's a short joke in there somewhere; she doesn't make it).

The almost-complete lack of physical contact is shared between spacefarers. Freighter hauling is a systematically lonely occupation, where one functions for a very short amount of time before going back under. Locked away in their separate compartments to dream.

The touch is nice. Intrinsically needed but ignored for so long, a product of capitalistic depersonalization and her own... she doesn't quite know what to call it.

Occasionally she'll squeeze her arm without meaning to, busy dodging guests on their way to the sweets table.

"Mm, you're lucky. We'd eat twice on any given flight; before we went down to sleep, and after we'd woken up to land. The first meal had certain properties to prep us for the going under- I guess you could call it a salad, if you squinted enough. The drink was like tomato juice. Most of it was bland slop. But that was specific to flying. Once you landed or made it to a station, you could find anything."

Ripley spears a strawberry and plunges it under the fountain.

[liesdontfindyou]

"I don't remember what started it, exactly, but I took an interest in knife tricks when I was a kid—my brother bought me my first butterfly knife. And learning combat techniques made sense for self-defence even before I enlisted." The poorer levels of the city weren't half as dangerous as those higher up would have you think, but there are dangers in any city and the Insurrection was getting bolder with every year. "I prefer them to guns half because I'm rarely fighting at long-range and partially because I just find them more... elegant isn't the right word, but it's close. I feel more in control of the damage I'm doing than with a bullet."

When you're up close and personal with your opponent like that, you have to be aware of the damage you're causing in a way that you simply aren't when shooting from a distance. In a way, it feels like it keeps her honest.

Not that she won't use a gun when she needs to, sometimes that's the weapon for the job, but she'll take a knife over a pistol any day.

"Ah, see, we do all our cryo-nutrition after people wake up. There this—" she gestures loosely, "surfactant you have to inhale to protect your lungs before freezing, when you wake up you cough that up and eat it. It's unpleasant. I did not miss going under once I became one of the ones staying awake. I can hardly imagine the way flights worked for you guys."

She shakes her head, grabbing a skewered strawberry for herself and slipping it under the chocolate. She hovers close to Ripley's side even when she's let go to free their arms.

"At least the food here is all real and usually fresh enough."

[2onostromo]

Ellen forms an image with relative ease; her opposite, knife in hand, scoring the air, flesh, a hard metal chassis— whatever catches her acuminate edge first. One foe falls and another rounds the corner, unaware of the shrike who fights with beak and thorn. Elegant, she says (or rather, the closest approximation), and Ripley believes her wholeheartedly.

She's seen the notches in her board; all accumulated toward the center.

"Doesn't that get tricky, if your enemy has a gun and you're left with a knife?" She asks the question deliberately, goading. Just to see how CT might gloat.

"Funnily enough, the only 'combat' training we pilots were given in school was hostage negotiation. Figured the majority would be in the commercial business, hauling hundreds of millions worth of materials. Not to mention the base value of the ship itself."

Ripley pops the strawberry into her mouth with a pleased hum; a sort of punctuation. Spears another and dunks it.

"Eugh. Not a very ideal thing to wake up to. No, we didn't do anything like that. Although sometimes the cryopods— they have this gel in them that feeds nutrients to your system. Makes you all... sticky. That was a real pain waking up to. Most of the time it was a communal experience, the pods being in the same room and all. But you're right, I'd take the boring stuff here as opposed to anything on those damn ships."

[liesdontfindyou]

CT flashes a grin. "For that to matter they'd have to manage to hit me before I get up in their face."

She punctuates this by sinking her teeth into the chocolate-covered strawberry, both fruit juice and chocolate dribbling down her lip before she licks them off.

"Waking up sticky sounds almost as unpleasant. We'd get the occasional cryo-burn if someone wore clothes into the pod, but that's the worst external effect you can expect and its your own fault at that point." Go naked or get adhesion ice burns.

CT cocks her head a bit, finishes her first strawberry off in a second bite and licks her lips again before asking: "How big is human occupied space in your world?"

[2onostromo]

Ripley's lip quirks, she looks sidelong in the opposite direction. Satisfied with the results of her little test and not the slightest bit flustered by the tongue that darts out for strawberry and chocolate...

"Sounds like you made their lives hell. Which is to say; well deserved." Chocolate and sweet fruit crack under her own teeth. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "I look forward to seeing if you're as good as you chalk yourself up to be."

There's not a doubt in her mind.

"Yeah, clothes weren't worth keeping on for us either. Not because you'd get burned, just that you'd wake up feeling like a wet dog."

Ripley looks thoughtfully upward, considering the question in all of its facets. "Well, we didn't make it far enough to run into anything else— not until the end, anyway. The furthest I've traveled was thirty or forty light years. Lots of planets in the Zeta Reticuli system with valuable ore; that's usually the area we kept to. That's commercial travel. What the government was up to, I have no idea. There's a chance they might have sent their own expeditions further into space, but they rarely do their own hard work." Her brow knits tightly. "Usually it's people like us that do the traveling, the logging and things like that. And if there's something valuable, that's when they come in."

To take it. And to squash those who might get in their way. But this goes unsaid.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Oh you'll see," CT says with a playful wink—the confidence is a touch exaggerated, but not by much. She's never had much doubt in her own skills—no, when she doubts herself, it's in her choices and how much good she's ever really doing.

She dips another strawberry under the chocolate and eats it while she listens to Ripley talk, and is moving into her third by the end. Sounds like mostly resource farming and expeditions—early days, then, at least comparative to her universe. Capitalism stretching its long limbs out into the far reaches of space and scooping up what its workers find.

"My home colony was thirty-two lightyears out from Sol, but I think we've got colonies out as far as ninety. Or, we did." Probably not anymore, the furthest Outers were always the first to go. "And we were climbing through the eight-hundreds, total colonies wise. Some sites were pure mining and resource-farming, but we were decades into people fully settling resource-heavy planets. Every Outer had its exports and the Inners relied on us to send them... well, basically everything you can think of."

The relationship between the Inner Colonies and the Outer Colonies was a exploitive one, always was. There's a reason the Outers had the strongest Insurrectionist sentiment since the days of the Interplanetary War centuries earlier.

[2onostromo]

"Ninety?" She balks, almost dropping her little slice of orange into the fountain. "How do you manage that? The fuel-consumption alone— you'd need tons of it, let alone the room to keep it somewhere."

She forgets her own world will continue without her. Will advance forward through space with monopolistic limbs reaching in every feasible direction. For every source of income— alive, inanimate or otherwise. In a wake of their 'failure' to secure the alien specimen, will another ship be marooned with the same task? Same hapless crew, same salivaed-deaths. And this ship, will it be equipped with another one of him? Will he be successful in thwarting his crew's natural human propensity for survival? She's dead— at least she thinks she is. And other people will die too. Lots of people, upended in man's quest to conquer the world.

Every man is a Nostromo in the end. Too stupid to see his own death barreling toward him. And in his bravado, he races ever-toward it.

"Did," She repeats, unsurprised. "Well, it makes sense they'd be the first to go. Impossible to send aid so far into the galaxy without showing up too late."

Nor is she surprised to hear the Inner colonies— those groups privileged enough to have short-distance and availability at their disposal— relying on Outer colonies set deep within the reaches of space. The one's tasked with the hardest jobs, with presumably little pay-out.

She licks a bit of chocolate from her finger, nods in CT's direction. "Let me guess; you were Outer?"

[liesdontfindyou]

"Does the bitterness show?" CT says with a crooked quirk to her smile and a breath of a laugh, nodding her head to the side. Totally not watching Ripley's fingers a little, nope, don't mind her. "Yeah, I'm an Outer Colony kid. We were mostly mining exports—rare earth elements, precious metals, so on—with a side of tropical-climate agriculture. When the war started we got less and less support from the Inners or the UNSC as a whole, but we were still expected to export just as much—same story pretty much everywhere out there."

Exploitive.

The Cole Protocol that was meant to protect the locations of other colonies didn't even mention the Outers by name, just 'Earth, the Inner Colonies, or any other human population center'. You can imagine that people weren't too pleased about that, especially after it took years of Outers dropping flies before they even instigated the protocol at all.

"As I understand it our engines don't use actual fuel. Slipspace drives are charged before departure and our main engines are fusion drives. It's all— big, fuck off reactors built into the ships."

[2onostromo]

"A little," She purses her lips. "But not in a bad way. It's reasonable anger; a society putting their all into export and receiving so little in return. The labor must have been..." The image makes her wince a little. She exhales. "Unimaginable. It's not easy work. And rarely is it worth it when you aren't given anything in return."

Rage boils to a nuclear heat in Ripley's stomach, one she may or may not fail to mask. It's reprehensible. Abhorrent. To demand so much from a population. To step on the backs of people already toiling away at the scorched earth, hands bloodied, knees bruised, lungs caked in ore-dust, to then wrench their resources from them. To give them nothing. No help, no aid, no opportunities to thrive. Just violence and crippling labor. Destitution.

Sharp teeth sink into the soft flesh of another orange slice. Anger looks good on her, maybe.

The more technical subject of their conversation, however, loosens her up a little. "Slipspace," Ripley repeats, as if fascinated by the very idea; a taste of a future she's yet to experience. "What does it mean?"

[liesdontfindyou]

Honestly, the righteous anger is a good look on her. And it makes Connie smile, half-disguised behind another bite of fruit. It's always— nice, when people actually hear what she's saying, when what she's saying is fuelled by her own well-worn resentment, after so long spent talking at the stubborn brick walls that were her teammates. The subject is different but it's no less a relief.

"You're right. One of my moms was still feeling her mine work years after she switched jobs. And I mean, wars were being fought over this both before and during the war with the aliens— if the Covenant hadn't attacked, there would've been a lot more Innies." She may well even have been one of them. Followed in her brother's footsteps. And if the war ever ends, what remains of the Outers will be enraged and the cycle will begin anew.

"Slipspace is— god, the science is complicated, I barely understand any of the technical stuff," despite her very technologically minded intelligence, "but it's how we travel at FTL speeds. Slipspace engines create a sort of— rupture in the fabric of space, letting us take our ships into this sort of subdimensional stream called slipspace. In that subdimension, there are corridors that contract the distances between locations all across the galaxy. It's like— wormholes. We create wormholes and use those to travel lightyears in anywhere from a couple months to days."

[2onostromo]

"You'd figure those Inner colonies would be smart enough to fight one war at a time. Christ, how people treat it like a sport." But so is the way of human society; those in power continue reaching even as their unearned granules begin to slip through spread fingers. They lose and lose and ask themselves why, too blind and dumb to simply cup their hands.

Chewing her lip, she considers asking Connie about her mothers. The words inch toward the tip of her tongue, goaded by gentle curiosity, 'what were they like? How'd they navigate the world?' but she swallows them back. Later, maybe. Somewhere less... public.

Ripley's brows crease, equal parts fascination and wariness playing onto her features. Never did she imagine wormholes could be created. Somehow the science feels wrong. A reach too-far into technological advancement. "Does that ever backfire? I'd be terrified to go in expecting one thing, then coming out somewhere completely different. They aren't exactly predictable, are they? Honestly it's a risk I'm surprised any pilot is willing to take."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Believe me, we all wish the Insurrectionist War would end. Most of my military career has been fighting Insurrectionists, first at home and then with the Project—before it lost its way. I've never liked it. I've always been— torn, between how much I understand why people revolt against the UNSC and the fact we need to survive the Covenant for any of it to even matter. But fighting the Insurrection still feels like... I don't know. Doing the Covenant's job for them."

She's said those words before, once, a long time ago. Talking to a friend at the program, quiet and careful not to be overheard. Sympathy with the Insurrection was a dangerous thing, even if you ultimately agreed that their priorities were skewed in the circumstances, that they had to be stopped from destroying UNSC targets for the sake of humanity's survival. You had to be careful who you shared such sentiments with.

She shakes her head, shaking the thoughts off.

"Occasionally there's malfunctions, but they're uncommon. Sometimes you'll drop out of the slipstream early. Very rarely, an engine might— sort of cause an implosion? But it's very rare. Like, 'engine fucked beyond all belief' rare, in the latter case. I've never even experienced a Slip Termination. Pilots also don't actually manage the calculations themselves, that's down to the AI—that's what the main non-strategic job of a military AI is supposed to be."

You know, rather than being shoved into a body and tricked into thinking they're human. Or even being tortured repeatedly to make more AI like the Alpha was—who, by the way, still had to do those calculations while being actively fragmented. The Director was playing with fire in multiple ways.

[2onostromo]

She fought against the Outers.

The words are a muted whisper in her mind; should have guessed that enlisting in the military would entail fighting its backyard threat. But it all sounds rather complicated, doesn't it? Someone born in the Outer colonies, viewing first hand the cruelty and unjustness with which their labor is demanded. Friends, family and neighbors resigning themselves to agriculture or ore-digging until their bodies give out. Maybe joining the Insurrectionists seemed too much of a lost cause. An instant death, not worth any amount of valor. Or maybe her criminal charge had wedged her between militaristic pillars she simply couldn't escape from.

A real conflict of interest, no?

Again, Ripley's natural instinct is to pick her brain about it. To ask questions that maybe aren't appropriate for a party setting like this one. Perhaps the look she gives CT unbidden says as much; head cocked, eyes round and curious, lips pouted. The kind of expression her crew might groan at, for they knew they'd be subjected to her incessant asking.

But she's smart enough to know when to drop things. What to pin to the neat board in her mind.

"That's quite a lot of trust to put into a computer. We were plenty reliant on them too, but when you say the risks out loud it sounds so much more..." She makes a gesture with her hand, wincing. "Stupid? Bound to fail? Our technology was so cumbersome in the end. Like every design had been implemented without disaster in mind. You should have seen the self-destruct initiative in the Nostromo." A dry laugh. "It had, frankly, a ridiculous number of steps for how quickly things needed to be done. I'm sure that wasn't deliberate, but it still felt like I was being laughed at, somehow."

[liesdontfindyou]

CT recognises that look, almost like looking in a mirror and seeing a slightly distorted reflection of herself looking back. How many times did a look like that make Wash joke about Connie's Question Time, or make the other agents bristle after Connie became CT and it inevitably meant she was about to ask something that would rock the boat?

It makes the corner of her mouth quirk and she gives a quick, "Another time," as acknowledgement, before continuing on.

"Like the worst reflexes test in history?" she says. She can only begin to imagine what the self-destruct protocols looked like on any given UNSC starship—probably at least as bad as the Nostromo's. "We've had a couple centuries for the technology to become commonplace enough that I bet most soldiers don't think about the risks at all, and even less civilians. It's like those statistics about being more likely to get in a crash on the way to your flight than on the flight itself. You put your faith in your pilot and start being scared if they start looking scared."

[2onostromo]

Ripley blinks. Oh, that face. It always took another person to realize she'd started making it. A groan, a remark like 'what now?' or 'can't you cut us some slack?' usually does the trick. (And for the record, most times she couldn't. Slack is a privilege). "Right."

Of the Nostromo's self-destruct protocols, worst is an understatement.

A button marked “PRESS IN EMERGENCY” releases a cabinet cover. A large red lever can be found inside... Unscrew the second cover to reveal two additional red levers, and pull them both in the correct sequence.

Open the floor-mounted panel on the opposite side of the room, containing the emergency destruct controls.

Was there any reason this panel needed to be clear across the room? Because wasting time is fun, apparently.

A series of buttons are to be pressed. If you're wrong, you're shit out of luck. Precious time wasted. After that, four bolts are screwed into collapsable towers which rise from their panel at a snail's pace. Why should they move any faster? You aren't in a rush, are you? Four buttons to press— again, in a vaguely specified but vital sequence.

You've got five minutes to reverse it and ten to make it to the shuttle before the ship goes ka-boom.

Ripley shakes her head. "And if your AI starts acting up, then you know you're fucked. Like the captain cracking under pressure. Or god forbid it makes decisions against you. Suddenly the heart of your entire ship twists sideways and you're... Well, fucked again. At least with people, you've got a chance. Bad liars, mistakes, emotions— you can take advantage of all of them. There's no arguing with a computer."