reverienet | voice- un: brightness

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voice- un: brightness_kholin

People have been vanishing. Not many, not often, not at a volume where we've noticed quickly, but a small number of the ones who initially arrived here have simply disappeared. They've been vanishing since before the doors into space opened, and at enough of a rate that we'd notice the diminishing number of suits if they were all falling off the station into the black.

Initially I had assumed it must be because this place is dangerous. If that were the case we should be tripping over the corpses by now. We clearly aren't.

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[She draws in a very long breath, absorbing all this and studying his expression.

Well, first of all;]

Are you all right now?

[He seems to be, which is a relief. People are recovering, from the sound of it? The incapacitation is only temporary. Alarming, but transitory.]

Yeah. I'm fine. [ It's obvious that he's not. That he's trying to be, but he's not. He's shaken and he's scared and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. But he's trying. ]

Right as rain, compared. I don't know how the hell to explain it, Jasnah. But I was dead for at least seven hours.

Will you join me in the mess hall?

[Looking at the stain, he'd said.]

I could use your help.

[Code for 'the company,' and also she does suspect he's staring at his water stain and should come eat and probably drink something.]

[ He lets out a breath. ]

Yeah, of course. You there now?

[ He may already be getting up to head that way. ]

I'm on my way.

[She disconnects, and probably only arrives a few seconds before he does.

Jasnah is tired, and still a little bruised, and deeply comforted to be dressed again in her havah. The dress is the same subdued colour as the jumpsuit, slit high up the thigh over a pair of black trousers. It's a little like an ao dai from Earth, except it has a very military cut about the collar and shoulders, and the sleeves extend right down to the wristbone. As always, she wears her black glove on the left hand. It's not the formal dress of an Alethi noblewoman, that'd involve a lot more silk and brocade and long skirts perfect for tripping on instead of ending at the knee. Instead, she could be one of the scouts in her army. Or more properly, a general in it; it's exactly the sort of thing she'd wear in the field.

She glances up when Alex enters, and heads to meet him at one of the replicating stations.]

[ Alex, for whatever he said about dying, looks fit as a god damned fiddle. Well. A fiddle who stopped working out five years ago when he left the military and has a bit of a paunch around the waist, but you know what he means. His arm isn't broken, and he looks completely healthy, even if there's a slightly haunted look in his eye. When he looks around for Jasnah, though, he actually does a double take - expecting the same dull jumpsuit uniform and instead seeing a woman that looked like she stepped out of a vid screen. Regal and ancient.

He blinks, clears his throat, and steps over. ]

Uh - hey. You, uh, look nice. [ Fucking smooth, Alex. ]

Thank you.

[She answers, surprised by the compliment and relieved to see him hale and whole, if a little haunted around the edges.]

I've been finding pieces of home here and there around the stations. The havah, a few books, my hairpins, a sword. [Jasnah's a woman of a few interesting contraditions: intricate, fetching braids and murdery edges. She moves to fill a tray with food, favouring one shoulder carefully.] Have you noticed the same?

A sword? [ He has no idea what a havah is, either, but the sword is what pegs his interest. He noted the slight roll of her shoulders, wondered if she'd hurt herself somehow, and was about to ask, before she distracted him with a question.]

Oh, uh - yeah. Sort of. Not a hell of a lot, though, just - just the one thing. [ He paused, hesitating, but then reached up to his breast pocket and carefully pulled out the photo, and then held it out to her. ]

... Just this.

[She steps closer, looking down at the photo, a little surprised at how vivid it is. There's no photography on Roshar, but she's used enough to the communicators that she can absorb the content.]

He looks determined, and she looks kind. Your wife and child?

[ He carefully replaces the photo, creased a hundred times over, back into his breast pocket. ]

... Yeah. [ He fights the urge to qualify it. Or tries to, anyway. But he finds himself doing it, kicking himself for it the whole time. ]

Was, anyway. My wife, I mean. [ The ring felt heavy in his pocket, removed from his finger. He looked sheepish. ]

His name's Melas. My son. But that's all I got, from home. Just that. No uh, no swords.

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Answers Jasnah, who does not come from a culture where divorce or separation would even occur to her.

But, changing the topic delicately, as she picks her tray up carefully to lead them to a table.]

Do you know how to swordfight?

[ He swallows, trying to figure out how to correct her in a way that won't make him sound like an utter asshole, when she changes the subject. He's still not sure he should just leave that misconception there, but at the same time, he's thankful for the topic change. He shakes his head. ]

Nah. I can fire a gun, alright, and I'm a mean shot with a ship's guns, but - I ain't never even held a sword.

People talk about guns, but I'm not very clear on what they are.

[Admits Jasnah, starting in on her food at last, as they move on to slightly less fraught conversation.]

Oh - right. [ He's surprised, though he shouldn't be. He clears his throat. ]

Uh - I guess best I can explain is that they're projectile weapons. Powered by very small explosions to push a small piece of metal outward at incredible speed. The old ones were basically like hand canons - by my time, we figured out how to make rounds that will piece human flesh but not go through the hull of a ship - which I tell you, is an important distinction.

The ones I use are the main guns attached to the ship, and those - well. Those do pierce hulls. We got two type of guns, PDCs - Point Defence Canons - and those fire a lot of small projectiles really fast, in order to stop a missile or some other debris from hittin' the ship. Then you got rail guns, which - well. They're only meant to kill, or severely disable, another ship.

A round from one of those can take someone's head clean off.

Like a bow and arrow or a trebuchet, but electrically powered to increase the force of the object being thrown?

[She infers, mostly following along.]

And specifically adapted to combat in this environment- where a misplaced shot could kill everyone on board.

Yeah - like that. Only instead of mechanical power, the force behind the bullet is from a very contained explosion. A little bit of gunpowder lit, then the energy of the blast expels it outward.

And yeah, exactly. Though it wouldn't kill everyone - that's why the decks are segmented. If one of them gets vented, the others'll still be sealed. If it's a small enough hole, it'll be a slow enough vent that you can fix it before you lose all your atmosphere, too.

I have an unrelated question for you, and I'm sure it's one you've been asked before- but is all the food like this?

[It might be a space thing.]

It's a little like army rations, but worse.

[ He gives a short, amused breath, the corners of his lips curling a little. ]

Oh no. This is a special kind of terrible. Worse than even the MREs we used to get with the MCRN.

Jasnah, if this were my ship, we'd be eatin' oven-cooked lasagna, right now, with real, honest-to-god mushrooms. [ He let out a slightly wistful sigh. ]

Damn, but I miss cookin'.

And what's lasagna?

[Asks Jasnah, trying not to think about the next bite she takes. This isn't something she hears much about, the food of other worlds.]

I didn't take you for a cook.

It's a layered dish that you bake in an oven. Back on Earth, it was made with pasta, a meat sauce - usually beef-, cheese, and tomatoes. But the Martian version, I have to say, is basically entirely soy. We ain't got space for cattle, so no cheese, no meet. Sometimes real tomatoes, if you can get em. I add mushrooms in mine, just 'cause it's a treat.

[ He offered her a warm smile. ]

Fancy myself a pretty decent one, all things considered. Least better than anyone else on my crew, though that ain't sayin' a whole hell of a lot.

'Pasta, beef, cheese, tomatoes, soy, cattle.'

[She enumerates the words she doesn't know for him, now with a mildly rueful smile. She's so much at a loss here.]

I take it you don't have chouta?

[ He gives her an apologetic look. ]

Pasta's a - well, it can be a lot of different things, but it's usually made of grain, mashed up into a dough and then cooked into shapes. Not like bread, though. We don't get a lot of it, 'cause wheat just ain't worth it's weight, up in space.

Beef is the meat you get from Cattle - it's a large animal that uh - well, I've never actually seen one, only pictures, so I ain't sure I could describe it.

Soy is a kind of bean, high in protein and when mashed up can be repurposed to make basically anything you damn well please. And tomatoes are a kind of fruit - not sweet, exactly, but they've got a great flavour an' most of 'em are bright red.

[ He wets his lips, then frowns. ]

Can't say I've heard of it. What is it?

Edited 2018-06-27 03:47 (UTC)

It's the kind of food that gets sold in a warcamp. Good enough that soldiers will spend their wage for it on payday, inexpensive enough to produce that it can be sold for just chips.

Cremlings and soulcast meats ground, shell and all, into a crunchy paste, seasoned with what can be found- a little fruit, a little spice. The entire thing wrapped in lavis dough and fried to a crisp.

It's mens' food, I'm not supposed to have tried it, but I'm not a very obedient Vorin.

Sounds delicious, if I'm honest. Though I ain't ever eaten anything that used to live in a shell - that don't mean I wouldn't.

[ He paused, though, looking a little surprised. ]

Mens' food? What's that mean? You separate food based on gender?

Food- recipes for men and for women. Tables. Kitchens, in very religious housholds.

Gender roles are different in Alethkar. Men here can seemingly all read, which was quite a shock to me.

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