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I dreamt that they were filled with dew
Azure-and-Florentho portalsnaked to Manere
Permalink Mark Unread

On Tower of Autumn, Azure-and-Florentho stand in one of the teleport rooms.  The last of the three pallets are loaded onto the sending pad, and they join them in the empty space along with a non-Teleport-capable passenger who also needs to get to Citadel of Spring.  Nearby, the monitor reports that the receiving pad has already been cleared of obstacles and is awaiting them.  Tapping the terminal, Florentho starts the countdown and begins to activate Teleport.  After a few seconds, they and the pallets are sent to a similar but slightly different room. 

One notable difference is that this room is in a complete panic.  Instinctively, they jump off of the teleport platform, both scanning the area for signs of disaster.  

A strange snake-like thing slithers into view, blindly writhing.  In it's flailing, it knocks into one of the pallets hard enough to break through the wrapping and send some of the contents scattering along the floor.  Where most daemons would have a face, it instead has a full-length mirror.  It isn't like any of the normal daemons anyone has seen, and there's no matching human in sight.  

Deceptively fast, it lunges towards Florentho.  He readies himself into a fighting stance, prepared to defend his slower and more fragile human half.  As the mirror-snake strikes, rather than the expected impact with the mirror Florentho falls into it and Azure follows an instant later.  

Permalink Mark Unread

They land on what a look around will reveal to be a roof. Flat, here, with a barrier around the edge, sounds carrying up suggesting a street below. Around this building are others, varying a bit in height but generally maybe a couple stories. Above it all the sky stretches, the tilt of the sun showing late afternoon or early evening, clouds clustering or whispy here and there.

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Azure stares outward, towards the distant moving clouds and strange horizon that doesn't bend upwards in any direction.  

This is definitely not the Fleet.  

After a minute of standing frozen, they walk towards the edge to look down.  

Permalink Mark Unread

Below them is a street. It seems to be divided into three parts, people walking on the outer two and mostly avoiding the middle though occasionally crossing across it. They look around before and while doing so, probably to check for the vehicles, roofed and large enough to fit multiple people, that drive down it. Outward from the other two parts, the street is lined with little shops and cafes and restaurants. A few have outdoor dining, and he can see people at them, some of them sitting in chairs, some of them kneeling on cushion-looking objects next to others sitting in chairs, or standing behind them.

In general, he can see people, walking along the walking parts of the street, going into and out of the shops and restaurants. Some of them are wearing robe-like things, in lengths varying from below the knee to down to the feet, some with sleeves and others sleeveless with shirts worn under. Others wear shirts and pants or skirts. If he can notice that kind of thing, the two groups seem to vary in body language in ways that cluster pretty well with the clothing. Everyone kneeling on cushions or doing the standing-behind thing is the robes-wearing kind. 

Absolutely none of the people seem to have daemons.

Permalink Mark Unread

The lack of daemons is definitely the most notable thing.  Even if every person went through Separation, it wouldn't explain why the daemons wouldn't be in attendance - he's one of the few who has on the fleet, yet Florentho only rarely leaves his side.  The fear of non-human senses taken to an extreme?  An attempt to stop battles or hide emotional expression?  A planet of soulless zombies?

Fashion being a special interest of his, he does watch the people for patterns.  It takes a little while before he stops looking for patterns in color and starts looking for patterns in cut, but the split between robes and non-robes becomes apparent after a few minutes.  

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There are definitely no battles anywhere he can see or hear, but the people in general do not act like their society has gone to great lengths to hide emotional expression, or like they're horribly missing something - people laugh, talk in an animated fashion, someone is admiring purchases they're being shown, someone picks up a child tugging at their hand and bounces them in their lap, two robed people hold hands.

There don't seem to be patterns in color, at least not the kinds he's used to - over there he can notice a cluster of young people all in the same colors, in what he may or may not be able to identify as uniforms. He might also notice that there's some cloth patterns that seem to only be worn by young children, though there aren't too many of those around here so he also might not. 

Permalink Mark Unread

His own outfit is a shirt and pants, not any of the local styles but clearly not robes.  Pure white silk covered in elaborate green embroidery with hundreds of glittering green beads sewn in.  They are individually tailored and perfectly fitted, the shirt sleeveless but matching a set of vambrace-like wrappings on his forearms, upper arms left exposed.  Everything from his shoes to the lanyards their phones are held on match in the exact shade of green as his daemon.  

They watch for a while longer.  The people act like people, at least, and look surprisingly human but for their lack of daemons.  

Azure considers his daemon.  People-watching here still hasn't shown what the lack of daemons means.  It wouldn't be a good first impression to find himself arrested for not keeping his daemon... at home, presumably?  And gallade in particular - if people are concerned about daemon senses, as some of the people from the dead world his ancestors had left from were, they might take especially badly to an empathic variety.  

"I'm not going to stay up here," Florentho notes, knowing his thoughts.  

"I know."  

Does there seem to be a good way down?  

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There are some stairs he may or may not recognize as a fire escape leading down into an alley that connects out into the street. 

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He goes down the stairs.  Insofar as he can, Florentho tries to avoid getting too close to anyone, but also isn't intending to hole up in an alley all day either.

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Both the clothes and Florentho make them noticeable. Various people who see them look over; some stop and look over more. The clothes look fancy and unusual and maybe foreign and not what most people expect to see on someone walking out of a random ally and along this casual evening life street. Florentho looks - what even is that, what Gift, how - (emotion sensing will find surprise and some confusion, all around, some aesthetic admiration and such, more surprise and confusion. No sudden anger or anything like that though.)

Robes-wearing people shift to get out of his way if they're in it as he walks along the street. Robes-wearing people who are following a not-robes-wearing-person, which is pretty common, shift in ways that doesn't involve stopping the following. 

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It's good they aren't upset, and now he's down a few more hypotheses.  

He'll start looking for one of the groups of uniformed people, figuring that they might be the most official and best able to point him to what he should be doing.  Florentho follows closely behind, looking around.  

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The groups of uniformed people don't look very official; they look like young people hanging out while also wearing uniforms. But they're around if he wants them. There's a robes-wearing group lining up at what looks like an ice-cream selling window over there, and a not-robes-wearing group sitting around a cluster of benches in the other direction. 

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Well, he has to ask someone.  He'll go with the non-robed set, working under his previous assumption that non-robes are higher ranked in some way.  

"Excuse me.  I'm very lost.  Would any of you know directions to a police station or foreign embassy?" he asks, guessing some places that an alien might be expected to make their way towards if dropped.  

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The not-robes are also surprised and confused, but are definitely not going to show it and instead try to stop looking like teenagers hanging out sprawled over benches and to look composed and authoritative. Some of them know where any foreign embassies are (though it's generally not here), but it seems pretty unlikely that someone would want just any foreign embassy as opposed to a specific one, and if they're supposed to know which specific one he wants by looking at him then, well, they don't. Which they're also going to not show. 

Several of them do know where a police station is. They can give directions. (Several of them have also pulled out phones and are using the question for cover to search for descriptions of his clothing and the - whatever that ?something? is. This is thus far failing to give them helpful results; some of them keep trying.)

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Upon getting directions to the police station, he thanks them and leaves.

In retrospect, he's not sure why that group was wearing uniforms.  The culture here must be very different from what he's used to.

He continues to look around as he walks, absorbing as much as he can of the sights.  

Permalink Mark Unread

They still have no idea who he might be and what if anything is happening, but aren't going to give sign of this until he's gone, at which point they will have an animated discussion (that doesn't go much of anywhere due to no one having any ideas with actual support).

He may have noticed a lot of them also had bags large enough to hold books with them, and some had books and papers out?

The directions are in the form of street names and turns, which might not be what he's used to, but the streets are labeled with signs at the corners, which might help. The sights around are more streets, structured about the same way, more buildings, occasionally more people. There are trees and stuff. There are vehicles of the type that go down the center of the streets, parked along them.

And here after some walking is the police station (it also has a sign).

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The only purpose of uniforms in his mind are either for synchronized dances or for people who need to be easily identifiable for emergencies.  Clubs where people interested in old-fashioned paper books all wear the same clothes for their meetings would be a strange practice on the fleet for a number of reasons, but is going to be his best guess for here.  They hadn't looked like especially good dancing clothes, and he'd expect trainee medics or officers to be slightly more organized if they were at the point of putting on uniforms in public.  

Labels are familiar and welcome.  The layout of the city is unfamiliar, some in ways he can work out but others for reasons he still can't understand.  Not having to limit interconnecting streets to certain airlocks explains quite a bit of the city design.  He doesn't know why so many people need that particular kind of large vehicle.  

They enjoy getting to see the bustle of a city and watch the people.  There are mysteries to uncover.  He wishes he could stop and ask people about things.  For now, best to go somewhere official and get this sorted out.  He enters the police station.  

Permalink Mark Unread

People he passes continue to have about the same emotions about him

Inside the police station there are some not-robes-wearing people in uniforms walking around (some of them also stop to look at him. They have warier emotions), and a desk with a robes-wearing person in uniform and a sign that says Citizen Inquiries. 

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Azure walks up to the Citizens Inquiries desk.  "Earlier today, I was attacked by an unknown creature with a mirror for a face.  It sent me to your planet, specifically to a nearby rooftop, from the fleet of generational ships I live on."  

He wants to ask if this is something that happens often around here.  Instead, he waits to see if he in fact has the right place for this kind of question.  

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The sub at the desk has been doing this job a while, and is not going to let what he's thinking or feeling show up in his tone or body language if he doesn't think it should.

(If he'd just heard the words, he'd think this dom was transparently delusional, and there are procedures for that. But he looks fancy, possibly important - maybe foreign (he's not recognizing the style; he should brush up). (And - what is that?). Best be more careful, for now; wouldn't want to invite problems.)

"Understood, sir. One moment sir, someone will be right here to speak with you." He types.

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He recognizes that if this doesn't happen regularly there's a good chance 'delusional' will be considered a more likely answer.  Therefore, he keeps himself well-composed.  Florentho is more obviously confused, but only a bit of that is on Azure's own face.  

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Even if anyone here reads variation in how whatever-that-is looks as something like body language, none of them will think to use that to draw conclusions about Azure's emotions.

And quickly enough another uniformed sub arrives. 

"An interview room is right this way, sir. An officer will be here to receive your report very soon." She takes him to, in fact, an interview room, shows him to a chair.

"I can just start on the preliminary information, if that would be alright, sir." Can't offend possibly-connected dom by saying a sub's going to interview him, but sometimes people will let their guard down more around a sub, say more than they might. "Could I ask your name, address, a description of your Gift, and where it was you arrived, sir?" Address won't be any good if he says something about 'generation ships' again, but there's some chance he'll just say a regular address, and easy to ask the question. And she doesn't know how (or if) he in fact got on a rooftop, but there might be eyewitness, and much easier to find those with a location.

She's really hoping he'll just answer the Gift question; current decision was not to try asking him to put that whatever-it-is away in case that set him off somehow, but she and her bosses will be so much more comfortable if they stop having to wonder what even is that. Especially if they're going to be near it, and him.

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He has no preconceptions on who is or isn't qualified to do interviews. 

"My name is Azure-and-Florentho," he begins.  Given the lack of daemons seen so far... "specifically, this body is Azure, and that one is Florentho."  He points to his daemon as he says that.  Florentho waves friendly right as she says it, though otherwise isn't paying too much direct attention to the human conversation.  There is a definite awareness to Azure-and-Florentho's movements between the two bodies - not a mirroring or synchronized motions, something subtler but clearly present.  Florentho is alert and still confused, but not especially nervous.  

Azure can give his address, on Topaz Hall of Tower of Autumn, which he explains is one of four large generational ships that his society has been on for two hundred years.  He's aware it isn't helpful.  He did manage to get the address for the building whose roof the mirror-faced being dropped him on, or at least the number that was on the building, and can recite it for her.

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'Gift.'"

Permalink Mark Unread

She doesn't think that's a Gift she's heard of but Gifts are like that and she's aware of some similar ones. If that's all there is to it that'll certainly be a relief to everyone.

She's wired, so someone can start following up on that roof address, and maybe analyzing that other address in case there's something useful in it, but she has an appearance to keep so she takes notes. Thanks him with appropriate polite deference.

He seems to have the language pretty well and if someone was missing some words she wouldn't really expect that one, but languages call Gifts all sorts of things; maybe it's a false cognate. And not really her job here.

"I apologize, sir. Power, special ability?" Somewhat answered already, but it would still be far better to have a proper complete description and not just an effect.

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"The usual ones for a gallade," he begins.  "our Moves are Teleport, Life Dew, Hypnosis, and Wide Guard."

He can explain those, because it seems likely they're doing something different than Moves here:  Teleport can send a daemon and selected passengers and cargo to a pre-memorized location.  He has a license for both scheduled cargo teleportation and general emergency teleportation.  Life Dew restores a daemon's barrier.  Hypnosis causes the target to fall asleep.  Wide Guard creates a force field around an area which lasts for about 6 seconds.

"Do you have daemons here?"

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Another thanking. And she'd expect some sort of demurral if he was asked to demonstrate, but that still seems quite the obvious next action. But she doesn't make that decision.

"I apologize sir, I don't know that word? Or 'gallade', or what would be usual?"

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He will do his best to describe daemons!  He's had a little time on the way over to consider what might be different.  

"All of my people - our souls exist outside of our bodies.  When we're born, they appear next to us in a form called Ditto - a small pink shape that can take the forms of other people or daemons nearby.  Once we reach puberty they settle into one of several hundred permanent forms.  This is personality-dependent and not consciously chosen.

"Most daemons need to stay within a certain distance of their human.  Florentho and I have undergone Separation and can be any distance apart.  Only about 2% of people separate, on the Fleet - mostly police officers and other emergency responders.  Gallade are especially good with disaster response, given our personalities and Moves, and ability to sense if anyone is trapped or buried nearby.  

"What else - ah, daemons can't be touched by anyone other than other daemons and their human.  It's painful to try.  Also, many psychic types including gallade can read the minds of those who touch them, though obviously this doesn't come up as anything but another reason it isn't done."

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She's wearing an earpiece, subtly. She gets orders.

"Thank you, sir.

Gifts being what they are, could it be asked that you demonstrate a few of yours? Perhaps the teleportation and the guard, if that would be acceptable?"

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"We're willing to do that.  For teleportation, we'll need a space that we can be sure no one will step into or throw anything into for a few seconds.  The barrier needs a larger space, but doesn't go through walls or damage anything.  It's a little over three meters radius."

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It needs another room than this one? Would it work to teleport from the hallway back into this room?

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"I can teleport a few feet over.  This room will work fine for it."

Unless she seems to object, he can find a spot to stand next to where neither she nor anyone coming into the room will likely step by accident.  Teleport takes a few seconds to activate, and comes with a faint glow around what is about to be teleported.

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She doesn't object.

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He vanishes from where he is and teleports about two feet over.  It's not terribly exciting, but does prove that he can do it.

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Actually that is very exciting. She doesn't show this.

The guard can't be done in this room? 

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It can if there's a corner where he has about ten feet of space.  This might require her moving to the opposite corner if she doesn't want to be in range, depending on the size of the room.  It wouldn't hurt her - there are no warnings about Wide Guard the way there are with Teleport - but he'd rather not make assumptions.  

The wide guard is a translucent wall of shimmering hexagons which appear immediately as it is cast.  The barrier clings to the walls, floor, and ceiling where it reaches them and otherwise arcs through the air in a section of a sphere centered around Florentho.  The effect lasts for exactly 6 seconds before vanishing.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's a large interview room (they had it free, and were attempting to hedge on the side of obliging treatment. Looks like that was the right decision more than they they were much imagining).

This is sufficient to be exciting - a (powerful) illusion Gift would still be one more - but -

Would it be acceptable if she threw something at it while it was up? (She continues to not show any new reactions, hers or her superiors').

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She can if she wants to.  He can only use each Move so often in a day, but he has plenty of energy left for demonstrations.  He'll wait for her to have something to throw, then create another wide guard in the same place as before.  

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She avoids in any way saying or implying that she personally wants to, in a way that would come across as careful if it didn't come across as completely engrained and unremarkable.

She gets something to throw; throws it when given cue to.

And could she take down what the daily limits are?

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Things bounce off the barrier as if hitting a rock wall.  

"Teleport and Hypnosis can be used 20 times a day.  Life Dew and Wide Guard can be used 10 times a day.  The way the fleet measures time, at least; our days might be different lengths."

Permalink Mark Unread

Well.

A day marked by some particular time, or by their own personal cycle? (This is not necessary for the central question of figuring out this visitor, but could be important, especially in some scenarios, and that was a very natural opening.)

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"The energy restores steadily over time, such that if I expend all of my energy for a move by the time a full day has passed it will be back at the maximum I can hold.  It does seem to be regenerating here - I used teleport shortly before I wound up sent here, and I've gotten a little of it back already.

"Each move has its own reservoir which can't be used by the others."  He thinks this is obvious from the way he'd described them, but he might as well explicitly say as much.  

Permalink Mark Unread

Thanking again.

She is not privy to what anyone on the other side of her earpiece might be talking to each other about, but she thinks she can guess at it pretty accurately.

No one has three Gifts (or more than that, but three's enough). At best very few people have a Gift as powerful as these have been, and not generally without much greater cost. But even if someone could sustain something like that creature, or teleport or make a shield like that and not promptly nearly collapse, they could absolutely not do all three of those.

That doesn't necessarily have to mean alien, but it does mean something very fantastical, and it would be somewhat strange if someone very fantastical for other reasons also decided to make up being an alien. Not that that's even the important part.

Over the earpiece, she is notified that someone more properly important is about to come over.

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There's a knock at the door - not asking but notifying - and a not-robed person (fancier uniform), with quite a lot of the body language that tends to go with that, comes in.

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She does a very deferential submissive greeting, mostly for the purpose of signaling 'this person is important' to their visitor.

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The dom smiles. Does her own greeting, one dom to another.

"Ah, greetings! We're so pleased to meet you, Mr. -?"

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"Azure, ma'am," she says, not that they don't know that already. (She stays by, as she's meant to. In case they need her for something. And of course in case the alien dom decides he was offended by something and her superiors want to make him feel better about them by demonstratively beating her.

Part of the job, not that she can say it's a favorite.)

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"So pleased to meet you, Mr. Azure! We've never been so fortunate as to host an alien visitor before. We certainly hope that we can live up to the occasion! And please do tell us if anything is amiss or can be improved on!"

(Emotion reading will report that she is in fact feeling pleased. Also opportunistic.)

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(Opportunistic isn't the worst thing he could be picking up.  Combined with the nervousness from the other is a little more worrying, but not in an immediate way.)

"It's exciting from our end as well.  This is the first time any of my people have met aliens."

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"And likewise for us! Should we be expecting more of your people, now that you're here?" She accepts a page of notes from the sub and pretends to read it (and may as well review).

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"I'm not sure.  This trip was unexpected, and through unusual means.  They will be investigating, and the creature which sent me here is presumably still there to study."

Azure had mentioned that a mirror-faced creature had sent him here to the person at the reception desk.  He repeats the information to them.  

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"You said it was an unknown creature, and also that you live on a fleet?"

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"Yes to both.  

"My civilization is a fleet of 68 generational ships travelling though interstellar space," he clarifies, just in case they'd thought he meant ocean ships.  "Our previous world became uninhabitable, and we were travelling to a planet in the right position around its star to be terraformed."

Permalink Mark Unread

Wow! And sounds like they must be very technologically advanced! Also sounds like it would be hard for an unknown creature to appear in that kind of setting, or is there something she's missing?

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He has no comment on how advanced they are, not having seen what this culture has for technology yet.  

"The unknown creature's appearance was very sudden.  Presumably it was transported to the fleet with the same ability it used to send me here."

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Ah, reasonable idea! These notes report that members of his society have some rather impressive abilities, but she gathers that transportation over such distances is usually not among them? Or is distance no object, as long as the previously-memorized condition is met?

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"The limit is around a hundred miles for my kind."

That's more than enough to travel anywhere in the fleet, but it's much less impressive on a planetary scale.  Not to mention interstellar distances.  

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She, however, is clearly impressed. "That's quite incredible. Are other kinds similar?"

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"My kind as opposed to the mirror-creature's kind," he clarifies.  "All daemons who know Teleport use the same Move."

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Ah, interesting! She is sure many scientists of Gifts will be very interested to learn much more about that.

In the meanwhile, is there anything he is particularly interested or in need of, at this moment? She's sent messages out, and a party more suited to welcome him properly should be here soon, but in the meanwhile she is very happy to make sure he has whatever he might need!

Permalink Mark Unread

He doesn't have any immediate needs.  Azure is very curious about the local Gifts, however.  Perhaps they could explain while waiting.

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Of course! Among their people, some people have Gifts - special abilities, of various kinds. Some stronger than others though ones of the strength he'd demonstrated with his are rarer. (She's not bothering to hide that sort of thing - here, or about technology level. Why do that? It'd be obvious if he spent any time here, or if his people showed up. And perhaps he'll be flattered). There's a lot of variety, and Gifts can be very idiosyncratic - even if two people have very similar Gifts, they're unlikely to be quite the same. 

Their scientists don't currently understand too much about them, though they try, of course. They can say that Gifts don't seem to be hereditary, or follow any other obvious pattern like that.

If they don't push it, most people can use their Gift as unrestrictedly with respect to exhausting it as they can a limb - so, not completely unrestrictedly, but most people won't run into that most days. Some people can push their Gift harder if they try, either on intensity or on the kinds of things it'll do, but that'll leave them exhausted a while after.

Some examples of Gifts - moving small objects without touching them, breathing underwater, being difficult to burn, changing the color of any part of one's own body, making small things colder, having very good aim. If he's noticing a pattern that Gifts with respect to oneself tend to be 'stronger' he's right.

They have some officers and employees with Gifts here, if he'd like some demonstrations?

Permalink Mark Unread

He would love to see demonstrations.

Do they seem personality-dependent?  That they're all different is fascinating.

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She'll have some people called in, then!

That's not something she's heard said about them. She's not even sure what that would mean - how would someone exactly have a telekinetic personality, say? 

They're not completely different. Lots of them are very, very similar, even. But they're usually not entirely similar - different details, especially different details at the edges if they have them.

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And promptly another sub in uniform shows up. Does polite greetings, at his superior and at the fancy-foreign-dressed-looking dom with some weird Gift-creature.

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His Gift is interesting, the dom says - if he carries an object around he can tell if any other people around him have touched it. He moves around between precincts, it's convenient he was here and free right now.

If their guest wants a simple demo, the Gifted sub can turn around, and some of the rest of them can touch some objects, and then he can tell them which of them it was.

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That sounds fascinating.  Both Azure and Florentho will touch example objects.

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The dom makes sure there's a few objects to touch; with this few people it wouldn't be a very good demonstration, otherwise, too easy to potentially credit to guessing. She and the sub from earlier will also touch and not touch some objects.

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And the Gifted sub can turn back around, and receive the objects himself, and look around the room's occupants with a slight look of concentration, and report on who touched what. He looks additionally slightly uncertain, for a second, at the first object either Azure or Florentho were involved with. (To his sense, any object Florentho touched reads as Azure kind-of-touching it, and Florentho touching it; takes him a moment to quite puzzle out the less familiar sensation.) ...Well, not too strange, for whatever Gift the foreign dom has to have that effect, he'll think. He can point out when and whether either or both of them touched an object.

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That's interesting.  Azure can thank him for the demonstration.  

Turning back to the person who seems most in charge, he asks, "What percentage of people here have a Gift?"

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The sub does a polite acknowledgement of thanks.

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She doesn't know off the top of her head - less than one in three, more than one in a hundred? But she can get someone to look it up, and get an answer back promptly. 

Is there anything else he was already curious about? They are of course very curious about his people as well, but since he is here, it seems his curiosity should take precedence! 

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He sees no reason why they can't both take turns asking about things.

For the closest equivalent in the fleet, all people have daemons though not all are equally as powerful or have equally useful Moves that they can learn.  One in about a hundred thousand settle as unusually powerful forms called Legendaries.  He's not one of them.  Gallade are above average, useful-powers-wise, but not outstandingly so.

Is whether or not someone has a Gift what is being marked by the robes?  They don't seem to be marking the same things with clothing that he's used to.  (The robes are more common than those numbers, that he's noticed, but perhaps they're in a very affluent or Gift-centric part of town?  Or people with Gifts are more likely to be out traveling from building to building for their use, while people without would be in desk jobs more often?)

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Well, she's certainly also interested in anything he might want to explain!

Huh, interesting!

Oh, no, not at all! They definitely don't have that many Gifted people, and they don't mark Gift-having in any particular way. In this country - in this whole general area, actually - submissives dress in robes, and dominants don't. That's not world-universal - various other places do it differently, there's some places in other parts of the world where robes are general everyday wear, some places don't even do much with clothes and it's mostly hairstyles or something. But here that's how it goes.

What's he used to being marked by clothing?

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He can go on for hours about clothing and fashion!  Though is going to hold off and keep it to the basics, since there are other interesting things to talk about today.

Everyone on the fleet wears clothing which matches their daemon, color-wise.  Azure's green and white clothing perfectly matches Florentho and makes a good example of this.

Daemons forms are sorted into eighteen Types categorized by general ability sets, which also have an associated color.  Gallade are classified as Psychic type, which means that he could also choose to wear dark pink if he wanted to.  This is mostly only for people buying off-the-rack clothing or needing things too quickly to wait for customization on.  That, and some outfits worn for religious ceremonies and the like. 

Clothing shape and style doesn't mean anything, officially.  Fashions change, and some subcultures like to dress similarly to show their mutual appreciation for certain musical genres or hobbies or such, but it isn't... serious, the way that colors are.  Embroidery signifies wealth, while fabric with printed patterns is lower class.  

... they don't have any signifiers for 'dominant' and 'submissive' on the fleet.

In fact, he'd like to know the local definitions for those terms.  The definition he's familiar with is a very strange thing to wear openly and be universally acknowledged, on the fleet, and could be awkward to make assumptions about.  

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How interesting! She's sure some local cultures have signified things by color, but she's not personally familiar. (And - so their visitor is well off among his own people, or at least is saying he is. She'll certainly note that.)

Huh, not having signifiers sounds like it would be kind of inconvenient, even if people generally can intuitively tell by body language. 

Oh right, she thinks, there's cultures that segment things up differently and have a few more roles socially recognized - is about to clarify which ones they have here, when - 

Now that's very strange, she's having trouble imagining how that would be! Of course it would be awkward and then some to make guesses if you were wrong, but that's what signifiers are generally for. Maybe they're having some sort of miscommunication, though she does not at all know what it might be!

Anyway, dominant and submissive are the roles, here and in most of the world, though there's a few places with more. Dominants: make decisions for their households, govern various aspects of society for its wellbeing, command and own and guardian. Submissives: serve their dominants with obedience, fulfill important tasks that society needs done, serve the households they belong to by their dominant's will.

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(Those definitions are a bit like what he'd expect his Fleet-learned ones to be if they were more common, rather than terminology used in obscure fetish groups by a small fraction of the population.  He considers how to phrase this more politely.  Florentho shuffles awkwardly; they know it's important to be clear, but there are so many ways that might come across as insulting.  It's hard to get a feel for how she'd react without a daemon for Florentho to talk to.)

"Those sound roughly analogous.  Is where people fall on that spectrum considered very important here?"

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(Oh good, that would be a very unfortunate thing to have confusion over, of all things). She blinks. What a weird question.

"...About the regular level of importance, I think? We're not a culture that cloisters either dominants or submissives" as he can probably tell since there's one of each in the room right now and he was outside earlier, but that's the closest thing she can even think of potentially making sense there. "though of course if there are different customs in your culture that would make you more comfortable we can do our best to accommodate what you would need." (...Does 'spectrum' suggest his culture does have some additional roles? She should probably ask about that, once they've made sure they don't need to have the submissives around him stop talking, or conversely start carrying messages, or something like that.)

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"It sounds like your planet in general considers it more important than the Fleet does.  We don't have any special accommodations for role."

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She... has no idea what that means. She still isn't sure what exactly he means by 'important', and what could 'special accommodations for role' mean? The first thing that comes to mind is military training for army submissives, but that's probably because she was watching that show again yesterday and not because that's what he means; how would he even know anything about that one way or another?

...And actually on second thought, probably it'd be best to just leave this whole topic to someone who knows what they're doing; this is just exactly the kind of topic that causes diplomatic incidents in cultural contact movies.

She nods. "Well if you find you need accommodations here, we'll certainly direct to arrange what we can. In other areas as well - speaking of, if there anything we can have gotten for you? You seem to look a lot like us, at least for one of your bodies," she congratulates herself on working that in so well, "but I can't say if that's just superficial. Do you drink water? Should I have a call made ahead so they can start working on your food needs, assuming you have such a thing?"

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"We do drink water, and eat food.  The human half of us does, at least."

Food might be more complicated than water, given the nature of plants compared to simple molecules.  Perhaps their culture has a protocol for determining whether or not things are poisonous?  He asks about it, as well as tells them about the sorts of things he'd expect to be edible.

On the Fleet, nearly their entire diet is plant matter.  Fruits, grains, nuts, some of the more tender leaves and shoots, and a few kinds of energy-storing root.  Some of the things that daemons can make with matter-generating Moves are directly forms of food, including milk and round protein-rich objects called eggs.  (Those aren't popular among the high class, but he has tried them before and found them okay, if weird.  He guesses that they wouldn't have such things given that they have no Moves to generate them.)

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She's not a biologist and has no idea how protocols for determining whether things are poisonous work or if they'd apply to aliens (she's guessing not). (She won't say that, why would he need to know that.)

She's sure the government will figure all that out, and bring in people up to date on all the known protocols - they might find someone with a relevant Gift to help too, or someone with a relevant healing Gift, maybe, as a security. (She does say that.)

Those all sound like the sorts of things people here eat too, though it seems likely they might be different plants. (...The concept that aliens have milk and eggs made by their souls is incredibly bizarre. That is definitely not something she'd have managed to think of if she was imagining aliens. She doesn't say that, but it's bizarre enough that she'll describe the milk and eggs they have some more, to make sure it's actually the case they're talking about the same kinds of things).

Does the other half need anything she could have called ahead about?

(She decides not to offer him water immediately, because for all she knows it has something in it that would cause a problem, and that's not what she wants out of greeting this alien at all.)

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Milk and eggs do sound similar.  Azure doesn't consider them high priority compared to plants.

Florentho doesn't need anything.

Azure tries to think of anything else that might not be obvious.  Temperatures?  This room is a decent temperature.  The Fleet living spaces vary a bit, but are usually around 21% of the way between water freezing and boiling in this sort of atmosphere.  Anything lower than 16% or above 27% is uncomfortable.  (This is said quickly without needing to check the math.  It's what their temperature measurement system is based on.) 

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She's certain that can and will be arranged. (She's not going to try to convert temperatures herself, but there's no reason she should need to.)

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And at this point the original interviewing sub still in the room gets a notification on her earpiece that the preliminary government delegation has arrived. She waits for a pause in the conversion, does the appropriate asking-for-dom's-attention nonverbals.

"Ma'am?"

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"Hm?"

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"The delegation is here, ma'am."

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Ah, wonderful! She'll announce to the alien that the party assembled to greet him has arrived; if there's nothing he needs here first they can head over?

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He's ready to meet the delegation.

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"Take us over."

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"Yes, ma'am."

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And they can walk, through hallways mostly cleared for the occasion though some people are definitely peeking here and there, and some police doms and subs in uniform stand guard. To -

(there'd been a question, about where exactly the delegation should meet them. The police station does have conference rooms but - they're not really meant for this, or well set up for it. The parking lot is big enough but seemed unideal. In the end they'd decided on the discipline court, which has, at least, more open space than a conference room, and can be closed off from its usual use for a little while without being likely to cause anyone much more than inconvenience. 

It's also been cleared for the occasion, which means means the sub in uniform will lead the dom and Azure into what looks like a high ceilinged room, with tiered seating along the sides, some storage-looking furniture, some doors, and currently a group of people, generally nicely dressed, a few doms out in front and subs behind and to the sides or behind and next to a few of the doms.)

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Azure does his best to look as confident and friendly as he can.  Like he's a proper alien diplomat and not just whoever happened to have been eaten by that mirror-snake-thing.  He's glad he always dresses nicely - 'Wear something fancy in case you wind up on an alien world' had never crossed his mind before specifically, but the more general sentiment to be prepared to be noticed had.  

He covertly examines the people he passes now that he knows that dominant or submissive is something they're advertising with their clothing.  He's used to deliberately ignoring anything he picks up about that for most people.  In particular, he watches the body language differences so he can make sure to pick the correct set for any gestures that are role-specific.

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If he combines those standing guard, those in the delegation, the sub and the dom walking with him, and some memories of people back from outside, he can get some general impressions.

Dominant body language tends to open confidence, taking up space whether more overtly or more casually, and everyone knowing that you do. Submissive body language is more careful, more contained, stiller. Doms notice each other openly and pay less attention to submissives. Submissives notice doms and generally keep aware of them in a different way than they do each other.

The subs on guard still have different body language from the doms on guard, but also have 'standing on guard' body language that others don't tend to. The sub taking them to the delegation has more deferential and composed-to-being-in-the-background body language than subs walking around outside had. The subs with the delegation have even more of that - are still and quiet and have lowered eyes.

A few of the doms with shadowing subs step forward from the rest of the delegation as they see him. The foremost gives about the same sort of greeting as the dom with Azure had at the beginning.

"Master Azure-and-Florentho! On behalf of our government and all our people, welcome to our country and our world!"

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Azure will do his best to be charming and friendly.  He appreciate the welcome, and can compliment what he's seen of the city.

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(Convenient, that'll allow them to better track where he's been! No one mentions this.)

The delegation doms are also being charming and friendly, in ways appropriate to their various stations and the occasion! One of them will introduce themselves and the other doms who stepped forward - there's some government officials/diplomats and some scientists and such. They'll issue more official and poetic sounding greetings and welcomes and enthusiasm about his presence and what it means and the world-meeting related opportunities it creates.

They've had arranged a place for him to stay, so he could rest and they can have arranged to any other needs he might have, and can decide what he might be interested in doing and in what sort of order and so on. There's transportation just outside.

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Azure is also excited about the opportunities that such a meeting will bring!  Hopefully the Fleet scientists will figure out how to replicate his unexpected trip and follow soon.

(Hopefully they'll make it at all.  That isn't guaranteed.  Still, if there's a scientific problem he has every confidence that Alizara will solve it.  Her, and as much of the scientific community that his grandpa can pull in favors from, which is pretty much all of them.)

He's not at all tired, but he privately suspects they want more time to prepare and to share the information he already gave to the first few people he'd met to the ones with more power.  So, he can thank them, careful to keep up the in-control air of someone who is at least slightly qualified to do anything, and go to whatever transportation they've provided once the political pleasantries are finished for the moment.

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They are also certainly hoping for that! They're of course working on it from their end, but unless they find something at the location in which he appeared or similar, they might not have very much to go on, and while other worlds with people in them certainly existing is a new and important piece of information their scientists hadn't had before, it may not be enough for a research and development direction. But of course there will be much work on it from very skilled people!

That is totally what they want, not that they'll say so. They're glad the light maneuvering currently seems to be working.

They've landed helicopters in the parking lot of the police station. There appears to be a bit of internal politics about who exactly will ride with him. This ends up with some silent guards (who were not part of the internal politics), and among other people two very much not silent doms, one of whom tries to ask him about the social organization and government of his world, and one about its technology.

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Florentho is fascinated by the helicopter.  There's no call for atmospheric air transport on the Fleet, and their space vehicles don't have anything as visually distinctive as a helicopter's rotors.  

Azure is happy to answer questions about either.

The fleet is mostly a democracy.  Each smaller ship and Hall of a great ship have a senator in the senate which writes bills, then the fleet as a whole votes for five councilors who can finalize the bills into laws.  Each Hall also has an intra-hall council and/or mayor which handles smaller local things.  Then there are the Captains, who choose their own successors - their duty is to manage navigation, resources, and mechanical upkeep of the ships.  Judges are assigned and overseen by the Legendaries, who are selected by whatever luck or destiny causes people's daemons to settle as whatever they do.

He doesn't know how to compare the technology of the fleet to here, since he doesn't know what level of technology they have here.  They don't have faster-than-light travel yet.  They do have artificial gravity and holographic displays.  Technological progress had slowed after leaving the planet, due to lack of resources - they can create many elements out of nothing with Moves but others, notably copper, are in short supply.  Many of their recent advances are in theoretical science and mathematics that Azure knows little about, and in material substitution or using rare materials more efficiently.

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The delegation members are clearly (and for obvious reasons) not at all used to daemons, but trying to act naturally about it. If Florentho's interest is externally obvious, one of the doms will signal a non-pilot sub who was in the helicopter when they got in, who will offer to answer or explain anything he might like to know.

The tech dom is fascinated! What a particular development constraint! What other materials are in short supply verse plentiful? The politics dom wants to know more about the Legendary system. And are mayors and intra-hall councils also elected or are they appointed by the larger government, or some other method? What does managing resources entail?

Meanwhile, the helicopters have taken off flying. If he looks out, below Azure will see more streets like the ones he'd walked through, and then also different kinds of areas. Farther away is a cluster of very tall buildings. The helicopter seems to be heading in their general direction, though not directly toward them.

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Florentho doesn't hide his interest, though politely declines explanations.  He prefers to just watch things.  Once they're in the air, he stares out the window like an excited child at the passing scenery.

Azure will answer the questions.  Water, stone, sand, silk, and various organic materials for composting or making plastics are the most plentiful.  They can make iron and gold, though not as much as they want.  Salt and clay can be processed from raw brine and mud.  Metals are their biggest limiting factor, with their initial stockpiles of cobalt and copper and so on being all they'll get until they reach their destination.  Keeping track of supply and production and recycling of materials is part of the Captain's job, as is handling drafting people for emergency material creation if they wind up low on air or something.

As for politics.  The mayors and intra-hall councils are elected directly for inhabited Halls.  Councils for Halls that are nothing but large hydroponics bays or factories or entertainment parks are handled by the Fleet council.

The Legendary system is steeped in high-context religious baggage.  About one in 100,000 people have a Legendary daemon, one of 68 unusually rare and powerful forms.  Their dominant religion states that they are the physical incarnations of gods, and in addition to appointing judges also have duties to the church.

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Yes sir.

No one will interfere with him watching the scenery! 

How interesting! It seems that being able to create even some materials advantages them very much in their civilization's endeavor. Can they mine metals from astroids or anything like that? That's been locally theorized as something that could be possible for a spacefaring civilization.

The politics dom nods respectfully at this (a government intertwined with religion is not a strange concept here). If larger contact can be made, should they expect his people will want to send missionaries? (What the dom really wants to know about is the potential for religious conflict, but isn't going to just immediately and straight out ask about that. Their visitor hasn't done anything suggestive of that yet, though if their civilization is usually the only one around he might not have thought of it. ...In which case it might be a problem to cause him too, but it's not like it wouldn't come up eventually. Not the sort of thing it makes sense to try to hide and delay.)

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Huh, Azure has no idea if they'd want to send missionaries or not.  They existed on the dead world, but... He's not sure how it would work for people without daemons to join their religion.  So many of their duties and traditions and beliefs revolve around their external souls and the various classifications they're sorted into.  That it's possible for people to be sapient yet not have visible souls is shocking.  There are some science fiction series where aliens have daemons who don't fit into the 18 categories, or take on vastly different forms like moving tattoos or elemental wings on their person's back, but never nothing

As for asteroid mining, their ancestors who left the dead world hadn't considered it and the subsequent captains hadn't pursued it either.  Probably some combination of the amount of time it would take and the amount of material that the mining and processing equipment would tie up?  He's also not sure if any of the stars that would be even slightly reasonable to divert towards have useful asteroids, though that's mostly because he personally has always focused on things inside of the ships.

In explaining his ancestor's decision, he winds up mentioning more about the dead world.  It hadn't been a normal planet around a normal star, but instead a planet at the center of a small pocket universe about 3 light-seconds across.  The sun and moon had been lights which travelled across the outer shell.  Their launch had involved breaking through the dissolving barriers into a larger universe which was more stable and would last a few billion years at least.  

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Ah, yes, of course that could be very significant! One of the doms wants to ask if he knows how the daemons fit into their evolutionary history, but there have been some people in this world who didn't like the concept of an evolutionary history at all, so that's one of the subjects to leave for later and people with more political acumen. Instead the dom asks if animals in their world have anything like daemons?

(One of the subs on the helicopter gets a spike of emotional interest at the mention of alien science fiction, but she does not interrupt.)

Mentioning and describing the dead world gets a reaction of: wow! Both the concept that such a universe could exist, and that breaking through could be possible, sound utterly fascinating and revolutionary to knowledge! (Also: no wonder they would be less likely to come up with astroid mining).

Meanwhile the helicopters seem to be approaching their destination: a multi-story and large but not overly tall building surrounded by various park-looking areas and looking pretty elaborate. It has a helicopter landing area on the roof.

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What's an animal?

Plants, bacteria, and fungi are alive but none have daemons or anything like them.  

They did have the reverse, in pokemon.  Those were like daemons but were unattached to a person.  They weren't intelligent, and mostly lived in the wilderness.  Their disappearance had been one of the symptoms of the pocket universe falling apart.

 

Florentho continues keeping watch on where the helicopter is going.  He thinks the building is nice!  On instinct, he glances in the helicopter to tell any daemons his opinion on the building.  Hmm.  Maybe if any of the nearby humans are watching him instead of listening to Azure he'll mention it to them?

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...Huh. Animals are - kind of between plants and people, in a sense, they're more complicated than bacteria but not intelligent. 'Not intelligent and live in the wilderness' is a pretty decent first pass description of animals, actually. But Florentho doesn't look like an animal to them, and animals don't have Gifts. Though of course an alien world could have different ones, it's strange enough they seem to have such similar people!

Someone can get out a tablet and show some pictures of animals.

 

Some people are watching Florentho, including the sub who'd tried to talk to him before!

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Daemons can have a lot of different forms and not all are bipedal.  Quite a few have the same basic body layouts as the animals he's shown - quadrupeds, birds, fish, and so on - but they do seem different.  There are also daemons who are floating rocks, large snowflakes, vines, puddles of slime, clouds of gas, and other things.  

 

Florentho can strike up a parallel conversation, then.  The building is nice!

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Wow! Were there - pokemon - like that too? Do the floating clouds of gas and such still communicate in spoken language or is there something else?

 

The sub looks briefly surprised to be addressed, but quickly gives a respectful acknowledgment. The sub is glad he finds it so, sir.

The helicopter starts going in for landing.

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Pokemon and daemons looked exactly alike and came in all the same shapes, and had the same abilities.  And all daemons can speak normally, and move even if the pseudo-matter they're made from looks like it shouldn't.  

(Florentho didn't have anything substantial to say about the building.  He goes back to watching as the building gets closer and larger.)

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Oh, interesting. And wow! They're running out of time, but this dom totally wants to know this right now - did that cause any problems? Here animals don't have Gifts, and animals with Gifts sound like they'd cause some chaos at best. Also, pseudo-matter?

The sub won't keep speaking if not spoken to anymore, will return to attentive stillness.

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There had apparently been quite a bit of chaos on the dead world.  A majority of pokemon avoided cities, but travel outside of them was dangerous.

Psuedo-matter is just a short way of saying 'whatever it is that daemons are made out of.'  Which is something that they still don't really know.  Daemons behave like they're made of real matter while alive.  They have weight and mass that seems about right for what they look like they're made from, and can interact with things in the expected ways.  But they appear out of nowhere upon birth, vanish after death, and if any part of them is removed it vanishes after a few seconds.  There are various theories, but Azure doesn't study daemons and pokemon, and they don't have time to get into them.  

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That's incredibly interesting and the dom has more questions, but indeed they don't have time.

The helicopter lands and they can get out. One of the doms from before, already out from a different helicopter, comes over again. They've had arranged a set of rooms for him, and someone who can be sure he gets anything else he might need, who he can ask further questions, and who also has a Gift that might be useful should some problems come up.

She gets one of the subs to start leading them, from the roof through a door and to an elevator.

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He'll just keep following along then, and remark on his gratitude for the rooms once more in what he hopes is just the right amount to be polite but not that he thinks he is someone who shouldn't be shown such hospitality.  (This shouldn't be too difficult.  He's had tutors in it.  They just weren't from this planet.)

(Elevators are also fun, though far less exotic than the helicopter.)

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They don't seem to find it odd or out of place, and return more pleasantries themselves.

The elevator lets out in a small lobby, from which a hallway leads to a single door. The sub opens it for him. A few more pleasantries, then the party departs back to the elevator.

Inside the room is an entrance area and then a sitting area, well furnished and decorated and appointed. Doors leads out to other rooms.  

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One of the doors opens. A sub in robes that somewhat match to the furnishings comes out into the room. And kneels.

"Sir."

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He guesses that is a gesture considered submissive, so won't be returning it.  

"Hello; I'm Azure-and-Florentho.  Are you the one who was brought in to assist me?"

(Azure is already missing being able to guess someone's likely abilities from looking at their daemons.)

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The sub is looking down towards Azure's feet. He's very good at kneeling, if Azure notices that kind of thing. Graceful and perfectly coordinated, positioned.

"Yes, sir. I'm to be at your service, sir."

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He does kneel very gracefully.  Azure appreciates that, and the matching aesthetic.

"You may rise," he says after a pause.  Hopefully that's true by local standards as well, but he supposes that if it isn't there's at least no one else watching.  

"What is your name?"

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The sub stands up, just as graceful. Eyes still lowered. "Alessa, sir."

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Florentho can detect nervousness among the emotions immediately nearby.  That's not surprising given the circumstances.  Azure tries to smile reassuringly, even if Alessa still isn't looking at him yet. 

"I'm interested in hearing about your Gift.  First, though, shall we sit down?"

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"Yes sir, of course." The room has a table and chairs as well as a couch and armchairs. Alessa waits to see which one Azure is going toward so he can pull out the chair or arrange the couch pillow as needed. 

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He'll go with the table and chairs.  For Fleet sensibilities it seems more formal, and he might want the flat surface for taking notes later.

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He'll draw out the chair then. (He's not sure what to do for the - daemon(?). Should be draw out another chair? Should he not? Should be get something else? He decides to see what the daemon(?) seems to be doing - will draw out another chair if he(?) moves toward it.)

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Azure thanks him.

Florentho will also sit.  Luckily, gallade don't have tails or anything else that would make chairs designed only for humans complicated in any way.  

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Then he'll draw out the other chair, and - do his best with it, and then stand back politely, attentive.

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Florentho thanks him with a small nod.

Once he's seated, Azure waits for Alessa to sit down too.  If this takes more than a moment, he can gesture to an empty chair.  (This seems unusual to him.  He takes mental notes, tallying up how important dom vs. sub likely is for this sort of thing, as well as whatever level of host is possibly being implied by Alessa's robe matching the room, and whether or not there is a degree of leadership expected by having been in a set of rooms longer and therefore presumably more familiar with it - which was not an assumption he'd ever consciously considered on the Fleet.)

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He won't move to sit down originally, but when Azure gestures he'll take the chair. Still with the composed grace, though his emotions show a little uncertainty. 

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Azure is coming to the conclusion that he's supposed to micromanage every movement of his assistant.  In other circumstances he wouldn't mind - would even enjoy it, in a few - but here he's leading a dance where he doesn't know the steps and isn't even sure he's hearing the same music.

Gently, and keeping up a friendly smile, "The ones who brought me here mentioned you had a Gift that might prove useful if there were a problem.  I'd like to know that first, in case it becomes relevant.  Explain it to me."

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"Yes, sir.

I have a healing factor, sir. It's mostly for myself, but I can have some observation outside myself, and in an emergency I could push it to help with some - critical medical problem, if something were to go very wrong.

A medical team could come in after that, but my Gift can work on - a lot of different things, and no one needs to know or understand what's wrong, yet, for it to help." He could probably have said that better. He's just - less used to talking about his Gift, and - being like this, at the same time. (And - alien. He's not used to that at all.) He should try harder though. 

He keeps looking properly at the table.

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"An impressive Gift, and it does sound useful.

"The next thing I need to ask about is etiquette.  I'm not familiar with the customs here.  Is there anything I should have told you to do but haven't?  In particular, are you looking at the table because you're supposed to for the entire conversation, or because I was supposed to provide a cue?  Or anything else in that category."  Azure isn't feeling eloquent today either.

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Eyes flicking down before returning at the compliment. "Thank you, sir."

Oh - of course this is something that could differ between cultures - even between cultures where no one is an alien. He looks up for a moment - not all the way up (of course).

"Oh, no sir - you have no responsibility for me. I'm here for your service only. 

This is the form of our etiquette, yes, sir. I can learnt to your culture and people's etiquette if you would wish that sir, as well as I can, though I am afraid I do not know it at all at the moment, sir."

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That's reassuring.  He re-calculates the shape he's building in his mind, now with an upper bound to go with the lower bound.  What he's expected to authorize is a category that does include sitting but does not include posture, at least in this particular instance.

"I will need to learn the local etiquette in either case, so I might as well get as much practice as possible.  Please tell me if anything I do is rude or stands out as unusual."

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...That's not actually strange, that makes sense, it makes sense to ask him - some places give dominants submissive tutors for this exact kind of reason he remembers, and he's here for service and to do what the alien dom might need.

He - isn't sure how to do it, but - that's fine, he might do it wrong and the dom might not like it (like any dom might not or - some other way, maybe) and - that's also what he's here for, he knows that. Why a sub with a healing factor is who they wanted. He isn't sure how to do it right but he can try and probably (hopefully) learn and that's why it's good if it's him. 

"...Yes, sir." Should he say (how can he say) - 

"No one will think you must know our ettiquette, sir - our country is - glad and honored to meet a new civilization." 

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"I realize it isn't required, but it's important to me anyway."

Azure already has a few questions from what he's seen so far, which he asks:  What does 'sir' imply?  Is there an equivalent term he should be using for Alessa?  Is averting the eyes a submissive thing?  It would be on the Fleet, and does seem to be, but he should probably check anyway.

(There are a few other things he's less sure about how to phrase.  'Are things that would normally be spoken between daemons spoken by humans or just not said,' for example, probably isn't a useful question.)

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(That's something to note and remember, about the alien dom.)

Sir (and ma'am) are the standard appellatives for submissive to use with dominants. Their etiquette only has this in one direction; there aren't corresponding terms. Looking down is for submissives. 

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Azure has a lot of questions about role, and should probably start with them.

"Is everyone either dominant or submissive, or are there non-dynamic and switch people here?"

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...Oh. Oh.

(He'd known in general that there were cultures with more roles, but details not really so much, and he's heard Kente's casual stories but -

it feels like he hadn't quite connected, at least not with this - straightforwardness. Suddenly.)

 

He needs to actually answer, not get lost in his own head.

"We have dominant and submissive, for roles.

I know some cultures have some other ones, but I don't know very much about it, I'm afraid, sir." 

...There is probably not a listening device here. The government won't be sure of all the alien dom's abilities yet, won't want to take the unknown risk of him noticing it. And if there is it - probably won't be so bad. He can say he was extrapolating from the other cultures existing. And - the official answer is what the alien dom will need to know, to know how things will work, but suddenly it feels important to tell what is - probably the truth, about people. 

"...I think we might have other kinds of people sometimes, sir. Even if not other roles." ...And he's caused himself a problem now, hasn't he (he should have thought this through better), he doesn't want the alien dom to be disoriented or embarrassed because he'd think that since Alessa just said that that's how things are and everyone would know it, when instead most anyone else he talked to would brush it off instead as an obvious silly confusion. And of course the alien dom might reasonably then say that that was what he told him, and of course he'd then be punished for it (and - possibly replaced, and that's much worse, he can't have that happen) but he can't say that. Among everything else what does that sound like, some kind of intrigue in a novel he didn't read.

He ducks his head harder. "I apologize, I think others wouldn't say so. I apologize for my presumptuousness sir."

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That was a surprising amount of emotion.  Azure is tempted to ask if Alessa is one of them, but suspects that might be an overly-personal question.

"So dominant and submissive are the only two legally and socially recognized roles in this country, and if people don't quite fit they're rounded up to whatever they're closest to?"  He can't say he's happy with that, though it also isn't surprising.  There are a few people in the Fleet's kink community who take issue with switches, even if they're a minority of a minority.

"I suspect the Fleet has a decent percentage of non-dynamic people, though it's hard to say for certain.  I can guess for many, but not everyone.  Ah - Fleet culture doesn't mark role visibly," he notes, remembering that Alessa wasn't part of the group who he'd explained that to. 

"Daemon element is a practical enough system to sort people that other things like role, gender, birth month, ...eye color? - have relatively little..." he pauses, unsure how to phrase it.  "...Societal requirement to engage with?  Even many people I'd immediately label as dominant or submissive wouldn't necessarily think to include those terms if describing themselves."

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"Yes, sir," he says to the 'legally and socially recognized' - that's a good way to put it, he thinks, like something to write in a book. (Though it wouldn't be good of course if he - tried to put it that way himself.) He's not sure what the dom means by rounded; knows there have been cultures with something different to determination.

"People self determine here as children, sir, almost all of them."

 

The next part sounds - confusing. Not that it's hard to imagine what that means - not having the dress code rules or customs, not using hairstyles or colors or other things instead like some places do. It's harder to imagine how it works - not that people can't read deep body language, of course, not that you'd really need to worry much about confusing people. But. (He wonders if their submissive learn to err on the side of caution; better use the etiquette due a dom and maybe make a submissive feel strange and wrong if you're unsure, than make the other mistake and anger a dom. ...Wonders if they get used to the receiving end of that. Wonders how the dominants do it, if a submissive mistaken for a dom for a moment might suffer some consequence of it.

But surely they have ways to deal better with it all, if that's the way they do and have done things...)

And non-dynamics then - he realizes he doesn't know at all what being non-dynamic (it's still strange to think that as such a simple word, a present concept) does to deep body language. Are they hard to tell apart, then? From who? And their society must not find that a problem...

 

The next part is much more confusing. He can't figure out what that could mean at all at first. But - daemon element. He knows that in some places with more roles the roles are something like - subdivisions. And that might feel harder to do, to him (though - probably it wouldn't, had he been born into one), especially for everyone, but if your soul takes shape and reveals it (?) (if he's connected that correctly from the summary he was given) then of course it would make sense that would be the world-wide system. And people might not think about the larger categories so much, if they had that obvious known one. (...And oh is that why they don't mark role visibly, because this is marked visibly always? (...do non-dynamic subcategories - overlap then, somehow, for it to be hard to tell...?))

 

He can say the acknowledgment to hearing/receiving. (It's - probably alright to look a little uncertain.) "We don't sort by gender or birth month or eye color either, sir." (...He wonders what doing that would mean, how someone would do it). "I apologize that I do not know your elements, sir, and cannot act more correctly. I will learn as quickly as I can if you wish it, sir."

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"Any sorting system I could have brought isn't going to be of much use when I'm the only alien here."

"Daemon element is unrelated to being dominant or submissive.  Each daemon shape falls into one of eighteen elements: fire, electric, ice, water, and so on, based on their capabilities.  For example, water types can typically create water out of nothing, control water, breathe underwater, or have bodies that let them swim easily.  It's less like a direct personality-based thing and more like organizing Gifts into categories, though daemon form is personality-based."

"Florentho is psychic-type, which is associated both with telekinetically moving things and affecting the mind.  If I returned and polled every other person with a gallade daemon I suspect we'd have both dominants and submissives among us, though few non-dynamics compared to other groups.  We have a strong sense of social structure, and our place in it.  Psychic-type in general probably skews dominant, but generalizing for types is less accurate than speaking about individual daemon forms."

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...He is confused again. Confused about this daemon element type - 'a practical enough system to sort people', the dom said, but now he said it's like organizing Gifts and - that doesn't seem helpful to sorting people at all unless you're recruiting them for very specific tasks (and he's not sure it even sounds like the most useful for that, the way the dom had said, creating water and breathing under it wouldn't really be used in the same kind of work...). Confused about the alien culture and their system(s); doesn't have more ideas for how to put together what he's hearing. 

(Also it's very strange to hear 'we have a strong sense of social structure, and our place in it' as something about some specific small subset of people.)

...That isn't actually important. He isn't here for this; the government will have scientists and diplomats who will be asking about the alien's world, putting understanding together. He has no permission for asking questions for his own understanding of something he doesn't need to know, or curiosity.

He says the acknowledgement again. 

"We don't have that, sir." Providing information is something he's here for. "Some people study how to categorize Gifts, and there are writings about it, but there isn't one system, and it isn't - something with societal engagement." (The dom's words feel a bit strange as he uses them - he wouldn't have thought that way, himself. But the dom had used them, so it can make sense to.)

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It bothers him that Alessa is still confused.  It means there's something that isn't getting past the culture gap, and Azure might fall in later.  

"Daemons and Moves are likely easier to categorize, as there are only so many moves and so many daemon forms while Gifts are one of a kind."

"How does your culture handle jobs, in relation to Gifts?  Is it difficult to get someone with the right Gift to fill certain jobs, or do they appear consistently enough for anything that can't be done without them?"

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He thinks something is bothering the alien dom, but he can't tell what it is or might be. Can't think of anything in specific, if he tries to run back over what he just said. (...Does he think people should be sorted by Gifts more, somehow, if that's important in the world he's from? Alessa can't do anything about it, if it's that). He's not sure if he can do anything about it either way. Tries to - keep answering well, keep himself rightly put together, remember to be promptly obedient.

"Yes, sir," he agrees. "There are similar Gifts but they're often not exactly the same. And sometimes the differences matters more - I wouldn't be as useful here, sir, if I couldn't push my healing factor outside my body at all, but not everyone's does that, if they have one."

"Oh it's - not quite like that for us, sir." That's interesting to think about, a world where it is like that. But he won't get distracted. "It's more like -" He tries to think (quickly, promptly). "like finding someone who has a really good talent for something, sir. Someone who's like that, they can do a lot if they find a place, or someone finds them. But everything has to - work, if you don't have anyone like that."