2018-04-06: A Girl Can Do Worse
- Log: A Girl Can Do Worse
- Cast: Tabitha deVriese, Loren Voss
- Where: Vane - Magic Guild
- Date: April 6th 2018
- Summary: Following up on a transmission, Loren finds a certain colleague who was believed to have been missing in action for the past year. Loren tries out optimism. Tabitha quotes scripture.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha deVriese, Vane Handylass, is actually currently...amusing herself? Sure, let's call it that. Which is to say, she's seated with one of the handful of students still left to Vane in the courtyard of the guildhall, leaning across the table and propping her chin up in one hand, smiling quietly to the youth across from her in a way that seems to have him completely enthralled judging from the way he's excitedly gushing out what appears to be totally inane details of his meaningless Lamb life.
She is dressed 'down', which is to say in a form-hugging blouse (the blouse doesn't appear to have much of a choice) and a long skirt, somewhat more in line with the style of the area than the gunslinger she normally dresses like for work. Her long blonde hair has been let to cascade down around her shoulders and to the seat of her chair. Still, the heavy wristlets - they look like some prototype Solarian wearable computing devices Loren may have seen - sure aren't from around here.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It had been luck, perhaps.
Already in the area of Vane when the transmission had come in -- data collection, both for regional lore and politics but also for anything useful, had brought him out this way -- it was a fairly simple matter to pinpoint a likely source.
deVriese... she'd been listed as MIA, hadn't she?
He can't say he understands how or why she'd be here, of all places...
But technically speaking: he also has no idea what brought them all to the moon, save that it was possible some form of ancient technology gone horribly awry.
It's not too much to think it's happened before.
The far more difficult task at hand is actually for him to... find her in the town.
It's a wreck. He ends up chasing down a few likelier-looking structures before approaching the guildhall proper -- of course, he should have realized -- and spotting a blonde woman.
It's in fact the devices at her wrist that give her away as Solarian (and not a local by any means), and it's at this point that he maneuvers into her approximate line of sight and makes a short gesture with his left hand.
'Retrieval', it means in Solarian military handsigns.
It's at this point that he makes an actual approach.
"Is this the guildhall?" he asks, lifting his gaze as if he were a new arrival to the town of Vane.
"...What a dump."
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha is straight up flirting with this kid and she's not being subtle about it. Still, to her credit, when someone enters her field of vision, she does tick her eyes up in short order, and--
Well she doesn't make the correct countersign, but she does get an expression like she saw a ghost, so maybe that's close.
She tracks him as he walks up, though she tries to turn some of her attention back to her conversation partner. She giggles conversationally, but then her eyes turn up more properly as a 'mysterious stranger' arrives, and she titters again, canting in her seat so she faces Loren, one arm wide with elbow on the table, tipping her head. "It's not the most glamorous, but the people here seem to think it's home." She raises her fingers in a brief wave to the young man she'd been amusing herself with, standing up to engage Loren. "And what sort of place have you come to us from?" she asks.
Her eyes cut up, narrowing just a touch. "I assume you are one of these newcome strangers," she says. "Lot of them camping out around here at the Guildmistress' kindness."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren has noticed that. There are a half-dozen judgemental thoughts he could have on that one, but, suffice to say...
More important is the ghost of recognition in her eyes, even if she doesn't give the proper counter.
Well, the message had said as much that she thought she wouldn't receive any sort of rescue.
And, to be honest, he'd half-wondered if perhaps it was some sort of fluke or trap, as out of place as it would be on the emergency channel, expired cipher and all.
Still, here she is.
Didn't they cross paths once after he'd started at Jugend? An upperclasswoman. Great.
...Ugh, he can't quite recall. Was it before or after his brother...
Derision -- over the nature of the guildhall -- is briefly colored by other, darker emotions.
Still, he's dry as always when he shrugs in response, lifts his blue-eyed gaze towards the heights of the guildhall. "I suppose. If you're interested in that." His attention comes to rest on Tabitha again.
'Get the Lamb out of here,' that look says in so many words.
(He may not get his wish on this. ...Immediately, at least.)
"The south." He pauses a moment, as if thinking. "Lastonbell. Maybe you've heard of it." Another pause, as she throws him a bone, as it were. "Something like that. And yourself?"
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
She doesn't betray recognition as she eyes Loren. She glances behind her at her one time partner, seeming to weigh something silently. Then she offers Loren a bit of a grin. "I'm interested in lots of things," before she turns, and titters and wiggles her fingers in a wave to the younger man. "You should get studying for that test, Marcus," she says, voice lilting with a friendly tease. "Maybe I'll come see you after if you do well!"
She steps up beside Loren. "Oh, I've been here a year or so," she says, leading forward a ways, toward a slightly more (...!?) populated section of the guildhall, and away from the main courtyard where all the Filgaians are camped out. There's a dang Wayside tent out there man. "Just sort of....landed," she says, putting a slightly extra emphasis on the word. A signal, of some kind. "And a girl can do worse than free rent and people who need her around, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What does he do? Well, he can't help but sigh, that's for sure. "Are you," he replies, arcing an eyebrow as if in evaluation of her statement.
He doesn't seem to be flirting himself, though (unless he's really really bad at this), whatever his statement might otherwise imply.
His gaze instead briefly tilts towards the Lamb. Marcus. Well, that's a bit of a funny coincidence, there, he thinks in passing.
And what does Marcus think of this? At best, maybe that they know each other. From the same neighborhood, maybe?
In any case -- Tabitha deVriese steps up to his side.
"A year," he replies, lowering his voice for the next: "I figured it was something like that." Implying, almost, that he had reason to guess at her situation ahead of time. "It's something similar for me. Though, I'll guess ahead of time that the precise circumstances aren't."
He follows after. There certainly is a Wayside tent that way, and other signs of life in town besides that he doesn't particularly want to engage... alone, and with other more pressing mission parameters in play.
He shrugs. "I suppose, under the circumstances. It's been rather unusual lately."
Which implies a... thing or two right there.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha just titters, but she doesn't crowd Loren or otherwise act too unseemly, other than perhaps a coy grin as she lets the subject of her interests float away.
"Mm," she hums. The notion that he might have some foreknowledge here isn't really revelatory; not after that hand sign. "Ahh, but it's never precisely the same," she says, chiding with a finger. "Even similar looking events can have totally different causes once you have all the information." She slips her hand behind her back, sweeping a leg behind her to turn a pretty smile on Loren even as she starts walking backward. She walks with light, easy steps, comfortable and confident. "We're both here, far from home. Two events, a year apart, but with no previous precedent. Have they been going on the whole time, and we simply didn't have a way to see? What a mystery!"
"Hmmm?" she prompts, arcing a fine eyebrow - how the hell is she even getting her eyebrows shaped in a backwater like this? There's the real mystery. "Has something changed, then?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There's small favors, perhaps, even if he seems largely unaware of the other... social dynamics at play.
But we digress.
He nearly grimaces, stifling a sigh. It's probably just as well he's unaware of precise hierarchy order at the moment and thus can... more or less approach her as a class equal (less adjustments for family shames, unusual class promotions, etc): thus his natural charming self is well on display. "Yes, yes. Starting positions and local perturbations," he replies, waving a hand a little dismissively. "If you want to get pedantic about it."
(This is a rich one, coming from him.)
Still, his attention's on her as she walks as confident and calm as can be, a study in contrasts to the tightly-wound medic. "Honestly, we have no idea." He blinks, as if realizing something. "--Right, you wouldn't know."
He stops then, turning to face her fully.
"It's not just me. ...You could say that. We'll want to fill you in everything that's happened."
He lowers his voice. "Back at the crash site, that is. ...It's not just me, or even a handful of us."
Well.
"...Your intel will help. The ship's stranded."
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha hems, amused by something or other in how Loren semi-responds to her excitement. She keeps walking backwards, the heels on her boots clacking as she steps with poise. Actually...agent training, maybe...? She's so light on her feet...
She's facing him, thus, as he stops, and her smile flickers. But doesn't quite leave. "I've literally been in the woods since the second event," she says, directly. "I don't know much of anything." Her hands rise up from coyly slipping behind her back to plant on her hip, her posture growing stronger. Her voice is quiet. "I stopped expecting to be retrieved a long time ago. Still wrapping my head around this." She cuts her eyes to the side, showing some vulnerability behind the flirtatious facade, but she sucks a breath in and sets her other hand on her hip, too. "Got a whole ship up here, did you?" She chuckles, but...there's something strangely conflicted in her face before she turns it downward, at the thought of quite a few Solarians being here. "Sounds like it did better than ours. I can take you. There's not much, but there's a sample refrigerator I want to get hooked up to a generator that doesn't rattle when it's running."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's slight, but he bristles -- as if somewhat put off by her amusement in him.
He is, perhaps, a little thin-skinned in this regard. Or something.
...What sort of training did deVriese have, anyway, now that he thinks of it. She was a few years above him, and it wasn't as if he was ever paying an extraordinary amount of attention to what his seniors were doing.
Being medical -- with everything else, field and ether training aside -- had largely eliminated that from the realm of things he had the free time to consider.
He supposes he'll find out soon enough.
She has her own bombshell to drop, as it were: that she doesn't know much about the geopolitical structure outside of this location and its surrounding region. "...Are you serious."
From the young man who spent most of the past year in contact with Lambs on a purely as-needed basis.
"Well... fine. At least you're probably familiar with the natural hazards." It's an unusually optimistic tack for the medical officer to take, but perhaps when you're stuck on the moon, you consider flexing new styles. "That's something."
"Got a whole ship up here, did you?"
"In a manner of speaking." He... sighs. "Some backfire effect from an ancient ruin. We're still not entirely sure what happened." He turns an eye towards her, glancing her over again. "...I suppose this is pretty lucky for you, though. You were listed as MIA. I doubt anyone would have looked on the moon."
He pauses, then adds: "Of course, somehow I doubt Command knows we're here now either." Which just implies they've lost contact.
When she mentions samples, though--
"Really."
Another, more thoughtful pause. "Hmm. Depending on whether or not it's just your lunch, the lab might want to see whatever you've got your hands on. Lead the way."
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
She moves with an easy confidence, but that she would be trained in some kind of physical arts is basically a given. Her outfit betrays nothing since it's not action equipment; all that gives away is that she takes a frankly kind of unreasonable amount of care of herself for the circumstances. How much moisturizer could there possibly even be on this rock...
The shackles could be a clue, except they seem inert. She seems barely aware of them, although they're far too big to be normal bracelets.
For her part she merely grimaces at Loren's displeasure. "I didn't have much cause to think I'd need to care, thank you," she says, and scoffs. "Politics isn't my department, anyway! I minister to the needy and stuff!" She spins away on a heel, dispersing nervous energy, wheeling around for a moment before coming back to a position to look Loren in the eye. Her lip quirks, and NOW she looks at the armlet, half consciously rubbing the smooth surface as if worried about it. "Yeah. Lucky," she says, distantly. "Surprised it wasn't KIA. I wasn't the only one on that shuttle."
She glances up. "They know," she says, as if she were stating an absolute fact. Two plus two is four. Water is wet. Lambs are animals. Command knows where you are. She sucks in a breath, considering. "I have at least a week of tag data on ninety-five percent of the people here prior to the second event. Most of them were short-term tags so the percentage of active tags is closer to twenty-five percent right now." ...which given Vane's pre-Filgaian population probably means 'four people'. She turns, starting to march off. "I'm pretty much out of storage space for all of it. For physical samples, wide variety of biological staples." She counts off on her fingers. "Hair. Blood. Stool. Urine. Male and female for each. The refrigeration unit's not big so the samples aren't that varied."
"....so no," she says, glancing back, and that thoughtful look turns back into that fun, pretty smile. "Not my lunch."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's really not sure what they could mean at all. Something distantly nags at the edge of his thoughts, but...
Well, it's something to check up on, if he's inclined, in her records. What sections are freely available to an officer of his low-ranking status, that is.
"It's hardly mine, either, but it always finds us in the end," he comments, on the nature of politics. "Even if it's just Lamb nonsense, there might be something we could use in the area. Maybe something with the guildmistress. If her daughter's missing..."
If there's one thing Gebler is good at, it's making (very unbalanced) agreements with local leaders.
"Anyway. Save it for the debriefing, deVriese."
Shuttle?, he thinks, and here his gaze very nearly asks the same question. He hasn't read up on her disappearance circumstances -- he doesn't have access to those files out here (security, as usual).
Another incidence of a transported vehicle? he wonders.
"They know."
He sort of half-shrugs, as if accepting this fact minutely. Fine, all else being equal, maybe they do -- it isn't as if they would be able to do anything anyway.
Solaris has no interest or capability for a space program. He knows that one.
Tag data. Well now, that's useful stuff. He nods, as if to indicate she should go on -- the tags aren't the long and short of it.
Of all the people Tabitha could have divulged that information to, Loren probably numbers among those who seems... mildly interested in her samples, shifting his weight as if he's actually listening to her now. "So they'd be uncompromised by recent arrivals. Interesting. The lab would want to take a look at that--"
Until, that is, she takes his earlier comment and turns it back on him. He pulls a sort of mute disgust/disbelief expressionwise, then slowly lifts a hand to his forehead.
For once, he's speechless; he doesn't seem to have a sarcastic comment in him.
"...Just show me where you're keeping it," he finally says, waving the white flag, as it were. "Transit will be dicey but I might be able to do something."
Water ether: probably useful for this, with some fine-tuning for appropriate temperature levels.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
"Hah. Sorry, bad news on that one," Tabitha quips. "The daughter's one Lemina Ausa. Turns out she was sent down to Filgaia. She came back while I've been out. Probably in the same whatever-it-was that you brought you up. I met her, she's cute."
Her gaze rolls toward Loren. Debriefing. There's a word she hadn't thought she'd hear again. She steps away, picking up pace. They're moving toward an area with a long line of doors. She glances over her shoulder, sensing his curiosity. "I was on my way to Aquvy for the last stages of training. Doctrinal stuff, mostly, I guess." She grimaces. "Then the pilot started screaming because the open ocean suddenly turned into a mountain range."
She steps up to one door. "Hope you brought your hiking shoes, cutie," she teases with a grin, sliding open the door to what turns out to be her own room. "It's way back in the forest. I'll get my gear on."
She closes the door, but doesn't shove it shut with enough conviction to latch it; it squeeks back open, even as the blouse goes flying off.
...Loren probably can't see her grin, but by now may have enough data to suspect she'd do that on purpose.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Her?"
Sometimes a single word says it all -- he's met Lemina before, at least in passing.
...Unusual magical abilities, at that. Possibly related to Lunar's... unique traditions. Something to keep in mind.
So startled is he by this revelation that the consideration that this leaves them without an immediate edge comes at a slight remove. "...Damn."
But at least hope springs eternal, after a fashion: "Well, you would know local politics," and here he's probably just being an ass, "best, deVriese. Maybe you can think of something we could use."
Pacing onwards -- puntuated by a glance to check for anyone tailing them, anyone at all too close at hand -- he at least... pulls a more soberly thoughtful expression as Tabitha details the particulars of her transit.
"No other survivors," he surmises, glancing over as she approaches one door in particular.
Only to let out a sound rather close to an 'uh' when she calls him 'cutie' and dips into her room here.
Look, between his nigh-social pariah status in Jugend and the demands of his particular career, he's not... really used to a comment like that.
And then, naturally, the door pops back open.
She's doing this on purpose, he'd swear it.
Naturally, he still averts his gaze, staring off at some point on the horizon, but attempts to forge through the sheer... awkwardness of this moment still with a flat, "Your door's open."
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
"I was blown out a hull breach before it actually crashed," is Tabitha's explanation from the far side of the door. "The impact killed everyone still aboard."
There's shuffling around, flashes of colorful clothing flashing past the slit.
'Your door's open.'
"The human body is a beautiful creation of God," she replies, as if this were somehow an answer to Loren's attempt to tell her to have some decency for once in her ridiculous life. "We honor Him by reveling in its wonders." If that's a quotation it is definitely being used out of context.
Regardless, she stops messing around in there and actually changes shortly afterward. Her 'gear', it turns out, is a white traveling overdress of the sort favored by Wastelanders and Etones, with a green stripe down the center that apepars to conceal a zipper that runs up the front of the garment. It's cut favorably on her, and her hips are cinched in with a gunbelt holding a single weapon that Loren may recognize as an Ether tag gun, a weapon that loads receptive 'tag' cartridges with Ether payloads from the user, and then fires them.
She sweeps her hair behind her, double checking her Cartridge belt, then grins at Loren, adding, "Also, Command watches everything we do and privacy is no more real than that fat Lamb solstice spirit." She smiles, pretty and demure. "Let's go, shall we?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Fortunate," runs his assessment of that turn of events. "It must have bad landing. For you, that is."
Given the approximate speed of a shuttle, her velocity...
She must have had her emergency gear on, he answers that conundrum with.
And soon forgets about it altogether.
"Citing scripture?" He lets that one weigh in the air for a moment before adding: "Well, at least it's not bleeding or dead. Most human bodies I see are one or the other." He then appends further: "Or technically both."
Sometimes one leads into the other fairly quickly. Briefly, he reflects on the status of those guards in Bledavik, the ones Keil had killed.
Or his classmates, those few poor bastards who'd needed to be recycled in the end after what van Houten had done.
Sometimes both.
She steps out a little while after that, prompting him to once more look her over, now that she's changed.
But she's not done talking. He sort of looks at her sidelong for a moment or two before answering that statement with a "...Right."
Earlier comments shine in a somewhat different light with that little tidbit. Great. All this time alone with the Lambs on the moon has left her delusional.
He, in this moment, purposefully does not reflect on the fact the he himself has felt increasingly out of sorts among his own people back on the Tzadkiel, compared to his assignments on Filgaia.
"...Just lead the way."