2021-10-23: Double Twice the Bunny
- Log: Double Twice the Bunny
- Cast: Ovelia Metalspeaker, Seraphita
- Where: Etrenank
- Date: October 23, 2021
- Summary: Seraphita makes use of her own opportunity to extend one to another. Surely this will turn out Fine for everyone involved.
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
There is little suspicious about Seraphita asking after Azoth or Ovelia. She has worked with him before, will likely again, and has the authority to request him as an asset. Most Geblers do, and Seraphita is an Element -- the Azoth Project is not classified above her reach. Ovelia Metalspeaker is kept confined precisely because of her knowledge on the Azoth, at once a possible threat to the project and an important resource. She is a third class beastfolk, and rights aren't afforded to her.
What approaches Seraphita, then, is a trembling, diminutive rabbit beastfolk, only about three feet in height and looking even smaller as she cowers, her long ears drooped down her back. She's dressed in a small cap, goggles balanced on the bill, and overalls well worn, but clean from lack of use. Her fur is blonde -- mainly notable because it's the exact same shade as Azoth's hair. 'Family resemblance', he'd said.
"I... I, um. I --" She fidgets her hands together -- which look a fair bit more like stubby paws -- and glances nervously around before daring to let herself look at Seraphita.
Once she does, her large, round eyes somehow encompass even more of her face as she takes in the full force of pink before her.
"......... Big."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita doesn't actually use her authority very much.
She is the head of the Elements, though not their field commander - that's usually Dominia, who has a much better mind for tactics than Seraphita does, so Seraphita defers to her. It's more of a first-among-equals situation.
But any of the Elements are accountable to only one person in Gebler, Kahran Ramses, and various members of Solaris high leadership. Nobody else. Seraphita rarely uses this privilege to boss anyone around; she mostly uses it in the course of her long deployments where she might be away from Solarian contacts for a while, and has to act without checking in or getting new orders.
But if Seraphita wants to talk to someone - especially someone associated with a project she's worked with before, that she certainly knows about (and is supposed to) - well, when she wants it, it happens. And really, this is Solaris. Nobody's going to care too much about the well-being of a demihuman Third Class.
As both Ovelia and Seraphita know.
Seraphita doesn't really have an office either, so she stole a meeting room. It's usually used for classified discussion and so she is pretty sure nobody will bother her there if she's holding it. Which means Ovelia got brought to a place inside Solaris where she may be unaccustomed to going (under guard - it's Gebler territory) to talk to someone with actual rank.
She didn't consider what this looked like first. She probably should have.
Seraphita is sitting down when Ovelia enters. She gives a look at the guard behind her, and Ovelia is left in there with just Seraphita, who is considered perfectly capable of defending herself and doesn't need military backup in this situation.
And then...
"Hi!" Seraphita says, brightly. It doesn't even sound like false cheer. "I wanted to talk to you! I didn't know what you were doing these days so I had someone find out so you could come here and..." Her brows furrow. She seems to have picked up on the nervousness.
"You're not in trouble," she adds, firmly. "Not even a little bit! You're Ovelia, right? Ovelia Metalspeaker?" It would be just her luck that they found a different beastfolk. Though, she looks like what Azoth said...
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
One would be hard pressed to consider Ovelia a physical threat in any capacity. That does not mean guards have not been bitten before, or that she hasn't been grabbed by the scruff and carried from point A to point B. But these acts of rebellion have slowed to a halt in the past year, Ovelia learning well they do nothing except give her more hell than is worth the feelings of vindication.
Today that hell might be being set on fire. By an Element.
Ovelia is much too small in a meeting room that is much too big. Seraphita is also, as noted, big. And pink! And made of fire.
And... cheer.
Ovelia's stupefied expression does not find any more intelligence with Seraphita's bright greeting and casual manner. Not being in trouble, it seems, is even more baffling. But eventually, those drooped ears of hers dare to creep skyward, giving a twitch halfway up. Ovelia points to herself.
"To me," she says, as if one of the two of them has lost their minds. "Um." Ovelia slaps her paws to her cheeks to get a hold of herself. "That's me! Ovelia Metalspeaker. If you have a problem that needs doing, Ovelia can do it! ...Proooobably. Probably I can do it. What, er, what did you want to talk about?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita is on the tall end, compared to most people, but she's not really used to towering over someone quite *this* much. She feels like she should be sitting on a lower chair, except she's pretty sure her knees wouldn't like that. Maybe on the floor...? No, that's even ruder!
"Right! Okay. I'm Seraphita," Seraphita says, which may have not been necessary - most Thirds may not be able to identify Gebler officers, but Ovelia has done work for the military and also Seraphita is...
Distinct. In a way that a lapine beastfolk might particularly remember. Her own ears flick once, but they are floppy enough that they're not going to perk up; they just bend forward under their own weight. In her defense, they are very long.
"What kind of problems?" she asks, curious. "Do you do all sorts of engineering work? Because that's actually sort of what I wanted to talk about! Did you know I've been working with Azoth lately? And talking to him. I bet nobody's told you anything about him in a while...?"
She is willing to bet that Ovelia doesn't get a whole lot of news.
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
The only polite way to talk to Ovelia is to let her stand on the table. Ovelia is too terrified to stand on the table right now. Ovelia does not know how she should be acting right now, manic energy visible in the twitches of her whiskers and the slight tremble of a foot that wants so badly to thump the alarm.
She nods along as Seraphita mentions engineering. "That's right. I speak to metal! I can persuade machines into doing tasks. Or heal them." She sighs and gestures vaguely. "...Programming and repair." Ovelia wasn't born in Solaris. She was taken here. But perhaps even this outlook would be a tad unique on the surface.
But Seraphita mentions Azoth, and Ovelia flinches back before going deathly still, frozen in time on an instinct that says if she doesn't move, maybe she does not get eaten and the world does not end. ...Sometimes instincts like this are not so useful in conversation.
Ovelia opens her mouth and shuts it, clearly considering her next words carefully. But she begins to tremble so much she begins to vibrate. "No, I haven't seen him since -- er, I mean. I haven't worked on him for... for a year." Her ears droop, saying it out loud being a realization as much as an answer. Her next question comes quiet: "How is he?"
Seraphita's bet would be right.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"Really? Well, I never got the hang of most of that! Did you learn it here, or there?" That seems a safe enough question.
Seraphita lacks the same instincts Ovelia apparently has - some beastfolk have them, some don't, and Seraphita is close enough to human as these things go. Ears, a tail, hands and feet that are a little too big. Her parents were human, after all. Stray mutation, they said - not a culture.
But she recognizes them anyway and so Seraphita stands up - and then sits down again.
On the floor.
Sitting on a chair, or standing, Seraphita is much taller than Ovelia; sitting on the floor she's not, and while it looks (and, honestly, feels) a little ridiculous she thinks it might help, a little. Not that she consciously puts it into words, but still. It certainly makes her tower less.
"I like him!" Seraphita says, "and he's in one piece! I mean... the same number of pieces he was before." She isn't aware how many he is missing, but she *is* aware that his 'combat form' looks more than a little damaged. "That's not the problem! It's..."
"...I think he's lonely. He doesn't have a lot of friends. And he misses you! Which is why I wanted to find you. Have you *really* not been working on anything lately?" 'Is there a secret project I don't know about', Seraphita really wants to know, but she's not allowed to ask that.
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
Seraphita's manner is infectious, and her status as a fellow beastfolk -- especially lapine, like Ovelia herself -- is undoubtedly contributing to chipping away at the tension Ovelia walked in with. Bit by bit, that nervousness keeps getting swat aside in favor of meeting Seraphita's energy in kind.
"There!" Ovelia replies with gusto, a paw raised high. "Mostly. Some of it here. Working with Azoth has been an enlightening experience on Zeboim era technology...!"
No offense is taken when Seraphit sits (but she is still big!). Whiskers twitch less and Ovelia's ears stand comfortably upright without reservation.
Seraphita says she likes Azoth and something in Ovelia's eyes glitter. And then she says Azoth is lonely, and Ovelia's eyes gloss.
"Oh," she says at first. Her ears fall again, and she grabs hold of them, fidgeting. "Oh." She sniffs. "He shouldn't -- shouldn't miss me. I." And there it is, big fat tears that Ovelia catches using her own ears to try and mop it up. When that isn't enough, she pulls her hat down and stuffs her face in it.
"No. Not really. I'm... I'm kind of kept... alone. So I won't... do anything bad again." By 'do anything bad' she probably means all that business with supposedly helping steal his core from the Gear in the first place. Voice muffled by hat, she pops back out of it to speak more clearly. "But sometimes they give me pieces of his code they don't understand and I, um, help with that."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita's outfit does not lend itself well to pockets, but her uniform jacket (or whatever it counts as... uniform shirt?) do have small ones. She goes into them and pulls out a handkerchief, although one that appears to have a paper-wrapped hard candy tangled in it somehow.
She keeps the candy, but she gives Ovelia the handkerchief. Using your ears just feels wrong! And this is from someone who has long enough ears that she could do that if she wanted to.
"Well, that's good! I'm sure he appreciates it," Seraphita says. "But I want to make you a deal, actually. About that."
"...I don't have an engineer. I mean, a chief mechanic, for Grandgrowl. That's my Gear," Seraphita explains. "It looks like a lion! With wings! It's really neat. And I don't think it's right, that he doesn't get to see you ever."
"So! I was wondering, if you wanted to join my mechanic team. You wouldn't be the chief mechanic," yet, "but you'd get to see Azoth. I don't think you could work on him, but you could talk to him!" Seraphita is not naive enough to let someone who might 'do anything bad' at Azoth's mechanics. But she feels, quite honestly, that it isn't right to keep Azoth, a prisoner and a tool, away from everyone he likes. Or Ovelia, for that matter.
"If you want to...? He doesn't know I'm asking," Seraphita adds. "It would be a surprise for him! And you don't have to say yes, if you don't trust me, or you don't want to. I know I'm an Element, in Gebler.
"And I won't lie! You'll probably get watched too. They watch everyone, even me." She doesn't say why. Maybe Solaris Intelligence is just that paranoid. "But... I know what it's like to be a demihuman here, too. And you won't have any of *those* problems with me." That, at least, she's very firm about.
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
Ovelia pauses as she's offered the kerchief, but decides accepting it better than refusing and pats at her eyes with another sniff. "...Th... Thanks." She takes a deep breath, trying to rush herself into calming, as if that has ever been how calming works.
Seraphita offers... a deal. Ovelia's ears perk back up as she slides her hat on. She looks tired, but there's a gleam in her eye at Grandgrowl's description. But at the mention of Azoth, all those tears she worked so hard to stop well up again.
"Yes!"
She says it faster than she ought to, so abruptly and loudly that she startles herself into a flinch. Even Seraphita recognizes trust shouldn't come easy, but Ovelia isn't in a position with much left to lose anymore. Kept in a tiny room, isolated and only offered work that's going to drive Azoth deeper into the hole she put him in.
So after her flinch, she steels herself. "Y-Yes," she repeats. "I'll do it. The mechanics. I took care of Azoth. I can take good care of Grandgrowl! I promise! I can take really really really good care of it!" Her heart's unfortunately right on her sleeve -- Ovelia's desperate for this opportunity, and has none of the experience to know how to hide it.
The demihuman remark sobers Ovelia. There is a kinship there. Ovelia doesn't know how Seraphita maintains her position while being a demihuman, but clearly not by throwing her own to the wolves. She might've asked why Seraphita would do all this for her. Or Azoth, even. But everything put together, she's already got a good idea of an answer.
"...You're not what I expected," she says instead, because this is a very poorly socialized rabbit.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"Great! You can come with me after, once you get your clothes and things - I don't think I have anything in your size anywhere where I work and there are tools and things, right? - and I'll show you Grandgrowl and then you can get settled in! I'm not working with Azoth this weekend, but I'm sure we'll see him again soon!"
Ovelia is desperate for this opportunity...
...but Seraphita offered it because she thought it was a good idea. She's not breaking any rules, she's decided. She's put her on a project that doesn't waste her that might also motivate someone else. And, of course, what she said before is entirely true - she really doesn't think it's right, the way some people treat Azoth. Or Ovelia, for that matter.
Seraphita is getting a bit of a reputation for collecting the people nobody else wants - and it's not like she's being punished by being asked to. She doesn't like the way Solaris treats some people - and in her own way, she's going to make it better any way she can.
Ovelia says she's unexpected. "Really? People tell me that a lot, but I don't know why, because I always act like me," Seraphita says, sounding as confused as she looks. "Why would I want to act like someone else?"
<Pose Tracker> Ovelia Metalspeaker has posed.
Ovelia nods furiously. "I -- I do have some things to collect." Did that sound suspicious? She hopes it wasn't suspicious. "But it won't take long!" She also has two middle fingers to give Erica Axton. Wait. Ovelia squints at her paws, which are not entirely well suited to such profane gestures. ... A problem.
But she needs to focus. Things are finally shifting. She's been isolated for a year and that's probably why she's not great at talking to people. (She as never great at talking to people. She's not Ovelia Peoplespeaker.) There's hope in that, however small.
When Seraphita answers her somewhat rude observation, Ovelia presses her lips together, cheeks puffed in awkward realization of what it is she might be getting into. "That's a good point," she relents.
Well. It is!
She takes a deep breath and tries to puff herself up. "But! Um! Thank you. I -- I won't let you down!" She smiles, finally, for the first time since she walked in. "...Thanks for looking after Azoth."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita beams right back. "I'm glad he has someone who he's family with. I don't know where I'd be without my grandmother! She gave me all sorts of advice and, you know, it's never steered me wrong!"
Seraphita hops (literally) back up to her feet, spending a moment to push her hair back. "So great! Let's do that. I'm glad to have actually met you. And I'm sure you won't!"
Surely this will never cause any problems, Seraphita doesn't think. It never occurs to her to.