2023-12-19: Questions and Answers
- Log: Questions and Answers
- Cast: Kaguya, Mariel
- Where: Kattleox Outskirts, Near the Rocket Construction Pad
- Date: December 19, 2023 (Dec 19 505 PC) (Takes place /before/ the transition to Chapter 3)
- Summary: Kaguya takes a break from work on the rocket, while Mariel approaches, seeing an opportunity to give some helpful equipment--and ask a few questions. An unlikely conversation ensues.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya has been hard at work on the rocket. She's mostly been working on the computer and weapons systems--two things she's very good at, particularly with pre-existing architecture from Grace's ship for the former. But everyone needs a break sooner or later, and there are other things to finish... so Kaguya has moved away some from the rocket to take a seat some distance away. She has a tablet out, flipping through various readings, because she's bad at taking breaks, and good at custom technology that even most of the Veruni don't have access to anymore.
It's growing towards nightfall; the afternoon sun is fading towards evening. Kaguya's still in some of her safety equipment, in fact.
It's not particularly quiet, but she is for once.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel has not been helping build a rocket, even though she knows about rockets and has even been to space!
This is because she knows *about* rockets, rather than having any idea how to build one. She could provide occasional advice, but... honestly, the people who have actually been studying that could do better, and so she has decided not to interrupt.
But she did say she'd provide some parts, and that's why she's here now.
Mariel is, instead of carrying her satchel, carrying a box. It's big enough that she practically vanishes behind it from the waist up, but it doesn't appear to be *too* heavy... it's not light, but she's not about to fall over as she approaches with it, trying to peek over it with mixed success.
"Is this... an all right time? I brought some things that might be of use."
She might have been waiting for Kaguya to be available before she showed up with it. She did, after all, have things to ask her, even if she hadn't told Kaguya that.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya has never built a rocket herself, but has also been to space! But she's not picky about where they get their parts; anyone willing to help gets to be on the team, so far. And so when Mariel shows up with a box, Kaguya looks over to her and tilts her head. "Eh?" Oh. It's Mariel! She didn't see her behind the box, at first. Kaguya stands and walks over, "Sure, it's a good time," she says.
"Here," she says, and moves to take the box if Mariel will allow her, looking into it to see what's there.
"We appreciate whatever we can get." But these are...?
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel doesn't *quite* drop the box. It does thump down, though, when she sets it down, unless Kaguya catches it. "That's a little harder to carry than I expected," she admits, a little sheepishly.
Inside is...
A stack of plates that appear to be made out of a frame of wood with fiber and something like paper, with a slot down the side of the frame where a cylinder gets inserted. The cylinders are also in there, along with a bottle of liquid to fill the cylinder - it appears to be some kind of system to keep the filter moist, wicking into the fibers, but the bottle is something other than water judging by its intensely green-blue colour.
"They're air filters," Mariel explains. "I heard that the system was meant for a smaller ship, so I did what I could... I think I made a few too many, though. But better too many than too few, I suppose?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya catches the box easily; she's about Mariel's height, and very strong. "Heh." It's a little awkward, of course--but it's fine. Kaguya looks down and sees... Hmmm.
"Ohhh," she says, and nods along. "I see it now. These'll help a lot--they tend to forget things like 'we need air' and 'zero gravity will be a thing for part of the trip' since they've never been to space."
Kaguya sets the box down more gently, "I'll take that over shortly, I was going to get back to work soon anyway."
"..."
There's an awkward moment where Kaguya is standing near Mariel at conversational distance and finds she doesn't have a ton to say immediately. She remembers to say, "Oh! Uh. Thanks. --I mean, not that you won't be using them too. You're coming along, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
The filters look primitive, honestly, compared to the rocket. They smell faintly wood-y with an undercurrent of something like pine resin.
"It's based on something I've used before - for underwater breathing," Mariel explains, picking up the bottle of blue-green liquid. "It's derived from a berry you probably haven't seen - I don't know where it grows wild, anymore. But these work. I tested it by keeping a candle burning in a closed box."
"Zero gravity is a different problem... I don't like it very much. It... gets awkward." Mariel reaches for one of her braids, wiggling it. "These are really too long to be appropriate there - but I don't want to cut them. I've had them too long... But yes, I am coming along. I'll find some way to deal with them; at least I can prepare for it this time."
She trails off. This probably doesn't help the proximity-awkwardness any. Then: "Kaguya, do you have some time? I have some... other questions..." Mariel looks anxious, which isn't really too unusual; she doesn't quite meet Kaguya's gaze straight-on.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya isn't gonna say they look primitive. Maybe there's some hidden depths to them or something. The awkwardness is because she's trying to be polite and she isn't very good at it.
But, "Oh?" Beat, "Oh, cool. I like that kind of thing, but haven't had a lot of time to just explore the flora, you know?" Tested... and it works.
"You've been up before?" Kaguya wonders. "...On the Locus Solus most of the ship had artificial gravity, so we didn't have to deal with it too much."
Mariel trails off, and--
Kaguya will take any option over the awkward silence that was developing, made worse by that anxious look. "Eh?"
"Oh, sure. I don't have to go back right away or anything." Pause. "So..."
"Sure, what's on your mind?"
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel mostly works in wood and plant products. It's just the way things are. Fortunately, she isn't doing anything that goes on the outside of the rocket.
"...I can give you a sample of the berries," Mariel offers, perhaps as a peacemaking attempt. "They don't grow very easily but the seeds are in them. The berries are edible, and you can hold your breath for a very long time with just them, but have side effects when consumed raw - I spent a lot of time getting a product from them that worked without them."
Mariel answers the direct question first because it's easy. "Three times. Once a very long time ago, and twice more recently, through Elw ruins. Jairon - it was a town on the sea, and nobody lives there now. But it had its own teleporter system, and one of the destinations was to a weather observatory satellite. It still works."
Which is pretty impressive, given the town has been unoccupied for at least five hundred years and so the satellite isn't exactly getting maintenance.
Kaguya's left her an opening, though: "The Locus Solus. That was your ship? The Veruni ship?" she clarifies. "That they left Filgaia with? When was that? Because... I didn't know anything like that. You don't - feel like someone from Filgaia..."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya is obviously surprised by the offer, blinking once and then brightening. "That'd be great!" she says. "I love researching new plantlife. It's Ok if they're hard to grow. Everything's hard to grow on Filgaia these days, I don't mind a challenge."
Hmmm... Side effects. "I see. Cool."
Three times. "Ohhh," Kaguya says. "I see... Crazy that it's recent. But then, I guess the Elw had stuff to do in space after all. I never knew. I thought it was just my people."
THe opening!
"That's right," Kaguya says of the Locus Solus. "It's... basically a graveyard now, full of old Veruni in cryosleep. But it was my home. It was about... five thousand years ago? The end of the Zeboim era."
"When Lord Blazer was active. We tried to stop him, and when we failed, we left. ...We found another planet, but it didn't last us long."
"So that's probably why. A few Veruni who are originally from Filgaia survived in cryosleep, and a lot have been born here in the last century or so, but the planet holds us at a distance."
Pause. "...Can't really blame it, anymore." That's a little bitter, but not at the planet.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel expected to use the berries as a bribe, but she didn't bring them out immediately. So it may be a surprise to Kaguya when she reaches into the very bottom of the box - and pulls out a small glass jar that does indeed have berries in it. They are pale blue, with hints of green, and closest to blueberries in shape but larger. "They have a pyrene - a pit, like a cherry," Mariel explains. "You'll have to break it to get the seed out, without breaking the seed. That's the hard part."
But it's something that a botanist should know how to do, so Mariel doesn't dwell on it. She figures Kaguya knows how.
Instead, she listens. There's a slight frown that she can't keep off her face even though she tries. They're from Filgaia, but so long ago... "You're not human," she says, and doesn't mean it rudely - Kaguya has pointed ears, after all. "I didn't know anyone left then, but it doesn't really surprise me. A lot of information was lost around the Zeboim era, and it was well before I was born, anyway... some of the elder Elw might have known, but not me. So that's why..."
She actually does meet Kaguya's eyes, for a moment, before she asks, "Why?" A beat, then: "Why come back to a planet that doesn't accept you?" What did they do to be rejected, Mariel wants to know, but doesn't ask that - she doubts Kaguya has an answer.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
It does surprise her a little--but Kaguya makes the connection a moment later, because she's used to 'negotiations' like this. "Cool," she says, and nods. "OK, I see." Kaguya puts the jar away for now; she does, indeed, know how to do that.
But she doesn't bother taking issue with Mariel's frown; she's frowning, too. "That's right. We developed differently, over time. We were always a little different, I think. But five thousand years in space and then on another planet, and evolution took up a little faster than usual."
Lost... "So you guys lost it too, huh? Guess that makes sense."
Why? Kaguya pauses--and then grins humorlessly. "Desperation," she says. "Conquest. The Veruni used up all the resources of that other planet we found. I don't know if there were just few resources or if we just got greedy--but one way or another, we couldn't find any more planets that were inhabitable. So we chose to come back and try our luck..."
"The planet didn't reject us when we left. It rejected us when we came back."
She shakes her head. "And most of us still look at it that way. We can't coexist; we take by our own strength or we die. That's just how the Veruni are."
"...It sucks," Kaguya says. "Like..."
"It doesn't have to be that way. I believe that, anyway. But as long as we think we have to 'own' the world, I don't see it changing. The wall between human and Veruni--between Elw and Veruni--is just too tall until then."
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
'So you guys lost it too, huh?'
"...not as much, but humans and Elw... we were closer, once. Before the Metal Demons. And I was not the best student of history," she has to admit. "When there were people here to teach this, I was very young. Fulcanelli would have known - he was the oldest Elw living, and he would have been alive to see it. But I never thought to ask, when I could - and now I no longer can."
She didn't part with Fulcanelli on good terms, but *that* is not something she is prepared to go into with Kaguya any more than she might already know. Better to just let her think that, like the other Elw, he is dead.
Kaguya explains further, and Mariel listens. She wanted to know this, even if it's hard. And she is predisposed to dislike the Veruni - and Kaguya, specifically - but there's nowhere else she could possibly learn this.
It's clear she doesn't understand, really. Humans - and Veruni apparently - talk about 'owning' the world, ruling it, making it their own. That's a concept that Mariel, even after a thousand years, five hundred of which were on her own, struggles with. It doesn't seem like something that's possible. How can you own the planet - Filgaia, and all the life on it, can't belong to anything but itself. Anything more than 'this is the area where I live; this is the area I take care of' is hard. She had enough trouble understanding the desire to *not* care for the whole thing.
But she's trying.
"...I see," Mariel says, eventually. "I can't imagine traveling like that, even if Filgaia was dangerous... but I'm too attached. I don't want to leave. Even this - " She looks toward the rocket. "Marduk isn't very far, but I still don't know if I want to fly there. I have to, but I don't know if I *want* to. ...I wonder if that other planet changed you? It would, surely, have a life and spirit of its own, made up of everything on it... but that's beside the point, isn't it?"
Another long pause. Mariel is good at those. "What do you want to do, then? And why did you never mention this, before?" Well, she DID, just not to Mariel. "I thought - you were something like the Metal Demons. Except the Veruni have never - "
She considers the best way to put it. "People like Riesenlied work very hard," she eventually says. "Mother was a threat to everything, and they don't want to be like that. But I don't know any Veruni like that." Unless that's the role Kaguya is choosing.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Hmm... I see. I wonder how the Veruni and the Elw got along, back then? I assume not great. Considering." Fulcanelli... "Well, nobody to ask. Guess I'll just wonder."
Kaguya isn't inclined to pry too much about the Elw right now; she's curious, but she thinks Mariel has it pretty hard already, and Kaguya isn't exactly someone with the most right to push, after destroying that Guardian statue all those years ago.
"I guess we weren't," Kaguya admits. "Or maybe we were just afraid." She considers that. "...Hm. Yeah," Kaguya says. "I get the distinction. And maybe you're right about that other planet. I don't know anything about it; it's before my time. I was born in space, on the ship."
What does she want to do?
"...No," Kaguya says. "The Veruni are absolutely a threat to everything. Lord Volsung's plans will see every human on the planet dead sooner or later. Probably you, too. There's only room for one of us in the eyes of the people in charge--one species. One ruler."
"...But I guess I've volunteered myself to try to fix it," she says, looking down and away. "Realizing what I did, I... I realized I was angry at the wrong people. At the Guardians, and not at my ancestors, for helping wreck the planet and then abandoning it. I can't take back the things I did... But I can try to help the planet now."
"And I am. Zenrus gave me something that could only work if I were part of this world. And it does work. I've chosen my side, and it's Filgaia."
"...But there's others among the Veruni who want to coexist, too. They're on the run from Lord Volsung. But sooner or later, they'll have to stop running, and start fighting."
"I just started sooner, I guess."
"As for why, well... I haven't made it public much because that's a great way to get Kartikeya sent after you."
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
By the time Mariel was born, the Veruni had been gone for perhaps three and a half or four thousand years. It's not really a surprise that even the long-lived Elw did not really concern themselves with the vanished people anymore... at least, not enough to cover it with someone who was still, ultimately, nearly a child during the first Metal Demon War.
So she knows nothing beyond what she's been told today, or what might be in a book she hasn't read. And about the Zeboim collapse, and Lord Blazer, both of which she knows some things about - either from history or from Marivel.
"What was that?" Mariel asks. She knows, in a vague sense, who Zenrus is - but he is from Lunar, not Filgaia, and she doesn't know the details or what Kaguya might have been given.
But... "To coexist..." Mariel trails off, then gives it another go: "I don't know. Humans and Elw used to coexist, but... it's not really our time anymore. The Elw, I mean. This world is a world for humans. Maybe you can coexist with them, but the Elw... Well, I am the only one here. And as for the Guardians, I can't speak for them."
Another pause, then: "Is that why you are helping now? With the Wise Men? You could let them do what they want. I don't think they even care enough about Filgaia to attack it, beyond getting what they wanted from it. Because..."
"...I do appreciate that."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Most of the Veruni don't know about Lord Blazer--Kaguya has put together more of the ancient history than many. And it changed her, when she did.
"The Zeikfried," Kaguya explains. "Here. I don't usually show it to people, but I don't see you stealing a weapon." Kaguya reaches to her holster, checks that the safety is one, and extends it grip-first to Mariel. "It draws on 'the power of Lunar and the power of Filgaia' to seal away evil. It's what I used to help defeat the Lord of Calamity. Someone who can only do one or the other wouldn't be able to do the trick."
"...Of course, I've got my magic tied up in attunement with it, but that's a sacrifice I'm OK with."
Then, "I see... Yeah. I guess it doesn't count as coexisting on a wide scale when it's just you, huh? Then it's just 'living in their world'."
"I think we can. And the Guardians, well... The Guardians have a good reason right now to oppose the Veruni. But I don't think it's their fault. I think they're reacting to the planet's 'will'--rather than being the ones to reject us, they reject us because Filgaia rejects us. That's what I came to believe anyway. ...But if I can find a way to stop Lord Volsung, the reason will go away. Hopefully."
But the Wise Men, and why she's helping now? "...Yeah," Kaguya says. "I could. It probably wouldn't affect me much. And maybe a couple of years ago I would've, or I only would've come along to get into space, like Grace."
"But I picked a side, and I made some promises, so... I'm going to keep them, and protect this world. It's my home now, anyway. So... you're welcome."
She'll take the weapon back, or if Mariel never takes it, just show it to her and put it away.
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel, perhaps too surprised to say no, actually touches Zeikfried.
Kaguya was right: she's not going to steal it. When she picks it up, it's with a bit of hesitation, and she seems to have no idea how to actually hold it properly; for all her age, Mariel has no experience whatsoever with firearms, and she's uncomfortable even holding it with her finger nowhere near the trigger and not pointing it at anything but the ground.
But she can feel - something about it. Not everything, without going into a trance, which she's not going to do. It's rude, especially with it being bonded to Kaguya - like looking in on someone while they're sleeping. But there's definitely a power there.
She hands it back almost immediately. "I'd like to learn more about this 'sealing'," Mariel says. "I learned a little, from the Sealing Rod - when I took it apart, and put it back together. But this is something else."
Do the Guardians have a good reason? "The Guardians are an aspect of Filgaia," Mariel agrees. "They protect Filgaia because they're a part of it. Filgaia is alive, though not in precisely the same way you or I are; it's a network of life, of which we're part. They're... more directly a part of that network, a 'larger' being. If the Veruni weren't a danger to Filgaia..."
Then yes, they might accept them. But right now, that can't ever happen.
Another long moment, as Kaguya puts the Zeikfried away. "Thank you," Mariel says, quietly. "I - you made me uncomfortable. You still do, a little... but I'm glad that you have decided to help Filgaia. To be part of its connections, its 'bonds'."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
For Kaguya, it's a major sign of trust; Zeikfried is something entrusted to her, a sacred relic under her personal protection. But while she doens't know Mariel all that well, she knows what she represents. And that's good enough for the moment.
Kaguya takes it back when it's given to her. "Sure," the small Veruni says. "I'll demonstrate it sometime. Hopefully we won't meet anything that needs its power--but I can still show you the basics. It also conjures ammunition out of the Blessing--which is good, because I don't have that myself."
But the Guardians... It's very reassuring, in a way--and more than that--for Kaguya to hear that her theory sounds reasonable from someone like Mariel. "...Thanks," she says. "I've just been guessing. The first Guardian I ever saw wouldn't even acknowledge I existed. It was... rough. It was only thinking this way that let me get over it."
Mariel thanks her again, and Kaguya opens her mouth and then closes it. "...Well," Kaguya says, "That's fine. I'm a little prickly. I know that much. Even aside from... all the rest. And I've got this... curse that I'm not going to go into right now, but it wouldn't surprise me if you sensed it. But it's cool, because I'm a little uncomfortable around you, too. I want to deal with you as an individual, not just as 'an Elw', but I don't know you. So I end up defaulting to 'the Elw', and that's... not really fair to you."
"...Anyway that's all I wanted when I was younger," Kaguya says. "To be part of the world. When I was just a botanist who was looking forward to spreading her flowers across a new planet." A pause. "...Of course, now I know about 'invasive species' and such so I'm going to be a lot more careful, but--"
"Point is, it's what I wanted in the first place. So... you're welcome. And thanks."
"...I should probably get your filters to the machine. Was there anything else, before I do?"
<Pose Tracker> Mariel has posed.
Mariel didn't always agree with the older generations of Elw about some things. She isn't, perhaps, the best representative of the Elw Kaguya could meet (or, alternately, she *is* the best one, but doesn't speak for all of them).
She doesn't really want to talk about that, though.
Curious about the curse, Mariel *almost* asks about it, but decides to save it for another time. "You're the only Veruni I have spoken to, also," she says, which isn't quite true but she is the only one that Mariel has spoken deliberately to while knowing she was a Veruni.
She smiles, then. "I appreciate that. The invasive species. ...But I'd still like to see the flowers." Some of them, after all, might have a place on Filgaia... and even if they don't, Mariel likes flowers, and really, that's all it boils down to.
Dusting her hands off, and then the lower part of her robe, Mariel shakes her head. "No - that's all. But ...thank you for listening. And answering."