Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2020-04-17 08:20 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2020-04-17 08:20 pm
Entry tags:
- #rig logs,
- +intro log,
- +sheetcake party,
- adora,
- alloran semitur-corass,
- brainiac 5,
- bunnymund,
- catra,
- dave strider,
- gadget hackwrench,
- guts,
- jack spicer,
- nora valkyrie,
- robbie baldwin,
- ronald mcdonald,
- ronan lynch,
- sam winchester,
- saturday,
- setsuna higashi,
- stacia novik,
- ✘ cayde-6,
- ✘ ciaphas cain,
- ✘ doreen green,
- ✘ elsa,
- ✘ emily grey,
- ✘ kevin ingstrom,
- ✘ peter parker,
- ✘ phosphophyllite,
- ✘ remus lupin,
- ✘ ryotaro dojima,
- ✘ saint-14,
- ✘ sirius black,
- ✘ steven universe
SHEETCAKE PARTY #1
SHEET CAKE MEETUP
“Who the fuck is Linda?”
The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.
A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.
However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.
“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”
(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)
Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).
There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).
“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”
*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.
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"Yeah, we get that, too - not so much the other thing. But any elf who doesn't wanna sign up for the Tir must be crazy or ignorant, right?" She rolls her eyes, very deliberately, bringing back the casual banter and repartee. Normalizing, since he doesn't seem inclined to start a fight any longer. "It's not just me. Not every elf belongs to the Tirs, an' not every elf in the Tirs is signed up all the way. It's just - when the magic came back, when people started changing - it got dangerous. People were scared, they didn't react well. The Tirs were protection, a tolerant metahuman state that just happened to be run and founded by elves, you follow? Very nasty bit of politics."
She is about to argue further on "you're on the good ones" - she's not an idiot - but what he says next stops her in her tracks. She closes her eyes and exhales, every bit of fight leaking suddenly from her body.
That explains it.
" - fuck. That's vile. I'm sorry." She means it, too; means it so completely that if he's lying he might feel a little bad at how totally her affect has changed from wariness to protective sympathy. Saturday doesn't hold with slavery, the kind that's up front or the kind that comes disguised as corporate employment contracts. Insofar as she has a guiding moral light, it's that. "That does explain it - bunch of assholes. I usually wear my hair pretty long, anyway, so don't worry about getting caught off guard again."
She is assuming the sight of pointy ears is a bit of a trigger for him now, and being very businesslike about assuring him she will be mindful of it.
"I hate slavers," she says, unnecessarily. "I hope that when you got out, you made the bastards bleed for it." And he can decide for himself how much more he wants to share.
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But feeling bad for misleading someone with the selective truth, and leaving implication to do the rest? Never. There's a rush of gratification when Saturday immediately softens, and he knows he took the right decision.
He nods soberly, keeping his satisfaction out of his face, and he doesn't correct her assumption. "It's not an experience I like to talk much about," he says, which is true. "The world of Sanguia was cleansed, in the end. It was luck, and the Emperor's will that I managed to get out of it in more or less one piece, save for some dings and scratches here and there, which is... far more fortunate of a fate than the other poor souls that couldn't be saved."
The flayed skins on the ramparts were the subject of reoccurring dreams too often for his liking. This time, he's not pretending all too much when he breathes in, seeming to subtly gather himself, then looks at her. "It's a rather uncomfortable subject," he admits, with a slightly strained smile.
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"...this is weird conversation to have with party hats on. Uh - what exactly is an elder, then?" She's mis pronouncing it. "Because the Tirs get up to a lot of shady bullshit, but last I heard they weren't slavers."
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"Eldar," he corrects, taking his own hat off. He elects to set his own down on the table, because the taut pressure of any string slung around his neck makes the palms of his hands tingle. Not that anyone's likely to come up from behind and garrote him with his own party hat right this moment, but it never hurts to be paranoid.
"In short: Pointy-eared xenos, sorcerers the lot of them, and frakking quick. Much longer lived than us inferior humans, so there's a terribly inescapable air of superiority hanging about at all times. That is, if they're not murdering you because they've decided that they either want more victims for the fun of it, or they'd really like their planet back now, thanks, no matter that it's been millennia since they've buggered off and we've built cities on it since."
Cain doesn't know that there's a difference between the Dark Eldar and the Eldar.
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"Eldar." She turns the word over in her mind as she says it, making sure she has it right. "Yeah, I don't think we have anything like that. The immortals are just shady assholes, and - well, okay, the Great Dragons have gone 'my turf, fuck off' a couple times, but usually with cause. Pops says the oceans were almost dead zones before the Sea Dragon kicked out everyone who wouldn't play by her rules, an' South America's full of Aztechnology so you can't really blame the feathered serpents for being pissed."
It occurs to her that she should explain somewhat.
"Uh, Aztechnology is a corp, like Jorg, but actually worse. They've made blood magic legal in their home country - and not just the kind of okay sort where the mage uses their own blood, the kind where you use other people's. Which I guess is one way to cull deadweight, but damn." She shakes her head. "Bastards."
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Corporations? Mages? Whichever the two he's talking about, it's clear that the sentiment comes from deep inside him. But perhaps his dramatic point is undermined somewhat by him picking up another cookie from the table.
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"God, this food is miserable." And the portions are so small. She's aware of the irony, but she really isn't getting enough. Probably time to start hoarding. "They couldn't at least spring for some booze? I'd drink rubbing alcohol at this point."
She agrees with Cain wholeheartedly, which means there isn't a lot she can add. Instead she mimes a toast.
"To megalomanical assholes getting what they deserve."
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Cain agrees, distinctly longing. Some amasec to calm his nerves would be perfect. But he smiles with regret and inclines his head at her toast, and pretends to toast her back with a flourish. At least he finds his mood slightly lifting.
One of the staffers that ushered them in - still waving people into the party at the door - happens to look over from across the room, and she hurries over and shoos Saturday away from where she's sitting on the edge of the table.
"Excuse me, please don't sit on the table like that. It's not very appropriate!"
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She's interrupted by the staffer. Saturday briefly, vividly, sees herself reaching out to break the woman's neck. All that shows in her face is a brief shift in her eyes, like the outline of a vast creature briefly glimpsed below the waves, and then she's hopping off the table with an ingratiating, apologetic grin.
"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking." She sounds so grateful, it's sickening. "Thanks!"
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"That's right, you weren't thinking! You could have sat on the cake or crushed the box, and then where would we be?"
"The young lady didn't mean anything by it," Cain is hasty to assure, hoping to interrupt the tirade early before it gets the chance to start - but not too hastily to make it appear to be a larger deal than it is. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to be deterred, and is starting to wag a finger to Saturday's face.
"Those treats are meant for everyone, mind. How disrespectful of all this hard work can you be?"
no subject
"Exactly!" the woman continues, smug triumph in her face. "I've already complained several times about this crop of new hires. You're all far too ungrateful for the opportunity Jorgmundr's given you, when they could have left you to die in the wilds - "
Saturday's fingers twitch, a little. Her smile is melting into something more like a grimace. "Like I said, I'm sorry - "
"Hmph! I've been watching you waste food for the last half an hour, taking bits and throwing it away like we're made of money. And spilling this delicious cider Jorgmundr's provided, when they've tried so hard to make you all feel welcome in this difficult time."
The woman is enjoying this, her face flush with righteous pleasure. Saturday's taken the wrong approach, she realizes. The more she shows throat to this woman, the more she'll keep going, pushing. Bullies are like that, and Saturday recites to herself everything she'd told Guts about why now isn't the time, why giving Jorg an example to make would be counter productive, and it's better to just let them have it for now.
The situation is salvageable. There are worse things to sacrifice than dignity.
The woman will not shut up.
"Now, I want you to go and get that food you've been throwing away - " And then she lays hands on Saturday, pushing her away from the table. Or intending to, except that suddenly her wrist is crushed in Saturday's grip.
"Do not touch me," she says, very clearly. Her eyes are those of a killer.
no subject
"Excuse me," Cain declares, as thinks of how to defuse the situation. He needs to start framing this interaction in a different light as soon as possible, laying tracks of revisionist history almost as soon as it's happening.
Cain steps up to the staffer's side, subtly enough that it doesn't look like an intervention, resting his hand on the crook of her elbow in a gentlemanly manner as he tries to extricate Saturday's grip. The staffer startles slightly, but Cain just gives her a reassuring smile. But she's is surprisingly pliable, and Cain has a feeling why when she glances at his chest, and then away again. Probably not used to the attention of men who aren't pencil-necked around here, he thinks disparagingly.
Do not touch me, Saturday had said, and while he's liable to take that under general advisement, he silently pleads with his eyes to let him move her hand, treading a very precarious line between authoritative and masterful.
The handsome man to the rescue, it is.
The woman brings herself up to full indignity. "What on earth was that? I'll have you-"
"Don't mind her at all, she's a little overly-sensitive," he interrupts - as if this is a matter of sensitivity and not aggression - directing a boyish smile with an oh, look at her attitude, and deftly moves on. "She's an elf, you know." As if that explains everything, and he turns fully to her. "I was just about to find one of the cleaners to come over and mop this up, in fact - quite criminal how they're not paying any attention to what's supposed to be their job."
Placing external blame seems like a good place to start, especially since he'd noticed those remarks she'd made earlier about janitorial. She deflates slightly, but still tuts red-faced and glares at Saturday.
"I suppose you could be right. But the wastage is still simply awful!"
The staffer still looks determined to carry on from where she left off, so Cain really plasters it on with a trowel. "I hope you don't think of all the new hires that way. Or at least given the opportunity, I promise I'll change your mind." He inclines his head modestly, seemingly innocently oblivious to his any flirtatious implication. "You seem to be remarkably on top of things - I don't suppose I could trouble you to help show me where to find a janitor around here?"
no subject
"'M sorry," she says, speaking through clenched teeth but sounding chastened. "Sorry, really sorry - " She needs more space, needs an excuse to break contact - and seizes on one as Cain continues to wave his cloak in front of the bull. "I just - I don’t like to be touched - "
Saturday goes abruptly to one knee and grabs a handful of napkins on the way. Her hands are shaking, and gripping them helps keep her steady.
"Don't worry, I got it - " Apologetic, eager to please, and out of the woman's line of sight. Saturday starts mopping at the spilled juice, rather pointlessly as it's already soaked in, but the action hides her from the woman and lets Cain fill her vision instead, the better to -
- flirt?
Saturday sucks in a breath to hold a sudden, startled laugh, which becomes slightly harder when it works. The woman’s protest dies at Cain’s considerate words and his respectful bow, and Saturday’s respect for this guy grows about three sizes. He’s very good.
"Well - I - I suppose I could go get one, you’re not supposed to leave until the party’s over." She’s fluttering a bit, and Cain presses the advantage while Saturday stays down, playing the anxious penitent. She's better at the role then you'd think; some habits die harder than others.
no subject
While part of his mind is focused on watching Saturday shuffling about on the floor mopping up the remnants, he sees the hesitation and goes in for the kill.
"Surely it won't be a problem if I'm with you?" he asks demurely, like he's under the impression that she has the authority of the Lord General himself. "I wouldn't want to make any inconvenience, but it's only polite to escort a lady to her destination."
He lets go of her elbow, but then offers his own with an inviting smile. As distasteful as it is, it's a decent opportunity to learn something. She looks around the room, clearly a little torn about protocol, though Warp knows where she's expecting to find an answer. He can see that it's evidently a struggle of titanic proportions in her mind, but Cain's charm wins out in the end.
"I suppose - it can't do any harm..."
With some hesitance, she puts her hand through the crook of his elbow, seeming to forget almost entirely about Saturday, and he invites her to lead the way with a little dramatic flourish. "I just hope it's not inappropriate to be seen leaving a party early with me," he starts to joke as they walk away. And the staffer - honest to the God-Emperor - giggles. And just as they leave, at a moment of distraction, Cain turns his head to give Saturday a long-suffering look, and silently mouths a choice curse word.
no subject