goneawayworld | SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

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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’.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Who knew. It’s an amusing thought to think that scenario at least a little true, in this large galaxy of theirs.

“Well, everyone has their talents. I have to admit that I know someone myself who would certainly be more suited than me to tackle this challenge, but it’s the nature of humanity to rise to the occasion. We’ll do just fine.”

He thinks however briefly of Amberley, and wonders what she would have done. Far better than him with all that Inquisitorial experience, no doubt.

"We've got the knack, yeah," Saturday says. She often drops the 'meta' from humanity herself, ever since she learned about genetics. People expect elves to define themselves as something apart; therefore on principle she does the opposite.

"Maggie said somethin' once about how metahumanity thrived 'cause of three factors: we use tools, we got abstract thought, and we're social." She scans the room idly, speaking in the absent way a person does when they're saying something because they need to hear it again as much as to communicate it to another person.

"But the most important is that we're social, cause it means our memories can be bigger than our lifespan. We don't lose data because someone died, as long as they taught another person. So you can build on stuff an' not reinvent the wheel. And if something happens to you, someone's got your back, so one streak of bad luck won't kill you before y'can add what you know to the pot."

She nods, satisfied with whatever conclusions her scan of the room reached.

"We got enough people here to be gettin' on with, I think. 'S just gonna be a matter of getting everyone yoked up and pulling in the same direction. An' like you said: we'll rise to it. It's our nature."

“Well said. Although...”

His own gaze sweeps the room, but they definitely linger on some of the less human looking characters in the room.

“One really does wonder. There’s certainly enough, but not quite enough people for my liking. Some of those types will certainly be an issue, mark my words.”

Of course, that was like saying an ork was going to charge. Or saying the weather outside on Valhalla was a bit chilly. An obvious given.

Edited 2020-04-23 20:00 (UTC)

"Oh? Who you got in mind?" Saturday is an old hand at party gossip: her voice is too low to catch, and her expression remains light and interested. "So far everyone's pretty on board with Operation: Fuck Jorgmundr. I know Catra - you met her yet? - has someone from her metaplane here that she's got friction with, but it sounds like something they can patch over til they're back home."

She notes who he's looking at, and notes their appearances as well. Then she frowns a little.

"You know something I don't yet?"

Right. Saturday’s planet is blissfully ignorant in respect to the dangers of xenos. For the level of industry that a hive planet suggests, vanishingly improbable. The Tau or some sort would have diplomatically snapped them up in a second. Although he would hesitate to call them lucky, if daemons were a problem there.

He doesn’t know the name Catra, but he inclines his head.

“In a sense. The xenos here with us are a concern. I was viciously assaulted by one in particular, but I managed to fight her off. Of course, you can’t expect anything bloody else from them, but it doesn’t bode well for cooperation.”

"The - xenos?" Saturday tilts her head, openly baffled. "Like xenophobia?" She knows that word, it means fear of the different and unknown. Not something she's ever had a problem with.

The turn the conversation's taking is making her uneasy. Now she remembers the Imperium of Man routine, the things he'd said before that she'd dismissed once they got to talking about the Enemy. No one who opposes the horrors can be really that bad, she'd figured.

Maybe she was wrong.

"What's a xeno?"

"An xeno is in other words, an... alien," he says, puzzling out the English word. "It would more accurately translate as 'other', but 'alien' seems to work."

Hmm. That seems to sound about right.

"But I've never met an alien that doesn't have its own interests in mind. The ones that don't just want to eat you, that is. Some co-operation can be temporarily excused if there's a greater enemy at hand, but you'd be mad to trust one further than you could throw it."

"How are you defining alien, exactly?" Saturday is frowning hard now, doing her best not to look too openly suspicious. "Like - on my earth, you got a lot of different subspecies 'cause of how magic effect gene expression, but we're all genus homo. We all originated and evolved on the same planet."

She casts her mind back a bit farther, to barely-remembered history she'd barely bothered to learn. "An' I think we used to think other humans could count as alien if they were like. From a different country. So what's an alien to you, exactly?"

"What's an alien?" Cain echoes thoughtfully. "They're the inhumanity amongst the stars. But in more practical and identifying terms, they're anything that isn't human. It's fairly obvious when something's a xeno, usually," he says with a laugh. "Far too many of them come with fangs and claws the size of your arm, if you ask me."

"But some don't look too different. Take the Eldar, as an example. If it wasn't for their ears, you could almost mistake them for human. It's more than unnerving, to be honest."

"The ears, huh?" Saturday has a sinking feeling that she knows where this is going. "Well, we've never met aliens where I'm from, like I said. But, you know, different subspecies, so a lot of real different looking people. Trolls, orks, sapiens, dwarves, elves, bunch of everything else. Pixies are also a thing."

Her voice is getting increasingly clipped as she tries to do a lot of calculations at once: how much of a threat this guy could be, how reasonable he seems vs the risk of him being not reasonable on this specific subject, and whether or not she can twist the concept of a metahumanity into a configuration that will fit into his existing worldview in a less cheerfully racist way.

And there's also the possibility that in his world, his views are valid; in a cosmic structure that contains a Easter Bunny and multiple unrelated iterations of rock people, there's probably a place where alien contact has only ever been hostile.

"Not sure what you'd call that."

Cain notices the increasingly clipped tone, but he can't quite put his finger on why that is. He pauses for a moment as he tries to puzzle it out without being obvious, but it's still rather unclear.

"Orks and anything else on the same planet? I'd call that a joke." He almost snorts into his lukewarm non-alchoholic cider. "Otherwise, I believe you mean abhumans. There are some in the Imperium, after all, who do perfectly respectable jobs."

Edited 2020-04-25 21:44 (UTC)

"Nothin' wrong with orks, least not our kind," Saturday says, visibly stung. "Good, smart people. I was raised by one. My best friend is one - they're not different from anyone else, 'cept they're a bit tougher, and even then they got nothin' on trolls."

She pushes her hair out of her eyes, uncomfortable with the turn this is taking, but on the other hand - better to have it out in public then someplace no one can see the outcome.

"I - look." Just come clean is what her gut is telling her, and sometimes her gut takes the scenic route but it's rarely absolutely and totally wrong. She lifts her hair up off her ears, showing the points. "I'm an elf, okay? Which is normal where I'm from. And if that's gonna be a problem, speak up now."

In an instant, Cain steps back on instinct like he's been punched in the chest by a Wych knife. He drops his drink by reaching for his chainsword that isn't there, non-alchoholic cider spilling all over their feet, and his eyes flicker through visible confusion, fear, alarm, hostility, revulsion, and then finally settles into cautious wariness with which he looks at her, as if the person he'd been talking with was suddenly entirely wiped away.

Two impressions of Saturday superimpose over the other - one a perfectly fine young woman, and the other an inscrutable alien. He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

"You're an Eldar?" he asks neutrally, looking a little sick. "Or - a mutant?"

The latter is much more likely than the former, being sensible and thinking about it. An Eldar, raised by an ork? They must be different names, or she's frakking with him. It could be some ploy, to feed him ridiculous lines and play nonsense until he lets down his guard and she guts him with a shrieking laugh.

He might have been able to approach it with more tact had he had more sleep, but his footing is entirely wrong. He's sailing in unknown territory alone for the first time in decades, and he'd been fooled by the first human friendly face and potential ally he'd thought he might be able to make. It's only natural that he can't dissemble his reaction in time.

Saturday jumps back when he reaches for his weapon, raising her metal arm to block on instinct. When all that happens is a better waste of the cider than it deserves, she lowers it. The moment of revulsion on his face sring, more than she wants to admit; enough that she clamps down her own expression, hardening around the lips and eyes.

"I'm a elf," she corrects. "Homo sapiens nobilis, an' I didn't pick the name. I'm an elf, my parents were elves, but my grandparents were ordinary homo sapiens. Like I said. Magic affects genetic expression. Whenever the magic cycles back into high, subspecies pop up."

The truth is, she's never really met anyone who hated elves. Anyone in the clans who had a problem with 'Jisan's little girl would have to answer to him, and she was best friends with Mama Sofia's daughter. By the time she was old enough to notice things like that, she was also known as One Of Us, practically blood, and any outsider who had a problem with her had a problem with every ork in clan turf.

And Humanis, of course, had been driven out years ago.

When she's dealt with people who are weird about elves, they tend to be weird in the other direction. Or elves themselves, trying to get her on some kind of ancient and most noble race of whatever trip. Those were annoying. This - kinda hurts. Really hurts. She doesn't like it.

An abhuman. That's what she is.

He consciously pulls his hand away from his hip in reaction to her reaction and tells himself that it's not much different than standing opposite a Navigator or an Ogryn, but it's just unfortunate, then, that her countenance resembles an Eldar so frakking closely. There are some things humans just weren't meant to resemble, and it looks wrong on a fundamental level.

Or is she a mutant because it's the fault of "magic"? He's heard that mutations are more common in worlds closer to the Eye of Terror. This is doing his head in. The hostility starts to recede and the awkwardness sets in, after all he's just said. But there's still a palpable air of discomfort and wariness.

"Homo sapiens nobilis?" he repeats by the way of a question, though his voice doesn't know quite which of a tone to take.

Saturday calms enough to roll her eyes at her taxonomy. "Yeah. Like I said, I didn't choose the name. Buncha Tolkien fetishists - when the magic started to cycle back in, about fifty years ago, people started havin' kids with pointy ears, or tusks, or horns - and they needed a name, so. Sapiens nobilis for elves, sapiens robustus is orks, ingentis is trolls, an' pumi - pu-mi-li-onis" she says, very carefully, "is dwarves. I probably said that wrong, always do. And everyone else gets to be plain homo sapiens."

She's still eyeing him warily, not entirely sure the freak out is over, or what might set him off.

"Science says we're all basically the same species, though. We can all have kids with each other, an' the like."

Cain has no idea what a Tolkien is, but he gets the gist. He finally has the presence of mind to step away from the sticky puddle - his wet ankles are a loss, he's afraid - but it's a step backwards. He shuffles a little, just as much an attempt to get his heels unstuck from the ground as it is to disguise the obviousness of the movement, and he rests a hand on the table.

"How many on your planet are homo sapiens?" he asks. He's trying to keep making conversation and pretend very little is wrong. But there's a stiffness to his stance, and he keeps fighting the urge to glance away. "Nobilis - that's quite the lofty word."

He's back to speaking a little formally now. It almost sounds the same as high gothic, imagine that.

Saturday doesn't know how to feel - relieved, angry. Engage, or retreat? If she had room - if they were alone - she would start to pace. But she can't, and so her nerves are vibrating like a plucked string.

She maintains control. With an expansively casual movement, she seats herself on the edge of the table.

"I'm gonna sit down for this, because this conversation has taken a turn. Okay. Phew."

Deep breath. "Most people are sapiens, right now. We're fifty years in and the cycle lasts for thousands. Eventually it should be an even split between all types? A lot of this I only just learned myself. People don't know about the cycle, or if they do, they think it's like a myth. Whoops."

Her grin there is humorless, bitter, and directed inward.

"The nobilis thing is part of that. It'll leave a bad taste in your mouth, fair warning. So like, after magic faded out and everyone was just plain sapiens again, everyone forgot magic and metatypes were ever real, but people still remembered them, right? As stories, as ideas. And part of why this was is because apparently - and this isn't something people know, all right? It's very secret and I just found out myself - there's immortals. Every metatype seems to have a few. Sapiens, too."

She takes a deep breath and fluffs out her hair, covering her eartips again. It's never fallen to her to explain this before; usually, on this topic, she's the one being explained at. Sometimes up to three or four times.

"So you have these immortals, and they're - doing immortal things, mostly getting ready for the magic to cycle back in and bring the horrors with it - except for a couple of the immortal elves. Not all of them, but enough of them. And they basically set things up so that just as soon as enough people turned elven, they could make an elven nation. Two of them, Tir Tairngire and Tír na nÓg."

She says the words clipped and short, with none of the requisite lyricism. Maybe she should be talking around this, or outright lying, but also, fuck that. Cain isn't from her world, he can know the truth. He might actually believe the truth.

"And they did that by getting people's heads, manipulating people, creating sense of grand elven identity and being part of some ancient, special race, nobilis," she spits the word " - and it's a lie. I knew it was a lie before I learned about the Great Cycle, because elves didn't exist until fifty years ago. And now that I know about the cycle, it's an even bigger lie. I've seen the past - long story - I know for a fact that elves in the Fourth Age were just one among many. It's a lie and it was told by immortal twats desperate to prove political theories from seven thousand fucking years ago."

Her words are, uncharacteristically, crisp and precise. Saturday's fist clenches; she doesn't look at Cain, and wishes Maggie were here.

"Of the baker's dozen conspiracies I've learned about since this started, I hate that one the most."

Edited 2020-05-01 04:09 (UTC)

He's inclined to withdraw sharpish when she starts to move, but has an instinct to wait it out and she just sits on the table after all. There's a curious stirring in his chest he recognises as pity, as he listens and notices her discomfort. It does leave a bad taste in his mouth. Not something he'd ever thought he'd be able to feel, especially under these circumstances, but there it is. Either she's a magnificent liar on par with himself and it's working, or she sincerely means it.

The fact that she claims a decided rejection of grand elven identity, it - he supposes that makes her as close to human as she could get, under her unfortunate circumstances. Mutation and appearance aside, she could still be a carefully considered ally. It helps when her ears are tucked back out of sight, and unbeknownst to him, a lot of the stiffness leaves his voice. It does a lot to warm up his disposition towards Saturday. Who he can start to think of as "Saturday" again, instead of "something else", though the process is fraught with mental resistance.

He's quiet for a bit. He's processing a plan.

"I can't say that I'm surprised," he says, finally. He inclines his head a little seriously, maybe even apologetically. "I've never met one that didn't have an almost visible aura of patronizing smugness. Or wanted to - slice my head off for that matter, but I can tell that you're different. You saw through their deceit, and rejected their plans for a grand old pointy-eared country."

Maybe something could be salvaged of this. 'You're one of the good ones' isn't quite perfect, but it's a step to meet her halfway.

"I haven't had the best... experience with the eldar myself. I spent some time as a slave in their captivity." Cain deliberately waits to continue until Saturday looks back at him, holds her gaze for a moment then glances away, suggesting some pained remembrance of an indelible memory. "So it was with a certain apprehension that I saw... you understand?"

Saturday laughs a little at the patronizing smugness line.

"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.

Edited 2020-05-04 16:59 (UTC)

The Tir playbook sounds terribly effective. Scared people are prone to rushing to stupid decisions, Cain knows this, and it makes them very susceptible to just about anybody to come along with all the answers, and a calm voice that says look, this is how we're going to handle it.

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.

"I can imagine." She'd offer him a hug, but they're not there yet. Saturday shifts uncomfortable, aware that they are, still, wearing their party hats. They seem a bit less whimsical and bit more stupid than they did a second ago. She takes hers off, letting it dangle.

"...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."

Cain's happy enough to leave it at that. And honestly, any conversation isn't weird to have with party hats on until the moment you bring it up. Then it becomes weird.

"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.

Saturday is similarly letting her hat dangle in her free hand, twisting the string idly around her fingers. Mostly because she needs something to toy with; the things with the cigarettes is as much about having a prop as an actual nicotine addiction. In another world she might have occupied herself cleaning the spilled cider and getting new drinks, but fuck Jorg and their shitty soft drinks, too.

"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."

"That's the word I'd use." Cain agrees, disgust in his voice. The thought of unsanctioned sorcery like that being, well, irresponsibly sanctioned is repugnant. "It's mad what people will do once they feel like they have the liberty to do anything without consequence."

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.

SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

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guess where my gm diverged from shadowcanon

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