HARK! How the bells, sweet silver bells...

[piper90npcs]

Who: Everyone
What: Holiday Events
Where: Piper 90 - The Rig
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Holiday cheer, smooches, tactical snowball action

It's the Holiday Season in the Gone Away World and on the Rig in particular! Though they claim to be open to any cultural celebration of this time of year, the dominance of Santa Claus, reindeer, and elves in decorating really kind of blunt that claim. But the PA system, when not blaring alarms or fuzzy announcements for working party C to show up at the maintenance bay, play Christmas tunes of all sorts at inconvenient volumes. Decorations hang limply from the walls. And every worker with children has been issued a shotgun and a bandoleer of shells loaded with pellets of cold iron.

Just in case.

Comments

[breq]

Breq feels the smile more than sees it and it's a good sort of feeling - at least to her. He's relaxing a little, so she can't really complain about it. That was part of why she stopped in the first place, after all.

"Alloran it is," she replies, "Unless you would prefer I stand on formality."

She dips her head in a slightly amused nod. She has to keep her facial expressions going, as always. She feels emotions, of course. But ancillary-blank is her default. Or at least something she can return to in an instant, without a thought.

The mention of hands causes a twitch in her expression. Something Breq barely recognizes in herself, although internally she's a little surprised and amused. Hands again. Like the Radch - and not like the Radch at all. She glances at Alloran and then carefully extends her own hand, likewise palm up.

"I think with our hands would be better. The focus on them... it reminds me of the Radch."

The Radch. So many meanings wrapped up in that. She wasn't Radchaai - couldn't be - but the Radch was still home. She still knew it inside and out, knew the gestures, the culture, the people. And there wre times she missed it terribly.

[takenalive]

He turns his hand over in a shrug that doesn't involve shoulder movement. <My rank exists as a technicality at this point. It would be absurd to insist on its use, but I like people to remember that it exists. That I exist, which is more important in the end.>

It's been one of the better things about being here on the Rig. There are a lot of things the various aliens think of him, many of them not good, but people don't look at him and see the Visser.

It would be terribly standoffish to do otherwise, so Alloran faces Breq to look at her out of his main eyes, which are huge and long-lashed and somewhat widely set. He casts his stalk eyes in other directions, which at least to him lessens the intensity of direct main-eye contact.

<Is that someone important to you? Or a place, perhaps?>

[breq]

"The Radch?" She cocks her head, "It's a place, I suppose. And a people. A nation, really. I'm... from there, originally."

Her hand remains extended, waiting. The eyestalks are a bit disconcerting but she manages not to let it impact her too much. She's good at controlling herself. Usually.

"I've been away from it for a very long time, though."

[takenalive]

<It is difficult to be parted from your own kind,> he says with an irony-touched sympathy. <How strange other people are.>

Alloran gives a long, silent exhale, his complicated nostrils flaring.

<We will begin with hands and forearms. That may not be enough. If you'll submit to allowing me to kiss your face, I will permit it from you.>

[breq]

Breq quirks an eyebrow. She knows how most human cultures kiss, so this should be... an experience. She nods after a moment of thought.

"That's acceptable. Please, tell me if I end up doing anything wrong. This is the first time I've tried an alien form of kissing."

Although touching intimately with bare fingers and hands is something she is familiar with.

[takenalive]

<Ideally you won't sweat on me, but as I understand it that isn't under conscious control,> Alloran says, and finally takes the hand she's been offering, clasping it delicately by the back and then drawing three fingers of his other hand across Breq's wrist and palm.

The bare skin of his hand is very soft, almost velvetty, and cool. It somewhat resembles a human hand with more fingers, all rather slight, but the structure is different. There is an inner thumb and an outer thumb, and the five between them are not as neatly matched as a human's three inner fingers. His body temperature is also noticeably lower than a human's, though still much warmer than ambient.

<How do humans kiss?>

[breq]

"I'll do my best not to sweat," Breq replies with a trace of dry amusement, "But I can't promise anything."

There's a slight shiver from her. Involuntary. The touch of soft, cool fingers is an interesting one, especially in a place that she knows is considered incredibly intimate in Radch society. She glances down and watches the blue fur contrasted against her dark skin. She sighs softly and then glances up at him again.

"Usually with lips. But I've known others to use noses or even hands, like you do."

[takenalive]

How strange to be doing this after so long. Esplin had touched people with his hands sometimes, inevitably. He had performed the human's handshake ritual, with Alloran's body and in human morph, but that was not a kiss. Breq's very warm palm seems firm and intricately textured and seamed. It's a hand that just now is gentle and receptive, with a sense of vigor and great power underlying.

He tries to line up their palms and fingers as best as is possible and do what finger-intertwining the different anatomy allows. The thought comes as it often does, I could acquire her and he ignores it with a twinge of irritation. It's a very Esplin thought, to steal a kind stranger's DNA when it's not even needed. Even being free isn't entirely freedom.

<Lips? Well. So that's what the lip-pressing gesture is. I suppose... the nerve endings in human lips are more densely clustered than in your hands. I think I believed it was about food-sharing or checking temperature.>

[breq]

This feels intimate in a way that she hasn't allowed herself to be with... anyone, really. It's different and in the Radch this would scandalously so. Especially in the open. But here, no one cares. No one wears gloves. So she tries to ignore the shiver in her spine and closes her fingers with his as best she can. The smooth skin and the light covering of fur are interesting. Soft to the touch and his hands feel more delicate than that of a human's. She regards their intertwined fingers for a few very long moments.

"No, it's... affection, usually."

She lifts her gaze to him.

"Should I combine the two gestures?"

She covers his hand with her other one, brushes fingers against his wrist. Feels the shape of muscle and bone. The whole rest of the universe seems to fade in these few moments. It's just them, just this hallway, just this exchange of touch and culture.

[takenalive]

He can feel his palm taking in Breq's radiant human warmth. In the cool of the Rig's evening cycle, it's... nice, actually. And it's good to remember the old uses of his hands. They aren't just for acquiring DNA and manipulating technology to kill and enslave. They're also for communication, aren't they? For sign language, but also the older things, the ones without words.

Alloran considers, looking curiously at her. If he'd been in human morph he might have said no. Mouth-and-mouth kissing seems vaguely like trying to eat someone, or being eaten. <Hm. Why not?>

[breq]

"Very well," Breq replies with a cool little smile, and then she carefully lifts his hand to her face and places a soft kiss against his palm. There's another subtle shiver. This really is unspeakably intimate for a Radchaai - but she isn't Radchaai, is she? She's a ship. An AI. Not a person.

Not that Alloran knows that. But the thoughts run through her head all the same.

[takenalive]

Ah. Alloran's main eyes widen and his fingers tense involuntarily, brushing his fingertips against Breq's cheek. Her breath on his hand is almost like in an intimate Andalite kiss, where he would stroke a lover's face and cup their cheek. The swell and subside of her lips is... novel.

The long fur that grows in a line down his back has started to bristle, which is absurd. He's not a xenophile - even when he was young and filled with naive goodwill for all species, which is the traditional time to pick up that interest, he didn't see the appeal. After the amount of exposure he's had, humans don't look all that strange to him anymore, but they aren't attractive, either. All the same, the rhythm of his hearts has changed subtly.

<Well,> he says, softly, and runs a careful finger back across her lips. <That is interesting.>

[breq]

Breq isn't really a xenophile herself, not really. Although she's loved humans and will again. But how different are humans an aliens? She doesn't know. She's mostly amused by his reaction, her lips parting just slightly as his finger runs against her lips. She slowly lowers his hand with a smile.

"Just interesting? I found it... illuminating, in a way."

[takenalive]

Alloran's eyestalks rock before he gets them under control. He discreetly runs the end of his tail down his back to get his ridge to lie flatter. There's no one else about who's seen it and might guess at its meaning. On some level, he's annoyed to find, he's waiting for Esplin to make a comment.

He turns his hands palm up, a gesture of acknowledgement not quite the same as his modified shrug from earlier. Who's flustered? Certainly not him. <I hardly know what else to say. It seems a vulnerable way to kiss, but I suppose it serves well enough.>

There's no speaking or singing like that - right? - and no looking out for danger. If he morphed human, would the whole notion seem different?

[breq]

Breq can't read his body language well, but she assumes that she's caused some sort of reaction. She just doesn't know what it really means. She carefully drops his hand back between them, still grasping it with her own. This still feels too intimate by far, but in a way it's also a reminder of where she's come from. That there is a place where others recognize similar traditions - if not the same ones.

"I think it does," she replies, "Although you're right, we're a bit vulnerable when we do. Of course... we didn't have the good fortune to evolve with multiple pairs of eyes."

She's struck as soon as she says that. A wave of nostalgia and longing and loss for what she no longer has. The inability to glance behind herself without turning her head. Having more pairs of eyes, of ears, of hands, of feet, of being able to do so much, to see so much, and now she's deafened and blinded and stuck in one body.

And she'll never have it back.

Despite herself, there's a twitch in her expression; a pricking of tears at the corners of her eyes that she doesn't quite process, doesn't want to acknowledge.

[takenalive]

Alloran is more familiar with extreme, uncontrolled expressions of distress. Hosts in the Pool have little reason to hide their feelings and often find solace in a few hours of unrestrained expression. He can still catch something of a suggestion, and assumes she's thinking of some instance where limited vision proved tragic. It must be a common problem with humans.

Gingerly he shifts his free hand to clasp hers between them. His fingers are held firm instead of wrapping, almost the formal expression of condolence, though he doesn't remember quite how that goes after so much time.

<I regret reminding you. It is...> Alloran pauses and scuffs a forehoof on the floor, recognizing that he's about to be condescending and trying to rephrase. <It seems difficult to be human, though I imagine one grows accustomed.>

[breq]

Oh. She realizes what she's doing and glances down at her hand between his; alien and different but still some of the closest touching she's allowed herself in some time. What is she doing? Does she bother saying it? Would anyone here even care? They don't know about the Radch, about Anaander or the Presger gun or any of it. She shouldn't.

She does.

"You do," she replies quietly, "But I'm not human. Maybe that's why it's difficult."

[takenalive]

One of his ears flicks. Of course she's human, only humans look like that - but that's just the first reflex, of course. The Rig is crowded with individuals who appear completely human, more like humans than Garatrons are like Andalites, and profess otherwise. He's kept his thoughts on that - mostly that it's confusing and they have to all be closely related offshoots because how could something like that evolve twice - to himself and decides it's better to continue to do so.

<Very well. What are you?>

[breq]

"It's a long story," she replies quietly, settling her back against the wall. They can have this conversation here. She doesn't much mind. Her attention is on him, anyway, trying to read his reaction.

"But I wasn't always Breq. I was - I am - Justice of Toren. A Radchaai troop carrier. An AI. I wasn't born; I was built. And this is all that's left of me."

[takenalive]

If their hands have pulled apart he brings his back to their neutral position, which is vaguely rat- or meerkat-like, bent slightly at wrist and elbow. The contrast of skin and fur highlights any motion they make.

Alloran stretches his stalk eyes up, an expression of surprise, and brings one to bear, glancing Breq up and down. The other moves on in an unhurried scan, checking and rechecking surroundings.

<An organic technology?< Not an unfamiliar idea, but it's weird to think of humans going in that direction. Human structures seem so lifeless to him. The Rig is just a box filled with boxes.

[breq]

"No, as a matter of fact...." Her tone has become more emotionless, her face more of a mask.

"I was a ship. A computer core. I - this body - is an ancillary. A human body fitted with implants so I could control it. So it - I - would be a part of me."

[takenalive]

He narrows his eyes, ears lowering, tail rising - not all the way to the ready posture with the blade poised to strike, but higher than the level of his back. Belatedly Alloran remembers the start of this conversation. So your actions weren't your own.

<I'm going to need you to explain in more detail. If you're all that's left, and I don't believe there's a signal maintained to anyone's home universes, are you the implants, or the brain?>

He sings something as he says that, a woven projection of sensation and emotion that takes a lot of unpacking, really. Tension as of being confined in a small space and shut away from grass and sky, stillness as of waiting, heft as of a blade, a desire to dig at the ear as if something is stuck clinging.

[breq]

Ah, she can read that reaction. Unfortunate. She feels a sting of bitter disappointment. But isn't that natural? She encounters the same in people in her own universe. She gestures ambivalence.

"I'm both. I was the ship. I was a computer core. I had officers and ancillaries; I am the 19th segment of the Esk decade of the Justice of Toren. That's me. Whoever this person was before she became me... no longer exists. I don't have her memories. Only my own. Two thousand years of life as a ship and my ancillaries."

There's that flat intonation; the expressionless face.

"I was - she was - we both were - equipment."

[takenalive]

This is much like a very long term host affect, Alloran recognizes. The reasons are most likely different. In an odd, grim way he's enjoying himself.

<I see the use of that. Demoralize enemy forces by converting prisoners into one's forward banner. Though, I never ceased to exist. It would be a kindness if yours actually has. How would you even know?>

He sings an unreal but vivid image-concept with that one, a paralyzed horror, an alien's possessive satisfaction, and the billowing curl and crack of this 'forward banner' whose colors and emblems strike fear and outrage from the Herd watching it at the head of the enemy's army. That was one of us! Why didn't he die? We could be next! It's a modification from a quasi-historical epic song.

[breq]

Breq gestures ambivalence again. It's difficult to explain, really, and she's hoping she can maange it.

"How do you know you're you?" She replies, posing a rather rhetorical question, "I don't remember anything about her. I don't have her emotions, her hopes, her fears. She's gone. There's only me."

The "song" is an appropriate one. There's a pause and then she sings herself. Her voice is not suited for it, but she does it anyway.

The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.
All around the cry goes out, put on armor made of iron.
The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.