ximilialog | [OPEN] El destierro es redondo

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[OPEN] El destierro es redondo

CHARACTERS: Rosinante and OPEN
LOCATION: Around, especially the simulation room
DATE: Within a few days of returning to the station
CONTENT: Catchall post-mission, plus the promised ship tour
WARNINGS: n/a

1. The night comes, your stars are missing

So they return again without time to even think about what they did. The mission was a success, and it had its costs, but they always do, don't they? That's simply the way of these things, because nothing is gained without a few things lost along the way. Rosinante was again prepared to kill if he had to in order to get that orb, but he's again grateful he didn't have to. Still, they left after toppling one of the largest forces in Braccia and nature always abhors a vacuum. He has little sympathy for the families, but he knows how those people work. They will fight each other to re-establish order and power among them, and innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire.

These are the thoughts that plague him while he sits in the sunlight room with a cup of tea between his hands, or while he peers out a window at the black void beyond the station. His injuries are cleaned and cared for, he's promised to Sabriel that he'll take it easy, and so he's left with little to do but think and wander and clean his pistol, and imagine that maybe next year, around this time, he and Law can celebrate the kid's birthday together rather than apart.

He's not much for conversation, but he's around if anyone needs him.

((Hey folks, consider this a catchall/wildcard option. Need to talk specifics? Hit me up at

tinylongwing))

2. Ship tours

After taking a few days to rest up, bring up some concerns with Viveca, and toy with the simulation room's visuals to make sure it gets everything right, Rosinante puts out a short mention on the network that, as promised, he's got a tour of a sailing ship available for anyone who wants to come see one.

They'll enter to a long pier that stretches from a metal and wood platform in deep water. The landmass that must lie behind is obscured by clouds, but ahead, a ramp leads from the pier up to the top deck of an utterly immense sailing ship that looks large enough to carry a small city's worth of people. For any familiar with Earth's older ships, it might bring to mind a ship-of-the-line, right out of the eighteenth century, with its towering masts and arrays of cannons. The sails are furled while the ship rests anchored at the pier, but even so, the blue and white of the Marine insignia emblazoned on them is visible.

Such a massive ship easily dwarfs Rosinante, even with his height, but still, his silhouette is visible at a distance against the tower in the center of the upper deck where he's made himself comfortable. Should you make your way onto the ship, he'll meet you at the top of the ramp with a wave.

"Can't say I'm much of a tour guide," he admits with a smile, "But I'll do my best. Ever been on a sailing ship before?"

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"Would be nice if we could see something out there."

Renfri, changed out of her Featherstone suit and back to her usual tunic and cloak combo, walks slowly next to him, eyes fixed on what's beyond the station's window.

"Everone waxes poetic about the stars... it's a shame we can't see any of them from here."

If it was, well, most others, she'd just have walked right past... but she knows Rosinante, and finding some company she's not terribly uncomfortable with is nice. Especially when the mission had put her out of her comfort zone.

"Every now and then I think I see one," he says, but he doesn't exactly sound certain. Are they stars, or is he just imagining them, his mind filling in the blanks in the sky with what he feels ought to be there?

He's got an idea why they're gone, based on what Viveca said some time back. It's a complete guess, of course, and what the something is, who knows. But if the station isn't supposed to be found, then maybe all it takes is some black clouds between them and the stars for others to miss their existence entirely.

Anyway, small talk about stars is pretty trivial, and so he looks down at Renfri, giving her a once-over out of concern after how things went down just recently. "You come out of all that mess all right? That fight and then that deathtrap of a building?"

It takes a few of those days to first of all wake, and second of all be strong enough to do more than lay trapped in an infirmary bed. Even then, strength to move, to walk freely...it comes at a premium, and the Mu called Blue doesn't have enough to pay that toll just yet.

That doesn't mean he can't roam - he just has to leave his body behind. It's why in the midst of some of that pensive gun-cleaning, the man trying to take it easy could easily spy something akin to a ghost passing through one of the sunlight room's walls, mimicking a steady walking pace that really isn't necessary considering...well. Floating is a thing that's happening.

All pale blue...save for some bright, red eyes. Certainly not the most common-looking visitor, especially since there had been little chance to investigate the station prior to the mission. It's why there's a hesitance to the way he moves and looks about, even if his focus inevitably draws to a thinking, feeling mind.

Red eyes fix and linger on him.

When movement catches the corner of his vision, Rosinante pauses and looks up from his gun and cloth. His brow furrows briefly before his eyes go wide, and his lips part as if about to speak but unsure what to say.

A ghost? A vision? Do such things occur on the station outside the bounds of the simulation room?

"Hello?" he tries, for he's seen things here that remind him to be open-minded. Perhaps if magic is real, then ghosts are too.

Confusion is better than horror - Blue will take it. That and the effort to communicate.

Hello, he echoes, his voice sounding in the stranger's head. Were you there, too? That planet...

"The one with the three families, and the orb? Yeah," he replies aloud, not sure whether the figure's speech is truly directly to him or just part of their strange mental network. It's not something he knows how to distinguish, and he'd assume the latter if this person didn't look like an apparition.

"Yeah, I was. We all were, unless you just got here. Or.. Are you part of the ship?" Is that what this is, maybe? Can an AI look like this? And if so, would that actually be any more comforting than the idea of a ghost being on board? The others all seem to treat artificial intelligence like some fact of life, but if he's honest, it creeps him out just a little.

I'm no machine.

There's a slight terseness to the thought, though Blue's expression remains placid - even a little remorseful for having projected in such a way. His bias against AI is still very strong, and he's only remotely aware of it.

I was there. And I'm here now. Only...my body is not strong enough to roam about...so I must learn about this place like this.

"Oh," he says at first, as he takes that in, then,

"Oh. So you can leave your body, as a... spirit?" he ventures, as his expression relaxes. "That's useful. Is that magic?"

Useful, and in fact really cool. He'd be a lot more enthusiastic if the implication wasn't that the spirit-person was too injured to get up.

Blue needs to get used to reactions that are more on the positive side of fascination, it seems; aggression and mistrust might be the exception on this station, just as Majima had suggested. Still, it's kind of hard to kick a 300-year old habit of expecting the worst from those unlike him.

His head shakes.

It's psionics. An extension of my mental abilities. Just as speaking to you like this is.

Perhaps it's not so strange if this man has something to relate it to? Magic, as he says.

"Huh." He shakes his head and smiles, then finally sets his half-cleaned gun down to seek out his lighter and pack of cigarettes. In the initial lighting attempt he manages to scorch the tip of his nose and drops the lighter with a hiss of surprise through his teeth, but a couple seconds later he tries again with much more success.

"Psionics," he continues, like none of that just happened. "That's like telepathy, right? Never met a human who could do that, just our transponder snails," he says, then blinks and looks at the ghostly form again. "Are you human?"

He looks it, but Rosinante knows a thing or two about appearances being deceiving.

No.

Here's where waters get murky: Does this person find nonhumans an affront? A threat? A boon? At least Blue can vanish to evade trouble, but it wouldn't be hard to find him.

My kind are called Mu. We are born from humans, but we are not the same.

Genetic mutations...that's why we were given the name Mu. And while I have come to know of humans who can use magic...I've not met many who can harness psychic abilities.

"Well beyond anything I've ever heard of. But, hey, it's nice to run into someone who does things that aren't just explained away by magic."

He's curious, now, about this mutation thing. But he's clearly not at all troubled by someone not being human, given he just nods like that's a normal enough thing to say. And - again, mutations and genetics and words like those aside, it is normal for people to be something other than human where he's from. The nearly-total lack of other races on board the station has troubled him since the first day, in fact.

"What happened back there in Braccia was rough. Are you all right? Need anything?"

Jim is pretty much speechless when he steps out onto the simulation. Sure, he figured the ship would be big, but it's another thing entirely to see it firsthand. It still doesn't compare to the size of the Enterprise, but a wooden ship designed to sail the seas is hardly the same as a metal alloy ship created to travel through space. In comparison, this one is equally impressive. It's even more impressive, if anything, considering the level of engineering required to build a ship of this size powered solely by sails, that somehow manages to cross stormy seas.

Somehow, Rosinante's size isn't as shocking once he's on board the ship proper. It still gives him a bit of pause, but then he's coming closer, greeting the man with a wave of his hand.

"Do small lake fishing boats count?" That's the best he's got, really. "It's fine, you can just show me around. No need to make a proper tour of it."

And at some point he'll bring up the whole thing with Newton, because he wants to know what that was about.

The ask gives the specter pause. Blue frowns a little, uncertain what answer was appropriate. Likely not the utter truth of things - that's a lot to set upon the lap of a stranger - but is dismissing him outright an insult, too?

It...isn't clear to me what can be done for me here, he offers, a hand tilting palm out in a dubious gesture. And it may be that all I can do is bide my time, conserve my energy.

If...all missions are to demand as much investment, that may be the only way. What little I was told of the one prior...it has gone much worse before.

"Sure," he says with a chuckle, waving for Jim to follow along. "Fishing boats do count, by the way. Everyone starts somewhere, right? Easier to get your sea legs on something this size, though, since it rocks less."

Certainly while docked, anyway. The gentle little waves of the imagined sea can't really make it budge. And he's not about to start by dropping them in some Grand Line storm, not without a full crew.

"This is a Marine battleship," he says as he starts toward the bow. "They carry up to a thousand men and women at a time, so they can cover conflict at sea as well as drop off units on land. Three artillery arrays on the top deck, twenty-four cannons on the next two decks down. I..." There's a brief pause, a sheepish look on his face when he glances down at Jim before continuing with that thought.

"I know I didn't really say what I do before, other than sailing. You didn't sound too fond of your world's military."

"They were both bad in their own ways. Had lots of our own injured both times. The people of the last world suffered worse than the ones here, though."

He shot a few of those people before he knew they were more than mindless monsters, and that's the part that feels worse. He has little sympathy for anyone in the families of this last mission. But he also didn't get a chance to know many of them.

"I'm worried about the people of Braccia now that we've stirred up their underworld like that, but I'm glad we all made it out in one piece, even if there were a few close calls."

The cost...

Beyond the waves of hostility that came up when the speakeasy's ruse was revealed, Blue had little chance to engage; just trying to stay alive when aggressors came for him was trial enough. After that, he was barely conscious and wholly unaware of what followed, and he's convinced the only reason he is back here at all is because of James and Finn. Otherwise, maybe he'd be more acquainted with the aftermath.

Was it worth the effort? he wonders. He knows how strongly Sabriel feels about it, but it's not a conviction he's found shared among others. Unity seems to come through greatest for the sake of survival, but the rest...?

"I hope so. Viveca seems to think it is. The way she talks about the orbs, we're doing the whole universe a favor, ultimately."

Now, he has his doubts about Viveca, that's for sure. But after what Yzak said, it may not be her fault. If she's just programmed to say certain things, or not say other things, then she's not the one trying to mislead them, but rather the Commander. And maybe both of them are being perfectly honest. Too early to tell, but he'll continue to try and judge from their words and actions until he has a better sense of what's what.

"It's just the nature of things, unfortunately. Sometimes people suffer as a result of doing the right thing for everyone," he says, casting a frown at his cigarette as he takes it between his fingers.

It's uncomfortably heartening to sense echoes of the kinds of doubts Blue himself harbors; it validates his unconscious biases to some degree, and provides a bit of consolation for the fears he can't shake. There's no relaxing here on this station, no more than there was in the swirling, confusing web of minds in Braccia. It's just a different state of unease, a different frequency.

Without realizing it, the specter's brow furrows with doubt at Vivica seems to think. She's...a machine. Whatever she thinks was preconstructed, or at the very least, she was coded to come to such conclusions based on the will of whoever built her. Her speculations...or what she offers as speculations...those are inherently dangerous, aren't they?

They must be. It's what makes most sense to him.

I know what it looks like when humans choose to follow the pathways that their machines and constructs build for them, he says at length. And what it can twist 'the right thing' into.

I'm not sure...it will be wise to take this Vivica construct entirely at her word.

A small boat on a lake doesn't rock all that much either, from what Jim remembers, but being so much smaller does make it easier to sway around with even the slightest movement from one of the people in it. This is something else entirely, and vastly more impressive.

He follows alongside Rosinante, looking around and admiring each detail that he's pointed out, glancing up to the sails before his eyes go back to his guide. He lets out a soft laugh at the last observation, shaking his head.

"We don't have a military anymore. I don't think the traditional concept would suit the kind of world I'm from, but I wouldn't say I dislike it. This is— if you'll excuse the comparison— very reminiscent of Earth's Navy some five or six centuries ago."

She hums, more in acknowledgement than agreement — she doesn't think she's ever even thought of seeing one, but perhaps she's not as optimistic as him. Or hasn't looked hard enough.

A shrug is the first answer to his question, accompanied by a blithe,

"I'm alive, aren't I?" Which for her, qualifies as having come out of it alright. In the end, if by the end of the day you're alive, you've won.

"How about you? Did you ever make it to the top floor? I tried, but I got held back. I was still fighting when we got sent back here."

"Didn't say I was," he replies with a raised eyebrow. "I don't know much about AI, I'll admit, other than what people here told me. But the things she says, they were programmed by a human, right? Someone either honestly thought the things she repeats, or wanted to tell us those things for other reasons. Or, maybe she is capable of her own thoughts. Just because something's made by a human doesn't make them not a person, right? 'S why they call it artificial intelligence, I'm guessing, and not just another robot."

But, really, what does he know. He's used to wooden ships, ink and quill, telepathic snails and fruits that modify lineage factors. All things foreign and far behind to most everyone here, from what he's gathered. To their credit, they treat him as an equal, when they're not busy being surprised by his height, or the things he's never seen before.

"You're not the first to have said something like that," he says, doing his best not to sound bothered by it and mostly succeeding. It's not that he's insulted, but it does start to wear on a person after a while when everyone seems to be so far ahead of him and all he can do is make an effort to keep up. If anything, he just sounds... tired. A little.

But he shrugs and waves it off, cigarette in hand. "Must be a hell of a thing, living in a world that doesn't need a military anymore. Sounds like paradise," he says as he leads Jim to the bow. The sea seems very, very far below from up here, and in this simulated ocean it stretches on forever. But, of course, that's the sort of view he's accustomed to, with landmasses weeks and months of sailing apart. "The only place that shares that name, where I'm from, was named by pirates. 'Paradise' because it's easier for them to travel in, I guess. For us, it's a constant headache."

Blue's head shakes, expression rueful.

Even if that is so...it doesn't bode well. And she...doesn't answer every concern about this circumstance, does she?

All the more reason to doubt.

Alive is good, he'd agree. Alive, actually, is pretty much his exact same standard. But then again, their lives likely have had a few things more in common than the others here, who come from some sort of far-off place they deem far in the future and far more advanced.

Which, that's been bothering him a bit lately, more than he'd care to admit, he realizes. Nice to have Renfri drop by and relieve some of that irritation.

"We needed people like you fighting everywhere, so don't feel too bad," he says. "I managed to push on ahead, though, yeah. Made it to the top just in time to give Kovacs the backup he needed. Shot that woman Cheri in the shoulder."

He says the last bit with just the smallest smirk. It's not that he takes joy or comfort in hurting people, but she pretty much deserved it. And, all right, he has some pride in his marksmanship.

"Ended up with a cracked rib and some pretty nasty slices, but. Like you said. Made it out alive. Sabriel's the reason I'm not stuck in bed right now."

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[OPEN] El destierro es redondo

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