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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 16:26:16 GMT -6
The old woman scoffed at that. "I've always preferred to take my meetings the old-fashioned way, across a table with cups of tea and pastries on a little porcelain dish, in a parlour room," she said. "I've found it all the better to scour an interlocutor's intent and meaning, and frankly, to enjoy a small bit of company." Though it was no substitute for kinship. She'd spent far too much of her life - and the latter half of it, really - stuck in meetings and dinners with officials from all corners of their galaxy and even neighboring ones, sometimes at work until late, no matter how hard she attempted to make it home. She'd been known for a long time for insisting that meetings take place at home. It was, of course, little more than pretense, only the facsimile of a social existence. They always wanted something. Or if they did not want something, they desperately needed it, or they demanded it, or they thought to try bribes or threats instead. "Besides, if you ever did want to leave that life, I know a doctor or two who'd likely be thrilled at the prospect of that brain surgery." No one could really be surprised that Drulović still had ways to contact people whom the Terran government might prefer she not. After all, she'd always been the one who could summon even the most powerful Terran leaders to her doorstep in the middle of the night, with hardly a word spoken.
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 16:32:11 GMT -6
Hope laughed. "I had someone look at it, two decades ago. They said the surgery was too complex, that the electronics are too integrated into my brain. Rest assured, if I thought Terra had someone who could do it, I would do it and go into hiding in a heartbeat." Hope smiled. "Though I can't imagine the price of that surgery, given who the offer is coming from."
Oh she had little loyalty to the empire, but she also knew they'd know very quickly who the traitor was. And the children would undoubtedly suffer, if Wing ever figured out where she had hidden them away from her. "Besides, dear sweet Winnie would take out her displeasure on my friends and family. I may be a terrible mother, but even I don't want to mess this up."
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 16:43:51 GMT -6
"Whoever said the doctors were Terran?" Drulović watched carefully as the Losenji women leaned into each other, one resting her head on the other's shoulder, both wrapping their arms around each other. She imagined the sweet murmurings they were sharing, the gentle laughter tinged with an edge of sadness. They couldn't possibly be happy here, though they seemed quite content. "I've traveled quite a bit myself, I'm sure you know, though I've always hated spaceships - the little ones and the enormous battle cruisers alike. They're so drab and impersonal, too far removed from where ordinary people live and die. I miss steam engine locomotives and my parents' pickup truck." That pickup truck had originally come from her grandfather, had shuttled hay and pigs and logs and children back and forth from the farm to town for decades. By the time Drulović had returned to the farm from Lipljan, it had rusted so thoroughly that no mechanic would bother with anything other than a suggestion to scrap it for salvage. It was a good truck. "You don't have to make the same kinds of sacrifices that I did."
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 16:59:26 GMT -6
"No doctor would risk it." Hope pointed out, though the longing was clear in her voice. "If not the surgery, then the chance of being found out. It would be a death sentence. Ironically, there's no hope for me, Arianne. You're kind to offer, all the same." The cost was still too high for her tastes. "There'd be no guarantee my memories would survive the process. It's brain surgery. There would be damage, removing my cybernetics." She'd be stuck in this position.
"Though it would be a feather in Terra's cap, wouldn't it?" There was no wonder the other was trying. Hope wished she could believe that there was some sort of chance, even a sliver, that it would turn out okay.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 17:11:49 GMT -6
"You might be surprised what some doctors are willing to risk," said Drulović. "Not everyone fears death or the Empress Wing Kampf of House Erutino." She looked upward. The guards were on the move again, circling the perimeter from above, silhouetted against the late morning sun now. Standing, jackets flapping in the wind, they rather resembled crows. It was a comparison some of her own staff had made frequently, likening their director's figure in her old black suits to that of a crow or a bat. A guard about twenty feet from where Drulović and Hope sat began counting the inmates in the yard - a task that took about ten seconds, and involved him loudly shouting each person's assigned number before jotting something down on a tablet, tongue pressed to the side of his mouth in concentration. "You have whole universes of hope available to you. Things most might only dream possible." She looked directly at Hope. "You are not so alone as you fear."
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 17:19:47 GMT -6
"And what would the cost of this be?" Hope prodded gently. "Though I doubt you'd be able to tell me yourself. You're retired now, remember?" She didn't have the room to be making this offer. It was a sad truth. The other could offer, but she couldn't truly manage it. "And all wise people fear the empress. When she gets in a snit, whoever had displeased her certainly suffers." And the suffering spread.
Hope, however, was one of the few people who would ever describe the empress as 'in a snit' or anything of the sort. She was terrified of the empress, for good reason, but she never showed it. It was, perhaps, one fo the reasons the empress disliked her so much. Hope was not dead yet because she was still useful and was heavily in the public eye. She was damn near canonized in the public eye and had carefully scheduled public events meant to show how harmless and friendly she was.
The second part was true. The first part, not so much.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 17:50:16 GMT -6
"Well, I'm quite accustomed to suffering by now," said Drulović, with a sad smile. She half-shrugged. "It's all too familiar for me." She reached briefly to finger her medallion, lips pressed tightly together, silent a moment before she spoke again. "I'd ask very little in return of you. Spend some more time with your children. Bring me something nice to eat once in a while, something better than they've been serving here, or send it with a courier." She watched as the Losenji women crossed their legs over each other, and wondered how long they'd known each other, and when it had begun for them. "I may not work for Terra anymore, but there are a great deal of people in our grand universe who owe me quite a bit of favors. I have only to ask. And I have nothing, really, to lose." Her home was long gone. Khayyam did not want her meddling anymore. And what family she had left had not yet bothered to come. Perhaps they never would.
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 18:30:59 GMT -6
"I would have to disappear. I don't think I could spend more time with the kids, however much I love doing so." She was a terrible mom and she knew it. "But I could do the others, well enough." It was hard to find an erutin when they didn't want to be found, even for another erutin. The shapeshifting made things difficult on a level most couldn't believe. "I'd need a second surgery to remove the chip the belkans use. The erutin empire gladly took that as well." Every belkan was chipped at the wrist from a young age. They're everything was held on that chip, and it was easily checked with a scanner. You used it to pay at stores, to get clearance to travel. All sorts of things. "But that would just be an incision. Something simple." The same surgeon could honestly probably do that.
"I will say this about Terra. Something about this planet makes it a lot more free than others. I think it may be the magic." No other nation had magic like Terra had magic, after all.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 18:39:54 GMT -6
"That, or the intractable obstinacy of its people," Drulović said with a snort. "I ought to know." She frowned a little, watching the Losenji women curl into one another, until it was hard to tell them apart. She wondered, briefly, whether Luljeta might ever come here, but then, she supposed it would do the other woman no good to bother trying. She deserved something much better than whatever remained of Drulović's life anyhow. "I can send the message today, before you leave, or by morning, if that better suits your fancy." She eyed Hope with a careful look. "You deserve the opportunity for a different life while you remain yet young. Would that we all might have that chance." Of course, Wiryaman or Khayyam might want something, were they ever to find out about this kind of deal in the making. But neither of them were here, and Drulović did not report to the Prime Minister any longer. She was unmoored, adrift. Old, and with decades of debts owed and accrued alike.
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 18:42:51 GMT -6
"I'd appreciate the chance." Hope admitted quietly. "I have...preparations. In case I was ever able to get free." Untraceable bank accounts with enough credits to start over. An unregistered ship she could pilot well enough to get around the universe. She had the ability to be free, if she only had the slightest of chances.
Though to call a need for brain surgery a slight chance. "I'm afraid I'll owe you a good deal more than just good food." Though the other woman would be kept in good food, if she could manage this. She wouldn't need to eat whatever they served here. Though Hope idly supposed she'd find out today what they served here after all.
She was spending the day here.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 18:53:39 GMT -6
"You may be fortunate enough that I'll never have to collect on that," said Drulović, squinting a bit as the sun move just above the topmost part of the wall, so that it shined directly on them. "I've been tending to some unfulfilled promises as of late, from many decades past." She lifted her hand, trembling, to her forehead, the better to see as the guards settled into position in the corner watchtower, able to see clearly into nearly all of the yards from their post. It was a simple but effective design, requiring only a few guards to oversee a few hundred prisoners, at least from that vantage point. "It's about to be time for lunch," she remarked, brows furrowing.
Two of the staff appeared through a different set of doors leading to the yard than the ones where Drulović and Hope had come from, rolling a large cart between them. "Chow time," one of them shouted, then continued through the doors into the dayroom. It smelled vaguely of leek and cornmeal, but not much else. Drulović placed her good hand flat on the bench next to her, shifting her body weight heavily to that side, and looked toward Hope in the guise of Amanda Jones. "If you wouldn't mind terribly," she said, with some reluctance. "I'm afraid I'll need your help." They'd promised she could have a cane, soon, but it hadn't yet come, and she'd been loathe to proffer the expected bribe. So for now, she managed only short distances alone, and only a few times each day, otherwise relying on the help of others. It was far from ideal.
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 18:58:06 GMT -6
Hope stood and offered her arm. "Given the favor you're about to do for me, I don't think you even need to ask." Hope supported the others weight carefully. "Lean on me as much as you need to." She could handle it well enough. Though is was still sad to see the other in such a state. Hope waited until the other had a good grip on her and walked slow, keeping to the pace that Arianne set. "You may need a wheelchair before long." Hope noted, uncertain how to tactfully bring that up.
The other was badly crippled. She'd need more help than expected to get around. "Or possibly a...whats it called. a walker?" There were some terms that didn't translate well. Erutin didn't have them, so she didn't know the term.
Things were simpler when you were a cat. You had four limbs to get around with and it made losing one a bit easier.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 19:07:42 GMT -6
Drulović clung tightly to Hope's arm, leaning with most of her weight on her right side, against her companion, while moving with great caution. Each time she stepped foot on the ground, pain shot from her knees up through her hips and along her spine, radiating outward from there. "I can manage on my own, sometimes," she said, her voice faltering as she focused on making it back into the dayroom. "It's easier inside the building than out in the yard." Inside, most of the hallways, including the corridor by the cells, had a long railing on either side, meant primarily to serve as a point of restraint in case of a riot necessitating lockdown, or need for a sudden cell search, but the old woman had found they greatly increased her mobility since she could hold on to them for leverage while maneuvering inside.
At one end of the room, the staff had set out the food on a table. For only ten people in this particular unit, they never brought much, certainly not as much as in the other units, where most of the population actually lived. Today, it was leek soup, corn bread, some grilled vegetable, and a small portion of unidentifiable meat. One of the staff would spoon a small amount of each item onto a tray, and then pass it over. Drulović eyed the meat in particular with open suspicion. "What do you reckon the likelihood that it's compliant with agricultural safety regulations?"
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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 19:12:06 GMT -6
"Well, it's a prison. but it is a prison on Terra. So higher chances than it otherwise would be." They were being fed something nutritious. Hope eyed her portion rather like it would eat her first. "I suppose its free food, so I can't complain that much. And technically, I'm even getting paid to eat it." That was one way of looking at things. "Though I'm afraid that you rather came out on top, as far as that goal went." Hope had supposed to have been convincing the other to defect.
It had worked rather the opposite way around.
"Hazard of the job, I suppose."
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 19:22:30 GMT -6
"So is prison food," said Drulović, staring glumly at the plate when one of the guards finally brought her tray over to the table where she'd carefully managed the transition from standing to sitting again. They'd at least learned that she wasn't capable right now of both carrying a tray and walking with it, not most days, anyway. Perspiration already lined her face from the walk in from the yard. The old woman poked the lump of meat with her fork. Too sinewy and tough, she could tell just from one touch. "It's like to be some bits of pork and beef, whatever couldn't be sold at market." She poked at the vegetables, one wilted stalk of asparagus and one small carrot. They'd be too hard to chew, too. With a sigh, she stabbed the carrot with her fork, dunking it into the little cup of soup to see if that would soften it. Bringing it to her mouth, she tried to bite off the end, but it was a no-go. "I don't think Mr. Humphries could possibly make these carrots any harder to chew if he'd tried."
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