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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 9:35:10 GMT -6
"Well, I'm afraid that's a mighty long list," said Drulović with a sigh, thinking of all that she had survived thus far. Her body was a living testament to it. Testimony that would die when she did. Terra was able to keep its secrets - mostly - because of the old woman. Even Khayyam understood and respected that. "I've only the three left now," she said lightly, holding her hand in front of Eyelet for a moment. "There isn't much more of me to lose. I'm rather used to that, though - we all have our own responsibilities, and mine have had precious little to do with which body parts I keep. Besides, your Empress likes to play with her food too - I might have disappointed her greatly."
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 9:50:50 GMT -6
"The empress has not been well since her first mate passed away." Eyelet declared. "She did not used to be cruel, you know. She was known for being very sweet." She had changed greatly with the loss of her first mate. And not for the better as far as Eyelet was concerned. "I think her second mate, Emperor Josef, was very bad for her. Emperor Blade was a good man. Emperor Josef? Well. I do not like the belkan empire. It's good that we took it over, but it was bad for us to have also." Eyelet had opinions. She generally kept them very quiet. "She is a very talented shifter though. She can turn into a mouse. I cannot shift that small." Eyelet had yet to figure out how to move when that dense and that small. There was some secret to it that she hadn't figured out yet. "You sound like you've met her though. Was it a diplomatic thing? I know she likes Terra."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 10:07:44 GMT -6
"She certainly likes to travel to Terra," said the old woman. She lay her hand over her chest, still lying on her side. Standing, now, would cost too much. "I think far too many of our galactic neighbors like to travel here. They fancy themselves our next, new rulers. It's a tired story." And Terra had outlived decades of wars, invasions, and occupations, each one come at the hands of a different empire and with a different motivation - political power, direct profit, control of important trading routes, disdain for the supposed inferiority of Terra's inhabitants. Drulović had outlasted them all. "Your superiors didn't deign to inform you, though? How strange. Your Empress saw fit to pay me a visit herself shortly before she sent for me. I'm afraid she isn't particularly pleased with me. She believes I've disappeared Ms. Anona - from the confines of this cell." Of course, the old woman did not expect the Erutin imperial apparatus to trickle this information down to the Travelers tasked with extracting her from Ĭtpraṽmår.
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 10:15:04 GMT -6
"Terra is special. there's lots of free magic here." Erutin couldn't use fre magic like there was on Terra, but it did make shifting even easier. She sighed. "I am not surprised she came. She is close to Director Anona. They were in the same resistance cell." The resistance was taught to everyone of course, and everyone knew the names of the cell that had taken back the palace. They were considered heroes to the empire. Everyone who fought in the resistance was a hero, but especially those few.
"I think you can barely move. You are talented, but you are too hurt to manage hiding our director from us." Eyelet severely underestimated Arianne. She probably always would. "I hope she doesn't pay a visit to us."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 10:29:18 GMT -6
"Oh, I can move," the old woman said, chiding, "It simply hurts my old bones quite a bit to move too much." She wondered vaguely what her life would have been like had she not had to survive what she had. Once, she had been top of her class in special ops training. Those days were long since past. But she had been content for a long time to facilitate a certain image of herself and her capabilities for outside observers, or even her colleagues within the TNG. This image had served her well. And she'd taught her agents for a long time, too, to take every possible advantage of being underestimated by one's adversaries - and even by one's friends. "Did you know the Emperor Blade when he was alive? What did you make of the Empress Wing beforehand?" The old woman knew secrets that could topple empires. For this reason, empires had long sought either to recruit her as an asset, or to neutralize her to prevent exposure of their darkest secrets.
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 10:38:35 GMT -6
"I did not." She said simply. "And she was kinder then. She did not hunts sentients." Meat was meat of course, but eating sentients was viewed with some suspicion in the empire. "I don't know much though. I'm not high up enough to have anything to do with the empress. I am still very young." And she could admit it. She was a big cat of course, but she was small by Erutin standards. "I am only 50." She was barely an adult. "I was very young when Emperor Blade was alive, but everyone liked him, even if he wasn't Erutin. He was Terran, like you." It was why Wing liked Terra so much. Her first mate had been from Terra. "He took the name Blade on becoming her mate. I don't remember what his name was before that."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 12:25:28 GMT -6
"You're very nearly a child still," said Drulović, "hardly past being a mere cub." She turned away from Eyelet a bit, staring up at the ceiling. The plain walls were painted drab off-white, the paint itself peeling in the corners, revealing a darker blue-grey beneath from the previous renovation. "Well, I hope you'll forgive me your imprisonment here - though I'm sure it's a much shorter time for you than it's meant to be for me." Khayyam meant for the old woman to die before leaving - it would solve a number of politically inconvenient problems all at once, with the added bonus of avoiding any real suspicion over what was supposed to be a natural death following senescence. Drulović did not intend to comply with these expectations; this had never been her plan. "I hope it's not too terrible for you."
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 12:31:05 GMT -6
"They have put something up now. We cannot leave via teleportation." They could still leave via other means of course, but the message was well received. They were to stay in put and Terra would do their best ot enforce it. "I tried to go and get a burger yesterday and could not. And they have frequency jammers up now. We had to find another channel to stay in contact with Berry." That had been interesting. They had a wider range of channels than the terrans had blocked, but that had been luck alone. "We could still leave if we really wanted to of course. But they were apparently very serious about keeping us here." Which was not fun. "So we can't even take day trips to the beach or anything."
Eyelet was very put out. "And I am older than a cub. I am definitely an adult."
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 13:52:21 GMT -6
"That is, you know, the purpose of imprisonment," said Drulović, her eyes showing bemusement at Eyelet's apparent disappointment. "One is not supposed to leave one's place of confinement, and the beach is certainly not meant as an alternative location for incarceration." She snorted. "Help me, if you would, a moment," she said, reaching her hand out for Eyelet, seeking assistance to stand. "I think I'd like to make some tea this afternoon, and I'm afraid I've tired myself a bit from walking." She did not mention that she'd not bothered with most of what had been served for lunch that day - the cornbread and small pudding cup had been okay, but the vegetables too tough and the meat too sinewy. And that was meant to be a better meal coming from Humphries' kitchen, heartier than most they served.
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 14:28:10 GMT -6
Eyelet grew a bit in size and stood still. "You can use me to stand up with. I'll help you up." She gently nosed Arianne. "Do you have the strength to go this way, or should I shift?" She could do so, if needed. The erutin stepped close enough to Arianne that the other could use her as a crutch to get up. "I saw what they served. The meat looked over cooked and hard." She didn't know about the vegetables. Vegetables were weird. "You're hungry, aren't you?"
There wasn't a lot that she could do about that.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 15:28:31 GMT -6
"I've had plenty," the old woman said, waving dismissively. This was almost always a lie. "You needn't worry about me." She shifted so that she could bend her knees over the side of the bunk, sitting, and grabbed onto Eyelet's shoulders for leverage. With great effort, Drulović pushed herself to a standing position, pausing a moment to steady herself, then reached for her cane that she'd left leaning against the desk. "Come - would you like some tea as well?" She plodded slowly in the direction of the common space, where only a few of the others in her unit were actually gathered. The rest were at work now, perhaps in the fields. The old woman had learned a long time ago that if she drank enough during the day, it would quell any creeping hunger, stave it off for a time.
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 15:33:51 GMT -6
"If I heard your belly rumble, I will know you are lying." Eyelet decided and walked beside Arianne to the common area. "I don't think I've had tea before. It's some type of drink. My implant says it's made with leaves." Where was she going to find leaves here? That made no sense. "How does adding hot water to a leaf make anything but dirty water?" She definitely didn't understand. But she would join the old woman and try it at least. It couldn't be bad, right?
It was apparently a very popular drink for humanoids across the galaxy.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 15:47:56 GMT -6
"There are quite a few different varieties of tea," said Drulović, smiling a little, "each one with their own unique properties. We use some teas for healing, others for sleep or wakefulness, and others simply for enjoyment. I'm surprised you'd never tried tea of any kind in all your visits here." Each of the cells in the pod opened to a short hall leading directly into the common area, which itself opened to the yard assigned for their unit. Once in the kitchen, the old woman tugged open a drawer, and retrieved two packets of black tea - the cheapest kind available, which was naturally what they could readily buy while inside. Black tea would also hopefully be caffeinated enough to stave off hunger pangs. She busied herself preparing the water in the kettle, and retrieving two paper cups from the cabinet. If she was lucky, dinner in the evening would consist of something easier to chew, but she'd come to assume that despite Aerilyn's repeated entreaties, and even a word from Andrijana, the kitchen wouldn't manage to do much at all.
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Post by demikara on Oct 4, 2020 15:53:28 GMT -6
"There are a lot of new things to try here." Eyelet explained. Thinking on it, she shifted to a human form. She was wearing her uniform, rather than the prison uniform, though a thought sent it to something that, at first glance at least, would pass as a prison uniform. "A whole world's worth of drink and things. I like watermelon juice. And pineapple juice." They were both very tasty. She watched the process curiously. "Is this sweet, like those are?" She had come to decide she likes sugar and sweet things. Well, she already knew she liked sweet things, but Erutin didn't use sugar for sweetening. They used a different plant instead and it tasted differently.
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Post by Ylanne on Oct 4, 2020 16:39:12 GMT -6
A younger woman, pale-faced, with green streaks in black hair, gave a double take when Eyelet shifted form. Many in the unit had not been informed of the presence of Erutin, and for those Terrans who had not encountered their shapeshifting abilities, it could be jarring.
"It depends on whether you add sugar to your tea, and if so, how much of it you add," said Drulović, patient as the water began to heat on its way to a boil. "I'm partial to a bit of sugar in my own, though not too much. You're welcome to add more to yours if you'd like." When the water boiled, she took the kettle carefully from the heating plate, and poured some of the water into each cup. Then she dropped the little tea bags in. "Now, we wait, as the tea steeps."
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