four ☀ voice

[deshabille]

Who: Maladicta & u
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: if you want!! she's on the caprine!!!
When: rite meow, since this is a thing we say now

I believe Sergeant Polly Perks has left the Fleet.

[There is a brief pause here, less to signify anything like grief or sorrow and more to allow space for a subject change.]

I probably should have brought this up earlier, but in the interests of being fully prepared for all eventualities - what technologies or techniques are used in the future to revitalize dead land? I'm assuming even in space you have to feed people.

. . . I'd ask if there's a way to replicate these bizarre cubes outside of the Fleet, but I don't think the people of Borogravia would put up with a diet that didn't consist of 50% potatoes.

Comments

[nextlineis]

Why the hell would you ever subject anyone willingly to that shit? Do you hate your fellow citizens or something?

[iamawaited]

I only know one way to do it: pump up clean Aqua-Cola-- water from underground. That's how they said... That's how we did it back home.

What do you mean, she left? Left for where?

[deshabille]

If it's that or starve, I'd do it. You don't get to have an opinion on this, you could live on your own body mass for years.

[deshabille]

I don't think we have a resource like that. At least not-- [She pauses.] Most of the water underground is frozen, I think. Or buried under rock.

Ah. Maybe "was removed" is more accurate.

[iamawaited]

'Was removed?'

[openhands]

[It's her instinct to offer sympathy. It's a simple kneejerk response whenever there is a loss. But she knows how little sympathy often does for another person when the loss is recent or acute as this one is. If Mal needs to talk about it any further, she can only assume that Mal will. Until then? She thinks it might be better to simply carry on as per usual.]

You may wish to look in the library. There may be books on the subject.

[deshabille]

Sometimes people disappear from here. I don't think anyone knows why.

[deshabille]

[This is, honestly, exactly what is needed. If Mal does decide to talk about it, it will be much, much later, after she's had time to process this and to compartmentalize it as necessary. It doesn't change much. This place is still where she is, for the moment. Just . . . a little more lonely.]

Mm. Fair enough. It's not my habit or I would've already. You don't have personal experience, I expect.

[iamawaited]

Or where they go?

[nextlineis]

Starving would be kinde--did you just call me fat?

[openhands]

No, I cannot say that I do. I know that there are techniques in Thedas, of course. Lands ravaged by the Blight have taken some time to heal, but they are not permanently scarred either.

[deshabille]

No, I just called you enormous.

[YOU'RE THE SIZE OF A HOUSE, JOJO]

[deshabille]

No, nor that. I think . . . it would be nice to say she just went home, but that may be wishful thinking.

[nextlineis]

I don't suppose it's ever occurred to you that you're just really small.

[deshabille]

It was just . . . overuse and misuse, in this case. Too much attention paid to soldiers, too little to actually feeding people.

[deshabille]

I'm a perfectly regular sized person.

[openhands]

It sounds as though it will need to lie fallow for a few years then all the same.

[nextlineis]

You're joking, right? I know I'm really tall, but you're still really short.

[deshabille]

Mmmrgl.

[She said, articulately, and then:]

Another question: what is the smallest building in which one can store the entirety of a nation's government for a few years?

[deshabille]

I am not. I'm tall for a woman in Borogravia, which makes me only a little short for a man.

[openhands]

That would likely be impossible, but... [She thinks a moment.] It would likely depend on the rate of deaths and births.

[nextlineis]

Well, we're not in Borogravia, are we, Captain?

[deshabille]

We are if I say we are.

Quick, put on a headscarf. You're breaking the law.

[nextlineis]

What? What kind of stupid law is that?

[A beat as he also quickly remembers:]

And that's not how this works.

[deshabille]

I don't think there would be any canoodling. Just business-y . . . government-y things.

[openhands]

Mal, if there's people...

[She's not going to say it explicitly because that's a little embarrassing, but c'mon.]

[deshabille]

It's just the law. Men have to wear headscarves on Borogravian territory. Which we're on.

[nextlineis]

We are not. You can't just declare something for Borogravia like that. But even if you could and we were--which you can't and we're not--I think you're making that up.

[iamawaited]

[He mulls on this for a moment, but what he makes of it is difficult to determine. It's not that Nux is hard to read -- it's that his face somehow goes past open book into something so open that it's still being written.

The information is taken, absorbed, maybe not entirely processed before he moves on.]

That's what you gotta do. Get to the water.

[deshabille]

No, they will all be in separate cubicles.

[She's joking. Mostly.]

[deshabille]

Get to the water.

Melted snow, maybe.

[deshabille]

I'm not making it up. It's a real law. Religious law, even.

I'm painting the Caprine in the colors of the Borogravian flag. Just you watch.

[openhands]

[She starts to smile.]

And how long do you think you can manage to keep that going?

[nextlineis]

Is that so? You really think the rest of us are just gonna let you do that?

[video]

[experiencepoints]

I can't tell you the details on how they work, but we had cultivation magic to help at home.

[video]

[innercactus]

If you can't grow anything in it at first... you should find a Firstborn. [ The first of the Sylvari did a thing to Orr, and now it's recovering from the big undead dragon's taint. Might have been partially because of his big shiny sword too. Asteffiel isn't quite sure. He woke after that was all done.

There's just one big problem with that- ]

But if you don't have Sylvari, you should find rotting things - like leaves, or fish, and bury that in the dirt! Fertilizer.

[tothefly]

She's not here. And her uniform is gone.

[That, perhaps, means more to her than the former.]

[iamawaited]

...yeah. That.

[He has no idea what you just said, Mal.]

[poetontheinside]

[He looks a little subdued, looking down at his hands when he contacts her. He's gonna miss Polly- besides, it's just weird that people just leave the crew. She'd been a good captain.]

Hey.

You okay?

[deshabille]

[She almost lies. Almost. She really wants to. But.]

I haven't been away from her in. More than a year.

[She doesn't really know what she's doing without her sergeant.]

[deshabille]

. . . Snow is frozen water.

[deshabille]

[It does. Polly might easily have gone exploring different ships without telling anyone, but not without her uniform. Mal nods.]

Thank you for telling me. I think that more or less seals it.

[iamawaited]

Right.

[He knows what water is...?]

Frozen snow.

[deshabille]

No, no. Listen. When it gets very cold, right, water gets cold, too, and it changes from water into something else. Ice or snow. Hard and cold and white. Happens in the mountains.

[iamawaited]

How cold's very cold?

[He seems mildly skeptical. It gets pretty cold out in the desert, okay!]