driftfleet | [Action] Complaint #3, Referendum A1

Entry tags:

[Action] Complaint #3, Referendum A1

Who: Edna and others
Broadcast: No
Action: The Blameless and the Iskaulit
When: 9/3-9/7

The Blameless, 9/3

[After so many months on the ship with her brother and the humans that seemed to come and go as they pleased, Edna's gotten used to people who can see her. She knows that she still doesn't show up well on the communicators because they just don't have any resonance, but that doesn't matter to her one bit. It's much more interesting to be the disembodied voice over the little machines in her opinion.

Since Calibrations, the fact that she's so far from Rayfalke after spending nearly her entire life on the mountainside has left her feeling listless. The last system didn't help with its distinct lack of anything truly natural on the planet's surface. Jobs on the farms with Sorey helped, but she's just not that easily satisfied. She never has been, if you ask Eizen or Zaveid.

Her slow-building irritation isn't helped by the disruption being put off by the newer system they approach. If anything, it's worsened. And where she would normally walk around silently, moving between her room with her small collection of things from her friends and the Atroma, the personnel office that makes up her "duties",and the ship's kitchen. As the days drag on, her footsteps grow heavier, shaking the ship's floor for yards around her.]

Move. You're in the way. [Manners are overrated. Sorry, shipmates.]

The Iskaulit, 9/4

[She can't stand the ships and the confinement and the lack of fresh air. And so she's taken a shuttle to the Iskaulit to find an area to stretch her legs. She'd offered to help that Hawke woman with her strange sage-like herb, but she hasn't started yet with the irritation in the air as of late.

She stops when she reaches an area that's open and bare. It's big enough for her to let out all of her frustration on. Honestly, it's perfect. She removes her communicator from the pouch she's taken to carrying and sends out two identical texts to Mikleo and Eizen. "I'm on the Iskaulit. Come to the big open area on the other side of the ship from Malum." Then she prepares to wait.]

The Iskaulit, 9/7

[Anyone visiting the large ship over the last three days will not have missed all of the noise coming from this previously abandoned area and should they arrive, they'll find the small Earth Seraph staring at the scene of chaos with a sort of half-pleased smile on her face.

Until she's interrupted by someone she doesn't immediately know.]

Do you need help with something?

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[Edna tilts her head to the side and looks at the human.]

There's something wrong with your face. You might want to have that checked out.

[She sighs when she realizes that this stupid human isn't intimidated by her and she can't get her to go away just yet.]

You don't have any real powers, therefore human. I am a person, but not a human.

[She summons a few rocks to surround her before stepping away, her footsteps shaking under the force of her irritation.]

[ If that was meant to be an insult, all it does is manage to make her smile crack. Low, almost silent laughs bubble through -- the kind that has your shoulders twitching. Jill covers her face, wiping hard at her eyes with the heel of her palm. ]

Ah, thanks, I need that. Guess I've just gotta face the facts, huh.

[ Barely any time to recover, even though it's clearly Edna displaying the power, she still reaches as if she means to steady the girl before herself. At least before she catches herself, a little wobble backwards with her eyebrows raised. ]

...that you? Handy little trick, that. Guess that explains how all of this happened. [ She doesn't take it as a threat so much as a display of what she can do. An explanation as to "real powers" and the "person, but not a human," thing. ] Well, can't say there's anyone that looks like a person and isn't a human where I'm from. Things that were people once, sure... but they can't do that.

[ Jill doesn't have abilities, but she does. It's complicated and not something she cares to bring up. It's her Ace up the sleeve. ]

[Not an insult. Just an observation delivered in a deadpan snark. Pretty much status quo for Edna, honestly. However, she is amused, SLIGHTLY, by the pun.

~~She misses Lailah, okay?~~

When Jill reaches out as if to steady Edna, the Earth Seraph just looks at the human as if she's definitely grown a second head.]

Artes is how this happened. [And of course it's a display. She sees no reason to waste her time threatening a human.]

What do you mean you have not-human people on your world? They were but they're what now?

[Answer the angry, tiny woman.]

[ Her tone is honestly pretty amusing, but Jill figures it's not meant to be and it's kind of rude to laugh at people instead of with them. So, she just shakes her head a mite bit and raises a gentle hand like she meant no offense by the gesture. ]

Artes. That's not a familiar term to me.

[ Jill's not worth threatening because getting on her bad side typically means you end up getting a rocket launcher to the face. Fortunately, that level of animosity isn't common even if you're on her bad side -- plus, she hasn't even got a rocket launcher here.

Yet. ]

...that's a pretty complicated thing to explain but I'm the one who brought it up. Guess I owe it to you. [ She settles a hand on her neck and it takes her a moment to gather it all. All the explaining she does even back home about her job -- to colleagues, to investors, to victims -- you'd think it would be easier. ] Science, I guess. Sometimes they die first, sometimes they don't. Experiments that are usually intentional on human beings, we call them bio-organic weapons -- BOWs for short -- and they're... mutated into I guess what some would call "monsters." Different viruses or experiments create different outcomes, some look more human than others.

[Yeah, see, laughing at Edna is never a good thing. She's behaving right now, but her respect for humans is pretty much nonexistent and with a hair-trigger temper, she's had to apologize a time or two for going too far. Not something she likes either.]

Magic, I guess, is what the rest of the humans here call it.

[Close enough. She's not about to get all up in arms over semantics. Let the Nerd Squad have their palpitations.

She listens to the explanation and her eyes narrow the more she hears.]

I see humans are still horrible, no matter what planet they come from.

Magic's fictional where I come from. Not sure how well it measures up to this -- [ She assumes the mountain was built that way and minutely gestures in that direction, her expression light but her eyebrows still raised up beneath her baseball cap. ] -- but I sort of have the gist of the concept.

[ She can appreciate that, although she wouldn't mind hearing about the little details and how it's defined at some point. She's in outer space and visiting different planets that can't possibly exist inside her galaxy, so her suspension of disbelief is already pretty healthy. ]

There are a lot of us, so we can vary greatly. Can't say I know much about other species, but I can say that that kind of behavior isn't standard. Naturally I'm against that sort of thing; my job's fighting against it, even.

[Magic vs artes vs fictionality of anything is totally ignored in favor of trying to determine if Edna wants to continue talking to this woman. She has never really liked the humans on her own world and since coming here she's met some okay people that she doesn't hate.

But she really wishes she'd stop hearing about all the ugly that people do to one another and their worlds. Because why can't they just exist in harmony? Is that too much to ask?

Probably.]

Sure, people vary from one to another. It's the same with Seraph. No two are alike, but the sort of damage that Earth Dwellers do to one another is only different in execution. On my world, that affects everyone in the end.

[ Maybe it interests her because it doesn't exist where she's from, but she's also maybe (possibly) not the best conversationalist. She can get by -- it's part of the job, after all! -- but she finds herself struggling sometimes. Especially after the past few years. ]

It affects other humans where I'm from, as well. I wish it were as simple as people setting down arms and acting with interests other than their own and it would be ideal. Some people fight for that, but you can't control other people. [ There is something softer about how she says it, an I've Seen Things sort of undertone. ] Conflict isn't a bad thing, but the extremities of anything are awful. I'm not from where you're from, though, so I can't do anything about that or change your perspective. All I can do is fight for what I believe in where I'm from.

People can't stop fighting and that's not the true problem. The problem is they attempt to find new and "better" ways to hurt each other.

[She sneers and turns back to her mountain before throwing one of the rocks around her at it and watching it turn into dust in the air around them with a satisfying crack.]

On my world, humans create something called malevolence that's basically poison. It kills my kind.

Don't disagree, but that's a sweeping generalization. I'm not from your world and neither are other humans. Using the same word to describe a race of people doesn't mean we're the same.

[ She doesn't think of it as a threat, either. She's not sure the intent, but she mostly ignores it this time, like it's nothing. ]

Well, I can't do that and if I was capable I wouldn't want to. It's an infinite universe out there. We all have to adjust the way we think.

[Edna sighs at the woman's blatant obtuseness.]

I said people, not just humans. There are seraph and hellions that enjoy hurting others just as much as the humans. People are flawed.

[There's another one of the rocks hitting the mountain. The air is dusty, but since Edna doesn't need to breathe, she doesn't care.]

That's not to say that I'm perfect. I'm not. I just don't hurt others if I can avoid it. I know there are humans both on my own world and the others represented here that think the same way, but it's difficult to trust anyone when you're my age.

[ Jill knows exactly what she's doing, but she also knows exactly what the girl's doing. ]

You might've said that, but you're acting like it's limited to one sort. Flaws aren't a bad thing, either, but not every person is flawed in that way.

[ Frustration, maybe? That's what she's now pinning it as. It takes more than a little push for Jill to take a step back, though. She may not always push back, but she's not going to back down from a quarrel just for the sake of playing nice. That's part of how misunderstandings bloom into much darker, greater things. ]

Yeah, guess that makes two of us. Trust doesn't always come easily and shouldn't. Words are all well and good, but actions show the kind of person you really are.

[ Chris. That's the sort of thing he'd say -- but he'd pretty it up, it would be nicer, more him. The kind of thing that inspires the start of trust or greater bonds still. That was him, though. ]

You excel at reading more into the things I say than what I mean. I know that not everyone is flawed exactly the same way. You're from a world where magic isn't real. I'm from a world where human actions can literally poison me. And it can build up here in the humans on the Fleet the same way it does back home.

[Because it sure did turn her vessel into a hellion and her pseudo-brother into a dragon.]

So, while you might not think you're capable of it, you are.

[And Edna finally turns to face the woman again, calm and feeling old and tired.]

Actions always tell, no matter who or what you are. That's the first sensible thing you've said since you arrived.

Then don't leave room to jump to conclusions. Regardless of whether or not that's the case where you're from, it's a false equivalency. You can't blame people for things they don't know.

[ This isn't home and guess what? Jill sure would punch someone who did that here -- or, at least have a stern talking-to. ]

If I am, then talk about it. You can't just come into a conversation expecting the worst when the very definition of it is unknown to the other person.

[ She's not exactly hostile, but there's often a harsh edge to Jill. Harsh and subtle, the cold and quiet easily read into as being something much sharper and with ill-intent. Chris was the friendly one. So was Parker. Their partnerships, for her, rounded her out as a person.

Especially with the former. ]

I haven't said anything unreasonable. If you're reading into things, you have to say what you mean and what you want.

[Edna turns to look at her, curious at the amount of passion in the woman's voice. A weird sort of passion, to be sure, but there nonetheless.]

Why wouldn't I expect the worst out of everyone after over two thousand years of seeing it?

[It's definitely just asked as a question, no attitude attached. Answer her, please.]

[ She's weird and passionate, although the light of the latter burns dimly these days. Jill just wants to pick things up where she left off, but being dragged here has ruined those plans. ]

Because what you're seeing aren't the same sorts of people from the same planet or universe with the same variables to them. If you expect the worst from people, you're likely to cultivate it in them.

[ There's this odd neutrality to it, but with that same rough around the edges tone peppered throughout -- Jill's "default" tone, it seems. ]

[Edna snorts, definitely disinterested again.]

Not the same, no. Just similar enough where it counts.

[And with that, Edna starts to head off to the trees. Done talking now.]

You can't say someone is the same as someone else without knowing them. You can think whatever you want, but that'll only make you miserable in the end.

[ Jill doesn't give chase, but she isn't quite ready to walk away. Not just yet. She's more than a little frustrated by this sort of backward thinking. ]

[If she's expecting an answer, she's not getting one. Edna is, if nothing else, the most stubborn person on the Fleet. And she has years of ignoring others around her, no matter how annoying.

Watch her have a snack, Jill.]

[ Jill watches her have a snack. ]

[ But she doesn't stay quiet because you know what? That's rude. She raises a hand to the side of her mouth and inches up on the tips of her toes, voice loud. ]

Hey, maybe offer a little to your guest, too!

[ There's no ignoring her. ]

[As one last gesture, Edna throws a cookie at Jill before going back to her tea time snack.

Who said Earth Seraph aren't generous? ~~And immensely petty?~~]

[ Jill just starts laughing at this point, wiping at her face until she hits a cheekbone. She adjusts her cap then her ponytail and tries to compose herself, though her shoulders are still trembling with soft chuckles. ]

Alright, you've won this round, kiddo.

[ She's still going to take that cookie and eat it, you better believe she isn't afraid of a little dirt. ]

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[Action] Complaint #3, Referendum A1

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