driftfleet | 01: I turn this corner, get on this spaceship...

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01: I turn this corner, get on this spaceship...

Who: Ray Kowalski
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: 16/4, pre-Shuffle

[A]

[It's not like Ray's graceless-- he's a dancer, right, he can be light on his feet, one-two-three-end-up-in-space, but right now it looks like he's mostly forgotten how to move at all. You can laugh at him (and you could, because in the kerfuffle he's managed to turn on the communicator) but only as soon as you figure out that there's a person underneath the sheer amount of winter clothes currently on the Marsiva. There's a mostly-empty backpack, a hideous parka, a warm (holy shit too warm) middle layer, and a suffocating base core layer. Then there's the hat, the weird-ass circular scarf-thing, two types of gloves, snow boots, sunglasses--

There's some muffled cursing coming from underneath all of this, but eventually there's a frustrated groan and a thump as about half of the aforementioned layers fall to the floor. All through the process, there's muttering.]

Look, Frase, not that I'm callin' you a liar or nothin', but all this time you been bragging about how freakin' cold it gets up North, but I'm kinda disappo-- [He pokes his head out of his last layer, hair mussed, eyes big.]

Fraser?

[B]

[However things get explained to him, he suddenly knows a shit-ton about space. And spaceships. A lot about space ships, actually, so much that his hands get a little itchy. It's weird to be here, without Fraser, when they've spent so much time together since starting his undercover assignment-- especially after they'd left for their Northern Adventure. It makes him feel a little anxious, like he's not sure how to behave without the Mountie at his side.

And when Ray gets anxious, he has to find something to do. So he starts walking around the Marsiva, and he finds things to do-- because he's a Detective, more than anything, and Finding Things Out is his gig, his jam. Specifically, he finds things to take apart, carefully, decisively. With the world of knowledge now inside his head, it all makes sense, and he settles into the work, seeing it, feeling it. It's cool. It's really cool.

The communicator's with him, on a table or on the floor, and despite the whole 'Engineering Augment' thing he keeps turning it off and on accidentally. Feel free to tell him not to take the ship apart.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Cassandra actually would not be horrifically offended if he asked her preference. But given that she has the tendency to intimidate everyone the first time she meets them, it probably wouldn't come as any surprise to her that he's wondering without asking. That doesn't mean she won't get mad at him when he (possibly inevitably) screws it up though.]

[She looks at the offered hand for a moment before it clicks that he is expecting her to shake it. Right. She humors him and shakes his hand, still wearing gloves herself.]

A pleasure, Detective. [She takes her hand back, folding her arms and leaning back into her seat.] Have you just arrived?

[If she continues to be this intimidating he is just going to avoid ever having to say her name. That seems like a pretty good solution right now.

He gives her hand a firm shake, smiling wide but polite. He doesn't sit down, instead remains sort of-- shifting, nearby her.]

Couple days ago, yeah. You too, I guess?

[Safest choice he could possibly make for himself.]

[She does eye him as he shifts about. Either sit or stand still, jeez.]

Yes. I don't like this waiting around.

Yeah, me neither. [Which is obvious-- even if he were sitting down he'd still be antsy and annoying.] Not used to sitting still this long, y'know?

I wouldn't have guessed, [she says dryly.]

[Cassandra is used to sitting still. But even when still, she still has something to do. This just feels like she's sitting on her laurels.]

[He decides to ignore that, because he knows it's kinda true.]

So what do you, uh, what'd you do back where you're from?

Recently, I have served with the Inquisition. I was the Right Hand of the Divine and it was Her Holiness' will that the Inquisition be restored to put an end to a war that threatened all of Thedas.

[Of course, the Inquisition ended up serving a far greater purposes than that, something beyond what Divine Justinia could have predicted.]

Uhhh... [Yeah, he zoned out about halfway through that explanation.]

You gotta back up a little, lady. Who the heck's the divine, where's Thedas, and who were you inquisitioning?

[She narrows her eyes at the "lady," but she will answer his questions with a modicum of patience.]

The Divine leads the Chantry. It is her duty to maintain the Chantry as well as to spread its message across Thedas, a continent does not likely exist on any map of yours.

In the past, the Inquisition protected Thedas from magic and heretics after the first Blight. It became two branches that are now known as the Templar Order and the Seekers of Truth after it became part of the Chantry. This Inquisition was meant to serve a similar purpose after the Templars and many of the Seekers turned their backs on the Chantry.

[The last of which is said with no small measure of disapproval. Cassandra, clearly, remained loyal to the Divine.]

Divine Justinia hoped to negotiate peace between Templars and mages, and end the war between them. But she knew it would be a difficult, if not impossible task. The Inquisition would have protected the Chantry and put an end to the war.

[He's sort of... making gestures throughout her explanation, so that he can remember all that better. He still doesn't understand all of it, but in the end at least he looks like he gets most of it.

It sounds rough. War always does, and he looks thoughtful when she finishes.]

'Would have'?

[Cassandra sighs a little because it's not something that is a straight-forward explanation. At least not without some minor knowledge. She must take a moment to put it in as simple terms as possible.]

A creature that called himself Corypheus tore a hole in the Veil between our world and the Fade, allowing demons to spill forth into the world. He did so at the Conclave.

[She's quiet a brief moment.]

Everyone in attendance died.

[It's both an old and recent wound at the same time. Cassandra lost a number of people to that monster, but she lost many in just that first day.]

Jesus. [He looks momentarily stunned, and then finally sits down. It's kinda freaky to hear someone talking about 'demons' and actually believing them, knowing that it's true. But here he is, and even if she doesn't show it explicitly, he can tell how much it must have affected her.

He's not a soldier, or a Seeker, or whatever, but he knows loss. He's seen what it can do to people.]

I'm sorry.

[Cassandra shakes her head. Although she can appreciate the gesture, it's not necessary. There was never any real time to grieve and by the time Cassandra found herself with any, she couldn't really find it within herself to dredge any of it up again.]

Corypheus was dealt with.

Good. You fucked him up good, huh?

[She arches a brow at his choice of words.]

He's dead, yes. And he will remain that way this time.

'This time'? Jesus.

Corypheus possessed the ability to pass on his essence to anything that had been tainted. He was able to cheat death. That is why the Wardens had sealed him away rather than killing him. They thought it completely impossible.

[And it had certainly seemed that way in the beginning at times.]

[He listens to that with a look of slight horror and awe, brows drawing together.]

Sounds like you're gonna have a pretty quiet time here, compared to that.

I hold no expectations one way or another about any of this.

[She doesn't know enough about this "space" thing to really determine it. It's better to simply be prepared.]

Yeah, I guess. [He stares at his hands for a few seconds, awkwardly, before regrouping and vigorously wiping them on his pants.]

Hey, uh, you ever need somethin', feel free to hit me up. [He doesn't know why he offers, because Cassandra seems more than capable to handle anything the world throws at her-- and he doesn't know what he'd do, anyway. He just doesn't know what to do when she's telling him about these horrible, shitty things that have happened to her.] Technology-wise, or something. [He waves the remote that had been in his hands when he walked into the room at her.]

[Perhaps it's because Cassandra doesn't view these things as happening to her so much as they have happened to her world that she's able to appear capable even when she has absolutely no idea what she's doing. Luck and faith peppered in with a mild amount of patience has served her very well thus far. She can only hope they continue to do so with whatever happens here.]

You are actually familiar with the technology here then?

[Fine, she'll ask, Ray. Because you are clearly unnerved by everything she's just said.]

Yeah. I mean-- kinda, yeah. They told me we all get this thing-- [He points at the back of his neck, shrugs] just puts knowledge right into your brain. So suddenly I know a whole fucking lot about space ships, even when I never been on one before.

[He almost seems glad to babble a little, and he definitely seems glad to be off the topic of world-destroying nearly-immortal demons. Anyone would be unnerved, Cassandra, jeez.]

[Don't be such a wuss, Ray, jeez.]

It's one thing to know, but another to be able to apply it.

I mean, I did a little work on my car, back home-- actually, a lotta work. Always been better wih my hands than my head, anyway, so I guess my brain figured it wasn't too much of a leap. [Honestly, he's kind of surprised. He looks it, but it's a pleased kind of surprised. It's comforting to feel good at something when you're otherwise so out of your depth.]

[Cassandra doesn't know what a car is precisely, but she can reason it out to be some sort of contraption with similar levels of complexity to the technology here while generally assuming that's all she really needs to actually know about it.]

Then whichever ship you are assigned, I'm sure, will be fortunate to have you.

01: I turn this corner, get on this spaceship...

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