[Video]

[smallmediumwelldone]

Good evening.

[There’s a woman speaking, tone clipped. The corporate jumpsuit hangs off her small frame, and her hair is swept up into an old-fashioned bun. Or so it seems - she’s standing a bit away from the screen, and it’s tilted at an odd angle.]

I am given to understand that this is how to contact my new coworkers? My name is Beatrice Brewer, at your service, and I assure you I am quite qualified. I am - was - an apprentice of the fifth circle in, ah, a collection of magi, have experience in a thrilling variety of crises, and am quite keen to get started on - [a heavy sigh, more notable for the fact that someone observant might catch that she doesn’t breathe] - this situation.

[There’s a long pause.]

Drat, is this bloody thing even on? Dreadful place, what sort of dog and pony show are they running, honestly. Stuff? Stuff? Of all the names?

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday just stares. A look of profound and weary exhaustion crosses her face. She lets her arms falls to her side, thumb hooking back into belt loop, silver hand sliding into pocket.

"What I want is to be friends. Like if we can get along and shit. Allies, failing that, in a sincere way, like we're all on the same side here. Jorg doesn't think we're people," she says flatly. "If they could get those shock collars to zap us every time we think bad thoughts about 'em, they would. This world is literally falling apart at the seams, and it's gonna take us with it if we don't find a way out or save it. Which means we gotta be for each other first and foremost, you know? Even if we disagree internally sometimes."

She half-grins, a little embarrassed by saying it outright.

"Some kinda power of friendship deal, you know? Or maybe a union," she adds thoughtfully.

[smallmediumwelldone]

Oh. Oh Heavens no. Not this again. Beatrice stares right back, her steps faltering. She feels torn somewhere between dismay and the desire to burst into hysterical laughter, which does rather effectively cut through her current armor.

"Another one? Where do you all come from? Is there a handbook that has been written – some sort of stamped procedure for would-be rabblerousers that say power of friendship with a straight face?"

She rubs a hand down her temple, an oddly human gesture that jars against her what was her carefully-maintained air of stillness previously.

"Very well, Miss Saturday. I appreciate your candor. You're shoring up the defenses, yes? Rest assured, I will not be the weak link. This isn't my first time bound into orders...although I can't say much for the power of friendship's effectiveness in the workplace. To see you present the demands of a union to Jormungand and the "hires", however, would be an enjoyable sight. Worth the price of admission. Perhaps a pamphlet? People do like pamphlets."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday's grin is vast, satisfied, and entirely sincere. She'd been worried there, for a moment.

"Rabblerouser, that's new. I like it. An' d'you think you could rig a pamphlet to shoot poison gas when you open it? Like this super old twodee trid I saw once." Saturday makes a gesture that is apparently meant to illustrate the concept: she mimes opening a book and gagging dramatically at its contents.

"I'm not calling you weak," she continues, a little more serious now. "But y'are new, which means you don't know shit about what's goin' on 'cause you ain't seen most of it yet. And more importantly t'me it means that no one really knows you yet, like what way you'll jump or what might make you break or trip or anything - things people gotta know, like not deep secrets or anything. Just stuff like, for example, so and so is touchy about their time in prison, don't mention it. Or this guy's religion says he can't eat beets, not a big deal, just don't serve it. The usual little shit that helps people not be at each other's throats when it's all going to hell."

The woman did say she wanted candor, which Saturday is pretty sure is an old timey word meaning "honest."

[smallmediumwelldone]

Saturday gets a flat look for her efforts in innovation. "No, I could not. Whatever you may expect of a mage, I am certainly not that brand. Also," she adds more practically, "by carrying something with such a loose trigger you would run the risk of setting it off yourself. While I may not have to breathe, you certainly do."

She falls back into her stiff gait, tracing the path that she is reasonably sure leads to the mess. It's a reasonable enough self-preservation motivation that the elf woman presented. That she is still keeping up the patter of this open friendliness is more unsettling – what exactly is Beatrice supposed to do with that?

"Nor do I require beets, so your hypothetical is at least safe from my menace.. Or require to be known." In fact, she desires rather the opposite. "I will not falter in the tasks set before us, you need not concern yourself. So long as everyone is focused, the rest is only – so much chaff that can be used against us."

Beatrice feels obligated to explain the last part merely because the girl seems so young. One of those budding idealists, doomed against an unfeeling machine. It would be a pity to lose one of her new coworkers to heartbreak so quickly – heartbreak and idealists and pits go hand in hand.

[wheyoftheadept]

"What if I held my breath?" Saturday ponders aloud, unwilling to give up entirely on the notion. But she catches up with Beatrice.

"Okay? But there are things people in a group can do for each other to make shitty situations suck less," Saturday explains, as simply as she can. "Being like, friendly and getting to know each other helps you figure out what those things are. This helps with like, cohesion and morale and shit. It's not a bad thing?"

At least, Saturday doesn't think so.

[smallmediumwelldone]

Beatrice considers it. It's not like there's no reason not to. "I'm not entirely sure how long a timespan – or short, really – mortals can hold their breath for, but probably not? And I'm no chemist, but it seems to me that a toxin that can act in those minutes would be.. dangerous enough to be not worth casual risk."

She comes to a halt several feet away from the dreaded smile machine checker, glowering at the beast. Beckett's demonstration was enough for her, she's determined to not let it win for as long as she can.

"Unless you're intending to offer up fresh blood, there's little others can do for me," Beatrice notes sourly, still giving the stink-eye to the dreaded entry. Blood, she has found, is a fantastic way to get mortals to back off from her space. "I'm not practice for your preaching – have it your way if this is how you're attempting to play the situation, but prepared for the corollary. That while cohesion is all nice and well, but more – attachments created, equally the more openings are created to be used as leverage."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday takes a moment to consider Beatrice point re: poison powder and reluctantly concludes that she has one. She does not, however, concede the other point.

"Keeping to yourself makes problems, too. For example, who's gonna smile you into the mess hall if you don't have a friend handy?" She crosses her arms again, pointedly not stepping up automatically to do the dirty deed. "You don't gotta tell me shit's risky. But there's no way of livin' in the world that ain't, especially under the situation we're in right now. Better to have someone you can trust then not, even if you're no one's confidant an' shit."

[smallmediumwelldone]

Beatrice stays stoney-faced, hands clasped stiffly before her. It's typical, really – there's no one who gives fine speeches that doesn't leap at the chance to make power plays.

"If the much vaunted power of friendship were of any value, not a one of us would be here in the first place. But here we are." It does, in the end, always fold before concrete powers. She made her oaths, and received them in turn, but what did it amount to? It's like having an echo of Tom – or more Tommy, really, speak, but in the end he's not here either, and she was the one who left.

She half-turns, ready to leave. "If you wish to see me beg, you will be disappointed. I'll manage."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday raises both eyebrows. "What were you, raised in a Tir? The only thing I'm trynna do is illustrate how no one's totally self-reliant. Which like, you seem to know, but you're also standing here telling me I'm naive for saying that, without actually like disagreeing or countering anything I'm saying, so I'm kinda confused about your point overall. Or are we having different conversations? I ain't from your world, is jokes about the power of friendship like something people don't do?"

She bends over the sensor and turns on her smile, bright as a sunbeam, totally earnest and sincere. Then flicks it off as soon as the door opens, easily as removing a mask.

It reminds her of Kell, actually, a little - snap judgements with total certainty, the better to avoid having to face how many bones the world's broken, how much torn flesh and bruised muscle it inflicts. Like if you can just be rigid enough, somehow, it'll keep you standing instead of snapping you in two. Saturday does understand that, for all she's coped in different ways.

When she straightens again, some of that realization shows in her face. It might look a bit like sympathy.

"I'm not sure if I'm reminding you of someone else or what," she adds thoughtfully "but you're not the first person to think they know what I'm about. But like, whoever you think I am, you've only actually known me for about ten minutes, an' what have I actually done or said in that time that's like. Bad, or dumb, other'n make a joke that didn't land? Or maybe I wasn't as sensitive as I coulda been about the vampire stuff?"