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Remee Halcyon	IT'S CHRISTMAS! Well, it's four days after Christmas. But it's at least the winter holiday time! Except that we've purposefully gone somewhere sunny and warm, fleeing all of the regions of the multiverse that are wrapped in winter's grip. Remee's rented the S.S. Shakespeare Quote, a sizeable yacht with three floors, including the open-air party deck. Most of the interior of the Shakespeare Quote is more functional than anything - there's a small lounge in the lower decks, and several well-furnished guest bedrooms (which are open for anyone who needs a ride or has things they need to store securely), but the yacht's been designed to place emphasis on the party deck. If you've put down the deposit on this bad boy, you're out partying and enjoying the open ocean, not stuck in your room watching television. The aforementioned party deck is divided into roughly three areas - closest to the aft of the ship is the bar - fully stocked and fully staffed, though if someone wants to hop the counter and demonstrate their mixology skills the staff quietly gets out of the way. There's a lot of mundane drinks on offer, as well as some exotic options - some of which have an asterisk next to them with a warning that they're not suitable for stock homo sapiens, and a few 'drinks' that come in USB form, ambiguously labeled on the drink menu as 'Saraband 1' through 'Saraband 4'. There's also a lot of food options available to order at the bar, suiting whatever dietary needs you may have (yes, even *you*, yes seriously even you), but for the more common carnivorous, herbivorous, and oxygenarian diets there's already buffet tables set up nearby. The carnivorous options are a bit more numerous than the other options, perhaps understandable given the party's host... but it is a little excessive. Rare filet cow steak and rare filet unicorn steak taste about the same, really. Midships is the pool. The pool is empty. It's not immediately clear why, and the staff shrug if asked. There is, however, a hot tub right next to it, which is filled and hot and via a bit of applied multiversal quantum foam, is always the perfect size for however many people decide to pile into it. Aside from the (empty) pool and the hot tub, there's plenty of lounge chairs and tables nearby, serving as a general central gathering spot. And finally up at the bow of the ship, there's an open space that would (if the floor markings are any indication) normally serve as a helicopter pad, but instead has a stage, with DJ booth (unoccupied), a karaoke setup, and a smoke-and-stagelights setup as well. The Shakespeare Quote has spent most of the last hours traveling from its home port. Anyone who's requested a ride can get one on the ship itself, though with a polite request to stay mostly belowdecks till the party actually starts, so as to be out of the way. Otherwise, the destination coordinates are on the invites that go out, so those that can make their own way there are welcome to do so. That destination being a pristine and reasonably empty beachfront in a tropical area. The Shakespeare Quote sets down anchor near the shore, close enough that one can hop off ship and swim over to there (or back, making their way back on board via convenient ladders). There's a touristy port town (with warpgate) visible about a mile east of the shore, for those that feel the need to make a quick trip into civilization or stock up on any essentials, though the ship's pretty well stocked regardless. What the ship *doesn't* seem to have in stock is a Remee. Despite ostensibly playing host, she's not on deck to welcome anyone arriving.
Candy	In keeping with the era of his world, Candy has brought a one-piece bathing suit. It's black, sleeveless with little shorts, and as could be imagined of him, it seems to have been hand-picked to hug his figure closely.      He would have requested the ride himself, expecting to have been abovedecks to enjoy the boat ride, only to sigh and pout belowdecks at the behest of the crew. When the voyage is over, he hits up the bar, having withheld the urge to pregame but only just.      "Lemme get a tequila sour, ah? And some music, if you got any to play." He takes a look around, tapping a finger impatiently on the bar. "Where the fuck is Remee?"
Kukuru	As promised, Kukuru does not arrive at this party empty-handed. She's brought her usual stash of homemade fried meats, setting them aside with the rest of the buffet trays along with a dipping sauce that looks like it might incredibly spicy and/or crunchy. It's not clear where the tray or the quart of sauce came from, though, considering that her swimsuit doesn't appear to have any pockets on it, and she's certainly not carrying a bag or anything that could conceivably hold anything as she comes out of the dining area (after loitering there for a bit to sample some of the food ahead of time). No, Kukuru's outfit today is just what Remee told her to come in: Something for swimming, or something fancy. The green pareo draped around her waist might almost be considered fancy and modest, but the cyan swimsuit underneath it most definitely puts the whole getup into swimsuit territory. Resisting the urge to head back towards the bar to snag some of those filleted cow and unicorn steaks, she instead starts pacing arund that general area, looking for familiar faces. Candy just so happens to be the nearest one, and she approaches him with her usual lazy shuffling. "He-llo, Candy~ Oh, I didn't know you knew Remee. That's a good question, though... I heard her on the radio earlier today. Think she's okay?" She pauses for a moment, and then she lowers her voice for the bartender. "Something sweet and creamy, please. Maybe... Half ice?" She's clearly not a mixer, but at least she knows what she wants (kind of) (if she actually knew what a White Russian was called).
Sarracenia	Sarracenia arrives shortly after the yacht has reached its destination. She flies in with her personal aircraft, the Dyna. It's a...wooden VTOL. It's body is about the size of a large SUV, and it has four propellers - two on each side - that keep it aloft. She lands near the Shakespeare Quote and hops onto deck with a line to tie securely to the side of the ship, then starts inspecting the layout.      She arrives in her usual red princess dress, but soon finds a changing room and emerges in proper pool party attire. Pool and beach parties are one of the few times a royal can display some skin without looking too immodest, and so she emerges in a sensible shimmering red two piece with a short skirt that has a jumping dolphin pattern around the hem. And cute sandals, of course. She also keeps her crown on. Her body is quite toned for someone who lives in a castle. She's no Hiromi or Evehime or anything, but there's some definition there.      As she moves toward the bar she offers a wave to those who are already there and smiles. "Kukuru! Good to see you!" she offers, then to Candy she curtseys lightly. "And good to meet you! I am Princess Sarracenia." She gets a frozen daquiri before she looks around.      Only to gasp in horror. "U-u-unicorn steak?! What sort of monster would make steaks out of a unicorn?!"
Petra Soroka	<B-anter> Remee Halcyon says, "Oh - do we need to take you shopping again? I'm busy with the boat and party preparations right now, but I could send you a driver." <B-anter> Petra Soroka says, "Well, I--you know, if it's *either* a swimsuit or formalwear, it doesn't really matter if I don't have a--" <B-anter> Petra Soroka says, "Actually. I don't have formalwear either."         A short time before the party...     Petra sits in the Kana, on the floor rather than in the pilot's seat, looking helplessly at the recently purchased bags of clothing arrayed in front of her. The driver Remee had hired was almost too enthusiastic with getting Petra situated for the upcoming party, insisting on accompanying her through the store, gleefully fussing over her clothes choices, hovering outside the changing rooms for each presented outfit, and the two of them walked out with far more clothes than Petra could possibly need.     "At this rate, I'll be forced to room with Remee just so I have a closet...." Petra mutters to herself while picking through the clothes. Since she now has a swimsuit, it feels inexcusable not to bring it, so despite the anxiety stirring in her stomach, she packs it into a tote bag. At least Lilian won't be there, so there's no way a repeat of the hot springs situation could happen.         The present...     The Kana can be heard for minutes before it comes into view, flying over to approach the yacht. It stops, hovering a short distance away, and the bottom hatch hisses open. The ladder, evidently more complex than a simple chain, unreels and attaches itself to the guardrail of the deck, creating a diagonal path that Petra practically skips down, bouncing between each rung.     She's wearing a girlish outfit of flared green cargo shorts, flowy enough to be mistaken for a miniskirt, with a floral yellow and blue strapless top, a black silk cardigan loosely flapping behind her, sunglasses on top of her head, even though she's squinting at the sun. Her swimsuit is still in the tote bag she's carrying.     At the last rung of the ladder, Petra jumps off, skidding onto the deck with just a little giddy energy. She scans the people present, and her face falls, walking much more calmly towards the gathering.     "Hey everyone! I'm surprised Remee isn't here yet, do you think she's getting something still?"
Candy	"Hiya, Kukuru," says Candy. "Hi, Sarra. We haven't met, but I know you. You're that princess that likes the explosives, ah?" There is a slight note of approval present in the word 'explosives.' He lifts his drink to her in greeting. Turning in his seat to face Kukuru, "We worked together one time on a little fixer-upper. She showed me the trick with the fork and the hand," he says confidently, as if that explains anything. A discarded sunhat and pink cover-up hang on an empty chair nearby.      "It probably lived a good life before they got it," he consoles Sarra. "Unless it says 'veal' or whatever that word is. Then you shouldn't eat it."      He then shrugs at Petra, when she arrives. He doesn't know! "She better get here before I drink this place dry, I'll tell you that."
Petra Soroka	Petra squints at Candy. "There's enough alcohol on this ship to kill a thousand of you, I don't think that's happening." She takes a seat at the bar, and after a bit of awkward hesitation, asks the bartender for a frozen lemonade.     Petra spins around in the stool and leans against the bar. "Sarra! Kukuru! You guys look good! It feels funny to say it in this weather, but merry Christmas!" She laughs a little, scanning the deck with what could be idle wandering, or an impatience for a more familiar face to appear.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	In typical fashion, DRYCLEAN was already sitting in a folding chair on the beach the Shakespeare Quote touched down at. Anyone watching the beach as the ship approached would see them give a quick two-finger salute before packing their chair up and stepping into the cargo bay of their vessel which rapidly unshrouds and descends. A quick jaunt, during which they leaned out the still-open bay door, leads them to drop off right next to the DJ setup. Perhaps some kinship is felt. The horrifying part of this is not that they are in what could be described as a flowing dress. A loose-fitting body in warm earthen hues contrasts bright, blue, almost ribbon-like layers of thin fabric present within folds and draped across shoulders. The whole getup grants an immense elegance to movement, all motion-lines and dynamism. Maybe a bit outdated, but you'd only notice that if you were from the Directorate. No, the horrifying part is how well they wear it. For someone who many have only seen in a well-worn trashy leather overcoat, they clean up to a (potentially) unexpected degree. Their confusing anatomy, though, is now prominent - the thick cables that visibly comprise their neck trunk are shown to actually be the entirety of their main body. They're arranged in such a way as to give a physique that fits a dress well, but their shoulders or lack of them remain slightly questionable - their arms are decidedly different from the cabling, and appear to simply protrude from the mass at points generally suggestive of a humanoid body plan. The dress compensates for this, though. Fitted perfectly, of course. They gracefully step out onto the deck, and as their vessel quietly rockets up and out of view, they make their way over to the bar, giving that same two-finger salute to Kukuru, Candy, Sarracenia.     "Evening, folks. Nice weather today, ha ha." An aside to the bartender, then. "A black russian, if you would."
Rita Ma	Rita just shows up on the ship a few minutes after the festivities start, with no fanfare at all save a quiet splash. (She doesn't look wet.)      Her beachwear's absolutely adorable! It's a frilly blue one-piece with a towel tied around her waist to boot, just because she always needs some equivalent to a skirt.      When she's most of the way done with scarfing down a really, really, really rare steak, Rita gravitates towards the bar, extremely eager to 'help' the drinks staff. Some of the exotic options visibly baffle her, but she familiarizes herself with as much as she can.      "Ms. Petra!" she shouts, waving- otherwise it might be hard to spot her, since the bar counter is nearly chin-height on her. "Can I fix you anything? Or anybody else- I can make your black russian, Operator Dryclean! Ms. Grier has been teaching me a lot, you know!" When Remee's absence is noted, though, her face falls too.      "Yeah. You don't think anything happened, do you? I mean, not like happened happened, but..."
Remee Halcyon	Candy gets his tequila sour, and then shortly after some jaunty background music is piped in through the bar's speakers. "The lady will be along shortly," he's told. Kukuru gets her White Russian, the bartender being quite able to translate vague desires into a standard mixed drinks menu. There's also a tiny umbrella and cocktail sword in it, which are not standard for a White Russian but seem like the sort of thing Kukuru would like. There's no issues with tying off the Dyna to the Shakespeare Quote, aside from one of the staff circumspectly coming by to check on Sarracenia's ropework (and later Petra's chain attachment). Her gasps at discovering the exotic choices on the buffet draw glances, but nobody's itching at the bit to address her concerns. Space is made for Rita at the bar, and nobody thinks to ask how old she is.
Kukuru	"Oh, Sa-rra! He-llo, hello. Aw, you look really nice today! Oh, I should have worn something darker, too..." Kukuru comments as she glances between Sarracenia and the bar, notably at the Sarracenia's choice of color and the unicorn steaks. "Unless their blood isn't just red...? A-ah, I'll find out later." She really wants to find out now, but she's behaving for the time being. Petra's arrival gets a smile and a nod. "Probably! She must be preparing stuff still, so I'm sure she'll be okay. Don't worry!" She chimes in reassuringly, then giggles softly at Petra's compliment and greeting. "Merry Christmas! Aw, you look adorable, too!" Turning to Candy again, Kukuru tilts her head ever so slightly to the side. "Fork? Hand?" She's already pretty clueless about most things, so one more can't be too surprising. The talk of veal, though, actually gets a dismissive shrug from her. "Meat's meat, though. If it's already dead, not eating won't make it not dead or chopped up for eating. That's what my job is, if we really need it alive." Grinning confidently at that for some reason, Kukuru's smugness quickly fades once she hears another familiar voice coming from DRYCLEAN and the trashy coat. "He-llo, DRYCLEAN~ Oh, you went with a fancy dress today. Aw, that's really cute, too!" Yes, she thinks everyone and everything is cute. Rita, too, gets a bright smile and Kukuru straight up approaching her at the bar (also so she can get her White Russian with the cute little umbrella. "Riiiiita~ Can I get one of those black thingies, too?" A beat, and then she glances at the drink in her hand already. "Would it be too much?"
Sarracenia	Sarra hees as Candy recognizes her. "That would be me~" she says, appreciating the approval of explosives. She frowns again though as Candy talks of the unicorn steaks. "Hmph. It doesn't matter! If those are real unicorn steaks, that is an afront to fairytales and perhaps even princesses everywhere! At the very least this princess!" she says, then...sighs. "I suppose what's done is done though. I at least cannot bring it back to life, and who knows what kind of life it would be if it has been carved up like this."      Petra gets a friendly wave from Sarra when she arrives. "Oh, she's the hostess. Any good hostess is fashionably late to her own party and often makes a big entrance. That is what I would do." she says before sipping of her frozen drink through a straw.      Dryclean's appearance is certainly striking! And...a bit unnerving what with the cables making up their body, but overall they really don't look bad.
Lilian Rook	...'or an impatience for a more familiar face to appear.'     Bartender. Ice jockey. Waiter. Waiter. Lilian Rook. Sound technician. Butler--     Like a magic eye image, Petra gets to squint really closely at a seat that was previously vacant, and see her wish granted. It was definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent, an empty chair last she glanced past it five seconds ago, but such is the power of the earnest wish of a girl's heart. Lilian is already helping herself to the bottom half of something light, bubbly and mixed from the bar, reclining partway against the counter, one leg over the other, her typical bag dropped by the stool base, but one bright green eye is still fixed on Petra over the rim of crystal clear glass, waiting for the exact moment the girl catches on.     Lilian wiggles her fingers in what is classically called a 'royal wave', then audibly obliterates an ice cube between her teeth, sets the glass down, and smiles. "Might you happen to know where Miss Halycon is, Soroka? I intended to deliver something to her as well, so I thought I might drop by."     This is patently bullshit. Lilian is already dressed for the beach. Perhaps for the sake of fond memories, it's the slick cross strap and double band bikini from the summer, jet black and accented amber, paired with black heeled sandals with straps up to her shins, and a split tied semitransparent sarong with an understated white and yellow on black flower pattern. She even has the gall to produce a full bottle of champagne that is somehow so cold that the air is already dewing on the glass, and wiggle it in her direction. "For the host, obviously."     Even at the beach, neither the white gold lily hairpin nor the magnetite pendant nor the white and black wristband leave. Unfortunately, at the beach, more is visible than at a hotspring with a modest towel, and not less. Obviously, Petra has already known that Lilian fights with a sword, but perhaps hadn't previously sparked the thought 'oh no, she has abs'.
Remee Halcyon	About a minute after most people have arrived, the smoke machine at the stage fires up on a remote control signal. The stage lights and the ship's lights dim, and the stage is blanketed by a thick fog... (Those with enhanced senses can observe a four legged shape slinking its way across the deck of the ship, staying low as it gets to the stage...) ... and then the stage lights come back on, and Remee stands up from out of the fog, grasping a microphone. She's in a formal greatcoat in a burgundy red palette, its length making it nearly double as a dress. "Hello! Thank you all for joining me for this!" She looks around the ship, briefly pausing with an unreadable expression as she catches sight of Lilian, but then continuing on with her scanning. She pauses again at Rita, and for some reason lingers again, but then continues. "I apologize for being a bit late to my own party, but there were... some last minute things that came up, that I didn't want to leave hanging and divide my attention. I beg your forgiveness. But that said, I figured I'd take the opportunity to make my formal introductions up here!" ""I've met most of you before, and at least spoken with the rest over the radio, but - my name is Remee Halcyon. Of, yes, *those* Halcyons. I'm sure you've heard the rumors and I'm sorry to say that most of them are true - but I'm off on my own now, and not with them any longer... which is a large part of why I invited you all here. I've been... off on my own, a lot, recently." "I hear a lot about family, talked on the radio. Found family, family not by blood, however you'd like to phrase it. I like that idea, a lot. I'm hoping it'll get me through... a lot of things! So, ah, consider this me making my entrance, to... whatever permutation of family I end up being a part of, out here." "I'm..." There's a moment of hesitation. She's clearly ad-libbing, or at least trying to hammer some half-made ideas in her head into actual speech lines in real time. "Ah, I'm used to attending a large family party, around this time of year. I'm making a lot of changes to my life, obviously, but - I wanted to at least keep that going. Be it with new family, or otherwise. So it means a lot. That you're here, I mean." "It's the new year soon, and I'm making a fresh start. Have been making a fresh start, in the middle of it still - you know what I mean. A new Remee, doing new, exciting worthwhile things, with a new family. Not to make up for the old, but to be *better* than what I've left behind." "So let's celebrate - to new and better things!" She lifts the microphone, as if lifting a champagne glass. She should have brought something up with her to toast with, she's realizing. "So, let's make tonight a night to remember!" *Then* she goes to mingle with her guests, making the rounds to speak to everyone.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	DRYCLEAN accepts their drink once Rita is finished making it, but simply holds onto it at the present. "Cute ain't quite the concept I was aimin' for, but I trust your judgement, ha ha. Lookin' good too, all of you folks. Still some fellas comin' in a mite late." They adjust their antennae train with an air that could be described as 'knowing' with that final comment.     "Never really introduced myself proper to half you folks, though -" - a gesture with their drink at Candy and Sarracenia - "- so we still got lots to do." A handshake is extended to each in turn, but spoken in overlapping voices to each -     "Name's DRYCLEAN-SIGINT, pleased to make some proper acquaintance."     "Name's LAUNDROMAT-OPERATIVE, sure we'll be talkin' lots goin' forward." They raise their glass in toast alongside Remee, though the gesture is clouded slightly as they - pour some of it into the mass of cables comprising their neck. You'd only notice if you were looking right at them, but - there it goes.
AME	Party's really picking up, huh? AME, having just arrived at the bar, waves excitedly with both arms, both to the general crowd, but also to DRYCLEAN in particular, who she runs up to, to sit next to at the bar.      "Hiii! Wow, I didn't know you could pull off something old-fashioned like that so well, hehe. Aah, not with those glasses, at least." DRYCLEAN is probably not wearing glasses. AME's own look is brightly-colored and ostentatious, in her usual typical fashion. Something between a robe and a tank-top, with loose shorts. She waves passively to those nearby.
Candy	"Don't be so sure, ah?" says Another Candy to Petra, lying on his side with one leg hiked up, head resting on his palm and a drink in hand. He laughs--the timbre of his voice just ever so slightly Off, before he and the drink disappear.      "Hear, hear," says the real Candy, lifting his cocktail as Remee lifts hers. She wants a night to remember--and while Candy works hard when it's time to work, he parties hard when it's time for that. The rest of the cocktail disappears, and he taps two fingers on the bar for another.      "Rita, Lilian!" He grins wide and waves happily. "And DRYCLEAN too, huh? Nice to meet you." For their benefit and AME's: "I'm Candelario, but you can call me Candy. Everyone does, except Lilian and Dr. Thorne!" He wrinkles his nose in a display of amusement.      "You look good in that dress," he says, slipping on his pink cover-up and moving his sunhat to his lap to free up a chair at the bar.      "Good thing you introduced yourself while I can still talk good."
Rita Ma	"Of course, Ms. Kukuru!" Rita seems overjoyed just to be making things for people, as usual. "It's a really simple one, you know. And I've already got the things out for it!"      She especially seems to enjoy the vigorous stirring part. Clink-clink-clink-clink. Both drinks are poured a minute later. If the little umbrella isn't standard, she's peer pressured into going along with it- she starts to drop one into Kukuru's black russian too.      'Starts to' because that's about when she notices Lilian, and the umbrella falls from her fingers and blows away on the sea breeze. Her eyes linger on Lilian's from across the deck. "Um, I'm really sorry, Ms. Kukuru. And Dryclean. I'll be right back, okay?"      During Remee's speech, she weaves through the crowd towards Lilian. Her shoulders are tensed with anxiety, but her face stays firm. Then contact.      "Ms. Rook," she says, with her hands tightly folded in front of her to compress the nervous energy. "Ms. Petra has just gotten through something really hard and really exhausting. And Ms. Remee's baring her heart, too. You're going to be very nice to them today, aren't you?"      Her tone is a little bossy, but mostly desperately hopeful.
Petra Soroka	A familiar face appears! Petra freezes up when Rita hops aboard, head locked in its angle watching her approach, eyes unblinking, probably not even breathing. Such is her trance, that when the bartender slides her the lemonade she ordered, she doesn't notice that it's alcoholic.     "R-Rita! Hi! Hello!" She slowly raises up her hand into a stiff wave. "You look--I like your, the swimsuit." It takes her a few tries, but she gets there.     "It's okay, I've already got a..." Petra trails off and looks down at her frozen hard lemonade, already over half empty, and slowly blinks. Oh no.     Another far more threatening familiar face appears. Petra shoves herself up from the bar, stomping two steps towards Lilian before even realizing she's moved. She slows down, veers to the side, looking very very purposefully at an empty spot a few feet to Lilian's left.     The entire rest of the bar seems to be forgotten behind her, questions and conversation dropped, though her drink is still in her hand. "What are you--" Petra's angry interrogation is cut off, by Remee's arrival.     Petra startles at the sudden voice through the speaker, but spins around once she recognizes the source. The excited smile on her face grows into something bordering elation as Remee's speech continues her speech, and she raises up her glass and cheers at its completion, taking another, huge, unthinking, drink.     The sting of the alcohol flips her expression back to a scowl, and, almost as if that scowl reminded her of Lilian's presence, she whirls back around, glaring.     "Well?" Too bold, actually, her eyes slide upwards to a foot above Lilian's head.
Remee Halcyon	"DRYCLEAN! Or - LAUNDROMAT, nice to see you? Actually I... don't remember what was..." There's a question on Remee's lips, one that she's not sure if it'd be rude to ask or not. She ends up chickening out. "Nevermind! Hope you enjoy the drinks. I tried to pick out something for non-biologicals but... I guess you're fine with the standard menu?" Candy next. "Hey! Glad I caught you early then," she says. "I'll make sure you make it into a comfy bed once you pass out, alright?" It's not clear if Remee caught what Rita and Petra are saying to Lilian or not, but either way she gives them all a little bit of space, for now. They're talking about something, and she has a few other people she can cycle through before she gets to them. "And... AME, right?" she says to her next. "Actually not sure we've even had a chance to talk yet." A hand is extended to shake. "How's the Watch treating you?"
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	"Glasses go with anythin' if you're a thug, ha ha. Good seein' you here, woulda been downright terrifyin' only minglin' with folks who can one-up me in eatin' appetizers." Bit secured. Their primary monitor adjusts down to look at Candy. Wow, they sure are fucking tall! The visualizer coalesces into an approximation of a sharp grin. "Had to race 'gainst the clock, ha ha. Heard good things 'bout you." They do remain standing, though. There might be a twinge of relief for some of the partygoers less used to the anatomically-esoteric at not getting to see how the hell they contort in order to do so. Their secondary monitor, then, shifts to approximate looking at Remee. "Appreciate the consideration, ha ha. Ain't gonna turn down the whole swathe, just gotta work my way on through, per say."
AME	"Aah, hello! Yeah, I'm AME!" She accepts the handshake graciously.      "Aaah, I'm not really sure if I'm, an official member? I just kind of found my way into the comms, haha. Still not sure how most of all this works!"
Kukuru	Remee makes her appearance, and Kukuru starts waving at her to approach when she realizes that Remee actually has things to say! It takes a moment for her to really understand where their host is going with all that, but once it does, Kukuru's smile grows just a bit wider. Clearly, she thinks that found family means someone like herself, and that's easy enough to see with Kukuru starting to tear up as the speech goes on. She sniffles, she wipes her face with a towel, and she claps with astounding volume by the time Remee finishes issuing her new year's declarations and wraps up the speech. "Remeeeee! Oh, you know you'll always have a placewith us. C'mere!" Kukuru goes for the bear hug once Remee's in range, somehow managing to mix rib-crushing strength with affectionate wriggling seamlessly. "Even if you're not part of the Concord, my door's always open, okay? Don't be afraid to ask for help if you ever need, either." With that all said, the tension finally slips out of Kukuru's body just in time for her to get a nice black Russian from Rita. "Oh, this looks fancy~ It's-" The umbrella goes flying, but she does't seem to mind one bit as she giggles and shakes her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, Rita. That's why I've got two!" She actually only has one from the White Russian, but that can still look fine with just the little sword. Spotting AME, Kukuru turns to her with a bright wave as well. "He-llo again! You're... Um. You were at the thing with Petra last time, too, right? My name's Kukuru." Beat, repetition for emphasis. "Ku-ku-ru. It's nice to meet you~ Are you settling in okay?" Lilian arrives, and Kukuru's smile doesn't fade one bit. No, she looks just as pleased as she always does, and she takes a moment to compare her drinks and make sure her little heart pendant with the horns on it is tucked away safely before finally approaching her from behind where Petra and Rita are standing. The tension between the three of them isn't completely unnoticed by Kukuru, of course. She's just opting not to verbalize her thoughts on it, although standing behind Rita and Petra lets Lilian see that Kukuru is silently mouthing 'pleaaase' and smiling hopefully from behind them.
Remee Halcyon	@DRYCLEAN: "Oh, good, good! You don't need to, I mean it didn't really cost me much, aside from the little thumb drives..." @AME: "Oh, that's... a little surprising, I know that opsec is a little bit shotgun sometimes here..." "... Maybe we should... give you a proper training session or something? Evaluation? I actually - I mean, I've only been here like two months longer than you have, I think? So I'd be the wrong person to ask." @KUKURU: Remee's entirely unprepared for the hug - and there *might* be a literal cracking sound when Kukuru squeezes too hard. "YIP! Kukuru, easy..." Once she's let go, Remee resists the urge to rub the sore spot(s) on her body and instead nods to Kukuru. "Thank you! That means a lot. So far I'm getting all the help I need from the Watch, but... it's good to know I have options." Truthfully she *had* briefly considered the Concord, way back when.
AME	To Kukuru- "Aah, no, it was way too far away to have done anything." Winding a strand of wig through a too-long finger. To Remee- "Hm. Maybe! I mean, I'd love to be helpful to all of you, you've been such good friends. I'm not sure just what I could contribute, but I'd always be happy to help!"
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	A finger tapped idly on the side of their glass. Monitor readjusts, neon streamer now within something describable as a gaze. "Ain't all ideological arguments and parties. Gotta make sure you got the drive t'get your hands dirty if you're optin' for the kneebreaker circles, ha ha." It's not a sharp response, not admonishment, but it still carries a bit more gravitas than their normal equivalent to a 'tone.'
Lilian Rook	"Candelario~" Lilian calls back, substituting a slightly condescending wave for a gesture with her bottle instead, putting that down a moment later. "I'll call you Candy when I need a favour. For now, be glad with your given name." she adds, the inscrutable echo of an ambiguous joke riding her lips.     "Oh? And who's that?" asks Lilian, briefly distracted by the appearance of funny little (big) robot people. "You're certainly picking up some interesting characters these days. I don't think I've heard the other one, but I remember that one from Tachibana's misadventure." She shuffles the precise angle by which one leg crosses over the other. "Oh, and Rita--!"     Rita has already practically bolted over. Lilian remains seated, still slightly above eye level with Rita without getting up, but her eyes widen in soft startlement. "Yes, I know all about what they've been up to." Lilian says, still slightly too stunned to put any inflection on it, so the words just come out unguardedly quaint and agreeable. Then her eyes drift down to Rita's nervously squeezed hands, and her expression gently tightens on one side in something approximate to guilt.     "Let me see . . ." Lilian starts, sighing as she pushes away her glass. "Do you remember the governer's house, Rita? In Candelario's world. That time . . ." The way she says That Time feels as if it contains a mountainous weight of context. "You did something for me, didn't you? When I left, you understood, and you did me a favour." she says, elaborating no further. "Soroka, as utterly incapable as she is of grasping it, has done something like that for me. I'm not here to ruin her day, if that's what you're asking." Lilian sighs. "Besides, would I really get dressed up in a swimsuit just to not enjoy myself?"     Then it's speak of the devil time as Petra stomps her way over. Aggravatingly, Lilian eases from a posture of discomfort to one of relaxation once she goes from having a worried Rita to an aggressive brat in her face. "My eyes are down here." says Lilian, already smirking, wiggling her finger to attract Petra's attention downwards. "It wouldn't kill you to look at them when speaking to me."     There's a moment of blank staring. Then, "Well what? What am I . . . ?" Lilian says, leaving the question of Petra's aborted sentence hanging only for a short while, before rolling her eyes. "Never mind. I have the idea." Lilian gestures with one hand like a stage magician, and her phone pops into being as if by sleight of hand. She taps the play button on a recording app with a painted thumbnail. <B-anter> Petra Soroka says, "It's just a party, it's not private or anything! <     Completely fucking insufferable. "Don't get your knickers in a twist Soroka. I've told you before that I wouldn't bother arriving politely if I really wanted to do something to you. I'm here to enjoy an open party during my time off, see some faces I haven't had a chance to spend time with over the winter, potentially get somewhat drunk, and celebrate exactly what we both know that you're really celebrating."     "Do you remember? I asked you how it felt."
Sarracenia	Sarra continues to sip of her drink as Remee makes her speech. "...family? I wonder if I was actually supposed to be here...?" she wonders quietly to herself. They've barely met after all. When Remee approaches, she smiles. "Well, I am not sure we are anything close to that yet but...I am always on the lookout for new friends."      A few more people show up, and...the princess can't help comparing herself to the others. Who's got the best body? Is it her? Petra certainly didn't stumble over complimenting -her-! Did anyone compliment her at all? The closes was Kukuru, and...was that even a compliment?      The princess poutily sips her drink some more. The tension between Remee, Petra, and Lilian is a bit surprising to her, and her sipping becomes more of the 'watching a drama' sort. Candy's introduction sparks recognition for her, though. "Oh! I remember you a bit from conversations before I joined the Concord! I guess we really did never meet before."
Candy	"Oh yeah?" Candy asks Remee following her promise, a mischievous glint in his eye. "I'll save you a spot,~" he teases, crossing one leg over the other as his second drink is quickly scooped up.      DRYCLEAN has to look farther down for him than most, what with him being just barely 5'7"--but he doesn't seem to mind. "We don't really do official anything," says Candy to AME. "Just that if you run with us, you end up on a list somewhere before long. That's 'official' enough for us, ah? Looking forward to working with you," he smiles, before taking another dangerously generous sip of his second drink. Is it seriously almost halfway gone? "I can show you the ropes sometimes soon, if you want. I was part of a revolution before I signed on. You know, Rita and Liza would probably be pretty good for that, too!"      He bats his eyelashes at Lilian. "I'd do you any kind of favor you wanted, ah? Hahaha." That would be the second pass he's made, and at the rate he's burning through drinks it won't be the last--though it might be among the last to be intelligible. He cups a hand over his mouth and gossip-whispers something to Kukuru, before waving a hand dismissively at Sarracenia.      "If we didn't want you here, we'd raise a big stink about it, don't worry. Just have a good time. Besides, if everybody in the Concord was like you two, we wouldn't even give you guys the side eye."
Petra Soroka	Petra stares at Lilian for a few seconds longer, expression tightening at the obnoxious replay of her own words. She opens her mouth to retort, and...     Shrugs. With a smile. "I guess I did say that! Though I also remember saying, a moment later, that it's Remee decision, didn't I?" She plops down on the stool next to Lilian, and takes another sip of her drink. A noticeable flush is starting to suffuse her cheeks, distinct from the faded red that appeared alongside Rita's entrance.     "I thought I already answered that question? Did you want elaboration, or something?" She spins around in her stool, a full 360 degree rotation, then slaps the one next to her. "Ritaaaa! You should sit down too!" Another spin, this time to face Lilian, going the long way around. "I mean, yeah, we're here to help me unwind after that fight with John, just like you said to." She nods, twice.     Her eyes drift around, and she says, in response to no one, "I wanna go to the beach."
Remee Halcyon	@CANDY: "Oh, you don't need to save me a spot," says Remee. "I made sure there's plenty of beds." @SARRACENIA: "Ah - sorry, yeah, that was mostly aimed at the rest of the Watch, but you can take it as being part of the Elite community for this part of Sector Zero?" suggests Remee. She glances up at the Dyna. "That is a nice ship," she comments. "I'm surprised you can get wood to fly like that." @LILIAN, PETRA, RITA: Inevitably, she does make her way over towards Lilian. She can only put it off for so long without it being clear that she's stalling. "Miss Rook! Glad for you to join us. I hope you didn't have any trouble finding the spot," what with not being invited and all, she doesn't add out loud. "Please, make yourself at home. It's just a small little party, just what I could throw together at short notice, but I hope you'll still find it up to the standards of a Rook." "- Oh!" Remee claps her hands together. "You should go do the karaoke, Miss Rook! Get the stage warmed up for everyone. I'm sure you have a wonderful singing voice, it'd be a shame to not hear it."
Kukuru	"Oh! Sorry, that was just... You're speech was so good, though!" Kukuru's still a little puffy-eyed from Remee's talk earlier, but she's at least let go to not accidentally injure her new (assumed) family (more). She even gives her a little healing boost from the nanites flowing in her body just in case! "I know you'll be safe with plenty of friends no matter where you go." "Ah, that's good. I haven't tried healing someone mechanical before, so I dunno how that'd really work" Kukuru admits to AME with another pair of sips from double-fisting those Russians. She's pacing herself, but it is proving to be an obstacle when it comes to actually getting food to go with all of it. With Lilian on good behavior, Kukuru can relax! She leaves her, Rita, and Petra to their own devices once it's clearer that things have settled down (and gone in a direction she's not particularly clear about just yet, and she makes a mental note to dote on them after getting some food. That food Kukuru gets, naturally, is some of that rare steak (beef on one side, unicorn on the other). Remembering what she had told Sarracenia earlier, she takes a seat right next to the princess and offers her some of that steak. "You okay, Sarra? You should try some of this if you haven't yet." She also offers some of that White Russian, but the black Russian stays with Kukuru. She's also definitely not sticking close to see if the blood is the same color, and if it any stains would be easier to hide with a red outfit rather than her own cyan and green getup. Candy's whispering gets a curious look from Kukuru, and she leans closer to make it feel as though she can hear him more easily that way. She doesn't to any notable degree, but it's more about making him feel like it does! "Hmmm? Oh, yeah, don't worry Sarra. We're all friends here! See, Candy trusts you, and everyone else does, too!"
Kukuru	Once she hears Candy's whisper, meanwhile, Kukuru looks over at Petra and Lilian meaningfully. She strokes her chin, snatches up a piece of unicorn meat with a flick of her tongue, then holds up two fingers from the side of her glass. "Weeks."
AME	To Candy- "That'd be nice! It's always great getting to meet people around here. So many interesting types of people out here!" Conveniently ignoring any comments about ending up on lists. To Kukuru- "Hmm. How's it work? Like, is it magic that maaaaybe works on robots?" She tilts her head. "Hmm, speaking of things that work on robots. I'm not sure what DRYCLEAN can do-" she giggles, midsentence, "- but I don't think any of the drinks here work on me. Is there anything, aah, along those lines?"
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	Another monitor adjustment; Sarracenia receives a grin that could potentially be described as more... conspiratorial? "I reckon it's always good makin' the effort to assemble those connections, ha ha." There's a slight pause, then a crackling through the closest radio-enabled device to her head, at just barely enough volume that only she can make it out clearly. "Reckon folks are just intimidated by gettin' showed up in looks by a visitin' royal. Dress really makes a good statement." With knowing glances and statements procured, they take another ""sip"" from their glass and actually do take the seat that Candy had not-so-subtly cleared. "Revolutionary sure does seem to be a type to gravitate under the moon, ha ha. Big fan of your work out there. Folks who ain't on the receivin' end of logistics don't give it a wink of appreciation." The potential innuendo there is given no more emphasis than any of the rest of their sentence, but the voice clipped to state 'logistics' has a slightly more... suave tone? An arm extends, signal obviously attenuated, pointing out the thumbdrives with names you'd expect to see written in sharpie on masking tape then stuck to the side of a plastic bag. Inaudible insinuation.
Sarracenia	Sarracenia smiles happily at the compliment to the Dyna. "Thank you! Yes, the trees where I live are quite hardy, and my world has long had the ability to make aircraft like that. My country's fleet is actually all wooden airships! I believe you may have seen one as it carried John from the battlefield." she says, then looks to Petra. "You certainly did a number on him! There was a distinct lack of explosions, but...I suppose I cannot argue with the results." She pauses. "Hmm...I hope he's doing alright. I haven't checked on him since then." she says, then shrugs.      Kukuru offers her some unicorn steak, and Sarracenia flails for just a moment before holding her hands up in a typical 'that's far enough!' jesture. "No no! I will not sully my lips by tasting unicorn, and certainly not my outfit! Those steaks could use a bit more time on the fire if you ask me."      Candy's words make the princess smile though. "Well, I suppose if you are going to crash a party this is a good one to crash." she says just as a short piranha plant in a butler outfit brings her a plate of food with her preferred options on it. Mushroom options aplenty as well as sushi (though none of it is of the raw fish variety).      She continues to listen to but not participate in the conversation between the others. While trying not to stare at AME or Dryclean. They are certainly...unique individuals. She can't help but smile a bit haughtily at Dryclean's compliment though, and quietly says back to her device (which happens to be her smartphone), "I see. I suppose I cannot blame them for that."      Petra mentions the beach, and Sarra perks like a puppy. "Oooh. I have an idea! Who would like to ski or surf or perhaps parasail behind the Dyna on the way to the beach? Or just in general?"
Remee Halcyon	@DRYCLEAN: Someone gets DRYCLEAN the set of Saraband 1-4 off of the shelf, and offers it to them. The set look entirely like normal off-the-shelf USB's. High capacity ones, to be sure, but they're something you could grab from most major tech stores in modern-earth-adjacent-tech-level worlds.
Rita Ma	"That time . . . You did something for me, didn't you?"      Rita relaxes, but only a little. Her eyes slide off to the side. Despite her remaining tension, she wears an embarrassed slight smile. Lilian's describing the Event as something forebodingly vague, but for her, it seems to be mixed-leaning-positive as a memory.      "Yeah. I understand, Ms. Rook. And Ms. Petra has been really nice and accepting, so I really appreciate you being nice to her, too."      She stands off to the side when Petra approaches, and visibly holds her breath through that exchange. If one is perceptive- and Lilian is- one can see her brace to intervene when Lilian smirks.      But then Drunk Petra shrugs it off, and Rita breathes out in quiet relief. "Sit down? Oh! Um, one second. Let me just..." Petra and Lilian are sitting next to each other. If she sits next to Petra, that could read as favoritism. If she sits next to Lilian, that could read as betrayal. What's a poor girl to do?      After a moment of visible indecision, Rita just picks up a third chair and wedges it between Lilian and Petra, then plops herself down in that with a little wiggle to get comfortable. She looks very pleased with herself at finding a way to be within both petting ranges at once.      "Karaoke sounds like a great idea, Ms. Rook! There's no way you don't do music, right?" she echoes, when Remee floats the idea. Then, to Petra: "The beach? I could carry you there! Was there anything special you wanted to do? I don't really know much about beach activities, so I was kind of hoping you'd be an expert."
Kukuru	@Sarracenia: Even the fact that her steak is rare in both the cooked sense and what it's made of doesn't bother her. Sarracenia seems more bothered by it, and Kukuru giggles lightly in response. "Aw, but it's really good! Who knows when we might have another chance to try it?" As she says that, her tongue darts back out to snatch up another piece of steak. That way, Kukuru can hold her plate and her drink without having to mess with a fork or knife! She's also getting some unicorn blood on herself, but she doesn't seem to mind. "It's important to try almost anything once just to know for sure if you hate it. Food, games, trips... Especially if you're human." @AME: "The healing? Um... If something hurts, I can make it not hurt so much! And if someone's parts come off or get injured, I can fix them up! Well, they'll probably still need a doctor to make sure it heals back right, but..." Kukuru slows down for a fair bit of time, stroking her chin as she tries to recall so many lessons that clearly weren't retained properly. "Something about... Knights?" She's also forgotten the right word for any of it. "And if anyone's dead, I can fix that, too! Probably. I'm not really sure when it doesn't work, but it just... Doesn't, once in a while?" That, too, is a mystery to her, but she doesn't sound all that concerned about the mechanics behind it. Instead, she just laughs and gestures at the bar with her head. "Yeah, I think saw some mechanical-looking... That!" @DRYCLEAN: DRYCLEAN comes to the rescue, and Kukuru opens her mouth with an expecting look towards them. She even goes 'aaaaah~', as if expecting DRYCLEAN to just toss one right in between those rows of jagged sharky teeth.
Lilian Rook	"I know I know. That's why I'm saving it for a big one~" Lilian says to Candy. "Don't get too shattered. Don't you want to make a good impression for your juniors?" she says, already knowing the answer.     Her sense of hostile wariness returns when Petra finally says something without a hint of vitriol or the slightest resemblance to a small and anxious trembling dog. "I'm certain that she doesn't mind. Would you like to call her over?" says Lilian guardedly, though only a few seconds later, she realizes just what has brought on that shift in attitude, and scoffs in amusement despite herself.     "No no, your answer was enough." she says. "Though, I wouldn't mind an elaboration if you'd like to give it." Lilian swivels her stool away, but keeps her eye on Petra out of its corner. The toe of her sandal bobs up and down in thought. "If only I could combine Tachibana's heart with your misguided determination." she starts to say, before trailing off and visibly losing interest in that topic. A second goes by, where she looks at Petra's drunk face, twists her lip, and looks away again.     "I was relieved, you know. To hear your answer. And perhaps a tiny bit jealous."     Remee comes over. Lilian is far too well trained to ignore the presence of the hostess, even if she doesn't know her at all. "Thank you very much, Miss Halcyon! I had no trouble at all!" says Lilian, now all glittering smiles and dazzling charm. She picks up the champaign again, saying "Oh, I brought you a little something as well, of course. Miss Soroka has already had hers, but I decided it would be appropriate to thank you as well for taking care of that girl until she's figured some things out." Rather disarmingly, the bottle that Lilian hands over is, in fact, compliant with the Champagne region memetic format, and yet not a vintage Remee is familiar with. Some evident thought went into picking it.     'I hope you'll still find it up to the standards of a Rook.'     "Don't."     Lilian stands bolt upright. Her stool spins on its own behind her, gently blowing the sheer sarong halfway around her waist. It catches on tightly balled fists. A tense two seconds pass before Lilian breathes out and relaxes her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. My standards are my standards, and I'm perfectly content to spend time like this with pleasant company. Let's leave family names out of this for now, okay?"     Rita wedging in her chair is as good a way as any to break the tension. Lilian's hand flies to her mouth to politely pretend to concal the laugh she smothers, then falls on top of Rita's head, gently stroking her hair. "Of course I wouldn't mind showing these people how it's done. Especially if there's a proper stage." she says, but cautiously adds, "But isn't karaoke meant to be a group exercise?" She glances back at Petra's unusually bubbly declaration. "And it sounds as if you friend would like to hit the sand instead. Though, she'll have to change into her swimsuit." Lilian adds, more pointedly.
Candy	"That sounds right to me," says Candy to Kukuru, knocking back the rest of his drink and already tapping on the bar for his third. His cheeks are flushed copper as he nods his assent.      "There is," says Candy to AME. "You should see the shit behind that bar. Even if there isn't--and there probably is--I could make you something. But there, see?" He nods towards the USBs. "Robot stuff."      DRYCLEAN's remark earns them a lopsided grin and a vague gesture of his second empty glass. "Oh, believe me, my friend, I am *very* appreciative when I'm on the receiving end, ah? Even if I usually gotta be the one giving." It is the most obvious innuendo in the world by comparison, cloaked only by the fact that he's conjured a third tequila sour himself, revealed as a current of air blows away a small cloud of smoke.      "No," he says to Lilian with brightly beaming impudence, knocking back over half of it in one go. "I want all of these good people to see me show my ass even more than I normally do.~" He wobbles in his chair.
AME	AME nods through Kukuru's explanation as though it were at all comprehensible or informative. Her hand is sifting through the USBs, loosely picking them up and dropping them with no apparent intent of actually using them. She pays no mind to the action, attention still focused on conversation.      She giggles and nods with no apparent direction, seemingly a generic response to... about everything. It's a party, who doesn't just laugh at everything going on, y'know?
Remee Halcyon	@RITA: "Oh, ah... Rita, we need to talk. In private. Later," says Remee. "It's important." Remee makes a 'don't ask' gesture to follow that up. The beach remains mostly empty, especially empty of anyone who would care about people jumping ship to get a bit of fresh air and space. The staff politely asks that you only jump down normally and don't try to dive in, though, since the water here might be a little shallow. @LILIAN: Remee startles at the response to her remark about standards. "... Ah. Alright then. No family names, no... family stuff. Then..." She nods. "Then in that case, it's Remee, and Lilian, okay? Not Miss Halcyon and Miss Rook. I'm going to insist." "..." Remee downshifts a bit. "You really are welcome to stay and enjoy yourself. I mean that." Then, more quietly. "I do appreciate the help you gave Petra, even if it was... a code thing."
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	They take one of the drives and spin it between the fingers on their unoccupied hand while maintaining conversation across the board. There's no indication they're giving it any mind - up until the point where they do indeed flick it directly at Kukuru. They grab another. Through Sarracenia's phone, conversation continues. "Folks gotta appreciate the unique, I reckon, ha ha. Lots to see out there, and this echelon sure does do a lot of both seein' and providin' on that front. You get to travelin' much?" Whatever type of response Candy was expecting to their blatant remark, it's instead met with a return adjustment of their monitor followed by a sudden though not too loud laugh track - three overlapped, cutting out after a second or two. "Rough world out there, ha ha. You got skills renowned 'cross the whole Watch on that front, though, so I reckon it's smoother than for most. That conjuration sure is a hell of a thing, imagine it really helps." A pause. "True conjuration, unlike what Miss Wholesome's pullin', I gather?" Adjust. Streamer. Subtextual, broadcast, encryption along angles only legible from one mental direction. Folks're willin' to be pulled aside for conversation and conservation.
Petra Soroka	Petra swirls her now-melted slushie around, a beaming smile seeming plastered on her face. She drinks the rest of the melted ice, sighs, and starts to wave to the bartender for another drink. Upon seeing that he's out of range of hearing her normal volume voice, the urge to shout for him bubbles up, then fizzles out before reaching her vocal chords, and her hand drops back to the bar. She's fine here, anyways, with her friends!     Lilian receives Petra's full attention, her gaze steadily meeting those green eyes for the first time. "Hmmm. Jealous?" Petra weaves her fingers together in her lap, leaning backwards, then precariously forwards. "Mmmm. Because it's so simple, right? So direct? I'm not stupid, you know. We were in a public radio channel, talking between a dozen other people. I have more thoughts, than I can say there." She slurs her words, just a little bit, but they're spoken from the chest, or the heart within it. She's talking with a confidence that's normally obscured by her neuroticism and anxiety.     Petra's face passively tracks Lilian as she stands up, silently watching her movements. Then, Rita sits down! The placid observation is shattered by a bright smile, and Petra, in a shocking display of both insight and normalness, leans forwards to pat Rita's head excitedly, not even flinching when her hand hits Lilian's.     "The beach! That sounds like fun! Remee, you should join me and Rita and Lilian going to the beach!" Petra bounces in her stool, apparently unaware that she proposed the idea. "Oh. But I'm not in my swimsuit. I'll get changed?"
Rita Ma	"Rita, we need to talk. In private. Later."      Few things could extinguish Rita's sunny mood right now. That phrasing is one of them. She goes from wiggly-happy at basking in her friends' getting along, to masking an irrational dread. "Oh! Um, sure thing. Whenever you want to talk, Ms. Remee. The sooner the better," she forces out bravely.      Petra and Lilian both petting her head simultaneously soon reignites it, though. A smile crosses her face, her hands relax, and her eyes flutter shut as she cranes her neck into it. "Mmmm... thank you..."      ... She's liable to zone out for as long as that keeps going. But all good things have to end sometime. When it does stop, she shakes her head a little rubs at her eyes, and slowly 'wakes up'.      "Oh! Did you get a swimsuit too, Ms. Petra? What's it like? ... Wait, don't tell me. I want it to be a surprise," she says, with fading 'grogginess'. Then, rummaging back through her memory to find the other conversational thread: "A group activity... you're probably right. I don't know how to sing, though, Ms. Rook. Maybe I should learn sometime?"      That prospect seems to get her excited. Her voice is one of the things she can feel secure in.
Candy	"Fucked if I knoW," says Candy to DRYCLEAN, stifling a hiccup. "I'm a witch, not a mage. That means... that means my rules only make sense to me and I didn't learn in no classroom type thing. So I ain't so good at the book learning words for talking about the magic," he says, hopping off of his seat. "And there's no... book you can read, about how I do mine." His stance is wobbly, and with an endearingly pathetic shuffle, he holds onto his seat to right himself.      This means that his sunhat falls to the ground, and he ungracefully bends over to retrieve it as his cover-up slides over his head. The complex and ungainly dance done with, he smiles, proud of himself.      He doesn't appear to be slurring his words, but his volume control is utterly gone by the time that third drink is gone. "My friends say..." He taps the side of his head, winking slyly at DRYCLEAN, "I'm good at 'Creation' and 'Alteration,' if you was to talk about it the Babyl-- the Bablo-- the stuffy old-fart book learning way," he says, waving a hand dismissively.      A brilliant idea suddenly strikes him. "DO YOU GUYS WANNA GET SOME SUN?!" he shouts excitedly at Sarra, Kukuru, DRYCLEAN and AME.
Lilian Rook	Lilian takes on a slightly sour look, like she'd taken sip of something just a bit too unpleasant to ignore, but sighs her assent all the same. "Remee, then. Of course I can only respect those terms, if that's what it takes." She lowers her own voice a little bit. "Tenth Code. When thou speak from authority absolute, so must be thy judgement. Thy word remains true even if the mind does not. None shall follow one who countermands their absolute judgement." She glances back to Petra.     "It's always 'a code thing'. All of it. And it's better that way."     Catching her lingering stare at the bartender, Lilian calls for two hard lemonades, and offers one to Petra to replace her last one, potentially mistaking her intent. "Something like that." she answers, hammering back her own with a finger raised to indicate a pause, and then carefully wiping her lips of glass condensation on the back of her wrist. "But not quite. It'd be even more simple, more direct, if I took responsibility for it the very first time, back when it was that vile little girl's fault and he was merely taking advantage of it." It is perhaps shocking how civilly Lilian can speak to Petra, but one gets the sense it's only because she expects that Petra will half-remember it at best.     "I'm a bit jealous, because it must have felt very, very good. I bet you had no reservations. No ulterior objectives. Just you and your power, and the catharsis of applying the very utmost of it. You won, somehow, and you feel good about winning. It's enviable. I hope you don't lose sight of it."     Then, she pipes up to be heard by DRYCLEAN and Candy, swapping tones more easily than changing clothes. "How rude. I'll have you know that I am very accomplished in several forms of prime magics." she says, then takes on an unnecessarily Cheshire grin. "Or perhaps I should say that I'm perfectly normal, and there's no trick to anything I do? You won't find a more ordinary girl than me~"     Then, back. "Well? Get to it. The guest rooms are that way. Stop wasting time and get changed." Then back to Remee again. "Is the setup portable?"
Kukuru	"Right? Although..." As Kukuru answers Candy, she pauses to watch the trio of very normal girls. She lets out a content noise as she finishes Rita's black Russian, letting her head hang back briefly before holding up one finger towards him. "Chaaanging my answer." Whatever it was they were whispering about, she sounds more pleased now than before. She's also getting a little giggly now, but not so much that it might look too out of the ordinary. DRYCLEAN obliges Kukuru's curious request, and Kukuru takes the opportunity to learn what a Saraband USB tastes like. She bites into it, lets the crunch linger in her mouth, and then she sets her steaks and empty glass aside. "I'll.. Be right back." She murmurs quietly so as to not draw too much attention, then heads over to the side of the yacht. A quick cloud pulse and dip into the ocean later, and Kukuru returns to the group through another evil-looking energy cloud with her mouth considerably less full of USB device and dripping quite a bit all over the deck. She's looking a bit less stiff than before, at least, as she looks right over at Sarracenia. "See? I tried one of those thingies, and now I know they're not for me~" With that lesson thoroughly learned, it's time to grab more steak to wash all that USB taste out! She actually gets a few cooked pieces of unicorn steak for comparison, too, and she's in the middle of chewing and offering it around to everyone when Candy calls for bringing out the sun. Getting swept right in by his energy, Kukuru lets out a cheerful shout in assent. "Yeah! Um... How?"
Remee Halcyon	@RITA: "Oh, ah, it's... not bad! It's kinda good, really. It's just... really, terribly important that we talk about it. In private. Soon." This is probably not helping. Remee remains oblivious to the fact that her clarifications are probably not helping. She follows it up with a thumbs-up to Rita. @LILIAN: "I'm going to be honest, having everything be a code thing feels like..." She trails off. She glances over at... @KUKURU: "Did - did you eat one of those?" "That's not- I mean I don't think it's, I mean, what-" "... Okay, um, you do you. I hope you got... something out of that?" "... Um, where were we..." @LILIAN: "RIght, so, the code thing, that... could trip you up pretty easily, though, right? If you're setting up your code, and then sticking to it no matter what, that's..." She scratches at the back of her head. "That's almost like setting yourself up to be the object lesson of inflexibility in a storybook. I can think of a couple of times in my life I might have agreed to a code that I'd think was horrible today, you know?" Regarding the karaoke setup, Remee nods. "Just needs a 120 volt outlet. Which... I have, there's a battery pack downstairs we can take with us and plug it into."
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	Sharp grin returned to the half-stated magic briefing. They finish their drink and set it on the bar, leaning forward slightly as their now-open hand idly runs across the edge of one of their ribbons. "Shame it's so personal, seems like quite the thing to take lessons on. Certainly wouldn't be as uninteresting as some teachers, ha ha." At the outburst, there's a tiny surge in ambient static through everyone's devices nearby - accidental reminder of attention. "Well, sure thing, fascinated to see what you're aimin' to pull." After the surge and comment from Lilian, waves continue to pulse through her own, previously-procured smartphone. Far less audible than their other conversation, but still to certain others.     "If you ain't considerin' those blips tricks, then I sure do need t'reconsider my scalin' for interest, ha ha. Makes for good visuals, though."
AME	Still sifting, AME flinches just a bit, at seemingly nothing. And so easily returns to that bubbly disposition.
Lilian Rook	"It's precisely because real life doesn't work like a storybook that we need things like codes." Lilian says to Remee. It sounds . . . sad? That can't be right. A tonal misread. "Object lessons in flexibility and resourcefulness are for plucky underdogs and aspiring success stories."     "Of course I stick to it. I hold it so closely that I'll lie to say I didn't." Lilian says. "It's not as if I have to. I didn't take an oath or anything. But a code is utterly worthless if you treat it as a suggestion, Remee. The strength it gives you is equal to the hold you let it have over you. You could say that the entire point is that it's meant to 'trip me up'." she sighs. "I don't expect you to understand. At the very least, it should please you to know that I really am that simple." She tips the ice back and crunches it into a million little melty pieces between her teeth. "Codes are about encouraging others to behave too, you know. Not just yourself."
Candy	"Oh, I guess I could teach. Every tradition started out somewhere, you know? Guess I'm just not much of one. A teacher, I mean."      Kukuru asks how to get some sun. "We dive into the water--" No! Water shallow! No dive!      "We JUMP in the water and we go to the shore! My friend said not to dive cause the water's shallow, and the lady there, she's nodding." He points clumsily to the indicated staffer.      "Looks like you already took a swim, ah?" he says, trying to point at Kukuru's hair but stumbling and poking her horn instead. "Come on!"      He takes her hand, waving his empty hand over the bar. A spread of three playing cards with waves drawn in sloppy marker appear face-down on the bar. Each has some misspelled or barely-legible (or both) variant of 'squeeze me' written on it by way of instruction. "Well, come on," he says, taking Kukuru by the hand. The two of them vanish from the bar, appearing outside and in the shallows, where the beach is just a short wade away.      "You just kinda sit," he explains to her, "And lay around, and bullshit and enjoy how warm it is."
Petra Soroka	"'Vile little girl'...?" Petra's brow furrows, and she tilts her whole torso in askance. "You don't mean... Oh! Charlotte, not Hibiki!" Petra giggles to herself. "Yeah, she's kind of nasty, isn't she? Like nothing she says ever has any meaning behind it. She's like air."     Petra pulls the offered lemonade in close, and slowly lowers her forehead down to the bar and presses it against the cold glass. From that position, she continues, "I don't mind her though. She's just a little boring, but easy, and that's nice sometimes."     Muffled by the wood of the bar, Petra talks out of the side of her mouth, "I have ulterior motives for eeeeverythiiiing. I can't stop them. But, it did feel good, to win! Just for lots of reasons, not just the one."     She bolts back upright, then leans in, staring at Lilian. "But I really won. Like *really* really. Not just won, but like. He didn't even touch me. And he beat Hibiki? Why did he--how did he do that? I kind of hate him." Petra leans in even closer, whispering conspiratorially, though not quietly, "I almost killed him too. But then I didn't." She snickers, then sways.     "Oh yeah! I need to show you my swimsuit, Rita!" Petra leaps up out of her chair, then looks around lamely for her tote bag. Spotting it on her previous stool, she ambles towards it, then snatches it and starts running towards the changing rooms, pivoting backwards to wave to the group and almost falling over.     After a few minutes, Petra comes back, walking much slower, almost shuffling. Her swimsuit is overwhelmingly girlish, a two-piece only by technicality, only a thin sliver of midriff visible between the form-fitting yellow tankini and high-waisted green bottom. The top is ruffled around her chest, and the bottom has a skirt, both obscuring and drawing attention away from her core shape, emphasizing her thin limbs.     If one were inclined to look closely, they could see a splotchy birthmark peeking out in that section of midriff, mostly concealed by the bottoms.
Sarracenia	Sarra actively leans away as Kukuru insists she try some. "N-no! Kukuru! It isn't about if it tastes good or not! I have a moral objection to the killing of unicorns!" she tries to explain. "That on top of my objection to not fully cooked meats means I will not be tasting it! B-but, feel free to take my portion for yourself, okay?"      Then, back to her earpiece as she talks to Dryclean quietly. "Oh, I travel as often as I am able! Most any excuse will do, but parties and shopping are my favorites, of course. A bit more than my parents really approve of, actually."      No one seems keen on her dangerous skiing behind a VTOL idea, so Sarra ditches that one for now and just joins the others in heading to the beach.
Remee Halcyon	@LILIAN: Remee nods. She pauses. She frowns. "I don't... know. About a lot of things, Miss- I mean, Lilian. I know you've been at this a lot longer than I have, so I'm trying to see it from your point of view, but..." She pauses, and rubs her eyes, as though weary. "Sorry. I mean, like, the first code. Thou art responsibile to thy blood first above all else, both the blood of thy line, and the blood shed for thee. You heard me talking about my family - my old family, up there on the stage. If I had your code, would I be responsible for protecting them, with all the things they did? Or is my responsibility to stop them, for... being responsible for all the things they did, since they're my blood?" "I'm sure it's all consistent to *you*, maybe you think I'm talking nonsense here with all of that, but I'd see myself trying to twist out of it, you know? Find some different definition or meaning that'd get me out of whatever tough choice or that would allow me to do whatever I had wanted to begin with. Twist the words around like a lawyer, especially if what I agreed to back then for the code wasn't what I agree to now." She pauses again. There's something she wants to say, but she's debating if she should or not. There's a bit of internal conflict, written large across her face. Eventually, speaking up wins out. "Also, you really shouldn't crunch ice like that. It's bad for your teeth."
Lilian Rook	Lilian's phone is surprisingly secure, possibly work-provided, but not that secure. It is spotlessly bereft of sensitive Paladins files, and primarily contains a lot of photographs, texts, and call records. A few phone games with single digit hours played, a local review app with more than all of them combined, a food order app that's never been used, and a proprietary messenger app with its own codebase, plus a secure folder full of hand-written odds and ends.     There are barely half a dozen contacts, and two blocked numbers. The search history is apparently cleared every month, but that alone is more than she'd probably like to show. The wallpaper is a lakeside photograph of a beautiful woman with sunset-coloured hair. There is precisely one unread message.     "There's no trick to it." Lilian says. "I assure you, it's all very mundane from my perspective, you know. Funny, that it takes a gaggle of scientists to even give it a name." Lilian, now a third drink in, holds up her hands apart from each other, looking down in evident attempt to explain something. "Just envision that the time it'll take to move this hand to touch the other hand is represented as a straight line between them." She slowly claps, too gently to make noise, for demonstrative emphasis. "But if you instead try--"                 -----[stop]-----     Lilian jolts at the sudden, absolute silence. Her ears still ring faintly with the noise of the party. She glances around, looks back down at her hands, now partway together, and explosively sighs:     "Fuck."     She grabs something from under the bar.                 -----[start]-----     Lilian is facing the other way in her stool, chin poutily rested in her wrists, with two empty shot glasses beside her. "Oh never mind."
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT	DRYCLEAN watches the two bumble off and disappear, before picking up one of the cards and looking it over. They subtly make a show of glancing down at their dress, then at the text on the card, before setting it back on the bar. They then reach - into the mass of cabling comprising their upper torso - and pull out a bright green hand radio. A switch is flipped on it, before they drop it on top of one of the cards, with enough height for it to have some notable force upon contacting the thing. Can't miss out entirely. Sarracenia receives a small wave of static through her phone that could be described as 'agreeable.' "Disregardin' approval for important things in life like that's the way to go, I reckon. Got any personal favorite places you've seen? I'm still new blood 'round these parts, and I trust your judgement on travel, ha ha." Indirect conversation continues. DRYCLEAN hasn't given any outward indication of paying attention to Lilian, but their phone continues to crackle all the same. May as well check contacts. "Ah, fascinatin'. Figured it was timestream manipulation but wasn't rulin' out somethin' else. Pretty good at hidin' subtle shifts in it, ha ha. Lots of practice, I presume."
Kukuru	"Mhm! It was awful." Kukuru answers Remee without hesitation, already putting the experience behind her as she yoinks another piece of meat from her plate. Sarracenia's fervent refusal means there's little reason to hold back on eating the unicorn meat, too! "But now I know that those things... Uh. I mean, I already figured they wouldn't taste that good, but... They were there, so maybe something different happened!" She shakes her head slowly with a blank stare on her face. "Nothing was different. But this-" Once again, the unicorn meat. She glances over at Sarracenia meaningfully. "This stuff's really good. But... I don't think I've ever seen one of these before. I wonder where I could find these..." Turning back to Candy, Kukuru laughs and reaches back to squeeze some seawater out of her hair at the assertion. "I did! Only for a sec, though, so it can't reaaally count, right?" The poke to the horn has her wobbling and tipping over briefly, then tipping back to center and wobbling the other way before letting him guide her away from the bar. Doesn't he do stuff with cards? Whatever it is, she can't really make heads or tails of those playing cards, and she instead keeps going along with Candy's guidance towards the shallow water. Luckily, she's already wearing that swimsuit, so there's no need for extra detours! "Ah, so like sunbathing, but... In the water! I've done that before." Kukuru laughs again as she heads towards the slightly deeper water, doing a bit of tugging along herself. Eventually, though, it's just deep enough that she faceplants right into the water, letting the water carry her and her hair all over the place. She might look like a floating corpse for a moment, but only until she remembers to actually turn back around. "I wonder... Can-dy. How well do you know..." She gestures towards the yacht with her foot. "... About all that stuff? They're having fun now, but... You think they're gonna be okay?"
Rita Ma	"Oh, ah, it's... not bad! It's kinda good, really."      That does, actually, help Rita just a little bit. She puts on a slightly fatigued smile. "Thanks, Ms. Remee. When's a good time for you? ... Well, I guess we can work that out over the phone later. Whatever that is."      Good surprises are still bad, but not as bad as bad ones are.      "And he beat Hibiki? Why did he--how did he do that?"      Rita's nose wrinkles up. It's not a pleasant thought. She leans back against Lilian, just so she can turn towards Petra and address her better. "I know Hibiki's pretty strong. And sometimes people just get lucky, or unlucky. But I also know Hibiki is really nice. Sometimes you can beat someone stronger than you, just because you're angrier or more serious than they are."      She waves Petra off as her friend disappears belowdecks, and then leans back against Lilian for a couple more minutes, just relaxing in the sun.      ----      And when Petra re-emerges, Rita hops up and sprints over to her, arms open wide. The hug comes as a soft impact. "Ms. Petra!! You look really good! The bright colors, and the ruffles, and everything... it's so cute! Did you get that at the station mall? You're not embarrassed, are you?"      The birthmark does, in fact, catch her eye. She absentmindedly pokes at it after pulling back from the hug, before realizing what it is. "Oh! Sorry. I thought you spilled something, or..."
Sarracenia	Sarra gets another call on her phone and pouts a bit. "I'm sorry everyone, but I must get going." She makes another call, and the Dyna flies over to her. Apparently her butler is flying. She hops in and waves. "See you all later!"
Candy	"Yeah!" Candy confidently answers wrongly. He had meant sunbathing--but impaired as he is, it takes him seeing Kukuru facedown in the water before he can realize that no, that's not what he meant. "I mean... no! But this looks nice, too," he says, laying in the shallows with her.      "About that stuff?" he asks, before catching her gesture. "Oh, those two. I only know what I heard," he admits. "And what I didn't hear from the radio, I heard from Petra." He hiccups. At least floating in the shallows, he can't fall over.      "It's the same thing as it ever is, with Lilian. She had some kinda thought she put out in some kinda way," he says, waving a hand around and accidentally splashing Kukuru, "...that pissed somebody else off, and you know how she is. When you've had to fight to be a certain way, when you've paid a lot to be that way, you don't bend over just 'cause somebody you never met has a problem with it. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been no point to fighting in the first place."      "But," he says, with a little sigh, "Other people feel threatened by that shit, I guess. I don't know. Lilian is an asshole, but she's my favorite one. You can be an asshole and a good person at the same time... and I trust her," hiccup, "'Cause that's what she is. I think if Petra has the chance to find that out on her own, she will. And even if they don't get along, I think they'll understand each other better."
Kukuru	Spitting out a small bit of seawater, Kukuru rests her hands over her midsection as she floats along in the water. She has to tug her hair over every now and then to make sure it doesn't get tangled up in anything, but it doesn't take long for her to just relax in her semi-drunk state. "I've only heard it, mostly... Haven't seen much of it myself, but..." She giggles lightly at the splashing, then returns fire with a light sweep of her own. It's a lazy movement, but the water that follows is disproportionately large in comparison. "That does sound like her, mhm. It's... Kinda sad that she had to go through whatever happened to become as strong as she is, but... I can tell she /does/ care. Just..." She yawns, then covers her mouth after the fact. "I guess it's hard to be really honest when people respond that way, huh? And then it keeps going in a circle like that... But Petra's a smart girl, too." Closing her eyes, Kukuru lets out a pleasant humming noise and doesn't realize she's starting to drift further away from the shore slowly. "She'll understand Lili soon, I know it. They might even get along soon, too! They were getting a little..." She trails off with a mischievous giggle, then sighs a moment later. "I just hope her and John worked out their stuff, too. They really..." Another yawn, another delayed hand movement. "... It could've been really bad, if anyone else started trying to get involved. I'm glad I didn't have to step in, but... It'd be really awkward, you know?"
Lilian Rook	"That's because it's not." Lilian huffs, at the back of the bar more than at DRYCLEAN. "Not really. I certainly thought it was for a very long time." she grimaces at some highly specific and deeply unpleasant memory. "Other people thought so too. Most of them would be very unhappy to know any more, but some who do are very glad." She spins back around to face DRYCLEAN again, relaxing by leaving her arm on Rita, affectionally scruffling her. "Why? Do you need time magic? I can do a bit of that too, if there's something in it for me." Lilian finally gets back to smirking. "No time travel though. Alas."     She only reclines over just enough to actually Behold Petra talking to her. "That one, yes. I don't know her family name." Lilian near spits. "It's true. She is. People love to screech and howl about the women who are rude to their face, but are conspicuously silent on the subject of those who can transparently attempt to manipulate them with a slightly concerned tone. In the end, that idiot boy is the collateral damage of her disgusting attitude." The latest glass is fully drained. "Well, not that she's wrong about me being an awful piece of work. But it's always the no-nothing brats who think they have everything the hardest that get me."     "As I said, 'whatever happened to you doesn't excuse the person you've become'."     Lilian nods her assent at Rita. "Tachibana is fairly powerful, but she's soft. Naive. Reluctant to commit to things in her head, when her heart is already set on them. She was evidently still exhausted from being put through a building by the Archwolf Hiromi, but that's not all of it. That boy was fighting for his own pride. Tachibana forgot the reason she was fighting at all, once he gaslit her into treating it as a friendly match about 'personal growth'." Lilian grimaces. "Soroka won because the positions reversed. He fought her as a matter of ego, to satisfy his deluded idea of a 'personal arc', using borrowed power and swinging with reckless confidence. She fought him as an Elite is meant to fight. I really didn't know if she had it in her."     While Petra runs off, and Remee keeps talking, Lilian favours her with enough attention to constitute an answer. "I didn't pick it up in a vacuum, you know. There's a body of context and vigorous debate about the idealized form of it. If I simply made up my own code, then indeed, what would prevent me from simply making up another? When would you know to change it? When it is in error, and when you just want to get out of responsibility?" Lilian pushes back her hair absentmindedly. "It's not rational, Remee. It's an exercise of faith. There may be no God, but there are people wiser than me, more moral than me, more experienced than me, whom I can look up to and believe in. The code is an emblem of that."     "In another sense, it's about acting as would someone you trust, when you know that you would be tempted to act in a way you couldn't live with." Lilian flicks the empty glass, and it skids down the counter with a sharp ping. "The blood of thy line invested in thee, by the way, which has given you life, protected you, taught you, furnished you with wealth and arms, and has placed all the trust of a hundred forebears into you, carrying all their hopes and dreams in you as their vessel, is something you are bound to protect. Protecting them might mean taking responsibility for them, but to protect them all the same. Not others. Not yourself."     When Petra actually returns in a swimsuit, Lilian briefly appears genuinely shocked. Her eyes flit to the ruffles and skirt, back up to Petra's flushed face, and squint with the heat of some difficult internal battle, wringing her lips in a reluctant scowl. Eventually though, she just stands up, says "Then bring it out.", and drops over the edge of the ship exactly as she was told not to, sarong and unbound hair flaring up around her before crashing into the water.
Petra Soroka	Petra slouches on the bar, basking in Lilian's response without much physical acknowledgement that she's listening. She slowly takes a sip of her lemonade, coughs, and puts it back down, a bleary expression on her face.     One line in particular piques her attention though, belatedly, after Lilian's finished talking. "You don't know her family name... it's Nooman? Nyooooman?" She draws out the sound and giggles. "You don't want to refer to her by her given name. Because you only ever call people you don't like by their last name. So-ro-ka." She rolls the syllables around in her mouth thoughtfully.     "It's a... professionalism thing. Distance. Not acknowledging the person for themselves, just a cl-clinkilal... denial of connection. I get that. But not me. Lilian."     Later, after returning with her swimsuit, Petra welcomes Rita's hug enthusiastically, pulling her in tight--and then trembling violently, like all of her muscles tensed up at once. She doesn't push Rita away, though, the opposite, she squeezes uncomfortably hard, her arms locking up. When Petra pulls back, her eyes are clearer than they looked at the bar, and she looks down at the deck before responding.     "A-ah, well, I didn't actually get a swimsuit at the mall. Since it's winter! So just, like, a few hours ago, Remee had a driver take me to another mall, so I could pick something up really fast--eep!" Petra squeals at Rita's poke, wrapping her arms around her stomach and flinching backwards. "N-no. That's always there. Sorry."     "Um, do you want to, hop in the water? Remee, you too, do you have something... less not-swimsuit-y?" Petra reaches out a hand towards Rita, and her other hand towards Remee--then looks confused, and drops both of them, scurrying off to jump in the water herself.