Scene #9038: Lets be Palsadins

Owner	Pose
Echolalia	The multiverse...is much larger than Echolalia's world. And she is new to the Paladins and doesn't really have the ability, right now, to introduce people to her little home and explain how her own world works... But she still wants to meet people and make friends. Dysnomia is being standoffish and she's feeling a bit alone in a big vast existence. So she sorts new Paladins by recent joins and sends word ahead that she's Echolalia and a new Paladin and is looking to meet someone who is a little more experienced to help them get situated. She passes through the natural Warpgate on foot, wearing her yoga pants, tabi-style wooden sandles, and leafy vest. This time her yoga pants are a mix of pink and light blue that doesn't really match everything else she's wearing. She looks towards the nearby rusted chain link fence and frowns. "Is this the right place? It looks like a dump...?" She murmurs under her breath. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she hops over the fence and starts heading down the road. She sends a message out to Calvin via text. EchoEchoEcho:hay im here are you still ok to chat EchoEchoEcho:near the warpgate EchoEchoEhco:im echolalia btw She slides her phone back into her pocket and leaves both her hands there as she just heads down that split up road. Her hair is as bright as ever, occassionally popping off above her head by some distance before settling back into a calmer state.
Calvin Nash	Ossabaw Island's Warpgate, courtesy of the Warprunners, stands in a wooden gatehouse, held up on stilts to avoid the ravages of high tides during storms. A brand new desk inside is manned by a pale, gangly freckled redhead in her early twenties, who eagerly takes down Echolalia's name and time of arrival on a big three-ring binder with wooden covers. Another woman, in a uniform like Calvin's, though perhaps ten or fifteen years older than him, stands vigil over an otherwise empty gatehouse. A bun of wiry hair is bound beneath the brim of her hat. She and her demon partner, a stocky, hoary old dwarf with a one-eyed squint set beneath two busy white eyebrows, might seem to be guards at first. The toolbelts they both wear, however, convey that they're as much here for maintenance as defense. Outside, the whine-rumble of Calvin's truck approaches, gradually grows louder, and then cuts out. His cowboy boots thunk-thunk-thunk up the stairs, he opens the door, and... "Oh, hey, Calvin," says Marshal Thompson. "Headin' out?" Calvin blinks confusedly. "Y'all didn't happen to see nobody come through here, didja?" "Nope," says the other Marshal. Her dwarf partner shakes his head. "Rhonda?" he asks. The younger woman at the gate shakes her head. "Nobody all day," she says. "Huh." Calvin flips open his comp. they aint seen you up by the gatehouse you sure you got the right one? "Who you lookin' for, baby?" asks Marshal Thompson. "'Nother Paladin," says Calvin. "Her name's Echolalia." "Hm... you sure she didn't take the other one?" 'What other one' is written on his face for a moment, before... "Oh! The uprights." He nods. "I bet she did. Alright, back in a tick." Calvin steps through the upside-down uprights and lifts a hand in greeting. It's nearing the end of summer--the insect chorus in the air here is less populous than it was a month or two ago, and the chill in the air is just a little more pronounced. "Hey there. Little mix-up--this one leads to our world, but it ain't this one you wanna take, 'less you wanna head to Atlanta." He pauses. "And you don't wanna do that without a damn good reason. The ol' big cities are bad news."
Echolalia	''you sure you got the right one?'' The response comes quickly. EchoEchoEcho:Nope Not At All ~~^_^~~ EchoEchoEcho:I'm just on this kinda crummy road, it looks like it hasn't been taken care of in a while! She is, however, smiling broadly and in a good mood. She turns around in a 360 degree motion, looking for Calvin, and considers just walking until she runs into him or he runs into her. Ultimately she settles on waiting because she's getting text responses back instead of nothing so she extends her arm and a brush of long leaves push out of her arm as a pineapple grows out of her arm and eventually breaks off on its own into Echolalia arms. She holds it close to her body as the leaves die off her arms and are replaced by long vine tendrils that hover menacingly near the full pineapple she's carrying. Then Calvin appears! She turns with the pinapple to face him and smiles, "Oh hey!! Calvin! You're here! ... Why are the old big cities bad news?" She hefts the pineapple over to one arm, distracted from messing with it for the moment. "I thought I'd have a small snack." She adds. "Oh! Do you want one too? I can totally get you a pineapple." She frowns after a moment. "Ugh I'm so bad with directions..." She looks up. "I'm super sorry. I haven't actually--well, I'm new to the Paladins and you seem a bit more experienced without being like TOO experienced so I thought I'd check in with ya? I'm Echolalia from the Nine Moons--more specifically Hronn. I like your bugs?" It's the easiest positive thing to say about this world that comes to her just yet.
Calvin Nash	Why are the old big cities bad news? "'Cause they took direct hits," he says. "Which means there ain't much left standing," enumerating this point and the others on his index, working down the fingers of his right hand, "What is left standing ain't safe, and it's crawlin' with demons besides." Do you want one too? I can totally get you a pineapple. "Sure, but how the hell do you eat it?" It doesn't seem like tropical fruit would take well to the cool climate here. "Anyway--easy mistake to make. Come on, I'll take you to Ossabaw and we can chat someplace where there's more'n just bugs." He beckons with a wave, stepping back through the upside-down uprights... And guides Echolalia back to the artificial gate, set in the gatehouse. After a brief sign-in with Rhonda, he leads her down the stairs, across the silty, reed-strewn shores of Ossabaw Island, and over to his truck. It's a light truck--durable, too, the kind that wouldn't be hard to imagine as a technical. The white paint and black livery are all matte. When Calvin starts it up, there's a harmony of the (perhaps, depending on her exposure to modern automobiles) expected internal combustion growl and a high-pitched whine almost like a jet engine. The truck crawls across a crushed-oystershell road overlooked by the moss-clung boughs of oaks, evergreen pines and stout wax myrtles, with the occasional short, spiny-trunked palmetto standing amidst them like little soldiers. "I ain't been at it much longer'n you. But so far, it ain't too different from Marshal work."
Echolalia	Echolalia mouths the word 'demons' in a quiet awe before she hands Calvin the pineapple she already had made and grows a second one the same way as before. She uses her vines to start peeling it. "I can eat the skin but it's a bit tough to do so if you want I can peel it for ya too, or you can do it with your hands, probably easier with a knife though--but my vines can push through and get it done quick, reasonably.")] She works on the peeling of her own pineapple in the meanwhile which is a bit noisy and involved, even with the vines, since she's being delicate about it. Following after Calvin she says, "Normally I don't mind living outside at all, I actually kind of prefer it, so it's not really a big deal for me to just hang outside the whole time but it didn't really feel all that inviting." She could make it inviting at least but... When she DOES see Rhonda, she does wave her way before following over to the truck. "Woah!! You have a truck!" Echolalia says. Her FAMILY has one vehicle but she never actually learned to drive it--having never really needed to. And well--she's been in the multiverse long enough to see plenty of cars! But she hasn't been invited into one. "Marshal work?" She asks, then her eyes widen as she realizes... IS SHE A COP AFTER ALL??? "What's the typical work for a Marshal?" She asks. "I kind of signed on with this war I know the Paladins are with but I didn't really make the best first impression haha..." She hasn't fastened her seatbelt at all.
Calvin Nash	Calvin tosses his pineapple into the backseat for later. Woah!! You have a truck! "Hold up. Do your seat belt," says Calvin, tugging indicatively at his own before addressing anything else. "Take that doohickey and put it in that thing on your left." Once that's done-- What's the typical work for a Marshal? "Troubleshootin', in a word," he says, as a mosaic of shadows and the sunlight which casts them craws across the cabin of the truck passing beneath the tree cover. "Sometimes that's breakin' up fights. Sometimes it means knockin' some sense into somebody bound and damn determined to pick one." "Sometimes it means mendin' fences, workin' out disagreements so everybody comes out of it with somethin'. Some of us, like Marshal Thompson an' her partner Sven, they can fix stuff up real good when it gets too worn out or just flat breaks." "So I guess it's a little 'crisis response,' a little 'community outreach,' a little negotiatin', and generally, most stuff t'do with demons. How 'bout you? What do you do at home?"
Echolalia	''Hold up. Do your seat belt'' "Oh! Right! Haha! Seatbelts! Epic!" She SWOOPS it out overdramatically and then snicks it into the socket. Her hair sparks up into long golden fuzzy lines and she keeps on leaning forward like she's trying to get as much of a view through the front window as she can. "Like in movies," She says. "The lone warrior--well I guess you have partners here--but the lone warrior wanders into a new village and helps them out with their problems before moving on their way. Or like, some gang of troublemakers is causing trouble in the City and need to find their spiritual core which can sometimes be palm thrusted into them." She's relieved to hear that the work of a marshall seems closer to what she wants to do rather than the policing Petra seemed to assume. Echolalia finds palm thrusting spiritual cores into people more enjoyable when it actually helps people. "That sounds like good stuff so long as everyone's head is on straight." But then she's asked what she does as she continues to work on peeling her own pineapple, periodically lookingo utside at the surrounding forest with vast interest and curiousity. "Oh well! I make sure everybody on my world gets fed and also run a religious group with alternative interpretations on how to properly worship, love, and honor our Mother Goddess Ran! I REMEMBERED to bring a pamphlet with me if you want one, she's really cool and just the best and I'm sure you'll love her too once you get to know her." She fidgets to draw out a three page pamphlet. The front page is labeled in bright colors ''The Tear Of Ran'' and has a big sun on the cover there with vibrant colors flying off of it. "Spreading the word is somthing I consider to be REALLY important too. Originally I came her looking for Dysnomia, but I was able to make it happen by joining the Paladins--Most of the Nine Moons didn't really want it, so I really had to strongarm our Admiral into letting Hronn join!"
Calvin Nash	The lone warrior--well I guess you have partners here--but the lone warrior wanders into a new village and helps them out with their problems before moving on their way. "I appreciate it," says Calvin, sincerely, his head briefly dipping away from the road to nod at her. "But, I ain't really all that 'lone' at all. The Marshals've got a lotta movin' parts--and most of us got at least one partner." He takes a hand off the wheel to tap the bulky grey scrapmetal computer on his wrist. I REMEMBERED to bring a pamphlet with me if you want one, she's really cool and just the best and I'm sure you'll love her too once you get to know her. "Well..." She can sense the hesitation in his voice, as the solitary road opens up into a large field. Simple wooden buildings mingle with deliberately packed middens that create passageways for water in times of heavy rain, directing them to neatly spaced plots of farmland at the periphery. It's still mostly residential, but the roads are beginning to branch off. "I think that's real great, makin' sure everybody's got enough to get by. That's one of the... cornerstones, I guess, of the Assembly--" He pauses, then clarifies. "The government the Marshals're part of, I mean." The livery on his truck's door, his badge and his uniform's right sleeve all make mention of a 'Southeast Assembly.' He frowns. "But we're... kinda caught between some folks who're wantin' to spread some words of their own, and it's got to where we're a little tired of it." "Nothin' against Mother Ran, but around here, we want an Earth for and by humans. God is..." he wants to say 'real,' but doesn't, for the implication about Ran. So he looks for something else. "Well, he's..." Still looking. "Lemme put it this way. And maybe it'll make sense," he says, glancing at her briefly before returning his attention to the oystershell road. A farmer waves at the truck from the front porch of their sturdy wooden house. Calvin smiles and lifts his left hand in return. "Mother Ran--is she like you and me? Does she... take up space? Or is it more of a... 'you can feel her when she's around' type thing?"
Echolalia	"Yeah! Like the demons!" Despite her religious affiliation to a deity of light she seems to have no issue with demons but her own world doesn't have them so to her they're just a neat and weird kind of critter right now. She is eager to be concilliatory too, no doubt because while she might be a community leader back home she's just some rando over here but that doesn't mean she's just going to give up. "Well the Admiralty's like that too," Echolalia admits. "But Ran loves humans. If she wanted to hurt them, well, I wouldn't be saying she's cool at all. If I wanted to hurt humans, I wouldn't be feeding them." She quirks her head as Calvin brings up the matter of 'God'. Namely, a God named God. She tries to remember if her lessons on Terran history made mention but she ultimately sets it aside since she reallyj ust can't recall. She is a dragon that can forget. ''Mother Ran--is she like you and me? Does she... take up space? Or is it more of a... 'you can feel her when she's around' type of thing?'' Echolalia hesitates for a question that seems like it should be easy. "Um." She says. "Well she's a sun, so... she takes up way more space than you or me! But I mean, I don't have to share my neighborhood with her, really, unless you mean the rays of sunlight..." She stalls again and adds, "But I've known her since as far back as I can remember... She was like a second mother to me. I could feel her love with me even when I couldn't feel anyone else's... And she saved my family and my people from starvation by letting me become this." She gestures to herself. "In more ways than one for me... Since I didn't, well..." She trails off rather than finish saying so. "I don't know how that compares to your ''God'' but... even if you don't want to believe--if you want to know more about what ''we'' believe... I'll just slide it in the glovebox--is that okay?"
Calvin Nash	I'll just slide it in the glovebox--is that okay? "Go for it," says Calvin. He doesn't sound like he wants to believe--whether he wants to know what she believes is probably going to come to light soon anyway. A few minutes pass in silence as farms continue to flank the truck. Gradually, the faint shapes of more of those wooden bunkhouses arrive on the horizon, hinting at a proper city on this swampy island. "God, or Yahweh or Yehovah, whichever," Calvin begins abruptly. "Whatever you wanna call him." "The Bible makes it out like he loves every human. But he's got a funny way of showin' it. When the missiles hit, in '94 or thereabouts, everything inside a half-mile radius was gone." He lifts his right hand from the wheel to snap his fingers once. "Just like that. Burned up to nothing--they say each one was like a little sun." "A mile out, and you got your collapsed buildings, downed power lines, streets so full up of rubble you can't hardly even climb past it." "Cars, and vans, and trucks like this here," he says, patting the dashboard, "Woulda gotten flipped over like coins." "The ones that died from any of that, those were the lucky ones. Lotta people died from the fallout--even people as far as two, three miles out, if they didn't take shelter good enough. Not a good way to go." "But the worst..." His jaw settles. "The worst was the ones that made it through, just to find out what that meant. That everything they depended on to stay alive just went down the drain." The crunching of the oystershell road punctuates the silence of his pause. "That was how most people went," he says. "Starvin'. Dyin' of thirst. Infections. Exposure. Awful ways to go. Learned in school the population decreased by somethin' like 90 percent." "While after the nukes, God rolls up and he sends an angel to Enoch, Utah, and tells him to spread the good word about his Thousand-Year Kingdom. How the righteous can get their spot up there. How the rest of us're gonna get left behind, and how we'll deserve it, on account of we didn't run over to kiss his ass after he didn't get off it for two hundred million people." "So that's how he compares," Calvin concludes. "He's an asshole." The farmland gives way to the beginnings of that city. This part of town is evidently more swampy, as more of those mounds from before are present--and the buildings here seem designed that they might easily be dissembled for the maintenacne of those mounds every few years. They're less bunkhouses like before, and more built atop/as part of those earthen mounds. "A jealous, petty asshole."
Echolalia	Kerclick. 1x KEY ITEM GAINED: Tears of Ran Pamphlet! You can double click it to learn details about the Tears of Ran cult(?)! Echolalia doesn't press the matter in those few minutes, instead openly admiring the wildlife and farms with a bit of a homesick look in her eyes. She stiffens a little when Calvin speaks on the God HE has experience with. Her head dips and the color of her head shifts to a subtler silver, though not by much it's still fireworks hair. Seraphim are a bit draconic in nature, aren't they? Winged serpents, after all? Not that Echolalia has her wings out now, largely because they'd make sitting in a truck quite uncomfortable. When Calvin finishes his story, there's a faint snff from Echolalia. The idea of a God like that is terribly upsetting, and the idea of 90 percent of a population dying of shit that should be preventable, like starvation, thirst, exposure... She turns her head away from Calvin, though mostly because she's too proud to show herself crying. "I'm sorry... I know what it's like to starve. But I don't know what it's like to have a cruel God. I couldn't imagine her hurtng anyone, though--I mean--some people wishes she would--And there's some things she can't do, sure, but she'd never--she never asked me to worship her or anything. I just... have always felt her with me. Thanks to her, I never felt unloved, never felt unloved, never felt unloved." She runs her finger across the dashboard. "...I'm sorry, I guess that probably sounds like I'm bragging... But..." She raises off the little trails of smoke trailing off her face, leaving something like those pine cone air fresheners scents in the air. "Can I help instead?" She asks. "I can love people too, even if wouldn't be quite as good as hers."
Calvin Nash	Can I help instead? "Course you can. You're in the Paladins, ain't you?" A little crowd of kids, maybe five or six, run down the dirt road, chasing Calvin's truck, waving at him and at Echolalia, following it for a while under the watchful, smiling gazes of adults looking on from front porches and windows. Beards of grey-green moss hang heavy on the branches of old oaks, shading the spaces between houses and buildings. The kids disperse, the truck pulls up to a grassy manmade hill--the incline is transparently even, the top flat enough to sustain the wattle-and-daub timber-framed cabin which rests atop it. Handmade shingles much like those of the other houses here protect against the rain, with a rammed earth chimney rising slightly above it. Calvin drops the truck into park, kills the ignition, and unclicks his seatbelt. "Here we are," he says, reaching into the back seat to grab his pineapple. Opening the driver side door and hopping out, "Come on in." He closes it with a solid 'whump' and heads into his cabin. Much like the chimney, the floor is smoothed-down, rammed earth bricks, a kind of cement with a color like a darker shade of the silty shores a short drive away. A handwoven rug in muted blue and beige stretches out to greet visitors; a rocking chair is set up near the fireplace, while a sturdy, simple dining table and chairs wait not far away from that, no doubt made from the same tree, or at least the same type--oak, earthen grey-brown with homemade cushions affixed. An old tape deck radio Frankensteined into working condition through several mismatched jobs waits attentively with its spindly antennae standing vigil. Calvin flips a crude but safe-looking light switch to illuminate those areas the afternoon sun doesn't quite reach from the windows; simple incandescent lightbulbs in hammered metal shades flicker to life. Up against the east wall, a comfortable looking blue sofa basks in sunlight filtering in from one of those windows, its upholstery marred with noble battle scars tended to by dutiful furniture medics, adorned with a white doily across the back like a medal of honor. "I'm 'on take this into the kitchen and slice 'er up like you mentioned," he says, holding the pineapple up by the greenery and heading into the kitchen. "Make yourself at home. You want a beer? Smokes?" The kitchen is within talking distance, a half-room at the west end of the cabin with a little opening set in the separating wall for the 'chef' to keep conversation up with guests during the act--as demonstrated by Calvin's being visible from the waist up while thus occupied. "This here's Commonwealth country," he says, over the soft sounds of knife on cutting board. "Mmh. Damn. Stubborn, ain't it?--" He's a strong guy--it's not a huge deal. "The whole Assembly is. So not only can you help us, but we're on the short list for it. And we can also help y'all."
Echolalia	''Course you can. You're in the Paladins aren't you?'' "Haven't been for long..." Echolalia admits. "I still don't really have a vibe of the, um, culture? Except for Kale I guess." She is immediately charmed--and her mood impressively improved--by the presence of TYKES. Yes, the kidlets, the children, the gang of younguns. Echolalia waves at them with both hands before covering her face for a second before fanning both hands out and making a 'monster' face with her hands with a "Gnyaaaar!" She slides out of the truck with no issue, taking a moment to stretch both arms up above her head before shaking out her hands in front of her. "You can eat the pineapple peel too, if you want to save the scraps." Echolalia says, taking a bite into the one she's holding even hrough the skin, as if to prove it so. Echolalia says, "Oh a beer would be nice. They don't affect me much but I like the social kind of ambience it brings. I grow my own cannabis so I just carry my own pipe everywhere." She is quiet for a moment and adds, "Oh is it legal here? I know in some places it's not legal." She leans against the sofa, arms crossed over it, as she watches Calvin work. ''So not only can you help us, but we're on the short list for it. And we can help y'all.'' Echolalia would love to get the Commonwealth's aid for any number of things, but she's not even sure where to begin--as tempting as it is to just point at the situation and say 'fix please'. "I might take you up on that sometime. Though I'd have to figure out what kind of help to ask for." She smiles. "Do you often cook for others?"
Calvin Nash	Oh is it legal here? I know in some places it's not legal. "Reefer? Why wouldn't it be?" asks Calvin from the kitchen, over the shhlump-click of cutting pineapple. "I even got some here, but I don't smoke it none durin' the work week." Do you often cook for others? Calvin returns from his kitchen with two amber bottles of beer, each neck peeking through his fingers. A plain metal bottle opener is held to the leftmost bottle by the palm of his hand. In his right hand he holds a glazed clay bowl with his sliced pineapple. "Sometimes," he says. "I know a few family recipes." He enjoys doing it when he can. He sets the bowl down on the dining table, plus one of the beers. They're both almost completely nondescript, but for a maker's mark stamped on the caps. 'GS.' He pops the cap off the beer still in his hand and offers it to Echolalia. Its rich, slightly sweet aroma escapes in a gentle swish of upward motion. "Just in time for this one," he says. "Glenn's Märzen. This here's from the first keg of the season." A lager somewhere in-between thin and creamy with a sweet flavor light on the hops, somewhat resembling caramel--perfect for heralding the transition from summer to fall. Returning to the dining table to open his own beer, he angles the chair towards Echolalia and takes a seat, downing his first swig. "Now--," he says, eating his first bite of pineapple. The tangy sweetness distracts him from his assertion. "Damn, that's good--I ain't been a Paladin much longer'n you have." "If you really wanna know about the 'culture,' seems to me like you oughta talk to Kale. Or Lilian. But that ain't really what I meant, when I said you was one. I meant 'this here's the outfit that's most set-up to help people.'" He enumerates a few points with his pinky, ring and middle fingers, still holding the beer with his thumb and index. "We got more resources than the Watch, more reason to do it than the Concord, and more... responsible oversight than both." "The Assembly's part of the Commonwealth now. So if we put in for help, it might just be you're the one they send us."
Echolalia	Echollia says, "Yeah family recipes is mostly what I know too, but I never learned to cook anything fancy--I mean, we didn't usually have the option for anyhting but the basics at first but we've been on the upswing lately. We could probably play ball better with the Admiralty and the Integration Church but we've got our own beliefs and it's not easy to forget how we ended up on Hronn in the first place." She trails off thoughtfully before adding, "Ah, but I'm hoping to expand my repertoire...! I ''love'' food." She takes the beer and quirks her head at 'GS'. "What does this stand for?" She gives it an experimental sniff--and then a less experimental swig. "Glenn's Marzen? What's the 'S' for then?" She sits down across from him. Calvin points out again that he hasn't been a Paladin for muc longer than she has. Once again, it doesn't seem to be really sinking in. He may only be in th Paladins a month longer than Echolalia but her sense of how narratives and stories work tells her that makes him, well, someone to look towards for advice and expertise. ''Or Lilian''. Echolalia hesitates, "Er, I dunno if I made the best impression with her...." She says. "But I could tell that the people in Elibe seemed to really listen to her. And I guess she's a high ranking officer?" She knows more of how Kale feels about things, she thinks. "There's another new Paladin named Harper around--" She trails off again and adds, "Oh yeah, yeah... Probably. I just, you know, getting sent out during a disaster is one thing, lending a hand before things get to that point..." She sets down the remains of her own pineapple to look at the bowl. Then up to Calvin, then bck to the bowl. Then she grins. "Yeah pineapples are super sweet, but they're also good for you. They're good for digestion and 'antioxidants'..! And of course the skin has loooots of fiber..."
Calvin Nash	What's the 'S' for then? "His last name. Skebo." Er, I dunno if I made the best impression with her.... Calvin shrugs as he digs into his pineapples. "I really didn't neither. Trust me on that. But," he says, between bites, pausing to wash them down with a sip of beer, "You don't have to like the people you work with, and they don't gotta like you. It helps, sure." "At the end of the day, you just gotta get it to where you can work with 'em." "Tell me about home," he says. "Hronn, you said? How did you end up there?"
Echolalia	''It helps, sure'' "That's the trick isn't it?" Echolalia says, looking down at the pineapple. "To be effective you have to try and get everyone you can to like you. Otherwise that's one fewer person willing to be on your side, for real, even if they'll be totally professional in every other respect." She does not say if she likes Lilian herself or not yet. Maybe she's still figuring that out. Or maybe she doesn't feel like she's in a position where she can have an opinion on her. She didn't just sign up to help, she also signed up to get help. She needs as many people in the Commonwealth to be an ally to her--and even more importantly an ally to Hronn--that she can reach. ''You just gotta get it to where you can work with 'em.'' "Oh I can totally work with anyone, for sure for sure. That's easy! I mean that's just normal." ''Hronn, you said? How did you end up there?'' Echolalia's eyes widen slightly as she realizes she said 'we' instead of what is technically more correct. Well, it isn't exactly wrong either but she needs to figure out how to talk about a slightly complicated topic. "Well... I said ''we'' but my family's a little bit different. What I meant when I said that is that a lot of the people on Hronn are dissidents, criminals, or just didn't fit in on the other worlds, or were politically inconvenient..." She lifts up the pineapple she'd been chewing on and adds, "See, before I came around--Hronn was a desolate world. Cold and rocky and with soil that practically resisted efforts to be farmable. My family were xenobiologists, specifically my parents, with a specialty in agriculture. They thought they could help so they willingly moved over but ... I mean, they could only do so much. And after Mia warned us of the famine coming--they weren't allowed to leave." She claps her hands once, "And so! That's how Hronn became my home! And a few years into the famine..." She trails off. "Um. I'm not trying to prosletyze here or anything so don't take this the wrong way, but Ran heard my prayers and gave me a form that could help my people." She smiles. "I was really lucky. Some people just die instead. But she loved me so she--er," She laughs a bit. "Sorry. But now it's my job to make sure they never starve. But I also... I mean, I'm not ''forever''. So I need to make sure that even if I were to kick the bucket in some alley somewhere they'd be okay." She grins, fangly. "So that's why we joined the Commonwealth!"
Calvin Nash	To be effective you have to try and get everyone you can to like you. Calvin doesn't seem to agree with that--the little 'mm' that arises between bites of chewy skin-on pineapple don't sound like assent. But she loved me so she-- The marshal bristles in his seat. His eyes bore into the chunks of fruit more than appreciate them. It isn't hard to imagine why, given what he'd said in the truck. I mean, I'm not ''forever''. So I need to make sure that even if I were to kick the bucket in some alley somewhere they'd be okay. "I hear that," he says. The fruit is just about gone. "Places aren't forever either. But they have a better chance at lasting than most people do. You put in the work to change a place, maybe you get it to where it'll be good for the people livin' in it." "Good reason to join the Commonwealth. Who was it that put all them people on Hronn in the first place? You still have reason to worry about 'em decidin' this person or that person can't leave no more?"
Echolalia	Echolalia grimaces. She isn't someone who just spouts this rhetoric as a powerploy, she genuinely believes it, so sometimes it just comes out all on its own even when she's trying to avoid getting into it. A darker twinge of green on her cheeks suggest she's aware of the faux pas. ''Who was it that put all them people on Hronn in the first place? You still have reason to worry about 'em deciding this person or that person cn't leave no more?'' "Oh, yeah, I mean--there's the Admiralty and the Integration Church and then of course there's a load of local leaders amongst the other Moons, some of which aren't real happy that we have, um, our own agricultural surplus now. I mean, I get it. If I was in their shoes I probably wouldn't be sending assassins after me, but I'd be worrying about our colony's prosperity if ''we'' were originally the breadbasket of the Admiralty." She clasps both her hands together. "And well, they'll spread all sorts of stories. I'm sure you can imagine what kind! Technically every etherwyrm has people they report to in the Admiralty. Service is compulsory, but I'm lucky relative to most etherwyrms. Even then it was real hard getting approval for Hronn to join the Commonwealth. It's suuuch a relief we were able to. Thank--ssss to all of you, my people's future might not be tied to my own." And she has plenty of her own reasons for not wanting that to be the case.
Calvin Nash	I'd be worrying about our colony's prosperity if ''we'' were originally the breadbasket of the Admiralty. "Not how it works," says Calvin firmly, pushing the empty bowl forward on the table and wiping his hands. "You ought to tell them dumb sons of bitches on those other moons that the only reason you look over at somebody else's plate is to make sure whether they got enough." Sip. "Not to bitch about how suddenly they ain't starving no more, and how that means you're gonna start starvin' instead. It ain't damn rocket science." The sturdy chair creaks as Calvin gets up, taking his bowl into the kitchen where he places it into a basin. Wiping his hands the rest of the way with a little hand-towel and letting it fall slack against the drawer from which it hangs, he then returns to his seat at the little dining table, rotating the chair to face Echolalia more properly. "Anyway." Another sip of his beer. "Happy to help however I can. Hronn puts in for help, you can be sure I'll be on the first trip over there."
Echolalia	''You ought to tell them dumb sons of bitches on those other moons...'' "Eheh... maybe they'd really wanna kill me if I said that." But she's smiling, and there's likely a sense that unlike her commentary about needing to get people to like her, she--conversely--likes what Calvin is putting out there. "Do most people think like that out in the multiverse? Or even--you know--here?" Echolalia asks. "I don't really want uh--anybody else to starve. I think most, uh, a lot of people don't know how much it suuuuucks to starve to death, like, it's waaaay worse than just like--feeling real hungy cause you haven' eaten in a while..." ''Hronn puts in for help, you can be sure I'll be on the first trip over there.'' Echolalia smiles. "Thanks, Calvin. I'm glad I paid a visit. I'll be happy to lend a hand if you ever need it. And um. If any angels give you trouble I'll kick them in the dick." She hesitates a moment, unsure if angels have dicks. "The metaphorical dick."
Calvin Nash	Do most people think like that out in the multiverse? "Like what? That my neighbor eating means I don't?" He scoffs. Then he thinks about it. "Fuck, I hope they don't. But I don't know. I really don't, Ms. Echo." He motions with the neck of his beer towards one of his windows--but it's not really the window, or the settlement outside that he's referring to. His eyes look past the fragments of houses visible from the window, past the cross-sections of the island's oystershell arteries, past the moss-laden boughs of swampy trees, where past the antebellum house not quite visible from his living room--past even the swaying reeds and the dark waters of the Ogeechee river, all things that wouldn't be visible from this house but which he knows exist in the world beyond these four walls. Past Devonte the old ferryman, past that ferryman's home in Keller (or Richmond Hill, depending on your preference)--he's looking down the cracked, rain-beaten corpse of I-16, winding westward across the state, merging with 75, another dessicated vein of a dead empire littered with rusted-out blood cells. It winds through farmland long since rotten and overgrown, past abandoned fireworks stores, mouldering adult novelty shops and other such calcified cysts, through residential areas at the periphery of something larger. He follows it in his mind's eye all the way to Atlanta, with its burgeoning, confusing knot of interstate veins surrounding the cratered and crumbled suggestion of a former vital organ. Maybe he follows the veins of the old world even farther; northeast, down the one called I-85, up to the beast's beating heart, farther along its dead body than he's ever been. "Everybody that lived out in that mess--did it livin' in all kinds of bullshit. If you were lucky, you could get by ignoring it. Maybe even believing it. If you weren't, well." He takes a sip of his beer. "They could tell you better'n me." "But I can tell you, livin' in this world--people can be pretty damn determined to believe in a bunch of bullshit that don't help nobody. Guess that ain't changed much, even if the discussion's different." Calvin sighs. "Anyway." The word is like an air freshener. And um. If any angels give you trouble I'll kick them in the dick. Calvin's body rocks with the injection of some fresh levity. He huffs a little chuckle. "Yes ma'am. You come back any time. Maybe we can trade some recipes."