( QRI'S QUESTIONS )

[spellheal]

Hello everyone, this is Genette.

I'll be receiving some of the answers to your questions today. I'll be sending them as a blanket message to everyone.

Again, I'm a messenger. You're free to ask follow up questions, but make sure they're sent directly to me.

[ OOC: You're free to discuss the answers as responses to the individual top levels. These can be mental telepathy messages with one another or action logs if your characters are nearby. If you want to ask Genette follow up questions, put @Genette or something similar in your subject header! ]

Comments

[rootandbranch]

I don't think she's thinking about our convenience very much.

[that's a pretty dry tone, for Geir, though in his mouth it's almost teasing instead of sarcastic. Qri is obviously not going for convenience first, what with the kidnapping and sticking them on a space rock.]

[rootbound]

[grumbles and grumbles and tries to pull one of Geir's coils over his head.]

[rootandbranch]

[...shifts the coil over his head obligingly...

with an echo of his first surprise:]

You were nicer to her than you're being now.

[rootbound]

She did -- or said -- one reasonable thing, I can say one reasonable thing back...or something like that?

[rootandbranch]

Is that how it works?

[not quite sure whether to be amused or not, but leaning more that way]

[rootbound]

For nowwww.

[tugs another coil over himself, blanketlike]

[rootandbranch]

...I'm glad she offered. I want to talk to her.

[he wonders fleetingly if Qri will be easier to understand than humans; if she'll behave more like he's used to. it's not the first time he's wondered. he sticks his nose under his own coil to touch Vern's shoulder with his nose, for the solidity of it.]

[rootbound]

[Vern works a hand in there to stroke the soft part of Geir's nose, sighing]

Mm.

What do you want to talk to her about?

[rootandbranch]

[leans into Vern's hand as usual, with a sigh of his own; he closes his eyes again.]

I want to ask her what she thinks about all this, I guess...

[rootbound]

Pretty broad question...

[rootandbranch]

It is a broad question. I guess... how she thinks is closer to what I want to know, too.

[Geir's talons tense ever so slightly on the floor of the cave and relax again. he's not... uncomfortable exactly... but there's a waiting stillness inside of him.]

I wonder what she was thinking when she brought different people here. What she thinks of us all now. Things like that.

[rootbound]

I wonder, too. But the answers will come on her own time.

[rootandbranch]

[Geir ducks his head, quelled.]

...I know that...

[rootbound]

I didn't...that wasn't aimed at you. I'm just annoyed by it.

[rootandbranch]

...

[there are a few responses to that, and Geir isn't sure that Vern will like any of them. he could continue the original point that Vern cut off: I want to know whether she thought I could help the people in the coven, or if she just saw me as a weapon against its enemies, or she didn't think of me specifically at all. he could respond to Vern's point about Qri's own time: I don't know how she sees things, but if she just doesn't think about how short human lives are when she answers questions, I sort of get it. he could say nothing and make Vern feel awkward.

he's not sure which to choose. it's not exactly that he's afraid of upsetting Vern, but none of the possibilities feel easy to broach from this point in the conversation.

he gamely tries a question instead:]

...what would you think about, if you were gathering people?

[rootbound]

[I wouldn't, Vern almost says, I wouldn't rip people out of whatever they were doing to use them, I don't even like people. but he doesn't.

he did do that. to one person, anyway. they're in front of him, removed from their claimed name and the fate written into it. and he originally called Geir to kill everything, including himself.]

...I guess it depends how serious the problem is. If it were...something with large stakes, like she's painted it to be, then I suppose...I don't know. I'd want to be honest about that. If there's risk to the people I called. What they can expect to go back to, so they can be reassured or make their peace and plans, depending what that is.

[rootandbranch]

[that's the due diligence and consideration that Geir would expect from Vern, and he makes distant note of it... most of those aren't considerations he'd thought of, frankly. but--]

But-- the people who you brought? How would you pick them? Or wouldn't you care, if they could do the job?

[rootbound]

[it takes him longer to answer that one, and his voice is very small when he does]

I suppose I wouldn't care, before I met them.

[rootandbranch]

[Geir's reaction to that is...

relief?]

Oh...

[the idea that Qri just saw him as one more indistinguishable member of the coven -- one more person, or at least a body no different than the rest -- is a bit more comforting than the idea that she saw him as a useful tool from the beginning. Geir doesn't grudge Vern calling him as a tool to perform a specific function. at the time Vern called him, that's what he was. but now that he's trying to learn to be more than that, he's uneasy about anyone else doing it. even if he didn't mind (and he does mind), that's Vern's right alone, now.]

That makes me feel a little better.

[rootbound]

It does...?

[not really following the train of logic here; mostly just guilty]

[rootandbranch]

That's-- one of the things I want to ask her.

[he was able to say it after all; he's glad he could.]

She brought us here just before that big fight, remember? I wondered then if it was just 'cause I'm good at fighting. But if it was random, or just had to do with something totally different, that's... better.

[rootbound]

...then, I hope she'll answer you.

[rootandbranch]

[...Geir shoves his nose harder against Vern's shoulder... he's not exactly sure what's happening in this conversation, but now that he's been able to fully answer Vern's initial "What do you want to talk to her about?" question, he can look back at the shape of it and feel the pieces he's missing. why...

rather plaintively:]

Vern, you're upset...?

[rootbound]

I don't like thinking about just using you. Or anyone else doing it.

[rootandbranch]

But you haven't. And we don't know what Qri's doing either way, so...

[soft confusion.]