(no subject)

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony and some glownies, and any witnesses to this experiment
WHERE: Sansa and Tyrion's house, the livestock nursery, anywhere in between
WHAT: Tony sees an obvious solution to a transportation problem.
WHEN: There's a few options in here, this is an extended period of time while Tony works out the problems and gets your input. Theadjacking imperative, talk amongst yourselves.
WARNINGS: Potential animal harassment and/or consumption. That one's on Tommy.
ALSO: I've got an OOC post if you want to hash something out with me/each other, or there's something known about these animals/places that I've messed up.


Suburban Cowboy
The effort of cleaning out the forge and getting the heat on had caused a deep-muscle kind of exhaustion that encouraged Tony to recuperate for a whole, like, ten minutes with his feet kicked up on a worktop he found he liked the feel of, thankful for the soldering iron that had come back from Risa with him so he could mostly work in stillness as he knitted some found fragments together with his tongue between his teeth and cheap sunglasses precariously on the end of his nose. His work wasn't manifesting the mechanism of the data points quickly, though, and he was going to have to reprogram his tablet if he was going to Frankenstein a working computer that in any way satisfied his level of patience before he could start making sense of any software. If the workforce in any way seemed to exist on this planet, Tony would have found a way to pay for this menial labour days ago. It was taking way too much time to actually get to work.

Trying to sleep at this point didn't help his focus; laying in his nest of what he identified as largely blackout curtains repurposed from around the forge and neighbouring factory, close enough to his workbench that he could fall into it at any moment, Tony just stared wide-eyed at the dark, vaulted ceiling listening to the profound lack of humanity around him. There was no familiar rush of traffic, or even constant hum of power. There wasn't even a satellite he could reach out to to listen in on the murmur of connection around the planet. There was just the tiny, little network of a handful of people, mostly silent on a good day. All he could hear was the alien fauna, so clear without the familiar noise pollution, like being isolated up in a mountain cabin: a rustle of leaves as something small darted through the underbrush outside, a repeating call that back home Tony would have identified as a toad but here was probably some kind of scavenger canid. And his muscles still ached, but not nearly enough to knock him out yet, not like the last few times he'd been able to convince himself to sleep.

He hadn't gone West from the area around the forge yet, finding himself straying into the centre of town where most of the activity and food was to be found when he could make the journey, but it wasn't a particularly long run in that direction before he found himself jogging around what felt like a common block of a subdivision. This could have been an admittedly still pretty alien, but cottagey area of Long Island; he felt like he could pass a yoga mom out on her early morning jog before the school rush at any moment. The surrealism was enough without a flicker of faint light that kept on catching his eye as he rounded the block. It wasn't bright enough for Tony to pinpoint immediately, but without any other lights on his whole run, it was hard to miss, and eventually he slowed enough to wander toward it, through a yard to a fenced off area.

Were those llamas glowing?



Glow-Ranching
The agricultural sector of this community, or any community, really, hadn't been of much interest to Tony so far. It seemed to be functional and producing edible products, and the details could be left to the kind of freaks who enjoyed that kind of information, like biologists and plant-mom millenials. What he hadn't considered until now was the potential for an untapped labour force. Every agricultural society in history had very quickly figured out that domesticating animals, whether it was dogs or cattle, to get their stuff from one place to another, was much more civilized than walking around like cavemen. This New Temba Colony was so far behind on their development. Most of them might have been advanced enough in their technological development back home to be well beyond this kind of system, into spaceflight or beyond, but the resources for that kind of thing were many and complex. These resources were right here, fueled by weeds and, by all accounts, pretty placid.

The livestock nursery was a surprisingly quiet place, and Tony's first scan didn't reveal any obvious foot traffic. It was the middle of the long day, though-- when the sun was at its peak for that long, it was difficult not to buy into the siesta lifestyle. Everyone could have been in the huge greenhouse, that did seem to be the centre of plenty of activity whenever Tony was in the area, so Tony took a moment to squint up at it across the street, hand shielding his eyes, hoping he might see someone through the glass to catch their attention.



Field Test
Tony was very close to the camera, but he wasn't quite looking at it, clearly attempting to balance it carefully so he could back away slowly, hands up and waiting for it the tablet to fall. Perfect, stable, it wasn't about to pitch off of the fence. In one hand seemed to be loops of rope, while he used the other to point at the camera now expectantly. "Okay, rolling. This is field test one, starting mark..." He spun around, searching, and found that his subject was about ten feet from where he had left her and called, "Hey. We're trying to do something here. Places, people." None of the glownies had learned Tony's language yet, including this one. He turned back to the camera, and tried a new tactic, "This is Llamrei, she's a champ, has lots of ideas to contribute to the project. Today we are going to see if we can ride her."

In the time it took Tony to jog over to the animal, there was a distinct shiver to the camera as someone disturbed the fence, and it wobbled just as Tony started to murmur sweet encouragement to his project and try to slide his makeshift reins into place. The tablet hit the dirt at the same time as Tony went, "Woah, sorry!"

Comments

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa doesn't sleep well these days because there's no way to sleep that isn't massively uncomfortable. She's just gotten up for water and a quick walk around in the garden when she realizes there's someone in her garden and peering into the glownie pen. It's early and it takes her a moment to realize who it is and once she does, she feels a little sheepish about wandering around frightened in her dressing gown and slippers.

"Tony Stark, why are you looking into my livestock pen at this hour? You could have come around for breakfast later and seen it if you were that interested."

It's amused more than anything but since she doesn't know him all that well, Sansa does cross her arms over her middle to make sure her dressing gown keeps her well-covered.

[in_extremis]

A wolf could have been among this flock and Tony wasn't sure he would have spotted it, staring so intently at one of them to try to figure out if he was looking at bioluminescence or radiation and none of them had properly considered the fallout possibility of a power system failing. Not that Tony knew what to do about that at this point; the goal very much was and still would be to get the hell away from here. He didn't quite jump at the sound of Sansa's voice, but looked sharply her way, holding his breath and wholly not expecting to encounter anyone, let alone be spoken to. The breath came out of him in a brief burst of relief, his heart still thudding in his chest from the run and in no way a historically reliable mechanism, if this voice had been more of a threat.

"Sansa Stark," he returned with a breathless grin, and let himself lean forward on the fence, trying to give it his tension. If Tony was in any way prepared to see anyone out here at the edge of town, it definitely wasn't her. "I was just in the neighbourhood, you know." Her strange animal pen could clearly wait, it had been waiting for Tony to discover it, after all, and Tony had a more pressing concern; "Are you out here alone?" If she popped out here, and Tony thought that looked like it could be any minute, he didn't know how long it would be before the next person came by. This didn't seem like where the parties had been happening.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I am alone, yes," Sansa says. She presses a hand to her low back as if to explain precisely why she's out of bed and draws a little closer so she can actually see Tony's face while they talk. It's dark still, yes, but Sansa doesn't feel unsafe her. She's had plenty of experience with unsafe in her life and Agra 10 isn't unsafe.

"I can't sleep very well anymore," she admits. "And I'm probably going to crush Tyrion in bed at some point because I'm bigger 'round than a melon from the Summer Isles but he is too kind to say anything. I suspect one doesn't say such things to their pregnant wife."

She tips her head a bit. "Now, what about my glownies? Are they not behaving?"

[in_extremis]

He really should have clarified what he meant by 'out here' because for a second Tony panicked and was already rationalizing putting his work at the forge on pause so he could move his precious few creature comforts into Sansa's animal pen until the baby was at least 18 and ready to go to college. Even in the eerie glow-light of the animals, Sansa didn't look nearly as concerned about this as Tony felt, which made it worse. It was only when she mentioned she shared a bed that Tony found himself releasing another held breath, really not sure his heart could take this if he didn't relax. He gave a soft chuckle at himself and shifted his attention back to the glownies, letting his eyes go unfocused as he used the fence to balance and pulled and ankle up behind himself in the other hand to stretch. They could have looked like jellyfish wandering around a tank, if he was far enough away. There was definitely a serenity here that he was out of sync with so far.

His voice dropped lower now that he knew there was someone else in the house and likely asleep at this hour, and Tony replied, "I don't know, are they supposed to be doing something else? I've never seen anything like it. I saw them from..." He was so distracted by their alluring glow that Tony hadn't been measuring the distance he came from the road, and could only gesture vaguely out into the street as he dropped his foot. "We've got, like, fish and algae that'll do that, but not...mammals." Definitely nothing of this scale, he was positive.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"We don't have animals such as these in Westeros either. What is even more strange is that the fur, when carded and spun into thread? It retains some of the glow but only in the dark. It doesn't if I dye it," Sansa clarifies. "But if it is undyed, it will retain the glow."

She might once have thought it a strange magic but she's learned such things here are called science, not magic. The glownies aren't dangerous, though, and generally good-natured so she isn't worried about tending them even while heavy with child. Lady helps, too, and as if summoned by thought, the direwolf pads up beside her. Sansa rubs between her ears.

"They're fairly calm creatures, though, even if I'm in no condition to tend livestock. It's just that Tyrion is in a far worse position to tend them so it's best that I do."

Field Test!!

[deal_me_in]

There was a lot to cover for a ruined city. All kinds of places to poke around, and absolutely no idea what to do with half of it. And not a promising cache in sight. Either the Agrii had no concept of valuables or they just weren't the same sort of things that Cayde would think fit the bill.

The past days had been spent mostly in roaming about aimlessly. It was amazing how bored you could get despite there being so much unexplored territory. Which was why the sound of a voice had drawn his curiosity so easily. The fact that it was that voice which belonged to that particular person was a minor detail. So the guy hadn't left the best first impression on him. The Exo wasn't going to let some weird conversation or a man's unusual fetishes keep him from interacting with people.

Sauntering over towards the fence, the Exo took it all in, mildly amused. He looked over at Tony as he fussed over the...whatever the heck the glowing creature was. "Howdy partner, you sure you know what you're doing there?"

[in_extremis]

With complete confidence, Tony replied, "No!" His glownie was circling slowly and uneasily around him now, not impressed with the idea of something going on her face, and Tony couldn't blame her. He hadn't taken to being gagged, either. He wasn't sure how to approach this without some level of control in hand, though, because at some point he hoped she would bear more than reins and haul a whole cart, and right at this moment he had no data to go on to how she would take to someone trying to direct her. If she would at least let him lead her around the grass...

They came circling together until Tony was facing his audience at the fence and he grinned, eyebrows jumping and betraying his genuine excitement at who he found, but his smile a distinct brand of clearly practiced ease. Tony wasn't overly concerned with its believabilty or he wouldn't have dropped it just as suddenly as he spotted the tablet on the ground and sighed, lips pursed in irritation. He left the glownie to settle herself down to jog back and dust off the tablet, making sure the recording had stopped. "Cayde, great, marvelous to see you," he finally greeted. "Did you get my gift?" He wouldn't have pressed, but it was Cayde that approached and seemed in good spirits, so it would be nice to know if the flowers had actually made it to the right suite and Tony hadn't caused a great mystery in a random Risan's life. That, and the whole, did Cayde still think he was creepy, that would have been nice to know, Tony supposed, a little bit.

[deal_me_in]

That wasn't a response he expected, but it got a laugh out of Cayde all the same. At least the guy was being honest, not that saying otherwise would have really been all that convincing.

He leaned his arms over the fence, propping up his chin with a hand as he continued to watch. "Tony." An up-tip of his head, and then a pause. "Gift?" The Exo took a moment to consider, not a very long one as there weren't exactly many gifts he received since their vacation trip. Technically this was still kind of a vacation, in a weird sense.

"Ah-hah, so that was you." Not that it could have been anyone else, Tony hardly being subtle in his interests. "Yeah. Sorry I'm not much of a flowers kind of guy." As it was, they were either dead and thrown out or still decorating whatever room he'd been abruptly vacated from back on Risa.

[in_extremis]

It was a long enough moment for Tony to give a curious, lopsided smile, eyes bright at the idea of Cayde being inundated enough with generous offerings of peace and adoration that he had to really think back to one he couldn't place. What a wonderful world that would be for them. Not that this idea lasted very long before Cayde dashed it with his dismissal of Tony's choice, which would have been a perfectly fair and neutral admission of personal taste if Tony didn't take it so deeply personally. He was really going to have to be generous if he could figure out what kind of guy Cayde was.

It occurred to Tony then that it had been a gamble in the first place to send anything to Cayde's room at all, because it wasn't obvious he had any reason to ever be in it. Did he have to sleep? No, they weren't doing that. Patience.

Definitely not heartbroken and eager to save face, Tony gestured back to his work in progress and asked, "Have you met these guys yet?" They had arrived at about the same time, so Tony had to guess their rate of discovery had to be similar.

[deal_me_in]

It would have probably been dangerous to say anything remotely positive considering their initial meeting. The fact that flowers had been sent was a strange gesture of a peace offering, at least by Cayde's standards. Anyway, he was being honest. What's a Hunter to do with a fresh-picked bouquet?

Remaining at ease where he had taken up his thoughtful observation, the Exo gave something of a shrug as his optics settled once again upon the glowing quadruped. "Can't say I have. They got a name? ...not radioactive are they?" It seemed like a reasonable question. "Didn't take you for a farmhand." And from he looks of it, he still much doubted it.

Field Test

[happybeeps]

It might be a while before Tony can see the amused reaction to his experiment, though whenever he returns his attention to his fallen device he'll find a message from a smirking Poe.

"Llamrei, mm. How'd she take it? You ever actually ridden before?" He seemed to doubt it given the teasing lilt of his head. "You sure she's big enough to take a rider?"

[text]

[in_extremis]

It's not the size of the horse that makes the ride.
It could have gone better. I have had more consensual encounters.

[Text]

[happybeeps]

That true up to a certain point.
Breaking isn't an easy process.

[in_extremis]

Yeah.
I thought I'd learn that at my own pace, instead of asking literally anybody about it.
So, it's going great.
Have you done this before?

[happybeeps]

Not with this species, but yeah. Back home. It's been a while.

Field Test - Voice;

[kallig]

I wasn't aware we'd given any of them names.

[He hadn't, at least. If you name them you get attached after all, and depending on how things go for their little settlement, he's not quite willing to get attached to something that might become dinner in the future.

Not that it isn't too late.

He's attached to a few of them already.] I think you may need to take trying to break them in enough to be ridden slower than that though.

Unless a trip to the hospital is what you want.

voice;

[in_extremis]

[This is not a voice Tony knows, and he's a little worried he has somehow missed someone else invested in the glownie raising in his initial research.]

Just this one. And I can take it away, too, if she disappoints me. [Or if he had just stolen somebody's next meal.] Honestly, I was thinking I didn't need to see the hospital, it was pretty low on my sightseeing to-dos, so...

voice;

[kallig]

That seems unnecessarily cruel, to give a creature a name and worth, only to take it away.

[He's half-way teasing though his tone doesn't necessarily reflect that.]

Smart man though. The hospital is still a work in progress.

Re: voice;

[in_extremis]

That's on her, isn't it? [Are they both joking? It's hard to tell.]


Is that a 'work in progress' compared to everything else here? Because...woof. That bar is low, sweetheart.

voice;

[kallig]

First of all, do not call me sweetheart.

Second- yes. Effort is being made to ensure there are functional parts of the hospital, though. We can handle a crisis.

We can even manage some small comforts after a lot of work.

But best to do one's best to try and avoid ending up here unless necessary. My bedside manner is also atrocious.

Field Text Cont'd Action

[happybeeps]

The next day Poe gathered a few supplies and set out to meet with Tony, droids in tow. He hadn't explored the glownies too much on his own, but looking out at them they seemed pleasant enough. Maybe not typical riding stock, but they could probably manage.

"Which one's your girl?" he asked, nodding towards the pen.

[in_extremis]

This had become a much longer project than Tony had anticipated. Did people on Earth know it was this annoying to train a horse to walk in the direction you told it to? They must have come preprogrammed at this point, like turtles knew how to build sandcastles, or whatever. This wasn't Tony's forte, he wasn't the animal guy, this was getting irritating. He just wanted a convenient way to haul meltable junk from the city centre out to the forge, and no one else seemed up to the task so far. To that end, he had liberated a piece of the fence he was perched on, facing into the field where the glownies were doing their stranger herd behaviour and all packed tightly together in the centre, facing eerily in the same direction. That must have meant something that Tony could use, but for now he was slowly whittling down an axle for a cart he wasn't sure would come to fruition, with the flat side of a screwdriver.

It was a relief to hear Poe's approach, and Tony turned to watch him make his way down the length of the livestock nursery, blindly peeling curls of half-rotted wood of from his plank. This looked like the guy that Tony could trust to take over for him, and maybe not come back with good results, but really looked the part enough to take it seriously. "Can't you tell? The prettiest one at the dance, she's the prom queen," Tony answered, gesturing at the mass of glownies. LLamrei did stand out in her own way, but it might not have been for her unique, horsey beauty-- Tony had just picked the tallest, sturdiest looking one of the bunch.

[happybeeps]

Poe gave an amused chuckle, "You'll have to tell me what a prom queen is some time. That her?" he asked, gesturing to the tall one. "She's lovely. How far'd you get yesterday? You said she takes the harness all right, you learn anything else?"

BB-8 rolled right on in to explore, herding the glownies about the pen with an eager beep.

[in_extremis]

It wasn't an experiment that Tony was proud of or eager to talk about, so he took a moment to sigh and carefully drop his axle down the fence and tuck the screwdriver into the back of his waistband. He would much rather share the cultural wonders of royalty in the American education system. "You sure you don't want the prom thing now? It'll knock your socks off," he tried, not nearly enthusiastic enough to sell it, so Tony pivoted immediately. They could save the more pointless cultural exchange for when the cabin fever set in.

Gesturing to the herd again, Tony said, "She's not much of a diva, she hasn't challenged me at all when trying to walk with her. I mean, she'll lose interest and stop, but she won't-- you said you knew how to do this, you know what I mean. She did let me sit on her, and before you say anything, I know, but you weren't there and I was under duress. There were extenuating circumstances. She didn't bug out, but she did, uh, roll." Tony raised both hands then, at a loss for what that could mean. He had seen horses do that, sure, but he had never been in that position before.

[happybeeps]

He was sure it was a fascinating form of monarchy, one he'd hear all about some other time, attention turned back to the herd with a smirk.

"She's probably not quite ready for a rider yet," he acknowledge, chuckling at the metal image of the fluffy creature trying to roll him. "We can start her on longe training, see if she can take commands, it should make her a little less likely to try and roll you."