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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!"

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Maybe sheep-horse-things were wired differently. Cayde wasn't about to question an alien creature's behavior when he had no idea how it normally acted, although along those lines he began to wonder that perhaps they should take that into consideration in trying to tame one for transportation.

That thought could wait for the time being. What the heck was that that just happened?

The Exo stood with Tony clinging there like some odd movie poster, but his attention had long shifted from the rolling glownie, fixed on Tony, or rather the man's arms as though he'd sprouted an extra pair like the Fallen. He eased his own hold on the guy, taking the pat as a thanks as well as an okay to let him stand on his own. Then he looked at Llamrei wriggling about, snorting in a brief laugh.

"Could'a gone better." But no pancake people here, so yeah. 'Well.' He'd give it that. "So what the hell was that anyway?" he asked, rounding back to what he'd been sure he'd seen. "Your arm, stuff started getting all shiny like you took a dip in molten metal."

There wasn't any damaging reason to try to distract from what Cayde had clearly already seen; it wasn't as though Tony's flirtation with transhumanism made him Iron Man, or that this would even mean anything to someone from another dimension, stuck on a completely separate again planet. Still, Tony had a moment of panic, and demanded with a hard grin, "Didn't I already tell you? I'm Midas," before shrugging this combativeness off with a roll of his eyes at himself, sorry. That wasn't even the right metaphor. He turned his arm outward as he pushed up his sleeve to show Cayde the evenly spaced ports dotted up the inside of his forearm, looking so much like deliberate punctures that the nano-network pooled around as it stitched together again. "You don't get to come at me like that, by the way. I don't know if you've seen a mirror lately, but the general effect is shiny," he pointed out, waving with his free hand at Cayde's situation while his glove formed again, then raised it with pride, Vanna White with a fabulous prize. "Anyway, is there something wrong with your optics? I've always looked like this, what do you mean?" he said, deeply serious and concerned before his smile returned. It could have been true, it was his colour and Tony sang for effect, "I walked into the room dripping, in gold," and it didn't elude him why that particular track was the one that might have popped into his head, or that he was talking too much, trying to find something to stick. This was not a trick he was used to showing off; it felt like revealing the breastplate that he had upended his life to keep concealed.

Cayde affected a flat sort of look, optics lidding with Tony's initial response. Yet he held his figurative tongue to see if an actual explanation was forthcoming, unsure of what he was expecting. Even when Tony did roll his sleeve up to give him a clearer look at the whole occurrence again, minus the panic of a rolling glownie, the Exo wasn't sure what he was looking at.

"I make shiny look good, and for me it's natural. You on the other hand- that's a new trick, at least from my P-O-V." He brought a gloved hand up to poke at the nano-coated arm, curious. "Gave yourself upgrades?"

Edited 2020-04-25 05:28 (UTC)

"Some of us need some extra help, there's no shame in that. Thank you, Dr. Zizmor," Tony said, and he knew even as he did that he was going to have to get some material with a broader appeal in the rotation because he knew he was getting microscopically local at this point and there was no way that didn't just confused Cayde further. If he didn't know what hockey was, there was no way a New York subway icon was going to survive the pop culture apocalypse.

The poking wasn't a problem, despite Tony's anxiety, and he brought his hand flat between them for Cayde to wonder about all he wanted, twisting it in the light to show off the joint matrix, a distinct hexagonal scale texture that caught the sunlight despite being smooth like skin. "Was it prejudiced of me to assume you knew anything about transhumanist bio-electronics? Have you really never seen anything like this?" That wasn't meant to be disparaging, Tony couldn't imagine that Cayde's functions didn't at least partially run on a similar nano-network, if not a further advanced one. "It's just an interface. My nervous system," he pointed at himself, "machines," and pointed at-- not directly at Cayde, but the general concept of machinery and definitely not anything in particular that would help him in a poorly thought out glownie training venture.

"Didn't say there was," the Exo replied, dismissing references he didn't understand as he came to figure that such things were a permanent part of Tony's speech patterns. "Nope, never seen anything like it. Or if I did, maybe I forgot. Transhumanist?"

That totally sounded like a made up word to him, but then wasn't that what most words were in the long-run? He gave a shrug, finally retracting his own hand from his curious prodding.

"So you got super tiny machines installed to make you instant armor? Sounds handy. Also makes me wonder what all kinda computer-geeking you do exactly that you need armor. Surely not breaking in horses." There was a grin at the end of that. He could tease, couldn't he? And it wasn't like the earlier endeavor was so easily forgotten, especially not with Llamrei there in front of them.

That Cayde assumed the undersuit was a kind of armor made Tony open his mouth to correct him defensively, only to snap it shut again, knowing that would have been far more revealing than just letting it go, and it better justified why Tony thought it was necessary when trying to train a glownie. He turned back to Llamrei at the reminder, frowning at her because she had grown exhausted of her scratching and was now laying quite still on her side in the grass, which was either a well earned respite from her action-packed day, or a strong sign of the slow, suffering death Tony had just caused with a double pronged attack of both physical and emotional stress.

"It's a philosophy," Tony decided to explain instead, because it was insane that Cayde hadn't heard the word, or at least had his own context for it to make the connection, as he sank down next to Llamrei to give her a pat to the side and surreptitiously check if she was still breathing. Good, not dead yet. "That states that it is of ethical imperative that we, as humans, work toward not only betterment, but a total social physical and mental equality through self-directed evolution. That humanity, and technology, is at a state that to not combine both to create a post-human society where technology is used to heighten the state of the individual, is actively cruel." Stroking down Llamrei's flank while she snorted into the dirt, Tony stared inquisitively at Cayde, wondering if he could possibly think of himself as transhumanist within those tenets, or if the circumstances of his existence were too far outside of them. "Computer-geeking to build a better body," he concluded.

It certainly wasn't a word that Cayde would apply to the circumstances of his being. Of his fragmented memory, he remembered that much of how he'd come to be. At least he was pretty sure that was him. He hated thinking about it too much, as it always invited that niggling feeling of doubt to worm its way into his thoughts.

"That right? Huh." Now, from a standpoint of technological advancements to help better mankind? Sure, he could see that. Exos still weren't on that list. Heightening the state of the individual... The furrow of his metal brow and the lidding of his optics suggested a wrinkling nose that he otherwise didn't have.

He shrugged it off and looked back at the suddenly still glownie, momentarily wondering the same thing and subsequently relieved when she snorted, a sigh of his own expelled, or at least the sound and slump of his body. Folding his arms, he eyed Tony for the look he was being given, offering nothing until the conclusion, for which he gave a nod. All right. He'd accept that. People had strange and dangerous hobbies.

Ice cold. Tony could have shivered at that nod, but he let it channel into frustration, empty hand raised limply before dropping it to his thigh. Shaking his head in response, he went, "Nothing?" and frowned with pursed lips at that weird expression Cayde was making. That would have been hard to read on human features, never mind someone who seemed adamantly against giving Tony a break on this one. It wasn't like it was a secret that he wasn't a meatbag; Tony didn't understand the reticence.

"Okay, well," he said as he stretched back up onto his feet, turning that irritation on the glownie, "she might be done for the day." Or maybe the week, it was hard to tell. "Thanks for the help," he did kind of mean sincerely, despite the mixed results, but Tony couldn't quite bring himself to look grateful.

"Look, if you wanted to explain more, you would. You're a talker, right? You've got questions too, and I can't guarantee answers." Tony's face, unlike his, wasn't too difficult to read for the wonders of human musculature, of flesh and bone. Identifying people's tells, that was something of a habit of his that had transcended gambling tables.

"Wanna swap stories some time? Let's hit up a bar. ...does this place have a bar? Aw man, do we gotta make one? I know they got alcohol of some sort if that party was anything to go by."

Cayde clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder once he was up on his feet again. There were no objections to calling it for the day. "Yeah, sure thing." He didn't feel particularly accomplished, aside from maybe at least helping spare Tony a hospital trip, but he took the thanks and the general mood as his cue that he should go.

If that was the way to get Cayde to entertain Tony's curiosity, Tony has happy to make the sacrifice of his anxiety, but he was going to have much more reliable systems in place if he wanted to avoid sacrificing his sobriety instead. That was a long walk for a chat, though, and there was no way of knowing if they really had the time-- the storms weren't on any known timetable as it was, and this whole adventure could just end for either one of them at any minute, as far as Tony had gathered, leaving Tony with a gnawing void of loss every time he tried to solve a puzzle that Cayde looked like he was made of all of the answers to. "That might be a job for you," Tony deferred, taking himself out of that 'we', but assuming they weren't going anywhere soon, it wasn't a terrible idea for community morale, if Cayde really did want to take the walk. It was a more good-natured response than Tony's last, his semi-permanent smirk returning. "You're not doing anything, are you?" It finally occurred to Tony that he didn't really know at all what Cayde had been doing with his time since they arrived here, and he had just wandered up on Tony, apparently aimless, without Tony questioning it. A further mystery.

Serious again, Tony continued, "But, listen..." not sure how to impart his frustration without just laying it out there, and he'd deal with the consequences. If Cayde really didn't want Tony knowing what was holding him together, he could at least give Tony an enlightening excuse. "A mutual friend of ours has some concerns about how this place might effect you. I'm not saying I have any idea what the storms might do, or if I could even help, but it would be nice not to have to do repairs blind."

The Exo scratched the back of his hooded head before making a show of an exaggerated sigh. "Well, no. Just been scouting the place out," he admitted. "Guess it could be a side project."

Not that he wouldn't be poking around just to make sure there wasn't already a place that served as a local pub. Why put in all the work if something was already done? Wait no, that just made him sound lazy.

He turned back towards Tony, pausing. It didn't really take him long to figure out who this mutual friend might be. There had only been so many people he'd spoken to, after all.

"...yeah, there is that. Normally repairs wouldn't be an issue but my usual mechanic didn't make it with me when I got transmatted off to Risa."

Not if it got in the way of wandering around, of course, priorities. Everyone dealt with a situation like this by taking on eight discrete, long-term projects, right? Tony glanced back down at Llamrei, as though it was in any way her fault that Tony couldn't leave it alone and focus on one thing, or at least something he actually knew anything about.

Tony spread his arms at Cayde's acknowledgement that he might need help, only mostly a victory pose, as he said, "Didn't need to bring them. I was already here to hook you up, listen, you're not going to find better hands in the multiverse, you're going to miss me when we get out of this." Maybe not for his personality, but Tony was genuinely confident that he could put his skills head-to-head with whatever entity was letting this Exo die on their watch.

It was not at all surprising to see Tony practically jump on that opening. Cayde chuckled. "That line works better than the making babies one." Not that that was a response in consent.

He might object to the fact that he wasn't dying yet, or at all if he could do anything about it. The storm was thus far only hearsay, although he wasn't taking Jon as a liar when it came to what the man could explain of it. Still wouldn't be the first time Cayde would have to tangle with some possibly supernaturally spawned storm.

It'd just be the first time he'd be having to do it without Sundance.

This tactic seemed way more forward to Tony than his first one, but he could maybe see how some people could interpret the intimacy differently if honesty came more naturally to them. As a defense for that behaviour, Tony brightened and went with, "I will not be retracting my statement." Doubling down was a defense. "Whatever you're working with there are systems that could be mountain-moving back home, the potential advances in medical science I can smell on you are astronomical, and if you don't want me checking you out because you're guarding some state secrets..." Tony gave a helpless wave, no idea why that would be the case. They weren't even from the same Earth, what could the damage be? "Those babies would save a lot of lives," should have been the only argument.

It wasn't in his nature to miss a chance to shoot his shot, though, so Tony continued, "Not that I'd turn down the chance to try the traditional way," with a wolfish grin. Before Cayde could call him a creep and bust Tony's chances again, he said, "Have your people call my people, we'll set up an appointment. You can bring along a friend, if you think I'll get too handsy."

"Of course you're not. You're getting predictable, Stark," Cayde smirked. "Also, I haven't said yes yet. I haven't had a physical tune-up since... Hell, I can't even remember. Before everything fell, that's for sure."

After that, all he'd ever needed was Sundance, and Ghosts were a level of technology and space magic all on their own.

"...anyway," he continued, after Tony rallied on about appointments in an effort to gloss over his tendency for saying strange and creepy things. "I'll think about it. You? Try not to get yourself killed." There was a meaningful nod towards Llamrei at that before he turned again to make good on escaping- er, an egress.

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this is more clunky than usual I am so sorry

it's okay!!

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