revivalproject | Clarice's Event Catch-All

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Clarice's Event Catch-All | OTA

WHO: Clarice and youuuuuuuu
WHERE: Various places around Coruscant
WHAT: Exploring, investigating ... and being a bit of an art snob
WHEN: All through the event!
WARNINGS: None yet, but if anything worthy comes up I'll put it in the comment headers. <3

Starling had scarcely had time to get her bearings on Temba before she woke up on the ship, to the strange message. It hadn't taken much to wake her: she'd slept lightly, and took a speed-run of a shower, not wanting to waste the precious hot water afforded to the crew. She didn't want to step out onto new ground and make the impression of a hot mess, after all. After combing out her damp hair, she put it up in a ponytail to keep it off her neck, then shook out her only set of clothes, judiciously inspecting the cashmere sweater for wrinkles and wishing for an iron. Ah well. It was what it was. She'd been provided with credit, at least. Maybe the first order of business - after breakfast - was to get something new to wear.

A: (In Person) Everything will always be alright - when we go shopping
The amount of options were even more staggering than New York, or Paris, Clarice marveled, as the taxi dropped her off in Coruscant's shopping district. She'd counted her credits on the ship, not wanting to be tacky in counting them in public.

She starts off by window shopping, browsing from store to store to get a feel for the prices and the styles: what people consider high fashion, lowbrow, and somewhere in between. She decides a sturdy outfit, something working-class, would be the best choice for back on Temba, but there was also nothing wrong with spoiling herself a little and having something that would make her look good should a situation call for it. Feel free to find her as she's molesting various pieces of clothing, rubbing it between her fingers to check texture or thread count, or as she's sitting down on a bench to try on a smart-looking yet rugged pair of boots.

B: (Network) And you told me all your plans - how you would never let them go
New as she is, Starling takes her responsibility and her new mission seriously. The mystery of Coruscant and the many people brought to Temba from this place has piqued her interest, and so her first thought as a newcomer is to seek them out. She takes out her comm device - a new, strange thing in itself - and taps on the garish pink icon, thinking a moment before composing her message.

Hello, everyone. My name is Clarice Starling. I only just arrived in Temba the day before we were sent here to Coruscant, and I admit that I have many questions ... particularly for those of you who are familiar with this world. In the interest of helping the Agri, would any of you be willing to sit with me for a brief interview of sorts? I would be more than willing to get you a cup of whatever equivalent to coffee they have here, or light lunch, to thank you for your time.

C: (In Person) A bittersweet, evocative song... that doesn't remind us of Musetta's Waltz
After a long day of investigating and attempting to do what she was brought here to do, Clarice changes into the nicer of the ensembles she's bought for herself: a jewel-green gown with a white shawl to stave off any evening chill. The opera house is advertising a new Bith opera, whatever that might mean, and Clarice shows up to purchase herself a ticket with confidence, sliding into the crowd as though she belongs there. Anyone who hasn't met her yet may just mistake her for a native, even as she purchases a program, hoping to learn a bit more about what she's about to indulge in.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Shopping and especially shopping for clothes has never been something Jon has done a lot back on Earth. Most of his wardrobe consisted of very similar pieces bought at the same stores that he simply knew fit him and he was comfortable enough to wear.

On an alien planet, this has proven difficult. The styles here are vastly different. Buttons hardly exist, instead robes and tunics or futuristic zippers are almost everywhere. But it's not really actual clothes Jon is looking for this time. It's footwear. And he is determined to pick up a few pairs to last him a while once they return to Temba. A pair of sturdy boots is what he is at least hoping to find when he sits down at the other end of the bench Clarice sits on and quizzically turns around the single shoe he has brought along with him before slipping out of his own, by now rather worn shoe to try on his find, muttering a little curse in a notable British accent.

"...Jesus Christ. The seizing of these makes even less sense than the ones before! Is it too much to ask for a moderate amount of consistency...?" The question, while not aimed at anyone and purely rhetorical, isn't entirely free of some of his compulsion, however. Clarice may notice a faint little tickle at the back of her mind, prodding gently for what answer she may have.

She feels the knock at the back of her mind palace and startles a little. Jon will get the sense of a sturdy door, but one that isn't yet locked, because the owner hasn't learned how to do so yet. There's a sense of a vastness behind it.

Starling glances at the man on the other end of the bench, and wonders.

"Well, there are a lot of different species here," she says, unable to keep a certain note of wariness from her voice. "It would stand to reason that the sizing would be different for each of them to account for the foot shape."

Unfortunately, Jon isn't aware of any doors aside from the metaphorical one in his head he's trying to keep firmly shut to not be drowned by what's on the other side. Though this isn't an intentional action from him and he usually gets no feedback from it unless people suddenly answer his questions, so he remains unaware while tying his single boot. And yet he gets an answer. One that initially gets a frown from the Archivist.

"Well, yes. Naturally there are. And I am trying hard not to accidentally look into footwear designed for lizard-men or--" A pause and the frown is replaced by a moment of puzzlement. "What are the ones with the head-tails called again? I-I mean- It's fine, obviously, but- I was looking for human-sized ones specifically. And yet even there there is no discernible consistency!"

Well, he's not an imbecile and has logic to work with, Starling realizes. The fact that she seems to have offended him a touch means that there's a considerable amount of thinking power under the hood, so to speak, and he may possibly be the strange presence she felt. If she knew how it worked, she'd try to push back to be sure, but alas, such powers are beyond her reach.

"Maybe they're made by different races who have varying thoughts on what human sizes look like," she posited, tugging on a boot and lacing it up. "What're you looking for, in particular? I've already gone through a couple of racks on this side, I might've seen something." An olive branch of sorts, to apologize for offending.

"Something sturdy and functional that will survive the daily abuse of traversing the ruins of a destroyed civilization." Jon responds to the actual question rather than commenting further on which part of a society of mixed alien and human beings produces which commonly required products. He finishes with his current boot and sits up to inspect the outcome for a moment, then stands up to test the feeling of this particular piece of footwear.

"I have been stuck with one pair of shoes for at least a year now." Jon offers further, which may explain the sorry state the pair of rather simple shoes he has been arriving with.

A few of the details he offered up made the puzzle piece that he was slot easily into place, and she nodded. "Did you come in from Temba, then?"

It was an incongrous enough question to a passerby - it could have been the name of a distant or podunk town. But Starling knew that if he had come in with her, Cayde, and the others brought by the Agri, it might spark a very different reaction.

She finished lacing up her own boots and stood along with him, rocking back and forth on her heels, wiggling her toes to test the room in the toe block.

The name does, in fact, get a different reaction from Jon. Even though the slightly raised brow may also be one born from simple confusion. "I don't recall seeing you back on Agra 10. Did the Agrii..." Jon cuts himself off at that point. Well. It happened back on Risa, didn't it.

He sighs, then nods. "...right. Right. Yes. I come from Temba. And eventually... We will all be heading back there." Again he pauses, then turns to face the woman and offer a hand in greeting, mismatched shoes and everything.

"I'm Jonathan Sims. Jon is fine, however."

"Clarice," she says, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you, Jon. You, ah - probably didn't see me because I barely had the chance to get my feet under me and my bearings, before I went to sleep and woke up here with you all. I've only met a couple of people."

She glanced at his single worn shoe. "You've been on Agra 10 for a while, then."

"Maybe about a year? But... Measuring time is... It's difficult." Jon answers after a short nod in acknowledgement of her name. "And I'm not surprised you haven't met many. There... Aren't exactly a lot of us in Temba. And having all of us tossed onto a planet as crowded as this one? It's easy to have everyone get lost in the crowd." Which isn't the worst thing to happen for a change.

"I assume you aren't familiar with this planet as well." The Archivist notes with a single raised brow. It's a question offered without actually asking one.

Unbidden, the memory of Jack Crawford giving her the tired old 'this is what you do when you assume' lecture floated up into her mind, and she smiled just a little, missing him, sorry she'd never had the chance to properly say goodbye to what may have been the last of the Bureau's honest men.

"Do you know how many people there are, then, Jon?" She picks up the boot he has yet to try on and starts lacing it with swift, sure fingers: an offering from someone used to getting things prepped in a hurry.

While Jon accepts the offered boot, he certainly notices that she has neither approved of nor denied his assumption. Which still doesn't mean he will go and pull the answer from her. This guarded behavior is, after all, not necessarily a new one to encounter.

He simply shrugs while going about to put on the second boot. "Roughly two dozen. Give or take a few? The numbers aren't exactly steady. People come, people go... Some come from a version of this planet, even. Several of us... From different versions of my home world."

"Really," she said with genuine interest. "This is all new to me, the whole kit and kaboodle, so I'd appreciate anything you'd be willing to share."

For her own part, the boots she's chosen seem to fit pretty well, but she won't know until she takes them for a little walk around the shop. Not wanting to leave him in the lurch, she decides to wait until he's finished with his other boot before hoping they'll make a circuit of the place together as they talk.

"That limits us to- A lot." The Archivist admits as he finishes the second boot and stands back up, stretching his legs for a moment while his expression settles into a mild frown. Though he also nods. "I will answer your questions as best as I'm capable, but- I'm no data point. I can't spool everything I know directly into your head, unfortunately." Yes, she will have to select topics and ask what exactly she wishes to learn.

"Though for most of us this is their first time being kidnapped in such a way. Only a few have experienced something like this before, myself not included."

Clarice was about to tell Jon that one thing at a time is the way she tends to prefer her data gathering, when he makes that last remark. Her eyes widen in surprise.

"Who's had something like this happen before? And how much have they been willing to talk about it?"

This is starting to feel more and more like an interrogation and Jon can't help but frown a little in response.

"Most of them have left." He starts simply. "The ones that are still around... Knowing who they are will not Get you home quicker."

That little bristling is a red flag, and she backs off. "I see. ... I was brought here to help, then I'd like to. I'm just used to asking people questions in a far different environment, and knowing a bit more to start with than I do. My eagerness might've come across as demanding, and if it did, I apologize."

She ducks her head a little, stepping back, giving him space both physically and rhetorically.

"I can tell." The Archivist notes. "I have dealt with police in the past." And that's his conclusion: He is dealing with yet another cop. Maybe not one that will drag him into the woods to kill him, but the tone, the attitude, the questioning... That certainly feels similar.

"Back in Temba I have taken charge of the place that used to house the Agrii's library. There I keep records of whatever information I managed to acquire to make what we know available." It may not be astoundingly much, but it is something. And they haven't exactly been buried in leads and answers in the time Jon has been in Temba.

"That's good. Records are important ... I honestly dealt with records and evidence a lot more than most of the people I worked with." She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "And for whatever it's worth, I've been out of that career for a couple of years now. As a matter of fact, I've been an attache to a consulting museum curator and translator. Before I showed up here, we were working in Buenos Aires."

Jon takes a few steps with the boots he is trying on. "Whatever we were doing on our respective unfortunately has little influence on what is expected of us on Agra 10. That is unless the Agrii realize is that what they want are skilled construction workers." At the same time their hosts may not even be very much in charge about who gets brought in and who isn't.

"I think I will take these." He then casts his verdict on the boots. They fit. And likely won't be the only pair he picks up before they are returned to Temba.

"I got to see a little of it before we were all brought here," Clarice nods, following him a ways away to test out her own boots without crowding him. It only takes a few paces before she decides she's also found some winners, and she returns to her bench to take them off.

"Sure looks like an uphill battle to say the very least. I can't say I've ever built anything from the ground up before, but I know my way around some basic tools and I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty, if that's what y'all really need."

"We were send here to learn." Jon sits back down as well to change back to his own shoes. "That was the message the Agrii left us with: To learn. If you have been in Temba with the rest of us, you will have received the same message. Unfortunately they didn't give us clearer instructions about what it is they want us to learn about, implying that they have no idea themselves. Which I believe to be the case." It very much looks that way to Jon at least.

"But gathering information alone won't be of much help to us. And seeing that you have already decided to acquire some equipment for when we return, I will assume that you share that notion."

Clarice nods, a little frustrated that Jon is veering into mansplaining territory - not that she knows the term. "Exactly," she says at last, letting her frustration go. There was no need to belabor things by going over it all yet again, after all.

"Even if we collectively manage to find exactly what they're lookin' for, it's not gonna fix the rest of the problems back there. Where are you looking for things? I don't want to waste time by covering the same ground."

The response she receives is an oddly excited one. "The archives of the Jedi temple! It's MASSIVE! Knowledge and experiences from an entire galaxy gathered over thousands of years - It's incredible!" And far from what they can even dream to achieve with what used to be the library of Temba. Which is a shame. And they likely can't access returning with some sort of remote access to all those files.

At least Jon catches himself in his excitement, leaving him biting his own lower lip for a moment. "I- I mean- Yes, the history of Dathomir may not be helpful to us by any means, but-- It's still quite fascinating. There are so many planets and cultures we can learn about. Their believes, their fears, their superstitions..." For purely scientific reasons, of course.

As Jon flails, Clarice grins, excited for and with him. "I don't know, I studied behavioral science, and some things are universal. Those beliefs and superstitions may have paralells with what you have in the Temba library. Fear is a universal experience, and it's rooted in evolution and survival. I wouldn't have thought of it as the first way into a culture, but ... it's a surprisingly good one."

"Oh, if one thing is certainly universal, it's fear..." Jon agrees, his tone turning more pensive as his excitement slows back down and he casts a look around, taking in their surroundings for a moment. "...on a planet like this, with so many people... there is so much of it." He is aware that his own relationship with fear is quite different than that of everyone else at this point, but there is little he can do about feeling drawn towards all that deep and not always hidden terror when so very surrounded by it.

Though Jon pulls himself away from those thoughts to return his attention to Clarice, suddenly looking apologetic. "I'm afraid you may be expecting more from the library back in Temba than there really is. You were there, so- I assume you have noticed the data points. The Agrii used smaller versions of those to store their knowledge in and those... Well. Let me say the library and the area surrounding it was littered in shards of glass and fragments of electrical parts. Tony... He was trying to recreate these data storage devices, but we were still facing an empty library." He shrugs helplessly. "I have been collecting personal records for the most parts. Tried to carry together things that might... Help." Does he sound sure about how helpful his records are? No. Certainly not.

Clarice's Event Catch-All | OTA

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