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

"Right in one," Clarice smiles. "UVA stands for University of Virginia, and Quantico is the name of the place where they trained me to be part of the Bureau of Investigation. I studied psychology at UVA for four years, then I went on to Quantico for about five months. It's a fast program, but it's very demanding. Physical work just as much as studying."

She settles into her other chair and opens up her drink, holding it up in a toast. "To sharin' knowledge, Ezra."

Bureau of Investigation. Well, it doesn't sound as sinister on it's face as Imperial Security Bureau. Some sorts of things need investigation, no matter what sort of government is in charge, he supposes.

"To sharing knowledge," Ezra agrees, raising a glass. "Although," he equivocates, before he takes a sip. "I don't anything close to that sort of formal schooling. I uh, was a cadet at an Imperial Academy back on my home world for about month. But that was undercover work."

"Undercover, huh? That can be fun, but it can also be an absolute pain in the ass. Was it a long month?"

He makes an equivocating so-so gesture. "It had some tense moments, but I made a couple of real friends, and got one of them out completely before something worse happened to him. So. It wasn't so bad."

"That's good," she said, and meant it. The butcher paper her sandwich had been wrapped in rustled, and she smiled at the familiarity of it, so far from home. If she suspended her disbelief just long enough, she could be in the lunchroom at Quantico, talking to a cadet.

But maybe this was better.

"Sometimes it's hard to focus on what you were able to save, so I'm glad you can do that.
... One of the other folks I've talked to mentioned an Empire ... I'm going to make a slightly educated guess that this training academy was part of their system?"

Edited 2021-03-20 23:15 (UTC)

He snags the other sandwich and starts to unwrap it.

"Yeah, I was about ask what you'd learned about the history and political side already. When we are now, most of this galaxy is under the Republic. When I was born 900 or so years from now - literally, the day I was born - the Chancellor of the Republic declared himself Emperor," he says, not trying to hide his loathing. "And yeah, the academy I was at briefly is part of that system. A year long program that recruits teenagers into the Imperial military."

"Well, he sounds like a power-grabbing sonovabitch," she said, deciding that censoring herself was unnecessary around someone who, while young, could do undercover work and seemed to be more at ease when she acted less like an official. "If they needed to recruit people, they must not've been makin' a lotta friends."

She thought of starting in on her sandwich, but even in a more relaxed environment, she wasn't about to compromise her manners and eat before her guest. Instead, she busied herself with lifting the bread and making sure half of the contents wouldn't slodge out the back when she did take that coveted first bite.

He gets the sense she's waiting on him, so rather then reply immediately, he goes for a bite, and then makes a genuinely surprised and pleased noise. Remembering his own manners (mostly belatedly drilled into him by Hera) he swallows, before he says, sincerely, "Ok, that's really good."

He takes another sip of his drink.

"Yeah, the Emperor is straight up bad news. Um. The Jedi. Do you know anything about them?"

"I'm so glad to hear it. I'm still getting used to the food here, so it's been tricky figuring out what goes well together." She takes her first bite, and is absolutely pleased. The flavors all mingle well together, the texture of the bread offsetting that of the meat and the vegetables, the cheese just aged enough to have started to crystalize a little and crunch ever so slightly. She has a feeling Lecter would be pleased, and smiles as she chews, nodding her assent to Ezra.

"I know a little. I'm going to the Temple to meet Mr. Kenobi later today, for a tour. If there's anything I should know ahead of time, I'd appreciate it."

"I guess you must have made...not a bad impression, at least, if he's giving you a tour," Ezra surmises, expression brightening even more.

"Part of the reason I got back to you so quickly on the message about an interview is-" He bites his lower lip. "How to put this? I'm a Jedi. The Empire hunts Jedi. And like I said, I'm from later than Master Kenobi. He and the other few Jedi that are part of our group that came from Temba - they all lived through the initial Purge."

"Being a Jedi's never been safe," he continues with a shake of his head. "But when were are now, the main Temple's here. Practically next door to the Senate. I guess ideally the Senate made good laws that made peace possible, and the Jedi were sent on missions to enforce justice, bring relief, and keep the peace. But the last Chancellor of the Republic, who made himself Emperor. Palpatine. The Jedi would have opposed him so...he made sure they were sent to die on battlefields. Worn down. Seen as weapons. And then all but wiped out."

He puts his sandwich down for a second. "I agreed to training knowing it would put a target on my back. The generation before me, their whole world was ripped apart."

It reminded her just a little of the Bureau's relationship with the political body: how easily Krendler had bought and sold her and killed her career just for his own advancement. How he'd taken her perfectly rational performance in a drug raid that had gone to holy hell and spun it to make her look like a heartless killing machine, then stacked false evidence against her piece by piece until they'd had no choice but to strip her rank.

Only, if she'd been a Jedi, she would've been outright killed instead of just losing a job. It brought her own bitterness and careful stance into sharp perspective, and made her throat go a little dry. She took a sip of her drink to combat it, and to give her a moment to process.

"God damn. Ezra, I know sayin' I'm sorry doesn't do a damn thing, but ... I am, anyway. That's ... that's horrible."

But something he said pings her deductive logic, and in the face of what he just shared, her swing from bald sympathy to revelation might come across wrong. Even so, she sits up in her chair and leans forward.

"That's it, I think," she says. "The Agri had their world ripped apart by those storms. Maybe they keep pulling Jedi and people from this universe because they had their world blown to hell. Because they know how to cope with it. And you, you're proof they can come out the other side. They ... you did what they're trying to do, only ... in a different way."

He'd been trying to tell her, without coming and out and saying it, that his fellow Jedi might shy away from someone who read as a government agent, asking questions. And that, not to put too fine a point on it, he was vetting her somewhat.

Master Kenobi offering to give her a tour of the Temple undercut his concern somewhat, but he figures it's still a good thing he can give her context before she goes stumbling into trauma she couldn't have known about.

He's actually not put off by the click of insight, as it flashes across her face. Her sympathy and empathy a moment before carried into the Force strongly enough for him to feel it a little. And well, he knows that flash of logic and intuition coming together and realigning information - he'll never forget the day he realized the entire Clone War hadn't been a matter of who was right or who fought better. It has been all too devastating planned theater, walking the galaxy right into the rise of the Empire.

"That's-" A smile dawns slowly across his face. "Maybe it's not the entire reason. But it's a good one. Hope."

"Hope," she repeats, snapping her fingers and pointing at him with a grin. "That's it in a word. Even the people who aren't from Coruscant. Cobb - he said his people exist out on the edge of nowhere. Surviving like that is hope all in itself, isn'it? We might be on to somethin', here, kiddo."

She gives him a wink and takes another bite of her sandwich.

He grins back and goes back to companionably enjoying their meal for a few moments before he asks.

"You said your Bureau...set you up to fall? What happened?"

It's a question she's going to have to answer several times, she suspects - once for every person she meets. Exposure therapy, she supposes, and she's had her time to make her peace with it. So there's no shame or anger in her voice once she finishes the bite she's chewing and washes it down with some of her drink.

"I was tracking a fugitive. One of the top ten most wanted people, actually. One of their victims was a very rich man with a lot of political power - not unlike that Emperor you mentioned, only he wasn't officially in charge of anything. He wanted the fugitive for his own twisted version of revenge." She shudders a little at the memory. "He'd trained a herd of boars to eat them alive. Feet first. I don't think anyone deserves that. But - anyways. He paid two people: one to spy on my tracking work to know what I was learning, and another to use that information to post a false ad under my name, so it looked like I was tipping the fugitive off to the investigation. The Bureau came down on me and accused me of aiding and abetting ... and the agent he paid, my superior? Got a shot at our own Senate."

"Revenge feeds into the political corruption and-" Ezra's expression twists in dismay and disgust. "How do you even root that sort of thing out?"

He wonders about that. Even back home, knocking the Emperor off the top of the heap would be unquestionably a good thing. But what about all the smaller tyrants who either helped him into power or he put into positions.

He sighs heavily. "It may not be galaxy spanning evil but I'm sorry you were caught in the middle of it."

"I don't know," she sighed. "It's like glitter, or pet hair. Even just a little bit of it seems to get everywhere."

She gave him a small attempt at a smile, despite the somber subject matter. "Thank you, that's sweet of you t' say. ... I think I've got a good lead to follow on all this, thanks to you."

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Clarice's Event Catch-All | OTA

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