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.

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He was a jokester, to be sure, and she knew it came with how much he wanted and/or needed attention. Even so, Tony’s bald-faced admittance that he checked out earned him another one of her bright peals of laughter and a roll of her eyes which may have made that pushy gentlecreature in the crowd a little jealous indeed. She knew there were people in the throng who had their eyes on either of them – they were both good-looking, effervescent people in a scene where such things were cause for note. “It’s alright, I won’t go into detail about the libretto on you. But only because it isn’t in Spanish or Italian.”

A few lights over the entranceways changed color – clearly the Coruscanti way to show intermission was nearing completion. “I’ve never been to Broadway, no, but I can’t say I envy you the experience. Some of the music is alright, but … I can’t say it was ever anything that caught my interest. The opera is … well, let’s just say I got into it because someone I’m close to is a fan.”

"It's those Romantic libretto's that you can't leave alone, really turn you on," Tony laughed in return, looking gleeful that he could tease her about something that was unavoidably nerdy, under any scrutiny. The sharp-eyed lady turning heads in the sleek gown hadn't prepared Tony for that treat. His gaze darted up and around the room's once more shifting tide like he was considering whether he would actually go back into the auditorium with Clarice, or take his chance to escape to a more lively event, but linked his arm with Clarice's again.

"I'm not often conscious of it, but it's a wonderful gift, isn't it? How much room there is in our hearts for the most surprising parts of the people in our lives. My last girlfriend, she did the whole tea ceremony thing, laying out the table and the mixing and the pouring--still not my thing, but I hated tea before that for--thirty years, then she comes along. You know?" Tony didn't know he had much good to leave in anybody else's heart, or if Clarice was enchanting enough yet to leave him wondering about librettos (probably, he had a long night ahead of him), but he patted his free hand on his chest, very aware of everything he was proud of being parts of people he still loved. "I wouldn't know what I left with anyone else. Do you?"

"Oh, now, Tony, don't make me go getting indecent in public," she laughed back, fanning herself with the document in question in the moment before they linked arms. "I could never show my face at the office if it got back to the steno pool." She said that with an acridity that showed she'd rather die than be one of Those Sort Of Women, the women who stayed where Those Sort of Men thought they belonged and did it happily.

They start back up toward their seats as he's talking about the tea ceremonies, and she gives a soft, charmed hum. She's always thought tea ceremonies seemed so elegant and just ... sacred, special, though she's never had the privilege of witnessing one herself. She's only jealous for a nanosecond, mostly pleased for him that he had spent time with someone who made him happy.

"I can't say for certain, honestly. I think that'd be something that'd be up to them to decide. Any of 'em. But ..." She gives it a moment's earnest thought, anyway, since it's another way of sharing herself. "My time. My honesty. People I'm in good with ... if they need my time or my ear, they get it, and I get their back. I remember what's done and I pay it back, good or ill. If I had to choose what I'd want people to keep from me, it'd be that." A tiny smirk. "Or corrupting certain gourmet food snobs into grudgingly appreciating Hostess Snoballs."

It was difficult to determine a difference in age when their dimensions didn't quite align, and it was easy to rest on hope that some familiar habits meant a person that Tony met on this alien planet could be placed confidently in time. Like Jon before her, Tony realized with sudden clarity that Clarice might not have been of exactly the same generation as Tony, because he raised an eyebrow at the acid in her delivery despite helplessly laughing along with her. That sounded a bit like a joke he would hear from his mom. She was adapting shockingly well to the surprising advancements of Coruscant, if that hypothesis had any merit.

He let out another snort of surprise at her Snoballs, admitting, "I was ready to give you shit for that pageant answer, please, my time, you're an angel, I already got it." He was rolling his eyes, but when they settled back on Clarice he was returning the smirk with appreciation for that very sweet answer. Inspiring more patience and honesty in the people in her life was more noble than an appreciation for opera or tea, and were some revealing values. Tony led her to an actual seat this time, instead of crouching and giggling in the dark together, where he dropped into a casual lounge in his chair with his legs crossed at the knee to bounce a restless foot.

"This is going to sound crazy--listen, as much as any of this is crazy, I don't know what the boundaries are, sweetheart--and I swear it's not because of the Snoballs, although I'm pretty sure they stopped producing those a decade ago because of the formaldehyde content or something, but--what year is it, for you?" he asked before dropping his chin into his hand where he frowned with curiosity.

"One of those boundaries? Don't call me sweetheart just yet." She was secure enough in herself now to be polite about it, and he'd proven himself good, respectable company otherwise. Anyone else, several years ago, would have had her simmering with silent rage about it for weeks while she smiled and let them say whatever they wanted.

She settled into a chair beside him with grace, but also stretched out. Country classy was what she had begun to think of herself as, and she had learned to be quite a social chameleon. Her ankles still crossed demurely but her shoulders slouched into the middle of the chair, studying his own mannerisms with equal interest. "But I suppose that sort've thing is why you're asking. Also, there is no got dam formaldehyde in my Snoballs, I don't know what your world is on about." She gave him what her mother used to call 'the hairy eyeball', but smiled while she did it. "It was 2003. I left the Bureau in 2001. Day of its anniversary, even. That was some real insult to injury, let me tell you what."

Edited (gosh some of that was a mess. it's better now.) 2021-04-23 15:50 (UTC)

With how readily Clarice had been playing along with him so far, it was hard for Tony to see what threads to pull to get her rattled, so the self-assured request had the immediate effect on him of a challenge that he met with his chin leaned into his hand, propped up on the arm of his seat, where he narrowed his eyes with a distinctly impish curiosity. He didn't quite say, 'We'll see about that', but his smirk, poorly concealed against his knuckles, did a lot of the work for him. She was polite about it now.

Still leaning into his scrutiny, his eyebrows jumped in charmed surprise at the language that revealed more of Clarice's facets hidden with her nerdiness behind that elegant gown. Got damn to tell you what, that didn't usually make it into an opera box. It was almost enough to distract Tony from, "Three?," not sure if he was delighted or horrified. "Beyonce hasn't even gone solo! Of course you don't know any Avengers, I don't know any Avengers! You've never blocked someone trying to sell you diet pills on Facebook!"

His reaction amused the hell out of her, even if she didn't know most of what he was referring to. She could guess from context that they were all very common-place things in his time, regardless of what sort of background anyone had. "Facebook," she chose to focus on with a raise of her eyebrows. "Sounds like something out of George Orwell. Don't you mean 'out of a' Facebook, though? Or is this an internet thing?"

The internet was really still finding its sea legs, at least in terms of FBI usage. Google had just barely come into being. YouTube was still just a glimmer in someone's eye, and God knows no one had even thought of TikTok. With that context in mind, her skepticism of Internet Things was pretty well founded. To Starling, the Internet was still for people with too much free time on their hands or for people who needed to come in and Have A Seat.

That was about all Clarice needed to know to really understand Facebook and it only took her a couple of tries, so as the lights went down in the theatre and the orchestra came crashing back to life, Tony sunk down in his seat with another sly smile and his finger touched to his nose. By the end of this night, she was going to have a very different perception of the internet and what it could be if Tony got his chance to explain social media and the new age of communication to her, but this time as the colours erupted in the alien stage, he turned to watch more attentively than he had while whispering enthusiastically with her at the front of the viewing box. It might have been an inscrutable media, in languages that Tony lagged in comprehending as several of them tangled together in their urgent thrall to the drama, but there was still plenty enough to it that Clarice found familiar and meaningful to her. Occasionally, Tony's gaze would slide to her in the dark instead, watching more curiously than he could really muster for the tragedy being performed, but without much to do with his hands in the dark and in a deep debt from dangerously wakeful nights, he was soon not watching anything at all and dreaming the end of the opera for himself in the secure darkness of the theatre.

She drew parallels in the storyline with her own, clearly, but it diverged considerably, and her face made it plain where, for as long as Tony could stay awake. By the end of the show, she had a few trails down her cheeks, and had surreptitiously glanced over at Tony during a few key points to see how he'd react to the twists and tragedies.

Of course he'd fallen asleep. To be truthful, she was grateful he hadn't seen her cry. She reached for her handkerchief and cleaned herself up before going to find a droid to help her get him to a hovertaxi and back to their shared hotel. People would talk, for certain. She had a feeling he'd approve of that.

By the time they were returned to the hotel and the droid had helped carry Tony to his room, Starling was flagging, herself. However, she still had enough presence of mind and manners to take a piece of the hotel stationery and write him a brief note.

Tony,
I hope you dreamt up a better ending than what happened on stage. Thank you for an unexpectedly wonderful evening.
With wishes to meet again soon,
Clarice

She folded it in half and left it on his bedside table, then paid the droid its credits and showed herself back to her room, satisfied and emptied out in that way that only a good opera in good company can do.

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Clarice's Event Catch-All | OTA

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this made me LOL when I first saw it in my inbox, you win

really, Clarice is lucky, simpler times

you're not kiddin'. TY for this, it was a delight!