Arrival - OTA

[hooliganstatus]

WHO: Aeon and youuuuuu
WHERE: Various Locations
WHAT: A rebel without a cause
WHEN: The first few days after everyone's return
WARNINGS: None yet! If you need to hit it up, her permissions & opt out are here.

A: Arrival - The Vanquish / The Hangar
Where Aeon wakes up is not her bed: it's hard, flat, and feels like a prison cot. She sits up and reaches for her gun instantly, looking around for any Breen soldiers, but all she sees are a few other bunks, empty but with signs of recent use. She can hear voices not far off. The construction of the place is nothing like anything she's seen in either Bregna or Monica, and she slides off the cot, her boot soles clacking lightly against the floor. After raiding the lockers and finding not much of interest, she slips through the halls, noting the tiny kitchen.

She presses the orange button on the drink dispenser and watches the orange drink come streaming out onto the catch-tray below.

"Hm."

Then she follows the sound of the voices. No one sounds angry or upset, but she can hear both women and men speaking. The hallway leads to a gangplank down into what is a somewhat large hangar, and a glance gives her the situation: six ships, counting the one she's on, all different, with quite a strange variety of people disembarking.

She walks up behind the nearest of them.

"Interesting place you all have here."

B: The Data Point
It doesn't take her long to find her way to the Fountain in the center of the city, almost as though something drew her there. At the sight of the glowing point, she smiles.

"Yoink," she says, reaching out to take it.

But the yoink does not happen. Instead, the Data Point unloads everything the other He Rows already know. Once it's done, Aeon totters backwards a little, and slowly smiles.

"That was fun."

If she finds anyone nearby, she'll raise her eyebrows invitingly. "Are there more of these?"

C: Exploring - The Plaza
Everyone and everything is new. Aeon is particularly perplexed by the patches of pink and purple glitter embedded in cracks in the ground. Maybe you encounter her crouched down and trying to pick it out of a crack, rubbing it between her gloved fingers before touching the tip of her tongue to it and making a face.

Once she realizes that wasn't a good move, she starts picking up pieces of broken and shattered data points, tucking anything that looks as though it might be useful into one of the pouches at her hip. She's not worried about cutting herself - the gloves are durable, and she's touched deadlier things with them.

Comments

A

[no_applause]

There's a beautifully dressed woman pushing a hovering pram containing 2 sleepy newborns. She's looking around at the world for the first time. It breaks her heart to see any world suffering hardship, but she knows they can help.

At the voice behind her she turns and looks over her shoulder. A little confused, she smiles. "I was thinking much the same thing. I don't believe we've met. I'm Padme."

[hooliganstatus]

"I don't usually tell people what to believe, but you're right. We haven't." She returns the smile. "My name is Aeon Flux."

Curious, she walks up to the pram and gives it a little poke. It rocks very slightly to one side, and she leans over, eyes squinting at the tiny humans inside.

"Did you just grow these? They're very small."

[no_applause]

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Aeon. Have you just arrived?"

The tiny humans blink curiously up at the big human who just poked their ride. What's up? Padme's eyes widen ever so slightly. What a curious way to ask that question. Perhaps she's not human.

"They're my children, yes. They're about two weeks old."

[hooliganstatus]

"I have," she said with a little lilt in her voice that said it wasn't as much of an imposition as most would have considered it, just ... a pleasant surprise.

"They're very pretty." She leans down and boops one on the nose lightly. "I don't see very many babies. Not in Monica."

[no_applause]

What an odd person. But, hey, she's known weirder.

Luke giggles, reaching out and trying to grab the big stranger's fingers. Is it a game?

Padme smiles, watching the interaction. "Thank you. Monica... That's where you're from, I presume? I come from a planet called Naboo."

[hooliganstatus]

The planet's name makes her smile - it sounds about as ridiculous as half the names back home, so it's a little ... familiar in a way she wasn't expecting.

"It is, but Monica is just a region of the city-state. Everything else is uninhabitable."

She lets Luke grab her finger and watches his tiny digits around hers. "You can't keep it," she warns him.

[no_applause]

She nods, understanding. She's been to enough nearly uninhabitable planets in her time. "I'm glad that there's a region people to reside in."

The interaction makes her smile. Luke burbles happily and tries to pull the finger into his mouth.

[hooliganstatus]

"So am I. I wouldn't want to live in the jungles. You have to wear helmets and suits out there, or the plants kill ..."

As Luke wraps his pudgy lips around her fingertip, she laughs. "This little one isn't afraid to go after what they want. ... Good," she tells him. "Be bold."

[no_applause]

"Some planets can be a struggle for residents to survive. I think it's a testament to their strength."

She chuckles at Luke, shaking her head. "He takes after his father. Of course, I suppose many have said that about me, as well."

[hooliganstatus]

"Some of them. The ones that were always that way. Sometimes the testament is more to the ruthless hubris of the creatures that live on it." Cough cough, Goodchild dynasty, cough cough.

"It's a good thing to be called, bold. But what do you call him?"

[no_applause]

She tilts her head. "That can be true, as well. Though I prefer to think the best of people until proven otherwise."

Her question gets a smile, "His name is Luke, and his sister is Leia."

[hooliganstatus]

"You'd be a rare person where I'm from." She smiled, to convey that it wasn't a bad sort of rarity.

"Leia, that's pretty. And Luke sounds strong." She jogged her finger a little, testing his grip, but otherwise at a bit of a loss as to what to do around infants.

"What are you going to do with them?"

[no_applause]

"Thank you. I have a feeling they'll both be strong." She reached down and brushed her fingers down Leia's cheek before straightening her onesie.

The question gives her pause. "What am I going to do with them?" She's astonished, but her tone was still gentle as she responded "I'm going to love them and raise them as well as I can."

[hooliganstatus]

She wasn't surprised that it seemed like a stupid question: mothers were a separate society from hers, their womanhood used in completely different ways. There were no soft edges on Aeon, nothing that suggested she knew a thing about families.

"That's ... good," she said, searching for words, feeling that she should offer some. "There aren't a lot of kids where I'm from, not on my side of the border wall."

[no_applause]

Padme can sense the uncertainty. The woman may be aware of children but she clearly doesn't spend time around them.

She smiles gently, "I've been to worlds like that. Sometimes it doesn't feel right to bring children into a world."

cw: infertility/pregnancy issues? just to be safe

[hooliganstatus]

"It's not quite that it doesn't feel right, though you're not wrong," she clarified, deciding to follow Padme to wherever she'd been about to bring the children outside of the hangar. "It's more that ... everyone in Monica and Bregna are sterile. You have to pay to have children, to have the gene work done and the artificial impregnation."

[no_applause]

Padme is in no rush. She walks forward, looking about their new home as she listens to Aeon. "While I suppose that ensures all children are wanted, such a system does seem to favor the wealthy."

[hooliganstatus]

"It does." Even if Padme isn't looking directly at Aeon as she speaks, her disdain is clear in her tone. "Unfortunately at the moment, it's our only choice. My people, the Monicans, we're ... trying to fight for a better way. It's not easy and it doesn't always work, but. I wasn't about to give up any time soon."

She isn't as bleeding-heart as some of them, and she knows it, but she also knows she still believes in the cause, or she wouldn't be with them anymore. She would have just crossed the border and stayed with Trevor. But life isn't that simple. She has a feeling even if they managed to win, it wouldn't be.

[no_applause]

She nods. While fighting isn't her preferred method of dealing with things, she can understand that aggressive negotiations are occasionally necessary.

"Nor should you give up. Everyone should have the same rights and privileges as anyone else."

[hooliganstatus]

"Exactly. ... I hope everyone here thinks the same way." She glanced around at the landscape outside the hangar, and pursed her lips, thinking. "Wherever this is."

[no_applause]

That gets an eyebrow raise, "Have you just arrived? I'm sorry, I should have asked."

[hooliganstatus]

"I woke up on a cot, back there." She points to the ship behind them. "So ... yes!"

[no_applause]

Both eyebrows shoot up in shock. "You just... I'm so sorry, that must have been quite disorienting for you. We've only just gotten back from an off-world trip. Have you learned anything about this place, yet?"

[hooliganstatus]

"I've learned you're here, and you have two babies named Luke and Leia." She booped each of them gently on the nose, and then Padme as well, for completion's sake. "And you are Padme."

[hooliganstatus]

"You'd be a rare person where I'm from." She smiled, to convey that it wasn't a bad sort of rarity.

"Leia, that's pretty. And Luke sounds strong." She jogged her finger a little, testing his grip, but otherwise at a bit of a loss as to what to do around infants.

"What are you going to do with them?"