Back when Tanja asked why you attacked Neustadt...
Eventually, you settled on telling her, "I didn't really know what was going on in Neustadt. If I'd known more, I might have handled the situation differently." You'd really thought Neustadt as a whole was more involved and aware of the horrors being perpetuated. You're not entirely sure what you'd have done differently, but you'd certainly not have been approaching things with 'kill them all' sitting heavily on the scales of possibility.
"I see," Tanja says ambiguously. She's proven sufficiently prone to this sort of clipped response you figure that's all she's going to say, so you're surprised a few seconds later when she says, "We should talk more," as a firm declaration.
"Uh... okay?" you say, not entirely sure what she's thinking.
And then she wanders off to take a nap; you sigh in mild exasperation, but leave her alone, still concerned by her mood.
The trip continued from there, and Tanja didn't seem any more talkative to you...
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And now we return to the flight
Yyyyyeah, you're not just... taking Yvette's opinions on furthering the Integration as fact. You'll certainly discuss the possibility with Caras and Virmire when you're back home again, but you're not throwing yourself into this topic recklessly.
Fortunately, you have other things to focus on over the course of the trip: Virmire's notes!... which are initially overwhelming, there's so many of them, up until you realize that Virmire thoughtfully provided more than the minimum necessary to cover the last 5-and-a-half years, specifically going all the way back 20 years. After that, you focus on the notes covering the last 5 years -which includes the gruesome details of Estvallee's Burner Worm infestation and subsequent destruction- and mostly look back to older notes when newer notes make reference to prior events.
The trip also proves to be less brutal than you were first expecting: Ixtriss lands around dawn each day, and Ixtriss and Yvette both find somewhere shady to wait during the day.
When you ask why this is so...
"Don't stick your arm in others' business if you want to keep it attached," Ixtriss sneers out.
"A girl has to have her secrets," Yvette says more mildly, but it's just as clear that she's telling you to cease prying.
... they're pretty unfriendly. You note that they don't pursue absolute darkness: Yvette is comfortable with just laying against a tree, whittling, sunlight filtering through the leaves to some extent, while Ixtriss digs into the ground a bit and partially buries herself, as well as shading her eyes against the sun, but they don't set alight. (Over the coming days, Ixtriss does have sections of her shell peel off, like a bad sunburn: you wonder if this is related)
You're perfectly happy to take the opportunity to get some (Awkward, uncomfortable) sleep regardless.
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During the third night of travel, you spot a vast mass of dark clouds ahead, Ixtriss flying directly toward them. Your first impulse is to cringe at the idea of flying right through a storm, but as the clouds get closer you realize you don't see any rain falling from them, there's no thunder and lightning, and you start catching glimpses of other things -abruptly something breaks from the clouds, dropping straight down before wings open up and it lurches toward Ixtriss.
Check-check. Business. Duration. Quantities.
"It's me, you moron," Ixtriss hisses out, while you're recoiling a bit from this voice being in your head. You'd figured you could only hear Caras and his Breeds in this particular way... apparently not?
Registered. Troublemaker Ixtriss. Return trip. Duration indefinite. Rerequest quantities.
"Troubleshooter." Ixtriss' aggravation seems pretty tired to you, as if this mixup happens regularly.
Rerequest quantities.
"Yvette, of course, but we've brought a guest, the Baron of Soul-Consuming Carapace Shadows finally checking in with a... proxy. One Integrated human, Sabrina, and her necessities."
Noted. Sent. Follow to assigned landing. No tarrying.
And then it flies off before you can get a good look at it, with Ixtriss following at a comparatively leisurely pace. (Which is to say you're not worried your clothing will tear in the wind -it never did, but it perpetually seemed like it would) As Ixtriss drops in altitude, you finally get a proper look at what's under the clouds: a city. A big city. A... really big city. You thought Neustadt was unexpectedly large, larger than any location of human habitation you were meaningfully familiar with, but Soissons (For this must surely be Soissons) stretches absurdly far in the distance, a maze of buildings and roads larger than anything you've ever imagined might be real.
Ixtriss drops even lower over time, low enough you can make out individual details. The city is bustling, many people walking the streets, entering and exiting buildings, with only maybe a third of them being human. (Though it could be more, if Yvette's praise for extending the Integration is normal: maybe some of these figures you think aren't human actually are, just much-changed) The non-human figures come in a dizzying variety of shapes, with size varying to a lesser extent (No giants stride the streets, but there are certainly fairly tall and sometimes quite long beings), and not all of them reliably bother with the streets, some climbing buildings or taking flight outright. (Though you notice over time that none of the fliers go much higher than the rooftops, staying well below Ixtriss' height)
You eventually notice that there is a lot of material going into maintaining the vast cloud cover: in addition to three castle-looking structures that remind you of home scattered widely across the city, there are fleshy constructions stretching from inside buildings up into the sky, and a certain amount of free-floating objects in the air, exuding the dark clouds. You similarly notice smaller creatures climbing on or flying nearby these, seemingly inspecting or maintaining them. You begin to suspect that the sun has not touched the ground in Soissons in a very long time: certainly, you don't see any trees, or grass, or flowers...
"Hold tight," Yvette abruptly says with amusement, and before you can respond Ixtriss abruptly dips down and keeps going down at a speed swift enough to leave you feeling like you're going to fall to the ground and splat, even though you're still tied down to Ixtriss. In the process, you notice a particularly large building, with thirteen large domes of varying appearance (Mostly dark, though one is bone-white, and the apparent materials vary) scattered nearby it, the whole area fenced off and with absolutely no plain humans that you can see within the fenced area. (There appear to be a lot of guards along the fence, in a stunning variety, including a couple of towering giants whose gazes track Ixtriss)
Escort complete. Report in.
Ixtriss lands by one of the domes, while the other flier you never got a good look at lurches skyward, rapidly vanishing into the clouds. "Off. I'm hungry."
"Of course, of course," responds Yvette with amusement, collecting your box of notes, unbuckling herself (And then you: you never did figure out the trick to doing it as swiftly as she does!), and then grabbing you and leaping off, slowing her fall enough with her wings that the approach of the ground is only moderately terrifying and the moment of impact is a reasonably mild jolt. "Have fun at lunch!" she calls after Ixtriss, as Ixtriss walks into a tunnel apparently leading under the dome.
"Have fun babysitting," Ixtriss calls back with quite a lot of sarcasm.
"Babysitting?" you say, half-offended, half-confused.
Yvette sets you down and passes you your box of notes. "Don't mind her. I quite enjoy the rare opportunity to hang around a human visitor from afar. It's been a while since the last one."
That's not really an explanation, but you think you follow the implication. "So you'll be sticking with me while I'm here, then?"
Yvette nods firmly, a pleased smile curving up. "Quite right! One too many times of trying to have a Breed mind human visitors going awry and the Council got tired of iterating on that and let humans handle humans. So follow me," she says, as she marches confidently straight toward the large building.
After a glance around at the many eyes (Mostly glowing red) watching you from many directions, you shrug and follow.
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"Alright, this is your room for the non," Yvette says as she gestures you into a fairly bare room that does at least have a bed, table, and chair. (But little else) "I'll come get you when it's mealtime so you can find it in future yourself, but for now I have to go let the Council know you're here so they can figure out when to schedule you."
"Schedule me?" you ask, having been expecting to be rushed right into a meeting while still tired and hungry.
"Oh yes, they've collectively got a lot on their plate, always do, and they were very explicit they wanted to do a full meeting for, uh, remonstrating your B- husband. Probably it'll take 3-7 days for them to find a stretch of time to cram you into."
Oh. Well, that's... sort of annoying? But at least you'll get to recover and think before the meeting actually happens?
... you really hope you're not expected to sit in this tiny room that entire time.
"So, uh, what's expected of me while I'm waiting?..." you ask with trepidation.
Yvette laughs a bit for some reason. "Well, you should wait until after dinner to get to this, but I figured you'd want to do what everybody outside the city wants to do: see the sights! See how wondrous our City of Shadows is! Eat exotic food from far-off lands, talk to exotic travelers (Also from far-off lands), and if you really must be boring I guess you could try to make note of our Breed designs to try to inspire your... husband."
Oh. Huh. Could that work?...
But food and rest first.
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It did in fact take almost five days for the Council to find time to fit you into their schedule. You thus wandered the city, which was a disorienting experience of eternal twilight, reliant on clocks, bell towers, and Breeds loudly announcing the time to have any sense of what part of the day you were in and indeed to not lose track of which day it even was. You noticed the humans were mostly very pale unless they were Integrated (In which case their pallor wasn't necessarily determinable: some people had completely covered their skin with Breed-type flesh), and seemed a bit... listless? Often cheerful enough, but tired. You weren't sure what to make of it, nor why several varieties of fish seemed to be endlessly popular in every part of the city (A large number of which were salted, coming from the ocean, which Soisson wasn't particularly close to: only some of the fish were freshly-caught from Soisson' own river), having never seen the like before: back in Abandonne, certainly those who stayed indoors a lot didn't tan like those who worked out in the sun all day, but this is... outside your experience.
Travelers from far and wide was indeed a thing. You ended up especially curious about...
[]Cultivare. At first you mistook them for very strange Breeds. Eventually you became aware they were humans, clad in bark for armor, with greenery growing right out of their armor; you were particularly curious as to why they were here at all given how they seemed to universally dislike the city's darkness.
[]Kheprians. You've seen one before, but this was when you were a little girl, and Maman hadn't let you talk to the traveler. You've always wondered if everybody in Khepri has scales and a tail and so on...
[]Scaled Folk. One day you were walking by the river, and spotted scaled humanoid figures hawking wares from inside the water to those on the shore. You wanted to learn more in case you could translate this knowledge back to helping with the hostile Scaled People back home.
[]No group in particular. The city was vast and there was a lot to take in: who knows what else you might see with further exploration? The possibilities interested you more than any particular thing.
[]You were actually more interested in the local Breeds. Breeds manning stores and selling goods, keeping roads in good condition, patching rooftops, transporting food, and doing many other things necessary to keep the city functioning. Many of them ignored you when you tried to engage them in conversation, but the exceptions were often quite chatty, reminding you a bit of Delegate.
[]You actually ended up talking mostly with the fully-human Freelanders. Your only prior experience with non-Integrated humans having a close relationship with Gendarmerie was the brief encounter with Sergent Allerd in Freewheeling Raptors' territory, and you found yourself fascinated by how these people lived and thought.
[]You actually found yourself speaking most regularly with Integrated humans. You learned a lot of clear relevance to your own Integrated life, even as there was much contrast since they were of course not married.
(You can vote for up to 3 of these. The top three will be the topics most heavily explored next post, prioritized by their internal hierarchy. ie highest vote is most important, 3rd-highest is least important. I'll tiebreak using the above order, from top to bottom, if a tie happens)
(If you can't get Vitamin D from the sun, you're going to try to get it from food, even if you have no idea that's why you love a specific food. And stuff like tuna is relatively high in Vitamin D... this is worldbuilding stuff I had in mind years and years ago, long before I had any plans for how Sabrina might actually end up in Soissons. I'm so glad to finally get to it at all. Among other worldbuilding things I thought up years ago but are only slowly peeking into Sabrina's life.
The update itself took way longer than I expected between annoyingly-timed health stuff and the need to think pretty hard about how to present the city in-character but hopefully-clearly...)
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