[X]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.
[X]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.
[X]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.
I just had an idea of what we can do to make it easier to be out in the sun; create sunglasses.
I'm pretty sure that the Breeds use some form of chitin for their shells, and chitin is transparent when it is thin. We can make darkened chitin goggles/glasses for the Integrated and change our Breeds to have movable chitin over their eyes. Many animals already have something like this with brille and nictitating membrane.
The Breeds use a Made Up Fictional Material that copes sufficiently poorly with sunlight that some Breeds can melt or spontaneously set on fire when standing in direct sunlight. I think those consequences have never been depicted in the Quest itself, but it is meant to be something Sabrina knows by now to be an unambiguous Fact.
Leaving aside the actually-not-known-to-the-Questors questions like 'can the Breed creation process output anything like sunglasses', sunglasses made of the default outer layer of most of Caras' Breeds would make for a great way to get a really cool scar across Sabrina's face.
Boulder shell glasses, if Sabrina thought of the idea, would be 'probably doesn't work in practice, but could theoretically work?'
----------------
Anyway, indeed closing the vote today.
Sabrina proved over these five days to be most interested in local Breeds, local Integrated humans, and at slightly lesser priority the Scaled Folk.
Update incoming, please standby.
(This might end up taking until Monday to actually go up: I suspect this update will be big, I won't have much time on Sunday, and as a bonus my piece of junk computer recently became dysfunctional in a manner that makes typing a bit more of a nuisance than it should be)
Scheduled vote count started by Ghoul King on Sep 5, 2024 at 6:35 PM, finished with 34 posts and 16 votes.
[x]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.
[x]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.
[X] 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.
[x]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.
[X]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.
[X]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...
[X]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.
Over your five-day wait for the Council to fit you into their schedule, you wandered the city, studied Virmire's notes, and just generally tried to make something productive of your time.
The following is some of the moments that stuck in your memory afterward.
On the first day, you were first and foremost curious about the Breeds of Soissons: they mostly did put you in mind of Caras' own Breeds, but with enough differences to stand out, and the very different context of operating continuously in a city that never had to worry about the sun torching a Breed meant you saw things Caras couldn't possibly replicate.
Yvette shadowed you throughout the day, initially taking your curiosity in good humor ("I guess even the ordinary seems amazing when you live at the border..."), but increasingly perplexed as you watched and spoke to Breeds handling construction of buildings ("Hi, hello, I'm Sabrina, how do you do?" Fine. Busy. "Oh, my apologies, I was just curious..."), demolition of out-of-date constructions ("That seems like fun. Is it fun for you?" 'Fun'? "Um..." "The more basic Breeds aren't that smart." "... do you find yourself happier, more satisfied afterward? Is it a task you feel better for having done?" "You're wasting your-" Fun? Fun. Yes, is fun. "-time." "I'm glad to hear you enjoy it! Allow me to get out of your way, in fact." Yes, back to fun...), tending to mushroom gardens on rooftops (Yvette obliged getting you up and down from said rooftops), checking the organic constructions that stretched into the sky to generate the cloud cover ("How does that work, anyway? It seems very useful." "Don't ask." Not important. "Oh, um, sorry?"), running shops of various sorts (There were also shops staffed by humans, but they seemed to be a bit outnumbered), acting as a doctor to humans ("What appears to be the problem, miss?" "Oh no, I'm fine as far as I know. I was just curious if you felt that not being human yourself created difficulties in your job." "Oh my yes. Not so much now that I've been around a couple years, but that first year was a constant struggle; how do I diagnose 'feeling tired a lot' when I don't know what tiredness feels like in the first place? I would've benefitted greatly from having a human on hand to help with stuff like that... still would, really..."), and basically the only job you saw in the city that didn't seem to at least sometimes have a Breed handling it was smithing. (Smithing had an entire little sectioned-off area of the city, plastered in warning signs about open fires, which Breeds seemed to avoid. It also had an unusually high proportion of 'streetlights': some manner of pulsating mass Yvette had vaguely described as a light source for regular humans grown by one Perilintheque. The city was studded with these, but elsewhere they were more widely spaced)
You were particularly surprised to find this included religious duties. You stumbled upon a modest temple, and when you went inside it had a Breed (You were put in mind of Virmire, except this individual's head was round and had no apparent teeth) dressed almost exactly as all the Freelander priests you'd personally seen. (A dull brown robe of simple make, with minimal decorations... just adjusted to fit this Breed) "Sermons-" they'd started to say, paused, and with a distinct click emanating from somewhere in their body had begun again. "Sermons are over for the day. The night sermon is a few hours off. Unless you're here to make a donation?"
"I was mostly surprised to see a Breed as a priest. The ones I know aren't very interested in religion," you responded honestly. Then you hastened to add, "But now I'm curious what you just did with your voice!"
"Oh. Do you mind if I take this in order?"
"Not at all!" you'd said, because you were quite curious about both things.
"Okay, thank you. Religion isn't terribly popular in Soissons in general, if I'm honest; I think there's only nine other temples in the whole of the city?" That sounds like a lot of temples to you, but Soissons is huge. "The Council doesn't put much stock in it, for one, so the labor they control -which is most of it- isn't going to help build a temple. Nor is a Breed going to be made expressly for the job." Your curious look had apparently pretty clearly communicated your question, as with some amusement they had explained, "I'm a leftover from an experiment in public speaking."
That felt like you were missing some kind of assumption, but thankfully Yvette had guessed the problem correctly and commented boredly, "'Leftovers' are Breeds made by a now-defunct Gendarme Lord. You probably haven't seen this before: it's mostly a Soissons phenomenon, because there's communal pools maintained by the Council. Outside Soissons, such a Breed generally starves, assuming they weren't killed alongside their Lord in the first place."
Oh. That sounds a bit... sad. "Oh. I'm sorry for being insensitive!"
The Breed priest didn't seem offended, though. Maybe a bit amused, even. "Duke Tant had been pretty disappointed with me. I was supposed to convince the peasants in his land that he was a good ruler they should be very happy to have, happy enough to not revolt if he doubled the sheep tax." Oh my. Double the tax? "They did not find me as persuasive as he'd desired. I'd have been rendered if the revolt hadn't torched his manor first. So I'm pretty fine with being a leftover, given the alternative." After a pause, there had been that click again, and he'd continued with, "Which brings me to better answering both of your questions: Duke Tant had noticed that Gendarmerie speech has a component that is offensive to the ears of un-Integrated humans, and I was the result of him experimenting with deliberately cutting out that component, with a 'switch' to turn it off and-" Click. "-on again, for when I'm speaking to Gendarmerie or Integrated." He paused here. "Turns out I'm more appealing to those types with it on. Duke Tant didn't care why that I could tell."
Interesting. Then Yvette had sighed. "It's like reading a book with no punctuation." You'd sort of stared at Yvette, because you'd never read more than a handful of books per se and didn't follow the comparison. She'd looked away, seeming perhaps embarrassed? In any event, you'd focused back on the priest.
"Yes, well, in any event I'd found myself with some talent for public speaking, and while it was not enough to meet the Duke's needs, it was enough Father Alcide was quick to snap me up when he stumbled over me in Soissons, and to be honest there is something nice about the Great Plan as a concept. I have a feeling it's different for Breeds and humans, but I've kept most of Father Alcide's flock and they still outnumber the Breeds that come to my sermons, so maybe I'm just odd? But that's my story: a series of events where no individual planned the outcome, yet here I am in a job I do well, in a city that wouldn't make more like me of its own volition. It's like a nice metaphor for the Great Plan itself, I'd say."
Yvette yawned in the background, while you nodded thoughtfully. After a moment, you'd asked, "I don't suppose you know how the voice thing works?"
The priest had shrugged. "Not in useful detail. Can you explain how you tell your fingers to move?" Not really... "Exactly." After another pause, he'd asked curiously, "Are you going to be by for a sermon?"
You'd shrugged. "Maybe! I have much to see and do and have no idea what the days will bring!"
The priest had nodded. "Ah. Trusting in the Great Plan, is it?" You'd paused, because that certainly wasn't how you'd been thinking of your intentions, but now that he'd put it that way you weren't sure it was incorrect. "Don't mind me, then. You probably don't need a sermon to stay attuned."
You'd thanked him for his time, making a mental note to ask Caras about the voice thing when you got home, and headed on your way. (Ignoring Yvette making gagging motions and muttering impatiently behind you as you'd finished the goodbye)
You'd made a lot of mental notes as you went, supplemented by physical notes at times (Getting some paper and a writing implement had proven as easy as asking one of the... palace?... Breeds in the halls for such... though they'd not gotten you a quill to write with. You didn't recognize this 'pen', but it had worked nicely enough...), raising questions to ask when you got home, possibilities to try, and so on: while the process for Breed design remained opaque to you, you figured it couldn't hurt. Maybe Caras couldn't exactly replicate various of the dizzying array of worker designs you saw, but they might provide inspiration: certainly, he'd said he'd been in the capitol before, but you had this sneaking suspicion your husband hadn't paid that close of attention to all this. (And to be fair, if he'd previously arrived as scheduled, he might not have been given as much free time as you're getting)
You'd also visited these 'public pools' Yvette had mentioned: they were Heart pools!... sort of.
You'd somewhat wondered how the Breeds other than Caras and Virmire sustained themselves given you never saw them eat, and it turned out that resting in one of these pools of green water was the main answer. The public pools in Soissons lacked Hearts and similarly lacked grubs in the bottom: they were just the green water. Yvette had been... unfriendly when you'd expressed curiosity of how these pools worked, and nobody else in these days ever gave a clear answer, alas.
You did also learn of another disadvantage Yvette had failed to mention to furthering the Integration: the components inside Integrated individuals required supplementation to survive! Yvette insisted on you 'taking a bath' to make sure your own Integration didn't 'die', and it felt... oddly like a satisfying meal in some indefinable way that caused you to realize Scuttlers satisfied you in the same way. Yvette was much, much slower to leave the pool: each day she dragged you to one, you felt more than fine after maybe fifteen minutes, but Yvette was reluctant to leave the water even after an hour. (Which you took advantage of a bit to get some time away from her)
So that was also useful, and also where some of the more taciturn Breeds were actually willing to answer questions. (Even as Yvette groaned in the background over you 'constantly pestering' the Breeds) You learned most of Soissons' Breeds were tied directly to the Council, doing work with no compensation greater than the satisfaction of a job well done. (A concept some of the Breeds didn't seem to understand, though they obeyed regardless) The shopkeep Breeds turned out to take money predominately to pay humans: the farmers growing food, the smiths shaping metal goods, etc. Only 'leftover' Breeds seemed to care about money themselves, and you eventually gathered they had to pay taxes, cover housing, and sundry other topics the Council's own Breeds didn't concern themselves with. (By extension, the 'leftovers' you met seemed to be pretty consistently more prone to thinking about the future and other more abstract topics: you wondered to what extent that was hard-earned wisdom vs the ones who couldn't think in such ways simply dying)
Your list of questions and ideas just kept growing...
Past the first day, your interests diversified a bit. You still talked to and studied Breeds regularly, but that second morning, eating at the table in the palace(?) with Yvette and a dozen other Integrated women (Plus one very grumpy man who seemed committed to avoiding conversation of any kind), you'd had the thought that this was a unique opportunity to gather more info about the Integrated state: what was normal, what were signs of concerning things happening in one's body, that sort of thing, but also just to see if Yvette's attitude was truly as normal as she presented it as being.
This process proved to be a bit more arduous than you first expected. You'd sort of figured you'd talk to everyone Integrated in Soissons: while Yvette had said she was one of 50 'brides' to Zamvek, even multiplying that by 13 is only, uh... 650 people?
... okay fine that idea was always unreasonable, but the point is that it turned out that the Integrated folks of the Council were... clannish. Yvette was completely unwilling to even enter the facilities of other Integrated groups, and multiple of the places you tried slammed the door in your face as soon as they had it open enough to see your eyes. (Which you found confusing given how the Breeds freely intermingled in the city: why were the Integrated humans so hostile to those outside their group?)
One group was an exception, the Integrated of one 'Sussuron', who... well, for one thing Yvette stayed really far away from you for almost two full days after you spent a couple hours in the Sussuron barracks, jolted away any time you made as if to touch her, and gave you lots of unhappy looks basically anytime you weren't looking right at her. You weren't entirely sure why: it seemed different from the antipathy she had for the other groups? But she didn't explain even when directly asked...
Anyway, the Sussuron barracks was at least a kind of success. They not only let you inside, but did in fact answer questions, make conversation, etc. It was nice!
"So I've not gotten to meet other Integrated before I arrived in Soissons a day or so ago, and now that I'm here I have many questions!"
"Go ahead," said the woman who first let you in and was still holding your hand for some reason.
"For example, I realize I don't know what's normal once Integrated! I've found the sun intense and unpleasant ever since-"
"Oh yes, that's the worst," she interrupted sympathetically, patting you on the hand with one of her hands and rubbing circles on your hand with her other. (Her hands were very glittery, and smoother than you'd expect for how they resembled iridescent scales) "I've never heard of a Gendarme fixing it. Even when they can make a Breed hold up in the sun, it never seems to work when they try to adapt it to the Integration process. Kills people instead, sometimes."
Okay good that's normal. Good to know. You nodded in gratitude. "Thank you kindly for clarifying, I'd wondered. Also, um, this is maybe too intimate-"
"We're all for intimacy in this barracks," said another woman from right behind you. Like. Right behind you, in your personal space. Oh, ew, she's breathing out on your neck!
You scootched slightly down the couch, breaking loose of the first woman's grip and far enough that the second woman's breath was not outright on your neck. "Okay um but it's still maybe a bit much but the thing is I noticed eventually I've, um, stopped? Having my, um."
"Monthly bleeding, cramps, et cetera?" The woman on the couch said in a knowing manner, leaning forward.
"Um, yes. That. Which is nice! It was, um, very unfun. But I've worried a bit?"
A third woman came in and sat in the absolute closest chair to you. "It's a perk. No more bleeding, no possibility of kids."
Um. "No- no children?" You like kids.
"No kids," affirmed the first woman. "The space is taken by the Integration."
Oh. Okay. Is... "Is- I was told Integrated are mostly women? Is this... why?"
The woman on the chair nodded enthusiastically. "Way I heard it, in the early days Integration was actually mostly men, but it had a high failure rate, and failure mostly meant-" She drew one clawed finger across her throat here and made a very viscerally nasty sound. "-dying gruesomely. Really unpopular stuff, they spent a while using convicts because nobody else was willing to take the risk." After a pause, she corrected herself. "Not that the convicts were willing, just it was better odds of living than execution. And a lot of them still refused; too horrible a way to die."
Then a fourth woman came in (Petite girl, the first of this bunch to be shorter than you), and asked, "Are we doing storytime on Sussoron's gift?" When the other women nodded (While you just looked bemused), she sat down right in between you and the first woman, which this couch wasn't...really made for three people... "So maybe five hundred years ago, way before Premièreombre Sussuron was on the Council, she studied people's insides a bunch, and she had this idea that the Integration might be possible to do smoother by targeting it at the female form, and other Gendarme scoffed and said that was ridiculous 'cause all humans are 'basically alike' from their perspective, but then it worked really, really well! Never killed a woman at the first step in centuries, became the go-to-standard, let her get a really big Integrated force for a while, big enough she got on the Council, all that good stuff that makes her THE BEST."
That was... interesting, but not very practically useful to you here and now. Though it did raise a question. "So... what happens if a man is Integrated?"
The group went quiet at that. The second woman solemnly said, "Sometimes works okay, but is never pleasant. Sometimes has... side effects. Sometimes just kills them."
You thought back to sir Shellman, and how you'd considered suggesting he be Integrated, see if it let Caras interrogate him more easily or something. You found yourself wondering if that would've been a more miserable death than what did happen.
The rest of that visit stuck in your memory less: you learned things of interest, like how it was common to have your tastes change and a good idea to respect that because what tasted bad to you now had better than even odds of making you sick if you persisted, and you made mental notes to adjust your daily routine to account for some of the info, but it felt less important than that first part.
By the end, about twenty different women had intruded on your personal space, often touching you gratuitously outright, and when you made to say goodbye the barracks leader kissed you goodbye (On the cheek) too quick for you to indicate you'd rather she didn't (You were vaguely aware that some Freelanders would kiss even non-family as part of a greeting or parting, but you were kind of glad it wasn't normal in Abandonne: you'd rather just hug, thanks), so that was all a bit annoying.
"Wow," said Élodie, aptly summarizing the group's feelings. "I've never met such a frigid girl."
"At least she doesn't get angry and hit like Yvette does," muttered Mia.
"Yeah, but Sabrina's complete lack of reaction makes me feel downright ugly. Yvette doesn't like being hit on, but she knows a pretty girl is making moves on her." complained Valerie. After a pause, she added, "I didn't turn ugly since I last looked in a mirror, right?"
Mia smiled and said, "You're still the prettiest," and Valerie preened while Élodie rolled her eyes (with affection!) at their flirting and headed back to her duties -her break was over.
While you still didn't get why Yvette was so hostile to Sussuron's Integrated, you did find yourself a bit reluctant to go back, and ultimately ended up mostly talking with Yvette's fellow Integrated. Not that they were terribly friendly, mind, but at worst they grunted in annoyance and ignored you if you pestered them at the dining table. Sometimes they even did answer questions.
Overall, you gathered less of use from them than you'd have liked... but you did confirm that even Zamvek's Integreted did not all think like Yvette on every topic she presented as normal. One older woman was of the opinion that the most important duty of Integrated was one their Gendarme rarely realized they needed: a human perspective, to treat with their human subjects more appropriately. You'd agreed pretty enthusiastically, and she'd given you an odd look before commenting, "I'm not sure whether to assume you're a bright girl or working for an idiot."
You'd smiled back and said, "I'll take the compliment," which prompted her to laugh long and hard.
Similarly, a couple of the Integrated women had given you basically the opposite of Yvette's advice regarding extending the Integration: do it slowly, over years, so your body has time to adapt to each change. That made a kind of sense to you, and you'd thanked them for their advice. (Yvette was especially grumpy the remainder of that day)
One wary-looking woman had warned you that your naïveté was going to get you killed, encouraging you to be less friendly. You'd thanked her kindly for her concern, and then completely ignored her unsolicited advice.
You had at least gotten a couple other questions answered in talking to Zamvek's Integrated that weren't really about Integration. Firstly, you'd remembered Caras once saying he'd never met the Council, which seemed at odds with him saying he had to visit Soissons every few years to report to them. When you'd thought to ask Yvette quietly at the dinner table, you'd been overheard, a woman who... either didn't have eyes, or had them covered by a sleek shell, you weren't sure which... had said, "He probably hasn't met the Council in full."
You'd furrowed your brows in response. "In... full? I don't understand."
The woman (Whose teeth were rather like tiny daggers, you noticed as she spoke) obligingly clarified. "Normally, a Lord doesn't necessarily talk to any of the Premièreombre when they report. They often just meet with a second, who interviews them and passes on an editorialized version of the conversation, plus any notes the visiting Lord bothered to submit. Even when a visiting Lord is in good enough -or bad enough- standing that a Premièreombre personally makes time for them, it's typically just one. Sometimes two."
Yvette had finished chewing her food and interjected at this point. "Yeah, they're really not happy with your guy blowing them off for six months and doing a sucky job of keeping them up to date on the border situation." You considered pointing out that it seemed a bit asinine to be displeased with Caras for prioritizing the job he was apparently assigned to do by these people, but Yvette was still behaving weirdly around you, so you decided to not push her any.
Instead, you'd raised something else you'd been curious about. "Okay. I've been meaning to ask about Gendarmerie names: my husband has the very striking name of 'Baron of Soul-consuming Carapace Shadows', and his neighbors have similar names, but I keep hearing Premièreombre names and they're... not so grandiose? It seems odd."
The no-apparent-eyes woman had made an amused sound. "They really don't explain anything out in the backwater, do they?" You had this suspicion she'd just said something rude, but you weren't entirely sure what 'backwater' meant in this context, and anyway she kept talking before you could decide on a response. "'Grandiose' names, as you put it, are aspirational. Something their progenitor gives them, an idea to build themselves around and try to live up to. Zamvek chose their own name; all the Premièreombre have done so, and typically a Lord does so sometime as they climb in ranks, cement their own identity, and have enough renown they don't need to announce themselves in such a manner for others to know what they're about."
Interesting. And a little worrying: Caras sticking to his current name is a sign he's doing poorly? You sort of doubt that pushing him to pick a name for himself will, uh, 'stiffen his spine' metaphorically, but you are certainly going to be on watch for signs of him considering a new name.
"Thank you kindly!" you had said with a cheery grin, ignoring how Yvette seemed taken aback as you refocused on the food.
----------------------------------------------
On the fourth day, you'd been crossing a bridge over Soissons' one large river when you'd spotted a batch of Scaled Folk, hawking wares from inside the water.
They weren't really what you were expecting. You'd had a hazy image in your head of something like the old stories about 'mermaids': a fishy tail in place of legs, but a human upper body. Maybe with scales on the upper body, unlike the old mermaid stories: surely their name came from something about them, yes?
The scales part was true enough, though it was less obvious than you'd expected: their entire front was a pale color, so pale you took it for pure white outright initially, only realizing late in the interaction that it was a very pale blue. These scales were so pale and fine it all seemed like smooth skin: it was their backside that was much more obviously covered in well-defined scales of a deep blue color, broken up mostly by gills down near their... waist? Their arms were distinctly odd-looking, partially encased in a shell that only made sense to you when you saw one of them fold their arms tightly together and the shell pieces meeting produced a very fin-like shape, which seemed to enable smooth motion through the water. They didn't have legs, their lower body narrowing into a serpentine form whose backside was tipped by a distinct tailfin, like a shark's.
Their head was perhaps the most disorienting part. They did not have a distinct head mounted on a neck, but instead had their body narrow toward almost to a point at that end, like some fish you'd seen. The orientation of their face was thus very off compared to a human's: their eyes were positioned right where the scales transitioned from front-side to back-side, able to rotate enough to face in almost any direction except toward their tail end, and their mouth was at first glance a V-shaped slit on the front of their underside, which when they spoke revealed itself to have quite a lot of long, hook-like teeth hiding inside. You also couldn't tell if there were different sexes among this group: you didn't see any obvious differences suggesting such.
Overall, they seemed unable to maintain a vertical position in the water. Instead, the hawkers were laying halfway onto the ground at the water's edge, propping themselves up with their arms as they shouted about how great their wares were, ducking back into the water to grab pearls or whatever when someone indicated interest.
Their appearance was sufficiently unexpected you didn't actually consider the possibility that they might be Scaled Folk at all when you first spotted them: you just curiously asked Yvette about them and got a dismissive, "Scaled Folk trying to fool tourists into trading for their ocean trinkets. Everyone knows Gendarme Captains can do the job just as well, and with less of a chance of cheating you!"
But that had piqued your interest, of course, as though you'd not seen them personally previously, you knew a long-standing problem with Caras' realm was Scaled Folk, and you weren't very clear why this was so. Maybe you could learn something of relevance to back home.
Yvette had heaved an extremely put-upon sigh when you'd commented, "I'd like to take a look. This seems interesting," but had obligingly lead you from the bridge to the correct street to take you down to the riverbank.
Initially you'd stood back and just watched as other citizens traded; you'd noticed with some interest that money didn't really seem to be the point for the Scaled Folk. They would take coins in trade, but they also readily accepted some non-coin goods, and seemed completely unwilling to accept paper money when that was offered. You weren't entirely what the pattern to their preferences was: you almost wanted to suggest it was about how much an offered thing glinted in what little light drifted down from the bridge's 'streetlights', but that seemed a bit silly. These weren't crows looking to line their nest with something eye-catching...
... right?...
... regardless, eventually you'd approached an individual not currently occupied talking to someone else. "Hello, my name is Sabrina, how do you do?" you'd said, expecting an introduction in turn.
"'ey! You look like a girl who'd appreciate some additional color in her clothes!" the individual had said, and you'd realized they'd naturally assumed you were interested in their wares.
So you'd shaken your head, "I apologize, I was actually wanting to ask questions about your... people? Culture? That sort of thing? I wasn't looking to buy anything."
The Scaled.. Person? (What was the singular here?) had seemed confused and disappointed to you, though it was difficult to be sure. They'd commented, seemingly to nobody in particular, "I haven't been a greeter in years, come on..." before turning to the river and shouting, "Hoy! Get over 'ere, Coraline! One of your friends is 'ere!" Which seemed a confusing thing to say.
There'd been no response at first, but after a few seconds a smaller individual with the underside/front scales being still pale but more noticeably blue had launched out of the water into the sky, at their apex shouted, "Oh boy oh boy! I'll be right there!" and then vanished headfirst into the water with barely a ripple.
Mr. not-a-greeter had turned back to you and gestured at an empty area of beach. "Out of my face. She'll gladly answer your questions."
"Uh... thank you?" you'd said, shrugged when he grunted, and went to the indicated spot...
... whereupon Coraline had burst onto the beach with such violence you had been soaked quite thoroughly. "Yes! Cultural exchange! You first!"
You'd spent a moment wringing out the wettest part of your hair, annoyed, before commenting, "I have no idea what you're saying."
Coraline going, "Whoooooah," had not explained anything. Her continuing with, "I thought everybody knew about cultural exchange," also hadn't helped. Nor her saying, "I learned a new thing already! Thanks, miss! My turn, my turn!" Finally, she'd gotten to something more helpful. "Five minutes! That's the maximum we Scalies can keep our gills out of the water before we start suffocating!"
You'd paused for a moment, curious. "'Scalies'? Is that really what you call yourselves?"
Coraline had violently agitated in what you'd interpreted as a negation, which was correct, but not the way you thought. "You gotta share a thing first! We take turns!"
At which point you'd finally understood: this was a game to her. Well, alright. "Oh, sorry. Um. Hm. Well, back home in Abandonne I have a pair of twin sisters, born at the same time. They're hard to tell apart, but there's a few tells.."
Coraline's eyes had gotten distressingly wide, looking like they might pop loose outright. "Whoooa. Humans have that too?" Then she'd folded her arms and taken on a more serious tone. "You can't pronounce our actual name for ourselves. Actually, I can't pronounce our name out of water. I'm not sure anyone can." Then she'd awkwardly dragged herself back under the water, and you'd half-heard... some kind of noise... before she came back out and said with great pride, "That's our name! It's really regal!"
You'd diplomatically not commented that what you'd heard sounded more like a dying cow.
This game of 'cultural exchange' had gone on for quite a while, leaving you increasingly struggling to think of things of any interest to say, and felt pretty roundabout, but you did learn a lot. One of the big things that had stood out to you was that Scaled Folk were nomadic: they didn't build undersea houses and grow undersea crops and otherwise set themselves down somewhere with an expectation of families living in one house for generations. It left you wondering if Caras' troubles with the North Sea population were caused in part by them being a series of disconnected groups: if he'd ever come to an agreement with one set, only for them to swim away and be replaced by another set, the agreement might have secured him nothing. You made a mental note to ask about such topics when you got home.
You'd also learned that your silly theory about liking things that glittered was... pretty accurate. Not completely, but Coraline was quite explicit that most trade with landfolks was to get a hold of things that would shine in the darkness of the sea. In fact, she indicated the trading here in Soissons was a semi-permanent fixture precisely because Soissons was so dark it was easier to judge whether something would still shine a little under the sea. Coraline herself offered no explanation for why Scaled Folk valued shininess in specific so, and didn't seem to care much herself. Your impression was she was here purely for her 'cultural exchange' game.
You'd actually asked why she was so fond of it, and she'd broken from the rules of her game long enough to wistfully say, "Out in the ocean, if you can see something, you can just go touch it, smell it, move it. It might be a really bad idea to do so! But you can! But then there's so much stuff far away from the water I'll never get anywhere close to..."
You had a brief impulse to suggest she could come with you if she was so curious, which had died on your tongue as you'd tried to imagine a way that could possibly be done and came up with exactly nothing in the realm of feasibility. After that, you'd been a bit more focused on talking about things you were pretty sure couldn't be seen from the ocean, like what the depths of the Green Blight were like. (Which was, in fact, a topic she got very fired up about)
You'd learned a lot of tidbits that felt like trivia ("This fish eats parasites on us!" "We sometimes hunt dolphins alongside sharks! Especially the big mean black-and-white bullies!" "Seals are terrified of us! I'm not sure why, everybody I know says they'd sooner sift sand than eat a seal."), but plenty of info that seemed more relevant. ("We can see in the dark too! But we need some light, unlike Gendarme." "We totally use weapons!... but I'm not supposed to talk about those. Um, you can give me a bad answer while I think of a better one." "Gendarme taste like piss!... um, a friend said that." "We've got this really loud thing we can do that humans can't hear? I don't know how you can't hear it, IT'S SO LOUD, but we use it to talk from really far away!") You'd also enjoyed the girl's enthusiasm; it had been nice to do something fun while you were stressing a bit about the Council.
You'd not gotten some kind of clear answer on how to make the attacks on Caras' territory stop, alas, but still.
The fifth day had been derailed by the announcement of a public venue concert.
Whatever that was.
"Wow, the boonies are that boring?" Rude! "It's music. Just... music, but at a big scale."
You'd ended up going, as that didn't really explain anything and you'd decided you should dial back all the running around given that tomorrow would have you speaking with the Council. And apparently it was free to anyone, so... why not?
You'd been pretty surprised when the concert was being performed by dozens of Breeds. You'd been getting the impression Gendarmerie weren't interested in music... and when you said exactly that, Yvette had commented with amusement, "You see any Breeds in the audience?"
And once she mentioned it... yeah, no Breeds seemed to be paying the concert any mind.
Weird.
"It's Premièreombre Hisstop's thing. He's old guard, from back before- well, point is, he knows music can boost human moods and all. He's spent centuries perfecting this..."
You did have to admit it was oddly moving. It didn't sound like anything someone would play back home, even aside how grandiose it was... but it sounded very nice. It had you wondering if you should talk to Caras about such when you got back home.
At last the day of the meeting came, with you wishing you'd thought to bring the really nice red dress, wondering if the Council would even care about such (Caras hadn't gotten the concept, but you had trouble imagining him organizing a concert...), and more importantly, you were considering how you should approach this to start.
The Council was apparently exceptionally unhappy with Caras. You had this unhappy feeling this would be like when the village had judged you so for putting your name up on the board as a bride candidate for Caras, and wanted to be prepared... in the practical sense of having studied the notes heavily this whole time, the emotional sense of being ready for an unpleasant experience, and the practical and emotional sense of having a plan going in.
You eventually decided...
[]You would try to emphasize that things were currently changing for the better: whatever their complaints were, you were confident that in five years' time they'd be handled.
[]You would focus on the ways this wasn't Caras' fault: the newness of the Burner Worms themselves, the other Lords making things harder on him, the 'no soldiers' rule constraining him. (You'd certainly be very diplomatic about raising that last one!)
[]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
[]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
[]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
[]Write-in. (A general strategy, not a list of grievances or similar. There will be more voting in the Council session itself; this isn't your only opportunity for input)
(Got it up on Monday like I said I would, in spite of stupid drama eating a bunch of time I should've had available for writing. I'll probably leave this vote open for longer than I've been: this really was quite demanding for several reasons, and the next update will certainly also be demanding for me)
[X]You would focus on the ways this wasn't Caras' fault: the newness of the Burner Worms themselves, the other Lords making things harder on him, the 'no soldiers' rule constraining him. (You'd certainly be very diplomatic about raising that last one!)
Let's use our newness to be a liitle undiplomatic by making explanations. I know neurotypical humans hate excuses, but… Well, these are not humans.
I feel like recruiting Leftovers, or otherwise helping them, would be a good thing that Sabrina would like to support.
The scalies are odd. I'm not sure what to make of them.
The integrated humans are more changed than I think they realize themselves. Might be an implicit downside to aggressively pursuing integration, even aside from mutation.
I'm leaning towards the 'just the facts'. I don't think Sabrina understands enough to play politics, and aiming for boring competence might actually counter a perception of Caras as immature.
He's got good reason for issues, but also is still shirking duties.
[X]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
[X]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
[X]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
Frankly we don't know our head from our petticoats apparently, let's lean into that, especially since that's what they expect!..
I want to ask Cara's what he thinks his name is supposed to mean…
Yeah, I agree that this seems like the safe option:
[X]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
buuut... if someone makes a strong argument for something else, I might change it.
Okay if this is referring to Orcas fair but also noooo don't you dare slander my fav cetaceans
[X]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
Honestly might as well play to Sabrina's strengths.
We could give just the facts... Or we could lightly pry into what's the actual problem and the Council's concerns. Assume we don't know anything (we probably don't) and go from there. Info gathering has never been a bad choice so far.
[X]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
The integrated humans are more changed than I think they realize themselves. Might be an implicit downside to aggressively pursuing integration, even aside from mutation.
Are they? A pretty large amount of it could be cultural. Sabrina is talking to people who live in this capital city that's mostly insect creatures instead of humans and the whole place is very different from her home.
[X]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
I don't know if we want to do ignorance and questioning right now, considering how Yvette reacted to Sabrina's curiosity, it probably won't go well with them.
We have seen the Council have at least 2 Gendarmerie who have at the very least shown a interest in humans, at least more than the typical Gendarmerie. And while acting like a report bot seems like the safer choice, I think I'd prefer to do something Sabrina would do normally.
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
Actually, Metarite's argument is convincing to me.
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
[X]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
[X]You would focus on 'just the facts': stay away from seeming like you're defending Caras or attacking the Council, and focus on providing the overdue reports. Perhaps the Council really only cared about this information?
Now I'm sad for Sabrina. Hopefully we can work around it somehow, but at least adoption is an option.
I don't like how dismissive people are of us for living in the countryside. I really want to do something to prove them wrong and make them regret insulting us.
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
TBH, Caras has been neglecting parts of his duties. I know his assigned task is to stop the Burners, but that doesn't really excuse his lack of attention to his subjects and not reporting to the Council. We're going to work hard on making things better no matter what, so we might as well use that to persuade them.
Are they? A pretty large amount of it could be cultural. Sabrina is talking to people who live in this capital city that's mostly insect creatures instead of humans and the whole place is very different from her home.
Certainly could be cultural. I agree that's possible.
Their behavior between groups suggested to me a degree of simplification between the complex and seemingly exclusionary politics of genderme overlords.
The humans seemed more aware than breeds that their respective overlords are in competition with other overlords, and that they'll lose out on their best chance for high quality of life if their particular overlord doesn't do well.
I'm not suggesting some kind of backstabbing nasty campaign of sabotage and betrayal, but rather the kind of exclusive attitudes that can arise in heated competitive sports. Only one team can win and each of them want their team to be that winner.
They don't mind helping Sabrina now, because the backwoods hick asking if this is one of those sports games with the funny shaped balls is very clearly not currently actually in the running for the championship. Like I said, they want to win, but they're not psycho about it.
To put my point differently, if Sabrina asks one of these groups for help later, I think she should consider the potential politics of looking like she's backing or supporting that faction beyond just the literal words on paper agreement.
Caras has been neglecting parts of his duties. I know his assigned task is to stop the Burners, but that doesn't really excuse his lack of attention to his subjects and not reporting to the Council. We're going to work hard on making things better no matter what, so we might as well use that to persuade them.
I worry Caras is perceived as young and arrogant. The Council called him over to upbraid him for his conduct. However, from what we've seen of him, Caras feels like he's done nothing wrong and he seems to think the Council is unreasonable in their demands of him, given the limitations they've also imposed on him. He's probably been like this for a while.
I think it might be good for us to apologise on his behalf because I don't think he'd ever do it himself. We save him "face" because he's not apologising himself, but apologising at all and promising to do better might be just what the Council wants from Caras. Frankly, for Caras, who has never integrated humans before, to marry one and send her as his representative... For the Council, that might be a sign that Caras is finally becoming slightly less of an idiot when it comes to his humans?
It's possible the Council did not allow Caras to hire humans as a way to curtail his power. It's also possible the Council did not allow Caras to hire humans as they have a policy to not allow Gendarmane who are that clueless about humans to hire any humans at all. If we're lucky, maybe we can persuade them to let us manage humans on Caras' behalf, even if they won't let him hire humans himself?
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
My analysis:
We should remember that the council is expecting Caras himself to attend, they'll be surprised to see Sabrina.
Sabrina is able to attend due to a clause where as marriage makes the two legally the same entity (according to Virmire). One doubts that the Council will be so legal minded to not mind at all.
Marriage is an human influence, Ixtriss(the Gendarmerie who was accompanying Yvette) didn't even know what it was.
All in all, the Council will not be particularly pleased to be talking to Sabrina.
[]You would use cluelessness as a shield: ask questions, admit ignorance, and pretend as if any verbal barbs were unnoticed by you. (Given your experience in Soissons thus far, you might end up half-doing this without meaning to...)
I believe this approach would reflect poorly on Caras: Not only he doesn't show up, he also send someone who doesn't know anything? Such gal.
[]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
I'm not actually on what(or if, even,) the Council is upset with Caras aside from his flouting of the appointed meeting so I'm not sure about this approach.
[X]You would try to emphasize that things were currently changing for the better: whatever their complaints were, you were confident that in five years' time they'd be handled.
This one just feels like the most Sabrina option to me.
You had a brief impulse to suggest she could come with you if she was so curious, which had died on your tongue as you'd tried to imagine away that could possibly be done and came up with exactly nothing in the realm of feasibility.
I'm not actually on what(or if, even,) the Council is upset with Caras aside from his flouting of the appointed meeting so I'm not sure about this approach.
We've caught Caras mismanaging things often enough that I'm inclined to trust that whatever the Council is mad about is practical rather than bureaucratic, and therefore any apologies and promises to do better are likely to not only be genuine but probably the kind of thing we'd do unprompted if we found out about the problem from Caras.
For example, something like "your one job is to stop Burner Worms, but Shifting Sands is complaining about them getting into Sables de la Haines, what gives?"
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
I also feel like "just the facts" is probably how Virmire handled this and I'd like Sabrina to make a point of distinguishing herself from him.
[X]You would be swift to apologize and make promises to improve: you had a suspicion that the Council's complaints were meritful enough this was at least mostly justified, and apologizing and promising to do better worked in more contexts than being scolded by Maman.
