forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

Little. Once you have an idea of how to weave the stems, you can do it all by touch alone. Light's just convenient.

[ She shifts the burden of flowers and stems and vines and whatever else made up her not so precious, slightly wilted burden. ]

Outside or in?

[Garrus looks at it before shrugging.]

Outside.

[Not only would this be a little relaxing, but this way, if he's being watched more closely after yesterday's torture and anger, they can see he's not actually up to anything. Yet. The CDC will come down. Anyone who tortures someone for the fun of it will also come down.]

As long as you don't mind a telusa visiting. It'll probably see me and join in.

[He tilts his head toward a spot a little closer to the water and starts heading that way.]

[ She mentally runs down a list of fauna from the catalog, then gives Garrus a brief nod. ]

As long as it mostly bothers you.

[ Not that she thinks either one of them have real control over a creature that apparently does what it wants and is confident enough to parade around in a camp struck by weird disaster as often as the CDC's camps seem to have been. She's content enough to find an open space with acceptable seats of some kind to settle down on, including settling her poncho and its bounty of contained flowers on the ground between them. ]

Why is it hanging around you in the first place?

Met it a couple of times, and when the earthquake hit and it got washed into camp it found me. Probably saved its life.

[Because they'd suddenly had more people and more need for food, and nobody was going to ask Garrus for the telusa curled up, snoring, in his cowl. Or nobody who saw it was the type to ask. Which is good, because he'd gotten fond of the little guy and that might just show as a small shape dashes out of the waves to greet them with happy noises. At least Garrus thinks they're happy. It makes sense.

He takes a seat next to her, reaching over to pick up one of the flowers.]

You know, some cultures think that if you bring someone flowers it means something.

That you have too much time on your hands?

[ Glib as that answer may be, she's not unaware that usually flowers are a sign of affection. Less so anything starkly romantic in her mind - though it has that association, too, pretty things as markers for precious relationships - but children might gather wildflowers in the field and proudly present them to parents when otherwise they should have been gathering wood. Or practicing. Or being productive little people in some form.

She picks out two of the flowers, holding the stems up and starting to weave them together. It's the work from the Khitlasi camp that reminds her of this; it's been years, and she'd never been good at it. She doesn't say anything to Garrus because she's trying to refamiliarize. ]

Enthusiastic, isn't it.

[ This whole planet is weird. How much longer is it going to be "allowed" to exist? (Talk about god complexes. It'd been bad enough confined to one world - making it universal is a great example of company-sized hubris. She wonders how often it ends poorly for the CDC. Frankly... she remembers the refugees in Selena. The ones who were responsible for the show in the night sky.) ]

Things only need to mean as much as you want them to mean. For example... [ she holds up her two woven floors, picking a third out of the pile ] ... "this can be made with only what it provides you."

[ Connections build, link by link. The strength is in those links and the chain as a whole, but it depends on each individual. ]

[Garrus watches her fingers move, trying to figure out what the example she gives means. Made with only what it provides? What does that say?]

Uh. Yeah. It's pretty cheerful. ...And I don't follow. Made with only what it provides you. Fire's made with... warmth, and provides warmth, but a blanket's made with fabric and provides not just the fabric, it's warmth too.

[There are times here, more often than he'd like, really, where Garrus winds up feeling rather stupid. Like he's not smart enough to manage surviving here or helping others survive.]

[ Annie pauses... the breathes out, shaking her head. ]

A blanket needs the materials to make it. The fire you can build without needing the extra skills required to weave the fabric that keeps you warm.

[ But in the end, that's beside the point - she doesn't try to clarify what she'd meant. ]

Relying on having the right tools to make more complicated products can be chancy. Then again, flower crowns aren't all that complicated, and all you need are fingers to manipulate them and flowers to weave.

[ Finding a rhythm she'd long figured she wouldn't remember, Annie holds two others up and tries to actually demonstrate how she's weaving them together. ]

Like this.

[Garrus watches her, still wondering what she'd meant, before he takes a pair of flowers and starts trying to imitate what she's doing. It's slow going. Three digits instead of five means he has to improvise, but slowly he starts to get the hang of it.]

And then once you have a flower crown you... what, wear it? Stick it on people?

[Maybe he'll make one to stick on Noh-Varr. That would be nice. Three more for his crew, so on and so forth.]

Or do you eat it? I wouldn't suggest doing both, no matter how recently you last washed.

[ Building connections in self reliance! But it's really not a conversation she wants to have - more an offhand, cryptic observation in the first place - hence letting it fall to the wayside. ]

Give them away, mostly. You can wear them too, but I'm not much of a flower crown person.

[ Not that anyone has worn these the like... handful of times she made them, but leaving them on stones in meadows sounds more ridiculous than anything else. They were just throwaway pretty things that hadn't meant anything in the long run, just saved her hands from being idle. ]

The animals probably wouldn't object.

[ ~~Like Miaksa~~ Like any of the... they really don't have many vegetarian animals hanging around camp, do they? Well... like the horses that mostly don't exist. Yeah. ]

[There's a pony.]

The animals wouldn't know what to do with it. I'd prefer to stick it on someone who knows. ...Or who also doesn't know what to do, but at least knows what it is. You know. So when they give me a weird look it's more because it's me and not because some random large being just plopped something on their head.

[His mandibles draw close to his face as he makes a mistake and has to backtrack, undoing some of the crown before he can continue.]

So this is what you wanted? Making flower crowns?

[ A pony who belongs to a chessmaster. Would you feed that pony? ]

No. I was more interested in asking you about shooting guns.

[ She says, looking at his own chain of flowers. Whatever she sees is good enough to her; she blinks, seems to nod to herself, and then adds another flower in to her own chain. ]

And if you knew anything about how these cuffs work in general.

[ She rolls her wrist to indicate the cuff found there, like with everyone else. ]

Flower weaving was simply lower energy.

Gun shooting is definitely something I know. And I enjoy teaching.

[It's a little tricky, knowing that she'll betray Jean, but at least Jean has had more lessons. Garrus will have faith in Kirstein.]

As far as the cuffs go... Not a clue. I mean, they're interfaced with us somehow. Supporting us. Is it some sort of controlled nanites? Some switch that's wirelessly triggered? Not really sure.

[But Sheva's fear about nanites being used against them, Noh-Varr's innate ones, both suggest there's even more to nanite technology than is already apparent with the medically injected sorts.]

Is that an offer?

[ She's already betrayed Jean. No second times without some tangible benefit; one that those on crew would all know equally at that point. ]

Mm. Technology... and CDC controlled. Like the rest of it is.

[ Locked on to individual biosignals, whatever else is going on. She doesn't "get" it. It's still true. ]

Would the result be the same in an accidental amputation? I wonder.

[ Is it proximity? What helps the control? And what happens when they meet an enemy smart enough to target that weak point? Target their listening device translators? Target what they need to function that's beyond the baseline of scroungeablity? ]

It's an offer.

[It could help them all stay alive here, too. It could work to protect Jean, in the long run.]

And I think this means nobody needs to lose their cuff arm, because I wouldn't be surprised if that'll be fatal. Gotta wonder why it's in a cuff and not something internal, really. Or maybe there's a backup inside and both got turned off. Don't really know enough to say.

[Medical isn't his area of expertise, and he doesn't have the time to really change that.]

Just know we're expendable.

I accept.

[ Direct. To the point. She sees a lack in herself, and she strives to correct it. Whatever helps with survival... ]

Was there ever any doubt.

[ They've always been expendable. She's always been replaceable. Nothing in this world that isn't attempting to rule it really has a way of thinking ah, I am a loss that is without peer. Even those were often wrong. ]

Let's hope none of the planets on our list have residents wise enough to start aiming for the tech we don't take off.

[ Cuffs, translators... there are things that become obvious to the observant. The neraki haven't found those consistencies yet, but it doesn't stand to reason that no one ever will. ]

There was doubt because I wanted there to be doubt.

[He'd been an idiot. He'd trusted when he shouldn't have, just because he wanted to. He'll drop off the one toy he has for Armada later and be done. Finished. Let his instructor heal or not. Garrus didn't matter to him, why should he matter to Garrus?]

And I'm sure we're headed soon for a world with that sort. It's only going to get harder, yeah? Ajna's natives weren't sentient, Macha's weren't familiar with tech beyond basic weaponry. This next group... This next group is gonna notice everyone wearing the cuffs, I'm almost certain.

The neraki will if we stay much longer. They're not blind to patterns. They've just lacked ample time to observe.

[ Because they were much faster on the aggressive uptake then they were on pulling back to watch. It was... a curiosity, and an understandable reaction.

As is what Garrus says now. There was doubt because I wanted there to be doubt. She knows people like that - more than her fair share, perhaps. I believed because I wanted to believe. There was doubt because I wanted there to be doubt.

Things might be better.

Ah... but they weren't. Annie holds up her flowercrown, no artistic masterpiece, but serviceable. She holds it up to see the grey, cloudy skies above framed by its lopsided oval in her hands. Things might be better... but they aren't. ]

... So shitty.

[ Her flower crown, the situation they're in, where they're headed - probably all of it. ]

[Garrus shakes his head.]

They might observe patterns, but they don't know tech. They can't expect that there's some our lives are dependent on, I don't think. It's not a part of their world. It'll take people who have saved lives with tech to grasp it, people who rely on it for some of their needs.

[If it's not a part of their lives, why would they think it was crucial to someone else? Otherwise it would be just like a treasured spear. A trinket.]

Gotta have context to make assumptions. The neraki aren't gonna clue in. ...But that doesn't make any of this less shitty.

You'd never want to take trinkets off your enemies?

[ That's what she means. Understanding what the cuffs do might never be coming, but taking them first as spoils, seeing what happens when they're gone... that's what she can see being pieced together.

Especially when the Neraki make their own tokens to wear. It's a precedent she keeps in mind. ]

No.

[He's killed a lot. He's never been tempted to take a trophy.]

And generally, when someone takes something, the person they're taking from is already dead. Maybe you've seen people act differently. But most of what I've seen... Hell, all of what I've seen, is that things get taken when the fight's done. Which means if the neraki take a cuff as a token, it'll be after the damage is caused. They won't get a no cuff equals death correlation.

And you presume the next place we're asked to annihilate will have individuals of enough technological level to understand? Or simply those more devious?

[ She finds the logic flawed. Then again, she supposes she would. Her own world and her experiences are much less broad than what Garrus has run into over the years. ]

Pattern seems to be that you get more advanced as missions go on. I could be wrong. But I'd bet on them at least having the wheel, possibly electricity. Which means they'd get the fact that some pieces are needed to make other things work.

[Educated guesses don't always pan out, here, and he's only got two worlds to go by. But Garrus is at least rather certain they won't be dealing with someone of a lower development level of the neraki.]

You got a better guess at what's to come?

No.

[ She examines her shitty flower crown. She has no idea that days later, amidst a snowstorm, she will have a much more beautifully crafted one crushed and thrown at her chest, courtesy of Eren.

That all this will be cut short, and there is nothing but moving forward and carrying on. ]

Just no desire to think that we're untouchable... regardless of who has or has not invented a wheel before meeting us.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we're untouchable. At all.

[He watches her look at what she's made. His is even more shoddily constructed, unfortunately. Ino made him one, once, and he's kept it. He hadn't thought to ask if there were any tricks to it.]

We were talking about them knowing the cuffs meant something to our survival, specifically. Think they're more likely to figure that throats are vulnerable places first, unless they've got some notion of tech being central to their society.

Mm, not for survival, but it's more... people aiming for tokens as a way of cutting out the heart of a symbol. That sort of thing instead of an understanding of technology.

[ She still shrugs, letting her crown settle in her lap. ]

Breaking that takes less knowledge than making. Kind of like the situation here.

IC Contact - Consignment

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