[Open & shut] girls in STEM

[sprent]

WHO: Gela and Iona Baynrac, and guests!
WHAT: Catch-all (closed; one open)
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Many places and new office
NOTES: Chill for now, will update where needed

OUTSIDE THE OFFICE

"Damn—"

That’s the sound of your new head of Diplomacy dropping something out of the already precarious stack in her arms. A sheaf of scrap papers, held together by a good clip, has slithered out of place and is slinking down the stairs behind her as she stands, wavering, trying to decide if she should leave it there and come back — but somebody could slip! — only to have more bits and pieces tumble to the ground when she crouches to snatch for it. "Wait! Wait, stay—"

If somebody would like to give her a hand before everything ends up halfway down the central tower, that would be greatly appreciated.

INSIDE THE OFFICE

The office, the workspace, the living quarters tacked on — she's exploring this new domain, having stacked her things by the open door, ready to push them around to her liking. There is a bit of furniture in here and a small window, which she has opened, though the occasional, sharp sounds from the eyrie above will take some getting used to.

Something else Gela is not used to: having this much room to herself. She seems a little bewildered by this new privilege, welcoming anybody at the door by leaping to her feet and opening it for them, ushering them inside herself.

Don't mind the duck attempting to nest on the tail of a bolt of twill propped up in a corner. She was given a nice box and rejected it.

Comments

CLOSED; for Strange

[sprent]

That the method is called 'stress testing' immediately betrays the nature of it but Gela doesn't have a firm idea of what exactly is going to happen the afternoon she meets Strange. They've moved underground, heading down the stairs, probably because the additional layers of stone will help to mask the sound of... howling. Should it occur.

It might, but Gela is ready. Maker, she is so tired of being ready.

Everything is in place; they have informed the Commander. Strange is the head healer and if anything goes wrong he'll help her, so she has the best person on the case and couldn't really ask for better. Maybe they'll finally find out what her 'trigger' is and she can simply avoid it for the rest of her life as best she can.

And that she hasn't found it after years of living at the Gallows is a small reassurance, but doesn't much help as they descend a little further, right down to the namesake of her home. She clears her throat.

"... I'm not going in one of those, am I?"

[portalling]

“You are. Unless you’d prefer trying this in public, out in the courtyard, in broad daylight?”

Strange doesn’t mean to sound sharp. It’s mostly his usual baseline level of arch, dry humour; it’s been a trying couple months and the prospect of this experiment isn’t exactly pleasant for either of them, and presumably worse for her, and he doesn’t relish what’s coming.

He leads the way to one of the larger cells: clean, well-lit with torches; no caricature of a dripping wet oubliette with scurrying rats although there are, probably, rats around here somewhere. There are chains attached to the stone walls and some reinforcements on deck outside if he needs to summon help. Strange is confident in his being able to contain one (1) werewolf — there’s magic beneath his fingertips, additional eldritch restraints on the verge of being summoned if necessary — but still, best to tackle this with backup on-call.

“I was going to get you a padded chair,” he says, ruminating, “but comfort might be contrary to our purposes today. What were the conditions like, the last time you recall this happening? If we can, uh, reproduce it as closely as possible —”

He winces a little, saying it.

It’s no surprise they’ve been putting this off.

cw description of kidnapping/torture

[sprent]

Gela breathes out, a soft ha, the sound humourless. There's nothing funny about any part of this situation; it's true that she's used to pulling charm out of nowhere, finding something to focus on that will get her through with a smile plastered to her face, but she finds she can't make it work today — perhaps the power of it is blocked by big stone walls. If she went into this grinning Strange would think her psychotic but it can't be any better to have to herd a silent, noticeably anxious Gela into the cell either. She feels bad for what he'll have to endure.

Gela pauses on the threshold.

"No," she says, and she's thankful, at least, for her voice being clear and mostly strong despite everything. "No, you're right — and I understand." Everything that will happen today he has already been given full permission to do.

But they won't be able to replicate everything. The Gallows, for example, does not smell like miserable people locked in the same, small cell because they do not use it for that, and Gela finds herself picking and choosing what to mention, omitting — the hunger, the little boy wailing, and not knowing what time or day it was. She thinks she can probably recreate the fear.

"It was dark," she says, "And I was chained by a wrist." They can do that. "I'll sit by the wall. The cage was too small and I couldn't stand."

inside.

[cozen]

"She should have a title, too," Bastien says of the duck.

This is not why he came. There are papers in the crook of his arm of sufficient volume to signal something more than small talk about waterfowl on the horizon. He might even sit down, eventually, instead of standing there contemplating. He spent a great deal of time in this room over the years of Byerly's tenure, but here is something he never saw or thought he would see in the space.

"The obvious choice is Ambassaduck, but I think we can do better."

[sprent]

"Don't look at her," Gela says cheerfully, "We're not on speaking terms right now, her and I."

She's standing at the door still, having let Bastien happily in but not knowing whether or not to shut it after him. Does it make everything seem very serious, to shut it? He is carrying papers. She compromises by pushing it closed but not all the way.

"Welcome," she says. "You're my first guest."

[cozen]

A scandal says Bastien's eyebrow raise, and he sneaks — 'sneaks' — another glance at the duck as if she might disclose what it is she's done to cause this rift, but otherwise he complies. First order from the new boss. Better not ignore it.

"First and worst," he says, not meaning it at all. Surely someone worse will be here eventually? Probably even today. "Congratulations on the promotion. If they had asked us to vote — " A concept he has been more enamored with ever since visiting a few worlds where it was not only done but expected. " — I would have voted for you."

inside

[untiltheyarent]

Fifi isn't prepared for the effusiveness of Gela's hospitality when the door comes wrenching open after she's barely knocked: she stands in the doorway with a blindsided, wide-eyed look, tightly clutching her basket. She quickly transitions to a smile, however, as likely intended to reassure Gela as anything else.

"Ambassador," she greets with a little curtsy, "how are you finding your new office?"

[sprent]

Gela, barely concentrated, ducks her head in a sort of bow that would have been a curtsey if she weren't shuffling something fully out the way of the door. She seems a bit frazzled, her hair already coming loose from its tie.

"Big," she says. "Ignore the mess. And call me Gela. Can I help you?"

[untiltheyarent]

The alarming sight of Gela bowing back to her is almost enough to stop Fifi in her tracks, but instead she just laughs, a surprised and awkward but also unexpectedly warm sound.

"I'm," she begins, thrown off, "I came to see how you take your tea or coffee, and if you like your office kept any particular way." Continuing to smile, she adds, "I'll be the one overseeing it."

Glancing around at the clutter, she raises her eyebrows: "Can I help?"

outside

[youwonscience]

"Oh shit, hang on —"

Cosima keeps her door open, mostly, whens she's in her office. It means that she can definitely hear Gela futilely ordering the papers to behave, and also that it's a straight shot to come and help. She comes at a little jog, reflecting her presumption that it's not quite an emergency but it is time sensitive.

"Here, I've got you, stay there," as she snakes past to retrieve the papers farthest astray. "Someone's got to invent three-ring binders someday soon, this many loose papers are wild," is mostly to herself, though certainly loud enough to be heard.

[sprent]

"My hero," is not entirely a joke, as something else has slipped off the top of the pile and fell to the ground while Gela is standing there, hanging on. The little jog is sorely appreciated. She beams as Cosima chases what's escaped down a few stairs.

What's loud enough to be heard is loud enough to comment on. "Three-ring binders?"

Gela is imagining something that you wear... three rings, on each hand, that stick to paper? "It's magic?"

[youwonscience]

"No, not at all, actually." She comes back up with the errant papers. "It's, um... OK so imagine a bound book, right, but instead of paper inside there's three metal rings. And you can pop them open and closed, but it takes some force so it doesn't happen by accident. And if you punch holes in the edge of papers, you can basically bind them temporarily. Really handy for lists and files and things it doesn't make sense to bind permanently."

She smiles and adds, "In the absence of those, though, more hands?"

CLOSED; for Cedric

[sprent]

"You were only ever in the city, weren't you."

She's carrying a tray toward a little round table that stands between a chair with cushion and a couch, setting it down and adjusting the teapot by its handle so that it points toward him. It's polite. The blend is homemade and that's why it smells like that, the notes of patchouli and cinnamon particularly strong; the two cups alongside, stacked, don't match. "Not in the suburbs."

Do they even stall or table in the city any more? Iona doesn't mention the trade in his letters and Gela doesn't ask.

When she takes a seat it's beside him rather than opposite, to lessen the feel of this being a meeting with the Ambassador and bring it closer to having tea with Gela, which is what it is.

[dissolving]

"Mirror's a ways out," Hour's ride or more from the gates, now there's traffic again. "But we didn't stay long."

The suburbs. The Necropolis, the Circle's ruins, the monastery he couldn’t bring himself to report into: each outlying, little villages unto themselves. Not what she's after.

"They put us up in the Necropolis."

He's schooled his face, which says a little what he thought of that. Cedric fishes the cups from each other. When he lifts to pour, it's hers he fills first (the chipped one — because it looks a smile —), a bit of errant twig slipping out the spout. If the office is new, strange,

Well, it isn't. Not really. Still Gela in the chair, so it must be a fit.

[sprent]

"Ah," Gela says, being so carefully neutral that it probably says exactly what she thinks of it, given the response is so muted. She is looking at the cups and then watching him lift the teapot to pour, his free hand touching the lid to keep it where it is, and the tea smells nice, floral, safe. She tucks a leg up underneath of herself and accepts the cup, sinking into the seat.

"I haven't stayed in there before." Not for that long anyway; of course she's visited, always bringing things along with her to leave behind. It feels strange to have not come along with the rest of Riftwatch, she should have been there to ensure that this happened. Did anybody bring things just to leave them? They could have not thought to.

The eluvian to Nevarra is not that far from where they're sitting now and Gela could go, she could, and at the same time has no idea if she's able to.

"What was it like? The city. How is it?"

outside the office.

[mournwitch]

Athénaïs is reasonably confident that the woman in front of her is talking to her papers, but pausing as she alights a step below she says,

“Well, alright,” gamely enough, crouching down to create a barrier to catch them before they get any further down the flights behind them. With her body, but also, yes, an outright barrier of magic, shaped by her hands across the stair not unlike the way she might use it to avoid rather more forceful projectiles than mischievous paperwork.

“Is this confidential? Should I close my eyes whilst I’m picking them up?”

[sprent]

Oh, yes, well. If you're going to use magic best it be for something like this, so Gela's heart only thumps a little quicker the moment she realises what has happened and who she's speaking with. She has not seen Athénaïs before but the accent — it's familiar. Up close and off-crystal she is short, elven and her hair is dark purple, pretty, long. Gela, realising she's staring, blurts out, "Yes."

And then, "I mean — no, they aren't important." They are, "It's fine. Thank you, they can go right here," on the top of the stack again.

[mournwitch]

Athénaïs, having promptly shut her eyes at that first blurted yes, cracks one open first and then the other, still smiling, when Gela corrects herself. “I’ll split the difference,” she says, gathering up the papers gone astray into her barrier and not breaking eye contact in the process.

It’s definitely because she’s incredibly fastidious about following instructions and not because she’s checking if the beautiful woman attached to the recognisable voice has noticed the incredible angle on her tits where she’s kneeling. How do the sides of her blouse not gape where it’s open to her navel?

Maybe magic is awesome. Food for thought.

OPEN; a familiar face

[sprent]

ARRIVAL; FERRY

"Pardon."

The man interrupting is lanky and a little shy, his voice quiet and accented — he gestures toward the ferry and then beyond it, across the water. He looks awkward for having to say anything at all, his weight shifting back and forth on the spot in endless fidget. "Sorry. Is this how I'll find my way across to the uh, 'Gallows'?" I'm meeting Gela Baynrac there."

He's got a letter in one of his hands all folded around to show some certain part, the writing curly. Perhaps the instructions it bears are not as simple as they should be.

NOOSE

Any attempt by Iona to fully explore the Gallows itself is halted instantly by the presence of a dog lingering in the courtyard. Anyone looking will find Iona fully sat down on the cobblestones with both hands on Noose, ruffling up his ears while the dog's tail thumps in slow, happy rhythm behind him. They're both easily pleased. He looks like Gela, a little, perhaps more like their father than he does Gela and their mother. Their eyes are the same shade of brown; while his hair is not long or curly, his eyebrows are thick.

Iona is talking, hushed, asking gentle questions. "D'you have a name, old man?" And, a little later (having given ample time for a reply), "Are you just anybody's dog, ae? Just anybody's dog, huh. You're nice. Gel said there are animals all over the place here."

DINING HALL

After checking who's around (looking for one person in particular but she is, helpfully, nowhere in sight) he leans across the table, careful not to put an elbow in his dinner (the food here's good and plenty, and maybe later he can go back for seconds if it looks like that's a thing you're allowed to do).

Iona keeps his voice low all the same. "How'dyou sign up to be here? What do you have to do?"

dining hall

[altusimperius]

Benedict had been completely absorbed in his (smutty, smutty) novel, barely remembering to take bites of food, and has the look of a man confusedly surfacing for air when his attention is caught by a total stranger.

The mental scan commences: has he onboarded this person, no. Does he know who this person even is, no. Is this person beautiful, yes.

"What?" he says blankly, with a bit of a stupid smile.

[sprent]

"Sorry." A nervous reflex perhaps, especially when coupled with the way his eyes dart briefly around the room again — then he cranes his neck to try and read the title of the book that just fell away from his table companion's face. Hmm. Hard to get it from this angle.

"Um, you work here, don't you? How do I work here?"

arrival :B

[laruetheday]

Clarisse glances over at "Pardon" and remains that way, silent and staring, until the guy has to break the uncomfortable silence with an awkward-sounding question. Meeting Gela, huh. Gela who has never had a visitor at the Gallows before, huh.

Clarisse's eyes narrow ever so slightly. "Depends."

She's carrying a big fuckass spear and looks like she'd be more than happy to use it and keep this dude from getting onto the ferry. If she has to.

"What do you want?"

[sprent]

Hmm, tough crowd.

Iona cracks a smile, awkward and utterly sincere. It's actually quite hard not to look at the spear, to check how close the sharp end is, exactly, to his face, but he's doing his level best to keep his attention on her, to show no fear. Gela did not warn him this could happen. Thanks, sis.

"Uhh... well, to go say congratulations to her, on account of the fancy new role. And because I haven't been up to the Gallows before, only heard about them." He waves the letter again, "I'm her brother?"

Comes out like a question, his voice canting up at the end.

noose

[exequy]

"That's Noose," Kostos says from slightly behind and beside him.

It's quiet, but only by virtue of Kostos being soft-spoken, not out of any gentleness. He's watching the man with a light shade of wariness. In this case, it is even less deserved than usual. They're countrymen, judging by the accent. The young man isn't loud and likes animals. There is, at this moment, absolutely nothing irritating about him, so Kostos looks halfway — well. Not pleasant. But not actively hostile, either.

He has his arms folded behind his back. There's a wisp at his shoulder, glowing blue-white and humming too quietly for anyone else to hear.

"He followed us home from Nevarra City when it was attacked."

[sprent]

"Oh," Iona says, knowingly. "Noose."

Yes. The dog's warm, heavy head is in his hands and he supports the weight of it with one, scritching underneath the chin with the other. He hasn't looked the other way yet. The man standing behind him watches them both. "Maybe that's why he's kind to me, because I sound familiar. Smell like home."

A little, anyway. The travel took a long time and he doesn't know how Gela does it (or used to), he found the whole thing nerve-wracking. Now he addresses Kostos, glancing over his shoulder and up. He's got his mouth open to ask where in Nevarra he comes from but what he ends up saying is, "You've got something there," of the wisp on his shoulder.