[ Action, Voice ] Onions have layers, ogres have layers .002

[talentsgirl]

[Today Molly Carpenter is in your community buildings, exploring the floors and kitchens and opening (hopefully unoccupied!) random doors. Why is she doing this? She's not quite settled that Community Building Six is the best place for her and Harry to be, so far away from town, and collect evidence to present her case. Also - hey, strolling down someone's apartment corridor could be a great way to meet people!

And secretly, she's looking for thresholds. It makes sense that there aren't any here - five years, at most, being kept in a place against your will - could that even form a threshold? She didn't know, but it was so terribly contrary to her understanding of magic that she had to investigate.

Later in the day, a series of filters starting at 5 and not working their way up past 15 percent will appear in the journal followed by a voice post.]


[Filter at 5 percent]
Testing, testing... so you actually can do this.
[Filter at 10 5 percent]
Testing... drat.
[Filter at 10 7 percent]
Test, test - man, I thought for sure that would work
[Filter at 15 percent]
Ah-ha! Think I'm getting it now...
[Filter at 20 15 percent]
Test... nope.
[Filter at 20 15 percent]
Maybe this will--
[Filter at 20 15 percent]
Oh, come on!


Hi! So. Sorry if anyone bothered with that. I'm trying to get the hang of this "filtering" thing but it's just not like anything I've ever done before. If a couple wouldn't mind putting up some really low, easy filters in this post against me, I'd really appreciate it. That way I could try to sort of... learn it backwards? Thanks.

Comments

[talentsgirl]

Molly nodded, swirling the liquid around in her glass before following his example. Huh.

"I guess you'd build up a tolerance pretty fast that way."

[greenjacketed]

"You do or you become the laughingstock of your company."

[talentsgirl]

"Never fun." And at that point, the bartender returned with a bottle of brew and a tall glass, so Molly thanked him and turned to Sharpe. "A toast?"

[greenjacketed]

He nodded as the clear-coloured liquor swirled in his cup.

"A toast. To making the best of a bad situation?"

[talentsgirl]

"I can drink to that." She raised her glass to him. "Cheers."

And then she moved to take a sip from her glass.

[greenjacketed]

He raised his own -- side-eying her from his seat before taking a deep, long drink. Ah, it burned as it went down. But the burn was pleasant.

Sweetened.

[talentsgirl]

It did burn going down, and Molly coughed a little when she finished her sip, eyes going wide. But then she took another sip, held it in her mouth a moment, and then swallowed - "Anise, right? It tastes a little like black licorice."

[greenjacketed]

"Don't know how they make it, Molly. This stuff does taste a bit unlike the brew they make in India." Or possibly the brew they made hundreds of years ago in India. Arack came in so many different forms across the world. Sharpe would be hard-pressed to find the exact kind he knew from the Indian campaign.

He took another long drink. "Maybe, though. Anise?" He considered the taste yet again. "Yes."

[talentsgirl]

"So it's not the same as you remember?" Curses, foiled again. Molly frowned down at the cup a little. Oh well.

"How does it compare?"

Because he was certainly drinking it so it wasn't as if he didn't like it.

[greenjacketed]

"It's still good. A little sweeter -- I think the Indian arack had coconut."

[talentsgirl]

"Hmm..." She contemplated her cup and took another sip. It was really kind of pleasant, actually, but she thought she'd be better off chasing it with the mead. So she moved to open the bottle. "You never know, the Indian arack might still show up here. This place has all kinds of drinks, even the sort I've only seen on television."

She pauses a bit and then rephrases, "The sort I've only heard about in stories that were supposed to just be make-believe. I'm going to have to try it one day, just... on a day when I have nothing in particular to do for the rest of that night or well into the next morning."

[greenjacketed]

"And on a day you'll also be inviting me down to witness, aye?"

[talentsgirl]

Un.expected.

"I wasn't planning on encouraging witnesses." She poured the mead into her glass. "In fact, if I was going to be smart about it I should just take it back to my room so I'd have something soft to pass out on."

[greenjacketed]

"Ain't healthy, Miss Molly. Drinking alone."

[talentsgirl]

She was sure he was offering to be a witness out of extreme concern and awareness for her health. Her mouth twisted wryly and she lifted up her glass to take a sip, "Not if you make a habit of it."

She's pretty sure that her one experience with Romulan Ale would be unhealthy anywhere, actually, and it was probably much safer to imbibe it where she couldn't accidentally hurt anyone. Or throw up in public. That would be a plus as well.

[greenjacketed]

He drained his arack and poured himself another fingerful.

"Now me, Molly. I make a point to not drink alone."

[talentsgirl]

She'd gone from Miss to Molly in a handful of seconds, and wondered really, if there was any rhyme or reason to it at all. But she had the feeling he was driving at a point and was interested in seeing how he'd make it, so she made a noncommittal sound of interest.

[greenjacketed]

Miss meant he was having her on, of course. Teasing. Sassing, in a way.

"And I've got three rules for my men. Fight like bast--fight well. Never steal except from the enemy and if starving. And don't get drunk without my permission."

These rules were real enough but his slight cheeky smile suggested something else -- reveling in the contradiction as he downed his second glass like a shot. "There's altogether too much drinking in the ranks, you see."

[talentsgirl]

Molly took a moment to note that she quite liked that smile on him and another to note that it indicated he was probably having a joke and enjoying it immensely.

Ha.

"I see," a wry smile turned up at the way he tossed back his glass. "And officers have to set an example?"

In drunkenness... or lack thereof.

[greenjacketed]

"An officer's got to be a proper gentleman, milady."

and then this song came on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hareuDAQKaA

[talentsgirl]

And now it was milady. Fitting with what he was describing, perhaps, and setting off the inner part of every girl that dreamed of being a princess (a princess with magic sparkly powers who everyone loved and who could always, always use her powers to defeat the bad guys and banish all evil and pain - pity magic didn't work that way) in a light titter, but also strange.

Molly levered the class on the counter top by propping her elbow on it and lowering the glass down. Casual. Easy. She kept her arm at that nearly-90 degree angle and used it to twist towards him, canting her head to the side in a motion of inquiry that bared the tattoo on her neck. "In my time, most men consider themselves gentlemen if they bother to open the door for a woman."

A mild observation to clue him in that they might not be speaking the exact same language, so she's not sure how far to take this chance to tease him.

oh my gosh.

[greenjacketed]

"In my time, lass, most men consider themselves a gentleman if'n they've been born right. They don't think it's got naught to do with doors -- unless they're holding it open for someone higher up on the bloody ladder than they are."

There was a slightly wistful look in his eye. Molly's time, he thought, sounded mighty fine. A man, he thought, might make something of himself in a time like that. And do it without the sort of tribulations he has had to face.

However, wistfulness was soon banished when his sight caught again on that tattoo. God, but it was the sort of thing that drew the eye. He traced it for a moment with his gaze before forcefully tearing his attention back to her face.

Not quite eye contact.

sentient i-Tunes. must be a thing.

[talentsgirl]

"It sounds complicated." It sounds like you're talking from an outsider's perspective.

She was not unaware of the way his eyes followed that tattoo down, though the move to expose it hadn't been intentional. Hmm.

It was times like this when the soulgaze was patently unfair. She'd like to be able to look him in the eye as humans would and try to put the pieces together. But. She didn't think she'd ask him about it. She had a feeling he had been asked about it enough, and while she didn't think he'd mind - there was so much pride there - she didn't want to be another one measuring him in that same way.

So. She smiles a little and drops her gaze, levering up her glass for another sip, still twisted about to face him. "And it seems a rough way to set an example, setting a standard that no one has control over."

No one can control what family they're born into.

[greenjacketed]

"It's a broken system. But it is still a system."

And he had to work within it or not work at all, unfortunately.

[talentsgirl]

She stared down into her cup of mead and thought of the Council, of the American government, of what she was returning to fight... "Most systems have something broken about them."

She set the cup down and lifted the other glass to have another sip of arack. Right. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders a little bit, forcing a smile, "Suddenly all those lessons about the American Revolution make a little more sense."