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[evantuality]

username: EVANTUALITY

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[evantuality]

[It's fascinating to Evan that the body language Laedo shows is... not dissimilar from the postures and attitudes his charges had taken from time to time. That ear swivel... that's so familiar, first from Laedo and then from the khipri.]

Repeating, from their foreheads all down their backs. But their tails were fluffy... and they had ears a bit like yours, too.

[asscan]

[The snort that Laedo gives is somehow made the worse by the way his head sinks, eyes closing.] So it would figure that the only creatures anything like my own kind would be removed to a far off corner of the multi-verse, poached to non-existence without intervention.

I always knew you had some punch in you, somewhere in there.

[evantuality]

[Evan reddens again, embarrassed by the comparison he's made.]

I suppose the point was to make sure that they weren't poached into nonexistence! I honestly wish I'd been able to bring my, my litter back with me. They'd be so much safer with a whole team looking after them, at least till they're grown.

[asscan]

I'm sure their life paths are integral to their timeline, [Laedo sighs, looking away, almost like a dejected dog.]

That said, I've no idea where to tease out the integral creatures to this. I'm beginning to believe we're facing a situation similar in breadth and direness to that of Nalawi's fate. I'm not looking forward to provoking such a conflict.

[evantuality]

Yeah... [Evan's mood, already a little morose with missing his charges, sobers further. He sighs and pushes his hair back again -- he badly needs a cut -- and looks through the little network interface with a slightly hangdog serious look to him.]

I admit, I haven't managed to catch myself up on... on the developments since I've been gone. The broad strokes, mainly, but... not much else.

At least there are no gods to argue about this time, huh. [The grin he pulls is not especially cheerful.]

[asscan]

No, but my healing talents are badly needed... yet moving my hand to help in this case, is it helping? Is finding yourself a blank slate any kind of an existence, once your mind is taken by that which invaded it? I'm not even sure that the remaining Qorral are fully sentient once the work is done, and that is from healers who have been practicing constantly from the moment they discovered it possible to 'save' lives.

[evantuality]

[It's heavy stuff, and stuff Evan has only just begun to grapple with. It'd been a hell of a revelation that the deemers had been a case of parasitic infestation, much less anything else...

He grimaces, looking a touch harried, even.]

I suspect even a blank slate prefers that state to death. I can't see the attempt to help as being a bad thing by any stretch. Better that than, than just killing them.

[asscan]

And yet I have the chilling feeling that if I dare inquire further, I will be just as inconsolable as the human warrior who beats his shield against all our temples in the midst of this mess. [Laedo's tail is swishing faster, now, his little sand-piles toppled by the irritated twitching.]

But come, let us speak of other things for a while longer yet. Have you ever seen a floating city?

[evantuality]

[The mention of Achilles draws another noise of dismay from Evan, who has caught the bare edge of the maelstrom of news surrounding the Greek god-spawn.

But Laedo's diversion works brilliantly, and Evan leans forward.] No! I mean, in movies -- stories -- but they're not really a thing that exists on my world. This was the place you were sent?

[asscan]

Ayim is a country, rather than a world... perhaps. There were more islands than I could count, and more than I could tour on a given mission... but yes. It was extraordinary in every sense of the word. Fascinating, buoyant crystals that could be ground down and pressed into the service of floating barges, though they were called differently.

Pirates were cutting off the trade between the islands my team was meant to oversee... we put a swift end to them.

[evantuality]

[Evan makes a noise of pure fascination, and then when Laedo's done lets out a groan that is just as purely frustration.]

Good lord, every single one of the worlds we visit I think "you could spend a whole lifetime studying this place"... that never ends, does it? I would give my left foot to know what on earth compels a crystal to naturally float.

So you actually fought pirates from airships? Were you, I mean, you must have fought from the air yourself, right?

[asscan]

Of course I have.

[Even the fur visible under Laedo's craw fluffs up. Who knows how bloated he's just made himself look, putting the hairs up while puffing up his chest.]

It's standard training among asandus military. Our tactics revolve around strafing and aerial engagement. My tactics, rather. [He's only really beginning to come around to the idea that he's the only of his kind. It still stings, but if Laedo is to be the only asandus to venture forth from Avengaea ((he's never heard of the Nexus)) he's intent to make a good impression for his species.]

These were... not exactly anything I had ever gone up against. Whole teams in ponderous floating leviathans and darting shoals of skimming interceptors. They were not honourable, but they were talented with the technology given.

[He's not trying to sound impressed, though it's hard not to be. Laedo had been taken in by many facets of the skyworld he'd been able to help from falling into complete anarchy.]