a question

[afflatusexarch]

Type: Voice
Sender ID: afflatusexarch ( G'raha Tia )
To: General
Subject: Paladins and Corsairs
Warnings: None!

Pardon me for intruding on your time, but I've a question or two. If you'd like to humor my curiosity, you have my thanks in advance.

Upon arrival, we've found ourselves aligned with a group without much say in the matter. While I'm most curious about what colors we've flying - so to speak - I'll not ask anyone to speak it out loud.

However, I am curious if you think you "belong," for lack of a better word.

Idle curiosity. Nothing more.

Comments

[moremystyle]

Oh aye? Mind going into a little more detail?

[which is Faris' way of saying that Faris' curiosity is piqued, without actually saying it.]

[afflatusexarch]

My "homeland" is rather strict with its rules and policies. While this can be beneficial when thinking in the long term, it doesn't work well in a crisis situation.

On the other hand, I can't say that I favor the idea of theft and personal gain.

[moremystyle]

It's got its benefits. You can always go the noble route, if you want--steal from the rich, give to the poor. [Not a path that Faris has ever been that interested in following himself, but it's certainly traditional in stories.] I'm with you on the rules'n'regulations. Never had time for following ones set by others.

[afflatusexarch]

That works, in theory, until the rich take it out on the poor. So, then, are you truly helping at that point or simply stirring the pot more?

[ Thinking about Eulmore, really. ]

Don't be mistaken. I do think there is a place for structure. It's simply that there are times where exceptions must be considered.

[moremystyle]

[Saying it now, Faris knows she'll have to figure out how to answer it herself. For a variety of reasons, she's been more thoughtful about her plundering lifestyle than she had been before. But G'raha doesn't need to know that much. So she gives a breezy shrug.]

Good question, but I personally never worried much about it. Just saying it's a thing people think they'd aspire to, if they got the chance.

Right now, the short term's just fine for me. I'd rather be here than wedged into a structure--and a uniform--that someone else decided I belonged in without my say-so.

[afflatusexarch]

Fortunate you are, then, for I couldn't afford not to worry over such matters. There were far too many consequences if affairs were mismanaged.

[ Too many people that depended upon him, both in the present and his past. So to speak, anyway. His past and a future that will no longer be, really. One wrong move, even if it were for the right reason, and everything would fall to ruin. Literally. ]

Though I suppose thinking in the short term is not exactly a bad thing in this case. It's not as though we know enough about the environment we've found ourselves in to rightfully make long term plans.

[moremystyle]

Were you a leader back home, then? You're talking like it.

[afflatusexarch]

Ah... No. Not particularly...

[ Not on the SOURCE anyway... ]

[moremystyle]

Just the responsible one, eh? [Not that Faris actually knows what The Responsible One is like. Bartz might be the closest because he knows how to live rough. But really it's probably Boko.] And they stuck you with us buccaneers. Good luck with that one.

[afflatusexarch]

I fear 'tis a bit more complicated than all that. Mistress Krile would certainly laugh, hearing anyone call me the responsible one. Quite recently I was encouraged to not be responsible.

[ To chase treasure rather than hit the books and continue to help Krile fix things up. ]

That is why I think I may be right where I "belong" so to speak. Save for the rather delinquent behaviors of course.

[moremystyle]

Hold up. Mistress who now?

[Faris has only met one Krile. Maybe it's a common name over on the old geezer's world and they're twenty-a-gil but she just. Has to ask.]

i actually forgot about this. the name drop was never intentional

[afflatusexarch]

[ ....G'raha is none the wiser ]

Krile. Krile Baldesion.

hee! I am delighted tho :D

[moremystyle]

...Krile Mayer Baldesion?

[HOW MANY PLANETS HAS THAT GIRL BEEN TO]

/face in hands

[afflatusexarch]

Y-yes? That is her name?

[ WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DO YOU KNOW HER??? ]

[moremystyle]

Bloody buggering hell. [since krile herself is not here faris can say that] You all kept yourselves some kind of secret, didn't you. Where were you during all of it?

[This makes sense to Faris like HELLO CATMAN WHY DID YOU NOT HELP LIKE THE WOLFMAN DID!!]

[afflatusexarch]

During all of... What?

[ WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ]

[moremystyle]

You know! Exdeath, the crystals shattering, world being shoved back together! That what--unless you spent all of it in a cave?

[afflatusexarch]

Are you... Quite certain you don't have events confused? I know that I've not heard of anything called Exdeath or any crystals shattering.

[moremystyle]

But you have heard of Krile Mayer Baldesion. [Then again, the association betwixt 'Baldesion' and 'not being up on recent history' does present another possibility...] Unless you knocked yourself on your head too....

[afflatusexarch]

I haven't merely heard of Mistress Krile.

[ They grew up together ]

She and I were together not too long before I was dumped into the ocean.

[moremystyle]

[Okay, so not amnesia. Probably. It has been a year since they threw down Exdeath... mayhap this is some new face that Krile's made friends with? She is the type, after all.]

Krile Mayer Baldeson. Princess of Bal, talks to dragons, ornery old granddad, aye?

[afflatusexarch]

Princess of where?

Talks to dragons?

I know Krile Mayer Baldesion... Current head of the Students of Baldesion. Of which originated in Sharlayan.

Though Master Galuf was kind, as far as my memory recalls.

[moremystyle]

[Was. Master Galuf was. Faris visibly winces.]

He was an ornery old bat as far as I recall.

[But Sharlayan... Faris has been all over the world and down to the seafloor. She's met dwarves, wolfmen, and moogles, and some of them lived in some damned remote places, she's even met people who were living out-of-sync with time. Somehow, she doesn't think they missed a bunch of secret catfolk.]

Sounds like we've got an uncanny coincidence on our hands.

[afflatusexarch]

[ Look, the whole Isle of Val thing is still a sensitive subject. It's not one that G'raha actually touches. Because he is fine about it. Perfectly fine regarding it. Yup. Totally. ]

Quite so, it would seem. Though I suppose it should not be altogether surprising that another would share an existence with someone. If this is a place where time and space have little meaning, we might expect more happenstances such as this.

[moremystyle]

[Of course. Faris is totally fine about Galuf's death too. It doesn't feel like an unextractable splinter in his heart, absolutely not.]

Share an existence? I don't know about that. [Actually, Faris has no idea what G'raha means when he says that. All he knows is that he does not like the idea of there being other him's around. And if the other Galuf is just as much a past-tense as Faris' own Galuf... does that mean everyone would share the same fate? Would little Sarisa still be torn from her parents, hold her dying father after years of not even knowing his name? Watch her long-lost sister almost die too many times to count?

It's too painful to think about.] Never met anyone like you back home, for instance. And I've been all over the world--both planets' worth of it--and under its seas. Not a single one with cat ears.