VIDEO; two ways of causing a scene

[crowskinovercoat]

1: like your grandmother discovering snapchat for the first time only worse

[For starters: this is not a live broadcast. It's a video file dumped onto Legion World's "public" server from whatever default settings it is that would allow omnicoms to do that and sent, accidentally, to everyone.]

[That it's accidental is instantly clear from the part where it is a video clip that starts aimed at the fascinating sight of the top of someone's head. All that is visible is black hair and the wooden slats of a roof above said hair. The other obvious clue, though -]

Tch. I don't have the first clue how to use this. [She speaks soft, and low, but her voice is rough. It's the sort of voice that sounds exhausted from screaming before you ever hear a word spoken above a murmur.] You! ... what is it called? "Everything window"? Om-nee-kom? [She pronounces the word so hesitantly and carefully even the translator can't disguise that she mangles the precise consonance of the word. The feed shakes, obviously because whoever's holding it is manhandling it to get a closer look - at least, if the sudden closeup of a single wide golden eye is any indication.]

[Now the video clip is pointed, out of focus, at her chin.] You can tell me things? Like a searching spell. [Her mouth downturns in a sharp snarl.] What powers your magic? [The screen gets a shaky look at her face - and then at the rustic, old wood of a table - as she turns it this way and that, getting a good look at it.] Nothing great, I expect. It's always the same with people who think they know what's best for everyone ...

Doesn't matter. I have to use what tools I've got, it's not like it's my problem anyway - and you. You're a tool for searching things. That's what I need.

[She goes silent for a time. Trying to think of a net wide enough, with holes small enough, that she might be able to use a program she doesn't even know how to use in the first place to learn anything about.] I want you to tell me everything you know about dragons. Dragons that can suck the life out of planets.

[There's another shakycam pause.] Eh ... how do I actually make it do that ... "send all"?

[CLICK. The video clip ends.]

/////

2: it's like dirty laundry, except actually the exact opposite

[Not long after that last video missive, however, HEY LOOK IT'S A LIVE FEED THIS TIME IT'S THE MAGIC OF FUTURE SKYPE AT WORK and also the magic of someone who comes from a setting where computers, even magical computers, to say nothing of magical handheld communication devices, are at least a few thousand years in her future, messing around what-does-this-app-do style with her magic mirror tool.]

Still nothing ...? I suppose that's to be expected.

[A deep sigh, and then a loud clunk as she sets the omnicom down on what looks like a shelf, propped up against the siding.] I'll leave it on just in case. [She thinks shutting down the screen will turn it off, isn't that cute?]

[And she finally steps away from an unshaking omnicom long enough to give anyone a good look at her - and she's a sight. If it's not the hair she's let grow so long that if not for the loose tie of old gauze near the base it would be sweeping the ground, it's the tattered assembly of haphazardly belted- and pinned- and poorly-stitched-together rags she's mistaken for "clothing" - the threadbare nature of her kit only exposed further once she swings the oversized but equally ragged greatcoat on her shoulders off them and tosses it across a wooden beam just out of frame. On her right arm rests a dented, silvery gauntlet of some kind, which she slowly unbelts and lets drop on the shelf out of view beneath the omnicom with a rattle and clank that suggests something quite heavier than it looked on her wrist. A bandage wraps the entire length of her left; she does not remove the bandage.]

[She does a slow pivot, taking in the cabin. Her boots tink and clomp against the hardwood floor.]

... just like I remember it. I suppose I should be proud of myself. [But there's something unsettled and wild in her expression; it hadn't sunk in, what she was making for herself, until she was standing inside it, realizing it was really real. She's no longer sure whose capacity for handling what she asked for she's actually putting to the test anymore.]

[She shakes her head.] A good home needs a good cleaning, even if it's a temporary one. I'd better get started.

[And, after grabbing a broom tucked away in the corner - right where she remembers she'd always leave it - unless anyone interrupts her, because of some awkward reason, I don't know, like having turned her omnicom's webcam equivalent on while she does it - she's going to do just that.]

Comments

TEXT; (i am so sorry)

[turntex]

[Oh look at that. The omnicom is dinging as it receives some text responses. Surely it is a kind, helpful soul letting her know her device is still on and recording.]

aw yeah just the kind of live show i was looking for
mmm clean that room
thats so hot

VIDEO

[crowskinovercoat]

Huh?

[The noise catches her attention, but she doesn't immediately place it - blame this on being in cleaning mode, more than her situational awareness, as there's only one thing in what's self-evidently a wooden cabin that could go "ding" so there's not a whole lot of options for her to run through, here.]

[She approaches the omnicom feed and leans her face in real lose to peer at it, which unfortunately for her means she gives a typical teenage boy something to stare at for the ... several seconds it takes her fairly rudimentary reading skills to actually read the tiny text that's popped up and then comprehend what she's read -]

[Her eyes narrow, dangerously. She locks eyes with the omnicom camera, something terrible and playful coming over her features. With a firm motion, the camera gets a faceful of bandaged hand covering the screen, as she grips it with her left hand not unlike a facehugger might wrap its claws around its prey. The screen shakes.] Oh? This little toy thinks it gets to stare at me without doing what I asked it to do, does it?

[Velvet may, uh ... not actually realize that the texts are not coming from inside the machine itself.]

You like hot things, little om-nee-kom? [The way she's holding it makes it impossible to tell anything except that there - well, there appears to be some sort of smoky, heat-haze-like substance leaking through the bandages that cover her hand - but the movement that the screen picks up through her hand implies she's holding it in front of her in a way that she believes is pointing it at something it should be looking at, and would be, if she had any idea it was facing the wrong way.] This is a fireplace.

Would the little piece of magic paper like to be set on fire? Or will you be a good boy and play "fetch" for me, instead?

[turntex]

[God, he is tempted. But he feels like some people would be mad at him if he goaded somw old-timey newcomer into throwing their omnicom into a fire.]

sure ill fetch
im fuckin bananas at playing fetch
move over lassie theres a new dog in town and hes a better fetcher than you could ever hope to be
running circles around that literal bitch with a mouthful of sticks or mail or something
anyway whatd you want again

[crowskinovercoat]

[The "ding!" noises his replies make get her hand removed from the camera feed, at which point she once again brings her face way closer to the omnicom than she probably should have to - presumably in the shiny meatbag future of the United Planets, the pesky problem of electronic devices giving off potential cancer-making waves has been solved, but it's still probably awkward-looking enough to be frowned upon.]

[She pulls an unimpressed face.] "Universal translator", they said. "This will help get you up to speed", they said. Maybe this one's broken. That would explain why half of what I'm getting from it is gibberish.

I asked you to look for something for me. Did you forget in the time it took you to discover you had a voice? [After a moment of simply - sizing the omnicom up, eyes narrowed - a carefully shuttered expression flits across her face, before she sets it down, on a table this time. Enjoy the view of a cabin roof. Also what looks like it might be a spooky ghost - no, that's just her ratty old pirate's greatcoat hanging where she left it, along one of the wooden boards helping hold the frame of the house together.]

A dragon. Or just ... maybe a child god. Something like an eight-headed beast of light, who knows. It sucks the life out of a planet, and then it sleeps. [Suddenly and violently - the omnicom shakes and she pounds her hands against the table on either side of it - Velvet looms over top of the device, eyes hard and searching.] Has anything like that been here ahead of me? I need anything you can tell me about anything that fits any of those descriptions. Anything. Give me everything you know. You're supposed to tell me what I need to know to get familiar with this place, so start there.

[She shuts her eyes tight, then, going just as quickly still and quiet. Her shoulders loosen, she pushes herself away from the table and out of frame, and from off screen comes a long-suffering sigh.]

... it's useless asking a broken tool to do anything useful. Maybe I should throw you in the fire anyway.

[turntex]

sounds like my sister
minus the extra seven heads
but nah shes never been here
there is a dragon but i wouldnt call it a beast of light or a planetary life sucker
its more like an oversized reptilian cat with constant fish breath

[crowskinovercoat]

... your sister. [She sounds .. a little thrown.]

[Give her a minute here. Give her a minute to come to the completely wrong conclusion for lack of knowing better, and also possibly to avoid looking too closely at the whole disorienting mirror-image of her relationship with the thing she's asking the omnicom to find for her that he's just told her about. Don't think about Laphicet don't think about Laphicet don't think about Laphi -]

[Leaning slightly into frame, only half her face in view of the camera lens. The one eye he can see is half-lidded, sleepy with the promise of slow death.] Your ... sister ... is the kind of thing people worshipped as a god. And you've been trapped in a talking mirror so these so-called "peacekeepers" can use you as a helpful teaching device.

[She doesn't sound quite as horrified about that as she probably should, for having put it that way to begin with. She sounds more like she's just ... confirming a theory. As you do.]

[headinjuries]

[ Holy more belts than a Tetsuya Nomura design, Batman. ]

So, since it looks like somebody else just gave you Future Technology 101, I'll just say hi, I'm Sam, and I'm sorry you got Dave first, because nobody deserves that.

[crowskinovercoat]

[Coming from Space Cop Mini-Me that just sounds so rude.]

[She fixes his little window on her omnicom's screen with the most unreadable of deadpan glares. The glaring part isn't on purpose, but there's no other word to describe the way her eyes settle on the screen. She spent so long wearing that expression it stuck around and now, it seems, her face just Does That.]

I guess I should feel flattered. [There's a soft huff.] I've dealt with worse.

[headinjuries]

[ SAY THAT TO MY FACE, HOT TOPIC ]

Most of us have, but I figure if we're gonna go out and maybe nearly get eaten by Galactus's bigger badder brother, the least we can do is teach each other not to stream our housekeeping routines.

[crowskinovercoat]

[There is honestly no way anyone is going to have much luck getting Velvet to sit through an Austin Powers movie long enough to get that joke, much less make it. Sadly her sense of humor starts about where Night of the Living Dead begins.]

[She coughs in a way that's obviously an awkward cover for clearing her throat.]

It's just basic housecleaning chores. No one would want to see that, anyway.

[headinjuries]

Especially not the people who could actually learn something from it.

[ GRIF ]

[crowskinovercoat]

[She considers this, with all due seriousness, for a moment.]

That sounds like a personal problem.

[turntex]

wow i thought we were bros
im a gift and yall are ungrateful
getting a real good look inside this horses mouth and eying those teeth all judgementally
im pretty sure that saying has something to do with horse teeth anyway
the point is fuck you the horse is free just appreciate it for what it is dude

[crowskinovercoat]

I'm sure your horse nice enough, even if all I've seen of it so far is the horse's ass.

[She's warming up to the situation she's found herself in, clearly.]

[turntex]

and what an ass it is right

[crowskinovercoat]

I don't have strong enough opinions about horses to say.

[headinjuries]

Hey, bros or not, you gotta admit you're kind of an acquired taste, dude.

[turntex]

so youre saying youve acquired the taste
swallowed down your fair share of strider and decided that you liked it huh

[headinjuries]

See, this is why nobody deserves you.

Belated, sorry, I could've sworn I tagged this last week, and I REALLY don't want to pass it by.

[walkingballpit]

[ And, Robbie's shouting as if that will have some real effect on how loud the speakers of her omnicom are. ]

Yo, Cinderella! You left your omnicom on.

[crowskinovercoat]

... so I've been informed, yes. [He can hear the grimace in her voice, and the muted echo of it on her face.]

But I'm pretty sure my name isn't "Cinderella".

[walkingballpit]

[ Eesh, there's an entire library shelf of autobiographies in those two sentences. Someone needs to lighten up a lot, but... Robbie actually doesn't point out her lacking sense of humor. He does offer a small smile. ]

I'm pretty sure I'd remember your name if you told me.

[crowskinovercoat]

[She has a sense of humor, it's just ... calibrated differently than everyone else's. And also, she isn't from Earth.]

I didn't.

[She also doesn't offer it immediately, although he does get a light, small, closed-mouth wraith of a smile in response. She seems, in fact, to be weighing against her reflexive assumption about not giving it.]

I'm a little shy that way.

[If there's any hint in her posture or expression that she is even slightly aware this is a spectacularly ridiculous claim on her part under the circumstances, she does a good job of pretending she doesn't notice she's given it.]

[walkingballpit]

[ He can think of more than one reason why she'd give him a hard time about her name. Maybe she is shy, but Robbie doesn't think it's that. Something about the non-reaction to his implication that her name was worth remembering. So, maybe she's teasing him, or maybe she just enjoys giving people a hard time, or maybe anything. ]

Oh, sorry, I didn't know. I'll go first if you're shy. I'm Robbie.

[crowskinovercoat]

[She looks at him quietly for a second - stares, really, nonplussed long enough to have to do her I-don't-know-this-place-well-enough-at-all equivalent of a double-take, the sort of languid unease of a lizard trying to figure out if someone's just chucked it in a freezer, perhaps.]

[Here is a man Velvet wishes she had Eleanor nearby for, so as to put her between him and Velvet - metaphorically, diplomatically, protectively. Whose protection that would be for is maybe a less simple answer than Velvet might even admit to herself.]

[Maybe he isn't digging, maybe he's exactly what he sounds like he is. He's not the only one who'll hear her, though, is he? Doesn't really sound like he's even thinking about it. He probably trusts in what surrounds them both enough it doesn't even occur to him to have so little faith in their basic decency, does it? It's probably something simple like that. ... probably. There's too much she knows she doesn't know. About him. About the place she's found herself. About the whole "universe" - what an unfathomable concept - outside it. About this Legion of Superheroes that says they protect it.]

[She's not real keen to let the whole of this "Legion World" remember her name until she's sure what she wants them to know about it.]

[In the end she nods at his name, polite and reserved.]

... Velvet.

[She gives what he gives and nothing further; no sense in giving less. No sense in giving more.]