Sime~Gen Roleplaying: District Controller's Office Scenario
Episode #36: Kite Therapy (6/10/99)
Nick's depression lightens a bit at the smell of garbage, horse manure, multiple meals cooking, marginally washed bodies, and other effluvia that passes for fresh air in a large city.
Arat's own loathing for such inconveniences is partially moderated by Nick's improved mood.
Nick dawdles just a bit as their path takes then through a neighborhood that does not meet Arat's exacting standards.
Arat tries to practice patience.
Nick stops entirely in front of a small shop that seems to sell the cheaper versions of everything, from food to toys.
Nick: Do you mind if we stop here for a moment?
Arat stops also, and looks at the store.
Arat: No.
Arat will put up with whatever it takes to get Nick in a better mood before their transfer.
Arat doesn't want Jeniard to have to drag him bodily from bed each morning for the next month and a half due to morbid depression.
Nick steps inside.
Arat follows, fastidiously not touching anything.
Shopkeep smiles ~~ ingratiatingly ~~ and wrings his hands and tentacles.
Shopkeep: Good afternoon, worthy gentlemen. You honor my humble shop.
Arat thinks that is an understatement.
Arat: [except for the bit about the good afternoon, which he thinks is perfectly inaccurate]
Shopkeep: I have many fine objects here for your consideration, guaranteed to please....
Arat eyes the shopkeep warily.
Shopkeep: Perhaps a fine rug? As you see, I have several different sizes to suit every room in your house.
Shopkeep pats a dusty stack of rolled-up (and very used) carpeting.
Shopkeep's eyes cross as he tries to keep from sneezing in the dust cloud.
Arat: I will wait for you outside. [hastily]
Nick looks at Arat in mild alarm.
Nick: Are you all right?
Shopkeep: If you do not require a rug, even one so fine as mine, perhaps a hat to keep the sun out of your eyes? I have one here with feathers....
Shopkeep picks up a rather bedraggled specimen with motheaten plumes and starts waving it in Arat's direction.
Arat backs away from the feathers.
Arat: I'm fine. But I will wait for you outside.
Arat turns and flees the shop.
Arat: [in as dignified a fashion as he can manage]
Nick emerges some five minutes later with a smallish cardboard box and an armload of lightweight wood and paper.
Nick checks Arat to make sure he isn't in the throes of an asthma attack.
Arat appears to be all right, but is watching the passersby with great caution.
Nick offers a bit of ~~ reassurance ~~
Arat due to his recently donned civilian dress doesn't look anywhere near as out of place as he feels, but he feels more than out of place enough to make up for it.
Nick: Come on, it's not that much further to the park.
Nick: And try to act as if you belong--it works just as well in neighborhoods like this at it does at posh parties.
Arat: Did you... [pauses as he sees Nick's incomprehensible armload] ... find what you were looking for?
Nick: Yes.
Nick pats the box.
Arat as a matter of fact would not want anybody to think he belonged in this neighborhood.
Arat nods.
Nick's box contains a vilely coarse blend of what is alleged to be trin tea.
Nick: And there's such a nice breeze, I couldn't resist the kite.
Nick holds up the paper and wood.
Arat: Oh.
Nick: Did you every fly one, when you were a boy?
Arat's nostrils twitch as he catches a whiff of what is in the box, but he manages to avoid asking about it.
Arat: No.
Nick: It's very soothing.
Arat's childhood consisted of going to political rallies and in between spending a lot of time left to his own devices in the homes of whatever people his parents were shacking up with that week.
Arat: I see.
Nick grins as they approach the park, and points upward.
Nick: You see? I'm not the only one who thought this breeze was worth taking advantage of.
Arat's own list of soothing hobbies does not, for some reason, include visiting crowded public places on sunny, windy days and trying to pretend the wind is doing what you want.
Arat studies the kites already in the air.
Nick: Oh, that's a fancy one!
Nick points at a particularly garish specimen.
Arat tries to focus on the most tasteful ones... the ones with less than 3 colors involved, for example.
Arat prefers the ones with less fluttering and/or streaming appendages, as well.
Arat's eyes settle on one that appears nothing more than a blue diamond, and decides that one is the least stressful to gaze upon.
Arat frowns as the blue diamond teeters, and then plunges out of sight behind the treeline.
Arat sighs to himself.
Nick sees Arat's attention on the kites and starts to quickly assemble his own.
Nick's quickness drags on a bit longer than he had planned.
Arat watches the trees, but the blue diamond doesn't come back.
Arat's attention flits restlessly to the nagers of the kite people in the next field over.
Arat tries to decide whether they are being soothed or not.
Arat would tentatively say that the parents are rather stressed out, but the children, who are more difficult to zlin, may be enjoying themselves.
Nick finally manages to get sticks, paper, and ball of string more or less in the right configuration.
Nick hands Arat the wood-and-paper part of the device, retaining the string.
Arat looks at Nick in astonishment.
Nick: Here. Hold that for a moment while I get the string unwound.
Arat looks down at what's in his hand.
Nick ignores Arat's response to the large painted beetle, and starts walking slowly away, unwinding the string as he goes.
Arat follows.
Nick: No, stay where you are. And hold it up high.
Nick: Since I can't really run, we're going to have to let the wind do most of the work.
Arat reluctantly holds the kite up.
Nick: When I yell, toss it up as high as you can.
Nick turns away from Arat for a moment, looking directly into the wind.
Arat: As high as I can?
Arat: [doubtfully]
Arat hefts the kite slightly, trying to gauge its resilience.
Nick: Well, as high as it will go without destroying itself. The idea is to give the wind time to catch it before it hits the ground.
Nick is obviously viewing this as an adventure.
Arat looks around and is dismayed by how many people will observe him doing this; in fact people are gathering to watch them.
Arat thinks it is all well and good for children to play at kites, but for adults it's ridiculous.
Arat has never handled 'ridiculous' well.
Nick on the other hand looks quite at home, and therefore not particularly ridiculous, even though the wind has mussed the shape out of his unfortunate hairstyle.
Arat however can't bear the thought of transfer with a depressed Nick, and Simes have been known to do much worse for their transfers.
Arat therefore dutifully begins to psych himself up to appear an idiot in front of all these people and look like he's perfectly cool about it.
Nick slits his eyes as a particularly strong gust of wind hits.
Nick: This is it! Launch!
Nick starts to shuffle forward as fast as he can, half turning to watch the string.
Arat lets go of the kite in an upward direction.
Nick struggles to get and keep the string taut.
Kite shoots straight up in a brilliantly aerobatic maneuver.
Nick shouts in glee and plays out the string.
Nick: ~~ enjoyment ~~
Arat hurries over nearer to Nick.
Kite slices across the sky, continuing its arc until it is in a dive directly at a group of picnickers.
Nick: Oops!
Nick tugs urgently on the string, trying to change this disastrous trajectory.
Kite spins in a tight circle, heading upward again before hitting the ground but not before its wingtip slices near the picnic pie, flicking a gobbet of whipped cream through the air.
Nick: Sorry!
Arat stares in consternation, frozen in mid-advance towards Nick.
Nick reels the string in as he makes his way towards the scene of the accident.
Arat follows Nick at some distance, feeling responsible somehow.
Nick's nager is politely apologetic, but not in the last ashamed.
Arat hides his humiliation behind an unreadable facade.
Nick picks up the errant toy and makes his way back to Arat.
Nick inspects the toy closely.
Nick appears ~~ satisfied ~~, as he carefully brushes dirt and a gobbet of whipped cream from the paper.
Nick: There. Good as new.
Nick hands the string to Arat this time.
Nick: Here. Give it a try.
Arat lets go of it like a hot potato.
Arat: Perhaps we could watch the others instead?
Nick: Don't let the string get tangled!
Arat flinches at Nick's exclamation.
Nick sighs, and ~~ calms ~~ Arat.
Nick: Never mind.
Nick bends down to pick up the string, a task made a bit awkward by his inability to bend his broken leg.
Arat wants to apologize, but after an abortive mouth-opening, simply watches Nick.
Kite flutters in the wind, trying to take off from Nick's grip.
Nick looks a bit wistfully up at the other kites, then starts neatly winding up his ball of string.
Arat has never been more aware that he prevents Nick from enjoying himself as he normally would.
Arat wonders if Snake would have been a better partner for this game.
Nick wonders if all Farris channels are born with an inability to play.
Arat looks about as woebegone as it is possible for a Farris channel with an ego the size of Mt. Olympus to look.
Nick starts walking slowly through the park, enjoying the pseudo-rustic scene in a more subdued fashion.
Arat follows, also more subdued (if this is even possible!)
Nick finally seeks the seclusion of a small artificial cave, which has been made into a picnic spot of sorts.
Nick figures the concrete should provide enough insulation to make Arat less hangdog.
Arat follows, suspecting this isn't what Nick had had in mind when he suggested they go to the park.
Nick leans casually against the end of the picnic table.
Arat looks around, and then sits on one of the benches, his back to the table.
Nick has a leaf caught in his shirt, and his hair is mussed, particularly in the portions which actually have some hair left on them.
Arat studies Nick's new look.
Arat: I'm keeping you from enjoying yourself.
Nick shrugs.
Nick: No Sime cares much for such things, when in need.
Nick starts working on Arat's field.
Arat looks down.
Arat feels some of the tension go out of his shoulders as Nick manipulates his field.
Nick sets the kite down on the table and reaches out to rub Arat's shoulders.
Arat closes his eyes and drinks in the sensation of Nick's nager.
Nick continues to rub Arat's shoulders as he works the kinks out of the channel's nager.
Nick's own nager gradually becomes less soothing and more enticing.
Arat enjoys it momentarily, then looks up at Nick.
Arat: Shall we return?
Nick: Do you really want to walk all the way back to the Sime Center, in your condition?
Nick lets a selyn-rich finger trace the vertebrae of Arat's neck.
Arat shivers.
Arat had been going to protest that he would be far too self-conscious in this setting, and besides it would raise a lot of eyebrows at the office not to mention in the higher offices, but somehow forgets what he was going to say.
Nick has certainly given transfer in less private settings--the train out of Bender Cove, for instance.
Nick looks around at the little cave.
Nick: You know, this isn't unlike the place Snake Qualified me.
Arat: When you were brought back unconscious, transfer burned and frostbitten?
Arat is dismayed by the connection and hopes the memory won't spoil the transfer for Nick.
Arat of course only knows what the Bender Cove Sime Center knows about the event.
Nick: Snake had planned to wait another month, but Assistant Controller Briel asked her to find that runaway channel and Donor trainee, and the ruins proved a bit less stable than we'd thought.
Arat glances at the ceiling, then takes Nick firmly by the wrist.
Arat: Let's walk back. [pleads]
Arat: It's not far.
Nick's hand curls until his fingers touch tentacle sheathes.
Arat jumps at the intense feelings the touch arouse.
Nick: If that's what you really want.
Arat is no longer certain whatever it was he was just talking about was so important.
Arat's hand lets go of Nick's and tries to find the other one instead, since Arat's other hand is trying to steal its spot.
Nick lets the other hand drift within reach.
Arat, once decided, is anything but tentative.
Arat's tentacles grope for and latch onto Nick's loose arm, and he pulls Nick against him and takes a 5th contact as his laterals slither into place.
Nick lets Arat take control.
Arat is more familiar with Nick's nager now and when his draw begins, it is at a good speed, confident.
Nick's nager provides the ~~ joy/pleasure/optimism ~~ required by Tecton regulations in the full measure.
Nick is not, however, quite successful in maintaining the regulation clinical detachment.
Nick is not really feeling clinical at all, come to think of it.
Arat: A shadow joy/pleasure/optimism is raised in Arat in reflection of Nick's emotions.
Arat peaks, a sweet, lingering pleasure.
Nick decides that if he can't have Snake, Arat isn't that bad a substitute.