Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #155: Spills (4/19/01)
Arat augments slightly to stay warm, and looks up at the stark stony walls surrounding him.
Arat can't shake the feeling that something is stalking him, although his bodyguard have gone to great pains to check the entire area for elk or any other large animal, including humans.
Arat would not have come here at all except for an urgent message from the Audnes supporters saying that they had information of critical importance to him, regarding Mr. Birch's historian friend due to arrive any day now.
Arat is starting to wonder if anyone is going to show up at all, though, as he's been waiting for far too long.
Arat wraps his cloak more firmly around himself.
Arat doesn't like the combination of dusk and insulating stone. He listens carefully for some reassuring sound from his bodyguards, who are posted some distance away.
Sedel finds himself walking back toward the camps. It has been an uncomfortable couple of days. He has been overdoing on the exercise trying to get his mind off his current non-status.
Sedel isn't healing as fast now that he can't just get Sylma to do it. Not that he hasn't had offers from every channel he's run across.
Sedel smiles. At least up here there isn't anyone around to complain.
Sedel picks his way carefully in the increasing dark. He has stayed too long this time.
Arat hears footsteps coming from between the huge rocks farther down the gorge. He zlins a very diffuse, fragmented Gen nager but it is too garbled to be identifiable yet.
Sedel finally makes it down to a little cut that takes him down to the path they use to get back and forth. Well, it isn't really a path.
Arat thinks that this is a damn fool place to meet someone, and an even worse time of day, and if he wasn't so worried about this historian fellow's motives (thanks to Nick) he wouldn't have come at all.
Sedel isn't paying enough attention. He looses his footing on the loose gravel just as he gets into the gorge. Trying not to fall, he wrenches his ankle and goes down rather hard.
Sedel: Bloody shen!!
Arat, having been hyperalert, nearly jumps out of his skin as Sedel's nager explodes from the cover of the cliffs accompanied by a loud crash, the cursing, and a stab of pain.
Sedel pulls himself up and props himself against a boulder. Getting back to camp just became a lot harder. ~~pain~~
Arat's bodyguards rush up to him a moment later, but fortunately he has recognized that 1) he is not under attack and 2) he knows this person. He waves them back.
Sedel: Stupid, stupid, bloody shen stupid!
Arat uses Sedel's bright field to navigate his way cautiously over the shale and miscellaneous puddles and boulders toward him.
Sedel tries to put some weight on his injured ankle. ~~PAIN~~
Arat isn't being careful just because Sedel just fell; he finds nature so alien and "unnatural" that extreme caution just comes... naturally.
Arat: Sedel?
Arat wonders what the Donor was doing out in the woods in the first place. Not that it's any of his business.
Arat decides he'd just as soon not know, actually.
Sedel reacts by trying to assume a fighting stance and only succeeds in dumping himself on the ground again and sending new pain through his ankle.
Arat momentarily shies back from the aggressive move and the fall, and the new stab of pain.
Arat frowns to himself.
Sedel: Who's there?
Arat comes closer, in an attempt to show himself to the Gen.
Sedel belatedly realizes that whoever it is, they know him by name.
Arat: Arat Farris. I zlinned your fall. Do you require assistance?
Arat knows that Sedel requires assistance, but it's polite to ask before glomming.
Sedel: ~~consternation, shock and embarrassment~~
Sedel: Controller, I, uh, I wasn't expecting to run into you up here.
Sedel is not exactly in the best position to think coherently. As his words attest.
Arat approaches Sedel warily, zlinning the ankle. He can tell that Sedel is a bit shaken up.
Sedel plays back the last few seconds in his mind and realizes that Arat asked him a question.
Sedel: Uh, yes actually I could use some help.
Sedel tries to get up again.
Sedel: ~~muted pain~~
Sedel now aware that there are Simes within zlinning distance tries to pull his nager back into order. His largest worry is that there are renSimes in the area.
Arat looks about; Sedel is among some rocks and dirt and such but there really isn't any way to get around kneeling down in that to help him.
Arat applies the famous Farris willpower and does so, not without some diffidence.
Arat takes Sedel's ankle in both hands and zlins it more carefully.
Sedel is still in shock, running on autopilot. After all, he was raised to expect any channel to treat his injuries. If he were thinking he would be amazed.
Sedel's slowest brain functions do get to the point eventually. ~~quiet disbelief~~
Arat applies a healing field. He manages to restrain himself from commenting on the wisdom of Sedel stumbling around in the dark in the rocks.
Sedel: Why are you helping me?
Arat: You are injured.
Sedel takes a breath and settles more securely against the boulder.
Sedel: I thought you wanted to get rid of me.
Sedel thinks with night coming on that would be very easy to do. He'd never make it back to the camp in his present condition.
Arat: It is my opinion as Controller that you require time to rethink your career and commitments before working as a Donor again.
Arat: However, that has no bearing on whether you deserve medical attention when injured.
Arat is unlike his daughter Snake in many ways, but none so illustrative as his utter lack of ideas such as the one that just occurred to Sedel.
Sedel: I see. Well, I suppose you would have to make sure the stock was healthy.
Arat's hands pause at Sedel's words.
Sedel: ~~resentment~~
Arat lets go of the ankle, rather than have to zlin a 2nd's resentment through that intimate a contact.
Sedel smiles. ~~vindicated~~
Sedel knows in his heart that stock is all he will ever be to the likes of Arat.
Sedel: Changed your mind I see.
Arat: Your nager is....
Arat: You do not seem to wish my assistance.
Sedel: It isn't the assistance so much as the motive. You made it very clear that you don't consider me a person so why would you "assist" me?
Arat finds it unacceptable that he is grovelling on his knees in dirt and rocks when Sedel is zlinning increasingly of not wanting him there at all.
Arat rises to his feet and backs off, brushing himself off fastidiously.
Arat: I would assist you because you are injured.
Arat: If you wished it. [adds]
Sedel: Are you saying you feel I have a right to choose? ~~listening~~
Arat considers that for a moment.
Arat: I would not allow you to remain here, in the dark, so far from camp, while too injured to walk. [decides]
Arat thinks that most people wouldn't, unless Sedel were so nasty to them that they thought he deserved it.
Arat certainly wouldn't want to have abandoning the Gen here on his conscience, nasty or no.
Sedel: And if I should tell you that I would prefer to remain here you would not "allow" it.
Arat: It would not be sensible. [points out]
Sedel: The real question is, do you believe I have the right to choose?
Arat didn't let the small sobbing child he found wandering in the street in Capitol go his merry way either, much though he'd loathed the process of carrying him to the nearest police station. This situation is rapidly growing to resemble that one.
Arat's patience, never of much practical use, is beginning to fray.
Arat: Of course.
Sedel: ~~shock~~
Sedel has been listening to Arat expecting more of the same high-handed treatment he received from the man the last time they met.
Arat flinches at Sedel's nageric fluctuations.
Sedel has also been listening for the lie. The fact that he hasn't heard one disturbs him.
Sedel: You are the first channel I have encountered who would.
Arat frowns.
Arat thinks this conversation is making less and less sense.
Arat: Would what?
Arat would, as it happens, ordinarily walk away from a conversation like this, except that in this case it would involve leaving an injured Gen alone in the woods. It is a sticky problem.
Sedel: Would respect my right to choose.
Arat realizes he has no choice but to talk through this with Sedel, bizarre though the circumstances and the setting might be.
Arat puts thoughts of leaving out of his mind and concentrates upon what Sedel might, or might not, be getting at.
Arat: Perhaps I misunderstood your question.
Arat does not think he is the only channel who would believe a Gen has the right to choose his or her own medical treatment.
Arat: However, in most cases, where the law and public safety are not at issue, yes, I would.
Sedel: Are you saying that I am a person in your opinion?
Arat's nostrils flare in annoyance. He really should not have to put up with this.
Arat: Of course.
Arat means, to the extent that anyone else is.
Arat's worldview, truth to be told, doesn't include any humans at all. There is only him and the rest of the world. And sometimes he doesn't feel like a person himself.
Sedel: Congratulations, Controller Arat. You are unique among your kind.
Sedel: ~~bitter~~ ~~confused by an exception to his rule~~ ~~sad that Arat of all people would be the only exception (members of his House are, of course, exceptions)~~
Arat tries to sort through the contents of Sedel's nager. They are confusing to say the least.
Arat can tell, at least, that Sedel is bitter, confused and sad though.
Arat asks finally (because he really wants to know, having no idea how to proceed with the conversation otherwise but sensing that Sedel wants to talk about something):
Arat: And what kind is that? [seriously]
Sedel: Simes in general, Controllers in particular.
Arat thinks this sounds like too big a problem to solve on a freezing hillside in a deepening night.
Arat is rather glad to have gotten Sedel out of circulation, though.
Sedel: I realize that only 30 years after "Unity" most Simes are only a generation or so removed from junct culture but to find those same attitudes inside the Tecton hurts.
Arat wraps his cloak more firmly around himself. He might have offered it to Sedel, who is quite cold after cooling off from exercise and then lying on the ground, except that 1) Sedel probably wouldn't appreciate it right at the moment, and 2) the cloak would get filthy.
Sedel can't believe he is saying any of this to Arat of all people. Sylma's reaction to his honesty should have made him more wary of being honest with any Sime.
Arat's long Farris nose is dripping even more animatedly than it had been for the previous half hour of waiting around.
Arat: I am not certain that I understand what you are referring to.
Arat knows that junct culture still colors modern society, but Sedel seems to be speaking in generalities about something quite specific.
Arat hopes that Sedel will drop the nonsense and be frank.
Arat doesn't realize that Sedel already feels he is being too frank!
Sedel figures it is a waste anyway. His head is already on the block.
Sedel also realizes, a bit late, that he has brought his quarrel with the Tecton to Arat. Well so be it.
Sedel: I feel like a fish in a bowl. Everyone watches me all the time with no respite and no where to go to get away from it. Any Sime will zlin me whenever they choose. I live naked. I am not allowed to just breathe.
Sedel knows that this is not the most eloquent statement but it is the constant feeling in his heart.
Arat, who is of course zlinning Sedel at the time, studies the feelings that go with those words.
Arat: I am familiar with the sensation.
Sedel frowns.
Sedel: You are?
Arat: I live much the same way.
Sedel snorts.
Sedel: You can get away from it by just ordering everyone out of your office.
Sedel is still listening for the lie. He still hasn't heard it.
Arat: It is true that I have more control over certain particulars than others do.
Arat: However, I still must endure the scrutiny, the lack of privacy, and the restrictions.
Sedel: Then why in shen don't you quit? Uh, sorry stupid question.
Sedel can't believe that he is holding a normal conversation with Controller Arat.
Sedel: Would you quit if it wouldn't kill you?
Arat: I wouldn't be permitted to.
Arat probably couldn't even if he were, at this point. The Tecton is tied deeply into the structure of his life. It is just as well that any change is out of the question.
Arat: But no.
Sedel: Why not?
Arat finally gives up and starts digging in his pockets for a handkerchief. If he keeps waiting for someone to give him one... well, the results don't bear contemplating.
Arat: My work is my life. I cannot imagine doing anything else.
Sedel is still reeling from hearing Arat say that someone or something holds enough power over him to prevent his leaving if he could.
Arat wipes his overly large nozzle. He does do it himself sometimes, despite the rumors.
Sedel looks at the man who's anatomy has been alternately a log to be split or a branch to be broken in his mind for that last... how long has it been?
Arat looks tired, cold, red-nosed and underfed, in other words much as he's looked for the last 20 years except a bit harder to see, given the time of day.
Sedel shakes his head to clear the images. Without working, time has become seamless and unremarkable. This person who has ordered him summarily dismissed from service actually has no options in his own life.
Sedel remembers the last time he spoke to Arat. If it had been like this he would still be working.
Arat knows that Sedel is considering other lines of work. His sister had said as much.
Arat is of the opinion that a person who does not want to be a Donor makes a lousy Donor, by definition.
Arat therefore will never stand in anyone's way if they genuinely want to stop doing it.
Arat had not pushed Nick, when Nick had to decide what he wanted to do, for that same reason.
Sedel: I suppose I owe you an apology, Hajene Farris.
Sedel feels Hajene is more of an honorific than Controller.
Arat's eyebrows raise in surprise.
Arat is always prepared to accept an apology, of course, but he hadn't been expecting one just now.
Arat finds the use of "Hajene" odd, but no more odd than anything else about this situation.
Sedel: I lumped you into a category. That isn't something I normally do.
Sedel: Well, not without checking first.
Sedel: ~~support~~
Arat: That isn't necessary. [hastily]
Arat: Your apology is accepted.
Sedel: I wanted you to know I was sincere.
Arat wonders what category he had been prematurely "lumped into", but thinks it'd be best not to press Sedel for unvolunteered detail.
Arat: Very well.
Arat: Will you permit me to heal your ankle, now?
Arat would really, really like to get off of this frigid and dirt-riddled mountainside where it is not safe, and back to his heated office, some tea and a good round of caring for blast victims.
Sedel: I can honestly say I would be honored, Hajene.
Sedel would also like to get his backside defrosted as soon as possible.
Sedel would only allow a channel who saw him as a person to touch him. How odd that it should be Arat.
Go on to Episode #156: Ixnay on the Assbray Andbay
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