with the lights out it's less dangerous

[epyonrose]

It’s nights like these that Treize perversely thinks of Im Westen nichts Neues. He watches the screen before him, clicking lifelessly through display after display of data. It’s the same, all the same, and it will be for some time. In two weeks, there will be a strike on the L2 colony, but it will be settled quietly and with minimal violence.

Comments

[mareprocellarum]

Pela has never read All Quiet on the Western Front, but maybe she will one day. Either way, when she receives her invitation, she has to make her pinpoint read the text out loud to her - she barely uses the thing, it takes some effort, and her English reading is still far from perfect - but once she gets it, she's pleased. Since tonight isn't casino night, her time is free, James is doing something - probably recon - and after leaving a message and finding something to wear (today it's white again, short shirtdress, with cap sleeves, and buttons all up the front), she follows the coordinates to her destination.

She has no idea what to expect of this place, but that is probably half the fun, she tells herself.

[epyonrose]

Treize has sent her to the foyer of his personal chateau, tucked away on the quite side of his estate. (He calls it 'the office'.) He's there when she arrives, wearing a black coat over a dark blue vest and a pale blue dress shirt (with, yes, a cravat - it's how people roll here).

He was watching lights in the distance - changing of the guard - at the window when she appears, and so now he turns, smiling.

"Lady Pelagia," he greets. "Welcome to Luxembourg."

[mareprocellarum]

"Hello. I think we went over the use of titles," she smiles, and goes to Treize once she's glanced around initially. There seems to be so much of this place, so many details to absorb and so much everything - but then, she's used to sprawling places, the ocean has so much room in it. The starfish-shaped city she's from is no different.

"Thank you for the invitation. I think you saved Cancun from me roaming its streets for a while."

[epyonrose]

He greets her by taking her hands and kissing her cheek, an old European sort of thing that hardly anyone bothers with anymore. Why not?

"Of course, forgive me," he says. "And you're very welcome. And if I've saved Cancun, you've certainly saved me, but only from my own idle thoughts." Men like Treize being bored: terrifying.

"I thought I might show you the grounds before we go out."

[mareprocellarum]

She has a hunch about what happens when Treize gets bored, but no matter who you are it's sort of hard to manage that where Pelagia is concerned, because inevitably she will have a million questions for you. It's one benefit of how she's rather new at all of this.

"I'd like to see them- where are we going?"

[epyonrose]

"To a restaurant on the base," he says, offering her his arm to walk into the house proper. "It's a controlled area, so we needn't worry about things like passports and identification." It's his controlled area.

"This is what constitutes my office building," he explains, somewhat wry. It's beautiful in a classical way, all soft colors and clean lights and old, expensive decor. "I am usually alone here, as it is secure enough to allow me that sort of privacy." And while he is a spoiled aristocrat, he's perfectly capable of cooking for himself when he's not in the mood to be pestered by aids and staff.

[mareprocellarum]

Pela accepts his arm as they head for the house proper, looking around with wide eyes. She doesn't hide her open curiosity about the place, or hide that she thinks it's beautiful - old-fashioned things appeal to her, surprise surprise. No wonder people think Mer are relics.

"It reminds me of something, in a good sort of way," she says, thoughtfully, "but I can't think of what. -- oh, am I dressed all right for a restaurant?"

Pela is learning a good portion of her taste in human clothes from James Bond. In fairness, there are worse people to learn from.

[epyonrose]

"There was a revival of a much older romanticism era about seventy years ago," he says, of the decor. "I'm fond of it in any incarnation

[mareprocellarum]

"Understood," she says, agreeably- glad to have that cover story sorted. Also rather glad that he didn't give her a nickname (James, for the love of Vatea, why).

Once upstairs, she notices the mobile suits in the dark, but is swiftly distracted by what he says - though she files some queries away for later - shifting her gaze up to that bright pink star. Pela doesn't quite touch the window, but she's close to it, and then turns to look at Treize with wide eyes and an amazed smile. Guileless, in her astonishment.

"There are people there? Really?" Of course, that's what he just said, they've discussed it before, and she processes it shortly, but it's a bit shocking for her to actually see! "It seems so close, somehow."

[epyonrose]

"Yes," he confirms, faintly amused. "Hundreds of thousands. They're on carefully maintained orbits, as to not disrupt gravity or meteor pathways in the galaxy. Different times of the year, we can see different colonies from the Earth. It actually is rather close, compared to a real star - it's less the reflection of the sun and more the lights from the colony itself that we're seeing."

[mareprocellarum]

"How long have they been there?" Pela is still sorting out what she thinks of space colonization - in a lot of ways it could be construed as very Technocratic, since (unbeknownst to her), that is something that they'd flip out over, but she understands why it happened, she thinks.

[epyonrose]

"That one in particular, nearly two hundred years. It was the first civilian station of its kind. Space colonization has been a massive achievement for mankind. We even changed our calendar over to reflect it; our years are now denoted by 'AC', after-colony."

And before that it was CE, and before that, AD, and before that, BC, the remnants of silly spiritualism and creationism blessedly falling away.

[mareprocellarum]

"So...generations of people are living there who have never seen the earth?" She's watching Treize with a thoughtful expression, now, conflicted by the very idea. It's necessary - that much is easy to comprehend - it just strikes her as sad.

[epyonrose]

"Yes."

It strikes him as sad, too, but they've spoken on the fact that he truly loves the Earth. Watching the stars, he says: "They have veritable atmosphere, and the ability to have parks, grass, lawns, lakes, even small things they'll call forests. L4, they say, is trying to grow a jungle. Some people, when they finally come home, here, they touch the ground and breathe the air and they weep - because it's all too much."

He pauses, an unreadable half-smile on his lips. "And some people... some people come to this planet and say they can't even tell the difference."

[mareprocellarum]

She exhales in a huff of something almost like rueful laughter, shaking her head.

"No ocean, though, yeah? Even if there were other planets they could occupy instead...you can't replicate this Earth. There's only one of her for each universe." Pela turns, touching Treize's arm in an absent, fond kind of way. "I think- some people just say 'good enough,' and leave it at that. Some people don't stop there."

Three guesses as to what kind of people are in this room, and the first two don't count.

[epyonrose]

He shifts in response to her touch, hand resting at the small of her back. "Colonies began because we destroyed this planet," he tells her. "It was over-populated to critical mass, and we were running out of resources. We could put people in space, recycling oxygen in closed circuits, recycling water melted down from ice in deep space. Millions of people died from starvation and vile poverty, and then we had the colonies. Earth was alleviated, and those with the money and the means poured it into her. But then even the people who remained... many of them couldn't afford to stay, because it became so expensive to live amongst such precious resources. So we had more colonies. And more. And now, two hundred years later... this is how we live. Lingering in the divide and watching each other, like stars."