Anwei was feeling better - not because things were better, but because at this point there was nothing more she could do to help. Either they would destroy the Clock and the people affected would stop de-aging (or even - maybe - regain their lost time), or they would not. Med Bay was no longer full up, so she could take a little more time to sleep, and eat, and just walk and stretch underused muscles.
She recognized the dark-haired girl in the hallway, still looking rather dishevelled but out from that cell at least. Free. And there was nobody with her - no wait, the ship's AI would - no, hold on. She frowned to herself for an instant, brow creasing. Of course, she had assumed (based on her own experience) that Azula would be under surveillance, accompanied and monitored at all times. But now that she thought about it, the Council might have just let her out.
Hopefully they would not end up regretting that.
"Hello, Azula," she said, smiling. "I'm glad to see you out and about."
Azula turned to the voice and took a moment to appraise Anwei. Almost like she didn't recognize her at first but recognition settled in.
"I'm glad to be out." Her voice sounded soft but not as worn as before. Even if physically she looked like she could drift away in a heavy wind, she sounded better at least.
"I'm just...looking around." She looked around and realized she really had no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there.
Anwei relaxed, fractionally. The other woman didn't seem too stressed. Hopefully rest and food would help her recover - or at least would make recovering look more desirable than not-recovering.
"There's a lot to take in at once, I know. And almost all of these hallways in the Living Area look the same; you have to just map them out in your mind. Stacy doesn't seem to believe in signs," she said, glancing at a grey-green tentacled wall that looked like every other grey-green tentacled wall. Maybe she should add Stacy-compatible skin dye to her theoretical shopping list.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like to see? I'm off duty right now, so I have some time to spare."
"That probably depends on what you want right now. Do you want to do things? There are multiple departments for projects. If you want to learn, there is a Media Library that has information on thousands of subjects. On this level there's windows to let you see our passage between the dimensions, and an alien garden, and an art gallery that's supposed to be rather disturbing. Actually," she drew a long face for an instant, "I really haven't explored very much here either. I tend to get lost in my work."
She rummaged through the pockets of the grey military jacket that she was wearing over her plantsuit. "Would you like to borrow my comb? It's quite clean," she said, finding it and holding it out. She'd picked it up on Gondepetil to try and keep her own flyaway hair under control, with limited success.
"I think I'd like to see the library if you wouldn't mind." She wasn't in the mood to study yet, but in time she would have to if she wanted to arm herself properly.
She accepted the comb carefully, "Thank you...I've spoken with someone about some more...appropriate clothes. I'll at least look less like a failure in time." She began to comb her tangled mess wincing as it got caught again and again.
Knowledge shared was knowledge multiplied...and if Azula was from a time when high technology was no more than magic, there were all sorts of things she might be able to learn and bring back with her. Germ theory! Radios!
"The library's on this level, actually. It's probably different from most libraries you've seen. And I wouldn't mind at all," she smiled.
She watched Azula wrestle with her hair with a worried expression. "I don't have any hair oil, I'm afraid. Maybe if you tied it at the nape of your neck with some string, it wouldn't pull so hard?" Because the pulling would stop at the tie, of course. She started rummaging through her pockets, trying to find the shortest length of string she had. She didn't offer to hold the hair herself, or to comb it: some cultures held that hair was too personal to be touched. And she did not want to offend someone who could throw fire.
And frankly Azula was already suspicious of how helpful people were being today.
"Thank you." she accepted the string and after some fiddling managed to partially tame her hair. More effort would be required later.
She passed the comb back to Anwei "Do not imagine for a moment I don't know how to care for my hair...I've just fallen out of practice." A sharp defense thanks to her paranoia about what people were thinking and plotting behind smiles and soft warm eyes.
No reason to be suspicious of Anwei; she was helping out now, hoping to keep from being bothered in the future with questions. She would define this as 'laziness' actually. Walking Azula to the Media Library was no problem, and she had the feeling that exploring electronically stored media would not be intuitive for someone who thought of it as 'sorcery'.
"I used to have really long hair," she said, fingers brushing her shoulder as though remembering the weight of it. "I know how hard it is to take care of without the proper tools. You don't braid it up just one night, saying you'll get to it in the morning...and then in the morning you just shove it back and say you'll pick out the snarls later...and before you know it, it's just untamable." At least Azula's hair was partially tamed now.
"Or you spend who knows how long locked away in a cell with nothing to help care for it." Azula continued and sighed, "Once I had the finest oils and shampoos for my hair. And now look at it. I look like a peasant."
"You're out now. And I don't think you look much like a peasant." For one thing, a peasant wouldn't be able to afford a plantsuit as sophisticated and useful as the ones they were wearing.
They entered the library, a large room dominated by the shelves of mobile data-pad devices and the massive crystal Translation Engine in the center.
"Here we are. Have you been using your omnicomm to look at maps and such? This is the same idea, except there's a lot more information in here. Text, music, moving pictures."
Azula nodded, "Zam taught me how to use the omnicomm." She examined the area with a sharp careful eye, unwilling to let even the smallest detail escape her. "How does it work?"
"Good for her." It was good to hear that Zam was actually going to do some watching-over of Azula, and helping her. And that Azula was willing to accept that help.
"Well. You can think of a book as a physical object, or as something that holds a certain amount of information. The idea of the Library is that it holds all of the information in the equivalent of its 'memory', and can send that information to those pads on the shelves, or to your omnicomm, or to the terminals here. And just like you search through the omnicomm to find maps or messages, you can search through the terminal to find any information in the Library." She touched the terminal screen and it came alight under her fingers.
"Its knowledge is incredibly extensive; it has records from thousands upon thousands of worlds and universes. Not just historical information, but also fictional: recreations of real or imagined events that are so perfect that they look real - but they are still fiction. But...not everything is accessible."
She held up one hand as though to forestall any interruption. "When someone awakens on this ship, any specific records about them are hidden away. This is supposedly so they cannot be judged by their past acts, or by fictional recreations of their past acts; and also so that their weaknesses are not on display. So there will be no records of your world here, I think. But they are not lost. They are only - hidden."
She recognized the dark-haired girl in the hallway, still looking rather dishevelled but out from that cell at least. Free. And there was nobody with her - no wait, the ship's AI would - no, hold on. She frowned to herself for an instant, brow creasing. Of course, she had assumed (based on her own experience) that Azula would be under surveillance, accompanied and monitored at all times. But now that she thought about it, the Council might have just let her out.
Hopefully they would not end up regretting that.
"Hello, Azula," she said, smiling. "I'm glad to see you out and about."
Reply
"I'm glad to be out." Her voice sounded soft but not as worn as before. Even if physically she looked like she could drift away in a heavy wind, she sounded better at least.
"I'm just...looking around." She looked around and realized she really had no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there.
Reply
"There's a lot to take in at once, I know. And almost all of these hallways in the Living Area look the same; you have to just map them out in your mind. Stacy doesn't seem to believe in signs," she said, glancing at a grey-green tentacled wall that looked like every other grey-green tentacled wall. Maybe she should add Stacy-compatible skin dye to her theoretical shopping list.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like to see? I'm off duty right now, so I have some time to spare."
Reply
"I've just been looking...where do you think is somewhere worth seeing?" That question had served her well so far.
Reply
She rummaged through the pockets of the grey military jacket that she was wearing over her plantsuit. "Would you like to borrow my comb? It's quite clean," she said, finding it and holding it out. She'd picked it up on Gondepetil to try and keep her own flyaway hair under control, with limited success.
Reply
"I think I'd like to see the library if you wouldn't mind." She wasn't in the mood to study yet, but in time she would have to if she wanted to arm herself properly.
She accepted the comb carefully, "Thank you...I've spoken with someone about some more...appropriate clothes. I'll at least look less like a failure in time." She began to comb her tangled mess wincing as it got caught again and again.
Reply
"The library's on this level, actually. It's probably different from most libraries you've seen. And I wouldn't mind at all," she smiled.
She watched Azula wrestle with her hair with a worried expression. "I don't have any hair oil, I'm afraid. Maybe if you tied it at the nape of your neck with some string, it wouldn't pull so hard?" Because the pulling would stop at the tie, of course. She started rummaging through her pockets, trying to find the shortest length of string she had. She didn't offer to hold the hair herself, or to comb it: some cultures held that hair was too personal to be touched. And she did not want to offend someone who could throw fire.
Reply
"Thank you." she accepted the string and after some fiddling managed to partially tame her hair. More effort would be required later.
She passed the comb back to Anwei "Do not imagine for a moment I don't know how to care for my hair...I've just fallen out of practice." A sharp defense thanks to her paranoia about what people were thinking and plotting behind smiles and soft warm eyes.
Reply
"I used to have really long hair," she said, fingers brushing her shoulder as though remembering the weight of it. "I know how hard it is to take care of without the proper tools. You don't braid it up just one night, saying you'll get to it in the morning...and then in the morning you just shove it back and say you'll pick out the snarls later...and before you know it, it's just untamable." At least Azula's hair was partially tamed now.
Reply
Vanity thy name was Azula.
Reply
They entered the library, a large room dominated by the shelves of mobile data-pad devices and the massive crystal Translation Engine in the center.
"Here we are. Have you been using your omnicomm to look at maps and such? This is the same idea, except there's a lot more information in here. Text, music, moving pictures."
Reply
Reply
"Well. You can think of a book as a physical object, or as something that holds a certain amount of information. The idea of the Library is that it holds all of the information in the equivalent of its 'memory', and can send that information to those pads on the shelves, or to your omnicomm, or to the terminals here. And just like you search through the omnicomm to find maps or messages, you can search through the terminal to find any information in the Library." She touched the terminal screen and it came alight under her fingers.
"Go ahead," she invited.
Reply
"And everything the ship has in its library is accessible through here? How extensive is it's collective knowledge?"
Reply
She held up one hand as though to forestall any interruption. "When someone awakens on this ship, any specific records about them are hidden away. This is supposedly so they cannot be judged by their past acts, or by fictional recreations of their past acts; and also so that their weaknesses are not on display. So there will be no records of your world here, I think. But they are not lost. They are only - hidden."
Reply
"And plenty of information about our enemy I hope?"
Reply
Leave a comment