Application: Acorna Harakamian-Li, the Acorna series

[lady_kirin]

Acorna isn't sure what to make of this. She looks around the sorting room - strange and austere, but even without the purifying effect of her horn, the air is clean and safe if a little musty, and she doesn't see any immediate danger - and turns back to the door she came in through, which looks nothing like any hatch ever installed on the Condor.

Comments

[psycho_vertue]

Either the girl had paid a lot of money at a good body shop, or she was some kind of alien or genetic experiment. Given the general weirdness of this place, Diana would have been willing to put money on the latter.

"What in the hell are you?" she asked in her ruined voice, deciding to get that out of the way first and foremost.

[lady_kirin]

This wasn't the first time she'd heard such a demand, of course, and in this case it seemed to be motivated by curiosity. Still, it was a little odd; although her people weren't a common sight in most areas of human-controlled space, it had been a few years since first contact, and that had not been particularly low profile. "I am Linyaari," she replied simply, with a slight undertone of confusion in her voice.

[psycho_vertue]

"That's not helping in the least." Diana fixed the girl with piercing blue eyes, matter-of-fact. "Wherever you came from isn't the same as where you are now, and there probably won't be people who understand what the hell you're talking about. So let me simplify it for you. Are you an alien, a lab experiment, a vanity project, or something else?"

[lady_kirin]

"Oh. Alien, I suppose," Acorna said. "My race was originally the product of genetic engineering, but we've been breeding true for generations."

[journal_aigis]

"You are a healer, then."

Ah, Aigis, thanks for the obvious.

"A healer is useful in battle."

[lady_kirin]

"Well, yes," Acorna agrees, somewhat reluctantly. She has, after all, seen a good deal more battle than most Linyaari, which is to say, any at all. "But battle is hardly the only situation where a healer is useful."

[journal_aigis]

"Yes, but from what I have observed doctors do not have the ability to just heal injuries, they must examine a patient and do complicated things."

[lady_kirin]

"I have little experience with human doctors," Acorna admits, "but you would be incredibly unlikely to find one of my kind on a battlefield, in any situation short of our homeworld being threatened. We Linyaari are pacifists."

[im_wacky_times]

So a T-Rex walked into a bar a Sorting Room.

"Where's that sound? Where's that sound coming from? UTAHRAPTOR IS THAT YOU" he demanded, sans necessary punctuation.

[lady_kirin]

Ok. Large scaly being with lots of sharp teeth. At least it was asking inane questions rather than attacking people. Acorna would have to give it the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm sorry, it's not. My name is Acorna," she said.

[im_wacky_times]

The tyrannosaurus looked down.

"Whoa, another not-so-tiny woman!" T-Rex had not yet figured out that something was making him smaller so he could fit inside buildings. Rather, he assumed all the women, cars, and houses he might see were smaller than the ones he usually stomped. "And another one who has a name!"

Most tiny women didn't seem to have names or identifying details.

"So why are you named after a tree seed?" T-Rex wanted to know.

[lady_kirin]

"Actually, it's from the latin word for horn," Acorna explains, pushing her silvery mane of curls away from her face to better reveal the golden horn on her forehead. "Because of, well, my horn."

[amandagraystone]

"Linyaari?" Amanda wasn't surprised that she'd never heard of this. She just wanted to know what it meant. Besides, apparently, whatever-kind-of-thing-this-person-is.

[lady_kirin]

"Literally, 'one of the people,'" Acorna translated, with a polite smile. "Although I think that's what most peoples' words for themselves mean, really. We occupy an area near the edge of the human Federated Space."

[amandagraystone]

"I would call myself a human by species, a Caprican by nationality. Is linyaari a species, or a nationality, or both?"

[lady_kirin]

"Both. Our population is tiny compared to humanity - we only inhabit a couple of planets, under a single government."

[ugly_old_hat]

"So...you're basically the love child of a giant filtration system and a Band-Aid, is that right?" the Hat asked breezily as it settled on Acorna's head.

[lady_kirin]

"I can fulfill the purposes of both, yes, if that's what you mean," she answers, hoping that the hat was speaking metaphorically.

[ugly_old_hat]

"Oh, excellent, how useful! And then what happens to the blood and goo and pollution after you've soaked it all up? More importantly, was Josephine Brita your great-great-grandmother? And are the Johnsons on your maternal or paternal side?"

The Hat paused for a moment and then added urgently, "No, no, answer this: WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE PULLED OFF WITHOUT RIPPING EVERY SINGLE FIBER FROM MY SURFACE? No matter how I pull -- quickly, slowly...it doesn't matter, it stings like a Doxie bite EVERY TIME!"

[lady_kirin]

Acorna sighs. "I'm not literally the love child of a filtration system and a band-aid. I just have certain abilities that are similar. My species is distantly related to unicorns," she explains - the dinosaur mentioned unicorns earlier, so it seems like a safe assumption that the Ancestors are something of a known quantity around here, "and we've inherited many of the same abilities."