[Closed]

[justscribing]

WHO: (fussiest), (justscribing), (cashewlater), & (wreatharrow)
WHAT: Sumeru crew have a little huddle.
WHERE: Some little cafe with outdoor tables.
WHEN: Early July
WARNINGS: N/A







[It's been a couple days for them all to try and orient themselves in this situation. And, given it's already a strange situation, it might as well just get stranger when Alhaitham is the one who makes a decision that they need a gathering between the four of them that already know each other and have the same place to get back to.

In the morning, he scouts nearby blocks until he finds a small cafe, empty as every other place is but with small tables outside which are a suitable meeting space. Also, maybe he can take some coffee bags to go.

Then, he sends a message to Tighnari and Cyno:]

You're not busy this afternoon, right? [Trick question none of them are busy.] Come meet with Kaveh and I around 1 pm. We should establish a routine with each other and share what information we've found.

[And he'll send along the location, and a photo of the cafe front. Just in case.

Kaveh gets less warning, because Alhaitham decides to just tell him in person when he catches him: they're meeting with Cyno and Tighnari (did he know they were here? Well, anyway,). They'll walk there together. Alhaitham brings one of those blank books and a pen, because he's sure he'll want notes.

And slides into one of the cafe seats, just a bit before the designated hour.]

Comments

[justscribing]

I'm just curious how long you will delay eating that cookie.

[fussiest]

You- I'm not delaying! [ says he, delaying like hell, ] If anything, your refusal to eat it is distracting me from eating it. One can say this is all your fault right now.

[justscribing]

Blaming other people now? You're running out of excuses quickly.

[fussiest]

An excuse! [ kaveh grabs his cookie. he shoves it into his own mouth, all very attractive-like, ] We'll see what - [ ugh. he chews. kaveh makes a face.

... ] ... it really is too sweet.

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham's lips curl at the edges in amusement.] I believe what you were testing was whether it tasted like strawberry, not the degree of sweetness.

[fussiest]

[ kaveh's going to throw the second cookie at alhaitham. an underhanded lo, if you will. this is adults doing adult things. ]

I'm using the same qualifier! They certainly overtaxed this strawberry. They've done something to it, and now it doesn't quite taste like it ought to. I think all strawberries here must taste this way, and that's just bleak to think about.

[justscribing]

[Fresh strawberries could be the control group, they only have to find them in one of the grocery.

This thought doesn't even get to begin to form in Alhaitham's head, because Kaveh catches him completely off guard by tossing the next cookie at him.

It bounces off his chest.] All this sugar must have addled your brain.

[fussiest]

[ kaveh opens his mouth. he makes for a magnificent last stand of an argument. ... he closes his mouth with an audible click. ]

It wouldn't have been an issue if you had just caught it. [ says he. but years of being relatively bound to societal niceties has him guiltily scooping up the cookie from where it had bounced from alhaitham's chest, slipping it onto the table with a grimace. ] Fine, the strawberries are terrible. This wasn't something I wanted to spend a significant amount of time finding out, but I suppose it was inevitable at some point.

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham hums and looks down at his journal.] I'll make a note about it.

[What he actually makes a note about is to find fresh strawberries and confirm if it's a culinary issue or a cultivation one.]

[fussiest]

[ kaveh, who can read upside-down as well as he can read backwards: ]

Oh, I'll put my money on cultivation. You?

[justscribing]

Culinary. [Of course.] Whoever baked these should find another career.

[fussiest]

While I don't disagree, I doubt a human being actually did any of this. Everything's too uniform. It's as if I programmed Karkata to do one thing and one thing only, and that was to smash strawberries into a pulp and put it into a cookie.

[justscribing]

Do you think that's a technological advancement or the nature of this place? [Overly clean, overly uniform. Unreal. It's not like Alhaitham has seen the cookie-making process.]

[fussiest]

Couldn't it be both? [ the moment kaveh says it, he feels that weariness again. something like sadness over value lost like so. ] Technological advancement that's been warped to soullessness. Like a domain with marvels within, but which is ripe with corruption. Even the marvel of some of those buildings seem washed out and colourless, and even with people living in them, it doesn't feel anything like the buildings we have in Sumeru City, right? There's something that's missing, or stamped out, or taken away. I don't know what it is. But I'm not surprised the food is terrible because of it.

[justscribing]

Sure, it could be that this is a shallow replication of an already utilitarian city. [It still makes one of those aspects more important than the other, he thinks.

He casts a look across the buildings down the street.] If Azar and the other sages had continued to have their way, perhaps this is what would have become of Sumeru City over time.

[Largely deprived of art and nature. It is, ultimately, idle musing, but it wasn't so long ago that he recalls being ordered to draft a ban against public art.]

[fussiest]

[ kaveh starts. in the middle of trying to turn over the package without spilling the cookies so that he can make an attempt at reading the ingredients list, he looks over to alhaitham with eyes the size of small saucers: ]

Oh, you might be onto something. Colour! That's what this place needs. I've always thought it, but I never thought you'd be the one to voice it.

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham shrugs a shoulder. He had noticed, of course, and then it became relevant to the topic.]

You brought up a point I realized could apply to this whole place: that it's as lifeless in design because of the technology and culture of whoever it was based on, rather than a blank slate to prevent us from figuring our location.

[fussiest]

Yes, yes, and I still think that. But I also didn't think from the perspective that there are certain changes we can enact to see what this city will do about it that isn't crime. Art is a matter of self-expression. Self-expression by itself is not a crime.

[ kaveh says this firmly. nilou, after all, had been nearly persecuted for what she did to help liberate the country - but her art remained at the core merely a way for her to bring happiness to the people. the act of doing so isn't a crime, or shouldn't be. that the differentiation is like so hurts kaveh's heart. ] I have my next project cut out for me, then. I suspect it's something that only I will be able to do.

[justscribing]

Vandalism is a crime. [Not that he's going to actually prevent Kaveh from painting the town rainbow should he so desire. He doesn't actually thinking painting murals is going to earn admonishment if public intoxication and, apparently, stealing a chandelier do not.]

You'll need paint.

[fussiest]

I know where to get paint. Their quality seems dubious, but I can make do. [ and then, of course, because this is kaveh: ] Do you think this city knows the difference between vandalism and art? That might be a bit too subjective for a place like this, much like it is with you.

[justscribing]

[With the slightest uptick of the corner of his mouth:] I think you're going to find out.

[Because this is Kaveh, who clung to the notion of art even when the Akademiya continued to deride that form of self-expression. When has the opinion of the powerful been what influences Kaveh?]

[fussiest]

[ alhaitham's lips quirk, just enough that the balance of line to quirk is but a singular, dangling fisherman's hook, a cat's tail along a sunny veranda. kaveh breathes out, and, because he is kaveh, takes a strawberry cookie and presses it against that curve.

there. ]

I will find out. [ because that echo is there: that no matter what anyone says, kaveh will find out. in what universe can anything compel him otherwise?

and who else is there to witness it but alhaitham? ] And you will hear about it. I know where you live, now. You can't run.

[justscribing]

You say that like I'm the one that makes running a habit. [And then he tilts his head from where the cookie was poking uncomfortably at his gums, and eats it right out from Kaveh's fingers.]

[fussiest]

[ like a spoiled cat. kaveh rolls his eyes. he dusts crumbs from his fingers, and in lieu of anything else around he's interested in drinking, he takes that can of orange nightmare back to sip. ]

Hide, then. Like a mole, or some kind of a small, scurrying creature.

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham chews the cookie slowly, stone-faced, as he tears apart the overly-sugary flavor and the uncomfortably completing textures of much-too-dry and much-too-chewy. It certainly doesn't settle well when he swallows.]

You can't stop me from changing the locks. [It's an empty threat.]