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WHO: (

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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.]

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.

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.]

[ 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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

[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?]

[ 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.

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.]

[ 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.

[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.]

You can't stop me from taking the hinges off your door.

[ sweetly, like the cookie is. kaveh grins. ]

Awful, right?

That's definitely a crime. [Well, Kaveh? Gonna break the law so you can tell him if you already broke the law?]

If it's a crime, it'll be one worth committing. Don't get too comfortable, now.

[ but the taunt comes, as always, with balm - even if it's the offering of the too-sweet orange soda. you know, to wash down that awful cookie. ]

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