all_inclusive | Look upward and share the wonders I've seen

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Look upward and share the wonders I've seen

Chiana walked through the gardens, black eyes wide as she took in the strange array of alien flora. She had never seen flowers of such colour as this one, or one that smelled as sickly sweet as that one, and what of these strange vines? Inside the hotel, she felt on edge, surrounded by too many people, most of them those humans that looked exactly like Sebaceans. Peacekeepers everywhere, how could she not be on edge.

But out here, it turned out, she could relax. There was nobody that might harm her, and nobody she might need to take advantage of. Just plants, and her. She followed a strange yellow and black striped flying bug as it flitted from one flower to the next, her lips stretched in a smile full of wonder. If only Nerri were here to see this with her…

She stopped where she was when she caught sight of a field, and in it... What kind of animals were these? There were a few of them, four-legged and big, even taller than her when they raised their heads, grazing in that pasture. They came in different colours as well and, before she'd really decided to, her feet had taken her to the edge of the pasture. They seemed so peaceful, but she didn't dare vault over the barrier, wary of creatures she did not know. Some would turn on you in an instant.

She shifted her balance when one of the animals headed her way; she was ready to flee. A curious tilt of her head, but the animal just stopped in front of her, on the other side of the barrier, and watched her placidly. She shifted her balance again and leaned closer, extending a gloved hand to pat its brown coat. The animal sighed out through its nostrils, but let her. She smiled again and stepped closer, laughing her shrill little laugh when the animal nudged his nose at her hand. "You're a bossy one, what do you want," she asked it, delighted, and resumed petting it. "Shame the microbes don't work on your language, huh?"

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Eames has seen a great deal in his life, but often he has to imagine that some of it shouldn't be surprising, given the wealth and breadth of possibility in a dream. The vision before him (a monochromatic woman petting farm creatures) looks like it belongs in the dream, and yet, here he is and his totem indicates reality.

Then again, this hotel has become quite the challenge upon his grasp on reality. "Food and affection," he says, having overheard her question. "Generally, that's what anyone wants, isn't it?" he adds, with a flash of a charming grin.

Chiana starts at the sound of another voice; bad habit, letting herself be sneaked up on. Not that the - presumably human - guy looks like he was sneaking, when she turns to face him. Her body language relaxes, even if she doesn't, not really. She doesn't know him, after all, even if she knows that smile. She's used that smile, and will again.

But not right now; right now, it's a smaller twitch of her lips, like she's not more confident than that about it, as she shifts her balance from one foot to the other. "I don't even know what it eats." Hopefully not Nebari, though, and she turns back to the animal when it noses at her shoulder. Definitely pushy, and she resumes petting its head. "Affection'll have to do."

Eames looks rather amused at the start, feeling as if it's been ages since he's been startled and half misses the unexpected thrill that comes of surprise. "I think, generally, someone is paid to feed them," he says, leaning his hip against the fence as he comes to regard the woman more curiously. "Pardon my saying, but I've never seen anyone who looks like you, not ever."

"Yeah, you people stare a lot," Chiana confirms, apparently focused back on the animal. But she keeps part of her attention on the human, just in case he tries anything. She gives him a half smile and a glance, "Not that I mind, sometimes." Flirting is in her blood, what can she say.

"I stare at everything," Eames confesses, as if such an accusation is hardly going to stop him. After all, he's stared at a great many people throughout his life, though usually to inspect them and try and make forgeries from them. "You're singularly the most unique thing I've seen," he informs her. "Outside of my dreams, of course."

"Is that a line you give all the non-human girls?" Chiana asked him with a smirk, clearly looking him up and down, because, well, obviously. Her flirting style was just like her: not exactly subtle.

"Don't be so silly, I'd hardly stop at non-human girls, that's very limiting," Eames says, hand to his heart as though he's actually somewhat offended by the idea that he wouldn't chat up anything that was attractive -- though perhaps he ought to consider stopping that, given that Arthur might frown upon it.

Hopefully frowning is all he'd do. Eames doesn't actually think Arthur's armed right now. "What's your name, then?"

"Chiana," she answers, resting her gloved hand on the animal's neck. She tilts her head in a way that clearly means 'what's yours?', or clearly when you're used to her kind of body language, anyway, a lot more expressive than most humans, but not always easy to decipher when you're only used to the human sort.

"Eames," is his cheerful reply, glancing out to the pasture as he adjusts his posture and leans most of his weight against one of the posts. "Chiana's an interesting name, though, not heard it before," he admits. "Where are you from?"

"Probably not anywhere you ever heard of, Eames," Chiana answers honestly. "Not if you're from Earth." And if he isn't, she's going to be on her guard a lot more - not that he couldn't simply lie about it, obviously, and she's keeping that in mind, too. At least he very clearly isn't Establishment.

"I'm from Earth, but I have a very active imagination and quite a bit of curiosity about the worlds that might exist," he replies, thinking that perhaps he's about to get his very first contact story to share with Arthur and many new ideas for dreams to explore. "Won't know until you tell me."

"It's called Nebari Prime," Chiana replies, watching him closely. Some species have barely perceptible responses they can't control, and humans don't exactly seem all that advanced. "I wouldn't recommend visiting, not if you value your active imagination." The Establishment has ways to suck that kind of thing right out of you.

Edited 2014-07-17 11:42 (UTC)

Of course he's never heard of it, but his imagination does the trick of coming up with a handy image of what it looks like, a rather picturesque place that he can see a woman like Chiana in. "Now, it seems I am a bit behind," he says, trying to sound charming and calm. "I've never heard of your charming-sounding planet or world or place or dimension," he rattles off the words, as if they're all of them a possibility. "Do you miss it much, then? Or do you find our little slice of strangeness similar enough?"

"I haven't missed it since I left, many cycles ago," Chiana assured him with a half-smile and a little tilt of her head for emphasis. There was nothing to miss on her home planet - or if there had been, she had long since taught herself to lock that away, deep down, and never think about it again. "What aboutcha? D'you miss Earth?"

The noise Eames gives in return comes from the base of his throat. It's amusement tempered with the knowledge that he can both go back home anytime, but he can also slip into a dream given that he has a PASIV conveniently tucked away in the hotel room safe, just in case he needs it. "Hardly. I haven't been away from it long enough to miss it. I'm rather blessed by the ability to go back and forth with home, should I choose. Sometimes, I'd rather stay here."

"I wish I could go back," Chiana states, bluntly and very honestly (saying that truth costs her nothing). Not go back to her home planet, of course - frel that - but to the Uncharted Territories, and to a world where Nerri exists. "But so far, I've been stuck here."

Her friend the animal has wandered off back to its mates, probably on account of the lack of food, so she hops on the fence, sitting on top of it, making the precarious balance look natural.

"I hear that just happens to some people," she adds, and shrugs. She'll wait however long she has to before she can go back. She's nothing if not adaptable.

"I wander freely here and back," Eames agrees, shifting so that he's nodding in the direction of the hotel, never content to simply sit back when an idea's struck him. "Come on, let's go see what we can find," he encourages, even though she's just put herself on the fence. "If not your home, I'm sure we'll be able to find something exciting."

Chiana tilts her head to the side, leaning on one hand on the fence as she considers his offer. She doesn't know him, but the thought of maybe getting away from all the humans here is a tempting one. "How do you know we won't get stuck there?" She'd rather be stuck somewhere one door away from her world than two.

"I don't," is his cheerful reply, as if that's occurred to him and he's simply moved on from the notion with ease. "Then again, I've nearly been stuck in far worse places," he says. "So why not enjoy my time stuck in a luxury hotel, hm? I don't even have to touch my bank account for the room, what could be so wrong with that?"

"I mean on the other side of whichever door we step through," Chiana replies, still watching him closely. He seems so carefree, and she can't figure out if it's an act or the truth of who he is. She isn't sure if that would make him crazy or wise, to be perfectly honest. "There's no telling that'll be half as pleasant a stay."

Eames doesn't flinch or change his outward appearance, remaining calm in the face of this suggestion. "I assure you that I'm well capable of managing myself in any situation. Once, a very long time ago in my younger days," he says, rueful as though he has many stories about those days, "I served my country quite thoroughly in the army."

There's the hint of a twist to Chiana's lips at his first words. Just the way she would have phrased it herself, 'managing myself' rather than anything including protection of anybody else. She can appreciate that, and trust it for what it is.

But his next words ruin any kind of friendliness she might have felt for him, although it doesn't show outwardly. 'Once' and 'a very long time ago' (how long is a long time ago, for humans, she really isn't sure), but military men can always come in handy, she has learned, even if she has never appreciated them other than as marks. Serving. That was the right word for it.

"Well then," she grins, clearly warmly teasing as she pushes off the fence and steps towards him, "that's gotta mean I'd be perfectly safe in your company." She doesn't think he's the type to go for a girl without a little spunk, so friendly teasing is the obvious way to go.

Eames gives her a smirk and though she's absolutely not anywhere near safe in his company (at least, not with his wandering fingers), it's hardly as if he's about to announce that to her. "Safe as anything," he assures, smiling as if the sweetness on his expression is actually genuine. He continues along to the doors, gesturing for her to go first. "After you."

Chiana gives one last look at the animal, who's long since walked off and could care less, before she follows after Eames. She's fine with the silence as they head back to the hotel; it gives her an opportunity to watch the human. The way they walk is very Sebacean, as well, this one as much as the others. Her gait, by contrast, is a lot more... expressive, for lack of a better word. Not that it expresses anything but what she wants it to, although she isn't even sure that humans can read Nebari body language.

They stop in front of a few doors, and she points at them in turn, humming a Nebari song under her breath, before she grins at Eames and picks the one in the middle, because she likes it best.

She opens it and takes half a step in, standing in the doorframe and looking in at the quiet room on the other side. It doesn't look like anything she's seen before coming to the hotel, with what she has learned to recognise as a very human pattern on the walls. Curtains, a couple of rugs, refined wooden furniture (how odd; wood is for things not refined, the way she sees it, wood is for blunt and rustic and simple), warm tones and shelves full of old-fashioned books. She steps in fully to go and look out the window, without expecting her life disc to start functioning again. This is clearly not her universe.

Outside, the streets are dirty and filled with humans. There are more of those four-legged animals, being ridden or pulling carts along. She puts her gloved hand on the window pane and watches for a few seconds, dark eyes wide and unblinking, before she glances back to check on Eames, and the door.

Eames gives her a bemused look as he follows along after her, thinking that he might need to shelve away some mannerisms and looks for the next abstract dream they need to pitch for someone. Imagination does get you far, but having a real life model is something that shouldn't be simply ignored. Eames subtly steals a hat from a nearby post when they find themselves in what appears to be a time long ago, settling it upon his head to blend in.

"Do you want to go outside?"

"It looks very... human," Chiana guesses, because of the animals. Unlikely all those people are Sebaceans. "People in the hotel stare at me already." And they're in a hotel that serves as a nexus between worlds.

She turns her head to look at Eames with a half smile as she continues, "So, are they likely to think I'm a superor being or a threat? Getting lynched wasn't in my plans for today."

"People stare at others only because you're drawing attention by being something they envy or fear," Eames opines, having learned enough about dreams and the theories of them to know what calls attention to someone. "If anyone thinks you're a threat, I'll simply intervene. I can be very charming and persuasive when need be."

Chiana's half smile stretches into a teasing grin. "Because I'm safe around you, Former Military Man," she acknowledges, humour twinkling in her eyes. "Alright, then."

She isn't dressed anything like the people outside, in her corset, skintight pants and tall boots, but that's the least of what's going to make her stand out.

"Let's go and have an adventure."

Properly affixing the hat upon his head, Eames feels as if he fits right in. Of course, he also thinks that about wherever he goes, given his predilection for shifting and fitting into the landscape, giving her a smirk as he leans in closer. "Don't trust me too much," he rumbles, breath wafting near her neck. "I'm former for a reason," he says, grinning like he enjoys that fact.

Chiana just grins, absolutely unbothered by what others might consider an invasion of their personal space. In fact, when Eames pulls back it's her turn to sidle close, and hook her arm through his as she gives him a radiant smile. "Well, alright, Eames. Now I'm starting to really like you."

People you can't trust are the best people, of course.

"If that's the case, I should have brought my rap sheet," he says, privately delighted by the idea that she likes the notion of him being a convict and that it isn't a strike against him but rather something to be obscenely proud of. "I'm quite the accomplished ne'er-do-well. I take it that's something you enjoy?"

"Ne'er-do-well," she echoes, clearly enjoying the phrase in a way that means that it is a new one to her. "I like that. I like that a lot," she confirms, still grinning as they reach the stairs, but she doesn't like him enough that she doesn't let go of his arm and gesture for him to go first.

He made her go first through the door, it's only fair play.

Eames chuckles, low and warm, and doesn't mind at all when she makes the gesture. He allows a bow of his head, smirking as he wanders through the door in order to head outside, fixing his hat before he does much else. "I'm glad to know my new companion has great manners," he praises wryly.

"Manners," she echoes thoughtfully, as if trying to remember what those are. "Sure, I can have those. I'm not sure about human manners, though," she adds with a warning smile, just a little sharp, before she follows him out the door. She stands on the doorstep for a few seconds, just taking it all in. There's so much dust, and so much is made of wood. It looks primitive, which is fitting for humans. Le 1 août 2014 18:36, "seeorseem - DW Comment" dw_null@dreamwidth.org a écrit :

"And what are your manners like?" Eames wonders, given that he never has met an alien woman before, but if he's going to expand his little book of potential disguises for dreams, he thinks he ought to at least research with great depth. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be accurate, now would it?

"Mine? I made a point never to develop any, Eames." Her answer sounds a little distracted, because she still expects people to attack her. Some stare on their way past them, some others do a weird gesture with their hands, forehead-chest-shoulder-shoulder, and others seem happy to ignore her. Fine with her, and she looks back at her companion with a sharp smile. "The ones I was supposed to grow involved not having an opinion. Or much freedom. I didn't really care for them." Le 2 août 2014 20:16, "seeorseem - DW Comment" dw_null@dreamwidth.org a écrit :

Eames doesn't give anyone a second look, but perhaps that's because he's started to treat this world and all the worlds like it as though dreams, where projections are merely your subconscious and need to be ignored and only dealt with in the last possible circumstances. "Manners akin to a prison? What sort of terrible world did you live in?"

"Now you're getting it," Chiana congratulated him with a sharp smile, walking by his side through the streets of what was probably a town? A small town, anyway. "I can't remember not wanting to take off." Fortunately, Nerri had been right there with her.

"Then we have some more in common," Eames says amiably, though his escaping had little to do with taking off and far more to do with delving deep, deep into dreams because anything was possible, there. "And where did you take off to? You made it here, after all."

"You don't know Nebari, you won't know the Uncharted Territories," Chiana answers offhandedly, her attention still nicely split between the town around them and the conversation they're having. She looks away from another one of those animals Eames had found her petting, and up at her companion. "What were you escaping?"

Eames shrugs and gives her a rather bemused look, seeing as he doubts that she'll understand. "I was born into a rather well off family, which means that my little dealings weren't so happily accepted, given my quick fingers and my other hobbies."

"You keep talking like this, I might have to forgive you for having been military," Chiana warns him with a sharp grin, sidling closer to him as they walked. She has to wonder how close to her other hobbies his are, since they seem to share at least the one.

"Don't we all make mistakes when we're young?" Eames points out with a cavalier shrug of his shoulders, as if this mistake is one that he simply had slid past it, onto a life of crime and excitement, never ashamed of such a thing. "Mine happened to be the military. Besides, it led me to very interesting pastures."

"Though, not as interesting as this," he says, of the Wild West around him.

Ax found eating easiest out here, aside from finding tasty human food inside anyway, even though he had to put up with being compared to the horses a lot. At least they were used to him by now, despite his strange scent and appearance. He had finished eating and had crossed back over the fence with a graceful leap when he saw the newcomer. She was not human, he could tell that, but he was not familiar with her species. He watched her, guarded, but not threatening at the moment. For now, she did not appear ready to attack, and he hoped it remained that way.

Chiana's attention was dragged away from the animal by something - someone? - leaping over the fence. She turned to look, and immediately went on her guard again. Whoever or whatever it was was clearly looking back at her, and her body language shifted accordingly as she took a step back from the animal. The newcomer looked more familiar than the animals, despite sharing their legs, with his partially blue skin and antennae, but the vicious-looking tail on him didn't make her feel at ease.

"Hello," she called out, ready to flee if she had to.

She didn't appear frightened initially, that was good. He would stay watchful, of course, but he kept his body language neutral for the moment-alert, able to tale action, but not appearing ready to strike either.

he replied. He wondered how she would react to the thought-speech.

The odd sense of a greeting bloomed in her mind and Chiana frowned, before taking a tentative step forward, focused on the other creature. No mouth, of course it would use telepathy. She could only hope he wasn't the kind that could read minds, since she liked to keep hers to herself, but just communicate that way.

"And where are you from?" she asked curiously, still ready to run at an instant's notice. That tail. That tail.

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Look upward and share the wonders I've seen

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