eastbound | [handmaiden of unsheathed swords] audio posted:

[ he stares the other man in the face for a moment, and can't help thinking: that smile.

Even a smile as awful as that that puts a shadow of Rynn across his face.

It's stupid. They're nothing alike, really, except for when Mingyu is being a pain in his ass. But here's this stranger with his dead boyfriend and his dark magic and his fight to survive, who dresses in white and likes to tease too much, and Archeval can't help thinking such stupid thoughts anyway.

Darth Baras's apprentice, the Emperor's Wrath, was years and multiple planets and many galactic crises ago. Arche had even met someone else in all that time, sort of, kind of, maybe.

How funny to be deposited here, halfway across the galaxy from where Rynn died, only to be confronted with something like this. You really can't escape the past. ]

I suppose I can't argue with that.

[ His gaze turns downward toward the tech, soft-spoken for once, as he examines the ports on Mingyu's phone. After some fiddling he sticks a thumb over the USB before making a few more checks, glancing between the two devices. He sends a text hail experimentally over his comm, and it pops up a slightly garbled SMS notification on Mingyu's screen. Mingyu can probably feel the sensation of a little something-or-other happening at the table once again. ]

...this does audiovisual but not holo, yes?

[ The words, coming a few minutes later, still have a sort of hush to them. When he hands the phone back at last, the battery indicator glows softly around 92%. ]

Edited 2021-04-21 00:32 (UTC)

[ Some of those photos of Mingyu had a far more familiar smile to Rynn in his less guarded moments, perhaps. Likely that Rynn was never so unburdened as that, but Archeval always had a way bringing out a brightness in him.

There is no such glimmer of light in Mingyu now, but seeing his phone near fully charged does spark some grim amusement. ]

I suppose if sewing work is beneath you, I should not be surprised that being a walking power bank isn't either. That's quite useful. [ Mingyu pauses, his smile softening around the edges, just a hair. ]

Thank you. Let me know if you run short on makeup, or something.

[ shrugging, he lets a little lightning dance over his fingertips ] I like to think of myself as practical when it counts.

But yes, I suppose I will at that. And you know how to raise me if you need another charge. [ he drawls this out dryly, picking up his little commlink off the table to wave it a bit ] I suggest the audiovisual rather than trying to wrestle with the stones for text on these things. My commlink's signal range is excellent, but I'm not picking up off-planet signals from here so I wasn't able to download anything to translate your languages myself.

[ sigh ] And I wouldn't say sewing is my favorite, but I find myself short on other useful skills that are safe to be bandied about here. Though perhaps I'll have the chance to stretch my legs a little soon.

Oh? Planning a little rampage? Some corpses to cut down?

[ Mingyu asks this mildly with an idle curiosity, the way a parent might ask a child about a hobby they're not particularly interested in but wish to be polite about. He suspects it to be some stripe of not strictly necessary violence, considering the source. ]

[ Yeah he's not that complicated. Well, no, that's not true. His hobbies, however. ]

Haltham tells me our gracious hosts, all unsurprisingly, are busy trying to kick the annoying foreigners out of their home and have no thought to spare for the slave ships coming into port here soon. [ sitting back to sip his stolen tea some more, arching his brows with a deep frown ] Not ideal conditions to run an op, but the least I can do is make it everyone's problem.

You what now? [ Mingyu asks, the information coming a bit hard and fast so he has to give it a second pass to follow. ]

Referring to our lot as 'annoying foreigners' is a laughable understatement to start with, but what is this about slave ships now? Just what kind of trouble are you planning?

[ he gives a shrug. And will finally reach over for some of that cake. Mingyu hasn't touched any yet, so it's a risk, but one must keep a certain balance between paranoia and etiquette. ]

I don't know anything about what the conditions will be going in yet. But there are sentients arriving for sale. Heading in, breaking the bonds on any who want out, and seeing them safely into the city should be doable enough at the very least.

[ Archeval, why would he let any harm come to his brand new phone charger when he doesn't have a good backup? You're invaluable.

Mingyu continues to simply absorb information, sorting through it in his mind, running a quick threat assessment as he's grown long used to doing. ]

How soon are these ships arriving? Do you have means of gathering more information, or are you bored enough that barging in with half baked plans sounds like a good time? Have you thought about how that may impact the rest of the refugees here?

[ giving Mingyu a dry look over his teacup ] Not all of us have insinuated ourselves into a prime intelligence-gathering apparatus around here, but people do talk and I've worked with less. As far as I'm aware the sentients will be coming in along with the rest of the merchants' wares -- [ giving a purse of his lips at that ] -- when the upcoming... bazaar, or what have you, is happening at the port. The chaos of people milling around should be helpful for some to get lost in, though of course it's a risk. Conditions on the ground could be highly variable.

[ shrugging a little again. He says nothing about the other refugees yet, calmly sipping tea ]

Are you volunteeering to help, then?

Hardly. I don't get out of bed unless I have reason to believe it'll be worth my while. This is sounding quite the opposite.

[ Mingyu sighs, not caring if he sounds unsympathetic towards human trafficking. Archeval has already peeked behind the curtain and agreed to keep his secrets, so he's not concerned about optics in this moment. ]

What do you know of the political situation here? Of the laws around slavery? Of existing rebellions? Escape rates? Recapture rates? What is done to slaves who are reacquired?

I'm sure you haven't failed to notice the tenuous situation we ourselves are in.

You're going to risk all of us, for what? There are children among our number. There are even some decent people. But you, what, identify a problem you can project your personal issues wildly onto and decide you have to do something about it?

[ his brows raise high over the top of that teacup now. That gaze is a little colder than a moment ago. ]

And you think there will be no children or decent people coming in?

The rest is semantics. Laws and statistics are immaterial. For sentients who want out, there will be three outcomes: They'll get away to whatever fate they can claim. They'll suffer. Or they'll die. If any would rather stay and grovel at their masters' feet than risk the uncertainty, that's no business of mine. Better to at least provide the out that I can than pretend I see nothing. [ pursing his lips ]

If the other refugees might worry about drawing attention, I suppose they could always all hole up quietly in here, sic the warlord's dogs on me and leave me to my fate. Counterintuitive for the locals, but as long as the rest of you get away, no harm done, I suppose? [ giving a sardonic snort ] Maybe we would all finally find out whether it's possible for me to die.

I'm saying it's incredibly strange to feel obligation to complete hypothetical strangers rather than people you have been living with. Surely you didn't get this far in life by making every single stranger you remotely hear of into your personal crusade?

[ The sheer short-sighted, apparent hypocrisy of it makes Mingyu sit up, staring Archeval down in his disbelief. ]

Will you be enlisting the others to feed the hungry and house the poor of Sa-Hareth next, or is your charity limited to dangerous sea excursions certain to attract the attention and wrath of people with money and therefor power?

[ just straight up giving Mingyu a flat stare now as he stabs his fork into a piece of cake. ]

So I should take up every single problem in the city personally or else there's no point doing one worthwhile thing? Don't be ridiculous. Those beings don't have their very own mysterious cabal of locals with a vested interest in kicking them out of the city for personal benefit. Rather the opposite, if anything.

Why is this thing what you've deemed necessary and worthwhile? [ Mingyu presses the point, not because he thinks all problems should be solved before any action is taken at all. It's just a strange hill to die on, for him. A strange, waterlogged, highly risky hill with high potential to blowback on the rest of them. ]

You vastly overestimate the stability of our position here, if you think the interest that freed us from the prisons means anything but its own kind of threat.

Of course they're not, that isn't the point-- For their own reasons they gave us a chance. Who is going to give those beings their chance? You're a pragmatic enough man, you know there isn't really some kind of rebellion that's going to magically materialize to rescue them all. I'm sticking my neck out for twenty-some perfect strangers already, why not a few more? I have the ability to walk in and out of there on my own safely, so why shouldn't I?

[ his voice is a deep growl now; he sets the fork back down to shove his plate away from himself before he gets the urge to stab anything else. ]

Edited 2021-04-24 00:32 (UTC)

You are convince you're helping them, but you don't have the data to back it up. You free the slaves and they maybe, maybe find some footing and live better lives. That's just one possibility. Just as likely they get hunted down like animals, or freeze, or starve. What if these are generational slaves? Have you considered if they have family, or if those families will be punished for their rebellion? Do you know if any of them have the skills that will allow them to survive once freed?

[ Mingyu takes a breath, subtly shifting in his seat in case he has to pull a talisman from his sleeve. ]

Doing good is not and will never be about how you feel, Archeval. Doing good is about the net good you provide the world. Everything else is just vanity.

Of course I don't know any of that-- [ staring furiously, leaned across the table a little ]

They'll get out, or they won't. They'll die, or they won't. They'll live a short miserable existence or they won't.

There are no guarantees and here I have no way to offer them. I don't intend to try to offer them. But I can give those beings the only thing they're not going to get otherwise.

An open door. [ one black-clad fist clenches in his lap as he sucks in a long breath, still staring Mingyu intensely in the face ]

They can walk out of there into a world of hazards at every turn, where they're like to die as not, but if they want it they can have the opportunity. They can take the risk of trying for something better. They can choose to die on their feet instead of starve on their knees.

I can't give them any better than what was given to me. But I refuse to give them anything less.

[ Mingyu's eyes narrow, lips thinning. ]

What was given to you?

[ he gives a low, hard laugh ]

What did I just say? An open door. A chance to be free or die. It's very frequently been a near thing, present day included, but I can assure you quite personally that I wouldn't give it up just for the risk of being slaughtered.

[ mostly, anyway. But this is already well over the line of what he likes strangers to know about him. ]

[ Mingyu fully absorbs this information, turns it over slowly in his mind. He remains largely unimpressed, gaze flat and expression hard. ]

Would you happen to have anything that helped you succeed, Archeval? [ Mingyu asks sharply, turning his phone over pointedly in one hand. ] Something these sorry bastards might not?

Would I happen to have had just enough power to survive against a room full of people with the same powers actively trying to murder me? [ giving Mingyu a deadpan stare now ] Certainly, I had that. I expect these sentients' many problems to be slightly less drastic. [ only slightly because well, there's zombies, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to stare across the table at Mingyu with that intense gaze. ]

Some of them will die. There's nothing you or I can do about that. It's no reason to stand around twiddling my thumbs pretending I don't see. My mind is more than made up, so have you had your damned fill of moralizing at me yet?

No. But I can see I'm wasting my breath.

[ Mingyu sighs, giving Archeval a slow once-over. ]

Just don't make the rest of us pay for the chip on your shoulder. And try not to die, you're one of the only useful people around here.

[ pushing up out of his seat to shove his commlink back deep into his pocket, still scowling darkly ]

I've not gotten a crew killed yet, and I don't plan to start. As long as no one does anything stupid like decide to get in my way.

[ with those pointed words he sweeps away to stalk off back to the door, which, naturally, he closes rather too hard behind him. The Dark Lord is nothing if not, hm, emotional. ]

[handmaiden of unsheathed swords] audio posted:

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject