TEXT ✦ un: scion

[shtola]

[Hey, City network! What are you up to today? Having fun exploring the liminal spaces, reliving past memories, getting locked into vaults — or maybe just fucking around? Because apparently someone's in the mood for the latter.]

what's a girl got to do to get a little attention around here? ;)

[A short time after that initial post, a follow-up appears.]

because i certainly wouldn't mind being asked out for a meal and an evening in good company, myself. by someone worthy of the honor, of course; naturally, i'm a lady of discerning tastes.

[And then, a little bit later still: ]

takers must feel the unquenchable thirst of the pursuit of knowledge and be willing to participate in intellectual debate for bells on end. oh, and graciously accept defeat when i inevitably hand it to them. or don't — i'll best you at it whether you accept it or not. i'm ever so brilliant that way. how's that for sharing?

[OOC: If the content of this post sounds suspiciously unlike Y'shtola, that's because it isn't — Thancred (onlythans) and his sticky fingers have "borrowed" her network device for a short time. Responses will come from both Thancred and Y'shtola or possibly just Y'shtola after she murders Thancred in cold blood for this!]

Comments

[onlythans]

...Hm?

[Speaking of things that are a little unlike him: it's certainly unlike Thancred to be distracted in a situation like this. Normally, this sort of crisis would have him honed to a fine edge, hypervigilant; the fact that his attention seems caught elsewhere is curious, to say the least.

Still. There had been a note in the box; he'd glanced at it, but hadn't really touched it, and had left it where it was in his haste to snatch his reward out from the contents. He casually tilts the screen of the network device away from her vantage point as he digs for his key and offers it up to her, stretching his arm so it's within her reach without him having to get up from where he's seated on the floor.]

Oh. If you like. I doubt there's much of interest in it.

[But then, with a sort of creeping swelling apprehension he can't quite seem to swallow back: ]

Was that all there was, in yours? A note?

[shtola]

( to y'shtola, the fact that he focused on the device clearly means that he has an idea she hasn't quite considered. it's a reasonable conclusion to make considering their history and what she knows of him - the man would be pacing worse than she is otherwise, and the heavyset door would be bloody with his hands if that was what it took to get them out.

she's trusted the scions with little more than a nod in far more dire situations, so it doesn't register that it is a means of distraction until his method of response. as seemingly unaware as he could seem at times, the tell is there that his attention is split elsewhere. curious. worrying. )

Our benefactors are clever and careful, so it stands to investigate even the smallest of threads we are offered.

( the key is plucked from his grasp easily enough, but instead of making for the box as she said she would, she lingers. )

Have you found much else from the others for a means of escape, then?

( a gesture. the phone. that's what she's assuming he's doing, and she might even think to do the same shortly. )

[onlythans]

With luck, I might be able to contrive a means. Safes are meant to open from the outside; perhaps it's more easily remedied by external intervention than internal stratagem.

[The winky faces are a vital touch when it comes to internal stratagem. Obviously. But after a minute, he sighs, his knuckles going briefly white as the rest of him relaxes — the only outward sign that he hasn't so much released his own tension as just hidden it carefully.]

If you need my assistance in your inquiries, you know I am ever at your disposal. All I can say for certain is that there are no conventional means to bypass its mechanisms. Largely because there don't seem to be any mechanisms in play to begin with.

[shtola]

Do you think another from the outside locked us in then?

( that part feels a little less likely to her, but she's also not going to discount the possibility. the problem still remains that the door is far too heavy for a singular mischief-maker to have acted on their own to have shut it in the speed that it slammed behind them. )

I simply think it a poor design to not offer a means to open it from the inside, given that people are meant to walk in. ( but what does she know. she's never built a vault in her life. ) But I suppose we are equipped with the means to contact others.

( now comes the pat to her side for said device, then a furrow of her brow in her brief stint with confusion. the possibility that she would drop anything of hers is unthinkable, and she is locked in with a storied pickpocket, so -

her hand is expectantly extended this time, voice stern. )

I realize the frustration in being trapped doesn't sit well with you, but it does not mean you ought to prove to yourself that you haven't lost your touch with me as your subject.

[onlythans]

[Ah. Busted.]

For what it's worth, 'twasn't even a particularly good lift. You were too preoccupied with the storage units to notice.

[Is that...consolation? Teasing? Disparagement of his own talents or remark on her tendency to get engrossed in notions to the exclusion of all else? Who can say, really. Notably, however, he does not offer up the device even when she puts her hand out for it.]

Your box, Y'shtola. What did you find in it?

[shtola]

( it's not even that she truly cares that he has it, there's nothing within that she wouldn't want him to see. it's more the act that he wouldn't simply ask her for it that has her a little irked. if he'd left his behind and wanted to access and read what is on the network, he could have just said so. )

I will not be chastised by a pickpocket.

( it's a good lesson in being complacent though, she supposed. not that she's entirely sure she could catch him red-handed even if she were at her best.

her frown only deepens when he refuses her request, then proceeds to circle back to the topic she thought he might let go. which.. is fair enough, honestly, but it will not stop her from reaching over his seated form to retrieve what's hers. especially now that she realizes that he was asking for help using her device. that has her chosen name attached to it. who would he have even asked? )

There are more notes in it, but the contents aren't particularly relevant nor helpful in any way as they are things I already know.

[onlythans]

And just as you have your methods for avoiding discussion on matters you would rather not broach, so too do I have mine. If you feel chastised, that's your own affair.

[But just because he's not about to hand it over willingly doesn't mean he's going to fight her when she tries to take it outright, and so the borrowed device leaves his hands, and now they are empty with nothing to preoccupy them anymore.

His fingers twitch.]

You prefer your silence when you're seeking to concentrate. I required conversation. We both got what we needed, and possibly a rescue besides. I'd call that rather tidy all told.

[shtola]

( and speaking of silence, that is exactly what he is met with the moment her gaze lands on the screen. a beat, then a second, a third - and there truly isn't much for her to be reading that it would take her this long to do much of anything beyond stare.

now comes the mortification. ears pinned back in her abject horror and a healthy flush born of anger and embarrassment that she's positive she will never recover from.

without too much thought, her hand reaches for the staff on her back - pausing only when she realizes that her aether still can't seem to find purchase on the gnarled wood. there seems to be consideration for the briefest of moments that she could simply hit him with it instead, but abandons the thought in favor of simply taking him by the ear with a snarl. )

If it was my undivided attention you wanted, you most certainly have it now.

[onlythans]

You — ouch!

[His reflex is immediate: a hand flashing up to grasp her wrist, the differences in their size and build instantly coming into clear focus with the way his large palm circles all the way around her more slender limb with ease. He's far, far too careful to risk even the slightest of bruises on her skin, but he hardly needs to grip very hard for the implication to be there anyway. These are a pickpocket's hands, yes, but they are also a gunbreaker's, and the strength in his fingers is unmistakable.]

Thal's bloody balls, don't rip it clean off! At least have the common decency to turn me into a damned toad — that, at least, I might recover from!

[shtola]

( a fact she knows all too well. the encircled wrist would be a real danger if the one holding her were any other. mages of her brand do their best work at a distance - to be rendered immobile or silent may as well spell their deaths and seal their coffins. it'd be all too simple for him, too. he's dispatched threats far worse than herself.

it's by grace and luck that she happens to be on the right side of the line he's drawn does she get to keep her hand. that, she also knows. these are the differences between them that she's been made eminently more aware of in these last few suns since their arrival.

it does not mean she releases him though. because it's only now does she realize that he's managed to lead her right where he needs her to be, and she feels just a little cornered despite herself, so she'll take what little form of rebellion she can. )

To ask that you be made smaller, to be something more frail and utterly defenseless in this space rather than suffer a slight pinch - ( it's a measured cadence, neither angry nor surprised, like this was something she's seen a long time coming. his eyes are keen and a man that plays the fool is never truly one. ) - is that what this is truly about?

( to see if she even can? )

'Tis quite the gamble.