thecapitol | People In Glass Houses...

People In Glass Houses...

Who | Timaeus Nadir and guests
What | Timaeus is hosting a picnic get-together/catch-up.
Where | The picnic will be taking place in the Tropical Habitat Dome.
When| We'll be using a bit of wibbly time so that people who want to attend can.
Warnings/Notes| None as of yet.

(This is an opportunity for me to make some new CR as well as catch up with ongoing relationships, but I also want to encourage tagging around between characters! Feel free to do whatever you like in the setting with whoever you like! Also I will be backtagging this so don't feel you've missed the boat if you haven't tagged in immediately <3)

Timaeus certainly knew how to organise a gathering- even if it wasn't an outrageously opulent celebration to be held on one of his own yachts. This one was to be held under the expansive dome of the Tropical Habitat- the entire location rented out for the day to Timaeus and his guests, a loosely private affair- formal invitations as such hadn't been extended, but those welcome knew they were. Naturally, all tributes and victors were included in this group.

The Dome was a beautiful piece of architecture in itself, though antiquated when compared with the technology used for the Arenas. Rather than invisible forcefields, the climate of the interior was separated from the outside by elaborately curving steel and glass. Inside, tropical plants of all types thrived- there was a still, green pond and, deeper inside, a cascading waterfall. Butterflies in hundreds of colours, sizes and shapes flitted about, tropical birds swooped between the trees, brightly coloured fish darted in the water.
Blankets and cushions had been scattered in the main clearing with hampers of food, but there was plenty of space for the guests to break away from the gathering if they so desired- the dome was full of winding paths through the greenery- some even climbing around the trunks of the largest trees and leading to viewing platforms above. In a temporary gazebo in the clearing, a string quartet played music that wasn't quite the classical pieces Tributes were familiar with.

Timaeus himself seemed in a brighter mood than he had been for months, more than happy to make conversation with anyone who approached him- though he was certainly keeping an eye open for particular individuals. Some that he'd met, some that he'd lost and had returned to him, and others still that he had yet to meet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, one of my very good friends is a Cardassian--they very rarely ever say anything straight when a roundabout answer will suffice. Needless to say, I'm quite used to navigating conversations filled with sarcasm, innuendos, and outright lies." Julian smiles fondly--oh, how he was missing Garak right now. Along with everyone else, Dax could be just as infuriating when she wished to be.

"Still, I've been given the impression that you should be careful with who can hear you say such things. Even if you are being sarcastic." He gave brief thought to the idea of teaching everyone rudimentary Klingon or Romulan--surely no one would be able to understand them then, and they could engage on their tirades in peace. At least, it was something he'd probably indulge in at some point or other.

He wasn't saying that they should roll over and accept things as they were--Julian hoped fervently Guy wasn't getting that impression from him. It was against Starfleet regulation, to be sure--when taken prisoner, officers were expected to resist as much as possible, until escape or rescue was secured. But the caveat there was staying alive and in one piece long enough to do so.

"I know. I've spent some time reading up on the history of this place...believe me, I know." His heart ached for the hundreds of children sacrificed--and for what, entertainment? Cowing the populace with fear? Either way, it was completely senseless and backward, and Humanity was supposed to be better than this. The history books put a pretty spin on it, made the sacrifices out to be necessary and unavoidable and right, but Julian couldn't believe that. After all, how often had humanity in his own reality risen from the ashes of terrible conflict before they'd shaken all that off and rose to the stars? Surely too many times to count. This place could have done that too.

"I know," said Guy. "I know we have to be careful. I just - need to let it out somewhere. At least right now. And then I'll get right to rolling over and making it clear that I'm someone that doesn't want trouble."

The smallest darting of his eyes made it clear he planned for that to just be an act.

"It's just hard coming from somewhere...brighter. A place with a future people can look forward to. You know?" Guy said, utterly clueless to the fact that Julian could probably say the same. "And then to be told I should be grateful because this place is so much better..."

"I understand. Just...don't let your mouth run off with you too much." Advice Julian hasn't always followed himself. In fact, he almost never did. "Think all you like, but don't speak, right?"

Julian understood that--it was his intent as well.

"Oh yes. Believe me, all I see here is...missed potential." All this flash and glamour given over to a ritualized sacrifice, and yet out there the stars were waiting.

Though on first impressions he wouldn't wish this version of Humanity on the other species in the Alpha Quadrant.

"Are you from somewhere...not as terrible as this?" Guy asked. "You said something about being a space man. I don't even know what that means. I know what space is. Space is the area that things are in. Like space around you is personal space. But I don't know how someone can be a space man."

His mind was possibly about to get blown.

Edited 2013-12-11 01:07 (UTC)

Not as terrible as this...well, to put it lightly. There were problems, to be sure, but oh...he'd take any of them over this.

"Oh yes. I suppose in a way, our situations are rather similar. Though instead of exploring Earth, humanity in my time has moved on to explore the skies. Space can also refer to the area beyond Earth's atmosphere, the air we breathe--where the stars are. Other worlds."

It was a bit of an expansive concept to cover in one conversation.

Guy stared at him for enough time that the silence was awkward, his face slowly lighting up brighter and brighter until there was a massive smile on it.

His response to the idea of that?

A delighted and not-actually-that-skeptical, "Nuh uh!"

Edited 2013-12-11 01:24 (UTC)

Oh wonderful, he didn't have to deal with the brain shattering disbelief. Julian smiles. It was nice, seeing such genuine wonder.

"My posting is on a space station near Bajor--which is quite a significant distance from Earth."

"I don't know what a Bajor is but it sounds far. It sounds really far."

For a moment he just made the same wide open smile, mouth hanging open, and then he actually sank down onto a cushion and rolled around on it a little, going, "Aaaaaah! And I'm never going to see it! Too far. I don't think my dad can throw us that high. Still, aaaaaah!"

Just that it was possible. Just that someday, people would be able to fly just like he and Eep talked about when they wondered about the future.

He abruptly sat up. "Are the stars other suns? I want to see if I'm right, am I right? You have to know what they are by now if you're traveling near them. Are the stars suns?"

"It's another planet--remarkably similar to Earth, its people look quite a bit like Humans. It takes us nearly a week to get there, traveling faster than light."

The enthusiasm Guy is showing is infectious, making Julian actually happy like he hasn't been since he woke up and was unceremoniously dumped into the Arena.

"Yes, they are--well, it may be more accurate to say that our Sun is a star, but yes."

Guy pumped his fist into the air. "Called it! And traveling faster than - light doesn't even travel. It's just there."

But if it could travel, if it seemed like it was just there maybe that meant it was really, really fast.

He learned forward, waving his hands with an intensity that almost almost created turbulence for the nearby butterflies fluttering around. "Second question: Okay, so if the sun is a star and stars are all suns, are the stars the suns from yesterday? That was my theory - which has been tested somewhat but my findings are still inconclusive. But that's what I figured made the most sense: that each day when the sun goes down it goes off into the sky with the other suns and it becomes a star."

His mind was going to be blown by the whole 'the earth is round' thing.

"It travels so quickly that it seems to--in reality, it takes about eight minutes for light from the surface of the Sun to reach Earth, and much longer for light from other stars to do so. The light of the closest star besides our Sun, Proxima Centauri, takes four years to reach Earth--so really, as you see the stars, you're seeing them as they were, not as they currently are."

Once Julian gets started on a science bent, it's very hard to get him to stop. Especially with someone so enthusiastic. If you'd started him on medicine, you'd never hear the end of it.

"No, the Earth rotates on its axis--wait..." He picks up a roundish stone from the path in front of them, holding it between his fingers. "Like this. See how the lights are illuminating one side, but not the other? That's the cycle of night and day. The Earth rotates on its axis, like so..." And he reaches up with his other hand and twists the stone between his fingers, illuminating the other half. "Which produces the cycle of night and day. During the night, we're facing away from the Sun, and so the night is dark."

Guy's eyes just kept getting wider, until Julian explained the sun part.

Then he looked confused.

"But the sun - the sun moves. You can follow it every day. And how could the Earth be round? Then only people on the top would be able to stay on." He gestured to the top of the stone. "Anyone else would start to slide off. Unless..."

His brows furrowed as he started to work through it.

"Does the grabbity keep people on it? Grabbity's the - the invisible grabby hands that make things fall down after they go up." His eyes went wide. "Is that how it all works? It's round and then the grabbity holds things to it - Oh! Oh! I wondered what grabbity is even for. That's what it's for, isn't it? It all works together so the earth is round but nothing falls off and then it's instead of new suns, it's the same sun every -"

He paused as a few different parts of his life came into greater clarity. It wasn't the worst revelation to have, but it was still enough to shake him. It still stripped meaning away from a few things he'd found meaningful.

"- day."

"It appears to move--the Sun even rotates in a similar way as Earth, but really it's the Earth turning that makes the sun appear to move through the sky."

Julian nods, as Guy begins to understand it. "Gravity, yes. Fantastic, you're getting all this very quickly."

But as soon as his face fell, Julian wondered what exactly he'd said. Or realized. "Are you alright?"

...sometimes he forgot that not everyone could adapt to new knowledge as quickly as he could. Especially when that knowledge shatters almost your entire view of how the world works.

"I am so stupid."

Now he curled in on himself, drawing his legs up and covering his face with his hands.

"Not that any of the people here are right about thinking I can't understand anything, but I am stupid. Normal stupid. The kind of stupid any person is sometimes."

His hands creeped up and his arms started to cover his whole head.

"Tell me," he said, voice now slightly muffled. "Is there something that could make lava shoot up and big, big parts of the ground break up that isn't the end of the world?"

"You're hardly stupid." Julian is actually rather impressed, as these things go. Guy is comprehending things easily, coming to conclusions for himself.

He doesn't reach out--some people find that comforting, but Guy had mentioned how he found it strange that everyone in the Capitol had wanted to touch him, and so he would certainly respect that, even if he personally tended towards the tactile himself.

"Ah, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions...you see, the surface of the Earth are actually massive plates of stone, floating over a core of magma--molten rock, which is known as lava when it comes to the surface. These plates grind against each other, are pushed up or down by other plates--that force is what makes mountains. It also can cause the earth to shake violently, and cause volcanic eruptions--with the lava and ash that go with them."

Now Guy flopped over sideways, mortified.

"Oh noooo. My life is a lie."

He did understand these things fairly easily and that was why he understood how much he didn't understand before. You know what they say, a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

That didn't mean he was going to be dignified about it.

"You've learned in about ten minutes what it took the rest of humanity centuries of bickering to come to a consensus on, I think you're doing quite well."

If anyone knows anything about lives being lies, it's Julian Bashir. He's pretty sure you're fine.

That was at least slightly reassuring. Guy took in a deep breath and sat up. His cheeks were still flushed from embarrassment.

"It's just, when I was kid, I..."

It was a sensitive subject but it was also part of his reality so he carried on. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd talked to strangers about it, after all. During those years when it was just him and his pet sloth, Belt, the families and tribes he'd occasionally run into wondered what a lone teenage boy was doing wandering around on his own. They'd asked questions and he'd gotten used to answering them.

"I, uh, lost my family. I was about seven." He added by way of brief explanation, "Tar pit. It's - just don't say anything about it, people always say they're sorry and - it's okay. I found peace with it a long time ago. But the last thing my mom and dad told me was - they told me not to hide. To live a good life. They told me to follow the sun and that if I did, I'd make it to Tomorrow."

Somehow the capital "T" is there even in how he says the words.

"I think they just meant I'd make it to the next day but but I thought Tomorrow was a place, some special place I could get to if I traveled far enough. I came up with this whole crazy theory that it had to be in the days after today, very far away. I figured if each sun went across the sky and got stuck up with the other stars, if I could ride on it'd let me jump to it, a place where - where things were better."

His nodded slowly his gaze distant, and then he turned to Julian.

"I needed it. I was a little kid all alone in the wilderness. I needed to think that -" He cut himself off and looked at the floor.

"Anyway, about two years ago, when I was traveling, the ground started to break up and there was lava - and I thought that was the end of the world. Whole bits of the land were cracking up and sliding into nothing! I met my new family during all that and we made it up to a mountain where the sun set and we almost didn't make it. The ground broke up in front of us and blocked the way but then Grug, my dad - well, my mate's dad but now he's my dad - he threw us across the divide. Everything collapsed and we thought we'd lost him but then he found a way over himself."

He shook his head.

"The place where we all crossed over - the dust covered the sun and it was filled with bright light behind the clouds so all this time, I thought we'd ridden the sun. To Tomorrow, to the world of a new day. And when I was little, I thought I was following a different sun each day and it was the same one the entire time. Just...going around the world in a circle."

He twirled his finger vaguely.

"Tomorrow wasn't a place, it was just..." He trailed off. "I feel like an idiot."

"Don't. Really, depending on your perspective, tomorrow can be a place as well as a time. You didn't get there the way you thought you might--but you did all the same."

It seemed a very romantic concept to Julian, riding the sun--which he knew to be so incredibly hot that even starships going near it could be vaporized, or torn apart by the sun's gravity. He knew it wasn't possible.

A short while ago, he wouldn't have admitted as much as he was about to to anyone. He'd told the Chief, in a heated moment, right after his world had come screeching to a halt and he was very near to being kicked out of Starfleet. Elaborating on it was not likely to happen. But...

"You know, when I was younger, for the life of me I couldn't tell the difference between a dog and a cat." He'd all but literally been another person, then, but it was the truth. "It seems rather obvious now, but at the time..."

(Of course, at the time he'd also been struggling with everything he tried to learn, not just the difference between small domesticated animals.)

Circumstances like these had a dramatic affect on human relationships. Attachments had to be made or else you could spin off alone into the dark and that sometimes meant opening more quickly than the usual.

Guy seemed amused by the idea at first but then he thought about it and wondered if maybe something had been wrong. He tended more towards empathy than mockery.

"Why couldn't you? Didn't your parents teach you?"

What parent didn't teach their kids types of animals? (Or in the case of Guy's world, the parts of animals that showed up across all the different hybrid animals?)

"They tried, I simply couldn't understand it." Julian shrugs. Of course, it had been a problem--in their eyes at least, Julian still wasn't sure and wasn't certain he'd ever be. "There came a point where everything seemed to click, though, and after that I was fine."

Well, more than fine. And the clicking had been artificial--but he had enough issues with that to realize when he was going to veer into melancholy and there was quite enough of that around here without him adding to it.

"I guess how that's how we all are. Children until we're old, trying to learn the entire way."

He sat forward and clasped his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees.

He felt a little bit better. He had a lot to think about, though.

"How do you know all this? It must have taken people where you're from so long to learn all of that..."

"Well, I'm from a time where all of that was figured out quite a long time ago. 2374 by the way we reckon years...judging from what you've said thus far, there's millions of years between us." Julian smiles slightly, that is certainly a lot to take in. "I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly. Even the best technology we have can't judge time that accurately."

"Even so, there are things we still do not understand. It's exciting, how much we have left to discover."

Guy's smile widened again and his voice rose in excitement as he asked Julian questions.

"So you just - you just fly around in the stars? All the time? Do they keep a doctor there in case people get sick while they're exploring?"

Edited 2013-12-13 00:57 (UTC)

"Exactly so. In case of illness, or accident--sometimes things do happen, after all."

Guy's excitement was more than a bit infectious. Julian's smile feels far more natural on his face now, not forced like it had been before.

"I've been living on a space station until recently, which means the starships usually come to us--traders, explorers, and the like." Also soldiers, which he's not about to get into now. And DS9 is in the hands of the Cardassians once more, anyway. For the moment.

Edited 2013-12-19 03:42 (UTC)

People In Glass Houses...

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sorry for the edits. brains fuzzy from work and I keep missing mistakes until after lol

s'all good man c:

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