tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

Characters: ALL!
Date: December 8, 2015 (with some starters for the following weeks)
Location: Keeliai, the Midnight Hotel, others
Situation: The Foreigners have awakened.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

They've been in the Dreaming for so long that when they wake up their bodies feel more like automatons, alien and ill-fitting. They haven’t atrophied, thanks to Milyn, but they’re stiff and a little bedsore, and the solidity of the Life Plane is jarring. Here, the surroundings don’t move on a whim. Here the world is more stable, almost harsh and unyielding in spite of the homey surrounds.

It’s been a year, says the clock on the mantle and on the second floor. Says Milyn, too, when she’s able to stop hugging them long enough to speak.

Nothing much has changed in the Midnight Hotel. There are dishes out of place, objects belonging to either Milyn or Eva in evidence, the diorama exactly where it had been but now brightly-painted thanks to Milyn's boredom. Milyn and Eva took a room each, in the time the Foreigners were sleeping, though neither used them much.

Eva’s upstairs, Milyn will tell anyone who asks. In her room.

Eva hasn't left that room in three days. She hasn't spoken in three days, either, or walked, or moved, or breathed. Her effects are neatly arranged around her bed, and the sheet has been pulled up. There is heavy incense in the room and Milyn has managed to preserve the body enough to remove the risk of too much mess (and other things). In a way, that makes it worse: as though Eva is sleeping. It’s difficult to tell whether Milyn is in denial or whether spending three days with no one to talk to other than sleeping Foreigners and a corpse has had its influence.

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"I know the feeling." Enjolras answers that, though he does, in the interest of self disclosure, find himself shrugging a bit a moment later. "Well personally important in my case. Teapots and you seem to be a BIT disjointed as a fit, so I will guess that you are helping someone else? I suppose the story is much the same around here for anyone now." He adds, exhaling deeply.

"It would seem that it's been QUITE the year."

"That's the size of it, yeah. I'm trying to keep a promise." He explained. No reason to be enigmatic, after all. "Of course, it was much easier before I found out that these guys liked to take anything not nailed down."

Well, one nice turn deserves another, so... "So what has you turning the city upside-down?"

"That does create something of a problem, doesn't it?" Enjolras purses his lips a little at the mention of things being taken. "I admit, ransacking was not among those things I might have expected."

As far as the question, well, he is ducking his head a little.

"It is a bit silly and sentimental, but anything that might have lasted from our quarters." he explains. "Some of my Etienne's drawings if not the books we wrote in, or...he had a paperweight made of amber with a moth inside of it. Nothing terribly valuable, and probably gone, but one looks, anyway, I suppose. It seemed as though it could not hurt."

"It really says something, doesn't it." Dante remarked. "I used to leave my shop unattended for months, with nothing but a bike chain on the door, and nothing would happen. But here? We can get stuffed."

"It's not silly to be pissed that your stuff was taken." Dante assured with an irate tone in his voice. "Hell, I had nothing worth stealing, and I'm still pissed."

"That it does."

Enjolras didn't quite want to show his emotions so openly just now, but he did let out a deep sigh as Dante pointed that out.

"I do wonder what it means for everything here. They have been taken over for now but will any foreigners be able to have shops or companies or anything else again?" He is rather uncertain on that point just now.

"Ah, on principle I am upset." Enjolras might as well confirm that bit of it. "It makes me angry we've been treated so callously. It is more that I do not have much that seems as if it would be of value, well to anyone but myself. I am glad to have the help in looking though."

"Hell if I know. I'm not exactly up on my economics." Or small business law. It's a small miracle his devil hunting shop back home didn't get audited by the authorizes decades ago. "I'd love to see the locals try and say we can't, though. It should be pretty entertaining."

"Same. I imagine we're not the only to people looking. I figure someone's gotta find this crap sooner or later."

"Or theirs." Enjolras couldn't help but add, his tones definitely a bit wry there. "That would be interesting, I admit. I think that many foreigners could find a way to be...convincing. Of course, they've taken over most things that were being run so... Hmm." He shrugged a little. "early to tell either way, I suppose."

"True. And I suppose we ought to keep an eye out for anything that seems remotely out of place here. It may belong to someone after all."

"Like I said, it'll be entertaining." Dante had nothing but faith in the foreigners. Especially those who were about as subtle as he was.

"Yep." He noticed some odd charts, and pointed to them out near immediatly. "These look familiar to you?"

"Rather." Enjolras had to admit that he could share that viewpoint on both fronts, though, to be honest, the entertaining portion of it was a lot less potentially worrying than any other ramifications. Things may get bad before they got better, after all. He did not exactly look forward to that, even though it was probably negligible at best, after what they'd been through.

"Ah, let me see." What followed was a bit of Enjolras squinting at the charts, not so much from any recognition, but to try to connect them with anything. "Sadly, not. I wish I had made a bit more of an effort...any effort at all to understand their writing." He's not afraid to wryly make fun of bad judgments at least, so there is that.

"At least...I would assume it originated with them and is not someone else's. And there are no pictures of any of us strung up somewhere yet, so there IS at least that."

Dante is an easy creature to amuse, and he really did believe that any battles the two faced would be rather one-sided.

"So this is their writing? Damn, I thought this looked sort of not-kedanish." He griped. "Well, it's unusual, so it's something."

"I don't know. If they were drawing portraits of us dead, that might distract them from stealing anything that isn't nailed down." All humans may be equal to Dante, but he was actually quite the racist when it came to non-human entities. He was getting quite impatient with the kedan, and it was becoming fairly obvious.

Edited 2015-01-01 22:40 (UTC)

"Ah, no, they'll have had a year to get that over with. Eventually, they MUST have moved on."

Enjolras snorted, not so much out of any particular dislike for the kedan race as a whole because he did not actually know much of this new breed of them yet, and after having seen what they were capable of once, before. It was so painfully naive to think that they were anything close to the same as they had been, and he was not so bad as that, but still. He wished to find a good in them he could relate to once again.

It wasn't much worth, of course, to say that now, so he cast it aside instead, to glance back at the writing.

"Ah, well I am not CERTAIN it is theirs. I suppose someone else could have come through here with these. Exactly who or what if it is different, I can't exactly tell."

Despite being the loud, obnoxious warrior that he was, Dante found it easier to relate to the old kedan. Those kedan were basically human- they doormats, yes, but they had lives, opinions, and business. Some were gangsters, but some were businessmen. But the new kedan? The bulk of them were openly swearing allegiance to some gang, and they basically said that might makes right, and they'll take whatever isn't nailed down. They were basically demons.

"Either way, at least we know these guys carry unusual stuff around." He continued to search, until he came across some more stock. This time, it was all of a different make and kind then usual. Jackpot. He turns to the shopkeeper.

"You know, in most countries I've been to, selling stolen stuff's a crime." Was he threatening? Maybe. But he's broke, and he doesn't know how else to get his hands on any of this.

It was true that these new kedan, whatever they were, were completely different, and that Enjolras did prefer the old set of them, even if that was a horribly horribly imperialist thing to even begin thinking, that he had liked them better when humans were interfering with them, and he somewhat hated himself for it. It was hard to hate himself too much though, considering how easily their problems with the foreigners could, and probably had been focused on the other kedan. That idea, that might making right was exactly what he'd understood himself to be fighting against, after all, with Malicant, and the idea that it probably had not changed much for the kedan who had wound up at the bottom of the social heap were probably still dealing with the same thing themselves.

Yes, it did make him angrier at them right now, even though he couldn't hate it. The kedan who could had started to run this place into the ground and it was suffering, as human centric as it was to stand here making those judgments, anyway.

"True. It does bear looking over." Enjolras kept his eye out too, noting a few things that definitely had not come from here, and stepped up to flank Dante neatly as he approached the shopkeeper, there.

"I must say, he is right. I do not believe that anyone along this current functions on the financial principle of seizing things while the other man's back is turned. Lucrative, but rather risky." For some reason, right now, Enjolras thought of Javert, how distinctly unimpressed the inspector would be with this, and that helped, actually, as his gaze shifted a little, with his face becoming rather set like the statue he had been described as, and his eyes like ice.

And speaking of Javert...

"In fact, when we were sent a copy of the law, quite all of them, this was not mentioned there."

Perhaps it was human centric to make those judgements, but in Dante's experience, the humans were usually the better people, despite all of there many flaws. A might makes right society can only end one way, and that's with one of the kedan deciding he's god and stamping out everyone who opposes him. In a way, he's sympathetic to those on the lower end, but he can't help but think that they'd do the same thing, given the chance.

The kedan was taken aback by the accusation, but wasn't backing down. Law and order had broken down, after all. But he was on the ropes, and that was a good thing.

"I'd call it risky. I gotta wonder how everyone else is going to feel when they find out this guy's been hording a bunch of their crap." Hell, I wonder how many of the locals have stuff you took here. I'm sure if we tell enough people, someone will be pissed off enough to come charging down here."

Good cop bad cop is a surprisingly fun game to play. Though Dante's not sure which one of them is the good cop here. Oh well.

That certainly is true, yes. Given a tyrant, or a group of them, the people will denounce him, silence him, and, in their turn, take actions that are much the same, both to depose the tyrant, and to make certain that no others think of rising up, or sneaking around back and just getting rid of someone in power, or getting someone else to do it, or.... Or any other number of means to that end, really. The point, when it comes down to it, is that tyranny naturally begets rebellion, and that, for all the good righteous rebellion does, and is, for all of its amazing power, and its beauty it becomes the purview of everyone, to ensure that power rests exactly where it should, with the people, and does not give anyone the chance to establish such heavy power again.

And, all right, as much as Enjolras is aware that this is NOT his place to judge the kedan and does not like to be that person, he cannot help but be dismayed by what's happened, anyway.

Maybe that is part of the reason he is not backing down either, and nodding as Dante speaks.

"True. And seeing as there ARE so very many of us, probably several someones. There is not exactly any way that I can see this ending well. "

That's an observation, really, more than a threat; he's careful to keep the emphasis there.

"Bad business ethics are one thing, I guess, as long as people get away with them. But once bad publicity spreads...I do not know about everyone, but I can't see most people wanting to risk buying stolen goods. You may upset the wrong person and then everything falls apart. If I heard that a shop was dealing in those, I'd be afraid of accidentally buying something of a Snake's. Who knows what they might do, if they suspected that was possible?"

He's not sure of his side of that to be quite honest, either, but Enjolras does enjoy it, all the same.

Sadly, power falls out of the hands of the people all too often. Those with the courage to rise up against tyranny are all too often too self-righteous to hand over power to whom it belongs. They think too highly of themselves, and become the very tyrants they were striving to overthrow. Perhaps this is how the families came to power: well-meaning kedan began to stick up for themselves, and then next thing they knew, they had the shell under their thumbs. Dante knew one such well-meaning tyrant personally, and he had no desire to be that guy. All he wants is some god damn respect for personal property.

And then the threats worked. The kedan shopkeeper looked to be in a tizzy, but at least bewildered enough to listen. "Look, just tell me what you want to keep your mouths shut, okay?"

"Ah, now we're talking." Dante wasn't much for reasoning, but threats? He could do threats. It really did help that there was someone else more knowledgeable to back up what he was trying to insinuate, though. He'll have to thank Enjolras somehow later. "I need that teapot you have right there. Thanks."

It comes back to the idea that came to Enjolras back in the library dreaming world during the last landfall, when Enjolras was speaking to Midii of the July Revolution. They had spent so much time planning for revolution, and not enough for Republic. It's that sort of problem that lends itself, again to the the idea that even those who rebel with the purest of intentions do not know exactly what to do with the power they gain. The idea that they might abuse it is proved here.

Enjolras did not find it inevitable, and he did actually believe that, had France had her moment either then, or two years later, a republic would have risen, but not all places are France, particularly places where that sort of rule has not been used in a long time. Depressing as it was, this was not much of a surprise when it comes down to it, really.

Enjolras, having looked things over and found nothing he recognized from any lists, or memory, simply turned a beatific smile on the shopkeeper. "I think you've made a good decision." He said, nodding toward Dante to show that he supported that choice. "Thank you for that."

To play devil's advocate, sometimes ousting the oppressors is too urgent to spend too much time planning. Sometimes you get lucky, but sometimes history repeats itself. It's all a matter of whetehr or not the cost in human lives is worth that chance that it will go well.

Dante gestured to the items to silently encourage him to milk this little opportunity, but when Enjolras nodded indicating that he was okay with everything, he winked back to the shopkeeper. "Oh, and by the way? If you answer to anyone, best to say we were never here."

True enough. In the case of 1830, and then 1832, Enjolras maintains that planning for what came next could have been the best idea. His own lack of planning during the last time resulted in the deaths of the three men he had most wanted to leave behind to help shape the Republic to come, so that's a definite problem. Here, those rules may be quite different, of course. When there is gang power and the like, it DOES make things much harder. As for the cost of lives, well, sometimes it is necessary to spend those, although Enjolras carefully weighs each one before paying up and finishing the transaction so to speak. It takes evaluation though,even if it is of the quickest sort.

"Not at all." Enjolras agrees, his smile wide and very charming, on the surface. "And thank you, for your service."

Dante had never concerned himself with human politics for exactly this reason. His job was to kill those that might cause an upset in the balance of power in the first place. Otherwise, live and let live, he supposed. But right now, these gangs were not letting him live, and that was a problem.

He nodded to Enjolras, and made his way out the door. The second they left, he turned back, with the same unflinching flippancy. "Well, this is going to be one fun reunion, if this is how they see us."

A pretty big one actually. The sort of problem that had the potential to unite them all again, though he was not sure they'd come apart yet after Malicant. All the same, he wished, just once, that problems of the sort they'd returned to were simpler things. It was like he'd told Sokka though, time to get to work, indeed.

He snorted there, at Dante's words, though the honesty was quite refreshing all the same. "And this before we've even been here very long. I can hardly wait to see where we might stand next month."

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[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

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