Sonja Late-March Catch-All

[confirmationbias]

Characters: Sonja, Gene, Valdis & OPEN
Date: March 24-30
Location: The Midnight Hotel, The Welcome Center, and around the various sectors of Keeliai
Situation: People meeting with Sonja. She doesn't bite... with her teeth
Warnings/Rating: none


A: Harmless Plotting - The Midnight Hotel (Closed to Gene)

Sonja had left a message with Anton to request Gene join her in her room on the third floor when he saw him. While Sonja occasionally went down to the commons, especially to eat, it was generally tiring and she was often glad to retreat back to her room. 

So while she waited for Gene, she was holed up in her room, listening to the radio on her phone and scribbling out some math on printing costs. 


B: TableTop - The Welcome Center (Valdis & OPEN)

Sonja came to the hotel center late in the month with a stuffed satchel. She dropped it onto a table near the center of the main room and started pulling things out - wooden boxes, parchment rolls, a few sacks, and some loose-leaf paper. 

She rearranged some space on the bookcase and started to neatly stack the various materials. When she was done, she took one of the loose leaf papers, scribbled a few characters on it (some of them using some reference) and then hung it from the shelf, becoming a sign that said, in several languages including Japanese, Chinese, and Kedan - "Games."

During lulls at the center when Sonja wasn't tooling around on the consoles and crashing people's Network posts, she would take a game off the shelf and start trying to write up rules in different languages, or just for kicks, play herself. 


C: Making Rounds - Around Keeliai (OPEN)

Sonja is still making her way through the sectors, following Wan's plan of trying different combinations to solve the console message. She was getting pretty bored of that whole thing, and the only thing keeping her going was that she'd committed to it. 

It's not like she didn't like walking around Keeliai anyway. It was good exercise, and it was a good opportunity to meet people, get recognized, see new things, new people. Walking through town was her 'on' mode, and she looked a lot less likely to say 'bug off' if you approached her than normal. 

Sonja was a prodigious documentarian, and could be seen frequently taking pictures, or scribbling notes, or making person memos into her phone as she wandered around. She was also loose with her money, frequently stopping in shops and throwing a juulan or two around. 

Comments

[redlightgreenlight]

"I was," She sighed, "But now I am just me, no kingdom and no king."

She contemplated Sonja's words for a moment. "You want the war to revolve around you?" she asked. "Or do you mean that you wish to be the one moving the pieces?"

[confirmationbias]

Oh, whoops, yeah, she could see how you would interpret it that way. She hadn't really considered that because obviously Sonja wouldn't be the center of any kind of world, that was silly at face value.

"The making the moves part," Sonja said.

[redlightgreenlight]

"I see," Valdis replied, interested in how the girl saw the world. "Well, my little tactician, who moves first? You or me?"

[confirmationbias]

Sonja blushed. Valdis' endearment simultaneous made her bristle and also kind of melt a little and it was disconcerting and also she wanted Valdis to do it more.

"Y-you first."

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis looked over the board, pretending to not notice Sonja's blush and carefully made her move.

"Did you play a lot of games involving tactics back home?" She asked.

[confirmationbias]

"Yes. Father isn't any good at them, but some of the generals and colonels are good players, when they had some spare time, which isn't often."

She moved a pawn up.

"Computers make good opponents if all you want to do is learn how to play the game perfectly. Less good if you are into the psychological aspects of them. Most tactics games are available for play online, but it's a little annoying to have to use pseudonyms."

[redlightgreenlight]

That was interesting information. Sonja played war games with high ranking officers when they had time...another piece of interesting information.

"You said that they didn't have much time to play, is your nation at war?" She said as she moved one of her own pawns.

[confirmationbias]

"Not really. Border skirmishes with other nations have been rare to nonexistent since the formation of the Allied Nations, and cleaning up scattered Black Hole forces is really more of a police action than warfare."

She moved another pawn. She was attempting to form a wedge on the right side of the board.

"But we're not generally fans of idle time in Yellow Comet, so even in times of peace you'll find someone of such high rank and important will have plenty to fill their time with, not the least of which being reconstruction."

[redlightgreenlight]

"Consider yourself lucky then," she said, more interested in the conversation than the game, but still focused on the strategy. She didn't plan on winning, but she could still make Sonja work hard for the victory.

"Three of the four races of my world are at constant war with each other and the fourth race is often at war with itself."

[confirmationbias]

"Race as in different ethnicites, or like wholly disparate species?"

[redlightgreenlight]

"The best way to describe it would be different species," she replied, moving her knight. "Angels, Demons, Hellhounds and Humans."

[confirmationbias]

"Hmm, it almost makes more sense to call them different states of being then," Sonja said. "Am I incorrect to assume each calls a different plane of existence their home? Analogues to 'heaven' and 'hell', as it were?"

Orange Star religion wasn't common in Yellow Comet, but Sonja was familiar with the basic concepts. Those beings were more generalized into the concepts of Yōkai in Yellow Comet, with Oni the closest parallel to 'demons.' It was all a bit more grey than that. Mysticism was rarely cut and dry, and Sonja didn't put much stock in it - well, not until she got to the turtle, anyway.

[redlightgreenlight]

"Perhaps," she replied, watching the girl carefully, "Hounds and Demons live within the same plane, Angels and Humans in another. But they are all connected, and the three higher races can travel to the human realm at will. I should not that demons and hounds cannot travel to the realm of angels and angels cannot travel into the realm of demons and hounds. Thus most of the warfare takes place within the human's plane. Although the fighting between my race and the demons often takes place within our shared plane."

It was dark information, but she wasn't really thinking about hiding her secrets at the moment, no matter how dangerous it might be to reveal them.

[confirmationbias]

Sonja didn't consider perpetual war particularly dark, it was just kind of how things worked. The cosmology was more interesting than anything. Valdis seemed human enough, even with all her of shapechanging. War was war, wherever you went.

"Is any one side winning?"

Sonja moved up a silver general to defend the pawn that Valdis' knight was now threatening.

[redlightgreenlight]

"Last I knew of the war was that my kind were in retreat, none of them had entered the Human realm in three centuries. The Demons and Angels are too well matched for either side to win, but as the humans are mostly ignorant of the other three races...well, they are not involved with that particular aspect of the war."

She moved the Knight again, this time away from the pawn and the silver general.

[confirmationbias]

"Ah, Knights can't retreat in Shogi," Sonja said. "Fortunately, it isn't threatened by any pawns quite yet, and it'll take me a few turns to get there, should I choose to go for it."

"So with the Demons and Angels in Stalemate, your kind and the demons warred? Have you allied against the angels in the past?"

[redlightgreenlight]

She sighed and swiftly took back the move, deciding to just take the pawn and suffer the consequences.

"The Hounds would never ally with the Demons," she replied harshly, "They are bitter enemies."

[confirmationbias]

"Not 'we'?"

Sonja took the pawn with her Bishop.

[redlightgreenlight]

The observation startled her because she hadn't even realized how she had stated her opinion.

"I meant 'we'," she replied although she wasn't certain if she really did.

She moved another pawn, trying to coax the girl into taking it and putting her Bishop within range of her knight.

[confirmationbias]

You didn't need to be hyper-observant to figure that that was a significant thing. It didn't seem like a good idea to pursue that at the moment though.

Sonja saw the transparent ploy for what it was, and decided to ignore it in favor of moving her pawn up to defend the bishop.

"Is there any one thing that lead to the history between the Demons and Hellhounds, or is it one of those things where the reasons have kind of been lost to the bile?"

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis was beginning to lose interest in the game, now simply moving pieces in order to have something to do.

"The demons claim that they created the Hellhounds and therefore the Hounds are subject to their control. The Hellhounds, as you might imagine, disagree with that sentiment."

[confirmationbias]

"...yes, I imagine that would be a rather serious point of contention. I assume there's a similar barrier to allying with the angels, or perhaps the humans?"

[It's fair to assume that a war hasn't gone on for centuries because someone never thought of the mantra 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend']

[redlightgreenlight]

"The angels wish to protect the humans. The demons delight in corrupting individuals and Hellhounds feed on souls, so you can see why that particular alliance would never work."

[confirmationbias]

"You feed on souls?" It was a pretty creepy concept even at face value. Sonja found herself gripping her soul gem out of reflex.

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis frowned, she really hadn't meant to reveal that particular aspect of her race. It seemed that her lack of judgment was becoming worse.

"They do not possess souls of their own, so yes, my brethren feed on souls. I, however, try to avoid doing such a thing."

Although the power that consuming souls gave her was always tempting.