tushanshu_logs | Sonja Late-March Catch-All

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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?"

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."

"Not 'we'?"

Sonja took the pawn with her Bishop.

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.

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?"

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."

"...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']

"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."

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

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.

"So it's a choice, not like a thing you have to do to survive, like vampires."

Oh god that's gonna make her sound dumb. She doesn't even like vampires. That much.

"Or do you just have like synthetic substitute souls to eat instead?"

Kill yourself now.

"The purpose of a Hellhound is to hunt down and consume the souls of those condemned to hell." She replied, "That is a primal instinct. I have a choice because, unlike the rest of my kind, I do have a soul. I couldn't be in this world otherwise."

"What condemns a soul to hell?" Was there a singular 'god' in Valdis's world that played judge and jury? It sounded rather dystopian, honestly. She never really put stock into religions that promised an afterlife of torment if your life wasn't spent accomplishing specific things.

"To put it simply, it could be anything from telling a lie to murdering someone," she said nonchalantly, "It is more complex in nature, but I don't feel like explaining it at the moment."

"You wouldn't happen to be more amenable to talking about the whole 'having a soul' thing though, would you?"

Shogi was slow and methodical, and trading pieces just meant that you had more pieces to drop on the board later. It was much more about positioning than material advantage. She dropped a captured pawn onto an empty file on the board, blocking the advance of Valdi's rook.

"Why all the questions," Valdis replied, watching Sonja drop the pawn onto the board with little interest.

Something felt off. Not about Sonja's questions, just something in general and it was concerning.

"Well, you understand if I'm a bit concerned that you are kind of a giant shape-shifting yōkai that eats souls, right? That's kind of- it's concerning."

She wasn't necessarily scared, because she hadn't been given any reason to be, besides Valdis' own admissions. And Valdis wouldn't have told her those things to scare her.

Edited 2015-04-14 06:57 (UTC)

Valdis sighed heavily, "I've said too much obviously, I don't know where my sense of self preservation has gone." She stood up, "We can finish this at a later date."

"No! Please don't go, we can talk about something else." They'd only been together for a few minutes, who knows when she'd see Valdis around again.

She hesitated, but the girl's plea reached her, and she slowly sat back down.

"You must understand, Sonja," she said quietly, "In my world, I am an outcast, hunted by the three warring races for the simple fact that I possess a soul. So it is hard to speak of it to anyone."

"Then we won't speak of it," Sonja said. It wasn't as important to know the exact circumstances, although she was still curious. Maybe some other time?

"Do you want to play a different game? Something less war-gamey? I'm actually a little interested in this game Iroh showed me..."

"Whatever you wish," She replied, managing a small smile.

Sonja Late-March Catch-All

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