NationStates Jolt Archive

Ruins of Ravencroft, Former C'tan Territories, Earth

A coastal city, Ravencroft was home not to the ravens that were it's namesake but to gulls, who rose screaming from the crumbling buildings as humans returned again to the city.

They came from the sea, the speed of their passage furrowing the waves, the scream of their jets echoing from the empty streets. Over water was, after all, the best medium for travel by 'lifter; with no inconvenient hills or trees in the way, one could kick the speed up to 200kph and zip along quite nicely (which was quite fun, too).

"What a view!" Elena Vilasenko exclaimed over the short-range radio. It was a nice view, with the setting sun behind them shining on the skyscrapers along the waterfront, and a few wisps of cloud glowing red on the horizon; Elena tapped her pilot's goggles twice, and the systems integrated into them took a snapshot.

"What a wind!" complained Andirei Beketov, several dozen meters away. It was windy, too; outside of the Bay, the North wind came uninterrupted right off the pole, and it was icy in the gathering dusk.

The two of them had been sent north, with enough supplies for several weeks (the expected duration of their expedition) to "take a look at the city, see if there's anything we can use", in the words of Ground Commander Akisenov.

So here they were, coming in to land with the gulls still wheeling overhead. In the absence of beaches, they had to find some other form of ramp up to the level of the waterfront, which was difficult; Ravencroft, a harbour city, had wharves, but the only boatramps they found were rotting, unsafe things. Eventually, a mound of rubble, where a skyscraper had collapsed into the harbour, sufficed.

Elena pulled her speed right down to zero, and sat hovering a meter above the waterfront, which was lined with benches, overgrown trees, and even a few rusting ground vehicles; all in all, a pleasant scene, especially for one more used to the cramped corridors of the Kinva.

Pulling her pilot's cap and goggles from her head (brown hair neatly pulled back into a braid, which eliminated the worst "hat hair" problems), Elena twisted in her seat to look at Andirei. With the jets off, the 'lifters only emitted a faint hum - the maglift mechanism itself.

"We need somewhere to pitch the tent," she told him. "Where do you think?"

"Somewhere out of this wind! Not too near a building or anything. What about a park?"

"Should do." In one of the larger of the many pockets in her jacket Elena had a satellite scan of Ravenscroft. She pulled it out now, comparing the buildings she could see to what the sats saw from orbit.

Right. If we're here, and this green rectangle is a park, we need to go like this...

"Down this street," she told Andirei, "Then a left, a right, another right, and there's a park on the other side of that big pile of rubble. If it weren't so steep, we'd be able to go right over the top and be there in a minute."

"Right!"

Andirei pulled his cap back down over his ears, goggles over his eyes, and waited politely until she'd done likewise before starting his jets.

Detour or no, they were at the park within five minutes. It was suprisingly big, and the trees and grass had grown out of their civilised order when civilisation left; a little patch of countryside, almost, amidst the city.

A tube attached to the panniers of Andirei's 'lifter yielded the tent, a mess of plastic cloth which used identical technology to the ex-parachute bubble tents of Base Camp. Laid out flat on the ground and hooked up to the power supply of the 'lifter, smart-cloth cords in the tent snapped into rigidity, erecting the tent instantly. A lower-technology civilisation would have applauded it as a wonder - no more messing about with interlocking aluminium rods! - but to Elena it was commonplace; she owned several garments which worked in the same fashion.

They moved their gear into the tent, laying out sleeping bags and packs precisely as directed by their training; that was how they'd been taught, after all, and they were still too new at it to have developed anything better.

"I think I'll go for a walk, see the scenery," Elena told Andirei, as the latter rummaged through the bags for the supply of self-heating mealpacks.

"That's against policy," Andirei replied, voice muffled (he was facing the other way, after all), "You know that's why we were sent as a pair in the first place. There could be some kind of hideous tentacled horror lurking out there - you never know..."

"I know you read too much fiction, Andirei. Who's in charge of this expedition, you or me?"

"Ground Commander Akisenov, by the will of the Enra Siannon. But right here, yes, it's you. But if Akisenov or someone asks, I'm telling them it was all your idea!"

"And it is. I'll be back in a quarter hour or so, never fear."

Ducking out of the tent, Elena looked about. Night had definitely fallen, with only a slight glow upon the horizon; but the stars were out, and the moon was very bright. The trees of the park suddenly looked much more menacing, however, and Elena almost called off her little impromptu walk. But she'd always been too stubborn for her own good.

At the far end of the park, a glimmer of white stone was visible through the trees. Intrigued, Elena went that way, and discovered a marble statue, mantaining it's shine through some kind of polymer coating, on a tall plinth. Roman letters carved into the plinth read Princeps Senatus Karl Kopinski, but she couldn't read them; the Rhiadin made do with Cyrillic, and, for more formal things, the fiendishly complex Enrai Desazh runic logography.

I wonder who he was.

The Rhiadin lacked sculpture - one Enrai couldn't be differentiated from another by a marble carving anyway - and she found it interesting.

Surely he didn't make a habit of that stern-face-of-destiny thing, she thought, He looks rather constipated. Irreverent, maybe, but true.

I wonder if they'll make statues of me, someday. Elena Vilasenko, discoverer of ... what? You never know, like Andirei says.

“Nice ass she’s got,” someone whispered, a dark cloak obscuring his form, crouched by a nearby window. The figure was not alone though, and the other one, whom that comment had been addressed to, whispered back, “a bit tall for my taste.”

“Well, we don’t have to like her body,” said the other, unpacking something from a bag under the cloak and putting it to his eye. A monocle-like heads up display showed the target far better than even augmented eyesight. Taking a long weapon, almost like a carbine, but smaller, more fragile looking, he smiled, watching as the display changed to show the view from the weapon’s sight. Rolling a wheel on the side caused the view from the elaborate sniper-rifle to appear closer to the target, a set of cross hairs in the centre.

The weapon itself was a fast firing needle gun, quite literally needles in this case, about half a centimetre in length. They were made of a material that melted in human and quasi-human blood harmlessly, within seconds of leaving their vacuum-sealed and cooled ammunition device, carrying a rather stiff dose of tranquillisers. Five shots could kill, and the device was designed with that in mind, so that one would use for shots, then have to re-chamber more with an antiquated bolt-action mechanism. He took careful aim at one of Elena’s buttocks – not only for his own amusement, but due to the fact that he would be guaranteed that he didn’t hit anything essential there – even though the needles only penetrated by six millimetres or so in normal conditions.

Squeezing the trigger, he studied the subject’s reaction intently.

"Ow! What the...?"

Elena's hand came down to swat whatever insect had stung her, and found nothing.

That's weird, it's not the right sort of weather for bugs, it's too cold! Maybe there are cold-weather insects...

Whatever it was, it made the moonlit park spin dizzyingly around her, and then everything was falling upwards, and getting darker - had the moon gone behind a cloud or something?

The last thing she saw before the dark closed in was the statue looming above her. From this angle, it appeared to be smirking at her.

The second of the two operatives wandered out and began to cross the park, walking rather confidently, he was being covered by the other one, and they were certain that this one was the only newcomer around. There wasn’t any real spite there, as he walked over and tapped her in the ribs with his foot, but there wasn’t much tenderness or feeling either. Satisfied that the young woman was out for the count, he turned her over, and casually brought her wrists behind her back, tying them there with a rather heavy-duty zip-tie.

With alarmingly practiced ease he threw her up on one shoulder and began walking back toward the building. A few moments later he dumped the prisoner down and began to go through her pockets, taking keys to the vehicle, a few maps, a tube of something that seemed like toothpaste, though, after a moment, considering that these people lacked artificial gravity, it occurred to him that it was probably food. He opened it and squeezed some onto a finger, sniffing it first then eating it. “Humm, lemon flavoured,” he muttered. He finished fishing paper, a pen and some other junk from her pockets, and looked around at the other one, who had put the gun away, and was standing over her, a thin bladed knife, obviously the kind intended for cutting things, rather than combat, in his hand. He grabbed the collar of her jacket and began working his way down her arms.

“What are you doing?” the one who had brought her in asked.

The second looked back at him, “Searching for concealed weapons,” he said. The first sighed, and took something from a bag on the floor, passing it slowly over her, “Nothing there…” he said after a moment, “including implants. His more lascivious companion smiled, “Well, best to be certain…”

Elena blinked her way back to wakefulness, and discovered that the statue was no longer smirking at her; above her was a bare concrete ceiling, grey in the light of the moon.

There was concrete beneath her, too, cold and gritty on her bare arms, elbows pressing painfully into her back. She was missing a great deal of her clothes, and the night air was raising goosebumps all over her body.

Something hard and plastic was digging into her wrists.

All these things she discovered in the first few seconds of awakening. Then voices prompted the inescapable conclusion that this was not a natural occurance, that someone had done this to her, and that the C'tan Territories were not so empty as they'd been led to believe.

(OOC: Dark red for C'tanspeak, which Elena can't understand) "She's waking up. Shoot her again?"

"She's already taken four hits to the ass, it could be dangerous. Shit, I wish they made those things last longer."

"Don't we all. Okay, darling, don't move your feet and I'll have these trousers off in a second..."

To Elena, it was babble. Managing to lever herself painfully up on her elbows, she saw that one of them was pulling her trousers down over her feet, while the other sat nearby, an odd-looking gun dangling casually from one hand.

Enra have mercy, they're going to rape me!

"Please," she begged, voice quavering in fear, "Please, whoever you are, don't hurt me!"

Another part of her mind, bastion of rational thought even in the depths of terror, noted that begging was highly unlikely to help.

Rational though it was, the thought was wrong. The one sitting nearby glared at the shorter, younger man taking her trousers off, “Right,” he said, “quit it, you’re terrifying the woman. Pull the trousers back up and go look out for more of them.”

With an unpleasant mutter the other one obeyed, sliding the fabric back up her long legs, and leaving the room through the only door. The other one gazed at Elena with something of a compassionate look in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you can understand me?” he asked, and, concluding that she didn’t, pointed to himself and said, “John Black,” not his real name of course, but she didn’t need to know otherwise. He looked at her questioningly, pointing at her casually.

*tagged for incredible interest. DON'T HURT HER! I'M IN LOVE!!

OOC: That's entirely up to Mephet'ran, Gawdly. We shall see...

So maybe they're not going to ... oh please let them not!

The plea was adressed to nobody in particular; the Enra Siannon was far away, after all, and the old folk-tales of the Enra-as-Man He Who Is were nothing more than old folk-tales.

But she had her trousers back, and they apparently weren't going to rape her, and right now that seemed enough to be utterly grateful for.

The one who was left - the one with the gun, who seemed at least marginally more decent than the other one - pointed to himself and said something; his name, perhaps? Elena heard it as "Zonn Bilakh".

She couldn't point to herself in reply - her hands were still bound behind her back - but Zonn Bilakh was pointing for her.

"El-Elena Vilasenko," she replied.

Oh damn, how long have I been out? What is Andirei doing?

---

Under a kilometer from where Elena lay (in a direct line, that was - the actual route was longer than that, but not by much), Andirei was still waiting; only ten minutes or so had passed, and there was still time left for Elena to return.

"Damned stubborn woman..." he muttered. Breaking Policy like that isn't a good idea. Nothing good will come of it.

After a few more moments of looking at Elena, a soft chime went off. He raised his hand to his mouth and spoke into it, “Target acquired, we’ll be enroute to your position in one minute.”

He stood up and began to stuff her belongings into a large black bag, and smiled, gesturing with his hand, spread, and pushing it upward, indicating that she should rise to her feet. Taking a roll of some kind of tape from his other bag, he walked over to her, deciding it would be best to gag her this time. The other man entered the room again, “Nothing yet,” he said, “Ready?”

With difficulty, Elena got her feet firmly on the ground and stood up carefully.

Falling over is not a good idea, on this concrete.

Zonn Bilakh produced a roll of tape, and walked over.

"No," she protested, "You don't need to do that, I won't say anything! I promise!"

He couldn't understand her, and, taking her chin firmly in one hand, applied a strip of tape across her mouth anyway. Elena struggled to breathe, desperately sucking as much air as she could through her nose - she had a phobia of being unable to breathe (and thus of being underwater or underground also).

Enra help me, I hope I don't pass out.

He turned her around, and grabbed an arm, his partner taking the other. They began leading her along the deserted streets – rather uncomfortable given her lack of footwear. They were apparently moving her towards the coastline. One of the old yacht wharves seemed to be fairly intact, and that was where they were headed. At the end of a long wooden pier – very uncomfortable to walk upon of course, dark black metal could be seen at the water at the end of the pier, emerging from the water. A hatch on the top opened slowly, and ‘John Black’ gave her a little shove between the shoulder blades to indicate that she should jump onto the wide, flat top of the ship a mere step away.

Beneath Elena's bare feet, worn white paint shone softly luminous in the moonlight. She kept her eyes on her footing - with Zonn Bilakh and the other one, the frightening one, holding her arms, she was unlikely to fall, but she wanted to avoid as many splinters or protruding nails as she could.

At the end of the pier, something smooth and black and shining rose streamlined from the water, and she was reminded suddenly of a picture she'd seen of a sea mammal of some kind. A whale, that was it.

At Bilakh's urging, she gathered her courage and jumped the short distance across the gap and onto the hull, stumbling and falling painfully to her knees. For an instant she thought she was going to slip over the other side, but Zonn Bilakh had leapt over behind her, and averted that fate with a hand on her shoulder. She would have thanked him, were it not for the tape over her mouth, and the linguistic differences between them.

The other one opened a hatch, and ‘Zonn’ pulled her to her feet again, “now, I’m going to release your hands, don’t try anything foolish.” He cut the tie around her wrists, and insistently nudged her in the direction of the hatch.

She might not be able to understand his words, but his meaning was clear enough. Elena stepped gingerly across the slick metal to the hatch, and saw a plain tube disappearing into the vessel, with rungs recessed into the side. A warm yellow light issued from it, startlingly bright after the moonlit semidarkness, and her eyes watered.

Zonn Bilakh nudged her again, and Elena slipped over the raised metal lip around the shaft, and climbed down into the ship.

In a word, the interior of the ship was… cramped. The seven-foot height of the Rhiadin woman forced her to crouch forward a little. Eventually Elena was shoved into a small pitch-black room, and left there. Time passed, she wasn’t sure how much, and occasionally she could feel the ship moving, but very little else. The heavy metal door was closed from the outside by a simple bolt, and quite unmoveable. Eventually however it was opened, and she was led out. This time the ‘ship’ was on dry land, in a stone cavern.

And though she likely had no idea, she’d travelled far further than she could imagine.

Confinement in the little closet of a cell had been bad, bringing with it old nightmares of being buried alive, sealed into some nook and forgotten, and although her eyes burst into sudden tears at the light, it was a great relief to be led once more out of the ship and into some larger space.

Wiping her eyes, Elena found that she was in a wide, echoing cavern. Ahead it ended in a wall of some black metal, and a look behind her revealed an angry sea. To one side stood the ship that had brought her here (wherever here was), revealed fully now it was out of the water.

A few people, who could be anything, wandering around purposefully; a few people standing around, equally purposefully, holding things that must be weapons, and who were obviously guards; Zonn Bilakh and his companion. That was all.

---

Far distant, Andirei Beketov stood helplessly in the little park as figures in the black-and-silver of Command questioned him yet again, or searched the park yet again, or simply stood around uselessly with guns at the ready, waiting for some horror to leap from the ruins.

"I told her it was against policy!" he explained again, to yet another uniform, "She overruled me, what was I supposed to do? She said she'd be just fifteen minutes!"

I knew no good would come of this.

But neither the Kinva or it's satellite network had picked up the stealthed craft as it left orbit and entered hyperspace; and very likely, the Enra Siannon would never discover what had happened to Elena Vilasenko.

The two who had been with her before simply led her over toward the back wall of the landing bay, a little forcefully perhaps. The one who’d stripped her before slapped her buttocks “playfully” and both walked away from her, leaving her with two guards and one other woman in something like a suit – if she recognised such a form of dress, or even perhaps the staff of hippocrates symbol on the left breast of the suit – who smiled at her, seemingly oblivious to the other’s activities. “Welcome,” she said, somewhat curiously, but then, she didn’t see this woman as any kind of threat to her, “This way please. We’ll have you home in no time.” She opened the door behind her by pressing her hand against a panel, and the two metal doors slid apart. Walking through she gestured for Elena to follow.

Elena shuddered as the man touched her again, and was once more glad that Zonn Bilakh had made him restore her trousers. But now Bilakh walked away without a backwards glance. That hurt her more than she expected.

As if he does this all the time. Maybe he does.

The woman smiled at her, which Zonn Bilakh hadn't done. Who knew what that meant, though? Elena certainly didn't. She said something in that foreign tongue, and Elena shook her head, trying to show that she couldn't understand. She couldn't talk - the tape was still over her mouth, and she didn't know what would happen if she took it off, what the smiling woman and the unsmiling guards would do to her. Didn't want to find out, her imagination offering up all sorts of nightmares.

The woman's gesture to follow was universal, however - likely any bipedal, humanoid creature could have understood it. Elena followed as directed, filled with anxiety.

The woman leaned back in the lift and studied her subject with a half interested eye. The guards waited outside, and she pushed a button on the wall, looking Elena up and down in a distinctly cold manner. She paused at the tape covering Elena’s mouth, and reached out after a moment to take it from the Rhiadin, not really because she wanted the other to speak, but purely because it spoiled the appearance of the subject.

The lift eventually came to a stop at a level far below, and the woman strode out confidently, walking down the clean white corridor with the assurance of the mistress of her domain. She stopped after several doors had been passed by and opened one. Inside was surprisingly comforting in its appearance. Just a little too much so. There was a wide “window,” which was artificial, but it was hard to tell, it even appeared to have depth, showing a green valley and a cloudless sky, birds flocking on the horizon. Paintings adorned the walls, copies of assorted masterpieces both modern and classical. There was a small table with two chairs, and a comfortable looking single bed. “I’ll have them get you some clothes later,” she said, closing the door, and locking it with a little click.

The tape came free with an awful ripping sound, stinging painfully as it took several dozen hairs with it.

"Thank you," Elena said meekly. The other woman couldn't understand, of course, but then Elena couldn't understand what she said either. She didn't reply, didn't even seem to notice she'd spoken, in fact.

The room she was led to was positively palatial. Elena could imagine nobody, save perhaps the Enra Siannon itself, having so much empty space!

There were images on the walls - the Rhiadin had little concept of art, and thus she thought of them as images - and a wide window, which was strange - if she'd landed at sea level, and gone down, shouldn't she be underwater?

While Elena was examining it, the woman said something, and she turned just in time to see the door snik shut.

"Wait!" she cried, and ran to it; she'd been locked in.

So, whoever they are, they want me to stay here. But who are they? And what are they going to do to me?

Neither question possessed an obvious answer, and the ones she imagined weren't nice. Well, she'd find out in due time, surely. She stepped over to the wall, and examined the nearest painting; a nightmarish white figure seeming to melt down the canvas, mouth open in a silent scream. Edward Munsch's The Scream - that was what it was, although she didn't know - represented rather closely Elena's emotional state.

A door in the wall yielded a small bathroom - toilet, shower, washbasin. Even a towel on a rack - she fingered it's soft, fluffy fabric with amazement. What sort of people supplied a prisoner with such luxuries?

A second door opened on a small wardrobe, with an array of clothing hanging on clotheshangers. She took one out and held it up; a plain white shirt of some kind, edged in green at cuffs and hem and collar, and down the front, where it joined with an oddly tacky strip of some metallic substance. Too small. Whoever these clothes had been provided for, they hadn't been made with her in mind.

Still, any clothes were better than no clothes, and they weren't so much too small as too short. She found some kind of sleeveless shirt and pulled it on, carefully tacking the metal strips together down the front (whatever they were, they weren't magnetic). It was uncomfortably tight, and left a great deal of her long midriff exposed, but it was better than just her bra.

The third door was the one she'd come in by, still locked. Elena sat down on the bed, and tried to stop herself thinking about her situation.

If I keep going around in circles like that, I'll go mad.

Eventually the door opened once more, and the same woman as had been in before entered. She carried with her another outfit much like the other one, even with the green. The green was part of a colour code, green being for non-violent offenders, and running up to red and black for the terminally violent. The woman threw the new outfit, this one actually measured to fit Elena. Most notable was the fact that the pants that came with the outfit were also measured to fit her. “Put these on,” the woman said in her own incomprehensible tongue. There wasn’t much point in a prison uniform if it wasn’t worn.

She also brought in a tray, with something that Elena probably quite wanted to see. A large plate sat on it, covered in assorted food, ranging from a vegetable soup of some kind to a large steak and assorted other things, even a rather expensive and quite delicious chocolate-ish dessert. She smiled and took a few steps back, the cutlery was real and potentially dangerous after all, and she’d want to be able to shoot Elena before she got the opportunity to attack.

Fortunately, stabbing anyone with a steak-knife was the last thing on Elena's mind. Food was the first; she was shocked to discover how hungry she was.

How long was I on that ship for? she wondered, and picked up the soupspoon.

"No," the woman said, shaking her head (yet still wearing that beautific smile!), and pointed to the clothes. "Dress first."

Clearly she was expected to put the clothes on first. That was fine; the shirt she'd found was uncomfortably small, and her trousers were speckled with grit and grime and, where she'd fallen to the deck of the ship, were still damp. Taking the clothes provided, she ventured into the bathroom to change.

The shower beckoned invitingly - it would be so good to be clean again! Not that she'd got dirty as such - or not all so much - on this ... unscheduled excursion, but the eyes of Zonn Bilakh's lusty companion still lingered on her flesh. The woman, and even the meal she'd brought, could wait.

Showered and dried, Elena investigated the clothes they'd provided - how had they managed to get her measurements so exactly? She hadn't noticed anything like the laser-scanning machines common aboard the Kinva for that purpose. But however it was provided, clean, fitting clothes were a blessing. Elena emerged again in a much more cheerful frame of mind.

To find, of course, that her food had grown cold. She picked at it half-heartedly, but it didn't look half so appetising now.

"Cold?" the woman asked - obviously it was a question, even if Elena couldn't understand the words - "I'll have that reheated for you."

She disappeared out the door (which locked securely again when she left) with the plate, and returned again shortly with it reheated.

"Thankyou," Elena told her - after all, the woman hadn't had to do that. The food was all quite delicious - but then, they said hunger made the best sauce, and they were right.

Soon enough, there was no food left, and Elena looked at the other woman with an unspoken question on her lips;

Well, what happens now?

The woman strode over to the bed and looked at Elena impatiently, patting the bed. She took a small pouch from her pocket and opened it to reveal a number of items that looked rather like something one would find as currency in a casino. She say by the pillows on the bed, and taking something else from the wallet-like container, this resembling a conventional PDA. She waited for Elena to come over, and insistently gestured for her to lie down, before attempting to press two of the devices against the younger woman’s temples...

Elena had no real reason to not do as the woman directed; after all, she'd provided food, new clothes, even this room. Or at least had helped under someone else's command.

So she lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes as the woman pressed the things to her temples. And tried not to think of how much they felt like electrodes.

With strange patience, the woman stroked Elena’s forehead as the devices did their work, violating Elena in possibly the most through way possible, and uploading her entire mind – in a frozen state – to be ‘sequenced’ later. In essence, this meant having an Artificial Intelligence (the ones here weren’t pedantic enough to call themselves electronic intelligences, which to be fair, they weren’t) go through everything she remembered of her life and compile a long report on Rhiadin culture and governance.

Elena waited for something to happen - pain, perhaps, or a voice in her head, or something. It didn't; there was only the woman's fingers on her forehead, and the thrumming of the blood through the veins in her ears.

It was calming, in fact, after this strange day. After a few minutes, the woman said something - "You can get up now", and took the things from her temples. Elena opened her eyes, and sat up.

Elena seemed to be an ideal subject for this. There was usually a little discomfort, but in her case nothing much seemed to happen at all. The doctor walked out of the room, and locked Elena in once more, and stalked off to have her memories processed.

Soon after, she was sitting reading the report. This is a nuisance. Now they'd have to find somewhere to put her on a more permanent basis. Damn. Hitting a few buttons brought up a blank memorandum, she began writing, “To Matthew Wright, Task-Force five supervisor…”

Elena covered a yawn - it had been a long time since the evening in the park in Ravencroft, and the few minutes with her eyes closed bred an urge for more.

Slipping beneath the covers of the bed (so soft!), she rolled over, and promptly went to sleep.

“So?” asked the doctor, “What’re we going to do with her?”

“Well, we can’t send her back…”

“No,” she said, “We can’t.”

“Helpfully, we’ve got just the thing to do with her…”

----

The door opened again and the woman walked in. She didn’t bother speaking, but her attitude had shifted somewhat, she seemed friendlier now. Over her arm hung a long black dress, even to the point of being tailored for the tall Rhiadin. She walked over, and smiled, “Well, aren’t you the lucky one?” she said in her incomprehensible language and held the dress out to her, “going on a little trip.”

Elena blinked at the woman in confusion for a few moments.

Clearly she expects me to wear the, the garment. she'd never worn anything like it before, but from some half-remembered historical a name suggested itself. The dress.

Slipping out of the bed, she took the dress hesitantly from the other woman, and went into the bathroom to put it on.

It was easy enough to figure out - that was a neck hole, that was a feet hole, those were arm holes - but it felt totally, utterly alien against her skin. Elena looked at herself in the mirror and made a face; she felt like a hydroponics worker doing EVA repair, or a gikuro doing theoretical physics research. Or a scout in a dress.

Emerging from the bathroom, she stood uncertainly just inside the room, under the critical gaze of the other woman.

So, what now? I think she may be taking me somewhere, but who knows? I can't understand her at all! And where could I go that would possibly require me to be dressed like this?

Again she was led up to the docking bay and promptly put in a vessel. This one however was pilotless, with large faces made of glass providing an excellent view outside of the vessel. As it took off over the roaring sea beyond the island they had been on, which appeared to be dominated by a large and rather antiquated looking fortress. There was of course, still someone else in the craft with her, the female doctor had decided to come with her for some reason.

The air in the docking bay was cold, straight off the stormy waters, and it raised goosebumps on her bare skin ... of which there was rather a lot (OOC: Pic of dress supplied by C'tan (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/eb_gallery/82096.jpg)). Elena felt uncomfortably exposed in the dress, so blatantly intended to show off her body; she was pretty more than beautiful, she knew.

In the craft it was warmer, and she could see the environment.

That window was definitely a fake, then, she thought. There was no way such a pleasant pastoral scene could exist on the rugged rock of that island, and in any case it would have to be far below the surface of the sea.

The fortress atop the island was a wholly alien structure to her. What use are those thick walls? It's just stone, not nara.

But no answer suggested itself, and soon enough fort and island were receeding in the distance as the craft sped away to whoever-knew-where.

The approach to the city of Tephet-Sheta was quite something to behold. From the sea it would firstly appear as a few select spikes reared high into the air glimmering with their own lights of blue and gold and white. The largest of these was the Imperial Palace’s tower, a golden spike surrounded by a quartet of others. There were of course innumerate minor oddities about the design, but they didn’t spoil the effect of these towers rising from a vast gold and white pyramid. Around this were arrayed hundreds of low buildings, and a few very high spikes that shot up through the clouds. The vehicle closed on the larger building, offering Elena a view of a vast corporate metropolis, ranging from horrifically up-market – given where she was going, if she played her cards right, she’d become very familiar with this – to rather more common further from the palace and the long waterfront.

Looking down the most notable feature of the city was the almost endless amount of bridges and canals, ponds and lakes. The water was absolutely crystal clear, idyllic in fact, which was rather strange given the huge expanse of the city.

"...Wow."

Staring at the city, there didn't seem to be much else to say; it was glorious. Maybe Base Camp would look like this, someday, or the planned settlement at Geosynchronous Mountain. She hoped so; this was a city she wouldn't mind living in, and generally Elena preferred the uninhabited wildernesses to the crush of humanity.

Who is it I'm being taken to see? Who would live in that place?

OOC: Done on IRC with the C'tan, hence the present tense and whatnot.

The shuttle lands in part of the same building, only nominally similar to the last landing bay she was in. This one is high, white quartz dominating the walls and ceiling. Again Elena is hustled out, though the air here is warmer than it was in the far north.

Elena looks about in wonder - this place, wherever it might be, surpasses any other building she's been in. The Kinva tends towards the utilitarian, although it's hull is richly decorated with Enrain scrollwork; but aside from that, a bubble-tent doesn't really compare.

The doctor gives her a little nudge to move on, gesturing towards a door in the far wall.
Following the doctor's directions, Elena walks towards the door, trying to hold the skirt of the dress closed with one hand - it really is split too far up her thigh for comfort - as she walks. For now, amazement wins out against anxiety. The doors open at Elena's approach, but the doctor doesn't bother following her into the rather ornate lift, with mirrored walls and silver doors (overall the inside is cylindrical). Once she steps inside, the doors close of their own accord.

Elena looks in alarm as the doors close on the outside world. The doctor might not be particularly friendly or likeable, but now she's gone Elena finds herself wishing she wasn't - as the world changes, people cling to any flotsam they can find. In the mirrored walls of the lift her image is stretched grotesquely, and she wonders what other people see when they look at her.

A moment later however, the doors open once again - hard to tell how far she's gone - into a short passageway, dominated by a lage set of wooden doors a small distance away, open. Clearly, someone wants her to go down that passageway; she does so, and peers through the doors. Anxiety once more triumphs over wonder.

"Ah," says a voice - quite startlingly in Rhiadin - "Good. Come in."

Elena freezes, startled to hear another voice speak her native tongue, and does as directed.

There is a man sitting there, not far from a desk, on a rather comfortable looking sofa. She might even recognise him from his statue, though he's changed somewhat since then; he wears silver and white, although Elena doesn't recognise the clerical resemblance the clothes possess.

Elena stops, looking at him, and her hands go down to close the split skirt of her dress again. He looks familiar, but she doesn't make the connection to the statue in the park.

"Hello?" she asks hesitantly, "Who are you?"

That question sparks off others; "Where am I?", "Why am I here?" and, plantively, "What are you going to do to me?"

He answers them in turn, rather patiently; "I am the Emperor of the C'tan," "You are on a planet called Duat, four hundred and ninety light years from Earth," "Nothing you don't want me to, except keep you here."

He does of course, skip one question...

Four hundred and ninety lightyears! The number is incredible, impossible; even if it were, it means that all her friends, everyone she knows (save, perhaps, the Enra Siannon) must be over four hundred years dead. Anger replaces anxiety; "What right have you to do this? What gives you the right, you bastard?"

"I assure you, they're quite alive," he says, "No more than a day or so has passed..."

How ... I didn't say that aloud ... did I? She stares at him, confused. "That's impossible," she replies flatly (but at the same time, a nagging memory of history classes reminds her that humans came to the home system in a ship that somehow violated the speed of light...) "Maybe it's not impossible," she amends, "But why? I'm just a scout!"

He smiles, "Oh, I don't know, just a scout seems unfair. You're probably a very interesting woman."

That scares her - it's entirely too close to a come-on. Her hands clutch tighter at the split seams of her dress. "I know cartography, and agronomy, and geology, and climatology, and - and several other -ologies, and I can pilot a 'lifter - but if you're an Emperor" - the word here, plucked from the depths of ancient history, is czar - "You already have people to do all that? Why me?"

"Well yes," he says, "But I'm sure you're still interesting anyway," he says, "Come, sit down."

Elena remains where she is; she's always been to stubborn for her own good, or so her mother once told her. "Answer me!" she snaps, "Why have you abducted me from my job and my friends and my life and whisked me halfway across the galaxy?"

"Oh, nonsense," he says, "It's only point five of a percent of the galactic diameter" - somehow he doubts she'll find this comforting - "Now sit."

"However far it may be, for the love of He-Who-Is and the ever-watching eyes of the Enra Siannon Itself, answer me!"

"When you've sat down, dear."

"Well, if it's the only way I'm going to get an answer out of you..." Glaring foully at him, Elena sits down on the sofa - as far away from the Emperor of the C'tan as she can manage.

"Good. Originally we had planned to abduct you, examine you a little, and have you back within a day or two..."

"Originally? I've already been poked at and prodded and groped by your people, so what's stopping you from doing just that?"

"It's complicated," he says, "and I'm very sorry, but returning you will now not be possible."

"Will not be possible? Well then, if you're not going to be taking me back, you have plenty of time to explain your "complicated" reasoning!"

"I have all the time in the universe," he says, "but I still won't bother to give you my reason. Certain factors have made it impossible..."

"You," Elena spits the word, "Are quite possibly the most infuriating example of a sentient being it has ever been my misfortune to meet!"

"Please," she adds, exasperation now tinged with pleading, "Why will you not explain your reason, O High And Mighty Emperor? How could it possibly affect you whether I know your reasons or not?"

"It is better for you that you do not know," he says finally, his tone sounding very firm. "Now, tell me more about yourself."

"About myself? You've got a lot of nerve, Emperor. I like geography, I like the wilderness, I like not being abducted by mad foreigners from five hundred lightyears away!"

"And you are quite stubborn," he adds with a playful grin. "Not that you should blame me, I was not responsible for your abduction. They did however want to kill you..."

"So I've been told in the past ... they wanted to kill me? Why?"

"They decided there was no use for you... There have been... reprimands."

She shivers, feeling the cold breath of death evaded on her skin ... which is entirely too bare for her comfort. "And you've decided you have some use for me? What might that be?"

"No real use," he lies with a little laugh, "Just mercy."

"Well, for that I suppose I should thank you. Although you understand, of course, that I'd be much happier if none of this had happened?"

"Of course," he says, "But for now, I feel like asking what you plan to do with the rest of your life."

Elena looks at him in confusion and anger. "How should I know that? I've just been plucked from a job I spent several years studying to get, whisked through time and space without anybody asking me if I wanted to be, and imprisoned by a madman!"

He stares wordlessly at her for a few moments...

"Well?"

He doesn't look amused by being called a madman.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you that - I don't suppose you can be, if you run an empire - but mister, you are very strange!"

He smiles, "Well. I sypathise with your position, really..."

"Do you? Well then - what would you suggest I do, if you're feeling so sympathetic?"

"Firstly, I would suggest you relax..."

"I'm sure you can understand that's a little hard for me to do."

"Yes, I can."

"So secondly?"

"Then I'd suggest you endevour to learn more about your new home."

"Then perhaps you'd care to teach me? Tell me, Emperor, about this Duat of yours."

"Well, what's to tell," he says, "it's a fairly earthlike planet, extensively terraformed, with a population of almost a billion last count..."

"Earth is a very varied world, Emperor," Elena replies, "Might you have maps?"

"Two or three dimensional?" he asks with a little smile, feeling he's caught her interest a little.

"Either. I should like to see this planet you've trapped me on." Back on Earth, of course, just a small portion of one planet had been fine, but she'd wanted to be there.

He says something utterly incomprehensible, alien and fluid-sounding even compared to english, and a large scale hologram of the planet (http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/Duat4.JPG) appears nearby. This catches Elena's attention - the technology as much as the globe of Duat now hanging in midair - and she leans forward to peer at the revolving world, hands leaving her dress as she examines the seas and continents of the planet, noting the climate zones, mind already extrapolating the weather and agriculture appropriate to each region.

He rises, and walks over to the desk for a minute.

"How interesting..." the globe is enough, for now, to take her mind off her troubles, and Elena stands up to look closer at the North pole of the world. "So, where are we? This city?"

Again he speaks, something like "Arinca Sheta," and part of the map illuminates like a bright star in the night sky.

"Ah!" she exclaims, delighted. "How much of this world is occupied, then?" she's always loved the empty places - from maintenance corridors aboard the Kinva to deserted Ravenscroft on Earth - and now begins to look for them here.

"About thirty percent," he says, abstracting a little. "And should you be interested in other unpopulated places, I know a few other worlds you might enjoy."

That offer - "A few other words you might enjoy"! - is startling, but after a moment's thought she realises that if he can cross four hundred and ninety lightyears in a few hours, then of course there will be others under his domain. "Uh ... Just this one to start with, I think. Where abouts is that thirty percent?" It seems a tremendously low number for an Earthlike world.

"Arinca Necrelna" seems to be the next thing, and it highlights assorted cities and other inhabited areas. It's rather obvious he's not counting the oceans there though, so thirty percent is actually quite a lot, though much of it appears to obly be nominally inhabited. Elena steps around the globe, examining the uninhabited regions. "Here," she says, pointing to a mountainous region near the Western coast, "Can you scale it up?"

More necrontyr speech follows, and it does so, he walks back to her and leans on the sofa behind her with a little smile. Elena examines the region more closely, finally settling on a glacial valley, carved out in some long-ago ice age. "There. That is where I should like to live." (OOC: It's due north of the t or the ' in C'tan on the map)

He smiled, "Ah, good. And how would you like to live there?"

"How?" she pauses and straightens up, not really having considered this. "I am a prisoner on your world, Emperor. Is it not customary to provide a prisoner with habitation, and nutrition, and the other necessities of life?"

He laughs slightly, "That wasn't what I meant. What quality of life would you like? For example, how extensive would you like your... habitation to be?"

Elena shrugs. "I don't suppose I need much," she replies, [color=blue]"So long as it is not in the middle of a city. My quarters on the Kinva were quite small. I would like some method of getting about, though - something like a 'lifter, I suppose."

"I think we have just the thing. Old military stock, arial bike type thing, no?"

She nods. "Yes. It repels against the planetary magnetic field to produce lift - there's a laser altimeter which keeps it a meter or so above the ground, and jet engines to propel it." here she makes a face, and adds, "They are very loud, I'm afraid - the engineers keep saying they'll find some solution, but they haven't yet, and in any case they have yet to uncrate the engineering shops."

"Well, I dare say our version's quieter."

They can cross lightyears in minutes, I suppose they can make a quiet 'lifter. I'm sure you're right. A house, a 'lifter - I shall be needing food, of course, and clothing." remembering now the embarassingly scanty - to her, at least - dress, she pulls uncomfortably at the clinging fabric.

"I'll give you the money to buy whatever clothing and food you want," he says, smiling.

"Thank you," she replies. It's the least he could do, and he has the funds of an Empire to draw upon. "Uh ... that's everything I can think of now, I guess."

"How large a house would you like?"

"Oh, it needn't be huge - not in the middle of all that wilderness! I guess I'd be happy with" - here she calculated a little - "Eighty, a hundred square meters or so?"

"You sure you wouldn't like bigger?" he asks "I can always have most of it built into a hillside or some such if you don't want to spoil the view..."

"I suppose it couldn't hurt..." she replies, considering, "Although not too large - I wouldn't use it all and I wouldn't be able to clean it all. I don't much like cleaning."

"As you wish," he says.

"I suppose, if you've architects, I could tell them how I'd like it?" she asks, and is interrupted by a loud growling from her stomach. "Oh! I'm sorry ... it's just been some time since I ate." Elena gives him an embarrassed smile. The Emperor smiles back, and promptly offers to take her out to lunch.

"Uh, thank you, I guess. That would be wonderful."

He smiles, and extends his hand to her. Elena takes it - he may be somewhat creepy, but he is offering to expend a substantial (by her standards, at least) amount of money on her behalf.

OOC: Whee! Yay for super-long posts.