—OPEN; journey before destination

[elsecall]

Who: Jasnah Kholin + others
Where: Panorama + Fringes
When: February
What: Catch-all w/ open prompts and closed starters
Warnings: Will update if needed

—open prompts below, mostly focused on settling in during earlier february
—hit up my plotting comment if you wanna plan something specific. very happy to get a starter going for us!
—prose & brackets both welcome; i'll match you.

Comments

—PANORAMA; open

[elsecall]

[ Jasnah does not sleep well. For years, she kept exhaustion at bay with Stormlight; without it, the nights stretch long and unkind. She naps only in fragments — curled in the cab of her truck or in a cheap motel when she can spare the joolies.

To stay awake, she has developed a routine. You are most likely to encounter her in one of two places:

—An all-night diner.

She always takes a window-facing booth. Orders a drink called coffee but never drinks it. The cost paid is for light and warmth. And the right to sit undisturbed somewhere dry while the rain spatters outside. Although her left hand is gloved, her right is bare — and moves constantly: turning a pencil, tapping the table, writing precise notes in a cracked-spine notebook.

She watches the street. If you pass by outside, she notices. If you come in, her gaze tracks you until you sit or leave. If you linger too long too near, she'll say something first.

—LuxFilms.

When she can afford it, she attends early-morning documentary screenings at LuxFilms. Always the back row. Always near the exit. Posture rigid, left hand tucked inside her coat sleeve. The moving images remind her (unhelpfully) of a certain storyteller. Captivating and infuriating.

Sometimes exhaustion wins. She falls asleep mid-screening. She snores. ]

all night diner!

[pse]

[ Kimiko hasn't had the heart to return to her favourite burrito cart alone since returning from the forced sojourn in Acreage, so she ends up trying new places to refuel after her fights. She's learned she isn't a fan of Greek food, finding it altogether a bit too damp, but loves Thai. Tonight she goes for something that reminds her a bit of home, of before — an all-night diner attempting a pastel, retro 50s pastiche that wouldn't be out of place in one of New York's quieter boroughs.

Of course, every time she finds a new place to eat, she has to do the I'm mute, please be patient with me while I try to order mutely song and dance all over again. This time is no different.

Having someone observe this interaction, carried out at the front counter, with such a crisp and unashamed gaze — well, that's a new spin on it.

As the server goes to get Kimiko a hot chocolate, she glances over her shoulder. Spots Jasnah's gaze; it's awkward smile and wave time. ]

[elsecall]

[ Jasnah watches the exchange with the same steady attention she gives most things: without apology, without softening the act of looking. The choreography is inefficient but effective — gesture, pause, clarification, repetition. The server adapts. The transaction completes. Order restored.

It reminds her, briefly, of a bridgeman she once observed from a distance in Urithiru. One of Stormblessed's crew. A man whose silence had not been emptiness but damage — words trapped behind something that must have felt insurmountable. The camp had learned him eventually. Not through kindness, exactly. Through the blunt, daily necessity of being understood.

Jasnah does not assign pity to the memory. Pity is rarely useful. She files it away and returns her attention to the present, to the woman at the counter finishing her careful negotiation with the world.

When the glance comes — awkward, uncertain — Jasnah does not look away. She does not smile, either. She inclines her head, once, in acknowledgment. Courtesy, stripped to its bones. Jasnah closes her notebook. Slides it aside. With her bare right hand, she taps the opposite side of the booth's table — just enough to make the invitation unmistakable.

No pressure. No insistence. Just an offer to be two solitary someones sharing the same plan to stay out of the rain a little longer. Jasnah turns her gaze back to the window, content to share the silence — or not.

Either way, it costs her nothing to make room. ]

[expulse]

[ Mornings are not usually hectic for Sylus. Mostly because he's not much of a morning person—or a daytime person in general. He conducts his business as the sun begins to set, works throughout the night, and by morning is winding down for a well-deserved nap.

But he's not yet caught onto the rhythm of Panorama; is still learning the beats and notes of the population. Still learning where to press to make it sing the way he wants. Needless to say, he is particularly interested in a documentary at the moment, but the theatre is relatively large, and boasts plenty of poorly lit rooms. All of which means it makes a good enough location for him to throw some pursuers off his tail.

He tosses the helmet that he'd been wearing into one of the empty rows—the sudden sound of contact likely loud enough for Jasnah to hear—and then saunters over to where she's seated.

Sits down right next to her, and doesn't say a word. He looks suddenly engrossed in the documentary. ]

[elsecall]

[ At least she isn't caught asleep — snoring — in her cinema seat. Though she had been drifting, attention fraying somewhere along the margins of a fascinating digression on poisonous mushrooms enlarged to absurd scale on the screen. (How does this technology work? Would they let her into the projection room to learn? But what if she just closed her eyes a moment...)

Embarrassing, really. Jasnah once went nights without sleep, sustained by discipline and thin sips of Stormlight. Here, without that raw power, she's locked in constant negotiation with her body. Stay awake one more hour. She would like to blame it on self-importance alone — no one here knows who she is, she's got no crown to draw knives — but Panorama has proven dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with assassination.

So when someone with light hair — too pale, almost — and sharp features and that nose drops into the seat beside her without so much as a word, recognition jolts through her before she can stop it. Perhaps it's little more than homesickness, seeping in where her vigilance has thinned.

Hoid had worn many faces on Roshar. The one she knew best was chosen, curated. Taller and dark-haired. But there had been one moment brief and unguarded when she had seen something closer to his real appearance. And the resemblance of that real appearance with the man sitting next to her is...unsettlingly precise.

But doesn't it make sense? He had always spoken of other worlds as casually as most people spoke of other cities. He appeared where conflict brewed and where stories tangled. It was only a matter of time before Hoid turned up — either to court trouble or to become it.

Or perhaps she simply needs it to be him. A familiar constant in an unfamiliar place. Proof that she is not as unmoored as she feels. ]

I should have known you'd show your face eventually.

[ Jasnah speaks coolly, not daring to look too directly at him. Arch. Stiff. Controlled. If this is Hoid, then the last thing she did was leave him behind with nothing but a letter. And if it isn't Hoid? Well. Won't that be embarrassing. ]

diner!

[catharses]

[ This particular diner is a place Sunday frequents, too, and those visits at first were for the same reasons. A place to go besides the motel which feels slightly more like home after spending months there when the length of time recently registered, but this habit? On restless nights, it's still his first choice.

Tonight's no exception as he steps inside and pushes his hood back, glad for it with the rainfall that's lighter than it's been the past few days though he doubts that'll last. The diner has a few more patrons than usual - or quite a few more as he scans the tables to find most of them occupied. In the process he catches Jasnah's gaze and nods politely, meaning for that to be the end of that interaction... only to realize in the next instant with one of two open tables being claimed by a couple who'd walked in ahead of him, that leaves the remaining table right next to the booth. Well.

Sunday approaches the table, takes a moment to remove his coat and drape it over one chair, then seats himself and casually glances again to find she has a notebook before her. His gaze doesn't linger long enough to give any impression of attempting to read what she was writing before he looks up. ]

It's not often I find others taking notes here.

[ Said mildly, and while withdrawing his own journal from his bag. Just as confirmation he's not making this up, for what it might be worth. ]

[elsecall]

[ Honestly, it's starting to get a little too crowded for Jasnah's liking — but the alternative is to loose herself back into the rain. And, unfortunately for her, her only other outfit is currently drying (poorly) on the passenger seat of her truck. Which means she's stuck here for the foreseeable future. At her elbow is an untouched cup of something that's long gone cold.

And when she's not paying attention to the people around her, she's certainly absorbed in her notes. Currently, she's scribbling a few thoughts on why there's such an alarming lack of spren in this place. They should be crawling, bubbling, appearing from everywhere in a spot so occupied as this. And yet.

The most recent body to join the fray addresses her, and produces a notebook of his own. Hm. Although there were exceptions enough even back in Urithiru, it's still a little strange to realize now...normal and unremarkable it is, here, for a man to be literate. ]

I imagine it depends.

[ A gentle indication of the space around them — and the window beside her. ]

For some — [ for me ] — this 'here' is notable in itself.

luxfilms;

[deliverant]

[ for vash, his experience with moving pictures - documentaries, movies, whatever - has been limited to a handheld portable screen rooted out from a storage box of miscellaneous stuff on the spaceship; rem had tried to keep some semblance of control by only allowing them access to harmless old-earth documentaries, but that never stopped two very determined kids.

it's not really the same thing anymore, sitting in a theatre instead of under a blanket, watching the images move over the screen all by himself. not to mention the other details - the air smells like stale popcorn, the seats are either lumpy in weird places or suspiciously squishy ... and occasionally there's someone faintly snoring somewhere just behind him, like this morning.

this early in the morning, most people are either in their beds or already out working - and vash doesn't want to discount the fact that this little screening theatre might be either of those for this slumbering stranger. if it's their makeshift bed to catch a couple of hours of sleep, he doesn't want the worker to come and catch them out. if they are employed, he similarly doesn't want them getting into trouble.

which is why he waits her out after the documentary has finished, carefully keeping his distance a couple rows in front of her with his chin propped on arms propped on the seat he's sitting in backwards.

his eyes flick up to the tiny clock set above the doorway to one side, the shattered face still intact enough to make out the time, then back to her. the snoring continues. ]

...

[ rummaging around his pockets, vash finds what he's been looking for - a small scrap of random paper - scrunches it up into a ball, and flicks it in her direction. ]

[elsecall]

[ How disconcerting it has been to go from a practiced insomniac to someone who falls asleep wherever she lingers too long. Of all the shocks this city has delivered, this may be the most unsettling — and it's got little to do with the city itself. Losing access to the power that once kept her exhaustion at bay has, in its way, humbled Jasnah.

But when something small and harmless thocks abruptly into her cheek, she's got no time for humility.

She wakes instantly. Her gloved left hand thrusts out on instinct, palm opening and closing as though expecting something — anything, a weapon? — to answer the summons. Nothing does. No Ivory. No blade. No Stormlight.

She bolts upright, breath sharp, panic flaring. In the disoriented haze between sleep and waking, her mind supplies only one memory: a blade sliding between her ribs aboard the Wind's Pleasure. She had been asleep then, too.

The adrenaline spikes, then ebbs, leaving a wash of faint nausea in its wake. She leans forward, gripping the back of the seat in front of her with her bare right hand, grounding herself.

And then she focuses. There's another person here. Leaning casually against a seat a couple further rows deep, as though he hadn't just nearly tipped her into a full panic. In her lingering stupor, the only coherent thought she manages is that his two-toned hair reminds her, unhelpfully, of Adolin.

Annoyance cuts through the last of the haze. She bends, retrieves the crumpled ball of paper from the sticky floor, and flicks it back toward him without a word.

At least her aim is still fine. ]

diner time

[magike]

( she'd been in the diner for a while. it was one of the nights where she was avoiding sleep herself, taking the opportunity to people-watch through the diner. so it makes sense that jasnah is someone she's noticed, the frequent writing, and the lack of drinking her order.

rowena orders herself another tea, waiting for it to arrive before taking it to her table, where she sits without invitation )

The coffee is terrible here, so I've heard.

( and given that it's now cold on the table, a small wave of rowena's fingers reheats the drink. just in case she had wanted it and had simply forgotten )

[elsecall]

[ Something minor flickers through Jasnah's expression. Annoyance at being interrupted, perhaps. But it could just as easily be bitten-down curiosity. Paradoxically, the two can look quite similar on a face whose emotions turn more inward that outward.

— Well, except for a spate of heartbeats after the stranger does something with her hand and fresh steam curls from the cup. That curls Jasnah's lip. If there was ever a hope she might have succumbed to drinking it before, she absolutely will not now.

...But the base assumptions around what just happened tie her interest down tight enough to ask: ] What did you just do?

[ Something in her tone suggests the question goes beyond the obvious made something hot again. A casualty of coming from a world where magic is more science than fantasy. ]

—FRINGES; open

[elsecall]

[ Jasnah should not be driving. She knows it and does it anyway. She's determined to master the truck, even as she grinds gears and drifts across lanes. You might encounter her in one of the following situations:

—Looting quietly.

Abandoned structures. Roadside stops. She moves efficiently, selectively, favoring tinned food and anything else with a long shelf life and packaging that hasn't been tampered with. If she hears you first, she does not announce herself — she waits, watching.

—Out of gas.

Stranded. Irritated. Flagging someone down with visible reluctance. Her posture makes it clear she dislikes needing help — and resents being seen in the act. She will accept assistance, but not pity. Expect clipped politeness and sharp observational questions in return. ]

[diametrically]

[ Though Cassian has a propensity to want to help others but being out in the Fringes of Diadem is much like being out in space. Pulling up beside a stranded ship or car in this instance is a gamble. There was no shortage of stories of more naive, well-intentioned people that had been quickly overrun by pirates back home just like there is no shortage of that here. All you had to do was replace the word "pirate" for "raiders".

It's mostly why he's overly cautious, attentive for signs that would be a dead giveaway that it was a raider versus someone who actually needed help.

Even if he hadn't met Jasnah prior to this to sell her a phone, he still might have stopped. It's difficult to hide reluctance, especially since he had clocked quite early on that she held herself in such a way that screamed competence and independence. Cassian pulls up front of her car before getting out of his car as if anticipating needing to do some light mechanic work. It wouldn't be the first time.

As he gets closer he gives her a brief nod by way of hello before - ]

Car trouble? Or did you run out of gas?

[elsecall]

[ Plenty of passing cars do not stop. Jasnah doesn't fault them for it; she, too, would be wary of a stranger stranded on the shoulder of the road. Her thoughts would leap immediately to every dreadful possibility long before considering simple misfortune. By the time someone finally slows, she's close to conceding defeat and locking herself in the truck for the night. A bleak prospect.

So when a car sidles past, hesitates — and then pulls to a halt ahead — she finds herself caught in a brackish mixture of relief and apprehension. Her wariness doesn't truly abate until an almost-familiar face steps out into the rain.

Cassian, wasn't it? The man who'd sold her the phone — ironically, its sitting on the passenger seat with a dead battery. Storms, this technology requires so much babysitting.

Learning what a phone even was had taken her on an absurd, circular hunt through the city: bad deals, unnecessary features, things she neither needed nor could afford. It had ended only when a frugal older woman — spitting chew into a pot outside a bookstore — pointed her toward Cassian. After a cautious exchange and an appropriate loss of joolies, Jasnah had left with something simple an refurbished that seemed honestly priced.

That interaction had placed Cassian squarely in the category of respect, but do not yet trust. A very small, sparsely populated category.

Jasnah pushes off the side of her truck with her bare right hand. She's traded her earlier dress for a skirt, a long raincoat, and sensible boots — less culturally distinctive, more practical. A glove remains on only her left hand. ]

Car trouble? [ She says — but she doesn't sound convinced of her own answer. ] But now that you mention it...

[ With a sharp, inward wince, she realizes — only now — that she may have done something as profoundly stupid as running out of fuel. Navani would never have been caught so flatfooted around such a feat of engineering. ]

Perhaps it is the gas. Storms — I'm not familiar enough with these machines.

looting;

[churnback]

[ On his way back to Panorama from the Scrapyard (a regular trip these days), sometimes he'll take a little detour if he's running low on supplies. He can get a few basic things from the shop to keep on hand, but there's never really a shortage of practical stuff he needs. Like anyone here. Stuff he can pawn, trade, or just consume, depending on what it is.

He pulls up by a place that looks like an old, abandoned diner. Probably a goldmine of stuff if it hasn't been picked clean by now; then again, zones like this pop up fast, sometimes disappear quickly. You get the timing right, you've got your pick of anything before someone else gets there.

Never lingers long in these places if he can help it. He's got a singular focus: get in, take what you can, get out. Now — there's always a hyper-awareness about the space around him. He knows all his exits the minute he steps inside. If anyone's here — or comes in after him — he'll catch on quick. Doesn't mean he's instantly aware of every single presence, especially if they're stealthy, but he didn't last this long on luck. Survival was carefully crafted.

They probably become aware of each other as he's stepping out of what would have been the walk-in. As in, she probably hears him grabbing a small, empty stainless steel bin — handy for keeping some tools stored — and he sees the edge of a shadow move past from the slight crack in the door.

Plenty of people here wanna fuck with others. Amos, he's just — getting by. If the person on the other side of the door wants to be a problem, he'll deal with it. Meanwhile, he doesn't like waiting for whatever it'll be — nothing or something. To him, he's perfectly fine just existing in the same space together until he fills up his pack. So he opens the door, shoving the small bin into the pack on his shoulder, looking for the figure he's sure he saw. Now, if they wanna hide and make this a thing, he can go that way, too. ]

out of gas!

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie really should still be in a hospital, but he has neither the funds to afford an extended visit, nor the patience for the white walls and the repeated insistence that he stay in bed, so he’s opted instead to continue with daily life, trying to fill every moment to avoid from spiraling into anxiety.

That includes helping the poor souls that can’t seem to get their vehicles to move for one reason or another. It’s a common thing for him now; he’s given fly-by driving lessons, changed tires, jumped batteries.

The van that Jasnah flags down has a hand-painted mural painted on the side of a scene featuring a dragon, a wizard, and a red sky full of bats. It slows, someone rolls down a window, and the face that peers out is framed by copious amounts of wild hair and a nice sized wound on his jawline and neck that’s in the process of healing. But he grins, and it’s friendly enough. ]

Hey.

[ He calls out over music that’s turned up at an ear-splitting level, before realizing that's probably not the best way to talk to someone and reaching over to turn it down. ]

You, uh, broken down or just…don’t know how to get it going? Which--not trying to imply anything. We get a lot of both.

out of gas.

[micycle]

[ It would be a reasonable car to flag down, depending on your perceptions - or, for that matter, whether you're even from a world that has police. The light on top is flashing red and blue, but the rogue siren is at least staying off today, so Mike hasn't managed to accidentally pull anyone over on his trip to the scrapyard. Not this time, at least. Not a single use of the loudspeaker to clear up confusion, or tell people they can stop trying to toss bottles of booze out the passenger side windows.

He does, however, use it now, just as he slows the car down a few yards from Jasnah. ]

Do you, uh- need any help? [ Bracketed by radio static, but it's clear that he's young. Young, and a bit hesitant about the situation. You just never know out here, which is why he generally avoids the Fringes. He has no real weapons, aside from a baseball bat in the back seat, and his arm strength is close to that of spaghetti. ] I mean, like, other than fixing your car. I can't do that.

[ Please say no, please say no. ]

Looting!

[soul_sight]

[ Its not something he does often anymore, looting through diffusion zones or just abandoned structures out in the fringes, not since he got an actual job anyway, but sometimes he will drive out to see if he could find anything useful. Anything he could possibly sell or trade, he does still have a debt to pay down.

He's rooting around a building when he notices another soul hiding away behind a wall. Its always been useful, his ability to see a soul and he uses it here freely, not wanting some of the more nefarious people to get the jump on him. ]

You don't have to hide, I know you're there.

[ He would rather just confront them then pretend he doesn't see them. ]

out of gas

[crimebaby]

[ livio's got a motorcycle with a sidecar as he drives in, looking tired and a little down himself. it takes him a second to realize he's being flagged down, and he slows to a stop, noting this woman and her still vehicle. ]

[ it's obvious she doesn't want to accept help, but he tries anyway, trying to look as friendly as possible. he's 6'6" and well-muscled, so just a bit taller than her, but cuts a pretty intimidating figure to most ]

Hey. Ya need a ride to the gas station?

@CID; closed

[elsecall]

[ The building looks promising at first glance: low, squat, and single-story. A wide front window that suggests commerce rather than domicile. Jasnah slows as she passes it, rain ticking softly against her umbrella. The architecture fascinates her. It's clearly commonish to this area but is nevertheless so so so different from Kholinar, or the war camps, or Urithiru. Certainly different to Urithiru. She finds it hard to resist interrogating even the most mundane details.

So she slips inside — gently prying open a door that maybe once upon a time could lock. If she was hoping for maybe a bonus opportunity for looting, she'd be disappointed. The shelves have been picked clean down to the metal ribs. No tins. No sealed packages. Nothing but dust, torn packaging, and the sour smell of old rot. Whoever looted the place did so thoroughly — and a long long time ago.

Still. She doesn’t leave.

Instead, Jasnah walks the interor perimeter slowly, boots careful against broken tile. Her left hand — gloved — trails along the wall and shelves as she moves. She finds herself homesick, suddenly, for Ivory. For the way he would have hovered at her shoulder — offering commentary she didn't need and insights she secretly treasured.

This would have driven you mad, she thinks. The wrong kind of symmetry.

And while she's thinking about someone who isn't here, her boot catches on something half-hidden beneath a collapsed shelf. Metal scrapes and a hollow clatter follows as a stack of empty cans spills across the tile, echoing far louder than she'd hope in this hollow space.

Jasnah stills instantly. Panic settling in her bones as the sound echoes. Incriminating. If anyone's here, they're likely now alerted to her presence. ]

[judgmentbolts]

[ Cid's been hunting for a spot for a while now. Working out of his motel room had been alright while he was doing small repairs and the like, but now that he's got a hunk of chroma to work with, he needs the space to set up properly. (He supposes that he could have asked Viktor if he'd have another body around, but Cid doesn't know him all that well as yet, and he's not too eager to make a nuisance of himself.)

The last vestiges of late evening light stream through the broken windows, casting deep shadows where Cid has been crouched by the wall. Having cut away a chunk of the drywall, he's busy fussing with the wiring, trying to see if he can figure out how much of it ought to be replaced. He'd been so focused on the task at hand that he hadn't been paying attention to much else.

Everything looking a bit shite means that, for the most part, people don't wander in... except for now, when they do.

At the sound of the empty cans tipping over, Cid is on his feet in a second, one hand going to the sword that sits at his hip.

He steps around the shelves carefully and — ] Oh come on, I just picked that up. [ He looks from the cans on the ground to the woman standing in the isle, then slowly moves his hand away from his sword. ] That was you, then? What? It wasn't messy enough for your liking?

[ Cid sounds more exasperated than anything. He knows that he can't be all that annoyed; a few cans don't make much of a difference either way when it comes to the state of the place. (He did just pick those up though, because he'd tripped over them earlier himself.)

He'll wait to hear what she's got to say for herself, but he's got no interest in fighting anyone who's not here to cause trouble. ]

@SCIEL; closed

[elsecall]

[ The park is small. Neglected. Poorly kept in ways Jasnah lacks the proper framework to name, having never seen a park that wasn't neglected.

Intellectually, she knows that this is grass. The stationary type. She has read about it — extensively, in fact — most notably in accounts of Shinovar. Where the land is said to grow soft things openly, without fear of the wind. Still, knowledge and experience rarely align on first encounter. This grass is longer than she expected. Thicker. It bends beneath her boots instead of recoiling. It's off-green. A little sickly, maybe, because of the season.

Fascinating.

Jasnah walks the perimeter first, cataloguing benches with peeling paint, a rusted play structure half-swallowed by vines, overgrown desire paths. The space feels abandoned but not unused. She crouches near a patch where the grass has grown especially wild, gloved left hand braced against her knee as her bare right brushes carefully through the blades. They whisper against her skin. Yielding. Alive in a way Rosharan flora never is unless frightened into motion.

She is mid-thought when she notices the shape nearby. A person, stretched out in the grass. At rest. Entirely unconcerned with cremlings or dirt.

Jasnah straightens slowly. Recognition follows a heartbeat later.

It's the taxi driver. The one from earlier in the month — the one she'd had to cling to, arms locked around her sides, just to keep from flying off the bike. She remembers the cadence of her voice — the way she'd offered to help with the helmet — the terrible, terribly business practices that likely lost the woman money.

She studies her now with the same frank, unapologetic attention. They'd never exchanged names. Silent, just yet. ]

[searingbond]

[ Someone more prone to criticism might point out that Panorama's offerings of green spaces are...less than idyllic. The 'parks' are overgrown squares of dirt and weeds, punctuated with a few rusty playground sets and benches falling into disrepair. Having come from Lumière, Sciel does find that part of her misses the beautiful spaces they'd carved out for themselves in the little city, remembering more than one occasion where she'd done as she's doing now (lying in the grass, face skyward) for hours at a time. Enjoying the sun, or gazing up at the stars...

There are no stars to be seen in a place this bright, which is one of the things she dislikes most about it. It's easy enough to drive out to the Fringes, though, if she's got the itch. And while the view of the heavens there isn't that much better then it is within Panorama...it's something, at least. But, for today, she's settled for the parks that the city does have, trying not the way that the too-tall grass tickles her face bother her overmuch.

Not for the first time since she'd taken up residence, she hears footfalls. Most people are just passing through on their way to somewhere in better shape, so when this particular person sounds as though they'd stopped short nearby, the Expeditioner lifts herself to her elbows and glances in that direction. ]

Oh — bonjour. [ A face she recognizes, which is an unusual occurrence. This is one of the people she'd taxied around the city: specifically, the one who'd rightfully critiqued her 'business acumen.' So Sciel smiles in recognition, sitting up more fully and meeting Jasnah's gaze. ] Nice to see you again. Did you ever find a laundromat that isn't mood-altering?

first meeting cont’d;

[savante]

continued from.

It’s an interesting experience: Lune hasn’t often been on the receiving end of curiosity so much like her own. Verso always went for charm and humour and deflection to wheedle information out of her, but it turns out that matter-of-fact questions can get much further, particularly when it’s impersonal like this.

“I don’t exactly know how to measure it,” she admits, taking the seat opposite Jasnah. It’s not as if Lumière has a tidy timeline or estimation for how far they’ll be to push their technological advancements when all of their mechanical expertise is dying, but:

“We had invented motorised vehicles, but they were very basic compared to the cars here. They couldn’t play portable music. Music was pressed onto phonograph records, for that matter, and not these… compact discs? We experimented with radio and had telephones, but those weren’t portable either, and couldn’t send textual messages or call specific individual recipients, and certainly not send photographs. All of that would have been helpful—”

She sounds a little wistful, thinking of how much they could have used these inventions for the Expeditions. But she cuts herself off, forcing herself off that particular train of thought.

“What of you? Are your fabrials very similar to what they have here?”

❤️

[elsecall]

Lune graces her with a list that feels — well, not exhaustive. But it's more informative than she had any right to expect. Although half the nouns are foreign to her. She almost wants to ask the woman to slow down, to repeat herself, to give explanations for phonographs and photographs and radios.

With a pang, she thinks about her mother. Navani is the engineer — how she would have luxuriated in this knowledge.

"Not at all." Cupping her coffee in one hand, Jasnah answers Lune with a curt shake of her head. And now she understands what the other woman meant by I don't exactly know how to measure it because how do you measure the distance one planet lags behind another? It's not a linear line. For all she feels like a provincial girl before so much technology, she also knows there are parts of Roshar that exceed what she's seen here. The tower-city of Urithiru, for one.

But she tries.

"We can send messages over distances." Jasnah chooses to start with an intersection point — something where the outcome is similar enough, even if the method differs. "But our spanreeds are one-to-one; not one-to-many."

That is, you can only send a message from one spanreed to its partner. A closed system.

"You write a message with one — and the spanreed to which it's conjoined will copy that message in real-time."