2024-09-24: .fuck you and the horse you rode in oN
- Log: .fuck you and the horse you rode in oN
- Cast: Rena Lancaster, Yuliana Kafim
- Where: Commercial District, Zilkhstan
- Date: 2024-09-24
- Summary: Rena stumbles into hanging out with the worst person in the world, and gets to be horrified about being as entitled as Yuliana. Then she gets to learn all about poisoning people! Somehow, this all started when they failed to get through an escape room.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena in Zhilkistan for part of securing supplies for Terminal. Especially when NUNE's recent tensions and Orb's recent political movements results in a need to find potential new sources of supplies.
At any rate, somehow, she ran into Yuliana. Given that Yuliana might have been there for the same reason...
...that's not a surprise. What is a surprise is that, somehow, they ended up in an escape room.
Now, in a room full of puzzles -- Rena's at a desk, hurriedly scribbling through sudoku puzzles and with a large locked mechanism over a cylinder at said desk -- there's a clock. It's ticking down, with thirty seconds left.
Rena looks over her shoulder and snaps, heatedly: "Can you try to help!?"
The world may never know how they ended up here.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjf2FKlZl9M Lemon Demon - Kitten Is Angry
Look, sometimes a woman needs to get out of the house after being crushed by nihilistic revelations and shifting her entire outlook on reality again. That's a normal thing to do, and she has more resources to get to more people, anyway. If she can line aid in Zilkhstan up to move further north, then...
Well, anyway, she ran into Rena.
"Shut up, Reka!" Yuliana yells, as she flicks through channels on an ancient style television and hits buttons on a remote which definitely doesn't fit the same era. "I'm trying to concentrate! Can your damn super-brain comprehend THAT?!" There have been news reports in at least a dozen languages, and apparently it's important.
Apparently. She's gotten completely engrossed in this for the last five minutes, and they only had fifteen.
A channel reports, in Mandarin, that the Martians are invading. History may be slightly confused about what form in which that radio play first entered the world. (The hint's in the name.)
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Yes, because I can comprehend a lot of things!" Rena snaps.
She looks at the television and the remote -- then her face scrunches up. In better circumstances, she might notice that the dates on the news footage are wrong -- the numbers are readable -- but she doesn't catch it.
Because she is tense. She keeps hurriedly solving sudoku puzzles, until there's a loud ~BUZZ~.
And then the door opens, and an employee enters; it's a young man in his late teenaged years, who awkwardly pushes up his glasses. "Time's up or, um, good work, you two, I suppose...?"
Rena looks at him very, very flatly.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Apparently not a simple god-damn Sudoku puzzle, though!" Yuliana lobs back, as if it were that easy. "Fuck, all right, let's see, standard dialect, standard dialect, but the Japanese is Kansai-ben..."
BUZZ.
Yuliana wheels on the poor kid who, for all she knows, has only ever worked here after school. "Don't PATRONISE US, little man!" She roars at him, as that remote crushes into several little pieces in her clenched hand. "We're BUSY! Piss off!"
Don't tell her she just broke the puzzle.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"You... um..." He pauses and stares. "You're out of time, I'm afraid, and--"
"Bloody hell!" Rena snaps again, turning towards him. Her eyebrow twitches. "This thing was rigged against us! Don't tell us we're--"
"Ma'am, I'm asking you to leave," he says, though his voice trembles. "We do have to get it ready for the next guests, and--"
Rena folds her arms, looking irritated. "This is clearly her fault," she says, with a glance at Yuliana. "We should get a refund!"
"Uh--"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"My fault?!" Yuliana snaps, and tosses the poor mess of wires and metal which used to be a fake remote at Rena. "I was carrying this team! You got distracted with your silly little number puzzles! Which shouldn't have even been hard! LOOK!"
She storms over, shoves Rena aside, and grabs one of the Sudoku puzzles she was working on. "It's so easy!" She yells, as she jabs her pencil at it. "Look, you just put your nine here, and --"
Beat.
"Well, fine, if you make it a five, then --"
She pauses again.
"SHUT UP, IT'S SO EASY!" She yells, instead.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"You dismantled a piece of equipment! You didn't even do something relevant!" Rena yells back at Yuliana.
The poor boy tasked with them interjects: "Wait, that's not supposed to be taken apart..."
This doesn't stop Rena, who keeps ranting as she is a shoved aside. "It is not easy! It's supposed to be a game of PATIENCE and MENTAL GROWTH, something you--" Her eyebrow twitches. "Gah! This would have given us the numbers!"
"N-Not really, the numbers are in the corners," the boy says. "In case you didn't spot them on the news--"
"Quiet!" Rena grumbles. "Stupid thing!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"CLEARLY dismantling it was PART OF THE PUZZLE!" Yuliana yells, completely ignoring the poor kid who definitely only gets paid minimum wage to put up with this shit.
She does hear him, though -- unfortunately for him -- when he pipes up about the numbers. "Wh-- in the corners?! On the news?! What the fuck is this!" She demands, rounding on him and brandishing a handful of Sudoku puzzles in her fist. Crinkle, crunkle, goes the paper. "That's not even a proper puzzle, you little worm! That's just telling us the answers in a backhanded way to make us look stupid! We're NOT STUPID!" Aww, she included Rena.
Yuliana stomps her foot, and insists: "Give us a proper puzzle!"
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I--I don't have another puzzle," he says, stammering. He takes a step back. "Really, your time is up, and I'm going to have to ask you to leave, or--"
He isn't sure what comes next.
Rena folds her arms. "You're throwing us out?" she says. "That's not fair! Besides, you--this is--"
She frowns and looks at Yuliana. Wait, Rena reflects. Is...
...Is she acting as entitled as Yuliana...?
Very quietly, with widening eyes and dawning horror, she mutters: "Oh, no, oh God, no..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Or what, little man?" Yuliana asks, taking a step forward to match his step back. "Or what?! I don't accept this result at all! Not one bit! This whole experience was garbage!"
Luckily for that poor kid, she hears Rena having a breakdown, behind her, and wheels around to grasp her by the shoulders and shake her. Unfortunately, this firmly places Rena into the Doom Zone, even with the way Yuliana's thoughtfully tucked her frills behind her ears to pretend to be a normal human out here.
"And just what are you upset about?!" She demands, shake shake shake. "You're going to let this stupid excuse for a pantomime of wit break you?! Get a hold of yourself!"
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Wh--"
Getting touched by Yuliana has a way of causing her nullification of her psychic senses to come into sharp focus. (After years, Rena learned to accept it. This says something.)
"No, no, this isn't who I am!" she snaps at Yuliana. Rena shakes her head. "This is--this is a service, and it's just some stupid kid!"
"Hey!"
"Sorry!" Rena groans.
She puts a hand over her face -- then gives Yuliana a firm push back with the other hand. "We should go. They clearly don't want our business. And--besides, there's no reason to be mean, just because it wasn't very good! I mean, sudoku puzzles you don't need to solve? Really?"
"I--I don't design the rooms..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"What are you talking about?!" Yuliana snaps. "He insulted us! He's --"
Yuliana looks over her shoulder.
"Oh wow, shit, yeah, that kid's like eighteen tops."
Sufficiently distracted by realising that her victim is just a poor dumb kid, Yuliana is easy to shove back. "Tch... I guess you're right," she grumbles, the tension dropping from her shoulders. She snaps -- helpfully? -- at the kid: "Just improve it for next time!"
Fucking finally, she begins stalking out. Hands folded behind her head, she looks sidelong to Rena, and casually asks: "You want to grab some gelato? There's a good place on the next corner."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Right," Rena says, in regards to the kid being eighteen tops.
She doesn't point out that she was only nineteen when she met Yuliana.
She follows after, with a sigh -- and a mildly apologetic look over her shoulder at the kid (but, really, Rena isn't in the mood for being especially friendly after a bad escape room) -- and then she looks at Yuliana. She blinks.
She didn't quite expect an offer to get gelato. But, on the other hand, it is gelato.
"Sure," Rena says. "I could go for something after that train wreck."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
And lo, Yuliana leads them to BOMB'S AWAY GELATO AND CAKE, because Zilkhstan has an entire thing going on, and even their eateries are in on it.
"It was a stupid puzzle, anyway," Yuliana says, as she walks. "Like, a broken clock you have to set to the right time? That's so obvious!" Not included: the way it took her two point three-five minutes to figure it out. "Next time you'll know not to suggest the first place you see, huh?"
YULIANA POINTED IT OUT.
"This place does a pretty good sponge cake, too," she adds, as she lines up. "But I mean, it's gelato. Oh, hi," she comes to the top of the line, "can I get a cup with passionfruit, mango, and pineapple? Thanks. Keep the change." 'The change' is almost half again what the gelato cost, just so she can use a whole bill.
Maybe the communist isn't very good at maths. That, or she's just that generous.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena stares for a second. It is, she supposes, good for them to have a theming. She scratches at the back of her head and looks to the side at Yuliana.
She frowns for a moment. "It seemed like a good idea," she says with a sigh. "As a team building exercise, right? But I guess it didn't work out."
She sighs, and then she hops in line after. She looks the menu over -- and there's a bit of a wide-eyed look, because Yuliana made her order faster than she thought. Rena hops forward, then shakes her head.
"Right, ah--" A blink. "--I'll do the cherry, the chocolate, and... the pistachio, let's go with that."
She slides her money over, too, which ends up being exact change. She doesn't want to bring back change to have to keep track of.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Clearly Yuliana was just tipping for both of them. She should thank her for being so great!
Ignore the fact that she was just threatening a kid barely out of high school.
"You can tell this place is good," she tells Rena, once they've sat down, "because it's all kept in metal tubs. You saw the lids? That keeps the temperature stable. And if you look at the colour," she stabs her cup with her little spoon, "it's quite dull. You see how your pistachio is kind of brown, and the red of your cherry is muted? That's a sign of high quality. Gelato's not like ice cream, after all."
Munch, munch. "Now," Yuliana brightens, instantly, little heart bubbles wafting off of her, "this is much better! Gelato is my favourite!" How does Satan have a favourite food.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Huh..."
Rena looks over at the metal tubs -- and then down at her pistachio ice cream, and the way it's more brown. Then she looks back at Yuliana. "That makes sense," she says. "Temperature regulation's important for that sort of thing. Like, you make sure butter and eggs are room temperature, before you bake a cake."
She takes a bite of hers -- and she blinks. Then, she smiles. "This is good! I can see why you like it."
This is a little surreal.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Mm-hmm!" Yuliana chirps, munch munch munch. "Mamulya and I used to eat it when I was a kid, since she'd travelled all around and knew all those foreign foods. Ayah was a traditionalist, but my mother always had something new for me to try!" It wasn't all bigotry and rancid education.
"Haa, but you know the funny thing?" She asks, taking another scoop of gelato. "I love food, but I've never been much for cooking it. Sure, I can tell you if you've made a bad cake, but all that stuff about what temperature to keep the eggs at? I don't really think about that."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I never had the chance much up in the colonies," Rena says. Or in Axis -- not that she says that part aloud. No need to remind Yuliana; no need to say it where someone could overhear. "Winter Wonderland had the tourist versions of French, Italian, German, Chinese, that sort of thing."
She cracks a smile, then -- and shakes her head. "It's important," she says. "Cooking is basically half chemistry, half art. Neglect the chemistry, and it tastes wrong. Neglect the art, and you have mess hall slop."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"What, like how Peaceland insists they invented pizza?" Yuliana snickers. "Though, I suppose your Winter Wonderland couldn't really be blamed if it wasn't much better than that..."
She doesn't say the racism out loud, though, so she's clearly learning. Besides, she's giving the space colony an excuse for why it's bad, so she's being nice, see? She even grants Rena exclusive ownership over the place!
Very respectful. Kind of.
"I've never been much of a chemist," Yuliana shakes her head, taking another bite. "Oh, don't get me wrong -- love their work -- Red Eye got me through more missions than you'd like to count. But whenever Teodor goes on about his alchemies, I really do just glaze over. But art, though -- I'm at least an artist!"
She hums, tilting her head and considering her gelato. "I wonder which one Letda's missing... art, or chemistry... whichever it is, never accept one of his muffins. His curry tastes fine, but the man cannot bake a pastry to save his life."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"It's how tourist places go. They've got to be unique," Rena says. "People pay more for that."
She tilts her head -- then makes a face at Red Eye. Oh, right -- yes, the REA would do that. She taps a finger against her cheek. "This was... not quite the same type of chemistry. Or, I guess, they're all the same kind?"
Then, she blinks, and she nods. "It's hard to say. Could be a bit of both?" she says. "Muffins are deceptively hard to get right."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Of course, the problem is capitalism," Yuliana decides, "because the people demanding novelty can only afford to take one vacation a year, so they want to maximise their value. If they didn't have to worry about the basic needs of survival, they might have better taste."
There are tourist traps in the REA too, Yuliana.
She laughs, and says: "Actually, if you try spraying it on your MRE, it makes for pretty good spice. I mean, you might have a heart attack, but you wouldn't expect it to be as good as it is." That's a normal story. That's a normal story she just told.
"What, you try them often?" She asks, gesturing to Rena with her spoon. "All I know is that the tops are always collapsed in, and they always taste like they ought to be haram by principle. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was trying to poison us!" A pause: "But he's much better at poisoning people than baking."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Maybe so," Rena says with a sigh. "But I don't know, I think it gets a bit more complicated than that, too. Tourist locations have a lot going on with needing to appeal to trends, having to be popular with locals too to survive the off-seasons, and be what people remembered fifteen years ago and new for someone coming back two years later."
She grew up in a tourist trap, after all. She sighs, loudly.
Then, she makes a face. "I am not spraying combat drugs on my MRE's," she says. "And--so he probably needs to double check the recipe and the baking time, and confirm the oven's actual temperature with an oven thermometer. They're usually off by a few degrees."
A beat.
"I don't know a thing about poisoning people."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Now how are you supposed to be old and new at the same time? Even when you get married in the West, those are two different objects." The borrowed and blue things are also distinct!
"Chickennn~!" Yuliana lilts, with a smarmy grin, when Rena insists she's not going to drug her MREs. "Buck ba-caw!"
Beat, "I mean, we have wood-fire stove ovens, since electricity is a little tricky off the grid, so they have to check the temperature manually anyway. At least, that's probably what they do?" Yuliana shrugs. "I'm not sure, really. I haven't made my own food ever since I lost access to a microwave."
And then Rena says something incredibly dangerous, because Yuliana's face just lights up with the fury of a thousand special-interest suns.
"You're in luck! I know ALL ABOUT poisoning people!"
Rena gets to hear all about all the poisoning tricks in the book for a solid hour, without any regard for hints of discomfort or lack of interest. Since this is Zilkhstan, and every third person here is a mercenary, no one really bats an eye at that being their cafe conversation.
On the bright side, she comes out of it with a much deeper understanding of how to avoid getting poisoned after hearing just how the process works.
(Well, technically she also knows how to poison someone, now.)