Moogle
Retired Member
Communion Base
Plazmataz - Serenade
It tumbled slowly through the void, a lone craft of shuttle form baring a single passenger. A single bullet in the darkness riding the momentum from her pistol firing; an FTL jump to coast effortless toward her destination. Ahead of her lie the grandest casino all of known (and perhaps unknown) space had ever had the privilage to witness: Communion base.
Before much thought could be spent, automated beacons and other such triggered to call the vessel in toward one of the docking-garages, - this particular garage reserved for patrons of something of a special nature.
Silently in the vacuum of space, the docking-pnumatics bit down into specially designed grooves and interlocks in the hull, submitting her into stillness. Once settled, thick blast-doors behind her would slip closed like eyelids, sealing the darkness away and replacing it with air which blustered in making the emergency catch-net of the ajacent docking-bay sway with some invisible silent wind. With this, the hull of the diamond shaped craft positioned over the ground by a meter or some eased her guts down into the docking-bay like a long tail from her belly revealing a massive egg or coffin. With a brief flash of light and smoke, the egg parted and the front plate opened.
The fog of white whisped as a figure shone through it: a youthful figure of silvery hair borne of the wisdom of high society; and its dissatisfaction with the genetically dull. This was no trite flavor of old age, by any means. Fine silk orbited the figure of his peoples in brilliantly contrasted black and white detailing, green shots of what could only be presumed to be bamboo as the figure of indeterminate gender's feet finally met the deck floor.
Brilliant white lights snapped to not entirely darkness -- the artificial faded quality the lights granted now sinking and oozing into rich colours. Lavishly, purple carpeting piled thickly and gently warmed - heated for the bare feet of those who would leave the craft leaving no need for shoes. They danced in platinum inlay into the genuinely ebony walls of the garage, twisting up into spiderwebbing not unlike the way starlight diffuses in an atmosphere. Already, everything smelled softly of exotic spices that didn't stream nor mumble, speaking subtelly to him. A platter of chilled fruits sat on a small podium stack by the ship. The halls here were not devoid of sound but if one listened, the whisper of artificial winds and the lulluby chimes of some sort of classical music sighed.
A single woman wrapped in black velvet tuxido with tails, tophat and white piano gloves waited in the bay.
"Hello. Welcome to stable."
His eyes explored, flooded with information given to him for the purpose of this trip, compiling for the sake of allowing him to do his job here before finally settling on the greeter in question.
But only one word echoed from his androgynous lips.
"Ritzy".
In his mind, the words didn't really do it justice. He was bursting to say more.
"A mother-lode of awesome, I gotta say"
He felt his shoulders slump. No lexicon would do this place justice.
The woman in wait bowed modestly.
"We strive to pleasure. Shall you be needing anything today? We offer the usual complimentaries... Food... Drinks... Clothing... Perfumes... Baths... Pharmacology.. And a free ride at any attraction - a line-bypass included of course sir - and for someone such as yourself, a free personal servent of your selection and design to suit the duration of your stay and thos who selected your care package. As a token of our appreciation, we'd also like you to have 10,000 in chips, should the casino suit you. You will of course have to pay for any item you wish to bring back with you and return home but a 11,000 credit-gift card should be enough for you to go home with a smile."
Her way of speaking was smooth and sedate. In some ways hypnotic. This was not a learned quality.
"Eh... I'm not the usual high-roller, ya dig?" the boy said, making a circle with his index finger and thumb and a smile his orginal template would be proud of. He quietly thanked his briefing of how to handle this as even his belly now he felt the temptation to be suckered into this lavish pitch.
"I'm on business first."
"You, or whomever on your behalf has paid enough that we shall not be asking questions," she said.
"Well, first I gotta meet Grunder-dono," Seiren replied, feeling Yamataian modifiers appropriate here. The man afterall, earned respect.
"My apologies. Mr. Grunder is in a meeting at this time," she said serenely, eyes as if dreaming. "Is it urgent?"
"Nnnnn... Not particularly, no..." Seiren pondered. "Buut I would like to see him before the day is out. You'd think they'd have scheduled my meeting in advance..."
"Is 1600 suitable? Eight hours from now by your time."
"Yeah, its hellish cool."
"I... See. Would you care to partake in the station's offerings?" she tilted her head inquisitively, wondering if she'd hit the mark.
Seiren almost burst inside himself.
". . . To the food!" the construct declared with a grand sweep of one of the long sleeves of his kimono in a gesgure suited only to the Yamataian.
"Yes, Ma'am. do you have any particular preferences? A specific meal in mind? Or perhaps you'd like a variety to choose from in the form of a buffet and watch the..." she hesitated. "Carnage, as you might call it."
"I've... Actually got a craving for Lorath, you know? Do you have any?"
"Of course. All of our Lorath meat is vat grown and cruelty free."
"Onwards, ho! Oh and... Before I forget, my name is Seiren. I ... Didn't think you ask yours. Sorry."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Seiren" she said without missing abeat. "I am Helen" she smiled, leading Seiren along with a sashay in her hips that he'd only begun to notice in women - but only a year ago, he'd be oblivious to such a thing. "Male or female? And... Do you want it as steak and unaltered flavour or shall we tell her chefs to exercise their artistic talents?"
She lead Seiren through tall grand halls, past small ornate statues, fountains that almost sang and mozaics that shifted in scale and piece based on how far you were from them. The capet, too changed patterns periodically as the mozaics had, the whole place to his attention like a child's crayola-drawing book of dreams trying to describe the grandiouse with no room for the inane.
Soon, Seiren was seated at a long table in a small dining room -- the table the middle of a pit of velvety cushions with a heating plate at the center of it. Small. Intimate. It reminded Seiren of Lorath bed-pits but also of kotatsu back home.
"Male or female?"
"Uh... Whaddya mean? Male, female... This isn't a brothel, is it?"
"Some of our customers have preference. If you don't, I can bring you the luck of the snatch but what you do with your food is your own business. We do however have many brothels onboar--"
"N-No preference then, I guess." Seiren raised an eyebrow.
"Elaborate preperation, simple, or raw?"
"Surprise me. Not raw but... Something familiar. Something that makes me think of home" Seiren tried to smile, feeling an ache in his feet.
"Certainly" Helen smiled, soon retiring. Some time later, she returned with an especially large platter which she had to wheel in at first before setting it down upon the table. She first admnistered Seiren his utentils and then lifted the black polished lid of the dish to reveal thick juicy cutlets -- huge slabs of bronzed meat the thickness of Seiren's waist easily. They sat on a bed of green honeyed Lorath vegitables dripping in soft butter and ice cool black lacy durmou' -- a leafy green known for its soft crunch and subtle spice that always seemed to remind Seiren of nori. His attention however sat on the crown glory of the meal: In fishnet pattern, the meat had been grilled and then awash in what smelt like honey and duqs -- though even without it, the smell was already sickly sweet as the fats dripped like boiled sugars, a signiature characteristic of Lorath meat. Oddly, the skin over the meat which had caught the fishnet pattern was smooth and milky white -- utterly untouched by the heat and glistened wetly like the body of a dolphin. Seafood, maybe? But the scent was big game, surely.
But that sweetness. It suited Seiren's pallette perfectly. The cold heat of hunger growled in Seiren's belly.
"I assure you, everyting here is edible... Even the fabric underlying, which is flavorful and intended to season and decorate the dish" Helen smiled knowingly with that serene look in her eyes.
"Huuuh....~ Muuust be one o'them Lorath Bears I hear about..." Seiren commented -- using a servin fork to migrate a slab of meat onto his shining ornate plate. Carefully, he ct a piece of the slab, measuring the smooth pliance of the flesh between a steak knife and his fork. It moved almost like soft silky gelatin but still had a firmness about it: The muscle it had come from was trained and bred thickly for strength but had not known use, giving it that delicate veal like quality.
"Wow, this is really tender, isn't it?"
"Our meeting was supposed to last another eight hours..."
A dulcet warm voice tickled and played over Seiren's ears from further along the hall, muffled by distance alone but slowly with each step crystallized smoothly into clarity.
"Your idea of a meeting is to do that over the TABLES infront of my shareholders AND yours. I said NO! What part of that don't you understand?? Ugh..."
This one spoke from a child. Though it knew the distain only an adult could, speaking through clenched teeth and low grimace. The accent had hints of Lorath this time.
"The part where you run away from what you want. Its obvious to anyone who even looks at you."
"Oh? Is that right?"
Seiren listened. This was interesting. Maybe even scandelous.
"Yes" the first voice purred knowingly, extruding that one word longer than it had any right to be, if only to skewer his conversational partner with it. And then his voice became reiniscent, like a man remembering his days as a young boy;
"The way you bite yoru lip until it bleeds. The way you rub those thighs together so attractively... The way your heart races and you start getting sli--"
But before he could finish, a crisp slap of palm to cheek clapped through the restaraunt. Something told Seiren that if he'd been allowed to continue, she might have waited for something redeeming but from his idea of fondness, the odds were good it would never have came.
"Straight to the heart, dear~! Can't admit you have feelings for me, can you? Or for me for you, I suppose~" the melodious voice teased and tickled. "Perhaps you'd prefer if my appearance resemble someone of a more fatherly nature?"
A second slap sounded. Two of a kind, Seiren thought without thinking.
Curiously fitting for a casino.
A set of trips would follow but before the flop, he caught sight of the taller figure grabbin the smaller's wrist. His voice smled.
"That's dangerous, you know, little one?"
So silky. Even Seiren felt his belly turn. His gaze settled upon the morsel upon his fork and he stuffed it into his mouth greedily, feeling the meat almost melt against his pallette into some strange assembly of Lorath savory flavors he didn't quite understand. The slight burn at the back of his throat told him the meat had been marinaded quite thuroughly in some fruity but somber wine that curiously suited the meat, though it too was in the flavor of the skin where in places it almost threatened to turn the dolphin white into bruise like markings. Even if the story behind the meal wasn't a happy one, its flavour made his mind almost melt.
Them Lorath knew good eats!
"Dangerous?"
They were talking again now.
It was only when his memory updated that he knew the deeper voice belong to Schlock Grunder himself, the man he'd been tasked to meet. Had time flown so quickly? Did it mean nothing here? He stood but a silloette of suit, smooth and knowing, born of some Yamataian comic-book of gangster blues with a blend of suave and sophisticationt hat oozed Yamataian sensibilities to him, eeking of organised crime. It was difficult to place his face. But in spite of that harshness, there was youth in his eyes and real beauty.
Next his eyes moved to Schlock's companion whom Schlock too stared at.
A short girl of snowy white and black packaging; wrapped in a bodysuit of smooth dry tarry black again remmeniscent of latex in smoothness with a glossy covering revealing something that glittered like guilded nori beneath. Transfer decal patterns of peacock feathers covered her utterly to the height of her neck burnt in that tarriness with the exception of the most laviscous of purples, blues and gold's. What he hadn't expected was the white panel about the front of her body: like a swimsuit. He couldn't place the fabric. Following the theme of white, her hair had been seated, its form begging to return to mess but ribbons and clips of ornate gold and red purr holding it in place, giving her a curiously ornate look when seated with the ruby eye-shadow and almost geisha-aesthetic of her makeup. From her expression and the sleepiness about her person, she hadn't applied it herself and her form was bursting to return to whatever mess she'd come from to begin with.
Between these two storybook figures silence hung in slimy tendrils like slowed death.
"It means I'm right, of course" he said quietly before mouthing something even quieter.
Words. Words should have come. Oh so many words, Seiren thought. Why wasn't the smaller one pulling more cards from his cheek? Pale laminated hands in shadow squeezed at her sides, knuckles singing out in special hurt. But still, those words never came.
"Tssck..."
Red refused to meet silvery gray in a play of eyes; almost black instead staring at the ground. Sulking.
And just like a child - and now like some sober broken pet, she was lead along by hand.
Schlock opened the door to the dining room in which Seiren was dining. Seiren, naturally told himself to act calm and play it cool. These were not space cops.
"Come a..." the voice began again. "Person who has selected our most expensive legal package, whom I believe wished to meet me?" his eyes settled on the girl. "Since you interrupted my meeting with your childish petulance... You may as well join me with this one.
Seiren chewed, taking another bite.
And who else would meet the companion's cerise eyes but the carbon snap of perfect Yamataian androgynous perfection her predecessor had spent so long staring at on the aethernet, lecherously editing photos and leering like some stalker as she analysed his statistics.
But she froze, eclipsed behind Sclock. As scary as he was, she found comfort in him away from this person.
"And now, I know the unpresumingly brilliant reason I was picked for this particular venture" Seiren said, trying to say all the big fancy words to impress this big fancy man. He barely recognised the moon hiding behind that brilliant star as Aiesu. She always looked differently each time he met her like a different person with the same face. But this time was extroadinary: the pattern of missing ears was broken, something the previous pair and photos he'd seen couldn't offer. Not to mention, the packaging, the way she was wrapped, refined and prepared as if beneath the hands of some genius chef, artist or designer like a sentient trophy designed to celebrate everything a Yamataian lolicon very specifically would find appealing in a woman of her small stature.
Swallowing abruptly to clear his mouth (to which he resented, still enjoying the flavor) Seiren scrambled to his feet and gave a bow; those kimono sleeves swaying as he did so.
"Grunder-dono, I presume?" he said with what little authority he could summon.
"Indeed... I see you and my companion have met before?" he said, every word loaded in its own bittersweet way. He'd obviously seen how the two had crossed eyes and the way in which Aiesu had recoiled from him. His face flickered with some demonic smile of kindness. A game was in order.
"Well..."
"Or at least someone who looks a lot like her... Well, my friend. For what reason did you wish for us to meet?" Grunder purred, settling himself at the table opposite Seiren - Aiesu taking the jacket from his shoulders like some well trained mechanism of personhood. His voice was almost threatening, pungent with danger and yet that only sunk in after he'd spoken.
"A-Ah..."
"Other than the chance to hobnob with a man of my wealth and taste, surely". Modesty was not something Schlock's hubris cared to be aquainted with, let alone aware of.
Seiren wondered if the two had ever even met before.
The slab ofman reached forth with a serving fork and took a steak from the central plate - plating one for Aiesu first and the second before himself in a smooth casual motion.
"T-The latter" Seiren said, trying to keep himself to gether. This man was all image, he told himself. To beat image, you have to play image. He recalled days of poker with the ISC Phoenixand the whole concept of face and facade. The way Schlock lilted to and fro these temperments was like some vast ship at high sea, refusing to be moved by the waves and being carried instead by the wind instead. He wasn't trying to be threatening, Seiren told himself: This was just his way.
"The first one, since my reading, actually... But that's not important" Seiren informed, his attention returning to his meal. He blowed softly on another piece of meat, using it to mop up the thick golden rum like sauces making the meat glisten before popping it into his mouth. His face flickered with a smile. It was delicious. Juicy. Warm. Favorful. Ambrosial. Everything it could be, really. And maybe that's all this meeting was.
Aiesu stared down at her plate for a long time. And then, slowly turning her head toward Schlock. With a wing like huff of her shoulders alone, thin gloved hands reached for knife and fork. She etched into the slice to withdraw a piece and met it with salad and loose red sauce, easing it into her mouth between tesselated teeth that would render it unrecognizable behind blackly painted inky lips. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
"This... This is really nice, actually...", not hesitating to have another. Her composure fractured in the moment: slowness lost to hunger to which she was.
Schlock leaned forward over his plate, looming like a thunder-cloud. Despite his carefully constructed and refined appearance, table-manners were not something his hubris knew. He took the steak on a fork, folding its smooth flexible meat over several times on the long skewer several times until it sat like a sine-wave over the piano-tuner shaped instrument of L'manel eatery. His bite was large into the meat and yet his jaw barely moved at all, his words unchanged and unmarred as he ate as if his mouth had nothing to do with eating at all.
"One of my favourites actually" he purred, lapping at his own lips for another bite. Soon, the entire slab was gone, disappearing into that tower of a man. He settled back, sedated for the moment's being.
"But a flavor I get often enough already..."
His hand fondly regarded the back of Aiesu's neck, making her back visibly arch. It made Seiren think of a black cat.
She'd watched as he spoke, trying to find some crack to insert herself into to wedge his visage open for what she really saw him as, to humiliate him infront of Seiren. But as many attempts had shown, humiliation too was not a concept familiar to Mr. Grunder on his own terms. Rather, something he felt he could extract from others.
Even so, Aiesu had no time for that sphinx-crap he was always spouting. Even in her eyes it seemed obvious to him. But for whatever reason, she'd stopped eating.
Thinking about it, Seiren tried to identify the meat again. The flavour was definately something he'd had before. Dust trout? No, that's a Gartagen meat. In any case, he'd never had anything Lorath. So how could he know it?
"You should eat up, you know? It'd be a shame to let this go to waste" he said, taking another slab for himself like some massive oni of Yamataian lore. Everything about his scale was entirely different to normal people. Not wider or bigger but just larger in every possible way like comparing two scale of model kit of power-armour, Seiren thought. If we were 1/144, he'd be 1/100th.
Again with skepticism. Always a classic. Arguing with him was like trying to debate the rationality of just why a person was supposed to wipe after using the bathroom with an especially small child who hadn't yet learned to do such a thing, let alone walk or even speak.
Already however she extended a long oily wrapped arm and took another cutlet and soon got started.
Through the course of the awkward silence, she moved through quite a number of these cutlets, each time moving more quickly and just a little faster. It was subtle but with little much else going on, it was in its own way also very obvious.
"Hoouuu..." she finally spoke, like some great animal coming up for air from the depths of whatever depriaved enjoyment the consumption of meat could offer that sugar apparently couldn't, a sort only a predator could know each time those frightening dagger like teeth came down.
"Nepleslian? This is from Nepleslia, right?" she said. "Its very rich. It reminds me of something..." her voice wandered off to some place her thoughts had long since moved from, trying to keep up with that lilting uptone in her throat. "Phoenix Man...Something?"
"I can say with certainly it is not a Nepleslian dish" Schlock said, his broad lips widening into his trademark cheshire-cat grin. "While our chefs do make use of a fusion of a great many cuisines, this is no such dish."
"Well..." she said, speaking with a mouthful, rolling the morsel around in her mouth. Oddly, she'd been so curtious, like a china-doll or some well trained Yamataian gaisha but it would appear food had no context of manners with one Aiesu Kalopsia. "The preperation is Lorath... I can taste ... Haqua... Durthra... Nouqana...?"
"Duq" Schlock stated flatly. "It seems your new tastebuds still have quite the way to go until you get used to them. But yes, there are a number of foreign ingredients in this dish."
Aiesu held her mouth open for a moment. The sight would surprise Seiren, who had to double-take: a second tongue from the roof of her mouth between her upper pearly set, the two like purple serpants in her mouth before they sealed shut and she resumed chewing like a noisy child. Something about the way she'd done this to Schlock whiffed of a middle-finger, as if the ability for her to deliver such a message had been stripped from her: something Seiren didn't doubt Schlock was entirely capable of doing.
"You could have just..." he began, grimacing at the sight.
"Hmm...?" Schlock leant forward. His hands were steepled together, trademark smile eclipsed, but Seiren could still see the unsettling warmth in the man's eyes.
"Would you prefer to talk business?"
"With food on the table?" Seiren interjected. "How rude..."
Aiesu paused, chewing what was presumably bone at this point for little more than her own satisfaction.
"Its rude not to talk, actually..." Aiesu stated. "A meal is supposed to be communial." The glint in her eye said she always knew best.
"Yes, if you're born Yamataian... Or acting Nepleslian" Seiren quietly bled in with a coynsess riding his sneer.
"Ladies, Ladies.." the low voice of Schlock Grunder sounded, silencing both of them with its strange mirange quality.
"Where I was born, eating was a casual business, born of nessesity. The food was either so raw it kicked or so heavily processed it had no flavor. Let us enjoy this meal and give thanks to the possibilities which allowed it to be neither of those two."
"Always with the speeches..." Aiesu huffed under her breath, already on her seventh steak.
"You're going to need to burn that off later. Might I suggest a mode of exercise?" Schlock began, his elbow nudging Aiesu gently.
From the way she shuffled, something else was up against her lap.
And from the way her toes, clad in that black material clenched at Seiren's foot beneath the table, something more was going on.
"I don't mean to interrupt but... What exactly is this...?" Seiren began.
"Exactly what you requested, of course."
"Heina?" Aiesu quizzed impetulently. "Shau?"
Schlock smiled knowingly. Seiren scarsely felt his presence in the room at all.
He resisted the urge to clear his throat.
"Haka'hn? Ei'yts..? Its... " she leaned back into her seat with a frown. "Reading aspectation to aspector is in very poor taste, you know?"
She loaded her fork again: visibly put off but her apitite wouldn't calm.
"I wouldn't put it past you, even as a joke."
"That would be wise of you... I don't really know -- or care much -- of aspectation ettiquette. It is, however, a mixed meat."
"Fusion cuisine?" Aiesu pondered aloud. "You're obsessed..."
Seiren interrupted after a moment of thought, deciding it might be best to include himself in the events of the room once more as a living sentient being rather than -- what he believed Schlock saw him as -- a novelty talking head of some sort.
"I did ask for a surprise but... Could you be more specific?"
"You did make another request first, my dear..." Schlock began. He leant closer across the table. This should have been a difficult feat but for reasons not entirely understood it wasn't. It wasn't awkward. Well, up until the moment Schlock set his hand on Seiren's thigh and gave a slow lilting squeeze, acknowledging his presence as a woman.
"I believe you requested Lorath."
The original Seiren might have recoiled. Might have grimaced. Might have crawled along the back of the leather seat, wielding it for his own protection while screaming like a Yamataian school girl. But this particular incarnation of his person... Felt nothing.
That isn't to say there was nothing felt whatsoever. Just that whatever wasn't especially negative.
"You know. When people say 'I want to eat Lorath tonight'..." he began, clearing his throat and licking his painted lips for thought "...They generally don't actually mean Lorath. Is there a market for this sort of thing?"
Even hearing these words tumble from his person was a strange sensation: whoever issued this particular model of his person had given him the gift of black humor: evidently something quite incredibly nessesary when negotiating with Schlock.
"As I said. We don't ask questions here. Vat grown. Cruelty free." Helen said, quietly attending Seiren as she poured him a drink.
"I don't know what's weirder... That there's a market for... What I presume is Aiesu" he said, watching her smile sweetly. "...Or that I'm... Not totally squicked by it."
Aiesu reached for another helping.
"Whatever it is" she said, pointing with her fork now with another mouthful in a way that should have been painful to watch -- talking about it in plain sight infront of her and yet still so obvious -- making Seiren wonder if such knowledge was denied to her by design.
"Its got legs."
Plazmataz - Serenade
It tumbled slowly through the void, a lone craft of shuttle form baring a single passenger. A single bullet in the darkness riding the momentum from her pistol firing; an FTL jump to coast effortless toward her destination. Ahead of her lie the grandest casino all of known (and perhaps unknown) space had ever had the privilage to witness: Communion base.
Before much thought could be spent, automated beacons and other such triggered to call the vessel in toward one of the docking-garages, - this particular garage reserved for patrons of something of a special nature.
Silently in the vacuum of space, the docking-pnumatics bit down into specially designed grooves and interlocks in the hull, submitting her into stillness. Once settled, thick blast-doors behind her would slip closed like eyelids, sealing the darkness away and replacing it with air which blustered in making the emergency catch-net of the ajacent docking-bay sway with some invisible silent wind. With this, the hull of the diamond shaped craft positioned over the ground by a meter or some eased her guts down into the docking-bay like a long tail from her belly revealing a massive egg or coffin. With a brief flash of light and smoke, the egg parted and the front plate opened.
The fog of white whisped as a figure shone through it: a youthful figure of silvery hair borne of the wisdom of high society; and its dissatisfaction with the genetically dull. This was no trite flavor of old age, by any means. Fine silk orbited the figure of his peoples in brilliantly contrasted black and white detailing, green shots of what could only be presumed to be bamboo as the figure of indeterminate gender's feet finally met the deck floor.
Brilliant white lights snapped to not entirely darkness -- the artificial faded quality the lights granted now sinking and oozing into rich colours. Lavishly, purple carpeting piled thickly and gently warmed - heated for the bare feet of those who would leave the craft leaving no need for shoes. They danced in platinum inlay into the genuinely ebony walls of the garage, twisting up into spiderwebbing not unlike the way starlight diffuses in an atmosphere. Already, everything smelled softly of exotic spices that didn't stream nor mumble, speaking subtelly to him. A platter of chilled fruits sat on a small podium stack by the ship. The halls here were not devoid of sound but if one listened, the whisper of artificial winds and the lulluby chimes of some sort of classical music sighed.
A single woman wrapped in black velvet tuxido with tails, tophat and white piano gloves waited in the bay.
"Hello. Welcome to stable."
His eyes explored, flooded with information given to him for the purpose of this trip, compiling for the sake of allowing him to do his job here before finally settling on the greeter in question.
But only one word echoed from his androgynous lips.
"Ritzy".
In his mind, the words didn't really do it justice. He was bursting to say more.
"A mother-lode of awesome, I gotta say"
He felt his shoulders slump. No lexicon would do this place justice.
The woman in wait bowed modestly.
"We strive to pleasure. Shall you be needing anything today? We offer the usual complimentaries... Food... Drinks... Clothing... Perfumes... Baths... Pharmacology.. And a free ride at any attraction - a line-bypass included of course sir - and for someone such as yourself, a free personal servent of your selection and design to suit the duration of your stay and thos who selected your care package. As a token of our appreciation, we'd also like you to have 10,000 in chips, should the casino suit you. You will of course have to pay for any item you wish to bring back with you and return home but a 11,000 credit-gift card should be enough for you to go home with a smile."
Her way of speaking was smooth and sedate. In some ways hypnotic. This was not a learned quality.
"Eh... I'm not the usual high-roller, ya dig?" the boy said, making a circle with his index finger and thumb and a smile his orginal template would be proud of. He quietly thanked his briefing of how to handle this as even his belly now he felt the temptation to be suckered into this lavish pitch.
"I'm on business first."
"You, or whomever on your behalf has paid enough that we shall not be asking questions," she said.
"Well, first I gotta meet Grunder-dono," Seiren replied, feeling Yamataian modifiers appropriate here. The man afterall, earned respect.
"My apologies. Mr. Grunder is in a meeting at this time," she said serenely, eyes as if dreaming. "Is it urgent?"
"Nnnnn... Not particularly, no..." Seiren pondered. "Buut I would like to see him before the day is out. You'd think they'd have scheduled my meeting in advance..."
"Is 1600 suitable? Eight hours from now by your time."
"Yeah, its hellish cool."
"I... See. Would you care to partake in the station's offerings?" she tilted her head inquisitively, wondering if she'd hit the mark.
Seiren almost burst inside himself.
". . . To the food!" the construct declared with a grand sweep of one of the long sleeves of his kimono in a gesgure suited only to the Yamataian.
"Yes, Ma'am. do you have any particular preferences? A specific meal in mind? Or perhaps you'd like a variety to choose from in the form of a buffet and watch the..." she hesitated. "Carnage, as you might call it."
"I've... Actually got a craving for Lorath, you know? Do you have any?"
"Of course. All of our Lorath meat is vat grown and cruelty free."
"Onwards, ho! Oh and... Before I forget, my name is Seiren. I ... Didn't think you ask yours. Sorry."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Seiren" she said without missing abeat. "I am Helen" she smiled, leading Seiren along with a sashay in her hips that he'd only begun to notice in women - but only a year ago, he'd be oblivious to such a thing. "Male or female? And... Do you want it as steak and unaltered flavour or shall we tell her chefs to exercise their artistic talents?"
She lead Seiren through tall grand halls, past small ornate statues, fountains that almost sang and mozaics that shifted in scale and piece based on how far you were from them. The capet, too changed patterns periodically as the mozaics had, the whole place to his attention like a child's crayola-drawing book of dreams trying to describe the grandiouse with no room for the inane.
Soon, Seiren was seated at a long table in a small dining room -- the table the middle of a pit of velvety cushions with a heating plate at the center of it. Small. Intimate. It reminded Seiren of Lorath bed-pits but also of kotatsu back home.
"Male or female?"
"Uh... Whaddya mean? Male, female... This isn't a brothel, is it?"
"Some of our customers have preference. If you don't, I can bring you the luck of the snatch but what you do with your food is your own business. We do however have many brothels onboar--"
"N-No preference then, I guess." Seiren raised an eyebrow.
"Elaborate preperation, simple, or raw?"
"Surprise me. Not raw but... Something familiar. Something that makes me think of home" Seiren tried to smile, feeling an ache in his feet.
"Certainly" Helen smiled, soon retiring. Some time later, she returned with an especially large platter which she had to wheel in at first before setting it down upon the table. She first admnistered Seiren his utentils and then lifted the black polished lid of the dish to reveal thick juicy cutlets -- huge slabs of bronzed meat the thickness of Seiren's waist easily. They sat on a bed of green honeyed Lorath vegitables dripping in soft butter and ice cool black lacy durmou' -- a leafy green known for its soft crunch and subtle spice that always seemed to remind Seiren of nori. His attention however sat on the crown glory of the meal: In fishnet pattern, the meat had been grilled and then awash in what smelt like honey and duqs -- though even without it, the smell was already sickly sweet as the fats dripped like boiled sugars, a signiature characteristic of Lorath meat. Oddly, the skin over the meat which had caught the fishnet pattern was smooth and milky white -- utterly untouched by the heat and glistened wetly like the body of a dolphin. Seafood, maybe? But the scent was big game, surely.
But that sweetness. It suited Seiren's pallette perfectly. The cold heat of hunger growled in Seiren's belly.
"I assure you, everyting here is edible... Even the fabric underlying, which is flavorful and intended to season and decorate the dish" Helen smiled knowingly with that serene look in her eyes.
"Huuuh....~ Muuust be one o'them Lorath Bears I hear about..." Seiren commented -- using a servin fork to migrate a slab of meat onto his shining ornate plate. Carefully, he ct a piece of the slab, measuring the smooth pliance of the flesh between a steak knife and his fork. It moved almost like soft silky gelatin but still had a firmness about it: The muscle it had come from was trained and bred thickly for strength but had not known use, giving it that delicate veal like quality.
"Wow, this is really tender, isn't it?"
"Our meeting was supposed to last another eight hours..."
A dulcet warm voice tickled and played over Seiren's ears from further along the hall, muffled by distance alone but slowly with each step crystallized smoothly into clarity.
"Your idea of a meeting is to do that over the TABLES infront of my shareholders AND yours. I said NO! What part of that don't you understand?? Ugh..."
This one spoke from a child. Though it knew the distain only an adult could, speaking through clenched teeth and low grimace. The accent had hints of Lorath this time.
"The part where you run away from what you want. Its obvious to anyone who even looks at you."
"Oh? Is that right?"
Seiren listened. This was interesting. Maybe even scandelous.
"Yes" the first voice purred knowingly, extruding that one word longer than it had any right to be, if only to skewer his conversational partner with it. And then his voice became reiniscent, like a man remembering his days as a young boy;
"The way you bite yoru lip until it bleeds. The way you rub those thighs together so attractively... The way your heart races and you start getting sli--"
But before he could finish, a crisp slap of palm to cheek clapped through the restaraunt. Something told Seiren that if he'd been allowed to continue, she might have waited for something redeeming but from his idea of fondness, the odds were good it would never have came.
"Straight to the heart, dear~! Can't admit you have feelings for me, can you? Or for me for you, I suppose~" the melodious voice teased and tickled. "Perhaps you'd prefer if my appearance resemble someone of a more fatherly nature?"
A second slap sounded. Two of a kind, Seiren thought without thinking.
Curiously fitting for a casino.
A set of trips would follow but before the flop, he caught sight of the taller figure grabbin the smaller's wrist. His voice smled.
"That's dangerous, you know, little one?"
So silky. Even Seiren felt his belly turn. His gaze settled upon the morsel upon his fork and he stuffed it into his mouth greedily, feeling the meat almost melt against his pallette into some strange assembly of Lorath savory flavors he didn't quite understand. The slight burn at the back of his throat told him the meat had been marinaded quite thuroughly in some fruity but somber wine that curiously suited the meat, though it too was in the flavor of the skin where in places it almost threatened to turn the dolphin white into bruise like markings. Even if the story behind the meal wasn't a happy one, its flavour made his mind almost melt.
Them Lorath knew good eats!
"Dangerous?"
They were talking again now.
It was only when his memory updated that he knew the deeper voice belong to Schlock Grunder himself, the man he'd been tasked to meet. Had time flown so quickly? Did it mean nothing here? He stood but a silloette of suit, smooth and knowing, born of some Yamataian comic-book of gangster blues with a blend of suave and sophisticationt hat oozed Yamataian sensibilities to him, eeking of organised crime. It was difficult to place his face. But in spite of that harshness, there was youth in his eyes and real beauty.
Next his eyes moved to Schlock's companion whom Schlock too stared at.
A short girl of snowy white and black packaging; wrapped in a bodysuit of smooth dry tarry black again remmeniscent of latex in smoothness with a glossy covering revealing something that glittered like guilded nori beneath. Transfer decal patterns of peacock feathers covered her utterly to the height of her neck burnt in that tarriness with the exception of the most laviscous of purples, blues and gold's. What he hadn't expected was the white panel about the front of her body: like a swimsuit. He couldn't place the fabric. Following the theme of white, her hair had been seated, its form begging to return to mess but ribbons and clips of ornate gold and red purr holding it in place, giving her a curiously ornate look when seated with the ruby eye-shadow and almost geisha-aesthetic of her makeup. From her expression and the sleepiness about her person, she hadn't applied it herself and her form was bursting to return to whatever mess she'd come from to begin with.
Between these two storybook figures silence hung in slimy tendrils like slowed death.
"It means I'm right, of course" he said quietly before mouthing something even quieter.
You love this.
Words. Words should have come. Oh so many words, Seiren thought. Why wasn't the smaller one pulling more cards from his cheek? Pale laminated hands in shadow squeezed at her sides, knuckles singing out in special hurt. But still, those words never came.
"Tssck..."
Red refused to meet silvery gray in a play of eyes; almost black instead staring at the ground. Sulking.
And just like a child - and now like some sober broken pet, she was lead along by hand.
Schlock opened the door to the dining room in which Seiren was dining. Seiren, naturally told himself to act calm and play it cool. These were not space cops.
"Come a..." the voice began again. "Person who has selected our most expensive legal package, whom I believe wished to meet me?" his eyes settled on the girl. "Since you interrupted my meeting with your childish petulance... You may as well join me with this one.
Seiren chewed, taking another bite.
And who else would meet the companion's cerise eyes but the carbon snap of perfect Yamataian androgynous perfection her predecessor had spent so long staring at on the aethernet, lecherously editing photos and leering like some stalker as she analysed his statistics.
But she froze, eclipsed behind Sclock. As scary as he was, she found comfort in him away from this person.
"And now, I know the unpresumingly brilliant reason I was picked for this particular venture" Seiren said, trying to say all the big fancy words to impress this big fancy man. He barely recognised the moon hiding behind that brilliant star as Aiesu. She always looked differently each time he met her like a different person with the same face. But this time was extroadinary: the pattern of missing ears was broken, something the previous pair and photos he'd seen couldn't offer. Not to mention, the packaging, the way she was wrapped, refined and prepared as if beneath the hands of some genius chef, artist or designer like a sentient trophy designed to celebrate everything a Yamataian lolicon very specifically would find appealing in a woman of her small stature.
Swallowing abruptly to clear his mouth (to which he resented, still enjoying the flavor) Seiren scrambled to his feet and gave a bow; those kimono sleeves swaying as he did so.
"Grunder-dono, I presume?" he said with what little authority he could summon.
"Indeed... I see you and my companion have met before?" he said, every word loaded in its own bittersweet way. He'd obviously seen how the two had crossed eyes and the way in which Aiesu had recoiled from him. His face flickered with some demonic smile of kindness. A game was in order.
"Well..."
"Or at least someone who looks a lot like her... Well, my friend. For what reason did you wish for us to meet?" Grunder purred, settling himself at the table opposite Seiren - Aiesu taking the jacket from his shoulders like some well trained mechanism of personhood. His voice was almost threatening, pungent with danger and yet that only sunk in after he'd spoken.
"A-Ah..."
"Other than the chance to hobnob with a man of my wealth and taste, surely". Modesty was not something Schlock's hubris cared to be aquainted with, let alone aware of.
Seiren wondered if the two had ever even met before.
The slab ofman reached forth with a serving fork and took a steak from the central plate - plating one for Aiesu first and the second before himself in a smooth casual motion.
"T-The latter" Seiren said, trying to keep himself to gether. This man was all image, he told himself. To beat image, you have to play image. He recalled days of poker with the ISC Phoenixand the whole concept of face and facade. The way Schlock lilted to and fro these temperments was like some vast ship at high sea, refusing to be moved by the waves and being carried instead by the wind instead. He wasn't trying to be threatening, Seiren told himself: This was just his way.
"The first one, since my reading, actually... But that's not important" Seiren informed, his attention returning to his meal. He blowed softly on another piece of meat, using it to mop up the thick golden rum like sauces making the meat glisten before popping it into his mouth. His face flickered with a smile. It was delicious. Juicy. Warm. Favorful. Ambrosial. Everything it could be, really. And maybe that's all this meeting was.
Aiesu stared down at her plate for a long time. And then, slowly turning her head toward Schlock. With a wing like huff of her shoulders alone, thin gloved hands reached for knife and fork. She etched into the slice to withdraw a piece and met it with salad and loose red sauce, easing it into her mouth between tesselated teeth that would render it unrecognizable behind blackly painted inky lips. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
"This... This is really nice, actually...", not hesitating to have another. Her composure fractured in the moment: slowness lost to hunger to which she was.
Schlock leaned forward over his plate, looming like a thunder-cloud. Despite his carefully constructed and refined appearance, table-manners were not something his hubris knew. He took the steak on a fork, folding its smooth flexible meat over several times on the long skewer several times until it sat like a sine-wave over the piano-tuner shaped instrument of L'manel eatery. His bite was large into the meat and yet his jaw barely moved at all, his words unchanged and unmarred as he ate as if his mouth had nothing to do with eating at all.
"One of my favourites actually" he purred, lapping at his own lips for another bite. Soon, the entire slab was gone, disappearing into that tower of a man. He settled back, sedated for the moment's being.
"But a flavor I get often enough already..."
His hand fondly regarded the back of Aiesu's neck, making her back visibly arch. It made Seiren think of a black cat.
She'd watched as he spoke, trying to find some crack to insert herself into to wedge his visage open for what she really saw him as, to humiliate him infront of Seiren. But as many attempts had shown, humiliation too was not a concept familiar to Mr. Grunder on his own terms. Rather, something he felt he could extract from others.
Even so, Aiesu had no time for that sphinx-crap he was always spouting. Even in her eyes it seemed obvious to him. But for whatever reason, she'd stopped eating.
Thinking about it, Seiren tried to identify the meat again. The flavour was definately something he'd had before. Dust trout? No, that's a Gartagen meat. In any case, he'd never had anything Lorath. So how could he know it?
"You should eat up, you know? It'd be a shame to let this go to waste" he said, taking another slab for himself like some massive oni of Yamataian lore. Everything about his scale was entirely different to normal people. Not wider or bigger but just larger in every possible way like comparing two scale of model kit of power-armour, Seiren thought. If we were 1/144, he'd be 1/100th.
Again with skepticism. Always a classic. Arguing with him was like trying to debate the rationality of just why a person was supposed to wipe after using the bathroom with an especially small child who hadn't yet learned to do such a thing, let alone walk or even speak.
Already however she extended a long oily wrapped arm and took another cutlet and soon got started.
Through the course of the awkward silence, she moved through quite a number of these cutlets, each time moving more quickly and just a little faster. It was subtle but with little much else going on, it was in its own way also very obvious.
"Hoouuu..." she finally spoke, like some great animal coming up for air from the depths of whatever depriaved enjoyment the consumption of meat could offer that sugar apparently couldn't, a sort only a predator could know each time those frightening dagger like teeth came down.
"Nepleslian? This is from Nepleslia, right?" she said. "Its very rich. It reminds me of something..." her voice wandered off to some place her thoughts had long since moved from, trying to keep up with that lilting uptone in her throat. "Phoenix Man...Something?"
"I can say with certainly it is not a Nepleslian dish" Schlock said, his broad lips widening into his trademark cheshire-cat grin. "While our chefs do make use of a fusion of a great many cuisines, this is no such dish."
"Well..." she said, speaking with a mouthful, rolling the morsel around in her mouth. Oddly, she'd been so curtious, like a china-doll or some well trained Yamataian gaisha but it would appear food had no context of manners with one Aiesu Kalopsia. "The preperation is Lorath... I can taste ... Haqua... Durthra... Nouqana...?"
"Duq" Schlock stated flatly. "It seems your new tastebuds still have quite the way to go until you get used to them. But yes, there are a number of foreign ingredients in this dish."
Aiesu held her mouth open for a moment. The sight would surprise Seiren, who had to double-take: a second tongue from the roof of her mouth between her upper pearly set, the two like purple serpants in her mouth before they sealed shut and she resumed chewing like a noisy child. Something about the way she'd done this to Schlock whiffed of a middle-finger, as if the ability for her to deliver such a message had been stripped from her: something Seiren didn't doubt Schlock was entirely capable of doing.
"You could have just..." he began, grimacing at the sight.
"Hmm...?" Schlock leant forward. His hands were steepled together, trademark smile eclipsed, but Seiren could still see the unsettling warmth in the man's eyes.
"Would you prefer to talk business?"
"With food on the table?" Seiren interjected. "How rude..."
Aiesu paused, chewing what was presumably bone at this point for little more than her own satisfaction.
"Its rude not to talk, actually..." Aiesu stated. "A meal is supposed to be communial." The glint in her eye said she always knew best.
"Yes, if you're born Yamataian... Or acting Nepleslian" Seiren quietly bled in with a coynsess riding his sneer.
"Ladies, Ladies.." the low voice of Schlock Grunder sounded, silencing both of them with its strange mirange quality.
"Where I was born, eating was a casual business, born of nessesity. The food was either so raw it kicked or so heavily processed it had no flavor. Let us enjoy this meal and give thanks to the possibilities which allowed it to be neither of those two."
"Always with the speeches..." Aiesu huffed under her breath, already on her seventh steak.
"You're going to need to burn that off later. Might I suggest a mode of exercise?" Schlock began, his elbow nudging Aiesu gently.
From the way she shuffled, something else was up against her lap.
And from the way her toes, clad in that black material clenched at Seiren's foot beneath the table, something more was going on.
"I don't mean to interrupt but... What exactly is this...?" Seiren began.
"Exactly what you requested, of course."
"Heina?" Aiesu quizzed impetulently. "Shau?"
Schlock smiled knowingly. Seiren scarsely felt his presence in the room at all.
He resisted the urge to clear his throat.
"Haka'hn? Ei'yts..? Its... " she leaned back into her seat with a frown. "Reading aspectation to aspector is in very poor taste, you know?"
She loaded her fork again: visibly put off but her apitite wouldn't calm.
"I wouldn't put it past you, even as a joke."
"That would be wise of you... I don't really know -- or care much -- of aspectation ettiquette. It is, however, a mixed meat."
"Fusion cuisine?" Aiesu pondered aloud. "You're obsessed..."
Seiren interrupted after a moment of thought, deciding it might be best to include himself in the events of the room once more as a living sentient being rather than -- what he believed Schlock saw him as -- a novelty talking head of some sort.
"I did ask for a surprise but... Could you be more specific?"
"You did make another request first, my dear..." Schlock began. He leant closer across the table. This should have been a difficult feat but for reasons not entirely understood it wasn't. It wasn't awkward. Well, up until the moment Schlock set his hand on Seiren's thigh and gave a slow lilting squeeze, acknowledging his presence as a woman.
"I believe you requested Lorath."
The original Seiren might have recoiled. Might have grimaced. Might have crawled along the back of the leather seat, wielding it for his own protection while screaming like a Yamataian school girl. But this particular incarnation of his person... Felt nothing.
That isn't to say there was nothing felt whatsoever. Just that whatever wasn't especially negative.
"You know. When people say 'I want to eat Lorath tonight'..." he began, clearing his throat and licking his painted lips for thought "...They generally don't actually mean Lorath. Is there a market for this sort of thing?"
Even hearing these words tumble from his person was a strange sensation: whoever issued this particular model of his person had given him the gift of black humor: evidently something quite incredibly nessesary when negotiating with Schlock.
"As I said. We don't ask questions here. Vat grown. Cruelty free." Helen said, quietly attending Seiren as she poured him a drink.
"I don't know what's weirder... That there's a market for... What I presume is Aiesu" he said, watching her smile sweetly. "...Or that I'm... Not totally squicked by it."
Aiesu reached for another helping.
"Whatever it is" she said, pointing with her fork now with another mouthful in a way that should have been painful to watch -- talking about it in plain sight infront of her and yet still so obvious -- making Seiren wonder if such knowledge was denied to her by design.
"Its got legs."
