Log:Resistance: Oran Opens Up
Oran Opens Up
OOC Date: Decembe 11, 2019
Location: Rori
Participants: Oran Arcantael, Ambrosia Greystorm
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
Once more, the officers handling administrative things in the brig's front office make an announcement to all back here that basically says 'straighten up, tie your laces, quit tellin mom jokes and put away those nudie cards' with the three words "General..." yadayada we know.
Ambrosia was a young, wise-ass trooper herself, once upon a time, and she doesn't show any overt signs of being impressed by how orderly things /appear/. Here, or anywhere. The brig, however, is at least 1 of maybe 2 locations that honestly does (for the MOST part) maintain a vibe of sobriety and serious business. The craziest thing that's happened down here all week probably is the tea party, served up by a sniper.
"How is our tenant doing?" she passes the dispassionate question to an on-duty guard encountered en route to his cell. "As witty as ever, I presume?"
[Oran Arcantael]
"Doing well, thank you." The voice belongs to the tenant himself, that wiry, short, dark boy acting the model citizen in his little prison of a cell. Oran was doing what can only be described as weird force user nonsense, holding a blanket from the cot out ahead of himself from where he sits cross-legged on the bunk. It is hanging patiently in the air, the exercise one of control as he folds corners to other corners, turns it about.... a sort of aerial fabric origami, like napkin-folding on a large scale, hands free.
The sheet drops back to a waiting hand as he continues talking, however. "I told Elrych Cometburn and his little Jedi girlfriend about the Knights' base on Kohlma and I gave everything I know about your Koressa Ayn assassin to General Organa, so no one ought to be casting aspersions on my charitable, helpful nature."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Actually, I was here to commend you for being an amenable lad." Greystorm comes to a stop on her side of the energy field this time, one elbow raised to prop against the wall and hold her weight those few inches from being ZAPPED. Or repelled. Or both. The fine lines framing her eyes deepen, emitting a different sort of intensity from her hawkish stare. Fascination. Appreciation. Amusement?
"And here you are, cleaning your room. How very much I wish my boy'd been so productive with his abilities." A thin, wistful sigh stretches ribs then exhales a note of resignation. Alas. "The Colonel finds you to be a little too smart for your britches, but what does or does not put a smile on his face isn't my concern." All yours, Maeve!
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran regards her evenly, looking thoroughly unimpressed before he shakes out the sheet and folds it by more mundane abilities, setting it on the end of the cot. He /is/ a tidy creature, even devoid of possessions and currently incarcerated. The cot is never unmade. "I held their hands," the Knight replies, acerbically. "For both Organa and the baby Jedi with her saber-jockey, I /held/ their little /hands/. /I/ suggested they ought to ask me about those things, and then clumsily, with no small amount of apparent struggle, they eventually managed it. No one is asking me anything useful, and I've had the same conversation about twelve times now."
He clasps his hands and summarizes said conversation. "Oran, did you know you are a monster? Did you know that's bad? Did you know that's bad and wrong, and you've done a terrible lot of bad, wrong things, and your side is bad, and wrong? Nothing is our fault, why won't you just stop being bad and wrong, no no, we're not trying to change you, we just want you to understand. We will NEVER change you, or agree with you! Where were we? Oh right, you're wrong, but also, you're bad!"
He drops the demeanor and waves a hand as though shooing away unpleasant insects. "I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for everyone here. Even your Colonel wanted to come in here and throw the bloody sentiment at me, and I expected a man like that to be asking real questions."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Are you more upset that we've wasted your time or," Ambrosia quirks a brow. "That we aren't milking you for whatever YOU think you're worth?" She eases her weight off the wall and assumes a more formal, attentive stance. Not quite attention, but almost. Under that neatly pressed uniform is a body shaped, beaten, and reshaped by decades of war. It defies her age, but it is tired. And, slowly, it is dying. Above that neatly pressed uniform are just glimpses of the story. Weathered skin, new skin, puckered scars of old, and some of new. A tremor, barely discernable, that comes and goes.
"If you're so eager to be of greater use, I'd be happy to work through a list of queries with you that do /not/ involve scolding you for your life choices. Anyone who believes our 'side', as it were, is blameless and innocent as a babe is dull-witted or willfully blind. Or simply too young and naive to know the real heart of war and what tithe it demands. I have channeled /my/ abilities and desires to kill for what General Organa deems the moral high ground. It's served both of us well. Likewise, I've no doubt you've had reasons of your own to subscribe to the First Order's line of thinking. Or Ren's. I'm not sure they're entirely one and the same. So. From one 'bad' person to another, I ask..."
She's fishing a datapad off her belt. "Names and known haunts of other Knights of Ren - some of which you've already been forthcoming. Access codes or other useful info pertaining to Outpost Zero. The nature of relations between the First Order and the Hutt regime. Locations and status of existing shield gates - any plans to install more?" The pad lowers back to hip. "For starters."
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran sighs as he processes her first question, thinking it over. "More that I didn't expect them to be so sentimental, I suppose," he muses, "And since no one intends to change my mind or have theirs changed by me, I don't understand why so many people want to have the conversation. They want to hear why I am what I am, why I do what I do, but none of them like the answer, which they could have surmised from the start. I don't understand why they bother, and I am getting tired of repeating myself. I'm obviously a zealot. Who argues with zealots?"
He listens intently as she goes on, and one corner of his mouth crooks upwards as she proves to be the first person to ask for actionable intelligence. The Knight likes her (as much as he likes anyone), and that seems clear. "If I refuse to tell you, will you promise to torture me?" He's kidding. Probably.
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"I'm here on business, not pleasure," Greystorm smiles wryly as she disappears from sightline for a moment to forage for a chair. Once it's found and dragged back, she twirls it around to fit neatly between straddling legs for a more comfortable plop, then folds arms over the back. "If you refuse, it's more like I'll simply go away. Leave you in the company of your tiresome, sentimental ministers of the Force, while I go to my worship, on the sparring mats. I'm sure you'd survive a thirteenth round of their questions, no?" Her chin comes to rest lightly on folded hands.
[Oran Arcantael]
"Cruel," Oran accuses, and sighs. "Now I'm in love with you." She's old enough to be his momma, easily, but that doesn't seem to bother him! And he's probably not being serious anyway. Well. It's hard to tell. The intel, you know? The intel said that the man's got broad tastes.
In ANOTHER LIFE......
But they don't have another life, they have this one, and for whatever reason, Oran's been in a mood to cooperate with everything. "There are far fewer Knights than there are Jedi, and Ren does exterminate us if we disappoint. Doubt Rey does that," he adds dryly. "Currently the ones in 'my' group are a woman named Erisi and a person who might as well be a haunted suit of armor named Ravelyn, along with Dreman Bryce, the particulars of whom I acquainted Organa. Erisi and Ravelyn seldom leave the Ichren system, and your compatriots have encountered them before on the field of battle. It's worth noting, as I explained to Rey, that mine is not the only cadre of Knights, and I do not know most of the others. Shield gates; not my area of jurisdiction, but if there are plans for more of it I don't know about it. Ziro doesn't have access codes for personnel; if you walk in the door and they don't know you, you're liable to get shot."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
Ambrosia listens intently by watching his mouth (habit) AND after checking behind either ear to tweak her implants a bit and sharpen those audible syllables! Somebody take a pic - it's not often she has them turned /on/ let alone /up/. "Does Ziro stock its consumables with local supplies or are they shipped in from the mother fleet, r'other subjugated worlds?"
[Oran Arcantael]
A hint of a smile suggests Oran appreciates the question, but he shakes his head. "I have no idea," he replies. "I'm not a quartermaster. While I appreciate that you lot operate on what I might charitably call a shoe-string budget, the Order is far larger, more complex, made of discrete parts. We do not all assume multiple roles or spheres of influence to scrape along and get the job done, we specialize. Ziro is one of the least important outposts the Order operates, and we avoid 'boots on the ground' wherever possible anyway. I really know nothing about its supplies. One does not need a Knight for that."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"No," Ambrosia swallows back a yawn and unfolds from her forward slouch to sit more erect in the saddle. Meanwhile, some desk jockey is missing their ergonomic chair, which she's insulting by failure to utilize its ergonomicness. "I suppose they don't. Might a knight know of fleet positions around the charts? Perhaps other little hives in which he himself does not dwell? There must be /some/ boots on ground here and there. Elsewise how do you ensure the rabble are behaving themselves?"
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran rises smoothly from the cot and steps forward, no particular rush, but he can't seem to resist the temptation to mess with Amber's chair. He gestures at it and the chair slowly rotates, very slowly, like a children's ride outside the front of a market. Slow, slow, round it goes. Not hard to get up from if she decides she's annoyed by it. "No," he answers again about the fleet movements, "Command of the Navy isn't in my jurisdiction either, and I only know which ships are where to the extent that I might have summoned to do such and such a thing, or in the event that I'm expected to rendezvous with them for some reason."
Regarding the boots on the ground, Oran shakes his head again. "Rarely. Very seldom. We are not the Empire, and we have not attempted the over reaching that was detrimental to their success. We don't control the ground, we control /space/, and we leave local planetary governments to handle the rabble themselves. Locals better accept the authority of their own governments, and local representatives know more about each system than we ever could. If we dislike what's happening on the ground, we strangle space until the locals resolve the issue."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Mm." Ambrosia grunts and digests this little tidbit. Maybe the FO has learned from its predecessor's mistakes. She shrugs it off and goes slowly round, unmoved from her perch by the antics of a bored Knight of Ren. When her point of rotation gets beyond what her peripheral vision can sharply pick up, she turns her neck; when it gets beyond the degrees her neck can turn, a little tip of the shoulders and twist from the waist before it all snaps back 'round the other way. A slow motion 'spin' on the pirouette. Her gaze remains fixed on her captive audience, seemingly uninconvenienced by the ride.
For now.
"So what is your specialty then, Mr. Arcantael? What is it you bring to the table that your cohorts Erisi, Ravelyn, and Dreman do not?"
[Oran Arcantael]
The gentle carousel of the turning chair continues another rotation, until Amber is pointed toward him again - which may mean the back of the chair is, also. "Really," Oran replies, and she surprises a laugh out of him. "How could you even ask me that?" Both hands lift to gesture around, as though gesturing at the grandness of a Core-world stage instead of a nondescript Resistance cell. "Who is here? Who so patiently arranged everything to /be/ here? Do you see Erisi, Ravelyn, or Bryce?"
He lets that sink in, then stands there, arms folded. "Of course you don't. Who attempted to teach Merek to /think/, I don't know... four times? Who interrogated Ektor and captured Angouri, chased Poe out of Corellia, cut up Syrus and the Houk and --- boy with a blue lightsaber, some connection of yours, I take it. Who was there when Kalarba fell, when Ichren fell, and contested your capture of the Acolyte Cannon? More beyond all this that I've forgotten, I'm sure." He smiles, and spreads his hands briefly.
"/You/ are my specialty."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"An impressive CV..." Both boots plant more firmly on the ground and Greystorm rises. "Forgive me for not sending gifts of gratitude for all your attention. Labors of love, I'm sure." There's a frostier edge to her smile now, put there by /some/ bit or another of his grand explanation. "So, you wanted to get a closer look at what makes us tick and thought: what better way to get into the beast's belly than by letting yourself be consumed?" Her head bobs side to side. "Sounds reasonable enough. Well," she glances at her little wirst chrono. "Best script some new questions for you, lest we have to have /this/ conversation twelve times over."
Oran Arcantael]
Oran hasn't really openly explained why he's here, only that he meant to be, but when Amber describes a hypothesis, he does dip his head and spread his hands. "Just so," the Knight confirms. "When you're given verifiably true intelligence from a source you ought not to trust, what do you do? Mishandle it for months, from what I can tell. When you finally act on that intelligence, who do you bring? How do you enter and where do you strike? My ship, my home? How well do you fight together?" His brows lift, but he refrains from comment. "When you have an enemy in your custody, how do you treat him, what do you ask him? What will you do with the things he says?" Oran turns around to return to his cot, where he sits, drawing his legs up to sit cross legged. "And now the last bit: What will you do with him?"
The Knight-in-a-Box smiles. "Looking forward to finding out. I've learned quite a bit already. See you soon, General."
