Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

[skysung]

Who: A very disgruntled and possibly aggressive dragon kit
Open: Wide open! (unlike the door will be; Kitten can't reach doorknobs)
When: Day 152, afternoon
Where: Near the arrival point in the Bastion, or locked into whatever building you like
What: Kitten arrives and has questions. ...Also she didn't know about spell limits.
Format: Prose preferred but I'll match!
Warnings: Don't antagonize an angry dragon?

Kitten is very disoriented upon arrival on the plains. It isn't just the shifting of the ground around her, appearing as she moves. She reaches her magic down into it, the way she'd check for faultlines, but fails to learn anything of use. The circumstances allowing for kidnap of a dragon are few, and yet here she is, in a strange place unlike any of which she is aware in either the Mortal or Divine realms.

Noticing something on her wrist, Kitten claws at it, wondering whether it is the mechanism of her capture. She can sense something from the amulet, but it is an unfamiliar magic if it is magic at all.

For lack of any better plan, the dragon starts out for what seems like a beacon. She plants her feet firmly even with the knowledge that the ground on which she steps only appeared there moments ago. When she is finally picked up and taken to the Bastion, it's her first flight not clutched carefully in the talons of a grandparent; she is still far too young to fly, her wings underdeveloped.

She can see buildings, signs of life, in the Bastion. And so, Kitten shouts into the mind of anyone unfortunate enough to be within her range, doing her best to sound competent and intimidating, "WHERE AM I!? Why have you brought me here? Where are my parents? They had best be safe!"

That will do for a starting point.

Once she has either received at least a few answers or been thoroughly ignored, Kitten shifts the color of her scales. She blends chameleonlike into the area around her as she chooses a building to explore. A soft whistle, and the door opens on its own. She pushes it shut gently, quietly, and sneaks through the rooms unseen, doing her best to muffle any noise of claws on floor. Only someone with better hearing than human is likely to notice her footsteps.

The whistles are more audible, as are the latches of doors as they open at her voice and are shut carefully behind her. The fourth door, however, poses a problem.

Kitten senses no magic in it, but it won't open. Immediately, she turns around to head back the way she came, running at the door and whistling shrilly without any regard for stealth or silence. It stays shut. Kitten casts a bitter glance upward at the handle of the door, beyond her reach.

Hopefully someone comes to investigate before she takes drastic measures. You do like your doors and your buildings in one piece, I suppose.

Comments

[freedom_engineer]

"Silicoids aren't anything particularly special, though they confused the daylights out of several crews on first contact," he says, sounding amused. "They're difficult to communicate with, but otherwise, they're a pretty standard species."

He grins slightly at her request, and he nods.

"I can definitely do something like that," he says. "I've got an automation on a couple of the doors in here already, including that entrance."

He points over to a sliding door on the far side of the lab, away from the work space.

"If you approach it, it will slide open in front of you. And I can rig up some auto-hinges on a couple of the other doors around here. Can't do them on all of them, mind you. Other people would have to give me permission for many of them... but I can definitely get some on the main entrances for most buildings."

[skysung]

"How does it work? Is it a spell?" Kitten shifts slightly on the stool, as if considering slithering back to the floor and going over to examine the door right away. "Is it triggered by sensing presence, or by weight, touch, or visual cues?"

She does remember to thank him eventually. "Thank you for the assistance, Colin. Let me know if you have need of anything in the future." Kitten may be an infant, but she has quite a few useful talents.

[freedom_engineer]

"No spell," Colin tell her. "The one on that door uses a proximity sensor as well as a directional-predicting algorithm. If you approach the door and it looks like you're going in, it will open for you. But... those are a little hard to build with the materials I've got right now. So I'll probably need to use either a pressure plate system or some sort of button or audio trigger for any future automatic doors."

He smiles at her, and he waves it off like it's nothing to worry about. "I don't need anything. Where I'm from, we take care of each other. Corsicans are well provided for, so that they can do what needs to be done."

[skysung]

She chirps once in interest as she repeats, "It senses direction as well as nearness?" Kitten's voice in Colin's mind is approving. A clever thought, and one which is never considered in most mage's wards.

"My home is like that too. Mama and the kingdom of Tortall took me in without asking anything when my mother was killed, so I try to help."

[freedom_engineer]

"That it does," Colin confirms. "It's not one hundred percent accurate, but four hundred eighty three times out of five hundred, it works. And it never slams in your face, which is useful."

He returns his attention to his work, clearly having something of a one-track mind when it comes to building. "A good, benevolent government is a wonderful thing," he comments, a warm grin on his face.

[skysung]

"A very specific number." Clearly he's tested the mechanism thoroughly. She laughs at Colin's comment about slamming doors, a series of clicks and whistles that non-dragons do not always recognize for what it is.

Kitten is happy enough to watch Colin work, nodding agreement. "I have seen what happens when a government is in the hands of someone less scrupulous." Her mother's death and her brief capture were just a couple results.

"What do you use for a power source?" she asks curiously.

[freedom_engineer]

"The actual test number is much higher," Colin confirms again. "That's a nice, round fraciton is all."

He grins at her, ducking his head slightly in fond memory of his family. "My father built our empire practically from the ground up. Three hundred years, and he went from being a mine owner all the way up to emperor of galaxy. I think he views it as his responsibility to take care of everyone who puts their faith in him. Either way, my home is something the galaxy had never seen before."

He gestures to his arm then. "For now, I've got an anti-matter reactor in my arm and a micro-energy transporter that is fueling everything that I build," he explains. "In a few weeks, thouhg, I'll have a fusion generator open to take that weight off my own power source. And once THAT'S done, I can work on energy storage to help keep stuff from going to waste."

He pauses again, and he grins down at her. "You didn't understand a thing I was saying there, did you?" he asks.

[skysung]

"What is a galaxy? We have countries, continents, the world, and the Realms. And the universe, but the universe is a being as much as a place, father to the gods. Does that make you a prince, or is your system of government entirely merit based after your father's rise to power?" She is going to assume the accomplishment is an impressive one, musing, "I will still be a child in three hundred years."

Kitten listens intently to the technical explanations, head tilted to the side in consideration. When he pauses to check her comprehension, Kitten's "No" is practically gleeful. Colin is a walking wealth of brand new knowledge.

[freedom_engineer]

"In order, then," Colin says, grinning. "A galaxy is a part of the universe. It contains numerous star systems, which contain a single or a pair of stars, which are in turn orbited by numerous worlds."

"By definition, you could call me a prince. That said, I'll never have a station in government, and that's just fine with me. I'd be terrible if I were in charge of any facet of government. As for the Corsican government... The closest thing that you could call it is a corporatocracy. Corsica was the planet that my father's businesses were based on. Numerous acquisitions, wars, and popular petitions later, and we had a government. And from there, it was just a matter of expansion."

He seems amused at the retelling, perhaps aware of how little information he's actually providing with it. "I can relate to your age, somewhat. I'm over four hundred, myself," he tells her. "I can tell you all about all of this technology, but... it won't be a short talk. As you can probably tell, I am terrible at summarizing things."

[skysung]

Kitten nods, taking in everything. "A benevolent corporatocracy, with the interests of its people rather than its profits in mind?" She is well aware of the many things that Thayet and Jonathan have to balance, having sat in on various political talks over the years. She also knows that they practically beggared the country the year the crops failed, before Kitten was born. They siphoned a lot of money from the treasury in an effort to feed their citizens. Their people always come well before finances on their list of priorities.

The revelation of Colin's age draws a long, considering look. "You are not human, then." As for the length of his talk, she tilts her head quickly in something like a shrug. Cheerfully, she informs him, "If you summarized too much, I would just ask more questions. It is difficult to understand anything new without detailed explanations, and I prefer more information to less."

[freedom_engineer]

"Close, very close," Colin tells her. "Starfury Industries and her subsidiaries and shells are the state business, and we'll employ anyone. Someone needs a job, we find a job for them. There's over two hundred and fifty thousand people in the empire whose sole responsibility is making sure that people are employed, and keeping people happy in their jobs. The empire frowns on people who don't want to work, but anyone who wants a job has one. Taxes are high, a fact that many people complain about... but what people don't complain about is that everything they need is provided for them. Food, housing, transportation, clothes, medical care... If you're part of the empire, you will never go without. Our homeless problems aren't gone... but they're universally low."

He chuckles quietly. "Luxury items aren't provided for, but given how little people actually have to spend money on, that means that pretty much everything else can spend what they have left after taxes on anything they want," he says. "And given that we make pretty much everything... We've got a very healthy treasury in both our businesses and our empire. We haven't had a deficit since the last war. I'm sure the accounting is a nightmare, there... but fortunately, I'm not an accountant."

With that, he nods. "Anyway, I'm glad that you don't mind me going on at length. And yes, I'm not human. I'm elven, with just a shred of Elerian genetics on dad's side," he tells her.