boxofmisfits | It's Not a Software Glitch

Entry tags:

It's Not a Software Glitch

Sometimes the crew of the Chimaera figured that high command sent them on missions to the Unknown Region just so they didn't have to acknowledge the alien Grand Admiral for a while. Thrawn just took such assignments in stride. Scouts had reported the discovery of a backwater planet near the Unknown Region, and their reports sounded rather strange. A world host to many different native sapient races, able to do strange things that science couldn't explain, which hadn't become space-faring or even technologically caught up to most of the galaxy.

Thrawn was to send a camera crew down to film the planet, both as intel and as potential propaganda material. 'See what these people are going through and how nice would it be if the Empire helped them?' and all that. Thus the Chimaera had taken residence over a large city, later identified as Baldur's Gate, much to the citizens' horror and awe. Apparently their world was no stranger to invaders from another realm.

It was during one of these filming sessions that the crew ran into a rather odd glitch. They filmed a small group of seven people, but only six were showing up on the camera. They could see the man with their own eyes, he was right there, and yet no matter what, he just wasn't showing up on camera. Immediately the group had gone to the tavern where they were staying and reported this to Thrawn. The only explanation was that it was a software glitch, unlike anything they'd seen before. That explanation didn't satisfy Thrawn.

Curiosity immediately piqued, Thrawn asked for a description of the man and the location of where they'd captured the footage, and off he went. He had a pair of Death Troopers, in civilian clothes, nearby just in case, and Thrawn himself wore a hood and sunglasses, which did little to hide his alien features.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'Please. He knows I'm not some sort of animal. Though I suppose he did neglect to tell you that.'

Probably slipped his mind.

And that certainly was a bard's outfit there in the closet. Complete with musical instrument. Wearing that and carrying an instrument, Eli must have seamlessly blended into the crowd in Faerûn. Probably with less suspicion than what Thrawn had met, too.

'I should introduce you to Gale if magic is that interesting to you, darling. He could talk your ear off about the study of it.'

Of course while he was thinking that all he could do was chirp and gesture with a wing. Gods he hoped he regained the ability to turn back soon.

"Well, Thrawn said that our business there is far from over, so we can explore it some more. So much magic and interesting technology, and the people. Teiflings, dragonborns, dwarves, drow, elves, and so on." He hadn't seen any githyanki, but he knew they existed. He didn't really want to run into one of those mind flayer things in person, though. Not after Thrawn shared his findings on how they made more of their number.

"Speaking of, Thrawn was supposed to bring a local with him. Wonder why he hasn't made himself known yet."

Taking the bat with him, Eli went into the guest suite, figuring that he might as well help get it ready. Their guest hadn't arrived yet and so it wasn't locked yet. Putting the bat on his shoulder, he got some sheets and blankets from the linen closet.

"I just hope he's better than some of the politicians Thrawn's rubbed elbows with."

'Oh dear, doesn't have much of an eye for politicians, does he?'

Thrawn had seemed fairly adept at reading people, so Astarion wondered why that possibly was. Maybe because most politicians were self-centered and more wily than him. Astarion would have to wait and see until he possibly met these other politicians Thrawn had rubbed elbows with in the past.

He had decided to leave to be an ambassador for Faerûn- honestly he'd love to be a fly on the wall when the patriars and everyone who was anyone got that news from their mysterious visitors that he had been chosen without them even getting to vie for the position- so that meant that the political scene would be his too. Not as intensely as if he was strictly a politician himself, but still a representative for his world. Or his part of the world, rather.

Since they were back in the guest room now, he decided to have a better look around- taking flight from the human's shoulder to survey the room- though to someone else it probably just looked like he was flying in circles.

"I'm just glad he told that Pryce woman to get bent." Apparently she'd helped get Eli his long-overdue promotion, but then she had to kill all those people at Batonn, and it had soured her relationship with them. She had tried to convinced Thrawn that he needed her, but he'd turned her down and left her to deal with the rebels on Lothal herself.

"Honestly, he's just bad at politics in general. A genius in every other way, but really bad at politics." He looked up as the bat went flying. "Restless, huh?"

He moved the bag over to a nearby sofa, wondering why it felt kind of heavy. Books, maybe? The sheets and blanket were plain black, as was the pillowcase.

'Oh there's a tale that sounds juicy. I'll have to ask him to tell it sometime.'

And Thrawn's ineptitude for politics itself... Well, no one was good at everything. Even the prodigies and the geniuses of the world had areas where they were lacking. Astarion knew that better than most given his friendship with Gale who- while certainly learned- had not been given the gift of the gab.

Seeing his bag being moved then, he dove for it- and crawled into the opening at the top. Might as well make sure that all his things were accounted for.

Admittedly it would be through rifling through them in a very small form, but still. Perhaps he was a little restless.

Eli's eyes widened as the bat dove for the bag, hand darting away from it. "Alright, you want a dark place to hide in, that's fine with me." He'd been hiding in Thrawn's sleeve earlier, so Eli could assume that he liked dark places, like many bats.

He made the bed, even tucking the sheets in with hospital corners and fluffing the pillow after putting it in the pillowcase.

"Hope this guy gets here soon," He mused, sitting on the couch, next to the bag. He figured the bat would emerge sooner or later. Or fall asleep in there and force Eli to fish him out.

Muffled squeaks sounded from inside the bag- he was here already, Thrawn had just neglected to say as much. But then he had been told that magic wasn't a thing elsewhere, so he wasn't surprised that Eli hadn't come to the conclusion that he was playing host to the guest already.

Crawling through his belongings to ensure that everything was there- more or less able to tell from the way he had packed everything in there- he came back out quickly enough. Head popping out first and then the rest of him as he crawled down the side of the bag and onto the couch.

He really did wish that his magic would settle down and allow him to transform back.

Closing his eyes he tried to sense it within himself- and could more or less tell it was there. His ears wiggled as he connected with it, until something resolved and he took flight again- a blur of white swirling mist appearing, leaving him standing there once it disappeared. Once more back in humanoid form.

"Gods, that was certainly something," He sighed, turning to the human and doing a little bow to introduce himself, and turning on the charm, "Astarion Ancunín. A pleasure to properly meet you and... Apologies for my tardiness, so to speak."

Edited 2024-01-08 07:45 (UTC)

Eli was about to peek inside the bag, politeness about rifling through others' things be damned, when the bat emerged on his own. Before he could offer his sleeve, the bat flew away again. Brown eyes went wide and Eli jumped from the couch in shock as the bat changed.

"What the..?!" He looked the man, Astarion, up and down. He looked almost human, save for the ears. An elf, like he'd seen on that world. "You... this whole time... You're a man."

A beautiful man.

"Oh stars," His brown skin suddenly reddened. "I ran my mouth off around you. Spoke like you couldn't understand me."

The blushing was cute. Embarrassment for having spoken so freely around him, certainly. Not like it was his fault though.

"I am indeed- though I'm hardly about to fault you for not knowing given that you weren't warned. Seems it must have slipped the Grand Admiral's mind."

Astarion thought that was the title he should be using for Thrawn, at any rate. Using his name around one of his people could be the wrong thing to do after all, depending on what level of formality they expected while aboard this ship. For now, he figured it was best to play it safe.

"No need for this, hm?" He purred, stepping closer to brush the backs of those long pale fingers over the other man's cheek to indicate that he meant the embarrassment- not so much the blushing, just the reason for it, "I'm rather chatty with animals myself. It's a charming trait."

"I'm gonna kill him next time I see him." Thrawn was a busy man, but he could have said something or at least hinted that Astarion wasn't really an animal. In hindsight, all that chittering really was the bat talking back, and certain things he'd done made more sense in hindsight.

Brilliant as Thrawn was, sometimes he had a bad habit of not explaining things fully, or omitting information, assuming that it was obvious.

He froze at the feel of those cool fingers, looking up at Astarion, noticing that he had red eyes. If anything, the touch made him blush harder. "I suppose. And I realize that you probably were talking back, in your own way."

"If you need a helping hand..."

That was just a jest, of course. Astarion needed Thrawn given that Thrawn was sympathetic to the poor masses of Faerûn. Or at least Astarion got the sense that he didn't much agree with the view the Empire seemed to have that Toril was a planet full of primitive beings. And Thrawn needed- or wanted- an ambassador to both represent the planet and also a guide to help him with politics.

"And I was really talking up a storm."

He pulled his hand back, "Just like you were. I suppose we're both the chatty sort."

"I mean, a lot of animals make noise just to make noise." As Astarion pulled his hand away, Eli felt a small sense of longing. "Or that you were just unusually smart and were trying at some form of communication." That probably came out wrong, making Eli dart his eyes to the side.

"Sometimes I have a lot on my mind and it helps to get it out there. Guess it's good that I didn't annoy you, seeing as we're going to be working together."

Suddenly Eli didn't mind that he was going to be spending a lot of time with Astarion and working closely with him.

"Given who you work for, I'm not surprised."

Astarion didn't know Thrawn that well. But something told him that details tended to slip his mind a lot. Perhaps because they were details that seemed obvious to him, but wouldn't be to everyone else. It remained to be seen if that read of the man was true, but that was the feeling he got given that Thrawn had just handed him over without a word about his true identity.

The elf moved to sit down on the couch next to Eli- slightly surprised by just how soft it was. He'd sat in a fair share of plush chairs and couches before, but this felt like something entirely different. More like a feather bed than anything else.

"You're the one who'll be teaching me about the vast world outside of the quaint little planet I'm from, then?"

"Thrawn can be a good listener sometimes. It's just that he's kind of a workaholic." Eli was this close to telling Thrawn that he'd go grey before he was forty at this rate. The man was probably looking at artwork by now.

Thoughts of Thrawn were swept away as Astarion sat with him, his cheeks threatening to turn red again. This close, he could pick up on Astarion's smell. Bergamot, rosemary, and a hint of aged brandy. Interesting combination.

"I am, yes. History, politics, that kinda thing. Teaching you Sy Bisti seems like an optional course, and I think he just likes the idea of the three of us sharing an obscure language. And you should get your own datapad soon, assuming Thrawn didn't preemptively order you one."

Edited 2024-01-08 10:07 (UTC)

"He did strike me as the type to be married to his job," Astarion said, giving a slight dismissive gesture, "When I first met him it seemed he hadn't had sex in about a decade, at least."

Which was something Astarion related to being married to one's job. He hadn't seen much of this ship or the world outside of Toril yet, but he was pretty sure that most people were better at finding a balance between work and life. Astarion knew that now that he was free to choose his own path, he would choose to balance his life so that he could have plenty of time to rest.

He would be an ambassador, after all. No one wanted a frazzled, high-strung ambassador who only thought about work.

"If he wants to share an obscure language, it might be just as useful for me to teach you both elven."

It seemed unlikely that anyone outside of Toril spoke that language, at least.

"And this datapad is one of those mysterious little slates, yes?"

"You can if you want. Thrawn picks up languages pretty quickly. I should know, I taught him Basic." Though Thrawn already had a decent grasp of Basic when they met, and Eli just needed to work out his grammar and teach him more obscure words.

"Thrawn used one in front of you, huh? Yeah." Getting up off the couch, Eli went to the desk and opened the top drawer, his face lighting up. "Yep, Thrawn had one delivered to you."

Taking the device out, he returned to the couch and held the datapad out to Astarion. "You turn it on by pressing that little button on the side." He pointed to said button.

"So this language is known as "Basic" to you. Interesting."

On Toril it was known as Commonspeech, Common Tongue, or just Common. He wondered what it said about the evolution of language that it was the same where Thrawn and Eli were from too. Of course common was a trade language and most races of Faerûn had their own languages too.

He took the datapad when it was held out to him, and pressed the little button on the side, turning it on.

And then he squinted at the text on the screen, "I can't read this."

He had been able to select images on the one Thrawn gave him, but this alphabet was as alien to him as Tir'su script.

Eli looked over at Astarion's datapad, seeing that it was in Basic. "Hold on a sec." He held out his hand for Astarion to hand the device back to him. "Knowing Thrawn, he probably anticipated this and had our programmers do a bit of overtime." Because Thrawn thought of everything.

Bringing up the language menu, he scanned through the list that included languages such as Meese Caulf, Rodian, Huttese, until he saw one that caught his eye. Faerûn Common. He tapped on it and the letters immediately changed. Between making a usable font for the datapad and including it in the conversion program, Eli hoped the persons responsible got paid extra.

"There we go," He held it back out to Astarion.

"Programmers?" He said, tone questioning, and his brows furrowing to match as he took the datapad from him again, peering curiously at the screen.

Another word he wasn't familiar with. But given that the alphabet was now one he could understand, whatever they were they apparently worked rather quickly.

"Are they sages? Or perhaps fey?"

Like that odd printing press in the basement of the Baldur's Mouth Gazette.

He tilted his head, "Scribes?"

"Programmers work with computer languages and develop software." Realizing that would all go over Astarion's head, he thought for a second to put it into terms that the elf would understand.

"I guess you could say they're like artificers. Or maybe a combination of scribe and artificer. Basically, they make it so that the datapads can do what they can. Not just datapads either, but the holonet, computers," He pointed to the computer on Astarion's desk. "And mechanical beings we call droids. Everything on your datapad was made by a programmer."

Reaching over, he pointed to an icon of a magnifying glass. "If you want to look something up, you tap that and then type in what you want to find."

"I see."

He understood, he thought. If nothing else he was familiar with artificers. As for the mechanical beings that Eli spoke of, he was sort of familiar with those too- not intimately, just enough to not be surprised that they existed. Between the automaton in the Underdark and the Steel Watch, he could sort of picture what these droids might look like.

"Quite the useful little contraption, isn't it?" He mused, tapping at the icon just to see what it looked like.

It was another thing to acquaint himself with, of course, which meant that there would likely be homework involved but he had come prepared for that.

Perhaps it'd turn out to be a refreshing change of pace.

Holding the datapad with one hand, he reached to brush his curls back a bit more, tucking white strands more securely behind a pointed ear, "And often used by most people, it seems. It feels more comfortable and lightweight to hold than a book."

Astarion could imagine that plenty of people on Toril would love to get their hands on something like this.

"Yes, it's quite common, and useful," His mouth suddenly felt dry as he watched Astarion fiddle with his hair. Those curls, tracing his long ear. Eli found himself wanting to run his hands through that snow white hair, see if those curls bounced at all. Instead, he kept his hands planted on his knees.

"They can be used to take notes, look at star charts, store information, and all sorts of things." Stars, he sounded like a rambling schoolboy. How was it that this man made him feel like he was a virginal teenager again?

After two-hundred years, Astarion could more or less tell when people were looking at him without wanting to seem like they were looking at him. Having spent so long drawing people in with his appearance, noticing that sort of thing came as naturally to him as breathing came to the living.

He could also tell that the man was rambling. Nervous. Could hear the racing of his heart.

Still holding the datapad with one hand, he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers over where he could feel his pulse thudding away beneath his skin, up along his jawline and up to his ear so that he could tuck a few strands of dark hair back behind the man's ear.

His touch was light, though. Easy to pull away from. Casual even, somehow, "Breathe, darling. You can take your time explaining it to me. I'm not going anywhere."

Eli froze, allowing Astarion to touch him again. Those cool fingers seemed to leave icy trails along his skin, though the resulting gooseflesh wasn't just a result of said coolness. In the back of his mind, Eli told himself that there was no way Astarion didn't know what he was doing.

"I know..." Thrawn wasn't in a big hurry to introduce Astarion to the rest of the galaxy. Not until he got caught up on history and the way the Empire worked.

"You're so cold. Is that... a thing with elves?" He wasn't gifted with a Chiss's infrared vision, so he couldn't make a comparison.

"Well, it is a thing with this elf. You should ask Grand Admiral Thrawn if you want to know more."

Astarion was happy to flirt, but less happy to give a lesson on vampires and vampire spawn. Given that Eli hadn't commented on his fangs or his eyes even after Astarion had turned back into humanoid form, he could only assume it was another thing that Thrawn had neglected to inform him of. He supposed the coolness of his skin read as more unnatural than his teeth and the eyes.

He would have thought that Thrawn would hand over the book, at least.

Even if it did paint vampires in a bad light and would likely make Eli wary of him and not relatively at ease as he was now.

He pulled his hand back then, still looking quite relaxed and casual.

"It's somewhat of a long explanation and I fear I'd grow tired of hearing my own voice."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject