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[magnetite_plz]

A trail of strange, unidentifiable red petals winds through the plaza this cold day in the Nexus. Not a heap of them, but enough small bits of brilliant red to pop out amid the snow and dreary ground to leave a distinct marking of something or someone passing through.

The trail leads anyone following it to Nike, currently brushing more of those petals out of her impossibly long golden tresses, her brow furrowed in concentration. It's more of an emotion than her countenance normally belies. She startles to see anyone approaching her and drops her hands from her hair quickly. Scrambles for a long piece of red and white cloth she's got folded into her pack.

"Apologies. I did have queries for the populace today." Her fingers grip and cinch the fabric between them, slowly working their ways down the length of the cloth. She fidgets with it while she addresses anyone who will listen.

"Why do people choose partners based on mere attraction? Out of dozens of qualifying attributes, why should something so unimportant have a disproportionate weight to the equation? The choice could be made based on compatibility of skills, or a mutually sought after goal or..." Nike trails off and with a sudden forceful flick of her wrist bunches up the fabric in her hands to flop against her thighs in clear frustration. The demon clearly does not understand and it's eating at her.

"Why do you do this?"

Comments

[sweetcandygirl]

Harley hums to herself as she picks up red petals off the ground, sticking them in her pockets of her bright yellow jumpsuit. She at first doesn't even notice Nike... and had reached up to collect a petal out of Nike's golden tresses, when the other woman reacts to the approach. Snapping some awareness into Harley herself.

"Ya mean choosing someone for just good looks? Law of nature. Good looks sells. The peacock with the brightest feathers is chosen first."

Harley leans in to stage whisper. "It sucks. Honestly. But you catch someone's eye first... and then worry about the rest later."

[magnetite_plz]

"And the prey animal with the brightest plumage makes itself the largest target for a predator. How is that advantageous to its mate? Its offspring will inherit that weakness more than likely."

Nike honestly agrees with Harley about one thing. The entire thing 'sucks' as she would say. It makes no logical sense she can see.

"I have no need to catch anyone's eye. My service is already appreciated and used properly."

[sweetcandygirl]

“Actually that bright plumage thing attracting predators works for most bird species. The male is the one with the bright colours... so he shakes his tail...” Harley flutters her own brightly outrageous coat. “ and lures the predator away from the female... who is usually sitting on a nest or feeding the young.”

“Glad you found someone who appreciates yours services.” Harley still has that mannerisms that make the sentence seem naughtier than she intends. “I aim t do the same. Find people who appreciate me for me.”

[skeksisheretic]

skekGra's surprised when he hears the stranger's question. Granted, he doesn't know much about other species' perspective of love or romance, especially since his own species isn't known for that kind of thing. Romantic relationships are almost completely unknown among Skeksis. They are at heart too selfish for it. skekGra's romantic attachment to urGoh was unheard of.

Mystics aren't much better, aesthetics to a fault. They have goodness and selflessness to spare, but in his and urGoh's experience most of them have almost none of the passion that allows relationships like what Nike is describing. They aren't go-getters.

"I didn't choose urGoh because of his looks," he says. It was the same for urGoh, honestly. He's vain, vanity comes naturally for Skeksis, but even skekGra has to admit that his feathers are more dull than they once were and he isn't as agile as he used to be. His secondary arms are unusable. Still, he likes the way he is, and he's still a fair sight healthier than most of his withered kind. "He didn't choose me for mine. The planet Thra itself wanted us to be one again, Mystic and Skeksis."

[magnetite_plz]

"Your planet, it is sentient?" There is no scoffing to this demon's tone, merely genuine curiosity. It doesn't seem nearly as difficult to believe that this one is speaking the truth to her given the fact that they are so very obviously inhuman.

Things which are different do not frighten her. Demons come in every shape, color, and creed in her world.

"And it exerts its will onto individuals to become paired?"

[rockandrollvampire]

Petals laid out in a way that say come follow me are a hard thing for someone as nosy and bored as Toby to completely ignore. He follows the trail until he comes upon Nike fussing with her fabric, an eyebrow arched at her curiously. She doesn't seem quite as "normal" as many of the others he's bumped into in the Nexus, and her question strikes him as one that's curiously not mortal in nature. It gives the vampire a moment of pause before he finds an answer for her.

"Unless a person is wearing a sign, I've no way of knowing about all their other fine qualities." He chuckles at her frustration. It's kind of adorable, if he's being honest. "But humans don't tend to settle purely for looks. They start there, yeah, but if there's enough dissonance between both parties, they're unlikely to stay together. Fight often enough with someone and staying gets hard."

He thinks about that for a moment longer, then adds, "A person being want you need doesn't necessarily make them what you want. The heart's a fickle thing and it doesn't give a damn about how good or bad a person is for you." A couple hundred years of experience and observation has made that abundantly clear to him.

[magnetite_plz]

Nike's expression does not lighten in the slightest to be laughed at. The gesture doesn't offend her exactly, but she doesn't see what's so funny about the entire situation. Emotions in general are still such a minefield for her and her keeper. If someone is laughing it could be for any number of reasons, only a few of which make any sense to her.

She stays quiet and listens. Her fingers dig into the cloth clutched against her thighs.

"Humans are hardly the only offenders but they are the most prolific of them. It seems like such a waste of energy and time. Even when worlds hang in the balance they waste what little they have on such frivolous things." Duty and honor Nike understands. Respects, even. Hope, joy...love...that's still a bit out of her reach yet.

[legendary_titan]

Saint had spotted the petals during a stroll through the plaza; the red catching his eye against the white of the snow. The towering Titan had no idea what to expect when he found the source, but he wasn't expecting the petals to be drifting from a lovely woman's hair.

His helmeted head tilts as he spots her, and shifts as he noticed the red and white cloth on her lap. He caught a glimpse of a familiar symbol before she bunched it in her lap. The woman's question caught him off guard a moment or two, before he sat down next to her at a polite conversational distance so he wouldn't be looming over her.

"Hmm. I think it just depends on the person." He said after a moment, deep accented voice contemplative. "Not everyone gets drawn to another based on looks alone." He rubbed a gloved finger at the bottom edge of his helmet. "Err...are you referring to strictly romantic pairings or...ah...friends. Team-mates?" His r's rolled pleasantly as he spoke. He wasn't really an expert on romantic relationships but he would help answer her curiosity however he could.

[magnetite_plz]

Ah. A Titan approaches. Exo, the way he moves and sounds. Nike knows them well, down to the circuitry that replaces their circulatory systems. Her mistress is an Exo like this one. A Titan, like this one. Without realizing she is doing so, Nike relaxes ever so slightly. Waits for this lavender wearing hulking figure to settle into a seat before she says anything.

She is not of his people, though she does wear their garb. Carries their weapons. Fights for their cause.

"No, it would be hard to do so in your society anyway." When most of its most beloved figures are never seen sans their gear by anyone but their closest allies. But it doesn't change what she's observing, here in the Nexus or among the Guardians she has grown accustomed to living among. She pauses at his awkwardness in asking his question. Her stare lingers longer than is strictly necessary.

"I don't see the difference in those statements. Partners are partners. Many are wasted because they focus on inconsequential factors. You devote entire holidays venerating what is ultimately...." She trails off and shakes her head. It can't just be a waste of time.

People wouldn't dedicate precious resources to it if it were simply that.

But she does not understand.

[chiaro_oscuro]

"You know, it's different for different situations. Attraction's something that can be caused by all kinds of things. Physical appearances are one thing, shared interests or goals are another. With other people, it's more...complicated."

A young man in dark clothing observes the stranger curiously, listening to her question. The trail of red petals wasn't hard to follow, especially in the white snow, and while Ben Solo usually tries to stay inconspicuous in the Plaza the mystery was too tempting. Ben had followed the petals to their source, and he has several questions of his own that he doesn't begin to ask. It's the Nexus. He's learning to go along with its more bizarre qualities, and he assumes the trail is one of those.

"Complicated is a good word for it, actually. Relationships and people." He's intrigued. One of the unspoken questions Ben has is what that unfamiliar symbol he caught a glimpse of on the woman's cloth meant. That isn't connected to her question, though, and not his business anyway, so he doesn't ask her about it. "I'm hardly a person who should be offering you romantic advice, if that's what's on your mind. But I can tell you it's more complex than mere attraction, as you put it."

[magnetite_plz]

At least its source isn't too terribly mystifying. Nike's clearly been trying to remove them from her person since she stopped to take pause in the plaza center. How she got covered in them is another question entirely but she's mostly free of them by now, at least.

To a man accustomed to all walks of alien life there's something vaguely inhuman about this otherwise ordinary looking woman. Her hair never quite seems to lay flat under gravity's beck and call. There's a lightness to her, as though she could be blown away by a sudden breeze. And yet she looks solid enough. Human enough. She's clearly wearing human tactical gear and carrying human weapons at her side.

"Complicated, perhaps. But attraction is too heavily relied upon as a factor. A partner should be someone to be relied upon at all costs." How can they not see that choosing based on physical desires will so often lead to incompetent pairings?

you get the splaining icon, Nike

[tryingitall]

Balthazar has to stop and take a second glance at anyone who seems to be angelic in the Nexus. He's met some very good friends that way, and also Lucifer, who is more than a good friend. And at this point, it's more than legitimate for him to take an interest in anyone who might be part of his partner's cadre of fallen angels, or a celestial being that might oppose them. His name is his title, Baal-Sarra-Usur, may the lord protect the king.

All that aside, it's quite a pretty picture, this winged lady with rose petals and tumbling golden hair, and there's a painter in his head that notices visual poetry.

"Oh, darling," he says with a grimace, walking over to her with hands in his pockets. The pet name seems to be a speech affectation, not an attempt to flirt. "You're asking a very non-specific question and I'm afraid you're going to find most of the answers unsatisfying."

It's the kind of thing Castiel would muse aloud about, though. "Now that I'm up close, you don't feel like an angel as I know it...but some sort of related spirit-being, I think? Biologically based people like humans, they have a drive to reproduce. Cultural norms and personal tastes and experiences get mixed in, but in the end there's a little voice in the back of their monkey-brains whispering hey, those look like good genes to mix up with yours."

"For some reason, that seems to be the case even if they've made a conscious decision not to reproduce, or if they're attracted to the same sex and therefore are highly unlikely to create offspring through boinking. It's very primal. I wouldn't understand it at all, except I've seen the world through human eyes, if only briefly."

"There's more to romantic bonds than physical attraction, of course. And there's more to physical attraction than visual stimuli, actually: pheromones, body language, vocalizations...it's all terribly complicated. But they have to start somewhere."


[what is love?]

[magnetite_plz]

Something akin to shock jolts through her when Balthazar gets close. He speaks of primal urges, of instincts deeper than rational thought. Right now, all of hers are screaming at her to bow, to move out of the way, to defer to the Named celestial before her. Nike doesn't move for several seconds.

She is Named, too. She is Purposed, now, too. She does not need to bow and scrape and hide the way her sisters would. Her fingers still tremble slightly.

"All of my kin are 'angels'. Bound angels to be exact. The..." Why does her throat close rather than speak the truth? Nike isn't enough accustomed to shame to recognize it as she soldiers on. "The lowest order of justice arcana demons. But that is no longer my role." No longer her shackled lot in life.

Her fingers wring at the cloth but there is comfort to be taken in Balthazar's words. A sense to the madness she has been thrust into living in the midst of.

"They desire...offspring. Even when it is unplanned or impossible biologically. E-even when there are worlds at stake and every resource is precious. They do this because of...instinct?"

[higginbottom]

Esther's been feeling a bit better lately, so she's out for a walk, her long legs moving quickly through the cold air. She's wrapped up in a burgundy coat with a little white hat to keep her head warm. The red petals catch her eye as she passes by, and she follows their trail towards a woman asking a question that she's not so sure how to answer.

"I think we're all pretty dumb sometimes, truthfully."

There, Nike. You get a cynical answer.

[magnetite_plz]

"To acknowledge the problem is to admit awareness of it, and yet no one does anything about it."

Nike's shoulders tense even more before going slack all of a sudden. Slumping in clear defeat. There must be an answer if only she looks hard enough.

"How can people benefit in this kind of unbalanced ritual?"

[making_sacrifices]

Princess Allura is a bit caught off-guard with such a question, but she thinks about it.

"Attraction might just be the first step to making the choice. It's what would make me notice a man, I suppose? I mean - hm, it's hard to put into words. And it's not really important to me, currently."

[magnetite_plz]

"But what makes someone attractive?" Nike stares down at the cloth she's holding close to her person. Smooths out a few creases she's put into it from her tight grip.

"It seems so arbitrary. I would have thought it should be based on how useful someone is, or how skillful they are in their profession, but that does not seem to often be taken into consideration."

[seekerofheart]

Isa, when apparently spoken to, replies,

"I don't think I've ever been attracted, and, depending on what the word 'partner' means in this question, I've chosen my partner differently. Based on our mutual past, and our mutual goals. Hopefully our mutual future. We fought for it."

Hmmm... He wonders. He might've. Spoken not quite on the subject? Ah.

"But perhaps I've misunderstood the question. Is this about 'love'? If so, I may have completely misunderstood it."

[magnetite_plz]

"...Are you human?" In this place it can be difficult to tell who is and who is not.

"I don't understand it at all, but I am not human. I thought it best to ask them directly and observe their firsthand accounts."

[rekindledtitan]

Oh. Oh no, Nike. Blaze comes in here after a Crucible match to find you like this and now she's realizing there's yet another thing she never thought of having a Talk about. The poor angel looks so troubled by the whole thing, the Titan can't but feel a guilty pang. Even if she's not really sure what's got her team-mate's feathers in a fluster.

She approaches more slowly than usual, hesitating rather than lift a hand and call out to Nike. Catches enough of a previous conversation to know what she's asking about.

"Well, uh..." She sounds uncharacteristically sheepish, speaking up. Damn, but this isn't a subject she's best fit to talk about. Nor is Ghost going to be any help: he's backed off to look at her in the way he does when he's very happy to sit and watch, thank you Guardian. Still. She knows some things. "You've got to start with something, right? Got to be something that sparks your interest. You know, something that makes you think you want 'I want to be around them."

[magnetite_plz]

Oh, oh no. She's been caught calling humans foolish while Blaze is in earshot. Nike actually drops the cloth when she notices her Mistress approach, bringing both of her hands up to cover her mouth as though that would take back all of the things she has said in frustration to the people who would listen to her.

"Blaze--this was not. I did not mean to imply anything about you in particular. I'm...I am sorry for coming here rather than seeking out your advice. I didn't think it was worthy of your time to bother you with..."

[ididntasktogetmade]

What the heck is with all these flower petals? At first glance it looks like a blood trail, bright crimson against the snow, but blood doesn't flutter in the breeze and it certainly doesn't smell anything like this. Rocket can't help but follow, curious to see what's at the end of the trail, not really sure what to expect.

Questions about choosing partners isn't exactly what he'd had in mind, but... sure. This is the Nexus.

"Depends on what you mean by attraction. Some folk pick their partners based on how they look, but sometimes that's more about just sex than stickin' around." Blunt honesty, thy name is Rocket. "I know a guy who ended up with his wife because he thought her not dancing was a huge turn-on."

[magnetite_plz]

Nike is much more comfortable with a talking creature than most people would be at first glance. He's not trying to kill her on sight so he's likely not a demon, but she doesn't quite relax entirely. Plenty of things are far more dangerous than they appear. She's one such case in point.

"That's what I don't understand. What good are looks? What use could they be for a prospective partner? I understand a human desire to mate, but to choose on something so meaningless is...it seems foolish."

[hesperussword]

Beelzebub was a little drunk and more than a little curious about the trail of red petals. They lead him straight to a woman who he only notices when she speaks. Drunken, he's startled by both her presence and even more so by her questions. He's immediately anxious about the topic at hand.

"I don't know, and I don't understand it." The truth is this angel is probably just as confused about the topic as she is, and he's drinking on top of it. He stops to stare at the person asking and then finally shrugs. "I didn't."

And then the angel gets a grin that should, by all accounts, have a blush if it wasn't for the flush of his cheeks from drink. "...He is Gerval and a fellow honorable warrior."

[magnetite_plz]

There is Power in the figure that stumbles strides over to address the demon in her battle armor. Power that jerks Nike's head up and makes her clutch ever more fitfully to the cloth bunched in her fingers as fear jolts through her. Instinct is hard to reason with, but though she tenses her face remains carefully blank as she wrestles to show no weakness in front of something that by all rights should not regard her as anything of import.

It is so hard to act casually about these beings who are not Of Nike's world yet feel so similar to the hushed stories told in the deepest pits of darkness. She swallows. Forces herself to breathe. To stand tall. All her fear seems foolish in the face of a drunken Being waxing inelegant poetry about whatever Love he has fallen for. He is as confounding as the humans who disproportionately fill this place.

"Battle prowess is certainly a more...understandable trait..." She doesn't understand. Her brow furrows ever so slightly. "Is he your equal in combat? Does he specialize in things you lack?"