+1 Cylon to the Nexus

[fiveofnone]

There is a man standing near the vending machines in the Plaza, dressed in a well-tailored, peacock blue suit. He looks like he could get you an excellent rate on your second mortgage, but you'd be wise to double-check the fine print before you sign anything. As he fixes himself a cup of coffee, he glances periodically at the people who pass by, his expression perfectly neutral. Although the more astute might pick up on the way he tugs at the cuffs of his sleeves impatiently, as if wishing he were somewhere else.

Finally, he sighs. "Okay. Listen up. Adia asked me to come here because she thought it'd be good for me to make some friends, so if you see her, you can tell her that we chatted and save yourself the actual trouble. All right? I'm sure we're all very busy people."

He takes a sip from his to-go cup and grimaces. "On second thought, can anyone tell me where I can get a decent coffee around here? I can't believe she's been drinking this stuff for the past three years.."

Comments

[poetwarrior]

K'da do not build monuments to honor their dead, but Faris has seen enough of human culture to know how much physical items are valued, a tangible object to remember those who are gone. An important thing, for a species who has bodies to bury. "A solemn task. You must do this alone?"

He may be no expert, but that seems like it may be intended to be cruel, if Caspar regrets his actions while serving the hostile Cylon faction.

[fiveofnone]

Caspar huffs out a breath of amusement, although it doesn't quite hide the bitterness that laces his half-smile. "No, there's a bunch of us working on it. They wouldn't trust me to do it by myself and it's too big for one person besides."

He looks down at his empty mug and adds quietly, "I would have been in there. Before it was built, people had been painting river stones with people's names and leaving them on site. Adia painted one for me. We moved it to our garden."

It's not how his people honored their dead, either, but death was only temporary for a long while. "How about your people? How about when one of you dies and the other doesn't? Your symbiotic pair, I mean."

[poetwarrior]

Faris pauses in his drinking, the discussion too somber to devote anything less than his full attention to it. "K'da do not leave bodies behind when we die, so we honor those lost in song and story. There is a mourning period of four to twelve days, when the lost one's family and close friends gather together and weave their memories into the tapestry of the lost one's life. When all tales have been told, ashes are released from the ship's ejection port to end mourning. For Shontine, it is what remains. For K'da, it is symbolic only. For both, it is a symbol of falling beyond reach, both of loved ones and of enemies, leaving behind only memory."

"If the lost one was part of a symbiont pair, the mourning can be... difficult," he adds, his long ears laying back a little at the solemness of the topic. "A Shontin cannot become a host again until a symbiont is available, and she or he is no longer used to being alone. A K'da must partner with another host within hours, but this too can be difficult, if the new host was not familiar with the lost one's family and friends."

[fiveofnone]

He listens respectfully, though his expression doesn't change much. "How long has your kind been living on ships? It sounds like you've adapted your mourning ritual rather seamlessly with it."

As for the untimely loss of a partner, that has him looking a little more philosophical. "Humans are very fond of physical reminders of the people they've lost. It's like their memories aren't real if they don't have some sort of physical evidence that they existed. I can't say that Cylons are much like that, even now that death is permanent..."

He absently rubs at the sleeve of his suit, as if reminding himself that it's there. "Maybe that'll change. The memorial isn't just for the humans. But... well. I would have been the only Five there, let's put it that way."

[poetwarrior]

"It has been several generations since we left our home planet, but it is not the first time we have been shipbound," Faris explains, his tail twitching slowly. "Hundreds of years ago, the K'da and Shontine, and our former host species the Dhaghem, were enslaved by the Cark. Many of the rituals and customs we now share had their seeds planted in that part of our history, after the uprising that earned our freedom. When we were able to live on the planet we once called home, the ashes of the lost were given to the seas and rivers."

He listens with quiet interest to Caspar's description of the human take on memorials, and while he does not necessarily understand what that must feel like, he can sympathize regardless. "This bothers you?"

[fiveofnone]

"There's a cycle to your history, too," Caspar notes. He's not blind to the parallels, but perhaps in this case, it's the Cylons who have more in common with the K'da than the humans. "Did Adia tell you that we were originally the slaves? The humans wouldn't even acknowledge our sentience at first. We never had a planet of our own, though. Just ships."

The question makes him frown a little. "It bothers Adia. She doesn't like people judging me, especially because they don't know me. But they know my face." He sighs, regretting bringing it up. "It's a shame that a One didn't survive, too. People could take all their hate out on him instead."

[poetwarrior]

They had spoken a little of the war, though not the finer details of the origin of the conflict. Perhaps this is a unique opportunity to see both sides, a deeper understanding of a painful history. "Did the Cylons never wish for a home planet? Did the war make it too dangerous?" From what Adia Costas has told him, the human colonies were vulnerable to attack in much the same ways as the K'da and Shontine home planet was. It makes sense that a Cylon colony would be also.

Faris finally reaches the bottom of the bowl, lapping up the last drops of cider. A satisfying drink, if still rather strange. The K'da decides not to point out that rejecting casual conversation with others is a poor way for Caspar to alter his reputation. After all, he is here now, is he not? "Trust is a difficult flower to grow, and not all minds are fertile soil. They must also earn yours." The Cylons' history with humans does not disappear simply because the hostile faction lost the war, after all. And while Caspar must work to show them that he can be trusted, the humans must also do the same, if true peace is to be made.

[fiveofnone]

Caspar shakes his head. "We didn't need one back then. Our species was a hundred percent inorganic. Ship life suited us fine." He assumes, anyway. It's not as though he personally was around back then. "Although I'm sure if we settled down somewhere, the humans would have found us eventually."

The advice would go over like a lead balloon. On some level, Caspar appreciates the notoriety, his own biases against humans making friendship with them difficult. But he doesn't like to see his girl upset, so he plays nice for her sake, which ironically makes him even more difficult to get to know. "Wise words," he replies, with only a touch of his usual sarcasm. His mouth quirks into a half-smile. "You ready to show me where I might find some ice cream? Not to rush you or anything."

((Is it all right to end the thread here and handwave the ice cream?))

[poetwarrior]

A garden cannot be grown in one evening, so Faris does not feel any need to push Caspar into sweeping self-improvements over the course of one conversation. The seeds have been planted, and time will tell if they have taken root. There are always more seeds, if the first planting fails.

"Of course," he agrees, giving Caspar that pleased K'da grin, tail twitching lazily. "Let us go."

[Fine by me! They've covered good ground. :) ]