strangetrip | [EP] a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life*

Yasmeen "refused to be bored, because she wasn't boring."**

She'd read that in a book in Gotham. But then, Gotham had a library, bookstores, and her Lady. Not being bored was a lot easier. So, when the city opened, Yasmeen all but bolted through the portal into the wet jungle heat in search of anything interesting to do.

It didn't take long for her to discover there were no airships, no weapons modern even by her standards, and very little for non-natives to do. But there was always work in a port city, even in a river port, and she knew how to find it.

On day two, she met Ek Sothea, a young woman with a gift for spotting an opportunity. By day three, she'd agreed to front her the gold for a salvage operation in the river. It barely touched the reserves of what Yasmeen had with her when she arrived from Gotham, but it was enough to finance the operation and get Yasmeen a tip on a bar by the docks where Ek Sothea had gotten the initial information and the name of the man who'd supplied it. Soksan.

The third night, she staked out the bar and by the fourth, she'd met Sar Peou and his contact Hu Chariya who needed an ancient and valuable map retrieved from the business partners who'd kept it after a deal went bad. Early on the morning of the fifth day, she'd slipped into the third floor above the Phann Raksmei bank, picked the locks on the safe chest, and obtained the map. On the evening of the fifth day, she met Sar Peou at Soksan, slipped into his back corner booth and delivered the map in exchange for a healthy payment that covered her investment in Ek Sothea's salvage operation.

Business transacted, she bought herself an ale to nurse while scoping out her next job.

~*~*~*~
* Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
** Zelda Fitzgerald

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Vax looked up from the swallow of his ale with a eager brightness to his gaze. He didn't bother to try and play it cool and reserved with her, as he might've done with another potential employer. They were neighbors, after all.

"You're serious?" It was a rhetorical question - he had a sense of her humor by now, and he didn't think she'd waste their mutual time with a false lead. "...How many do you mean to hire?"

"Would I death-tease you?" Yasmeen all but purred, amused at his eager, overeager response. She let him dangle a few moments, and then said, "I take it you have someone else in mind?" She had a sense of who it might be, but she wanted to hear what he would say. Introductions said a great deal about the introducer and introducee.

"Percival," Vax said at once. "Have you met him yet? He's a marksman, and too smart by half." It was the reasoning that would most likely interest the Captain Corsair, but it wasn't the most important reasoning to him.

"He's from my world," he went on to explain. "My team. My friend. If there's danger to be faced... I'd rather the pair of us see it through together than not," Vax suggested. His dark gaze searched hers, to show her what it meant to him, and see what value she'd place on it in turn. "Not to say we won't mind our own interests, from time to time. But it's... Too soon, I think, to risk it alone."

"Mm," Yasmeen replied, noncommittally. But she did understand, quite well, and she'd taken other crew members on at other times with far less to recommend them. "Sharpshooters are useful on jungle treks."

She shrugged casually and sat back, relaxed. "I'll have to introduce myself, but barring calamity, I see no reason not to bring him along."

"He's well-bred. He knows how to do a proper introduction." Vax smiled at her, eyes bright, for the opportunity and the being so agreeable about Percy both. It was a kindness not to make him choose between them, and for all of the Captain's steely pragmatism, he suspected she wasn't above a little kindness now and again either. (She had released him from the clutches of that damned snack box without too much shittalking.) "The calamity won't happen until much later."

Although Yasmeen chuckled, she raised an eyebrow at that. "What sort of calamity are we talking about?" She assumed nothing Vax'ildan and she couldn't handle, but she did like to know what she was getting into.

"Oh, no, it's - Nothing that should trouble you," he lifted his hands to make mollifying gestures at her. "He's a tinkerer, is all. He might blow something up now and then in his research, but he keeps well enough away from others when he does it." For safety, sure - and as much because he was peevish and private by turns.

Yasmeen opened her mouth to say as long as he doesn't blow up my ship and shut it again promptly. She nodded and simply said, "I'm familiar with the type." Hard to tinker on the move, though, so he'd be fine.

[EP] a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life* - backdated

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