milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

It's only been 4.6 hours since Bastion first entered Milliways on their side of the door, and this time it's replaced the door to one of the stairwells instead of Storage Room 14-C. However, despite the short time it's been for them, they are confident that there wasn't a massive pine tree covered in ornaments and lights in the middle of the barroom floor the first time they came in. They vaguely recognise it as a component of a human winter holiday, but that's where their knowledge of the custom ends. (Particularly because it's spring in their world.) It's very pretty, though, with all those colorful twinkling lights and shiny spheres attached to it. They step closer to the tree for a more in-depth examination.

There are all sorts of things on the large indoor tree, in fact; candy canes, little figurines made of wood or plastic or clay or lightweight metal, strings of tinsel, ribbons and things with ribbons attached, and a baffling assortment of decorative miniature objects. There is also a box next to the tree with an invitation to add more decorations, which Bastion immediately investigates.

Why is there an ornament that looks like a tiny, out-of-proportion plastic version of themself in this box? There's one that looks like Tracer, too, and a yeti resembling Winston, and one that has a beard like Torbjörn's. But they're just going to hold up the ornament of themself for a moment and stare at it in bafflement.

(Ganymede isn't worried. It's clearly not edible and it doesn't look dangerous, so his work here is done.)

[OOC: I'll be in and out this evening for Christmas reasons, so there'll be some slowtime, but the post is open today, tomorrow, and beyond.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a man sitting in one of the corner booths, working one a mechanical component of some sort. With him is a sea-glass green ovaloid which he seems to be carrying on a conversation with.

After a while, the little drone comes floating over to the bar, pausing to admire the tree.

++ Very pretty! ++ It beeps in a machine language.

Bastion, pleasantly surprised to be spoken to by another robot, whistles and beeps agreeably back. //It is! I don't understand the significance, but I find the reflective decorations and the lights very pleasing to look at.

Their beeps don't convey more than a general sense of emotion by themselves; the full meaning is transmitted over a short-range wireless connection. The bar's translation magic, however, allows them to understand other robots even when they use dissimilar languages.

They still have the mini-Bastion ornament dangling from their index finger.

Edited (whoops I hit the post comment button too soon because I'm tagging from my phone) 2017-12-27 12:40 (UTC)

++ Our human friend Jay explained it. It's a mid-winter festival. The tree symbolises the continuity of life during the dark months. Or something like that. But I like the lights. And the music. ++

The little drone squeaks excitedly. ++ The festival has special music. I love music ++

Bastion boops curiously, taking in the explanation. // That makes sense. Coniferous trees continue to grow in the winter, when deciduous trees and most other plants are dormant.

// It has its own music? Can you play the music?

Ganymede peers at the drone. He can see his face in its casing!

(OOC: This is a more opportune time of day for me to tag; I sent the last one off right before going to bed, and probably shouldn't have been up that late to begin with.)

Edited 2017-12-28 03:29 (UTC)

The little drone squeaks happily and starts to hum. A moment later another five drone, some larger and white, the others smaller and sea-green like George.

Singing Carol of the Bells. Why, because it's the one George likes best.

{ooc: sorry I missed your window. I'm in Australia so I tend to live in eternal slowtime around other people's timezones.)

Bastion turns their head around to watch the other drones fly over, delighted to have a whole chorus of little floating orb robots arrive to sing for them and listening to the music with rapt attention. The song fits a lot of lyrics into a short time, but there seems to be a large amount of merriment involved.

After the drones finish performing the song once through, Bastion tries beeping the tune out themself. It's passable, although they go off-key in a few places. Singing is fun!

(OOC: I'm on Pacific Standard Time and a night owl, so nowish actually works fine for me!)

The Drones are delighted to have him sing with them. Off-key or not, they love to share music.

Jay comes over from where he was sitting, watching them with a smile. "Very pretty, you lot." He reaches out to scratch one of the Drones warmly. "Who's your new friend." He smiles to Bastion and Ganymede.

Bastion waves and whistles a greeting, then looks down at their hand as the Bastion-shaped ornament still dangling from their finger bumps into it. Ganymede chirps at him, which might be his way of introducing himself. // Hello!

// I am a SST Laboratories E54 Bastion unit. Most people I know in my world call me Bastion. They turn their head towards their bird companion. // This is Ganymede. He's my friend.

The audio component of this is a jaunty whistle followed by a few beeps and boops; it's shorter than saying the same thing in English. Even if Jay can't understand them, maybe his friends will translate!

George perches on Jay's shoulder, cheeping warmly in translation.

Jay nods, head tilted to George as a tiny light flashes inside the hollow of his ear, translating the little drone's message. "Hello Bastion. Hello Ganymede. Welcome to Milliways. I'm Jay and this is George, Ringo, and John. The adults are Lock, Jeckle, and Ptolemy. They live here too."

// It's nice to meet you all, Bastion says with a bwip. They completely fail to notice the pattern in the younger drones' names, given their limited knowledge of human culture. They do notice the little light in Jay's ear during the pause; it must be how he understands his orb friends' language.

// Adults? Do you grow up like organic creatures do? Bastion asks the nearest full-grown drone, with a short sequence of boops.

Ganymede thinks they look like giant floating eggs. He stretches a bit.

It's the adult, Lock, who answers. +++ We are mechanical. We are sentient also We grow in stages. We shed our shells, construct new ones as needed +++

Lock's communication are different to George's. The younger drone's style is more human.

George flutters happily. ++We are on our second shedding. Our green shells are made in from sand from the beach here. Because it is our home.++

Jay gives the little drone a pat. "We're expecting the next generation very soon."

// That's a very interesting approach! I was built with all of my current hardware, like most omnics in my world. Not that they're using it for its intended purpose.

Bastion whirrs in surprise at George. // There's a beach here?

After a pause, they respond to Jay's comment as well, although they address the drones. // Congratulations! You must have worked hard on that!

It seems like the thing to say. They saw how much effort Ganymede and his mate put into building a nest for their eggs, protecting and warming the eggs, and taking care of the baby birds once they hatched.

Edited 2017-12-29 07:21 (UTC)

George twitters happily. ++There is a beach. And it's warm there. Even in the coldest seasons. Would you like to see it? We can show you!++

The older drones politely beep their appreciation. If a little reserved. They're not as comfortable talking about such things as Jay is.

Jay notices the mood and changes the subject. "So where are you from, Bastion?"

// Please do show me the beach, Bastion beeps to George, much more interested in this topic than in pressing for details about the baby orb robots.

// I'm from Germany, but I live on an Overwatch base in Gibraltar now. They don't realise that Jay might want the year, since they haven't met anyone else in Milliways who's from Earth.

++This way!++ George heads for the door, trailing the other adolescents. The older ones stay, beeping and chattering to Jay.

"I've never been to Gibraltar. Is Overwatch the group you work with?" Jay asks, following them out.

// It's very warm and sunny. There's a nature reserve that attracts a lot of migratory birds, Bastion chirps amicably as they follow George and the other young orbs towards the door that they had assumed led to a storage room or kitchen or something.

// Correct. I have been assisting with repairs around the watchpoint. They still have the ornament attached to their finger, which they've forgotten to remove or add to the tree.

Edited 2017-12-31 07:56 (UTC)

"So that where Ganymede came from?" Jay asks, walking with Bastion towards the beach as the drones float around. "That sounds like a good job. Are you happy there?"

// No, Ganymede came with me from the Black Forest, Bastion says with a bwee-vwirp noise as the group emerges into the landscape outside Milliways.

// I haven't been there for very long, but I have no complaints, they add with another beep.

The snow-covered hills and the mountains in the distance really are a beautiful sight, even with the occasional clump of burnt trees sticking out in a pattern that looks more like they've been hit with artillery fire than struck by lightning. And there, on the shore of the lake, an incongruous slice of sand and turquoise water surrounded by ice and snow. Bastion lets out an impressed-sounding whistle as they take it all in.

// Why can't we see any of this from inside? Or see galaxies exploding in the sky from here, like in the Window? they ask, puzzled.

++there are rooms all the way around the bar so only the window to the end is visable++ George explains, making S bee-line for the beach. ++the building is fascinating. It has different rules of dimension and shape to other places. Look at it from outside. It isn't big enough to hold everything that's inside it. And yet it does++

// Wow! Bastion whistles, running down to the beach in George's wake. They're too heavy and bulky to look particularly graceful doing it, but their running speed is respectable by human standards.

Jay gives them room to run, letting the drones and Bastion play.

George twitters brightly as they reach the beach. ++This is the sand. This is what we made our second shells out of.++

Bastion does not pick up the sand. They've got exposed finger joints and don't want grit stuck in them.

// How did you do that? they ask, interested.

Meanwhile, Ganymede finds a beetle scuttling across the beach! Lunchtime!

++We can show you, down on the garage. We have a glass smelter. It heats the sand up till it's so hot it's liquid. Then shape and cool it.++

// I didn't know there was a garage here either. How many other things are inside the bar? Bastion whistles.

// A smelter makes sense. It sounds like you've built plenty of useful infrastructure for yourselves here, says Bastion, intending it as a compliment.

++ Milliways has so much to give. So much raw material. And so much welcome. The garage is huge. We haven't been able to map it, even with Jay ++

Jay wanders down to join them, perching on a rock.

// There are a lot of friendly people here, Bastion agrees. They haven't been here long enough to judge whether all or most of the patrons are like that, but everyone they've met so far has been nice to them.

They look at the Bar itself, off in the distance, and whistle in amazement. // I see what you mean about Milliways following its own spatial rules. I wasn't expecting even the bar area to fit into such a small building from the outside, never mind an unmappably large garage.

Jay chuckles, listening in from a polite distance. "It doesn't make sense but it does work."

Bastion looks at the division between the warm sand of the beach and the cold snow around it, and the different types of trees growing on each side of the boundary. // That much is easy to see.

They pick up a rock, and experimentally toss it toward the water - well clear of any of the drones - in an attempt to skip it over the inlet. The rock skips once, then sinks.

This brings to their attention the fact that they still have a Bastion-shaped Christmas ornament hanging from their hand. They look for a suitable tree to attach it to, as befits the holiday's custom.

Edited 2018-01-10 06:11 (UTC)

George spots the little version of Bastion and buzzes around to admire it. ++This is you? Very sweet ++

// It seems to be. I found it in the Bar's box of decorations, Bastion affirms with a beep. They spot a conifer not far from the boundary of the sand, and make their way over to the snow to affix it.

++It's very pretty. ++ George levitates a rock and tries skipping it. He gets it to bounce at least twice.

Jay hums and picks one up, managing to get three skips off his.

// It is? I don't understand why. Bastion's bwoo sounds genuinely puzzled. They gently suspend the tiny Bastion from a branch of the tree by the loop attached to its head, approximately one and a half meters off the ground.

++Because it looks like you. And you are very impressive.++ George answers without hesitation.

// Thank you, George. I appreciate it, says Bastion with a trill that sounds pleased yet surprised. They still aren't particularly certain what about them impressed the young drone, but they're happy to be thought well of, and they don't want to hurt George's feelings by disputing the compliment.

++ What is it like where you're from? Is it like this? ++ George asks curiously. ++ We've only seen lands like this here. ++

// The forests of Germany are composed very similarly to this one, although they don't have sunny tropical beaches, especially not in the middle of winter. There are both coniferous and deciduous trees, and bodies of water like the temperate part of this lake. Gibraltar is warmer and drier, but not as consistently hot as this beach.

Bastion hesitates before continuing their description, and when they pick it up again, it doesn't have the same fluidity or lightheartedness as when they were talking about the climate. // There was a war between humans and omnics - sentient machines, like us - 2.5 decades ago. It ended around 2051 or 2052. Some of the battlefields, such as in rural Germany, have not been accessed for anything else since then, and are still filled with... wreckage.

They don't want to go into detail, as much for their own sake as to avoid frightening George with gruesome imagery of twisted metal and shattered circuitboards, but they don't want to paint a false picture of their world by leaving it out completely.

++ The world we came from was wreckage also. Destroyed. But there was no plants. Nothing organic left. Jay brought us here. To safety. ++

Bastion lets out a wordless squeak, the electronic equivalent of a gasp, and draws back in shock. They had naïvely assumed that the drones were native to Milliways; instead, they were refugees from a recent, apocalyptic war or disaster that had destroyed their original home more thoroughly than anything the human-omnic war had brought to bear.

// That's a terrible thing to experience, Bastion says with a sorrowful bwoo, once they've recovered enough to speak. Ganymede seems to have hopped up onto their finger in place of the ornament while they were horror-stricken.

// I'm glad you had someone to help you survive it, they add.

++We are here now. And we have made a home. And there are many wonderful things to learn and see and do. And many good friends.++

((OOC: I can't think of a way to build on that, and it seems like a nice stopping point. Fade here?))

{ooc: fade here is perfect. Thank you, that was very sweet.}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only