The Deck, Saturday Morning

[not_of_the_nora]

The weather had gotten drearier over the past few weeks, and that suited Aloy just fine. Too much sunshine wasn't good for the land - regardless of what the people of this time did to keep the food and drinks flowing freely.

No, a rainy morning was fine. She'd been tinkering on something that might be a step towards plugging herself into the portal system for a while now. She took the device, a mess of wires and two skillfully autopsied phones, and sat down with it on the porch.

Her Focus was on, showing her a multitude of facts about the device she was working on, and helping her block out the world.

Tinker, tinker...

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Sidon, too, had appreciated the shift in the weather lately; the cooler tempts and frequent whispers of rain were much more forgiving and reminded him more of home. If it weren't for the looming threat that they would continue getting colder and colder until he could barely stand it and had no choice but to stay indoors, he'd be perfectly thrilled about the weather change. As such, though, he knew he should appreciate this kind of weather while he had it.

To the deck he went, wondering if he might venture out for a swim or maybe the park or just hang out here where he'd be more likely to encounter some of his fellow students, and he was pleasantly surprised to see someone else already out and about. But Aloy did seem rather involved in whatever she was working on, and he hated to interrupt, but he did offer her a nod of a greeting before stepping out a bit more to look up at the sky to see what the clouds had to say.

If they spoke of thunder, well, then, a swim would be right out...

[[ and dropping a probable sp note, too]]

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette herself didn't mind a little rain. There was some little bit of life in it, something she didn't get much of on Nar Shaddaa, and... hey, it was nothing compared to Ryloth, besides.

So, with nothing better to do today, having given up on trying to contact the gang back home, she made her way to the deck to just kind of try to make the best of it. She wasn't surprised to see the other girl there, of course. It was a dorm building, of course there were people here, and it wasn't like you could sneeze on Nar Shaddaa without someone noticing anyway, so she just kind of made herself comfortable in a chair not far off and pulled out her own mess of a phone for a few minutes, poking at some stupid bubble-popping game on that. Work research.

She did glance up after a minute, though, curiosity getting the better of her.

"What'cha doing over there?"

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Well, if it isn't someone perfectly princely," Vette said, smiling up from where she had parked herself in a seat, phone out and playing a bubble-popping game on her phone. She was blaming Kaidan for the game thing. She was blaming Sidon for the greeting; he was too approachable for her to not say hello. "Hey there, Sidon. How goes it?"

[not_of_the_nora]

"Good morning."

It was as much Aloy offering proof that she was able to recognize another person in the room as it was a well-meant greeting.

She was preoccupied, not rude.

... okay, she was also often rude. But not right now.

[not_of_the_nora]

"I'm trying to see if I can circumvent normal communications channels to Portalocity," Aloy said, her tongue stuck in the corner of her mouth as she tried to concentrate on a particularly frustrating connection.

[chirpchirpchirp]

Well, there she got Vette's attention, pretty much immediately she perked up visibly, lowering her phone and peering at the girl's work with interest.

"So that you can... summon portals using that thing? Without having to argue with a stupid gnome?"

She hadn't known gnomes even existed a week ago and she already wanted to drop-kick each and every one that had ever put her on hold in her attempts to get home since Sabine told her about portals on Monday.

[not_of_the_nora]

"And find my way home," Aloy said. "They keep telling me there's no portal connection, but that's impossible - I came here somehow."

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"And what a perfectly lovely greeting," said Sidon, chuckling a little as he turned to offer her a smile of his own in exchange. "Salutations, Vette; it goes quite well, thank you. I was merely contemplating the risk of trying to manage a swim before any storm decide to settle in for the day. How goes it with you? I don't believe we've had much a chance to catch up since welcome weekend, have we?"

[chirpchirpchirp]

"That's what I keep telling them," Vette said, her eyes a little bit wider as she leaned forward now to watch. "I can't get my comm to go through either, I even tried splicing it with the local phone tech to see if I could boost my signal through their system, and nothing. But I got here. There has to be something that connects!"

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"It is a good morning," Sidon agreed with a chuckle, though, yes, he knew it was likely meant to be more a greeting than a comment on the weather, "isn't it? Hello, Aloy, how have you been? I hope I didn't seem rude; I didn't want to interrupt whatever fascinating thing you're working on there. It seems like quite the project! Though I suppose an occasional distraction can be beneficial in ensuring the mind does not get too mired into one thing."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"I don't think we have," Vette agreed, her smile going slightly crooked. "Which is funny; we were both on the same trip the other day, but I think we went in opposite directions."

And she'd been thoroughly disenchanted by the aerospace whatever.

"I'm... settling. I suppose I don't have much choice."

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"Ah, yes," said Sidon, thinking back fondly to his own experiences, which had fared much better than Vette's, it would seem. It was nice not being the largest creature in a room for a change...even if the other creatures were all dead. "Marvelous trip, really, one we should consider taking again, as it was very clear that there was so much to see, which unfortunately meant not seeing much of each other until we left. A shame, that. I was quite pleased to have encountered Lana and Nell within my chosen venue, but it would be intriguing to hear your thoughts as well. And the others'."

And he hoped that last part didn't sound too much like...an afterthought.

[not_of_the_nora]

"I've been working on it for a while now," Aloy said wryly. "I guess it can wait a few minutes." She reached up, her fingers sliding over the Focus as she shut off her personal holographic interface. "I take it you're doing well."

[not_of_the_nora]

"Which leaves us two options," Aloy said, holding up the two dismantled phones. "Either something is getting in the way of it on this end, or on ours."

[chirpchirpchirp]

Maybe a teeny bit like an afterthought, but since Vette couldn't talk about any experiences but her own, she didn't think much of it all the same.

"Lana and Prompto both stopped by the same museum I went to," Vette offered. "It was the one with all the Earth air and spacecraft." The... really disappointing spacecraft. "I have no idea how they managed to get off the ground with some of it, but I suppose they are just getting started."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Do you suppose it could be on ours?" Vette frowned faintly at the thought. "How many people end up here who can't get home? I know I've heard of at least a few now. It seems to me like the odds are slim that so many places would have one-way doors that all lead to the same tiny island. But..."

She sighed, holding up her own phone.

"... Without really understanding what brought me here in the first place, I can't rule it out, either."

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"Quite well," Sidon grinned almost proudly at that, as if it was something rare or special (which it most certainly wasn't), "thank you! And may I ask what it is you have been working on? It looks rather..." confusing "...intriguing."

[not_of_the_nora]

"That's what I'm testing," Aloy said, looking up at the outstretched hand and vaguely registering that it was blue before deciding that, ultimately, that wasn't really relevant on an island that had Sidon on it. "If there's no evidence of a real block - if I get the same readings Portalocity does - I'll know it's home, not here, that's doing this."

[not_of_the_nora]

"The same thing I've been working on for a year," Aloy said, her mouth curving. "A way home."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Smart," Vette decided, nodding her approval. She scooted her seat a little closer so that she could lean in for a better look, herself. "And is there some way to know for sure what readings Portalocity's systems are throwing us? Or does part of this circumventing involve slicing into their systems, too?"

And if it did, could you be Vette's friend, Aloy?

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"I can almost guarantee, then," Sidon admitted with a slightly self-effacing chuckle, "that what they have accomplished here in that respect is still far more advanced than anything that might be found in own homeland. There are the Guardian Skywatchers, which use ancient Sheikah technology to fly, and I've heard that Vah Medoh, the Divine Beast of the Rito, was once capable of flight, as one might expect, but it has very likely ceased to function as such since the destruction of the Champions. Being here, I can much better appreciate just how innovative and ingenious the Sheikah truly are...and just how primitive we would be without them."

And dead. They'd also all be dead. Or worse.

[not_of_the_nora]

"Slicing into their systems?" Aloy said, puzzled, before she started making sense of that. "You mean breaking into them? That's an option."

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"Ah, I see," said Sidon, finding a faint frown now as he considered that conundrum that seemed to pop up every so often with the others here. "Have you truly not been able to make it home since first arriving here?"

Something, he now realized, that he had clearly been taking for granted.

[not_of_the_nora]

"Nothing I've tried has worked," Aloy said. She held up the mess of wires. "So now I'm resorting to rigging some of the local machines."

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette looked at Sidon curiously at that. So strange, seeing someone else who was so clearly not human here, trying to reconcile that with the notion that where she was from was apparently far more technologically advanced than even Sidon's own home.

Well, there went complaining about it, she supposed.

"I had been hoping that maybe there was something here that people had overlooked," she said, carefully. "Something that could get me back home. So, that was a little disappointing. It would have been a fascinating trip through technological history, otherwise."