[quote=@Balmas]"...Morning," he says. Cool. Play it cool. He's not lying on the floor, licking a lockbox. He's dignified. Draw him like one of your french playthings, Locker. "Can't say I. Expected you. That is. I knew, of course, that. That you were on the ship."

He stares at the jar, and wills his tongue to extend. Come on. Two inches. You can do this. 9887. Come on. 

"...Look, I'm betting they've already filled you with promises, but I have a better one. Which I will tell you. Definitely. After I get my hands back."[/quote]

Locker moves in slouches. He always looks exhausted but it's even worse with the black eye and bruises. He looks like he's never slept in his entire life. He doesn't respond at all to anything you're saying, not like he's not listening, but like he's waiting for you to get around to being honest with him.

[i]Pssht![/i] He opens a can of an energy drink - the kind so rich in caffeine that any functional government would have banned as a matter of principle. He folds up like a deckchair, coming down to your level and holding the can out for you to take a sip from if you want.

[quote=@eldest]"Oh. Drat, I was looking forward to going to space. What if you could survive going to space? Also, I'd do "literal or not" for the final line." She's nattering on, but she's doing math, and a lot of it. Average oxygen consumed by somebody of the Shogun's... status, pressure requirements, rocket drag increased from a hardlight shield, projected trajectory with and without adjustments, all of it. And in the shadows of the rocket, there's an odd, pulsing hardlight construct, quietly using one bulbous sphere of force to compress and filter air into another, building up the Shogun's lifeline. "I think we're gonna be just fine, myself." And wink, as the technicians retreat out of the launch bay.

[13 on protect, with the aim of getting off the rocket post-launch, Shogun's reaction determines if it's going to be before or after space.][/quote]

"That is a complicated question," the Shogun mused. "Back when I was growing up the stars were mythical spirits that revolved around the earth at the will of the gods. Flight was something reserved for birds and arrows. But then I extended that privilege to musket balls and now I'm here, about to be consumed by the unthinkable conclusion of the forces I set in motion on that day. I... am having trouble getting all of that into a haiku. Maybe it's short sighted of me to hold onto haiku at all. Maybe the same process of technology has ruined poetry for me as well..." she drifts off, voice meandering and melancholy.

Then her eyes shift. "Actually," she says, looking you in a kind of sideways way where she's avoiding exact eye contact. "How far are we going into space? Just hypothetically. Does our orbital trajectory take us past Elysium Spire? You know, the incredibly exclusive luxury resort orbital?"