FSE

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Anon stands in front of one of the doors and knocks on it. The scanner above would have got the chip in her eye so that if they really wanted to they could look up who was at the door but it wasn't that much of an issue. She waits until she hears the door unlocking, a sign that he's letting her enter his room. Riu doesn't even so much bother to turn towards her as she enters, but rather is busy tidying up his uniform, having just come out of his pod. Mia is still riding on her shoulder. Anon sees the small figurine on the mantle of his living room for the Three Sisters and gives the statue a reverent bow. And as she has no more need for maintaining the effect she presses a small button hidden in the seam of one of her legs and two of her tails vanish into thin air. She also shakes her head a bit to free herself of some of the affects her government insist she carry on.

"You wouldn't believe what I ended up seeing in the market today," She says plainly, not needing to bother with the translation orb since the two practically grew up together despite their ages being well over a century apart. It was a nice effect to not have to wait for translations and meant they could speak more openly and more privately at the same time.

"And that would be what," Riu asks, straightening up his badge and putting his golden orb around one waist.

"I saw a feral."

"A feral? Here? On a station?" Riu stops what he's doing and stares at Anon as if trying to decide if she's just trying to deceive him.

"Yeah, surprised me too. Came off as a one-tail as well, but the ratings on his badge I'd wager probably a two or three, at the least."

"What would a feral be doing on a station? Were they doing anything out of the ordinary to particularly catch your attention?" Riu asks, walking up to and bowing to the figurine of the Sisters.

"Well that's just it. He came out of the blue to come introduce himself after hitting me with the Language of Intent spell. Truth be told I couldn't find any sign of the foci he was using, or even any indication of where the illusions were. So I'd almost have to say that they are better at Con magic than I am."

"That's certainly impressive. I mean, I know the only reason I don't get any real comments about having to put on two fake tails is not so much because people can't tell they're fake, but because they understand that it's expected that the person in charge of a major installation has to have nine tails, or at least appear to. Do you know I've actually had a few people ask whether or not you're slightly older than me or if I'm older than you? But it is definitely still strange. Any idea what they're here for?"

"No clue. They said they wanted to introduce themselves as a courtesy for their job, but they did mention having been sent by our government. Did we get any sort of message to expect someone?"

"Not that I know of. At the very least nothing flagged as important. They do tend to send a lot of missives at us, but most of it is pretty inane. At any rate if they felt the need to approach you first I'm sure you'll end up running into them again. Might even just be an envoy to some politician or another. You know how the myobu can be at times. A planetary lord decides he wants to go on vacation so he'll send an envoy to make sure everything is safe first and coordinate protection schedules and whatnot before the lord arrives."

"Yes, but a feral? And a feral specializing in Con magic? Envoys are usually seasoned warriors and ferals would rather have nothing to do with the station if they can help it."

"Well, nothing we can do about it for now," Riu shrugs. "Either we'll find out later or we won't. If they were sent by the government, it's not like they're going to try and destroy the station."

"The other weird thing about it is that he said he no longer holds a grudge against our kind."

"As in what, the nogitsune? The whole empire? That statement leaves way too much open to interpretation. What were you even doing in the marketplace at the time anyway? Your shift doesn't start for another two hours."

"Buying Mia an orange," Anon shrugs while leaning back against one of the walls. Riu gives her a look and Mia perks up a bit at the mention of an orange. "What? I don't spoil her!"

"Says the only person I know on the station that routinely travels with their familiar. Well, the only one of the command staff at any rate. Not to mention taking trips specifically to buy them food," he says.

"And where is Ackrin, anyway," Anon changes the subject.

"Oh, he's currently in school, as all children his age should be, and absolutely bored out of his mind at the moment. Anyway, we about ready? I'm starving," Riu shrugs.

"I suppose so," Anon sighs and then goes about and puts her affects back into place. Being one of the few silver furred kitsune on the entire station and the only one with more than three tails makes it extremely difficult for her to hide or blend in. And her contract stipulates that she portrays herself as a seven, in much the same way Riu has to show himself as a nine. It's the matter of expectation, of a show that must be put on because that is the standard. The highest person in charge has to have nine tails. The head of the guardians have to have seven. But this place isn't as high in demand for postings so all the nines turned down the post. Most of which actually because of her. The Jhereshii insisted on her being here for some reason or another. And the Raeshael followed up on that pretty quickly. So despite more qualified candidates, it was simply deemed better she be there, and Riu was the only one willing to work on the same post as a nogitsune. So she triggers her illusion to give herself a couple more tails. Her tails look like real ones.

And then Riu does his affects and like usual it pales in comparison. He isn't nearly as skilled at handling illusion devices and magics. The two tails he's required to use look more like holograms of tails rather than anything real, very solid looking holograms, but holograms nonetheless. On top of that he has to make all his fur look white rather than the standard red orange and cream, the effect on him looking like he just got out of bleaching his fur. With both of them looking the way they are supposed to when not in private residences Anon leaves Riu's apartment and he follows after, locking the door on his way out before they head to the nearby restaurant district. There are perks to being on the command staff of a station like this and not all of them involve themselves. It can offer an easy in for family members wishing to establish themselves. Being able to have someone on the command staff vouch for you goes a long way to gaining the trust of lenders on the station. Ceris' son and heir Toshiro had wanted to try and open up a restaurant in a very well-trafficked area, where species from all over could try his cuisines. Unfortunately, though he did have quite the skill at cooking, he had not enough of a name for himself nor the funds to be able to open one as things were. And so Ceris had pulled some strings and helped secure a loan for him to open one on the station. And since then it's become one of the biggest restaurants on the station, both in popularity and physical size. Toshiro has hired cooks from all of the major races and has a menu for not only each race, but also for dishes that approximate the dishes from other races.

As Riu and Ceris are quite close friends with each other, given an even choice between restaurants on the station he tends to favor her son's a bit. Support a friend's family and all that. That and the fact not all of the restaurants are all that available to those at the top of the command structure. There are reputations and opinions to be maintained. Due to the stigma regarding what she is and the looks she usually receives she tends to prefer a more solitary outlet for food when she's eating some of her meals, picking quiet restaurants over higher quality ones. But lunch is a more social affair and she's willing enough to go to more visible places for this. As high ranking officers that had given plenty of forewarning that they were intending on going they don't have to wait in line at all when they arrive but are instead immediately ushered off to the same table they usually sit at. One that is open enough to not feel like they are being sequestered away in some dark corner but still gives Anon the best ability to go and observe and look out for any sort of potential threat that may befall them, however unlikely it may be.

"You know, I think he might have been in the Human Empire," she says after they put in their order and are waiting on the food.

"Your feral?" Riu asks, more to clarify than anything.

"It's the manner in which he was speaking that does it. He called himself a prince rather than a lord and also referred to me as the head of security."

"So then that's all sorts of confusing. Why would a feral that is somehow raised amongst humans, be hired by our government to come here?"

"Dunno," Anon shrugs.

One of the waiters brings a thin bone-like object and sets it onto the table to the side of the two of them. Mia instantly races down Anon's arm and coils around it, chewing on it as best she can in as dainty a fashion as possible. Anon watches Mia go at it for a while as the conversation lulls.

"So I'm assuming you're looking forward to your test trial coming up?"

"Wrong side of the argument. It isn't so much that I'm looking forward to it as they are. It's their tech demo, I'm just going to be the pilot taking it through its paces. They've so far contacted me at least a half dozen times today just making sure all the little details they'd know far more about it than I would are correct."

"Still, if they can get it to work, just imagine the implications that will mean to the fleet once we are able to start implementing that shield mechanism into the ships."

"It's a nice advantage, sure. But in the grand scheme of things just a drop in the bucket. It'll still be nowhere nearly as good as a Coreward's shield and eventually the technology will get to the individual races at which point we start the always fun game of how do we counter them using it while at the same time counter their attempts at stopping us from using it. Let alone the fact that it's extremely limited in functionality. It's nice, just not going to be as much a game breaker as those techies seem to want to make it out to be."

"Be that as it may, it is potentially a big step as none of the core races have pulled this off on their own, not even the Jhereshii. And we might as well let them have their fun. That is kind of the agreement we have with them."

"I know. But you asked if I was excited for the demo itself and for the tech side of things I'm a pragmatist. If it works it'll be a nice step forward for a while but I don't see it being too extraordinary in the long-term. If anything the main thing I'm looking forward to is being able to go back to my roots and actually do what got me in this position. Of shedding off all this expectation and pomp for a little while and just go back to the whole state of proving something through my skill at the task, not because of who I am to various groups. That is one thing I can appreciate about the techies. They don't see me as the head guardian or what I did in the past or why I've been assigned here. All they see is that I'm a very skilled pilot and Sym mage and am capable to really get the most out of their tinkerings and come out on the other side completely intact."

Riu doesn't seem to really hear her, simply looking around to the other tables to see if anyone else he can recognize are also having lunch here. As the food arrives he speaks up again.

"That feral must be really under your skin to get you speaking like that."

"Why did the government send a feral here? It just makes absolutely no sense! Is that going to be the next dress-code? That we must all look like we're ferals?"

"You know, you're missing one entirely plausible explanation. That your feral is simply lying to you. If you're going on about this as you are then clearly they didn't provide any sort of documentation to back up their statements. They could simply be lying about being sent by the government. It is possible that you're just dealing with yet another one of your fans come to mess with you. Also entirely possible that they're simply a bounty hunter. Those generally do prefer to check in with the local authorities so as to keep one from getting in their way and delaying their potential mark unnecessarily. There's a whole bunch of reasons that he could be here that has nothing to do with you, or this station. And ultimately so long as he doesn't do anything to attract the attention of the guardians I don't see any reason to really dwell on the subject. For if they are doing it to mess with you, it's certainly working if you let it."

Before they can get too far into their lunch their comm devices beep at them a few times, stopping any further conversation. There is a quick sharing of glances before each unstraps their orbs and raises it up to their head. As there isn't much need to do otherwise, both of their devices had been set to vibrate. If anyone wanted to simply talk, it'd vibrate and they could pick it up and talk. The beeping meant that not only was it an emergency, but that it wasn't for the general public to find out. The beeping also meant that the devices would soon emit an encrypted signal to the orb, an encryption tailored to each person and one that the Guardians change on a regular basis. And the orb would then take this signal and translate it, but only play the signal at a fraction of its normal volume, quiet enough that no other orb could pick it up and wouldn't work if the Language of Intent was active. Meaning could not be intercepted.

"There is a situation, report to the bridge immediately," the message stated.

Frowning at missing out on lunch the way they would prefer they both stand up. Anon quickly grabs what she can from her plate without making too much of a mess. "Mia, up!" she orders her familiar, leaning one hand on the table to facilitate it. Being obedient enough the small snake-like creature slithers up Anon's arm, the bone still in its mouth. Anon sticks a sausage into her own mouth before heading out. Riu, on the other hand, had sought out a waiter and asked if they could box up whatever he had left and send it to him on the bridge. And then both immediately rushed to the nearest Guardian lift, trusting in the chip to take care of paying for the food, however interrupted.