exsiliumlogs | Pull the switch!

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Pull the switch!

Date & Time: November 11 early morning
Location: training center
Characters: Lee Chaolan and Taicea
Summary: Lee had talked a talking plant into an experiment of weird things.
Warnings: Groping?

Genetics and experimentation wasn't beyond Lee. He performed cryostasis procedures in the past to preserve two assassins for twenty years and the other was to create genetically prefect beings for his personal army. It worked. He would have gotten away with it for many more years to come except that human experimentation was illegal in some countries.

Still, the chance to observe, collect and contribute doesn't hurt a little. Not really. He sent a voice mail asking the small being to meet with him in the training room. He was more than just a little curious. He was fascinated in the strangest way possible.

He stood with his arms folded and his back turned toward the door. The man with white hair and the unicorn on his back made his presence seem less than imposing. He was interested in learning even if it was hands on.

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Admittedly it had taken the sylvari a little while to figure out how to even access her voice messages. She saw it flashing but for the longest time couldn't figure out how to play it. But once she did she was most certainly on her way to meet him.

Since they were meeting in the training center she was sure to grab her daggers and wear her her protective leathers. Although the leathers did little to save her from the cold that morning.

By the time she made it to training center she was moving stiffly and looked like she needed to crawl back into bed.

"Apologies for the time spent getting here. It's cold this morning." She flexed her fingers, trying to work the stiffness from them.

Lee tilted his head to the side with a studying glance. His finger to his chin, he wondered about sensation. "So, you do feel pain? Interesting. I probably won't look at a carrot the same again. I'm curious."

He stepped forward, curious now that he was seeing her face to face, so tiny. He couldn't bring himself to do what he had originally planned. He knelt in front of her and removed his sunglasses. They shielded his pale eyes which were an anomaly in and of themselves from his world. "Do you see in color or in black and white?"

"Of course we feel pain." Her tone suggested that she thought his question was silly.

Taicea tilted her head, purple eyes blinking at him. Beneath her hood they glowed slightly along with the purple markings on her face. "Colour." She eyed him up and down, "Although you lack much colour."

"Okay, you're point is taken. I probably look very strange to you. I promised you that I wouldn't use anything to cut you, that wouldn't be productive to your survival. However," he stood up and took two steps back, "I am certain that you can fight, judging by your apparel. I'm wondering how someone borne from a pod can be so sentient. How did your people come into being?"

She shook her head, "Not that strange. We have humans back home. I've been living in their city for nearly a year now. Although I do no often see any with hair like yours. Not unless they're...oh what was the word, oh old! Not that you look old." She smiles.

Her smile remains as she nods, "Yes, we sylvari are born with the basic knowledge for fighting. Er, well most things honestly." She's explained how new sylvari come into being so many times that this part will at least be easy.

"Our bodies grow within pods in the Pale Tree's bough while our minds grow within the Dream of Dreams. There we experience some memories and experiences of other sylvari while also learning the basics of the world we'll soon awaken into. We also learn things that will help us on our path in life. Like...some might be better marksmen then others. Or better builders or cooks." She spread her arms a bit. "As you see me now is how I looked two years ago when I awakened from my pod. Weeeell...except the large thorns on my head. I grew those later because I thought the were neat!"

The explanation surprised Lee and made him even more interested with a nod.

"You can change your appearance at will?" Other than hair dyes, which often don't last long, and contact lenses, there wasn't much Lee could change about himself.

"How strangely interesting. I've heard of beings doing so and there are two I know," he coughed in his hand, "personally that could do it, but you're only two?"

Oh now, he felt dirty.

"Not entirely," she said shaking her head. "We are made of plant and can therefore grow parts of bodies to create clothing or what you would refer to as hair. As long as there is no damage there it'll grow. I um, I thought the horns on an ogre that helped me were neat so I grew those instead of hair." A sylvari's ability to change their looks was limited.

Taicea nodded, smiling. "I'm not the youngest of my kind but I'm no where near the oldest either. The firstborn awakened twenty-five years ago and since then have guided our people alongside our mother, the Pale Tree." Age meant little to sylvari, their lives were about the experiences they gained. And some could gain quite a bit of world experience in a very short time.

"Ah." That embarrassment was short lived. At least she countered it fine but then again, he said nothing that would have indicated much. "Can your people procreate? Meaning, can you reproduce sexually or do you just go back to your mother and ask her permission for offspring?"

At least with experiences, that was something to consider. Still, she was so small but not completely without her own appeal. He didn't know anything about her physiology but that could come later.

"We can't. Only Mother can produce more of us." She unbuttoned the flaps in front of her horns and pushed her hood back, momentarily looking down at the floor as she did. "And we don't ask permission she simply produces when she does. The secondborn didn't come until some time after the first, which left the first wondering if they'd be the only twelve to ever exist. And then not long after came the third and since then time between groups awakening has lessened greatly.

But! That's not to say we can't have sex. We can if feel like it." She smiled. She'd learned that if she didn't tack that one at the end the next question would be asking if they can have sex. So she felt it was best to nip that question in the bud.

Silver eyes widened large and his jaw dropped from the shock he just heard. "Okay, that answers that question. I take it people have asked you before?"

At least that was out of the way. Regardless, it was strange to not think about it. He figured that Taicea was a lot more than just a talking plant at this point. She held a lot of knowledge that he didn't anticipate. Naive, possibly but certainly not without reason. Her people were young, and being separated from the tree could spell disaster for her.

"Julia would be very interested in you, but I doubt that the time stream would bring her here. She has important work back home. You see, my people need sex to reproduce. We don't pop out of a pod or grow in a vat, well close enough, but it sounds a whole lot less messy than humans."

He reaches toward her head to feel her thorns. The rough texture felt surprisingly smooth.

She couldn't help but laugh at his expression. And as he explained about how humans reproduce she simply nodded. "I know. I know how other beings reproduce, most animals sexually reproduce which makes us sylvari a bit of an anomaly to others." There's a lot of knowledge in that head of her's, she just rarely gets to use it.

"Was she the one you spoke of earlier? The botanist?" She gave him a curious look as she felt of her thorn-horns.

She'd done her best to make them appear and feel like ogre horns, which means very little roughness to them. In fact they didn't feel much different from her skin, which felt much like the skin of a cactus or some smooth fruit. Only difference was that her horns were hardened and didn't have the same kind of give as her skin. That wasn't to say her skin was soft, it certainly had a hardness to it as well, just beneath a softer layer.

He managed to recompose himself to respond. "Yes. She's been working on a way to reforest the desert but that research is taking her much longer than she would have liked. It's all a work in progress. I don't think she'll come here."

It was strange that he was having this conversation about sex with a being from another world that didn't need such things for survival. Everything about her was just too interesting. "It's strange that I think about it, you've completely sent me into a strange circle of thoughts that I didn't think was possible. Your horns have this strange way about them. They feel like layered leaves."

"I've never seen a desert before. The Grove and the surrounding area is jungle and some coastline."

She gave a soft chuckle, "That's because they are, for the most part, leaves. As is the same with my whole body. Well, I'm not entirely sure if that's true, I've never seen the inside."

Taicea tilted her head as she looked up at him, a curious expression written on her face. "What kind of thoughts?" The question slipped out before she could even think it through.

Lee tries not to give an outburst from her comment about what was inside of her. He didn't want to do the whole dissection thing at all. He was wondering about the internal part but it was how she said it that made him cough.

"Indeed. Well, to go on with the inside part, I was thinking about that myself. That would require a more...physical manipulation that doesn't require anything sharp or a lot of pain." He may reconsider depending on her answer.

She tilted her head the other way and blink owlishly at him. "What did you have in mind?"

Lee's eyes shot wide at first and then a quick clear of his throat. How to explain something like that to someone that was the size of a child was really putting him in an odd frame of mind.

For the first time in a long time, he was completely baffled. He couldn't go through with it and his hands went straight for his hair. "You know, I don't think that would be appropriate. I just met you and I feel all sorts of strange. Science or not, you're not a plant. You're a living breathing creature and I can't do it."

She blinked at him again. At first it just seemed like his was babbling but then she actually thought about what he was saying combined with what they had been talking about. Slowly it dawned on her what he was getting at.

And once Taicea finally got what he meant she simply smiled and gave a little nod. "Oh. I see now, you wanted to have sex. To see how it works with a sylvari yes?" He wasn't the first she'd met that was curious about it. And like him they were all very confusing about their words. Which in the end of lead to them giving up because she simply didn't get it.

"I don't see why you could not just come out and say it. I never understood the way you humans dance around what you want or mean with vague words. It's much easier if you just communicate clearly."

There was a groan and his head looked up at first with an exasperated sigh. "Yes, I wanted sex. Now that I'm listening to you, I don't want to. You're too...innocent. That doesn't make it any better. It makes it worse. So much worse that I'll probably end up with a vow of celibacy before the end of this week."

Which was increasingly sounding a whole lot better than what he was hoping to achieve. Nope, he'll take a rain-check some other time when they're not trying to fish for their lives in a place that wants to kill them.

"Survival is more important."

If it were anyone other than Taicea they might have laughed but instead she frowned for a moment before smiling again. "Very well. But so you know, I would not have been opposed. I'm rather curious how it um, feels." She couldn't say how it works since she's well aware of that.

"In any case, was there anything else you wished to know about my kind?"

Lee's brow lifted, his chin lowered as he lowered the rim of his sunglasses to reveal his silver eyes. "Oookay. I'll hold off on that until I get to know you a little better other than a first meeting basis. I don't think that the chemistry is quite there yet. By that, I mean I'm just not feeling it right now."

He slid his sunglasses back up on his nose and folded his arms in thought. "Well, I am curious about your fighting style. I want to see how someone so small can take down someone so large."

She smiled brightly, "Very well."

And with the mention of her fighting style her daggers were immediately in her hands and she was in a loose fighting stance. Just like that her expression had gone from soft and friendly to something dangerous and almost predatory. "It's easy really."

He hoped those knives weren't aiming at him. He pointed toward the practice dummy at his side. "I'm curious but don't do it on me."

She gave a toothy grin before vanishing from sight and immediately reappearing behind one of the target dummies. Her blades moved so quickly they were difficult to follow as she attacked. Then just as quickly as she vanished to the other side the room she reappeared in front of Lee.

She slid her daggers back into their sheathes before stretching.

One second, she was in front of him the next she was tearing the poor dummy to shreds. Well, that answered his question. He gave an approving nod with his bottom lip jutting out slightly before he looked back at Taicea. "Okay, so you have some interesting ninja skills. Not bad." He unfolded his arms and pulled himself off from the edge of the table.

Looking over the dummy, he could tell that it was some pretty nasty wounds. "Okay, remind me not to piss you off."

"Shadow step makes taking down most enemies easier. At least I almost always have the element of surprise." She explained with the most disarmingly sweet smile.

"You needn't worry. I won't harm another being out of anger, only necessity."

"Oh good, I don't have to worry." Thankful for that, he extends his hand. "I'm Lee Chaolan. I didn't get your name earlier." He saw her now as an ally instead of a plaything which was good for the both of them.

"My name was once pronounce Li Xiaolan, which is Mandarin for Little Dragon where I'm from. Don't ask, it was my father's idea."

She gave his hand an enthusiastic shake with a grip that was a lot stronger than her small size suggested. "I'm Taicea, it's a pleasure to meet you Lee!"

The small sylvari blinked curiously at him, "Mandarin?"

"A dialect of Chinese and goodness you have a grip." He pulled his hand away and smiled.

"It's a language, or one of many, from my world." He rubbed the palm of his hand. What started off as a method of exploitation became an act of friendship. It was strange how everything changed.

Taicea jerked slightly, hands up in front of her. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to grip so hard." For a moment she wavered between reaching forward to take his hand again and sooth it and not do anything at all. In the end she simple clutched her hands against her chest and decided to focus on the talk of languages.

"Oh. Does your world have many languages?"

"Yes. I don't know the exact number of dialects and languages but we all seem to understand each other pretty well. We seem universal. Unlike here where languages can present a barrier, where I'm from, we tend to break it." Lee continued, now that his hand wasn't hurting as much.

"There are too many strange dialects from other worlds that I can't quite place and I have to listen carefully to understand them at least on a basic level. I have the largest problem with those from a distant future or those that speak a Latin based language." Name a roommate of his has that particular issue with his dialect.

"Yes, I have noticed that. At least the common tongue back home seems to be a universal constant. But the written language I've seen..." She frowned. She's seen posts on the network that she's sure she could respond to if only she could read them.

"I think I can help you with that." His hand reached for his device and if he could at least teach her to read, then the rest would be simple.

"You said your universal language is common. In my world, we call it English. Let's try starting with the alphabet. Each letter can be arranged to create words. Wait...these devices should have a language translator built into the program. Let me see yours for a second. I don't think mine would have it." He said while he pressed the button to find the language setting. "They're generally language specific...I think. Don't quote me on that."

Taicea dug out her tablet and handed it over. She wasn't aware there was a such a feature on it. Although how the people in charge would know what New Krytan is and have it implemented on her tablet was beyond her.

She moved closer to Lee once he had her tablet in hand and watched as he worked with it.

Lee's fingers worked through the settings which was ironically set on the default of Standard, which he assumed was English. He scrolled through the various ones that he couldn't recognize. He slowed down for those since the language was written in strange characters.

"Let me know if anything looks familiar to you. Good heavens, there are a lot of them. You might not be able to send a text without someone asking you what you're talking about but you can at least read what they're sending you."

The sylvari watched the many different and strange text scroll by. Some were similar but she had yet to see anything that looked like her own.

Until...

"That one! That's New Krytan!" She couldn't be happier, now she can read what people are posting.

"Ah, good. They do have it. At least now you can understand what's going on." The white-haired Chinese compares his and begins the programming switch. He has to keep it timed so he knows what screen he's in while he set up the device to better suit her.

After a few moments of screen switching and settings, he flips his closed and gave hers back. "Try it out. Let me know what you think. I got rid of that annoying lag glitch for you."

She bounced happily before taking her tablet back. "Oh! Thank you so very much!" She immediately began scrolling through the menus and then the network on her tablet. Now that she could read everything it was so much easier to figure out what she was doing.

"This is perfect, just perfect! I know what I'm doing now." She moved to give Lee a quick hug, trying not to crush him this time.

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