[Log] "This ain't exactly what I was countin' on..."

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Twin Oaks - Jiangyin
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A small town on a fairly scrub-brush planet, Twin Oaks is nestled between the junction of two small rivers to the Southeast, and a low, wide butte that serves as a landing field and Spaceport to the North. The town supplies more ranchers than spacers, as can be evidenced by the large feed store next to the general store. A dirt Road leads through the center of town and hooks towards the Northeast just after passing the Sheriff to curve around the butte.
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Peeper has ambled over to the general store. She's taking in everything quietly, picking up various things and looking them over carefully before setting them back in place.


Saienne's hat, floppy and ragged-brimmed as usual, protects her face from Jiangyin's afternoon sunshine. She follows the track from the spaceport into Twin Oaks at an even pace, before she passes by the general store. Spying Peeper, Saienne does not call out loudly, rather she steps towards the shop, taking care to do her best to walk within Peeper's line of sight.

Peeper cuts her eyes to the door when the little bell jingles, ducking mostly behind a shelf so she can see who came in. She nods to Saienne in greeting and recognition and then knits her brows as she examines a porcelian frog with a wary, almost confused eye.

"Afternoon," says Saienne cordially to the younger girl. She looks around the little shop, blinking as her eyes adjust to the lowered light level - and then blinking again as she takes in the assorted wares. She has tipped her hat off her head and now fingers the feather tucked into its band. She frowns a little twist of a frown, her crowsfeet wrinkling slightly. "This ain't exactly what I was countin' on..." she murmurs.

Peeper nods at the comment and coughs just a bit. "Yeah, not exactly the bright spot of the 'verse..." she muses. She moves on from the frogs to a selection of mugs with various logos or cartoons on them.

Saienne turns slightly in Peeper's direction. "Ain't that the truth," she says, the frown dissolving into an easy lop-sided smile. "I should have known better than to hope, mind. Jiangyin is about as close to home as you can get without actually bein' there." She grins crookedly. "But you let me know if you spot anythin' you reckon might entertain a lively six year old with more brains than sense." She dangles her hat from one hand and rustles in her pocket for some change. "Can I get you an ice or somesuch, Peeper?"

Peeper arches an eyebrow and says simply,"I don't know what an Ice is, sorry. So I dunno if I want one or not." She looks through the shelves again and muses dejectedly,"And I have like, no idea what little kids like..." She taps her chin and asks,"Do they like video games?"

Saienne waves her hat in a vague gesture. "It's juice, but frozen. Good on hot days." She is rooting now through an ancient chest freezer, digging in the chunks of ice for whatever flavour she's after. "Ain't no bother," she adds, walking over to the counter to pay. "I ain't got much idea, neither, to be straight an' true with you." She looks around again, and then eyes the shopkeeper. "No offense, an' all," she says, "But I don't reckon Lucie'd be fooled for five minutes by a porcelain frog." She smiles lop-sidedly at Peeper. "Computer games. Now there's a thing. I ain't got no idea."

Peeper nod and aparently has seen enough of the store for one day. She wanders back near the register where Saienne is and says,"I'll hit the Cortex and nab a few for you then. Shouldn't take more than a day or so."

Saienne looks thoughtful. "I expect I'd best check with Maire -" a pause to explain "- that's my sister -" and then back to her main thread "- that they got the hardware required to play games." She smiles wryly. "Only got a Cortex terminal in the house a couple of years ago - my family ain't exactly rollin' in money, if you understand me." She peels back the paper on the ice and licks it. "But it's a real kind offer, an' all." A beat. "You got a thing with computers an' suchlike, ain't you? They - what did you say? - they sing to you?"

Peeper glances at the clerk behind the counter, her cheeks flushing hot as she slowly nods,"Yeah, basically. They always have. Even if she needs a player we could make something out of one of the pda's." She holds the door open politely and says in a quiet voice,"I forgot what you do, I'm sorry. So many new people and places..."

"Ain't no bother," Saienne says, again, preceeding Peeper back out into the sunshine. She crams her hat back onto her head and its brim casts her face into shadow. "Aboard the Grace I'm nothin' but a cargo hauler," she says, smiling faintly. "An' occasionally I'll give Ronnie an' Ymir a hand with the messier jobs in engineerin'." She looks up and down the main street, waiting for Peeper, and licks her ice again - which has begun to melt and the drops of sticky juice drip onto her hand. "But my real job is courierin' - private hire only, an' folk can pretty much ask me to carry anythin'." A pause; another crooked smile. "As long as it's legal, an' all."

Peeper nods quickly, her steps slowing in time with her shipmate's. She looks around the town a little and says,"I never knew there were places like this. It makes home look like a carnival."

Saienne looks around the small dusty town, appraising it carefully. "Is that so?" She asks, quietly. "Plenty of places just like Twin Oaks scattered around," she observes. "Folks hangin' on with all the tenacity of a limpit. Hangin' on to dust an' not much else, often." She turns back to Peeper, the feather in her hat bouncing jauntily. "Like a carnival?" She considers. "Where's home, if you don't mind me askin'?"

Peeper looks to Saienne a little Incredulously and replies,"Eavesdown. Grace was just the first ship that found a use for me. I been tryin' ta leave for a year or so. Since my Guardian passed." She looks down at her shoes quietly for a moment, and then back around at the town,"The Spacers laways made their trips sound a lot more exciting..."

"Eavesdown!" Saienne exclaims. "Well, Eavesdown /is/ a gorram carnival, ain't it? So much goin' on there it's a miracle folk know up from down." She grins crookedly. "Spent about six years on Persephone all told, operatin' out from Eavesdown. Home from gorram home." She chuckles, long and low, and shakes her head. She waves a hand around in an emphatic gesture. "Don't go judgin' the travellin' life by Jiangyin. Jiangyin ain't but a speck in the Black, ain't it so?" she says. "You seen Paquin yet? Or Ariel? Different kettle of fish entirely. An' Spacers? Ain't they always the ones for the tall tales an' showin' off?" She listens as Peeper mentions her guardian. "I'm real sorry to hear about your Guardian," she says, evenly. "But I don't reckon you could have picked a better ship to hop aboard than our Grace."

Peeper loks up and smiles happily, nodding again,"Yeah, I'm pretty happy on the Grace. Everyone has been really nice. Well, almost everyone. Some of the guys look at me in a way I don't really understand? I guess they get kinda desperate bein' on a ship."

Saienne makes a bit of a face as Peeper mentions the men and their looks. "That so?" she asks, frowning a little. "Pay them no mind, I reckon, or take it as a compliment, or tell them straight out you ain't interested - or if it makes you uncomfortable, take it to the Captain. It ain't like she'd hire folk she didn't have some cause to trust, oddball or no." She rubs her thumb along the line of her jaw. "Because she'd rather know, I reckon, than get surprised." Sai shrugs, and then changes the subject: "So your... thing. With computers." A pause. "Is it just computers an' PDAs, or is it other electronic things an' all?"

Peeper shrugs her shoulders,"Pretty much just computers I think. And things that use computers. I mean, I don't know anything about engines or anything like that." She bends down and picks up a piece of flint, examining it before she pockets it and asks you,"Why?"

Saienne does not answer immediately. Rather, she observes the pastoral scene beyond the town's shabby edges - stands of oak and sycamore trees grown round with tall grasses and wild flowers. Cows. Lots of cows. With a barely audible sigh, she comes down on the side of trust and says: "Just a job I been workin' on for... well, for far too long. A messy job with all manner of twists an' turns an' unexpected crosses." She wrinkles up her nose. "Hit a brick wall in the form of silence an' a small black cube." A beat. "I reckon it's data storage of some kind, but I ain't got the first idea what's on it or how to read it." She shrugs, a curiously helpless gesture from a woman who appears so concrete in every other aspect. "An' I reckon it's hot an' all - an' I'm stuck with the gorram thing."

Peeper widens here eyes, but not in fear. Pure, runaway curiosity as she offers in an eager tone,"I'll fiond out what's on it for you! I could also check and see if anyone is looking for it." She almost seems to be bouncing on her toes at the prospect of a real challenge.

Saienne looks at the girl gravely, her dark eyes serious beneath the hat brim. "Peeper, I already know there are folk after it." She glances down at her feet and frowns again. "Nearly lost my gorram foot over it - if Lucinda hadn't..." She waves her hand, dismissing the memory. "Ain't the point. Won't get caught like that again." She frowns at Peeper. "Maybe this ain't such a good idea..." She vacilates between the need to know and a real and present fear of the consequences of knowing. "When you're pokin' around in the guts of the Cortex, you are careful, ain't you? You... do your best not to be noticed?" Another deep frown. "Because these folk - they surely ain't messin' around."

Peeper spreads her lips into a wry smile, her demeanor wholely different when it comes to this area of conversation,"Never been caught yet Ma'am, and I've been through Alliance files and security feeds more than once. I'm always careful. Besides, do I seem like the kind of person who wants trouble?" She looks at you with her bright young eyes.

Saienne's sombre expression does not shift, even in the face of such enthusiasm. "Youth," she mutters, "Ain't it a wonder an' a curse an' all?" She shakes her head. "No, you don't look over-eager for trouble." A dry smile. "But then, neither was I." She spends a few more moments scrutinising Peeper, before she shrugs her shoulders in a gesture of surrender. "Oh good gorram what am I splittin' hairs for? They alreaady know I got it, don't they? Ain't goin' to cause no more trouble..." She fishes around in one of her deep pockets and pulls out a little black cube, glittering from within, and holds it between her thumb and forefinger. It is about two inches cubed. "Here we have it - the offendin' article." She looks deep into it. "So I reckon this is what I would like. We - you - find out what's on it first an' then - an' only then, only when we know - you go lookin' for more information. On it, on who is chasin' it." She holds out the little black cube to Peeper. "An' then I pay you." A pause, while she waits. "Sound fair?"

Peeper nods long and slow, eyes transfixed on the little black cube. "Sounds perfectly fair..." she says quietly, holding her hand out to acept the offending article,"I'll get right on it in fact."

Saienne hangs on to the cube for a minute or so more. "Just one more thing before I hand this over. Them aboard ship - Josephine an' Bishop an' Lucinda an' the rest of them - they know I got tangled up in somethin' unhealthy a while back. They know the basic story, but they don't know the details, an' I'd prefer it to stay that way until I know what we're dealin' with." She looks direct at Peeper, her own brown eyes wide and serious. "Can I trust you on that? I ain't got no objection to you talkin' to Aradia about anythin' an' everythin', an' I don't even mind you mentionin' that you're doin' me a favour to everyone else - but the details? The details stay secret." She puts her empty hand into her pocket and then drops the cube into Peeper's outstretched hand. "Because in my line of business the only thing I got to trade on is reputation - an' discretion is the greater part of that, ain't it?" She smiles lop-sidedly. "An' there ain't no rush, neither. I been hangin' on to this thing nearly a year now." She frowns, puts her other hand in her other pocket, and looks down at the dust. "Nearly a gorram year!"

Peeper steps in close and just draws a zipper over her lips,"No one will know but us, I promise. I'll tell you whatever I find out, and you can go from there. I have to think abou t my reputation too right? Especially with such a tight knit group if I wanna fit in."

Saienne nods a sharp nod. "Reckon we have a deal, then." She takes her hand from her pocket again and thrusts it out for Peeper to shake. "An' don't you fret none," she adds, her easy crooked smile reappearing. "You're fittin' in fine as far as I can see it." A beat. "Particularly if you keep cookin' us breakfast."

Peeper throws her arms around you briefly and offers a tight, exuberant hug. She boudns away a step and then tries to look non-chalant. Her steps quick as she moves back toward the ship. She offers a daramtic wink as if she's keeping it on the down low, but she's still grinning.