holy rings of betazed

[warpfairy]

Isabella doesn't really like being surrounded by Betazoids. She can ward off the scans - it's barely an effort - but they look at her like she's terribly unfriendly for doing it. Still, she almost never gets verbal complaints for it. She can conduct her shopping while Lalita hires a ship to go get the Harlequin from where he left her, and then they have a week to kill on the planet and its immediate environs while the tugboat goes out and fetches her.

Shopping isn't going to take that long. They should do tourist things!

Comments

[warpfairy]

"You've had all those careers. They didn't suffice?"

[dream_me_up]

"I've had all those careers and... that was one of them?" he says, puzzled.

[warpfairy]

"There's playing poker professionally, but you said cheating."

[dream_me_up]

"Yes...? I can tell that this is a problem, I just can't tell why," he says.

[warpfairy]

"Because it's unfair for people who agreed to stake their money only on a game with certain rules."

[dream_me_up]

"Well, I guess I'm unfair, then," he says mildly.

[warpfairy]

"Ah."

[dream_me_up]

He shrugs.

[warpfairy]

"Anything else I might find an unpleasant surprise? I violate the Prime Directive as my life's work, I don't care about legality per se - but if I didn't care about ethics I wouldn't be violating the Prime Directive as my life's work."

[dream_me_up]

"I've also killed some people," he says. "Some of them might have deserved it. I don't know, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time."

[warpfairy]

[dream_me_up]

He shrugs.

"But that was all a long time ago. It's easier to get by without that kind of thing now."

[warpfairy]

"I would expect it would be - easier, yes."

[dream_me_up]

He shrugs again.

[warpfairy]

"Please don't kill anyone else unless it's defensively necessary."

[dream_me_up]

"...As opposed to what?" he says, blinking. "I wasn't doing it for kicks before."

[warpfairy]

"You did not specify. You said some of them might have deserved it, that you weren't thinking about it."

[dream_me_up]

"No, I was thinking about why I needed them to be dead and how I could get them that way without getting in worse trouble," he says. "Usually because they were about to hurt me somehow."

[warpfairy]

"Perhaps you can lead with that information if you ever have cause to admit to it again to someone who places immense value on sapient life."

[dream_me_up]

"I don't know you well enough to know exactly which things you get worried about," he sighs. "You might think they're obvious, but they're not obvious to me."

[warpfairy]

"I am worried about - people," says Isabella. "Living. In conditions that are suited to thriving. Being lied to is a relatively minor harm, but I don't like it, and I don't like it happening to others, when there's not some overwhelming reason."

[dream_me_up]

"Well, I'm worried about me living," he says. "And if I have to lie or kill or steal to keep doing that, I will."

[warpfairy]

"I have a self-preservation instinct of my own. It is very healthy. I avoid situations where successfully obeying it would mean silencing someone else's."

[dream_me_up]

He gives her a look, somewhere between quizzical and annoyed.

"You know," he says, "I could probably lead a less risky life if I tried really hard, but I don't actually set out to be captured by Klingons or robbed at gunpoint or almost raped or whatever. These things happen by accident. They're not so common in the world we live in now - well, Klingons are a special case - but I was born in a very different world. How much do you even know about prewarp Earth?"

[warpfairy]

"I - not very much," murmurs Isabella.