skin, bone, and arrogance
[OOC: This one-shot takes place following "Two for Tea"]
The trip from Bespin had been uneventful, given that Moff Natasi Fortan had spent much of the voyage asleep. This was unusual for her, but her tea with Marzena Choi had been a marathon of self-control followed by an exhausting self-realization. She was entirely knackered by the time they finally got underway from Bespin, and so she had elected to take a nap -- much to the confusion of her staff which would have, until that moment, sworn up and down that she required no sleep.
The Frontrunner arrived at Dosuun's capital city spaceport in the late afternoon, at which point Natasi took a tour of the crane collapse site, where she spent over an hour looking concerned for the holocameras, talking with the foremen and other workers, and doing whatever else she could think of to look both aggrieved and in command of the situation for the nightly news. She made a statement that the investigation would be swift and thorough and that she would be holding to account those who were responsible for the accident. And then she had bundled herself into the speeder and whisked to the office, arriving just as dusk was falling.
Sioux was waiting, looking rather like a schoolgirl waiting for a beating from the headmistress. She rose when Natasi entered the outer office; the Moff said nothing, only collecting the message slips from Sioux and then beckoning her to follow her into the inner office. "Welcome back, ma'am," said Sioux as she followed her boss inside, then shut the door. Natasi went to her desk and activated the privacy lock, which locked the door to the outer office and triggered the windows to frost over, so that they wouldn't be visible from the outside.
"Schedule a meeting with the Director of the Industrial Health and Safety Administration tomorrow at 0900. Tell his office to send him with his log of the reviews of the city's crane safety inspections. And you can have the security people at Industry begin clearing his office as soon as he arrives," Natasi said as she began sifting through the message slips Sioux had provided. "We'll return these. These two don't need responses, they were for information. And these three -- well, I don't know why they thought they should be talking to me to begin with."
Sioux was making notes, nodding. "Yes, ma'am." Natasi sat on her office chair and studed these last three messages in silence for a few moments, crumpling them up once at a time and tossing them into the rubbish bin. She rested her elbows on the arms of the chair and clasped her gloved hands together for a few moments. Sioux waited, then asked: "Ma'am, is there anything else you need?"
"Sioux, I have to ask you: why did you set up that meeting with Ms. Choi?" Natasi didn't look up at her private secretary, instead studying her hands as she peeled the gloves off her fingers and hands. "Without my permission, and knowing -- knowing what you know?"
Sioux cleared her throat and murmured, "I thought... I thought you might find the opportunity to get an idea about her. To know the enemy, as it were." Sioux's dark eyes looked up through long lashes, to see if the headmistress was rummaging for a metaphorical paddle. "I hope it wasn't wrong."
"Not -- wrong," Natasi conceded, slapping her left hand with the gloves in her right, she looked down and to the right, her dark eyes conflicted.
"And...?" Sioux asked. "What is your plan?" Natasi looked up, narrowing her eyes, and wondered aloud what plan? "To get rid of that woman and... you know... get the General to yourself. Surely you must have some idea by now. What are you going to do?"
Natasi squeezed her eyes shut and remained silent for a moment. "I'm going to have a cocktail. And so are you." She remained silent for a moment, then opened her eyes, stood up, and strolled over to the sideboard. "You like bourbon, don't you?" Sioux did like bourbon, so that's what she got, over ice, in a stout glass, while Natasi had a gin & tonic.
"I meant, what are you going to do about the General and that -- that -- that pop star?" Sioux said, taking the drink that was offered and the seat in one of the pair of high-backed, comfortable armchairs in the seating area.
Natasi sat down and took a long drink from her cocktail and then leaned her head back against the chair. "Absolutely nothing."
Sioux looked on in disbelief. "But -- ma'am, surely there's something that can be done. You cannot leave it like this. You're... you're..." Sioux waved a hand at Natasi as if to encapsulate the essence of her employer in a gesture what she couldn't in words. "And she's... she's --"
"She's a perfectly lovely person, which I discovered thanks to the meeting you arranged," Natasi finished Sioux's sentence, then looked up into Sioux's shocked face; this was rather an about-face. "And I will not hear otherwise from you or anyone else in this office. I hope I am understood?"
"But before," Sioux exclaimed, disbelieving. "You were so keen on it. You were so keen!" Sioux set her drink down and leaned forward. "What's changed since then?"
"I haven't a clue," Natasi confessed. It was true. She could feel those urges underneath everything, those animal impulses to damn the torpedoes, and damn everything and everyone else who would stand between her and that which she desired. There were quiet moments when she fantasized of sending assassins after the singer, but the harsh, cold truth was that that was not what she wanted and would do very little to get her what she did want. "Maybe it's me. The truth is, I was deluding myself before, in thinking that if I could get rid of her the natural course of action would be what I want. That's two fantasies -- the first being that I ever could."
"And the second?"
"Sioux, I have known Ludolf Vaas for some years now. We have been in close quarters and worked together for a long time. He is not the type of man to shy from going after what he wants, is he? No, he is not," she agreed with Sioux. "And in all this time, he has never looked at me in that way. It was a fantasy all along. Ms. Choi, separate and apart from being a loyal patriot and a very lovely person, and more beautiful than I could ever hope to be, is not the enemy, and she is not the problem." Natasi took another long drink of the cocktail and then looked over the rim of her drink at her friend and employee. "The truth is, General Vaas isn't the problem, either. The problem is -- the problem always has been me. I am not the type of woman that..." She fell silent; Natasi was unable to put into words what type of woman she wasn't. She stood and refreshed her drink, staring at her cocktail for a few long moments before adding with an air of a pained penitent to a clergyman: "Even if I wanted to, and even if I could, and even if I were to succeed in dispatching her, there is no reason to suspect that he would look twice at me."
"But surely, you can cross that bridge when we come to it," Sioux said hopefully. "I hate to see you -- like this."
"You aren't listening," Natasi said, smacking her glass back on the bar with a thunk. "There is no bridge. We will not cross it. I will not interfere and neither will you or anyone else. Besides, there is some conceit to the notion that whatever arrangement they have, whatever preferences, are less important than what I would wish. I wonder if you would feel the same way if it was your personal life I was dabbling with? Why should my preferences overrule yours?" Sioux didn't answer; this hit a bit closer to home than the couple in question. "You're perfectly right: they wouldn't. The same principle applies here. Rather more, I suspect -- and don't get me wrong, because while I like you very much personally and I find your work very good, I do not love you. Therefore your happiness is..." She looked over apologetically. "...rather less important to me, personally, than his, or my own."
Sioux stood and went over to the bar, putting a hand on Natasi's back. "Won't you be terribly unhappy?" she asked quietly.
"You forget I am an Equilibriate," Natasi said primly, reaching up to dry her eyes with her knuckles. "We understand that unhappiness and all the other unpleasant things in life must exist, in order for the good to balance it out. It is written," she added, matter-of-fact to the point of callousness. "Besides, it may not be forever. Who knows what might change?" Her gut told her that there was little hope of it, but it wouldn't do to share that with Sioux. "And whatever happens, it won't mean I can't have a life."
"What do you mean?" asked Sioux.
"I must marry and have children. Mathes is dead and Cousin Maximilian is the Earl of Herevan, but he isn't a Fortan, so there's only me to carry the line. I'll meet someone, and I will marry. Perhaps it won't be what I want. Perhaps it will be second-rate." It was almost certain to be, she reflected stoically. "But it will check the box, so to speak. And if that is all I can hope for -- that and a good career and to see someone I love happy, even with someone else, I shall count myself very lucky indeed."
But to Sioux, she didn't sound as if she counted herself lucky at all. "If you're sure, Natasi."
"Quite, quite sure," Natasi said through a trembling voice. She drew a kerchief from her brasierre and blew her nose, then folded it and wiped her eyes. "As to the question of what to do with Marzena Choi, you had better hold on to something, because what we will do with her is to help her with whatever project she has in mind for the memorial center, and whatever else she needs."
"But -- ma'am," Sioux said. "Won't that be difficult? Shouldn't you delegate that to someone -- one of the new people?"
"Certainly not," Natasi snapped. "And before you develop any bright ideas, I warn you, if you should do anything to sabotage her -- if you say anything disparaging about or to her, or the General -- there will be consequences. And Sioux. I know I can count on your discretion, so I needn't tell you that if you discuss anything we've talked about today outside of this room, with anyone but me, you will wish that the only thing I am empowered to do is sack you." She dabbed her eyes again and went back to her seat, drink in hand.
"Of course, ma'am," said Sioux quietly.
"By the way," said Natasi, pointing to her bag on the coffee table. "Ms. Choi sent you a gift for you for arranging the meeting. You will write a thank you note and I'll put it in with mine before I send it tonight."
Sioux grimaced over her bourbon. Who was this woman sitting opposite her? There seemed to be a lack of bite to her, as if the events of the last several months had knocked the stuffing out of her. She was almost unrecognizable -- the body was the same, but where was the rest of her? But if she wanted to give up and settle -- well, Sioux had her orders. "Very good, ma'am. Will that be all?"
"For now," Natasi said glumly over her gin and tonic. "Let's just have a drink together and I will lick my wounds. Tomorrow is a new day and we'll start fresh then."
The trip from Bespin had been uneventful, given that Moff Natasi Fortan had spent much of the voyage asleep. This was unusual for her, but her tea with Marzena Choi had been a marathon of self-control followed by an exhausting self-realization. She was entirely knackered by the time they finally got underway from Bespin, and so she had elected to take a nap -- much to the confusion of her staff which would have, until that moment, sworn up and down that she required no sleep.
The Frontrunner arrived at Dosuun's capital city spaceport in the late afternoon, at which point Natasi took a tour of the crane collapse site, where she spent over an hour looking concerned for the holocameras, talking with the foremen and other workers, and doing whatever else she could think of to look both aggrieved and in command of the situation for the nightly news. She made a statement that the investigation would be swift and thorough and that she would be holding to account those who were responsible for the accident. And then she had bundled herself into the speeder and whisked to the office, arriving just as dusk was falling.
Sioux was waiting, looking rather like a schoolgirl waiting for a beating from the headmistress. She rose when Natasi entered the outer office; the Moff said nothing, only collecting the message slips from Sioux and then beckoning her to follow her into the inner office. "Welcome back, ma'am," said Sioux as she followed her boss inside, then shut the door. Natasi went to her desk and activated the privacy lock, which locked the door to the outer office and triggered the windows to frost over, so that they wouldn't be visible from the outside.
"Schedule a meeting with the Director of the Industrial Health and Safety Administration tomorrow at 0900. Tell his office to send him with his log of the reviews of the city's crane safety inspections. And you can have the security people at Industry begin clearing his office as soon as he arrives," Natasi said as she began sifting through the message slips Sioux had provided. "We'll return these. These two don't need responses, they were for information. And these three -- well, I don't know why they thought they should be talking to me to begin with."
Sioux was making notes, nodding. "Yes, ma'am." Natasi sat on her office chair and studed these last three messages in silence for a few moments, crumpling them up once at a time and tossing them into the rubbish bin. She rested her elbows on the arms of the chair and clasped her gloved hands together for a few moments. Sioux waited, then asked: "Ma'am, is there anything else you need?"
"Sioux, I have to ask you: why did you set up that meeting with Ms. Choi?" Natasi didn't look up at her private secretary, instead studying her hands as she peeled the gloves off her fingers and hands. "Without my permission, and knowing -- knowing what you know?"
Sioux cleared her throat and murmured, "I thought... I thought you might find the opportunity to get an idea about her. To know the enemy, as it were." Sioux's dark eyes looked up through long lashes, to see if the headmistress was rummaging for a metaphorical paddle. "I hope it wasn't wrong."
"Not -- wrong," Natasi conceded, slapping her left hand with the gloves in her right, she looked down and to the right, her dark eyes conflicted.
"And...?" Sioux asked. "What is your plan?" Natasi looked up, narrowing her eyes, and wondered aloud what plan? "To get rid of that woman and... you know... get the General to yourself. Surely you must have some idea by now. What are you going to do?"
Natasi squeezed her eyes shut and remained silent for a moment. "I'm going to have a cocktail. And so are you." She remained silent for a moment, then opened her eyes, stood up, and strolled over to the sideboard. "You like bourbon, don't you?" Sioux did like bourbon, so that's what she got, over ice, in a stout glass, while Natasi had a gin & tonic.
"I meant, what are you going to do about the General and that -- that -- that pop star?" Sioux said, taking the drink that was offered and the seat in one of the pair of high-backed, comfortable armchairs in the seating area.
Natasi sat down and took a long drink from her cocktail and then leaned her head back against the chair. "Absolutely nothing."
Sioux looked on in disbelief. "But -- ma'am, surely there's something that can be done. You cannot leave it like this. You're... you're..." Sioux waved a hand at Natasi as if to encapsulate the essence of her employer in a gesture what she couldn't in words. "And she's... she's --"
"She's a perfectly lovely person, which I discovered thanks to the meeting you arranged," Natasi finished Sioux's sentence, then looked up into Sioux's shocked face; this was rather an about-face. "And I will not hear otherwise from you or anyone else in this office. I hope I am understood?"
"But before," Sioux exclaimed, disbelieving. "You were so keen on it. You were so keen!" Sioux set her drink down and leaned forward. "What's changed since then?"
"I haven't a clue," Natasi confessed. It was true. She could feel those urges underneath everything, those animal impulses to damn the torpedoes, and damn everything and everyone else who would stand between her and that which she desired. There were quiet moments when she fantasized of sending assassins after the singer, but the harsh, cold truth was that that was not what she wanted and would do very little to get her what she did want. "Maybe it's me. The truth is, I was deluding myself before, in thinking that if I could get rid of her the natural course of action would be what I want. That's two fantasies -- the first being that I ever could."
"And the second?"
"Sioux, I have known Ludolf Vaas for some years now. We have been in close quarters and worked together for a long time. He is not the type of man to shy from going after what he wants, is he? No, he is not," she agreed with Sioux. "And in all this time, he has never looked at me in that way. It was a fantasy all along. Ms. Choi, separate and apart from being a loyal patriot and a very lovely person, and more beautiful than I could ever hope to be, is not the enemy, and she is not the problem." Natasi took another long drink of the cocktail and then looked over the rim of her drink at her friend and employee. "The truth is, General Vaas isn't the problem, either. The problem is -- the problem always has been me. I am not the type of woman that..." She fell silent; Natasi was unable to put into words what type of woman she wasn't. She stood and refreshed her drink, staring at her cocktail for a few long moments before adding with an air of a pained penitent to a clergyman: "Even if I wanted to, and even if I could, and even if I were to succeed in dispatching her, there is no reason to suspect that he would look twice at me."
"But surely, you can cross that bridge when we come to it," Sioux said hopefully. "I hate to see you -- like this."
"You aren't listening," Natasi said, smacking her glass back on the bar with a thunk. "There is no bridge. We will not cross it. I will not interfere and neither will you or anyone else. Besides, there is some conceit to the notion that whatever arrangement they have, whatever preferences, are less important than what I would wish. I wonder if you would feel the same way if it was your personal life I was dabbling with? Why should my preferences overrule yours?" Sioux didn't answer; this hit a bit closer to home than the couple in question. "You're perfectly right: they wouldn't. The same principle applies here. Rather more, I suspect -- and don't get me wrong, because while I like you very much personally and I find your work very good, I do not love you. Therefore your happiness is..." She looked over apologetically. "...rather less important to me, personally, than his, or my own."
Sioux stood and went over to the bar, putting a hand on Natasi's back. "Won't you be terribly unhappy?" she asked quietly.
"You forget I am an Equilibriate," Natasi said primly, reaching up to dry her eyes with her knuckles. "We understand that unhappiness and all the other unpleasant things in life must exist, in order for the good to balance it out. It is written," she added, matter-of-fact to the point of callousness. "Besides, it may not be forever. Who knows what might change?" Her gut told her that there was little hope of it, but it wouldn't do to share that with Sioux. "And whatever happens, it won't mean I can't have a life."
"What do you mean?" asked Sioux.
"I must marry and have children. Mathes is dead and Cousin Maximilian is the Earl of Herevan, but he isn't a Fortan, so there's only me to carry the line. I'll meet someone, and I will marry. Perhaps it won't be what I want. Perhaps it will be second-rate." It was almost certain to be, she reflected stoically. "But it will check the box, so to speak. And if that is all I can hope for -- that and a good career and to see someone I love happy, even with someone else, I shall count myself very lucky indeed."
But to Sioux, she didn't sound as if she counted herself lucky at all. "If you're sure, Natasi."
"Quite, quite sure," Natasi said through a trembling voice. She drew a kerchief from her brasierre and blew her nose, then folded it and wiped her eyes. "As to the question of what to do with Marzena Choi, you had better hold on to something, because what we will do with her is to help her with whatever project she has in mind for the memorial center, and whatever else she needs."
"But -- ma'am," Sioux said. "Won't that be difficult? Shouldn't you delegate that to someone -- one of the new people?"
"Certainly not," Natasi snapped. "And before you develop any bright ideas, I warn you, if you should do anything to sabotage her -- if you say anything disparaging about or to her, or the General -- there will be consequences. And Sioux. I know I can count on your discretion, so I needn't tell you that if you discuss anything we've talked about today outside of this room, with anyone but me, you will wish that the only thing I am empowered to do is sack you." She dabbed her eyes again and went back to her seat, drink in hand.
"Of course, ma'am," said Sioux quietly.
"By the way," said Natasi, pointing to her bag on the coffee table. "Ms. Choi sent you a gift for you for arranging the meeting. You will write a thank you note and I'll put it in with mine before I send it tonight."
Sioux grimaced over her bourbon. Who was this woman sitting opposite her? There seemed to be a lack of bite to her, as if the events of the last several months had knocked the stuffing out of her. She was almost unrecognizable -- the body was the same, but where was the rest of her? But if she wanted to give up and settle -- well, Sioux had her orders. "Very good, ma'am. Will that be all?"
"For now," Natasi said glumly over her gin and tonic. "Let's just have a drink together and I will lick my wounds. Tomorrow is a new day and we'll start fresh then."