Pilot Episode: "Art and Science"

[Mike]

Click, click, click, click.

Tenaryth walked down the causeway, despite her heels, at a pace metered and designed not to leave the few human scholars trailing behind her in the dust. She had long legs, and a purpose. Of the two, the purpose was more important to her speed. Tenaryth wasn’t late. Tenaryth had not been late for anything in years, not to her memory, and she had a very long memory. That Commander Yamashiro had not intended to have a meeting this morning was immaterial; Tenaryth needed to get the introductions over with, so that her scholars and Magisters would have some place to set up the Enclave, and so that she could be left alone to her work.

Admittedly, over the years, she had acknowledged that people were a necessity, but humans bothered her, and most Magisters were humans. Some of them were half-elves, and that bothered her more for some reason she couldn’t quite place. She had done a study on it, and seen the statistical research, what research there was, that had been submitted recently by some of her juniors, but the data didn’t lessen her annoyance or aversion. She had grown a tolerance. Twenty years with humans in the Alliance, wearing just that same uniform that they wore, had given her a resistance, and now none of it showed on her face. Most of them were even amusing or tolerable, and sometimes they had great ideas - hadn't she learned from some of the best of them? But they had grown old, and gray, and retired, and when she had retired, she had realized that their system didn't make space for her kind, any more than she could make space for people so short-lived. Retiring at seventy didn't mean the same thing to her that it did to them, and she had given up trying to have parity. Contrary to what might be expected, it had made her impatient - and she knew she was impatient - and she resolved not to let that bother her.

So she had a truce with her impatience and with her situation. She was fond of them, as far as fond went. But that truce required that she be allowed to work as she pleased without the junior Magisters following her around like lost, starry-eyed children. She needed somewhere to store them.

They wove their way through the various Alliance personnel – essentially office workers - that hovered around high commanders in any military body without touching them. When she came to the office, she stopped, and the three scholars carrying her apparatus nearly bumped into her. Tenaryth adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat faintly before pressing the call button outside of the station’s CIC.

“Excuse me, Commander. I believe we should speak.”

[Gunsight1]

Commander Natsumi Yamashiro sat behind her desk, surrounded by stacks of datapads and holographic projections and a mug of steaming hot tea at her left hand. She glanced up from her paperwork as the door chime rang, She frowned, not recognizing the voice that followed the chime and knowing she did not have any appointments on the books. She set her datapad and light pen down, then grabbed her mug.

"Come in" she said before taking a sip of tea.

[Mike]

Countess Tenaryth entered the office with precise certainty, and shut the door in the face of her hangers-on in dismissal. She had made a habit of this, and knew with certainty that they would wait for her. If she cultivated an air of aloofness, already attributed to her people, then more would be better.

She delivered the greeting more politely, with a glance at the familiar emblem atop Natsumi's shoulder. "Good afternoon, Commander. Thank you for seeing me, and forgive me for being so abrupt. I am Archmagister Tenaryth du Trisvaria, representing the Order of the Compendium, of Kowloon. I have come to formally request permission to open an Enclave on your station."