“...but all you can do is the best you can do.”

Volition is a space opera by Cyrus Eosphoros.

[voluntarix]

When he sees her, Tamati Shahin is not immediately impressed. It is not his _job_ to be impressed, certainly, it is his _job_ to be the Hegemon's searching fingers in the dark, but his pronounced apathy remains. How the Hegemon found her and why is none of his business, but the fact that he has hypotheses for neither question is itself fairly indicative.

She's an early childcare worker. A schoolteacher: basic acculturation and skills. Shahin Corregidorx was sent to find her at work, and she is surrounded by children. He was given very specific instructions on how to proceed, here, so much that part of him wonders if he is being punished.

Yael Ifran is tall, reedy, and a creature of shallow curves and planes: flat line across her cheekbones, flat straight blonde hair, flat hips and chest drawn in gently at the waist, flat line of the mouth once one reaches past the vague impression that she's smiling in order to actually take a look. She's wearing her noncombatant's overcoat, although it's not cold, and directing a crowd of children piled around the doorway she blocks. Shahin chooses not to read her lips. He will get as much or more from the patterns of gestures, the way she sways obliging when someone needs the space she occupies without ever moving her feet.

Enough: he was told to approach before she finished for the day, and to keep her from doing so. He advances, knowing he flashes white and stark under the intermittent sun, searches his surroundings for any fear. "Maestrx Ifran."

She wears shock the same way she seems to wear everything else, with a blank, reflexive fluidity; Shahin can watch the emotion affect her and filter away, like he'd thrown water on her and she'd blinked and allowed it to roll off, just the faintest roil of shoulders to concede a blow occurred before it could shift her stance. "Corregidorx!" Her voice seems bright and young; under that, the way she hides lips in a flat hard line, is pronounced neutrality. "Hello. How may I help you?" She brushes the shoulder of one of the children who seeks more attached. "Min, that suffices, I need to address the Corregidorx now--"

"No," Shahin says, raising a conciliatory hand. The ink of his service lights up the thin tissue in the sun and it comforts him somewhat where he's abraded. He was given these very precise orders which he does not _understand_, but at least he has this, when it's been some time since he worked without gloves. The wash of deep blues and greens across his knuckles tells him it must be for the best, somehow. "Please, don't allow me to intrude." Translation: _I will observe the people you would interact with anyway. Do not give us privacy. This is not a request._ "I just have a few questions."

"Of course," Yael says, disconcerted. She still hasn't moved, not really, or offered to do so. "Is it a parent?"

"No," Shahin says, to watch her guess. Order is not culpability. It's just order.

"Another teacher?" She sounds unhappy about that prospect, now, albeit mildly, the tone of puzzlement with a suggestion she'll be displeased by the answer.

Order is -- it can be -- entirely sufficient.

"A _child_?" And there, now there is tangible distress, though it looks like incredulity. Her hand moves, perhaps unconsciously, drawing a fingertip's path in the air over the child h is chosen to set up watch by her coat skirts -- Min, Ifran had said; the one she'd been trying to shoo away.

"Nothing like that, Maestrx Ifran," Shahin says. How long it takes someone to suspect themselves provides data only as to what they either expect or fear; it speaks to experience or lack thereof, not to guilt. Still, it has taken Yael a _while_ to get to the idea that he is here for her; if it is meaningful, then either she's hiding something or the idea of Ifran herself needing the intervention of the Corregimiento is alien to her. Which could, as a feeling, have two main origins: innocence to the point of a critical lack of imagination, or hubris.

There is neither, but something deeper -- not metaphysically, but set below, to be dredged for -- and wearier than confusion in her voice when she says, "So. Me?"

A third option, seeming more likely: she vets herself for correction, actively, not with fear, the way a Vigilantx or another Corregidorx might; she does this, and she does not find herself wanting. "As I said, I have a need to ask you a few questions. May I come in?"

Ifran blinks with her whole body, not relaxing at all but moving anyway, a system of rigidities giving way to motion in curves. "Of course," she says, and pivots herself away not like a confession but like an iron gate. "I will dismiss the children, then?"

"I won't be a disruption," Shahin says, which is not a _no_ but a _stop asking_.

Her eyes go flat in much the same way her mouth stays, at odds with the sheepish cordiality with which Yael addresses the room. "As it's willed, Corregidorx. _Min_," she says, finally dislodging the attached child -- a girl, probably. "Tell everyone to come back inside if they can't already leave, I'll authorize a late notice until I can supervise you leaving. You may have free time for now, all right? _Quietly_. I'll program it in and be right here. The Corregimiento needs me, so we'll all have to wait a little until I can solve what they're asking. Understand?" She flicks her eyes toward Shahin, up through pale lashes and in no way submissive. "If you'll excuse me."

The schedule adjustment takes her a matter of seconds, and as it propagates through the system the surrounding children begin to beep gently where unattended until they put themselves somewhere Ifran has approved of. Shahin hears what sounds like an argument that had been placed on hold break back out, but not with violence.

Yael holds her position, still, while she checks on them, curiously so; she stays facing Shahin with her head bowed over the interface on her forearm, nose pointed toward her inner wrist, only her eyes moving to verify her students have sequestered themselves in a way she finds appropriate. When she's satisfied she raises her chin to look at him fully, her gaze fixed on him through the entire motion. Fluid but disconnected movement appears to be her default mode of operation; this doesn't seem like intentional theatrics beyond what Ifran does when she moves deliberately, and it would be a bizarre choice thereof.

She doesn't feel hostile, or antagonistic. She occupies space with the steady intentionality of an ally, in fact: as in a member of a military alliance, an external entity waiting for its interests to diverge from his.

"Shall we sit, then?"

They sit.

[voluntarix]

"We need people in the field," the expert says, which is exactly what Yael never wanted to hear.

"No," the Hegemon says, one plaintive syllable slipping out of Yael's mouth before she can think otherwise; then she must recover. "No quiero, no quiero esto. No quiero spies. It's unnatural. Falta de precedente. Y enviar a nuestra gente across the borders, where they won't be safe, donde no tendrán nada de auxilio--there is a reason we travel in delegations, there is a reason we found our species on social ties. Falta de concordancia with our values. Hace falta. Lo que necesitamos podemos lograr con searching, podemos lograr con hackeo, podemos lograr with diplomacy. O asi ha estado." It's a stronger objection than she'd like, but, she notes, she was able to deliver it seamlessly. There is breath. This means she is on even footing, for now. But, Yael realizes, she was speaking in values. She needs to deliberate on actions.

"Sí,” the expert--Investigadorx Ashe, on hir uniform; Vahide, Yael thinks, hir name is Vahide--says, "hace falta concordancia, hace falta elegancia, the spirit is not willing. I do not like it. But I must believe it's necessary. All our evidence indicates that the Chrysotery are making inroads with the Ichthate, with irregular criminal elements, against us--that Rhisiart is making moves, arming terrorists, even doing something with the voluntad--and yet... our evidence is scant.”

She needs to deliberate, and she needs to put values beside the cardinal axis of the Hegemony's wellbeing aside.

Some Hegemons have the gift of making their process of deliberation look elegant, or at least unnoticeable--a furrowed brow or a calm stare into space, something dignified and befitting of what people expect from their name. Yael doesn't. She centers herself, centers the storm, asks the other half of the Hegemon, and she knows that she's immediately shaking her head and pulling pained faces, swallowing, mouthing sounds that aren't words. At first she hated this; it came up the first time she ever addressed the Hegemon, and she was sure it was not only disqualifying but humiliating.

But the Hegemon before her had liked it. They said it meant she was honest. Even now they flicker warmth across her neck and shoulders, sometimes, when she worries otherwise.

The Hegemon's trick is that of the entire Hegemony made literal: Yael can only take action when all of her, them, all of the Hegemon in its composite self has agreed. She's gotten faster at finding her opinions and holding steady, waiting to see what synthesis is possible.

She doesn't have to like it. She doesn't have to like anything. Yael does what is necessary, and her people are being threatened.

"All right," she says, finally, smoothing her brow. Maybe, in a few minutes, she'll be able to relax her hands. "Ashe, I do not yet consent, but I will hear you out. Tell me how this would work. Give me the picture the Investigadorxs want to draw."

Vahide Investigadorx seems taken aback, but only for an instant; zie nods, eyes dark, and begins.

[voluntarix]

“So,” Eiran says, curling against Vadimir’s ribs. He shifts obligingly; she can feel him smile, she thinks, in the way she watches his pulse beat blood across his hands. She's known him long enough to mark the right correlations there, specific ways his body lights up—he blushes, down to the fingertips—when he smiles, triggered very easily. She considers making fun of him for it, but leaves that for another time.

Instead, she says, “I know your sister.”

He laughs through his lips. “I think I noticed.”

“Yeah,” she says, creeping toward the point quietly. Smiling, too, whether or not he’s got the same kind of tell on her. She wonders if he’s stopped reading—he was—it’s none of her business unless he asks her to stop talking accordingly, it’s just interesting. “And I’ve known her since before I graduated.”

His fingers curl at the edge of her vision, but lazily; at work it would presage violence, but most things at work do. “Yeah. She even has mostly good things to say about you despite the fact.”

Eiran lets that one go. He’s kind of right. She was… extremely young to be where she was, relatively speaking; other people get stopped, no one stopped her, and maybe it would’ve done her good to have the experience, but obviously it’s too late for that now. “You were my first real contact when I got home. So. Was that a coincidence?”

“It’d be a hell of a coincidence,” he says mildly, which is a no, but a fun-to-chase one that he’s offering. Eiran considers reminding him that both of them are off work—are on tithe, even, having managed by sheer, actual coincidence to—

Probably not actual coincidence, come to think. There’s a lot she doesn’t know about the labors of administration.

At any rate, she decides against reminding him that both of them are off work. It’s not like this isn’t, in fact, what both of them do for fun, that’s kind of the thing.

“Everything to know that it was one should’ve been on file,” Eiran says. “She’s one of the only people I kept in contact with the whole time out there, and then I come home and meet you. Doesn’t that seem like it should go against normal vetting?”

His fingertips light up again. She smiles, considers kissing his hand. “Anyone can do objective filtering from a distance,” he says.

“Maybe for Corregimiento,” she says, goes hard into mockery so he knows she’s not serious: “Vigilancia has to actually *look* for—”

“Vigilancia watch strangers,” he says, equally condescending back. “We’ve got something different.”

“Laziness?”

“Friends,” he says quietly.

Eiran’s body temperature drops slightly, but she knows he knows that; even in the unlikely event that by result of that they’re having a conversation he’s not looking, he knows what that means to her. She doesn’t know how he does it. “I don’t know how you do it,” she tells him, for lack of anything better to do.

She feels him shrug.

“So they sent you to me to go make friends?” She considers, belatedly, asking if it’s actually because they were prioritizing her status as a suspected voluntarix that highly, given how rare Vadimir is there. But she doesn’t want the answer right now. She’s asking about herself, sure, but she doesn’t want to talk about herself, she wants to talk shop. She wants to talk shop and make fun of him for how he runs his and ease back into the habit of living with him. That’s all.

“It would be one hell of a coincidence,” he repeats. “People like coincidences. It puts them at ease. It makes the world small enough to handle. The world’s too big for… anyone. And we’re here to help.”

“Coincidences make me suspicious,” Eiran mutters, mostly to be contrary.

“We’re in the same vocation,” he says back.

“Excuse me, I—”

“Surveillance and cohesion, Eiran, fucking Will, I know that you’re glad you’re you—”

She butts at his rib cage with her forehead, lightly. “Not like that.”

“Right.” Vadimir breathes in. “Sorry. Right.”

“The jokes are okay?”

“The jokes are okay,” he says. “I just need to know when you’re joking.”

“I’m always joking,” she says. “I’m only not joking about the fact that I’m happy where I am.”

She feels some tension go out of him, and then she feels guilty for not having noticed that it didn’t have to be there. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

“So, we’re the same kind of person doing the same kind of thing in opposite directions,” she prompts gently, on principle.

“Is that how you want to put it?”

“Vadimir,” she says, the guilt hitting the height of her collarbones that she’s overly used to other people right now, that she has to recalibrate to the subtlety with which he shows discomfort at all, “Vadimir, you’re fine, I like needling you because I like you. The way you phrased it is fine. I know we both wear white.” She kicks out one leg demonstratively. Eiran is not a particularly imaginative dresser.

“Okay,” he says again.

“Are you?”

He pauses for a while. “I’m fine,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m… on guard. A lot. Inappropriately.”

She scoffs, and then immediately has to hope he does know it’s supportive scoffing. “You’re on guard as appropriately as you know how and have it validated at almost every turn. I’ve been dealing with a bunch of—well, you know.”

“What happened to not insulting the honored Eye?”

Yes! There! Okay! “Stow it,” she says, beaming.

“No.” There’s caution in his voice, a little.

“Okay.”

He breathes out deeper again. “Most people like coincidences,” he says. “You work in a wider sphere of human existence than most people so your… threat assessments, they’re different. You think a lower bound of unlikelihood is worthy of investigation. But there’s plenty of things that you take in stride anyway and some of them could be—the point is that they’re there, not who put them there or that you find them natural. You’d still rather have a world of a manageable size; it’s just the definition of manageable that varies.”

“So it was convenient because you of the infinite accuracy—”

“Hey!” he says, halfway to a laugh.

“I like needling you because I like you!”

“That doesn’t negate my emotional investment in my institution’s honor,” Vadimir says, but rapid and part of the way to a laugh still. “It just means I’m stuck between that and emotional investment in you!”

“You romantic,” Eiran says, and headbutts him more lightly this time.

“That’s me,” he says.

She considers overexamining that, then remembers she was in the middle of a sentence and opts for it instead. “It was convenient, because the assessment was that I would find you more trustworthy?”

“And I had external information about you,” he says quietly, “and am relatively good at seeing past any positive affect produced by such information when I have to.”

“You had spoilers.”

That finally gets the laugh out. “I had spoilers.”

“Your sister knows?”

He shrugs with one shoulder. “Ought to.”

“So you never told her that’s what you were—”

“She didn’t ask,” Vadimir says.

Eiran thinks for a moment. “Can I tell her?”

“Do you want to?” Vadimir asks, then, slightly faster, “What would you tell her?”

“You’re right,” Eiran says.

“No, I’m asking,” he says. “Do you want to tell her? What do you want to tell her?”

“I don’t know,” Eiran says, without much thought. “I don’t know how much she hears about your work.”

Vadimir shrugs.

“Fair,” she says. “I don't know if she’d be uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be particularly productive to make her uncomfortable. It’s just the first thing I thought of.”

She just barely feels him nod.

“Coincidence is that important to the Corregimiento?” Eiran asks, trying for level ground, more effective than an apology.

“People should be able to live in a world they’re comfortable with, all allowing,” Vadimir says. “And the real world is… very large. Unsustainably large. Sustaining it together depends on—”

“Being together,” Eiran says, thinking of her work.

“On people having something that they can hold and feel comfortable holding. That they want and want to defend. That they can conceptualize and that they want to conceptualize,” Vadimir says, which is in fact much more his. “As much for me as for anyone else. I’m just comfortable with my world including managing that actively.”

“And I…?”

She feels the angle of his head and shoulders change, but she’s not sure what to. Studying her, maybe, though all he’s got is… what? The curve of her shoulder, the rest of her body; the top of her head, maybe the tip of her nose. Whatever information he gets from that he seems content with. “Passively, I think. Or I wouldn’t have told you.”

Eiran bites her lip, and then thinks. “Fair enough,” she says.

Vadimir is silent. It sounds like a long, conscious pause. Presumably it is one, because he hesitates more when he says, “Did I misjudge you?”

“No,” Eiran says, “It’s better to know. But did you misjudge me?”

“The Corregimiento or me?”

Eiran nods.

“If the Corregimento had misjudged you we’d already be acting accordingly,” Vadimir says, and stifles a yawn. “And of course I’m glad I met you. I’m also—” The yawn has caught up with him. “Shit.”

“That bored with this conversation?”

Damn it, she misjudged again—trivially, but in contrast to the conversation it is—something, that she did, that she can hear it in the urgency of his voice, so she only lets him get out the “N—”

“Joking. Joking. Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I need to recalibrate.”

“Hey,” Vadimir says, and his arm comes up around her. “It’s been a while.”

“I missed you,” she says quietly.

“I missed you,” he says, at a normal volume. “I am now missing sleep.”

“Okay, okay,” Eiran says. “Less coincidences, more sleep.”

“That’s the spirit,” Vadimir tries to say, although another yawn catches him in the attempt anyway. “Fuck.”

“If I go to bed will you stop cursing yourself for yawning?”

“Depends. If you get sleep will you stop stressing out about having acclimated to talking to the people you spend time with and having to get used to the barrier of entry for me getting metaphorical speech instead and convincing yourself that it’s justifiable caution and not anxiety?”

Eiran pushes herself away from him and stands up so that she can say to his face, “It is completely fucking unfair that you didn’t get interrupted there.”

Vadimir yawns. “Worth it.”

“Voluntad you are *impossible*,” she says, voice harsher now that she’s sure he’s got a full view of her smile, “come be impossible in a bed.”

His mouth quirks up to the side. “So you harbor no residual dread of—”

“*Impossible in a bed*,” Eiran repeats. “I’m going.”

“It was my idea to be tired!” Vadimir protests, apparently on principle, since he’s getting up anyway but is stymied by getting caught in his half-discarded jacket. “Damn it.”

“Yeah, okay, so come be ti—”

He sorts his sleeve out and snickers.

Eiran puts a hand over the remainder of the yawn that interrupted her. “Oh, fuck off,” she says, duly reassured. They’re okay.

She’s going to have a lot to think about with regards to coincidences, but…

“Coincidence is suspicious if you’re watching,” she says, brushing his arm with her shoulder once they’re in motion, not quite enough that he stumbles. “We find it suspicious. It’s a sign of something out of place.”

“I put things in their place,” Vadimir says.

“I know,” Eiran says. “I know.”

[voluntarix]

The way Eiran flags him is simple coincidence: his headscarf's a bit off.

It's by chance, in an arterial hallway. The style is perfectly conventional, braided crown with a loose tail, no particular pretensions or meaning, easy to apply. But the long tail's impractical for anyone consigned to manual work; those are the people she's seen with this same purposeful, avoidant gait, but an infinity of styles are better-suited for them and equally conventional -- short tails drawn in at the neck, or two-stranded crowns if he's that invested, or square scarves braided at the back, or bright attention-catching knots and buns, self-containing turbans -- not to mention anything within the Imperium norm that isn't a scarf. This fascinates her still, an entire new semiotic set taking the place of hair, and it's perfectly reasonable, she's thought, to exercise her fascination now, on a controlled population, before it starts to matter.

So she's paying more attention than strictly reasonable or itself civilized, and something's a bit off. She swerves neatly and follows at a distance without thinking.

The crown's fine, from what she can see, especially given the pace he's walking at. Scarf in good repair. It's shot through with red, and the chains he's wearing like a vest are the same color, so the gender's a reasonable bet. Little ornamentation other than that, so he's not expecting to move and get caught bodily but he didn't buy his way here either. If she were from one of these savage kingdoms she'd give a kingdom for her actual eyes to be able to tell her anything but materials analysis and lines.

The knot's crooked.

That's excusable for Imperial citizens; through their own obstinacy they dress with blunt fingers. He would've had to do it with both hands and without looking. But for this simple and habitual of style it's likely to be one he's known for all his life, not the kind of thing one makes a mistake on.

Having it at the edge of his neck instead of the nape must have been dragging at the edge of his awareness all day. The kind of thing you'd want to duck into somewhere deserted and correct, unless you have a compelling reason to either not notice or ignore. Unless you're in a hurry.

So he's working, actually working, but not as a mechanical replacement, and there's something causing him stress he's not accustomed to. Eiran barely has to think about the Imagenx's advice before she's lengthening her stride, smart quiet steps a brief show of actual Valéry force justifiable only by that no one's looking, enough to stumble easily into something far more disoriented and politely tap the back of his hand.

He wheels -- strip of red at the mouth, so yes, he -- and could almost verify everything she wonders. Something about the face. Other than the bones: they sketch him out in neatly congruent trapezoids that build on each other. Angular eyebrows. Convex nose. Recognizable but not recognized. He stops.

Again: some heartless kingdom for her eyes.

"Hey, sorry," she lies, gesturing down her uniform shirtfront to rub it in, "I'm lost. You look like you know where you're going. Mind a tail?”

[voluntarix]

Speaking of those social influences,

1–2) Ismene as her hair grows out a bit over the course of their working relationship; 3) plus, an indication the influence goes both ways, when it does. 4) Vadimir, who apparently would spontaneously combust if made to change hairstyles. 5) and his little sister, who I know is around but whose name I don’t know yet. 6–7) The kind of thing Kai leans into once he’s on the ... right side. 8) Leolin Vigilantx, less of an influence than you’d think. 9) Irving Thanh Odhra, probably the biggest single change agent in Eiran’s life. 10) Tamati Shahin, because dickhead enemies are influences too.

[voluntarix]

An assortment of notes on the development of Eiran’s hair over time. (Note: her actual hair texture is, afaict, an extremely thick 2b wave; she can make it do about anything through the miracle of being sci-fi by genre. She changes her hair more than most Valéry for several reasons, but one is that she never really dyes it. At any rate this does mean everything but (2) is more of an example of a class.)

1) Cadet, a kind of childish and expressive idea of “neat and professional”. Late teens. 2) Anya on the convoy, deliberately designed to make people uncomfortable. Late teens - early 20s. 3) First stabs at reminding herself she’s back home where things make sense. Early 20s. 4) Getting comfortable, last point where it makes sense to be really that recognizable. Mid 20s. 5) On tithe. Mid 20s. 6) Hunting Kai. Mid-to-late 20s. 7) Catching Kai. Late 20s. 8) Beginning of service as Iona. Late 20s/early 30s. 9) Beginning of tenure on War Command. Early/mid 30s. 10) War Command but every time Shahin Kora is dealt with it gets faster. Mid 30s.

Honestly what’s most fun for me to have realized here is—her hair tracks socially, obviously, but it’s got a strong correlation with who she’s interacting with romantically especially. (7) is the strongest throwback to (2) she’s done—the two points that matter most for her relationship with Kai, where we see pseudo-loose variation in line width and simulated potential for motion. (4), (5), and (10) are linked to Vadimir and his fondness for skinny distinctive twists. When she meets Ismene she goes from (8) to the more varied but stricter tight updos of (9) and (10). It’s like she treats whoever she’s hitting on as a subculture to integrate into. It’s delightful.

ETA: Some influences.

[voluntarix]

Ana has a side story. Ana thinks in bullet points. Undated, Q2 2018.

[canon-typical-violence]

Here’s some clarifying aesthetics on the kind of thing she’s talking about, visually. In order: splints with no PIP, a support system not mentioned but integral, knee braces that crest along subcutaneous injections in a bad luck way, the Portazne idea of restraint in makeup.

Unfortunately I have no image citations for aught but (1)—that is me—because fucking Pinterest.

[voluntarix]

wroooong blog

[voluntarix]

Ana has a side story. Ana thinks in bullet points. Undated, Q2 2018.

[voluntarix]

Undated, probably Q2 2017, in which a meet-cute of sorts is attempted.

[voluntarix]

Consistency exercise: art done from memory, without reference, without character sheets, two years apart. A good sign for my design work. (Less so for my due diligence.)

[voluntarix]

February 2018: these nerds.

[voluntarix]

Throwback time: August 2016, when the world was new.

[voluntarix]

Some reference material I lose track of easily.