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[Rhys shows up on-camera, his brows furrowed slightly at the communications device. You're probably gonna notice pretty quickly that there's a mechanical port on the side of his head, and the corresponding eye is a bright, unnatural blue. And, of course, that he's sporting a yellow mechanical arm in place of an actual biological one.

But hey, nobody's perfect. Without much further ado, he turns the phone over so the camera is facing the floor, and there's definitely the sound of some buttons being pressed, some tampering that sounds like he's attempting to remove the back panel.]

Oh, for the love of- [The phone drops to the floor, the screen going dark. Rhys picks it up a minute later, flipping it back over so the camera is facing him again.] What kind of backwards tech is this? You have the technology to teleport us to different realities and you decide to give us an outdated ECHO recorder that my grandma could have built?

Look, is anyone on this junkheap versed with the network systems you've got going here? 'cause I've got the same functions in my arm and that's way more convenient for me. I've been trying to access it directly, but it'll probably take me awhile. If anyone knows how to cut corners, you know, now's the time to be helpful.

Also, hey. I'm Rhys: hero from Hyperion, new arrival, good with technology. [A pause, and then-] ...and if any of you are from Pandora, then you should know that I'm a totally laidback and innocent guy, and I didn't do it.

[[ooc: Forgot to post this earlier, but here is Rhys' Permissions post!]]

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[she blinks slowly, tilting her head in fascination. it looks to her a bit like one of her brother's manifestations, more magic than technology with the way it floats in the air like that, not quite solid.]

We don't have any of this where I come from. I know where Communications is in a general sense, but I don't know if anyone would just let you...plug in.

Mostly I want to see how it works. Where are you?

[Well hey, she's one of the few people on this trash heap that he actually knows, so Rhys doesn't mind hanging out a bit.]

In my room. I can meet you somewhere?

I'll...come down to you.

[she's just going to assume that rhys followed orders and took a room where security patrols. he seems like that kind of guy.]

Or we could meet in the middle-ish. Have you been to the gardens? Or I've heard there's a drinking establishment on the 5th floor, if you object to nature.

From where I'm from, most nature is generally trying to kill me.

[He shrugs.]

So- drinking establishment. Fifth floor.

This nature is pretty harmless, but all right. Fifth floor. It will take me a few minutes to get there.

[she is, in fact, already walking toward the elevator. the numbers on the doors she passes all seem to start with 040. that explains it taking a few minutes.]

Sure, I guess I'll just... wander the halls until you get here.

[Rhys sighs, before turning off the feed. And then he has to put the communicator thing away? Like, in his pocket? And make sure it doesn't fall out? This is so high maintenance.]

[truth be told, sophie wishes there was a faster way than the elevators. she could fly faster to the top or fall faster to the bottom, but there's no convenient manner to do so. by the time she gets down to the fifth floor she's wondering how air moves through the ship, whether she could exploit it somehow. when she steps out of the elevator, she doesn't immediately see hyperion's favorite fuckboy.]

Rhys?

Heeey, there you are.

[Rhys pokes his head from around one of the corridors, noting Sophie's usual birdlike appearance with a smile. Familiar faces are definitely sort of nice on a giant ship that will probably kill them all sooner or later.]

I was starting to get worried.

[her expression goes from alert concern to a small smile, her posture relaxing as well as she walks toward him.]

My apologies. The elevators seemed so fast when I first rode one, and so slow now. It's one of the few annoyances of living on the 40th floor.

Did you find the bar in your wandering?

Nah, mostly just trying to figure out what's up with this place.

[He lightly kicks at the wall, demonstrating- and then winces a little. Ow, toes. Rhys plays it off as well as he can, or at least he tries to. Hopefully she didn't notice? So he clears his throat.]

Uh, huh, I mean- Helios might have been pretty vapid and emotionally sterile, but at least it was decorated well.

[she noticed, but she keeps her thoughts on it to herself. if he's paying attention, he'll notice that beneath her skirts she's barefoot, her steps almost silent.]

Helios? Is that your home? This place has...some...interesting decorations...sometimes. If one has an appreciation for hellish fingerpainting.

[her fingers gently hook his elbow--the left one--to steer him in the direction of the bar. they're cool through his shirt, and don't linger.]

Otherwise it's quite boring, except for the oxygen gardens. Which are non-lethal, by the way. According to what I've read, they provide the air for the ship.

It's the Hyperion moonbase, yeah.

[Which he also lives on... so.

Also hey, she's grabbing him. Not harshly or anything, but Rhys falters a little at the contact before stumbling after her. Well then.]

Seriously? This place is ancient. [Rhys rolls his eyes, but follows where she leads regardless.] How did they get involuntary fast travels on a space ship while they're still using plants for oxygen? [ANGRY NERD ALERT tbh]

Odd thing to name a moon base.

[she's just going to accept that people live on the moon in a place where they have metal arms and eyes that connect to computers. of course, she assumes he means literally on the moon. orbiting space stations have not yet occurred to her.

her eyes flick over to him when he falters at being touched, especially in a way she'd assumed was unobtrusive and polite. but then he goes all nerdrage and she gets distracted.]

You're definitely asking the wrong person. My world has sorcery, not all of...this. [she waves a hand around in a way that encapsulates the ship, space, maybe even rhys' augmentations.] But I won't argue that it's ancient. It just has a feeling about it.

Sorcery.

[He sighs, not really enjoying the sound of that at all. Sure, in his universe they have Sirens, freaky eridium shit, and technology that can pretty much do anything, but sorcery is kind of a different beast altogether.]

Like the shapeshifting thing? Which is still disconcerting, by the way.

Technically not, as I was born a skinchanger and sorcery is learned, but for the purposes of simplicity, let's say yes. Sorcery has far broader applications, though.

[she raises an eyebrow.]

Strong words for a man with a computer in his metal arm and a telescope in his false eye. [or at least that's her best guess, having no idea about cybernetic implants.] I suppose I could have tried for something different, but it would have been far more obvious than just changing part of my face.

[At the retort, Rhys lifts an eyebrow- well, she's not wrong.]

Not a telescope. I mean, I guess it kind of has some zoom, but- ah, not my point, not my point. [He shrugs, tipping his head slightly.] So, are we gonna talk about your, uh- stuff? With the- you know, what you really look like?

[A pause, and then:]

Or is that like, super delicate, ask-me-again-and-I'll-kill-you territory?

If I was going to kill you over it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because you would be dead. [her tone isn't bright, exactly, but it is matter-of-fact, utterly confident that she could kill him easily.] Instead, for some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I am trusting you with something that nearly no one else knows. It's a puzzle I'm still trying to figure out. What does your eye do, if it isn't a telescope?

[she goes quiet as they turn into the bar, until they're seated. it's a well-chosen spot, a corner booth where they can both see most of the room.]

Since I doubt very much you would like my entire life's story, perhaps starting with a question or two would help.

...right.

[That's not exactly confidence inspiring. Rhys shuffles a little awkwardly along the hallway then, trying not to think about how a girl half his size straight up just said she could murder him with no doubt in her mind. What's worse is that she probably could.]

Uh, my eye- lots of stuff. Mostly scanning and hacking. Not that I can get a ton of information without being linked to the Hyperion database.

[He frowns.]

You want me to ask you questions about yourself after you literally just said you could kill me.

[sophie's expression goes confused.]

I said I am capable of killing you, which is probably not that rare around here unless you also have weapons in that arm, given the softness of your hand. [she glances down at it. no obvious calluses, clean fingernails, soft skin. her own hands are calloused and knuckled, almost unfeminine. to sophie, it looks like the hand of someone who has never held a weapon.] It wasn't a threat; my preferences toward stabbing generally run to the front, not the back.

[she sets her chin on her hand, head tilted in that birdlike fashion. sophie understands the world of crosses and double-crosses and trusting no one in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to rhys, so it comes as a surprise that what she meant as a promise not to harm him ends up interpreted as a threat.]

I also said that you've seen something that almost no one else has seen, know something nearly no one on this ship knows, and have chosen to trust you with it. I even offered to help you learn to fight on your own. Any member of my family would have used what they'd just seen against me. You made a joke about...something. [not that she got it, but in retrospect it was definitely a joke.] Do you understand? So yes, you can ask me questions. I've no intention of harming you.

['No intention of harming you' sounds good in theory, but Rhys has said similar words enough in his past to really be able to trust them. Eh, still, what is he going to do about it? As far as Sophie is concerned, she was just stating the laughably obvious fact that she could easily kill him. As could... well, probably most of the people on this ship.

Rhys considers how lucky he was to get away from Pandora when he did, remembers something about frying pans and fires, and frowns.]

You barely even know me.

[she almost says 'i know enough', but stops. she really doesn't know enough, she just has a feeling. rhys wasn't scared of her until she mimicked his face, and given that they're still sitting at a table together, he can't be that scared of her now. so she revises her statement.]

I thought that was the greater part of why we were here.

Here on the ship or here in the bar?

[He finally manages a wry smile at that, setting his elbows on the table.]

I mean, if it's the former, I guess the powers that be are twisted enough to want to run a social experiment... but if that's why you met me here, then I guess I can't say no to twenty questions, right?

[Rhys rests his chin in his human palm, tilting his head at her.]

So, can you really look like anything you want to?

The latter, but I suppose we can't discount the former either.

[she smiles with one side of her mouth, which somehow looks genuine anyway.]

I can be anything I want to. It isn't a false image.

[she holds out her hand across the table as it begins to change. this time her choice is a bit better, and instead of copying rhys' appearance her hand becomes covered in interlocking golden scales, starting large across the back of her hand and growing finer toward the end of her fingers, which are tipped by fingernails that ought to be wicked claws but are instead just black and hard like a claw would be. no sense in making the skittishness worse.]

[There's still a little unease when she starts shifting, but now that Rhys is sort of expecting it, he only tenses away from her arm a little, rather than freaking out entirely. But yeah, on the whole, still creepy. People shouldn't be able to do that.]

If it's real then why doesn't it carry over into the pods?

[she raises an eyebrow quizzically.]

What you saw in the pod is what I really look like. [her hand changes from the golden scales to what he had seen in the pod. her tendons stand out from the thinness of her skin, her fingers are covered with scars in the process of turning a fully healed silvery sort of color, and her fingertips are healing burns. but they aren't the pink of burnt human skin, they look darker, almost bruisy.]

I can't control my shape that deeply unconscious. But I prefer not to be seen like that. Far too dangerous.

[then her hand is just her hand again.]

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