[cw for the canon blind: Kareen is an abuse survivor from a dated SciFi series, some bad shit might come up. hmu ooc if you want me to steer clear ]
The Cetagandan Base
This is a game she knows by heart. Bow your head, soften your voice, make yourself small. Do not move too slowly, do not move too swiftly. Smile when it will please them, but be blank. Kareen does not know the art of war, but she is skilled beyond compare at surviving.
So, she is this: a woman, very obviously a native to the planet, dressed in the clothes of the laborers. She moves very softly and very quietly, her expression very carefully pleasantly bland. She works steadily, but clumsily, a person clearly not used to doing physical labor and it shows when her soft hands blister and her stride takes a slight limp from more on her feet. Still she doesn't complain. She does not speak unless she is spoken to and rarely with animation, but there is something in her eyes at times, some dark spark of knowledge, some fire. She has survived worse, she will survive this.
The Village
In a sense, much of this is something of an adventure. More than she had ever desired, to be sure. Who among her generation would want to relive the harsh days of the war (the names that spring immediately to mind are just as quickly and grimly dismissed, there are questions she will never ask because she knows they are foolish). Still, she has far more freedom of movement than she ever did as Princess Vorbarra. Here and now, she is only this: a woman, wandering the outskirts of the village in plain, threadbare clothes, under the pretense of gathering what supplies she can find.
She could run. She could try to escape to the relative, theoretical safety of her people. The thought lurks in the back of her mind as she plucks her way through the snow, her normal hyperawareness turned inward and ignorant of her surroundings for once.
Dowager Princess Kareen Vorbarra | That One Russian Space Opera | ota
The Cetagandan Base
This is a game she knows by heart. Bow your head, soften your voice, make yourself small. Do not move too slowly, do not move too swiftly. Smile when it will please them, but be blank. Kareen does not know the art of war, but she is skilled beyond compare at surviving.
So, she is this: a woman, very obviously a native to the planet, dressed in the clothes of the laborers. She moves very softly and very quietly, her expression very carefully pleasantly bland. She works steadily, but clumsily, a person clearly not used to doing physical labor and it shows when her soft hands blister and her stride takes a slight limp from more on her feet. Still she doesn't complain. She does not speak unless she is spoken to and rarely with animation, but there is something in her eyes at times, some dark spark of knowledge, some fire. She has survived worse, she will survive this.
The Village
In a sense, much of this is something of an adventure. More than she had ever desired, to be sure. Who among her generation would want to relive the harsh days of the war (the names that spring immediately to mind are just as quickly and grimly dismissed, there are questions she will never ask because she knows they are foolish). Still, she has far more freedom of movement than she ever did as Princess Vorbarra. Here and now, she is only this: a woman, wandering the outskirts of the village in plain, threadbare clothes, under the pretense of gathering what supplies she can find.
She could run. She could try to escape to the relative, theoretical safety of her people. The thought lurks in the back of her mind as she plucks her way through the snow, her normal hyperawareness turned inward and ignorant of her surroundings for once.