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practical diplomacy

Practical Diplomacy

Today the class was back in the Danger Shop, but instead of a press conference, it was set up to look like an extremely stuffy reception. Waitstaff of various species wove through the crowd offering appetizers and drinks as people made smalltalk and tried to look and be as interesting as possible.

Anakin hated these events. "Right," he said to the class. "A huge part of your job as a diplomat will be making and maintaining contacts, and excruciatingly dull receptions is an excellent time to do so. Your job today is to find and remember three separate beings' names and what they do while holding a glass of something and eating a plate of appetizers. It's not nearly as easy as it sounds. You must also give them a false name and backstory. Silly accents are entirely optional."

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Today it is! Holding a glass and a plate, try to figure out three names and job descriptions, either of fellow students or NPC computer-generated guests while not spitting food and/or drink on anyone.

Norman, or, as he was going by for the sake of this class, Percival Prenderghast, was not what you'd call 'social' even when he was mingling with his actual peers. That said, he was trying. If he just pretended the guests at this thing were dead, it was a little bit easier.

It helped that this reception was so dull, a few of them might as well be zombies, anyway.

"Salutations, Nor--" Sidon had started, but he caught himself before he got too excited for the opportunity to hob-nob with his little sibling and he chuckled. "Good sir," he corrected himself. "How are you enjoying yourself amongst these fine festivities and guests?" Gesturing, of course, to the room as a whole with nary a splash of his glass or a tilt of his small plate of snacks.

"Oh, it is as one might expect," Norman said, putting on a kind of terrible fake British accent and putting his chin up into the air.

... Which mostly was just a side-effect of looking up at Sidon.

"These things are ever so refined, aren't they?"

He was rolling that 'r.' A lot. It was possible that he'd stolen this particular affectation from his old elementary school's drama teacher, Mrs. Hensher. She had been quite the personality.

"Oh, most indubitably!" said Sidon, trying very very hard not to laugh at the airs Norman was putting on, which he though were being executed marvelously. "But wherever are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am..." And here you could see the moment of concentration on Sidon's face as he clenched his fist which wanted to pump so badly into the air, but he held himself back and tried something different, instead sweeping out an arm as he bowed slightly. "Vahn Ruto, from the dry and arid desert land of Azorilandia, where it is not wet in the least!"

"Ah, the desert," Norman said, giving an ever so knowing nod. "I've spent many a long year in the desert myself, what with owning multiple very lucrative sand mines."

... People paid money for sand, right?

"You wouldn't believe how well sand sells in the wintertime in those Northern states. And in the summer, for that matter. Sand is, after all, a year-round commodity."

Also, it got everywhere.

"Yes, indeed!" Sidon agreed heartily. "I can only imagine! So coarse and rough! Although...I'm afraid I didn't catch your name, there. Considering it sounds as though you are quite a lucrative sand merchant and I from a world with nothing but sand, you and I may have many things to talk about!"

"Ah, but where are-" more R-rolling, "my manners? I am the esteemed Percival Prenderghast, heir to the great Prenderghast legacy," and that last bit even had some shred of truth, "and, of course, the most successful sand merchant in all these U-niiiiighted States."

This was possibly the first performance of his life that Mrs. Hensher would have approved of. He was actually kind of enjoying himself, feeling at least a little secure in the knowledge that his partner wasn't going to make fun of him for it.

"It is a pleasure and an honor to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Ruto."

And now he was French. A very badly American British sort of French.

Edited 2018-01-24 21:08 (UTC)

Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

always_someone - 2018-01-25 02:09 (UTC) - Expand

Right, Anakin was adorable if he thought Uma was doing anything other than scarfing down all the canapes she could and harassing the waiters for more of the fizzy drink.

If fancy important people wanted to talk, they could come to her.

On the other hand, before the hour was over she would be able to give a full report of some of the shady shit this caterer was pulling back in the kitchen, backed by multiple sources. Uma had ~~been over~~worked in food service for most of her life. Getting to know the staff had been a breeze.

Sidon was a fancy important person! He would happily come to Uma to talk, especially since he was having way too much fun with this whole thing.

"My goodness!" he remarked. "The food must be quite exquisite; they simply cannot seem to keep you away from it, my dear madame! Tell me, is there anything particularly scrumptious you might recommend?"

Uma had to pause, first to wrap her head around the question (look, words like scrumptious didn't get a lot of use on the Isle) and then to figure out whether or not she should be insulted. "It's all pretty good," she allowed. "I like those little flakey mini-pastry...things."

She was pointing to some mushroom quiches, more things she didn't know the words for.

"They don't fall apart in your pocket or make a mess like those meatballs do."

Please, Yang had been the hostess for any event at her home over the years, and more than a few at Signal. 'Perk' of being Tai's oldest daughter.

She knew exactly how to make polite noises and not actually listen to anything while enjoying her drink. Names were easy. Hunters had to be able to pick up stuff like that quickly. Bothering to pay attention to the boring details of some drone's office job? Who caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaares?

"What a simply marvelous event!" Sidon remarked, greeting Yang with his bright toothy smile and a general careful gesture of his hand holding his drink at the room as a whole. "Are you having a good time, my lady?"

Sidon's accent was already pretty ridiculous, so that was likely to say the same no matter how hard he tried to do something different in the spirit of things, but he did have fun weaving together a new persona for himself. Of course, he'd named himself Vahn Ruto, the first name that popped into his head, and decided that he was from a place called Azorilandia, which had nothing to with water at all, to prove how creative he was being.

But he was exciting. Mingling and chatting and getting to know people was what he did best, even if there wasn't anything really small about his smalltalk when you got right down to it.

Multitasking where one of the tasks included eating? Oh, Bobby- sorry, Drake Roberts- was all over this.

Pretending to pay attention, though... that part he was less good at. But he was gonna try.

Edited 2018-01-24 20:05 (UTC)

Why stop at just remembering three people? Sidon was going to try to get to know everyone! Outside of waterfall diving and spearing octoroks, this was truly his element.

"Why, salutations, my fine gentleman!" he said, intent on banishing the stuffiness of the reception with the sheer force of his good cheer. "What a splendid little soiree, I must say! Wouldn't you agree?"

Bobby's first instinct was to make finger-guns at Sidon... but his hands were full. Damnit.

"The food is great," Bobby said, around a mouthful of some sort of cheesy-bread-thing.

"...I need your pockets," Uma said coming over to 'Drake Roberts.'

It was possible she didn't understand the exercise. Or maybe the point of the exercise. Or maybe she just didn't care.

"Sure," Bobby said without missing a beat.

"... Wait, why?"

Maybe you should learn to ask that question first, Bobby.

Yeah too late, though. Uma was going to hold him to it.

"Because mine are full," she explained. "I'm not letting this food go to waste. It's coming back to the room with us."

Duh, Bobby. Duh.

That made perfect sense! Of course, Bobby had never had to hoard food out of necessity or anything, but having snacks handy in their room seemed like a good idea.

"Yeah, sure," he said agreeably enough. "Lemme just-" and he was juggling his plate and cup in an effort to free up a hand to take whatever Uma needed to stash. "Whatcha got?"

Uma held out what appeared to be a small platter of crudites. Look, she'd just discovered how good vegetables that weren't rotten tasted. She couldn't get enough. There were also skewers of meat on sticks and more meat in little pastry puffs.

"I'll put more under my hat right before we leave," she muttered.

Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

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Re: Smalltalk like its your job!

refused2berescued - 2018-01-26 08:42 (UTC) - Expand

If Ahsoka seemed particularly amused today, it was because she knew full well what Anakin was like at things like this. Especially if he didn't have Padme or Obi-Wan to run herd on him.

Theron was just going to try to fade into the background, thanks.

Kaylin couldn't smalltalk to save her life, but her memory for names and jobs was well-honed.

Her table manners were not nearly as well-honed.

If anyone asked she'd tell them she was Teela and had lived all her life in the city of Elantra with her parents.

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