Trinkets 3
Sep. 8th, 2012 02:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilded_orchidTitle: Trinkets 3/?
By: gilded_orchid
Rating: PG
Universe: G1/Alignment-verse AU
Characters: Jazz, Mirage, Glyph (not an OC)
Content: Pre-war AU, The prompts involved with this is silver.
Words: 1,680
A/N: I got caught up in the time zone game thanks to a re-routed flight and traveling halfway across the country, so it's technically late in one place, but on time in another. Since it's so late, I'm posting it now and wll go through and fight LJ tomorrow for proper formatting. The jet lag is killing me. =_=
After Jazz's ambitious decision to fight the odds, Choragus had closed ranks.
Quite literally, in fact. Notoriously insular when it came to their guild's business, their music and anything involving their artistic process, they had all but dropped out from public view within the Harmonium. Prowl had disappeared, saying that he needed to get to his brother, and Tracks, quite neatly shut out off the guilds affairs seeing as Jazz was gone, had excused himself.
Left to his own devices, Mirage had engaged his invisibility cloak and followed after the crowd of anxious Choragus members. They wouldn't dare encroach on Jazz's domain, but it was common knowledge that any Tribute would need to be approved by the guild's Patron--the mech or femme that either financed the guild and represented them in the Protihex council chambers.
Choragus' Patroness was rumored to not only be their financer, but had once been an actual adept of the guild. It was one of the questions Protihexans longed to find out, but it had been a long, long, long time, even by Cybertronian standards, since she had shown herself to anyone outside the upper echelons of the guild. Though Patrons usually acted through the guild masters to manage the guild, Jazz had once confessed he could count the number of times he had been in the Patroness' presence using both hands.
Mirage did not doubt him; for all the authority he now carried, Jazz was still a young mech, and his time as guild master scarcely two vorns. It was rumored the old Alpha Maestro--who's reign had to be measured in millennium--could scarcely recall what she looked like, so few had been their interactions. The Patroness had not deigned to attend a council meeting herself in over four centuries, for Primus's sake!
For all her elusiveness, Glyph, Patroness of Choragus, would have to approve the Tribute, and for something of this caliber, he knew Jazz daren't do less than call a guild meeting and inform her in person.
It was, Mirage mused, a scene that any one of the myriad members of guild Abstractia would have murdered--yes, murdered--to be present for. Not for the gossip to trade, but for the chance to paint, to sculpt, to immortalize the manifestation of an artistic Concept: The Hero, The Queen and The Court.
There was no denying the fact that, in her time, Glyph had been very beautiful; regally so. Her armor, all bold sweeps and razor edges that stood in opposition to the sleek curves and sculpted ridges that dominated more modern frame designs, was a soft silver that was a far cry from the bold metallics that were the norm. A flowing trail of scroll work barely a shade darker than her armor plating covered the expanse of her arms and legs while a massive white crystal dominated her torso, sculpted to resemble a multi-faceted star. There was a cold beauty to her, imperious and elegant, that made him uncomfortable—it was the kind of beauty that was utterly remorseless.
Mirage moved further back into the wings of the room, trying to withdraw as much as he could from that presence, but Jazz was apparently made of sterner stuff.
Met with that oppressive aura, Jazz yielded, patiently—humbly!—waiting for her to speak, on bended knee before the chair she sat on as if it were a throne. The members of the guild that had rank enough to even be in her presence? They surrendered, all but prostrating themselves before her, not a one daring to meet her gaze. Glyph was the sort of femme that commanded such a response; she had a processor that knew what she wanted, the struts to pursue it, and a will to make the Prime himself get it for her. It was rumored within the guild that the Patroness was somewhat fond of the current Alpha Maestro, enough that the few encounters they’d had were more cordial than...mercenary, but Jazz was not fool enough to presume upon their association now; it spoke of the gravity of the situation.
The rest of the guild clustered around the door or off to the side wings, determined to see and hear as much as possible; their fates rested on this, after all. It was through this group Mirage had slipped undetected, he himself not entirely sure of the intent behind his action.
Glyph was quiet a very long time, then moved to stand, the scrollwork on her ornate silver armor seeming to shift as the light played over its finish. Ancient Glyph was, but she moved unhindered, gracefully walking towards the back of the guild’s office/parlor. Thin fingers that tapered into sharp points—talons almost—plucked a few strings of a white and silver harp that stood taller than her as she passed, and the notes reverberated throughout the room before the oppressive silence returned.
A row of cabinets lined the back wall, and Glyph produced a key from her subspace to unlock one of them, pulling a soft cloth bag out. The dull clink of metal inside, though rare, was instantly identifiable. Coins—actual coins. The only coins on Cybertron were the pieces used within the Towers and the guilds’ own special currency. Each coin was worth about three centuries of work; or one Tribute piece.
Though few were in a position to see it, an appalled look rode freely across Jazz’s face as he realized what was about to happen. “No!”
Glyph cut off any further protest with the barest wave of her hand as she strode back across the room. She said nothing though, instead settling herself back in her seat. She met Jazz’s gaze for a long moment, Jazz breaking the contact first and glaring heatedly at the floor instead. When she finally spoke, Mirage shivered, hearing the austere clarity of her voice like silver chimes in the distance. “It’s good. You are good, Jazz. One of the best. But to produce a Tribute on such short notice? You are not that good. Improvisation alone will not carry a Tribute piece. This is going to cost me enough already; I’ll not bear the stigma of a failed performance on top of that. I do not approve this. ”
The Patrons of the guilds of Protihex valued money, valued prestige, valued Art only in as much as they could put a price tag to it, and Glyph stood poised to lose a lot. Not having a Tribute meant fines from the Council, but that paled beside the hit that they would take to their standing in the eyes of their fellow Protihexians. Losing that respect meant losing customers, losing performances, losing new adepts, who would pass over Choragus for guilds with less stigma behind their name. An ill received Tribute piece was almost as damning as not having one at all. Glyph would not tolerate two failures.
Jazz, outraged, surged to his feet. “You can’t!”
“I can, and I have.” Glyph cast a baleful glare at the original performing ensemble. “This was not your fault, Alpha Maestro, nor is it your mistake to fix. Pay the Tribute and the penalty, and tend to the guild in the aftermath.”
“It can be done! We can—“
“They can’t. You alone might be able too.” Glyph gestured to Jazz’s favored group, a mixture of Savant and Master ranked performers. “They are talented, but unexperienced compared to you. It will tell in the performance. So what will you do—perform a Tribute worthy piece by your lonesome? In the entire history of Choragus it has been attempted three times, and it’s never been successful!”
“If that’s what it takes, then yes, I will!”
Glyph swept out of her seat, a cold fury radiating from her field. The bots closest to her cringed away, and Mirage wasn’t sure if it was determination or desperation that enabled Jazz to hold his ground.
“Understand, Alpha Maestro, this is my guild and I will not let your hubris make things worse! Pay the Tribute. ”
“It’s my guild too, and I’ll be slagged before I do!”
Glyph looked ready to murder Jazz where he stood, but her temper evaporated, replaced by a much more sinister expression. She had broken three of Jazz’s predecessors to her will since taking over the Patronage of Choragus, and now it looked like it was time to add the latest to her list. “Fine. You are going to perform the Tribute.”
Jazz began to speak, but was cut off by a warning glare from Glyph. “These are the terms. Since you are doing this on your own, the responsibility is now on your shoulders. Entirely. The processing fee for changing the Tribute piece comes out of your purse. The fee for changing the registered Tribute time is on you as well.”
Mirage wanted to groan. She really was going to dump everything on his head.
“Now, for the Tribute. When--if--you fail, you are going to pay the Tribute Fee and penalty—the one you cause, and the ones you just spurned. . On top of that, you are going to recompense each and every bot in this guild for the damage to their reputation that failure will cause: 3,000 credits a head.”
Jazz glowered. “There are 261 bots in this guild, Patroness! I don’t have that many credits!”
“Then I am setting the price for failure against your Marque.”
“My marque!?”
A guild member’s marque was determined by the price of training the guild had invested into them, as well as all supplies they’d purchased on guilds credit. To pay off your marque price gave you complete freedom within the guild; you were no longer indebted to the Patron and were free to practice your trade freely. It had taken Jazz almost all of his life to date to pay off his marque. To do so again—at almost twenty times the original sum wasn’t possible. He’d be in debt to the Glyph for the rest of his function!
A sane mech would back down now, Mirage mused. Apologize and recant.
Jazz considered a long moment, then glared at the Patroness. “So be it, then.”
Jazz stormed out, leaving a stunned assembly behind him.
By: gilded_orchid
Rating: PG
Universe: G1/Alignment-verse AU
Characters: Jazz, Mirage, Glyph (not an OC)
Content: Pre-war AU, The prompts involved with this is silver.
Words: 1,680
A/N: I got caught up in the time zone game thanks to a re-routed flight and traveling halfway across the country, so it's technically late in one place, but on time in another. Since it's so late, I'm posting it now and wll go through and fight LJ tomorrow for proper formatting. The jet lag is killing me. =_=
After Jazz's ambitious decision to fight the odds, Choragus had closed ranks.
Quite literally, in fact. Notoriously insular when it came to their guild's business, their music and anything involving their artistic process, they had all but dropped out from public view within the Harmonium. Prowl had disappeared, saying that he needed to get to his brother, and Tracks, quite neatly shut out off the guilds affairs seeing as Jazz was gone, had excused himself.
Left to his own devices, Mirage had engaged his invisibility cloak and followed after the crowd of anxious Choragus members. They wouldn't dare encroach on Jazz's domain, but it was common knowledge that any Tribute would need to be approved by the guild's Patron--the mech or femme that either financed the guild and represented them in the Protihex council chambers.
Choragus' Patroness was rumored to not only be their financer, but had once been an actual adept of the guild. It was one of the questions Protihexans longed to find out, but it had been a long, long, long time, even by Cybertronian standards, since she had shown herself to anyone outside the upper echelons of the guild. Though Patrons usually acted through the guild masters to manage the guild, Jazz had once confessed he could count the number of times he had been in the Patroness' presence using both hands.
Mirage did not doubt him; for all the authority he now carried, Jazz was still a young mech, and his time as guild master scarcely two vorns. It was rumored the old Alpha Maestro--who's reign had to be measured in millennium--could scarcely recall what she looked like, so few had been their interactions. The Patroness had not deigned to attend a council meeting herself in over four centuries, for Primus's sake!
For all her elusiveness, Glyph, Patroness of Choragus, would have to approve the Tribute, and for something of this caliber, he knew Jazz daren't do less than call a guild meeting and inform her in person.
It was, Mirage mused, a scene that any one of the myriad members of guild Abstractia would have murdered--yes, murdered--to be present for. Not for the gossip to trade, but for the chance to paint, to sculpt, to immortalize the manifestation of an artistic Concept: The Hero, The Queen and The Court.
There was no denying the fact that, in her time, Glyph had been very beautiful; regally so. Her armor, all bold sweeps and razor edges that stood in opposition to the sleek curves and sculpted ridges that dominated more modern frame designs, was a soft silver that was a far cry from the bold metallics that were the norm. A flowing trail of scroll work barely a shade darker than her armor plating covered the expanse of her arms and legs while a massive white crystal dominated her torso, sculpted to resemble a multi-faceted star. There was a cold beauty to her, imperious and elegant, that made him uncomfortable—it was the kind of beauty that was utterly remorseless.
Mirage moved further back into the wings of the room, trying to withdraw as much as he could from that presence, but Jazz was apparently made of sterner stuff.
Met with that oppressive aura, Jazz yielded, patiently—humbly!—waiting for her to speak, on bended knee before the chair she sat on as if it were a throne. The members of the guild that had rank enough to even be in her presence? They surrendered, all but prostrating themselves before her, not a one daring to meet her gaze. Glyph was the sort of femme that commanded such a response; she had a processor that knew what she wanted, the struts to pursue it, and a will to make the Prime himself get it for her. It was rumored within the guild that the Patroness was somewhat fond of the current Alpha Maestro, enough that the few encounters they’d had were more cordial than...mercenary, but Jazz was not fool enough to presume upon their association now; it spoke of the gravity of the situation.
The rest of the guild clustered around the door or off to the side wings, determined to see and hear as much as possible; their fates rested on this, after all. It was through this group Mirage had slipped undetected, he himself not entirely sure of the intent behind his action.
Glyph was quiet a very long time, then moved to stand, the scrollwork on her ornate silver armor seeming to shift as the light played over its finish. Ancient Glyph was, but she moved unhindered, gracefully walking towards the back of the guild’s office/parlor. Thin fingers that tapered into sharp points—talons almost—plucked a few strings of a white and silver harp that stood taller than her as she passed, and the notes reverberated throughout the room before the oppressive silence returned.
A row of cabinets lined the back wall, and Glyph produced a key from her subspace to unlock one of them, pulling a soft cloth bag out. The dull clink of metal inside, though rare, was instantly identifiable. Coins—actual coins. The only coins on Cybertron were the pieces used within the Towers and the guilds’ own special currency. Each coin was worth about three centuries of work; or one Tribute piece.
Though few were in a position to see it, an appalled look rode freely across Jazz’s face as he realized what was about to happen. “No!”
Glyph cut off any further protest with the barest wave of her hand as she strode back across the room. She said nothing though, instead settling herself back in her seat. She met Jazz’s gaze for a long moment, Jazz breaking the contact first and glaring heatedly at the floor instead. When she finally spoke, Mirage shivered, hearing the austere clarity of her voice like silver chimes in the distance. “It’s good. You are good, Jazz. One of the best. But to produce a Tribute on such short notice? You are not that good. Improvisation alone will not carry a Tribute piece. This is going to cost me enough already; I’ll not bear the stigma of a failed performance on top of that. I do not approve this. ”
The Patrons of the guilds of Protihex valued money, valued prestige, valued Art only in as much as they could put a price tag to it, and Glyph stood poised to lose a lot. Not having a Tribute meant fines from the Council, but that paled beside the hit that they would take to their standing in the eyes of their fellow Protihexians. Losing that respect meant losing customers, losing performances, losing new adepts, who would pass over Choragus for guilds with less stigma behind their name. An ill received Tribute piece was almost as damning as not having one at all. Glyph would not tolerate two failures.
Jazz, outraged, surged to his feet. “You can’t!”
“I can, and I have.” Glyph cast a baleful glare at the original performing ensemble. “This was not your fault, Alpha Maestro, nor is it your mistake to fix. Pay the Tribute and the penalty, and tend to the guild in the aftermath.”
“It can be done! We can—“
“They can’t. You alone might be able too.” Glyph gestured to Jazz’s favored group, a mixture of Savant and Master ranked performers. “They are talented, but unexperienced compared to you. It will tell in the performance. So what will you do—perform a Tribute worthy piece by your lonesome? In the entire history of Choragus it has been attempted three times, and it’s never been successful!”
“If that’s what it takes, then yes, I will!”
Glyph swept out of her seat, a cold fury radiating from her field. The bots closest to her cringed away, and Mirage wasn’t sure if it was determination or desperation that enabled Jazz to hold his ground.
“Understand, Alpha Maestro, this is my guild and I will not let your hubris make things worse! Pay the Tribute. ”
“It’s my guild too, and I’ll be slagged before I do!”
Glyph looked ready to murder Jazz where he stood, but her temper evaporated, replaced by a much more sinister expression. She had broken three of Jazz’s predecessors to her will since taking over the Patronage of Choragus, and now it looked like it was time to add the latest to her list. “Fine. You are going to perform the Tribute.”
Jazz began to speak, but was cut off by a warning glare from Glyph. “These are the terms. Since you are doing this on your own, the responsibility is now on your shoulders. Entirely. The processing fee for changing the Tribute piece comes out of your purse. The fee for changing the registered Tribute time is on you as well.”
Mirage wanted to groan. She really was going to dump everything on his head.
“Now, for the Tribute. When--if--you fail, you are going to pay the Tribute Fee and penalty—the one you cause, and the ones you just spurned. . On top of that, you are going to recompense each and every bot in this guild for the damage to their reputation that failure will cause: 3,000 credits a head.”
Jazz glowered. “There are 261 bots in this guild, Patroness! I don’t have that many credits!”
“Then I am setting the price for failure against your Marque.”
“My marque!?”
A guild member’s marque was determined by the price of training the guild had invested into them, as well as all supplies they’d purchased on guilds credit. To pay off your marque price gave you complete freedom within the guild; you were no longer indebted to the Patron and were free to practice your trade freely. It had taken Jazz almost all of his life to date to pay off his marque. To do so again—at almost twenty times the original sum wasn’t possible. He’d be in debt to the Glyph for the rest of his function!
A sane mech would back down now, Mirage mused. Apologize and recant.
Jazz considered a long moment, then glared at the Patroness. “So be it, then.”
Jazz stormed out, leaving a stunned assembly behind him.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 10:08 am (UTC)But I'm still glad he didn't back down, to money of all things.
He'll do it.
Right?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 11:33 am (UTC)Please, Primus, let Jazz pass this one!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 07:09 pm (UTC)Would you kill me if I told you I am severely tempted to leave it to a coin toss? ^_~
no subject
Date: 2012-09-09 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 06:02 pm (UTC)Just slight confusion on some of the politics. What was implied when Glyph pulled the coins from the coboard? And did Jazz have to pay a fine because all those bots got themselves sick? I love the depth you've put into this story and world!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 06:26 pm (UTC)Story-wise, that's what was about to happen. One coin for the Tribute, the other as a sort of social bribe after a fine for non-performance was taken out of it. Since Jazz decided to be difficult, Glyph has set it up so that everything is coming out of his pocket since a failed performance will only make things worse, plus she worked in a bit extra as revenge for going against her.
Jazz will either end up succeeding, or in financial servitude practically forever for crossing Glyph. She's petty like that.
Thanks for the read and let me know if you have any more questions!
Jazz will either have to
no subject
Date: 2012-09-10 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:31 am (UTC)Jazz's artistic pride was challenged, and his position as guild master means he always has to consider how to save face for the guild as a whole. I don't think he could have done any less, for better or for worse. (Also, I'm sorry for such a late reply. I really appreciate you taking the time out for the read!)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-13 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-13 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:40 am (UTC)*stares at your bunny*
If they breed, I'm sending the spawn your way. ^__~
(Thank so much for the read and please forgive the heinously late reply!)