A
Ametheliana
188604, The Necromancer, and Back Again
Werner walked through the Queen's Slave's halls on his way to Aashi's room. He neared her door and stopped in front of it. He knock. "Ms. Aashi?" Werner asked softly.
"Oh?" Aashi said reflexively. She recognized the voice from the one happenstance meeting thy had had in Osman city's bar and was happy to hear the unfamiliar but comforting voice, "Werner? Come in!"
Werner padded into her room. "Good morning Ms. Aashi." He said uncharacteristically warmly. "May I sit?" He asked.
"Take a seat, it's yours. Now, who do I have to thank for sending you to my room?"
Wener removed his beret revealing his bald head. "Me. I was able to find your room on the crew roster." He said sitting down. "How has the crew been treating you?" He asked.
"It's more a question of how I've been treating them, if you ask around," Aashi said, thinking of her slight against Ronin and the way she was handling Alex's current predicament. "I have no ill words to say of any aboard, that's for certain."
Werner nodded. "Good. Sorry I haven't been able to check up on you. I have been busy with retrofits. Just so happened to be needed planetside, so I thought I would stop in." He said, his pale grey eyes taking in the room.
There was not much there to be seen, save for her familiar soaking in her sink and her jacket draped over her pillow. The work she was doing at the table was the only real clutter or objects for his eyes to wander over.
She looked at him quizzically, "I'm glad you though it suiting to check up on me," she said, "that hasn't really been something someone's thought to do in quite awhile. Perhaps it should have happened, though, now that I think back on my current situation..." she trailed off, then regained her cool composure to say, "I thank you for thinking to do so."
Werner shook his head. "Think nothing of it Ms. Aashi." He said moving to the sink and softly placing his hand in the water. "What is it's name?" He asked.
"Only I know it's name," Aashi said, walking over to the same spot and putting hers close to where his was on the slick, viscous skin of the flappy wings, then said, "but once in a while I would hear my crew call her 'A', they said it was 'A' for Aashi. It is quite close to me. It shares my DNA."
"Hello A." He said softly, his hand tracing down the creatures spine. "She is an amazing creature." He said looking back up at her.
"We all are," Aashi replied, "in our own ways." With a smile she let her familiar take its body out of the water and slide onto his hand, then up his arm, before slipping off of it and roaming up to the small room's ceiling. there it flew idly while Aashi turned to Werner.
"How have you been since the last time we spoke? Besides retrofittings, of course. Anything to note?"
Werner shrugged. "I have just been working." He said looking back up to Aashi, his grey eyes staring down at her own.
"Work isn't for the weak, that's for sure," Aashi said, blue eyes sparkling as she met his, then said, "would you mind taking me to your ship? I would love to see it, if given the opportunity."
He gave a soft smile. "I was just going to suggest that." He said moving to the door. "Would you like to come with me?" He asked motioning to the door.
"Happy to," she said as her familiar went before them, out the door. She followed suit and looked behind her as she walked down the hall, towards him. "So how much of this whole planet planning thing are you a part of?"
Werner shrugged again. "Nothing really. I am incharge of my ship, and that is really it. I haven't given much authority beyond that." He said placing his black beret back on his bald head.
"Well," Aashi said, laughing lightly, "I've got questions for you. A fresh pair of eyes to this new set of problems would be nice."
"Of course my nemesis." He said in an attempt at a joke. He led her to a shuttle waiting out by the ship. He showed her into the back of the shuttle. "Back up to the ship if you please." He said to the pilot.
"Aye aye sir. RTB." He said as the ramp closed and the shuttle lifted off and made it's way skyward.
"Now what is it you need my help with?" He asked.
"How would you," she began, "find a way to make this planet more than habitable? How would you make it a home to those on it?"
"Well..." Ulysses tapped his chin. "First thing would be to update the buildings in the city. You could also put in some prefab housing units and low rent rates to increase migration to the city. As for making it more than habitable... the world is beautiful. If you were able to clean up the beaches like Uso did for her little beach party and set up resorts, you could start bringing in tourists. Many are coming here to join Ragnarock and have brought their loved ones with them. So as long as they're here, it is a matter of helping the process along. Make the city a plus for joining Ragnarock. If that makes any sense." Ulysses said realizing that he was beginning to ramble.
"It makes more sense to me than it would to most, I think," Aashi said. "Building infrastructure would be the next step, and finding a way to build a resort would be something I could work out with her."
He nodded. "Glad to help."
"I think there is a chance that I can find this place to be just as fitting as being on a ship, but it's going to take some work. Purifying the water is a good step, too. You've given me a lot to think about. I haven't been a part of building like this before and it's somewhat exciting. Not as exciting as getting to meet good people such as yourself, though, Werner."
Werner smiled. "It was a pleasure to meet you to as well Aashi." He paused a second. "Ulysses." He said after a moment. "Call me Ulysses. Not many use it and there are two Werners here on the planet." He said looking over to Aashi.
"Ulysses, then," she said, "that's much more familiar. I like it that way, sometimes," she said, smiling. "Sometimes, this is one of those times. Now, a resort, a resort. We can build one of those, with Uso's fabricator unit, easy. Now to get the right stuff to put into it. That'll be another step, as Uso has an odd species named the Vekimen to mine the planet for stuff to throw in the thing, but until they get here we'll need to gather our own supplies for it and rally the troops behind the cause. Are you the type that can get people under your leadership easily, or are you more capable when it comes to doing the dirty work? I sense I already know the answer."
Ulysses raised an eyebrow. "Really? What do you think it is?" He asked
Aashi chuckled, "I think you won't be much help in leading the people to do what they most likely do not want to do. I guess I'll be alone in that respect. I'd always love someone I can rely on to do the dirty work, though."
Werner nodded.
"So having you to be able to lean on would always be nice for me, though I don't expect you to think that would be a one way street, of course," she said. "Whenever, if ever, you need another pilot or otherwise, I can be there for you. You know what my capabailities are and that I have boundless abilities and next to no limits."
He smiled. "I wouldn't ask for anything in return. It would be a pleasure to help out a friend." He replied. 'Not like I have many of those...' he thought.
Aashi smiled at him, corners of her mouth spreading as she looked at him with creased, happy eyes.
"Know that you're not just my friend because you help me out. You're my friend, because you're my nemesis," she said jokingly. "No but really, you don't have to be scratching my back for me to want to scratch yours, as the saying goes. You're my friend because I like you and, boy, am I going to like your ship."
Ulysses didn't quite didn't know what to say. Luckily he was saved by the pilot. "Sir, we are on final approach." The shuttle slowly pulled into the hanger and taxied into it's berth. The shuttle pilot walked back and saluted him. "Welcome home sir."
Werner nodded and returned the salute. "Go catch yourself some shut eye."
"Does she have a name?" Aashi asked.
Werner stepped off the ramp and smiled. "Welcome, Ms Aashi, aboard the Necromancer." He said with a broad grin. As Aashi stepped off the ramp she would see that the flight deck was bustling with activity. Many of the planes were getting upgraded and several were being assembled. The security personnel were doing the daily PT in an unused section of the hanger. As they walked, a familiar voice called out to Werner.
"Hey Captain!" Commander Kovac called. He stopped and saluted him.
"At ease Kovac. We have a guest." He said motioning to Aashi.
"Hello. I am Commander Kovac, the ships Executive officer. Welcome aboard the Necromancer." He said very formally
Wener nodded. "I was just about to give her the grand tour."
"Hello Commander, nice to be meet you and your captain's ship. It is quite the beauty from where I'm standing. When was the last time she saw combat?"
"Few weeks ago. Took a right beating, but the old girl is still flying, and she gave as good as she got." He said proudly.
"Commander, I will leave you in charge of the bridge while I complete the tour if that is fine with you?" Werner asked.
"Of course sir. Enjoy the tour ma'am." He said turning on his heel and heading for the bridge. Werner took her on a grand tour of the ship, from the weapons stations, to engineering, to sickbay, and back again. They ended up at Werner's private quarters. "And here is the Captians Cabin." As he walked in she would notice that there was literally nothing in there. No personal effects. It looked like a brand new officer's cabin that had never been lived in before. "Make yourself at home." He said moving to the small kitchen.
"I think I will, it's been too long since I've been in a Captain's Cabin," she said, "it truly has. It seems you live just as frugally as I do on the Queen's Slave. I, by habit, am not inherently minimalistic, but are you? It would seem so."
Ulysses shrugged. I am never in here enough to put anything. Plus I work all the time, so there aren't many personal effects of mine. It is just the way I am." He said as A glided across the room. He smiled. "Would you like anything to eat?" He asked.
"I could use something to eat," she replied. "Whatever you'd think I'd like best is fine."
He quickly whipped up some sandwiches and handed one to her. He also tore a piece off of his and held it out for A to eat.
The Matai Skyfish glided over to where Ulysses Werner held the piece of his sandwich and knocked it out of his hand, making it fall to the ground, but Aashi ate hers happily, biting into it, chewing, and finally swallowing a few times before asking him a question.
"Would you mind... if I got to know you even better? More than we can by just talking to one another?"
Werner looked confused. What do you mean?" He asked
"I'd like to see more of what's inside you," she said, "by touching you I can. By touching you I can make it so that we both share the same feelings as one another. I can do it with or without consent, but with you I only ask because it interests me to know more about you, to see what feelings the both of us share."
Werner looked a tad concerned, and deep in thought. "Um..." He thought for a moment then nodded. "Okay." He said softly moving to the couch and sitting down next to her.
Sitting, she smiled at Ulysses, "Nothing to be afraid of I just want to-" she didn't finish her statement though as she touched him, she felt what was beneath the surface, a confused splashing of different emotions. She felt from him all at once the moisture of desires and needs and wants. It became apparent to her that he liked her, though didn't know if he had feelings like this for anyone else before. He was isolated from all but himself and she felt his pangs of loneliness that only shot out when he was able to realize just how little he had when around what he wanted. She felt from him all of those things and let him feel from her what he could.
Where as Ulysses feelings were in the now, Aashi had a deep lingering fear that he could feel. She was upset over some great loss. He couldn't exactly tell what it was but it was very important to her. The loss had plagued her, and it was on her mind even at this moment, even if it was only subconsciously.
Werner felt dizzy. As he came out of the empathy. He looked at Aashi. "Aashi..." He then did something neither of them expected him to do. He hugged her. He didn't know what to do, so he wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her.
"O-oh~" Aashi exhaled as they both came out of the empathy and his arms met her body and, chest-to-chest, she realized she was hugging him back, something she hadn't felt happen in years. She wrapped her hands around his back and squeezed into his body, feeling the warmth of his body heat and the beat of his heart as they pressed close to one another. She let her head tilt to the side as she exhaled again, resting her head against his shoulder.
After they finished hugging and Werner realized what he did, he looked up. "I...I am sorry. I don't know what came over me..." He said trying to compose himself.
Aashi lifted her finger up to his chin and smiled, putting it there and raising his chin up to look at him more fully. "You don't have to apologize for a thing, Ulysses." She moved her hand and wrapped her arms around him again. "Don't ever think you have to." She let go of his body and pulled back from the embrace to ask, "Are you willing to talk about what is confusing you?"
He returned the hug again. As she asked her question he replied. "I...I guess so..." He said. Ulysses was acting like a totally different person. He composed himself. "Sure. I don't know if I can though."
"I think it's possible to share things physically that you can't share through words, which you have done with me tonight. But some things need words to be put to them for them to have power."
'He shifted uncomfortably. "I... I like you Aashi. A lot. I have never felt this way about anyone else before, and I don't know how to feel about it. I...I just don't know how to put it into words..." He s said sighing. "I just really like you Aashi. You one of the first people who can understand me. No one... No one has ever known I how I really feltbefore, not eve my own sister." He said resting his head against the back of the couch.
Aashi put her hand on Ulysses' shoulder and said, "I don't know what it's like to feel that way, I can only feel it right now," she said, trying to understand his feelings through touch again. What he had said rung true and she said, "like that, I can understand the feeling of want and need for another through touch, but not in my own life. I almost... wish I did. But only somewhat do I wish to know what it feels like to love in that way. I've only ever felt love for my crew as a whole, never for individuals. I don't know what you're feeling from my own perspective."
"So, I don't exactly know," she began, "what I can do for you, other than be your friend and be there for you. I don't know if the rest of what you want, what you desire, is within my realm of expertise. Or within my realm of reason."
He sighed. "I know, and I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable Aashi. I just... didn't know what to feel." His grey eyes looked into her deep blue ones. "I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable Aashi..."
"You didn't," she said, shaking her head, "you didn't do that at all."
He just sighed. Werner looked over to Aashi. "Thank you..." He said resting his head on her shoulder. "This is all just so confusing to me..."
"I don't want it to be," Aashi said, putting her hand on his head. "It doesn't need to be."
Aashi wanted to know how to help him and what to do for him, but also knew there was no easy route from the one they were on. She wanted to be near him, but knowing there was nothing within her power to be done, besides remain by his side.
She asked him, "Would you mind if I slept on The Necromancer tonight?"
Werner nodded and stood. "Sure. Take my bed. I can sleep on the couch." He said, moving to grab himself a blanket from his closet. He threw it onto the couch and moved and filled the sink with water so A had a place to soak. "There we go." He said as he knelt down and threw away the bit of sandwich A did not want.
"Are you sure?" Aashi asked but it was nearly no use. Aashi watched Ulysses as he moved about the room.
"You are my guest. It is the least I can do." He said flatly, falling back into his usual demeanor.
"Then I can only graciously accept," she said as her familiar went into the sink, happily flapping its body about and splashing just a few droplets out of it. "I'm pretty sleepy and could probably go to sleep now, are you just as tired?"
The corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. "I have some reports I need to review before bed. I will be reading over here on the couch." He said moving again and placing a towel on the floor to soak up A's splashing. He softly petted the creature before moving to his desk and grabbing his datajockey. "Do you need anything else Aashi?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Just to know that you're happy to have me here," she replied after she had gotten into his bed, much more plush that hers on the Queen's Slave, and smiled as she got fully comfortable.
"Goodnight Aashi." he said turning off the light. The only illumination coming from the room was that of his datajockey as he scrolled through reports on the couch.
Aashi held the comforter to her face as she thought about all the good things that had transpired between them and those thoughts alone were enough to comfort her as she began to fall into a light sleep in the Captain's bed of The Necromancer, with Ulysses Werner close by, scrolling through his work as he sat on the couch near her, intermittently looking over to assure himself that she was sleeping soundly.
After a few more minutes Werner placed the datajokey on the table and laid on the couch contemplating the day's events. Whereas Aashi was able to sleep soundly, he couldn't quite fall asleep. Just replaying all that happened in his mind, and questioning every decision he made...
Aashi moved one foot in front of the other while a crows of people followed behind her on the campus of an Iromakuanhe school on Hlarai. Echoing from the hallways was a soft instrumental jazz piece, the plucking of Nepleslian fingers stroking gently against strings while the tapping of sticks on cymbals and drums met, in perfect rhythm, the slow moan of a sax. The people around her chattered and asked her which way to go intermittently as she followed the music.
Aashi noticed the floor underfoot becoming unsteady and perilously capricious beneath her as she took a step and jumped back in surprise.
"What is it, Aashi?" one of the people behind her, a pirate boy on her crew.
"Ravana..." she tried to say, but his name didn't leave her mouth.
"Aashi, we need to get you out of here," the boy said to her even more urgently.
Aashi choked on her words and turned suddenly as the floor disappeared completely from beneath her and she was looking at her crew, all encompassed by a diffused black masking shroud. Ravana was at her side, shaking her shoulder as she looked on in horror as slick tentacles found their way out of the cloud and towards her.
"It's all real," Aashi mumbled, turning back to the pirate boy. "It's all real."
The boy let go of her arm and turned into a VANDR in front of her eyes, transforming quickly like he was evolved to be both Iroma and VANDR simultaneously. As he gained buoyancy and turned to start cutting down the tentacles, Aashi found the freedom of flight and was flying through the hallways, away from the darkness.
She was in open sky for a moment and breathed in deeply before skimming down to glide gently against the building's outer edges. She swooped down lower, flying over the canals of the city before twisting and turning in flight, looking at once sky, and then waterm then sky again, before diving into the water. Once under the surface she was looking at the planet 188604 from the Pumpkin Eater's bridge and was sitting there with both Uso and Ulysses.
"This is a dream," ran through Aashi's mind and as it did, she broke free of it and inhaled sharply as she propped herself up in Ulysses Werner's bed on the Necromancer.
Werner was sitting on the edge of Aashi's bed once he realized that she must have been in a nightmare. She was thrashing about in his bed and it was enough movement to wake him up from his light sleep. He was resting a hand on her leg as she tossed and turned, but when she bolted upright he turned to look at her. "Hey, you're okay. It was just a dream." He said placing a hand on her hand and squeezing. "Lay back down." He said helping her lack back down on the bed. He wiped away sweat soaked locks of hair out of her face. "Wait here. I will grab a cool compress okay?" He said quickly moving to the restroom in his quarters.
Aashi was panicky and could barely keep herself from balling up on the bed, fetal position, and letting loose a stream of tears. But she stayed laying on her back, resolute to keep a strong, determined face as Ulysses went to get her something cold. She could feel her dress plastered to her body and her hair would have been stuck to the sweat on her temples if Ulysses hadn't brushed it away for her.
She looked hesitantly to him as he approached her, unable to give him even a modest smile.
"Shh..." He cooed softly, sitting down next to her. He slowly dabbed the cool compress across her forehead and finally rested it on her neck. "You're okay Aashi... You're all right. It was just a dream." He said moving to cradle her head as she fidgeted. One hand softly rubbing her temples, the other holding the compress to her neck. He kept repeating. "You're safe. Just calm down. Shh..."
The center of Aashi's brows raised as she inhaled deeply, looking lost and perturbed beyond belief.
"I..." she shuddered, "I saw them all," she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. A twin tear fell from her other eye and the thought that she even could cry sent her body shaking again, forcibly pushing more tears out.
"I saw them all, Ulysses," she said after she had gotten over the shock of crying to begin with. She was far from being composed or over the shock of the dream. Far from it.
Werner moved and held her as she cried. He wiped away her tears and held her close as she cried. He moved as sat down in the bed next to her, holding her firmly. He didn't speak, but instead tried exude calmness. He held her hand tightly, hoping that if she would use Empathy, his calmness would wash over her. "Aashi..." He finally said softly as held her.
She continued to shake and had turned her body to face his more fully, knees up towards her chest as she buried the side of her face into the pillow. She felt his hand move to hers and felt a connection to him she subconsciously received and without consciously thinking to do it, she was calming herself down by sharing with him her feelings and letting his spill out into her. She felt loved by it, surrounded by his presence in every facet of her being. As she felt the fears she had for her crew slip away, into him, she felt his calm wash over her.
She buried her head in the pillow more fully as she twisted it side to side. Her tears had soaked into the pillow and no more strayed from her eyes after she had felt his grip.
She couldn't bring herself to thank him, she couldn't bring herself to accept she had needed this much help from someone at all without growing less and less confident in her own ability to stay calm. She pushed back the thoughts of embarrassment in order to rectify the situation. She rolled her body so that her head and chest were facing up and looked at Ulysses.
Werner suffered the full barrage of emotions that she was experiencing. All the sadness and fear that overwhelmed his senses. He thought that he could handle it, but even it was to much. He gritted his teeth as tears that were not his own fought to fall from his face. "No damn it..." He muttered. "Have to be strong..." He pulled Aashi's head up and rested it against his shoulder."You...you're okay...Aashi. I...I got you..." He said between breaths as he attempted to recompose himself.
Aashi nodded into his shoulder as she sat up and let her arms loosely clasped together around his other shoulder. She let her face press against his shirt and held him tightly.
They sat there like that, both of them at an equal level or upsetedness before the feelings dissipated, slowly at first, then almost all of a sudden as a wave of relief hit Aashi.
Her familiar had found a place on Ulysses' lap and she let one hand fall to it to stroke it idly before raising it back up to hold onto Ulysses shoulder again.
"Ulysses," she said, "thank you. Thank you so," she exhaled, chest lowering significantly as she did, "so much."
He shook his head at her, still recovering from the meant onslaught his psyche took. One hand softly stroking the familiar. "You said yesterday... That I didn't have to apologize or thank you. The same goes for you..." He said placing a hand on her cheek.
"If the same goes for me," she answered, looking up at him as he rested his hand on her skin, just above the two teal stripes on the bottom of her cheek, "then we really are friends."
He smiled softly, resting his head on the wet pillow, not even caring that it soaked his shirt. "Damn... That took a lot out of me, I am just glad it worked." He said as he continued to rub her hand. "Are you better now Ms.Aashi?" He asked with a very tired smile.
"I would say so," she replied. "I think so." She put a palm against the bed and straightened herself up and off of him, then looked down at her still-wet dress. "Is there anything I can change into?" she asked, knowing it was a tall order.
"Yeah... hold on..." He moved and stood, swaying slight. "My sister has some fatigues she left in my room. You two should be the same size." He said stumbling into his closet and producing a pir of jet black fatigues and his jaket. "Here go put this on. I'll straighten up in here." He said passing her the clothes and moving to strip down the bed.
"I will," she said, moving into the bathroom. She took off her dress over her head and pulled on the black pants then the shirt. She came back out of the bathroom and smiled at Ulysses as he looked at her, standing stock still as she saluted him. She giggled lightly, aware that her state of being was much more improved than it had been all of a minute ago.
Werner smiled warmly and saluted back at her. The bed had been changed and all the sheets were crisply folded, military fashion. Everything in its place. Ulysses moved and handed her a bottle of water. "Here, drink up. I need to go change as well, Maybe a shower too now that I think about it..." He said as an afterthought. He smiled and gently touched her shoulder in passing as he moved to the shower, stripping down and turning the water on. It was scalding hot and the steam quickly coated the bathroom.
Aashi nodded as he passed her and once he was inside the bathroom, she fell onto the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, face resolute and stone cold. Her familiar glided to lay on top of her pelvis and she laid like that for minutes on end before becoming too engrossed in her own thoughts, swarming confusion about what had transpired in the dream world.
It wasn't only a dream to her, it had felt real, like she was looking into a snowglobe and looking at the scene of events. The dream answered more questions than she possibly could have done on her own and she contemplated sleeping again, just to see what her subconscious would tell her this time.
Instead, she shook her head and put a palm to her forehead before sitting up as she heard Ulysses turn off the shower.
Werner stepped out the shower refreshed. He quickly changed into fatigues and out on his beret. As he stepped out into his room he smiled. "How are you feeling now?" He asked moving and sitting down next to her.
She nodded, making the sound, "Mmmm," as she did. "I am. Now," she said, nearly at a loss for words, before realizing she would like to do something more than sit where the nightmare had occurred. "Would you mind taking me back to the planet? I'd love it if you showed me around more of Osman city, I can't really say I know it as well as I should, given how much I need to do for it."
"Yeah. I don't know the city to well, but I can soft of make my way through." He said standing and straighten up. He called down to the hanger and had a shuttle prepped and ready to go. He moved and through on a jacket and offered Aashi a hand up. "Ready to go?" He asked.
Aashi nodded and stood with his helping hand, then folded her long, thick jacket around her damp dress and put it under her elbow. As was its custom, her familiar zooped out in front of the pair before they exited the room. They made their way to the hanger and the two of them stepped up to the shuttle.
Werner walked in almost complete silence, as if deep in thought. His grey eyes glazed over as if he wasn't there. He was trying to think back and grasp at what was it Aashi had been experiencing in his room. It confounded him that she could feel such immense sadness and fear like that. He could not make heads or tails of it. As they neared the shuttle ramp he shook his head and allowed Aashi to step inside first, then he followed. As they sat, the shuttle pilot took off in silence, making his way down towards the surface.
They sat quietly, both surrounded by their thoughts. The unease in Aashi's heart was immense, but she knew for certain that she could not only trust Ulysses, she knew she also liked him. Not for helping her, but the way he had done it, most of all, was what sent her mind back to a place of comfort when her thoughts started racing away from her.
After some time, their shuttle neared it approach to the planet and Aashi looked to Ulysses Werner, then back to the pilot as he addressed them.
"We are arriving in a few minutes sir. Prep for landing." The pilot said to the cabin.
Ulysses nodded, then looked back to Aashi. He smiled softly and placed a hand on her hand again, exuding calmness again. As if he could feel as if she needed another little boost.
Aashi felt his hand on hers warm her and she felt a need to share with him her thoughts and feelings, letting him understand how much more calm she was now, while also shedding the unease she was still feeling and letting their feelings mix and mingle to calm the pair to a point where they were breathing in perfect unison, heartbeats matching on another. Whether that was her empathic ability or because they were in sync for some other reason, she did not know.
The shuttle touched down, breaking there connection when Werner's hand was jolted off of her's. He shook his head and looked back over to her with a soft warm smile. "Come on, let's go explore." He said offering a hand up again as the crew chief lowered the ramp and locked down the shuttle.
The pilot nodded to the captain. "Signal us when you are ready to return sir."
"Thank you Lt." He said over his shoulder.
"Alright, let's go," she said back to him as she held onto his hand and walked forward, out of the shuttle. The shuttle was outside of the city and Aashi and Ulysses walked towards it.
Werner held Aashi's hand as they walked through the city. Slowly they moved from block to block, exploring the different districts. Werner didn't make any small talk as they walked, just enjoying the link they shared as they continued to explore the city streets.
Banners were draped from patios above them and people busied themselves with their daily routines and unexpected chores. Each street they walked down seemed to cater to a different desire than the last and some of them felt like they were for two very different castes of people. On the one side, there were what seemed to be the streets meant for the lower caste and there were polar opposite were the streets for the rich and elite, where those walking were dressed in ornate clothing and upscale jewelry and finery.
Aashi cocked her head to the side and let go of Ulysses' hand as she got them to go into a storefront, one that sold scrimshaw.
"In here," she said.
Ulysses looked at the store front and shrugged, shoving his hands into the pocket's of his jacket. He was not one for shopping, but he walked in anyhow. He slowly followed Aashi into the store, allowing her to shop, while he held out his hand to pet her familiar.
As she perused the selection of detailed jewelry made from shells, she decided on what she wanted only after minutes of perusing. She eyed the sale clerk, an elderly native looking man that was taken up with picking a piece of debris out of his fingernail.
Aashi smiled and told Ulysses, "It's almost too easy, sometimes," as she took a wonderfully pieced together bracelet from the shelf, slipped it onto his wrist, and moved his fatigues over the place where it was on him and said, "For you."
She grabbed his hand again and began walking quickly with him away until they were out the store, and continued on until they were down the street and had turned the corner. She slowed her pace when she knew they were free of any attempt at harassment had the store clerk known what she did. She was sure he had no idea and smiled up at Ulysses as she let go of his hand and stopped her quickened pace.
Wener hadn't been paying attention when Aashi had slipped on the bracelet and quickly rushed him from the building. He didn't much approve of the stealing, but he knew to mask his feelings with gratitude and smiled softly. "Thank you Aashi." He hid sliding his sleeve up to look at the bracelet. He made a mental note to go back and leave the man some money for the bracelet after they had finished exploring.
"Where to now?" He asked as she turned around, returning the smile she gave him.
"Not another scrimshaw store, I hope," she said to him, smiling.
They continued walking along the streets until they had found their way closer to the beach and walked along the block that skirted it, passing by food carts and the beachfront stores. The sun hung high in the sky but the pair felt tired beyond belief from the morning's emotional adventure. They idly perused a store selling glassware and Aashi kept her hands to herself as they did. Once out of the store, the two of them found themselves walking further, closing in on the palace.
Werner walked with Aashi side by side, looking at all the stalls and admiring the handiwork. He stopped a small stand a purchased a small bracelet and continued to walk. As he did he bumped into Aashi and slid the purchased bracelet into her pocket, attempting his own slight of hand as they walked closer and closer to the palace.
the corners of Aashi's lips rose as she felt the weight of something in her pocket and could only assume what it was, but instead of taking it out of her pocket, she put her hand and felt the jeweled object with her hand, instead, trying to get a mental grasp as she got a physical one on it.
"Too bad we don't say thank you," she said teasingly to him, "or I would right now."
"You two realize that ninety percent of my job these days is making sure the locals don't think we're massive assholes, right?" A voice drifted along behind the two... Vaguely familiar, maybe.
Werner slowly turned, realizing that it was one of the former Ragnarock crew. "Hello Ms. Arcoss. To what do we owe the pleasure?" He asked stepping up to put himself between Aashi and the law woman.
Aashi turned with Ulysses Werner and kept a cool face, concentrating on the woman in front of them. She had been the referee at the game, the Spacer.
"Today I'm going to have to get you two to call me Sheriff... Reports of theft following alien presence is something I have to deal with personally."
Werner stepped up to the spacer. He pulled up his sleeve to show the bracelet. "I am sorry Sheriff, I tried it on and must have forgot I was still wearing it. If you want you can escort me to the shop owner and I will pay him what he is due." Werner said calmly, almost detached.
Arccos stepped forward towards Werner. The spurs on her boots clinking against the newly I'ee-paved roads of the city and looking at Werner's wrist... She raised a gloved hand and grabbed one of Werner's fingers to pull up his arm to her eye level to look at the thing.
"So it's what? Bones or something?"
Aashi said smoothly and only, "Shells. Practically void of value, save the fact that it's on the wrist of a very valuable person."
The Sheriff raised her eyebrow a little, pulling Werner's sleeve down a bit more. Just a little roughly. "So he's what? Gold plated on the inside?"
It was Werner's turn to respond. "Captain of the Necromancer. The old C2 in orbit." He answered calmly. "I am just one of the captains Uso hired. Nothing special." He replied.
Aashi side-glanced Ulysses as he modestly introduced himself, wondering if her introduction of herself would be just as such. Perhaps starting with pirate may be a bad decision this time around.
Arccos dropped Werner's arm, letting him be. Although she was squinting a little to apparently make it known she was sizing him up. She never seemed to blink, so anything with the eyes was almost always deliberate.
"I'd prefer it if I just say someone else stole it after you left. But I can do the 'our captains are inattentive' tango with you if you really want." Just a little extra heave in her voice, like this was all getting to be too much effort.
"I think the latter idea of yours is less than likely to sit well. Better stick with the former for your report," Aashi said, leaning to the side as her hand went to her hip. Arccos was tall and had an almost overbearing nature to her that lacked a drive to mask its laziness, from what she had seen. Giving her a reason to let them go wouldn't be easy, but giving Arccos a reason not to do needless work against their benefit could prove less difficult.
Arccos just held out her hand to Werner, making the universal gesture for gimme.
"How's the Necromancer running after the I'ee system trip, anyway? I heard it went to shit..." She slipped from business to conversational. Weirdly unprofessional.
Ulysses just sighed sliding the bracelet from his wrist and placing it in the Spacer's hand. "Yeah the trip was a shitshow. The Necromancer took some extensive damage and is in drydock for overhauls." He replied.
"This how you deal with stress?" Arccos held up the bracelet, letting it dangle from one finger.
Aashi swung her hip to the other side and sighed. If she had less self-restraint, her eyes would have been rolling. Otherwise, she was keeping her face muted and collected, though she was internally revolting at this woman's treatment of Ulysses. She let out another huff of a sigh, this one less intelligible as a noise to anyone but Ulysses, next to her.From her pocket, she withdrew her own piece of jewelry and held it up to Arccos, seeing it only for the first time. It was beautiful, but no longer hers.
"Confiscate them both. If we can't have one, we won't have either," Aashi said.
Werner held out a hand to silence Aashi, gently holding her wrist, transferring calmness through there empathy link. "It's okay Aashi. I bought that one. Keep it. It is a gift." He said pulling out what passed for a receipt in the city and passing it to her. "No ma'am. I just forgot it on my wrist is all." He answered again flatly, sticking with the original story. "Dealing with all the retrofits have got me a little tired and scatter brained is all." he added.
Aashi continued to hold the bracelet out for Arccos, a determined look of resilience on her face.
Werner held Aashi's wrist down by her side. "No Aashi..."
"Right, well. When you were out finding yourself on the sorry end of an NMX fleet, some folks here had the bright idea to commit a massacre..." She shifted from bored and overbearing, to outright schoolmarm scolding. A surprising spectrum of bemusement. "I honestly don't give a drop of water about carved bones, but we really don't need to hand these folks more reasons to think we're horrible... And if we can't hold the planet, neither of you get paid."
"Right...sorry." Werner said becoming slightly more aggravated, but only Aashi could feel this as he was still firmly keeping her hand held by her side.
Aashi nodded as she felt Ulysses' thoughts through his hand on hers and she slipped the bracelet back into the pocket of the fatigues surreptitiously. "Very sorry, Arccos. Arccos," she said, pushing a foot forward and extending her other hand, "I am Aashi Nath, and this is my familiar," she said, sweeping her hand to show the Sheriff her Matai SKyfish.It flew upwards then dipped down to hide behind Ulysses Werner's back and peeked out only once more before staying behind his back. "Let me guess, you keep the law on this planet? Or is there more to it?"
Arccos raised a hand and tipped her hat to the greeting, slouching backwards a little in a weird off-kilter stance that... Somehow looked relaxing.
"Nice to meet you. Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances..." The 'spacer looked to the skyfish, head tilting aside. "Not seen one of those in a while. And yeah... I got saddled with position of High Sheriff of Osman City, and Thieftaker General of the entire empire... There's more to it, but most of it's kinda dull specifics."
Aashi replied, "Dull specifics are usually anything but if you know where to look for the nuances that are seem the least likely but are actually the most important. But those facets we can go over later, now, will you show us to your offices, Arccos? I have been meaning to get a better idea of the city and haven't yet done so beyond side streets and shopping carts."
Arccos looked a little taken aback. This seemed to be going so... Confrontational a moment ago. Now they wanted the law office tour. Odd, but it was better than continuing trading barbs in her mind. "This way. We're at the old courthouse."
She turned, pulling a small datapad from her pocket and typing a few notes in to it. The sound of something mechanical nearby moved away at her command. Spurs on the streets clicking once more as she started leading them towards her place of work. Taking a long stride that led down alleyways and small shortcuts that weren't exactly pleasant compared to the sunlit streets and banners the other two had been strolling along before.
Aashi looked to Werner as they walked, then back to the Sheriff as she walked the path for them to follow and asked, "How was the old regime usurped?"
Ulysses looked back at Aashi,smiling softly and gave her hand a quick squeeze. He the turned to her the answer to her question.
As she walked, Arccos turned her head around just a little bit too far to look normal. Still somehow managing to find her own path without looking forward to boot.
"When we arrived, the Osman Grand Army was clashing with a rebel force led by a man named Aaron Grant. About six of us dropped from the sky in suits of industrial grade power armor, and shot everyone who charged at us. The actual regime wasn't really usurped though. Ace, the big guy you saw at the beach? He went off without orders and forced the last Osman King and Queen to commit suicide, then butchered everyone in the palace with his bare hands." The acid in her tone was almost burning through the cobblestones in the back alley, "Uso gave every city around the ocean a chance to surrender or die, more or less. So it was more extorted than usurped."
"What a blood bath," Aashi said, "it would seem my hands are cleaner than I expected in comparison. So there's law for the lawless with you here, I take it? Do you find yourself berating Uso's crew more than you have to look after the locals, or is it the other way around?"
"Uso's crew don't leave the ships for the most part. She had orders early on to never go outside without a full suit of power armor. You're really the first to go exploring where people live. You're maybe the second group after myself to show your face in public without a huge amount of backup." Arccos' head went back around, watching her feet as she walked. "As for laws for the lawless... That's a complicated question."
She'd led the two to a small courtyard in the city. The old mansion district where the rich folk of the Osman empire used to live to be closer to the palace. Some locals milled about, talking about this or that. A lot seemed to be carting around boxes full of goods imported from space, probably the only area in the city at this point in time where the locals could get anything from off-world. The civilians and Deputies of the Brigade stood about chatting, many even waved to Arccos, showing she seemed to be on friendly terms with them. For a courthouse, it seemed to be less lawyers, and more community. Of course it wasn't Idyllic. The circular area before the old courthouse was dotted with huge red-brown bloodwood trees carefully planted about, but stripped of most leaves due to the recent storms. They were also strung up with nooses here and there. One or two bodies dangling from their branches with their crimes painted on their chests in greenish paint.
"Interesting place you've got here," Aashi mused.
"Well it's not boring." Arccos said with a little laugh, "Not the most pleasant anyway. What did you want to see?"
Werner quietly followed along allowing the girls to talk. He just drifted along with the familiar.
"No, I wouldn't say it is boring at all," Aashi said. "It would be nice to see your office, if at all possible." Aashi didn't know what the future held, but it would always be nice to know where to find the admirable Sheriff.
The Sheriff twitched her head back, as if to request they follow. Heading up the stone steps of the Old Courthouse. Out front, a shattered statue of a blindfolded woman lay about, half-used as seating for some Brigadier Deputies on break. Open doors leading through a foyer with a few fancy desks about which had obviously been hauled out from the offices of judges, most used as market stalls or signing booths now. For some reason a giant mural of crossed chicken drumsticks was up on the walls. No one really paid it any mind, but it was certainly odd. Through there, they found the old High Court room, a long room with high vaulted ceilings, now full of an odd collection of mismatched tables. Locals milled around, talking and eating. No solemn court proceedings here.
Arccos pointed up to the rafters above them, where several haphazard platforms were constructed into a ramshackle second floor on the building. A few shelves and cargo nets were visible from the ground floor. "Office is up there. Pretty much anyone can shout in here to get my attention."
Werner followed along taking in everything. He nodded as he looked at everything. That is until he received a call. He stopped dead in his tracks. "This is Werner...Yes?...What do you mean... Damn it I am on my way..." He looked back to the Spacer and Aashi. "I am sorry I ,just cut and run, but something has happened aboard the ship. I am needed back in orbit. He said nodding to Arccos. "Sorry about the incident Sheriff." He then turned to Aashi and gave her a deep hug. "I will call you later okay?"
Aashi returned the hug and nodded emphatically to him before smiling quickly and watched him take his leave, growing more serious the further he got away from them.
Arccos just nodded back to Werner, not going further into details. She then looked to Aashi.
"Arccos, you seem to have a finger on the pulse, what would you say this planet is in dire need of? Besides the standard things right now like housing, running water, a few other things. Hmmm?" she added, a questioning lilt to the sound.
"Stability, and mutual interest in making this world not awful." Arccos answered more or less instantly. "Everyone's squabbling over scraps of the old empire, while Uso monetizing everything causes all sorts of problems we have to deal with."
"Well whose job is it to pick apart who gets what besides Uso?"
"No one's. Uso is the final authority, technically Aaron Grant is planetary governor, but he's a puppet. I just make sure no one murders everyone over what happens."
Aashi and Arccos found themselves in the Sheriff's office and Aashi found a place on a little work bench to talk from, "And I'm here to do the same, I would say. I think we all are, save for Ace, perhaps. I'll be sure to keep myself calm around that one. Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of a man willing to do what he did. Or, any of you for that matter. Not many are likely to cross you. But what I need to do is help Uso build something big for this planet. Something that distracts everyone away from the problems of the past and helps them rely on thinking about the luster of tomorrow. What I need to build is within the realm of possibility, but is it within the realm of reason, I must know. I'll ask you before I ask her as, frankly, I've run into you first. In quite a happenstance situation, nonetheless. What do you say to seeing a resort pop up in Osman city, sitting on the beach?"
"Too much dirt for my liking, but I just don't understand the whole 'beach' thing." Arccos replied, moving over to her desk proper. A heavy polished wood thing covered in discarded circuitry and paperwork. She sat on the high backed plush seat she'd plundered from former Osmani judges and leaned back on it. "Did... Did Uso seriously hire you as some sort of publicist?"
"It's the sort of work that Uso herself needs done, but isn't ready or," Aashi strayed away from the word willing and said, "is capable of doing at the moment, given all of the other demands of the job. It seems like the idea at least doesn't raise any red flags from you, does it?"
"When I started the Brigade, they were more excited about the possibility of food that doesn't taste like slimy grit. Of all the problems this planet's got, I don't think more sand is the answer." Her hat was removed, and placed on her desk, artificial hair somehow resistant to hat-related problems. "Then again, a lot of them turned up to see you all play volleyball. Who knows what that'd effect."
"I think there are a lot of things that can surprise you about the simpler things," she said, "such as sand. How did you find yourself part of Uso's crew?"
"I was in Ragnarok. Then Uso had a higher price, so I signed on with her." Arccos said simply, not expanding much.
"Ragnarok and Uso aren't interwoven as I had come to believe?"
"Ragnarok is Cyrus' operation. This was our... Well, their first big contract. It's probably permanent at this point, at least as long as Cyrus doesn't think to ask for more money."
Aashi thought back to her meating with Cyrus, wondering if he was the type of man to change a contract. Whether or not had a great impact on her, but her bank account wasn't what mattered to her. Being a part of a team was. Knowing all of the team members was, too. She had just managed to tick off the major players in Uso's book and for that, she was willing to call it a day.
Wihtout sounding like she was ready to take her leave, because she was more than wiling to stay and talk with Arccos, she asked, "Do you have any questions for me, since I hounded you for so many?"
"I don't really know anything about you other than you're an Iromakuanhe, and you're here to maybe build something big with or for Uso." Arccos leaned forward on her desk, picking up a piece of circuitboard and a soldering iron. "So I'm inclined to think that you're really something far more dangerous than you've presented to me, since I doubt you'd have come all the way from the commonwealth to work on public relations for a nekovalkyrja... So I guess I'll just ask what brings you here?"
Aashi tilted her head, "Building something big for or with Uso is what makes you think I'm less than innocent?" She sat straighter to avoid laughing, "No, no, that shouldn't alert you, the fact that I have no past that you know of is what alerts you, isn't it? Well I'll tell you, I have a former life and a life I'm leading now. What's past is something I'd-" mid-sentence, a scene from her nightmare of the dark cloud surrounding her crew members visualized in her head and she chose to speak no more of it,"-like to forget. Why I'm here isn't the issue, it's what I'll do that's more important. And what I'll do is likely make this planet a lot of very good money. Most like money, you're one of those. My presence here will make you very happy if I'm correct."
Arccos got the barest hint of a smirk on her features. Smoke starting to rise around her as she put the iron to work.
"Your innocence had nothing to do with what I thought of you, actually. It just seems too deliberate and unadventurous to be something Uso would have done. Going out, hiring someone to build things. Her strategy for building this place up has just been to fire everything she can find at the place, and see what sticks..."
Thinking back to the crossed chicken drumsticks on the wall leading up to Arccos' office, Aashi wondered just how many of the right things had stuck to the walls and said, "I take the opposite approach, and perhaps for the same reasons. Funny enough, things sometimes work by happenstance and sometimes they work because the action behind it was purposeful and took effort, time, and conscoiousness to do it. That is what I am for. To make sure that no matter what, what happens is going to work out for the best. Now, what is it that you are doing, Arccos?"
"Talking with you. Trying to figure you out, to a degree." She said, holding up the iron and circuitry. She wasn't apparently doing anything practical. The board was a slim sliver of a whole component, and was now being heated and bent into a small ring... Putting the iron back in its cradle, she removed a glove, and then slipped that ring over her finger. It was exactly that. Just a ring made of scrap circuitry.
"I also just feel weird when I'm not doing something with my hands, sometimes."
"I know the feeling," Aashi said, asking her familiar to come to her by need alone and when it did, she let her fingers glide over its spine. "I'm glad to have been figure out... or have I been?" she asked slyly. "Regardless, it was very nice getting to know you, Arccos," she said, standing and extending a hand, hoping for the FreeSpacer to shake her with the gloved hand, rather than the one with a heated piece of scrap on it. "Thanks for everything you've done for me today, Arccos."
Arccos raised her glove, holding it up and shaking Aashi's hand rather weakly.
"I haven't figured you out yet. But that you're dragging it out means I'm learning something, still..."
Aashi let one corner of her move slide up in a smile and she said, "Yes, I suppose you are. Until next time, when we'll both have opportunities to learn even more, if we can." She let go of the spacer's synthflesh and found her way to the door and down the steps, taking pause to respect the hanging bodies before making her way back the way she had come, this time making her way to the beach.
She ambled about it for upwards of an hour finding suitable shells for the bracelet she planned to make. It was an easy distraction for her mind to wander away from the nightmare that had wracked both her and Ulysses' morning. Even thinking about her conversation with Arccos was nearly enough to get her thoughts away from that she feared. On the edges of her mind were still the thoughts of her former crew and what had become of them, though.
Her eyes spun to the skies and her hair whipped out behind her, black from the roots and blue below her shoulders. She still held her dress and jacket in her hands along with the shells and wore Ulysses' sister's black fatigues, ironic considering who she was.
"Ravana..." she found herself whispering, recalling the young pirate boy from her ship, the Devata. After a long moment of silence in which time her Skyfish came over to her and gently nudged against her cheek, she said quieter, still, "Where are you?"
Werner walked through the Queen's Slave's halls on his way to Aashi's room. He neared her door and stopped in front of it. He knock. "Ms. Aashi?" Werner asked softly.
"Oh?" Aashi said reflexively. She recognized the voice from the one happenstance meeting thy had had in Osman city's bar and was happy to hear the unfamiliar but comforting voice, "Werner? Come in!"
Werner padded into her room. "Good morning Ms. Aashi." He said uncharacteristically warmly. "May I sit?" He asked.
"Take a seat, it's yours. Now, who do I have to thank for sending you to my room?"
Wener removed his beret revealing his bald head. "Me. I was able to find your room on the crew roster." He said sitting down. "How has the crew been treating you?" He asked.
"It's more a question of how I've been treating them, if you ask around," Aashi said, thinking of her slight against Ronin and the way she was handling Alex's current predicament. "I have no ill words to say of any aboard, that's for certain."
Werner nodded. "Good. Sorry I haven't been able to check up on you. I have been busy with retrofits. Just so happened to be needed planetside, so I thought I would stop in." He said, his pale grey eyes taking in the room.
There was not much there to be seen, save for her familiar soaking in her sink and her jacket draped over her pillow. The work she was doing at the table was the only real clutter or objects for his eyes to wander over.
She looked at him quizzically, "I'm glad you though it suiting to check up on me," she said, "that hasn't really been something someone's thought to do in quite awhile. Perhaps it should have happened, though, now that I think back on my current situation..." she trailed off, then regained her cool composure to say, "I thank you for thinking to do so."
Werner shook his head. "Think nothing of it Ms. Aashi." He said moving to the sink and softly placing his hand in the water. "What is it's name?" He asked.
"Only I know it's name," Aashi said, walking over to the same spot and putting hers close to where his was on the slick, viscous skin of the flappy wings, then said, "but once in a while I would hear my crew call her 'A', they said it was 'A' for Aashi. It is quite close to me. It shares my DNA."
"Hello A." He said softly, his hand tracing down the creatures spine. "She is an amazing creature." He said looking back up at her.
"We all are," Aashi replied, "in our own ways." With a smile she let her familiar take its body out of the water and slide onto his hand, then up his arm, before slipping off of it and roaming up to the small room's ceiling. there it flew idly while Aashi turned to Werner.
"How have you been since the last time we spoke? Besides retrofittings, of course. Anything to note?"
Werner shrugged. "I have just been working." He said looking back up to Aashi, his grey eyes staring down at her own.
"Work isn't for the weak, that's for sure," Aashi said, blue eyes sparkling as she met his, then said, "would you mind taking me to your ship? I would love to see it, if given the opportunity."
He gave a soft smile. "I was just going to suggest that." He said moving to the door. "Would you like to come with me?" He asked motioning to the door.
"Happy to," she said as her familiar went before them, out the door. She followed suit and looked behind her as she walked down the hall, towards him. "So how much of this whole planet planning thing are you a part of?"
Werner shrugged again. "Nothing really. I am incharge of my ship, and that is really it. I haven't given much authority beyond that." He said placing his black beret back on his bald head.
"Well," Aashi said, laughing lightly, "I've got questions for you. A fresh pair of eyes to this new set of problems would be nice."
"Of course my nemesis." He said in an attempt at a joke. He led her to a shuttle waiting out by the ship. He showed her into the back of the shuttle. "Back up to the ship if you please." He said to the pilot.
"Aye aye sir. RTB." He said as the ramp closed and the shuttle lifted off and made it's way skyward.
"Now what is it you need my help with?" He asked.
"How would you," she began, "find a way to make this planet more than habitable? How would you make it a home to those on it?"
"Well..." Ulysses tapped his chin. "First thing would be to update the buildings in the city. You could also put in some prefab housing units and low rent rates to increase migration to the city. As for making it more than habitable... the world is beautiful. If you were able to clean up the beaches like Uso did for her little beach party and set up resorts, you could start bringing in tourists. Many are coming here to join Ragnarock and have brought their loved ones with them. So as long as they're here, it is a matter of helping the process along. Make the city a plus for joining Ragnarock. If that makes any sense." Ulysses said realizing that he was beginning to ramble.
"It makes more sense to me than it would to most, I think," Aashi said. "Building infrastructure would be the next step, and finding a way to build a resort would be something I could work out with her."
He nodded. "Glad to help."
"I think there is a chance that I can find this place to be just as fitting as being on a ship, but it's going to take some work. Purifying the water is a good step, too. You've given me a lot to think about. I haven't been a part of building like this before and it's somewhat exciting. Not as exciting as getting to meet good people such as yourself, though, Werner."
Werner smiled. "It was a pleasure to meet you to as well Aashi." He paused a second. "Ulysses." He said after a moment. "Call me Ulysses. Not many use it and there are two Werners here on the planet." He said looking over to Aashi.
"Ulysses, then," she said, "that's much more familiar. I like it that way, sometimes," she said, smiling. "Sometimes, this is one of those times. Now, a resort, a resort. We can build one of those, with Uso's fabricator unit, easy. Now to get the right stuff to put into it. That'll be another step, as Uso has an odd species named the Vekimen to mine the planet for stuff to throw in the thing, but until they get here we'll need to gather our own supplies for it and rally the troops behind the cause. Are you the type that can get people under your leadership easily, or are you more capable when it comes to doing the dirty work? I sense I already know the answer."
Ulysses raised an eyebrow. "Really? What do you think it is?" He asked
Aashi chuckled, "I think you won't be much help in leading the people to do what they most likely do not want to do. I guess I'll be alone in that respect. I'd always love someone I can rely on to do the dirty work, though."
Werner nodded.
"So having you to be able to lean on would always be nice for me, though I don't expect you to think that would be a one way street, of course," she said. "Whenever, if ever, you need another pilot or otherwise, I can be there for you. You know what my capabailities are and that I have boundless abilities and next to no limits."
He smiled. "I wouldn't ask for anything in return. It would be a pleasure to help out a friend." He replied. 'Not like I have many of those...' he thought.
Aashi smiled at him, corners of her mouth spreading as she looked at him with creased, happy eyes.
"Know that you're not just my friend because you help me out. You're my friend, because you're my nemesis," she said jokingly. "No but really, you don't have to be scratching my back for me to want to scratch yours, as the saying goes. You're my friend because I like you and, boy, am I going to like your ship."
Ulysses didn't quite didn't know what to say. Luckily he was saved by the pilot. "Sir, we are on final approach." The shuttle slowly pulled into the hanger and taxied into it's berth. The shuttle pilot walked back and saluted him. "Welcome home sir."
Werner nodded and returned the salute. "Go catch yourself some shut eye."
"Does she have a name?" Aashi asked.
Werner stepped off the ramp and smiled. "Welcome, Ms Aashi, aboard the Necromancer." He said with a broad grin. As Aashi stepped off the ramp she would see that the flight deck was bustling with activity. Many of the planes were getting upgraded and several were being assembled. The security personnel were doing the daily PT in an unused section of the hanger. As they walked, a familiar voice called out to Werner.
"Hey Captain!" Commander Kovac called. He stopped and saluted him.
"At ease Kovac. We have a guest." He said motioning to Aashi.
"Hello. I am Commander Kovac, the ships Executive officer. Welcome aboard the Necromancer." He said very formally
Wener nodded. "I was just about to give her the grand tour."
"Hello Commander, nice to be meet you and your captain's ship. It is quite the beauty from where I'm standing. When was the last time she saw combat?"
"Few weeks ago. Took a right beating, but the old girl is still flying, and she gave as good as she got." He said proudly.
"Commander, I will leave you in charge of the bridge while I complete the tour if that is fine with you?" Werner asked.
"Of course sir. Enjoy the tour ma'am." He said turning on his heel and heading for the bridge. Werner took her on a grand tour of the ship, from the weapons stations, to engineering, to sickbay, and back again. They ended up at Werner's private quarters. "And here is the Captians Cabin." As he walked in she would notice that there was literally nothing in there. No personal effects. It looked like a brand new officer's cabin that had never been lived in before. "Make yourself at home." He said moving to the small kitchen.
"I think I will, it's been too long since I've been in a Captain's Cabin," she said, "it truly has. It seems you live just as frugally as I do on the Queen's Slave. I, by habit, am not inherently minimalistic, but are you? It would seem so."
Ulysses shrugged. I am never in here enough to put anything. Plus I work all the time, so there aren't many personal effects of mine. It is just the way I am." He said as A glided across the room. He smiled. "Would you like anything to eat?" He asked.
"I could use something to eat," she replied. "Whatever you'd think I'd like best is fine."
He quickly whipped up some sandwiches and handed one to her. He also tore a piece off of his and held it out for A to eat.
The Matai Skyfish glided over to where Ulysses Werner held the piece of his sandwich and knocked it out of his hand, making it fall to the ground, but Aashi ate hers happily, biting into it, chewing, and finally swallowing a few times before asking him a question.
"Would you mind... if I got to know you even better? More than we can by just talking to one another?"
Werner looked confused. What do you mean?" He asked
"I'd like to see more of what's inside you," she said, "by touching you I can. By touching you I can make it so that we both share the same feelings as one another. I can do it with or without consent, but with you I only ask because it interests me to know more about you, to see what feelings the both of us share."
Werner looked a tad concerned, and deep in thought. "Um..." He thought for a moment then nodded. "Okay." He said softly moving to the couch and sitting down next to her.
Sitting, she smiled at Ulysses, "Nothing to be afraid of I just want to-" she didn't finish her statement though as she touched him, she felt what was beneath the surface, a confused splashing of different emotions. She felt from him all at once the moisture of desires and needs and wants. It became apparent to her that he liked her, though didn't know if he had feelings like this for anyone else before. He was isolated from all but himself and she felt his pangs of loneliness that only shot out when he was able to realize just how little he had when around what he wanted. She felt from him all of those things and let him feel from her what he could.
Where as Ulysses feelings were in the now, Aashi had a deep lingering fear that he could feel. She was upset over some great loss. He couldn't exactly tell what it was but it was very important to her. The loss had plagued her, and it was on her mind even at this moment, even if it was only subconsciously.
Werner felt dizzy. As he came out of the empathy. He looked at Aashi. "Aashi..." He then did something neither of them expected him to do. He hugged her. He didn't know what to do, so he wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her.
"O-oh~" Aashi exhaled as they both came out of the empathy and his arms met her body and, chest-to-chest, she realized she was hugging him back, something she hadn't felt happen in years. She wrapped her hands around his back and squeezed into his body, feeling the warmth of his body heat and the beat of his heart as they pressed close to one another. She let her head tilt to the side as she exhaled again, resting her head against his shoulder.
After they finished hugging and Werner realized what he did, he looked up. "I...I am sorry. I don't know what came over me..." He said trying to compose himself.
Aashi lifted her finger up to his chin and smiled, putting it there and raising his chin up to look at him more fully. "You don't have to apologize for a thing, Ulysses." She moved her hand and wrapped her arms around him again. "Don't ever think you have to." She let go of his body and pulled back from the embrace to ask, "Are you willing to talk about what is confusing you?"
He returned the hug again. As she asked her question he replied. "I...I guess so..." He said. Ulysses was acting like a totally different person. He composed himself. "Sure. I don't know if I can though."
"I think it's possible to share things physically that you can't share through words, which you have done with me tonight. But some things need words to be put to them for them to have power."
'He shifted uncomfortably. "I... I like you Aashi. A lot. I have never felt this way about anyone else before, and I don't know how to feel about it. I...I just don't know how to put it into words..." He s said sighing. "I just really like you Aashi. You one of the first people who can understand me. No one... No one has ever known I how I really feltbefore, not eve my own sister." He said resting his head against the back of the couch.
Aashi put her hand on Ulysses' shoulder and said, "I don't know what it's like to feel that way, I can only feel it right now," she said, trying to understand his feelings through touch again. What he had said rung true and she said, "like that, I can understand the feeling of want and need for another through touch, but not in my own life. I almost... wish I did. But only somewhat do I wish to know what it feels like to love in that way. I've only ever felt love for my crew as a whole, never for individuals. I don't know what you're feeling from my own perspective."
"So, I don't exactly know," she began, "what I can do for you, other than be your friend and be there for you. I don't know if the rest of what you want, what you desire, is within my realm of expertise. Or within my realm of reason."
He sighed. "I know, and I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable Aashi. I just... didn't know what to feel." His grey eyes looked into her deep blue ones. "I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable Aashi..."
"You didn't," she said, shaking her head, "you didn't do that at all."
He just sighed. Werner looked over to Aashi. "Thank you..." He said resting his head on her shoulder. "This is all just so confusing to me..."
"I don't want it to be," Aashi said, putting her hand on his head. "It doesn't need to be."
Aashi wanted to know how to help him and what to do for him, but also knew there was no easy route from the one they were on. She wanted to be near him, but knowing there was nothing within her power to be done, besides remain by his side.
She asked him, "Would you mind if I slept on The Necromancer tonight?"
Werner nodded and stood. "Sure. Take my bed. I can sleep on the couch." He said, moving to grab himself a blanket from his closet. He threw it onto the couch and moved and filled the sink with water so A had a place to soak. "There we go." He said as he knelt down and threw away the bit of sandwich A did not want.
"Are you sure?" Aashi asked but it was nearly no use. Aashi watched Ulysses as he moved about the room.
"You are my guest. It is the least I can do." He said flatly, falling back into his usual demeanor.
"Then I can only graciously accept," she said as her familiar went into the sink, happily flapping its body about and splashing just a few droplets out of it. "I'm pretty sleepy and could probably go to sleep now, are you just as tired?"
The corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. "I have some reports I need to review before bed. I will be reading over here on the couch." He said moving again and placing a towel on the floor to soak up A's splashing. He softly petted the creature before moving to his desk and grabbing his datajockey. "Do you need anything else Aashi?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Just to know that you're happy to have me here," she replied after she had gotten into his bed, much more plush that hers on the Queen's Slave, and smiled as she got fully comfortable.
"Goodnight Aashi." he said turning off the light. The only illumination coming from the room was that of his datajockey as he scrolled through reports on the couch.
Aashi held the comforter to her face as she thought about all the good things that had transpired between them and those thoughts alone were enough to comfort her as she began to fall into a light sleep in the Captain's bed of The Necromancer, with Ulysses Werner close by, scrolling through his work as he sat on the couch near her, intermittently looking over to assure himself that she was sleeping soundly.
After a few more minutes Werner placed the datajokey on the table and laid on the couch contemplating the day's events. Whereas Aashi was able to sleep soundly, he couldn't quite fall asleep. Just replaying all that happened in his mind, and questioning every decision he made...
Aashi moved one foot in front of the other while a crows of people followed behind her on the campus of an Iromakuanhe school on Hlarai. Echoing from the hallways was a soft instrumental jazz piece, the plucking of Nepleslian fingers stroking gently against strings while the tapping of sticks on cymbals and drums met, in perfect rhythm, the slow moan of a sax. The people around her chattered and asked her which way to go intermittently as she followed the music.
Aashi noticed the floor underfoot becoming unsteady and perilously capricious beneath her as she took a step and jumped back in surprise.
"What is it, Aashi?" one of the people behind her, a pirate boy on her crew.
"Ravana..." she tried to say, but his name didn't leave her mouth.
"Aashi, we need to get you out of here," the boy said to her even more urgently.
Aashi choked on her words and turned suddenly as the floor disappeared completely from beneath her and she was looking at her crew, all encompassed by a diffused black masking shroud. Ravana was at her side, shaking her shoulder as she looked on in horror as slick tentacles found their way out of the cloud and towards her.
"It's all real," Aashi mumbled, turning back to the pirate boy. "It's all real."
The boy let go of her arm and turned into a VANDR in front of her eyes, transforming quickly like he was evolved to be both Iroma and VANDR simultaneously. As he gained buoyancy and turned to start cutting down the tentacles, Aashi found the freedom of flight and was flying through the hallways, away from the darkness.
She was in open sky for a moment and breathed in deeply before skimming down to glide gently against the building's outer edges. She swooped down lower, flying over the canals of the city before twisting and turning in flight, looking at once sky, and then waterm then sky again, before diving into the water. Once under the surface she was looking at the planet 188604 from the Pumpkin Eater's bridge and was sitting there with both Uso and Ulysses.
"This is a dream," ran through Aashi's mind and as it did, she broke free of it and inhaled sharply as she propped herself up in Ulysses Werner's bed on the Necromancer.
Werner was sitting on the edge of Aashi's bed once he realized that she must have been in a nightmare. She was thrashing about in his bed and it was enough movement to wake him up from his light sleep. He was resting a hand on her leg as she tossed and turned, but when she bolted upright he turned to look at her. "Hey, you're okay. It was just a dream." He said placing a hand on her hand and squeezing. "Lay back down." He said helping her lack back down on the bed. He wiped away sweat soaked locks of hair out of her face. "Wait here. I will grab a cool compress okay?" He said quickly moving to the restroom in his quarters.
Aashi was panicky and could barely keep herself from balling up on the bed, fetal position, and letting loose a stream of tears. But she stayed laying on her back, resolute to keep a strong, determined face as Ulysses went to get her something cold. She could feel her dress plastered to her body and her hair would have been stuck to the sweat on her temples if Ulysses hadn't brushed it away for her.
She looked hesitantly to him as he approached her, unable to give him even a modest smile.
"Shh..." He cooed softly, sitting down next to her. He slowly dabbed the cool compress across her forehead and finally rested it on her neck. "You're okay Aashi... You're all right. It was just a dream." He said moving to cradle her head as she fidgeted. One hand softly rubbing her temples, the other holding the compress to her neck. He kept repeating. "You're safe. Just calm down. Shh..."
The center of Aashi's brows raised as she inhaled deeply, looking lost and perturbed beyond belief.
"I..." she shuddered, "I saw them all," she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. A twin tear fell from her other eye and the thought that she even could cry sent her body shaking again, forcibly pushing more tears out.
"I saw them all, Ulysses," she said after she had gotten over the shock of crying to begin with. She was far from being composed or over the shock of the dream. Far from it.
Werner moved and held her as she cried. He wiped away her tears and held her close as she cried. He moved as sat down in the bed next to her, holding her firmly. He didn't speak, but instead tried exude calmness. He held her hand tightly, hoping that if she would use Empathy, his calmness would wash over her. "Aashi..." He finally said softly as held her.
She continued to shake and had turned her body to face his more fully, knees up towards her chest as she buried the side of her face into the pillow. She felt his hand move to hers and felt a connection to him she subconsciously received and without consciously thinking to do it, she was calming herself down by sharing with him her feelings and letting his spill out into her. She felt loved by it, surrounded by his presence in every facet of her being. As she felt the fears she had for her crew slip away, into him, she felt his calm wash over her.
She buried her head in the pillow more fully as she twisted it side to side. Her tears had soaked into the pillow and no more strayed from her eyes after she had felt his grip.
She couldn't bring herself to thank him, she couldn't bring herself to accept she had needed this much help from someone at all without growing less and less confident in her own ability to stay calm. She pushed back the thoughts of embarrassment in order to rectify the situation. She rolled her body so that her head and chest were facing up and looked at Ulysses.
Werner suffered the full barrage of emotions that she was experiencing. All the sadness and fear that overwhelmed his senses. He thought that he could handle it, but even it was to much. He gritted his teeth as tears that were not his own fought to fall from his face. "No damn it..." He muttered. "Have to be strong..." He pulled Aashi's head up and rested it against his shoulder."You...you're okay...Aashi. I...I got you..." He said between breaths as he attempted to recompose himself.
Aashi nodded into his shoulder as she sat up and let her arms loosely clasped together around his other shoulder. She let her face press against his shirt and held him tightly.
They sat there like that, both of them at an equal level or upsetedness before the feelings dissipated, slowly at first, then almost all of a sudden as a wave of relief hit Aashi.
Her familiar had found a place on Ulysses' lap and she let one hand fall to it to stroke it idly before raising it back up to hold onto Ulysses shoulder again.
"Ulysses," she said, "thank you. Thank you so," she exhaled, chest lowering significantly as she did, "so much."
He shook his head at her, still recovering from the meant onslaught his psyche took. One hand softly stroking the familiar. "You said yesterday... That I didn't have to apologize or thank you. The same goes for you..." He said placing a hand on her cheek.
"If the same goes for me," she answered, looking up at him as he rested his hand on her skin, just above the two teal stripes on the bottom of her cheek, "then we really are friends."
He smiled softly, resting his head on the wet pillow, not even caring that it soaked his shirt. "Damn... That took a lot out of me, I am just glad it worked." He said as he continued to rub her hand. "Are you better now Ms.Aashi?" He asked with a very tired smile.
"I would say so," she replied. "I think so." She put a palm against the bed and straightened herself up and off of him, then looked down at her still-wet dress. "Is there anything I can change into?" she asked, knowing it was a tall order.
"Yeah... hold on..." He moved and stood, swaying slight. "My sister has some fatigues she left in my room. You two should be the same size." He said stumbling into his closet and producing a pir of jet black fatigues and his jaket. "Here go put this on. I'll straighten up in here." He said passing her the clothes and moving to strip down the bed.
"I will," she said, moving into the bathroom. She took off her dress over her head and pulled on the black pants then the shirt. She came back out of the bathroom and smiled at Ulysses as he looked at her, standing stock still as she saluted him. She giggled lightly, aware that her state of being was much more improved than it had been all of a minute ago.
Werner smiled warmly and saluted back at her. The bed had been changed and all the sheets were crisply folded, military fashion. Everything in its place. Ulysses moved and handed her a bottle of water. "Here, drink up. I need to go change as well, Maybe a shower too now that I think about it..." He said as an afterthought. He smiled and gently touched her shoulder in passing as he moved to the shower, stripping down and turning the water on. It was scalding hot and the steam quickly coated the bathroom.
Aashi nodded as he passed her and once he was inside the bathroom, she fell onto the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, face resolute and stone cold. Her familiar glided to lay on top of her pelvis and she laid like that for minutes on end before becoming too engrossed in her own thoughts, swarming confusion about what had transpired in the dream world.
It wasn't only a dream to her, it had felt real, like she was looking into a snowglobe and looking at the scene of events. The dream answered more questions than she possibly could have done on her own and she contemplated sleeping again, just to see what her subconscious would tell her this time.
Instead, she shook her head and put a palm to her forehead before sitting up as she heard Ulysses turn off the shower.
Werner stepped out the shower refreshed. He quickly changed into fatigues and out on his beret. As he stepped out into his room he smiled. "How are you feeling now?" He asked moving and sitting down next to her.
She nodded, making the sound, "Mmmm," as she did. "I am. Now," she said, nearly at a loss for words, before realizing she would like to do something more than sit where the nightmare had occurred. "Would you mind taking me back to the planet? I'd love it if you showed me around more of Osman city, I can't really say I know it as well as I should, given how much I need to do for it."
"Yeah. I don't know the city to well, but I can soft of make my way through." He said standing and straighten up. He called down to the hanger and had a shuttle prepped and ready to go. He moved and through on a jacket and offered Aashi a hand up. "Ready to go?" He asked.
Aashi nodded and stood with his helping hand, then folded her long, thick jacket around her damp dress and put it under her elbow. As was its custom, her familiar zooped out in front of the pair before they exited the room. They made their way to the hanger and the two of them stepped up to the shuttle.
Werner walked in almost complete silence, as if deep in thought. His grey eyes glazed over as if he wasn't there. He was trying to think back and grasp at what was it Aashi had been experiencing in his room. It confounded him that she could feel such immense sadness and fear like that. He could not make heads or tails of it. As they neared the shuttle ramp he shook his head and allowed Aashi to step inside first, then he followed. As they sat, the shuttle pilot took off in silence, making his way down towards the surface.
They sat quietly, both surrounded by their thoughts. The unease in Aashi's heart was immense, but she knew for certain that she could not only trust Ulysses, she knew she also liked him. Not for helping her, but the way he had done it, most of all, was what sent her mind back to a place of comfort when her thoughts started racing away from her.
After some time, their shuttle neared it approach to the planet and Aashi looked to Ulysses Werner, then back to the pilot as he addressed them.
"We are arriving in a few minutes sir. Prep for landing." The pilot said to the cabin.
Ulysses nodded, then looked back to Aashi. He smiled softly and placed a hand on her hand again, exuding calmness again. As if he could feel as if she needed another little boost.
Aashi felt his hand on hers warm her and she felt a need to share with him her thoughts and feelings, letting him understand how much more calm she was now, while also shedding the unease she was still feeling and letting their feelings mix and mingle to calm the pair to a point where they were breathing in perfect unison, heartbeats matching on another. Whether that was her empathic ability or because they were in sync for some other reason, she did not know.
The shuttle touched down, breaking there connection when Werner's hand was jolted off of her's. He shook his head and looked back over to her with a soft warm smile. "Come on, let's go explore." He said offering a hand up again as the crew chief lowered the ramp and locked down the shuttle.
The pilot nodded to the captain. "Signal us when you are ready to return sir."
"Thank you Lt." He said over his shoulder.
"Alright, let's go," she said back to him as she held onto his hand and walked forward, out of the shuttle. The shuttle was outside of the city and Aashi and Ulysses walked towards it.
Werner held Aashi's hand as they walked through the city. Slowly they moved from block to block, exploring the different districts. Werner didn't make any small talk as they walked, just enjoying the link they shared as they continued to explore the city streets.
Banners were draped from patios above them and people busied themselves with their daily routines and unexpected chores. Each street they walked down seemed to cater to a different desire than the last and some of them felt like they were for two very different castes of people. On the one side, there were what seemed to be the streets meant for the lower caste and there were polar opposite were the streets for the rich and elite, where those walking were dressed in ornate clothing and upscale jewelry and finery.
Aashi cocked her head to the side and let go of Ulysses' hand as she got them to go into a storefront, one that sold scrimshaw.
"In here," she said.
Ulysses looked at the store front and shrugged, shoving his hands into the pocket's of his jacket. He was not one for shopping, but he walked in anyhow. He slowly followed Aashi into the store, allowing her to shop, while he held out his hand to pet her familiar.
As she perused the selection of detailed jewelry made from shells, she decided on what she wanted only after minutes of perusing. She eyed the sale clerk, an elderly native looking man that was taken up with picking a piece of debris out of his fingernail.
Aashi smiled and told Ulysses, "It's almost too easy, sometimes," as she took a wonderfully pieced together bracelet from the shelf, slipped it onto his wrist, and moved his fatigues over the place where it was on him and said, "For you."
She grabbed his hand again and began walking quickly with him away until they were out the store, and continued on until they were down the street and had turned the corner. She slowed her pace when she knew they were free of any attempt at harassment had the store clerk known what she did. She was sure he had no idea and smiled up at Ulysses as she let go of his hand and stopped her quickened pace.
Wener hadn't been paying attention when Aashi had slipped on the bracelet and quickly rushed him from the building. He didn't much approve of the stealing, but he knew to mask his feelings with gratitude and smiled softly. "Thank you Aashi." He hid sliding his sleeve up to look at the bracelet. He made a mental note to go back and leave the man some money for the bracelet after they had finished exploring.
"Where to now?" He asked as she turned around, returning the smile she gave him.
"Not another scrimshaw store, I hope," she said to him, smiling.
They continued walking along the streets until they had found their way closer to the beach and walked along the block that skirted it, passing by food carts and the beachfront stores. The sun hung high in the sky but the pair felt tired beyond belief from the morning's emotional adventure. They idly perused a store selling glassware and Aashi kept her hands to herself as they did. Once out of the store, the two of them found themselves walking further, closing in on the palace.
Werner walked with Aashi side by side, looking at all the stalls and admiring the handiwork. He stopped a small stand a purchased a small bracelet and continued to walk. As he did he bumped into Aashi and slid the purchased bracelet into her pocket, attempting his own slight of hand as they walked closer and closer to the palace.
the corners of Aashi's lips rose as she felt the weight of something in her pocket and could only assume what it was, but instead of taking it out of her pocket, she put her hand and felt the jeweled object with her hand, instead, trying to get a mental grasp as she got a physical one on it.
"Too bad we don't say thank you," she said teasingly to him, "or I would right now."
"You two realize that ninety percent of my job these days is making sure the locals don't think we're massive assholes, right?" A voice drifted along behind the two... Vaguely familiar, maybe.
Werner slowly turned, realizing that it was one of the former Ragnarock crew. "Hello Ms. Arcoss. To what do we owe the pleasure?" He asked stepping up to put himself between Aashi and the law woman.
Aashi turned with Ulysses Werner and kept a cool face, concentrating on the woman in front of them. She had been the referee at the game, the Spacer.
"Today I'm going to have to get you two to call me Sheriff... Reports of theft following alien presence is something I have to deal with personally."
Werner stepped up to the spacer. He pulled up his sleeve to show the bracelet. "I am sorry Sheriff, I tried it on and must have forgot I was still wearing it. If you want you can escort me to the shop owner and I will pay him what he is due." Werner said calmly, almost detached.
Arccos stepped forward towards Werner. The spurs on her boots clinking against the newly I'ee-paved roads of the city and looking at Werner's wrist... She raised a gloved hand and grabbed one of Werner's fingers to pull up his arm to her eye level to look at the thing.
"So it's what? Bones or something?"
Aashi said smoothly and only, "Shells. Practically void of value, save the fact that it's on the wrist of a very valuable person."
The Sheriff raised her eyebrow a little, pulling Werner's sleeve down a bit more. Just a little roughly. "So he's what? Gold plated on the inside?"
It was Werner's turn to respond. "Captain of the Necromancer. The old C2 in orbit." He answered calmly. "I am just one of the captains Uso hired. Nothing special." He replied.
Aashi side-glanced Ulysses as he modestly introduced himself, wondering if her introduction of herself would be just as such. Perhaps starting with pirate may be a bad decision this time around.
Arccos dropped Werner's arm, letting him be. Although she was squinting a little to apparently make it known she was sizing him up. She never seemed to blink, so anything with the eyes was almost always deliberate.
"I'd prefer it if I just say someone else stole it after you left. But I can do the 'our captains are inattentive' tango with you if you really want." Just a little extra heave in her voice, like this was all getting to be too much effort.
"I think the latter idea of yours is less than likely to sit well. Better stick with the former for your report," Aashi said, leaning to the side as her hand went to her hip. Arccos was tall and had an almost overbearing nature to her that lacked a drive to mask its laziness, from what she had seen. Giving her a reason to let them go wouldn't be easy, but giving Arccos a reason not to do needless work against their benefit could prove less difficult.
Arccos just held out her hand to Werner, making the universal gesture for gimme.
"How's the Necromancer running after the I'ee system trip, anyway? I heard it went to shit..." She slipped from business to conversational. Weirdly unprofessional.
Ulysses just sighed sliding the bracelet from his wrist and placing it in the Spacer's hand. "Yeah the trip was a shitshow. The Necromancer took some extensive damage and is in drydock for overhauls." He replied.
"This how you deal with stress?" Arccos held up the bracelet, letting it dangle from one finger.
Aashi swung her hip to the other side and sighed. If she had less self-restraint, her eyes would have been rolling. Otherwise, she was keeping her face muted and collected, though she was internally revolting at this woman's treatment of Ulysses. She let out another huff of a sigh, this one less intelligible as a noise to anyone but Ulysses, next to her.From her pocket, she withdrew her own piece of jewelry and held it up to Arccos, seeing it only for the first time. It was beautiful, but no longer hers.
"Confiscate them both. If we can't have one, we won't have either," Aashi said.
Werner held out a hand to silence Aashi, gently holding her wrist, transferring calmness through there empathy link. "It's okay Aashi. I bought that one. Keep it. It is a gift." He said pulling out what passed for a receipt in the city and passing it to her. "No ma'am. I just forgot it on my wrist is all." He answered again flatly, sticking with the original story. "Dealing with all the retrofits have got me a little tired and scatter brained is all." he added.
Aashi continued to hold the bracelet out for Arccos, a determined look of resilience on her face.
Werner held Aashi's wrist down by her side. "No Aashi..."
"Right, well. When you were out finding yourself on the sorry end of an NMX fleet, some folks here had the bright idea to commit a massacre..." She shifted from bored and overbearing, to outright schoolmarm scolding. A surprising spectrum of bemusement. "I honestly don't give a drop of water about carved bones, but we really don't need to hand these folks more reasons to think we're horrible... And if we can't hold the planet, neither of you get paid."
"Right...sorry." Werner said becoming slightly more aggravated, but only Aashi could feel this as he was still firmly keeping her hand held by her side.
Aashi nodded as she felt Ulysses' thoughts through his hand on hers and she slipped the bracelet back into the pocket of the fatigues surreptitiously. "Very sorry, Arccos. Arccos," she said, pushing a foot forward and extending her other hand, "I am Aashi Nath, and this is my familiar," she said, sweeping her hand to show the Sheriff her Matai SKyfish.It flew upwards then dipped down to hide behind Ulysses Werner's back and peeked out only once more before staying behind his back. "Let me guess, you keep the law on this planet? Or is there more to it?"
Arccos raised a hand and tipped her hat to the greeting, slouching backwards a little in a weird off-kilter stance that... Somehow looked relaxing.
"Nice to meet you. Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances..." The 'spacer looked to the skyfish, head tilting aside. "Not seen one of those in a while. And yeah... I got saddled with position of High Sheriff of Osman City, and Thieftaker General of the entire empire... There's more to it, but most of it's kinda dull specifics."
Aashi replied, "Dull specifics are usually anything but if you know where to look for the nuances that are seem the least likely but are actually the most important. But those facets we can go over later, now, will you show us to your offices, Arccos? I have been meaning to get a better idea of the city and haven't yet done so beyond side streets and shopping carts."
Arccos looked a little taken aback. This seemed to be going so... Confrontational a moment ago. Now they wanted the law office tour. Odd, but it was better than continuing trading barbs in her mind. "This way. We're at the old courthouse."
She turned, pulling a small datapad from her pocket and typing a few notes in to it. The sound of something mechanical nearby moved away at her command. Spurs on the streets clicking once more as she started leading them towards her place of work. Taking a long stride that led down alleyways and small shortcuts that weren't exactly pleasant compared to the sunlit streets and banners the other two had been strolling along before.
Aashi looked to Werner as they walked, then back to the Sheriff as she walked the path for them to follow and asked, "How was the old regime usurped?"
Ulysses looked back at Aashi,smiling softly and gave her hand a quick squeeze. He the turned to her the answer to her question.
As she walked, Arccos turned her head around just a little bit too far to look normal. Still somehow managing to find her own path without looking forward to boot.
"When we arrived, the Osman Grand Army was clashing with a rebel force led by a man named Aaron Grant. About six of us dropped from the sky in suits of industrial grade power armor, and shot everyone who charged at us. The actual regime wasn't really usurped though. Ace, the big guy you saw at the beach? He went off without orders and forced the last Osman King and Queen to commit suicide, then butchered everyone in the palace with his bare hands." The acid in her tone was almost burning through the cobblestones in the back alley, "Uso gave every city around the ocean a chance to surrender or die, more or less. So it was more extorted than usurped."
"What a blood bath," Aashi said, "it would seem my hands are cleaner than I expected in comparison. So there's law for the lawless with you here, I take it? Do you find yourself berating Uso's crew more than you have to look after the locals, or is it the other way around?"
"Uso's crew don't leave the ships for the most part. She had orders early on to never go outside without a full suit of power armor. You're really the first to go exploring where people live. You're maybe the second group after myself to show your face in public without a huge amount of backup." Arccos' head went back around, watching her feet as she walked. "As for laws for the lawless... That's a complicated question."
She'd led the two to a small courtyard in the city. The old mansion district where the rich folk of the Osman empire used to live to be closer to the palace. Some locals milled about, talking about this or that. A lot seemed to be carting around boxes full of goods imported from space, probably the only area in the city at this point in time where the locals could get anything from off-world. The civilians and Deputies of the Brigade stood about chatting, many even waved to Arccos, showing she seemed to be on friendly terms with them. For a courthouse, it seemed to be less lawyers, and more community. Of course it wasn't Idyllic. The circular area before the old courthouse was dotted with huge red-brown bloodwood trees carefully planted about, but stripped of most leaves due to the recent storms. They were also strung up with nooses here and there. One or two bodies dangling from their branches with their crimes painted on their chests in greenish paint.
"Interesting place you've got here," Aashi mused.
"Well it's not boring." Arccos said with a little laugh, "Not the most pleasant anyway. What did you want to see?"
Werner quietly followed along allowing the girls to talk. He just drifted along with the familiar.
"No, I wouldn't say it is boring at all," Aashi said. "It would be nice to see your office, if at all possible." Aashi didn't know what the future held, but it would always be nice to know where to find the admirable Sheriff.
The Sheriff twitched her head back, as if to request they follow. Heading up the stone steps of the Old Courthouse. Out front, a shattered statue of a blindfolded woman lay about, half-used as seating for some Brigadier Deputies on break. Open doors leading through a foyer with a few fancy desks about which had obviously been hauled out from the offices of judges, most used as market stalls or signing booths now. For some reason a giant mural of crossed chicken drumsticks was up on the walls. No one really paid it any mind, but it was certainly odd. Through there, they found the old High Court room, a long room with high vaulted ceilings, now full of an odd collection of mismatched tables. Locals milled around, talking and eating. No solemn court proceedings here.
Arccos pointed up to the rafters above them, where several haphazard platforms were constructed into a ramshackle second floor on the building. A few shelves and cargo nets were visible from the ground floor. "Office is up there. Pretty much anyone can shout in here to get my attention."
Werner followed along taking in everything. He nodded as he looked at everything. That is until he received a call. He stopped dead in his tracks. "This is Werner...Yes?...What do you mean... Damn it I am on my way..." He looked back to the Spacer and Aashi. "I am sorry I ,just cut and run, but something has happened aboard the ship. I am needed back in orbit. He said nodding to Arccos. "Sorry about the incident Sheriff." He then turned to Aashi and gave her a deep hug. "I will call you later okay?"
Aashi returned the hug and nodded emphatically to him before smiling quickly and watched him take his leave, growing more serious the further he got away from them.
Arccos just nodded back to Werner, not going further into details. She then looked to Aashi.
"Arccos, you seem to have a finger on the pulse, what would you say this planet is in dire need of? Besides the standard things right now like housing, running water, a few other things. Hmmm?" she added, a questioning lilt to the sound.
"Stability, and mutual interest in making this world not awful." Arccos answered more or less instantly. "Everyone's squabbling over scraps of the old empire, while Uso monetizing everything causes all sorts of problems we have to deal with."
"Well whose job is it to pick apart who gets what besides Uso?"
"No one's. Uso is the final authority, technically Aaron Grant is planetary governor, but he's a puppet. I just make sure no one murders everyone over what happens."
Aashi and Arccos found themselves in the Sheriff's office and Aashi found a place on a little work bench to talk from, "And I'm here to do the same, I would say. I think we all are, save for Ace, perhaps. I'll be sure to keep myself calm around that one. Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of a man willing to do what he did. Or, any of you for that matter. Not many are likely to cross you. But what I need to do is help Uso build something big for this planet. Something that distracts everyone away from the problems of the past and helps them rely on thinking about the luster of tomorrow. What I need to build is within the realm of possibility, but is it within the realm of reason, I must know. I'll ask you before I ask her as, frankly, I've run into you first. In quite a happenstance situation, nonetheless. What do you say to seeing a resort pop up in Osman city, sitting on the beach?"
"Too much dirt for my liking, but I just don't understand the whole 'beach' thing." Arccos replied, moving over to her desk proper. A heavy polished wood thing covered in discarded circuitry and paperwork. She sat on the high backed plush seat she'd plundered from former Osmani judges and leaned back on it. "Did... Did Uso seriously hire you as some sort of publicist?"
"It's the sort of work that Uso herself needs done, but isn't ready or," Aashi strayed away from the word willing and said, "is capable of doing at the moment, given all of the other demands of the job. It seems like the idea at least doesn't raise any red flags from you, does it?"
"When I started the Brigade, they were more excited about the possibility of food that doesn't taste like slimy grit. Of all the problems this planet's got, I don't think more sand is the answer." Her hat was removed, and placed on her desk, artificial hair somehow resistant to hat-related problems. "Then again, a lot of them turned up to see you all play volleyball. Who knows what that'd effect."
"I think there are a lot of things that can surprise you about the simpler things," she said, "such as sand. How did you find yourself part of Uso's crew?"
"I was in Ragnarok. Then Uso had a higher price, so I signed on with her." Arccos said simply, not expanding much.
"Ragnarok and Uso aren't interwoven as I had come to believe?"
"Ragnarok is Cyrus' operation. This was our... Well, their first big contract. It's probably permanent at this point, at least as long as Cyrus doesn't think to ask for more money."
Aashi thought back to her meating with Cyrus, wondering if he was the type of man to change a contract. Whether or not had a great impact on her, but her bank account wasn't what mattered to her. Being a part of a team was. Knowing all of the team members was, too. She had just managed to tick off the major players in Uso's book and for that, she was willing to call it a day.
Wihtout sounding like she was ready to take her leave, because she was more than wiling to stay and talk with Arccos, she asked, "Do you have any questions for me, since I hounded you for so many?"
"I don't really know anything about you other than you're an Iromakuanhe, and you're here to maybe build something big with or for Uso." Arccos leaned forward on her desk, picking up a piece of circuitboard and a soldering iron. "So I'm inclined to think that you're really something far more dangerous than you've presented to me, since I doubt you'd have come all the way from the commonwealth to work on public relations for a nekovalkyrja... So I guess I'll just ask what brings you here?"
Aashi tilted her head, "Building something big for or with Uso is what makes you think I'm less than innocent?" She sat straighter to avoid laughing, "No, no, that shouldn't alert you, the fact that I have no past that you know of is what alerts you, isn't it? Well I'll tell you, I have a former life and a life I'm leading now. What's past is something I'd-" mid-sentence, a scene from her nightmare of the dark cloud surrounding her crew members visualized in her head and she chose to speak no more of it,"-like to forget. Why I'm here isn't the issue, it's what I'll do that's more important. And what I'll do is likely make this planet a lot of very good money. Most like money, you're one of those. My presence here will make you very happy if I'm correct."
Arccos got the barest hint of a smirk on her features. Smoke starting to rise around her as she put the iron to work.
"Your innocence had nothing to do with what I thought of you, actually. It just seems too deliberate and unadventurous to be something Uso would have done. Going out, hiring someone to build things. Her strategy for building this place up has just been to fire everything she can find at the place, and see what sticks..."
Thinking back to the crossed chicken drumsticks on the wall leading up to Arccos' office, Aashi wondered just how many of the right things had stuck to the walls and said, "I take the opposite approach, and perhaps for the same reasons. Funny enough, things sometimes work by happenstance and sometimes they work because the action behind it was purposeful and took effort, time, and conscoiousness to do it. That is what I am for. To make sure that no matter what, what happens is going to work out for the best. Now, what is it that you are doing, Arccos?"
"Talking with you. Trying to figure you out, to a degree." She said, holding up the iron and circuitry. She wasn't apparently doing anything practical. The board was a slim sliver of a whole component, and was now being heated and bent into a small ring... Putting the iron back in its cradle, she removed a glove, and then slipped that ring over her finger. It was exactly that. Just a ring made of scrap circuitry.
"I also just feel weird when I'm not doing something with my hands, sometimes."
"I know the feeling," Aashi said, asking her familiar to come to her by need alone and when it did, she let her fingers glide over its spine. "I'm glad to have been figure out... or have I been?" she asked slyly. "Regardless, it was very nice getting to know you, Arccos," she said, standing and extending a hand, hoping for the FreeSpacer to shake her with the gloved hand, rather than the one with a heated piece of scrap on it. "Thanks for everything you've done for me today, Arccos."
Arccos raised her glove, holding it up and shaking Aashi's hand rather weakly.
"I haven't figured you out yet. But that you're dragging it out means I'm learning something, still..."
Aashi let one corner of her move slide up in a smile and she said, "Yes, I suppose you are. Until next time, when we'll both have opportunities to learn even more, if we can." She let go of the spacer's synthflesh and found her way to the door and down the steps, taking pause to respect the hanging bodies before making her way back the way she had come, this time making her way to the beach.
She ambled about it for upwards of an hour finding suitable shells for the bracelet she planned to make. It was an easy distraction for her mind to wander away from the nightmare that had wracked both her and Ulysses' morning. Even thinking about her conversation with Arccos was nearly enough to get her thoughts away from that she feared. On the edges of her mind were still the thoughts of her former crew and what had become of them, though.
Her eyes spun to the skies and her hair whipped out behind her, black from the roots and blue below her shoulders. She still held her dress and jacket in her hands along with the shells and wore Ulysses' sister's black fatigues, ironic considering who she was.
"Ravana..." she found herself whispering, recalling the young pirate boy from her ship, the Devata. After a long moment of silence in which time her Skyfish came over to her and gently nudged against her cheek, she said quieter, still, "Where are you?"
