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Episode 4 (aside) Conversations

HarperMadi

🎨 Media Gallery
RP Date
YE 42
RP Location
YSS Tokyo
This JP was written by myself and @HelaxusPhase, continuing off of Letters from Old Friends so feel free to add to it.

Nick combed his fingers through his hair before pressing the button to enter the observation deck. It'd been a few years since he last spoke face to face with Aliset, so he had - oddly - been rather nervous at this meeting. He had made sure to bring the large bottle of wine with him. He walked through the port, then looked around the deck. Smiling, he greeted Aliset with a casual wave.

"Been an eternity, it feels." He said, his voice a deep and soothing rumble, almost. He looked off to the left a bit, then smirked mischievously, giving her a rather crisp and formal salute.

"Santô Juni Aliset Soren, Santô Hei Nicol Sanger reporting for Catch up and Recon mission."

Aliset had been busy wielding one of the burial steel skillets she had pilfered from Soren, singing quietly in their native language. The sunset across the shipyards cast her rusted hair in a firey halo as she shook the pan back and forth. The dull blue juice she had synthesized sizzled in the pan, staining the pale flesh of some creature a sweet and vibrant blue as the lichen fronds around it curled and seared, filling the room with the pungent aromas of fine cooking. She looked up with a bright smile as Nick entered, and when he saluted she gave a sharp laugh. "Relax, Santo Hei! It's good to see you!"

Her old Senti flight suit had clearly seen better days, but it was clean, well maintained, and highly shined as any officer's should be. Her knife found its way from its sheath as she used it to dice a tuber, tossing that in the pan with a sizzle. She looked up, around at the pale gray bare metal of the Tokyo's walls and ceiling. "This ship is so new, almost feels like it hasn't come to life yet. She's not much, but I feel like she can be a home."

Nick relaxed, then walked over and set the metallic bottle down on the counter near her. Smiling brighter, he nodded, looking around the area, then out to the open windows to observe the nebula. "It feels like it already, just with someone familiar being here. It makes it feel all the more friendly. Over time I am sure this place will come alive."


Worry etched his face for a moment, a memory crossing his mind. He sighed. "Barring nothing ill befalls this ship. It is rather lovely to see from the outside." He turned his attention to her, watching her skillfully cook up the dish for the two of them. He never really was one to seek out partnership, mostly due to always feeling like he was stressed. Overly so with his pseudo-revenge like march to figure out how his parents hadn't seen the anomaly earlier. But now, something stirred, he blinked it away as he looked at Aliset’s face. "You've proven to be rather successful since we last spoke... Definitely doing your family proud, hun."

"It took some time to get used to Military life, I'll admit. Crash courses for those who have never flown before. Learning I can't sleep in a standard room, or how saline solvent vaccines cause minor cardiac episodes. That was fun. It feels so alien, being surrounded by people who spent their whole lives planetside. How much space they need, and the looks I get for my little tiny cabin. It's actually rather spacious, and I'm fond of it." She used a spatula to scoop up the fish, placing the fillets on their spots to cool as she let the lichen soak up juices and flavors. "And I swear, the difficulty in getting good cannon fruit! Dear Goddess, it's like these people think it's a toxic weed!"

"To them it might as well be. Perfectly understandable, we are a new species they have never interacted with. Rather fascinating when you give them the opportunity to uh... interview you. The questions they ask. Truly entertaining." He chuckled, shaking his head before taking in a deep breath. "My goodness, a skilled cook and a pilot. What can't you do these days?"

He grabbed the plates, getting them and the utensils ready nearby for her to serve the dish. Then he grabbed the cups she brought and started to pour the rather aromatic wine. Setting her cup near so that as she finished cooking, she may take a sip. "Have you found any potential partners aboard this craft?" He asked, making small talk.

"Like you haven't had your fair share of galley duty!" Ali laughed, taking a sip of the wine and seeming to melt as the flavors of home washed over her senses. "A food replicator just can't do this stuff justice, can it?"

She quickly cut the hot plate off, picking up the pan to move it over to the plating and scraping two portions of the still sizzling and spiced aroma lichens onto the plates. "As for finding anybody...Half the population is bored nekos. I just... Haven't found many people attractive, and those I do are different species, I just can't. I feel like you and I are the only Senti on board..."

She looked out to the stars, hoping to see something there, perhaps the glimmer of her home Flotilla. A certain sadness seemed to cross her features, a loneliness and a longing for the hustle and bustle, cramped quarters and camaraderie of that mountain of shining steel forged in the void. "In training and here... I thought I was... Are we alone?"

He nodded, pursing his lips as he tenderly brushed a lock of her hair behind one of her ears.

"We are pioneers. The first. It will take time for others of our kind to join in... If they deem it right." Nodding again, he brought both of their plates to a table sitting next to a window, then went and brought his drink and the bottle of wine to the table as well. He pulled out a chair for her to sit down, gesturing at the seat.

"Well... Though none might appeal to me, the only one I've any level of fondness of would be you. Since we first met, I have had some feelings. But I'll hold off on that for a discussion at a later date... For now, I'd like to see about alleviating your loneliness. I have this idea. Rumor has it that you have been assigned as a Ginga pilot, and might be in need of your own Flight Engineer. At present, I am in an overfill slot, and not really needed..." After she sat down, he followed suit, and looked at her curiously, awaiting her response.

"Had I known you'd gone in, you'd have been my first pick. You still are. Besides. You fly with me," she took a sip of her wine, moving to the table as she tapped the rank tag on her breastplate. "You can work on this."

"You think I can obtain warrant? Be a pilot?" He inquired, raising a brow, a slight flush appearing on his cheeks as he looked up into her eyes a moment. He was confident in his abilities overall but had never been the sort that would go and strive for much as far as stature went. He also knew that he'd need a written recommendation letter after a side-by-side flight time of roughly 30 hours before he could even think of going Flight Warrant, or at least something of that nature. "Do you trust me enough to pilot your bird?"

She sat down with a grin, taking another sip and a forkful of greens. "Remember when you were on Soren? When I was a decimal point off, maybe 10^-6 off? Clipped a hill sphere and dropped out of jump into a black hole."

She chewed thoughtfully, swallowing and washing it back. "You just about fried our sublights doing it. But you plotted a slingshot maneuver around it and gave me 150 percent thrust for a full ten minutes. You saved all of our lives. Damn right I trust you."

Nick blushed a bit more visibly, taking a bite of the main dish, his shoulders relaxing at the burst of flavor from the well-made dish. "I remember that. I guess you're right. I'll put in my packet for transfer, then we can start the process of putting together a Flight packet as well." He grinned, gesturing at the plate, giving a thumbs up. It was an awkward thing to do, having only recently learned about it from some human. "Really well done, for what we have here... The training, if I recall can be done by someone of your rank, correct? I won't have to go directly to the academy?"

Ali covered her mouth and blushed with a demure smile, a bright blush crossing her cheeks for a moment. "Actually, I have to wait for at least a promotion before officially training anyone. Think I have to be Itto Juni or something like that. But you'll go up in rank quickly as a flight engineer. Let's face it, with in-flight fixes and pulling dumb maneuvers the textbooks say should be impossible... Can't say I trust anyone else. And my current flight engineer is clueless and unobservant."

She gave a teasing smile, taking some of the fish as she shifted her hips and let her elbow rest on the table. "So what do you think? Want to try to keep me from breaking something expensive?"

At that, he chuckles, "You mean you haven't already? That smile of yours is a heartbreaker, as it is," he teased in response, giving her a wink before taking another drink of the flavorful wine. He thought for a moment, then took a deep breath.

"This'll be fun, repairing the damages you incur due to impulsive flight patterns. I might even be able to experiment with the ship and see if I can develop a shielding that can protect the ship and the interior from that uh... Neutron radiation, and maybe even the Hawking Radiation," he pondered. Though lost in his thoughts, his amber eyes were pinned to her own lustrous eyes, something that would seem as if he were admiring them.

At that moment, the sun passed below the planet's horizon, the atmosphere lensing a last flash up across the station before the stars fell dark. He wouldn't have seen that. His sight would catch the flash in her eyes, the faded, corroded iridescence and the sparkling burgundy catching the light to burn and glow as the superheated rage of the sun, rings like the solar flares he remembered her flying through, and just the barest hint and remains of that sparkling green shine she had once dazzled with, as though desperately holding on to her innocence and the kindness that Space simply had none of. The warmth she carried through her soul flashed for the barest moment, the dull red lighting to a powerful, alluring glow. "Most of that shielding's already in place, I think. Could always use a few Senti durability... What are you staring at?"

He couldn't take his eyes away, he swallowed, blushing heavily.

"Y-you... actually. Just for a moment, your eyes were beyond the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Like looking into the most alluring nebula ever beheld..." He cleared his throat, taking another swig from his cup, and finishing the last of the dish she had prepared for them.

"Sorry... Emotions uh... Got ahold of me." He cleared his throat again, then looked out of the window. "I'd like to pilot with you, for sure. It is a great honor..."

"I... It would be an honor to have an engineer like you. And a man I like!" She neatly dodged the comment about her eyes, knowing full well she had other body image issues to work on, such as growing into her weight. Still, she couldn't help but blush and stumble over her words at first, before growing confident and finishing with a beaming smile. She finished her meal and her wine before she picked up the bottle, offering more, and leaving a cookie-sized raw ingot of steel near his plate.

He nodded at the offer of her topping off his glass, then paused, catching the ingot from the corner of his eye. He looked directly at it, a blush again forming on his cheeks as he set his cup back down. His eyes darted to hers, a look of awe on his face. Tears welled at the very bottom of his eyes, barely visible to most.

“I… I don’t know what to say... “ He took the ingot carefully, knowing full well the weight of who it was. He stroked a thumb tenderly over the shimmering steel. He took a deep breath, nodding gently before kissing the ingot with a smile, a look of determination in his eyes.

"Mom would want it." She smiled brightly, pouring his glass, and refilling hers. After, she raised the coffee mug she was drinking from, "To figuring out our place on this new ship, hopefully to our future!"
 
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