Beach - Another Day
Sienna had spent much of the afternoon with Natsumi perusing the shopping district again, getting educated on Yamataian fashion. There was a lot of variety in what she saw, some of it prudishly modest, and some of it ridiculously brazen, but almost all of it falling under the purview of what Sienna considered "impractical." Every time they had entered a new store, if she had still never seen a luxury resort such as this one, she would have found herself wondering just what kind of life Yamataian women led that made choosing what areas of their body to call attention to among their most crucial daily decisions. All the same, however, she couldn't deny that she was enjoying herself, even if the thrill of being dressed up like a somebody at Sune's dinner had involved far more annoyances than she'd realized it would. They had eaten lunch at one of the open-air restaurants along a main road, a quaint little place that tried very hard to make itself look like it was a dinky little hovel when its flatware and the cooking appliances Sienna caught glimpses of when the wait staff breezed through the kitchen door gave away the fact that it was in fact long established and thriving. She had stayed with something familiar and simple -- a basic turkey sandwich with fried potatoes -- but it had tasted absolutely heavenly.
The sky was starting to become awash in reddish orange, as the daylight started to fade. The pair had made their way out to one of the beaches at last, something that Sienna had been secretly dying to see ever since they made planetfall. Natsumi had talked her into buying a solid black two-piece swimsuit, with a bikini bottom and a full coverage halter top that showed almost no cleavage and covered a small portion of her upper midriff. She still wasn't terribly thrilled about parading around in public wearing so little, however. While she had relented to the Neko on the swimwear, she had insisted on at least wearing a pair of short denim shorts with it, even though they covered only a little more than the bottoms themselves. Her shoulders, belly, back, and legs were still exposed, but at least she didn't feel quite so ridiculous.
The hot sand between her bare toes sent tingles up her spine as they finally walked onto it, enhanced by the gentle evening sea breeze tousling her loose hair and the sound of the little waves washing ashore. She couldn't help the smile that spread over her face as she closed her eyes and took in the rest of her senses, letting the quiet tranquility take her away.
Natsumi smIled as they finally set foot on the hot sandy beach,clad in her flashy red and white striped bikini she had bought the last time the Eucharis had been here. It showed more of her pale skin than Sienna's new black bathing suit did, but it did not bother the neko. Modesty was a lot different with nekos than humans.
"And we've finally made it!" she announced, pushing her aviator style sunglasses up onto her forehead. "Pretty, isnt it?" she grinned and took in the white sandy beach and sparkling blue sea.
If only you could see it through my eyes, Sienna thought, smiling as she took it all in. "That's putting it lightly," she replied, and looked over at Natsumi. "But then, I guess y'all see things like this all the time."
Natsumi smiled. "No, not all the time" she replied. "I've spent most of my life aboard the Eucharis, not on planets," she said.
"Yeah, but y'all come here every year, I thought," Sienna answered with a raised eyebrow.
"I've only ever been here once before," Natsumi said. At the moment she did not remember if she had actually told Sienna how old she was.
Sienna furrowed her brow as they walked, glancing Natsumi's way from time to time. "I'd figured you'd been with the ship longer'n that," she said.
The snowy haired neko nodded. "This is my first posting after i was created and trained. About two years now," she answered.
With raised eyebrows, Sienna looked over at the Neko with fresh astonishment. "You're only two years old?" she asked, intrigued.
"Yeah," Natsumi grinned. "Created in a hemosynth tube, programmed with all the basics and then sent to training," she shrugged. This was all natural to her.
"Huh," was the only reply that Sienna could muster, her expression now morphing into one of puzzled curiosity. No wonder Natsumi seemed so optimistic, even naive all the time. She hadn't been alive long enough to really know any better. The Eucharis was all the Neko ever knew. At first she found herself feeling some degree of pity, but it wasn't long before she started to realize that such innocence could almost be called a gift. If Nekos had the ability to reason, think, and feel the way humans did, she wondered at whether or not Natsumi was aware of just how incredible her position could potentially be. But probably not, she deduced -- if the Neko was as youthfully untainted by life as she thought, it stood to reason that her naivete would prevent her from truly appreciating it. It was an unfortunate double-edged sword, a gift that you could either have and be completely unaware of, or fondly remember only after it was lost.
Sienna looked back out at the ocean scenery spreading out before them, running a hand through her hair. "And they program you to like walks on the beach, huh?" she asked wryly.
"Oh that part I decided on on my own," Natsumi said. She looked out on the sea. "Fell in love with the sea the first time i saw it," she grinned.
Sienna's eyes remained locked in a wistful trance out at the setting sun over the water. "Can't say I blame you," she agreed quietly.
Natsumi watched the sea in silence for a few moments. "Maybe when i decide to leave the service I will move to a place like this on the coast," she smiled.
"You mean retire?" Sienna asked, looking over at her. "They build you to be a soldier, then they give you the benefits of being human?" she continued, but fairly quickly realized what she'd just said, and even if she wasn't yet fully convinced that a Nekovalkyrja was quite the same thing as human, Natsumi was clearly much more than just a machine. "I mean, ah," she added, trying to backpedal. "Well... you know."
"I think I get what you mean. Yes they make us, then after we serve a required term in the military we have the option to retire if we wish to," Natsumi explained. "If I will when my term is up or not I dont know. This is the only life I've known and so far I have liked it," she said. "Not the fighting, but being out amongst the stars on a ship."
A smirk pulled one corner of Sienna's mouth upwards as she looked back out at the water again, slowing to a stop with her toes just on the edge of the surf. The sand felt funny as the gentle whoosh and wash of the waves eroded the grains from beneath her feet, making her shift her balance from time to time. "Funny," she answered, her voice somewhat distant. "I've been on ships almost my whole life too, more'n ten times longer than yours. When y'all found me on Urtullan, that was the longest I'd ever been in one place.
"And I've hated every second of it," she added, finality in her tone.
"Guess it depends what things were like on the ships you were on," Natsumi shrugged. She had no idea what most if Sienna's past was like, she just knew what little she had been told. "Still, hopefully you are getting some good experiences now?" she inquired with a grin as she looked back at her new friend.
"Heh," Sienna chuckled, looking down at her toes, watching the warm salt water lap across her feet. She looked up at Natsumi from beneath her brow. "That a trick question?"
"Not at all," she smiled. "Just, well," Natsumi paused a moment. "I know things have not been easy for you and I want to make sure you have better times now, you know.. It's what friends do for eachother," she smiled, more sheepishly this time.
Sienna looked up at Natsumi's last statement, staring in wonder at her for a few silent moments, and tucked her thumbs into the waistline of her shorts. She tilted her head and opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out immediately, so she closed it again and sighed, looking back out at the water. "You're still trying to 'fix' me, aren't you?" she observed flatly.
"Fix?" she asked. "No, just be friends with and hopefully help have a good time," Natsumi answered truthfully. "I don't think theres anything broken in you... just you needed a chance for something better than when we first met you," she said.
The Nepleslian grinned again. "'Have a good time,'" she echoed, amused. "On a warship. If you'd said that to me before we got turned loose on a no-holds-barred luxury vacation, I'd'a laughed." She shook her head as she watched a distant marine animal break the surface of the waves and crash back to the water with a foaming splash before disappearing again. Then she sighed a long sigh. "Look," she continued in an explanatory tone. "It's like I said. It ain't that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do. But it's only a matter of time before I'll have to be moving on, you know? Unless y'all get me killed before then, of course." She drew a pattern in the sand with her big toe, letting the water erase it. "Either way, getting attached to things, or people..." She trailed off and paused for a second before looking up, her eyes distant. "Well, it's just asking for trouble."
Natsumi frowned and planted her hands on her hips, fixing suddenly stern and determined eyes on Sienna. "I know nothing lasts forever and eventually you or I will move on to somewhere else," she said. "But that is no reason to forsake attachments. There is nothing wrong with making friends. They are still friends even when far away. Like it or not, I am your friend, Sienna, and not much is going to change that," she said with conviction. "So you'll just have to deal with having a friend for life, however long that is."
Although she was visibly surprised by Natsumi's sudden determination, Sienna's eyes hardened when the Neko argued with her, and she levelled her gaze back in return, not looking away for an instant. The faint hint of grateful understanding that was peeking through in her face vanished beneath a cold, blank expression as she stared, letting Natsumi finish her tirade. When she was done, her eyes narrowed, almost too little to even notice. "Why?" she replied coolly. "Why do you care if we're friends or not? What difference does it make to you either way? I'm dead weight to y'all, just a hitchiker that you haven't had the chance to dump off yet. So what's the game? Why so set on making me happy?"
Natsumi's eyes narrowed just as much."There's no game," she replied. "Why does it matter? Because you helped us a lot, we would probably not have made it off that planet without your help," she said,
"Oh, don't patronize me," Sienna scoffed with a disdainful look. "Y'all stepped in a pile of shit, which just so happened to be my back yard, and I just happened to show up first. So yeah, you shoulda been watching where you were clomping those fancy boots of yours. But don't try to tell me I was the only one who coulda pulled your asses out of that mess."
"Hey we were invited in by the leader of that city on good faith, how were we supposed to know his cronies were going to pop up and make a mess of things?" Natsumi replied, "We came with peaceful intentions, we did not start the problems," she grumbled.
Sienna almost laughed out loud. "No, but you believed the slug," she retorted. "And look where it got you. You didn't start the trouble, but you damn sure asked for it." She put her hands on her hips and turned away, taking a few steps from the Neko, wading slightly into the water, letting out a heavy sigh. "That same blind trust is also what nearly got us all a permanent parking spot on the dreamworld. Eventually that kind of dumb optimism is gonna catch up with you, and damned if I'm gonna let y'all take me down with you."
"No one ever said exploring space and new worlds was safe!" Natsumi responded, "We have to believe the new people we encounter have the possibility of being friendly and worth trusting, if we don't we will never become friends with anyone new, or, would have never trusted you to help us on that planet. Then where would things be? We would likely be dead and you would still be stranded on that world!" she snapped. "I trusted you then, without knowing you because it seemed like the right thing to do and it worked out pretty well for all of us!"
"No," Sienna hissed, whipping back around to face Natsumi, striding purposefully back towards the Neko with a gait that almost suggested she'd walk right over her if she didn't yield. "It worked out for me," the Nepleslian continued, pointing sharply up at herself to accentuate her point as she came to a stop inches in front of Natsumi. "I didn't help y'all out of some misplaced sense of charity. I was after a ride. And I got it because I had something to offer. That's how deals work. You don't just believe, you don't trust, you don't give the benefit of the doubt. You aim to get what you want knowing full well that the other party is after something too." She eyed the Neko up and down derisively. "Yeah, you took a gamble trusting me," she continued. "But if y'all had half a brain, it was only because you didn't have any other choice. And I knew it. Exploring new worlds ain't safe, I get it," she said. "But you don't have to just take everyone at their word. That's why y'all ain't gonna last long. You're weak. You're stupid," she spat.
Natsumi glared back at Sienna, crossing her arms and standing her ground. "No," she stated. "I do not think it is stupid to be trusting of people at all," she responded."I think if we are going to get anywhere we have to trust people, be careful yes, but we have to trust, if we do not then things just don't go well for a lot of reasons. You trusted us just as much as we did you. If you did not you would have never just let us take you away on our ship. What if we had been tricking you, huh? If we were not being truthful we could have just as easily put you in a much worse situation than you were already in. No you trusted us. All that stuff about how deals work is just so you can save face and keep your tough exterior to the world," Natsumi hissed.
Sienna's eyes narrowed to dangerous-looking slits. "Don't you pretend like you know me," she growled in a low, threatening tone. "Or how much worse I could have it. You're Star Army. There are rules for you, things y'all are accountable for. There's nothing y'all woulda done to me that woulda been worse than living in that shithole, waiting for my turn to be a shell for one of those parasites. Don't insult me by thinking I wouldn't know the difference."
"No!" Natsumi said again. She was not going to relent on this. "You obviously don't pay attention to what others think of us, how Yamatai is the evil empire out to conquer the galaxy and subjugate all other worlds under our rule by any means neccesary" she said flatly. "And I think I've been able to get to know you pretty well, Sienna" she said. "I know you well enough to see how scared you are of losing people that you wont take the risk of getting close to those that want to be your friends, even if the benefit way outweighs the risk!" She poked her right index finger at the taller Nepleslian.
Indignant, barely-contained fury flashed in Sienna's eyes as she reacted to Natsumi's prodding, swatting her finger away. "Frak you!" she barked, her eyes wide as she glared down at the Neko menacingly. Her words were animated, wild, dripping with venom as she ranted back in uncharacteristic emotion, and her backwater accent was more evident in her anger than ever. "You're frakking two years old. You ain't known jack shit outside of that luxury yacht you're stationed on, you said so yourself. Your whole short life you've been an Imperial stooge, seeing the universe through their rose-colored glass." She clenched her jaw as she pointed back up at herself again. "You ain't seen what I seen. You got no idea what's out there when you and your happy-go-lucky band ain't lookin'. And yet y'all think you can fix it all. Everybody wants to be like Yamatai, you say, they just need to be graced with y'all's good will.
"You're damn right that everyone else hates you. I was raised to hate you. Y'all are so convinced that you've got all the answers to everybody's woes, and it just burns you to think that someone might have good reason to disagree. But calling y'all an evil empire?" she continued, scoffing. "Please. That's just giving y'all too much credit, you ask me." She paused for a second and stepped back, taking a long, labored breath, forcing herself to calm down.
"I don't give a damn what Yamatai's agenda is," she said dismissively, waving her hand as if shooing away an annoying insect. "Y'all can gallavant about trying to solve everyone's problems if you want. Conquer the whole damn galaxy for all I care. In the end, not a damn thing will be different." She turned to face out to sea, looking back over her shoulder at Natsumi. "All this?" she said, motioning with a sweep of her arm out towards the water. "And this?" she continued, pointing back towards the resort. "You can kid yourself all you want. But none of this is real. The universe will always be one big shitstorm of people killing one another. Yamataian, Nepleslian, cyborg, human, alien, people. Don't matter. People are conniving, self-serving, violent animals that will step on each other's throats if they think they can gain something. You can dress it up however you want. Pass your laws. Build your resorts, flag your territory, spread your goodwill. Do whatever you think you need to do in the name of civilization. But nothing will change." She stepped forward, intently staring Natsumi down from the side of her eyes, and pointed firmly at the ground with each slowly delivered word. "Nothing. Ever. Changes."
Natsumi put her hands back on her hips again, her red eyes locked on Sienna's. "I cannot believe people are evil and conniving," she replied. "Yes, there are bad people out there but that's not everyone, haven't you figured that out yet?" she demanded."No one has asked anything in return of you here. no one has pushed any agenda on you or forced you to do anything against your will, hell Sune set you up with enough money to allow you to live comfortably anywhere in the empire for several years without worry!" Natsumi stated. "And you still think all of this is just a dream you are going to wake up from? Only way this is all going away is if YOU make it all go away." She pointed back at Sienna again."I know im only two and i have not experienced what you have, doesn't make me any less of a person than you, like you I did not choose where and when i was created or what i was created as. all of us are the same that way even if we were started differently."
Natsumi looked back out at the sea, she did not want to be mad or argue anymore, but she had to get through this, she knew Sienna had a lot if anger and frustration to deal with.
Sienna bristled and her face turned red. She opened her mouth and held a rigid index finger pointed accusingly at Natsumi by her jaw, but no words came. She could only sit there and fume in silence, her jaw working as if she were a mute trying to stammer. She wanted to argue, wanted to point out just how naive the Neko was being, but she had no words. She felt like Natsumi was simply too childish and innocent to comprehend just how wrong she was, but whatever the reason, she simply didn't know what to say in response. Finally she closed her mouth and drew a long breath through her nose, and looked away to the horizon. "Things like this.... don't happen to people like me," she said quietly, keeping her face turned away. "They just don't. Yeah, I'm benefitting from sticking around. And maybe I don't know what y'all are getting out of it. Hell, maybe you don't either. But that doesn't mean there's not a reason."
Natsumi let out a breath. "Sometimes things like this happen," she said, more calmly. "I know myself, I know my Shosho, and I know Sune. None if us are after anything in return. You helped us in a time of need and this is our gratitude," she said. "And as for me, I thought you could use a friend and you know, I like you, you are a really nice person deep down under all the negativity and thick armor you have built up around yourself, you just have never been given a chance before."
She took a breath and continued before Sienna could get a word in. "Don't think we are just going to dump you somewhere or that we are using you or want something from you or that I want something in return from you." Natsumi looked back at Sienna."If we didn't want you around we would have left you behind ages ago. If I did not want you around I would have never stopped you from running off on thedreamworld, especially when the drugs made you want to go so bad it turned you violent."
That last part stung. A pang of guilt struck Sienna, and she folded her arms across her chest. As much as she didn't want to own up to it, Natsumi had a point. Maybe she didn't speak on the rest of the crew's behalf, but the Neko was far too transparent to be able to hide any sort of ulterior motive of her own. And if she had managed to somehow fool her all this time, she couldn't imagine what Natsumi felt that she could gain from her that would be worth standing up to the beating she'd administered. But knowing that her suspicions didn't make sense only confused her. It flew in the face of her entire life's experience thus far, but then again, so did everything that she had been given over the past few days. Her intuition told her that Natsumi was telling the truth; the Neko simply didn't have the capability of keeping up a smoke screen with that much conviction. But she simply couldn't shake off the fear that it was just another elaborate web of lies, and Natsumi simply wasn't privvy to it. Having no response, she merely stood there, her back to Natsumi, staring out into the water.
"I know you don't want to believe this or trust that we do not expect anything in return. There is no game, no trick, no plot against you," Natsumi said, any trace of anger or frustration had left her voice. She watched Sienna to see if there was any physical sign of a change in her mood.
"I know it's not easy to believe all this after everything you have been through, I just hope someday you will realize that this time things are exactly as they seem."
Sienna still remained silent, and for a moment the only sounds around them was the surf, the avian cries, and the faint thrum of activity from the city. Her eyes stayed vacantly transfixed on the distant horizon across the water, arms folded, letting the gentle breeze calm her. Natsumi couldn't help her ignorance, but it was becoming apparent that in that innocence was a genuine desire to do good, whatever it may be. She simply couldn't wrap her mind around that kind of purity; she had never known it. There was so much childishness in the Neko's mind, and yet, she couldn't ignore the fact that with it was a certain clarity that was beyond her comprehension.
"I left home, if you can call it that, when I was fourteen," she said quietly, still facing away, her voice sounding as if it were far, far away. "I was sick of the hiding, the rhetoric, the revolutionary crap. It was all pointless bullshit to me, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It wasn't my war. All I saw was people killing people over frak-all.
"I drifted for a long time," she continued, "doing odd jobs for quick cash and moving on to the next. I met someone during that time who seemed to be in the same situation as me." Her lower lip quivered just a touch, and she took a long breath. "He helped me, found me better work, taught me how to better fend for myself, to be a better survivor. I learned so much from him, but not just skills." She looked back over her shoulder at Natsumi, then down at her crossed arms, turning slightly to face her at an angle before looking back out to the ocean. "He was a good companion. We had each other's backs, got each other out of several scrapes, you know? We trusted each other." A wistful smile tugged at her lips. "Plus, he was just great to be around. Funny, smart," she continued, then gave the Neko a meaningful look. "Good looking," she added.
The expression on her face slowly darkened. "We hopped from system to system, never staying in one place too long to get noticed or attract the wrong kind of attention. It was the only life I knew anyway, so I never felt like I was missing out on much, I guess. We wound up in Urtullan eventually, after buying our way onto a junker heading further out into the rim.
"I don't know how or when, or how long before we got there, but someone made him an offer," she continued, her voice flat. "You probably noticed that labor in Urtullan was a pretty valuable commodity." She paused as her throat double clutched on her. Swallowing, she sighed shakily and kept her eyes turned away. She quickly wiped them with the back of her hand. "Well, you can figure out the rest," she concluded. "From then on, I knew it had to be just me."
Natsumi could see the anguish in Sienna's face. This was probably the first time she had ever talked about this with anyone before. "I'm so sorry, Sienna," she said softly aftera few moments. "That's a terrible thing to have gone through and I understand how that would make it hard to trust anyone again."
Natsumi looked Sienna in the eyes. "I promise you thatas long as i am around that something like that will not happen again. I mean it when I say i am your friend and want nothing but to be your friend."
Sienna sniffed, cursing herself for the show of weakness, and tried to compose herself. She couldn't believe she had just opened up that way, and hoped against hope that she wouldn't regret it one day. In a way, it did feel cathartic to speak of it to someone else, and wondered if it would be equally liberating to confess more of her troubled past. But she knew in her heart that she had already made a mistake, and couldn't allow herself to make it worse. Maybe Natsumi was trustworthy after all, but it would be incredibly stupid and hypocritical of her to just give her everything she needed to exploit her. She unfolded her arms and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, blinking the mist out of her eyes before she looked back up at the Neko with an artificially hardened look. "I didn't say that to make you feel sorry for me," she snipped, almost sounding perturbed at her pity. "So don't."
"I know you didn't," Natsumi replied. "But keeping that kind of thing bottled up cant be good." She knew Sienna had just given her a big piece of information about her past. "And don't worry, I wont tell what you told me to anyone. Its good to have someone to confide in and I will never tell anyone anything personal you tell me just as much as I know you would do the same for.me," she smiled at the Nepleslian woman.
"But you don't," Sienna replied, her voice still edgy, but softening again. "You got no way of knowing what I'll do with what you give me." Lowering herself to the ground, she sat in the sand on her backside, pulling her knees to her chest. "I didn't tell you any of that because I trust you. I told you so you'd understand."
"I know you won't do anything bad with whatever I tell you," Natsumi replied. "I know you are a good person, just have been having a rough time." She sat next to Sienna, hands resting on the sand behind her as she reclined a little. "Sienna, you do not have to make me understand anything, I do already," she fell silent for a little while as she looked out onto the sparkling sea. "I may not have the experiences you do but I know what it means to be a good person and how to treat friends right. I don't think what you have had to go through is right and the way you were treated was not right," she glanced over at her "I know its not possible to get over a life of hardship but I can at least be the best friend i can to you, not because I want you to owe me anything, but because i want to."
Sienna sat in the sand, pondering Natsumi's words. She still had her reservations, but she still couldn't imagine what kind of value she could have to the crew that would be worth this amount of determination to win her friendship. She watched the waves continue to lap at her feet and trickle up to her hind end, soaking through her shorts. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon now, bathing the entire scene in a hauntingly beautiful orange glow.
She sighed again, not taking her eyes off of the water. "I don't know," was her only reply, now sounding more lost than upset.
"Well, you have plenty of time to figure things out," Natsumi smiled.
Sienna doubted that. But she decided to humor her anyways. "Yeah," she reluctantly agreed. She stretched her legs out in front of her on the sand and leaned back on her hands, and the two sat in silence for another few slowly passing moments.
"So do they let you get in the water here?" Sienna asked evenly, breaking the silence.
"Of course" Natsumi grinned and pushed herself back up to her feet. "The water is nice and warm, wanna go in?" she asked and held out her hand for Sienna.
"May as well see what the fuss is about," she answered without expression as she looked up at Natsumi's hand. Accepting it, she hoisted herself to her feet. "We're about out of daylight anyway."
Natsumi held onto her hand tight and ran into the water, dragging her toward the sea, water splashing around their feet. Natsumi laughed as she waded into the warm sea.