R
Rizzo
Masumi had walked the streets of former Osman City for a long time after her odd time spent using a different name and a cover story for the first time. The sun had long since risen over the murky green sea and touched the dusky orange dunes far inland. Masumi had seen the tourists and locals alike come out for the day and spent her time in the city in odd, interesting ways for the majority of the time without Candon, but when he was finally free of the meeting he hadn't a clue of where she was.
He telepathically reached out to Masumi through his communicator, "The meeting has ended, it's bad news. Where are you?"
Though she may have already known where she was and that Candon was not around, she turned about anyway, as if she would see him and was gaining her bearings all in one motion.
She replied in kind to his words with a telepathic communication, "Near the palace past the shops and restaurants. I'll be on the front steps."
He looked towards the palace in the distance and began his journey, looking for his pink-haired companion the whole way. In the back of his mind he wished he could call her more than just his girlfriend, companion, or lover but couldn't bring himself to ask what they really were. He was knew he loved her but the words to express what he felt were hard to conceive. Granted, he was generally in tune with his emotional side about as often as a cactus was found to be huggable.
Approaching the steps she'd claimed to be standing on he found no traces of pink, though hair bore no consistency when volumetrics were involved. He looked for what he knew, a curvaceous, dark-skinned beauty with... gray hair now?
He approached the woman with a bit of reserve. "Excuse me, miss," he played dumb, "I'm looking for a pretty girl, do you know where I can find one?"
A smile quickly found itself on Masumi's lips as she heard Candon's reserved tone. She thought back to the recent memories of the planet and the smile widened.
"I know of some establishments where that could be arranged," she said as she looked up at him from beneath her grey straight bangs. "Unless I'm enough for you."
Candon laid his hands her shoulders. He couldn't imagine being with anyone else. "You're all I could ever want," he claimed, leaning forward to kiss, "sorry to just leave you alone like that."
The scientist's eyes creased as she smiled at Candon and said to him, "You never have to worry about me being on my own. I know these past few months..." she thought on it and corrected herself, "This past year or two we're always together but," she said, "you don't have to worry."
Candon's mind froze, his body stopping. Worrying was his innermost trait, what drove him to want to know every secret his potential enemies kept and keep tabs on what they were doing. Anxiety was a commodity in endless supply to him. Just the word itself induced worry and panic.
"Sorry, I just- you know... worry... a lot, about everything," he confessed, "I know you can handle things by yourself, I trust you. Completely, I trust you... it's people I don't trust."
Something had alerted her to a distinct stiffness that had overcome him once she started talking. Her infatuation with him and how he made her feel in that moment, though, dissuaded her from having too many concerns about the cause. She was almost ready to go in for a kiss of her own when he showed his concerns more apparently, through his words. Her lips pursed, but not in an anticapatory kissing gesture, instead in thought while she clasped his hand and walked with him up the steps.
"Tell me more, Candon, about the people you know you can't trust... And then about the people you don't want to trust." Masumi said, trailing off once as she changed tone to denote the heavy difference between the two.
"Well, I can't trust SAINT secretaries because they blow my cover with diplomacy, politicians won't be honest with me, Jack is outsourcing labor so I find it hard to believe he's invested here...," Candon paused, "this might not sound right, so bear with me... I don't trust sentient beings in general. They lie, backstab, and destroy what others make... all things I do."
His breathing slowed to a crawl as he forced himself to admit to Masumi who he trusted the least, "I don't trust myself to make the best decisions when other people are involved."
Masumi gripped his hand softly as they entered the main doors of the derelict former palace that Uso had once used as her center of stellar observations and other matters of importance. It was sparsely furnished and completely empty, so Masumi took them through the front foyer while she spoke.
"I don't even know if I trust myself, either, Candon," Masumi said, not quite realizing the gravity of Candon's past and how that affected his present and future.
Continuing to walk with Masumi, holding her soft hand in his. The touch was as electrifying as the first time he'd touched her. "Maybe that's the way it's meant to be," Candon mused, "it has taken me years to learn to be confident, or at least seem like I am."
Masumi nodded, eyes bright underneath her straight bangs. "I am happy with who you are now and how you think of yourself. None of us are inherently perfect, though. You understand that, right?" she asked, nudging into him gently with her shoulder.
Letting go of her hand he slipped his own behind Masumi's back, laying it on her waist. Candon couldn't help but smile with her there.
"All too well, " he answered, then chuckled, "it makes me wonder how I found the most perfect woman."
Trying to hide the splash of smile that grew on her face for a moment, she swayed her head back towards him a moment later and leaned the side of her head against his shoulder while they perused the many little intracacies of the palace's innards until they were up to the only upper floor and were inside an incredibly open room due to the huge hole in the ceiling that spanned tens of feet that had been somewhat shoddily replaced with a wooden roof. There was science equipment spread across the table near a series of varying telescopes.
Masumi had left Candon's immediate side and had picked up a small holoprojector and then looked to Candon, asking, "Should I turn it on?"
Candon saw no danger, or owner for that matter. It looked like the palace had been abandoned, making the projector salvage. Even if they were trespassing there wasn't much anybody could do about it.
"Seems fine," he observed, "light it up."
She opened the holoprojector's last image, which was a drone control system being worked on a designer named Naida. Masumi crinkled her nose as she looked at the model and then moved a few things about to see more of the design. Her eyes digested what she was looking at and moved to Candon's.
"I could make stuff like this, you know. I could study under Wazu a few weeks and I can start to find ways to help you, your company, Uso if that makes you happy," Masumi told Candon as she closed the holoprojector and took out her science scanner and began examining different parts of the lab in between looking back at Candon, pink hair swinging in the air as she did.
The swinging of hair was distracting, hypnotic even. Candon had almost missed the question. It was a funny little question, achieving happiness through engineering. He laughed quietly.
"You score yourself a rich boyfriend and ask him for a job?" he teased jokingly, "I think we can use all the help we can get these days, you could help a lot with the engineering teams. Most of them don't have your kind of training. In fact, most of them are here because they couldn't make the cut in other companies... what would make you happy?"
"There's no way to be sure I'll make the cut, either," Masumi said as she closed the scanner, a little less than self assured, though she didn't let that dissuade her from planning and plotting and trying. "But I'll see if that makes me happy, but I... I really don't know how to answer your question."
She went back to his side and bumped his hip with her own yoga-pant fitted one. "I know scoring myself a handsome boyfriend is one thing that made me happy. I can see that being enough to keep me happy the rest of my life, Candon." She had stayed where her hip had met his and her eyes glittered from beneath her cotton candy bangs. Her jaw jutted forward slightly and she breathed in quickly before her eyes shifted to his lips.
She stayed there while she told him, "Nothing can take that away."
The hardened man's heart had completely melted with a joy greater than passion. For the first time in years he had dropped his guard entirely. Turning to face her he pulled her close, moving his offhand to caress her face while his other traveled up her spine. He leaned forward once more, this time with no intention of backing away.
He would kiss the woman he loved with an insatiable passion, a product of the love growing inside his heart that pounded hard enough for her superhuman ears to hear.
Masumi was capable and willing to adjust her body to better form to the contours of Candon's own embrace, but she wasn't ready for the unbreakable bond that she realized had formed over the course of months in a fashion stronger than she had known was possible.
Emotions coursed through her that made her all the more attached to the moment in time with him. There was a closeness about their person that she had once yearned for in unspeakable amounts but the kiss, the lust, the passion there was somehow overshadowed by the love. She pushed back into the kiss and let her fingertips press into the solidity of his back as she did.
Time stopped as the moment became a minute and onward as their passionate expression progressed to the nearby desk.
As the passionate cycle of escalation began Masumi would be the first to point out the obvious, "Can-Candon..." she bit her lip, then smiled as she looked at him after making him pause in the adventure they were becoming consumed in. "Let's think about taking this somewhere with sheets." She lifted a hand to show the thick layers of soot and dust on it from merely setting it down on the desk.
"Damn, I hate planets," Candon swore as he began forcing his libido into a state of suspension. "We can make it back in time!" Candon declared as he took Masumi's hand. The two clean cut Yamataians would race on foot to the two seater YV1 they'd arrived in earlier to flee the dusty planet enroute to the space station penthouse they called home for the time being.
He telepathically reached out to Masumi through his communicator, "The meeting has ended, it's bad news. Where are you?"
Though she may have already known where she was and that Candon was not around, she turned about anyway, as if she would see him and was gaining her bearings all in one motion.
She replied in kind to his words with a telepathic communication, "Near the palace past the shops and restaurants. I'll be on the front steps."
He looked towards the palace in the distance and began his journey, looking for his pink-haired companion the whole way. In the back of his mind he wished he could call her more than just his girlfriend, companion, or lover but couldn't bring himself to ask what they really were. He was knew he loved her but the words to express what he felt were hard to conceive. Granted, he was generally in tune with his emotional side about as often as a cactus was found to be huggable.
Approaching the steps she'd claimed to be standing on he found no traces of pink, though hair bore no consistency when volumetrics were involved. He looked for what he knew, a curvaceous, dark-skinned beauty with... gray hair now?
He approached the woman with a bit of reserve. "Excuse me, miss," he played dumb, "I'm looking for a pretty girl, do you know where I can find one?"
A smile quickly found itself on Masumi's lips as she heard Candon's reserved tone. She thought back to the recent memories of the planet and the smile widened.
"I know of some establishments where that could be arranged," she said as she looked up at him from beneath her grey straight bangs. "Unless I'm enough for you."
Candon laid his hands her shoulders. He couldn't imagine being with anyone else. "You're all I could ever want," he claimed, leaning forward to kiss, "sorry to just leave you alone like that."
The scientist's eyes creased as she smiled at Candon and said to him, "You never have to worry about me being on my own. I know these past few months..." she thought on it and corrected herself, "This past year or two we're always together but," she said, "you don't have to worry."
Candon's mind froze, his body stopping. Worrying was his innermost trait, what drove him to want to know every secret his potential enemies kept and keep tabs on what they were doing. Anxiety was a commodity in endless supply to him. Just the word itself induced worry and panic.
"Sorry, I just- you know... worry... a lot, about everything," he confessed, "I know you can handle things by yourself, I trust you. Completely, I trust you... it's people I don't trust."
Something had alerted her to a distinct stiffness that had overcome him once she started talking. Her infatuation with him and how he made her feel in that moment, though, dissuaded her from having too many concerns about the cause. She was almost ready to go in for a kiss of her own when he showed his concerns more apparently, through his words. Her lips pursed, but not in an anticapatory kissing gesture, instead in thought while she clasped his hand and walked with him up the steps.
"Tell me more, Candon, about the people you know you can't trust... And then about the people you don't want to trust." Masumi said, trailing off once as she changed tone to denote the heavy difference between the two.
"Well, I can't trust SAINT secretaries because they blow my cover with diplomacy, politicians won't be honest with me, Jack is outsourcing labor so I find it hard to believe he's invested here...," Candon paused, "this might not sound right, so bear with me... I don't trust sentient beings in general. They lie, backstab, and destroy what others make... all things I do."
His breathing slowed to a crawl as he forced himself to admit to Masumi who he trusted the least, "I don't trust myself to make the best decisions when other people are involved."
Masumi gripped his hand softly as they entered the main doors of the derelict former palace that Uso had once used as her center of stellar observations and other matters of importance. It was sparsely furnished and completely empty, so Masumi took them through the front foyer while she spoke.
"I don't even know if I trust myself, either, Candon," Masumi said, not quite realizing the gravity of Candon's past and how that affected his present and future.
Continuing to walk with Masumi, holding her soft hand in his. The touch was as electrifying as the first time he'd touched her. "Maybe that's the way it's meant to be," Candon mused, "it has taken me years to learn to be confident, or at least seem like I am."
Masumi nodded, eyes bright underneath her straight bangs. "I am happy with who you are now and how you think of yourself. None of us are inherently perfect, though. You understand that, right?" she asked, nudging into him gently with her shoulder.
Letting go of her hand he slipped his own behind Masumi's back, laying it on her waist. Candon couldn't help but smile with her there.
"All too well, " he answered, then chuckled, "it makes me wonder how I found the most perfect woman."
Trying to hide the splash of smile that grew on her face for a moment, she swayed her head back towards him a moment later and leaned the side of her head against his shoulder while they perused the many little intracacies of the palace's innards until they were up to the only upper floor and were inside an incredibly open room due to the huge hole in the ceiling that spanned tens of feet that had been somewhat shoddily replaced with a wooden roof. There was science equipment spread across the table near a series of varying telescopes.
Masumi had left Candon's immediate side and had picked up a small holoprojector and then looked to Candon, asking, "Should I turn it on?"
Candon saw no danger, or owner for that matter. It looked like the palace had been abandoned, making the projector salvage. Even if they were trespassing there wasn't much anybody could do about it.
"Seems fine," he observed, "light it up."
She opened the holoprojector's last image, which was a drone control system being worked on a designer named Naida. Masumi crinkled her nose as she looked at the model and then moved a few things about to see more of the design. Her eyes digested what she was looking at and moved to Candon's.
"I could make stuff like this, you know. I could study under Wazu a few weeks and I can start to find ways to help you, your company, Uso if that makes you happy," Masumi told Candon as she closed the holoprojector and took out her science scanner and began examining different parts of the lab in between looking back at Candon, pink hair swinging in the air as she did.
The swinging of hair was distracting, hypnotic even. Candon had almost missed the question. It was a funny little question, achieving happiness through engineering. He laughed quietly.
"You score yourself a rich boyfriend and ask him for a job?" he teased jokingly, "I think we can use all the help we can get these days, you could help a lot with the engineering teams. Most of them don't have your kind of training. In fact, most of them are here because they couldn't make the cut in other companies... what would make you happy?"
"There's no way to be sure I'll make the cut, either," Masumi said as she closed the scanner, a little less than self assured, though she didn't let that dissuade her from planning and plotting and trying. "But I'll see if that makes me happy, but I... I really don't know how to answer your question."
She went back to his side and bumped his hip with her own yoga-pant fitted one. "I know scoring myself a handsome boyfriend is one thing that made me happy. I can see that being enough to keep me happy the rest of my life, Candon." She had stayed where her hip had met his and her eyes glittered from beneath her cotton candy bangs. Her jaw jutted forward slightly and she breathed in quickly before her eyes shifted to his lips.
She stayed there while she told him, "Nothing can take that away."
The hardened man's heart had completely melted with a joy greater than passion. For the first time in years he had dropped his guard entirely. Turning to face her he pulled her close, moving his offhand to caress her face while his other traveled up her spine. He leaned forward once more, this time with no intention of backing away.
He would kiss the woman he loved with an insatiable passion, a product of the love growing inside his heart that pounded hard enough for her superhuman ears to hear.
Masumi was capable and willing to adjust her body to better form to the contours of Candon's own embrace, but she wasn't ready for the unbreakable bond that she realized had formed over the course of months in a fashion stronger than she had known was possible.
Emotions coursed through her that made her all the more attached to the moment in time with him. There was a closeness about their person that she had once yearned for in unspeakable amounts but the kiss, the lust, the passion there was somehow overshadowed by the love. She pushed back into the kiss and let her fingertips press into the solidity of his back as she did.
Time stopped as the moment became a minute and onward as their passionate expression progressed to the nearby desk.
As the passionate cycle of escalation began Masumi would be the first to point out the obvious, "Can-Candon..." she bit her lip, then smiled as she looked at him after making him pause in the adventure they were becoming consumed in. "Let's think about taking this somewhere with sheets." She lifted a hand to show the thick layers of soot and dust on it from merely setting it down on the desk.
"Damn, I hate planets," Candon swore as he began forcing his libido into a state of suspension. "We can make it back in time!" Candon declared as he took Masumi's hand. The two clean cut Yamataians would race on foot to the two seater YV1 they'd arrived in earlier to flee the dusty planet enroute to the space station penthouse they called home for the time being.