YSS Kaiyō II
For a long time, Eden was wandering the halls of the YSS Kaiyō- the first, before it had a number and when the hallways were that of a Plumeria gunship. A few crewmen ambled about- none of them Eden recognized. Some of them spoke to her, but she felt awkward in the conversations and couldn't grasp her role to them. She searched blindly for something that would make sense of what she was doing. While floating up the zero g passageway, she glimpsed her arms as she floated in the lack of gravity. She held on them the stripes of a Taii. Her shiny black hair floated away from her body, enveloping her in a loose embrace while she prepared to turn her body to walk onto the passageway to the bridge. When she turned, her eyes fell on Misaki- her wife. The woman -the Taii?- smiled, despite the tears in Misaki's violet eyes.
"Saki, what's wrong?" Eden said, lifting her arms as she prepared to step onto the hallway's floor. Saki lifted the gun from beside her hip and held her face in the crook of her forearm as she lifted it to point at Eden. "Saki!?!" Eden stammered in a low voice.
Eden saw Saki's mouth open, lips shaking.
The brunette spoke, "Please don't die." The words were forcefully punched into Eden's mind, along with the hard hit of the NSP's fired shot, landing in Eden's chest. Despite still being in the zero gravity pass, Eden's vision cascaded downwards, falling in synchonicity with the pistol before she was below the hallway floor, falling below it until she looked up, seeing globules of blood in the white tube of the passageway above her. She fell until she reached the last deck, then her mind stopped.
The sound of muffled sobs turning into wails woke Eden, shocking her awake in a confused delirium. She was ready to push aside confused and strange thoughts about the nightmare she had just exited to tend to her wife, child, anyone. She stopped pushing away the turmoil of recollections as she realized there was nobody else. Slumping down, she cradled herself in blankets and tucked her legs towards her chest. The tears were still leaking out assuredly from her eyes, then she spoke softly.
"Boss, who is on nightshift duty on the bridge?"
Boss replied from the comm system. "Asuka is, Chusa."
Eden thought about the rank, the change from her nightmare to now. Then, she spoke again.
"Let her know I will be on the bridge in five minutes to relieve her."
"Understood, Chusa."
Eden pushed her palms against the mattress below her and stood, wiping her eyes as she worked on changing into a uniform from the pajamas she wore.
Bridge
A few minutes later, Eden arrived on the bridge and bowed discreetly to Asuka at the sensors station.
"Chusa," Asuka said, standing to bow in return. She pressed down her type 35 pencil skirt and waited for Eden to sit in the captain's chair before walking past her, to the captain's ready room behind the station. Eden sighed out, opening up statistics and conecting to SPINE seamlessly while opening visuals of surrounding space.
Within the next minute, Asuka left the ready room and saluted to Eden quickly on her way off of the bridge. Eden watched her leave, perplexed, then heard the ready room door open once more. Eden looked behind herself as Hoshi came out and made to stand.
Hoshi lifted her hand away from a white and colorfully stained rag that she was wiping on her fingers to say, "Don't get up, don't."
Eden nodded tersely and looked away from Hoshi, who sat in a chair unconventionally and looked at one of the viewscreens, then another, then sighed and looked to Eden.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Hoshi asked simply.
Eden's smile flickered up and waned quickly. "I want to say no."
Hoshi showed a look of understanding and looked back to a viewscreen as she said, "I have never been married. I think about it. Sometimes I wonder why I have as many partners as I do, then other times I wonder how anyone could not." Eden said nothing, looking at readouts intently. "What if I told you I had a kid?"
Eden's head jolted up to look at the petite Neko, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, "Hoshi?"
The pink skinned woman closed her eyes over a smile, "I only said 'what if'! I don't have a child of my own. What is it like?"
Eden's face had relaxed and she pursed her lips, "I thought it would be... different. It is very rewarding, though."
Hoshi pushed her brows together, leaning forward a bit, "Different how?"
Eden looked about, "I thought she would have the ideals I have. I thought... the wrong things back then." Hoshi stayed quiet, looking on at Eden. "The reasons I love her mother were, at times, the reasons I felt distant to Kikyō. She is not someone that," Eden trailed off, sighing. "Her mother was someone that, well. I was happy that I could hear her when the whole galaxy couldn't. She was quiet and not everyone noticed her... Her beauty, inside and out."
"Was?" Hoshi asked.
Eden looked up, "I thought I said I didn't want to talk about it."
Hoshi laughed shortly, "You said you wanted to say you didn't, not that you didn't."
"Feels like the same thing, now..." She shifted in her chair to speak again, "I don't quite think she is the same, now. As people change, if you really love them, you find new things to love or old things take up more space when some of the things you love about them become the things you loved. Saki was quiet, once, but who she is now is no less of someone I love because she is or is not."
"Funny thing about thinking like that," Hoshi said. "Does it work both ways? Like, the things you don't like about someone, or the things that make you feel distant to them, might change. Do you fill in those holes with more things that distance you?"
Eden looked away from Hoshi, staring a long time at a nondescript panel before looking back, "If you love them, underneath the distance, no. If you love them, those holes get filled in with the person they've become and all you can love about them."
Hoshi sighed deeply and brought a knee to her chest, setting her foot on the chair she was sitting oddly on.
"Ah," Hoshi breathed out. "To have a family."
Eden looked at the door. "You have a family, as do I, in the crew."
"Aye," Hoshi said, then added more quickly after. "But there is always the 'what if'. What if they get transferred, I get transferred, they don't like ST backups and they're gone, forever. What if those things happen? Family, the kind you have, can't be stopped by those things. Well, maybe the backup one. You still remain with one another your entire lives. If not in flesh, in feeling."
Eden looked pensive. "Saki got transferred." Hoshi looked on, quiet. "Asked for a transfer," Eden said, correcting herself. Her eyebrows went up, looking forlorn now.
Hoshi, when she had determined Eden would say no more, added, "She also shot you once. Once, right?"
Eden cheated her head towards Hoshi to nod, but didn't look her in the eyes to do so.
"She protected you from the enemy inside you, when she shot you. Maybe she was protecting you from a different kind of enemy when she left theship."
Eden looked at Hoshi, now, but remained quiet. Hoshi said nothing more, looking cheerless before she spoke with an air of humor.
"I don't think I would ever have a wedding as cool as yours, anyway. The Empress?!"
Eden looked up, head tilted as it harnessed a smile below teary golden eyes. "That was pretty magnificent."
"How did you manage that?" Hoshi asked, dropping her leg to have both feet on the bridge floor as she leaned forward.
Eden looked astonished at her own words as she shook her head and smiled, "Invited her."
"Absolutely amazing," Hoshi said, shaking her own head.
"Hey, sorry to be such a downer tonight." Eden said regretfully, "It isn't the best side of me."
"It's a side of you, though. We, Nekovalkyrja, can feel so much. So much more than we sometimes think we should feel. But we don't need to turn away from those emotions nor do we need to, well, wallow in them. I don't think you're doing that, but-"
"I get it," Eden said, cutting her off. "Thanks for letting me sit in the captain's chair, too."
"Not your first time," Hoshi said with a smile. "Or your last."
Eden looked somber once more and Hoshi said nothing else on it. "What's that?" Eden asked, able to see past her own thoughts to notice the rag Hoshi had carried into the bridge from her ready room.
Hoshi smirked when she squeezed the once-white rag, stained with a variety of colors, saying, "Just a little something I picked back up lately. Let me put this away and I can come back out to sit on the bridge with you until Asuka returns."
"No," Eden said, "thank you. You've given me enough to think about- enough good to think about," Eden added after a pointed look from her captain. "I think it would be nice to be alone with my thoughts for the time. It is nice, though, to have a support system here."
Hoshi had already stood, but stepped close to Eden and put a hand on her shoulder, "You have been a support to me longer and stronger than I could ever be to you. The act is one of both gratitude and a mirroring of what has been shown to me by the kindness and loyalty in you." Her hand had stayed planted and Eden broke her gaze from Hoshi's only to nod and look at her colored cloth.
"Saki," Eden said as the corners of her lips raised. "She wanted me to be the captain of this ship. She wanted it badly enough to leave if I couldn't be. Back then, all I wanted was to be loyal. Loyal to my Empire, loyal to my captain, and loyal to my orders. Now, after," Eden struggled to find the words and Hoshi shifted to sit back down. "After taking over another Empire, taking over anothe's body, I realize that loyalty isn't the only facet of who I am that makes me who I am. The kindness," Eden said as her amber eyes looked back to Hoshi, "that you mentioned -that you see in me- is as much a part of me as any loyalty. I didn't really know that."
"Everyone else saw it," Hoshi said softly. "I can assure you that everyone else did."
"Maybe it would be nice if you stayed on the bridge awhile," Eden said with a wan expression and a small, clipped chuckle.
Hoshi nodded, "I would be happy to, Eden."
For a long time, Eden was wandering the halls of the YSS Kaiyō- the first, before it had a number and when the hallways were that of a Plumeria gunship. A few crewmen ambled about- none of them Eden recognized. Some of them spoke to her, but she felt awkward in the conversations and couldn't grasp her role to them. She searched blindly for something that would make sense of what she was doing. While floating up the zero g passageway, she glimpsed her arms as she floated in the lack of gravity. She held on them the stripes of a Taii. Her shiny black hair floated away from her body, enveloping her in a loose embrace while she prepared to turn her body to walk onto the passageway to the bridge. When she turned, her eyes fell on Misaki- her wife. The woman -the Taii?- smiled, despite the tears in Misaki's violet eyes.
"Saki, what's wrong?" Eden said, lifting her arms as she prepared to step onto the hallway's floor. Saki lifted the gun from beside her hip and held her face in the crook of her forearm as she lifted it to point at Eden. "Saki!?!" Eden stammered in a low voice.
Eden saw Saki's mouth open, lips shaking.
The brunette spoke, "Please don't die." The words were forcefully punched into Eden's mind, along with the hard hit of the NSP's fired shot, landing in Eden's chest. Despite still being in the zero gravity pass, Eden's vision cascaded downwards, falling in synchonicity with the pistol before she was below the hallway floor, falling below it until she looked up, seeing globules of blood in the white tube of the passageway above her. She fell until she reached the last deck, then her mind stopped.
The sound of muffled sobs turning into wails woke Eden, shocking her awake in a confused delirium. She was ready to push aside confused and strange thoughts about the nightmare she had just exited to tend to her wife, child, anyone. She stopped pushing away the turmoil of recollections as she realized there was nobody else. Slumping down, she cradled herself in blankets and tucked her legs towards her chest. The tears were still leaking out assuredly from her eyes, then she spoke softly.
"Boss, who is on nightshift duty on the bridge?"
Boss replied from the comm system. "Asuka is, Chusa."
Eden thought about the rank, the change from her nightmare to now. Then, she spoke again.
"Let her know I will be on the bridge in five minutes to relieve her."
"Understood, Chusa."
Eden pushed her palms against the mattress below her and stood, wiping her eyes as she worked on changing into a uniform from the pajamas she wore.
Bridge
A few minutes later, Eden arrived on the bridge and bowed discreetly to Asuka at the sensors station.
"Chusa," Asuka said, standing to bow in return. She pressed down her type 35 pencil skirt and waited for Eden to sit in the captain's chair before walking past her, to the captain's ready room behind the station. Eden sighed out, opening up statistics and conecting to SPINE seamlessly while opening visuals of surrounding space.
Within the next minute, Asuka left the ready room and saluted to Eden quickly on her way off of the bridge. Eden watched her leave, perplexed, then heard the ready room door open once more. Eden looked behind herself as Hoshi came out and made to stand.
Hoshi lifted her hand away from a white and colorfully stained rag that she was wiping on her fingers to say, "Don't get up, don't."
Eden nodded tersely and looked away from Hoshi, who sat in a chair unconventionally and looked at one of the viewscreens, then another, then sighed and looked to Eden.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Hoshi asked simply.
Eden's smile flickered up and waned quickly. "I want to say no."
Hoshi showed a look of understanding and looked back to a viewscreen as she said, "I have never been married. I think about it. Sometimes I wonder why I have as many partners as I do, then other times I wonder how anyone could not." Eden said nothing, looking at readouts intently. "What if I told you I had a kid?"
Eden's head jolted up to look at the petite Neko, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, "Hoshi?"
The pink skinned woman closed her eyes over a smile, "I only said 'what if'! I don't have a child of my own. What is it like?"
Eden's face had relaxed and she pursed her lips, "I thought it would be... different. It is very rewarding, though."
Hoshi pushed her brows together, leaning forward a bit, "Different how?"
Eden looked about, "I thought she would have the ideals I have. I thought... the wrong things back then." Hoshi stayed quiet, looking on at Eden. "The reasons I love her mother were, at times, the reasons I felt distant to Kikyō. She is not someone that," Eden trailed off, sighing. "Her mother was someone that, well. I was happy that I could hear her when the whole galaxy couldn't. She was quiet and not everyone noticed her... Her beauty, inside and out."
"Was?" Hoshi asked.
Eden looked up, "I thought I said I didn't want to talk about it."
Hoshi laughed shortly, "You said you wanted to say you didn't, not that you didn't."
"Feels like the same thing, now..." She shifted in her chair to speak again, "I don't quite think she is the same, now. As people change, if you really love them, you find new things to love or old things take up more space when some of the things you love about them become the things you loved. Saki was quiet, once, but who she is now is no less of someone I love because she is or is not."
"Funny thing about thinking like that," Hoshi said. "Does it work both ways? Like, the things you don't like about someone, or the things that make you feel distant to them, might change. Do you fill in those holes with more things that distance you?"
Eden looked away from Hoshi, staring a long time at a nondescript panel before looking back, "If you love them, underneath the distance, no. If you love them, those holes get filled in with the person they've become and all you can love about them."
Hoshi sighed deeply and brought a knee to her chest, setting her foot on the chair she was sitting oddly on.
"Ah," Hoshi breathed out. "To have a family."
Eden looked at the door. "You have a family, as do I, in the crew."
"Aye," Hoshi said, then added more quickly after. "But there is always the 'what if'. What if they get transferred, I get transferred, they don't like ST backups and they're gone, forever. What if those things happen? Family, the kind you have, can't be stopped by those things. Well, maybe the backup one. You still remain with one another your entire lives. If not in flesh, in feeling."
Eden looked pensive. "Saki got transferred." Hoshi looked on, quiet. "Asked for a transfer," Eden said, correcting herself. Her eyebrows went up, looking forlorn now.
Hoshi, when she had determined Eden would say no more, added, "She also shot you once. Once, right?"
Eden cheated her head towards Hoshi to nod, but didn't look her in the eyes to do so.
"She protected you from the enemy inside you, when she shot you. Maybe she was protecting you from a different kind of enemy when she left theship."
Eden looked at Hoshi, now, but remained quiet. Hoshi said nothing more, looking cheerless before she spoke with an air of humor.
"I don't think I would ever have a wedding as cool as yours, anyway. The Empress?!"
Eden looked up, head tilted as it harnessed a smile below teary golden eyes. "That was pretty magnificent."
"How did you manage that?" Hoshi asked, dropping her leg to have both feet on the bridge floor as she leaned forward.
Eden looked astonished at her own words as she shook her head and smiled, "Invited her."
"Absolutely amazing," Hoshi said, shaking her own head.
"Hey, sorry to be such a downer tonight." Eden said regretfully, "It isn't the best side of me."
"It's a side of you, though. We, Nekovalkyrja, can feel so much. So much more than we sometimes think we should feel. But we don't need to turn away from those emotions nor do we need to, well, wallow in them. I don't think you're doing that, but-"
"I get it," Eden said, cutting her off. "Thanks for letting me sit in the captain's chair, too."
"Not your first time," Hoshi said with a smile. "Or your last."
Eden looked somber once more and Hoshi said nothing else on it. "What's that?" Eden asked, able to see past her own thoughts to notice the rag Hoshi had carried into the bridge from her ready room.
Hoshi smirked when she squeezed the once-white rag, stained with a variety of colors, saying, "Just a little something I picked back up lately. Let me put this away and I can come back out to sit on the bridge with you until Asuka returns."
"No," Eden said, "thank you. You've given me enough to think about- enough good to think about," Eden added after a pointed look from her captain. "I think it would be nice to be alone with my thoughts for the time. It is nice, though, to have a support system here."
Hoshi had already stood, but stepped close to Eden and put a hand on her shoulder, "You have been a support to me longer and stronger than I could ever be to you. The act is one of both gratitude and a mirroring of what has been shown to me by the kindness and loyalty in you." Her hand had stayed planted and Eden broke her gaze from Hoshi's only to nod and look at her colored cloth.
"Saki," Eden said as the corners of her lips raised. "She wanted me to be the captain of this ship. She wanted it badly enough to leave if I couldn't be. Back then, all I wanted was to be loyal. Loyal to my Empire, loyal to my captain, and loyal to my orders. Now, after," Eden struggled to find the words and Hoshi shifted to sit back down. "After taking over another Empire, taking over anothe's body, I realize that loyalty isn't the only facet of who I am that makes me who I am. The kindness," Eden said as her amber eyes looked back to Hoshi, "that you mentioned -that you see in me- is as much a part of me as any loyalty. I didn't really know that."
"Everyone else saw it," Hoshi said softly. "I can assure you that everyone else did."
"Maybe it would be nice if you stayed on the bridge awhile," Eden said with a wan expression and a small, clipped chuckle.
Hoshi nodded, "I would be happy to, Eden."
