YSS Kaiyō
Wardroom
29日 4月 YE 39
2000 Hours
It was a nice evening with just about all the work done. Normally at this time, Meissa could be found doing...just about whatever. Messing with people, mainly. Or doing something.
Not...a terribly out of character action like sitting in the wardroom by herself, curled up in a booth, shivering slightly. An empty bottle of beer sat besides the angel. A slight hic denoted some form of drunkenness.
Misaki, in uniform despite being on medical leave, walked into the wardroom. She was on a crusade, a crusade for ice cream. This crusade was halted momentarily by the spotting of the fallen angel. Saki cocked her head to one side before walking over to Meissa and crouching down next to her to reach eye level. In a flash of brilliant words, the pregnant Neko spoke, "Do you know if they have ice cream?"
"Second fridge from the right. Leftmost compartment." Meissa robotically mumbled, completely devoid of the normal sharp edge to her words. A hiccup followed after. She turned her wings a little, letting their unnaturally disheveled state, for Meissa at least, who maintained her wings perfectly, to show to the world.
Her craving would have to wait, "Want me to grab another spoon? You look like you need one."
Meissa only pointed at the wardroom sink. There was a dirty dish, with splotches of melted chocolate ice cream all over it.
Misaki raised and lowered her eyebrows before sitting across from Meissa in the booth's opposite seat, "What's wrong, Meissa-san?" The awkward look, mixed between motherly concern and the concern of the ship's XO, rose on her face while her violet eyes locked on the angel's.
"I'm really not good with kids." Meissa mumbled as she shifted her weight, letting her legs hang off as she pulled her head up above the table. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and tired from her stress. Her hair, which she was getting better at making neater, was an absolute mess. There was no red hairclip. It was on the chair, fallen off.
The XO knew how to pick up differences, "Meissa-san, what makes you say that?" The look of concern growing.
"Look at me," Meissa sighed. "Do you really think I'm good with children?"
"I'm a genetic weapon, designed for war before being a mother. I was more of a shy mess then than when Ki-... She'll take her memories from." Misaki stood up, letting her stance grow more and more calm. "Let's clean you up, you look like a mess."
"Please do." Meissa sighed. "I mean, look at me. I'm a good fighter, and I want to say I'm a decent lover, but of all people, I thought you'd be the one who'd try to nudge me away from your child."
Saki frowned before picking up the red hair clip from the chair and motioning for her to sit down, "Meissa-san, everyone on this ship is a family. There is no one on this ship who I don't trust with my life, and her's either."
"No, like. Look at me. I'm a horrible influence for children." Meissa rubbed the sides of her head. "That's hilarious, by the way. It's not even my child and I'm freaking out over it."
"Besides being Elysian, which doesn't matter to me anyway, what is making you think that you are a bad influence?"
Meissa sat up straight. "I'm horribly impulsive. I curse like an inmate on a penal colony, and I hardly act like my rank. And not to mention other reasons as well. That's why."
Misaki was beginning to look a little upset, "Meissa-san, neither I, Eden, or even her think that makes you a bad person. The lasting thing I want is the little one forcing you to not be you. Please don't do that to me, because then I'll feel bad, Eden will feel bad, and then she'll feel bad and..." She stopped herself, sniffling a little and rubbing her eyes, "And then everything goes wrong."
"And the last thing I want to do is to freak your child out, or teach her something that changes her in a way that would be...undesirable, I guess." Meissa replied.
Misaki sighed, staying quiet for bit while she began brushing Meissa's hair back into a cohesive bunch with her hands.
"You'd make a good mother, you know?" Meissa mumbled. "Don't think I ever had one."
"If anything, I'm the mess. I'm the shy, worrying, freezing, submissive, and shadowed one." Saki felt her cheeks wet, but she found herself continuing to fix Meissa's hair instead of caving in and starting to bawl like one side of her wanted to.
Meissa stayed silent, as her XO brushed her hair and helped her look presentable again.
"It's a hard jumble of feelings to describe, really." Meissa confessed. "I suppose this is what stress feels like."
Misaki sniffled again once she put the hair clip in where it usually was, "Stop selling yourself short, as long as your are yourself there is nothing I find repulsive." The next item was the wings, but knowing enough about Elysians, she didn't dare touch them. Instead, the brushed her hair akin to how a mother would and crouched down to end up at eye level again, "Meissa-san, you sell yourself too short for what you are."
"Seems like you do as well." the angel replied, finally picking her head up off the table. "I'm just scared, I guess. It'll be like, idunno, a forty foot tall mecha trying to delicately carry a glass ball without crushing it. I don't know if I can even handle your child without her...breaking or anything. I feel like the impossible has finally caught up to me."
"If she's only a fraction of how strong I was when I fell out of my tube on Nataria, was so scared I about ruined my first uniform, and failed at getting better for years, she's hard to break. The big difference that she has running in her favor, is she has parents and people who care about her. If you are this scared, it means you do care. If you don't think I'm as scared or even more, you can go ahead and kill me." She stopped while wiping a few tears for her cheeks, "Meissa-san, we're all scared. I need you to trust in the faith I'm putting in you as well as everyone else on this ship. You're family to me and her, everything will be fine." She smiled a little, "If it takes it, I'll even teach you how to care for her, as shy and naive she will be."
"Please do." Meissa actually said this time, instead of a bunch of drunk rambling. "I don't know what to do. It's the second time in my whole span of being alive that I don't know. Technically maybe even the first."
She didn't even care if Saki asked what was the first. She'd tell her. Saki probably deserved to know.
Brushing Meissa's hair again, Saki smiled, "It's not very hard, Meissa-san, and you'll do just fine."
Meissa sighed. Then, she did the unexpected. She leaned forward, and wrapped her arms around Saki. Her breath didn't smell much like alcohol anymore, probably a good sign she was sobering up. Saki could feel a small wet splotch appear on her shoulder.
"You're right...Elysia isn't my home, and neither is Yamatai." Meissa mused. "My home is on the Kaiyo, now."
Calmly brushing the back of Meissa's head while softly cooing, possibly by some subconscious thing, "There you go, Meissa-san, welcome home."
"Thank you." Meissa whispered. "Thank you."
"Cry as long as you need to, I'm right here." was the XO's whispered reply. She didn't care, if anything, getting Meissa to open up was a good thing. Everyone on the ship was family to Misaki, and she wasn't about to have that change.
"It's terribly ironic, isn't it?" Meissa snorted. The wetness got a little bigger. "Light-years deep into enemy territory is where I consider home, yet Yamatai and Elysia to me both carry too many memories for me to consider them homes."
Moving carefully to not pull Meissa off of her, she moved so she was sitting down next to her, "Home is where the heart is, not anywhere else."
Meissa didn't reply, except for a long sigh. Her eyes blinked, and liquid fell from her face onto the faux leather seat between them. She let her memories of her 'house' loose, somewhat unaware that her contact-based telepathy was transferring all of it, down to the emotion tied behind each furniture piece.
It wasn't a home. It was a tomb, to be truthful. A very well decorated tomb, but nonetheless a tomb for a deceased man.
"Please don't treat me any differently." she whispered.
"Hush child, mother is right here." She sent through telepathically, not completely realizing she did. Her own eyes were growing wet again as she brushed a few errant hairs from sticking to Meissa's face. "Mother is right here..."
This time, Meissa didn't reply. The turmoil of psychic thoughts faded. A soft snore emenated from the angel.
Gently rocking the angel, she didn't dare move now. This was to important to ignore, and the care Misaki had was strong enough. She continued softly brushing her hair, telepathically sharing a calming emotion through the touch while softly humming.
A faint smile began to grace Meissa's lips. In her own dreams, memories began to replay -- childhood ones, colored a warm sepia. Except there were now other figures watching over her. Her father's face melted away into dreamstuff. Yet, every mirror, every reflective surface she looked in, there was a member of the Kaiyo's crew.
She turned around in surprise, in the dream world. The colors began to settle once more. The shrine was bathed in a warm light, yet many pictures were now added beside it, each a memory of the ship she was on. And the most notable feature of all was that the reflections in the surfaces became real. The crew members acted as if they lived there their entire lives, doing things a family would normally do. The home began to fill with a warm orange glow, akin to sunlight. In the backyard, a few of the Infantry were throwing a frisbee around. The officers occupied the couches, watching some sort of show she couldn't make out. And a light touch, on her shoulder -- Meissa's mind thought mother -- was Saki, offering her half of a protein bar to share.
She shared the protein bar, and reached under the couch. She knew exactly where it was that she was looking for: a single notebook, battered and torn. She flipped through its pages.
"Where is she?" the cover read. At first, they were simple, neatly organized facts. Rational. Concise. Then, the handwriting became worse. The facts began to be organized in a web, with lines connecting them. The web became more and more of a mess as she flipped through the pages and pages of desperation, with each page covered with more and more tear stains, until they suddenly ended with a few pages ripped out. The rest of the pages -- a good three or four -- were left blank, except for the last one, which, in small writing, read, 'where are you, mom?'
Meissa walked over to the gas stove. Saki and Mat stood beside her, as the flames turned on. Slowly, in a warm glow, page by page, she ripped the notebook apart, feeding it to the flames as they, together, somberly cut away Meissa's insane ramblings in the notebook from long ago. Mat found a pen behind Meissa. Giving the cover of the shell of the notebook, as well as the pen to Saki, the XO wrote under the question, 'Right here.'
The Kaiyo was her home now.
Misaki looked around the Wardroom, pleased to see it empty. Closing her eyes, she kissed the angel's forehead while telepathically sending another emotion, happiness and the love only a mother could give.
Wardroom
29日 4月 YE 39
2000 Hours
It was a nice evening with just about all the work done. Normally at this time, Meissa could be found doing...just about whatever. Messing with people, mainly. Or doing something.
Not...a terribly out of character action like sitting in the wardroom by herself, curled up in a booth, shivering slightly. An empty bottle of beer sat besides the angel. A slight hic denoted some form of drunkenness.
Misaki, in uniform despite being on medical leave, walked into the wardroom. She was on a crusade, a crusade for ice cream. This crusade was halted momentarily by the spotting of the fallen angel. Saki cocked her head to one side before walking over to Meissa and crouching down next to her to reach eye level. In a flash of brilliant words, the pregnant Neko spoke, "Do you know if they have ice cream?"
"Second fridge from the right. Leftmost compartment." Meissa robotically mumbled, completely devoid of the normal sharp edge to her words. A hiccup followed after. She turned her wings a little, letting their unnaturally disheveled state, for Meissa at least, who maintained her wings perfectly, to show to the world.
Her craving would have to wait, "Want me to grab another spoon? You look like you need one."
Meissa only pointed at the wardroom sink. There was a dirty dish, with splotches of melted chocolate ice cream all over it.
Misaki raised and lowered her eyebrows before sitting across from Meissa in the booth's opposite seat, "What's wrong, Meissa-san?" The awkward look, mixed between motherly concern and the concern of the ship's XO, rose on her face while her violet eyes locked on the angel's.
"I'm really not good with kids." Meissa mumbled as she shifted her weight, letting her legs hang off as she pulled her head up above the table. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and tired from her stress. Her hair, which she was getting better at making neater, was an absolute mess. There was no red hairclip. It was on the chair, fallen off.
The XO knew how to pick up differences, "Meissa-san, what makes you say that?" The look of concern growing.
"Look at me," Meissa sighed. "Do you really think I'm good with children?"
"I'm a genetic weapon, designed for war before being a mother. I was more of a shy mess then than when Ki-... She'll take her memories from." Misaki stood up, letting her stance grow more and more calm. "Let's clean you up, you look like a mess."
"Please do." Meissa sighed. "I mean, look at me. I'm a good fighter, and I want to say I'm a decent lover, but of all people, I thought you'd be the one who'd try to nudge me away from your child."
Saki frowned before picking up the red hair clip from the chair and motioning for her to sit down, "Meissa-san, everyone on this ship is a family. There is no one on this ship who I don't trust with my life, and her's either."
"No, like. Look at me. I'm a horrible influence for children." Meissa rubbed the sides of her head. "That's hilarious, by the way. It's not even my child and I'm freaking out over it."
"Besides being Elysian, which doesn't matter to me anyway, what is making you think that you are a bad influence?"
Meissa sat up straight. "I'm horribly impulsive. I curse like an inmate on a penal colony, and I hardly act like my rank. And not to mention other reasons as well. That's why."
Misaki was beginning to look a little upset, "Meissa-san, neither I, Eden, or even her think that makes you a bad person. The lasting thing I want is the little one forcing you to not be you. Please don't do that to me, because then I'll feel bad, Eden will feel bad, and then she'll feel bad and..." She stopped herself, sniffling a little and rubbing her eyes, "And then everything goes wrong."
"And the last thing I want to do is to freak your child out, or teach her something that changes her in a way that would be...undesirable, I guess." Meissa replied.
Misaki sighed, staying quiet for bit while she began brushing Meissa's hair back into a cohesive bunch with her hands.
"You'd make a good mother, you know?" Meissa mumbled. "Don't think I ever had one."
"If anything, I'm the mess. I'm the shy, worrying, freezing, submissive, and shadowed one." Saki felt her cheeks wet, but she found herself continuing to fix Meissa's hair instead of caving in and starting to bawl like one side of her wanted to.
Meissa stayed silent, as her XO brushed her hair and helped her look presentable again.
"It's a hard jumble of feelings to describe, really." Meissa confessed. "I suppose this is what stress feels like."
Misaki sniffled again once she put the hair clip in where it usually was, "Stop selling yourself short, as long as your are yourself there is nothing I find repulsive." The next item was the wings, but knowing enough about Elysians, she didn't dare touch them. Instead, the brushed her hair akin to how a mother would and crouched down to end up at eye level again, "Meissa-san, you sell yourself too short for what you are."
"Seems like you do as well." the angel replied, finally picking her head up off the table. "I'm just scared, I guess. It'll be like, idunno, a forty foot tall mecha trying to delicately carry a glass ball without crushing it. I don't know if I can even handle your child without her...breaking or anything. I feel like the impossible has finally caught up to me."
"If she's only a fraction of how strong I was when I fell out of my tube on Nataria, was so scared I about ruined my first uniform, and failed at getting better for years, she's hard to break. The big difference that she has running in her favor, is she has parents and people who care about her. If you are this scared, it means you do care. If you don't think I'm as scared or even more, you can go ahead and kill me." She stopped while wiping a few tears for her cheeks, "Meissa-san, we're all scared. I need you to trust in the faith I'm putting in you as well as everyone else on this ship. You're family to me and her, everything will be fine." She smiled a little, "If it takes it, I'll even teach you how to care for her, as shy and naive she will be."
"Please do." Meissa actually said this time, instead of a bunch of drunk rambling. "I don't know what to do. It's the second time in my whole span of being alive that I don't know. Technically maybe even the first."
She didn't even care if Saki asked what was the first. She'd tell her. Saki probably deserved to know.
Brushing Meissa's hair again, Saki smiled, "It's not very hard, Meissa-san, and you'll do just fine."
Meissa sighed. Then, she did the unexpected. She leaned forward, and wrapped her arms around Saki. Her breath didn't smell much like alcohol anymore, probably a good sign she was sobering up. Saki could feel a small wet splotch appear on her shoulder.
"You're right...Elysia isn't my home, and neither is Yamatai." Meissa mused. "My home is on the Kaiyo, now."
Calmly brushing the back of Meissa's head while softly cooing, possibly by some subconscious thing, "There you go, Meissa-san, welcome home."
"Thank you." Meissa whispered. "Thank you."
"Cry as long as you need to, I'm right here." was the XO's whispered reply. She didn't care, if anything, getting Meissa to open up was a good thing. Everyone on the ship was family to Misaki, and she wasn't about to have that change.
"It's terribly ironic, isn't it?" Meissa snorted. The wetness got a little bigger. "Light-years deep into enemy territory is where I consider home, yet Yamatai and Elysia to me both carry too many memories for me to consider them homes."
Moving carefully to not pull Meissa off of her, she moved so she was sitting down next to her, "Home is where the heart is, not anywhere else."
Meissa didn't reply, except for a long sigh. Her eyes blinked, and liquid fell from her face onto the faux leather seat between them. She let her memories of her 'house' loose, somewhat unaware that her contact-based telepathy was transferring all of it, down to the emotion tied behind each furniture piece.
It wasn't a home. It was a tomb, to be truthful. A very well decorated tomb, but nonetheless a tomb for a deceased man.
"Please don't treat me any differently." she whispered.
"Hush child, mother is right here." She sent through telepathically, not completely realizing she did. Her own eyes were growing wet again as she brushed a few errant hairs from sticking to Meissa's face. "Mother is right here..."
This time, Meissa didn't reply. The turmoil of psychic thoughts faded. A soft snore emenated from the angel.
Gently rocking the angel, she didn't dare move now. This was to important to ignore, and the care Misaki had was strong enough. She continued softly brushing her hair, telepathically sharing a calming emotion through the touch while softly humming.
A faint smile began to grace Meissa's lips. In her own dreams, memories began to replay -- childhood ones, colored a warm sepia. Except there were now other figures watching over her. Her father's face melted away into dreamstuff. Yet, every mirror, every reflective surface she looked in, there was a member of the Kaiyo's crew.
She turned around in surprise, in the dream world. The colors began to settle once more. The shrine was bathed in a warm light, yet many pictures were now added beside it, each a memory of the ship she was on. And the most notable feature of all was that the reflections in the surfaces became real. The crew members acted as if they lived there their entire lives, doing things a family would normally do. The home began to fill with a warm orange glow, akin to sunlight. In the backyard, a few of the Infantry were throwing a frisbee around. The officers occupied the couches, watching some sort of show she couldn't make out. And a light touch, on her shoulder -- Meissa's mind thought mother -- was Saki, offering her half of a protein bar to share.
She shared the protein bar, and reached under the couch. She knew exactly where it was that she was looking for: a single notebook, battered and torn. She flipped through its pages.
"Where is she?" the cover read. At first, they were simple, neatly organized facts. Rational. Concise. Then, the handwriting became worse. The facts began to be organized in a web, with lines connecting them. The web became more and more of a mess as she flipped through the pages and pages of desperation, with each page covered with more and more tear stains, until they suddenly ended with a few pages ripped out. The rest of the pages -- a good three or four -- were left blank, except for the last one, which, in small writing, read, 'where are you, mom?'
Meissa walked over to the gas stove. Saki and Mat stood beside her, as the flames turned on. Slowly, in a warm glow, page by page, she ripped the notebook apart, feeding it to the flames as they, together, somberly cut away Meissa's insane ramblings in the notebook from long ago. Mat found a pen behind Meissa. Giving the cover of the shell of the notebook, as well as the pen to Saki, the XO wrote under the question, 'Right here.'
The Kaiyo was her home now.
Misaki looked around the Wardroom, pleased to see it empty. Closing her eyes, she kissed the angel's forehead while telepathically sending another emotion, happiness and the love only a mother could give.
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