YSS Kaiyō
Bridge
21日 1月 YE 39
1600 Hours
Since his disastrous first attempt to introduce himself, Mat had been trying to think of a way to make a better impression.
Meanwhile, on the bridge...
"Come on..."
Meissa crouched behind Arbitrated's chair on the bridge, and poked her in the head a few times.
"Whaaaat?" The one hidden in the array of neural links twisted her head around a little to look at the annoyance.
"You've basically locked yourself in the bridge for the past two days." Poke.
"Yeah? So?" She replied. Followed by "Please stop poking me, I'd rather us not be ambushed, attacked directly, or otherwise while you keep distracting me."
"That's the exact problem! We've been in warp for the past two days. The map shows nothing for light-years around. And you're still sitting here sweating over your console."
Poke. Poke.
"Yeah and? That's the data right now, but if someone warps towards us we won't be able to see them until we're almost on top of each other! And what about anyone hiding?" She bat blindly behind her with her right arm, trying to shoo Meissa away.
Meissa dodged the wild arm, and poked Arbitrated again. "See, now you're just being unreasonably cautious."
"Unreasonably? I'd rather not die, and have everyone else die, and fail the mission, and screw this all up, because i wasn't watching for the enemy ambush that turned us into vapor!" Her wing twitched aggressively, frantically. Now she's worked up, good job.
"I'm sure Boss has our backs for this. Come on, go have some fun for once! Live your life while you still can!"
Meissa looked arond the bridge. She looked at the command post. She looked at the mission ops. She looked at the chairs at every seat. She gave them a wave.
The chairs, being chairs, decided to not wave back.
"Even Eden decided to take a break, see?"
"Yeah, so?" She seems to like that phrase a lot. "If nobody keeps watch then we've got a problem! It's a matter of..." She cautiously stepped about with her words, not intending to insult her commander in any way, "...Cautiousness. Perfectly valid cautiousness. We're in enemy territory, after all."
As all this was all going on, Mat was walking through the ship, and while passing the bridge, heard the commotion going on inside. He poked his head in. "What's going on?" He asked.
"Nothing, nothing..." The smol pink blanketed teddy birb responded.
"Can you do me a solid here, Mat? I'm trying to drag Arbs out of the bridge. She's been in here for the last two days, just sweating over space and emptier space." Meissa the quite-a-bit-bigger, not-so-teddy-birb called to Mat, her voice with an air of joking exasperation.
Mat looked at the smol winged figure. He walked over and tried to lift the blanket right off of Arbitrated.
Mat learned several things very quickly. First, those weren't a blanket. Those were the girl's wings. Second, she's not as strong as she looked as a slap stung his cheek, coming from his left. And third, whatever he did very quickly seemed to embarass her as she yelped, voice jumping an octave, and a massive blush recolors her face in a matter of moments.
"Ah yes. The 'I'm-Not-Familiar-With-Elysian-Anatomy' mistake. In which someone touches an Elysian's wings, and unbeknownst to them, gets hit in the face because those wings are sensitive.
Luckily for the others, this seemed to be great amusement for Meissa as she collapsed in laughter over Mat's genuine mistake, and Arbitrated's squeal in her ear, which made her sound like...a very surprised parrot or something. "Dammit, I should have recorded that! That was great."
Mat rubbed his cheek in bewilderment. He turned to Meissa and asked, "What did I do?"
Meissa only stood up proudly and fluffed her wings out. "Elysian wings? Don't touch. No touchy. Bad touch. Now, help me get her out of this damn bridge before she becomes glued to the chair."
"I refuse!" Still put tight at her workstation, little miss tiny was staying put, although she seems more preoccupied with looking down at her lap in embarassment than actually checking for threats. Or anything else in space.
Mat ruffled his hair. "I'm very sorry. Can I buy you both breakfast or something to make up for it?"
"Make up for it by helping me get this girl out of this bridge. I'm sure even Boss wants her to get out and have a walk. 'My analysis shows becoming a rock in the bridge for two days with extreme stress is highly detrimental to your health. Recommended course of action would be to go do something that doesn't involve stressing your absolute ass off.' Or something like that." She imitated Boss's voice as best she could.
She failed.
Arble took a few deep breaths, slowly returning to a normal facial hue. "I-I'd rather not have you be imitating the ship's Artificial Intelligence like that... That's mean!" She still sounded fairly flustered, even though she seems to have gotten back to 'work' again, pouring over the constant tream of data indicating, yup nothing trying to kill us yet!
Meissa finally gave up. "Alright, fine...if you're being like that..." She walked around to the side of Arbitrated and squatted down. Then, she wrapped her arms around Arbs, and lifted her up. "You're coming with me anyways!"
Interrupted from her mid-day work in the captain's suite, Eden popped her head out of the doors, black hair streaming down in segmented chunks for a few feet, hanging in the air before she moved the rest of her body all of the way out of her suite once she realized the intrusion on the bridge was more of a heist to remove the weapons operator than anything else.
"Nito Hei Arbitrated Shan," Taii Teien Eden said as she made her way to the command console. "Nito Hei Meissa Nashira and Santo Hei Matsuvo Shinomori. I can take over from here."
Meissa turned in somewhat surprise as she saw her commander standing in the door. "Oh. Uh, hello." She slid her way to the back wall of the bridge.
Eden's brows pressed together momentarily while she waited for the Nito and Santo Hei to bow or salute to her, but didn't make it apparent either was necessitated by the situation. Which, it was. But she didn't need to tell them that. At least she thought she didn't.
Meissa glanced around, waiting for something. Then she realized her mistake and corrected it by saluting to Eden.
Saluting back, Eden broke a smile, "So what is it you're doing, nagging Arbitrated like this?"
"She's practically locked herself in the bridge for the past two days, stressing out over empty space." Meissa responded. She seemed to be slightly wavery, having been practically jumped by Eden. "I'm trying to get her to de-stress. But she keeps thinking a ship can warp right on top of us or something, and as a result just doesn't want to leave."
"What if I," Eden said as she wiggled her fingers above the controls at the command console, "take over from here?"
A slightly delayed salute appeared upon Shan's posture, before she returned to searching while responding to Eden's question: "Well, an extra set of eyes would be very helpful, but I'd rather not force you to stay here if you were busy doing something else, Taii..." She seemed almost desperate to stay.
Mat cocked his head a little. From what he could tell, the small Elysian had been cooped up here for days, and from what he knew of psychology, that wasn't good for anyone.
Mat said, "I think I'm starting to agree with Meissa. You need to relax a little." And with that proceeded to try and pick the diminutive figure up out of her seat, and deposited her on his shoulders, piggyback style.
Surprised by this sudden shift of location, position, and perspective, picking up the light teddybirb was an incredibly simple task. It was almost too easy, her arms and legs had gone limp moments before applying enough pressure to Mat's waist, shoulders, and chest area to keep herself from falling off.
"Fiiiine," she huffed in his ear, loud enough still for everyone else to hear. "Now that I'm being forced out I'll leave the bridge... for now."
"Have fun," Eden chimed in.
"Alright!" Meissa turned to leave before realizing once certain problem.
She had no idea where to go.
"Um...where to?" she asked.
Mat restated his offer from earlier, "We can go down to the wardroom and get something to eat. If she's been up here for a few days she could probably use a meal."
A quick response: "I'm not hungry, I consumed lunch. You were there, weren't you?"
"To the wardroom, then!" Meissa shouted. She didnt care at all if Arbitrated ate lunch or not. Then she noted a flaw in Mat's carry plan.
"You're gonna...hit her head on the door frame if you carry her like that, I think."
She tried to remove Arbitrated from Mat's shoulders, intending to hold her out like some...oversized...feathery....puppy. Miss Shan refused to be carried by the crazy explosives lady, her displeasure with that idea conveyed by rather vigorous head shaking and a tighter grip on Mat. At least the klutz is somewhat predictable.
The crazy explosives lady was perfectly predictable, mind you, as she tugged on the Overly Scared Smol more.
Mat took Meissa's suggestion in mind as he exited the bridge. he ducked down so as to not hit the small Elysian's head on the doorframe.
As expected, Nito Hei Arbitrated ducked slightly as well. Might as well enjoy the free ride she got.
Meissa followed the motley crew of people through the ship, probably gaining more than their fair share of sideways glances.
A while later down at the wardroom...
Mat was getting a little tired of carrying Arbitrated.
He asked, "Do you mind if I put you down now?"
"...Alright," she chimed. Followed by a loosening of her grip on Mat, as her legs swung downwards and she dropped to the floor with a small patting sound.
"Alright...there's gotta be something in the wardoom someone left out. There better be, or this is a significantly worse excursion." Meissa walked ahead of the Tower Of People and already started glancing around the whole wardroom. "Buffet might have something left, freezer or storage might have something..."
Mat walked over to the buffet area and picked up three plates and set them out for someone to load with food. After that he got out three glasses and queried, "What do you want to have to drink?"
Having followed the two social people inside, Arbitrated had busied herself with the ceiling-based window until Mat asked the question. "Ice water, please."
"Hm." Meissa pondered her options. Wine would get her yelled at by her superiors. Vodka and tequila...no. "Just a couple beers, I guess. Let's not get too drunk."
In this matter, Mat deferred to Arbitrated. He filled a single glass with ice water and two others with beer and brought them over to the table.
Meissa, meanwhile, raided the buffet line for leftovers. Delicious food is, after all, delicious. There were leftover assorted sandwiches, potato chip, and some more traditionally Yamataian rice balls. She returned with a huge land mass of sliders, a small mountain of chips, with some rice balls serving as the snow cap.
"That's... A lot of food." remarked Mat as he took a sip of his beer.
"Mmmmmm not too bad of a choice. Too bad there wasn't any dip but we can manage." The smol one actually sat down in a closeish proximity to the other two people! As she sipped her water slowly, she began isolating a small amout of all the foods available, and took the selections onto her plate. The result, three small hils of various size. The smol started first with a rice ball, gently nibbling on it quietly.
There was suddenly one less sandwich as it disappeared down Meissa's mouth. She took a swig of beer, a bit too much to be healthy, and leaned back in her chair. "Alright, no one bothered to clean up the place. Now we're doing it for...whoever."
Mat took a bite out of his sandwich before speaking again. "So earlier, when I accidentally touched your wings, what made it such a big deal? Are they sensitive?"
Meissa took another drink. The very peak of the mountain vanished. A bottle slammed on the table. "'Course they are. 'ffffyawanna explanation, well, you don't ask why your crotch is sensitive, do you?"
She already began to sound slightly tipsy.
"....Okay basically, uhh.... Yeah." Arbitrated eyed the apparently intoxicated Elysian. Word had been going around about... Interesting private activities between her and that one neko, Yoshida was her name. "Touching them is.... Just don't do it." Her face flushed a pale red, upon remembering what Mat did to her on the bridge.
Mat soon finished his glass of beer, and got up to get a new one, but he was tripped by a chair leg and fell to the ground, knocking over Meissa with him.
Things were black for a moment, although he could feel a weight above him, and as his hands moved slightly he felt them touching something soft and round. What was it? He gave it a squeeze.
He found himself having knocked over Meissa's chair, with her wings outstretched and in his face, his arms supporting up Meissa's chest. Meissa squeaked as he squeezed her chest and flopped off of Mat.
"Now there you've done it. Ya gone done and bad touched two girls in one day, good job kid." Her face was flushed red.
Mat, for his part, was too shocked to speak.
Miss Shan just observed cautiously, sipping her water and making no move to untangle the two floor-huggers.
Mat extricated himself from the tangle of limbs and sort of staggered away while blushing profusely, and stammering, "I, I uhhh... I'm very sorry!"
"Hmph." Meissa pulled herself back up to her chair, her face still bright red. "Have fun with that experience."
Mat got back in his seat and kept on blushing. He looked down at the table. "I didn't mean to trip or fall on you." He said softly.
"You seem to do that a lot, Mr. Mat." The smol retorted, before biting into a slider.
"Everyone says they're sorry when they do it." Meissa mumbled into the table as she ate another sandwich. "Didn't expect to get groped today, so that's something to note down."
In response to Arbitrated's statement Mat murmured, "I'm not very coordinated."
"Yes, I noticed." This is followed by a silent stare above a half-eaten miniature sandwich.
"You're not gonna have a drink?" Meissa swirled her glass at Arbs.
"Nnnnnope. Alcohol isn't good for focusing. On the contrary it has the opposite effect most of the time." And thus, more denials have taken place.
"Why are you...always...so stressed? Life's for living, not for sweating your way through." And thus, more offers have taken place. "Do you ever get tired of always sweating over every last thing?"
"Excuse you, Miss Meissa, my... Perspiration trait has been slowly mitigating itself over time. The longer i'm out here, the longer we're fighting, the less of a problem it is. So shush." She wasn't wrong, the sweating has gone down significantly since that first mission, likely just a first-time nervousness or... something.
Mat had considered apologizing again, but given the reactions to his last attempts, he had reconsidered.
So he asked, "What now? I didn't really have any plans beyond eating."
"....I'm going back to the bridge, then." She intended to do so, at least, as she hopped off of the chair, took her plate in her left hand, and turned and walked to the disposal. It should be noted, the glass of water is still on the table."At least, in a few minutes." She added, rinsing off the crumbs on the dish.
Meissa swished her beer around in her glass while Arbitrated got up to dispose of her plate. It's a pity Arbs was leaving so quickly, and in such haste to get back to...being boring. But there really wasn't anything else to do on the ship.
She gestured, beer in hand. "Always such a hurry. You really need to just stop throwing yourself through so many loops. After all, we don't decide how long we stay out. Command does. Based on how far we have to travel in this luxuriously glorified tin can. Or for you, a far too cramped tin can." Her beer sloshed out of the glass, splashing a fair bit on the table. Some splashed into the glass of ice water.
"Whoops." Meissa mumbled. "I'll clean that."
She got out a bunch of paper napkins from the dispenser and started to wipe up her little spill.
She wasn't doing a very good job.
Meanwhile, Carter stood up from his place at the back of the wardroom, pocketing a small notepad. He'd seen Matsuvo's suspiciously selective clumsiness at work once again, and heard enough of the conversation to pick up what they'd been saying about the pint-sized gunner's fusion of workaholism and rampant paranoia. He quietly made his way to the door of the wardroom, ready to intercept Arbitrated on her way out. He had an idea...
After cleaning up her plate and placing it away, Arbles meandered slightly on her way towards her newly-made cocktail. As she sipped it, she noticed Carter watching with his-wow they have the same eye colors. Green and blue. Well, she was born-then reborn with her colors, Mr. Carter just has a fancy fake eye. She waved lightly, sipping more from her 'water.'
He walked over, sitting down across the table from the three of them. "Hey Arb, I overheard what they were saying about your, ah, excessive time on the bridge. I think I may be able to help."
"I'm fine, Mr. Carter." She responded cooly. Whatever alcohol is in her system seems to not have affected her yet. Even then, she seemed to be blinking significantly more often that she was previously, taking a larger draft from the contaminated water.
"You're paranoid, Miss Shan." Came the technician's curt reply.
"For a good reason, thankya very much!" She wobbled a little. "I suddenly feel... Unfocused. I may need to retire early, unfortunately..."
"And you're a fffuckin' technodingus, Carter..." came Meissa's slightly more drunk reply as she drank more alcohol. It is at this point that a sane person should be concerned. Luckily, Meissa was sure that no one in the room at the moment was sane.
"Shut up Meissa, you're drunk." Carter said without even looking over. Meissa tucked her head in and shortened her neck. She gave him the best puppy eyes she could, out of a joking sense of childish inferiority. To Arbs, he said "What if you could see the sensor data from the guns from anywhere in the ship?"
"Thhhhat would be helpful, yes. How would that be done, thouUUUugh?" She wobbled on her chair a little, causing the sudden elongation of her sentence. After somewhat having realigned herself she giggled, a pleasent, cheerful tone if louder than would be expected. This was in turn followed by another drink from the mostly empty glass.
"It should be easy enough to rig a Heads-Up-Display with a set of AR lenses." As Carter was speaking it was evident that he was already envisioning the device, staring past the Elysians across the table.
"Hmmmmm Yyy-EEEs! Heheh, sorry Mr. Carrter!" She frowned, then un-frowned and looked at him in a confused way, as she slowly wobbled back and forth, one pink wing twichting occasionally in an idle fashion. She turned to look at Mat and giggled again, blushing slightly.
Carter raised an eyebrow "Were you drinking too? You're sure acting like it."
"Hhhhwhat? Nono I just order-WOAH!" She tilted a little too far to her right, and flailed off of the seat in a rather undignified fashion, leaving only a mess of magenta feathers in Carter's view. "....Water. I ordered water." She muttered this as she swooned back and forth unstably.
"Then I'm pretty sure somewhere along the lines, something fucked up." Meissa splashed her drink around in her cup.
Mat looked at around worridly. How could such a thing have happened? Now people would think he had done that, and he would have an even worse reputation?
In an effort to save face, he said, "I got you water."
'y-y-hheeheheheeheh, you did, didn't you? You, you did! That's funny, you did, but this isn't, heh, isn't water is it?" She shook her head. "What in... Heh..." She made an attempt to stand up, with limited success, and propped herself with one arm on the table, and leaned heavily upon it, her body swaying. She looked about the room with an expression best described as 'happy?', and occasionally she giggled.
Mat risked his reputation again, and walked over to behind the smol winged woman, and took her by the shoulders and sat her down.
"I'm so sorry about everything today."
He shook his head. God, look at the mess he had made.
"Ehhh she's probably drunk." She sloshed her glass around more. More beer spilled over the edge. More cleaning.
"How?! I got her water?!" Mat asked incredulously.
"You think I'm in the state to be asked?" Meissa shot back.
Seemingly having not heard the two, Shan looked into Mat's eyes dreamily. "Oh it's okay Mr. Mauuwugh. ahem[/] Mr. Maaa-t." There was an extra amount of amphasis on the 't' part of his name, as her mostly unfocused, gemstone-like eyes appeared to look at and yet through him.
Mat was unsure of what to do in this situation. Everything was spiraling out of control. What should he do? Maybe he could try to guide the two drunks back to their bunks, but he didn't know where they were, and the two were in no state to tell him.
Almost to himself, he said, "What am I gonna do now?"
Almost as if on cue from his thoughts, Arb seemed to unintentionally flop herself forward, her head against his chest. "W-heh, whoops!" Another self-rightening happened, although her wings have begun to droop rather noticebly, a slow blink obscured her vision momentarily.
Mat began to become concerned.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm, hic -just fine, th-thanks for asking heh." The smol was clearly not fine, swaying like a flag in a moderately strong wind, the tips of her wings dragging across the floor slightly.
"I think you need to go lie down or something." Mat said, taking hold of Arbitrated's shoulders to steady her, and in the process inadvertently rubbing up against her wings. With every sway of the smol Elysian, her wings would be rubbed more.
The result, surprisingly, was... more swaying. She seemed to be blushing only a little, but a confused look splashed onto her face caused her to momentarily freeze. "Wh-hic-what in- I do."
Mat was unable to understand Arbitrated. As he tried to steady her, and her swaying continue, her wings were rubbed even more.
"Yeah, sure, just bad touch the girl more...y'know what, I'll carry her back if I have to. It's not my first time being drunk." Meissa shakily stands up, but once she stands up, she looks way more sturdy than...well, that...pink...feathery...giggleball.
Mat recoiled slightly. He hadn't realized that he had been rubbing the smol woman's wings. He stepped back slightly without thinking.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize at all..."
"He-heheh, you're -hic- a funny man, Mat." Said giggleball blushed cutely yet intensely while looking the poor man up and down.
This confused Mat greatly. "What do you mean? I've done nothing but behave inappropriately this entire time."
Meissa, meanwhile, tried to lunge forward to catch the Arble when Mat let go like an idiot.
Except she forgot she was drunk, so it looked more like a weird flailing grab as Meissa caught Arbitrated's arm, her left foot sliding forward on the floor.
The unstable bundle lost her balance, and fell to the side, landing on her left wing with a strange sounding gasp, and yet more blushing. From there she simply unpinned the wing from her torso, simply leaving it behind her as she laid on the floor haphazardly, eyes slowly drifting closed.
Meissa sighed, reached down, and with a lot more caution this time, scooped the Arble up into a pink feathery bundle. "I'll drag her back to our cabin. Hopefully she can sober up just enough or something before Eden really needs to call for her."
"HHhhhgwuh?" That's essentially the only audiable noise that escaped Miss Shan's lips as she was picked up and carried.
Mat heard Carter groan from across the table. The nepleslian engineer facepalmed, quietly muttering to himself "And this is why I don't drink." He then stood up, and started to walk after the two intoxicated Elysians. "I'm going to go start working on that AR rig for Arb... After I make sure her and Meissa don't end up passed out in the hall on the way back."
Meanwhile, Mat was left behind to clean up all the mess.
Bridge
21日 1月 YE 39
1600 Hours
Since his disastrous first attempt to introduce himself, Mat had been trying to think of a way to make a better impression.
Meanwhile, on the bridge...
"Come on..."
Meissa crouched behind Arbitrated's chair on the bridge, and poked her in the head a few times.
"Whaaaat?" The one hidden in the array of neural links twisted her head around a little to look at the annoyance.
"You've basically locked yourself in the bridge for the past two days." Poke.
"Yeah? So?" She replied. Followed by "Please stop poking me, I'd rather us not be ambushed, attacked directly, or otherwise while you keep distracting me."
"That's the exact problem! We've been in warp for the past two days. The map shows nothing for light-years around. And you're still sitting here sweating over your console."
Poke. Poke.
"Yeah and? That's the data right now, but if someone warps towards us we won't be able to see them until we're almost on top of each other! And what about anyone hiding?" She bat blindly behind her with her right arm, trying to shoo Meissa away.
Meissa dodged the wild arm, and poked Arbitrated again. "See, now you're just being unreasonably cautious."
"Unreasonably? I'd rather not die, and have everyone else die, and fail the mission, and screw this all up, because i wasn't watching for the enemy ambush that turned us into vapor!" Her wing twitched aggressively, frantically. Now she's worked up, good job.
"I'm sure Boss has our backs for this. Come on, go have some fun for once! Live your life while you still can!"
Meissa looked arond the bridge. She looked at the command post. She looked at the mission ops. She looked at the chairs at every seat. She gave them a wave.
The chairs, being chairs, decided to not wave back.
"Even Eden decided to take a break, see?"
"Yeah, so?" She seems to like that phrase a lot. "If nobody keeps watch then we've got a problem! It's a matter of..." She cautiously stepped about with her words, not intending to insult her commander in any way, "...Cautiousness. Perfectly valid cautiousness. We're in enemy territory, after all."
As all this was all going on, Mat was walking through the ship, and while passing the bridge, heard the commotion going on inside. He poked his head in. "What's going on?" He asked.
"Nothing, nothing..." The smol pink blanketed teddy birb responded.
"Can you do me a solid here, Mat? I'm trying to drag Arbs out of the bridge. She's been in here for the last two days, just sweating over space and emptier space." Meissa the quite-a-bit-bigger, not-so-teddy-birb called to Mat, her voice with an air of joking exasperation.
Mat looked at the smol winged figure. He walked over and tried to lift the blanket right off of Arbitrated.
Mat learned several things very quickly. First, those weren't a blanket. Those were the girl's wings. Second, she's not as strong as she looked as a slap stung his cheek, coming from his left. And third, whatever he did very quickly seemed to embarass her as she yelped, voice jumping an octave, and a massive blush recolors her face in a matter of moments.
"Ah yes. The 'I'm-Not-Familiar-With-Elysian-Anatomy' mistake. In which someone touches an Elysian's wings, and unbeknownst to them, gets hit in the face because those wings are sensitive.
Luckily for the others, this seemed to be great amusement for Meissa as she collapsed in laughter over Mat's genuine mistake, and Arbitrated's squeal in her ear, which made her sound like...a very surprised parrot or something. "Dammit, I should have recorded that! That was great."
Mat rubbed his cheek in bewilderment. He turned to Meissa and asked, "What did I do?"
Meissa only stood up proudly and fluffed her wings out. "Elysian wings? Don't touch. No touchy. Bad touch. Now, help me get her out of this damn bridge before she becomes glued to the chair."
"I refuse!" Still put tight at her workstation, little miss tiny was staying put, although she seems more preoccupied with looking down at her lap in embarassment than actually checking for threats. Or anything else in space.
Mat ruffled his hair. "I'm very sorry. Can I buy you both breakfast or something to make up for it?"
"Make up for it by helping me get this girl out of this bridge. I'm sure even Boss wants her to get out and have a walk. 'My analysis shows becoming a rock in the bridge for two days with extreme stress is highly detrimental to your health. Recommended course of action would be to go do something that doesn't involve stressing your absolute ass off.' Or something like that." She imitated Boss's voice as best she could.
She failed.
Arble took a few deep breaths, slowly returning to a normal facial hue. "I-I'd rather not have you be imitating the ship's Artificial Intelligence like that... That's mean!" She still sounded fairly flustered, even though she seems to have gotten back to 'work' again, pouring over the constant tream of data indicating, yup nothing trying to kill us yet!
Meissa finally gave up. "Alright, fine...if you're being like that..." She walked around to the side of Arbitrated and squatted down. Then, she wrapped her arms around Arbs, and lifted her up. "You're coming with me anyways!"
Interrupted from her mid-day work in the captain's suite, Eden popped her head out of the doors, black hair streaming down in segmented chunks for a few feet, hanging in the air before she moved the rest of her body all of the way out of her suite once she realized the intrusion on the bridge was more of a heist to remove the weapons operator than anything else.
"Nito Hei Arbitrated Shan," Taii Teien Eden said as she made her way to the command console. "Nito Hei Meissa Nashira and Santo Hei Matsuvo Shinomori. I can take over from here."
Meissa turned in somewhat surprise as she saw her commander standing in the door. "Oh. Uh, hello." She slid her way to the back wall of the bridge.
Eden's brows pressed together momentarily while she waited for the Nito and Santo Hei to bow or salute to her, but didn't make it apparent either was necessitated by the situation. Which, it was. But she didn't need to tell them that. At least she thought she didn't.
Meissa glanced around, waiting for something. Then she realized her mistake and corrected it by saluting to Eden.
Saluting back, Eden broke a smile, "So what is it you're doing, nagging Arbitrated like this?"
"She's practically locked herself in the bridge for the past two days, stressing out over empty space." Meissa responded. She seemed to be slightly wavery, having been practically jumped by Eden. "I'm trying to get her to de-stress. But she keeps thinking a ship can warp right on top of us or something, and as a result just doesn't want to leave."
"What if I," Eden said as she wiggled her fingers above the controls at the command console, "take over from here?"
A slightly delayed salute appeared upon Shan's posture, before she returned to searching while responding to Eden's question: "Well, an extra set of eyes would be very helpful, but I'd rather not force you to stay here if you were busy doing something else, Taii..." She seemed almost desperate to stay.
Mat cocked his head a little. From what he could tell, the small Elysian had been cooped up here for days, and from what he knew of psychology, that wasn't good for anyone.
Mat said, "I think I'm starting to agree with Meissa. You need to relax a little." And with that proceeded to try and pick the diminutive figure up out of her seat, and deposited her on his shoulders, piggyback style.
Surprised by this sudden shift of location, position, and perspective, picking up the light teddybirb was an incredibly simple task. It was almost too easy, her arms and legs had gone limp moments before applying enough pressure to Mat's waist, shoulders, and chest area to keep herself from falling off.
"Fiiiine," she huffed in his ear, loud enough still for everyone else to hear. "Now that I'm being forced out I'll leave the bridge... for now."
"Have fun," Eden chimed in.
"Alright!" Meissa turned to leave before realizing once certain problem.
She had no idea where to go.
"Um...where to?" she asked.
Mat restated his offer from earlier, "We can go down to the wardroom and get something to eat. If she's been up here for a few days she could probably use a meal."
A quick response: "I'm not hungry, I consumed lunch. You were there, weren't you?"
"To the wardroom, then!" Meissa shouted. She didnt care at all if Arbitrated ate lunch or not. Then she noted a flaw in Mat's carry plan.
"You're gonna...hit her head on the door frame if you carry her like that, I think."
She tried to remove Arbitrated from Mat's shoulders, intending to hold her out like some...oversized...feathery....puppy. Miss Shan refused to be carried by the crazy explosives lady, her displeasure with that idea conveyed by rather vigorous head shaking and a tighter grip on Mat. At least the klutz is somewhat predictable.
The crazy explosives lady was perfectly predictable, mind you, as she tugged on the Overly Scared Smol more.
Mat took Meissa's suggestion in mind as he exited the bridge. he ducked down so as to not hit the small Elysian's head on the doorframe.
As expected, Nito Hei Arbitrated ducked slightly as well. Might as well enjoy the free ride she got.
Meissa followed the motley crew of people through the ship, probably gaining more than their fair share of sideways glances.
A while later down at the wardroom...
Mat was getting a little tired of carrying Arbitrated.
He asked, "Do you mind if I put you down now?"
"...Alright," she chimed. Followed by a loosening of her grip on Mat, as her legs swung downwards and she dropped to the floor with a small patting sound.
"Alright...there's gotta be something in the wardoom someone left out. There better be, or this is a significantly worse excursion." Meissa walked ahead of the Tower Of People and already started glancing around the whole wardroom. "Buffet might have something left, freezer or storage might have something..."
Mat walked over to the buffet area and picked up three plates and set them out for someone to load with food. After that he got out three glasses and queried, "What do you want to have to drink?"
Having followed the two social people inside, Arbitrated had busied herself with the ceiling-based window until Mat asked the question. "Ice water, please."
"Hm." Meissa pondered her options. Wine would get her yelled at by her superiors. Vodka and tequila...no. "Just a couple beers, I guess. Let's not get too drunk."
In this matter, Mat deferred to Arbitrated. He filled a single glass with ice water and two others with beer and brought them over to the table.
Meissa, meanwhile, raided the buffet line for leftovers. Delicious food is, after all, delicious. There were leftover assorted sandwiches, potato chip, and some more traditionally Yamataian rice balls. She returned with a huge land mass of sliders, a small mountain of chips, with some rice balls serving as the snow cap.
"That's... A lot of food." remarked Mat as he took a sip of his beer.
"Mmmmmm not too bad of a choice. Too bad there wasn't any dip but we can manage." The smol one actually sat down in a closeish proximity to the other two people! As she sipped her water slowly, she began isolating a small amout of all the foods available, and took the selections onto her plate. The result, three small hils of various size. The smol started first with a rice ball, gently nibbling on it quietly.
There was suddenly one less sandwich as it disappeared down Meissa's mouth. She took a swig of beer, a bit too much to be healthy, and leaned back in her chair. "Alright, no one bothered to clean up the place. Now we're doing it for...whoever."
Mat took a bite out of his sandwich before speaking again. "So earlier, when I accidentally touched your wings, what made it such a big deal? Are they sensitive?"
Meissa took another drink. The very peak of the mountain vanished. A bottle slammed on the table. "'Course they are. 'ffffyawanna explanation, well, you don't ask why your crotch is sensitive, do you?"
She already began to sound slightly tipsy.
"....Okay basically, uhh.... Yeah." Arbitrated eyed the apparently intoxicated Elysian. Word had been going around about... Interesting private activities between her and that one neko, Yoshida was her name. "Touching them is.... Just don't do it." Her face flushed a pale red, upon remembering what Mat did to her on the bridge.
Mat soon finished his glass of beer, and got up to get a new one, but he was tripped by a chair leg and fell to the ground, knocking over Meissa with him.
Things were black for a moment, although he could feel a weight above him, and as his hands moved slightly he felt them touching something soft and round. What was it? He gave it a squeeze.
He found himself having knocked over Meissa's chair, with her wings outstretched and in his face, his arms supporting up Meissa's chest. Meissa squeaked as he squeezed her chest and flopped off of Mat.
"Now there you've done it. Ya gone done and bad touched two girls in one day, good job kid." Her face was flushed red.
Mat, for his part, was too shocked to speak.
Miss Shan just observed cautiously, sipping her water and making no move to untangle the two floor-huggers.
Mat extricated himself from the tangle of limbs and sort of staggered away while blushing profusely, and stammering, "I, I uhhh... I'm very sorry!"
"Hmph." Meissa pulled herself back up to her chair, her face still bright red. "Have fun with that experience."
Mat got back in his seat and kept on blushing. He looked down at the table. "I didn't mean to trip or fall on you." He said softly.
"You seem to do that a lot, Mr. Mat." The smol retorted, before biting into a slider.
"Everyone says they're sorry when they do it." Meissa mumbled into the table as she ate another sandwich. "Didn't expect to get groped today, so that's something to note down."
In response to Arbitrated's statement Mat murmured, "I'm not very coordinated."
"Yes, I noticed." This is followed by a silent stare above a half-eaten miniature sandwich.
"You're not gonna have a drink?" Meissa swirled her glass at Arbs.
"Nnnnnope. Alcohol isn't good for focusing. On the contrary it has the opposite effect most of the time." And thus, more denials have taken place.
"Why are you...always...so stressed? Life's for living, not for sweating your way through." And thus, more offers have taken place. "Do you ever get tired of always sweating over every last thing?"
"Excuse you, Miss Meissa, my... Perspiration trait has been slowly mitigating itself over time. The longer i'm out here, the longer we're fighting, the less of a problem it is. So shush." She wasn't wrong, the sweating has gone down significantly since that first mission, likely just a first-time nervousness or... something.
Mat had considered apologizing again, but given the reactions to his last attempts, he had reconsidered.
So he asked, "What now? I didn't really have any plans beyond eating."
"....I'm going back to the bridge, then." She intended to do so, at least, as she hopped off of the chair, took her plate in her left hand, and turned and walked to the disposal. It should be noted, the glass of water is still on the table."At least, in a few minutes." She added, rinsing off the crumbs on the dish.
Meissa swished her beer around in her glass while Arbitrated got up to dispose of her plate. It's a pity Arbs was leaving so quickly, and in such haste to get back to...being boring. But there really wasn't anything else to do on the ship.
She gestured, beer in hand. "Always such a hurry. You really need to just stop throwing yourself through so many loops. After all, we don't decide how long we stay out. Command does. Based on how far we have to travel in this luxuriously glorified tin can. Or for you, a far too cramped tin can." Her beer sloshed out of the glass, splashing a fair bit on the table. Some splashed into the glass of ice water.
"Whoops." Meissa mumbled. "I'll clean that."
She got out a bunch of paper napkins from the dispenser and started to wipe up her little spill.
She wasn't doing a very good job.
Meanwhile, Carter stood up from his place at the back of the wardroom, pocketing a small notepad. He'd seen Matsuvo's suspiciously selective clumsiness at work once again, and heard enough of the conversation to pick up what they'd been saying about the pint-sized gunner's fusion of workaholism and rampant paranoia. He quietly made his way to the door of the wardroom, ready to intercept Arbitrated on her way out. He had an idea...
After cleaning up her plate and placing it away, Arbles meandered slightly on her way towards her newly-made cocktail. As she sipped it, she noticed Carter watching with his-wow they have the same eye colors. Green and blue. Well, she was born-then reborn with her colors, Mr. Carter just has a fancy fake eye. She waved lightly, sipping more from her 'water.'
He walked over, sitting down across the table from the three of them. "Hey Arb, I overheard what they were saying about your, ah, excessive time on the bridge. I think I may be able to help."
"I'm fine, Mr. Carter." She responded cooly. Whatever alcohol is in her system seems to not have affected her yet. Even then, she seemed to be blinking significantly more often that she was previously, taking a larger draft from the contaminated water.
"You're paranoid, Miss Shan." Came the technician's curt reply.
"For a good reason, thankya very much!" She wobbled a little. "I suddenly feel... Unfocused. I may need to retire early, unfortunately..."
"And you're a fffuckin' technodingus, Carter..." came Meissa's slightly more drunk reply as she drank more alcohol. It is at this point that a sane person should be concerned. Luckily, Meissa was sure that no one in the room at the moment was sane.
"Shut up Meissa, you're drunk." Carter said without even looking over. Meissa tucked her head in and shortened her neck. She gave him the best puppy eyes she could, out of a joking sense of childish inferiority. To Arbs, he said "What if you could see the sensor data from the guns from anywhere in the ship?"
"Thhhhat would be helpful, yes. How would that be done, thouUUUugh?" She wobbled on her chair a little, causing the sudden elongation of her sentence. After somewhat having realigned herself she giggled, a pleasent, cheerful tone if louder than would be expected. This was in turn followed by another drink from the mostly empty glass.
"It should be easy enough to rig a Heads-Up-Display with a set of AR lenses." As Carter was speaking it was evident that he was already envisioning the device, staring past the Elysians across the table.
"Hmmmmm Yyy-EEEs! Heheh, sorry Mr. Carrter!" She frowned, then un-frowned and looked at him in a confused way, as she slowly wobbled back and forth, one pink wing twichting occasionally in an idle fashion. She turned to look at Mat and giggled again, blushing slightly.
Carter raised an eyebrow "Were you drinking too? You're sure acting like it."
"Hhhhwhat? Nono I just order-WOAH!" She tilted a little too far to her right, and flailed off of the seat in a rather undignified fashion, leaving only a mess of magenta feathers in Carter's view. "....Water. I ordered water." She muttered this as she swooned back and forth unstably.
"Then I'm pretty sure somewhere along the lines, something fucked up." Meissa splashed her drink around in her cup.
Mat looked at around worridly. How could such a thing have happened? Now people would think he had done that, and he would have an even worse reputation?
In an effort to save face, he said, "I got you water."
'y-y-hheeheheheeheh, you did, didn't you? You, you did! That's funny, you did, but this isn't, heh, isn't water is it?" She shook her head. "What in... Heh..." She made an attempt to stand up, with limited success, and propped herself with one arm on the table, and leaned heavily upon it, her body swaying. She looked about the room with an expression best described as 'happy?', and occasionally she giggled.
Mat risked his reputation again, and walked over to behind the smol winged woman, and took her by the shoulders and sat her down.
"I'm so sorry about everything today."
He shook his head. God, look at the mess he had made.
"Ehhh she's probably drunk." She sloshed her glass around more. More beer spilled over the edge. More cleaning.
"How?! I got her water?!" Mat asked incredulously.
"You think I'm in the state to be asked?" Meissa shot back.
Seemingly having not heard the two, Shan looked into Mat's eyes dreamily. "Oh it's okay Mr. Mauuwugh. ahem[/] Mr. Maaa-t." There was an extra amount of amphasis on the 't' part of his name, as her mostly unfocused, gemstone-like eyes appeared to look at and yet through him.
Mat was unsure of what to do in this situation. Everything was spiraling out of control. What should he do? Maybe he could try to guide the two drunks back to their bunks, but he didn't know where they were, and the two were in no state to tell him.
Almost to himself, he said, "What am I gonna do now?"
Almost as if on cue from his thoughts, Arb seemed to unintentionally flop herself forward, her head against his chest. "W-heh, whoops!" Another self-rightening happened, although her wings have begun to droop rather noticebly, a slow blink obscured her vision momentarily.
Mat began to become concerned.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm, hic -just fine, th-thanks for asking heh." The smol was clearly not fine, swaying like a flag in a moderately strong wind, the tips of her wings dragging across the floor slightly.
"I think you need to go lie down or something." Mat said, taking hold of Arbitrated's shoulders to steady her, and in the process inadvertently rubbing up against her wings. With every sway of the smol Elysian, her wings would be rubbed more.
The result, surprisingly, was... more swaying. She seemed to be blushing only a little, but a confused look splashed onto her face caused her to momentarily freeze. "Wh-hic-what in- I do."
Mat was unable to understand Arbitrated. As he tried to steady her, and her swaying continue, her wings were rubbed even more.
"Yeah, sure, just bad touch the girl more...y'know what, I'll carry her back if I have to. It's not my first time being drunk." Meissa shakily stands up, but once she stands up, she looks way more sturdy than...well, that...pink...feathery...giggleball.
Mat recoiled slightly. He hadn't realized that he had been rubbing the smol woman's wings. He stepped back slightly without thinking.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize at all..."
"He-heheh, you're -hic- a funny man, Mat." Said giggleball blushed cutely yet intensely while looking the poor man up and down.
This confused Mat greatly. "What do you mean? I've done nothing but behave inappropriately this entire time."
Meissa, meanwhile, tried to lunge forward to catch the Arble when Mat let go like an idiot.
Except she forgot she was drunk, so it looked more like a weird flailing grab as Meissa caught Arbitrated's arm, her left foot sliding forward on the floor.
The unstable bundle lost her balance, and fell to the side, landing on her left wing with a strange sounding gasp, and yet more blushing. From there she simply unpinned the wing from her torso, simply leaving it behind her as she laid on the floor haphazardly, eyes slowly drifting closed.
Meissa sighed, reached down, and with a lot more caution this time, scooped the Arble up into a pink feathery bundle. "I'll drag her back to our cabin. Hopefully she can sober up just enough or something before Eden really needs to call for her."
"HHhhhgwuh?" That's essentially the only audiable noise that escaped Miss Shan's lips as she was picked up and carried.
Mat heard Carter groan from across the table. The nepleslian engineer facepalmed, quietly muttering to himself "And this is why I don't drink." He then stood up, and started to walk after the two intoxicated Elysians. "I'm going to go start working on that AR rig for Arb... After I make sure her and Meissa don't end up passed out in the hall on the way back."
Meanwhile, Mat was left behind to clean up all the mess.
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