Year-End Festival Year-End Gift Opening [Open RP]

[Locked_0ut]

RP Date

44.9

RP Location

Across the Kikyo Sector

Vec Wilson​

Late one evening, Vec returned to his cabin to find a red wrapped parcel on his bunk. Lifting the suspicious package, he noticed it was surprisingly heavy. He gave the package a squeeze and felt something like densely packed beads.

“Oh yeah, that gift festival thing,” he said to himself. Beans then. With a small smile he began to unwrap the large bag of whole roasted beans from Besset. He pulled up Bravemart’s network site and placed an order for another vacuum canister. He decided to add a few mugs to the order as well. No more making guests to the medbay use beakers. Once that was done he flopped down onto his bunk and took a deep whiff of the beans through the bag. He’d open it once he got his new canister. “Play some Gem Runners,” he said and his dedicated music player queued up a song from Gem Runners 2. With a relaxed smile on his face, he tapped his foot against the air thinking about his new coffee while Michael Murder and Del-Z rapped in the background.

---

​

Pierre Ruike​

The package was large, but kind of light. It was probably the sweaters Pierre had asked for. Crossing their arms, they wondered if they should have specified to wrap them separately. No, the Empress, or her people more like, had done enough. They wondered if they should give her the sweater now or… Had they known her long enough to be getting her gifts?
“Shoulda thought of that before you asked the Empress for a pair of sweaters shouldn’t you have?” the young officer muttered as they squatted in their desk chair staring at the package. Sure they’d asked her on a date the first day they’d met, but maybe this would be seen as coming on strong. Sunde’s entire existence was “too strong.” Pierre couldn’t help but smile.

---

Nasrin Naceri​

Nas sat in the Azalea's Volumetrics Room, a construct with her exact proportions stood in the middle of the room in a neutral position. With a stylus and a datapad, she drew and erased falls of fabric. She still didn’t know what sort of dress to make. She wanted to make something long and slinky but she also wanted to make something influenced by the culture of her new home. She had enough silk to make several dresses, but she also wanted to make each dress count. The bolt of silk she’d received had a higher thread count than anything she’d felt in her life. She’d rubbed her face on the silk for a moment before worrying she’d manage to ruin it.

A few more strokes of her stylus and she had it. A kimono influenced number. Instead of tight and slinky it would be flowy and just a little revealing. Now, should the loose fabric fall from one shoulder or both?

---

Saga Lindqvest​

The smell of fresh leather greeted Saga as she unwrapped her Gift Festival box to find probably the spikiest jacket she’d ever seen. She pulled it on with a small smile.

“Rad,” she said before sitting on her bunk and scrolling public networks.

Spoiler

thanks @Wes for putting all of this on and for your hard work with this site. Happy Holidays everybody!

 

[Locked_0ut]

OOC note
If anybody else wants to post about opening gifts here, go for it. I meant this to be an open thread

 

[Cowboy]

Setsunu Meiosei stopped by her cabin to retrieve her cello. The instrument was on its last leg. It had been with her through many a campaign and was where she took refuge from the horrors of war. Opened the door and stopped short in surprise. Where she had left her cello by the bed was a brand new one wrapped in a red bow. Setsunu slowly approached and examined the fine instrument. She had never seen a finer one. Carefully she removed the ribbon and plucked a few notes. Such a rich sound! She excitedly grabbed her bow and ran through an arpeggio. Closing her eyes, Setsunu began to play, instantly becoming lost in the music. She had never played on such an instrument as that one.

About 20 mins later, Setsunu left her cabin and headed for the Wardroom. She was suppose to meet Thomas Canterbury there and play together. They shared a love of music and had been comrades and shipmates for over a decade. When she entered the Wardroom, Thomas was standing there looking at his pocket watch. Setsunu knew she was late, but even after she entered he continued to look at his watch. As she drew closer, Setsunu realized it was a different watch than the one he usually wore. Bigger and far more elegant. Thomas closed the watch and showed it to Setsunu. "A gift from our Empress." He said, "Quite the watch. I wonder how she knew I wanted one?" Setsunu smiled but didn't respond. She knew how the Empress knew.

Thomas noticed the new cello. "Wow. That is beautiful." Setsunu let him examine it while she poured two classes of wine, handing one to Thomas. "Cheers, to the Empress." Thomas raised his glass and repeated. "To the Empress. Bless her." They set their glasses aside and began to play. Setsunu her new cello and Thomas his old violin.

 

[hyralt]

Thia
Resurgence of Yamatai


"Yayoi...Ginger Bug...Mochi...Cutie Pie..." Thia rattled off names as each member of the crew appeared in front of her one at a time. It was a simple program she threw together that projected crew members volumetrically in random order and paused until she gave their correct name. Or her nickname for them.

She sat reclined in her chair with her feet kicked up on a volumetric table she normally only used when her patients were visiting. Dressed in a bathrobe and sipping a glass of hooch, she was just starting to get comfortable when a knock came at her door. Excited for some company, she bolted upright and rushed over to open it, but she was disappointed to find nobody there. Instead, she looked down and saw a blue couch.

"Oh!" She almost purred, before taking a sip of her drink. With a click of her jaw, the volumetric table behind her disappeared. "The Empress has answered my prayers."

Stooping down, she tried to lift one end of the couch with her free hand but quickly gave up. So she quickly composed and sent a message to someone she knew to be much stronger than herself.

Honey, dear, would you mind terribly helping old Thia move a couch into her office? Then maybe we can break it in a little.

---

Kwabba-an
Bastion of Winter


In what would otherwise have been a quiet corner of the crew cabin, Kwabba-an stood between a couple of bunks and sang a Neshaten folk song while plucking the strings of her charred electric bass and drumming her free hands on the section of the bunk frame that seemed to be most resonant. The song was in Tinacen and while she was doing her best to learn the language, the meaning of this song still eluded her even as she used her trained ear to replicate the sound of the words perfectly.

One thing that she especially enjoyed was that the language seemed to incorporate movement, which was popular in some ancient theories of music that she'd studied in school, but hadn't had much practice with until now. So as she sang, played, and drummed, she also wiggled her insectoid abdomen and flicked her antennae in her best efforts to recreate the tail and ear movements, respectively, of the one who had taught her.

At the end of the song, the gathered crew members clapped. Sarosa, who had uncharacteristically disappeared during the song, returned bearing a package.

"For you, music bug," she said withe a smile and a swish of her tail.

"Oh, thank you," Kwabba replied as she set down her bass and took the package. Inside, she found a note from the Empress and a pair of frames that she immediately put on. "Wow. I wonder if Karinovica'el can do this ophthalmology thing."

---

Kari
Azalea II


With a deep sigh, Kari closed the door to her quarters and walked over to the nearer of the two desks, set down her datapad, and began fiddling with a tiny volumetric projector. It was old and clearly showed its age as she gently worked its controls, repeating each input several times until they were recognized and she could move on to the next step. Finally, it began to glow and projected an image into the space between the desks and her neko nest.

Turning around, Kari saw a much shorter neko standing in front of her, who seemed to be looking up at her with a friendly smile. As Kari took a step one way and then another, the neko's gaze seemed to follow her until the projector glitched and the image distorted for a moment, causing the different channels of light to misalign and separate into four smeared images of the neko before it snapped back into alignment. The neko was dressed in an outdated type 22 Star Army uniform and had impossibly bright green hair.

"Konnyachiwa and welcome to Shosa Socialization's remedial program," the neko said in a high-pitched voice. "I am Shosa Socialization, and you are?"

Kari was silent for a moment, still unsettled by how the neko's attention followed her around the room.

"I can tell that I have a lot of work to do," the volumetric Shosa snarked. "This is the part of our conversation where you tell me your nyame. Let's try again! I'm Shosa Socialization, and you are?"

"Kari Sunde," she replied with a frown.

"Much better!" The Shosa beamed and bounced giddily from one foot to the other. "Nyow try again, but use a full sentence, and this time smile and say «it's nice to meet you» after."

With some effort, Kari managed to push her feelings down inside of herself and put her best approximation of a smile on her face. From prior experience, she knew it looked more like a snarl. "Hi, I'm Kari Sunde!" Kari added a wholly unnecessary giggle before continuing. "It's nice to meet you!"

The image of the Shosa glitched again, but then started jumping for joy.

"Yay!" She squealed. "Doesn't that feel nyice?"

No, Kari thought to herself. When a knock sounded on her door, she sighed with relief and turned off the program before opening the door. Quick reflexes let her catch the package that had been leaned up against her door before it fell on top of her. Thinking quickly, she popped her head out her door and looked around, but saw no deliverer in sight.

After bringing the package over to her desk, she happily pushed the projector aside, swatting at it multiple times until it fell to the floor, before laying the package down. Opening it revealed an ornate spear with an inlaid blue gem whose radiance seemed to emanate through the metal itself, surrounded by a pair of secondary blades on either side of the tip decorated to look like feathery wings.

"Is this purely decorative?" She said aloud. When she ran her thumb perpendicular to the blade's edge, she felt the sharpness catch and almost cut her skin before she pulled away. For her next experiment, she braced the tip against her desk with her knee and tried to use the leverage to bend the metal. She felt it bend only slightly before the force of her strength began to deform the desk underneath. Impressed, she brought the tip up to her face and inspected it closely. "Fascinating."

Suddenly, she raced from the room and down the hall to someone whom she knew could help.

"Pierre, open up!" Kari yelled as she knocked frantically on their door. "I want your help testing something!"

Spoiler: OOC

Thanks, @Wes ! You're the best.

 

[Locked_0ut]

The Chui nearly leapt from their seat at the knock. They hadn't summoned the medic with their thoughts had they? Looking around for a place to stash the bulky package, they called, "One moment," before shoving the package under Lilina's bunk. Trying to pretend like they hadn't been caught off guard, Pierre went to open the door. "What can I do for you, Sunde," they said, before their eyes locked on the spear. Their eyes widened then narrowed, "Yes, if you put that in me it will hurt." They paused for a moment and said, "You know what, come in first, I've got something for you."

 

[hyralt]

"That's not what I want to test...although...no, no..." She blurted excitedly as she walked past him into the room. "I want to know if this spear could actually be used in combat against someone or something with armour. The Empress sent it to me. It's very pretty..."

Kari took a moment to pose with it heroically before she continued.

"But is it useful? I'm sure it can't pierce Zesuaium. Or can it? No, that seems unlikely." Kari stared at the spear for a moment. "Do you think I could use it to open a fighter cockpit like a can opener, so I could pull out a pilot if they were in danger?"

For a moment, she stared into the distance, clearly envisioning what she had just described. In that moment, her lips began to curl and were about to form an actual smile until something occurred to her.

"Oh, I'm sorry Pierre, that was rude," she shook her head. "You said you have something for me?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

Pierre had been following along, making plans as he listened to her questions. "We'd need to figure out what it's made of first, Lets head to the– Oh yeah, that..." he reached under Lilina's bunk and pulled out a slightly rumpled gift wrapped parcel. "Both of ours got wrapped together, but one of these is yours," Pierre said, looking up at her and presenting the parcel.

 

[hyralt]

"Someone sent you a gift intended for me?" Kari said, clearly confused. She shifted her spear to hold it in one hand while reaching her other forward to open the parcel. When she saw two sweaters, she instinctively pulled out the green one.

"This one seems like yours," she said as she carefully hung it from one of Pierre's stubby horns, before dropping her hand back to their parcel. On her second attempt, she pulled out the red sweater and held it in front of her face. "I like it."

Gently setting her spear against the wall, she threw the sweater over her head, pushed her arms through the sleeves and her head through the collar, and pulled it down her torso. This had the side effect of ruffling her hair, but she didn't seem to notice. "Who is it from? Aside from that spear, I can't remember ever getting a gift."

 

[Locked_0ut]

The diminutive officer's cheeks reddened slightly as they picked the green sweater off of their antler. "Same place actually," voice muffled as they pulled on their own sweater. Very cozy, it would definitely come in handy when they eventually headed back to RB Fujiko. Their brown haired head popped through the top and they continued speaking, "I asked for a Yule sweater, and I decided to request one for you as well. It looks good on you, but..." they trailed off reaching a hand up to smooth the medic's hair. They paused instead and gave her a questioning look. "May I?"

 

[hyralt]

"You asked the Empress to send you a sweater for me?" Kari looked down and gently grabbed the sweater by its hem, which hung just to the tops of her thighs. She pulled the material away from her body slightly and looked down at it as if it were made of the same stuff as her ornate spear. "You and the Empress conspired to give me a gift."

Kari looked up and her normally annoyed expression was gone. Now her face showed just how confused she was. When she saw Pierre reaching a hand up, she quickly latched on to something she understood and nodded. "You may."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"That is one way to put it, but yes," Pierre said, brushing down her hair. "So, your spear. Let's take it down to the medlab, there or engineering, we need to try to analyze the materials the spear is made of, then maybe image the edges. I don't want to start hitting things with it until we've got a basic idea. How's that sound?"

 

[hyralt]

As Pierre used their hand to brush down her hair, Kari closed her eyes. Her tail swished playfully from side to side, but except for that she gave no external reaction. Internally, her digital mind was in a crash loop state as she kept trying to process what was happening, searching through her prior experience, finding nothing, and consequently crashing. A randomized exponential backoff algorithm kept increasing the time between attempts until finally another part of her mind kicked in.

"Yes, the spear," Kari nodded dumbly, reaching out to grab it with one hand as she continued to cling to the hem of her sweater with her other. "Let's go analyze it. That makes sense. That makes sense."

 

[Locked_0ut]

Pierre couldn't help but laugh as they watched her tail swish. They allowed their hand to linger, stroking her soft hair. Lost in the moment, their fingers traced down her cheek. "Oh yeah, so does your lab have any thing we could use to figure out the material composition?"

 

[hyralt]

"No, no," Kari said, seeming distant and distracted as Pierre traced their fingers down her cheek. "Wait, maybe. All the medical equipment is meant to be used for organic and biological analysis, which likely wouldn't help in this case. But..."

Kari was about to say more, but some part of her digital brain reminded her of her audience. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the Plumeria-class is an old design and dates back before dedicated science labs were common, like on a Fuji-class. And it hasn't been updated to add a dedicated science lab like the Sharie-class. So the med bays are expected to double as science labs, so we have a few unused science kits."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Hmm, you're right," Pierre said, lowering their hand. "It'll be a bit of a bass akwards approach, but with a strong enough microscope we should be able to take a look at the edges. Maybe try bouncing different wave lengths of light off of it. I'm trying to think of what we could do that wouldn't potentially damage it. There are some estimates we could make based off it's mass." At this point, they were muttering almost to themselves, "I know you can use an ultrasound to look for flaws in metal..."

 

[hyralt]

"Those sound like good ideas based on my limited training in the general sciences. If it were a pure element, we would have enough information to draw a conclusion based on its density which we can measure by mass and volume alone. But that wouldn't be accurate if it's an alloy. Perhaps the science kits have something specifically designed for this situation. I have the manuals on file," Kari said as she looked up and away, her eyes unfocusing as she brought up a digital record in her mind. "We have several units of the old type 31 kit, whose scanner has a chemical module but it only analyzes materials in gaseous and liquid form. I wonder what we used to do when we encountered unusual solids while on away missions?"

Kari shook her head, trying to clear the intrusive questions that kept popping up. She felt so unfocused since Pierre had given her the sweater she was now wearing. She would have to run some self-diagnostics when she had a free moment.

"But we were also issued 3 units of the new type 43 kit, one per medbay, whose manual mentions that it performs molecular structure analysis but it notes that the feature has limited functionality without accessories," Kari explained before looking down at Pierre once again. "I'm not sure what that means, and it's not something I've been trained on. But given your abundance of ideas, I have high hopes for our success. Shall we go to a medbay? We can go up to deck 2 or down to deck 6. I am only now realizing that your cabin is maximally distant from any of the medbays on the Azalea."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Yes, the medbay," Pierre said, even though thoughts of leading her back to their bunk intruded on their plans. They forced themself to set off. They almost managed to keep the regret from their voice as they continued, "How much are you willing to damage the weapon? I want to avoid that but a lot of tests for metal involve scratching it or seeing what chemicals react with it."

 

[hyralt]

"As long as its usefulness is undiminished, I am unconcerned with damage. You were present when I explained the beauty inherent in objects or people with scars that tell stories," Kari explained as they proceeded into the aft zero-G passageway. After a quick decision, Kari flipped upside-down and kicked off the ceiling, propelling her down towards deck 6, which she knew to be the quietest medbay where they were least likely to be disturbed. "If this spear is purely ornamental, then the story of its scars will be of us determining that. If it is not purely ornamental, then this is unlikely to be the last scar inflicted upon it, as I intend to use it."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"That's a fair way to look at it," Pierre said with a small grin, as they pushed off in pursuit. "I was worried about damaging the spear, but if that's not a concern we can try some chemical and spark tests."

 

[Commissar Farzi]

Albert Steiner found himself staring at the crates and the message he'd received. The Empress had been far kinder than he'd expected; allowing them both the medical supplies and the privilege of studying at one of their Academies.

A far greater gift than expected...and one that would not be squandered. He began going over the lists of soldiers, searching for those among the newest batch of recruits who showed the greatest promise in the healing arts; had the best disciplinary records...and could put aside whatever interplanetary, inter-familial or tribal, or intertown disputes...actually-he was likely going to have to send a minder-and couldn't really afford to send an officer...not with the operation coming up. He could send Tacho...annnnd already he felt stupid for even thinking it-they'd exiled or worse within the first day.

No...no he'd look among the enlisted and figure something out-until then, it was time to get these kits distributed-collecting the crates; he trundled off to get them to the logistical cohorts; the list was for another time.