RP [YSS Wakaba] Celebration for those who made it, and for those who didn't

[Cowboy]

RP Date

45.5

RP Location

Yamatai

YSS Wakaba dry dock around Yamatai

After nearly two years the Wakaba and her crew had made it back to Yam space. They had endured hardships from lack of supplies to low personal. They had fought off pirates and Mishhu, a lot of Mishhu. They had had losses, lots of losses. Over half of the Wakaba crew had been lost. They had even lost their ST backups. Which meant even though they had returned to Yam where there were backup STs. But that meant that those who died had lost 2 years. There were also a few perinate deaths. Those crew that had been born on the Wakaba had never had a backup. In the last fight 15 crew had been killed who had no backups.

So before the Wakaba was emptied of all her crew to be rebuilt, there was would be a final get together for the crew in the Hanger Bay. Class A uniforms, white tablecloths all the trimmings. This would not only be a time to eat, this would be a time to celebrate their return home. There would be music, dancing, and probably a few speeches. There were a few people who would be honored for their unflinching courage.

Captain's Quarters

Thomas sat at his desk jotting down the a few notes. His dress uniform coat was hung over the back of his chair. The girls were in the other room, practicing a song they were going to preform during the ceremony. Ryoko had her bagpipes out and Hotaur her guitar. Thomas smiled. His daughters were really looking forward to the party, but honestly they were probably more excited for when the party ended. They had only ever lived on the Wakaba or briefly on the planet the Wakaba had crashed on. They were really looking forward to getting out and seeing the bigger world outside the ship. Thomas had promised them that the first chance they got he would take them to Nepleslia to meet his clan. Ryoko was especially excited about that because there she would take her right-of-passage trials and earn the right to get her tattoos.

Setsunu walked in. She was immaculate as ever. Every ribbon and patch exactly where it was suppose to be. Every hair in place and her boots shined to the point that you could see your reflection in them.

"The hanger is all set up. The chefs are finishing the last touches on the food. Everything is ready." Setsunu reported.

Thomas set down his notes and sat back in his chair. He looked up at Setsunu. She was so beautiful. When they had been assigned to this ship Thomas would never have thought that their relationship would have grown to what it was now. They weren't married. Setsunu would always be married to the Star Army, but they were about as close as two people could be. They had had two beautiful daughters as well who were both developing into professional soldiers. "It's been a journey hasn't it?"

Setsunu smiled knowingly. "It has. Despite the challenges and the loss..." She glanced over at the girls. "I don't think I would have changed a thing."

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

Setsunu walked around the desk and kissed Thomas on the forehead. "Nothing." She stood up at attention and said "It is time to go Captain."

Thomas stood and put on his coat. Setsunu helped him straighten it, giving him another peck on the cheek. "Alright. Lets go."

Across the ship, the announcement was made. All crew report to the Hanger Bay. All crew report to the Hanger bay.

 

[BloodyScarlet]

Calandri's quarters

Calandri was getting ready for the party, her mind not really fully there as she was thinking back to the last 2 year and what she has witnessed. She looked over the dress she was planning to wear as she checked over it slowly "hmm it is almost the same, but I can't put a finger on what is different." She shrugged as she started to to put it on, it was a long sleeveless ice blue dress that had a cut up to the thigh as she looked in the mirror she smiled a little "Well at least I can wear something similar once in my life."

She made sure she had everything she needed as she looked at her horns and sighed as the break in one, it would take a while for it to grow back and asymmetry looked alright. She was happy her fur had regrown and hidden her scars as looked at the make up in front of her "hmm a little should work alright, the girl showed me how to do it, this will be good." She had to give herself a pep talk to apply some lipstick and some mascara as she never did it before the crash and had been given some stuff that wouldn't mess with her fur. Now her mind was on her outfit, traditionally her species wouldn't be wearing leg wear underneath it, just undergarments but she thought it was the right thing to slide some of her shear stocking on, she remembered some people said it was cute seeing the fur of her legs fluff up around the top of them. Then the alarm went..

Hanger Bay

Calandri had snuck through the hallways, she didn't want the others to see her outfit before she was with everyone, it was a special surprise but really just for herself and them, she had made it herself on memory alone, to look like her wedding dress. It was an outfit she never wore but it was always their in her room taunting her for the last few days on her own planet, the wedding was the day after the attack, she was happy it never happened but was also sad she couldn't wear it, since it was her mother's wedding dress.

She bowed to the group, lifting up the dress a little as she did so "Val tonka nash." She paused and laughed as she looked at them and sighed "Sorry I just realised best translation of that would be pleasure day."

 

[iaincarter]

Orbital Dry-Dock, Yamatai
YSS Wakaba, Hangar Bay

"Tch! I'm late!" Shoi Kohosei Shima Hoshiko muttered to herself, slowing from her jogging pace to a stop just outside of the entry into the Wakaba's Hangar Bay. It had taken longer than she had wanted to reach the Hangar Bay, despite her quarters not being too distant. The reason for her unintended delay was quite simple and took the form of her three sisters. As it turned out, during the fighting that pretty much defined the Wakaba's return to the great sea of space, there had been some structural damage within the ship. One such occurrence had taken place in her mother's assigned quarters when a tertiary support strut had sheared itself loose and dropped through the ceiling into the room below.

From the incident report, it appeared that her mother still did in fact have the capacity to care for someone other than herself, as the older nekovalkyrja had thrown her body between the strut and the barely-a-fortnight-old twin younglings Seiya and Seira. Shima Haruto had died in the act of protecting her progeny who had survived unharmed. As for Shima Hoshi, who had herself been born almost exactly three months after Hoshiko had reached adulthood, she hadn't been present as she was busy working her way through SAoY Basic Training and was quartered in an assigned barracks for the duration.

So, the net result? With no idea of the identity of the father of her sisters, Hoshiko suddenly found herself the primary caregiver of two very young girls who had seen their mother die in front of them. Fortunately she knew her mother had older ST backups from before the Wakaba went missing years earlier, so it was only a matter of time until Haruto would turn up to reclaim her children. Or so the young navigator hoped, at least, unable to fully silence that quiet voice in the back of her mind that whispered to Hoshiko- with no memories of her children, would their mother even care to meet them, let alone claim them?

Regardless, that was a problem that future-Hoshiko would have to deal with. For now, the Shoi Kohosei was far too busy to really worry terribly much. She had had absolutely no idea just how much time and dedication younglings could require, having herself always been much more independent than the apparent norm. As an example, the twins had known an hour ahead of time that she had to leave for a while and had been left in the care of one of the ship's caretakers who had taken to operating a nursery creche of sorts. Everything had been going fine until Hoshiko went to leave, when suddenly the twins started causing a fuss. Upon thinking about it, it made a sort of sense - after all, they were developed enough to understand that their mother had left and wasn't coming back and obviously retained some not-entirely-unreasonable fear of a repeat scenario.

By the time they had been sufficiently reassured and calmed, with no small help from the caretaker, the twins had fallen asleep. And Hoshiko was running late. So she had quickly returned to her quarters and switched to the as-yet-unworn Type-35 Duty Uniform that the young navigator had needed to requisition for the party, having only ever had a need to wear the type 42 previously. At any rate, she had carefully studied the Star Army Regulations regarding Uniform and had ensured each component of her dress uniform was fully compliant. From jacket to skirt, belt with polished buckle, glossy black heels freshly-shined, smooth tights and gloves - all of it carefully prepared to regulations, including unit patches, rank insignia and grey panelling. Hoshiko had completed the ensemble by adding her Neko Service Pistol, holstered on her right hip. The shoi kohosei had really wanted to wear her Type 40 Officer Sword on her left hip, but the regulations clearly stated that would have to wait until she was promoted to full Shoi rank. A pity, but it wasn't as if she could ignore the Regulations just to indulge a personal desire.

Having intended to arrive a few minutes early, the year old neko now found herself running several minutes late by the time she reached the Hangar Bay. Squelching the small irritation she felt at the way her sisters had unintentionally ruined her exacting timetable, Hoshiko took a moment to straighten her uniform out so that it all fit to parade standard. She would not be the one to shame the Wakaba with a slovenly appearance! Now satisfied, Hoshiko stood up straight, pushed her shoulders back and calmly and confidently crossed into the Hangar Bay with an appropriately neutral expression.

 

[demibear]

Hiroshiko's Hole in a Wall

"Mother! If you don't get out of that soon we are going to be late to the ceremony!!! What was it that grandfather said? 15 minutes to the 15 minutes, if you show up on time you are late?" Reiko tried to remember one of Mikael's memories. Between Hiroshiko's memories and the parasites' vague concept of life, she was having a hard time keeping anything that wasn't exactly her memories right. At this point, they were vague concepts that she could look to and understand the world with.

A near mirror replica of Mizumitsu Hiroshiko, the tall NH-33a with lightly tanned skin woman with black hair kept in a bob cut looked at the makeshift door annoyingly. Despite being a Yonto Hei with absolutely no rewards or ranks to make her unique, the Class A Type 35 uniform looked like it was well taken care of.

The difference was much more apparent when Hiroshiko finally made her out to join her uniform. While Hiroshiko's Type 35 Class A's were not unclean or in disrepair, it certainly looked like Hiroshiko only put minimum effort to maintain the standard. Hiroshiko was never one for ceremonies and much rather simply put all of her energy into her work. Like Nepleslians drinking the "social juice", it helped her forget about events in life that led to her to where she was now.

After some adjustments of the physical ribbon rack by Reiko and the occasional sucking of teeth as the concepts of Mikael wanted to dig into her mother, the pair finally made their way.

Hanger Bay
The pair made their way, with Reiko standing on the left side of her mother. They were both just simple hei, but her mother still outranked her. Hiroshiko looked around and motioned her daughter to follow her to a spot where they will get the least amount of attention. At least so she hoped.

 

[Charaa]

Orbital Dry-Dock, Yamatai
YSS Wakaba, Hangar Bay

It was an odd thing to know that she was back in Yamataian space. She’d gotten used to their new home, after the realization that they’d never see Yamatai every again, and she felt calmer. She did get the idea of taking Crysta and forming a band of Drake riders a new branch of her old gang. They’d even found an awesome place for their new base of operations. Besides Her daughter as a technician so it wasn’t like Runa couldn’t count, on her to build things they’d need. Runa was brought out of her thoughts due to the announcement, and she moved from lounging on Exyrus’s back to proper riding position. “Hey sweetie, looks like we’re needed in the Hanger bay, meet you there!” Runa sent her daughter and flew off towards the hangar bay.

 

[Cowboy]

YSS Wakaba, Hanger Bay
Although their quarters were not very far from the Hanger Bay it still took Thomas and his family awhile to get there. Almost as soon as the Wakaba had arrived in Yamatai space the ship had been crawling with techs and engineers. They were giving his crew a much needed break although some were feeling very territorial. They had worked very hard keeping the ship in fighting shape, or at least going, and they had a hard time letting go to outsiders. With all these new people on the ship the hallways were filled with broken equipment that had just been taken out and new equipment waiting to be put in. Thomas and his family had to be on the alert not to get their dress uniforms dirty.

Ryoko and Hotaru followed their parents talking quietly together about the song they would be preforming during the ceremony. The whole family would be playing a traditionally Nepleslian song that was a favorite of the Canterbury Clan. Thomas thought it would be appropriate to play in remembrance of all those that had fallen in the service of the Wakaba. Their interments had been sent ahead so they wouldn't have to carry them in themselves. Thomas' violin, Setsunu's cello, Ryoko's pipes and Hotaur's guitar. Ryoko was also trying to convince Hotaru to play the ballet they had come up with when they were very young about the fight between the Wakaba and the five Cruisers. Hotaru was a little shy about playing in front of the whole crew, even though everyone had heard the song before.

As they arrived one of the officers was about to yell 'Captain on deck' when Thomas stopped her. He didn't want things to be quite so formal starting off. Let the crew mingle and enjoy some of the refreshments first. He glanced around the Bay. It looked nice, even though he could still see some of the damage from the many fights that had taken place in there. He noticed Fletcher and made his way over to his second in command. "Well Doc did you ever imagine we'd make it home? I can tell you I had some doubts a few times." Thomas chuckled. When you stopped and thought about all they had overcome, it was really nothing short of a miracle. "What are you looking forward to doing? Now that we've returned." Thomas asked.

Setsunu spotted Calandri and moved over to her. She smiled and said hello in Calandri's own language. Setsunu had made it a point to learn a little of the four armed woman's language. She was also quite interested in the other woman's dress. "That is beautiful. It looks very special. Does it have any significance?"

Ryoko had gone over to the drink table to get herself some punch. As waved over Crysta and Runa as soon as she saw the mini Neko's ride in on their drakes. "Sup my dragon's. What do you think of this? Pretty fancy."

Hotaru stood off the the side, quietly watching everything that was going on. She was much quieter than her sister and preferred not to be the center of attention. But it gave her a good view of Shima when she tried to sneak in unobserved. Hotaur went over to her friend. They were the same age, one of the 'Firstborns'. They had also spent time training together under her mothers instruction. Shima was quite skilled with a katana. "Hello Shima. How are the little ones?"

 

[iaincarter]

Orbital Dry-Dock, Yamatai
YSS Wakaba, Hangar Bay

Hoshiko often found herself confused by her Captain's behaviour. First there had been that whole 'smoking a pipe' thing he was known to do, which was of course an illegal activity in Yamataian territory, which of course the YSS Wakaba counted as. However, given all the Taicho had done to get the crew and the ship through their long ordeal, Hoshiko had decided that it wouldn't be her who would go reporting his criminal actions, no matter how much the rule-abiding officer within her really wanted to. But then you take moments like now, here she was, having entered late and expecting to be seen doing so by everybody already stood to attention and listening to a speech...and no. Everyone was acting all relaxed, well, as relaxed as any of the crew really got - Hoshiko was sure the fact that they were safe now had still not really settled in yet for most of them. Maybe Shoi Kohosei just weren't supposed to be able to understand the minds of senior officers?

Having taken a quick look around those gathered, Hoshiko gave a quick nod to those she recognised - mostly bridge officers and other members of the Firstborn - although there were also a few others she knew from bartering lessons from them. The young navigator had had to put in a lot of extra hours in order to get her training competencies signed off on. Even if she knew how to be a Star Army Navigator, there was no way they would let her be one until she had proven that she was just as qualified in every needed aspect as her mother had been. Sadly, all that extra studying and assessment had left little time for socialising and her disciplinarian nature had pushed away many of those who had tried to befriend her in the past year.

Fortunately though, she did have a couple of friends she believed she could rely on and one of them, Hotaru, was quickly approaching her. A fellow student of swordsmanship under the instruction of Setsunu Meiosei-Heisho, Hoshima found she quite liked Hotaru, who was quieter and calmer than her rambunctious sister. The two had bonded over their similar natures, although whereas Hotaru preferred to avoid the limelight, Hoshiko didn't particularly care whether she was the center of attention or not. It wasn't just that she was the daughter of the Captain, and more importantly, the Angel of Death, but the fact that Hotaru could reliably take Hoshiko whenever they tested their blades against one another that led to her respecting her science-focused friend.

Hoshiko allowed the corner of her mouth to smile in response to the question. "Seiya and Seira are healthy and developing well, thank you Hotaru-san." She let out a small tch of irritation. "Of course, they refused to let me leave the nursery creche on schedule, hence my tardiness." She looked around for a moment, making sure there wasn't anyone stood too close. "How are you doing though, holding up okay?" After all, it wasn't the young navigator who had been kidnapped away from the Wakaba by the Mishhu's Warrior only a few weeks earlier.

 

[Damaske]

Orbital Dry-Dock, Yamatai
YSS Wakaba, Hangar Bay

Crysta struggled with her dress uniform, her hands clumsily adjusting it while Lou, her faithful drake, emitted an exasperated huff before cracking a small smile. She gently reached out to pet his head, murmuring, "I need to make sure this looks perfect, Lou."

Confusion swirled within Crysta as she grappled with her identity and the unfamiliar places she now called home, fragments of her mother's memories still echoing in her mind. Her adopted mother, Runa, had dropped hints about something important, but Crysta couldn't quite grasp the full meaning, tilting her head in contemplation.

As the news of Runa's imminent departure reached her ears, Crysta couldn't contain her urgency. She called out, "Wait for me, Mum!" in a voice filled with determination. With a graceful leap, she mounted Lou, and together they soared off towards the hanger bay to catch up with Runa and join Exyrus on their journey.

 

[Soban]

YSS Wakaba, Hanger Bay

Will was there with his wife and both of his daughters, the youngest still in her mother's arms. He smiled sadly at Thomas, "No, I was pretty sure we'd all bought the farm once or twice. However, thanks to our crew, we made it back home." He said somberly. "After this, well, I'm still trying to figure that out. I could get posted to captain my own ship, a small one, or be the actual XO of a bigger ship. I've still got a lot to learn and we work well together, so if I had a choice, I'd like to stay as your XO."

 

[Charaa]

Orbital Dry-Dock, Yamatai
YSS Wakaba, Hangar Bay

As she heard her daughter call to her, requesting that she wait for her, Runa commanded Exyrus to slow its flight to a stop, and waited for her. “Issues with your outfit?’ she asked her daughter with concern in her voice. Before the two flew off to join the others in the Hangar bay where the party was happening. It was an odd thing to see the Hangar Bay looking like this. It was really fancy to the Mini Neko, and Ryoko was the first to greet the two dragon riding Mini Neko“Yo! yeah pretty fancy!” She said in reply as she looked around again.

 

[Damaske]

As Crysta hurried to catch up with her mother, who was riding atop her drake, she couldn't help but let out a weary sigh. She tugged at the fabric of her outfit, her expression betraying her discomfort. "You know, Mom," she began, "this outfit feels a bit off like it doesn't quite fit me properly. I'm not sure what to make of it."

Together, they made their way into the bustling hangar bay. Crysta's eyes widened as she took in the futuristic surroundings, emitting an audible gasp of astonishment. "Whoa, this place is completely different!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with awe.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the crowd, prompting Crysta's mother to turn and respond with a warm smile. "Hey there! Yes, it's quite fancy, isn't it?" she replied.

Turning to look at Ryoko after she spoke, they went over to her and said, "Hi, hi, yeah, it is pretty fancy!" Then, looking around for Hotaru, she asked, "How is the family doing? Your mom recovering well, I hope?" She looked back at her friend with concern after all she had to do to save Setsunu.

 

[BloodyScarlet]

Calandri almost dropped her drink when asked the question from Setsunu about her dress, as she was surprised someone would ask about a dress, but then again girl talk was a thing she had learnt about as she nodded "Your pronunciations of my language is very good, if we ever find more of my people, you would fit right in." She paused for a moment and took a sip of her drink as she tried to find the words "I fashioned this myself, it took quite away because what it was based on, I haven't seen for a long long time" She gave a little twirl and corrected the dress "this was based on my wedding dress, but something was missing, I can't tell what, it is just a feeling."