9.095 - The Captain and the Engineer

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Free time on a warship was fleeting and malleable. You took it when you had it, because you didn't now when it would evaporate in an instant. For a Captain, it was doubly so. At any moment, any concern aboard your ship could become your concern. Nearly two hundred small concerns, now your own.

When you had the time, you took it. Time such as a long hyperspace jump, when everyone was waiting for Point A to become Point B. Barring a cataclysm in engineering, he had five hours.

The first hour he spent cooking. It was about as alien a pursuit as he could imagine, but he'd done some rudimentary form of it when he lived aboard the Layla, and if pushed, could tolerate meat that was teased and abused in the way that everyone else seemed to like. He'd made a point of looking up recipes from Dantooine, recipes that she would probably know, remember, and enjoy. He found one that would probably not cause him much discomfort, and be easy enough to keep him from burning down the mess hall. The mess officer watched him struggle, stifling a laugh as he made a mess of things. But Cirrsseeto insisted. He wanted to do it. Instead of game birds, it was frozen poultry of the least common denominator, but with the mess officer giving suggestions at every turn, Cirr put the bird on to braise. More clueless about the vegetables, the mess chief offered more advice, reconsituting what was dessicated, and uncanning what was in a can. When it was ready to go low and slow with the least amount of supervision, Cirr moved on.

The next hour, he spent on himself. How long had it been since he'd done that? A long sonic shower. A careful shave. His claws, clipped, buffed, and polished. He even broke out his long-neglected makeup kit, and as he stood in front of the mirror of his refresher, he worked at applying the subtle touches of eyeliner, lipstick, and other color that he'd used when he was younger to impress Ieesshaauurri. He shook a small decanter of perfume, down to the scant last few drops, and applied them with care. When he was finished, he looked at himself carefully. In a way, he was looking at him from over a decade ago, but there was so much that had changed. The carefully-manicured lines of a thin beard were among one of those differences. Captain's Prerogative, he told himself. It was short enough that he'd managed to hide it from her for a few days just by avoiding her with busywork. He hoped she appreciated the surprise.

To dress, he eschewed his parade uniform in his closet for civilian clothes. He felt more comfortable that way, and he'd taken pains to save money for the nicest cut he could afford, last time they touched down on Dac. It wasn't nearly as nice as what he wore on Carshoulis, but it was the best thing he'd worn in years.

He was hopeless on music, and after asking a dozen friends and confidants, he took Morgan Evanar's sage advice on Verpine algorithmic jazz. It wasn't saccharine or kitsch, but it also wouldn't smother conversation. It was smart and subdued, and fit the mood. She wouldn't want to hear anything less.

After he set the table, and after the Mess Officer arrived at his quarters with a utility cart with dishes and the project he'd worked on, he was finally ready to make the call. He punched up Lyanie's voxcomm.

[Lyanie Quez]

After her day in the bowels of the ship, alongside the Novgorod’s retinue of engineering staff, Lyanie Quez was looking forward to a lingering (but not too lingering) session in the sonic shower. It was becoming apparent that she would be spending a lot more time being the brains of the engineering department, rather than one of its resident greasemonkeys. Granted, today she’d gotten a happy share of hands-on, but part of her was pretty content to be making use of her smarts, even though she did prefer the dirtier part of the work, overall.

Sometimes, the farmer’s daughter liked to sing in the shower – a common affliction amongst humans, a once-upon-a-time Verpine acquaintance had informed her… to which she had laughed and then was awkwardly uncertain if the creature would get the idea behind a friendly slap on the shoulder – and found that it made showering just that much more enjoyable (as if it wasn’t blissful enough already!). But it was usually just busy, absentminded humming that still carried a good tune as her mind clearly wandered elsewhere. All in all, her life was happy work as it always had been and though that life was by no means charmed she felt that it had done good for her. She loved her work, had people to love in her life and was blessed with the ability to enjoy the simple things, the small things, to the extent that they should be enjoyed.

After several minutes under the beating pulse of the sonic shower, Lyanie emerged and shagged her hand through her hair out of a habit that spoke of an increasingly vague familiarity with water-based showers, prior to slipping into a robe and emerging from the room to go seek out her bunk so that she might sit and tend to the gentle care of nails before tidying up her hair. All in all, normal rituals of after-bathing. It was just when her behind had almost made contact with the sleeping surface that her voxcomm went off. If someone was calling her when she was just barely off shift, then it had to be important and she didn’t hesitate to make quick work of answering. She only hoped that she hadn't just showered to have to turn around and head back down to engineering. That was always a pain - not that she would ever complain about it.

She saw it was Cirr. Which made her blank and strain against the immediate urge to call him by name. The off-duty Lt. scrambled to gather her thoughts and greet him.

“Evenin’, Cap’n.” She acknowledged. “What can I do ya for?”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Not Captajin..."

Cirr's mouth turned upward into a smile as he talked into the voxx.

"...not tonjight. And no Ljieutenant ejitherr. Off the rrecorrd."

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine what she was doing. In his head she was always engine-deep and wearing her work, but he liked the other mental images too.

"jI made djinnerr."

[Lyanie Quez]

"Not Captajin...

She could hear the smile in his voice.

“…not tonjight. And no Ljieutenant ejitherr. Off the rrecorrd. jI made djinnerr."

She blinked, a bit taken aback. Her cheeks coloured in slightly and a smile lit on her face. She ran a hand through her hair again and fiddled with the collar of the robe.

“Well, I just got out of the shower and…” She hmmm’d, a thoughtful sound. “…it’d not be my first choice to go waltzing down the corridors in my robe.”

The smallest of laughs slipped out of her mouth at the thought of the looks she’d get if she were to do such a thing.

“Let me get into something else and I’ll see you in… ten or fifteen minutes?”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

He suppressed the insinuation to tell her the robe would be just fine, and instead played the gentleman.

"Ch'e rruai narrellaa e' trraaia, Lyanjie. jI'll be as patjient as a trree wajitjing forr summerr...forr you."

He brushed against the voxx with the edge of his hand, imagining it was her face. He'd have to wait a little longer.

"Don't be too long, rrou'aiha."

[Lyanie Quez]

"Don't be too long, rrou'aiha."

Her smile turned soft.

“I won’t.”

-------------------------------------------

After ten-and-three-quarters of a minute, Lyanie found herself outside the Captain’s door. Staring at it.

No, girl. Not ‘captain’. It’s just like he said. Look at yourself, you ain’t dressed for officer to her captain.

The voice of her mind was right. Right after getting off the voxx with Cirr, she'd immediately set to work, pulling out clothes she’d hardly had cause to wear in a good while and a light fixing of makeup, taking a portion of the time to tease her hair out of her face and up, out of the way. He’d never seen her coiffed like this – unlike the grease, the unimpressive wardrobe of a hard-on engineer, it never mattered, it was what, who they were.

She rung. And waited.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr held confident poise as he opened the door, but the moment the doors slid back to reveal the angel that waited for him on the other side, his face stuck in a mild expression of wonderment. She was naturally beautiful, and he'd fallen for her when she was sweaty, dirty, and smeared with oil. The lightest touch, the smallest intent, and she drew on her immense charms and became almost a dream.

It took Cirr a few seconds to realize he wasn't doing anything at all, just standing and looking at her hair, her face, her eyes, her clothes. He remembered to breathe, his smile betraying him as he graciously ended his awkwardness with an appreciative kiss.

"You'rre amazjing. jI mean you always arre, but...jI mean..."

He pulled away, his face twisting in an expression as he tried to untangle his tongue. He gave up, and smiled again, running his hand to her hair.

[Lyanie Quez]

Sometimes it was hard to know what to say, which was something she could wholly understand in circumstances such as these – she had never seen how he was under all the grease, without the greasemonkey duds. Understanding, however, was the absolute furthest thing from her mind when he kissed her and she kissed back. Small things like this were things that were on her mind here, there and everywhere throughout each day and the inklings, the little memories paled in comparison to when it was actually happening.

So when he pulled away, wrestling with his tongue to say what he wanted to say, she only smiled. When he put his hand to her hair and returned the gesture in loving kind, placing her much smaller hand up to his face, stroking there before leaning her head in, feeling strongly that she just wanted to nuzzle up into his chest and be there. Just there.

“I know.” Lyanie breathed in and out, taking in the unfamiliar scent of his perfume, which elicited a small smile from her, and she nudged her head lightly into his chin. It was nice. “Now, why don’t you invite me in before we start gathering a nosy audience?”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"...rrjight!"

He nearly choked it out, standing there making (what did she call them) moon faces? He took her by the hand and hurried her inside.

He pushed a seat out for her at the table, and waited for her to sit before attending to actually dishing out the meal. By most standards it probably wasn't that amazing but Cirr took a lot of effort not to beam about the accomplishment. This was so far out of his element that he was glad he didn't blow the ship up in the process of making it. Of course, human tastes were fickle, so as long as she didn't spit it out or end up in Vek Vek's infirmary with food poisoning, he'd consider it a small success.

"Somethjing frrom yourr home. jI talked to the mess offjicerr, and he sajid that jit was."

He couldn't wipe the smile off his face, swallowing the and I made it for you bit at the end.

[Lyanie Quez]

With her suggestion, Cirr had been rather quick in taking the hint. Faintly, the scent of the food had trickled in past the scent of him in the doorway. Lickety-split, it took no time at all for him to seat her – something she had not had done for her in too long and for which she smiled in thanks – and to start dishing up dinner, all while briefly explaining it. With dinner served up in front of her, the smells rose to greet her nasal passages and she nodded short, finding, so far, that the scent was in accordance with this dish which her own mother had made countless times, though the woman had her own special touches to add to most things that made the recipes entirely her own.

“The mess officer pointed you in a good direction. This smells great, Cirr.”

She smiled, just as she did for him, and looked at the table, set as it was from where she sat.

“Not quite my mother’s recipe from the scent of it, but she does her own things to it that I don’t even rightly know about. Each family has their own little variations on most of the, well, I guess you could call it traditional fare – one of my mother’s friends favoured making it spicy. That woman, she would make everything spicy if she could get away with it.”

Lyanie beamed. It was easy to find things that reminded her of home, which was a source of joy for her. She looked at him and focused more on his face. She hmmed. It reoccured to her, as it faintly had in the doorway, that Cirr looked a good deal different from his usual.

"Is it normal for males of your species to wear makeup?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr made an effort at pacing. Being a Cizerack and being in the military meant that meals were often an at any cost race to the bottom. He efficiently parcelled off a forkful and chewed as she asked a question that gave him pause. Uh oh.

Keep mouth closed when chewing, swallow and napkin before talking. Like we practiced.

A few seconds later, well-daubed with his napkin, Cirr addressed Lyanie.

"Uh, well...forr somethjing ljike thjis."

He absently checked himself in the reflection of his wine glass. The eye shadow wasn't obnoxious, he had a really light hand with that.

"jIs jit okay?"

[Lyanie Quez]

She smiled, swallowing her latest forkful and retrieving her wine glass, gently sipping. Lowering the glass afterward, she raised her eyes to look on Cirr again.

"It is. It's okay. I hiked the curve of learning not to pin the norms and expectations of my own culture on others a long time ago." Her smile softened and warmed. "Just a curious question, really. I'm afraid I don't know much about Cizeri culture."

Words which, considering, made her cheeks rouge ever so slightly. Most people would have gotten past this point by now... but they weren't most people and their lives were anything but in their control.

"We don't do this enough." Lyanie paused, briefly considering her words. "I don't mean all of this..."

She gestured at the table.

"...as wonderful as this all is - and it is wonderful, I really do love what you've done - but I mean that we don't talk enough. Hey, to be fair, why don't you ask me somethin'?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr's ears lifted a bit at her easygoing reaction. She seemed to calmly lead his fears away at every turn. Once it was out of her lips, he never had to wonder. That kind of truth was art in spoken form.

"You'rre not the fjirrst to ask. jI'm surre you know what's usually sajid."

He sipped at his wine as he leaned forward, propping an elbow on the table as he let his guard down, or as she willed him to surrender it.

"jI'll tell you what usually doesn't get sajid. Thjis jis just forr you. Therre's djivjinjity, jif you beljieve jin that sorrt of thjing, jin moments ljike these. We beljieve strrongly jin sharrjing ourrselves, and ourr emotjions."

He exhaled a bit, stopping a bit as a relieved smile beamed on his face.

"jI thjink you'd fjind a lot of trruth jin that. You've got an honest soul. That's a gjift to us. To me."

Lyanie's mention of their few-and-far-between romantic liasons had Cirrsseeto nodding along in empathy. How many nights had she pushed a double shift to manage a vital repair? How many nights had he been called away to plan a raid? They were physically close on this ship, but terrible forces kept trying at every opportunity to make strangers of them.

Her question brought him back into focus. Enjoy the moment.

"Alrrjight..."

Setting his glass aside, he laced his fingers together before him.

"The fjirrst tjime we met. Rrememberr when? What djid you thjink when you saw me?"

[Lyanie Quez]

“Intrigued.”

If there was one word, that was it. She could remember the first time they really, truly met and for real noticed each other. There were other times, mostly in passing, that had come first, when they were in the same room, but distracted by other things and people.

“The Valiant, when I’d only been on the Knightfall for a teensy little while. Sanis’d gotten into it with a few Rogues and I remember seeing you there, but I wouldn’t say we met there. But still, you seemed almost a stark contrast to him and you were being so… so nice with that pale-looking girl. She did look a bit worried.”

Her mouth shoved briefly to one side of her face, a thoughtful look as she considered how their meeting came about from there.

“And then, you dropped by on us – Ben, the Chi… er, Barton, I guess I can call ‘em now, an’ I were havin’ a drink and recallin’ good ol’ memories. Still then, you seemed pretty decent and considerate, but still reserved somehow.”

Lyanie smiled fondly, with the next memory that came, settling her eyes intently on Cirr.

“It wasn’t until Life Day that I got a deeper look. That then, I felt I’d really taken an honest liking to you. That I got something of a look into your heart an’… well, I liked what I saw. A good, loyal and honest soul. It really... spoke to me.”

Her cheeks coloured in, at that, and she quietly sipped from her glass, briefly averting her eyes.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

He grinned, a brushfire it took effort to keep from burning out of control.

"Oh man, jI rrememberr all of that."

Still, her experiences didn't mimic his. He took another drink, and took a moment to reply.

"The fjirrst tjime jI saw you. Well, jI was angrry. jI djdin't ljike you, not one bjit."

He paused, and immediately clarified.

"jI djidn't know you yet. But..."

How to explain?

"jI saw you as a thrreat. To me. To me bejing an engjineerr."

[Lyanie Quez]

Pulling the glass from her lips after another small sip, she blinked, the blush in her cheeks toning down a notch or two. Lyanie lifted her eyes and looked across the table at the man who, outside of this room, was her Captain.

"You did?" There was some slight confusion in her visage, then. "How's that... I mean, sure I got an education an' all that, certified, but..."

Her brow knit and her lips pursed off to one side.

"...you're just as good as me at all that, Cirr, I don't get why it've been a worry a'tall."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

A bit embarassed, he demurred, looking down as a slightly incredulous smile appeared.

"jI neverr sajid jit was a good rreason. Just how jI felt because...uh..."

He'd never really told anyone this, had he? Not his mother? Not Sanis? No one.

"You worrk hard, Lyanjie. Damn harrd. jI absolutely love jit, now that jI know you, but when jI came to the Alljiance, the only man jI knew who djid that was Sanjis."

He was engrossed in telling the story and momentarily had a lapse of table manners, spearing a bit of cut meat with a claw tip instead of the fork. He paused, withdrawing, and daubing his fingers with a napkin before reaching for the utensil again.

"Beforre that, jI snuck and stole books. Some motherr gave me. Made me prromjise to tell nobody. Sometjimes jI'd get perrmjissjion to help my sjisterrs study forr somethjing. But thjis was so...ai'hyana..."

Words failed him and he stammered a bit. His ears perked at a good analogy.

"Djid yourr parrents everr catch you smokjing?"

[Lyanie Quez]

The question gave her pause, a thoughtful look overtaking her face. After mere seconds, the thoughtfulness gave way to a strike of laughter.

"Oh, yes, gods..." She managed to let out in-between fits of giggles. "...I must've been, oh, six or seven years old. Daddy'd always take a drink and a ciggara in the evening. He always make look so enjoyable an' he'd tell me stories, while that ciggara burned away."

A fond smile had slowly replaced the laughter, as she continued to tell about the deeply familiar essence of ciggara and scotch, getting a far-off look in her eyes, which she snapped out of soon enough.

"Anyway, so, one mornin' I woke up extra early, just 'cause the sun roused me. I had no idea just how early it was, but I came to the family room... and right there... right there, ciggaras. So remembering how much he'd enjoyed them, I decided to fulfill my curiosity and have a go of it. Well, as it turns out, Pa had been awake for a while yet already mendin' a fence, and he came in to the sound and sight of me in a fit of coughing and fright at bein' caught red-handed. He laughed at me first, then made me finish the cigarra before relegating me to wakin' before the summer sun with him, not just for my chores, but his too."

Her smiled turned to bemusement.

"Well, I learned my lesson, for certain."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Yeah, that'll do jit."

He laughed along with her, the mental image of a young Lyanie having to take a whole cigarra down. He imagined there was some throwing up involved.

"Motherr loves cjigarrs. jI thjink jI stayed away because the smell rremjinded me of herr. Of courrse, bejing wjith Sanjis, and gettjing shot at and worrryjing jif you werre about to djie, uh..."

He sighed a bit, shrugging.

"...sometjimes jit makes you feel aljive to fjirre one. Otherr than that, no way."

They were carrying on and having a great rapport. He felt completely at ease around her, which is something he desperately needed. Taking another drink, he continued.

"jIt feels good, you know. Not feeljing ljike you have to pjick up stjicks and fjight orr fljight. Everr thjink what happens when we get used to thjis sorrt of frreedom?"

He was hoping to peer inside her head. Get a glimpse of the future.

[Lyanie Quez]

Lyanie considered his question for several moments, idly running the index finger of her right hand around the rim of her glass. There were many answers to such a question, and it depended on several criteria.

“Well, I guess that depends on the kind of person y’are.” Her eyes flicked up to Cirr, lapsing from fixation on the rim of the glass. “Some are so ingrained, so hardened with war that they’ll never settle. Getting comfortable with freedom isn’t at all in their bag of tricks. They get paranoid at the complacency around them. Knew a few people like that.”

She took a slow, thoughtful pull from her drink and continued.

“Me, I’m made to settle, eventually, I think. Provide for my family. Have a few kids, teach ‘em everything I know and make ‘em go out in the ‘verse and make me proud. Die peacefully of old age in my sleep.”

She laughed, looking on Cirr again.

“That is, if I don’t end up givin’ my life for what I believe and love first. Daddy taught me not to be afraid of dyin’, but also to never to give in to it too darn easily. I’d always be ready for whatever comes. I am always ready. ‘Cause ain’t nobody hurtin’ what’s mine.”

Lyanie took another sip of her drink, the glass becoming within one gulp of empty.

“How about you, Cirr? Any thoughts, speculation? What’s goin’ on in that noggin of yours?”