Gossips' Circle

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

Gradoona looked as if she might actually pop from the strain of holding her gossip in much longer, and her already-wide grin widened even more, displaying her mischievous curled tongue.

"Oh yeaah..." she baited, looking from Anauri to Kiimiti with a squee.

"The head honcho himself came here foor a little personal touch..."

Kiimiti stopped stirring her drink for a moment, trying to parse out the Herglic's breadcrumbs. Then her eyes went wide.

"Wajit, jy-jyou mean...Commanderr"

"YES!" Gradoona affirmed with a high squeak in her voice, splashing the water as she flailed a hand.

[Anauri Rabeak]

Anauri chose a particularly disastrous moment to take a drink from his beer. At the utterance of the word "Commander," half his mouthful came out from between his lips in a misty raspberry of a spit-take. Only by sheer luck were his reflexes alert and at the ready to lift his left paw and shield his face from being splashed by the leafy sex-brine. The semi he'd been nursing previously at the thought of Stashia vanished at the sheer repulsive thought that he might be standing in the same water where his boss did the nasty.

Coughing managing to swallow the remainder of his mouthful, Anauri pounded his chest with a fist to clear his windpipe before wheezing, "Really? Kes? Here?"

It wasn't that he couldn't picture his commanding officer in the tea house. He just couldn't do it with the combination of naked and sexytimes. Kes standing in full uniform against one of the walls in the corner with a virgin cocktail like the homely single girl at the prom, that was totally possible to picture.

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

Kiimiti's ears skewed at odd angles as she began to frame the mental image necessary to put Kes Akiena in...

...nope, she lost it in a fit of snorting giggles, nearly losing her cocktail in the pool.

"Oh mjy G-Goddesss! jI...jI can't even...ahaha..."

Gradoona's little eyes squinted in delight at the hilarity as she threw her hands up in the air like she was signaling a goal in smashball.

"I KNOOW, RIGHT!?!"

[Anauri Rabeak]

"Nope. Nope nope nope," Anauri laughed, shaking his head. "That dude is a white bread protocol droid. There is no way in Garfife's name he was in here without trunks and arm floaties, not to mention other likely protection!"

Only then did he realize he was slagging off his boss where others could hear him, but be it something in the water, the atmosphere, or a beer or so into things, he chuckled as he added - albeit quieter -, "Though I can see why it'd have to be a private session: he's so pale that if he took his shirt off, we'd all be blinded."

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

"I just wanna knoow how it aall went doown, yaknoo? I mean, he's naat the uusual soorta fella here. Was he all 'Come here aand saluute this'?"

Again with both arms wide, Gradoona gestured with a finger on each hand down at her lap as she nodded ponderously.

Kiimiti was barely holding it together, fanning herself to help her breathe as she laughed into her cocktail.

[Anauri Rabeak]

Anauri's rich, deep laughter echoed through the tea house at that, and he held up a shaking paw as if to deny Gradoona's assertion. "Oh no, no way," he laughed. Bringing his voice back down, he sported a huge grin which showed the missing molar on his upper right jaw. "He probably just had her fill out reports and do paperwork the whole time. He must get off on that stuff, with as much of it as I have to submit to him!"

Placing a fist on his hip in an arrogant, yet dignified stance, Anauri looked down to an imaginary woman kneeling before him. "Oh yeah, fill it out in triplicate. Yeah, just like that. Oooh, girl, you know how I like it time-stamped!" He said in a mock breathy moan.

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Kiimi was still laughing, but it was laughter that was petering off into nervousness as she tugged down lightly at one of her ear tufts.

"Rrou'ae, come on now..."

Still with a giggle, but she was trying let a better head prevail.

"He'ss ourr c-c-commandjing offjicerr. Majybe we ssh-sshouldn't be sso mean?"

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

Gradoona's tongue lolled as she gave an indifferent wauum from her blowhole.

"Oh, noo haard feelin's yaknoo. The Commander's goood people, soorta. Certainly a moore cheerful fella than the K'oohta'rrou. If she set foot in here, aall the waater woould freeze!"

[Anauri Rabeak]

Aaaaand Anauri had crossed the line. It was always the biggest danger when socializing with others from work, especially when he might be their boss, In Nehantite culture it was well-known that good-natured ribbing was constant among those down the ladder, but on Jovan, with Cizeracks? There was a reason Anauri had become less personable and withdrawn, and it was to prevent saying something that would be regretted later.

Thankfully Gradoona stepped further, allowing Anauri to recover.

"Eh, I dunno. She's a bit brusque, yeah, but my interactions with her leave me with the impression that she's under a lot of stress to do things right, and genuinely wants things to work out. I've got no issues with her, myself. Not my type, personally, but a good officer." He took another pull from his beer, his second glass half-drained. Between the alcohol and the jeeta, Jovan's chief engineer couldn't help but begin to feel the effects, and as he finished speaking his eyes drifted off to a particularly alluring Cizerack woman nursing a drink at the other edge of the pool.

You've got a girlfriend, you idiot. You really shouldn't be looking.

I know, but... damn.

In an attempt to distract himself, he cleared his throat. "In any case, I'll just be happy when we finish putting Main Engineering back together."

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Kiimi was about to give her two du'arri's worth about the K'ohta'rrou when Anauri flipped the script for a more...mundane topic. It definitely killed off any residual laughter, and now the Preita'rrou was staring down at her drink.

"jYeah, therre ss-ssurre wass a lot of damage afterr the attack. Comm-m-manderr Akjiena jiss asskjing uss t-t-tt-to completeljy overrhaul the centrral communjicatjionss n-nnetworrk. Prrobabljy wjill b-b-be on double sshjiftss forr a week forr th-th-thth-that."

[Anauri Rabeak]

Anauri couldn't hold back the smirk drawing up his muzzle, and he lowered his voice on the off chance that prying ears might be listening. "Probably shouldn't admit that I think I might have done more damage to Main Engineering than those droids did," he chuckled. "My old rifle packs a hell of a punch, but she ain't too accurate on full auto."

Perhaps it was pride in admitting he had been the one to repel the incursion into their domain, or maybe it was just needing to admit that half the damage had come from himself. In either case, Anauri smiled and tipped back the remainder of his beer, almost forgetting he was naked in the pool, by that point.

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

"Thaat was yoou?!"

Gradoona flung her now-empty pitcher over her shoulder with incredulity. Fortunately it was transplast, like the rest of the drinkwear here, as it clattered on the floor a distance away until another pool boy snatched it up.

"Geepers, Jango freakin' Fett, I hadta strip down and restoore a whoole compaartment! It looked like a bad maadern aart exhibit. Never waanna see that much caarbon scooring again in my life!"

He'd gone and mentioned the attack, which put a wet blanket on good fun. Still, Gradoona shrugged it off as much as her infinite optimism could.

"Well, I guess all that naansense gave me some wicked cool scars."

Well, wicked cool was a pair of star-shaped puckers of dull skin that contrasted against her normal shiny sheen. Maybe if some handsome Herglic beau asked, she'd make up a better story than reality. Gradoona's big grin narrowed a bit, and she spoke in a less brassy tone.

"Still, I hoope that's the laast time it happens, yaknoo."

[Kiimiti Taassaurra]

Kiimiti grew quiet at the turn in conversation toward the attack. She didn't want to think of her time on the command deck. The beatings, the intimidations...the sight of Ensign Ek'ette.

"Yeah..."

[Anauri Rabeak]

Anauri looked down at his still-healing left paw. The fur had started to come back, but its short strands exposed the scarring of burns beneath. "I hope none of us have to go through that again," he replied. "And, for the record, that's why the top drawer of my toolbox has a biometric lock on it, Gradoona. It's not where I keep my stash of choco-caramels. It's where I keep my rifle."

The mood among the three had changed, not for the better, and it did not suit the atmosphere of the tea house. Not that Anauri wanted to suddenly engage in a threesome with the pair - or possibly trio, if Gradoona counted as two by volume - but there was no need to be dour. Lifting his beer, the Chief Engineer smiled. "To friends lost, but more importantly to friends remaining."