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memento_vivere2013-11-13 09:49 pm
keaalu) wrote in memento_vivere2013-11-13 09:49 pm
Thirteen
“You’re running out of room to write much more in there, surely.”
Down in the hold, temporarily camping out in Skydash’s ‘room’, Blink sat back in the middle of the same loose spool of cable, a hard-backed paper journal open on her lap, chewing the well-loved end of a plastic pen. “Hm?” She sounded distracted, and didn’t look up.
“I said, it looks like you’re running out of pages in there.”
“Mm.” The pen snapped and cracked where Blink’s teeth fractured the plastic.
“Everything all right?”
More crunching.
Skydash leaned down closer, and flashed her fingers open in a gesture intended to startle. “Boo.”
It had the desired effect; Blink finally awoke from her daze, and glanced up to meet a concerned azure gaze. “What?”
“I said, is everything all right?”
“Fine.” Blink managed to curve her lips in a semblance of a smile, but couldn’t quite shake the little frown from her brow. “Just-… distracted.”
“Spoken like that wasn’t completely obvious, or anything.”
“Sorry. I just-” Blink sighed and reached her arms behind herself, stretching her shoulders. “I wasn’t expecting the galley to be so busy. Or for anyone to want to talk to me. I mean I don’t know anyone, so why should I have expected it?”
“I take it from that, you had visitors?”
Blink nodded. “Well, one visitor. Another laima.”
Skydash cocked her head, curiously. “I thought you said you didn’t see any other laima in the evacuation drill?”
“Exactly; I thought it was strange, after what Rae had said. Now I know where they all are.” Blink pointed upwards with her pen. “All on the top decks, where the suites are bigger, nicer, and more expensive. I imagine some of them just don’t mind slumming it with the masses. Lunete said she was bored, and wanted to meet people.”
“Lunete, eh? You’re on first name terms already?”
Blink debated throwing the pen at her friend. “Aw, don’t. I think she might just think I’m lonely, as I’m not married yet. She invited me up to her room.”
“Oh… oh!” Realisation dawned in the bright optics. “That sort of ‘met someone’.”
Blink covered her ears with her hands; they felt scorching hot. “Hey, I didn’t say I was interested-”
“Was she pre-eetty?”
“Cut it out. It’s not funny!” Laima didn’t ‘blush’ in the traditional sense, with their mineral-pigmented skin, but Blink knew if she ran any hotter, it’d come all the way through the thick skin of her face, too. “And I’m not going to lead her on. She thinks I’m-… something else.”
“Well if nothing else, it proves that someone in your ‘target audience’ fell for your disguise.”
Blink’s ears slicked back, embarrassed. “But I don’t know if she’s watching me because she’s attracted to me, or watching me because she suspects something.”
“Now you’re just letting your paranoia run away with you. Why would she suspect something?”
“I don’t know.” Blink twiddled her pen between thumb and forefinger. “We haven’t really given this disguise a proper test, have we. Nobody except my friends – who already know me – have really paid enough attention to me to notice if I’m ‘off’ and I can’t very well go ask someone hey, do I look like a spur to you.”
“So you think the fact she’s interested in you means there’s something wrong with your disguise, and she senses something is off, and wants to figure you out?” Skydash rolled her eyes. “Bee. C’mon. Maybe she just liked you for you.”
“She doesn’t know me. I barely did anything more than grunt at her-!”
“See, I told you. Likes you for you.”
Blink slapped the closest bit of blue plate that she could reach, although it didn’t have quite the same effect as it used to.
Skydash nudged her gently with the back of a knuckle. “Is it that terrible to get to know her? Who knows what sort of situation we’re ultimately going to get into. A friend or two might make all the difference.”
“A friend, sure. I don’t need ‘friends with benefits’-!” Blink lowered her voice, to a whisper only Skydash could hear. “Besides, what would be the point? As soon as she figures out I’m not who I say I am, she’ll report me to the police.”
“O-ho, so you do like her.”
Blink pouted and studied her hands. “You’re not taking this very seriously.”
Skydash picked her carefully up off the deck and let her lean against her chassis. “Your disguise is fine,” she soothed, stroking gentle fingers over her arm. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to, and that’s keep you from drawing attention to yourself as a single femme. You’re passing as a spur because you’re acting casual about it.” She listened to the subtle thumps of the tiny pump in the fessine’s chest, where the minute electrical signals echoed against her own static field. “She’s just a pretty femme, with her eyes on a pretty mech. Nothing more sinister and nothing more sneaky. All right?”
Blink sighed, softly, and nodded her head where it rested against Skydash’s shoulder. “She said they were traders, but she wouldn’t say what in. What if they’re drug dealers?”
Skydash snickered. “You really are smitten, huh. Just can’t stop thinking about her.”
“There’s a difference between ‘smitten’ and ‘wondering if this apparently nice person that I am thinking of trying to be friends with has an ulterior motive, like selling me illegal things’, you know.”
“I agree. Mainly, word count.” A barely coherent mutter replied to her comment, and Skydash smiled. “You sound tired. Wouldn’t you rather go recharge-… go to bed?”
Blink drew in one of those long, shuddery yawn-sighs, and wiped her face with one hand. “I guess. I’m not really tired, I just… still haven’t really woken up.” She slithered down Skydash’s arm and plopped onto the floor. “This probably means I’ll see you in another few days. Sorry.”
Skydash ruffled her hair, playfully, then lifted her hand away before she could get swatted again. “I’m all right, I promise. When you weren’t here, I spent most of the time dormant, as well.”
Blink huh-ed. “Well, I still hate those stupid drugs,” she complained, unnecessarily. “They leave me tired all the time, and I’m not even interested in food.”
“…I think it’s what they’re designed to do?” The blue giant leaned down and bumped cheeks. “Sleep well, Bee.”
“Thanks.” Blink stole a quick kiss before her friend could straighten back up, and offered a feeble smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to abandon you.”
“I know you don’t. It’s all right.” Skydash watched Blink disappear into the lift, and after a little wave down at her from the mezzanine above, vanished into the passenger corridor.
The drugs were clearly leaving Blink more than a little distracted (or maybe it was just her ‘new friend’ doing it?). Some minutes later, when Skydash was settling herself more comfortably to go into a recharge and defrag cycle, she found her friend had left her satchel behind, tucked down alongside the heap of cable she’d been using as a seat.
“You useless article,” Skydash gently scolded her in absentia, picking it up. “Like you need anything else to worry about.”
She requested a call with the room Blink was registered in, but there was no reply. The computer helpfully informed her that the occupant of the cabin was already asleep. It did take a message and printed it up on the screen inside the doorway; Hey sleepyhead, you left your bag with me in the hold. I’m looking after it for you! Come grab it when you wake up?
She planned to stow the well-loved satchel immediately back out of sight behind the spool of cable, but couldn’t help the teeny tiny bit of curiosity that stayed her hand. She remembered Blink having a journal similar to this back when they were both children; very old-fashioned, but it gave her enormous benefit, somewhere to privately detail her thoughts and feelings, where no-one else would know about them. She’d seen her Ama in great distress, when she was a lot younger, and originally decided she wanted to be an engineer “to fix him, so he didn’t have to be sad any more”, and kept her own feelings under lock and key for a long time as a result. He doesn’t need to worry about me, too.
Skydash gently unbuckled the closure and teased the satchel’s flap open, careful not to damage it with her large fingers. Among the little knick-knacks – a comb, a wallet with a carefully-forged identity card and a few slips of paper money, a selection of loose pens – was Blink’s journal, a well-loved hardback book, covered in bright orange film that had been repeatedly patched over the course of the year. The pages were pleasantly well-loved; full of pasted-in pictures and cuttings from magazines, with pressed leaves and fabric snips poking out here and there, and ink and watercolour paints had left the pages rippled and crunchy under her fingers.
Knowing the little fessine would be mortified to know she’d looked, but unable to restrain herself, she smoothed the journal open to the first page. The handwriting was a tiny bit different to how Skydash remembered it – slightly irregular, each letter subtly different, organic – but immediately recognisable as Blink’s.
The first few pages detailed Blink’s discovery that she was infected with the lethal Heff, Hesgeri haemorrhagic fever - and so far as she knew, going to slowly go mad and die. The neat ruled lines were full of a hasty scrawl in untidy script in hard black pen, with crossings-out and corrections and annoyed thought-bubble comments in the page margins. It was easy to see the horrible shock the fessine was going through – barely a few days into her new body, and already feeling her own mortality.
Then, her arrival at the library, and her regrets at not managing to contact her family before she lost her last chance. Then more scribbling out, more angry comments about her own worth. Why do I always spoil things. Can’t even keep this book looking nice.
“Aw, Bee.” Skydash sighed, softly. “Why do you always think you’re so unimportant? If I knew who sired you, I’d strangle them for you, for making you feel like this. …then I’d probably strangle you, for thinking like it. Why’d you have to go worry what they think, when they never stuck around long enough to see who you turned out to be?”
She read on down the page.
I’m sorry, RJ. It was never your fault, and it was cruel of me to put the blame on you. You were just a convenient outlet for me to direct my own insecurities at. You’re a good man, and you always deserved her more than me. I’m sorry I was too blinkered by my own jealousy to see that before it was too late.
Skydash ran her fingers down the page, softly, almost tenderly. “Oh, Bee.”
Gripped by a sudden guilt, she carefully placed the book back into the satchel, buckled it closed, and tucked the whole thing into her subspace, for safekeeping.
27,317 out of 50,000
Down in the hold, temporarily camping out in Skydash’s ‘room’, Blink sat back in the middle of the same loose spool of cable, a hard-backed paper journal open on her lap, chewing the well-loved end of a plastic pen. “Hm?” She sounded distracted, and didn’t look up.
“I said, it looks like you’re running out of pages in there.”
“Mm.” The pen snapped and cracked where Blink’s teeth fractured the plastic.
“Everything all right?”
More crunching.
Skydash leaned down closer, and flashed her fingers open in a gesture intended to startle. “Boo.”
It had the desired effect; Blink finally awoke from her daze, and glanced up to meet a concerned azure gaze. “What?”
“I said, is everything all right?”
“Fine.” Blink managed to curve her lips in a semblance of a smile, but couldn’t quite shake the little frown from her brow. “Just-… distracted.”
“Spoken like that wasn’t completely obvious, or anything.”
“Sorry. I just-” Blink sighed and reached her arms behind herself, stretching her shoulders. “I wasn’t expecting the galley to be so busy. Or for anyone to want to talk to me. I mean I don’t know anyone, so why should I have expected it?”
“I take it from that, you had visitors?”
Blink nodded. “Well, one visitor. Another laima.”
Skydash cocked her head, curiously. “I thought you said you didn’t see any other laima in the evacuation drill?”
“Exactly; I thought it was strange, after what Rae had said. Now I know where they all are.” Blink pointed upwards with her pen. “All on the top decks, where the suites are bigger, nicer, and more expensive. I imagine some of them just don’t mind slumming it with the masses. Lunete said she was bored, and wanted to meet people.”
“Lunete, eh? You’re on first name terms already?”
Blink debated throwing the pen at her friend. “Aw, don’t. I think she might just think I’m lonely, as I’m not married yet. She invited me up to her room.”
“Oh… oh!” Realisation dawned in the bright optics. “That sort of ‘met someone’.”
Blink covered her ears with her hands; they felt scorching hot. “Hey, I didn’t say I was interested-”
“Was she pre-eetty?”
“Cut it out. It’s not funny!” Laima didn’t ‘blush’ in the traditional sense, with their mineral-pigmented skin, but Blink knew if she ran any hotter, it’d come all the way through the thick skin of her face, too. “And I’m not going to lead her on. She thinks I’m-… something else.”
“Well if nothing else, it proves that someone in your ‘target audience’ fell for your disguise.”
Blink’s ears slicked back, embarrassed. “But I don’t know if she’s watching me because she’s attracted to me, or watching me because she suspects something.”
“Now you’re just letting your paranoia run away with you. Why would she suspect something?”
“I don’t know.” Blink twiddled her pen between thumb and forefinger. “We haven’t really given this disguise a proper test, have we. Nobody except my friends – who already know me – have really paid enough attention to me to notice if I’m ‘off’ and I can’t very well go ask someone hey, do I look like a spur to you.”
“So you think the fact she’s interested in you means there’s something wrong with your disguise, and she senses something is off, and wants to figure you out?” Skydash rolled her eyes. “Bee. C’mon. Maybe she just liked you for you.”
“She doesn’t know me. I barely did anything more than grunt at her-!”
“See, I told you. Likes you for you.”
Blink slapped the closest bit of blue plate that she could reach, although it didn’t have quite the same effect as it used to.
Skydash nudged her gently with the back of a knuckle. “Is it that terrible to get to know her? Who knows what sort of situation we’re ultimately going to get into. A friend or two might make all the difference.”
“A friend, sure. I don’t need ‘friends with benefits’-!” Blink lowered her voice, to a whisper only Skydash could hear. “Besides, what would be the point? As soon as she figures out I’m not who I say I am, she’ll report me to the police.”
“O-ho, so you do like her.”
Blink pouted and studied her hands. “You’re not taking this very seriously.”
Skydash picked her carefully up off the deck and let her lean against her chassis. “Your disguise is fine,” she soothed, stroking gentle fingers over her arm. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to, and that’s keep you from drawing attention to yourself as a single femme. You’re passing as a spur because you’re acting casual about it.” She listened to the subtle thumps of the tiny pump in the fessine’s chest, where the minute electrical signals echoed against her own static field. “She’s just a pretty femme, with her eyes on a pretty mech. Nothing more sinister and nothing more sneaky. All right?”
Blink sighed, softly, and nodded her head where it rested against Skydash’s shoulder. “She said they were traders, but she wouldn’t say what in. What if they’re drug dealers?”
Skydash snickered. “You really are smitten, huh. Just can’t stop thinking about her.”
“There’s a difference between ‘smitten’ and ‘wondering if this apparently nice person that I am thinking of trying to be friends with has an ulterior motive, like selling me illegal things’, you know.”
“I agree. Mainly, word count.” A barely coherent mutter replied to her comment, and Skydash smiled. “You sound tired. Wouldn’t you rather go recharge-… go to bed?”
Blink drew in one of those long, shuddery yawn-sighs, and wiped her face with one hand. “I guess. I’m not really tired, I just… still haven’t really woken up.” She slithered down Skydash’s arm and plopped onto the floor. “This probably means I’ll see you in another few days. Sorry.”
Skydash ruffled her hair, playfully, then lifted her hand away before she could get swatted again. “I’m all right, I promise. When you weren’t here, I spent most of the time dormant, as well.”
Blink huh-ed. “Well, I still hate those stupid drugs,” she complained, unnecessarily. “They leave me tired all the time, and I’m not even interested in food.”
“…I think it’s what they’re designed to do?” The blue giant leaned down and bumped cheeks. “Sleep well, Bee.”
“Thanks.” Blink stole a quick kiss before her friend could straighten back up, and offered a feeble smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to abandon you.”
“I know you don’t. It’s all right.” Skydash watched Blink disappear into the lift, and after a little wave down at her from the mezzanine above, vanished into the passenger corridor.
The drugs were clearly leaving Blink more than a little distracted (or maybe it was just her ‘new friend’ doing it?). Some minutes later, when Skydash was settling herself more comfortably to go into a recharge and defrag cycle, she found her friend had left her satchel behind, tucked down alongside the heap of cable she’d been using as a seat.
“You useless article,” Skydash gently scolded her in absentia, picking it up. “Like you need anything else to worry about.”
She requested a call with the room Blink was registered in, but there was no reply. The computer helpfully informed her that the occupant of the cabin was already asleep. It did take a message and printed it up on the screen inside the doorway; Hey sleepyhead, you left your bag with me in the hold. I’m looking after it for you! Come grab it when you wake up?
She planned to stow the well-loved satchel immediately back out of sight behind the spool of cable, but couldn’t help the teeny tiny bit of curiosity that stayed her hand. She remembered Blink having a journal similar to this back when they were both children; very old-fashioned, but it gave her enormous benefit, somewhere to privately detail her thoughts and feelings, where no-one else would know about them. She’d seen her Ama in great distress, when she was a lot younger, and originally decided she wanted to be an engineer “to fix him, so he didn’t have to be sad any more”, and kept her own feelings under lock and key for a long time as a result. He doesn’t need to worry about me, too.
Skydash gently unbuckled the closure and teased the satchel’s flap open, careful not to damage it with her large fingers. Among the little knick-knacks – a comb, a wallet with a carefully-forged identity card and a few slips of paper money, a selection of loose pens – was Blink’s journal, a well-loved hardback book, covered in bright orange film that had been repeatedly patched over the course of the year. The pages were pleasantly well-loved; full of pasted-in pictures and cuttings from magazines, with pressed leaves and fabric snips poking out here and there, and ink and watercolour paints had left the pages rippled and crunchy under her fingers.
Knowing the little fessine would be mortified to know she’d looked, but unable to restrain herself, she smoothed the journal open to the first page. The handwriting was a tiny bit different to how Skydash remembered it – slightly irregular, each letter subtly different, organic – but immediately recognisable as Blink’s.
The first few pages detailed Blink’s discovery that she was infected with the lethal Heff, Hesgeri haemorrhagic fever - and so far as she knew, going to slowly go mad and die. The neat ruled lines were full of a hasty scrawl in untidy script in hard black pen, with crossings-out and corrections and annoyed thought-bubble comments in the page margins. It was easy to see the horrible shock the fessine was going through – barely a few days into her new body, and already feeling her own mortality.
Then, her arrival at the library, and her regrets at not managing to contact her family before she lost her last chance. Then more scribbling out, more angry comments about her own worth. Why do I always spoil things. Can’t even keep this book looking nice.
“Aw, Bee.” Skydash sighed, softly. “Why do you always think you’re so unimportant? If I knew who sired you, I’d strangle them for you, for making you feel like this. …then I’d probably strangle you, for thinking like it. Why’d you have to go worry what they think, when they never stuck around long enough to see who you turned out to be?”
She read on down the page.
I’m sorry, RJ. It was never your fault, and it was cruel of me to put the blame on you. You were just a convenient outlet for me to direct my own insecurities at. You’re a good man, and you always deserved her more than me. I’m sorry I was too blinkered by my own jealousy to see that before it was too late.
Skydash ran her fingers down the page, softly, almost tenderly. “Oh, Bee.”
Gripped by a sudden guilt, she carefully placed the book back into the satchel, buckled it closed, and tucked the whole thing into her subspace, for safekeeping.