[Log] An overgrown kumquat.

===============================================
Crew Commons, Grace O'Malley [Paquin]
===============================================
Josephine shrugs, "If we have the time and occasion, I wouldn't mind if we could go out looking for just that..if only for the look on Hatch's face when I'm wearing them, you know?" She and Aradia are sitting on the couch eating their breakfast of blueberry-enhanced oatmeal. Aradia, of course, has a mug of coffee as well. "And I thought green was one of my best colours!!"


"You can wear whatever colors you want, really," Aradia says with a shrug. "Always better to wear ones you like though even if they ain't the 'best' for you. Like orange." Spoon sticking up in her oatmeal, she retrieves her mug off the side table and takes a sip from it as she says, "If you come with Matty 'n I then I dare say that counts as having time." Replacing the mug again, she says, "Got a wave from my ol' Captain on the Pearl though 'n...I think I'm going to need to talk to Hatch at least but not sure if we'll be here as long as I'd hoped."

Lucinda exits out of the Starboard corridor, looking a little lethargic this morning but she's up and dressed crisply nonetheless. "Tell me there's coffee and I'll give you my first born." She grumblemphs and rubs at her face.

"Orange? First born?" asks Saienne, puzzlement in her tone, as she enters the Commons from the cargo bay at around the same time Lucinda comes in from the corridor. She cuts a direct line for the galley, pausing to inspect the coffee urn as she passes. "Smells fresh enough to me, Lucinda," she says.

"Well, I don't know..that reddish colour you picked out for me for the Masquerade..that was amazing, and I never would have thought of it myself," Josephine admits to Aradia. "There's coffee, Lu, but please keep your firstborn. I do, however, accept monetary donations to be given to various charities. OH! Saienne! Aradia tells me you don't like orange? And please, help yourselves to the blueberry oatmeal in the pot on the stove, unless..you want me to get up and get it for you, but then my own breakfast would become cold and I would be sad." She smiles endearingly at them both.

"I wonder what the coffee would be like if we actually ever let it drain down to the last of it in the urn rather than just filling it up o'er the top," Aradia muses as she looks toward said urn. "I don't want your firstborn anymore than, ugh," Aradia says, sticking her tongue out distastefully at the whole notion of babies.

Lucinda talks candidly when she's tired, and she must be as she comments. "Gorram it, I keep trying to get rid of the thing, and I got no takers.." She palms the bottom of a mug as she takes it from the shelf and half drags it off.

Saienne shakes her head at Josephine's accusation. "It ain't that I don't like orange," she says evenly as she reaches up into a cupboard for a couple of bowls. "A field full of California poppies is a beautiful thing to behold, an' marmalade surely would look ridiculous if it were any other colour." She pauses to stir the oatmeal around before asking Lucinda: "You eatin'? Smells real good." After another stir she continues her reply to Josephine: "It's me wearin' orange that I object to. Makes me look like nothin' so much as an overgrown kumquat, an' that ain't likely to be easy on anyone's eyes." She turns then to regard the coffee urn again. "Drain the coffee urn?" she asks, dubiously. "It won't never taste right again if you do that. It'd be like when my Mother took it upon herself to clean everyone's teapots inside an' out." She shakes her head. "Completely changed the taste of tea until the patina of tanin had time to build up again." The subject of babies is neatly avoided.

Josephine almost falls back on the couch and nearly spills her oatmeal everywhere as she has a good hearty laugh at the woman's delightful ramblings. "Saienne, you are wonderful," she declares, when she can speak again, while dabbing at her eyes with the ends of her sleeves. "An overgrown kumquat, eh? Ha.." She starts laughing again, uncontrollably, and it's a while before she fully recovers enough to clean an unrecoverable spot of oatmeal from her..er..Aradia's..sweater. "Oh dear," she murmurs, taking a deep breath. And then another. Finally, she is serious again. "Sorry, Ara.. What's going on with the Pearl?"

Shaking her head, Aradia just looks to Josephine with a faint smile and says, "Ain't nothing that can't be talked about later." Looking from her over to Saienne, she asks, "What the gorram hell is a kumquat and why does it sound like somethin' that shouldn't be discussed in polite company? Not that you're in polite company, mind."

Saienne peers at Josephine. "You feelin' all right there, Josephine?" She asks, smiling lop-sidedly. "Ain't it an awful thought?" She turns to the Captain, then, and makes a small round shape between her thumb and forefinger, "It's a fruit, about yay big," she explains to Aradia. "Somewhat like an orange, only much smaller, an' all mixed up on account of the peel bein' sweet an' the flesh bein' on the sour side. My aunt Loretta had a kumquat tree on her back porch. She used to make an unholy powerful liqueur from them..." Saienne grins crookedly. "Suffice to say, lookin' like an overgrown kumquat ain't a good thing, but it ain't an analogy like to offend folk of a sensitive disposition neither." Seeing as she has not received an answer from Lucinda about the oatmeal, she spoons a good portion into her own bowl and leaves the other empty on the counter, pushing it towards the doctor. She saunters out of the galley and towards the benches that surround the dining table.

Josephine coughs in an effort to pretend she isn't laughing again. "That's such a funny word..kumquat.." she mutters, shaking her head. "I didn't know you could make unholy powerful liqueur from them, but...I just can't say I'm surprised. And I really really really can't imagine you looking like a kumquat, Sai..of any size. I had actually told Aradia here that I thought you'd look lovely in orange, but apparently..you've already discussed the matter and...vetoed it with vehemence. So..what about yellow, then?"

"Huh," is about all Aradia has to say to Saienne's explanation of a kumquat, considering a moment before she says, "I wonder where we could get some o' that liquor," as she gets up from the couch with her now scraped clean bowl. Picking her mug up, she gulps down the rest of it and heads for the galley to deposit her dishes into the sink, giving them a quick rinse and leaving them there for Josephine to wash properly. "'scuse me while I go do something that doesn't involve dresses 'n color choices," she says on her way out.

"Truth be told," Saienne says, seriously, "I tend to steer clear of those bright an' shiny colours. Ain't really my kind of..." She trails off as Ara mentions dresses. "An' I hate to be a stereotype an' all, but if we're talkin' about colours for dresses we can stop talkin' right now." A pause. "I ain't got the legs for wearin' frocks." A pause. "Or the shoes." She grins crookedly at Josephine. "We can talk about you, mind, an' what colour you should be wearin'." She looks the other woman up and down. "Red, you were sayin' before? A deep an' sultry red would suit you, certainly." She smiles again. "You ever thought on a dalliance with blue?"

Josephine laughs again, but more naturally so, after Aradia departs, "Now the Captain thinks we're all frivolous. Lucky for us, she knows better..I think. And there's no reason you couldn't wear a long dress, if you had the occasion to, even if, for whatever reason, you didn't want to show off your shapely legs." The woman seems suddenly very rambly. "Did I ever tell you about the first and only time I wore a short sun dress? I hid behind the bulkhead right..there.." she pointed, expressively, "until Aradia pulled me out and helped me do up the rest of the buttons. It felt indecent! But she made me keep it on. Oh and it was yellow, too. I wore red to the Masquerade Ball on Paquin..back on the days of the Apollo.. I don't think I own anything that's blue. The more clothes I get, the longer it takes me to sort out what's what every morning. I guess being used to wearing a nun's robe doesn't help much, but I'm getting better. Oh..and nuns of my order wore orange, by the way. I hope I didn't look like a kumquat, especially with my head shaved and all..." She makes a funny face as if she is suddenly but not really concerned.

"I doubt you could look like a kumquat even if you tried very hard," Saienne says, good-naturedly. "Although with the shaven head an' the orange robes... well, mayhap I wouldn't have gone to sit out in the poppy field." She grins, nodding in empathy to Josephine's sun dress experience. "I have every sympathy," she says, adding: "When I was very young," she begins, "My Mother took to dressin' me up in all manner of frippery. Pink an' everythin'." A pause, and a lop-sided smile. "I think we can all agree pink ain't a good colour for many folk." She makes a face. "My brothers always said it was on account of her bein' so disappointed that they was boys an' Mother felt she had to make up for it with me." She chuckles, remembering. "I do believe it wasn't until my sister Maire came along that I got left alone to climb trees an' fall in the creek an' do all those other things that pink skirts really don't agree with." She eats a mouthful of the oatmeal and looks down into the bowl. "This is lovely," she says. "Last of the blueberries?"

Lucinda has filled her bowl that Sai nudged her way, and finally makes her way over to the others with breakfast and coffee in tow. "Skirts are impractical on a day to day basis, I find. I couldn't imagine running around the clinic or doing rounds and worrying about getting caught up in all that extra material. But they have their place at a dinner or the theatre.."

"Just about," Josephine admits, regarding the blueberries. She finishes up her own bowl and setting it aside for a moment. "You sound as if you had a very boisterous childhood and an interesting family," she observes, with a smile. "And you seem fond of the lot of them. Although..I have to say..Sai, I've considerable difficulty imaginging you in pink frippery, if you don't mind me saying so and..if frippery is what I think it is. Say, it seems to be just us girls again today, doesn't it. I wonder if the boys have some kind of secret welding club or somesuch that draws them all away from our illustrious company so very often."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with trousers for socialisin'," Saienne says, at first disagreeing with Lucinda. "Long as they're smart." She pauses. "But I do see what you're sayin'. Now I think on it, I can't imagine goin' to a ceilidh an' dancin' without a skirt." She makes a face again. "But that's different. That ain't..." She waves a hand in the air, searching for the appropriate word. "That ain't fancy." Josephine's comment about her family causes Saienne to grin widely. "Boisterous ain't the half of it. Gorram liability, more like." She nods. "An' I am fond of them - well, most of them. Fondness increases with distance, don't they say?" She nods as Josephine mentions the male half of the crew and their absence. "Well I don't doubt they have things they'd rather be doin' than discussin' frocks over breakfast, secret weldin' club or no, like shootin' at things or liftin' weights..."

Lucinda is no where near as chatty as the other two this morning, but she sinks down to a nearby chair to socialize all the same. "Kael's been busy actually trying to wade through reading my medical texts, if you can imagine. He's bound and determined to be able to understand what I'm lecturing on next week." She sets the bowl of oatmeal on the arm of the chair, leaving it balanced there while she concentrates on her coffee. "I hadn't been dancing in...ages." She tries to recall the last time, and just settles on 'ages' so her brain doesn't have to overwork itself before her first cup of Joe. "Until Kael took me last time we were on Paquin. Before that it was all...obligatory dinner parties and such."

Josephine laughs again at that. She seems to be in a jovial mood. "You'd be surprised, Saienne.. I for one am fairly certain that Maxwell Brooks knows far more about lady's fashion than all three of us put together and magnified by twenty. And Hatch can be mighty opinionated himself, if he's in the right mood. But I do prefer more practical clothes, more often than not. There's just..something about gliding across a dancefloor in flowing silk... Not to mention the way a girl can make her man look mildly faint just by showing a wee bit of skin. Fascinating, that.." She looks thoughtful for a moment before shaking her mind back to the present with a grin, "What's a..ceilidh? I love dancing!"

Saienne responds to Lucinda's Kael-related revelation with mild surprise. "Really?" She asks. "Well, that's real noble of him, ain't it? Good man, that Kael." About the dancing, Saienne shakes her head. "Me neither," she says, in concordance with Lucinda. "Persephone, probably. Not since before I came aboard the Grace, anyhow." She looks to Josephine, then to the decor in the Commons. "You ain't wrong about Max. I wonder if Ara plans on takin' him shoppin' with her..." She munches on a little more oatmeal, cleaning out the bowl. "A ceilidh?" Sai replies to Josephine. "An almighty shindig, usually. Wild dancin', beautiful music, good company, powerful hooch, an' sometimes a fistfight to round the evenin' off, dependin' on how powerful the hooch was." She grins. "A riot." A cunning thought begins to assert itself in Saienne's mind. "Mayhap," she says, looking between Lucinda and Josephine, "Mayhap we should all go dancin' some time."

Lucinda nods a bit. "I'd like that. And I'm half certain Kael is only studying so he can somewhat follow along and be less likely to doze off. But ...he is a good man." She says softly, though her words furrow her brow for some reason.

"Oh!" cries Josephine with her eyes lighting up like stars. "I would /love/ to go dancing. So long as it doesn't involve fist-fighting, mind you, because I'm not much into that, but all the rest sounds amazingly delightful. I've never had the chance to dance /wildly/..unless me prancing around the commons before you all get out of bed in the morning counts for something..."

"Well, even so, that's thoughful of him, ain't it?" asks Saienne. "He doesn't want to doze off an embarrass you durin' your lecture." She pauses, and looks at the doctor more closely. "What are you lecturin' on next week, out of interest?" A beat. "An'... where?" Josephine's response causes Sai to grin again. "We should, we should. Fistfightin' ain't obligatory, don't you fret."

Lucinda has had a sufficient enough dose of coffee and now settles on her oatmeal, nevermind that its in the luke warm stages now. "They asked me to give a lecture at my Alma Mater regarding Tash's shoulder reconstruction surgery." She meets Sai's gaze for a moment. "Back on Ariel." A mouthful of blueberry goodness puts a kabosh on any comment on dancing for now.

Josephine decides that now might be a good time to do the dishes, while other people discuss matters that are well out of her league. She gathers used bowls and spoons and coffee mugs and heads over to the sink. "How many people will be at the lecture, Lu?" she asks, putting on her apron so she doesn't splash herself with water...which only mostly happens when she forgets to put on her apron, anyway.

Saienne's expression is now one of friendly respect. "Hell, Lucinda, that's a real honour, ain't it?" She hands her bowl to Josephine as she passes, smiling fondly. "You lookin' forward to it?" she asks the doctor. Perhaps mindful of events during their last visit to Ariel, she adds: "The lecture, I mean."

Lucinda mixes up her oatmeal a bit to distribute the remaining heat. "The symposium can hold well over a thousand, but I expect somewhere between two to three hundred. Mostly of the orthopedic surgeon variety, maybe a few who specialize in triage wound care. It wouldn't be the first time I've spoken to a group like this, but everytime is indeed an honor. If only I could seperate one from the other, I'd be much more excited about speaking." She alludes to what has Saienne's expression all mindful like.

"Wow, Lu," Josephine says, over the sound of running water, "That's really impressive." She hums a bit as she scrubs the bowls and such. "I'm glad Kael will be with you this time."

Lucinda lifts herself from her seat, bringing her dishes (her bowl with a good portion of the oatmeal remaining) "I am but a humble servant with a god given talent that I will no longer take for granted. If you both will excuse me, I should go check on Kael. Make sure he hasn't gone cross eyed or some such."

Saienne watches after Lucinda as she leaves to check on Kael. "If that hwoon dahn -" and she isn't referring to Kael "- shows his face an' sets Lucinda all on edge..." She shakes her head. "Here's hopin' he don't," she finishes, a little lamely.

Josephine smiles a touch, fondly, to Saienne. "You've got a protective nature to you, don't you?" She finishes with the dishes. "I suppose I'd better be off and doing non-galley-related work for a bit, then...provided you don't need anything more of me here?" She dries of her hands and hangs up the dish towel and her apron.

"I expect that comes of bein' the eldest," she says - and then pauses to clarify: "Eldest girl, I mean. Of my siblings an' my cousins an' all. Always shepardin' those kids around." She grins crookedly. "Not that I mean to imply that Lucinda is in any way like a child, but it's a hard instinct to suppress." She shakes her head to Jo. "No, thank you kindly. Breakfast was lovely - despite it bein' a damn shame to see the last of the blueberries, it ain't like they'd last forever."

Hatch wanders up from the lower decks, it appears perhaps in time to watch people perpare to leave? He's not really sure whats going on aside from the bit of conversation he caught between Jo and Sai, he scans the room a wee bit and wanders in to start to collect himself a mug of tea.

Josephine touches Sai's arm gently in passing. "We'll have more blueberries. Or maybe it will be strawberries next time. We'll see," she says with a warm smile. "And don't surpress the instinct. It is a lovely one." She pauses when she intercepts Hatch, long enough to stand on her toes and kiss his cheek, running her hand gently down his back. "Be good," she tells him, before she wanders off.

Sometime after Josephine wanders off, Aradia wanders in from the fore with a furrowed brow, calling, "Jo?" before looking around and asking, "Anyone seen Jo? Damn woman ain't answerin' her comm and I can't find her." Muttering under her breath, she heads across toward the aft corridor.

Saienne twists in her seat to watch Josephine pass. "Strawberries would be... " And she can't, it seems, summon a word to describe exactly what strawberries might be. After Josephine has greeted Hatch, wandered off, and Aradia has arrived, she answers the Captain: "You just missed her." She plants her hands on the wooden table and pushes herself to standing. "An' I was thinkin' on takin' a wander around Paquin, if that ain't a problem?"

"Not in the least, if you're going to go buy yourself a dress!" Aradia says cheerily to Saienne as she looks back to her, "Otherwise you're comin' with me to buy one for you." With a weary sigh, she says, "Would someone have Jo contact me on comms when she resurfaces? Matty's goin' to be grumbling enough that she's stuck with me."

Saienne looks directly at the captain. "Is that so?" she says, in good humour. "Actually, I was goin' out to find the best venue this place has to offer for dancin'. Of the wild an' uninhibited kind." She grins crookedly. "But if Matty is insistin' on frocks at her weddin', who am I to argue?" She pauses. "I'm sure I can unearth somethin'... suitable." And, so saying, she lifts her fingers in a lazy salute to Aradia and leaves the commons for the cargo bay, terra firma and, presumably, some kind of dress.

"That would be 'in the streets'," Aradia calls after Saienne with a smirk in response to dancing venues, shaking her head as she traipses off in the woman's wake and on out of the commons herself, back to muttering under her breath about something or other.