[Log] Brianna Calhoun

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Crew Commons, Grace O'Malley [Persephone - Ariel]
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Saienne lurches in from the quarters on the ship's port side even as the Grace lifts off from the dirt of Eavesdown and begins her swift ascent to the stars. "Good gorram," she mutters, speaking, she thinks, to thin air. She clings to the doorframe as the deck shakes and the ship shudders to a higher speed. "Ain't that a sweet an' lovely wakeup call?" She pats the bulkhead with a long-fingered hand. "An' don't get me wrong, Gracie, I ain't callin' you loud or ungainly, but... " A fluid shrug, and Saienne steps into the Commons as the ship steadies some and settles into her course.


Brianna would appear to be a new face on board. In the common area she's found herself a perch on one of the couches, fiddling with something in her lap as the ship comes to life and can be felt rising and accelerating away from Persephone's gravity. For 4:30 in the morning she seems quite awake and lucid where most might be sleeping. Or were as the case might be. She half glances up and murmurs, "That wasn't so bad.. beat the last landing I went through on another ship..." She looks back to what she was doing, something in her lap it would seem. Then she lifts up the body of a Colt pistol missing its cylinder and squints through the barrel before taking a small dowel rod with a cloth on it and carefully running it through the length from muzzle backwards.

Saienne halts her progress into the Commons, catching herself with one foot back in the companionway and the other ready to be planted down on the calico rugs. "It ain't never so bad if a body's expectin' it," Saienne says, somewhat cautiously, taking in first Brianna's presence - quickly followed by the gun she is stripping down. Cool brown eyes watch the younger woman for a few silent moments, before she continues: "But takin' off always gives me a jolt when I'm sleepin'." A pause, and she rubs one long-fingered hand into the stubble on the back of her head. "An' I surely was sleepin'." She yawns, and the hand creeps round to cover her mouth and a perplexed expression finds its way into her eyes. "An' havin' one very odd dream, an' all." She shakes her head; her hand falls to her side and she steps fully into the Commons. "An' I take it you're a welcome guest an' all, on account of stowaways not usually takin' it upon themselves to sit all plain an' obvious in the Commons." Another pause. "With pistols."

Brianna looks up, "Sorry.. " She lowers the currently unusable weapon, not realizing she could be viewed as waving it around and all giving its broken down status presently. "Brianna. Bree if you like. I met Doc Lu and the Captain yesterday over a slobbery bouncy ball and discussions turned to the best brewed coffee in the 'verse being in that there urn. That turned into an invite for a mug and the captain offered cookies." She smiles, "Best gorram cookies in the 'verse too.. though I think I might have gotten in a spot of trouble by asking to if your cook has a wife after tasting them..." she pauses, thinking back. She nods with certainty. "yep..that's where things went odd.. somehow I'm still on the ship and I think I got volunteered to help clean chicken coops.." Her voice is quiet but light hearted given the ungodly time of morning and all.

Saienne waves a hand in a slightly dismissive gesture and smiles a crooked smile at Brianna. "Ain't no bother," she says, somewhat gruffly. "It ain't like it's loaded - or loadable, for that matter," she says as she peers towards the Colt. "Bree it is, then, an' welcome aboard an' all." She listens as Brianna describes her meeting with the crew, and the perplexed look returns. "If the cook has a... wife..?" She steps smartly towards the galley. "Now don't that just beg the question about who baked them cookies?" Reaching the coffee urn, Saienne looks up with undisguised glee. "Clean the chicken coops? Good gorram, that's the best thing I heard in months. Better would be that we ain't goin' to be carryin' chickens no more, but that ain't never goin' to happen. Reckon the Captain could find chickens to carry come hell or high water." She chuckles a little, a low and throaty rumble, and pulls a coffee cup out from one of the overhead cupboards. "Speakin' of such things, would you like a cup now?"

"What, I have a wife?" Josephine asks, poking her head around the bulkhead as if to make sure the area is safe enough to actually enter. What with discussing wives and all. "Aha. Hi. You must be the new person," she decides, giving Brianna the once over as the little woman actually does enter the common area. "Which lends to the interesting debate as to whether you ate cookies I made, or that Bishop made, or..heck, even Hatch might have made cookies, since he's always running to the galley everytime I look the other way." She peers at Saienne for a moment. "Good grapes, woman. Now /you're/ getting up before I do. It's unnatural, I tell you. Everything okay?"

Brianna grumps quietly. "It's a good gun. It'll be loadable soon enough.." a sulking threat at worst, really. She continues working on the weapon, cleaning and oiling it. She glances up as another woman enters and lists off the possibilities.. "Well..I don't rightly know who made the cookies.. the Captain said someone named 'Joe' baked them though... and I'd had the impression it was a woman.. as good as they were it seemed all suiting and natural like to ask if she had a wife. Woman that can cook like that is hard to find.." she fires back in a slightly defensive tone though the twinkle in her eyes suggests she's not entirely serious. Then to Saienne, she smiles, "I'd love a cup. But I'd best wait till I'm done here. Coffee flavored with gun oil isn't all bad but it's not something I go out of my way for..."

"I surely hope not," replies Saienne as she hears Josephine's voice. "Else Hatch ain't goin' to be pleased, an' a displeased Hatch is, I reckon, a thing to be avoided." A pause, and, poised to pull down a second and a third cup, she asks: "Coffee?" Saienne turns to Brianna, taking the slightly grumpy tone in her stride. "Is that so?" She asks of the gun. "Well an' good, then - as long as you don't go pointin' it in my direction." Josephine's musings cause her to nod in agreement. "Bishop does make good biscuits," she concedes. "An' he don't have a wife." A frown. "Leastwise, I don't reckon he does." At Josephine's final question, Sai rubs the back of her head again, long fingers scritching through short stubble. "Oh, ain't nothin' wrong with me, Josephine. Just takin' off always rolls me out of my bunk - old habits, an' all that. Promise I ain't likely to do it on normal mornings." She speaks with a tone of good humour and with a crooked grin, and nods easily at Brianna. "Coffee flavoured gun oil - no, I reckon I can see your point. It's a little like the Captain an' coffee flavoured cereal." A beat. "Only worse."

"It wasn't the coffee in the cereal that was so direly alarming, but that powdered milk stuff.." Josephine shudders a bit. "Luckily, it was only that once. And no thank you about the coffee, Sai. At this hour, I'm sure it would burn a hole right through my stomach.." She makes her way over to Brianna, never minding the gun oil and whatnot as she offers the woman her hand. "Josephine Lefevre. Ship's cook. Although you wouldn't know it sometimes, from the way people keep insisting on doing everything themselves these days. Most people call me 'Jo,' by the way. Are you a passenger or prospective crew member? And do you have any known food allergies? Favourite dishes?"

Brianna looks up at Josephine with a surprised look on her face. "Well, this would be a bit awkward and all.." She chuckles quietly. Wiping her hand off partly on her shirt and partly on the cleaning rag under her still broken down pistol she shakes the woman's hand. "Brianna Calhoun. Bree is fine if you like. And if you're not married, do you want a wife?" Her expression is every bit as playful as the grin on her face, realizing she's just made herself look quite silly in front of the cook. "Those were fine cookies ma'am.. very fine." She then shakes her head, "not crew.. not quite a passenger... not rightly how the captain considers me.. Doc Lu invited me aboard.. but I didn't get charged a passage fee... so.. guest? free labor maybe... since she volunteered me to help clean the coops and all.. not that I mind. I don't abide free loaders myself..can't expect a ship to." She shakes her head, "Not 'lleric to anything I know of... I'm partial t' stew or steak an' potatoes... not that they're ever so common in some places."

"Ain't that so," Sai says, nodding her agreed alarm over the powdered milk. "Still, it didn't kill her or do her no visible harm." She pours herself a coffee, busying herself with finding milk and brown sugar to dilute it with. "Ain't so unusual," she chimes in. "Food an' board is what I get paid in exchange for whatever work I do. It ain't freeloadin', far as I see it. It's as fair an exhange as is likely, I reckon." She smiles lop-sidedly. "An' really, it ain't all cleanin' up after chickens. I do my fair share of haulin' heavy machinery, helpin' cart parts up to the engine room... all manner of dirty an' undesirable jobs, truth be told."

Josephine seems significantly amused, but her eyes sparkle in a friendly fashion and her smile is genuine and warm as she shakes the woman's vaguely oiley hand. "It's lovely to meet you, Bree Calhoun. Welcome aboard Grace. We all seem to 'freeload' from time to time, when there isn't much to be done, but we tend to put a lot of emphasis on being generally supportive of each other, kind of like a big family, I'd like to think. And, really, just call me 'Jo' or even 'Josephine' if you prefer being elaborate, but 'ma'am' makes me feel fifty years older and far more serious than I am.." She reaches up to tug on her hair scarf a bit, straightening it just so. "I daresay I'm not wanting a wife at this time, either, but it was ever so moving of you to ask," she adds, with a good-humoured grin and she glances at Saienne. "The Captain won't even let me go near the chickens, other than Pauline. Something about not wanting the hands that make her food to be covered in chicken shit, which I suppose it all kinds of understandable. But it isn't that I wouldn't help out if I could."

Brianna grins back at Jo and nods, "I'll just have to find another good woman." She winks and then nods seriously. "I've no trouble helping out. I grew up on a farm for most of my childhood. Used to chickens.. though we did more crop planting. Pa taught me how to help out with fixing the machinery too. I've offered to see if I can't help break things more proper-like around here if needed, as well as helping clean the coops." She then considers, "well... I'm sure one or two of those birds might accidentally stray from the coop while cleaning... if it were to mean fresh chicken an' dumplin's..." her tone perfectly innocent. "It's bound to happen surely..." She then nods to Saienne, "Work's work. An' as I told the Doc last night, and to set your mind to ease, I've no truck with any of the folks on this ship. Or anyone in the 'verse, yet, but for a very few."

"I don't want you to fret none, Josephine, but I reckon I'm with the Captain on this one. Tyr says they can carry some awful diseases, an' I seen enough of chicken-induced illness back home to believe him entirely." She smiles lop-sidedly at the cook. "But don't think I don't know you'd get cleanin' down there if folk'd give you half a chance." She glances around at the neat and tidy galley. "I seen what you did in here, don't forget." She listens as Brianna talks about her childhood. "Sounds like you an' me ain't from entirely opposite ends of the 'Verse, an' all." She takes a sip of coffee and, finding it to her liking, takes a deeper gulp. "Anyhow, now I'm all awake an' all I expect I should attend to business. I reckon I'll see you all for breakfast or somesuch." And, so saying, she strides towards the aft corridor and the hold.

Josephine laughs. "One who makes great cookies, too," she reminds Bree, in a light-hearted way befor replying to Saienne with, "Bah. Bah, I say. I feel oppressed, unable to realise my lifelong dreams of scooping up chicken excrement. Oh, cruel world.." the cook dramatically laments, with a hand to her brow. But, nevertheless, she smiles at Saienne then, with a clear and profound fondness. "I just like to do my part, is all," she assures. "Which is, at this moment, getting breakfast started before I am swarmed by the hungry masses." And so the little woman goes to do just that.

Brianna nods to Saienne as she takes her leave. "have a good day." Then she nods to Josephine, "I'll not be hated for standing between the cook and food to be made..." She nods, "And definately one who makes good cookies." She looks back to the parts of her pistol, now clean, sitting in her lap. She begins to slowly reassemble it, inspecting for wear and any problems, falling silent for the moment.