[Log] The things we lost

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Dorsal Observation, Grace O'Malley [Sihnon]
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Early evening finds Saienne standing alone on Grace's observation deck. She has positioned herself at the port side of the dome and is looking down at the Sihnon docks - and whatever she can see beyond that. She is dressed simply - a pair of dark trousers, many-pocketed, and a once-white shirt that has definitely seen better days. Although her face is mostly turned away from the stairs back down to the lower deck, what can be seen of her expression suggests a pensive frown. One hand rests lightly on the back of one of the leather chairs; the other cradles a small tumbler of something intoxicating.


"Hey. Sai. You okay?" Tyr pokes his head up into the Obs Deck, greeting their skipper with a small smile. "I got the cargo offloaded, those low tech knick-knacks we were haulin'."



"Ain't you a treasure?" Saienne asks, turning to Tyr with a genuine smile. As she turns, any hint of worry in her face dissolves. "An' the handover went well, an' all? No one tried skimmin' nothin' off the top?" She pauses, but only for breath. "Because some of the customs folks here in the Core ain't inclined to settle for the offical Alliance tax rate... They'll stick you for an extra dollar every gorram time."


Tyr smiles a little. "C'mon, Sai. Even a country boy got a bit of gile in him." He bumps up against her side teasingly, giving her a small grin. "Watcha drinkin' there?"


Saienne tilts her glass in Tyr's direction, saluting him. Her smile twists into her familiar crooked grin. "It is so," she says, agreeing with him. "An' my apologies for underestimatin' your sneakiness, an' all." A beat. "So how much did you persuade him in the other direction?" The grin is a teasing one and she takes a step or two towards him. "Just some brandy I picked up on Santo. It ain't bad. You're welcome to join me, if you fancy."


Tyr smiles and takes on up a glass, pouring himself a drink. "I got us all we were supposed to get," he says with a small grin. "A nice profit. And then we'll get out to Shadow and drop off this cargo and get us our other five hundred credits, huh?"


"Well, hell," Saienne says. "Can't ask better than that, can I?" She steps a little closer, booted feet muffled by the thick blue carpet here. She offers her glass for a top up, and then tips it so that it can meet Tyr's own with the melodic chime of fine crystal. "Here's to profit, then. An' keepin' things movin'." She knocks back a bit of the brandy and nods.


Tyr raises his glass. "To profit," he agrees. "And you know. I ain't in this for the money, Sai, but it'd be nice to be able to make some money so we don't keep gotta worrying constantly about money, you know?" He grins a little.


Saienne looks around at the interior of the Grace O'Malley. The size of her; her shape. "Tyr, I don't reckon as there's a day'll go by when we ain't worryin' about money in regards to this boat." She shakes her head. "Just sittin' here, she's burnin' through credits like... well, like the paper they're printed on." She takes a more measured sip of her brandy - it's strong stuff, from the Rim, but it's aromatic and deep as well - and frowns again, the wrinkles on the bridge of her nose pinching. "It's just the way of things, ain't it? An' we ain't got Maxwell's reserves to fall back on no more, neither." Her voice softens. "But I know you ain't in it for the money." A beat. "Me neither - an' no one else on board, I'll warrant."


Tyr nods his head a little. "This is gonna sound kinda funny, Sai. And I don't mean it as a knock on Ara at all, because she was a great skipper; took good care of me." He sips from his drink. "I -- well. I feel more connected to this boat and all you guys than I ever have before."


Morgaine emerges into the observatory at a slow pace and looks around carefully. She hasn't actually spent much time up here but as this is a core world, she is not going to head out onto the planet much and she needs a change of pace. She nods towards the two already present as she heads for the bar to see what is present.


Saienne swills her glass so that the amber liquid within it forms a tiny whirlpool, rising in golden waves up the cut crystal and only falling back when she halts the motion. She nods slowly. "I can understand what you're sayin', Tyr." She looks up from her glass and stares into the middle distance. "I reckon it's maybe on account of us all havin' to... pull together, I expect. It ain't like any of us knew what was comin' - not even Josephine an' Lucinda, I think." She pauses long enough to bring one long-fingered hand up to scratch at the stubble on the back of her scalp. "Aradia was - is, I expect - entirely capable." A beat. "We spent a couple of weeks - all of us - scrabblin' to catch up where she left off." She sniffs, then; and, letting her hand drop, knocks back the last of the brandy. "An' don't you fret none about the money, neither. We got enough to keep flyin' an' keep from starvin'." Saienne turns as she hears feet on the stairs. Seeing Morgaine emerge from the deck below, she lifts her glass in a salute. "Evenin', Morgaine. Fancy a brandy?" She looks across at the bottle balanced on the bar top. "It ain't half bad - right, Tyr?"


"That's good," says Tyr with a small smile. "Because, you know, I enjoy eating." He winks over at Sai and then takes a sip of his brandy. "Yeah. It's good stuff, Morgaine. Have a sip."


"Don't we all!" Saienne says, in respect to eating. "So much so I'm plannin' on headin' out to the market before Ms. Del'dova's friend joins us to pick some things up. They got herbs an' spices here don't ever make it out to Persephone, let alone some of the other rocks we seem to end up on." She puts her now-empty glass down on the bar top. "Reckon I might look for some seeds an' all. It's about time we started growin' things - we got the technology down there in the hold, just waitin' to be put to good use."


Morgaine pours herself a shot of whiskey and drinks it down before pouring herself another to drink more slowly. She looks at Saienne, "Hopefully we can have a full hold of cargo to take with us to make a profit for the Shadow onwards to whereever leg. I didn't realize that there was anything left on Shadow. There wasn't the last time I was there."


"There isn't that much anymore," says Tyr with a shake of his head. "So it's not like there's anything for us to take out there."


"There still ain't," Saienne says to Morgaine, with an uneasy shrug. "Far as I know it, anyhow." There is a little frown. "An' as far as I can make it out, there ain't no one on Shadow who wants to buy anythin', neither. An' I took a real long look. Nothin'." A beat. "So we ain't takin' cargo - but as sure as the six hells are all manner of unpleasant, we'll be takin' the slow route back to Persephone." She nods as Tyr speaks. "An' I really ain't sure I want to know why our passengers want to go all that way." Another shake of her head. "I ain't plannin' on stickin' around to find out, neither. We do our job; we take our money; we high-tail it off that shiver-inducin' place."


Morgaine shakes her head, "I can't just high tail it off there, if I am going there, then I hope to have a short time to spend praying for the dead and comrades of mine that died on that world. I haven't been to shadow since shortly before it was flattened and there are a lot of memories for me there among the ghosts."


Tyr nods his head in agreement with Sai. "We're just providin' a service," agrees the cargohand. He goes to perch himself on a seat, looking over at Morgaine, quizzically.


Saienne looks uneasily at Morgaine. "I ain't lingerin' there." She says, bluntly. "An' it's best you know that before we get there, if the place is important to you." She slips both of her hands into her pockets and frowns again. "I ain't entirely insensitive to folks' need to grieve, an' by all means you may pay your respects if the job requires that we touch dirt for more than five minutes, but..." She shakes her head, adamant, and her dark eyes are suddenly hard. "I ain't lingerin'." There is a pause, and she softens just the slighest bit. "You... ain't the only one with memories."


Tyr smiles a little bit at Sai, a small little smile. He places his hand on her shoulder. He doesn't have any memories, so, well, he comforts instead.


Morgaine nods, "Too many of us lost too many on Shadow, Persephone and more. I was based out of Shadow though for the first three years of the war. It will be hard to come back there."


Saienne nods briskly, looking down at the thick blue carpet. "Well," she says, considering - and her voice is slow with thought. "I ain't promisin' nothin', but if we get time on the ground, I'll try an let it be long enough to be meaningful." Tyr's hand on her shoulder causes her to look up and around in surprise; but her look is soon softened by a lop-sided smile. "Shadow, Persephone... Hera, an' all." A beat. A dark frown. "Boros."


Tyr really has nothing to say to this. So he just drinks and remains as a presence.


Morgaine looks at Sai, "The only memories of Boros I have is stopping there because of major engine troubles and not being able to get the Grainne Ni Mhaille completely overhauled off the ground before the Alliance showed up in force. The best I could do was get my crew out among the population and safe from Alliance hands."


"Well, yes, the folks on Boros were good at hidin' Browncoats, I do recall." She leans back against the bar. "Boros is my home, Morgaine." She says, by way of explanation. "An' it really weren't a comfortable place to be durin' the War, what with Ares floatin' around overhead an' the Iskellkian yards all gleamin' with half-built Alliance cruisers..." She trails off. "Ah, hell." She says. "This ain't even important now. Ten years, won't it be, in a few days? Ten gorram years!" She reaches for the bottle of brandy. "Tyr, you fancy some more?" She looks direct at him, then, and realises how young he really is. "Ah, Tyr, I surely am sorry. This must seem like so much ancient history to you, an' all."


Tyr holds out his glass. "Sure," says Tyr with a nod of his head. "And it's all right. I'm jus' listenin. Not much to say about it all, really."


Morgaine downs her whiskey and goes back for a third shot, a double, "It was a raid on ares actually that got the ship damaged. We managed to get away and then the engine failed. We managed to get it going weakly and snuck back in a round about manner to land on boros to try to do more repairs and the engine nearly totally fell apart. We had it about three quarters the way rebuilt when the alliance managed to figure out the ship was there. She was a grand ship. Same name as this one actually though using what I was told was the original Irish version of the name. Not sure who the Irish were though.


"Weren't your folks involved, one side or another?" Saienne asks Tyr, pouring him another generous measure. "Oh, good gorram. That ain't none of my business, I reckon." She listens then to Morgaine's story, nodding her head a little. "I do believe me an' Daniel had already high-tailed it by the time you an' yours hit the dirt." She wrinkles her nose. "I recall Maire sayin' somethin', but you know how communications were back then... I reckon it weren't in our area, anyhow." She nods, a little surprised, as Morgaine mentions the name of her ship. "Is that so? Well, someone at Moretti had a sense of humour about them, evidently."


Tyr shakes his head. "We weren't for nothin' in particular, except keepin' our land and livestock, as much as I reckon," says Tyr. "We'd rather be left alone, but we didn't exactly have a sid,e"


Morgaine says in English, "It was the alliance thieves that forced me to join the independants. A greedy customs inspector on Ariel confiscated my cargo because he could so he could sell it for himself and the law gave no recourse to a poor border merchant ship like mine. It happened a second time on Bernadette and I was just arriving back to Persephone from that trip when news of alliance's declaration they ruled all came and thus I was one of the first to join the brown coats. My father and I put all six of our ships in the service of the cause, all gone now. Even after winning, they haven't improved any.""


Saienne nods to Tyr. "Well, oftentimes I wonder if that weren't the wisest course of all." She listens to Morgain again. "Well, that don't sound like a bundle of laughs." She shakes her head. "An' no, they ain't." A pause. "They really ain't." Saienne knocks back the last of her brandy. "Anyhow, I should get myself belowdecks an' see if there's any word on whoever it is we're supposed to be pickin' up." She sets the glass down again on the bar. "Don't you two go drinkin' us dry, an' all." She she steps off towards the steps down to the bridge companionway, soon vanishing from view.


Tyr waves his glass slightly. "I can't get too sauced, Sai. We do, after all, have some work to do." He winks over at the Cap'n and then gives her a wave as she heads on down.


Morgaine downs her third whiskey and nods. "I do have some reading to do as well." She seems almost melancholy from the topic of discussion. "it is too easy to get lost in drink thinking about the past."