[Log] "...some crazy folks what juggle geese out on Aberdeen..."

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The Scrapheap, Assam City, Boros
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Built into a towering, heaped mound of scrap, several narrow cargo containers converge on a central container. Doorways have been cut out with plasma torches and sheet metal has been welded to join one container to the next. The floors, walls and ceilings are rust-stained in rivulets and flaking at the joints. Bare halogen bulbs are suspended from the ceiling, a cable looping from one to the next in a line leading back to a singular power source.

The furnishings are improvised from salvage out of the junkyards and tables are often nothing more than upturned crates, with smaller crates, or occasionally a ripped out jumpseat, serving as chairs. The bar is set across the entrance to one of the adjoining containers and appears to be constructed from an entire flight console.
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Brianna falls in step beside Aradia. "Oh, I make that clear. But they always seem so dejected the next morning." She says rather smuggly, clearly joking. "Bottles of whiskey... shouldn't that be cases?" She winks teasingly. "You're gonna take 'im for the goods if you get it over a few bottles. Why..she's almost ready to fly right now!"


"Oh sure, even though she ain't got no reactor in her, has been stripped out 'n ain't no more than the hull right now, if we push her fast enough off a cliff, reckon she'll fly, for a few seconds before she goes splat," Aradia says with an impish grin, shaking her head as she says, "It's a bottle o' Moretti's old stock. Ain't going to get no more of that with Shadow gone 'n blown up and all, so they're haggling over bottles, not crates." Stepping in through the entrance to the 'bar,' Aradia pauses and looks around, taking a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting before heading in further.


Rogan sprawls in a chair, with on leg on the floor and the other propped up on the table. She's been attempting to drown her man troubles in a pint or four, but sadly, nothing has the effect she's looking for. "Gorram men," she mutters to herself, pissed at herself and the world in general. "Gorram little dimples on tha' butts and gorram warm lips and," she raises her voice and lifts her glass in the direction of the newcomers, "gorram sperm!"


Brianna laughs quietly. "But think of the few seconds of freedom and glory you'll have!" She winks and glances around the bar. She quips. "Oh.. I bet the house specialty drink is something called the "Rusty Nail" isn't it?" She winks. On overhearing the woes of the woman at the table she half grins. "An' it don't get any better, darlin'. Best just t' swear off'a 'em t' begin with." She winks.


Saienne is some paces behind the rest of the contingent, her hands thrust deep into her pockets and her large and floppy hat obscuring her eyes with its shadow, and she is not rushing to catch up. She ducks through the door of the bar a few minutes after Aradia and Brianna, squinting into the darkness until her eyes adjust to the lack of light. After a moment spent peering around in the gloom for familiar faces, she spots the two of them and shuffles through the crowd towards them. The unidentified woman's rant causes her to look down with a frown that causes the wrinkles on her face to deepen. "They ain't all bad," she says, with a strong accent made broader by the presence of so many more like it.


Rogan rolls her half-drunk eyes. "Nah, sweetcheeks, iff'n they was all bad we'd order ourselves some batt'ry orgasms and move on. But no...we hafta hope, and dream about our lov'ly knights in dingy armor, ain't we?" She makes it to the bar and slams her drink down in a jovial fashion. "So whatcha supposed ta do when ya knight knocks up some broad, eh?"


"Prefer a whole lifetime o' freedom by waitin' til I can get her through atmo," Aradia replies with a grin quirking her lips, still oblivious to the grease smeared on her face even if she is aware of the grease on her hands. "Oh no, nothing so fancy as a specialty," she says to Brianna, "Rocket fuel or beer's all you're getting in here." She casts a sidelong glance at the woman sprawled out at one of the tables not completely full, her lips twitching with barely suppressed mirth at her commentary. "Mind if we park our asses in the rest o' those chairs?" she asks the woman, nodding her head to the crates serving as chairs in question. Glancing up, she blinks and squints, her grin widening as she calls, "Sai!"


Rogan mutters something to the barkeep that might have been an insult to his mother, or it may have been a drink order. "'Course not," she responds to Aradia, "s'long as none o'ya have Eenises on tha other side of those asses. I'm done with men!" she bellows again, "unless they's servin' tha drinks!"


Brianna just shakes her head at the outburst and smiles. She drops easily into a chair, tipping it back on its rear legs. Propping her shoulders against the wall, her heels rest atop the edge of the table. She looks to Sai, "No... men ain't all bad. Someone's gotta do the heavy liftin' on board ship!" She grins. "If there's no specialty.. a bottle of whatever's strongest works for me!"


Saienne pauses in her march towards Aradia and Brianna as Rogan's question derails her entirely. She looks down at the floor and reaches up with one hand to scritch at the stubble on the back of her head, knocking her hat forward just a little as she does so. "In my experience," Saienne says, gravely. "Them fellows who leave a girl in a position like that ain't usually the chivalrous kind in the first place." She pauses, pulling her hat back on relatively straight and looking deep into the middle distance. "An' what are you supposed to do?" A beat; a fluid shrug. "Whatever you can, I reckon." Her hands slip back down to her pockets. "But I'd gladly stand you another drink if you reckon it'll make you feel any better." As Sai has already paused by the woman's table, she remains standing while the others sit. "Might as well stand the rest of you a pint, an' all." She says, nodding. Her pheasant feather bobs and ducks with the movement of her head. "An' it's real good to see you an' all, Captain." She smiles, but it is without any real heart. "How's she lookin'? Gracie, I mean. Ain't nothin... terminal, I hope?" Another smile - slightly sparkier this time. "An' I thought that was my job, Bree. The heavy liftin'."


"Oh no, this is on Max's dollar," Aradia insists as she looks to Saienne, one hand coming to rest on her hip as she props a booted foot up on the edge of one of the crates, fishing into a pocket with her other hand, digging around until she fishes out a few coins and holds them out for Saienne to take. "Go get a bottle o' Rocket Fuel 'n some pints for those what want to get drunk a little bit slower 'n I'll fill you in on Grace later." A moment later, she adds, "'n please, no Captainin' here?" Turning to swing a leg over to straddle the crate as she sits, she extends a hand to the woman who's table they've invaded and says, "Name's Aradia, or Ara if two syllables is all ye can manage."


Rogan retrieves her new drink from the bar, and plops down at the table with the women in her same original position. "Them's tha problems, ain't it? Ya never know they's the ones ta do it till they've done it." Reaching forward to shake Aradia's hand, she remarks, "MAX! Sounds like a man's name ta me! I'm Rogan, and that's witha double helpin' of vagina!"


Brianna watches the woman with an amused expression. Dropping her boots from the table, letting both the chair and her own feet fall to the floor with a loud clumping sound, she leans forward to offer her hand, "Brianna. Or Bree. We're all about easy names after we've a few rounds."


Saienne reaches out for the coins, cool skin touching Aradia's hand. Her fingers linger the for a moment, and she nods. "Right you are," she says, in response to the request, and then her hand is gone, slipped back into her pocket along with the clinking coins. "Good job Maxwell seems to have a ready supply of dollars, ain't it?" Saienne states as she weaves her way to the bar. She leans against it for a few minutes, waiting for her turn. When the bartender approaches her, she nods once, setting her feather dancing again. "Bottle of Fuel, if you please. An' four pints of Bishop's Finger an' all." She turns her head as she catches Rogan's comment about never knowing. "Ain't that the sad truth," she agrees, with another frown, before handing over some of the dollars to the bartender and picking up the bottle of Rocket Fuel. She peers at it. "Good gorram," she mutters. "I ain't sure this is sensible." She steps back towards the table. "How many sheets to the wind is it this time? Several more than three, I reckon."


"Names ain't the only thing what gets easy for some of us after a few drinks," Aradia says to Brianna with a wry twist to her lips, looking back to Rogan as she adds, "'n yes, Max is his name and that would be his money we're using to drink with." Glancing to Saienne, she adds, "Yeah, 'n his folks ain't even dead yet I don't think so who knows how much more he's got out there that he ain't managed to spend?""So, you from 'bout these parts?" she asks the woman seated at the table as the drinks are ordered. Pulling one leg up onto the crate to tuck under her as Saienne returns, she looks up to Saienne to say, "Figure we can work our way up to four, seeing as there ain't no flyin' or driving that we need to be doin' anytime soon."


Rogan blinks for a moment, and then nods. "Alright, I suppose takin' money from them is okay." She downs the drink the bartender gave her, and sighs. "Ain't from here. Followed him out, said we'd set up little shop on Boros. Ain't here but a month 'fore he starts rovin' around, an' now I ain't got no credits, no shop, no nuffin'."


"An' ain't that a tonic to my ears, an' all," Saienne says dryly as she returns to the table for a second time with four pints of frothy Bishop's Finger held in an unstable-looking arrangement of glass. She plonks them down in the centre of the table, spilling only a little onto the mottled wooden table, and then settles down on one of the free chairs, pulling a cool pint towards her. She leans back, tipping her hat so her face can be more clearly seen. "Well," she says, quietly. "An' now you're stuck on Boros, an' all?" A frown, tempered at the last by a lop-sided smile. "Wouldn't wish that on no one, I reckon."


Brianna watches and listens. For the moment keeping quiet. She seeks out a shot from the bottle, inclined to try her luck. "Only four? Since I don't aim t' learn how to fly, I reckon I can at least get to six..." she knocks the shot back, making a face as she swallows. Her voice ragged nad hoarse. "...I've tasted better crankcase cleaner..." setting her glass down firmly, she blinks back some tears. "it's perfect. Who's next?" She looks around, ready to pour as Saienne returns with the pints.


Aradia reaches for one of the pints, even as she slides a tin cup toward Brianna across the table and grins, "Fill 'er up." Her brow quirks at Rogan's explanation, a faint smirk touching her lips. "You goin' to wait 'til Sai here introduces herself before givin' up your name or you one o' those weird folks what reckon we'll gain power over your soul and make you do dastardly things once we know it?" she asks, nodding her head in Saienne's direction at the mention of her name. Turning on her crate a little, she adds to Sai, "Need I remind you, you're kind o' stuck here too for a bit."


Rogan furrows her brows, and then smiles. "I don't know! I'm finally drunk an' I don't remember my name! S'taken all day but I finally don't remember my--oh." Her head slumps to the table dejectedly, where from beneath her mass of red hair comes the muffled answer of, "Rogan."


Saienne pushes her own shot glass forward. "My mother always told me not to drink this gut-rottin' stuff." She smiles crookedly at Bree. "Perfect reason to go ahead an' knock myself out, that, ain't it?" She glances back at Aradia. "Don't know what you're lookin' at me for. I ain't got no power over nothin', least of all souls." But she settles her pint on the table and leans forward, offering a long-fingered hand in Rogan's direction. "Saienne Olaeno," she says, by way of introduction. "An' knowin' that don't give you no kind of power over me, neither, in case you were wonderin'." Settling back, she looks at Aradia with a slightly dark cast to her expression. "Don't I know it," she says, with a grimmace. "At least last time we had a good gorram reason for not steppin' off the ship. This time round I'm royally screwed, ain't I?" She looks over her shoulder. "Someone around here's bound to recognise me sooner or later, an' then I'm well an' truly humped."


Brianna chuckles darkly, a sound to reflect the anticipation of this carrying through with the decision to get truly crushed and fall down drunk. At least for herself. She pours up the cup for Ara and then for Sai, before offering more to Rogan and finally refilling her own. She looks to Sai, "Times like this make me almost glad I got no one else as gives a rat's ass 'bout me out there across the 'verse." Which isn't entirely true. Just mostly. Like everything.


Rogan looks up from her hiding place beneath her hair on the table, a hopeful expression in her eyes. "Y'all are stuck here, too? How's come? Didja get left by men? A whole boatload of men? Didja boat break down cuz the men didn't do the upkeep? I'll bet you all was engaged to be married and they's left you all here...at the altar...at the same time! Jilted!" As she lifts her shot glass of Fuel, she gives them all a shifty eyes look that is not so conspicuous as she might be hoping, to make sure they weren't laughing at her.


"No, but knowin' her middle name gives you all kinds o' dastardly power over her," Aradia says evenly, sweeping the tin cup into her hand and raising it in a toast before it continues on its arc to her lips and she tips her head back, gulping down a mouthful. Exhaling with a quiet gasp, her nose wrinkles and she grins, "Oh yeah, that is oh so bad." Looking to Saienne, she asks, "Just how screwed are ye if someone recognizes you?" As her gaze turns to Rogan, she looks hard pressed to contain her amusement, listening to her questions before she says simply, "You ever lookin' to get hitched, I know a preacher out on Ezra named Jake who'll marry near damned anyone, no questions asked other 'n 'You sure you ain't mad?'"


Brianna looks at Rogan. She blinks once, casually. She looks at Sai - closely. Narrowed eyes as she lets the full weight of her gaze fall on the woman, then looks to Ara. "Sai's gone and told the world that is this bar her first and last names. When does the humping begin, exactly? And if I'm passed out, make sure I'm awake for it? I've never seen this in person before." And she promptly tosses back the shot, number two. If it were possible, her eyes water even more than the first time as if she were peeling an overripe onion rather than drinking.


"Humpin'? No, sir, Ain't no humpin' here. No more humping for *my* nethers!" Rogan remarks as she leans back into her chair again. "No, no more...GORRAMMIT!" She bellows, and then looks sheepishly back down to the table. "I like humpin'" she whispers in a tiny voice.


"Only as screwed as that someone goin' to wave Maire an' tell her; an' then Maire'll wave me an' shout for a while; an' then I'll end up in Charlotte's Crossin' babysittin' or cleanin' out the chicken sheds or ploughin' the long field with Maire screechin' at me all the while." A pause, and she frowns. "So not really screwed. Just... put to work an' sufferin' a headache, most likely." She nods to Brianna. "You ain't wrong, I swear. Ain't that why I've avoided this rock like the gorram plague for the last twelve years?" Looking up at Rogan, she grins crookedly. "Not by men, no." She knocks back her shot, making an awful face as the strength and the taste of it hits her. "Good gorram, that ain't nice!" She settles the glass back on the table. "It don't make no difference, Bree, whether I broadcast my name across the bar or across the whole gorram planet." A pause. "Someone'll notice." A dejected frown. "They always do."


"I don't reckon as this is somewhere you're going to want to take a nap," Aradia says, casting a sweeping glance across the bar, her gaze settling briefly on a man who's been leaning against the bar, now twisted to look back over his shoulder toward the table. Her brow arches a little, though her gaze doesn't meet his, because he's too busy studying someone else sitting at the table with them. Shifting her gaze to Saienne, Aradia's brow arches a little further and she smirks, "No, not too long I reckon." Rather offhandedly, she says, "Bree was tellin' me how much she was lookin' forward to chasing chickens. Might be worth goin' out to see your family for a bit seein' as you got more than enough time." Shaking her head with a chuckle, she alternates another swig of the rocket fuel with a mouthful of beer and says to Rogan, "Ain't right not to like humpin'."


Rogan reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a cig case and some matches. It takes her quite a few tries, but she eventually lights a smoke and leans back to take a drag. "You used ta live here?" she asks Saienne, mostly looking in her direction. "Is that why y'all are here? Visitn' the family?"


Brianna looks at Ara, "I said I wasn't gonna choke any chickens here." She smirks, intending it just as it sounds as she reaches for her own pint, taking a drink. "bwuh! And here I hoped the beer would be better...." She protests but swallows another gulp anyway. Then she chases that with another nerve and braincell-killing shot of the Rocket Fuel.


Saienne stares at Aradia. She sits bold upright, quite as if she's been poked with something shock-inducing, and her grip on her pint glass causes her knuckles to pale a little. "Are you stark starin' mad?" Saienne asks Aradia. Her stare shrinks to a look of deep suspicion - although the glimmer in her eyes suggests she's not being entirely serious. "Or mayhap you just want rid of me for a little while?" A pause. "I reckon I can understand that." She frowns, and rubs the line of her jaw with one long finger. "Mayhap it won't be so bad. It ain't like any of the others are goin' to be hollerin' at me. Only Maire." Another pause. "Mind, Maire's shrill, an' all..." She tails off as she realises Aradia is looking over her shoulder at someone else. She cranes her neck to look too, the pheasant feather dipping low over the table. "Hell's bells." Saienne says, with some resignation. Nodding to Rogan, she adds: "Born an' raised, for all my many sins."


Slumping a little in her seat, Aradia props her elbows on the table as she sips from her mug, a slightly lop-sided little grin on her lips as she says, "You said chasin' chickens. What you did with 'em after that..." Rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand, she manages to smear a little more grease back onto her hand where it started off, looking to Saienne as she shakes her head. "No, why would I want to get rid o' you all?" she asks with a small frown creasing her brow.Over by the bar, the man turns back and downs the rest of his drink, picking a wide brimmed hat up and tugging it down over his head, and low on his brow. Shrugging his coat on, he turns and ambles toward the door across the bar, his boot catching as he stumbles and bumps into Saienne's back, his hand coming out to catch and steady himself. "Sorry ma'am," he says in a muffled voice before he tips his hat, ducking his head lower and continuing for the exit.


Brianna starts to toss back another shot just as the man bumps into Saienne, offering a less than genuine apology. The shot stops just below her lips, hovering as her eyes watch the man from under her hat's brim. The shot very steadily lowers to the table as he disappears out the door. In a calm, serious tone, not belying any indication of how drunk she may or may not be, she speaks for those at the table to hear. "...I think I'll go for a walk. Those sheets can wait a while." She drops her feet to the floor, standing up easily. Glancing between Sai, then Ara, she nods, "You two get home safe." She nods to Rogan. "Ma'am." then she steps away, pausing at the door to look out, seeing which direction the man went. Pushing through the door, she lingers out front a moment, then begins to take a slow walk after him.


"It's called Bishop's Finger, ain't it?" Saienne points out to Brianna. "Reckon we just about got what we asked for." She glances back as the gentleman bumps into her. "Ain't no bother," she says to him, airily. Looking back at Aradia, though, a tension filters into her face. "Ain't sure, but that fellow looked real like Old Samuel who had the land across the creek from us - younger, but real similar nose." As Brianna takes her leave, Saienne looks up at her and smiles crookedly. "You take care, an' all, Brianna."


Aradia chokes on a mouthful of her beer and asks, "His what?" She looks around and back over her shoulder, "He's where?" before she blinks, looking after the man as he bumps into Saienne and then heads out the door. She barely has time to nod and assure Brianna that she'll make it 'somewhere' safely before the day is out.


Turning back to Saienne, Aradia downs the rest of the rocket fuel in her cup and says, "I think we're going to need a lot of new wires, and the landing struts are shot. They were patch-jobbed on anyway. Truth be told, I'm surprised they've lasted this long. Need to replace the hull plating back there, too." Reaching for her beer, she tips it to look into it and asks suspiciously, "What'd you call this, Sai? What the hell did Bishop do to it?"


"The beer," says Saienne, lifting her own pint and taking a gulp. "Is called Bishop's Finger." She squints at the far wall. "Although I do reckon after the ecclesiastical kind, not our very own trouserless hero." A pause. "Although stranger Bishop-related things have happened, ain't it so?" She nods as Ara talks of what needs fixing on Grace. "Sounds expensive," she says, quietly.


Watching the drama unfold with the girls and the random man, Rogan drains the last of her alcohol and stands up, stretching all over. "I've, I'm...I gotta pee. Yeah. I'm a be back, y'all, so don't you be goin' nowhere. Dun have any friends," she mutters as she walks to the door, "an' y'seem awful nice..."Once outside the door, after making sure she's completely out of sight, Rogan pulls a comm from her pants and walks farther away from the bar, all evidence of her previous drunken swagger and accent gone. She speaks into it using fast, clipped tones. "Rogan reporting. Three suspected located, not sure the ship class. Alpha, Aradia, nickname Ara. Beta, Brianna, nickname Bree. Charlie, Saienne Olaeno, nickname Sai. Typical female bonding seems to work, complaints about men. Charlie appears to have grown up here, family ties with someone named Maire, probably a farm homestead. Alpha mentioned to Charlie list of parts needed or wanted, possible supplier list. Will re-enter situation when feasible to be sober again, and keep you posted, sir. Alliance Agent Rogan out."After clicking the comm off, Rogan moves off to an unseen building, most likely to write down her notes about the meeting before heading back.


"Well, maybe a little bit, but we got a good team 'n Suji's willin' to help out. Bree said she'd lend a hand with what she could too. Oh, wait until you meet Major," Aradia says, giving the beer another wary glance before sipping from it. "He's big, 'n hairy but Phillipe reckons as the man could weld two pieces o' cheese together." Blinking as Rogan rushes off to pee, something she's done a time or twenty thousand herself, Aradia watches her leave before she looks back to Saienne and says, "Did you see that sleek, umm only slightly...okay very beat up little fighter that was sitting beside the Firefly that was tore in half back there?"


"Pieces of cheese," Saienne says, dubiously. "Is that so?" She cradles her pint in front of her. "I don't reckon it's the weldin' of cheese that's the problem, generally - melts, don't it? - more like gettin' it to do anythin' useful..." She is digressing, entirely, and pulls herself back to the conversation as Rogan's departure distracts Aradia for a moment. "Don't believe I did," Saienne says about the fighter. "Reckon I was more concerned with keepin' my gorram head down, truth be told."


"Oh, it's back in the lot, to the left o' where Grace is set down," Aradia explains, gulping down more of the beer as she muses, "I wonder why they call it Bishop's Finger," before she shakes her head and says, "Anyway, that there's what Max is gettin' for me. Us...so's there's no need to be flyin' in shuttles no more. Course it's Fed Salvage so we can't get our hands on it just by takin' it."


Also, Aradia and Saienne are sitting on crates or the likes around a table-crate in what is a surprisingly full bar for this hour of the day in the middle of a scrapheap.


"I ain't of a mind to question," Saienne says, dryly, drinking more of her beer. She nods slowly as Aradia describes the little fighter. "Sounds real nice." She says, looking down at the table-crate. "I was goin' to ask what you an' Max were plannin' to do, now that we've managed to catch up with your good selves again." She smiles lop-sidedly. "Reckon that answers that question."


"Well, she's gutted out 'n stripped down and we're still trying to wrangle the proper papers," Aradia says, rubbing at the back of her neck as she raises her shoulders in a shrug. "Figure it's going to take a lot more work than Grace is needin' before bein' made airborne." Wrinkling her nose up and looking to Saienne with a small smile, she leans forward with her elbows on the table and says, "Looks like we're all stuck together awhile more, huh?"


"Hell, surely you know I ain't likely to be cursin' over that!" Saienne finishes off her pint and sets the empty glass in the middle of the table. She lifts one hand an rubs her face; rubbing away her frown. "You do know... it ain't quite right without you? Don't you?" Her hand falls away from her face and she begins to twist her silver ring around and around her finger. For once, the crooked smile is gone completely. There's a vulnerability there that Saienne does not usually allow to show - and, true enough, she sweeps it quickly away into the rueful smile: "Reckon I should send Maire a wave before Old Samuel's doppelganger makes it back to Charlotte's Crossin' an' spills the beans."


Aradia's gaze drops to the drink on the table, considering it a moment before she reaches over for the bottle of Rocket Fuel and tips it up to refill her tin cup. "Yeah, I know," she says, a finger drumming against the side of the cup before she brings it up to toss back a mouthful. "Lu was umm, askin' rather earnestly for me to come back, 'n what not," she says as the cup returns to the table, "I just don't reckon as I can do right but any o' you if I'm goin' to keep up and running off with Max when he's wantin' to head off for whatever reason." Glancing up to Saienne, she adds, "I'm a gorram lousy excuse for a Cap'n, Sai."


"You... really ain't." Saienne says, and firmly, of Aradia's assessment of her own ability as Captain. "You've just found yourself bein' pulled hither an' thither, ain't you? Between us an' what we need, an' between what you need." She frowns. "But good gorram, Aradia. Ain't nothin' to do but what you reckon is best. Otherwise you ain't goin' to be happy, an' if you ain't happy, then I don't reckon we'll be neither." She reaches for the bottle to pour herself a shot. "I reckon whatever Lu said... I probably feel the same. But that ain't neither here nor there, is it? You do what you must do, an' we'll all adjust. Ain't no other option, far as I see it."


"It's not that I don't...it's not that I ain't happy with you, 'n Grace, 'n all o' that," Aradia says with a furrow of her brow, shrugging a shoulder as she says, "I just ain't happy without Max 'n if I thought y'all would be fine with me disappearing along with him 'n coming back when we come back then, I don't know." Smirking, she rolls her eyes at herself and says, "You need a Cap'n a little more dedicated to bein' where they're meant to be 'n not wherever they've taken a fancy to wantin' to be."


Saienne knocks back the Rocket Fuel, grimacing again at the horror of the spirit. "Well I reckon you need to give us some direction, once Grace is able to fly again, if you ain't goin' to take to the Black again. Because I don't doubt we'd only be flounderin' along without it." She shakes her head and sniffs, the wrinkles around her nose creasing. "But it looks like we got a little while to work things out before she's fixed."


"Yeah, well I didn't say as I'd be gone forever," Aradia says a little petulantly, tapping the cup against the tabletop before she lifts it and follows suite, gulping down the rest of the drink and then reaching blindly for the beer to wash it down with as her eyes start to water. "Gorram that stuff is...like inhalin' fumes in the engine room. I don't know if I'm goin' to be able to walk when I stand up."


"Ain't it just?" Saienne says, peering down at the bottle. "Brain- an' gut-rottin'. I do reckon my mother's extreme prejudice was, in this instance, entirely justified." Saienne pushes her crate-seat backwards. "I reckon I should get goin' an' all," she says. "Got that wave to make, don't I? If you fancy a trip to Charlotte's Crossin' - though why in the six hells you would is beyond me entirely - I'll mention it to Maire."


"Do you have chickens?" Aradia asks, as if that is the deciding factor on whether or not she'd like a trip to Charlotte's Crossing. "Oh, or ponies?" she asks, brightening up suddenly and sitting up straighter as she pushes her crate back, almost upending it before she catches herself. "I mean, horses, for riding," she says with a small shred of regained dignity.


Saienne stands up, a little unsteadily it must be said, and places one hand on the table. "Chickens, steers an' heifers, a couple of pigs an', as you say, horses. For ridin'." She looks into the middle-distance. "Last I checked, we had a little bit of everythin'." A pause. "Chickens don't need cleanin' so much as when they've confined in the hold, mind."


"Oh, I just want an omelette," Aradia says wistfully before chugging down the rest of the beer. "Not from the horses, from Jo," she adds hastily, correcting herself further, "I mean the eggs from the chickens and the omelette from Jo." Pushing herself up, she seems a little more wobbly than Saienne as she says, "Could ye teach me to ride if I come out to your farm with you? Max said he'd take me so's I could learn because I ain't never." Feeling the need to clarify still, she says, "To ride the horses though, not the chickens."


Saienne listens in growing confusion to Aradia's monologue. "Chickens we have. Eggs we have. Josephine we surely do have." A beat. "I reckon an omelette ain't goin' to be a problem for her." Sai starts to weave an unsteady path towards the door. "Surely can," she says, "Although I ain't ridden a horse in over a decade, I reckon it ain't somethin' you entirely forget."


"Well I won't feel bad when I ain't the only one landin' on my arse in the dirt," Aradia states, snatching up the bottle of what little remains of the Rocket Fuel before starting after Saienne. "I haven't had a good omelette since I left," she says, weaving along with Saienne back toward the ship as she chatters about chickens and horses and riding, and somehow manages to get onto pig chasing and ending with a story about some crazy folks what juggle geese out on Aberdeen. S'true you know, Max said so!