[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.

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[Log] "Watch where you're puttin' your feet."

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Eavesdown Docks, Persephone
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At the base of the cargo ramp, Grace's captain sits basking in the warmth of the sun, her knees drawn up a little as she watches the crowds passing by. Yes, the sky is bright and clear and there's not a cloud in sight, yet somehow, Aradia seems to be soaking wet from head to toe and just starting to dry out. There's still a muddy puddle off to one side in the dirt where she'd squeezed water out of her hair.


Saienne steps lightly down the Grace's ramp, her hat at a slightly crooked angle but acting as shield against the sun's brightness nonetheless. Her face is in shadow, but the rest of her is easily visible in the sunshine - slightly shabby, certainly, but respectable. The less-than-perfect state of her attire is due to hard graft rather than lack of attention. She quickly comes to stand at the bottom of the ramp and looks sideways and down at Aradia's damp hair and the puddle nearby. "Own personal rain cloud?" She asks evenly.


"Rain?" Aradia says absently, "Oh no, don't reckon there's going to be any," before she lifts a hand to rub her brow and turn her head, looking up to Saienne with a grin. "Quite a lovely day really, ain't it?" she says, stretching her legs out in front of her and then pulling them back in to tug her boots off. "I think these'll dry faster off my feet, don't you?"


Saienne tilts her head so that she can see beyond the flopping brim of her hat. "You ain't wrong there," she says, looking up into the cloudless sky. "Ain't even so much as a breath of air." She pauses then to roll her sleeves up to her elbows, and then slips her long-fingered hands into her trouser pockets. "Reckon they probably will, at that." Sai says, nodding, about the boots. "But you just watch where you're steppin', an' all." A pause, and one hand comes out of her pocket to gesture around her at the glorious docks. "Eavesdown, ain't it?"


Plonking the boots down on the ramp at her side, Aradia wriggles her toes in the dirt under her feet, propping her elbows on her knees and folding her arms one over the other. "Yeah, back on 'sephone for a bit 'til we get those chickens out to Ariel," she says, exhaling with a quiet sigh. "I'm getting awful tired o' chickens and Ariel. I know it's good money but I can't wait to get...somewhere else once the contract's done."


Saienne shakes her head, the pheasant feather in hat being led a merry dance by the motion. "No, I meant, it's Eavesdown so watch where you're puttin' your feet..." She grins crookedly. "But I can understand what you're sayin' about the Ariel run. Reckon I'm just about startin' to recognise individual bits of Black as we pass them..." She stops though, and just nods. "You got any plans, an' all?"


Still seated on the base of Grace's ramp and still quite on the wet side of wet, Aradia chuckles and says, "Always watch where I'm puttin' my feet, except when I step in something goopy." Shrugging a shoulder at the question, she says, "Kind o' like to just take off 'n fly and see where we end up, y'know?"


Saienne's crooked grin widens. She is standing at the bottom of the ramp to the Grace O'Malley's hold, a foot or so away from Aradia. "Suits me down to the ground," she says, and then glances upwards again, into the blue. "Or up to the stars, mayhap. But it really ain't my place to quibble - some place other than Ariel or Eavesdown, an' some cargo other than chickens'd be just lovely." A beat. "An' I'm sure the rest of the folks who spend time cleanin' the hold down after a run'll agree with me, an' all."


"You can hear 'em clucking even in the commons," Aradia says, shaking her head as she mutters, "I'm beginnin' to see why Max figures 'em to be evil incarnate." Leaning back and stretching her legs back out, she looks up to Saienne again and asks, "Anywhere you've wanted to see that you ain't never got a chance to?"


"Never realised how loud chickens could get," Sai mutters. "I mean, they were always cluckin' an' fussin' back home, but never in quite such... echoey quarters. I reckon I'm with Max." Saienne purses her lips as Aradia asks her question and a frown forms quickly. "Not for any pleasant reason," she replies, with a grin. "Plenty of places I ain't eager to get to again, mind. Haven, for one, an' for obvious reasons. An' steerin' clear of Boros'd make me real happy." She shakes her head. "Never would forgive myself for inflictin' Maire on you all if we touched dirt there."


"'n I'm sure you didn't have quite so many thousands of them either," Aradia says, looking back over her shoulder with a mild perturbance that quickly fades as she grins and turns back to Saienne, "Or us on Maire." Wrinkling her nose up, she asks after a moment's pause, "Who is Maire anyway?"


"Oh, no," Saienne says with absolute certainly. "Maire on y'all. She's a gorram terror, I'm tellin' you. But you ain't wrong - we never did have thousands of the mad cluckin' things." Sai decides then that she has stood talking to her Captain for long enough and abruptly plonks herself down on the foot of the Grace's cargo ramp, alongside Aradia. "Maire," she says, "Is my sister. Resolutely followin' in my mother's footsteps, stickin' on Boros an' raisin' the next unruly brood of Olaenos." She reaches up a hand to steady her hat as she settles onto the dusty metal. The day is hot and sunny, not a cloud in the very blue sky, but the customary chaotic bustle on Eavesdown is not in the least diminished by the weather.


Despite it being hot and sunny without a cloud in sight, Aradia is soaking wet, though slowly drying, her sopping boots on the ramp on the other side of her as she looks to Saienne and asks, "Just the two o' you then? Or you got more brothers 'n sisters because just one don't seem like much terrorizing really." Wriggling her toes in the dirt underfoot again as she looks down to them, she goes ahead and immediately contradicts herself, "Course, unless she's y'know, a real terror."


A young man wearing a piece of mesh armor as an upper body covering enters from the Spacers' District, on his right hip is a non-lethal pistol, his pace is within the crowds attempting to stay blended within them as well as he can, eyes up towards the world however, keeping an eye on his direction and everything else around the docks. He seems alert; however, not overly so. His eyes drift towards the ramp of the O'Malley and his feet begin to follow suit towards it, a small smile coming across his lips as he seems to regonize an old face.


"There's seven of us," Saienne says, paying about as much attention to Aradia's wet state as she does to the vendors hawking down on the dock. "Well, six now, if you don't count Daniel, which most folks these days don't." She smiles a lop-sided smile. "But I still think on him as my brother, even if he ain't with us no more." She crosses her hands in her lap and looks into the middle distance - in David's direction; she sees him without seeing him at all. "An' I reckon she's only terrifyin' because she reminds me so much of my mother - all disapproval an' misunderstandin'." A pause; another sunny smile. "But there's mothers for you." And, mostly under her breath: "An' sisters who ain't got nothin' better to do than pry an' criticise." She leans back. "You got family lurkin' somewhere an' all?"


"Seven huh? Lu's from a family o' seven too," Aradia comments from where she sits on the base of Grace's ramp. "What happened to him, if'n you don't mind saying?" Aradia asks with a tilt of her head as she regards Saienne sitting alongside her. "Ain't much for lurkin' in my family," she adds with a chuckle in answer to Saienne's question before she notices someone cutting out of the crowds and heading toward them. Lifting her chin, she sits up straighter, watching David walk closer.


Lurking through the crowds is a young man wearing a piece of mesh armor, Disappearing into a group of people for a long moment before reappearing near the ramp of the Grace O'Malley, "Ah leave fer' 'alf ah year an ya'll change up ships and ba'come cap'ins n' shit." says the young man towards Aradia and Saienne a broad smile shooting across his lips.


"Is that so?" Saienne asks, thoughtfully. "Reckon we got somethin' more in common than I thought, then. Bein' one of seven's a challenge an' a half, I don't mind sayin'." Aradia's question causes Sai's thoughtful expression to shift to something all together more regretful. "Ten year anniversary, ain't it? Same thing as did for plenty of other folks my age." A shrug, and she falls silent, noting Aradia's change in posture and focus. As the gentleman approaching opens his mouth and speaks, the reason for the change becomes slightly more apparent to her, and she relaxes just a little.


"Captains, where?" Aradia asks with disbelief, looking over both shoulders and then staring Saienne down suspiciously. Narrowing her eyes, she asks, "Did you go becomin' a Cap'n behind my back?" Looking up to David with a smile she regards him a moment before she says, "'n I bet you still like chicken soup, too. Noodly if I remember correct." And there she sits, still quite wet with a cargo hold full of clucking, squawking chickens at her back.


David laughs as Aradia recalls his favorate dish, "Can't believe ya actually recall tha' noodles." he says with small smirk, "Gotta ask.. 'ow'd chickens manage ta soak ya?" he asks with a smirk, hands being placed on his hips in a casual fasion. "'Ow've ya been eh?" eyes look over the female sitting next to Aradia for a moment and in a seemingly polite tone he simply nods towards her and utters, "M'am." then eyes turn back towards the Captain in denial.


Saienne holds up her hands and waves them in front of her in a gesture of denial. "Ain't me. Surely ain't me. Must be talkin' about Pauline or Larry, I reckon..." The effect is spoiled somewhat as she has to grab for her hat to prevent it from being blown away by the updraft caused by the departing ship. As the disturbance in the air lessens, she lets the floppy brim go, smiles a crooked smile, and, in reply to the man's greeting, tips a lazy salute in his direction.


Now she's not only wet but covered in a fine layer of dust to boot as Aradia coughs, tongue poking out as she tries to wipe out the inside of her mouth with the inside of her shirt. Coughing a little, she splutters some more and then finally gives up and spits into the dirt at her feet. "I remembered the soup because you never tol' me your name," Aradia says finally, looking back up to David with a smirk, "'n it weren't the chickens that got me wet, it was water." Saienne's suggestions of ship's captains earns her a brief, impish grin cast in her direction before she looks back up to David again and asks, "Where'd ye disappear to?"


A small smile from David as he realises he's lacked a name with this woman for some time, "Eh? Ah' nearly fergot that ah've got no manners." he says with a small shrug of his shoulders, chuckling to himself, "Ah doubted the chickens where able ta soak ya' wifout water." he adds shaking his head, "Ah'ad ah lil spill wif' tha feds..an' they tried ta pin ah bogus murder on me.." he says with a small embarassed looking frown, "Beat tha rap, but ended up spendin' nearly all mah change on it, yanno?"


"That's what we get for sittin' out here dirtside, ain't it?" Saienne says, somewhat mournfully, whilst looking at Aradia's dusty form. Not being wet, the dust settling on Saienne's shoulders is dispensed of with a few brisk brushes from her hand. "Trouble with the Feds ain't ever no kind of fun," she says, nodding. "Whether you're in the right or in the wrong." A beat. "Six kinds of expensive an' all, ain't it?"


"Oh, there weren't no chickens what got me wet," Aradia says with a mildly perplexed look that eventually shifts into a grin and she asks, "Like that story 'bout the chicken. 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' You know that one?" Shrugging as she pushes herself up off the ramp, retrieving her boots as she grabs them up by the laces, she says, "I think it's time I went to find out who all's captaining around here on this gorram ship, 'n maybe go wash up some." Turning to start up into the ship, she glances back to David with a grin and says, "Seeya round, Noodle. Don't go gettin' into no trouble, y'hear?"


A small smile crosses the young man's face, "Alright, n'" he says, starting back towads the Spacers' District, "Ah'll keep mah nose clean n' all." he says smiling and waving his right hand towards Aradia before disappearing into the crowds once more.


"Not a bad idea..." Saienne says to her Captain, watching sideways as she stands and starts up the ramp. She pulls herself to her feet and says: "But I got some business in town to take care of first. Don't reckon I'll be more than half an hour, mind, so don't send out the search parties until after then." She grins her crooked grin again and sets off down onto Eavesdown, fading quickly into the crowd, nothing but the bobbing feather in her hat marking her out.

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[Log] Shooting the breeze on Eavesdown

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Eavesdown Docks, Persephone
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Through the long shadows cast by the ships in the already darkened depths of Eavesdown, a lone figure wanders in and out between the ships, skirting the edges of the occasional pool of light until they reach the lowered boarding ramp of the Grace O'Malley and pause, looking up where a faint glow of light illuminates crates of squawking and clucking chickens.


Every so often, there is a burst of brightness and a ship launches upwards into the star-specked sky, engines rumbling and roaring loud enough to shake the dock's dusty ground. It is the light from just such a launch that illuminates the second shadowy figure to be skulking in the long shadows of the sleeping ships - illuminates her slender figure, her ragged-hemmed brown coat, her daft broad-brimmed hat - feather and all. Saienne seems to be charting a slightly long-winded course back in the direction of the Grace O'Malley, stepping in and out of shadows swiftly until she too reaches the foot of the ramp and the crates of noisy chickens.


The sound of clucking rises from the far end of the Grace's cargo bay, following a figure that walks through the large room and onto the ramp.Sirah, dressed in comfortable green silks, flicks a white feather away from her sleeve and watches it spiral down. Her bright eyes then light on Saienne, and a smile is given to the other woman."Good evening, Saienne," her voice is smooth and melodious in the night air. "So, is it you who has the guard duty tonight?"


Apparently unseen by Sirah as she stands alongside Saienne at the base of the ramp, Aradia nods to the latter of the two with a smirk and steps back into the shadows beyond the ramp, turning to lean back against a crate stacked there as she folds her arms loosely over her chest, looking off in the other direction to where a cratered pit in the ground is just visible.


Saienne straightens as swiftly as if she'd been stung by a bee, the pheasant feather flicking a little madly as her hat adjusts to the change in angle. "Sirah!" She says, in a tone of surprise. Then, a slight cough and a more moderate tone: "Sirah." A pause, and she peers up towards the woman and the light at the top of the ramp. "Ain't it a little late for takin' a walk?" Aradia's presence also becomes quickly clear, and Saienne glances in her direction. "Ain't there no one sleepin' tonight?" She asks, somewhat defensively - and failing entirely to answer Sirah's initial question.


"Oh, I spent the last many hours screening for clients. After, I could not sleep, and decided to take a breath of fresh air. As fresh as it gets on Eavesdown," Sirah smiles and takes a few steps closer.A finely curved brow arches just a fraction of an inch at Saienne."What has happened here," she follows Aradia's gaze at the crater in the ground -- and onwards, until her green eyes sharpen on the distant bulk of a huge ship. "Oh gosa! What is /that/ doing here?" she bursts out, blinking in surprise.


Saienne turns to regard the crater also - and relaxes a little as she does so. She puts one hand on her hip and takes a step or two closer to the pit. "Some manner of explosion, I reckon..." She says, and then turns back to Sirah. "Ain't that unusual an event on Eavesdown," she begins, and then looks back to the hole. "Although I reckon it weren't a small bang to have caused that..." She is taken surprise again, but by Sirah's reaction to the ship this time: "Which one?"


"That one, over there."The companion extends a slender hand to point at a cutlass corvette in the darkness. The starlight menacingly reflects in the metal-black hull."I have seen it before," Sirah lets her arm fall to her side and returns her attention to Saienne. "On the coretex news. I believe it is the flagship of that Frost." She shakes her head slowly."I must be mistaken. He would never land in such a public spacedock."


A dark sillouhete comes from one of the shadier alleys, a female in a black trenchcoat stalking the shadows. She appears to be wary, casting glances across her shoulder and into the throngs of people coursing through, as she advances towards the line of docked ships. Suddenly, she catches sight of something that makes her heart race, quickly drawing into the shadow of the nearest crate. She remains standing there, leaned with her back, eyes lurking from the dark.


Saienne regards the ship Sirah is pointing at with a cool gaze. "Big, ain't it?" She says, and then takes a couple of steps back towards the Grace's ramp. "Frost's ship, you reckon?" Saienne frowns and rubs her thumb along the line of her jaw. "Din't I hear somewhere that charges against him an' his were bein' dropped?" She shakes her head, raises her hand in a vague gesture. "Swear I heard that somewhere..."


"Not exactly dropped," Sirah says thoughtfully. "It is all on the news network. The Alliance wishes to let a group of judges look over the charges against the man, once more. It is standard, legal procedure, I am told."The green gaze returns to Saienne, briefly lingering on the crate."Is the crew of the Grace moving chickens tonight," amusement lingers at the edges of her voice. Then she adds, as an afterthought: "Yes, I am quite sure it is his ship."If the companion notices the dark silhouette, then she does not show it. "Reckon that must be where I heard it," Saienne says, nodding. "Never pay too much attention to what those folks say, an' all. Flows over my head like water, ain't it so?" This last is said with a bit of her lop-sided grin glinting in the darkness. Saienne looks down at the crate near her feet, then back up to the hold. "I expect so..." She begins, listening for the tell-tale cluckings and scratchings. "We got a contract with some folk on Ariel an' chickens fetch a profit, apparently." She shakes her head. "Personally? Personally I reckon the Captain enjoys seein' me, Hatch an' Kael knee deep in chicken shit every couple of weeks." She sniffs and shakes her head. "So not movin' chickens - chasin' more elusive quarry this evenin', an' all." She turns to look at the hulking pirate ship again and adds - a murmured afterthought - "Reckon we best keep our heads down then, Sirah, ain't it so?"


Constance remains hidden in the shade of the large crate, shrouded in the black of her trenchcoat. A scowl appears on her face as she eavesdrops on the conversation nearby, her eyes affixed upon the docked pirate ships. One hand pressed upon the crate's side, the other's clutching something in her pocket. Her emerald eyes smolder with a look of disgust as she retreats further into the shade.


"You are unjust to the Captain," Sirah laughs and tips a perfectly manicured finger lightly against the rough crate. "Personally, I believe she just likes chicken."The companion's eyes dance with merriment at the other woman, but her smile fades slightly at Saiennes gaze turns to the pirate ship."Perhaps," she says mildly. "Though I doubt any of them would make trouble /here/. May I ask what it is you are after tonight, then?"Constance in the shadows remains unnoticed, for now.


Over the course of the evening the occasional buccaneer, recognizable by the purple and grey background customized Jolly Roger of Frost's armada, can be seen woring around the Devil's corsair. After some time the double click of the hydrolicks to a nearby ship ramp release. A moment later the massive ramp to the pirate flagship, the Arctic Raider, begins to lower. Standing atop the ramp, just inside the cargo bay of the 'space galleon', is the Armada's very own Admiral, Frost. He stands there alone, the new addition of a platnium skull-tipped vane in his right hand, bottom end planted against the cold metal as he begins to look over the docks, head shaking slightly. "Four months.." he murmers to himself, under his breath.


"If we got to eat the cargo," Saienne counters, "I reckon I could believe what you're sayin'." She tucks her hands into her pockets and pulls the coat closer around her in order to ward off some of the night's chill. "As it is, I'm stickin' with my theory." She too looks to the pirate ship. "I don't know, Sirah. They done some pretty audacious things, an' not always in the backwaters." She shrugs, a fluid roll of her shoulders. "So I do reckon it'd be wiser not to trust to them keepin' themselves to themselves just on account of bein' on Persephone an' not Jiangyin or some other dusty rock." Sirah's last question is met with a little frown and a twist of Saienne's lips. "Long story," she mutters. "Lousy client who took me for a gorram ride a year or so ago." She smiles, not entirely pleasantly. "Every time we touch dirt on Eavesdown I take it upon myself to go lookin' for her." The lowering of the Raider's ramp causes her to break off and she looks up sharply. "Here's hopin' the Captain's plannin' on settin' off for Ariel sooner rather than later..."


"I am sorry to hear your ride was so bad," says the companion after a moment's of contemplation. "But it would seem you have found yourself a good place onboard the Grace." A brow arches at Saienne, and a smile is given at the other. Slender hands tug the silken shawl closer around her shoulders as the mention of leaving for Ariel makes her turn and watch the other ship.The light from the Devil's Corsair reflect in Sirah's green eyes as the ramp is lowered."And there he is himself," she says with some satisfaction at Saienne. Her blonde head tilts at the direction of the pirate. "You would recognize that mass of dreadlocks anywhere. Really, do you not ever watch the coretex news?" The woman's eyes sparkle with some amusement.


+nom Bishop=Wanderin' his way down the ramp of the Grace, Bishop pulls his second shirt over the first and shrugs his shoulders until it falls into place. A task that is made far more difficult by the method in which he clings to the brown bottle of fermented grains in hand as if letting it slip free might release his only anchor into reality. In other words, he's trying to dress himself while holding onto his beer. The staggering movements come perhaps from and over abundance of the afore referenced ale, or the fact that his pants are halfway down his legs and he's trying to pull them up by hopping, tugging, bouncing and all other sorts of assinine acrobatic maneuvers to get himself presentable to be in public. Granted, most such activities would be done before entering public, but Bishop apparently cares not for such proprieties. Shirt over his head, pants held up by hand, he skids to a stop at the end of the ramp and looks around, trying to find help with his predicament.


Constance's brow furrows, a touch of anxiety flickering on her face as the ramp lowers. She retreats further into the shade, eyes locked on the one descending. Spitting into the dust as she sees Frost, she leans back upon the crate. Only her dark emerald eyes glance in the direction of the Arctic Raider. Her hand rummages for something in her pocket, nervously grabbing a pack of cigarettes and tapping it for one to fall out. Her arms wrap close about her waist, just below the swell of her breasts, draping the trenchcoat protectively about her figure. Dainty fingers light the smoke, and she inhales of it deeply.


"Ready tha gorram package, n' send word tah Kim..." Frost speaks in his deep tone over his left shoulder towards a pirate that stands quite a ways back in the cargo hold. The Admiral is met with a simple. "AyeAye." and the lesser sprog scurries deeper into the underbelly of the ship. The pirate lord continues to stand atop the ramp over-looking the busy tarmac, even as vendors wind through the crowds this time of night. Despite the 'pardon' he and his pirates were given recently, Frost isn't dumb enough to depart the safety of his ship alone. No, he's done far to many things to too many people to chance a stroll on such a busy planet alone. Fot now, he's content just watching the area from his elevated position. As he peers over the crowd, his one good eye does end up coming across Sirah and Saienne. Spotting the companion causes a slight smirk to cross his pierced lips, and he snorts a single time. "Lovely." "Ain't that the truth," Saienne says with a crooked grin as Sirah makes reference to her place on the Grace. "Home sneaks up on you just when you ain't searchin', don't it?" A pause, and her expression darkens. "Mayhap that's a tactic I should try with Xiao-Chen an' all." She looks gloomily at Sirah, without any real hope for the success of this solution: "Mayhap she'll start lookin' for me if I stop lookin' for her..." She listens as Sirah talks of the dreadlocked Frost. "Do my level best not to," Saienne says, of the Cortex news. "Can't trust a gorram word those folks say - an' I prefer to get my news elsewhere, from folk with vested interests I ain't in the dark about." She sniffs as the faint scent of cigarette smoke drifts past her nose, and then turns her head when she hears Bishop's descent. "Bishop," she mutters, taking in his state of (un)dress. "Two shirts?" She pauses, and chews on her lip. "What am I complainin' about? Two shirts is two more than normal."


At the sound of steps Sirah turns and levels a startled look on the Grace's First Mate. "You know, I am actually amazed you made it this far without stepping in your own trousers and falling," she muses at Bishop. "I really hope you won't expect my help to pull up your trousers. I am usually only requested to do the opposite."A smile quirks the companion's lips, and her gaze slides back to Saienne."Maybe it is a tactics that would work," she suggests carefully. "But for your own peace of mind, it might perhaps be worth a try?"If Frost's comment can be heard near the Grace is uncertain, but the woman does flick another, thoughtful, glance at the ship, its crew, and its captain.


"Well, only one serves as a over shirt, the other's you know under shirt. I heard someplace that it's all proper or some such, iunno. Can you just... help?" Bishop grumbles towards the two women whom reference him. "And you just stay away from my trousers missy. I do'nt wnat your busy little hands anywhere near where I keep my valuables." A pause, "And I'm talking about my wallet." The Pilot grumbles as he continues trying to get himself dressed.


The end of the cigarette flickers red from the shadow as Constance draws from it, exhaling wisps of grey smoke. Her shoulders slump as her body relaxes, heavy-lidded eyes looking off into the distance with an emerald gaze ladden with irony. Brooding so, her arms remain enveloped about her waist, the cigarette held gracefully aloft in one hand.


A scrawny pirate makes his way to stand a bit behind the self proclaimed 'Pirate King', waiting a few seconds before speaking to his boss. "Admiral. Kim says he will be here in about twelve hours." A deep exhale escapes Frost's lips and he spins, "Very well.. bring up tha ramp n' active external security.." he then starts back into the belly of his flagship, walking past the sprog that delivered the message. He pauses when he stands near the man, the cane in his right hand whipping out to connect with the backside of the other pirate's knee, sending the low level buccaneer to one knee with a groan. Such action is not unexpected by his crew. "N' get tha fuggin' Galley cleaned. Yer ah bunch ah bloody pigs." and the Admiral continues past. Once Frost is out of sight, the sprog stands, moving to hit the switch for the ramp, muttering under his breath. "..I'll clean YOUR frikkin' Galley.." Saienne reaches forward to take the bottle of beer from Bishop so that he can sort himself out. "I ain't goin' nowhere near your trousers neither, so just hand me that bottle..." She nods absently to Sirah. "It's an option, surely, but it ain't one I'm overly keen on, if I'm straight an' true with you." She pauses, peering into the curious half-light reigning over Eavesdown. "Peace of mind really ain't what I would achieve from droppin' the matter." She smiles brightly, if crookedly. "Anyhow, it ain't of no consequence to anyone but me an' Xiao-Chen."


"Oh, not to worry," says Sirah lightly.The amusement in her eyes grows as she watches Bishop struggle with his clothes, not a finger does she lift to help the pilot out of his predicament. A graceful hand neatly lifts to pat a stray strand back into her sleek, blonde hair. "I would not dream of touching your wallet."She purses her lips thoughtfully at Saienne, then. "Yet, it sounded at a case of some importance to you. I do not know the nature of this Xiao-Chen, but if he or she is of a vindictive nature, the matter is hard to leave alone, of course." A soft growl emits from Bishop when he feels his beer being taken from him, before realizing it's just Saienne. Once his hand is free, he's able to get his shirt properly adjusted. It's rather difficult to squeeze one's head through a sleeve afterall. With that done, the pants get pulled up and fastened properly and he nods, holding his hand back out. "There, all fit as a fiddle . Can't be go making myself all flirtable looking like a common bum." Constance espies in her peripheral vision the departure of the 'Admiral', following the event with another spit in the dust, as she draws another smoke of her cigarette. The look of disgust gradually fades from her mien, replaced with brooding. Heavy-lidded eyes close, as grey wisps pass from her lips with a long exhale. A slow hum emanates from her, a tune that grows stronger. Soon a murmur of words can be heard from the shadow, sung softly in a foreign language. The voice is low and sultry, and there's a dark emotion woven into the tune.


"It ain't so much that she's vindictive," Sai says, only to be cut off by Bishop's growl. "Oh give over," she snaps, "You asked for help an' help is what you're gettin'." She pulls the bottle in to herself and cradles it. "Ain't like I'm goin' to drink it..." She sniffs at it though, the rich hoppy smell filling her nostrils. "Really, I ain't..." She glances at Sirah. "What were we talkin' about? Vindictive. No, she ain't vindictive, she's just... absent." A helpless shrug, and she inspects the fingernails of her free hand. "It's complicated, ain't it? She surely did get me royally screwed over the business we had, but she was always a friend an' all." A pause. "It ain't my nature to bail out on friends - even if they have done the most awful things." Another pause, and her crooked grin reasserts itself. "Mostly on account of me havin' done awful things an' all, an' not likin' to come over too judgemental." Constance's singing causes her to stop talking again. "An' don't that sound just how I feel," she says, quietly, all the while casting round to see if she can tell exactly where the sound is coming from.


Sirah lithely shifts her position, turning her back to the Arctic Raider as the crewman approaches Frost. To the attentive eye, the lady's movement seems rather deliberate."Again, not to worry," her eyes sparkle at Bishop. "You never look like a common bum. What you /do/ look like, I have not yet determined," she sniffs. "But it certainly is not common."Her humour fades, then, and she listens to Saienne's words in serious silence."It is very sad," she says softly of the singing. "Longing, almost."


"Well, the flirtatiousness isn't meant for you either Sirah." Bishop says, shaking his head and trying to remuss his hair from the mussiness it recently had gotten into. "So while I appreciate the observation, you and I both know that just because one person thinks the other is irresistable don't amount to much." Bishop looks back then expectantly towards Saienne to await the return of his happy drink.


With zero fanfare and theatrics, Aradia walks out of the darkness alongside Grace and up to the ramp, pausing to look to those gathered at the base. Pointing with a finger back to the crater in the dirt not far off, she says, "You're on heightened security. If you ain't armed and armored, get inside and change that." Turning to Sirah, she says, "I would strongly advise you not count on your status in the Guild keeping you from getting shot and not expect any of the crew to stand between you and a bullet as the most effective means of not getting shot." Starting up the ramp, she mutters something about a cargo hold full of chicken shit stinking less than Pirates and corrupt Feds.


The tune continues, dark and heavy, weaving a low melody until it breaks into laughter, filled with irony. Constance flicks the cigarette from her fingers, and it makes a red arc away from her, sparks flying as it hits the ground. Hoisting herself up on a nearby crate, she crosses her long, stockinged legs with adept grace. Eyes casting furtive glances towards the people passing by and talking, she still remains mostly in the shade.


"Captain." Is all Saienne says to Aradia as she takes the order. She doesn't move back to the Grace, indicating that she's aready as armed as she needs to be. "An accident'd be too much to hope for, I expect?" She asks as Aradia starts up the ramp to the security of the ship. The pheasant feather in her hat bobs and dips as she nods in the crater's direction. "You know the truth of it? I heard a couple of rumours, but..." A shrug, and she hands Bishop's beer back to him without ceremony, but with a quick pat on his arm. "Nothin' I'd trust without corroboration."


"That is true," Sirah tilts her head at Bishop with a smile. "It is not doable if just one likes the other."A somewhat startled expression passes her features at Aradia's words, but her features swiftly smoothe once more."I will not count on anyone to take a bullet for me, Captain," she says calmly at the woman. "But I thank you for the advice." A green gaze flicks around the docks, and she takes a step to bring herself closer to the side of the Grace."What is going on?"The woman looks between Saienne and Aradia - and Bishop is given a quizzical look as well. "Going on? Nothin?" Bishop asks tilting his head towards Sirah with an all too innocent smile. But whe he glances at Ara, he shrugs his shoulders a bit and looks down at his hip momentarily where his lightfoot resides before shrugging.


Turning on her heel about halfway up the ramp, Aradia looks back down to Saienne and shakes her head, her gaze turning back toward the pit as she says, "No, it was quite deliberate." She pauses, shoulders rolling back as she looks back to Saienne and says, "Slavers, with a fondness for children." After a moment's pause, she says to Sirah, "Good, then I trust you know what precautions you need take and that if you don't, you'll ask."


Saienne spits out a curse of the kind that seldom passes her lips. "Here?" She asks, afterwards. "On Persephone? Well, if that ain't more audacious even than the pirate king -" She gestures with one hand towards the Raider "- even if this is Eavesdown, that ain't part of no ordinary day's business..." She stops then, thinking. "They're all right, ain't they? Eric an' Marianna an' Marco. They din't..." She asks Aradia.


"I am not a fighter, Aradia, you know that." Sirah lets a soft gaze turn to the Captain, folding her hands before her with a rustle of silk. "I only came out for a breath of fresh air, and I will leave in a moment."An unusual expression sparkles her eyes, then - anger."Slavers who sell children," she mutters with unusual vehemence, and a dark look at Saienne - nodding in agreement. Bishop blinks a bit as he looks at Aradia then the two women (being Sirah and Saienne) then back to Aradia. "I think I got a sneaking suspicion I got drunk through something I shouldn't have." His tone as well is very level. "I ain't heard nothin' bout that... especially this far in in... a long while. Long while."


"Yeah, they're stayin' low like they have been since the riots," Aradia says to Saienne, adding, "Just came back from there now. Frankie's lookin' after 'em well. Smart one that kid." Turning her gaze back to Sirah, she says, "Slavers who steal kids. I figure if the issue is with the selling then yer anger is better set on those who do the buying." Shaking her head as she looks over to Bishop, she says, "You've a tendency to do that."


"Passed me by an' all, Bishop. Don't reckon we were hereabouts when it went off - unless I was sleepin' an' all." She casts a vexed gaze over Eavesdown, the familar layout made abruptly unfriendly. "Just caught a breath of it from some folk I know." She looks to the Captain for confirmation. "Well, ain't that a relief," she mutters, about Frankie and his common sense. She slips her hands into her pockets again and opens her mouth to ask another question. She hesitates, though, but then sighs a little and asks anyway. "Anyone else we know got caught up in things?"


"Both the buyers, and the sellers alike," Sirah nods at Aradia. "It is a horrible business, and one I wish I could put a stopper to, if I could." The woman then nods at each of the other three, stepping up the gangplank. "I shall retire and leave you to your duties. A good night to you all."And with a smile and a wave, the companion disappears into the hull, a wave of clucking following in her wake. Bishop looks between the folks and nods slowly. "Aight. I'll make sure to keep myself extra attentive during these bi-weekly excursions off the ship." He nods towards Sirah when she departs.


"Don't know o' no one but the folks what are on the Dragon being caught up in it all," Aradia says, crossing her arms over her chest. "'n I'd rather not get none of us caught up in it either if'n we got a choice."


"No," says Saienne in agreement. "Eavesdown ain't the place to be these days, it seems." She wrinkles her nose and takes a long look down the dock again. Something strikes her then, and she frowns. "Captain, when you say Dragon, are you talkin' of the Dark Dragon? An' caught up as in... blown up?"


Bishop tilts his head at all of it and leans back folding his arms a bit. Nothing to be said at the moment it seems instead simply listening but then he does interject. "Perhaps this best be held someplace a little less... outside."


Constance remains seated upon the crate, legs crossed as they dange off its edge. Glancing idly towards the ships assembled, she soon turns to look back to her fingers as they clasp around the crate's edge. One hand reaches for her pocket, taking out a small hand mirror. She lifts it to her face, peering into it as her other hand reaches up with a stick of carmine. Dabbing her lips in a fresh coating of crimson, she puckers them at her own expression. The mirror snapped shut, she places that and the lipstick back into the pockets of her trenchcoat. Again her gaze slips towards the docked ship, her shoulders twitching any time there's a sound of ramp lowering.


"Ship took a bit o' damage but no one got hurt none too bad from what I got told," Aradia says to Saienne, "'n they're up 'n gone now so it can't be that they took too much damage," Aradia says to Saienne before she looks back to Bishop and says, "We can, but there ain't much more to say to it than that. Business they got caught up in before even I flew with 'em and it's turned around and caught right back up with 'em again."


"Less... outside?" Saienne says, rounding on Bishop. Her manner is some degrees less laconic than usual, and her frown has wrinkled the crowsfeet around her eyes deeply. "Less likely to blow up or flood with gorram pirates or Feds or slavers or the six hells knows who else, you mean. I surely ain't opposed to avoidin' that." She nods as Aradia's words bring some kind of reassurance. "It's just Robin flies with them, don't she?" Saienne chews at her lip again. "Reckon I should send a wave or somesuch."


"I thought there might be something like... quiet like to keep quiet." Bishop says with a shrug at Saienne and then sticks his tongue out before running a hand through his hair.


Nodding to Saienne, Aradia says, "Don't reckon as there's any reason not to send her a wave if it'll make you feel better. Figure she'll appreciate the sentiment. I already said my piece to Sink when he told me what was goin' on." It's not as if the discussion they've been having has been shouted with a bullhorn across the docks. In fact it's more than a reasonable assumption that it's been kept as private as a conversation on a ramp of a ship can be, meaning eavesdroppers are within easy sight of eavesdropping. Looking to Bishop, she says, "A bomb got exploded. It's the folks who ain't gossiping about it that are the ones like to draw attention to 'emselves."


Saienne looks at Aradia cautiously, as if she's not quite sure how to take the advice she's been given. "Mayhap I will," is all she replies, before the frown eases a little and she returns to business. "Captain, did you want us on watch out here, or were you hopin' we'd all behave sensibly an' come inside?"


Bishop is mid drink when Aradia makes her statement, causing him to blink and choke a bit on his beer. Coughing, he tries to speak. "Somebody set .. us up... the bomb?" He asks it towards her as if she'll understand what he is attempting to communicate.


Blinking, Aradia looks to Bishop and says, "What? No. They bombed the Dragon when it was docked over there, where that big hole in the ground is." She does indeed turn to point at the big hole, just in case there was any doubt as to which big hole she might be referring to. Lifting a hand to rub at her brow, she looks back to Saienne and says, "I don't know. Where the gorram hell is Hatch?"


"Don't fret none, Bishop," Saienne says gently - a little in the manner one might adopt if talking to someone touched by the moon. "They weren't gunnin' for us." She shakes her head at Aradia. "Ain't got no idea, but I expect he's doin' somethin' useful." She pauses; glances up at the sky. "Don't mind sittin' out here durin' the small hours if you do decide on that," she says, evenly.


"Hatch?" Bishop asks, voice creaky as he's still trying to recover from beer down the wrong pipe and probably up his nose. "He's somewhere... making his time." Coughing again, "Making use of his time while we're landed. And yeah, I can easily sit out here and drink as well as sit inside and drink."


"Ain't allowed to drink when you're on duty," Aradia says absently to Bishop even as her gaze remains on Saienne to continue saying, "Goin' to have to work something out. Would rather stop someone before they get to hurting Grace if there's a chance." Muttering to herself, she says, "A vacation out on Saint Albans is seemin' mighty appealing right now."


"Saint Albans?" Saienne asks, her humour rising again. "Good gorram, you must be fong luh. Saint Albans!" She smiles crookedly at Aradia. "Ain't we liftin' off soon anyhow? I reckon I could settle out here until you call me in." She lifts one long-fingered hand to pat the ship's smooth bulkhead. "Ain't no power in the 'Verse'd get past me to hurt our Grace." She frowns, then, and the smile twists a little. "That ain't strictly true. There's plenty of things, bombs not least among 'em, that could get through me." A pause. "But I'd do my honest best - at least until the slightly less destructable Hatch could take over."


Bishop rolls his eyes, "No drinkin' on duty? That's a new one. Well then I better take my drinking, undutied backside right back to where it was." Shaking his head in well, a displeasant emotion, he walks up the ramp, throwing the unfinished bottle into a trash receptacle nearby before doing such.


Better he be shaking his head than his backside like that. Quirking her brow as she watches Bishop take her leave, Aradia smirks and then looks back to Saienne to say, "Yeah, right on back to Ariel. Gorram but if I ain't tired o' that planet too but we can't afford not to finish this contract out." With a weary sigh, she sinks down to settle on the ramp, her knees drawn up and her elbows propped on them. "I'd rather you not have to test your loyalty to Grace like that, Sai," she says.


Constance slips off her crate, idly leaning onto it with her back as she watches her surroundings. Lifting one hand, she peers at her fingernails, then runs her hand through her hair, raven tresses tumbling down her shoulders. She sets her hands into the pockets of the trenchcoat, one knee lifting as the heel of her boot digs into the crate behind.


"That man..." Saienne mutters, watching Bishop's displeased form walk back up the ramp. "That gorram man!" She frowns again, and demands: "D'you reckon he does it on purpose to rile folk? Or, God help him, is he just like that naturally? I really ain't able to make head nor tail of him sometimes." Ara's comments cause the frown to disolve easily enough - Bishop clearly doesn't vex her that much. "Oh, don't fret none neither, Captain. I'm real good at duckin' an' runnin' an' all - plenty of practice, ain't it so?" Constance's movement on the crate causes her to look around and, for the first time really that night, she sees the woman - dark hair, emerald eyes, trenchcoat and all.


Aradia asks, "Huh? What'd he do?" perplexed as she looks up to the top of the ramp after Bishop again before she looks back to Saienne and says, "I honestly don't know what you got plenty o' practice at, Sai. We ain't really talked none about it, have we?" Noting where the woman's attention is, she turns a little to follow Saienne's gaze with her own until it fixes on Constance.


Constance's eyes look up as she's watched; noting the two women gazing in her direction, she gives a small smile and a polite incline of her head. Looking back to the ground, she digs into the dust with the toe of her boot.


Saienne shakes her head. "Nothin', really. I just ain't got the measure of him is all. Reckon I never will, neither." She smiles faintly, returns Constance's nod with a courteous one of her own, and then turns back to Aradia. "This is so. We ain't." A pause, and she comes to join her captain on the ramp. She crosses her legs in a more relaxed version of the lotus position, her ragged-hemmed coat spreading out around her like a tide. She settles her long-fingered hands in her lap and looks out again over Eavesdown. "But then I ain't never asked about what you've had practice at neither, so I expect we're even enough."


Crossing her legs at her ankles with her knees still drawn up, Aradia loops her arms around them as she first returns Constance's nod with one of her own, regarding the woman a moment longer before she quirks a grin and looks back to Saienne. "I'm flying Grace because I got bored 'n the Cap'n Charley decided there was less chance o' me gettin' into trouble sitting on the bridge than being left to my own devices. Your turn."


Constance steps away from the crate, taking a few steps forward but still looking to the shade. Catching sight of someone in the crowd, her brow furrows and she moves back into the shadows again.


Saienne makes a face, frowning a little so that her nose wrinkles. "Well, hell, now we ain't even at all." She tips her hat back on her head a little and watches as the flow of people on the docks increases. "Reckon Charley was wrong, Captain." Sai says, after a minute or two. "You seem to get into trouble just fine." She smiles her crooked smile. "I left Boros in 2508. Lifetime ago, ain't it? I was followin' in my brother Daniel's somewhat rash move of joinin' up with the Indies, an' I spent the next two or three years practicin' the aforementioned duckin' an' runnin' whilst lobbin' heavy ordnance in the direction of the Alliance lines." A pause, and she smiles crookedly. "Until I got blown up at Du Khang, an' then my duckin' an' runnin' days were done." Another pause and she adds: "For a year or so, at least, until the Feds let me loose down here." She gestures at the dubious glory of Eavesdown.


"Well yeah but she didn't want me gettin' in trouble on her boat while we were in the Black," Aradia says with a smirk, turning her head to lay her cheek on one knee as she looks off to the side and across the docks, keeping Saienne in her peripheral vision. Chuckling a little, she says, "A lifetime ago? I was eight, then," at the mention of the year 2508 before she falls quiet again, listening to the tale unfold. Silent for several long moments, she asks, "Will you tell me the rest some day?"


Constance casts another glance towards the Arctic Raider, eyes shifting over to the other pirate ship as well. Idly, she shrugs and starts towards the two women talking, approaching with a small smile on her lips. "Evenin'," she says in a polite tone, "D'you happen to know what that was? Some kind'a explosion, I overheard?" Her hand sweeps over to the crater, pointing.


With a fluid shrug, Saienne makes no kind of commital. "There ain't so much to tell," she says. "The best stuff happened before an' after. I was twenty-six years old when I shipped out, an' my war wasn't over until I'd turned thirty. Ain't nothin' like a few years on a battlefield followed by another couple in a Federal facility to make you grow up real quick." She frowns. "It's the tenth anniversary this year, ain't it? Of Unification Day." Her tone is calm - bland even - and she pauses; rubs her hands together. "Can't decide whether the best thing to do is hide in a cave for a month or... I really don't know. Hidin' in a cave sounds like a real good idea." She closes her mouth and listens again to Aradia. "What did you do before flyin' with Charley?" Saienne asks; adding quickly: "If you don't mind me askin', an' all." Constance's approach causes her to look up beyond the brim of her hat and she nods. "So they're sayin'. Slavers, apparently, as if random bombings ain't enough."


Sartre appears suddenly at the top of the Corsair's ramp, emerging from the cargo bay. He is decked out in a very piratey pair of blue jeans and a slightly less piratey Blue Sun Cola t-shirt. He does however redeem himself with the half-consumed nic stik clamped between his lips. He looks around, taking in the sights... paying particular attention to the Dog Meat Kebab vendor he was fixing to visit...


"Oh, I've had enough of caves," Aradia declares as she lifts her cheek from her knee and sits up straighter, hugging her knees a little closer to her chest. "I flew with the Dragon," she says in answer to Saienne's question, "For a little while. That's where I met Max." As Constance approaches and asks her question, she lets Saienne do the speaking, her gaze turning toward the crater again before she looks back and asks, "What've you heard about it?"


As soon as the Corsair's ramp lowers, Constance's eyes dart in that direction and she shuffles slowly towards the shadows. She tosses a lazy, "Nothin' much," towards Aradia as she retreats into the safety of the crate's shade.


Marcus isn't far behind Sartre in appearing, coming down the Raider's ramp, himself sporting the latest pirate fashion, in his case a hawaiian shirt emblazoned with the unique Jolly Roger of the Arctic Raider on back. He at the bottom of the ramp, to let his eyes get accustomed to the natural light. The stub of a cigar clenched in the left side of his mouth isn't lit, and the bottle of beer he's carrying is already about halfway down the label. - Pleased to meet you, and thank you for the scene. :)


Constance leans onto the crate, clearly in a grumpy mood as she glances towards Sartre, "'s nice to see ya too," she tosses curtly towards him, turning her gaze forward in a distinct 'minding my own damn business' fashion.


"Metaphorical cave," Saienne says absently, even as she observes Constance's reaction to the opening of the Raider's ramp for the second time this evening. "Vacation," she mutters. "Good gorram - why Eavesdown? As wretched a place as it is, it did not deserve this." She turns her direct gaze from the ship towards Aradia - although she remains generally watchful - and nods. "Beginnin' of a beautiful thing then, I reckon." She pauses. "I reckon I cannot imagine you without a Max - an' I mean that only in the best of ways."


Sartre turns as Marcus appears, giving him a look up and down, the smile still on his face. "Well ain't you just the gorram tiki god of Wikiwacki..." He plucks the cigarette from his lips with a free hand. "Who in the Nine Hells dressed you in THAT?" He makes a show of examining, then slowly the other hand comes out, the finger extended, very close to Marcus's face... "You've got something on your shirt there..."


Her brow quirking at Constance, Aradia regards the woman for several long moments before she shifts her gaze to the man shouting from over yonder. Her arms unfolding from around her legs, her hands come to press flat on the ramp to either side of her as she pushes herself up a little straighter, casting a sidelong glance in Saienne's direction. "If he's goin' to start shootin' at you, y'mind maybe moving a little more to the left, by about a hundred meters or so?" she asks Constance airily as she sinks back and props herself up on one elbow behind her before she turns her gaze back to Saienne. "Beautiful? Now ain't that something I've never heard or thought to hear from no one. In fact I heard a whole lot o' the exact opposite."


Marcus plucks the cigar from his mouth as he drifts down the ramp, regarding Sartre's ranting with a thin smirk, his reply as rumbling and coarse as anything to come out of the big pirate's mouth, "Look, ya fuckin' Crispy critter, if you're fuckin' jealous, I had about a half dozen made up on Santo.. they had a minimum fuckin' order. Be moren' glad to..." Pausing abruptly, Marcus shifts gears without a clutch, tugging at the shirt as he looks down to where Sartre indicated, "Awww, mother fucker, this'll be the third gorram one I..


Constance watches Sartre and Marcus from the edge of her vision, merely turning to give Aradia a nasty look at her suggestion. Then she returns to looking ahead of her, hands in the pockets of her black trenchcoat.


Sartre grins as the finger comes up to whack Marcus's nose, amid a chuckle. "Yes, I would love one of your island fru-fru shirts.." He winks at Marcus. "But first...I have a very important mission..." He leans in, but doesnt bother to lower his voice. "I need YOU to stay HERE, while I go eat dog..."


Marcus jerks his head up as if struck far more severely than the flick actually warranted, "You know, I liked you a fuck of a lot better when you were stuck in a vat bein' pickled," he growls at Sartre, raising his bottle to his lips for a long swig, before lowering it to his side once more, letting it hang from the neck between two fingers. "What the hell you need me standin' around here for, anyway?" Marcus asks him, "Afraid someone's gonna steal the gorram fleet while you're off panderin' to whatever hussy you're makin' a feeble fuckin attempt at romancin' on this rock?"


Saienne watches the pirates, and Constance, and says quietly to Aradia: "I do believe the chickens'll startle if these folk keep up their hollerin'." She pauses and tips back her hat to better see what's going on and who is moving where. "In general," she continues, in a dry tone, "They ain't fond of havoc, an' - trust me - a chicken stampede ain't a thing you want to see up close and personal." She glances up the ramp to the dark belly of the Grace. "You content to sit an' dodge any bullets that come...? Because I might just go an' settle those birds down."


"There was a stampede o' turkeys out here a couple years back," Aradia says idly, chuckling to herself as she shakes her head and pushes herself up to sit again, looking back over her shoulder into the cargohold at her back. "Might be kind o' fun to let 'em loose and herd 'em all out this way for that lot to deal with," she muses quietly to Saienne, glancing over to her with an impish grin curling the corners of her lips up.


Sartre gives Marcus a look of mock suprise and alarm, an Ooo! look you might say... But his smile remains fast. "Marcus Marcus...that is no way to speak about my many future ex-lovers..." He takes a last drag on his cig and then flicks the butt into a trash bin nearby. "Now...if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go visit the new Federal Barracks I've heard so much about... ta'ta" He grins, making his way down the ramp and onto the street towards the city...


Lissa pulls out a flask, and pads lightly over to the stack of crates near the ramp. Hopping up, she is content to watch the side show for now, spieing the girls and giving them a friendly nod. The pirate boys get a casual glance and nothing more, as she leans back, tugging her cap from her backpack, and propping it over her eyes, before casually folding her arms, her flask dangling dangerously from her fingers.


"Is that so?" Saienne asks about the turkey stampede. "A horror to behold an' all, I have no doubt." She nods in agreement with the captain's assessment of the potential for fun. "It'd make the Cortex news, I reckon." A pause, and she considers. "But then we'd be wastin' cash an' wastin' time an' all, an' that ain't goin' to help us to riches an' glory, is it?" She grins crookedly and hauls herself to her feet. "Anyhow, I'm headin' on inside. No doubt Josephine has somethin' simmerin' an' I'm real hungry all of a sudden." She puts her hands in her pockets and walks up the ramp and into the Grace.


"Whatever you say, Don Juan de la Douche." Marcus rumbles at Sartre's retreating back, raising his voice to call after him again, "Hey, moon those fed fucktards once for me, while you're at it. Give those freshly pink cheeks o' yours a little fuckin' sun, why don't ya?" Raising his bottle once again, Mark drains the last of his beer in a long pull, tossing the empty off to the side, careless of where it lands.


Sartre turns, nodding to the women assembled on the ramps of the ships and shouting back. "Will you PLEASE not talk about my immaculately smooth and shapely ass like that?....You're scaring the women..." He turns to the finally, putting on his best rougish smile. "Ladies..." He half bows, then continues his walk...


"Well, turkey stampede that ended in a pregnant woman gettin' shot and killed," Aradia says as she pushes herself up to stand with a quiet grunt, stretching out as she casts one last sweeping glance across the docks and then turns her back on it. "Food, I knew there was some reason I came home," she says, starting up the ramp as she comments, "Riches 'n glory are highly over-rated 'n both tend to turn people into assholes."


"All of a sudden," says Sai as she reaches the top of the ramp. "Such a thing don't sound so splendid." She walks into the Grace's capacious hold and disappears from view.


An eye pops open, and her fingers come up to flick up a corner of the rim, and she can't help the smirk that forms, her one eyed gaze going over towards the boys. An actual laugh bubbles from her lips. She just can't help it. Taking a swig of her flask, before tugging her rim back down over her eyes, and leaning back. No weapons fire.. easy day so far.

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[Log] "There will be no drunken fumbling..."

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Spaceport, Ariel
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Located at the southern most tip of Ariel City, the Spaceport is a sectioned mass of landing pads and Alliance Overview. Customs officers and Alliance patrols are the main staple of the area, making their way about each new arrival as it lands or inspecting a ship on as it leaves. Central to the port is a tall and imposing building that juts up from the main complex to inhabit the skies above. Most notable about the area is the waters of the ocean itself, giving off a light of their own.
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Josephine hurries down Grace's ramp, looking this way and that way and then this way again. "Ou est-elle?" she exclaims, but softly and to herself. "Ca n'a dure que cinq minutes... C'est ce que je pense...." Looking a bit dejected and sad, eventually the woman pauses in her steps and pointedly frowns.

Saienne is en-route back to the Grace, pheasant feather bobbing above the brim of her hat as she strides up through Ariel's heavily patrolled spaceport. She has a lightness to her step that suggests a certain element of nonchalance to her attitude. Diverting past a cluster of Feds standing by the customs she goes so far as to tip her broad-brimmed hat at them: "Afternoon, gentlemen," she says, pleasantly. As she approaches the Grace's familiar form, she stops at the foot of the ramp, listening. "That you, Josephine?" She asks, finally, finding the voice familiar but the words anything but.


Josephine pats at herself a bit, "Oh, I'm fairly sure that it's definitely me, Ms. Saienne!" she declares, with enthusiasm. "Isn't this just an impressive spaceport? It's so busy and populated and.." She eyes a particularly well-armed group of Alliance officers as they strut on by, "well patrolled... I don't suppose you were out having fun, were you?"

Maija is with Jerena in a long black limousine that goes through the spaceport area enroute to somewhere else. "Perhaps," she tells the woman inside with her, eyes crinkling again at the corners. "Though, I choose to think of us as men and women who simply enjoy being social and have an appreciation for the finer things in life."

"Not fun, exactly," Sai replies, hopping up onto the foot of the ramp and approaching the other woman. "But it ain't exactly toothache when a drop goes well, neither." She grins crookedly, and turns around to view Ariel's shining spaceport - the pads clustered with ships; the tall spine of the central building; the shimmer of the sea round about. "A sight different from Eavesdown, ain't it?" She says, nodding so that the feather in her hat bobs about jauntily again. "You waitin' on someone?" She asks.

The Limo isnt going that fast, just taking its sweet time. Jerena inside just chuckles and nods. "I do enjoy that answer." She then goes about opening up the box which Maija has brought along with her.

Josephine looks briefly unhappy again. "Not exactly waiting, no. Ara asked me to go out with her, and I was all ready to go but then there was this pink sticky stuff all over the galley decking and who can possibly imagine how it got there, but it was awfully hard to clean up and I certainly didn't want anyone to be tracking it all over the ship because then it would have been a /real/ mess, and...well, it seems Ara didn't wait for me. Maybe if I contact her on the comm unit... hey, you want to come with, maybe?"

Saienne peers up the ramp towards the open bay doors and the hold, as if she can peer right through the bulkhead and up a deck or two to the galley itself. "Pink sticky stuff?" She asks. "I ain't even goin' to wonder on what it was or how it got there..." Saienne looks back at Josephine, her grin gone but an easy lop-sided smile in its place. "Already got my walkin' boots on, ain't I?" She pauses, and slips her hands in her trouser pockets. "An' I'd love to accompany you, if it ain't no bother."

Josephine grins as she pushes a couple buttons on her basic model icomm unit and tries to track down the elusive Captain. "Josephine to Ara...hey you out there somewhere?" is what she broadcasts to anyone on Grace's crew who is actually equiped with a similar unit.

While Josephine is engaged with contacting the Captain, Saienne stands looking out over what of Ariel City she can see from this vantage point. She takes a couple of steps backwards up the ramp to gain some height, and gazes silently over the heads of the crowd of spacers, merchants, Feds - folk. "I always reckoned Ariel to be too clean an' tidy," she says, more to herself than anyone in particular. "But ain't it so that it's as chaotic an' as lively as Eavesdown." A pause, and she tips her hat back a little to the late afternoon sunshine falls into her eyes. "Just differently so."

Josephine remains in quiet dialogue for several minutes, although key words such as "junkyard," "cozy," "Saienne," and "avoid the dog," come to the forefront. "OK. See you soon!" the cook calls more loudly and cheerfully into the little unit. "You really should get one of these things, Sai.." she decides. "Anyway, we're supposed to bring and blanket and food and a bottle..of something, because apparently Ara wants to have a picnic in a junkyard of all places, but who am I to understand it.."

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Junkyard, Ariel
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The Junkyards of Ariel,the only truly 'gritty' place on this rock, is filled with the metallic scraps and refuse of every possible facility on planet. Everything from broken-down Shuttles to old Cargo-containers can be found here. Piles of scrap metal are heaped up neatly here, containing pieces of ships and simple unused sheets of steel that were just discarded. Steel bars twist and turn out of the exposed earth like a small metallic forest sprouting here in the wasteland. A small hut made of discarded steel sheets provides the reclusive Junkman with shade from the unrelenting sun as he does his dealings. A large mutt of a dog sits by his side, barking every now and then but otherwise being quiet and sub-servant to the Junkman. Deeper into the Junkyard is the massive hulk of an old discarded Cargo-Ship. Presumably a Trans-U it has since been stripped of any useful parts, even pieces of the hull have been taken leaving this once proud ship to rot in the sun like the skeleton of a beached and decaying whale. A small hole in the side provides an entrance to the warped ship.

Beyond the Trans-U are several broken down and discarded Shuttlecraft, including a med-evac shuttle that still retains a stark white body despite obvious erosion from being exposed to the elements. The symbol for St. Maries hospital has since rotted off, leaving behind a warped stain of what once was a proud and serviceable craft.
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"There will be no drunken fumbling and awkward sex in the back seat," Aradia declares, uncrossing her legs from under her and nudging at the side of Hatch's boot with the toe of her own from where she's seated, leaning against the bulkhead frame of a gutted out shuttle's hatchway, perched atop a sizable mound of junk and commanding a spectacular view of the yard spread out around it.

And, what do you know. At the mention of drunken fumbling and awkward sex, Josephine and Saienne arrive in the junkyard, armed with a small portion of dog food (if necessary to distract the dog) and each baring a rather unobtrusive-looking backpack. "I don't know," Josephine is saying to Saienne, "Industrial grit has a sort of hard urban beauty to it.. did you see that huge pattern of rust on that sheet metal back there? It was all kinds of browns and oranges and greens and..really quite spectacular in it's unlikely sort of way..."

"Well ain't this more like home?" Saienne says cheerfully as she and Josephine, carrying picnic things and dog food, round the corner and step into the junkyard. "Scrap an' suchlike - an' folk lookin' more reasonable in their attire an' expressions an' all." She hears Aradia's familiar voice - and the comment - and her crooked grin returns. "An' if I ain't mistaken that there's the sound of our illustrious Captain." Josephine's question gives her pause for thought. "I don't suppose I've ever considered such things as beautiful," she says, finally. "Functional, certainly, an' familiar an' all." She turns her head to try to see the particular piece of sheet metal the cook is referring to. "I expect you ain't wrong. Don't reckon that'd look too out of place in some art gallery on Sihnon or Londinium."

Hatch isn't doing anything so fast as walking, but the voices do gather his attention to some degree. He takes a bit of a swallow from his flask before he slips it back into his pocket, "So were being invaded then, shame we don't have any mud.. or rubber bands or something."

Gesturing to the packet she handed to Hatch, Aradia says, "Try that, though you're going to have to choose between the two of 'em." Grinning as she looks from him and back out and down to the bottom of the junk pile, lifting a hand to wave to the other two as they make their way toward them.

"For the drunk fumbling and akward sex in the back seat?" Hatch asks in answer of Ara's question as the pair start to make the climb, or walk, otherwise coming into view. "Do I really have to choose? I mean it's so hard.. and what one are you going to get?"

Saienne looks up from under the brim of her hat and raises her hand in a responding wave to Aradia's. She hoists the backpack - containing whatever delicious picnic food Josephine has prepared for them - a little more securely onto her back and then begins to clamber up the pile of junk towards where Hatch and Aradia are waiting. "Ain't you lookin' mighty suspicious..." she says, looking between the pair. Something beneath her shifts a little, then, and she flings out her arms to steady herself. "Gorram!" She mutters, touching the pile with outstretched fingers as she regains her balance. "A picnic on a pile of rubbish!" Her tone is good-natured again, and quickly so. "Crazy folk."

Spreading her arms to either side of herself, Aradia shows herself, first to Hatch, and then to Saienne, to be empty handed. "I've no choice to be made," she says, breaking into a grin as she asks, "Would you rather have a picnic in the gardens with all the rich and fancy folks lookin' down their noses at the riffraff on the grass?" Wrinkling her nose up, she says, "Jo wanted to know where a good bar was and this smells less than any place I been 'round these parts."

"I think this is a super bar, or in the least we could drag one over." Hatch leans down gripping the side of the shuttle door to stretch his arm down and offer Sai some assitance, "Welcome aboard the SS heap."

Josephine eyes the heaps of garbage rather suspiciously. "Such a..unique ambience this place has.. And also.. a unique aroma," she decides, although she has remarkably good balance as she navigates around the various precariously decaying refuse.

Saienne, still touching with one hand what looks to be a bulkhead panel from a long-grounded shuttle craft, looks up towards Aradia. The angle of her body, however, means she is unable to look past the hat's floppy brim, and so she straightens cautiously, testing her balance and the stability of the pile with probing steps. As neither Hatch, Josephine nor Aradia seem to be slipping or sliding dirt-wards, Sai becomes slowly a little more confident on the pile. "Choose?" She asks Aradia. "Choose what?" And she listens, and nods, and smiles lop-sidedly. "Ain't that the truth," she says, about the gardens, reaching her own hand up to grasp Hatch's arm. "Ariel ain't my kind of planet, in all honesty, for all that I'm startin' to see its nuances." A pause. "An' a fine an'... lovely ship she is, an' all..."

Hatch 's arm curls slowly drawing Sai up, "Jo you want a hand up hun?" He asks looking across Sai's shoulder as he finishes pulling her to a more level setting. "Oh, Ara and I were discussing my.. youthful adventures is all. It sprung from there, nothing to important."

"Well I'd prefer never to have to choose between one thing or another if I'm wantin' both," Aradia replies to Saienne with a shrug, swinging her legs around and out of the way of the hatchway, keeping her back set against the bulkhead to watch the other two make their way up into the shuttle. "Big world really, ain't it? It's like judging the whole of 'sephone on the Eavesdown docks 'n not looking any further past that, ain't it?"

Saienne sits herself down on the flat of the shuttle's corroded deck and swings the backpack off next to her. She crosses her legs and takes her hat off. Two long fingers absently smooth along the length of the feather. "Thank you, Hatch," she says, with a lop-sided smile, and then turns to Aradia with a slight shrug. "I expect you ain't wrong," she says, agreeing with Aradia's assessment of her position. "I reckon I'm the type to have always been heavily prejudiced by first impressions, an' it ain't no different with planets." She nods to Hatch. "Speakin' of youthful adventures, Ariel was the location of one of mine, an' it din't end so well." She turns to gaze out from the top of the heap, catching sight of the sea glinting in the far distance. "Water's real pretty, mind."

"Water's real pretty Sai, lot of things are out here." Hatch says with a bit of a grin as he takes up his spot leaning against the bulkhead again, and digging into a pocket to take a pull at his flask. "You grew up round here didja Sai?" Hatch asks as the tops comes unscrewed and he kicks back a swallow of the contents, then offers it up.

"On Ariel? Good gorram, no!" Sai says, chuckling a little. "Grew up a million an' one miles away from here." She glances upwards. "Charlotte's Crossin', Boros - under the beady an' ever-watchful eye of the Iskellkian shipyards." Looking back at Hatch, she smiles, and reaches out for the flask. "Youthful was perhaps... less than accurate." Another pause, and she takes a mouthful of whatever's in the flask, and then offers it towards Josephine. "About six or seven years ago, I was here on a job." She grins crookedly and shakes her head at the memory. "Ain't never done nothin' quite so fong luh before nor since, an' I don't expect to neither." She regards Hatch and Josephine carefully, head tilted ever so slightly and dark eyes solemn. "An' you? Where'd you grow up?"

Hatch 's shoulders come into contact with the frame of the shuttle as he looks out again over the rows of garbage, "I've had jobs like that now and again." He says wistfully as Sai partakes of the whiskey, "Well, I grew up on Higgins moon in Jayne's Town matter of fact."

"That a fact?" Saienne says, nodding. "One of the few lumps of rock in this 'Verse I ain't yet had the pleasure of visitin'." A pause, and she offers the flask back to Hatch instead. "Folk on Higgins Moon just don't seem to require the services of a courier, for one reason or another." She sniffs, the whiskey having cleared her sinuses nicely. "Flavoursome drop you got in there, Hatch." She says, nodding in the direction of the flask.

"Well it's mostly for medicial reasons I tag it around, but every so often got to break into it for pleasure... places like this work well enough for me, rather then drinking it for pain or dumping some over a wound." Hatch mentions as he screws the top back on in time when he gets it and slips it into his back pocket. "I'd like to visit my Da' on Higgins thats about the extent of it.. ain't hardly no one but the barons who could afford someone like you Sai, you'd come off of that rock sadder then a hound dog left home for a week of hunting."

Saienne grins her lop-sided grin straight at Hatch. "Sadder than a hound dog left home from huntin'. Is that so?" She asks, and then frowns abruptly. "Well, if that's the truth of it, ain't no wonder there ain't no jobs goin' to or comin' from. I expect the barons can afford to use men on their payroll, an' the rest of the folk just ain't got more than two pennies to rub together." Saienne picks up her hat and peers out to the rest of the heap. "You know, I reckon I might take a poke about down there. All manner of fascinatin' stuff stickin' up out of the pile... ain't that a roll of Solar Sheetin' down there? Get a fortune for that..." And, emboldened by not having broken her neck in the climb up, she slides back down towards terra firma.

"Thats about right Sai, thats about right." Hatch says in a bit softer tone but brightens as she starts talking about salvage, "I saw a couple of good bulk seals too in walking in, and some decent plate floating around.. problem is someone owns the yard so be careful."

Josephine had already been lost and distracted, wandering from one interesting piece of refuge to another until she finds herself out of view of where the others have made their temporary nest. "Um. I think I'm lost," Josephine says, calmly, into her icomm unit.

Saienne looks back up the heap towards Hatch as he cautions her. "I wasn't plannin' on liftin' it!" She calls back, looking somewhat alarmed at the thought.

"I was thinking it over." Hatch respons to Sai before he lifts his Comm, "Look for the shuttle atop a pile with Sai wandering around below it neh?"

Well, Josephine knew that much already. "Big help that is," she complains into her comm unit while wandering here and there and there and here until she finally sees what seems to be the shuttle in question. "That you up there?" she asks. "Or some big scary sniper?"

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[OOC] Timeline of important events

I thought it might be interesting (and useful for IC consistency for me) to compile a table of key events and dates in the life of Saienne Olaeno - so here it is. The format is IC date followed by IC age in brackets and then a short description of the event in question. I've put it all behind the cut in case some of you would rather find this information out through RP.

09.05.2482 - [ 0] - Saienne is born in the small outpost town of Charlotte's Crossing on Boros, the third child - although first daughter - to the Olaenos, a large and well-established farming family.

17.11.2500 - [18] - Saienne's daughter is born.

14.11.2506 - [24] - Unification War begins. Saienne's brother Daniel joins up with the Independents and ships out of Boros for the front lines.

29.03.2507 - [24] - Loretta, Saienne's beloved aunt, dies peacefully at home in Charlotte's Crossing. Although Saienne stands to inherit Lottie's small estate, the War has, by now, come to Boros' shipyards, and it gets very much in the way of normal life.

......2508 - [26] - With Aunt Lottie gone, Saienne follows in her brother's footsteps and signs up. She becomes a gunner and joins a crew in one of the Independents' land-based artillery corps.

......2511 - [28] - The Battle of Du Khang (some time before March). Saienne is injured and and captured by the Alliance. As an invalid P.O.W. she is hospitalised in a Federal facility for some months - until, indeed, the end of the war later that year.

...05.2511 - [29] - Unification Day (some time in late May). Saienne is in Alliance custody for Unification Day and so misses the fighting at the end of the War. From this time until late 2512 she remains in custody.

...12.2512 - [30] - Saienne is released from Alliance custody some weeks after her 30th birthday. She does not go back to Boros, but instead ends up on Persephone. She finds out, shortly after being released, that her brother Daniel has been classed M.I.A. - after Serenity Valley. She spends some years scrabbling about in the dirt of Eavesdown before her luck turns and she makes enough on a deal to be able to start her own couriering business.

...08.2518 - [36] - Some time in late August of this year a mysterious broadcast about the planet of Miranda filters through onto the Cortex. The whole 'Verse is shocked by the scandal that is revealed. By this time, Saienne's couriering business is well-established.

25.07.2520 - [38] - Intending at first only to hitch a lift, Saienne finds herself signing on as a deck hand with the crew of the Grace O'Malley, a cargo transport operating on the Persephone circuit.

07.09.2520 - [38] - The Grace crash-lands on Haven. See this log for more details.

22.02.2521 - [38] - Sai is appointed second mate aboard the Grace O'Malley.



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[Log] "We take the jobs we get offered..."

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Bridge, Grace O'Malley [Sihnon - Ariel]
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The bridge is a picture of sleek, efficient design, even if it is a bit worn and faded in places. A raised, semi-circular platform to the aft of the room contains a large, highbacked captain's chair of brushed steel and black patent leather that has faded more to a midnight hue, along with the requisite backlit display screens.

The deck plating slopes down around the platform to create a crescent shaped indentation where the rest of the control stations can be found. The helm and auxilliary controls are housed in man-sized hollows sunk below the deck with lounge seating in the same theme as the captain's chair, and the handling panels folded over the legs for easy reach. The foremost edge of the bridge is a single open viewport that curves along the edge of the deck providing amazing visibility ahead and above, and is flanked by additional control stations for communications and other ship functions. Hanging from the main console is an old medallion that may be recognizable to some as depicting Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers.
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Aradia's attention is focused through the viewports as the ship lifts through atmo, the planet falling away behind them as it slips into orbit. Leaning forward, she lifts a hand from the steering column, her finger tracking across a row of data on one of the screens before she flicks a switch and taps several buttons alongside it.

Saienne doesn't interrupt Aradia's concentration as she guides the Grace smoothly into orbit around Sihnon. Rather, she waits at the threshhold to the bridge, one hand gripping onto the hatchway tightly in case of sudden movement. She makes enough noise, however, that her presence should not come as much of a surprise to anyone - unless that someone's focus has gone past mere concentration to something a little more transcendental. There's the gentle humming under her breath, for a start, and the familiar scritch of long fingers in stubbly hair.


Maneuvering through the mildly heavy traffic and bypassing the Federal patrols, Grace is set in the direction of Ariel before Aradia leans back in her seat, exhaling with a quiet sigh. Sitting for a moment, she leans forward again, studying the sensor display as she asks with a faint smile, "Going out or coming in?"


"Loiterin' with ill intent, I reckon," Saienne answers, with a smile of her own. "Unless you don't mind me joinin' you." She pauses to look through the viewport at the swiftly receding planet. "Ain't often a body gets to see Sihnon from this angle," she muses, "An' it ain't an opportunity I'm eager to waste." She takes a step forward, committing fully to entering the bridge, and says: "Don't reckon I saw you at the party, Captain. Did you make it there later?"


"You're always welcome to join me up here," Aradia says with a chuckle, gesturing to the seat at the console alongside her before she glances back to look to Saienne with a shake of her head. "No, didn't make it at all," she replies as her gaze turns forward through the viewports again. "I really, really needed a bath," she offers by way of explanation.


Hatch's figure comes down the hall and through the bulkhead door in relative silence, tendrils of conversation reach him as he walks but he's really not up for leaping into that conversation at the given moment if judged by the mild scowl resting on his features. He settles himself down into the comm/sensor console and starts to power it up as he usualy does in flight, spending his time tracking movement and stray radio chatter for anything intresting.


Saienne grins crookedly at Aradia. "Don't reckon there's a better reason for missin' a shindig," she says, nodding. "An' I must confess I didn't stay too long, neither. Got myself nicely caught up with Robin. Ain't seen her since before Christmas, I do believe." A pause, and she turns to watch Hatch as he settles down at the comms console. She regards him for a quiet moment, then resumes: "Nearly died of shame when Bishop arrived - although, to be fair to the man, he was at least wearin' trousers, an' I reckon the conversation was too loud for his comments to cause too much offense."


"It was rather nice," Aradia says, turning her hand palm up to study her fingertips as she adds with a grin, "I think I'm still a bit wrinkly from soaking for so long." Tilting her head to look to Hatch, she greets him with a cheery, "Good morning to you too, Hatch!" before she turns back to Saienne with a quirk of her brow. "He did at least put on his fancy duds, didn't he? I didn't waste my gorram time getting them for him so's he can waltz around in his underpants."


As the console headphones settle half around his neck, the other perched at an ear so he can listen to both goings on at the same time. "Morning Princess." Hatch responds with as much warmth he can manage, even going so far as to offer up a half smile before turning his attention back to the console before him.


"He was wearin' clothes, certainly," Saienne says with an impish smile. "I don't reckon I would have described them as fancy, exactly..." She looks down at her own slightly shabby and travel-stained attire. "Mind, I ain't the best judge of fashion there ever was, ain't it so." The smiles shifts from mischevious to wry, and Saienne finds herself a seat somewhere out of the way for the landing. "Saw Lucinda havin' an' interestin' time an' all, an' Josephine dancin' the evenin' away. An' Sirah seemed entirely in her element." A pause. "Sander, on the other hand, entirely out of his."


"Sounds like it was a right grand time y'all had," Aradia says with a faint smile still on her lips, the conversation tapering off as she turns to concentrating on bringing the ship into orbit around Ariel, navigating through all the proverbial red tape of identification, authorization, manifest codes and finally docking assignment. The landing by comparison is uneventful as the ship touches down.


Hatch has his portion of the joy with the comms, helping out Ara with the stranglehold of landing window position and red tape from ground side that allows them to land. He's relatively efficent at what he's doing as usual, but is not nearly as talkative at the given moment.


Saienne twists the silver ring on her right hand absently as the surface of Ariel comes up fast to meet them. She watches through the viewport as they skim over the city's surface to find their assigned berth, staying quite silent until Hatch and Aradia have negotiated the maze of bureaucracy and the Grace has settled gently on the dirt. "Grand time'd be right," she says, finally, picking up the thread of the conversation. "No drama or shootin', neither, just music, wine an' good company." A pause. "Mostly good company, anyhow."


"Mostly good? Sounds like there's a story there you ain't telling," Aradia asks with a small grin as she shuts down the power to her console and then turns to look toward Saienne expectantly, her elbows propped on the armrests of her chair and her fingers lacing together in front of her.


"Really there ain't," Sai says, a little regretfully if anything. "Just Bishop's hookah comments, Lucinda an' her Companion gettin' a mite friendly, an' a few folk stumblin' a little on account of too much of the weed an' the wine." She grins. "Truth be told, I wish there were more of a story - it'd give me somethin' more substantial to witter about than the state of my toes after wearin' those gorram shoes again."


"Go barefoot or wear somethin' long enough no one'll know you got boots on underneath," Aradia suggests with a chuckle, letting her disappointment at no fantastical tale to be told slip away with the shrugging of her shoulders. "Count your blessings I didn't find you when I was on the Apollo," she goes on to say, "Where there were Companions crawling out o' the woodwork and rich and fancy folk for as far as the eye could see."


"You, Captain, are a veritable fount of wisdom, ain't you? No one'd ever notice boots pokin' out from under that dress." A beat. "Make it easier to run, an' all - last party, back on Persephone, Robin an' me developed the theory that dresses an' skirts were invented by men who didn't want their women runnin' off." At Ara's comment about the Apollo and her Companions, her grin broadens. "Good gorram, could you see me hitchin' a ride on that floatin' palace? Fish out of gorram water, don't you reckon?"


Laughing, Aradia says, "My theory is that skirts were invented because they're easier to hitch up than pants are to pull down." Shrugging, she looks down to herself and then up to Saienne as she asks, "'n you figure as I was belonging there anymore 'n you?" Shaking her head as her laughter subsides to a quiet chuckle, she says, "I still curse Gabe out for ropin' me into it."


At long last Hatch clicks and powers down the console, hanging the headset nearby. He reaches out for his coffee mug with a sigh, "I'm pretty fond of skirts myself." He adds in on the side as he starts to walk over to the front of the bridge to look out over the bow.


Saienne looks at Aradia with serious dark eyes. "True enough," she concedes. "It does seem somewhat incongruous now I think on it." She smiles lop-sidedly. "Mind, we take the jobs we get offered, ain't it so? Sometimes it ain't wise to decline an opportunity." She glances over at Hatch. "That would be the liftin' of not the wearin' of, I'm guessin'?"


With a wry smile, Aradia glances over to Hatch and then back to Saienne as she says, "He was told, with rather no room for argument that he didn't have the legs to pull off wearin' a dress, which I guess technically includes skirts."


Hatch's only reply to the conversation is a mild smile and a rather non commital shrug as his coffee cup comes up to his lips, and he finds a place to lean upon the back of the comms chair. Though after a moment he does lean down to pull up a pantleg to display a calf.


"Is that so?" Saienne asks Aradia. "Ain't that interestin'." As Hatch reveals his calf, Saienne raises a hand to her eyes to shield them. "Good gorram," she says in mock-horror. "Ain't we got enough flashin' of flesh on our hands with Bishop?" She peers through her fingers. "Although they ain't entirely unattrative, Hatch." A pause. "Must be your knees." She looks at Ara. "It's his knees?"


"Ain't takin my pants off." Hatch states arather clearly as the mug comes down again, "You missed your shot at a that some time ago Sai." The big fell states walking forward to make a shot at giving the womans shoulder a squeeze, "Anyhoo not like your missin all that much ask Ara."


Saienne peers at Hatch again, frowning a little so that her crowsfeet wrinkle deeply. "My shot at what? At your knees?" She shakes her head. "Ain't no bother to me, honestly. An' besides, I wouldn't dream of crossin' Josephine." A pause, and she grins up at him crookedly as he squeezes her shoulder. "Not even for your knees."


"I dunno, they are some pretty nice knees.. it's the legs that I was told." He pauses near the exit to the bridge and lights against the door frame for the time being, "Ohh what was it, he's got legs like a beagle? I hardly recall really but it was damn funny at the time."


Saienne chuckles a little at the thought of Hatch's legs being at all beagle-like. "If it's any consolation, I ain't got the most elegant of legs neither." She looks down at her trousers. "Best to keep such things hidden, ain't it?"


His shoulders come up slowly, "I am the wrong person to ask... as appreciation of the female form is one of the stronger points of my existance, sadly my perspective is more artistic in some respects." He looks out the window as he contines to consider things, "Still personality has alot to do with the situation.." In the end he shrugs, "Comes down to each there own."


"It really ain't somethin' I think much on," Saienne says, easily, twisting her silver ring. "But I expect you ain't wrong." She glances out of the viewport also. "Ariel," she says in an exhalation of breath. "Not my most favourite of locations. Always feels too..." A pause, while she thinks for the best word. "Clean. That's it. It's too gorram clean."


"Honestly Sai, ain't much that really feels like home to me aside from the deck under my feet here. Why do you think on those long trips you catch me sitting out outside of the OB window making Ara craze now and again that I'm using my suit for recreation. I just like to sit and look at the black, look out over Grace, think." Hatch nods to his friend and smiles a shade, "Thats home."


Saienne listens thoughtfully to Hatch's comments about the nature of home. "Ain't you got somethin' there, an' all." She says, nodding. "I don't expect I ever thought I'd think on any place but the farm as home, but the solid truth of it is I ain't even seen the pile of sticks an' mud in... well, a long time." A slightly sad smile is offered back at Hatch. "Since before the war, anyhow, an' that might as well be a lifetime." She wrinkles her nose. "Most like there ain't nothin' familiar left." She waves her hand in a vague gesture of dismissal. "Oh, there's Maire an' all, but she's more likely to bawl me out for forgettin' Josua's birthday or not sendin' enough credits back to cover Camille's schoolin' than she is to tell me she's missin' me." She leans back against the bulkhead, the metal cool through the thin cloth of her shirt. "So I reckon I can understand a little of what you're sayin' about our Grace." A beat. "Although I also reckon you can keep your habit of sittin' outside the hull for yourself. I ain't quite that much at peace with the nature of the Black." She grins crookedly.


"Eh, I been spacing for along time myself Sai. Just as comfortable here standing inside the ship as I am walking across it or floating on my own out there.." Hatch's crooked grin warms a bit, "I really don't expect anyone to be joining me in that, but it is awful pretty. There is a whole lot to see out there, it's diffrent when your looking at it from a bay window and being out there.. you know?"


"Ain't never got used to the cold of it, Hatch," Saienne says, evenly. "Quite content to be zippin' through it in any kind of tin can I have to - but that close to my skin? It ain't somethin' I'd go out of my way to do." She watches him, listening as he explains why he enjoys it so. "I expect it's peaceful, an' all. Nothin' to keep you company but your breathin'."


Hatch chuckles, dipping his head as he stands upright and starts to walk about the bridge slowly. "Well unless I bring someone with me, it's me. Grace, and everything.. not a whole lot of nothing, a whole lot of all that there is to look at, and you realise your part of that." His eyes drift to the roof of the cabin, "Puts things in perspective sometimes, other times makes me feel like a tiny little speck.. either way your right, alot of quiet and time to think."


Finished with some paperwork or what not that she had to tend to, Aradia glances up, having listened in on the conversation with half an ear, looking toward Saienne as she asks, "Do you reckon on Grace as a home, even if y'know, you were just kind of along for the ride so's you could do your couriering when we first met?"


Saienne looks up as Aradia speaks, meeting her eyes and frowning just a little. "I surely didn't mean to," Sai says, unsmiling. "Hell, I been skippin' footloose an' fancy free across the 'Verse for nearly a decade now. I didn't plan on settlin'." She looks around at the bridge, familiar shapes and spaces, and sniffs. "Only you folk reminded me of what I was missin', I reckon. What I lost in choosin' the path I chose." A pause, and her frown deepens. "An' I suppose I started movin' forwards again, instead of standin' still." The frown breaks into a crooked grin, and she glances at Hatch. "Figuratively speakin', of course." A beat. "An'... if you're startin' to think Captain, that I ain't movin' forward in an actual enough manner, then you should just say so. Cargo hands ain't exactly hard to replace, after all."


"Well I reckon we stopped moving forward for a wee bit, then were gonna move up.. and forward again as thats the back of the ship." Hatch motions stern before he peers into his empty coffee mug with a shade of annoyance crossing his features, his mouth twists in dusgust before he sighs. "You know, all those scifi holos where they had ships with thingies that could just whip up coffee and poof there it is.. rubbush."


Blinking at Saienne, Aradia then looks to Hatch brings a hand up to rub her brow as she shakes her head at his comment. Looking back to Saienne, she says, "No, no I was kind o' hoping the opposite. That you'd be inclined to want to stick around more." Drawing a breath, she says, "You're already doin' more than a cargo hand 'n you're as much family to me as anyone else on Grace, Saienne." She pauses a moment, thinking before she starts to speak again, "Truthfully, I ain't never had enough money to know what to do with it or how to handle it and when I did, I had someone else to handle it, and Hatch don't have much of a mind or care for that side o' things either." She glances toward the man in question and then back to Saienne, exhaling with vexed exasperation at herself, "Oh bloody hell. What I'm trying to say is if you're willin', I'd like to have you as umm..." Looking back to Hatch, she asks, "What do you call it? Next in line o' command? Second Mate? Is that right?"


Hatch settles his mug aside and slips his hands into his pockets, "No I'm not much buisness inclined she's right." He shrugs his shoulders a bit, and walks around over to stand beside his captain. "I can't really think of anyone better, you've got a level head on you and have alot more years in then most here..hell, I'd trust you at my back and thats why Ara hired me on. It sure ain't as I'm pretty."


"Future ain't ever easy to predict, but I expect those holo directors din't have in mind our grubby little 'Verse when they were thinkin' on how folk from the future might make coffee." She waves her hand in the air. "Bet it wouldn't taste no good anyhow, coffee brewed from a rearrangement of atoms an' the like. Surely ain't goin' to be anywhere near the tar we got settlin' down in the Commons." She starts to listen to Aradia again then, nodding as she mentions sticking around. "Well, it was my notion that I'd do just that, if you weren't against it..." At the family comment, she falls abruptly silent, closing her mouth and, for once, just listening. Her mouth drops open again, though, when the job offer comes. "Good gorram..." is all she says to begin with, as Ara finishes. Then a frown and a long pause. "That's... a real fine offer..." She begins, then stops, her crooked grin breaking out full force. "No it ain't. It's a fong luh offer. You sure you din't sit a little too long in the bath...?" She looks sideways at Aradia. "If you ain't pullin' my leg, Captain, I reckon just about nothin' would make me happier." She looks up to Hatch now. "That's real good of you to say, an' all." A pause, and she regains her composure somewhat. "An' I don't know - you ain't entirely awful lookin', Hatch."


Smiling, Aradia shakes her head and says, "No, well yeah, maybe I was a little long in the bath but that didn't have nothing to do with what I'm asking you." Looking to Hatch at her side and then back over to Saienne, "I just reckon as you do a damn fine job o' filling in where Hatch 'n I ain't." Clearing her throat as she grins, she adds, "There's a twenty percent pay raise," which is amusing in and of itself because no one gets paid anything really and if Saienne finds she wants to drink extra coffee and eat a second helping of dinner, who's going to argue?


Hatch rolls his eyes a bit as Sai comments but just has to chime in as Ara speaks of a raise, "Yeah Ara, me and the rest of the parliment voted to double our pay rate and benifits package last week, figured we should tell the royals sooner or later. Whats double of, nothing, plus whatever comes down the road that I'm happy with?" Yep he is making a bit of a joke again yet his eyes remain upon Sai waiting for her answer to it over all.


"For once in my gorram life I ain't entirely sure what to say. I really appreciate... everythin', I reckon." She looks between Aradia and Hatch. "An' I'd be proud to work with you both - proud an' pleased as punch an' all." She leans forward then, holding out her hand for Aradia to shake, looking a little embarrassed at the whole thing. "An' I expect there's somethin' useful I could be doin' right about now..." She says.


Smirking, Aradia looks to Saienne's hand and then up to her as she gets up out of her chair, holding her arms out to either side of her. "We do have that contract to finalize with Lady Pearle," she says with a grin, waiting for her hug and not letting Saienne get to work until she gets it.


Hatch raises a hand to his brow, indeed waiting his turn as it may be along side Ara. He continues to grin, "Aye, a contract and I've got a crew to pester.. a couple of tasks I still need doing also. Hey this means I can go on vacation... someday when I feel like it."


"Oh, hell," says Sai, reading Aradia's gesture for what it is and standing to meet her, letting the offered hand fall to her side. "Family's right, ain't it?" She hugs them both, then, and shakes her head at Hatch. "I may be half-decent at runnin' a business, but I ain't never looked after a ship, so I don't reckon vacation would be wise..."

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