TEST DRIVE #1 - Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

You know how you were standing there, back in your home world, just minding your own business?

Time to forget all about that.

Instead of doing whatever the heck you were just doing, you're standing in the middle of this very stylish, sedate barroom. Happily, you're not alone there - in fact you're surrounded by people who seem to be as confused as you are...and some of them look a little, well unusual

Now would be a great time to do....well, something. Ask some questions of the person nearest you, throw a fit, stage a coup....maybe do a little exploring? No matter what you do, you're going to be here for a very long time.

For others might call it the USS Enterprise, but for the foreseeable future, you'll be calling it home.

[OOC: this test drive's open until the next app period.]

Comments

[queenofmay]

Marian's not quite sure she likes being looked at so closely, but she understands why. Especially since Acre; and Milliways immediately after Acre. And even if she's not fond of it, there are a few people, less than five, of which Kate is one, that she'll let do it. Let look at her, even for a second like they might be appraising if she's really there, in her own face, behind her own eyes.

But she is relieved it lasts only the space of a breath before Kate is hugging her. Because the hugging at least she doesn't hold her breath to find out if they are right, and she might be gone. She can just gently press a hand to Kate's shoulder and breathe in the familiar leather, dust, and horses all the way down into her heart, and mean it even more when she smiles when Kate steps back. She has missed her so.

"Good. Things are good." Ambergeldar is good. Caspian and his boats and his sister and her tiny, beautiful children who have Caspian's heart wrapped around their little fingers. And she's. Well. Finding her way. One step at a time. Slower than she thinks anyone wants. But at least there are steps. Even if she has to remind herself of that more than them. "And you? How have things been?"

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate's had to find her own way through more than enough trauma in her still-too-few years. If the others concern themselves with how slowly Marian comes back to them, Kate almost certainly never will. Marian's been there through some of Kate's more self-destructive years. They share that bond, if nothing else.

"Well 'nough. I always envied folk who'd talk of sailing the stars, seein' distant worlds, an' discoverin' new things the way Lewis an' Clark did. Now I'm here."

She laughs, a little helpless and a little thrilled, all wrapped up in the same sweet song.

"Takes some gettin' used to, don't it?"

[queenofmay]

Not as much as fears many there might take, but there is something sweet and acknowledging to the way she tips her head. It's definitely new, and unexpected. But it has a handful of blessings to it already, that she appreciates. "I'd say."

Though, she can add, without any need for lead. "But where exactly is here?"

[ikissdhimbck]

"Gracious, where's my head at?"

She laughs a little, shaking her head, and gestures to any of the empty tables around them. If Marian would like to sit while Kate explains, they have some options.

"T'be honest, I ain't been here all too long. What I know is we're on a ship, not unlike what sails the sea back home. We jus' happen t'be somewhere up in the heavens. Space."

The final frontier.

"They call her the starship Enterprise."

[queenofmay]

"Starship," Marian wonders over the word, giving the room a look again.

A few seconds longer on the window she and Caspian had looked out earlier. Before she nods at Kate's gesture toward the tables, as sitting wouldn't be entirely amiss in new circumstances. It's strange, and different, but that's at least something she's gotten some aplomb with after the last few years and the end the universe.

It doesn't make it comforting, but it doesn't make it something to panic about instantly.

Especially as Kate is nowhere near any kind of reaction to the sort either. "Rather like Mal's ship, but larger?"