TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


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Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

[makesbettermouth]

The joke makes her wrinkle her nose. That's almost but not quite as bad as the stinkers Jake's lain on her before. The dolphins are likely safer here on the ship then, say, on some ice planet - small mercies.

At least the cat's broken through her panic loop. "Oop, hello!" She automatically scritches it behind the ear. "Yeahh, pretty much," she agrees. "I'm Amy," she adds quickly, "by the way...and I don't remember telling you that yet I'm so sorry," she babbles out.

[reincarnshaman]

Perhaps, but still, it bothers Trever.

OHhh... Hello Lady. Veena leans her head into her scritches, digging her claws into Trever's shoulder to keep her balance. Fortunately he's used to this and only makes the tiniest bit of a wince.

"It's fine. I'm Trever and the cat is Veena," he says easily. The babbling on the other hand doesn't bother him at all.

[makesbettermouth]

Understandably so; Amy's sole experience with dolphins are aquarium-related, living way, way north of anyplace where dolphins might be naturally sighted.

Amy notices, though - sharp detective observational skills and all that. "Oh my gosh, is Veena hurting you? I can take her - I'm great with cats, I had four when I was a kid."

[reincarnshaman]

"Nah. It's okay. It's just your standard 'you stupid human why don't you have wider shoulders?' claw dig. My shoulders are full of those sorts of scars, from cats, hawks, owls, crows...a mess of kittens."

However, since she is offering, Veena pushes off of Trever and jumps onto Amy.

[makesbettermouth]

"They let you keep hawks here? Or did you mean back home?" Amy's trying to remember if they had any kind of coop on the Enterprise back when she watched but her mind's drawing a huge blank so she decides not to proceed with that line of questioning - she has an armful of cat, after all.

...Which she hopes she's not as allergic to as she is dogs. Didn't think that one through Amy, didja? BUT THE CUTE IS WORTH IT. She just doesn't bury her face in its fur but there's so much gentle scritching.

[reincarnshaman]

"Back home. My aunt Maeve is a professional falconer. I help with her birds when I'm visiting."

She doesn't have an armful of cat. She has a puddle of cat. Veena has done that melty thing that cats can do where they just droop and purr.

[makesbettermouth]

"You have to tell me how somebody becomes a professional falconer," she says. Because she needs to grab this knowledge and store it away before Jake finds out how to do it.

A very soft, squishy puddle of cat. Amy's still being cautious as she gently pets the cat. "And how did you two meet up?"

[reincarnshaman]

Trever laughed softly. "We've always had a few birds at the Hall for hunting. Maeve just decided to go into breeding them. She goes to shows and competitions," he said. "We also call her a professional falconer because calling her professional Medieval cos-player tends to get a hawk sic'd at us."

Aunt Maeve has a fondness for dressing up in Medieval style clothing. She makes them herself and falconing seemed to be a natural extension of that.

Veena has curled her paws around Amy's arms, little gentle pin pricks indicating that her arm's health now lives or dies at the cat's pleasure.

"It was on a dark and stormy night - no lie - and I was walking back from class when I heard this tiny wee thing crying, half drowned in the gutter. I couldn't leave her there, now could I? She couldn't have been more than three weeks old at the time."

[makesbettermouth]

She gives him a quiet smile. "Has she ever won? And what do you do?"

And Amy winced, kind of expecting this - cats: whatcha gonna do? "She must be super-attached to you," Amy says. There's very cautious belly patting happening with the entrapped arm.

my cat is making it nearly impossible to write this tag. irony.

[reincarnshaman]

"Maeve's won lots of awards for her birds... and costumes. The birds are very much in demand for breeding or for their babies. As for me? I'm a vet." He nods his head towards the dolphins. "I'm hoping to be able to work with these guys. What about you?"

At The suggestion that Veena is rather attached, he has to laugh. "Yes. Yes she is."

Currently, however she seems to be content just purring and threatening arm gouging.

Hee

[makesbettermouth]

"Explains why miss kitty is so attached to you," Amy says. There's some mild cooing, she's fairly sure she's officially not cat allergic, so the petting continues along gently. "I'm in law enforcement," she says. "A police officer - I'm a detective!" She'd show him her badge but she can't because she has an armful of cat.

[reincarnshaman]

Yes. Okay. Veena will keep you human.

"Yes. And why I have so many interesting scars," Trever jokes. At the mention of being a police officer he gives a bit of a smile. His other job is sort of like being a police officer. "That's an important job. I am fairly certain no one in my family has ever been a police officer... my mom's side tends to be ... not exactly lawless but sometimes sees laws as an inconvenience as to what they believe needs to be done and my dad's is pretty much always government."

His father is king. They've held the throne for six hundred or so years now. So, that's government, right?

[makesbettermouth]

Amy's totally sinking into a kitty-related mellow at the moment. "Does she bite?" Amy wonders. "I try to do it as good as I can. Super-good," Amy adds, going into Cradle the Kitty and bounce-dance-her mode. "I almost want to say your family's kind of lucky. I have seven brothers and they're all on the force and I'm ALWAYS stuck competing with them."

Totally government in her eyes.

[reincarnshaman]

"Not any harder than she needs to," Trever says. Because asking if a creature bites was always silly to him. Any animal would bite if it felt the need to, some just felt the need to do it more often than others.

Fortunately for Amy Veena is used to being bounced about. Trever has five younger cousins, the oldest about ten, and so have done much worse to her than just bouncing. She just flexes her claws gently when it gets to be a bit too bouncy. Beyond that she remains as a puddle.

"You have a seventh son in your family too?" Obviously seventh son means something to Trever from the way he says it. Like a title or something. "My mom has seven brothers. Thirteen of them altogether. The youngest two actually a few months younger than my older brother. But I know the competition thing. We might have different jobs but we're still very competitive in other ways."

He laughs. "With thirteen plus three kids living together, competition is kinda default - even if most of the kids are adults at the time."

[makesbettermouth]

Amy gives an acknowledging nod. "Makes sense. If I wanted someone to let go of me I wouldn't be really gentle." The cat's not trying to kill her, though, so Amy presses on with the bouncing, careful not to go overboard and get too rough with it. She has nieces and nephews herself. Tons.

"Yep - seven plus me," Amy says. The mixed feelings she feels about this situation seem to radiate off of her in waves. She smirks. "Have you ever turned Thanksgiving into a triathlon?"

[reincarnshaman]

Trever doesn't have any nieces or nephews yet, but five younger cousins (the eldest being ten) which are kinda like nieces and nephews considering the age gap. In many ways the family is quite confusing.

He also has mixed feelings about it but more in the he needs to act like his dad's side of the family in public but really would like to act like his mom's. Considering how different the two families are -one believes diplomacy means shooting someone in the knee instead of flat out killing them for example - it's a hard balance to maintain.

"No. But we do run an obstacle course every year. You get points for style and finishing."

[makesbettermouth]

Amy would consider him lucky. She's always awash with nieces and nephews, always stuck with kids crawling all over her during family reunions. It's kind of fun though. Sometimes.

"How many times have you won?"

[reincarnshaman]

Yeah. Well, the littles - as Trever's five younger cousins are called - are a handful and a half. The five of them once managed to pull of a dessert raid in the middle of a fancy event they weren't supposed to be at with military precision. And that included the two year old. (It's amazing how much attraction streaking two year olds can attract.)

"Let's see..." he thinks a moment. "Well, since Rory got banned from competing in the timing part of the course, I've won a couple of times on time and last year we won - my twin Kale and I - for best style, came in fifth for timing though."

[makesbettermouth]

Amy would sympathize. She's woken up more times than she cares to recall with a magic marker mustache on her face. Kids are kids, no matter the time.

"That's awesome!" Amy enthuses. "I won the Jimmy Jab games back home a couple of minutes ago..."

She shuts up and pats the cat, realizing that this guy has no clue about her co-worker's made-up competition (which she totally happens to have rocked).

[reincarnshaman]

Trever's gotten that too. Plus jam covered kittens. There's nothing as fun as getting woken up by a kitten covered in jam sitting on your head.

"What's the Jimmy Jab games?" Trever does sound curious about it. They sound interesting... possibly involving jabbing, which is always entertaining.

Veena lets out a rumbling purr and then licks Amy's fingers. Good human. Nice human.

[makesbettermouth]

Amy's dog allergy's generally kept the rest of the family from draping animals all over her - in that, she's been lucky.

"This dumb contest one of the guys I work with made up." She may say it's dumb but her pride is obvious. "It's like an obstacle course."

She does shift her arms just a bit, so the one bearing Veena's minimal weight won't go numb from inactivity.

[reincarnshaman]

"Dumb contests are the best! We could use a few new ones back home. Especially if they're easy to cheat in." It's not cheating unless you get caught. And so Trever and family works very hard at not getting caught. Technically, as a prince, Trever shouldn't be cheating at all... but that just means he needs to work harder to not get caught at cheating.

Veena shifts with the arm shifting and starts to slide out of her grasp. This causes her to twist around and crawl up Amy's shoulder to flop like a towel over it, claws gently pricking her back.

"She likes you."

[makesbettermouth]

"You'd love the Jimmy Jab games," she said. "Unless you don't like expired chinese food...which I think everybody does."

There's gentle under-the-chin scritching for Veena. "Does she normally like people outside the family at all?" She wants to check and see if she's something of a fluke.

[reincarnshaman]

"Actually, I haven't had much Chinese food in my life. Blackthorn - the town I grew up in - didn't have any Chinese restaurants and so I've never really seen it as a food option, you know? Even after I moved out," Trever admits.

As for Veena.

"She's been funny around girls lately. Possibly eligible for dating girls, to be exact." Which is very irritating when you're trying to get a date and the cat just ups and dislikes them. "I don't know why."

Actually, he has a suspicion as to why, he's just not going to talk about that.

[makesbettermouth]

"Come to New York," she says. "We live off of it at the precinct." Why, she doesn't know. "I'm not even sure if the ship has one - but it's so big it has to, right? Maybe if you ask it nicely you can get some?" She's babbling. It happens. The paw holding her fingers gets rubbed. "Aww, she's flirting for you." The idea's too cute for words. Why can't she find a nice german shepherd willing to point her toward cute guys?