ten_fwd_ooc | TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

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test drives

TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

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.

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She grinned, a twist of her lips. "You know something," she said, leaning back on her heels, resting her palms on the pommels of her daggers in an easy pose.

"When the Hawklord decided to help me out instead of killing or arresting me, I asked the same thing, said the same thing. I grew up in the fiefs, no one did anything for anyone. Not for free. Few people helped even even if you paid them. So, when I broke into his office, tried to kill him... him the leader of the Hawks, one of the Lords of Law, I was sure I was a dead woman."

She wouldn't be saying this all to an adult she just met, but a kid... a kid who was a kid the way she's been a kid? So hurt, so sure that he was an adult, that the world was out to get him? Yeah, she'd say whatever she had to to help him.

"But he questioned me, talked to me, kept me restrained, yes, but he never lifted a hand to hurt me. I kept waiting for the knife. It never came. If he was nice I would have been sure he was up to something, but... he wasn't nice. He was firm. And when I asked why? When he said he would help me find a place to live, I asked why, I told him I had no money."

"He already knew that. But he told me that as the lord of Hawks, it is his sworn duty to help those in need. His pay didn't come from me, but it was a job, all the same. He was paid to help people, to punish criminals who needed punishing, to take care of those who needed care. And, as he pointed out, all my crimes, except the ones against him, were outside his legal jurisdiction. So long as I stayed in the city, stayed on the right side of the law, I had a blank slate. A fresh start. A chance."

"I'm one of his Hawks now. I took an oath to help out kids who are in trouble the way I was in trouble. To try and save lives, even if I don't think some of those lives are terribly worth saving. To protect, to defend, to solve crimes, and help bring a little peace. I don't get paid by the people I help."

Gods, and she wasn't picky which ones, knew she often felt like she hardly got paid at all some weeks.

"So how much money you have, that doesn't matter. I found a home with the Hawks, one unlike where I had grown up...and I only had to cross a river. You... you're not even in your world anymore."

She smiled softly, a lot of the harness leeching out of her face, from her eyes. "A blank slate, kid. And I'm going to everything I can to keep you to the right side of the law. I want you to have a home, food, a safe place. I don't want to have to haul you off to jail. That would" do not swear at the kid Kaylin, do not swear at the kid, "tick me off more than you can know."

She shifted slightly, her bracer clinking softly against the dagger on that side. "I got a lot of help, more than you'll probably ever need, but even if I hadn't, I wear the hawk. I'm here to help."

"So... shall we see about getting you some gloves, and a good meal?"

She sounds like Dani Moonstar. 'Oh the Institute helped me so much. You'll find your place there.' And other such platitudes. She sounds like Emma Frost too. Not sugarcoating anything, but there's a thread there that he doesn't understand. He'd made a promise to himself in that cell. He isn't going to be pushed around by the seniors any more, or accept promises without some sort of collateral.

He knows better.

"There's no such thing as a blank slate." He knows that too. It's something else the X-Men taught him. "And I'm not hungry." Now, he's just being belligerent.

".....Not...... hungry."

The disbelief in her voice was so thick you couldn't shatter it with a pickaxe. She didn't care that his world probably wasn't hers, that he wasn't from the fiefs. She remembered that age, and she'd seen other kids that age. There was no such thing as not hungry.

"You want to stay that height forever?" she asked, arching a brow before the words could stop themselves from falling out of her mouth. But she did all her growing in the fiefs. In Winter in the fiefs. That's why she never did much of it.

"There are blank slates, legally," she said with a shrug that was all fief. Barren, not Nightshade, though she managed to not spit to the side. Just. "But what you went through, what ever it is?" she shrugged. "No, that will be with you forever. How people treat you because of it... that's half on you and half on them. You cling to that past, and yeah, you'll never have a chance to make a future that's any different."

"Of course, if you starve to death because you're being stubborn, you don't have to worry about the future at all," she said, crossing her arms under the Hawk.

Her sleeve rode up slightly as she did, though she wasn't aware that she was now showing the barest hint of an edge of one of her marks. A swoop of something so dark that it redefined the color black. It wasn't like the mark on her face, something about this was darker in a way that had nothing to do with pigment or hue.

He snorts. There's no way he believes her or anything she's selling at this point. Look at what buying into the X-Men - twice! - got him. Once, it made him believe he was accidentally killing the girl he liked, and then it got him arrested by the FBI.

Not exactly ringing endorsements.

"There's no clean slates for Rea- kids like me." The words are out before he can stop them. He can almost hear someone at the Institute telling him to stop thinking like that. At least he hadn't called himself a Reaper. He's still disappointed that that wasn't his codename.

"Been sold that already. Not stupid enough to buy it a third time." Twice he'd been that stupid.

"Rea?" She asked, a brow arching. She had no clue how he was going it finish that word, really.

"Stupid thing about hope?" she asked, "it gets it's claws in you and it keeps making you trust. Again and again and again and it hurts like..." kid, Kaylin, "It hurts worse than near about anything when that hope is destroyed."

"But the stupid thing about hope? About dreams? About people? Is that eventually we hope again, and we dream again, and we wait for the pain to follow. But here's the thing that really" *******! She wanted to curse so *******ing badly. But... kid. He didn't need useful words, not yet. Not when using them might be ain invitation to a fight he's not ready to hold up his end of... "That's the worst about it. It only takes one time for it to work, for hope to sit there like a smug little" if she didn't swear soon, she was going to explode, "to sit there, all smug, because of course it was right all along."

"Hope, trust, they're all words for pain, more often than not. And some people will tell you third time's the charm, fourth time's the charm, fifth time's the charm. Well you know what? even the worst archer will hit the target if he shoots enough arrows. That's how hope gets you. It just keeps shooting things at you until something sticks, then HAH! it was right all along."

"But you know what? Nothing good lasts forever, nothing bad lasts for ever. Everything changes, and if it doesn't change soon enough, we die. So... you don't trust or hope too much. Learn that lesson. Fine, I learned it. And you know what? Eventually I found people I could trust again, people I do still trust, and probably will keep on trusting."

"But you have no reason to trust me. And I get it. I'm not asking for trust you're not willing to give, and frankly if you trusted me completely from the outset, I'd think you were an idiot, or a rich entitled brat. You don't have to trust me, I'm not offering anything that big. Gloves that you asked for, food..."

"There is a difference between trusting someone, and using them. I'd rather you use me than die," she said bluntly. "And as someone tasked with keeping the peace, I'd rather you use me than steal from someone. You don't have to trust me, but if you need a motive for me, fine. I don't want you messing with anyone I agreed to protect. You can believe you're included in that or not, at the moment I couldn't care less."

"Right now all I..." she was interrupted by the rather loud sound her stomach made. A month or two in a place with ample food did not make up for years and years of starvation. "Fine, you don't have to eat. Come with me to get the gloves and you can watch me eat," she said, glaring at a spot over his shoulder, since she didn't dare look away from him to glare at her own stomach.

His mouth twitches. Honestly, her stomach growling reminds him that he hadn't been fed since getting into FBI custody. At the Institute, anything he needed, he could go down to the kitchen and beg some. Here... he doesn't even know where the kitchen might be. How do you cook on a starship? Is that what he's on? The starfield suggests it, but maybe he shouldn't jump to conclusions. He's still not sure he hasn't been kidnapped by Skrulls.

"I ain't a thief." He snaps out. He's many things, but he's not a thief. That's one line that he never crossed. that doesn't mean he's not going to use her to his advantage.

"Gloves first." Yes, he's making demands, but it's important. More important than food, anyway.

"Alright," she said with a nod. "Gloves first. Follow me, we'll get you gloves, and food."

She leaned back on her heels, quirked her lips and said softly, "I wasn't a thief either, until it was the only way to survive. Even then, we" ******* it! she had NOT meant to say "we" and that was visible on her face. "tried to take as little as possible. Just food. Just enough to not starve."

Barely. Some days she didn't think there ever would be enough food to keep themselves alive. And now that she was here, and there was food for the asking... she couldn't give them a mouthful.

People always told Kaylin that they didn't need to read her mind to know her thoughts, and they were right. Her face was a complete open book; the sorrow, the pain, the regret she was feeling, knowing that there was no longer any way to help them... no longer any need to help them... was visible and obvious.

Kevin's a little too self absorbed at the moment to read anyone else's face. Plus, the no gloves thing is still bothering him.

"I found a better way." Rather than stealing, he sold his art. Sometimes. Most of the time, he goes hungry, but that's okay too. He'd rather do that than steal. He can't get past that core morality.

"Where are the gloves?" He pushes himself off the window for the first time in the conversation and takes a step away from it. He tends to slouch, and tucking his hands deeper in his pockets makes it even more pronounced. Singed ends of his bangs flop into his eyes and he just watches her, not approaching, but at least not retreating any more.

"As I said, we have to get some. There are things called replicators, apparently they can make anything other than weapons, but so far I've only tried it for food."

She turned and headed towards her quarters, glancing back, to make sure he would follow.

He tucks his hands deep into his pockets and hunches his shoulders forward. But he follows her. He has no idea where they're going. Kevin has a bad habit of all but slinking next to the wall, to avoid people and make sure they are protected from his power.

He swallows hard when someone comes close to him in the hallway and scurries away from them, following her closely. When she steps into her quarters, he steps in behind her, keeping close to the door.

"So, we're expected to just live here?" And not find a way home?

"Not the first time I've fallen off the world," she said with a shrug. "Won't be the last."

She went to the replicator and had it reproduce a pair of gloves. She tossed them at him. "Doesn't mean we're not trying to find a way home," she said, arching a brow. "But as long as I'm here, I'm doing my part. And you want to know what?" she asked, sitting on a table. The small dragon like familiar moved to curl up on an end table near the door, watching him. "This place is a **** of a lot better than home. Do I miss some of the people there? Yes. Do I miss starving? Not a *****ing chance."

He's too eager. He wants the gloves desperately and that means that his power is eager too. It wants to touch, to feed...

He grabs the gloves out of the air and it happens. That slight pull, that gentle brush against the back of his mind that gives him the rush and makes it feel like it'll be okay.

Before he knows it, ash is sifting through his fingers, falling to the floor. Kevin stares at it, almost fascinated. "They need to be inorganic." His voice is rough and harsh. He looks up at the woman who brought him here. "The gloves. They need to be inorganic."

She blinked, staring at that for a moment before swearing up a blue streak. She glared at the bracer she wore, as if it had offended her. It lay there inert on her wrist, she scowled and looked up at him, swearing again.

"That's...not magic?" she asked, to be sure.

He blinks at the swearing. It isn't his fault! He can't help it!

"No, not magic." He swallows hard, and stuffs his hands back into his pockets. Now that he's fed the need, it's going to get stronger and he's going to have a headache later.

"I'm a mutant." That explains everything, right?

"No clue what a mutant is, kid, but so long as it's not magic, we're..." she broke off and started swearing again, shaking her head. She looked to the replicator trying to figure out how to get it to make non-organic gloves. Whatever the ****s that was.

The familiar stretched, yawned, and flew over to the replicator.

"If you bite or breathe on that," she growled warningly at the dragon-like thing.

It glanced back at her, chittered, as if lecturing her, then turned to the device and chirruped. A pair of inorganic gloves formed. Clearly looking smug, it flew to the table by the door and settled down as if making a nest for itself from the glass.

"I have no clue if these are better," Kaylin said, tossing him the gloves before returning to glaring at the familiar.

Kevin flinches when the familiar moves. He dislikes pets. They're too small, too vulnerable. The memory of the dog in the junkyard is still fresh, even if it happened a while ago.

Still, he reaches out and catches the gloves, waiting on that familiar pull, that something that says his powers are working.

... Nothing.

Slowly, he pulls the gloves on and takes a deep breath - his first since showing up here. It's relief, followed by fear again that she's going to realize how dangerous he is.

"These are much better." He flexes his hands slowly in the gloves. "Thank you."

She nodded, hesitated, held up the wrist with the bracelet. "I get it," she said flatly.

"What do you want to eat? I can't think of any food that isn't organic."

He doesn't understand what the bracelet means, but if it's anything like his gloves, then he understands.

Kevin sighs. Eating is just a hassle and a half. Sometimes, he doesn't do it, just because it's such a hassle.

"I can eat anything. I just... have to be careful how I eat."

She nodded and turned to the replicators. These things still amazed her. They weren't magic - she would know - but they just made food appear from nothing.

"A tray of meat buns, hot, beef," she told it, then took the tray and set it on a table somewhere between them. She claimed three buns, before stepping back.

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TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

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