[013] On to Damkina

[SpinwardMarch]

Cmdr. Taheri

Ayanda walks quietly into the breakfast room, gets herself a cup of (real!) coffee, and sits down at the table, not too close to Vee and Larry. She is wearing a typical Foix house military uniform with the appropriate markings for her rank. Fancy dress is not her thing; she had been in the Imperial Navy for long enough.

She feels if she has been dropped into the middle of a play, without a script, and is awaiting a briefing on the general situation. And so does the player! She is confident she will be helpful in whatever her new superiors will assign her.

Roll to train in laser rifle to lvl1: 11
[1d6] = 5 [1d6] = 6

[Ramona]

“The important question,” Ana asks walking into the dining room wiping sweat from her body with a towel, she’s wearing a tight exercise top, yoga pants and track shoes, “am I under dressed or is it a casual breakfast morning?”

“Feel underdressed, I mean seriously do all of your quarters come equipped with a valet?”

She grabs a cup of coffee and some pancakes, bacon, sausage, toast and some scrambled eggs before sitting down. “What? Girls gotta eat.”

[SpinwardMarch]

Cmdr. Taheri

Eat up. No, I do not have a valet, just years of military training. She give Ana a small smile and returns to contemplating her coffee. She get herself a full breakfast, if it is being offered. Real food is appreciated, after 12 years of Navy food.

[Ramona]

Ana chuckles, “It is hard to get out of your system isn’t it?”

She sticks a piece of sausage in her mouth, “It was always mud and blood and dust and dirt on our end of the stick,” she nods towards Foix, “crisp uniform wasn’t high on my priority list.”

[Leitz]

As the table filled, Larry gave each new person a smile and a "Good morning." Being the FNG ("Fantastic New Guy"), he grabbed a carafe or two and various pastries for their table. He seemed used to it.

However, besides coffee, since Vee and Gauvain hadn't gotten their plates, he waited to get his own food. Better to flip to a new page on his notepad and draw out a few more ideas.

[SpinwardMarch]

Cmdr. Taheri

(to Ana)
Yeah. I was more in the hardware and operations department, keeping ships running happily and dealing with enlistees. Like this:

"Cmdr. the XYZ isn't working right. What should we do?"
Have you tried resetting it?
"No, Commander."
Well, do that first, and if it still doesn't work report back.
"Yes, Commander."

She looks at the ceiling and sighs, then goes back to her coffee and breakfast.

Even in the far future, sometimes rebooting is necessary.

[Ramona]

Ana smirks, "Glorified tech support, well if it makes you feel better I'm probably the girl who broke most of that shit you needed to fix."

She reaches out to take a glass of water and you notice a line of runic black characters on her right bicep that weren't there the night before, there's also an angular wolfs head in profile on her left shoulder, and a long line of geometric symbols down the length of her spine. A number of the symbols on her back are cut in half by that long scar you noticed the night before. There's a handful of what look like bullet scars on the left side of her back.

"So did you give any though to dividing our efforts to collect some intelligence on the Foix core worlds?" Ana asks fiddling with a purple crystal pendant hanging around her neck.

[Tiglath]

Joining the company wearing a simple linen short sleeved shirt and khaki trousers Foix smiles and says “Smart turn out Commander. There is nothing at all wrong with being carré on base. However, my limited understanding of naval warfare is that if things suddenly become “untidy” on your ship it’s because all that should be outside - is now inside? That's too swift a resolution for me. We soldiers prefer to draw the whole process of “untidiness” out for as long as we can”.

Foix acknowledges Larry and thanks him for coffee. Oddly he doesn’t seem do it because it’s appropriate or somehow necessary - he just does it instinctively. He then simply takes a seat just as he would in the mess with comrades, sets down a plate of food apparently selected entirely in the moment and sets to demolishing it with gusto. He seems to have particularly favoured black pudding and delights in the availability of “Le Boudin”.

He continues voicing his thoughts “Ana has it right – although perhaps my memory is more selective. I found Lorissia was a constant variation of dirt and mud but the siege at Hessia was always dust. Blood followed us everywhere”.

He replies to Ana "As to splitting our force - a minimum of two weeks communication lag is too much for me. The low intensity nature of noble warfare means not getting there, as one Terran general once said, fastest with the mostest - but just getting there fastest. If we have heard nothing of regime change even now then I am minded to drive on the core worlds incognito and seek out a decision directly”.

[Ramona]

"Lorissia was rain, endless rain and mud, you managed to have one of the only CP's on that rock that was above water," Ana's eyes fall to her breakfast and she puts her fork down, "gods I hated that place and Hessia," she flexes her fingers on her right hand into a fist and then relaxes, "ya Hessia that was..."

He replies to Ana "As to splitting our force - a minimum of two weeks communication lag is too much for me. The low intensity nature of noble warfare means not getting there, as one Terran general once said, fastest with the mostest - but just getting there fastest. If we have heard nothing of regime change even now then I am minded to drive on the core worlds incognito and seek out a decision directly”.

"Everyone has weeks or even months of communication lag Foix, it's the nature of the beast. How many times did you get dispatched somewhere to find out that the situation had either resolved itself or turned into a complete and total shit show before you even got there?"

She pushes the plate away, "Not hungry suddenly, I, I should go get cleaned up and dressed. Something fitting..." There's an emptiness in her voice as she gets up continuing to clench and relax her right hand.

[Leitz]

Larry smiles, and scribbles. His eyes do rest on Ana's decorations, but only for a moment. Awareness, without judgement.

[joertexas]

She pushes the plate away, "Not hungry suddenly, I, I should go get cleaned up and dressed. Something fitting..." There's an emptiness in her voice as she gets up continuing to clench and relax her right hand.

Vee looks to Foix. "Perhaps I should find Sara."

[Tiglath]

Foix, already scanning the room for Sara, immediately nods curt agreement with Vee. Then, keeping his voice level, he simply makes a statement to Ana “Hessia was a bad siege in a bad war. The defence of "Beatrice" on Lorissia wakes me up some nights but Hessia is always there – sometimes I can taste the dust again. Your action in the breach broke the siege, saved the city, its population and the Legion and Imperial troops within it. I was there - we both know it to be true”.

He continues more passionately "Most of all it gave people hope - and bought them time. Time for you and I to hold back the falling night!"

[Ramona]

"I have been fighting since the day I was born Foix and I am really, really good at it. I will never give up and I will not fail you but the things I have done, just to survive, to keep my men alive. Did you know I killed my first human when I was 8 or 9, he was trying to strangle me and I stabbed him in the throat with a jagged hunk of metal as I was blacking out." She looks out the window at the manicured lawns and even rows of trees down the sides of the formal garden. "You know the egg heads will tell you that people in low-berths do not dream their brainwaves are to low or that they can not go into REM, it is bullshit. I have spent decades sleeping, trapped inside my mind trying to put that little girl on Lorissia back together, you remember the one. It was what 20 years ago for you, it was yesterday for me."

"Please, you can talk about whatever you want just please do not bring up the past. The horrors that exist there are etched all to clearly in my mind."

[joertexas]

"Please, you can talk about whatever you want just please do not bring up the past. The horrors that exist there are etched all to clearly in my mind."

Vee steps out and goes to find Sara.

[Tiglath]

Foix replies softly, gently “I know you will not fail because you are you. We carry things that others can not. The terrible burden of victory, of being alive, is that we carry those memories and why I carry the roll of Legion dead on my back. Whether it is the horror resulting from refugees running a checkpoint or the dead man I’d just killed trying to take me with him on his bayonet - we carry that. We also carry the memory of one bright soul in the breach making a difference amid the horror – and making it stop”.

“I believe we have both seen the same horrors – drowned in them. Nightmare dreams try to make the past the present but they can not do it. Only we can do that. Only I would do that! You carry your burden bravely still - but I cheated mine. Do you know what truly scares me now Ana? The fear that when I was too weak and Lysette Eloise used her gifts to lift the horror from my mind – she took it into hers and I thereby created the monster she became!”

[Ramona]

"Great, perhaps she and I should just hug it out and have a good cry together while drinking some tea and complaining about men," Ana shrugs, "you might want to be at least a sub-sector away when we have this chat."

"Foix, I have been a monster since the day I was born, I have known it all my life and I will not apologize for it, no one ever apologized for making me like this. Just because I know what I am, does not mean I have to accept it. Lysette, she became a monster trying to do the right thing for someone she loved and that is the tragedy here, she took away your demons and in turn they consumed her."

"I suppose she and I have more in common than we would like to admit."

Ana walks out the door and heads towards her quarters and hopefully Sara.

[joertexas]

Ana walks out the door and heads towards her quarters and hopefully Sara.

Vee nods respectfully as she goes by, and, seeing her probable destination, aborts her mission to find Sara, and returns to the dining room. "I hope Sara is stil in their quarters."

[lenusmars]

"I've trusted a lot of people with my life Sara, never trusted anyone with my heart. Just seemed like a good way to get hurt in my old job and given my habit of taking long naps." Ana wipes her eyes before taking Sara's hands in her own, she looks into her eyes and smiles, "I trust you Sara."

Sara stands, bathed in the light of the large window in the gallery just outside her and Ana’s quarters. She’s dressed once again in the fairly utilitarian clothing she’s comfortable with. There’s a smile on her lips as she stares dreamily through the the glass at the spot outside where they shared that moment last night.

Sara’s own eyes were a little watery too as she reaches up and cups Ana’s cheek, a big smile on her face. “I love you so much, Ana.”

Sara goes up on her toes, and gives Ana a warm, lingering kiss, then hugs her, her head tucking under Ana’s chin. “You make me happy.” She whispers.

She hadn’t gotten up to exercise with Ana, moaning sleepily about “groundhogs” and “why does terrestrial gravity have to suck so much” while vaguely listening to Ana laugh at her. She couldn’t stay asleep long after her Ana, and her warmth, had left the bed, though.

The slightest noise catches her attention and she looks down the hall to see Ana. Her soft smile grows as she goes to meet her. “Good morning, baby.”

Seeing the shadows in Ana’s eyes, she touches her arm, concerned. “Hey...What happened?”

[Ramona]

Ana heads into their room, grabs the bottom of her exercise top and pulls it over her head, "Nothing, everything, Foix." She tosses the top and her bra into a corner in frustration.

"He ... ugh ... he is such a self-righteous smarmy git, understanding everything and yet nothing, all at once."

She turns to look at Sara, "He was there Sara, saw the same things, did the same horrible things and it eats me. Do you know what he did? He gave that pain away and so the one person who was there, who could understand can't. He dredges up the past and then can't understand why it affects me so."

"I need a shower, I just... I'm a monster Sara, the things I've done," Ana looks as though she might cry but Sara knows Ana won't let herself, not where anyone can see her, "why do you love me? I mean I don't deserve anyone's love for the things I've done."

[lenusmars]

Sara follows her back into the room and closes the distance between them as Ana talks. She wraps her arms around Ana, her fingertips brushing the rough skin of her back, and holds her firmly, her cheek on Ana's sternum, despite the sweat still on Ana's skin. In Sara's opinion, Ana hasn't been held nearly enough in her life.

"Oh, honey," Sara says, her voice soft. "I know that you saw and did terrible things. As much as I want to, I can't tell you how to feel about them. But, in my experience, Monsters don't feel shame or guilt for what they've done."

She pulls back a tad, not letting go, to look up in Ana's eyes. "And Love? Love is a gift, Ana, not a wage. You don't earn it by being some paragon of virtue. Deserve has nothing to do with it. Look, I've made my way in this universe by trusting my instincts. And my instincts... my heart, tells me that this" She squeezes Ana a bit for emphasis "...this is right. It has from the moment I met you. Trust me."