trans_9 | Sooo...Meet-y

Her own fingers caught his elbow so he did not wind up sprawled in an undignified heap with her atop him. Such would not be a good way to start off one's stay, surely. Arha peered at him and her smile broke freely.

"There is no damage. You see? I remain whole," she murmured, her words just loud enough to cut through the noise. "It shall take a greater force than being bumped to harm me." She squeezed his elbow gently, the warmth of her fingers tingling slightly with a gentle nudge of mental reassurance and comfort.

It was a relief to be greeted with a friendly (female) smile, Gaius had to admit, and there was something about her that made him feel instantly much more at ease. (Though saying he was actually relaxed - well, he wasn't sure he ever would be again, given the news he'd just received).

"Good... that's good," he said, searching for something more productive to say. "Ah, are you one of the crew here, or also... just arrived?" He paused, then added in a lower tone, leaning in slightly: "Which it occurs to me just now seems a very overly politically correct way to say 'just emerged from some kind of freakish alien pod, naked and covered in what appears to be alien snot'." He smiled wryly.

"Mm, I have been here some months," she said quietly. "The memory of, as you put it so well, being 'just emerged from some kind of freakish alien pod, naked and covered in what appears to be alien snot' is a thing which I shall not forget. Sadly, the tentacles were as nearly unpleasant as this 'alien snot' business."

Her eyes crinkled slightly as she flashed a grin.

"There could have been worse times to arrive. You did not come with those in the last podpop. There were things that were dead and biting and walking. I fought them along with many who are here. But, for the moment, we are safe and there are no undead things. And I do not think there is any decent way to explain podpop besides...well."

She gestured with a short sweep of her hand and shook her head.

Months. That was a bitter pill to swallow. She'd arrived here the same way he had, and had been here for months.

So there was no end in sight for this either, it seemed. One tireless journey to follow another.

Well, at least not all of the company would be bad, it seemed.

"Undead... things," he repeated, trying to suppress his innate incredulity. But dammit, he was still a scientist. It was going to take quite a bit of time before he was willing to throw out all the rules of physics, chemistry, and biology that he knew just because he'd been thrust into some sort of interdimensional melting pot. "Yes, shame I had to miss those."

He finally stuck out a hand. "Dr. Gaius Baltar." He could have tacked President on there, but given everything that had happened, that was one title that he thought he might be perfectly content to simply dispose of at the first opportunity.

"Yes, quite the shame," Arha said, taking his proffered hand with a surprisingly firm shake. "And I am Arha Masaari. Pleased to have collided with you amidst an insane amount of chaos."

A frown marred her features for a second then melted into something decidedly apologetic.

"I am sorry I did not have more pleasant news for you. But, you must not lose hope, mm? We may yet be able to get our Universes back and that is a good thing to cling to when all else seems dim."

Or zombified.

And crunchy.

And...well...insane.

"A pleasure."

Was there anyone here who didn't possess some kind of frighteningly powerful death grip? Alright, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but he was feeling less manly every second.

"Yes, the Captain said something about possibly...reversing the damage," Baltar acknowledged, though his expression did not look particularly hopeful. "But as for clinging to that particular dream, well... let's just say, some people's universes may have been brighter to begin with than others."

"You came from a troubling time?" she murmured, gesturing with a slight incline of her head. Walking was always good and there were the squishy meat seats, should he wish to sit, but mostly, it was the walking that facilitated conversation. Arha blinked up at him curiously.

Something of a near-manic choked laugh escaped his lips at that word -- troubling. Such an understated description. As they walked along, beyond clumps of new and old arrivals, he shook his head slowly.

"Troubling, yes. In that a race of beings that we humans created and then set free came back and wiped out almost of all us. 12 planets worth - probably over fifty billion people. There were less than fifty thousand of us who escaped originally, and the numbers only dwindled from there on. I've spent the last couple years of my life amid the tatters of society, while we've alternatively been running from or fighting off the Cylons. And just when we thought we'd found a place where we could stop running, they found us again. Took over completely." It was so much easier to explain that way, so much more impersonal, as if he were just another victim of all of those grand circumstances. Instead of what he really was - a key player of both cause and effect in almost all of those events.

"And you? What was your, ah, world like?" he asked, glibly.

Arha listened, tucking her her fingers around the crook of his arm absently and her expression fell as she took his words in. Twelve planets of people, destroyed. Such a thing was horrible. A horrible thing beyond any she could imagine. And then to be found and taken once more?

Ah.

It was not a good thing.

She leaned her cheek against his shoulder in silence for a long while. There was nothing to say to that. Nothing,really, that would help. One's Universe was what it was, for good and ill both. When she spoke, her voice was slightly strained, but smoothed into a soft lilting pattern as she spoke.

"I come from a desert world where sand stretches as far as the eye can see, broken only by rock formations. There is a stillness when the winds are not blowing and sometimes, if your ear is sharp enough you can hear the rumbling passage of Shai-Hulud, the Great Maker, the sandworm. I am Fremen, a desert creature as much as the worm is. My home will be no more, blown away by an enemy five thousand years after I have perished at the end of a knife. This I know, now." She paused for a half step, then kept moving.

"But I remember my home as I left it, the scent of bitter cinnamon in the air and the muted roar of the sandworm in the distance. When all we know is gone, we have memory to sustain us."

If there was one language of comfort that Gaius spoke fluently, it was physical contact, so he was strangely relieved at the easy way in which the woman engaged in it with him. It allowed him a small measure of feeling like himself again.

His hand moved to cover hers resting on his arm, as he listened to her side of things.

It was difficult for him to imagine the kind of world she was describing: he'd been born and raised on a world known for its fertile lands, fit for agriculture, and the only other planet on which he had lived was covered in sprawling cityscapes.

"A very different world than mine, I must say. We were all cities and technology, and cars, and strip clubs." His mouth twisted into a shadow of a smile. "I can't say I've ever even seen a desert. Had you ever been on a ship before?"

He wondered if she were referring to the destruction of her world at the hands of the Ohm, or if there was something ,else that would end it.

Her description was so vivid, that he almost thought he could smell the edge of cinnamon in her hair, when he looked over at her. There was probably wisdom in her words, about the importance of memory, but the magic of it seemed somewhat lost on Gaius at the moment. Fifty thousand humans had remained, relying on their memories of how things should be done in an attempt to maintain the society they had come to know and feel a part of.

Now all but one of them were dead anyways, all those memories left on his shoulders. He felt them tighten, as if it were a tangible weight. He lightly moved his arm around Arha's waist, because he almost felt as if he could use the support.

"Yes, well," he said, eyes scanning the strange floor of the vessel as they continued, "while I agree about the importance of memory, I imagine that at times a few drinks to blur the edges into something a little less bittersweet isn't asking too much." After a moment, he added, "There is ambrosia here, isn't there?"

"I was on a ship but once, a great hieghliner. Something went terribly wrong when the guildsmen began to fold space and time to get us from one world to the next. I...do not know how I found myself on Arrakis, my desert planet, but I woke in the middle of the desert. Everyone on that ship died save for me--this is what shipping records indicate. The matter was buried, my name lost. And I?"

Arha's smile was soft and she did not object to his arm, for he had much weight to bear and she was sturdy. The walking helped.

"I lost myself and found myself in the sands of a world that became my home and my destiny. I have never seen a world of technology save for the one Luke Skywalker has showed me within the Sensoriums. I shall show you those. I do not know if you may find your ambrosia there, but so long as you do not mind that the intoxicating effects are limited, it is a possibility. As to alcohol with substance, such is not a question for myself. I metabolize such things very quickly as it is and," she waved, the Fremen equivalent of a shrug, "it does little more than have a peculiar taste or bite."

Her fingers rested on his wrist, warm and soothing to take the edge off the darkness that was there in thought.

"I am a homeless child, forgotten as time moves forward. I know my future on my world and it is unpleasant, but sometimes we must do things that mean our own demise if the future has any chance of becoming realized. It is amusing, though. I find myself here, in this place, with my dear friends who are Jed-Eye, with a descendant of my own from ages in the future, and it is more of a home than I had before." Her laughter escaped of a bright tangle of sound.

"In many ways, this place we find ourselves is a good thing, though it means yet another terrible thing has happened." Arha shook her head at the statement and let out a breath. "Everything will be as it should be and one day, I hope, we shall all know a measure of peace, mm?"

Edited 2009-12-02 14:46 (UTC)

"You mean you were stranded there, entirely alone?" Baltar asked, obviously shocked at the notion. No wonder there was something so tough about this woman: he'd chalked it up to her being of a completely different culture (and... species?) than he was, but this made even more sense. "How did you survive?" Not that he hadn't heard cases of extraordinary survival stories - even seen some much more firsthand (Captain Thrace included), but still. The world she spoke of sounded so desolate. He imagined that if he had been in her shoes, he wouldn't have come out quite so steeled by the experience.

They might both be survivors, but she struck him as one who had managed to live because she fought to do so. He, on the other hand, had been compared to a cockroach by more than one person on occasion: it just seemed that no matter what he went, events aligned to keep him alive. And there wasn't much he wouldn't do, generally, to keep it that way.

He was more than a little disappointed when she mentioned that their only alcohol was something without much of a kick to it. And then realized it was probably horrible of him to be mourning the loss of ambrosia from the galaxy more than he was mourning individuals who had perished.

It just seemed much harder to grasp that everyone he had ever known had ceased to exist, while ambrosia was something solid to imagine what it would be like to live without.

Arha, meanwhile, was on about something called Jed-Eye, and more of this time-space-dimensional talk that seemed to blow everything he'd ever believed out of the water. He decided to concentrate instead on the simple and pleasant sound of her laugh, and the warmth of her body pressed next to his, instead of letting his scientific brain try to analyze and rationalize what appeared to be completely irrational.

"Peace, yes. That doesn't seem like too much ask, given what we've both -- all," he corrected, "been through."

"For the most part of a decade, I remained alone," she said quietly. "I built my own dew traps to collect moisture, I caught what I could find to eat, I prepared my own food, and meager as the existence was, I survived. There were times in which I had no water, no food, no comfort, but the desert provides these in plants, in caves, in the kill of a creature that might ease the hunger, tame the thirst. In moments where I thought this desert world might claim me, I kept moving and refused to die."

She glanced up at him, her curl of a smile wry.

"I did not know what rain was until recently and before I became acclimated, the humidity of the place made me ill. There is no open water on my planet, none at all. I was lucky and found a small underground cache, enough for myself and none other. Had I not found it after seeing it in a prescient dream, I should not be here at all. After my first year, that is when I found it, and the cave became my home. It was day to day survival still, but I did not lack water, and I rode the great sandworm, Shai-Hulud if I had a distance to travel. I traded my water for food supplies when I passed the great Fremen Sietches if it was absolutely necessary."

She squeezed her fingers against his wrist gently.

"It is possible to survive anywhere, you just need to want it greatly. It is living that is difficult, that and retaining your own sanity. Contact helps and anchors you. Talking, too." She let out a breath of a sigh and the corners of her eyes crinkled slightly. "As for peace, Gaius Baltar, you must cling to it in the moments you find it. You must cling hard and long and when it passes, you will hold to the last wisps of it until it finds you again. This is all that can be done."

"Extraordinary," Gaius said, shaking his head in amazement. "Extraordinary what people are capable of in dire situations." For both good and ill, he reminded himself. "But I agree that it's a matter of willpower." And pure dumb luck.

He could feel Six's eyes on the back of his head. She was walking behind them, glaring at him, and he knew why, knew the words she wanted him to say: that they survived because God willed it so.

Well, he wasn't feeling especially happy with God right now. Or her, for that matter, because he was certain that comment about 'broadcasting' had something to do with her in the first place.

"And I certainly agree with the importance of contact," he said, with a little smile thrown her way, merely in the hopes of irking Six. "Thank you, by the way, for the kind welcome."

"You are most welcome," she said, arching her eyebrows slightly. "This day is difficult enough without a what kindness I have to offer those who arrive. For some, this transition my quite possibly be a great trauma indeed. Adapting to the wash of new information and circumstances does not need to be overwhelming. My advice is to not rush, to walk the corridors, to pick out your quarters, to get a feel for the ship and what she has to offer. If this is too much all at once, I advise proper rest and do so until you cannot sleep any longer. It will reorient you."

There, again, was the tug of a smile.

"If you have need of me, I am easily located and will probably be training with Obi-Wan Kenobi if I am not in meditation here or in the city. You will find most eager to direct you should you become lost, but exploring has always been what puts the layout in my own mind. I think it comes from being nomadic much of my life."

"Obi-Wan," he repeated, committing as much to memory. "Very well." They'd reach the edges of the group, and he glanced back, trying to spot the Captain among the crowd.

"I think I'll take a quick jot about for the time being, nothing too far. I promised someone I would meet them back here, after everyone has dispersed." He stopped, squeezing his hand over hers again.

"Those devices they provided to us seemed like communication devices, is that correct? Could I contact you on that?" he asked. It would make things much easier, than him trying to muck about locating some one named Obi-Wan.

"Yes, you may contact me using such a device," she said with a bright flash of a grin and a quick, gentle hug. "I shall be prompt upon answering, as is my custom. I wish you well in your wandering, Gaius Baltar, and welcome once again to this place. I am pleased to have met you."

Arha withdrew to crowd wander and left Gaius Baltar with as much comfort and peace as she could give the man. This place was not so terrible as it was strange and she had a feeling he would adapt well enough. Arha knew anything was truly possible upon a ship such as this. After all, she was Jed-Eye, was she not? Stranger things were bound to happen.

Sooo...Meet-y

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