It's nice to get a chance to relax together

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Meluly had gone along cooperatively with Katara, following the girl to her room. Getting along so well has left a little skip in her step, and she slides the door behind them shut before momentarily claiming Toph's bed to perch on the edge of, watching Katara with a vague, pleasant expression. Her body language is halfway tense, halfway languid in odd increments, not quite sure of what she wants, but happy enough with anything that comes along.

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[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara tried to not make things awkward. She was happy to have a friend over especially someone she could actually get close with. When they were both in the dorm she gave Meluly a hug and sat her on Toph's bed.

Katara gave her a smile and sat in a cross legged position. "So..tell me about Lafiel."

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Meluly absently stretches, wiggling in place. It's like watching a cat. With the subtle self-awareness she has in public half-dropped, more leg and thigh and collarbone show than usual as the dress-wrap shifts around on her.

"Well, for one thing, she's technically an 'Empress'."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara notuced and giggled good naturedly. She really does like llike them two.

"What else is she?"

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

"A starship captain. It's interesting... their technology is so ahead of ours in some ways and so behind in others. They actually have crew positions for stuff that we've run all automated for a generation now."

She wiggles over, so she can lean against Katara a bit.

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"I've met a Captain, actually, but you know him already, Captain Picard," Katara said, stroking Meluly's hair. "Technology is so fascinating to me, but I don't know if I like the price paid for having it. More wars, more fighting, complexes people have about how good they have it over somebody else. It's amazing that even with all of that innovation, people still can't try to stop themselves from becoming monsters."

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

"Sentient nature doesn't change," Luly says with a little sigh. "It's just the same things on before on a bigger scale. But better technology means there's less to fight over. That doesn't keep people from fighting, but if you want to play the odds, you have to make it so it's not a need." She twists to look up at Katara. "And sometimes having that technology is the only way you can survive at all, if a threat from something else shows up..."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"I think I can understand that," Katara said, "Although what I don't like is the arrogance that comes with having all of that technology. I know it can be used to help people: I've seen people on the ship use it to try and help other people. I've also seen people who try to act like having all of that technology makes them better than someone else who doesn't have it. It's just unnecessary. I mean, we could all learn a lot from each other, don't you think? Me learning from you, you learning from me..."

And here she snuggled next to her.

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

"Mmm-hmm," Meluly says, and wraps an arm around Katara. She wiggles, moving to lie next to her facing her rather than just lean on her, pulling Katara along with her. "But if those people didn't have technology as a reason, they'd just find something else. It's always just a justification."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"I know," Katara said, but its a little harder for her to have a sad face when the girl who likes making her blush is snuggling next to her and looking at her. "Sometimes all you need is a desire to crush things under your feet is all you need. With the right kind of power, you can do anything."

She put her head on Meluly's collarbone, sighing, then smiling. "Things will just get worse from here. Better to take the moments where its calm, if only for a little while."

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Luly squeezes Katara against herself, taking in the scent of her hair. "I haven't had a good cuddle like this in a while. Thank you, Katara." Her fingers trace little absently patterns across the back of Katara's plantsuit. "I could almost see you as a one of my people if you were a little more open," she says honestly. "You've got the mindset for it."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara smiled. "I honestly think you're one of the coolest women on the ship, Meluly. I could never do this with anyone else, male or female, unless they were Aang. I want to know more about your culture, it seems much more free than anything I've known. I could never be like this on my world: we rely on rules, on strict sense of duty, on whatever family we have. It;s a nice life, but there are times when its too much, and shouldering all the things I have gets....burdensome. I'm so lonely sometimes, and all I can do is train, or meditate, or pretend to smile."

And here she nuzzled against Meluly's neck, breathing her scent too. "I wouldn't mind learning more about your people. They seem to be full of wisdom I'd never know."

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

With her lack of a plantsuit, Meluly is a little earthier than most of the crewmates; her kind don't sweat so easily as most humans, but going through the ship corridors always leaves her with at least a little perspiration.

"The best wisdom we'd have is that you shouldn't do what you do just because somebody else tells you that. We're—we were—" and her voice breaks, for just a moment, "—r-remaking ourselves."

The enormity of the situation and her role in it hit her again, suddenly, and she clings a little tighter to Katara.

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara doesn't mind the smell of sweat. In her line of work, its just something that happens. With Meluly, her sweat wasn't bothersome: if anything, it proved she was a hard worker, just like her.

"You're right about that, but I was one of the few people who believed that. Everyone preferred to just believe what they were taught: I didn't."

When she saw how effected Meluly was about her people, she held her closer, almost lovingly. "Tell me about it, if you can."

[and, in the morning]

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Meluly is an early riser, when it comes down to it. If she's not the first to wake, she's probably an early second, but even once her eyes are open, she stays twined in against Katara. Sometime in the night, she got one of her legs hooked between Katara's, and her toes rub against the girl's leg absently.

But there was that other girl... She twists a little to glance at Toph in the other bed, her red eyes gleaming dimly in the darkness. "I wish there was a damn sunrise," she murmurs.

Re: [and, in the morning]

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Twenty minutes later, Katara signed gently, waking up to the prodding from the other woman's toes. When she fully opened her eyes, she saw Meluly was still in the bed, wrapped around her, and grinned. She actually felt a lot better than she had in awhile. She looked over at where Toph was still in bed.

"Morning Meluly," she said, giggling at the tickling. "Do you want to exercize some today?"

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

And Meluly feels better, too. Even with her grumbly little complaint about the lack of natural light, having someone she likes to (platonically) sleep with has gotten her more relaxed and pleasant-feeling than she has since that little time spent in those hot springs in the Sensoriums.

"I always exercise," she says, arms wrapping around Katara and rolling to pull her up on top of Meluly, so she can squeeze her extra-tightly for a moment. "Lights on or off?" she mumurs. "I can see fine either way."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara laughed and hugged her back. "Me too. I like to keep fit as long as we're still stuck here. Wish I could get some more bending scrolls though. Ah well. I usually like the lights on though."

She disentangled herself from Meluly(begrudgedly) and started some of her yoga stretches, careful to make sure that she didn't pull anything.

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Meluly slides over, half-stretching, and flicks the light back on, then settles back into a cross-legged position, completely uncaring about her own nudity. It isn't an assumption that Katara won't care (after all, Toph is still in the room, and Luly doesn't know about her blindness); it's just that the thought that it might be an issue literally hasn't entered her mind.

She waits long moments watching Katara before starting her own stretching... and almost inhuman stretching it is. The bending and twisting she's casually showing off, without even being properly warmed up first, would be the envy of any well-trained acrobat or contortionist.

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara did pause in her stretching to watch Meluly. Of course, having seen her naked before it didn't bother her, but she had certainly never seen anyone able to do stretching like that, so she had to stare.

"Wow," she said, "How do you do that? If I trued, I'd probably dislocate a few limbs!"

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Meluly pauses in the middle of a pose (http://girldujour.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/contortionist.jpg) that looks like it should be distinctly uncomfortable, but she isn't having any issues—her expression is still fairly placid. "My people are more flexible than humans, it's a genetics thing. And I've taken a long time to get better than most."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Katara said, shrugging but still thinking it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen. She finished her stretching and then without warning started to do several small flips. The room was too small for her to do anything too big, but she leapt a few feet in the air and then finished up with a waterbending move minus the water. She did this for fifteen minutes, starting to build a sweat, and finally finished, sitting on the floor cross legged, sighing, her eyes closed.

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

"I'm okay," Meluly says as she starts doing quick sit-ups on the bed, putting the kind of effortless effort into them that shows a long time spent building up the muscles for it. "There are people who do better." She stretches again, twisting around to do some push-ups. "You said something about wanting tattoos like mine?"

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"Not anyone I know," Katara said, and rose from her meditative position, walking over to Meluly. "Maybe one day it might be possible for me though, who knows?"

She grinned. "Yeah. Are they permanent?"

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Luly says, reaching with wiggly fingers to grab one of Katara's hands and pull her onto the bed. "Got it all done in stages. You learn to block out the pain after a while." She twists, tapping at her right shoulder. "I had to get this whole arm redone in uni, actually, when they replaced my arm."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"Pain?" Katara should have figured that would be involved, but she wasn't really afraid. Still, if she was going to have markings that lasted forever, she might as well get one in a less obvious place. But the part where her arm had to be replaced was something that stuck out in her head.

"What do you mean, arm replaced?"