trans_9 | Some Culinary Research [open]

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Some Culinary Research [open]

There were some things Aeneas had to attend to before he could continue with his project. Mainly it was contacting the Command Crew and seeing if said project could even begin to be contemplated, much less be carried out; but there was also that matter of knowing his tools, figuring out what he had available to work with and how he could better use them, their functions, their compatibilities. Their tastes.

Thus was the reason for why Aeneas was in the Media Library, ten-foot bulk curled within a pod room as he rifled through the complex computer terminal nearby (how he managed to get it to work was beyond him—Aeneas had a natural affinity for finicky machinery it seemed). Images of Earth’s diverse animal classification system reflected off his visor, revolving around his head in neat circles, seeming to show what was going through his mind while he rifled through each kingdom.

This had, surprisingly, began over a discussion of fish. He was consequently looking for where they would fit in on this classification system, as a start. His feathers twitched as he located the name “Animalia”.

”This looks promising…” And also hauntingly familiar. Aeneas shrugged off that feeling and pressed the link.

He hadn’t closed the door.

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Nanashi was scoping out the ship, setting into memory every nook and cranny. She just so happened to be up to the Media Center at the same time that Aeneas was exploring the computer. The odd, artificial glow attracted Nanashi's attention. She leaned against the doorway, watching the strange words on the screen. She had never seen such devices, and frankly she missed the books she was familiar with. It seemed like these electric devices had all but taken over. Still, her curiosity drew her to them. She felt the need to know how she could use these for an advantage. Always she was looking for an advantage. It was either that, or pleasure.

The alien coiled tightly in the center of the room, though obviously facing the main screen and not the door, saw Nanashi possibly before she saw him. Funny how his peripheral vision worked that way; regardless, a few months of seclusion and the months before of traumatizing experiences had left him weary of unexpected visitors. Aeneas started noticeably and, flexible ears leading the way, swiveled around to get a better look at who was leaning on the entranceway.

He knew he should’ve closed that door. But the artificial lighting was similarly unnerving to be immersed in, and having a single human female curiously investigate his studies was infinitely preferable to being stuck in the glow of an emotionless screen upon organic material.

In a vague attempt to make her lose interest (deep down he was hoping she might stay for a while—he longed for the company, just not right now), Aeneas gave Nanashi a vague smile with his brow and a feeble wave with webbed hands.

“Hello.”

The quiet trill that actually emanated from the creature’s throat (but not his mouth, which remained unmoving) was considerably different than the polite tenor that it was translated into. Though, thanks to proximity to the translator core, the gap between the two exchanges was slightly less than usual.

Nanashi, who was anything but a human female, smiled politely, letting a bit of her fangs show. What an interesting creature, she thought. She noticed him, sitting in the centre of the room rather quickly, but she had heard his heart beat and his breathing.

Still, Nanashi was glad that the door wasn't closed. She had yet to see one of these at work. She took the greeting to mean that she was welcomed into the room and gracefully entered.

"Hello."

She sized up this new species of being. Probably aquatic, clearly intelligent, somewhat aquiline, and clearly alien, like so many other beings on this accursed ship.

"May I sit?" She didn't wait for an answer. She just sat next to Aeneas. "I am Queen Nanashi, of Kuninoryu. Who might you be?" Her voice was like velvet, and she spoke as if every word was in italics. Arranging her black cloak with the bright embroidered family crest on the back around her, she glanced up an met Aeneas's eyes with pale grey eyes that matched the intensity of her words.

Frankly, she was able to make everything about her seem important. After all, she had thousands of years of practice. How could she not perfect the way she carried herself.

Those telltale signs of life—the ‘heartbeat’ in particular—were just about as bizarre as the creature that created them, especially since one of them did not actually exist. That nigh constant, fluttering pulse, weak yet somehow ubiquitous within him, certainly did not come from any recognizable circulatory organ of human understanding. His lungs, on the other hand, were far more active, with the upper set going at a steady pace and the lower (yes, there was a second pair, connected and made up of several collective masses of pulmonary tubing between his back legs) passively collecting and exchanging what air was amassed, producing an underlying hum that could be detected by the unaided ear if pressed against his fur-covered abdomen.

This sense of weirdness was, however, not mutual. Certainly Aeneas could detect some bizarre pheromones (strong ones, too) emanating from her person, but this was no serious indicator of something bizarre. Even the fangs were dismissed; Aeneas had met plenty of not-quite-human crewmembers in his time here, and all of them, though different in some way or another, still classified themselves by their usual species distinction. Why this female should be any exception defied the alien studying her.

That is, until she introduced herself. There was an automatic clicking of mandibles as her title registered and the rallying call of the Hedon Alliance beat itself through Aeneas’s head, political speeches detesting the Empire’s monarchy burnt into what remained of his memory. He held nothing against Nanashi, of course—she was no queen here.

Regardless, the alien felt himself lower his eyes self-consciously. He was sheepish enough around less proud individuals of the opposite gender, let alone the ones that claimed royalty. Something about her eyes…they were oddly piercing. There was no arguing with her.

“A-Aeneas.” He jerkily extended one of those small, webbed hands, still glancing someplace past her head, “A pleasure to meet you.”

"A pleasure to meet you, your highness," she corrected gently.
A habit she had managed to swallow until now. It was something about how submissive Aeneas reacted that had brought it out. It was like he was asking to be manipulated.

Nanashi was not the sort of person who would be 'nice' and not take advantage of that.

She looked at the creature's hand for a moment. What a human gesture for such a non-human creature. She took the hand in hers and shook it. "And a pleasure to meet you as well, Aeneas."

Though a gentle reprisal, it wasn’t one that Aeneas took lightly. The Awesonians were nothing but persistent in their political views, after all, and after spending the first two years of his new life on their planet their habits were quick to rub off on him.

Not that he could react in any definitive way, or in any way at all for that matter. Nanashi had the bashful alien dutifully paralyzed with politeness and charm and, most of all, natural charisma. Aeneas let his mind bumble around for a moment longer as he continued to numbly repeat that trained human gesture, weakly shaking his arm as his lavender eyes gazed ahead, unfocused.

Suddenly he was speaking, a quiet but calm purr ruffling through unemotional feathers. “Excuse me, but highness of what?”

Instantly Aeneas was appalled with himself. He blinked hard, startled—too startled to pull back his hand or stutter out an apology. His conscious screamed at him as he waited for Nanashi to react and break the trance.

Nanashi laughed a light, tinkling laugh, "Of rank. Also synonymous with "greatness", though tradition indicates the use of 'highness'. It is a honorific used for royalty. 'Nanashi-denka' is what I was called in my native language, if you would rather that."

She was more than entertained by this demure alien who was too overcome by Nanashi to react properly.

Aeneas breathed a quiet sigh of relief, infinitely glad that his unintentional insult went over her head. He was so glad, in fact, that Nanashi’s words consequently went over his, and the alien was left dumbly nodding, entranced by her trill-like laughter and drunk on female human pheromones. She found him amusing, he found her fascinating yet terrifying.

It was the start of a beautiful relationship.

Shortly he regained a fraction of his senses, just enough to hastily pull back his trapped hand, where it stayed for less than a moment before it flew to his head and began nervously kneading an auricle.

Maybe she would leave if he was awkward enough. Alas, his brain obstinately disobeyed!

“—So what brings you here?” A horrified pause followed as Aeneas’s conscious self caught up to the impulsive one, “—Ah, Nanashi-denka. Erm.”

Though the name was still not quite being used right, she let it pass. It at least still made sense, even if it sounded odd translated.

"Tell me, little one, what is it that you are doing on this..." She gestured, realising that she was lacking a word for the display in front of them.

Unfortunately for Nanashi, that was the name she had specified—and Aeneas was all for formalities. She was, henceforth, Nanashi-denka, in all further references. Even if he did recognize the oddness of phrasing and placement.

His webbed fingers working away on that auricle abruptly gestured at the screen in front of them, greedily taking advantage of the opportunity to look someplace other than his human-like company. No matter that she didn’t answer his question, he could’ve cared less.

“This? Ah…I was just…doing some research,” Aeneas purred hesitantly, broad tail unraveling and giving several contemplative thumps on the ground, “Earth lifeforms and such…”

Nanashi leaned in, putting her hand on one of Aeneas's... well, it wasn't quite a shoulder,or a neck- whatever it might be called she gently leaned on him. She peered at the screen, reading off bits of it. She raised an eyebrow, "These are about fish, aren't they? Even more importantly, can you use this machine to find other things?"

Nanashi had quickly learned that she was behind on many things. Magic, science, engineering. The two things she could still boast were strength and swordplay, but that was not nearly enough for her.

There was a slight flinch, a brief ruffling of startled fur, but Aeneas (being the obedient ragdoll that he was) soon relaxed and provided a nice, warm place for Nanashi to rest her hand. A very warm place, actually. It seemed to flow off his thick pelt in waves.

“Erm…for the most part,” the alien blinked, somewhat caught off guard by her interest. Though it was obvious that she wanted to use this for other things—maybe she didn’t know how to use it? Well, no harm in telling her. “As far as I know you can look up anything in the media databanks from here, including music and video.”

And, dreading the answer: “…Why?”

Nanashi peered at Aeneas, trying to judge if he wanted to know for any selfish reason. No. Not this delicate creature. Still, half truth in some areas was probably still a good idea. "Well, I am terribly far behind most of the people here in technology. I feel that I ought to study to catch up. I would not even know what to call this thing, let alone be able to use it."

She left out that the technology she was most interested in was weapons. Of course, this was still just for the repair of the fascinating ships.

"Please, explain to me, what are videos?"

Don’t worry, Nanashi. Aeneas wouldn’t have pegged you as the warmongering type anyways; for the most part he just found her annoyingly diplomatic. Not that this was a bad thing.

This wasn’t the first time the alien had run into a crewmember that wasn’t familiar with a certain term or action, though most of the time it was in relation to his behavioral and anatomical traits rather than technologies. Aeneas was no less obligated to elaborate.

“Ah…” Instinctively he began rubbing his ear again, the other webbed appendage going to the computer console to find an adequate example. “…Well, a video is like a moving picture—made by taking still frames and showing them in succession, as to create the illusion of movement. Like this.”

By that point he’d minimized his previous search and had pulled up a new window, showing a frame-by-frame sequence of an Earth herbivore—a ‘horse’, apparently—running down a straight track. Once he’d clicked through the loop once, he let the computer take over and play it at full speed.

Nanashi stared in amazement. She had never seen such a thing before. "Amazing! Absolutely amazing!" Nanashi was familiar with the animal. "So, this is like a painting, but it moves- there are many different paintings displayed one after another to make the horse move? But how does it look so real? There are no brush strokes, no faults at all!"

Nanashi resisted the urge to reach out and try to use that machine herself. She did not want to break it. "You must tell me more." She wanted to learn as much about the machine as she could. Fortunately for Aeneas, Nanashi was a rather quick learner, so he would not need to explain anything more than once, and she could probably guess things for herself as she learned more about the basic concepts. Like pictures.

There were times for Katara to be engaged in training, and those days came by faster as she spent several hours a day sharpening her senses, whether they were physical or mental. When she was not doing that, or engaging in some random mischief on the ship, she would find herself in the Media Library, looking up some more knowledge about Earth and other home worlds that would fascinate her. By now she'd gotten the hang of words being on screens instead of paper, but that didn't stop her from still using paper and ink, in case she needed to jot something down.

When she happened upon Aeneas in the place as well, she gave a smile. She hadn't seen her friend ion a little while, she'd missed him. She walked over quietly until she was by his shoulders. He seemed to be engaged in looking up animals of a sort...and it looked like fish was one of them!

She was really going to have to stop daydreaming about the food back home. It tended to make her grouchy later.

"Hey Aeneas!" she greeted. "What are you up to?"

Ah!—a familiar voice! A familiar voice that had still managed to sneak up behind the paranoid alien, no less, but a familiar voice regardless!

Aeneas still jumped out of his fur. The startled, high-pitched trill that followed was quick to modify itself into hesitant, translatable speech, as Katara might notice.

“—H-hello!” squeaked the alien (one of his raised hands blindly grabbed for an auricle), “I am—“

At this point he actually seemed to register who she was. “—Katara! It is nice to see you again!”

After a few awkward moments of Aeneas’s bashful grinning, it seemed that he’d forgotten Katara’s question. Not that he wasn’t content just to see her again, of course. They could just sit there all day with pictures of various aquatic vertebrates flashing over the screen in front of them for all he cared.

Katara smiled and gave Aeneas a hug. she was starting to feel better already. She had always been very affectionate with Aeneas, if only because she felt like he a)deserved it and b) he would let her. She was wondering what had happened to Aeneas after all of the things he'd seen with the Nightmare King: she hoped he was okay.

"What are you looking up fish for?" Katara asked, looking over his shoulder. "Are you planning to learn different recipes to cook?"

Aeneas’s fuzzy torso went, as was expected, completely limp, his long neck and head draping over Katara’s shoulder. He was delightfully warm, and it was mere seconds into the embrace before his body began rumbling with a deep, happy purr.

Physical contact. That’s what he needed. The alien’s jumpy façade suddenly melted away, leaving him grinning from temple to temple. For the time that this resulting bliss flooded his brain, Aeneas remained loose and available for hugging purposes. “Hmm? Oh, I was merely—“

A pause as he realized that Katara had, predictably, hit the metaphysical nail on the head. “—Indeed. Research was required for some…”

…Ooh. Did he want to reveal this yet?

“…Long term projects.”

Katara was happy in Aeneas reaction: in a way, this helped BOTH of them. She may have been a fairly brave girl, but with memories cutting in and out of her, Katara had fell to a few days in quiet contemplation. She felt quietly homesick and pained all at the same time, but knew that every time she saw someone she cared about on the ship, it made it a little easier.

When she released the hug, feeling a bit warmer than usual, now interested. "Long term projects? With fish? Care to tell?"

Aeneas continued to smile, eyes wandering off to the ceiling through curved brows as he pondered—to tell or not to tell? That was, indeed, the question. Katara could be trusted with a secret, he was sure, but—but she was one of the ones that he wanted to surprise, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t that detract from it somewhat?

Eventually he looked back, feathers ruffling with his equivalent of a quiet chuckle. “Would you be angry with me if I decided to reveal it later?”

Katara gave him an exasperated look. "Of course I won't be angry at you! How could I be? What you do is your own business, and if you have your own reasons for looking up recipes, I'll just have to be content in not knowing. You're my friend!"

She shrugged, and started rustling through the books. "I have to start looking through things myself anyway. Have some leadership books I need to look though...have to try and get people interested in the Outsiders."

Edited 2010-06-12 22:50 (UTC)

Aeneas, almost without realizing it, wordlessly brought a hand up to stroke one of his auricles, muzzle coloring as he turned his gaze to the wall. Yes, he should’ve expected that reaction. He probably made Katara even more frustrated with him by suggesting doubt than by defying her, surely—but at least she wasn’t angry. Aeneas let her wander out to get some books.

Faintly he realized that there had been pictures of fish and accompanying information flashing on the screen in front for some time now. The alien figured that he knew enough general information about them to move on to something slightly more specific; turning towards the computer terminal, Aeneas selected the link to ‘cephalopods’.

At this point he realized that Katara was talking to him again, and that she’d…definitely mentioned something that he was not familiar with. Surely he’d heard about the Outsiders before, in passing conversations from the crew and from some comm system archive searching, but it wasn’t like Aeneas was all that knowledgeable about ship social and political groups regardless. Considering how long he’d been on this vessel, it was rather disappointing.

“Ah…Sorry. ‘Outsiders’?”

Katara hardly ever thought she could be frustrated with Aeneas: he seemed like such a grounded, inquisitive person, and whatever he was doing, he certainly was welcomed to that. It was only right he should be looking things up on his own time.

But she could never be angry with him, and gave him a friendly pat to reassure him.

Realizing that he too was uninformed about the Outsiders, Katara looked a little excited. "I want to try and get all of our members and new ones to join. When I first came aboard the ship, I wasn't sure where I fit in. I'd kinda made an enemy of myself, and people just didn't respond to kids in a way where I felt they were even equals. So I found out about this group called The Outsiders that operated like a family and would take in most anyone. Our purpose was to help other people who felt the same way on the ship, and build a group that would respect each other. I made a lot of good friends in this group. Our leaders are gone now...I don't want our group to disband, or be forgotten."

She sighed. "Not that I'm the leader, but I figure of someone else is, I can give them some advice, you know?"

Aeneas gave her a baffled sort of blink, cocking his head in disbelief. Katara? Unlikeable? How anyone could find her unappealing to be around was a mystery to this alien—especially since she seemed to have so many friends, or at least casual acquaintances. Of course she wouldn’t lie to him, either, so perhaps she just had a long enough time to rebuild her social status. Even then, though…

He nodded, deciding to let that previous revelation blow over in favor of the usual, blind agreement. And curiosity, of course. “Who is the leader now?”

She had made friends with people on the ship, but that hadn't meant she was free of people not liking her. Asuka for one, and then there was that time she had wondered about trusting Lex that had made Paco never want to speak with her. It had stung, but she had to get over it: sometimes, people simply weren't going to like her, and she should deal with that.

Katara looked a little flustered here. "Well...no one yet. Our leaders are gone, and so I'm trying to get all of the people who were Outsiders together, I don't remember our leaders now but I feel like I was friends with them, and I owe them keeping this club together. I wanted to keep The Outsiders together."

She had vaguely thought of being leader herself, but figured it should be voted by The Outsiders and no one else...if there still WAS an Outsiders, after all.

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Some Culinary Research [open]

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