trans_9 | Relaxation at its finest

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Relaxation at its finest

Here's someone you probably wouldn't expect to enjoy themselves on shore leave.

Cargn, being an Astartes Adept, never really took shore leave, just sabbaticals in between missions for training and meditation. But he could understand the importance and appeal for others, and he decided to take the time as a small indulgence he would allow himself.

So there he was, sitting at a table in an outdoor beachside cafe. A cup of tea in hand, he stared (as much as one can stare without eyes) out at the horizon. On the table before him was a dessert plate, with what appeared to be a half-eaten, multicolored, semi-fluorescent gelatin cube.

He seemed to look rather content. After all, this was the kind of peaceful world that practically could never exist in his own reality.

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"Not interested in branching out from goo?"

Cargn smirks slightly, nodding to his plate.

"They have an interesting selection. This one is rather bitter, but still pleasant."

"I think I'll stick to solid food while it's available," Ben said lightly.

"Your choice," Cargn says wryly.

"... is that alien Jell-O?" Ava asks, pointing to the cube of fluorescent multi-colored goop in a mixture of horror and revulsion.

"...It is possible. I am not familiar with the term."

Space Marines don't exactly get much besides combat rations to eat for the majority of their lives, let alone the fact that his reality doesn't even have Jell-O.

Ava had just assumed that Jell-O was a universal constant, like gravity.

"It's... gelatin, I guess. Made out of hooves, sugar, and artificial flavoring, and it's really kind of something I hope hasn't spread to other planets because it's gross."

Cargn picks up a small menu that was on the table and begins reading from it.

"'Gorakian Moonberry Paste. Made from the freshly squeezed pulp of the Moonberries harvested from the 37th moon of Gorak IV, noted for their bitter and sour flavors.'"

He shrugs.

"I'm not sure if that fits your definition or not."

"You strike me as the type who's not very used to relaxing, you know," came a gently teasing voice from behind him.

"You're lucky not to have eyes." A girl materialized from the air, sitting in the chair adjacent to him. "Mine are killing me. How humans can just venture off and be fine in all of this bright light and heat is beyond me. I'll take fog and smoke and ashes any day."

She brought the parasol she's purchased at a recent shop closer to her person, sighing. "Would this be what most call the calm before the storm?"

Cargn chuckles slightly at that as he turns to look behind him.

"I suppose you'd be right. My last sabbatical was...oh...about half a century ago, if I'm not mistaken."

"I suppose that would be one way of thinking about it."

"Really?" Nanoha blinked. "That's, er... a really long time."

Understatement of the year, there.

He chuckles again.

"I am rather long lived, my dear. Half a century for me would be about the same as a couple years for you."

"W-wow. That's a long time," she chuckles, kind of sheepishly. "But... a little rest and relaxation never hurt, right?"

"You look content, sensei," Miku piped up fondly. "May I join you?"

"I suppose not," he said, taking another sip of his tea. "You ought to order something. They have a rather...interesting selection here."

The glowing gelatin cube on his plate could attest to that.

"I'd be delighted if you would, my dear," he said, motioning to the chair across from him.

"Have you been enjoying yourself so far?"

"Yes, very much!" she replied. "I haven't been to the beach yet, though. I've been looking for a present." She was hellbent on finding something for Steve here. Who knew when they'd get the opportunity again?

"Ah, I'm sure you'll find something nice for your young friend," he says slightly teasingly with a smirk.

Don't think he hasn't noticed, Miku. He may not personally know Steve, but he's been observing the crew long enough to roughly guess at what their relationship was ~~failing at~~.

Et tu, Cargn? And here she'd thought she'd been doing so well ~~sneaking about~~ keeping her ~~fail~~relationship under wraps. Miku sputtered a bit.

"Ah... well, that is... I... I hope I do. What tea are you drinking?" she asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

He chuckles slightly. If even he could get her riled up, then she gets flustered way too easily.

"Ah, just some black tea. They have a nice selection, but I was in the mood for something simple."

Call it her social retardation at work. "Sometimes simple is best, a glass of barley tea would be perfect." Chilled, even! Hoping she'd detracted Cargn from teasing, she rummaged in her shopping bags. "And he isn't the only person I was shopping for." Just the most important and nerve-racking.

She handed him a medium-sized (to her) box. "I was looking for something for you, too." The cup (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/Sentralia/Chara%20Stuff/CargnCup.jpg) inside was bigger than it would be for a normal person.

"I can, er, see that." She's eying the cube with something not unlike trepidation. "Does it taste any good?"

All part of her charm, really.

Cargn opened the box, smiling slightly at the cup within.

"And here I am without something for you. That was very thoughtful of you, my dear. Thank you."

"A bit sour and bitter, but I like it," he says with a grin. "You, however, might prefer something a bit more...conventional."

"Why do this in the first place, after all of that information about the Ohm?" Alessa asked. "If you were to ask one of those paranoid humans, they might think this was a setup for something sinsiter, like lulling people intoa false sense of security."

She sniffed. "Not that its much of a stretch for some of these people."

"They likely would never be fully prepared for the Ohm before facing them in battle at least once, no matter how hard they trained or sought information."

He sighed slightly.

"Allow them their brief moment of peace. There will likely be too few like it in the coming days."

"I thought vacations were for trying new things," Nanoha counters wryly. "But you're probably right."

"You only live once, as they say. Though I suppose in my case it is one rather long life."

Cargn has always been the most adventurous among the Grey Knights. He was even the first Grey Knight to ever get drunk off of Fenrisian ale back when he was still an initiate (not that he'll ever admit it).

"It is. In your world, er... how long do people usually live?"

Alessa was quiet a moment.

"I don't care if most of them die. You know this. The more I see them in dire times, the more I'm disgusted by the nonsensical small things they cling to. Death seems to hold no fear for them, which makes no sense to me. I do not believe I will ever understand why you stand for them."

She was quiet again, for a little while. "Not that there are not a few that shouldn't be saved. A VERY small few."

This is an improvement.

"That depends, really," he said with a sigh. "I believe the average Hive City citizen lives only around 50 or 60 years. Nobles, due to the vast amount of advanced medical techniques they can subject themselves to, such as juvenat treatments, often live to be anywhere from two to four centuries."

"Most Astartes Adepts like myself don't live to see more than four centuries, though that is more from deaths in combat than old age. I myself have been blessed to serve the Immortal Emperor for nearly eight centuries, though a handful of others have lived longer."

"Call me an optimist, I suppose."

This from the guy who hails from the crapsack universe to end all crapsack universes.

"Oh." For a moment, the expression on her face flickers, though she herself wasn't sure whether it was at the idea of a world where the wealthy had such an extreme advantage over everyone else (who seemed fairly short-lived, come to think of it), or at the thought of a world where death in combat was more common than death from age.

"Your world sounds very... harsh."

"To say the least."

The average length of career for an Imperial Guardsmen from the time they set foot on their first battlefield to the time they drew their last breath was seven minutes. For the Eldar, the only two options that awaited them after death was to be trapped in a gem for all eternity or have their soul devoured by Slaanesh.

To say it was harsh was to say the sun rose in the east.

"My time aboard the ship has been the first I have ever encountered someone with such an...optimism as yours. It has been an enlightening experience."

Nanoha looked up again, managing something that resembled a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. "I'm glad I could have helped - with that, at least."

That got a small smile out of Cargn.

A peaceful world, one where the thought of death and war were far from everyone's minds, the type of world which could never exist within his own reality.

That was what he fought for.

"You have my thanks, my dear."

"These people won't be saved by just optimism," Alessa said. "It will take an event that will make them realize that the only option that have is to join together or die. The Nightmare King fiasco should have done that. Instead, people just do what they like, or distrust anything they've been told."

She shrugged. "Whatever is supposed to happen, it should happen soon."

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Relaxation at its finest

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