trans_9 | Meet-n-Greet

He nodded solemnly, "I actually c-can't see m-my own, th-though m-my friends back home- they c-could do the s-same, 'c-cept their sh-shadow abilities w-were differnt- they've t-told me that I've got a pretty n-nasty one, t-tier four. Highest tier is f-five, an' th-those a-are the ones th-that have gotten so strong that th-they've... we-well, I f-feel bad f-for the people they c-come from. But, I d-do okay, I guess. I c-can keep it f-from g-getting ta tier five, an' that's r-really the important thing."

He realized something and held up his hands, "B-but most people d-don' normally a-always have a shadow! I-I, w-well... I'm jus' a-always a-at least a bit s-scared, so m-mine sticks around. B-but it won' attack y-you or anythin'."

Tavros looks a little concerned. "But... it hurts you, a lot apparently. Can you not, um, eat your own?"

Alex shook his head again, "N-no." Looks like he was going to get into the dangers of eating a higher level shadow anyway, "B-besides, when a sh-shadow is this strong, an' has b-been around f-for this long it really b-becomes a part of you. Th-think like a plant, th-the larger it is, the deeper the roots are, an' the more damage y-you c-can do b-by ripping it out. If s-someone where ta e-eat it, th-then there's a d-decent ch-chance that I-I'd... w-well, I don' know i-if I c-could r-recover."

He looked up, realizing that they were in front of the Media library now. He didn't seem to be particularly avoiding their previous topic, but he had no qualms about changing the topic now. "Ah! This is th-the Media Library. It's g-got basically the ship's version of c-computers, an' lots of b-books an' movies an' shows, an' a f-few video games. B-basically, it's media the ship has taken o-off planets before the Ohm g-got to 'em." The way he said 'the ship' seemed to show an obvious distaste. Most people called her Stacy, and some even with a certain fondness, but Alex seemed to hate to have to mention that they were on Stacy in the first place.

"I-it's not too much further to m-my room now."

Plant analogy accepted, Alex. Tavros gets you. He also gets your apparent distaste for the ship, though he keeps his comments to himself. The whole burst of motherly love thing at the beginning had been basically lost on him anyway, even though he knows he liked the feeling.

"That's kind of nice, uh, having a block by the media center. Not too far to go for things."

And onward to his first look at a human respiteblock!

Alex nodded with a smile, "Yup! It w-was a g-good stroke of luck, ta find one. I-it's sorta hit or m-miss, t-trying ta find a f-free room. An' I didn' wanna intrude on a-anyone who was already s-settled in somewhere."

He opened the door to the room and turned on the light. One bed was unmade, while the other one was- while made- covered in a pile of things that looked like mini CDs, a marker, a console, and a tiny box attached to a laptop with the screen open to FFXII in the middle of a fight scene. He had apparently not bothered to turn off the game before leaving to check for his friends.

Underneath the unmade bed was another pile of data disks and a bunch of consoles that they went with. A rat cage sat in the corner by Alex's bed with it's door open. The wood-chip bedding seemed unused. There were two platforms inside it as well as an exercise wheel that rarely used.

On the far wall was a door that would lead to the 'bathroom' that Alex had mentioned before.

"I-it's a b-bit messy, b-but i-it's not like I've g-got much stuff in the f-first place. N-never r-really did." He shrugged. Some people might have missed their things, but Alex's room at home had been just as Spartan. The only thing he didn't have here that had been in his room was a bunch of consoles for the TV. He had rigged his laptop to act as a TV for those, since the one time he had a TV, his dad had ended up throwing him into it. The consoles had only managed to not get broken 'accidentally' by his father because he kept them hidden, and his laptop never left his side.

Tavros takes it all in appreciatively. He himself had been something of a neat freak, but since his accident picking up every little card and ~~pokeball~~ oogonibomb that fell on the floor just wasn't worth the hassle, and when he'd been pulled from it his own block hadn't looked much better.

He looks at the games with interest and stops to check out what's on the laptop.

"Oh, hey. You, um, you like games too?"

Alex smiles widely, his eyes practically glowing, "Are you k-kidding me? I love games! I d-don' jus' play em' I make 'em!"

As Alex grabs one of the consoles from under his bed, Alice jumps to it and curls up on the pillow. He walks the two or three paces it takes to get back to the other side of the room and picks up a few data disks that had labels but no asteriks and hands them to Tavros with a smile, "A-any of those games that u-use ASCII or a-are text-based are g-games that I've made since I've g-gotten on the ship. I h-have a few games I p-published online w-with some p-people I knew o-on the 'net back home that I'm w-workin' on making c-compatible, but I m-mostly g-got other people's games workin'. I-it's a b-bit less fun playing a g-game y-you know all the mechanics for. It f-feels like cheatin'."

Tavros brightens a little and slowly accepts what's handed to him. He's more into card games and stuff, but he likes RPGs in any form. Even as a seriously low-tech text game.

"Wow, this is, uh, this is really cool. I never made a game, myself, but I like playing them. I guess it makes sense, too. Not wanting to play one you made, I mean, you'd have, uh, all the codes memorized."

Alex would probably enjoy several card games as well. He had always wanted to play Magic: The Gathering, but between the price- he spent most of his money on console and computer games- and the fact that he had no one that he would really play with, he never had the chance to try.

"y-yeah. Only ones I r-really do play of m-my own are the strategy games. I'm m-much better at making the AIs than I am at b-beating them. I've n-never been that g-good at strategy, an th-then my AI l-learns p-past what I c-could teach it... an' w-well, yeah." He laughed nervously, scratching behind his head again. "I-I was tryin' ta make an AI f-for the sensoriums ta t-train in f-fighting, but i-it's not surprising that the AI there is b-better. I-I'm thinking o-of maybe f-focusing i-it's learning a-abilities on one thing, an' only that. Th-then by allocating the memory to only that topic an' training it right, I might be able ta get it to advance in it's learning quick enough that it'll surpass the ship's abilities in that aspect at least." As he went on he began talking fast enough that he didn't have the time to stutter over his words.

He played with a small bit of his hair, looking up and off to the side as he continued, "If I do something like memory: command: dump: Parameter set to- action log: exception- tactic: End Dump line -126. /compound memory- tactic: compile result /refer: line 2345997: 1001101001..."

He stopped suddenly and went red, right across his cheeks and up to his ears. He looked down, suddenly seemingly fascinated with the wheels of Tavros' wheelchair, "S-sorry... I... I g-get c-carried away sometimes."

If Magic: The Gathering exists in the city, Tavros would be willing to learn and happy to play. These two are going to bond like true dorks over monster stats, aren't they. He listens, interested, as Alex quits stuttering and then goes into a sequence of binary or something.

At the apology, he smiles a little.

"I think you'd get along great with Sollux, if he ever shows up. He's, uh, he's a sick hacker. I guess he'd understand all that, um... stuff you just said, better than I just did."

"I-I don' mind it, r-really. M-Mikel and Loretta never get it e-either. I d-do miss the h-hacker c-community f-from my h-home w-world. I c-could always teach you some p-programming I g-guess." He smiled back and sat on his bed, "s-so, is this different from y-your... Block?"

Tavros nods a little at the idea of programming, though he will prove to be... not the best at it. He can figure out the function of this high-tech gadgetry pretty easily even if it's unfamiliar, but actually putting something together? Neh.

He rolls forward, looking over the room. Not too different from home, when you got down to it. All of what you'd expect, except...

"Uh... I know you said you didn't, sleep much, but, where do you sleep when you, um, do?"

Alex tilted his head a bit to the left with a mildly puzzled look and patted the bed, "r-right here. Y-you don' use a bed?" Well, that was a new one.

Tavros goes over to the bed and dubiously pokes at it.

"But it's so, um, dry. How can you, how do you sleep in this thing? ...How do you even climb in?"

Alex tilted his head a bit more, "I-I g-guess w-we have really d-different sleeping arrangements. B-basically, y-you lay down like this." Alex demonstrated a bit awkwardly before sitting back up. "H-humans tend to like their beds dry, t-though they don' normally pulse." He disliked that it was the ship's pulse, but at the same time, he couldn't lie. It was calming.

"I-if you don' use a b-bed I'm sure y-you c-could talk ta c-command, an' they c-can figure something out."

The idea of not sleeping in a cocoon full of sopor slime is doable, of course, but not exactly appealing. Tavros watches the demonstration and frowns a little.

"That doesn't look comfortable, at all."

A brief pause.

"But, uh, I guess everyone's kind of busy with this city thing, and the sickness. Maybe I should give the bed thing a, uh, try, before I start making more trouble for anyone."

Alex pursed his lips and sifted them off to the side as he thought. "W-well, what do you s-sleep in? M-maybe we c-can find someone ta m-make it."

Or... You know, ask Stacy to make the accommodations, but that would require acknowledging the ship as anything more than a space craft.

"Uh, it's called a... recuperacoon? It's like... a big cocoon, big enough to climb into, uhh, with a hole on the top, or side. And it's filled with sopor slime."

"S-sopor slime? A-an' how does the slime stay in an' stuff if the hole's in the side?"

He was sorta thinking alien pods, except not Stacy's, since he rather like Tavros so far and didn't want to relate him with Stacy any more than he needed to/

Shrug.

"Well, it's only filled about halfway, in that case, so, uh, it doesn't make a mess everywhere."

Alex's thoughts of alien pods aren't too far off the mark. When Tavros woke up in the pod room, his first thought was that he'd somehow gone to sleep without realizing it.

Alex folded his legs under him as he sat on the bed, "W-well, what's the s-stuff made of? M-maybe it c-can be made here, or somethin'." Stacy had the ability to make a wide range of nutrients into slop, why not make some slime too?

"I-I'm sure we c-can figure out somethin' for ya."

Tavros nods. It'd be nice if he could get his recuperacoon or a similar substitute. The beds didn't look all that bad in a pinch, but he'd be stuck flat on his back, not even able to turn his head because of his horns, and he'd feel completely exposed.

He describes sopor slime as best he can. It's a relaxant of sorts, a nourishing green substance that dulls the nightmares brought on by a strange warlike insectile hivemind he's not fully aware of. All he knows is it's hard to get any decent sleep without.

Alex makes a sort of sad smile, "W-well, i-if you r-roomed here, at least you wouldn' be the only one w-wakin' up from n-nightmares." It seemed odd that a whole race would suffer from nightmares, but who is he to judge?

"I-it seems like y-you've got a r-really different culture f-from what I'm u-usedta. D-did you h-have h-humans in your world?"

Tavros shakes his head. "No, I never even heard of humans before I, uh, hatched in here. Or, or however it goes."

And a pause.

"Wait... 'if I roomed, uh, here'? Like... like share the block?"

It's not clear if Tavros' surprise comes from Alex's near-instant acceptance of him or the concept of sharing a block with someone.

He figures that by 'hatch' Tavros meant popped, but the correction of terminology could be saved for later. He just realised that he had all but asked Tavros to stay with him. It wasn't that he minded, but more of that he was surprised at how easily they got along despite the clear culture gaps. Not to mention that he had never really shared a room before. "Y-yeah, i-i-if y-you w-want, I-I mean..." Alex stared off to the side as he responded, a little red in the face.

At least the decision he made back after his own pod-pop to just accept any new and strange race was working out well.

((I would so love them to be roomies!))

((I think this can be arranged :D))

((\o/))

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((Have you asked the mods about it at all?))

((no, and somehow I don't think I'm going to get a green light, but I'll try!))

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