trans_9 | She's Alive [Open]

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She's Alive [Open]

Anyone wandering into the media library this morning would find a somewhat unfamiliar looking young woman (about eighteen, possibly nineteen) sitting in front of the equipment, head tilted back and eyes closed as she listened to some good, old-fashioned rock and roll. She looks fit, in excellent physical condition and seems cheerful enough. She has one leg folded over the opposite knee, toe tapping as she keeps time with the music. Yeah, she's discovered just how awesome music from twentieth century Earth is and she's enjoying it.

Give her a minute and she'll probably notice whoever wanders in after her.

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Legend of Drunken Master. Awesome. Howard's got it on his media pad and is about to head out of the library when a woman in the library catches his eye. She's got a familiar face and yet, he can't place it. And he really feels like he should.

"Uh, do I know you?" he asks, not bothering to apologize for talking over her music.

"Damn, Howie, I know I've only been on the ship a few weeks, but that's cold."

Karis laughs. She's just joking with him.

"Whatcha got there?"

"Fangs?" he asks incredulously. "No offense, but did someone open up one hell of a beauty salon around here?"

He sits down across from her - no point is keeping weight any more on his bad foot than necessary - and hands her the media pad. "Legend of Drunken Master. Jackie Chan. Pretty fun movie. And this'd be, what...Aerosmith?"

"You're acting like I don't always have natural good looks and charm," she replies with another laugh.

"I've sorta been in a foul mood since I came out of the pods. Sorry if I ragged on you too hard earlier," Karis shrugs, "And yeah, I think so. I'm just going through whatever I can find right now."

"Usually, your good looks and charm come with really pointy teeth," he says, tapping his.

Honestly, he's less weirded out by her sudden change in appearance than he is by her better mood. He shrugs back. "You were ragging on me? I didn't notice." Which isn't true, but he never held it against her.

"So if you were in such a bad mood, why the better one now? Besides the new hairdo."

"I dunno. Probably just trying to get used to the ship... Almost didn't seem like myself, now that I think about it." Another shrug and he gets an odd look, "Since when do I have pointy teeth, though?"

"Since..." Suddenly Karis is so much more like Howard's zombie back home than she ever was when she was all corpse-like. It's unnerving. Howard can deal with dead but he doesn't like the unknown.

"Karis, are you alive or dead right now?"

"...alive. If I was dead, I wouldn't be talking to you, would I?" She laughs - i's a joke to her.

"Uh." Howard doesn't laugh. And yet he feels like saying 'actually, when I first met you you were a zombie' might be just a bit upsetting. "Well, you know, Stacy's a weird place. I mean, especially since we're fighting a war and all..."

He keeps a close eye on her face to see how she reacts to that. If her memory's messed up, he wonders how far back it goes.

Karis shrugs, "...I was in the army back home. Guess I'll be in the army here, too. Giant insects instead of orcs, though... Not like the greenskins were causing much trouble in the first place."

He tries to mesh that together with what he already knows about Karis. "Ever seen combat?"

"Not really. Unless you count training. Hasn't been a war in Lordaeron for about... I dunno, twenty years? Not since the orc invasion."

She cocks her head curiously, "Why?"

"Nothing. Just curious. You know me, too nosy for my own good." He relaxes, again, at least physically, though his mind's still racing trying to figure out what's happened to Karis and when she got so chipper. And young. And alive. "Did I tell you I almost got eaten by dinosaurs?"

"...when did that happen?"

Because she doesn't remember that.

"A few days ago. Stacy sent me on a super secret mission and I almost got eaten by a velociraptor." He leans back and puts his feet on the table - both sneakers are blood-stained and, after going through many a wash cycle, battered, but one looks like it's been ravaged. There are large teethmarks in it. "Had to take a dive in a corpse trench to get away. I'm just glad there weren't any zombies."

He flicks a look up to her face to see if she's still unresponsive to that.

All it gets is a raised eyebrow and a concerned look, "Damn. Sounds like a hell of a time - least you made it out alright."

She looks puzzled for a moment, "Didn't you tell me you had trouble with the walking dead back home or something?"

Concern is another emotion Howard's not all that used to seeing from Karis.

"Yeah. You didn't?" He could mention that their zombie was tied up in the basement, but even though he's not expecting Karis to start in on 'deader's rights' or whatever, who knows when the rest of her personality will come back?

"No. Orcs used walking dead back in the war, apparently, but I haven't seen or heard anything about them since I joined up. Mostly we just watch the internment camps these days."

She shrugs. That's life!

Every time she uses the word 'orc' Howard feels a little twinge, even though he knows she's not talking about the same thing.

This is all incredibly disconcerting. He'd almost suspect that it's an alternate version of Karis, except that she clearly has memories of him, and he was pretty sure she was corpsified last time he talked to her. "Huh. You gave me a bit of a different story when we first met, but okay. You're still cool."

"Did I?" She wrinkles her nose for a moment as she tries to remember. It's a bit hazy. She does remember being in a horrible mood for some reason.

"Eh, whatever. Probably just a bit disoriented after waking up on this crazy thing. What've you been up to, anyway?"

"Hella long disorientation," he says, a bit of Californian accent peeking through. "But yeah, aside from the dinosaurs? Haven't caught any plagues working in the Med Bay yet, and salvage is going well. You want anything, I'll give you first dibs. You can be VIP."

"Really? You'd do that for me? Thanks, buddy."

She gives Howard a friendly clap on the shoulder.

"Not sure I have much to pay you with, though. What are you looking for?"

"Sure. I don't charge yet - not much to charge - but if you ever have stuff lying around I can make use of a lot of things. Non-perishable food's always appreciated. I'm making myself a little bunker, just in case."

He jolts a bit at the clap; he's not all that used to being touched and more than that, even is Karis has touched him in a friendly way before, her being so amiable is still bizarre.

"The bunker thing sounds like a good plan actually. Was working on a similar project earlier... You know, just in case."

She shrugs with a grin, totally oblivious to Howard's discomfort. Before, she might have been deliberately ignoring it, but the smile on her face is open, honest and full of good-will.

"I keep worrying Stacy's going to stop feeding us," he blurts out. "And then, you know, mayhem. Though I guess I should be just as worried that Spacey Stacy'll shut off the air first."

He fidgets. Karis' grin is not only one that looks wrong with everything he's known about her, but it's not the sort of smile that gets bestowed on him often, and everything about this feels off. He's not sure how much else he can deduce without retreating to regather his information. "I think I gotta go."

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