trans_9 | Far below the rolling tide [Open]

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Far below the rolling tide [Open]

Strangely enough, even after the events of the past few days, Zouichi had not developed an aversion to the ocean. Or axes! Or giant squid! It helped that he, unlike some of the other crew, hadn't been in imminent danger of drowning. He was, however, busying himself with preparing some of the food they'd bought on shore leave, as well as supplies salvaged from the Deepstar 7. No sense letting it go to waste, right?

He'd started work in the early morning, and gotten so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't quite notice that he was making more than was absolutely necessary. What? Cooking was relaxing. And anyway, he thought as he waited to pull a piece of battered shrimp out of its cooking oil, someone would probably eat it all. For the people living in the inn, he was careful to set aside boxes of prepared food. But there was an increasing amount left over...

Stop by, enjoy your ridiculously overprepared lunch. Or just a simple one, if you're an acquaintance. The front door's open!

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"I guess that isn't what happened, huh?"

Taro quickly snapped up the egg with small, sharp teeth, then resumed staring at the rest of the food, swishing his furry, feather-tipped tail back and forth.

"Pretty much anything. He likes meat the best though." Hana grinned, swallowing the last of his plateful and moving onto the boxed lunch. "He's like me."

"It never is. Once we started our way down, we got attacked by a giant squid. And then when we finally ended up at the station, only the backup power was on and none of the original crew was anywhere to be found."

Wow, Hana. You could really put that away. Zouichi added some of the vegetables he'd bought during shore leave, as well as some chicken, feeding a little piece or to to Taro as it cooked through.

He raised an eyebrow at Hana. "Sounds like a cat or two I know." Emergency Rations, at least, routinely begged for food.

Hana gaped, then remembered his manners and swallowed the food in his mouth with one large impressive gulp. "Sorry."

He was grinning again. "But it sounds really cool! Then what?"

Taro is showing his appreciation by rubbing his head against Zouichi's cheek.

Hana cocked his head a little. "You've got two cats? I though you had Alan?"

"Cool, huh? Well, I guess the squid part was pretty exciting..." At least if you weren't in the sub it was trying to crush. "Anyway, then we started exploring the station, trying to find out what happened. We found a dead crewman or two, and one of them attacked John and Jamie. Whatever had been going on, it seemed like it had something to do with this 'artifact' the original team had found. An artifact that the government that sent us down almost failed to mention, by the way."

When Hana wasn't watching, Zouichi rubbed his cheek back up against Taro gently, returning the gesture. Aww. What a cute little critter. He added in some rice, turning it over in the pan to make sure nothing stuck to the pan and burned. "Well, we have two now, anyway. Apparently some of the crew were keeping a tabby, and Howard brought him back. You might spot him around here somewhere, if he feels like showing his face this early. He's pretty lazy."

He tilted his head slightly in interest. "An artifact? Really? And it's supposed to control dead bodies?"

The teen scratched his chin, not looking too impressed, then he asked. "Is that all it does?"

Hana chuckled as he neared the end of the boxed lunch. "Heh, Howard really likes cats, huh?"

"What?" That took Zouichi a beat. "Oh, no. The crewman that attacked them was still alive. Sorry. Apparently he'd been alone on that station for a while, and..." He shrugged a little.

"As for what it really did, we're still not actually sure what it was, honestly. Clearly, some of the sea life down there was hostile, but... I think it's more likely that the crew turned on each other. In that kind of highly-pressurized environment, I'm sure the fear and suspicion reached a fever pitch much more quickly than it might have otherwise." Zouichi was finishing up the last touches on the omelette shell; as he spoke, he set the plate (http://en.christinesrecipes.com/2010/04/omurice-chicken-and-tomato-rice-wrapped.html) down next to Hana before returning to the stove.

"Yeah, I guess so. Honestly, I didn't think he cared much for animals, but since it's his second cat so far, and I don't hear much complaining, I guess they get along fine." He began cleaning the pan. "And everyone else here seems okay with them. Even Alan. You haven't gotten any complaints about your pet, have you?"

"Oh. Right." He thought about that for a second. "Wait, so what does it do then?"

Hana frowned at the explanation of the crews fate. "Wow. It's kinda sad people will do that to each other, huh?"

It didn't seem to put him off his appetite though, since he beamed at Zouichi when the plate was set infront of him. "Thanks!"

"Nar, not really." He smirked as he spooned from omelet into his mouth. "Just that he's fat!"

That seemed the final straw for Taro as he swooped down, clipped Hana's head then landed on the table to attack his hand, gnawing on his fingers with sharp little teeth. Hana just chuckled and forced the creature onto its back so he could scritch its growing, round, fluffy white belly.

"That and he gets really jealous."

"I think..." Zouichi hesitated. "I think what it did was worsen the situation. Amplify the environment of distrust that already existed down there, and worsen it, so that the crew turned on each other." It was an unfortunate part of the human psyche, that tendency to turn in on oneself and one's companions. Not its most enviable of traits, and potentially lethal in stress situations. As the mission had no doubt demonstrated.

But he smiled a little in response to Hana's excitement, blinking as Taro made his dive. "And he seems to understand what you're saying. Or at least the tone of it."

"Huh. Well, I guess things like that can't be helped." Hana shrugged, stuffing another helping of food into his mouth.

"So what did you guys end up doing down there?"

He scratched the purring creature under the chin. "Yeh, I think he's pretty smart."

Zouichi frowned. "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't mean people can't take measures to prevent something like that from happening. Or change. Accepting it as an inevitability means that it'll only happen over and over again." Hana's callous reaction to death was a little troubling in a human, actually. Didn't he care? Even if he didn't know the people who had died personally?

"Our investigation was cut short by the failing structural integrity of the station. We had to escape in the emergency carriage." He looked thoughtfully at Taro. "And you? What have you been up to lately?"

"Yeh. But you can't change what happened, can you? What's done is done. You just gotta learn from that." He picked at the greens complimenting his dish, then smiled. "Things will work out, you just have to remember that."

Hana sighed as Taro rubbed his furred face against the boys palm. "Nothing much really. Everyone's kind of been doing their own thing so I've just sorta been hanging around the ship, doing a bit of training and making sure I don't mess up my leg." He rubbed the back of his leg subconsciously.

Well, they hadn't really worked out for that crewman who'd had an alien brain parasite drill into his brain stem, but maybe it'd work out for Hana. Zouichi dried the pan and set it aside.

"Ah. Is it still not healed fully yet? I suppose you could go to Medical, if you like, and have them speed up the process." Zouichi didn't have a lot of experience with that sort of thing, having never availed himself of the Medical Bay's services. But they had nice coffee! Okay, no, they didn't really.

"Was it from SHODAN's attack?"

"It's fine. There's a bit of a scar but you know, alot of people got worse. 'Sides, Cassandra's been looking after it for me." He gave a bashful smile and finished the food.

"Oh, yeh. I just got... erm... 'blasted', I guess? I don't think it's 'shot' since it burned more than pierced." Hana just shrugged it off.

Zouichi nodded, though he didn't miss the smile. "I guess you're right. But you should still take care of yourself. I have a feeling this war is going to go on for a while yet."

Especially since they didn't have many leads. "Another one of those 'cool scars'?"

He shuffled, looking a little awkward. "Yeh."

"Pretty much. I didn't have a burn before so I think this is kinda cool."

Zouichi gave him a weird look. "You're collecting different scars? What do you get at the end, a prize?"

Seriously, Hana, that was just bizarre.

Hana gave him a baffled look. "Collecting?" He shook his head, snorting in amusement. "No. Why would I do that? That's just weird!"

"I don't know. But I've never heard anyone describe a scar as cool, either." Though to be perfectly honest, he probably wouldn't have even if it were a completely normal colloquial thing to say, having been raised with limited contact with people in general. Let alone kids.

"You seem very blasé about a lot of things that happen on the ship. Why is that?"

"Well, you know, it's just kinda cool. Scars can be cool. I mean, they show that you've got experience, I guess. I dunno. Not all of them are cool but..." He trailed off, unsure how to explain the macho teenage concept of toughness to a futuristic mechanical being.

Taro was now attempting to crawl down Hana's shirt. "Huh? Blazé? What do you mean?"

"Well, a lot of the people here aren't veterans of a war. Or they haven't been in situations where a lot of people have died. Or even if they have, they seem more concerned with the news of someone's death than you do. It's a little unusual."

Experience didn't necessarily equal desensitization, either. Howard had experienced starvation firsthand, and if anything, it seemed to have worsened his feelings of insecurity. But the deaths of others didn't seem to faze Hana at all. Why was that?

Hana suddenly felt himself shrinking away from Zouichi and his questions, feeling as if he were being accused of something.

"It's not like I don't care. I don't want to people to die..."

It seemed that he was being given the image of a bad person and he began shuffling uncomfortably and glancing at the door.

"I didn't say you did." What a curious reaction. "Only that your reactions are... unusual."

He folded his arms. "For example, I've killed people before. And I'm sure in many other people, having been responsible for someone else's death would have been a source of distress. Much greater than it is for me."

At the 'unusual' comment he shuffled even more and seemed ready to dart for the exit. This was what was wrong with his powers, they made things complicated, sometimes too complicated for others to grasp.

"I don't like it when people die but... When it's someone I don't know I just... I dunno. It's hard to explain. Besides, half the time it's not like they've even left anyway."

How could he explain his odd feelings and understanding of death when even he didn't quite know?

"I'd never want someone to die and I'd never want to kill someone but... Death happens."

"That's true." Death did happen. Especially in war. Though that sort of outlook was a little rare in teenagers -- in Zouichi's world, at least.

"Not like they've left? What do you mean?"

A shrug. "I guess I'm just more used to it happening and it being okay than others are."

Hana blinked and looked at Zouichi, confused. Surely he'd...

"Wait... I never told you?"

No. He must have. He remembered clearly...

... Telling him about the 'reviving the dead' thing... Once. On that mission. But he'd not explained it very well.

Heck, he hadn't even told Zouichi what he was let alone what it meant.

Well... This is embarrassing. Really, how could he have forgotten?

Or maybe he hadn't forgotten. Maybe he'd not wanted to tell Zouichi. It's not like he was keeping it a secret on the ship. But in comparison to Zouichis accomplishments and talents, Hana's 'powers' just seemed... Weird.

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