three ☀ video / optional action

[deshabille]

Who: Mal
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: On the Caprine if anyone desires it! I'm flexible.
When: 6/20.

[As in her first broadcast, Mal can be found tinkering around in the engine room, elbows-deep in something interesting and greasy. This time, though, she seems pensive, deep in thought, perhaps about Deep Subjects and Philosophies.]

[She is, in fact, thinking about something entirely different.]

[When she speaks, it's in tones of airy contemplation, meant to disguise the fact that part of her thinks this is a terrible idea.]

Here is an interesting thing: vampires, for all their reputation for seduction, really aren't that good at it, at least where I come from. When you're always hungry, you mostly rely on people leaving windows open at the right time and then being a bit woozy from blood loss. For the really old ones, the ones who can barely stand without crumbling to dust and really hate sunshine, that's the only way they can eat, and if they tried to seduce anyone their arm would probably fall off.

[She twists at a mysterious innard of the ship with a wrench, tongue in her cheek.]

We've had enough excitement for a while, I think, so why not something boring instead: tell me about romance in your world. Describe the sorts of flowers you like to kill for love. Rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, complete dunce to Casanunda, if you like.

Actually, everyone should have to do that. That's compulsory. I will genteelly admit that I am a nine. [Liar.]

Comments

[openhands]

[Cassandra looks down when Mal starts to look at her like that. It's more reflexive and just beyond her own awareness that she's does it in the first place.]

Good. [When she looks up again, she has all the subtle features of a smile; her lips are barely curved at all, but her eyes are brighter.] I don't have high expectations, Mal.

[Wait. She flushes a little.]

That's not what I-- [Cassandra sighs.] I simply mean that I don't have unrealistic expectations. Whatever happens will be enough.

[Because she doesn't need a nine. She just needs something honest. It's less about the specifics so much as where it's all coming from. And she thinks it's coming from the right places with Mal.]

[deshabille]

[Except that she doesn't know where to start, at all. Lacy nightdresses and bloodied bathtubs are not the way she wants to go with this, and so she is floundering in the dark, a bit, unsure of the proper way to go about things. And anyway, where do you get flowers in space?]

[Her uncertainty doesn't show in her expression, which is mostly self-satisfied at having gotten Cassandra to blush again.]

That almost makes it sound as though I don't have to try at all.

[An obvious tease. Of course she's going to try. It's Cassandra.]

[openhands]

[It's not fair how easy it is for Mal to make her blush, but it's not wholly unpleasant. She certainly wouldn't keep coming back for more if it was, at any rate.]

I said I don't have expectations, not that I don't have standards.

[Two can play at this teasing game though, okay. Contrary to popular belief, Cassandra is not always serious. Just, you know, roughly 80-90% of the time.]

[deshabille]

[That's precisely the right amount of time to be serious, in Mal's opinion. She can't be a proper foil to someone who isn't mostly serious. Her expression goes from self-satisfied to grinning in a second flat.]

Obviously you have very high standards, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Mal is the best vampire to crush on, okay. It is known.]

[openhands]

[Her eyebrows rise.]

Is that what you think? I'm fairly certain we're having this conversation because you have a strange talent for simultaneously thinking and not thinking at all.

[This isn't said as reprimanding as it could be or perhaps should be. Sure, this particular habit of Mal can get her into a lot of trouble--and it's possible that it will get her into some right now given Cassandra's particular crewmate--but there is something infuriatingly endearing about it all the same.]

[Actually, that's just Mal in a nutshell: infuriatingly endearing.]

[So maybe it really is because of Cassandra's very high standards. That's not an easy combination to master, after all.]

[deshabille]

I think if you didn't like that, you would have punched me and walked away a long time ago.

[A lot time before she did, of course; and what happened after has been suitably complicated, but Mal is pretty sure it doesn't qualify as walking away.]

Anyway, I'm quite certain that another word for such a talent is genius. Underestimated genius. Just watch, I'll invent a brand new type of ship or something and leave you speechless.

[Take that!]

[openhands]

[Uh-huh, Mal... She is convinced of your underestimated genius and there isn't any room for any doubts, so great is her confidence in you.]

Right after you're done surveying about flowers? I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that you could simply ask me what flowers I like in all of your "underestimated" genius.

[deshabille]

I thought that was against the rules.

[She didn't, actually. It just seemed way too easy and too good to be true, so she didn't bother.]

[openhands]

[She's about to say there aren't really any rules, but that doesn't seem accurate. There are certainly rules to these things, one way or another. Just no particular rules against that.]

It would perhaps be considered more romantic if you didn't ask and simply knew that I like sunflowers and lilies from conversation, but not everything you do has to be made difficult.

[She's letting you keep your clearly humble self-rating of 9.99 out of 10 on romance, Mal, because now you don't have to ask.]

[deshabille]

Not everything. Just most things.

[She gives the barest hint of a grateful smile, though. This is something she can do, she thinks. Even if it still seems silly to her. Flowers are just plants.]

[But a smile on Cassandra's face, no matter how small, is worth any amount of silliness.]

[openhands]

[Well, she's smiling now. There was a time where Mal was purely aggravating, but things are quite simply not quite the way they were at first. Cassandra still gets irritated, she still finds Mal baffling, but she's not quite so averse to it anymore.]

[To put it simply, she's grown fond of Mal. She still has her reservations and lingering doubts, but her defenses have certainly lowered. She stays.]

Enough things that it's safe to round up to everything.

[deshabille]

Oh, really?

[She widens her eyes, mock-surprised.]

You think I'm a ten, then, do you?

[openhands]

[She furrows her brow.]

I didn't say that.

[deshabille]

Didn't you?

I must be hearing things.

[openhands]

You know that your ego isn't your most endearing trait, yes?

[deshabille]

Someone told me that once.

[It might have been Cassandra.]

[openhands]

[She rolls her eyes with a small disgusted noise.]

And you've clearly taken it to heart.

[deshabille]

I take everything that everyone tells me to heart. I'm an incredibly sensitive person.

[lol]

[openhands]

[Cassandra laughs and there might be a bullshit hidden in there.]

And what is that relative to?

[deshabille]

A rock, possibly?

[Look, sometimes she really does know that she's full of shit.]

[openhands]

I don't think you're giving the rock enough credit.

[And that's actually not really an insult coming from Cassandra. She's not...gentle or delicate enough to deal with someone who is sensitive.]

[deshabille]

I will issue it a formal apology as soon as I can find a pen and some stationery.

[openhands]

And yet, somehow, you would remain facetious even in writing.

[deshabille]

Would you expect anything less, Seeker?

[openhands]

I might be a little disappointed in that circumstance.