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

video;

[diomedea]

Myth and legend, your system is faulty and biased. We need something objective, the subjects are subjective in the numbers.

[Don't you know how science works?]

[deshabille]

[She doesn't, actually; she has no idea. Tips her head at River curiously.]

Where would you suggest I find objectivity?

video;

[openhands]

[You know. She'd really, really like to throttle Mal. For various reasons. This is, of course, not a new or uncommon feeling that Mal inspires among others, but Cassandra has various ways of ignoring it that work quite well so that she's hardly aware of it. But then sometimes Mal starts talking and it becomes very hard to ignore. She doesn't even know where to start right now with the particular first and foremost reason why she feels it right now, but she feels it.]

[She also feels a heat rising to her cheeks just a little bit as well (be more angry, Cassandra, c'm--no, that's that's the opposite of it) because no one is supposed to know and:]

Mal, what are you doing?

[deshabille]

[Technically, this is all completely theoretical. Technically, nothing she is doing here is against their little agreement. Technically, Mal hasn't told anyone anything. She is completely in the right.]

[Which does not mean that her grin at Cassandra is not totally annoying, because it is.]

Taking a poll. Or possibly a survey, I've never really known the difference.

Why? What are you doing?

[dancingmd]

[Oh look at that! A thing Beverly actually hasn't encountered yet in her weird life!]

Wait... you're a vampire?

[How the hell is that possible? More importantly, how did it not come up sooner?]

[deshabille]

[Look, sometimes it just doesn't come up. It's not her whole identity. Just . . . approximately 90% of it.]

That is what I implied, yes.

[openhands]

[Oh, it's definitely annoying. She's bending the rules to the point they're starting to creak. Not cool, Mal. Not cool.]

I... Nothing. [Her brow furrows in exasperation. What is Mal doing turning it back on her? Stop that.] That's not important!

Why do you need to take a poll if you're a self-professed nine?

[dancingmd]

[Her brow furrows slightly, trying to make sense of this. She's never heard of a humanoid species that subsists off of blood but she supposes it's not entirely impossible... and Mal certainly doesn't give the impression of being some Bram Stoker horror.]

She shakes her head, as if to clear it.]

I'm sorry, that was rude. I just... I've never encountered a species like yours before.

[deshabille]

Because I'm not a ten, yet. There's no point not striving for perfection if you possibly can.

[This is actually a huge weak point for Mal and she knows it, but there's also no point in admitting that to anyone, even Cassandra. Especially Cassandra. Never tell Cassandra.]

Why are you so uninterested in other people's opinions? Do you think they don't have any valuable input? [Gosh, that's cold.]

[deshabille]

Not rude.

[Maybe a little rude. She can be a horror sometimes, when she puts her mind to it, though.]

I'm always glad to be a novelty.

[openhands]

That's not what I'm saying at all.

[There is a beat of silence before she realizes she should probably follow up with what she's meaning to say. But what she means to say, she doesn't want to say out loud where everyone can see and she doesn't want to seem shady by suddenly switching over to a private conversation. Plus now that beat of silence from her is stretching on, so the moment to say something further has probably passed.]

[Dammit.]

[deshabille]

Then what are you saying, Cassandra?

[She knows, she knows she's going to pay for this. Honestly, she does. But Cassandra's in a place where she's a bit checkmated, and Mal can't help but tease her for it. Take a step forward and give away what you're so upset about, or step back and lose. Tough decisions.]

[She does nod at the camera slightly; she's in the engine room, quite easy to find, if Cassandra feels the need to deliver a lecture in person.]

[openhands]

[That is the exact opposite of the question she wants Mal to ask. She stammers for a moment, although it's only vaguely close to sounding like a letter (a vowel most like) and nowhere near an actual word. She's trying to decide whether to take that step forward or back. Cassandra closes her mouth with a sharp exhale.]

You don't have to ask other people. I meant it when I said it wasn't a challenge.

[Cassandra Pentaghast does not take steps back.]

[forcemageure]

[ Huh. ]

Oh, the usual, I think. Fumble about like an idiot until you get it right.

[ A pause. ]

What's a vampire?

[ He's like a fifteen, by the way*. ]




















































[ no he isn't ]

[deshabille]

[Oh. That . . . was not the answer she was expecting at all, although really she should have known better. If Cassandra were here, she would kiss her again and damn the pain, damn the consequences, but - she's not, so Mal will have to put up with what she has to give. A slight softening of expression, a slow upturn of her lips, not quite a full smile. Gentleness. She is not very good at it.]

I'm not taking it as a challenge. Really.

[It's just that she's . . . secretly not really a nine at all.]

[deshabille]

Your darkest nightmare.

[But she says it in a very bored way, and even yawns a little bit at the end. It's all about presentation.]

That doesn't seem very efficient.

[dancingmd]

[Beverly cheeks flush red with embarrassment.]

That's not what I meant!

["Novelty" makes it sound like Beverly is planning to put Mal on a shelf for study and nothing could be further from the truth.]

[deshabille]

[Mal smirks.]

Don't worry, I don't take offense. It's actually quite a novelty for me, people not knowing what I am. Back home, everyone knows.

[So this is actually kind of weird for her as well as you.]

[dancingmd]

So it's really not like the stories then, I take it.

[deshabille]

Depends on which stories you mean. It's not like the popular stories. Not anymore.

[They're a bit deteriorating, overall, as a species.]

[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.]

[hellofist]

What's a Casanunda?

[Cassandra Cain, only asking the hard hitting questions.]

[deshabille]

You know. The famous womanizer.

[forcemageure]

My biggest nightmare is the wheel of cheese my uncle kept in exactly the same cupboard. For a year.

[ Speaking of presentation: he imparts this with every available air he was traumatized beyond words by this experience. Which actually happened! But then he snorts a laugh through his nose, so it kind of ruins the effect. ]

It's bloody well not. That's meant to be part of the appeal, I suppose. Along with crippling self-doubt and nausea and fear of dying alone and everything.

[ He considers the ceiling (or whatever is up there, IS IT SPACE??) in a parody of deep, reflective thought. ]

You know, it's funny, that sounded almost like you were saying you eat blood.

[ Yes, Hawke. ]

[deshabille]

I am not a wheel of cheese kept in a cupboard for a year. But I can see how that might trump any other kind of monster.

[Which really says a lot about how Mal views herself, although only in the lightest of tones, of course.]

I prefer efficiency. Or at least good presentation. Not . . . muckiness. [She really doesn't know if she has the patience for this. However:]

Used to. Not presently. It's a mess to get out of clothing. [Never mind that she only ever wears black.]