driftfleet | mingle post? mingle post. MINGLE POST!!

I wouldn't put it that way.

then it'd be good for you

Name the time and place.

["now" would be preferable, but he doesn't want his crew snooping on him. the stations are fine, but that's where all the people are anyway...]

your ship, whenever

[ And she doesn't want hers snooping on her either. Especially since they kind of just rescued her from space bandits and Makoto is possessive as all get out still, so she switches to private and then silently thanks the crystals at home that her crew is all asleep right now. ]

Now is fine.

[ She sends him their coordinates, just in case. ]

[oh yeah. he remembers her outburst than he remembers actually giving her his private frequency, but it all works out.]

x

[he'll get on his way, then.]

[ It absolutely might be 4 in the morning, when most normal people who aren't vampire hunters would be sleeping, but Cecil has always been a night owl by nature and now she understands why. When Z's shuttle pulls in, he'll find her right there in the cargo bay waiting. She has a sidearm strapped to her thigh and she looks surprisingly stern for a woman with a set of features usually so soft and a height that could barely be called average. She's leaning against one of her own ship's shuttles, one leg bent at the knee, bobbing up and down as she bounces the one limb on the ball of her foot, and her arms crossed over her chest. Aside from that twitching leg, she's utterly still, it being the only thing that gives her away as being just as restless as he seemed to be. ]

[it's actually a good thing that Zhas has not deemed her worthy of a dramatic entrance. it means he's not going in with something to prove, and doesn't feel like he needs to make a dent in her perception of him. she's not some enemy he needs to scare. she hasn't quite dropped into that part of his radar yet.

so his entrance is rather lackluster, all things considered--he just steps out of his shuttle as if this was his own ship, smoking a cigarette and quickly glancing around the room to make sure there's nothing... unusual or suspicious about it. he even looks up. you never know.

he's still in full face-paint, of course, but he doesn't even look at her as he reaches a hand out to shut the hatch of his shuttle. why was he smoking in there? can he even do that?]

[ Cecil doesn't know and she doesn't care. What she does care about though is that old familiar smell of cigarette smoke. Before she met Tyki Mikk, she didn't know what they were, but now they take her back to times she felt safe and protected, loved and cared for...

And yet it also triggers terrible feelings of fear, frustration, and sharp, painful loneliness. They're darker emotions— ones she can't explain because she herself doesn't understand why she feels them.

This is what she cares about and that's why she pushes off from the side of her shuttle, then strides right over to him with all the confidence of someone who has long since learned how to carry herself with the right amount of authority and confidence needed to command the respect and obedience of everyone around her.

Captaining aircraft and a crew is old hat for her. So is dealing with brooding individuals who think their experiences and emotions are some sort of personal phenomena, so they wear a chip the size of a house on their shoulder in order to keep people away and to spare themselves the effort of trying at anything but violence and blood. Kain, Sousei, Hazama, Robin, Tek, a dozen other people from Court, even Golbez and Gin Ichimaru— they're all the same.

That's how she sees him and that damned cigarette just intensifies the storm of her own emotions brewing inside her. ]

When you're on my ship, you don't smoke.

Edited 2014-12-04 08:32 (UTC)

[he takes his sweet time in finally looking down at her. his gaze is just as dead and apathetic as always. the shuttle hisses for the both of them as the door seals shut, and the on-board filtration system sifts out unusually high levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and tar.

still, he doesn't complain. he plucks the cigarette from his mouth, a little stuck with paint, and just... holds it out for her, because he doesn't want to be rude and put it out on their floor or something. "mother" taught him better manners than that.]

[ To be entirely fair, Cecil is surprised he actually cooperates. She expected him to not so much as acknowledge her order, let alone obey, and for a fleeting moment, there's a pause where she looks from him to the cigarette and back again, in mild disbelief. Then she takes the paint-stained cigarette from him and tosses it to the ground herself, stamping it out a bit too aggressively with the heel of her boot as she turns and removes her weapon from her thigh. She places the firearm and its scrappy holster on one of the benches in the bay, clearly not planning on using it, and gives him a warning without turning back to face him: ]

If I suspect you're holding back for one reason or another, I'll make you regret it.

[their quarrel outside was different. that was neutral territory. that was a grapple to establish rules, make sense out of a senseless set of actions. this is different to him. he is in someone else's house. he does not respect her, exactly, but he respects authority.

and, again, she hasn't struck him as an enemy yet. just an annoyance.

his response is to take off his coat. he's just wearing a simple, long-sleeved black shirt underneath, but there's a similar holster and gun strapped tightly along his side. when he drops the coat near his shuttle's door, it looks bulky, sounds heavy. he seems taller--or more likely, thinner--without it.

it's pretty obvious that he'll be able to hold his own, though, at least in a fight with something a few notches above human. he sets the gun aside too, to be fair, along with a sharp, long piece of metal that was hiding in his sleeve.

see? he's being good.]

[ Cecil almost wishes he would keep the piece of metal. After being accosted by those bandits, she thinks she might have preferred extra practice at facing an armed enemy while being unarmed herself. She does spare a curious glance at the coat, but her eyes don't linger and soon, she's focusing her gaze back on his painted face. ]

'Care to add further purpose to this with a wager? We are entertaining the masses, after all.

[ That last part she bites out with no shortage of bitterness, the statement made a bit facetiously and definitely resentfully. ]

[he considers, glance darting quickly to the side--imagining all the cameras that could be watching them right now. he wishes she hadn't brought it up. he already has problems with paranoia, feeling watched. it actually being true is, in itself, a quiet little nightmare.

...after a moment, he shrugs.]

Don't have anything to bet.

Of course you do.

If I win, you tell me one thing about yourself you don't usually tell people.

Hmph.

[his instinct, of course, is to say no... but maybe he's been hanging around real people too much. he's still wondering why she would even care. he's just curious enough to leave it and consider it, weigh his options.]

And if I win.

[...his gravelly monotone does not make it sound much like a question, even though it should have been.]

[ Even if he'd said no, she would have just cajoled him into it by questioning his confidence in his own abilities. ]

Name your terms.

Not interested.

[or imaginative. he's got a healthy doubt in his own ability against someone with a power he doesn't understand; he'd rather not risk actually giving her a reason to think of him as human if he doesn't have a chance to get something he really wants in return.]

Not interested in saying what you want or not interested in rubbing two brain cells together to consider what you'd want in return?

[a huff of breath. don't be rude.]

The first.

[ It's her ship and they don't like each other, so she's not really ashamed. ]

And why's that? Embarrassed?

Not interested.

[he thought he said that before. he semi-absently pushes his knuckles against his palm, which makes all kind of quiet, popping, cracking sounds.]

[ Hmm, when he insists it's like that, she considers that it's probably more the latter then. How dull. ]

Your opening move then.

[he doesn't seem bothered by it, whatever the reason. he's used to having the first move, so he won't hesitate to dive in--feinting at the last second to kick from the other side.]

[ A simple kick would have been too easy to block, so, expecting him to use a slightly more complex move than that, she's not caught off guard by the feint. She takes a small step backwards to pivot on one foot and grabs his ankle with her hands, then throws him aside by his own leg. She's not particularly careful about where she swings him, but at least there's nothing sharp and pointy in the general area around them besides what he brought with him. ]

text;

text;

text;

text;

text; private

text; private

action;

action;

action forever~;

aw yeah~;

u///u

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