( video )

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter + OPEN
Broadcast: video
Action: s.s. starstruck
When: mid-morning

[ ah, tea. however-bloody-many leagues into deep space and there's still provision for tea. nearly two months on, and she can at least depend upon leaves steeped in hot water as some sort of intergalactic lingua franca. cheers the soul, really. it isn't perfectly like her preferred cuppa on earth, but it suffices. and so this morning finds her sitting within arm's reach of the starstruck's comms, while her fingers wrap around a mug of that precious brew. ]

-- The battle that happened before we came across the planet. Is that a common occurrence? Bouts of cackhanded shooting, followed by the fortuitous retreat of our opponents. [ to be fair, she doesn't really know if it was all bad shooting. she's no expert in space-warfare. everything looks a little cackhanded when there's no ground to anchor your view. and let's not begin to count all the things she doesn't know about nebulas. more importantly: ] How often does the fleet come under enemy fire? Can they even be called proper enemies? Can anyone explain why were being shot at?

[ she's still new here, and she craves answers. but even she can hear that grinding note of too much tension in her voice. she knows it's time ease off the throttle. peggy takes a long (savoured) sip of tea and regains a measure of her own composure. ] Heavens, but it'd be nice if these godawful food pastes could be slapped together in a combination that even slightly resembled a Garibaldi. Tea isn't tea without a biscuit.

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[lord_wizard]

Garibaldi? Isn't that a fish?

[This helpful contribution comes from the dryly smirking man leaned up against the doorframe]

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[mucked]

[ she turns -- brown eyes training a careful look upon her shipmate. she can't tell whether he's joking. not yet. she doesn't know him well enough to read those subtle indicators.

so instead: ] Oh, infinitely better than a fish.

[lord_wizard]

[The look only increases his own personal amusement, and the mild expression cracks just slightly into a smile for a moment. He isn't actually sure what she was talking about, but context tells him it probably isn't what he mentioned, despite that being the first thing that sprung to mind.]

I would hope so. That seems like a strange pairing with tea.

[mucked]

[ she shrugs with half her shoulders -- and maintains her mug in her hands. normally it might be more appropriate to set it aside, but she feels it would be imprudent to leave her tea too near any of the assumed-to-be delicate instruments. instead, she stands. ]

They're sweets, of a sort. [ she explains, and takes the heavy-hanging curiousity out behind the barn to put it out of its misery. ]

[lord_wizard]

[Whether that does either of them a favor remains to be seen, now that he's left without the inquisition. He does straighten respectfully by way of greeting as she stands.]

Ah. Well, we might actually have the basics for that sort of thing in the kitchen...depending on what else it involves, that is. You might also want to ask around for a competent baker in the fleet, unless that's what you were doing already.

[Clearly he'd missed the first part of her broadcast]

[mucked]

The texture's all wrong with what we've got on hand. [ ...but a baker? hmm. ] I confess I haven't asked 'round about the skill.

[lord_wizard]

You'd be surprised what talents people might be hoarding. Sadly, that isn't one of mine.

[Which makes him a perplexing choice for ship cook, but he figures that was probably Atroma's intent, in his case]

[mucked]

Nor mine, neither. Alas. [ she takes a sip of tea -- or whatever passed for tea in space -- and sighs. ] I suppose it's not the biscuits that matter most. I'm only a little homesick.

[lord_wizard]

Ah, well...that's natural.

[For the majority of people, at least, and even years later he was still one of them. Though it might pass for mild nostalgia at this point.]

Would telling me about it be of any help, or would it just add to the problem?

[mucked]

I'm not sure there's all that much to say. [ her smile is small -- brave, in that careful fashion one might have of smiling through sharp personal pain. ] I could describe the claustrophobic streets and the smell of fumes, but you'd only think me mad for missing any of it.

[lord_wizard]

[He can empathize with her in that respect. Most of his life was full of those kinds of masks]

Hardly. Time always lends a favorable lens, even to things we once never appreciated. Or perhaps especially to those things. [He shrugs slightly]

Where is it you come from?

[mucked]

-- It's a couple places, all told. London. Some time in Paris. Most recently, New York. Do any of them ring bells?

[ because she's spoken to people who know so little of earth, here. ]

[lord_wizard]

Earth cities. I know them by name, only. Although I did spend time in, well...a facsimile of Paris. [He gestures - another half-hearted shrug] It's a long story. But suffice it to say that my knowledge is mostly secondary.

[mucked]

That's perfectly alright. I imagine my knowledge far less than secondary when it comes to whatever your lands are called.

[ which is absolutely an invitation to be told, of course. ]

[lord_wizard]

[The best part of telling people about his homeland is that they're without the context to question it. Not that it's a lie, but it's also complicated by details better left to later conversations.]

I'm from Marathat. Mélusine, specifically. My world appears to be one of the more obscure locales, as far as potential kidnapping centers go.

[mucked]

More to your world's credit, I suppose. For either it's coincidence, or else something about these variations upon Earth make it more susceptible than the others. [ a meandering thought. she reins herself back in. ]

Mélusine. Is that a city or a nation?

[lord_wizard]

[It's an interesting meandering thought, and he can't help but comment]

My world was lacking for attributes in it's favor. I'll take what I can get.

[But onto the question.]

A city. The capitol of the Protectorate, actually. Meduse is the name for the world as a whole.

[mucked]

[ mélusine and meduse? french, certainly, but still not unknown to her. one could be considered a coincidence. but both? peggy hides her thoughtful pause behind a bright smile. whatever the reason, this man's world had naming conventions bizarrely close to european folklore. ]

Ah, capitol living. You must lead a busy life -- I've never met a capitol city that wasn't bustling in its own fashion.

[lord_wizard]

[There, she isn't at all wrong in her observations. He'd once discovered that his native language veered very close to a mixture of French and English, and that wasn't the first of similarities.]

[He chuckles, though there isn't any humor in it] That much is certain. As a matter of fact, Paris reminded me quite a bit of my city. The architecture, the river, the...[he stopped himself before saying 'catacombs', not wanting to begin a discussion of the Arcane, a feature of the city most seemingly gentile folk like himself should have no knowledge of]...parks. Simply add walls and subject a few decades of development...depending on whence you came, of course.

[mucked]

Paris is lovely. [ she admits. staunchly british though she is, peggy admires the french. their resistance during the war was....tremendous. inspiring, on many fronts. ] Tell me, does the fleet ever manage to stop by planets with any proper cities in them?

[lord_wizard]

Not quite. One of the cities was respectable enough, though it wasn't very advanced. And apparently fake. The rest have been all backwoods towns and villages.

[Which is very disappointing, if only because finding a replacement wardrobe has been difficult]

[mucked]

By design, likely. [ she sighs. ] Harder to slip the collar in a small town.

[lord_wizard]

Hard to slip a collar when it's embedded in your neck.

[She doesn't seriously think she can, does she?]

[mucked]

It does put a spanner in the works, doesn't it? When figurative language fails in the face of reality and its concrete horrors. [ she rubs the back of her neck -- conscious of the augment. ] I haven't had the courage to try and cut it out. I imagine it doesn't help much, anyway.

[lord_wizard]

[The movement gives him a sympathetic sort of itch on his neck that makes him want to mirror her.]

That would be too easy, wouldn't it? But, no...only one person I know of has actually attempted it, and it ends poorly. Or, rather, it ends in pain with very little result.