( 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.

Comments

[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.

[mucked]

Frankly, I'm surprised it's only been one.

[lord_wizard]

[He laughs, though it's a flat sound, in part because it wasn't funny at all and because the one person who knew of he'd grown to care for before he'd, predictably, disappeared from the fleet]

Well, as I said, that I know of. There might once have been a day when I'd have considered digging into the past to be something worth my time, but I don't have the energy for that any more. In any case, it had clearly by tried once before even I arrived, as I was swiftly warned against it.

[mucked]

Duly noted. [ deadpan. ] Not that I had any plans to make an attempt of my own. Self-surgery isn't exactly my forte.

[lord_wizard]

Neither is it mine. [He smiles, his head tilting in curiosity]

What is your forté?

[mucked]

Communications, apparently. [ a smile of her own. it's a half-true sort of answer. ]

[lord_wizard]

[That sounds a lot like hedging to him, but he would know]

Just because Atroma thinks that's where you fit, doesn't mean it's true.

[mucked]

Their best guess turns out to be rather appropriate, actually. [ her smile persists. ] I used to work for a telephone company.

[ ah, her favourite cover. ]

[lord_wizard]

[He only has the faintest idea about telephones, thanks to his brief introduction to versions of Earth]

Was it anything like your current station?

[mucked]

What's a comms position besides a rather highly technical way of merely connecting calls? It's near enough the mark, I feel.

[lord_wizard]

[A stunted laugh] I wasn't sure how telephones worked, to be quite honest. But yes, I suppose you're right.

Would that make the homesickness worse, or better?

[mucked]

There are people I miss. That is what makes it worse, I fear. But then again there are people in this fleet I'd not seen in...in quite some time. So it cuts both ways.

[lord_wizard]

Very true. If there is anything about this place is that sometimes there are opportunities you would not had otherwise.

[mucked]

Rather makes it more difficult to be quite as indignant as I wish I would be.

[lord_wizard]

I could not have said it better myself.

[He shifts away from the wall, deciding that he's bothered her enough]

Enjoy your tea~