driftfleet | Chocolate-flavored Dessert Cream on the House

[The bunks are filling up, but the new faces just keep appearing!

Are you a travel-weary passenger having trouble keeping your crew roster straight? Perhaps you are a fresh new recruit, finding themselves dumped into a new (and much less shiny) home. Or, maybe you've been around for a little bit and just haven't bothered meeting the other weirdos on this ship yet--what is their problem, anyway?

Well, this is the place for you!

All new passengers from the last few Shuffles, especially those who haven't met their crews yet, are welcome to post starter-comments here to invite those living on and visiting your ship to come and interact. Newbies could be just arriving on the ship, busying around where others can find them, or you can offering multiple options for interaction--however you'd like to set up your thread is fine. Just make sure to include the name of your ship in the header, so your crewmates can easily find you!

Everyone else-- go meet those newbies! Whether they are new to your own crew, or on ships you frequently visit, now is a great time to bump into them.]

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[She's torn at the offer, torn between throwing herself into this wonderful opportunity for comfort and not wanting to show Shai just how broken she's become since leaving, but in the end she can't resist the warmth that fills her at the thought of seeing Shai in person again. Not just a familiar face, but an important one. And one that has an idea of what she's lost.]

Yes, alright. Just give me a moment or two to clean up. You've no idea how horrible the inside of your mouth feels after a month of sleep, I can only imagine my breath must be an actual biohazard at this point.

Take your time. I'll meet you in the docking bay, all right?

[She's already on the station, but she'll amble in that direction regardless. Never hurts to help a friend, be that shoulder to cry on. Eudio was Cel's first real chance to spread her wings and actually talk to people, make friends and forge bonds of any sort. Being bereft of that's a blow, no matter how you look at it.]

I'll be there.

[She flashes one last small, grateful smile, then goes to get ready. All she can think of is the last time she saw Shai, when she decided that she had to make her own life rather than latching onto someone new for approval, and then Caleb's quiet comfort as she talked through the strange and terrifying shift in her thoughts. Putting faith in herself, at long last. It was a shift that only grew and grew from there, until she actually changed her incentive to leave the nullifacient as a failed experiment because she didn't need that success to prove herself to anyone; all she wanted was entrance to a proper school, one with no gifted focus, and enough money to make her way if her parents continued to reject that path.

What a path she's landed on now.

She looks quite different from the last time Shai saw her: there's evidence of a proper haircut at some point in her past, a tidying of the jagged cap she'd crafted for herself, but it's a bit scruffy again after her stint as Rip Van Winkle; her face is cleanly scrubbed, no makeup, and of course she's without her outlandish sense of fashion to set her apart; more average, to her own mind, but some might say the lack of heavy adornment only emphasizes how attractive she is naturally.]

Shai. [She stands at a slight distance, uncertain but obviously longing for the contact she's suddenly to shy to instigate.] It's - lord, it's good to see you again.

[The need for contact is so base and so human, even if Shai didn't know the girl at all she'd be able to tell. So she steps forward, wraps her up in her arms and kisses her cheek with due fondness. It is good to see her again, much as it makes her ache for the others they left behind in Eudio. She isn't fussed about Liranya, or Winterlace, or Sundris or even Orpheo. Them, she'll see again regardless. But if Curtis goes back to his bleak, dead world, or 'Star to his wartorn one-- that's the last.]

You got a haircut. [She pulls back just enough to give it a proper look, and then ruffles it playfully.] Looks good on you. And I'm glad to see you too, darling.

[The way she melts into Shai's hug is automatic and without any guard at all - Celeste, who's always had one sort of guard or another up, needs this too badly for any kind of pretending to get in the way. The most she can do in regards to self-control is keep her tears at bay, the sobs that want to rise up and wrack her until she's too weak to stand, because someone here has already reminded her of what all of her dearest ones in Eudio told her just before she left: she's stronger now. She'll be alright. And now is as good a time to start being alright as any.]

Oh - [She laughs, looking quite pleased with herself at that.] - yes, I thought it was high time I stopped doing it myself. It was a brilliant stroke of youthful rebellion the first time, but I'd gotten to the point where I just looked ratty and nobody even knew the significance.

[Quieting down for a moment, she looks at Shai properly, and it's obvious in her tone that her next statement is meant as the highest compliment because there was nothing that needed changing in her eyes:] You haven't changed at all. Has it been long, for you?

[She stays in close, though her physical contact remains limited to little touches, her hand at Celeste's shoulder. She is stronger, though she never truly lacked in strength, just experience. Some things are innate, body and soul.]

Went to sleep one night in Eudio, woke up here the next.

[Which undoubtedly put Curtis and 'Star in a bit of a panic. They'd been sprawled together in an inarticulate tangle of limbs beforehand. But Cel didn't know either of her boys well enough for her to bother asking how they'd fared. Obviously, Cel left Eudio later than she did.]

Don't suppose you know what happened with your wish?

[Those touches are enough to keep her grounded, sweet reminders of how they'd make her heart soar when she got them in Eudio - in a strange way, not the way she was used to when she fancied someone, but still wonderful. Shai is very much her own sort of presence in Celeste's life, utterly unique from the off.]

I didn't make it far enough to find out. [Even though she now knows it wasn't Eudio's fault, her voice still gets hard when she says that, laced with anger at the unfairness of it all.] And the hell of it is that I was going home, too. I'd got my incentive. This lot just got hold of me before I could make it.

Chocolate-flavored Dessert Cream on the House

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