video; optional action

[nulliverse]

Who: Celeste Blackwell and the fleet
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Can be found sulking around the SS Golden kitchen
When: Feb 6, evening

[The last time this girl appeared on the network, she was in quite a hot rage, so it might be odd to see her looking quiet and pensive now. Sad, despite a slight smile, to those who really look closely.]

I've been away for awhile - don't ask, I don't quite understand it myself - but apparently I've come back just in time for Valentine's Day to be around the corner. And normally I'd be the last person to bring up something like this, but...

[But what? She doesn't say, just asks her question.]

... have you ever been in love? What were they like? What really made you think "My god, this is the one" when there are so many other people out there who might've been just as good? And I mean, if you're in love right now and you still want to answer, it needn't be past tense. I suppose - I just don't quite understand this either, I never have, but that doesn't stop it from happening.

[She appears to be at a loss for a moment, before shaking her head and chuckling to herself.]

My mates would laugh themselves sick if they could hear me now.

[And that's all.]

Comments

[nulliverse]

What is it with mothers and manners? Is that an inborn obsession that comes along with the pregnancy hormones and never dissipates? Mine was exactly the same, ceaselessly the same. I can still hear her voice echoing in my head if my elbows so much as skim the table.

[That - was quite a rant, but her family's so distant to her now that it doesn't feel quite as personal. Still, she stops herself there before she can work herself up to a place of real emotion instead of cool annoyance.

Hearing that she's not alone is the same complex sort of relief it always is, and at Riona's last comment, Celeste can't help but crack a smile.]

We'll all have to meet up again in a few months and be really, really cool at each other. Stand in separate corners of the room with our arms crossed and be very aggressive about not giving a care for anything. Hopefully that'll balance the scales.

[bryces_pup]

Ah, yes. Elbows off the table! The natter of a mother is something learned, too, I think, passed on by the mothers come before. But my mother had good reasons for it, too. Manners are the first impression someone has of you, and those are vital when you deal with nobility back home. She didn't want me to become a laughingstock. It's not something I didn't appreciate until lately.

[When it was too late to tell her mother as such.]

And pretend not to know the other, either. That's the key. Any acknowledgment of prior interaction, the whole thing falls apart. [She smiles along with the joke.]

[nulliverse]

Well. I suppose it is relevant if you're dealing with something like nobility. My mother just wanted me to be a perfect little lady for the sake of it, and I'll never be a perfect little lady. I wasn't born to be a perfect little lady, I don't have it in me.

[And it's like she told Kaworu - their happiness was always measured in how much she was able to make them happy, not how happy she was herself.]

But I should hardly go on about that now, or I'll have to carry on pretending I don't know you forever to make up for all this.

[bryces_pup]

Still no less a pain. My mother hoped for that as well for me, and I was probably about as good at it as you were. A good lady makes for a good wife, or so she always said. [She snorts at the thought.] Thank the Maker that wasn't what won my husband over.

Well, we may very well be at that point already. This is the most I've told anybody about my husband, anyway, so I may have to start acting like I don't know you right this second.[Given her smile, though, she's definitely not serious about it.]