driftfleet | Heron May mingle

You'll grow into the rank. I believe in you. [And her belief is absolute.] You take care of your people.

[If he doesn't seem to object, she reaches down to lightly touch the yarn. She's always going to be a very tactile person.]

That's... it's good to have a useful thing to do.

[She nibbles on her lip. She feels dumb, there's no need to be shy at Winter, but...] Can you teach me?

Just hope I don't end up letting anyone down.

[ He's bound to, eventually. His attention is drawn away when she touches the yarn, and he nods. ]

Grab those needles there. [ He points to the open drawer in the bedside table as he scoots over in the bed. It's a queen, so there's plenty of space for them to both sit and not feel suffocated. ]

Sit.

Even if you do, you'll keep going. [Because it's inevitable. No matter how hard you try as a commander, you will let someone down. But you have to keep at it.]

[Wrath grabs the needles and sits down next to him, as close as she figures she's allowed. She's moving pretty slowly today, which is annoying to her.

Automatically, she holds the needles like she's expecting to have to kill someone with them.]

[ Winter reaches over slowly, re-positioning the needles in her hand. ]

Like that. First-- [ He takes a stray end of yarn in hand, showing her how to knot a loop, sliding it over one of her needles. ]

Then you have to load the stitches. Hold it with the needle out, wind it around your fingers.

[ He picks his own needles up to demonstrate, making a few stitches on the empty needle. ] Like that. Keep going until it's as wide as you want.

[ He's a little more patient with this than with teaching her poker. This takes a little more focus initially learning it, then it's mindless. ]

[She concentrates on holding the needles right once he's shown her. It feels weird. Really weird. But everything does, when you're first learning it.]

Okay...

[It feels nice, to have the yarn around her fingers. She already knows she's going to like this. She does as instructed, because it's like any other exercise... follow the example, take it slowly until you know you have it, practice practice practice.]

How wide should I make it? Should I make a scarf too? [...what else do you even make with this crazy method?]

You can make it as wide as you want. So long as it fits on the needles.

[ Hmm. ] Scarf is a good place to start. You get used to the pattern. There's more colors in the trunk.

[ The one at the foot of the bed where he hides all of his supplies. ] If you want to use those. You don't have to.

[She contemplates the needles.] A big, wide scarf for the next time we go to a snowy planet.

[Winter, you had to know this question was coming.] ...do you have any pink?

I don't think so. [ He probably already used it to make something for you, Wrath.. ] Sorry.

I think there's some purple?

Aw, it's okay.

Oooh! Purple is pretty, too.

[She sets the needles down very carefully--since they aren't hers--and goes to check in the trunk for the purple yarn.]

Do they make glittery yarn?

I'm not sure. I haven't found supplies in a while.

[ ... ] Don't see why not, though.

I don't know if they have yarn here. I'll check next time I go down to the moon. If I do. [She's been laying pretty low.] Or I could ask my captain to check for me. I think I have money?

[Wrath comes up with some dark purple yarn, looking pretty pleased about it. She returns to her spot next to Winter. Needless back in hand, she starts working on carrying on again, slow and methodical and checking with him to make sure she's doing it right.]

There's nothing like that. Mostly weapons and tactical supplies. Picked up a knife cleaning kit, though. Some small tools, too.

[ He shrugs. Winter thinks Wrath will appreciate that bit of information, at least.

Once she's settled, the companionable silence is nice. He keeps an eye on her, pointing out before she makes a mistake. ]

Oh, a knife cleaning kit? Can I see? [Though she doesn't have any good knives at this point.] Have you managed to find anywhere that's got actual good blades? Everything I came across was worthless, lightweight shit. I don't even have a good combat knife. Fuck finding a halfway decent saber, and in my fucking dreams will they have a plasma blade.

[Which is distressing, and she's sure Winter will understand why.]

Sure. [ He puts his project down and shimmies off the end of the bed so he doesn't disturb Wrath. Reaching under the bed, he pulls out a smaller case, opening it to show Wrath his knife collection. Most of them clearly belong to a set (the one that Nyssa gave him for Christmas) and the others more of an afterthought. He moves the cleaning kit from the top compartment of the case before setting the entire thing on her lap.

He trusts her with their care. ]

I've found some that are.. passable. The rest were a gift.

[Wrath's grin is nothing short of radiant at the sight of all those nice knives. The last time she probably smiled that big was... well, to be honest, probably when Winter asked her to dance at the ball.]

A really nice gift.

[She sorts through the cleaning kit with a very professional eye, obviously pleased with the state of it. But of course Winter wouldn't pick up something worthless, and of course he'd have it all properly organized and cleaned and ready. She also picks up a few of the knives to examine them, checking over the steel and the weight. They're all obviously for someone with much bigger hands than her, though they'd certainly do in a pinch.

Well, they're Winters's, so it's not like she's got them in a pinch anyway. But she can tell which are the set--the gift--and which he must have gotten on the moon. One of those she picks up, checks the balance point, and then turns it in her hand for a couple of different grips. That feels nice. Yeah, not the greatest knife, definitely not something up to Army Labs standards, but it's passable and vastly superior to the nothing she currently has.]

Where'd you get this one? I can ask Vision if I have enough money to get something like this.

Edited 2016-05-30 02:26 (UTC)

[ He watches her go through the motions with the cleaning it and each individual knife, testing the balance and feel in her hand. He does much the same when he takes them out for a cleaning. It's good to be familiar with how they handle in your grip. Being rusty doesn't aid with that. She can understand the preparedness, at least. ]

You can have it.

[ Mostly, he keeps buying weapons so that there's not a shortage. He doesn't necessarily need more than a few, but keeping extras on hand is nice. Just in case of another emergency, his crew needs to be armed. ]

[Wait, what did he say? Did he--]

Are--are you sure?

[Would he really say that if he wasn't? If she was radiant before, she's absolutely incandescent now.]

Thank you! This is the nicest thing anyone's given me!

[Because all of the art supplies, the thoughtful gifts--they're important. But this is a decent knife. It's a little sliver of peace of mind, of being slightly less defenseless when she feels nothing but helpless, most days, thanks to her injuries. And it also feels like a compliment, because you don't give a knife to someone unless you think they know what the fuck they're doing with it. It feels like an acknowledgement of competence, which is something she craves almost as much as the simplicity of touch. And coming from Winter? It's an even bigger deal.

She's grinning ear to ear, but her throat feels kind of thick, like there might be some tears, but they're happy tears.

She carefully puts the knife away and sets the box aside so everything is safe and taken care of, because it's habit.]

And I'm gonna hug you.

[Hopefully he doesn't mind. Does he look like he minds? If not, he's getting an armful of tiny pink-haired murder machine.]

You're welcome.

[ He absolutely trusts her to keep the knife in perfect condition, because weapons are similar. They grow rusty with disuse and care, and there isn't room for either on a mission.

Her expression is blinding, and it takes him a moment to properly register. Oh-- hugging. Right. Winter mentally prepares for Wrath getting closer. He doesn't know how this is the nicest thing anyone's given her, because a secondhand knife isn't really that great.. As long as she likes it, that's what matters, right?

Her arms go around him and a few seconds after, one of his own wraps hesitantly around her back in return. ]

[She buries her face against his shoulder for a moment--don't go near the neck, that's a bad place for most people--and if her voice comes out kind of thick, maybe that'll just get put down to being muffled.]

Thank you. It means a lot to me.

[It means he trusts her enough to have a knife in the first place. It means he doesn't think she's an incompetent, or a head case that's going to hurt herself, or the other horrible things that kept her from legally getting certain types of weapons back in Proles, thanks to the medical orders appended to her file. So maybe that also means she's okay. Is she okay? Winter thinks she's okay.

It feels really good, hugging Winter. Because it's an affirmation that yeah. This is a real thing. He's really her friend. And he's got her back.

...and he smells really nice. That is probably not an appropriate thing to be thinking. The few shreds of brain-to-mouth filter she's got to her name thankfully keep that from popping out.]

[ It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, Wrath knows herself better than they do- even if she doesn't think so. If she didn't think she could handle having a knife, she would have been hesitant. Instead, she's grateful. He's glad that he can provide her some level of security. This place has dulled his reflexes. He understands more than most how having some level of defense can make it a little more okay. Fuck, he doesn't know if he'll ever fully stop sleeping with a weapon under his mattress. As much as he trusts his crew to leave him in peace, he knows that people have ulterior motives. Better to have the upper hand... just in case. It hasn't escaped him that he has someone who can manipulate metal on his ship.

Winter let's her hug him long as she needs to, though his pursue starts to stiffen before too long. Hugs are still.. Iffy. If only because he's not gotten too many in recent memory. ]

[She doesn't hang on too long, even though she'd like to. She's hugged Maine before, she knows not to push it. One little squeeze and she lets go, scoots back to her original spot. She has to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, but hopefully Winter will pretend not to notice.

Then she picks her needles back up and regards them with a little dismay.] I think some of the yarn fell off?

[Help, Winter. Make it work.]

[ He pulls away, not mentioning the glassy look in her eyes. It's not important, and people are entitled to privacy, even if they're sitting right there.

Winter looks over her work, helping her readjust. ]

Here. [ He picks up one of the smaller tools he'd stabbed into the skein of yarn, pointing to the lost loops before using the tool to pick them out. ]

Now slide them back onto the needle.

Okay. [Military maneuvers have been accomplished with less profound concentration than she puts into getting the yarn back on the needles. (Then again, military maneuvers are easy if you ask her. This is new and therefore not easy.]

Got it. Thanks, Winter.

[And she goes back to methodically knitting, feeling extremely happy.]

Heron May mingle

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