April System Mingle

[thespaceopera]

Who: Everyone!
Broadcast: Possibly!
Action: April System
When: Month of April!


[Welcome to the Belt, a huge asteroid belt that's been terraformed for life. Here you can explore the different asteroids, become a rock star, race on some ATVs, enjoy not being underwater.

In other words, it's a mingle! Get in everyone!

> System Info ]

Comments

[mucked]

[ peggy pauses.

her fingers steady the teapot's top. she stands, her back to him, and contemplates the pouring of the second cup. she cannot pinpoint exactly where, but somewhere along the line she's made a grievous error. some lapse in judgement or else some missed signal has allowed her to walk blindly into this cul-de-sac of a conversation.

after all, she'd expected him to let it slide. to be polite, perhaps a bit deferential, and be ever-so-gently thrown off the scent by her admission. it never, not once, occurs to her that his interest might be a professional one. even now, that's a blind spot she doesn't identify.

so! she pours the second cup. and, steeled, she takes both to the little galley table where they can both of them at long last take a seat. ]

It would be a bit like reading a book backward, don't you think? [ peggy understands (perhaps) that she can no longer depend on flying just beneath the radar of rip hunter's estimation. so sharp an inquiry proves it. still, she tries. ] I've been here for nearly two years, Mister Hunter. I know who will next sit the throne and I know what films will become beloved. I know about these idiotic things they call emojis. I don't welcome how bored I'd be if I went home tomorrow and remembered everything.

[ oh, heavens. she would be the furthest thing from bored. there would be an insurmountable task ahead of her, weighty with history. ]

I, for one, don't go to the horse races because I already know where to put my money.

[ peggy reaches for a bit of shortbreat and dunks it, utterly casual, into her tea. ]

[directed]

[It's difficult to gage any sort of reaction while she has her back so neatly to him, and isn't that arguably convenient? Particularly as the silence of her pause stretches on, just for a beat or two extra, but enough that the spark of a question begins to form in Rip's mind.

Still. He would wait for her answer, be it truth or lie. He moves when she does, taking a seat at the table once more, offering polite thanks when she grants him a cup. The task of adding sugar to the contents provides him occupation while she spells out her answer, but he still pays rapt attention to it all the same. Such a tidy little story she weaves in the end, of wanting to be excited by the prospect of what's to come—

And yet. He stirs his tea to help dissolve the sugar, lightly taps the spoon on the edge of the mug to usher off the last droplets from the metal.]

If your goal is the element of unpredictability, certainly. [She's difficult to get a read on, appearing on the surface to be every bit a person engaged in casual, evening meaningless conversation. Rip doesn't know her well enough yet to assume otherwise—but he knows the nature of time travel, and all its temptations.

He curls his hands around the cup, but so much as he's missed it? Rip doesn't yet steal that first glorious sip of tea. Not when he knows what distraction it would bring. Not when the next question is potentially so revealing.]

So in all you've potentially learned, there's not a single thing you would care to remember? No detail of what's to come that you might try to wish to manipulate for the sake of what could theoretically be gained from it?

[mucked]

[ peggy doesn't stand so much on ceremony. nearly the moment she takes a seat, she dunks a half a piece of shortbread into her tea. it's been left black: not even a moment's consideration was spared the sugar or the re-hydrated milk. she chews, thoughtful, on the softened biscuit. and she wonders whether the man sitting across from her even remotely expects to receive an honest answer. especially when he asks it like that.

she's still chewing when rip finishes winding his way through his question. her brows lift, briefly, as though she's considering the weight of her answer. and in many ways she does exactly that. quite apart from everything she's fated to do, peggy's learned a lot of practical knowledge. rudimentary computer programming, for one. the dragged-out fracas of the cold war for another.

hell, steve talks often and bitterly enough about the dodgers leaving brooklyn. someone might manage to make a pretty penny out of that, too. but she doesn't want to rise to rip hunter's bait.

so, after taking a proper sip which leaves a lipstick mark on the teacup's edge, she settles on her response. ]

Folsom Prison Blues. The whole ruddy record, actually. [ at folsom prison. ] What a treat it would be to find myself back home and still able to whistle Orange Blossom Special.

[ i'll ride that orange blossom special and lose those new york blues. ]

[directed]

[Johnny Cash. Rip raises his cup, and huffs out a sound not unlike a laugh before he takes his first sip. His pause then is due in no part to her answer, but to savoring the familiar flavors dancing over his tongue, bitter tea and the sweetness of sugar, and even if it's not precisely what he might wish for could he do so?

It's a damn sight better than anything he's had during his days aboard the Fleet thus far.

That singular euphoric moment aside, however, sees Rip mulling over her answer. He's got not true proof for it, outside of his instincts and observations of Peggy, but in this he is sure: she's lying. There's something about her that speaks to a far greater cleverness, a keener instinct than one that might be satisfied with a few songs and otherwise unspoiled surprises.

Every details she's given him, after all, has been measured and chosen. A woman who served in the war, who befriended a wealthy civilian contractor. Who crossed the pond for an opportunity she won't name, but definitely would deny had anything to do with chasing another person.]

Well. I certainly can't fault your taste in music.

[He gives her this, and this alone. It is a rather good record.]

[mucked]

[ this is the best damn game she's played in a long while. now, this new fellow isn't the only person she's met with a bit of an ear for the give-and-take of a conversation. nor is he the only one with whom she's danced this particular conversational dance. but there's a particular delight in talking with someone who, 'from the future' be damned, talks a little like how she talks. it's like fencing, where the weapons are well-matched and the steps are traceable.

by contrast, many of her more cryptic conversations with the likes of romanoff (or even barnes) are rewarding in their own right. but utterly, completely, different. beyond that, they come stamped with someone else's vouchsafe. there's no skin in the game when she knows even a deadly russian-trained spy is (ultimately) on the same bloody side.

so, perhaps, she courts danger when she chats with someone who remains barely a step above a stranger. ]

Stays popular, does he? [ johnny cash. after all, she'd been under the impression that rip was from a very very long while away. ] And all the way to 2166. Good for him.

[directed]

[Somehow he doubts it's an idle remark, yet Rip has a ready reply, not missing a single beat as he offers it up with a shrug.]

Admittedly, I'm rather a fan of the classics.

[Another sip of tea; he might as well have just made a comment about the weather for how bland his retort was.]