01: I turn this corner, get on this spaceship...

[poetontheinside]

Who: Ray Kowalski
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: 16/4, pre-Shuffle

[A]

[It's not like Ray's graceless-- he's a dancer, right, he can be light on his feet, one-two-three-end-up-in-space, but right now it looks like he's mostly forgotten how to move at all. You can laugh at him (and you could, because in the kerfuffle he's managed to turn on the communicator) but only as soon as you figure out that there's a person underneath the sheer amount of winter clothes currently on the Marsiva. There's a mostly-empty backpack, a hideous parka, a warm (holy shit too warm) middle layer, and a suffocating base core layer. Then there's the hat, the weird-ass circular scarf-thing, two types of gloves, snow boots, sunglasses--


There's some muffled cursing coming from underneath all of this, but eventually there's a frustrated groan and a thump as about half of the aforementioned layers fall to the floor. All through the process, there's muttering.]

Look, Frase, not that I'm callin' you a liar or nothin', but all this time you been bragging about how freakin' cold it gets up North, but I'm kinda disappo-- [He pokes his head out of his last layer, hair mussed, eyes big.]

Fraser?

[B]

[However things get explained to him, he suddenly knows a shit-ton about space. And spaceships. A lot about space ships, actually, so much that his hands get a little itchy. It's weird to be here, without Fraser, when they've spent so much time together since starting his undercover assignment-- especially after they'd left for their Northern Adventure. It makes him feel a little anxious, like he's not sure how to behave without the Mountie at his side.

And when Ray gets anxious, he has to find something to do. So he starts walking around the Marsiva, and he finds things to do-- because he's a Detective, more than anything, and Finding Things Out is his gig, his jam. Specifically, he finds things to take apart, carefully, decisively. With the world of knowledge now inside his head, it all makes sense, and he settles into the work, seeing it, feeling it. It's cool. It's really cool.

The communicator's with him, on a table or on the floor, and despite the whole 'Engineering Augment' thing he keeps turning it off and on accidentally. Feel free to tell him not to take the ship apart.]

Comments

[peacockherald]

I am sure we shall come across our own share of excitement. Or make our own. A fair bit harder here than my last residence though. It rather spoiled us by granting every wish.

_{[ Ah, the good old days. Well, mostly good, there were days and weeks he could have done without. ]}

You've seemed to have found your own after all.

[poetontheinside]

This? Nah, this is just-- busywork, you know? Keep me from losin' my mind without any real work to do. I get, y'know-- [He twirls a finger next to his temple: coo-coo bananas, is what he wants to say.]

That sounds cool, though, that place you were at. What kinda stuff you wish for?

[peacockherald]

Anything we needed. Food. Clothes. Simple objects. We paid for them eventually, but otherwise it was happy to provide. We very well couldn't have made do without.

_{[ He shifted to peer at the bits and pieces again, wondering how it was he could name a few of the parts but not all. He took up two gears, fitting the teeth together and rolling them back and forth curiously. ]}

What was your world like? This world of cars and VCRs?

[poetontheinside]

[[he looks at Vanyel as he does that, slides some more interesting parts his way.]

Kinda difficult to explain if you don't know what-- you know. [he gestures a little]

Busy, I guess. Fast. I'm from a big city, so there's a lotta everything. Tall buildings, cars, people. An' I'm a cop, so the people I tend to meet aren't the, uh, best ones, usually. But um, before I got here I wasn't there. Fraser, my buddy-- he's from the north. The north north. And uh, we were there. We were supposed to go on adventure. And it's like a different world up there, y'know? Fresh air, mountains, snow everywhere. No people, neither.

[peacockherald]

_{[ He takes them, sliding the gears along them, smiling at the sound they made - ringing and metallic, but beautiful in its own way. ]}

Cop - that means law enforcement, yes?

_{[ He cocked his head at the further explanation, curious. ]}

An adventure, hmm? I suppose now you have gotten more than you bargained for.

[poetontheinside]

[He turns around briefly, while he talks, pulling something out of the wall-- it's a mess of wires, a little metal box.]

Yeah- detective, so I, you know, investigate stuff. [He hums to himself, then grins over his shoulder when he pushes the wires together and they spark, brightly. See? He can do magic, too.]

Only Fraser got left behind, so it's kinda less than I bargained for, too.

[peacockherald]

A sheriff of sorts, then.

_{[ Vanyel's eyes brightened at the sparks and he chuckled in return to Ray's smile. His smile fell some at the last words though, eyes quiet and understanding. ]}

It is difficult, being so far from your friends and family and in such a new place. It grows a little easier in time, and with new friends.

[poetontheinside]

[The thought of himself with a little golden star on his chest, wearing a big hat in a small town makes him grin. He won't contest it, though, not right now. Not when he's said something that's making Vanyel consider some less-than-pleasant things.]

Guess you got all the experience to back it up, huh?

[peacockherald]

Enough of it. I did have one friend, for a little while, but they returned home as well.

_{[ He had been sad for his passing, for feeling his loss again, but it had been a comfort to have him while he could. Parts of his soul that had been torn for so long felt as if they had finally been stitched together again, if not entirely healed. ]}

But I had more friends there not of my world, and they proved themselves a great comfort.

_{[ He paused, considering, wondering if he might be over stepping so quickly. ]}

I would be glad to make a friend of you, Ray.

ps, in case you hadn't seen: i put a movie theater thing in the mingle!

[poetontheinside]

[Where Ray is from, people don't say these things so readily- only Fraser says that kind of stuff, but Fraser's a Canadian freak. So it surprises him to hear it, but a second later he ducks his head and grins a little, clearly pleased.]

Gotta stick together out here, huh?

[That's a 'me too'- but that's not quite so easy to say, for him.]

I shall tag it on the morrow! o/

[peacockherald]

Us against the world, as if were.

_{[ His own smile reflects the pleased tone of Ray's, both proud of himself and happy too. Ray seemed a good sort, and more friend were always welcome. Here, at least, the dark shadows of his own world did not loom so close. ]}