driftfleet | [video] March winds and April showers

Who: Mantis and you

Broadcast: Yes

Action: Bishop

When: Today

[You might smell a special kind of hot coming from the kitchen today. Not mere heat of gas or electric stove or warm food, but the old school kind that tricks the body into thinking it’s in pain. Mantis is standing at the table with a bag full of chips and several bowls in front of him. There’s a lot of bottles of plastic and glass with all manner of spices in them. The contents of each bowl are stirred with a spoon unique to each one. Just off to the side is a bottle of milk.

Slowly, carefully, he takes a chip out of one of the bowls. It’s covered in a fine powder and he lifts his mask out of the way to smell it. Then he breaks off the smallest piece and pops it into his mouth.

The coughing is almost instantaneous and he slams a fist onto the table before grabbing the milk and taking a great mouthful and holding in in there for a good half a minute. Then he swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.]

All right. That worked. [He coughs again and nods at the camera.] Vash, I have several batches for you to try. I’m working on arranging them from a general sense of safety to one that will make you feel like your tongue is bleeding. [Cough. He takes another swig of milk.] I hate spicy food, but this is the most effective means of testing what I made without involving other people first.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I can just put this particular mix aside and repurpose it as a weapon. I intended for this to be the hottest blend and got what I aimed for.

You're welcome to fret all you want. [The coughing is subsiding. Slightly.] After the life I've led, this can't kill me.

Yeah, no, no weapons. I'll take that mix and find a use for it. [He will not be happy to be responsible for causing someone pain.]

And you sure? Because you're coughing enough that it sounds like you might be in trouble.

I wasn't planning to kill anyone with it. Pepper spray. It's self defense.

This can't kill me. Make me regret some choices, certainly, but- [He pauses to sip some more milk.] Death has to take me by surprise or in my sleep to succeed.

Oh. [That's acceptable.] That's not so bad and it would probably make a good pepper spray.

Do you mean that literally? Because back home I would think you were being figuratively, but I've seen some strange powers here in the fleet.

If I'm going to fail, I'm going to turn that failure around into something workable.

I was actually referring to a quote about an American president. [He sighs, the action taking his shoulders down a bit.] What happened to me back home was another case of underestimating what was in front of me.

That's a good outlook on life and mistakes. I like it.

Oh, so the president had death avoiding powers. [He still thinks that's what Mantis means.]

Dwelling on things that cannot be changed is a waste of energy.

Sort of. He was considered to be very tough, and therefore hard to kill. Amazingly, they named a children's toy after him: teddy bears.

Hey! I've heard of him! Or, at least the teddy bears. [He has to pull back, way far back to his memories. Back to his first year of life with Rem and the things she taught him.] Rose... no, Roosevelt, right?

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. A bit of a legend in his own right over the course of American history.

[There's a notable pause and he looks up slowly. He's so used to assuming people are aliens or born on entirely different planets, he ends up waiting for familiarity with certain phrases.]

Are you from Earth?

No, I've never been, but I knew someone from Earth. [He could leave it at that. There's plenty of people from Earth here. It would be so less complicated to say that he learned it here, but he's trying to be more honest.] She was from my universe and she taught me a bit of Earth's history.

You don't look much like an alien. [He shrugs.] Then again, there are a lot of human-shaped people here. I know I was an alien to some who have come and gone.

Yeah, I blend in pretty good, huh? [He wonders if he'll ever get use to saying stuff like that openly.]

But yeah, the ancestors of the people of my planet were originally from Earth. It's been a few generations since there.

[Mantis makes a surprised noise and feels his head tilting just slightly to one side.]

That is an option I had not considered before. Our planet can barely send people up to live in space stations. We haven't come close to making planets habitable for us.

Maybe it will one day. It took a long time for them to get out to space.

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