| Brassed Part Four - Good Works |
| Summary: | The last of the October Air Wing Brassing Spree. Evandreus Doe is promoted to full LT. |
| Date: | 12 Oct 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Brassed Part One; Brassed Part Two; Brassed Part Three |
| Players: |
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| Ready Room - Deck 7 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| With the hatches at the rear of the room, the walkways on both sides slope down towards the dais at the front of the room. The stadium seating forms a partial semi-circle around the speaking podium and provides enough seats for all three hundred members of the Air Wing. The walls are adorned with the patches of each squadron aboard and their mottos stenciled in white lettering above each one. Behind the podium is a set of large LCD screens that can display any matter of material from reconnaissance to maps to gun camera footage. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #228 |
Lieutenant Junior Grade S. Evandreus Doe has been summoned to the Ready Room for a meet (likely not cute) with the CAG. At his earliest convenience. More of the import of the summons was not made immediately clear. Cidra waits. Early. Standing at the podium, leaning almost casually against it, though she's neat and pressed in her blues for whatever occasion this is.
Evan's not exactly taken off-guard by the call to meet with el Cid. Seeing as how planning for scouting miissions proceeds in full force, he shows up in off-duties at a rate of speed just this side of a jog, a folder of printouts and his binder of recon notes under one arm, a pencil stub behind an ear, a lollipop in his mouth. Someone's been a good boy at Sickbay. candy tucked into his cheek, he speaks relatively clearly as he jumps down the stairs a couple at a go like some sort of monkey on crack, looking for a spot to settle in and open up his binder. "Hey, Cid. 'Sup?"
"Evandreus." Cidra minds not at all the use of the familiar from him, even on-duty as they are. If anything, it brings the slightest of smiles to her face. She steps down from the dias though she does not sit, nor invite him to. "Remain standing, if you please. You are looking well."
Evandreus is, of course, half into a seat, by then, but he recovers by tossing down his stack of books into the empty seat and just easing into a sort of awkwardly trying-to-be-casual lean. He looks tired, is what he looks, eyes ringed dark like life's punched him in both eyes, skin sallow with sleeplessness, but somehow the inner light in this one just keeps shining, keeps the spark of youth in his dark green eyes. He makes a playful sort of tsking sound. "I bet you say that to all the boys."
Cidra looks tired as well, for her part. Little lines around the corners of her eyes are mouth particularly prominent, and she's sporting dark circles to match Evandreus'. Her eyes aren't particularly sparky, either. But there is that purposefulness about her that she generally possesses. She carries on, in all times. "You have been oft in Sickbay of late. Since the birth of the civilian woman's children. Astra Koios, yes?" Very hard to tell precisely what she's getting at, from her tone. She can be inscrutable when she wants to be.
"Mama Astra, right," Evan answers. "Heh, yeah, between my weekly testing regimens, therapy sessions and helping Mama Astra take care of the Evans, I may as well move my bunk into the Bay," he goes on, jaw wrestling against a yawn as his brain wanders backward through the days, trying to remember the last time he slept for more than a few hours.
"You should not strain yourself so, or you shall be little good to anyone," Cidra says. "Your friend has her duties with her children. You have yours." She pauses a long beat to regard. Just regard him with those mild blue eyes of hers. "Why did you join the service, Doe?" The question is asked not with recrimination, but with a certain searching curiosity. "I have at times wondered. In many ways, you are not the usual type to wear the uniform."
"I'll be fine, Cid. Honest, okay?" Evan's voice goes almost all the way to cajoling. "I took those kids out of her myself. Probably the closest I'll ever come to having kids of my own, y'know? I always kind of wanted a family. Big house, lots of kids. A dog. One of those big shaggy things." Evan shakes his head with a little shudder of his shoulders as though emerging from the brief trip into fancy. "Why'd I join?" he asks the question back and just regards Cid for a moment, as if considering the answer. "Like, on the record, or just between us?"
"Dogs. Men always want dogs…" Cidra mutters. To herself rather than Evandreus. She does not even seem quite aware that she said it aloud. It's spoken wryly, but with a certain bittersweet fondness. Her gaze drifts off him for a moment, but she makes it focus back with a quick blink. "Pardon me. Between us. I just…I have always wanted to know, and it seemed important just now."
"Not," Evan goes on, "to say I have anything against cats. But they kind of make my eyes itchy." That said, Evan shifts just a little ways, leaning a butt cheek against the back of a chair, not quite sitting, but moving from a lean to a mostly-vertical perch. "I was kind of in trouble. I got into a… bunch of stuff I never should have touched with a ten foot pole. Military service… well… it was kind of equal parts refuge and penitence, I guess. I hoped I could do good works, like… it would make up for the rest of it, somehow," he looks up and to the side as his eyes go a little misty, and he blinks, once, hard, before taking a deep breath and giving a huff of a laugh, winsome-eyed, "And being able to hide behind a row of big dudes with guns was a pretty nice selling point, too."
Cidra listens to all of that silently, expression remaining inscrutable. Mostly. A small nod when he speaks of 'refuge and petitence.' "Good works and good service. Highest callings one can ascribe to in life…" she mutters. For a moment, perhaps, it might seem like she's going to press more into that 'trouble' that drove him here. But she does not. "Good works are simple. The petitence…it never seems finished, does it, Doe? No matter what rituals one completes or what time one puts in. Gods and other men forgive more easily than we forgive ourselves."
"Maybe they do." Evan sounds honestly uncertain. "I guess we'll never really know, for sure. Maybe they haven't ever forgiven us, either." Dark thoughts accompanied by an altogether comment-inappropriate smile. Go go gadget mood stabilizers! "No, though, I know what you mean. It never ends. One slip and you just know you'll be back there, right? And that's not the way you want thehuman race to go out, is it? We still hope that two billion years from now when bacteria have evolved to sentience, they'll look back and say, "They were closer to gods than beasts.""
"Perhaps…" Said soft, but Cidra does not sound like she particularly disagrees. "But. We go on. It is better than the alternative. I lived too long some years ago in the empty places." She does not explain what she means by that. Perhaps she doesn't think she has to. "It did none any good. Least of all myself. Well. Good works and service, Doe. Those are not small things. You have served this Wing well these many months gone. Served me well. Do you think you shall be able to continue to serve, as we go forward?"
Evan's eyes narrow just slightly at the last question and he lets a momentary pause lapse by before, "Is there a reason you can think of why I shouldn't be?" It might be a little defensive in tone. Or it could just be wariness. "Medical's greenlighted me. I kind of figured this was a fly-til-you-can't-anymore type of gig. Unless you've got a whole slew of other cadets up your sleeve you're not telling anyone about. In which case, sure, let's talk retirement benefits." 'Cause it wouldn't do to end on a serious note or anything.
"I do not have any cadets up my sleeve, no," Cidra replies dryly. Eyeing him up and down in that weighing sort of way she often eyes things. "I have in these past days attempted to…order many matters to my satisfaction. I have put more weight on the shoulders of some of your fellows. I trust they shall bear it well. I have spoken on the matter of you with Bootstrap, and he agrees. It is time." And she reaches into her pocket and plucks out…a pair of full LT pins. So, no, she is probably not taking retirement requests at the moment.
Evandreus eyes the pins, something sort of like an icy dread crawling through his veins. But, after his manner, he laughs it off, "Well, there goes my summer home in Corinth," as if Corinth weren't a simmering mass of toxic particles at the moment. "For serious, though. I'm glad to be able to do what I can for you guys. Boots knows I have his back, and I'm glad you know I've got yours, too, Cid." And he shoves off of his little perch, not, as one might expect, to accept the pins, but, arms outstretched, to give the woman a big warm Evan hug.
Cidra simply hands Evandreus the pins. As he didn't bother to come in full uniform, he can put them on himself later. One might expect her to be more put-out about the lack of ceremony. But she isn't. For all her outer propriety, the woman is surprisingly lax on some points of regulation. "You serve me surpassing well, Bunny," she says simply, leaning in to return his hug. And to kiss him. She aims one on each cheek, quick and rather ceremonial.