| Last Home |
| Summary: | Leyla and Bran decide to remember Picon in a uniquely Taurian fashion. |
| Date: | 06 Oct 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Ghosts of Picon |
| Players: |
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| Pilot Berths |
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| The battlestar's pilots call this place home. Bunks line the walls with grey curtains to cover their sleeping areas. Lockers sit between each pair of bunks and a round metal table sits in the center, furnished with simple but comfortable steel chairs. A hatch at the rear of the room leads to a communal head. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #221 |
After returning from a successful venture through the Gates of Hades and sitting upon the Underworld's Lap at the Heart of Picon, Sam Bran has kept himself away from the world. It's not terribly difficult for the ECO to tuck himself out of general affairs. The generally talkative and headstrong Tauron fiddling with favors and avoiding airspace patrols and search-and-rescue missions altogether equates to his lingering about the berths and near to his bunk. He has extended off-duty hours, might as well make use of them before he repays his debts. Sitting at a table, he has an amount of paper and books around him. Some have been balled away this early evening. Others, well, he's been sketching to pass the time and try to ignore anyone around him. The trying is of fluctuating success, tonight.
Leyla, for her part, is only now coming back off of a CAP, or just recently. The best way to forget about the past, is to focus on the future. Or at least, on something which, with any luck, for the foreseeable future will be just as mindnumbingly boring as one could ever hope for. But even that cannot last, as she steps into the berthing from the direction of the head, working a comb through her hair as she goes. Bra and shorts, as is her want, not being in that oh so large group of people who seem to revel in wandering about naked. "You mind telling me why Stiffy was in my raptor tonight and not you?"
Bran slows the strokes that take his pencil's blackened tip across the surface of paper before him. His shoulders once-slouched rise and he casts his gaze at an angle to his side, only to find himself looking at bare stomach. The corners of his eyes tighten to the familiar voice and he begins to sit back and drop the pencil to the paper while looking up to Leyla's face. "I've been in need of some more time to commune with the Lords, as of late, why?" It's a half-truth, for to have done so much work, scattered in front of him, he would need time above and beyond simple prayer. Something of a smile appears, though it is watered down and does not reach his eyes. "Looks like you're a bit, uh, peeved about it," he pauses and then quietly adds, briefly returning to himself as he asks, "Miss me that much, huh?"
"I like my raptor to be neat and orderly, and that includes knowing in advance who's backseating for me ahead of time. Plus," Leyla continues, as she hops up to sit on the table just clear of where Bran has been working, "Also, I had planned to talk over some very important things with you while we were in there, and now I have to do it here." Full stop. Leyla finished combing out her hair, setting aside the comb, though she doesn't immediately set to braiding her hair, "Shirt off please." And if that seems like the most random request ever, well, she doesn't even notice.
"Oh," is the emotionless response that Bran gives and he takes that moment to simply breathe. There's a slow inhale and a laborious exhale. He takes his time with it and begins to fold his arms over the breadth of his chest as he listens to her, nodding once. His gaze is relatively focused in the direction of his sketch. It's distinctly, familiar for them, Tauron cityscape. The others are various portraits of their comrades-in-arms Air Wing. He only retroactively notices her request and his brows tighten before he glances up to her. "Do what?" As he looks up towards Leyla, his arms slowly begin to unfold just 'cause.
"Which word was too large? Take. Your. Shirt. Off." Slow and deliberate. The silence just…lingers, before she continues, "Please." She sits where she set herself down, not making any move to touch the man, bare hands settled on either side of the table as she waits for the man seated sort of in front of her, or at least so she can turn to look at him to do as she asked. "I need to read you." Don't worry, she'll wait, lifting a hand to turn this picture and that to allow her to look at it more closely.
"I think it was please," quietly interjects Bran but he takes his time in listening to her fully this time around. Leyla can abuse him verbally all she likes, he's used to it and he has his times where he dishes it right back out. There's a small smile as she says please again and he sits up as if responding directly to it. He doesn't speak up though; no, instead, he grinds his teeth into a small, but more appreciative smile and sits forward in order to reach down at his waist and drag the t-shirt from his torso. With following through with the request comes the revealing of his tatau, or at least more of it. His arms were fairly visible but things of faith, of family and history, his accomplishments, they mostly reside over muscled torso and back, beneath his pants, and most of that is bare. The t-shirt is balled and placed in his lap, with him questioningly, wordlessly looking back towards her.
Leyla holds out a finger, far enough that there's no risk of her touching the man's now bared skin, tip tracing the air in the distance between her hand and his chest, and it is indeed very much as one might skim their finger down along a page as they read, "No, no, no. No, no…no." That done, she hops back off of the table, and then goes around to his back, not asking, but instead trusting that he'll lean forward to allow her full view of his back. Once she gets to his back, her mood, if it could possibly improve, does, the words coming soft, in taurian, "And they left the place of their becoming," Leyla reads from the book of Bran's flesh. "That's the one." And being that it's Bran, and he would know better than anyone precisely which of the lines that mark his skin form the picture of those words, she needn't say anymore. Rather, she comes back around so that he can see her. A hand tugs down the left side of her shorts, exposing the lines that trace swirls across her hip. "At your leisure."
The corners of Bran's mouth tighten noticeably into a smile as he looks at her extended finger and though he could speak up he instead lifts his gaze and directs it towards the ceiling. He sits further up as she continues to look over the descriptive, intricate and dark markings along his brown skin. He glances her way when she moves to stand and he sits further up before leaning forward in order to allow her better access to the continuation of complex tattoo upon his upper back and middle. There's a short chuckle at her reading. It's appreciatively done though. He begins to sit back against the cool metal of his chair and rests his far elbow against the table in order to leisurely look to her hip. "And walked as one blood into the place of new light," replies he. He closes his eyes for a moment. "I'm starting to think your way of making me feel better is better than my way."
"Yes, it usually is." Abusive the Aydin might be towards the Bran, they've both been deep enough inside each other's psyches to understand and perhaps except that their dynamic, however it might look to those outside, works for them. "Can you blend the two? I don't have the skill." An artist she might be, but drawing, sketching, working with the intricacies of pen and pencil on paper simply is not her demesne. And given that despite the fact that to an outsider, her tatau look almost identical to Bran's, they are, to the knowledgeable eye, almost diametrically opposed in sweep and angle and stroke of the 'brush' on canvas. It would take an artist of considerable skill to work the two into a perfect union.
Bran looks down at his t-shirt and rolls it idly between his fingertips before looking back up to Leyla. He understands her. She understands him. They might hate each other at times but that bond is still there. His gaze briefly drops back down to the work of tatau upon skin and then he replies further, still speaking in Taurian. "I can't promise, only because I would hate to break it, if I fail, but." He allows a beat to pass, giving time for the weight of the consequences and benefits to sink properly in and rest upon the forefront of his mind, "But, I can try. This is something I can honor, for the both of us." He sits there quietly. This notion is on a level similar to the likes of marriage and adoption: A Pretty Big Deal. So, he asks, "You sure about this?"
Leyla tugs back up her shorts, this isn't, after all, a peepshow, even if it would have been, in the grand scheme of things, the most innocuous peepshow in the history of peepshows. Once she's sure he's seen what he needs to see, for the present, since it's quite likely he'll need to study it in more detail to pick out the exact marking to sketch for reference, she heads to her bunk to grab a pair of sweats. "If it can't be done, it can't be done." It's just as simple as that. Pants, tank tops, jacket, all in easy succession as she speaks, "And if it can, it will have to be done together." At least, that's Leyla's family's tradition, that tatau are always given in pairs, even if what is being done is not the same. Pain shared is pain more easily endured. As much a bond as the ink itself.
It was an excellent peepshow, but they are beginning to discuss far more important things, which leads to Bran taking up one set of paper and stacking them together in an effort at being orderly. He's not quite good at being organized however and simply sets them aside, corners not aligned, before taking a fresh one and setting it before him. "There's no such thing as impossible. Otherwise, we wouldn't be standing here." Where there's a will, there surely is a way, and the man sticks to that. He keeps his shirt off, too. Everyone loves to see a half-dressed and well-fit, strapping young man these days. "So we're going to do this, and we're going to do this together," he nods decisively upon that and even can grin again. He also has since gone back to speaking standard, if only because others in the background can potentially understand them "We do it of home?"
Leyla finishes redressing easily enough, before she returns to the table. And no, this time she isn't sitting next to you, she's pulling a chair over so she can sit across from you, neatly gloves hands now folded on the table in front of her. "No, we wouldn't be." She's more than well aware that they very likely came within a hair's breadth of becoming two more ghosts to float down to the surface of Picon. "The way it's always been done." As for the question, as she too returns to standard, "It was Picon that brought it to mind. The place where we set aside the people that we were, and became the people that we are." She pauses, a moment, "The last home, as Tauron was the first."
Sam glances upwards to the re-arrival of Leyla and he offers a small but warm smile. He's feeling moderately better now, thanks to her. He'll get to being argumentatively testy in a moment or so but for now he is content and with being thus sated he taps the end of his pencil upon the blank surface. The man would rather talk at the moment. "The way it's always been done," repeats he, nodding. "We can never call it home, but it is, and we left it together. To add to the mythos that is us, a record of Picon, and the more I talk about the more I like it. I may have to consult our more gifted tradesmen," he cannot think of a better word without speaking Taurian, "In the proper ways, but." He hangs on that word as his hand begins to draw, to begin.
And the smile is returned, the woman, for once, not bracketing it with some wish for his perpetual suffering solely for her amusement, no, just the smile as she settles. A truce of sorts, for the time being. It's easy enough to sit, now that she's once again dressed, with all of the elements it contains, though she does unfold her hands to begin to braid her now only slightly damp hair. "We carry them with us as well." The ghosts of Picon. "And they deserve to be remembered." And whether or no any of the people who forged them into flight officers died the day the cylons obliterated all human life on Picon, what it was to both of them remains the same. A forge. "Yes, of course. They will have to approve the final design, make certain that it properly conveys our words." A tuhungu, better than anyone knows precisely the manner with which new tatau should be added to old.
"I am looking forward to this." Bran is sure he stated that already but it demands stating again, out of respect for the Ghosts of Picon, out of respect for themselves and their families, and because he damn well pleases. It's not as if someone is going to suddenly pipe up and stop him. He nods, though it feels as if it is to himself more than anyone else or directed towards Leyla. The smile lingers upon his expression as well as he continues to do the initial sketching.
Neat hands finish the braid, eyes watching the man working across from her for a long while, silent. Everything that she needed to say has been said. everything that needed to be done has been done, at least for the moment. And while he works, Leyla rises to return to her bunk, to retrieve her own pile of papers, though none of them contain anything remotely artistic, unless one considers reading through the data their raptor recorded over a dead world artistic. But it seems fitting, one view of Picon bracketed by another. And for the next long while, the two continue on in silence.