| Table On a Table |
| Summary: | Alessandra's confined to quarters. Evandreus, Leyla and Malone do their best to keep her company, each after their own fashion. |
| Date: | 13 Sep 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Sting Like a Bee, Lack of Contrition, and Clinging to Life generally. |
| 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: #199 |
It's been roughly a full twenty-four hours since the fight, arrest and following detainment to berths for those pilots who got involved, Alessandra being one of those pilots. After a visit with the XO, she got a shower and came promptly to here where she has been for the majority of the day. Laying on her bunk, she is hovering between states of being, either semi-dozing or staring intently at the bottom of the bunk above her, the latter being when the former threatens to push her into dreaming, that being something she absolutely does not want to do.
Evandreus is just in from the shower, himself, shaking off the last of a spooked expression with a shuddery shrug of one shoulder while he holds his towel over his other shoulder, hand gripping the fabric at the level of his chest. He throws his towel up into his bunk, nearby the hatch as it is, and heads on down the rows of bunks to the drinks station at the far end of the berths, turning his head back to look toward the pilot in the bunk under his as he heads that way. "Want me to make you a nice cuppa tea, Duckie?"
Neither showering nor racked out, Leyla is seated at the center table, bits and pieces of scrap laid out on the table in front of her. A small collection of pliers, grips and metal shears of different shapes and sizes are set into a toolkit. It's two of these tools she has in hand, as she works at a small shard of metal, her right hand holding the metal in one pair of pliers, the other, her dominant left, bending the metal to whatever shape it is she's working on. It's not that she doesn't notice the Viper pilot in her bunk, but a combination of not knowing the woman well, and the feeling she gets that casual conversation would be unwelcome with an almost total stranger, keeps her quiet. She pauses, midbend, as she catches sight of the ECO exiting the head, but that too, keeps her comfortably silent.
"Would that cuppa come with one of your hugs," Allie says drowsily with a smile, her attention and gaze slipping to the lovely Bunny-boy as she pivots her head upon her pillow. "I could use a hug as well, right now." Not something she admits to needing, usually, so something must be going on. Catching sight of a relatively new face, it's Leyla she watches; still prone, she can't see what the other pilot's doing but she can see her and she can't help but to take to staring just a bit. "Hello," she quips after a moment of what might be considered gawking. "Don't think we've met." Allie has been spending her off time away from the berths and has been even more scarce since Coll's death so the fact that the pair has yet to meet shouldn't be too surprising.
"'Course," Evan agrees, gentle-voiced, almost solicitous, a tone of voice that can't help but let slip he's got some idea of what's all gone on to make hugs come up on the list of desired objects. He goes on ahead to the drinks station and begins to hunt for a couple of clean mugs. "What about you, Peapod? Can I make you up a cup?" It'd be rude not to offer, right?
Staring clearly doesn't bother Leyla in the least. She simply continues to work, neatly dividing her attention between the comings and goings inside the berthing and the scrap she's working on at the table, leather work gloves protecting her hands from sharp edges, "No we haven't. Hello," she offers, as she glances up, following Alessandra's greeting, "Aydin. Leyla. You can call me Sweet Pea." Everyone else does, mostly. Evandreus' offer, however, is declined, with a light shake of her head, "Thank you, no. I've got some water with me." A foot reaches out, nudging the travel bottle on the ground next to her chair.
Evan is given a smile. His sweetness is very much appreciated on a good day and on a day like today it is even more so. "Thanks, Bunny." Deciding to be social, now, she slips upright and then turns, letting her feet find deck once she gets her legs crooked over the edge of her bunk, that easy to do since she has a bottom bunk. There's no sign of the vandalism from the other day, the graffiti cleaned up and the bedding which was soaked in urine long ago washed, giving some sense that nothing ever happened. "I'm Alessandra. You can call me Allie, though. or Lucky. I'm easy." Cracking a grin, she moves over to the table and sits, forgetting to ask if Leyla minds.
Making tea is about as peaceful an activity as one could name, and Evan? Well, he's willing to linger over it with a slow nod and silent smile for the Peapod when she declines before his attention turns to the task at hand, the muscles at the back of his freckled shoulder twitching once as he blows into one mug, then the other, then, after a moment's consideration, he goes to rinse them out. Again.
Leyla's attention lingers, just for a moment longer, on Bunny's back, before she looks back down to her work. The tools she sets aside, as she goes to work on separating pieces. Despite the fact that none of them have any sort of discernible shape, she works them like one would work a jigsaw puzzle, separating out the 'ends' and the corners from the inside pieces. Once Alessandra moves over, she pulls the pieces more into the center of the table, likely so as not to risk injuring the woman, but leaving them far enough out that they can be touched. "It's good to meet you, Lucky. Your one of Shiv's pilot's, right?" Not a grin, in answer, but a smile, and a genuine one. "You need a private stash of crockery, Bunny."
"What are you making," Lucky asks curiously while leaning in a little without even realizing she does so, her mannerisms almost cat-like for how instinctive it might come across as. Mister Doe is watched as well which puts her in a bit of a bind as she darts her gaze to Leyla and her project and then to Bunny and his tea making which includes the endless search for mugs that are clean. "He could have an endless supply of mugs but it wouldn't matter one lick as some asshole would find them and make off with them."
Making his way into the room from the direction of the head, Malone looks around for a few moments, nodding to the people present now. "People," he offers with a bit of a half-smile. "How are you guys today?"
"Oh, I have some. I just… don't like to take it out too often," Evan explains. "It's more of a pain than just looking for clean ones, unpacking them and all. Plus, they're fragile. Kirykyrrean ware," he explains, naming a sort of fancy native Caprican china. "And they hold about a quarter of the tea one of these mugs holds." This all in a low voice, intoning gently over the act of unwrapping two teabags and setting them into the mugs.
"I don't know yet. It will come to me when it comes to me." She retrieves the two sets of pliers she was using, and turns them, offering them handle first to Alessandra, "Try it, if you like. You can't damage anything. Just pick one of the scrap pieces, hold it in your off hand, and use the other to bend it into whatever shape you feel it wants to be." For Leyla, this is one of the most normal things in the world, to make maquettes in her off-time, small models of larger sculptures. "It doesn't have to be perfect, or even be a shape that makes sense." Another shift, of her eyes over to the head and a nod, "Fine, thank you. Yourself?" A nod, though, at Bunny's estimation of the utility of his china collection, "Maybe the next time we put down on a planet, I'll try to find you something."
There is a bit of a worried look when SweetPea offers to let her try but she takes up the offered pieces and tools, looking at the scrap of metal curiously. The scrutiny is put on pause when she looks up, smiling at Malone. "Hey Splash. Doing alright," she gives, the answer a right out fib as she's sore from yesterday and still heartbroken but the mood is too light and wonderful and Allie finds herself loathed to ruin it. "Hope you've been well." Nodding to that, she returns to watching Evan, the metal left unaltered as she pretty much forgets about it for now.
"Well, aside from some stomach trouble at the moment, I'm as fine as can be, I guess," Malone replies with a bit of a nod, pausing to look between the others for a few moments again.
"Oh, that's alright, Peapod," Evan utters the words on the back of a soft sigh. "Communal living is coming back into vogue," he continues, opening up the hot water tureen's spigot and filling one mug, then the next. "Man. That sucks. Have you been eating in the mess hall again?" he asks of Splash.
Leyla leaves Alessandra to work or not, as she chooses, returning to some of the pieces that she's already formed and reformed, beginning to built and piece them together like building blocks, a liquid, evolving shape that's all curves and angles and hard, sharp jagged edges. "Not the point, Bunny." But she leaves it at that. It's a discussion for another day.
Alessandra wrinkles her nose at Malone's reply. "Being sick is never fun. Hope you feel better soon." Looking at the little piece of metal again, she begins to tweak it a bit, bending it up at one corner and then another, that process repeated until all of the corners, how many they are dependent on what shape it started out as, and then she turns it around and places it on the table. Grinning, she announces to the room as a whole, "It is…a table!" Looks like humanity has a budding abstract artist in its midst.
"Didn't find any five-star restaurants," Malone replies with a bit of a shrug in Evan's direction, before he adds, "I think we know why it's called the 'mess' hall now, right?" He offers a bit of a smile in Alessandra's direction, "Thanks." Watching the artwork, he offers a bit of a grin, "Table on a table. Nice."
Evandreus roams back in the direction of the table, the handle of a mug in each hand as the water in each darkens hue by hue, stained with the harvested leaves. He looks over Leyla's features as he briefly attempts to scour out the point. But as she drops it, so does he, just leaning over to set a mug in front of Duckie and then putting down his own at the next seat. Instead of sitting down, he wraps his arms around Duckie's arms and shoulders, hugging her from behind and rubbing her head with his chin. "Ooh, it's like that one painting of the chair sitting on a chair."
"Nicely done, Lucky." And there's honesty in that. "It's not always easy to see what something could be, especially not the scraps we leave behind." Leyla is no emotional roller coaster. Likely, if she were, she'd be one of those broken down ones that's always set in park. But she doesn't need to know Lucky to understand grief. The most universal emotion of all, even deeper and more pervasive than love. And, if she can understand it, she can try to, at least for a little while, abate it. If only by offering a grieving woman a chance to distract herself. As for herself, the figure she's building seems to be taking on a humanoid shape, a spiraling, looping, zigzagging gesture drawing translated into metal.
Between the hug, the tea and how people seem to really like her little attempt at 'art', Allie starts to actually smile. "Thanks." Leaning her head down and over, Evan gets a peck placed on whatever of his arm she can put one upon, that done in lieu of a hug since he's behind her. "Thank you for the tea, Evan." Sighing, she reaches out to take her mug and peers into it and then takes the first sip, looking at what it is Leyla is making, her wonderment over it all manifesting in her expression. "Maybe someday I will be as good as you," she says in sincere compliment before she goes quiet, looking from person to person while drinking more of her tea.
Listening to the others for now, Malone makes his way over to his bunk to pull out a water bottle from within. Moving over to seat himself near the others now, keeping quiet.
Evandreus moves his jaw in a wild gnawing motion in order to massage at Duckie's scalp with his chin, then, when his arm's kissed, he pecks her one atop the head and stands up straight again. "Hey, no problem." Not seeming in any rush to actually go put on any manner of clothing, he settles into the chair where his tea's brewing away in wait for him, winds the thread around his fingertip and starts to swirl. "And what's that over there, a person? That looks pretty cool. Where are the scraps from?"
Leyla shakes her head, "Everyone has something unique, something good inside of them, that wants to come out. Something that's theirs and theirs alone. And that can't be better or worse than anyone else. Because it doesn't exist in anyone else. What's inside of you is just as good as what's inside of me. I've just had more practice letting it come out." She makes no move to reclaim the tools, rather, she leaves them for Alessandra to continue playing with, if she chooses. Instead, she focuses on building out the figure, large and blocky, with trailing slips and strands of metal extending from its limbs, as though it were trailing the physical remnants of its own potential behind it. "I think she wants to be a person, so I'll do the best I can." A beat. "They're from everywhere we've been, but a lot from Sagitarron, bits and pieces I picked up during salvage. Little pieces that couldn't be used for anything." Garbage, in other words.
Alessandra stands up after returning Leyla's tools to her, smiling as she does. "I'm going to get a bit more sleep. It was nice meeting you, Miss Sweetpea. Mal, feel better soon. Bunny, will see you if you don't see me first." Her mug is taken to her bed where she all but falls into and the privacy curtain's drawn closed. Naptime for the Lucky.
"See you later," Malone offers to Alessandra, with a bit of a grin. "Sleep well, and don't dream of sheep being fired from the guns of Raiders, or something equally insane. That's my job."
Evandreus leans back in his chair, resting his mug in the cupholder of his hands atop his tummy. He looks across to Leyla when she expounds upon the nature of the ingenium and personal talents, mouth opened just a little ways, something in him soothed by her reasoning. He wakes up from the momentary meditation into which he'd been lulled when Duckie goes off to bed, summoning up a gentle, "Sleep well, Duckduck." When his attention returns to the other side of the table it meanders down from Leyla to the girl she's trying to give form. "You can really feel her in there, can't you?" It's something between wonder and admiration.
"Sleep well, Alessandra." Once the curtains are drawn, Leyla's words come softly, Taurian, rather than caprican, "Kia pai te haere, Lucky." «Good journey» The woman is left to rest, as Leyla returns to her work, looking up occasionally, sometimes to Malone, others to Bunny. "Yes." A simple answer for a simple question. "I don't draw or paint like this. I mean, I can…do both. But they're, just things, images, you know? Phantoms. Not the real thing. But building something out, giving it form and volume. I look at everything and I can see what it wants to be. Most of the time. Sometimes I don't even know, not until it's finished. Like her."
Malone nods a little as he listens, "Easier to sense such a kind of thing being real when one can touch it and feel the shapes, I'd say," he offers quietly. Taking a sip from his bottle now.
"For me, yes. Because I'm a builder. I like to feel the metal under my hands, the glass, the plastic. I'm certain a real painter, or a printer would feel differently." Leyla claims one of the pliers Alessandra returned to her. Without the luxury of being able to spend valuable welding gas or solder on her little maquette, Leyla has had to become more creative, to try to find ways to keep her pieces together with no binder. And at least with this softer metal, bending and crimping bits and ends around each other seem to work. "It's Sweet Pea, by the by. Or Leyla. Aydin." Since she never did introduce herself.
"Tommy Malone, or Splash," Malone introduces himself, nodding a little bit as he watches the work of the artist, "A pleasure to meet you."
"And you, Splash." It's a quirk. She uses callsigns whenever possible, usually avoiding most people's given names. It doesn't take long, for the little creation to be finished. It is, after all, a maquette, a prototype, a potential. Quite likely Leyla will make a few more, until she's satisfied that the figure is just as it was intended to be. And once she's finished, she sets the little figure aside, beginning to put the pieces she didn't use back in her box of goodies, along with her tools, which go back in her set. Alessandra's 'table' she leaves out, for the time being.
Malone takes a few more sips from his water as he watches the finished figure. "Where did you learn to make stuff like that?" he asks, after a few moments of pause.
"Nowhere, really. I spent a lot of time on the streets in Derry. There, if you don't end up running with the gangs, you usually end up dead or worse. Lots of trash and garbage around. And since I wasn't interested in thugs, I started putting things together, reading books, watching videos. Took off from there."
Malone nods a little bit as he hears that, "I see," he replies, before he takes another sip of his water. Going silent again for a few moments as he glances around the room.
Leyla finishes putting away her little bits and pieces, rising from the seat to carry them over to put back in her storage. The maquette she leaves out on a shelf of her locker, so too the table. Likely to be returned to Alessandra when she wakes. "I'd better get down to medical. I promised Hiram I'd look in on him. I'll be seeing you around I'm sure, Splash." With that farewell, she's off to visit the old codger she brought back from Sagitarron.
Malone nods a little, "I've got a few things to take care of, myself," he offers. Getting to his feet and heading back in the direction of the head, moving a bit slowly.
OOC Note: For visual reference, and as a shoutout to one of my favourite artists, feel free to use Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) as a visual reference for Leyla's maquette. Image is HERE.