| Three Little Birds |
| Summary: | The after party. A mamma hen and her two little chicks. |
| Date: | 14 Sep 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Welcome the Coming, Speed the Going and Wine, the Giver of Joy |
| Players: |
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| Aerilon: Party Clearing |
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| Surface of Aerilon. Dirt and grass and trees, oh my! |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #200 |
It could be the end of the night. Or it could be the beginning of the morning. It's impossible to tell. All one can say, is that the party has finally died and most of the crews, if not returned to the ship, have since wandered off to who knows where. Only a few still linger here and there. One of which, is the small pilot, still in her dress greys. But she's no longer eating, nor did she have a drink, save water or whatever drink they had sans alcohol. She's not even at the table, where last she was seen. Instead, she's a short distance away from the dias. Laid out on the grass looking up at a star-dotted sky. Hopefully the apocalypse killed the bugs.
Marko had been drinking, and his hopes that all the food he'd eaten would dilute the effects are in vain, considering the strength of the liquor in question. So late night / early morning finds him likewise splayed out on the ground, staring up, semi conscious at the sky, more to the point, the two Battlestars that are in orbit overhead.
Not drinking, keyed up from playing all night and being in that middle ground of pregnancy where energy is high, Maggie hasn't yet returned to the ship. Her fiddle was entrusted to Bunny to bring back, she not wanting it out int he moisture all night, but she couldn't leave her home. Not yet. So she's there, staring at the sky, silently beginning to consider the very few who are still around. She spots the two on the ground and begins a tired walk in their direction. A faint smile touches her lips. "Help an old woman down there?" She nods to the ground with them
Leyla squints, as her eyes adjust, not to the light, but to the change in focus, as Quinn walks over where she's lying almost head to head with her wingman, the two of them splayed out almost like children, waiting to make snow angels. "Of course." A roll and tuck and Leyla gets to her feet, offering both hands to support Quinn in her transition from standing to lying prone. "You play very well, Captain. I've never heard anyone play the fiddle like that."
"Heya, Juggles." Marko replies, forcing himself over onto his side, and hauling himself up from the ground to assist Leyla in planting Quinn on the ground. "You played a mean fiddle tonight." he grins.
The assistance down is much appreciated. Maggie probably could have made it on her own, if uncomfortably, at the top of the night. But damn, it had been a long night and she was sore, exhausted. She hadn't played a fiddle like that in months, or stayed up all night in that long either. So she takes the help, nodding a thanks to both of them as she creakingly slips down onto the ground and then sighs, laying back. Her belly is more prominent in this position, poking out towards the sky. "Thanks… both of you. Not much to inspire a fiddler like being home, I guess."
"This is the first time I've ever been to Aerilon." Sad but true. "It's so green." Said as though it were the most odd thing ever. Like seeing flowers on Sagitarron. Something completely impossible. "It smells like dirt." A beat. "And growing things." So much different from the fuel and exhaust, fumes and cordite she grew up with. "Being home and being joyful." Something the crews certainly were tonight.
"Glad you could make it, Cap." Marko replies, reaching out to give one of Quinn's hands a gentle squeeze. "Never been here either. Nice place." he notes. "I like it well."
Quinn echoes both their words quietly, "Yes.. that's… Aerilon for you. It is growing things… farm, harvest, family… living off the land because you're too damn poor to live any other way. Ten children in my family… I never had a piece of new clothing. Hell, the fiddle… my father's. My grandfather's before him… But we loved each other…" Maggie's voice falls quiet, some emotion catching up in it all as she speaks about her home. Where she lays right now. Where were all those children? 9 siblings, surely someone survived… she stares over the horizon.
Is it a touchy subject, Leyla doesn't know. After all, they haven't been to Tauron, beyond possibly a scan or too, but the initial reports are not good. Whatever else Derry might have been, it was one of the few functioning (mostly) industrial centers left in the County and likely reduced to ash and cinder. So hope for family? Nil. "Are we close to where you lived? If you like, I could fly you." An overly emotional pilot might be a very bad thing(tm).
"Hey, look." Marko calls, laying back down and pointing skyward. "Is it my imagination or are those running lights I'm seeing up there?" he asks in an attempt to change the subject. "My eyesight's not the best ever, but I swear I just saw a CAP launch." he says, covering his eyes with one hand while pointing with the othe.r
Indeed. Distraction is good. Though Leyla gets a bit of a look…"A bit more to the north. Not… not far… I thought about asking permission…" So she certainly doesn't say no, but Maggie allows Marko to take the conversation. She looks ahead, considering quietly. "Looks like it… I miss that… gods… the next few months can't come fast enough." She groans out quietly, rubbing one tired hand across the side of her sore stomach.
Okay, you don't need to beat her with a clue by four. Leyla gets it, and moves on to another subject, leaving go the possibility of searching for any of Quinn's survivors. "Will you come back to the Harriers? Or to the Knights?" She doesn't know Quinn's qualifications, and Cidra, for example, is cleared to pilot both vipers and raptors.
For his part, continues to watch the evolution as the CAP is launched and begins to make it's sweep. "Damn, those Knights know their shit." he sighs, smiling a little as he watches the tiny pinpricks of light that represent the Vipers dart around the slowly-growing fleet. "Hey, the Raptor's away." he adds, pointing towards Cerebrus' flight pod where another tiny pinprick scoots out from the launch bay. "So, how long until you blast off, Cap?" he asks, turning his head to smile teasingly to Quinn.
Quinn exhales slowly with just a touch of a groan to Marko's question.."About four more months. Not quick enough." Maggie admits, though it's a playfully warm sort of admission. She's happy for the child, just getting exhausted. And then she's back towards Leyla. "Oh, back to Harriers, no doubt. Trask would kill me if I didn't step back into being SL… he hates the job."
"I think I recognize that wiggle in the back end," Leyla offers as Marko points out the raptor launching, "Gotta be Amazon." She listens, in silence, as Quinn recounts her time to launch, as it were, "Well, we'd be glad to have you back, I'm certain. But I'd be sad to see Boostrap go." He is, after all, the only Harriers SL she's ever known.
"Yep..I think you're right, Sweet Pea." Marko chuckles, noting the wiggle. "Boots makes a good Squad Leader." he notes. "He just needs to learn to ….well, frakkit, I'll just come out and say it, but if it gets repeated, I'll deny it." he chuckles. "He tries to hard to prove how big his balls are." he says simply. "I don't care how big his balls are, I care about how good he does his job. And he does his job damn well, which makes the big-ball thing more annoying."
Maggie sounds both amused and exhausted, if a bit sad as she considers her job. "Well…we have months… suppose it'll be a bridge we cross when we come to it… Bootstrap is… an amazing pilot indeed. And a good ma… " Maggie is going to say more but, honestly, she's so beat she actually ends up drowsing off mid sentence. Her head settles into the grass, breath coming slow and calm.
A turn of her head to check on the LSO, as her voice trails off, and Leyla catches her sleeping. No move to wake the woman, only a careful rise to her feet as she strips off her tunic, opening it out as best she can, "Flasher, can I have yours?" That said, she lays it out over the sleeping woman, well, as much as it will cover, given how small she is. "She shouldn't sleep out here uncovered. Don't know if there's a blanket in the bird."
Marko nods and removes both jacket and tunic, passing them over to Leyla. "You know, Sweet Pea, it was the Captain here that kept us Harriers together after Warday." he notes. "If it hadn't been for her playing mother hen, we might've bust into a thousand pieces." he says, smiling down proudly at the sleeping Quinn. "Here, use my jacket to cover her, and my tunic for a pillow."
Leyla moves delicately, the two chicks tending to their hen, so to say. Jackets on top, and, after a very careful little nudge, tunic beneath for her head. "She's still keeping us together. She's just got a bigger henhouse now." Once Quinn is as comfortable as they can make her, Leyla steps away, "Going to go check the bird, then I'll come back to watch her." Can't leave a sleeping woman and child unguarded. And with that, Leyla leaves Marko with the first watch, while she goes a hunting. When Quinn will wake is anyone's guess. But whenever it might be, she won't be alone.
Marko isn't about to leave Quinn alone, so he settles back onto the grass, peering up into the endless blue sky…..watching the pinpricks of light of the fleet's ships fade.