148: The Lovers; Reversed – One
It was a relief to be back in the Quanvengier, to get out of the worst of the howling gale that this depth of the galactic core was. For the Pelekys, they'd had less to fear from damage, thanks to their Hyttan exterior, but the incessant noise of it all was something that no amount of self repairing hull plating could muffle.
"At least it's quieter in here," Elytra breathed as Nevara pulled the ship into their assigned berth, "I have no idea how you were able to sleep so peacefully through all that noise."
"I found it very restful," Nevara glanced over her shoulder, shooting her a hint of a smug grin, "Storms were frequent where I grew up, and that noise was close enough to the sound of rain that it put me right to sleep."
"Unbelievable." Elytra said like she was disgusted, though her smile said otherwise, "Malakh, I'm so glad you were able to rig up that noise cancelling thing for the rest of us. I was not built for that kind of racket!"
"Bet you appreciated the dampener I put on their rooms too," Malakh grinned back, jabbing her thumb at where V'tala was leaning against Pryseia's throne, "They're as bad as Rhea and me!"
V'tala just shrugged as if to say "So?" while Pryseia, at least, looked mildly apologetic.
"Leave them be," Rhea said from the other side of her throne, leaning over enough to pat Pryseia on the shoulder, "They're sticking to roommate code and not banging all over the place, so whatever goes on behind closed doors is their business. They're still in the honeymoon phase, after all, I'm sure they'll be less all over each other eventually."
"Considering how your own honeymoon phase is still ongoing, I find myself doubting the veracity of your statement." Nevara shot back, her stern glare spoiled by the smile she couldn't fully fight back.
"If anything, I bet they get worse," Viatrix chirped, her avatar spinning idly in the corner of the view screen, "Rhea and Malakh set a high score, and now these two are gunning to beat it!"
Pryseia huffed out a laugh at that. "Am I to be subjected to this teasing for the rest of my days?"
"When you fluster this easily?" V'tala said, dropping her octave into something low and private while she ran the backs of her fingers down Pryseia's cheek, "Probably."
A dark blush bloomed across Pryseia's face, spluttering the only noise that could escape her at V'tala's faint smirk, and that got Rhea cackling. Reaching over Pryseia's head, she held her hand up for a high five, which V'tala gladly returned.
Crashing her head into her hands did nothing to hide the grin that broke out across Pryseia's face at that.
The Pelekys rocked slightly as the docking clamps settled against it, and Nevara killed the engine, swivelling her chair around to ask, "Tormenting you aside, what is our plan for the immediate future?"
Happy to latch on to this segue, Pryseia leaned back in her throne, the metallic geometry of her left arm clacking against the armrest as she said, "Glare will be bringing the Governors here as soon as they are assembled, to bear witness to both the Storlayacas' vision and to learn what we've gleaned on the subject of the Omega. Malakh, I request that you join me, and Vi as well, as the pair of you will be better versed to explain the more technical aspects of what we have to share."
"'Course." Malakh said with a nod, Viatrix making a hum of confirmation herself.
"That just leaves the matter of our resupply, if the rest of you will be able to see to that?" Pryseia asked.
Motioning over to V'tala, Elytra asked, "Wanna go grocery shopping?"
"Gladly." V'tala replied.
"Then that leaves us with the inorganic stuff." Rhea said as she wagged a finger between herself and Nevara.
Standing from her seat, Nevara gave her a short nod, saying, "Shall we head out now, then?"
"You may as well," Pryseia said, standing along with her, "The sooner we finish our chores, the sooner we can participate in leisure activities. I'm sure there's a new production available for us to attend by now."
Viatrix gasped loudly at that, her avatar blooming even larger across the screen. "Oh I am digging into the theatre schedules immediately!"
As Elytra got up and headed for the door, V'tala pushed into Pryseia's space, the other woman already leaning in to kiss her back. Across the bridge from them, Rhea had bent down to hook a finger under her wife's chin, tilting Malakh's face up for a farewell kiss of her own. Nevara shook her head at this display as she left, though her smile was achingly fond.
Rising out of her own seat to watch the others depart, Malakh came over and pressed herself into Pryseia's side, sighing as she dropped her head onto the other woman's shoulder and said, "Being in love is nice."
Tilting her own head enough to lean it against Malakh's, Pryseia sighed herself, "It truly is."
"You people are revolting," Viatrix said behind them, sounding for all the world like she'd won the lottery, "Can't believe I'm stuck with two sets of you now!"
Rhea and Nevara were just finishing up with their shopping when a voice called out to them from across this corner of the market deck of the Quanvengier.
"Well well well, look at what the cat dragged in."
Rhea was already beaming as she turned, arms open as Leto slotted herself in for a hug.
"I had no idea you ladies were back from your Hyttan hunt!" Leto beamed as she reached over to Nevara, pulling her into the hug as well.
"We met with success much quicker than we anticipated," Nevara told her, looping an arm around Leto's back, "With the assistance of run-of-the-mill pirates, if you can believe it."
Making a noise in the back of her throat as she leaned back, Leto asked, "Not to be completely out of left field, but did they seem kinda… weird to you?"
"If I say yes, will you give us context?" Rhea asked, staring her sister down expectantly.
Leto gave her a nod in return, walking over towards a wall decorated with an elaborate mural done up in gemstones instead of tiles, the extravagant scene of an ocean wave cresting gilded in the warm golden light that permeated the interior of the Quanvengier. Posting up against it, out of the flow of traffic, Leto told them, "We used to do quite a bit of business with pirates back in the day, similar line of work and all, but then around a Galactic Standard decade ago, whole fleets just began up and vanishing, leaving no trace behind. The ones that did stick around longer got real squirrely about it too, made it clear that the others were still around, but that they'd gone into hiding, dropping mention of some nebulous threat that was on its way, that they were battening down the hatches to try and hide from it, because there was no way to fight whatever this thing was."
"Yeah, the ones we encountered were exactly the same," Rhea said, dropping her voice to keep this between the three of them, "Got us to drop the security system on an arms dealer's mansion so they could raid it for weapons in exchange for the device we just so happened to be looking for. Thought that was just a lucky break of coincidence, until the pirate basically told us that she knew about the Omega and that we're the only ones who can stop it."
"Fuck me running," Leto hissed, her eyes going wide, "A nebulous threat… They've known about this for a decade!?"
"This group were arakhne, and their captain used some sort of bracelet for divinatory purposes," Nevara told her, "She told us that the old ways were speaking to those who knew how to listen, that this was how she and her crew had been led to the device - and how they had been led to cross our path."
"Pirates have always been superstitious, but I figured their fortune telling was just part of their aesthetic, psychology couched in pageantry to make them seem more mysterious or whatever," Leto shook her head, her gaze going distant as she sifted through her memories, "There's no way it could be real, right? They could have hacked your systems or something, or heard you make mention about your whole mission?"
"Vi would have alerted us if anyone had attempted such a thing, and we hardly go about telling our tale to everyone we meet," Nevara replied, her mandibles tapping together in agitation, "Aside from your crew, the only person we've told has been our Corsair, Glare-off-the-sea-at-a-summer-sunset, who in turn has only told the Governors. The lot of them should be on the Pelekys as we speak, our Storlayacas showing them the same vision you were treated to."
Raising her eyebrows at that, Leto said, "Yeah, letting them know's probably a good idea. A threat that big, it'd help to have an organized force to back you up against it."
Huffing out a quiet laugh at that, Rhea told her, "And the device we got off the pirates does what it says on the tin. Well, for the most part. We got the location for where the Omega's gonna emerge - on the edge of the galaxy a straight shot out from the Gheluc homeworld. The star map in this thing hadn't changed all that much, thankfully, but when it comes to the countdown clock part of it, we've run into the same problem we have with every other form of Hyttan communication."
"No way to understand it." Leto groaned, slumping against the wall.
Nodding at that, Nevara continued, "As far as we can tell, it's a large number we're looking at. Altered as she had been by Hyttan programming, Vi seems to have some sort of sense that will increase in intensity as the Omega draws near, and at the moment, as the pirates told you, it is as yet a nebulous, distant threat."
"Do you think she's tapped into these old ways that the pirates have been talking about?" Leto asked, shooting the both of them a questioning look.
"No, she's tapped in to whatever technologies the Hyttan upgrade imparted in her, not some metaphysical force." Nevara scoffed.
"We've got a saying back on our world," Rhea said thoughtfully, "That sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Who's to say this isn't such a case?"
"You said it yourself with that statement," Nevara pointed at her, "Just because we cannot yet comprehend the science behind this doesn't mean that this has some sort of supernatural explanation."
"What about that space we were pulled to in order to save Pryseia and V'tala from that dlegh bullshit?" Rhea countered, "I don't know about you, but that seemed pretty supernatural to me."
Nevara opened her mouth to argue the point, but then promptly slammed her mandibles shut. She had no logical explanation for what that realm could have been beyond the obvious.
Turning back to Leto, Rhea said, "We'd actually been hoping to find someone with a little more information in regards to fortune telling. Weirdo performers like the Kith are, there's gotta be someone who's into mystical shit around here somewhere."
Letting out a low laugh, Leto said, "Oh there's bucket loads of them, all of them scam artists! You can usually find them in the entertainment district - they teach classes on the regular."
Her cheer faded then, her eyes widening in realization as she said, "There used to be a lot more, local fixtures and permanent residents, but a lot of them decided to get back out there among the stars and haven't been back since. And they left about a decade ago."
"And how's that for a coincidence." Rhea said, giving Nevara a look. The other woman could only frown in response.
"It's weird, regardless," Leto said with a frown of her own, "And it reminded me that Phoebe wanted to broach something with Pryseia the next time our crews crossed paths, wanted to know if you'd go halfsies with us on a QECD? If there's a bunch of supernatural fuckery out there, I know we'd be able to sleep a lot easier at night if we had a way to communicate with you lot that can't be blocked at all."
"A sound plan that I know Pryseia would agree to." Nevara told her.
"Aside from shopping, I think the only plans we had for tonight were checking out a play if Vi found one she was interested in," Rhea said, "So unless there's something she's dead set on that's also a limited run, we'd probably be free to have a mixer tonight?"
"If you call your people, I'll call mine," Leto said, "Business aside, there's probably a bunch we need to catch up on."
Nevara let out a quiet laugh at that. "I'll say. Pryseia and V'tala got together, for starters."
Leto blinked, shooting her a puzzled look. "Got together? Did they break up?"
Rhea returned the confused look, saying, "What the fuck are you talking about?!"
Leto's puzzled took morphed into one of shock at that little outburst. "Wait, are you telling me that they only now, as in recently, got involved with each other!?"
"Yes?!" Rhea snapped, and the laugh that shook out of Leto was dumbfounded.
"I thought for sure those two were an item already!" She admitted, "That they just didn't mention it out of politeness or something, because we were having our sisterly reunion? But that was them as single ladies!?"
"Unfortunately yes," Nevara replied with a long suffering chuckle, "They were the last, it seems, to have been made aware of their feelings for one another."
"Damn," Leto said, letting out a whistle, "If that was them apart, I can't imagine what they're like together."
"The same, only now they kiss about it instead of pining silently away," Rhea told her, "You'll see when we get together later."
Shaking her head, a wry grin on her face, Leto said, "I can't wait."
With the last of their shopping loaded on delivery drones bound for the Pelekys, V'tala turned to Elytra, her expression as unreadable as always as she said, "Preemptively apologizing in case this is a social faux pas, but have you had dating experience?"
"You're good, and only a bit," Elytra told her, "Gave it a shot for a while, but then I realized it wasn't for me. Why?"
A muscle jumping in her jaw as she clenched her teeth, V'tala eventually said, "This is my first go of it and my only examples of what traditional dating looks like is from media, and I doubt that's an accurate representation of what it's actually like. Everything about Pryseia and I has been off the beaten path, so I'd like to give her at least one normal date, whatever that's supposed to look like."
"That's fair," Elytra said with a thoughtful hum, "Well, usually the purpose of dating is to get to know the other person, since dates tend to happen between relative strangers for the initial run. Going out to some neutral space to take part in some kind of low stakes activity is a staple - grabbing drinks or a meal, seeing some form of entertainment, and then usually a bit of hang out time where you both test the waters to see if you want to come back for another date or not."
"Dinner and a show," V'tala summarized, "That seems normal enough."
"It's definitely less fraught than waltzing in an arms dealer's ballroom while your friends are busy working to bring down the security system so that pirates can raid the place," Elytra pointed out, "I've got no idea what our next destination is going to be once we're done here, so you might as well plan for something sooner than later."
"I will. I appreciate it." V'tala told her, giving her a small smile.
Elytra beamed, feeling the other woman's joy crackling just under the surface like an electric current. Looping her arm through V'tala's, she told her, "And I'm glad to offer guidance. You both mean a lot to me, and I wanna see the both of you happy."
V'tala just nodded, but Elytra could feel her lighting up like an entire power grid, the strength of her emotions humming against her carapace. It was a far cry from the exposed wire feeling of her when she'd first emerged out of stasis, and Elytra had to blink back her tears over how grateful she was for that difference.
"Since this is gonna be your first date, you should definitely take her to a fancy restaurant," Elytra told her, "There's gotta be a ton here on the Quanvengier, so we should look into reviews, see what reservations at these places are like."
"I know they've got plays here, but I'd feel bad about seeing one without Vi. They do have movies here, though, don't they?" V'tala asked.
"I'm pretty sure," Elytra said, pulling out her data pad so she could do a quick search, "Yeah, wow, looks like they have a lot. I mean it makes sense, they probably just stole copies so they could play them whenever, rather than sticking to what a studio allows. You'll be spoiled for choice, so what kind of genre do you want?"
The shift in V'tala's expression wasn't dramatic, but it was enough that Elytra caught it. "I don't know," V'tala admitted, "I don't know what genres Pryseia likes. I barely know what genres I like."
"That's what the hang out portion of a date is for," Elytra reminded her, "Take her to a fancy restaurant, then watch a comedy, it's safer that way - either it'll be a good movie and you'll get a laugh of appreciation out of it, or it'll be a bad movie and you'll make yourselves sick laughing at it. Then! You take her out for a stroll through one of the scenic decks on the ship, and the pair of you talk about yourselves without all the baggage that our situation keeps throwing into our path. Just for one night, be a pair of normal women, on a normal date, nothing more pressing than what you're gonna be doing to each other once you get behind closed doors."
That got a quiet hum of laughter out of V'tala, who nudged into Elytra's shoulder as she said, "That does sound nice, even if it's just for an evening."
"Simple and easy," Elytra agreed, nudging her back, "After everything the pair of you have been through to get to this point, it'll be a good change of pace. You've more than earned it."