fighting_mad | [OOM] Simulator Room

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[OOM] Simulator Room

Juke left, juke right, juke left, juke right; lure your opponent into a false sense of security, make him think he knows exactly what you're going to do.

Lasers flash by on the screen.

One last juke to the right, and there's the light-up of a targeting lock; she yanks the stick back and to the left, throwing the sim fighter into a tight roll that should press her back against the seat with its force. Of course, this machine isn't nearly complex enough for that.

She's got to find some way to throw the Priamsta off guard like that. To catch the rebels--the ones who say they're lead by Harran but they're not they can't be--off guard and--

The flash of an explosion and the screen goes dark.

"Sithspit!" Plourr slams an open palm against the overhead frame of the simulator, then lets her hand rest there, hooked on the frame.

She runs her other hand over her head in an unconscious motion; auburn stubble still foreign to the touch, too rough and scratchy. Hell, her whole body feels foreign; her tunic is smooth and skintight, eggshell-colored with deep purple, allowing every cord of muscle to show. She's not used to anything so fine, and she's definitely not used to the matching skirt, to seeing her legs bare in anything but athletic shorts. High heels. She'd drawn whistles from the Rogues that afternoon; joking whistles, yes, and ones that had earned several of them glares and thwappings, but she had caught admiring looks from not a few men at court, too. From the nobles at dinner.

Dinner.

"The tyranny of the nobles is at an end, Laabann. I will see to that. If you wish a place in the future of Eiattu, either stand with the throne-- or fall."

The crash of a breaking wineglass.

"The choice is yours."

Plourr hits the top of the simulator again.

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Fury vanishes just as fast as it appeared, leaving a face and voice devoid of expression. "That was only three of them," she says matter-of-factly, standing ramrod straight, arms still crossed over her chest. "One was murdered without the torture, and I killed the fifth."

"I'm sorry."

Her skin felt clammy, her throat thick. She couldn't even begin to imagine how Plourr felt.

Except...she could, a little.

"Did the fifth betray you?"

"My brother. He was six." Still flat, "I bashed his head in with a rock."

And she's seen her bloody hands in her dreams every night since.

Aeryn didn't know how to help, was never much good with emotions; her own or other people's. But she stood beside Plourr. Shoulder to shoulder, lending strength.

"My mother killed my father. So I know."

"No, you don't." There's no rancor, no anger, just statement of fact. Aeryn didn't do the killing. She doesn't know.

"My mother was shot outside of our quarters when she tried to attack the nobles' men." Said speculatively. "My father-- he screamed for two hours." She shakes her head, loses a tiny bit of that rock-solid front. "Not nearly as long as my sisters."

Aeryn had killed Velorek. Or as good as. Responsible for so many deaths. Let her own mother fall right out of her arms.

All of it; entirely her fault. She named them every night before she slept and let them go.

"There's nothing I can do to change that." Her own composure was shaky. Why had she said those things? Why were they both so frelled up?

Why did Plourr have to make her feel this way?

"I'm sorry I called you a mistake."

"All in the past. Ancient history." Which isn't convincing anyone, least of all herself.

But then there's a sudden snort, and she presses her fingertips to the center of her forehead, hiding her face a moment. When she lowers her hand, it becomes clear that it was a quiet snort of laughter. "You picked a hell of a time to say it." Pause, and she's back. Maybe shakier than normal--what she just said is more than she's ever told anyone about what happened twelve years ago--maybe quieter than normal, but the flatness is a thing of the past. " 'Ppreciate it, though."

"Didn't know what else to say."

The quiet of the sims room seemed to mock her, daring her to take advantage. Warning her of warnings, telling her to help. All she could hear was the sound of double breathing, one after the other. First her's then Plourr's. And the feeling of her bare arm pressing against the smooth fabric on Plourr's.

"It never really goes away. Not really. You just learn to keep going and sometimes it gets healed."

Sometimes, it gets broken worse than it was.

An endless pain.

She leans against the other woman's shoulder. Only a little. Plourr would never accept an offer of help, but standing next to someone isn't an offense to her pride. Another snort, this one quieter. "You think I don't know that? I've been living with this twelve years, Aeryn." A dark glare at one abandoned shoe. "And I was doing fine until the planet suddenly went violently insane and decided it wanted a princess."

"Really? Fine? You were doing fine?"

The tone is entirely disbelieving and Aeryn turned her head specifically to give the princess a follow-up look.

The dark look transfers its attentions from the shoe to Aeryn. "I was doing fine."

"I wasn't."

If they weren't even going to be honest...Aeryn pushed herself up from the wall, crossing her arms.

"I mean, I'm not. And I didn't expect anyone to be here so late."

A glower. It's like pulling teeth, but the guilting powers are strong with this one. "Okay, fine, maybe I wasn't doing great. But I would have much rather kept not doing great far away from Eiattu than been stuck not doing great on Eiattu."

Pause. "Yeah, you'd said that." She goes to stick her hands in her pockets-- no pockets. Kriffing clothes. She crosses her arms again. "So, some piece of bantha fodder, working on getting over him, what else? I just dumped all my problems on you." Which isn't entirely truthful, since she really only dumped a few of them. But, hey, she's trying.

She waves her on brusquely. "Come on, lay it on me."

"Lay it on you?" Aeryn blinked bemusedly.

"We tried that. We agreed not to again."

A moment of staring,

and then Plourr is starting to grin, reaching out to clap Aeryn's shoulder. "You--" Whatever she was going to say absolutely fails her, and she presses her palm to her forehead and genuinely laughs, seeming not to notice that her other hand is still resting on Aeryn's shoulder.

"What?" Utterly perplexed, her eyes flicked to Plourr's hand and back to the other pilot's face.

"No, really? What did I say?" She was wondering if there was a serious problem with the translator microbes.

"It's an expression. I meant it like 'tell me.' I didn't say lie on me." Still laughing (it's welcome, really). Still with the hand.

"Right. Translator microbe glitch."

She was not red. Shut up, you in the back!

"I thought it was a little strange." She shifted her shoulder under Plourr's grip, tingles spreading down her arm.

Laughter finally abating, she leans back against the sim, letting her hand fall from her face. She looks up then, and her eyes stop on her other hand. A slightly awkward pause, and she's about to move when-- She sees Aeryn's face. And she suddenly grins, letting a rough knuckle almost touch the other woman's flushed cheek. "Embarrassed much?"

"No. That would be foolish." She could probably have prevented the smile, but it blossomed anyway, grey eyes sparkling. It chased away the stress of the day and erased the frown lines on her forehead.

Heat crackled between them, Aeryn swore she could smell it. It was about then that she realised she shouldn't have come here. That she should have walked away when she saw Plourr from the doorway.

But she didn't. She was here now and it was undeniable.

"After all, I've seen you half-naked."

"Uh huh." Plourr holds up a somber finger as if making a highly important point. "But I've seen you completely naked."

So she wins (as she grins). Clearly.

"So have a lot of people. I'm not ashamed of my body."

One side of her mouth rose higher than the other. Happy, but entirely smug.

What does Jaina know anyway? It's just some light-hearted banter.

She shrugs comfortably. "I didn't say you should be." There is a 'da-amn, you should not be' note in the twist of her lips and quirk of one eyebrow.

"You shouldn't be looking at me like that." Her gaze is suddenly steady, almost stern.

Her chest lifted and fell with a calm, relaxed rhythm. Yet her shoulders are stiff; tense.

"Why not?"

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