I Solemnly Swear Not To Steal

Posted on Fri Oct 16th, 2020 @ 9:57pm by Ensign Duncan McManus & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Deck E - Mess Hall
Timeline: Day 44, Month 2, Year 0 18:02
2470 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

A stain situation had arisen. Elegy Nascimento was hardly two sips into his iced coffee when he had already spilled a splash on the chest of his uniform flightsuit, right beneath the teal sciences piping. Said coffee was still so fresh, Elegy hadn't even stepped out of arm's reach from the drink dispenser in the mess hall when it happened. Although Elegy worried how this wrinkle in his appearance might hurt his chances for success, Elegy had already spotted his target in his sights. Crossing the mess hall on confident strides, Elegy wasn't about to veer off now.

Dropping himself into a free chair at one of the tables beside the good viewport, Elegy was careful not to touch the chess board on the table top. There was a game already in progress; it would have been rude to shake the table. Looking to each of the competitors in turn, Elegy asked, "Who's winning?"

"Me," Duncan said as if it was a stupid question for a moment before he glanced to his right and saw who had actually said it. "Me sir." He repeated in a slightly nicer tone. He was the ships master chess champion and how he had kept his supply of alcohol flowing a bit longer than should have been possible by winning.

Aurelius chuckled. All was fair in a game of chess and ranks didn't belong in settings like this, not if they were going to spend the rest of their lives together on this boat. "I'm good at gracefully losing things. Cause it always seems to happen to me. What can I do for you? Or are you here to see me crash and burn?"

"Not that," Elegy said. He shook his head to make his point, because he was certainly smirking at the suggestion Aurelius had made. "No, I'm here because I have a morale emergency," Elegy said in full seriousness, "and I'm hoping you can help me where others have failed."

"A morale emergency? Wow, I don't think I've had one of those before." He pushed his chair back. "What can I do for you?" After looking around a moment he also asked. "Would you like to talk about it in private?"

Shaking his head at Aurelius' offer of privacy, Elegy said, "It's not a-- it's not a personal matter," in a reassuring tone. Elegy was about to explain himself, when he cocked his head in Duncan's direction, almost as if only noticing him there for the first time. Elegy offered, "Don't let me intrude either if it's too much of a distraction." Introducing himself to Duncan, Elegy said, "I'm Ensign Elegy Nascimento, on the science night shift."

"Nah It's cool. Excuse me then." Duncan quietly packed away the chess set. He was not o good at losing gracefully at chess but he knew when he needed to make himself scarce and leave them to it.

Elegy's sapphire eyes practically shot out of his head at the sight of Duncan packing up the chess set. That wasn't the most common reaction to Elegy introducing himself to a crewmate. "Look, I get it. I stole your metaphorical algae here. But let's be Starfleet about it," Elegy said apologetically. He laid a palm on the closed chess set and he locked eyes with Duncan, silently daring him to knock his hand aside. "I came here to parley," Elegy said, proposing a truce; "In fact, maybe you can help with my morale emergency too..."

Duncan narrowed his eyes back. Was he taking offence to the fact that the Engineer kept trying to escape every time that Elegy appeared? "No need to. I just assumed you did not need my assistance." Duncan murmured awkwardly sitting back in the chair looking at Aurelius for assistance.

"What's your morale emergency then?" Aurelius asked, confused and interested at the same time. His expression was more stern however, unusual on his outgoing featured face.

His eyebrows raised, Elegy looked from face to face when he entreated for, "Music." Elegy set his jaw, swallowing down the raw emotions he felt at the circumstances of his life and his crew before he said anything more. "If we're trapped out here, without a friendly port in the storm, I'm going to run out of new music. I need an instrument," Elegy said emphatically. "I joined Starfleet with the naive intention of reaching the rank of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. I may know better now, but my piano was too large to move out of Jupiter Station and Starfleet shipped my guitar to Columbia accidentally when we shipped out."

Aurelius blinked. This was certainly a new kind of emergency but he guessed he could understand. He hadn't really thought about music yet to be honest. Food, water, companionship. Those were the things that entered his mind. "Do we have any instruments on board?"

"I have seen a few onboard." Duncan pipped up interested suddenly. "A few crewmen and at least one officers." He said thinking of his neighbour and the guitar he owned. It was the music he heard the most of other than his own collection and voice.

"Excellent," replied Elegy, waggling a finger in Duncan's directly. Clearly, Elegy sounded pleased that he had prevented Duncan from leaving, but that lead him to the next stage of the emergency. Waggling a finger in Aurelius' direction, Elegy said, "Next question." Before he spoke it aloud, Elegy leaned in closer to the table and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. He asked, "How are we going to steal one?"

Duncan frowned at the term steal one. He really did not like the idea of stealing something from someone when they really did not have much in the way of personal stuff anyway. As a boomer it was a big nope in his books. Mattias would be really upset if his guitar went missing, it would cause a bigger decline in morale. “Not a fan of stealing one here.” Duncan decided to speak up about it.

"Uh yeah, borrow maybe, if we ask them. Maybe we could start a band or something?" Aurelius offered. "I don't mind setting out to ask them if you'd like me to."

Goggling at the two men with a sputter of incredulity, Elegy said, "...That was a joke," in a deadpan. After shaking his head, Elegy spoke more emphatically when he offered, "I promise you can lock me in the brig if crew belongings start going missing." Tilting his head in Aurelius' direction, Elegy suggested, "Our new band can play jailhouse music. ...Maybe Commander Sloan can play the cymbals."

"Oh that's an image I'd love to see, but I just can't quite picture it. Let's ask him and see the expression on his face." Aurelius was well aware that Michael probably felt like he didn't have any friends at the moment. Perhaps a little bit of good humored joking would go a long way towards breaking the ice.

"I am unable to tell when you are joking," Duncan revealed with a shake of his head. "I am sure Sloan would love some people talking to him." He had never bothered much with the man before or after, but he was someone onboard he would do him no harm at all.

Nodding slowly at Duncan's admission, Elegy met his eyes and he shared, "I was born deaf. I didn't get my cochlear implants, couldn't hear human voices," --he waved a hand vaguely at an ear-- "until after my infancy. You're not the only one who has found my vocal inflection is subtle or dry..."

Duncan considered his options in replying before nodding. He really did not want to be anymore rude to the man. “Well at least I know now to never take you seriously.” He mused with a wink hoping it softened the blows that he obviously kept making as he kept trying to walk out on the man.

Elegy winked right back at Duncan. "Do either of you sing," Elegy asked, "or compose, or play an instrument?" A little bit like an eager puppy, Elegy's head pivoted from side to side, looking to Duncan and Aurelius expectantly.

“I sing.” Duncan piped up. It might not be good or in tune but he put his heart and soul into it. That had to count for something right? Music was not music unless you put something into it. Mattias or the medical officer on his other side might not appreciate it but it helped him. Sometimes he just needed to belt out the Earth classics to make himself feel something other than lessening hope or the boredom of knowing that he now knew everyone on board the ship. No one new was ever going to be met unless it was potentially like the Vrav.

"Sorry, not a musical bone in my body. Maybe I could use a spoon on a pot or something and clink it at the very end of the song? That's about as musical as I get I'm afraid." Aurelius frowned slightly for he did love music, he had just never made it himself before.

Nodding an acknowledgement, Elegy chuckled briefly at Aurelius' self-effacing remark. "There's no crime in that," Elegy said, brushing aside any need for an apology. "There'd be no delight in Starfleet service if we came from a monoculture." Shaking his head again at the turn the conversation had taken, Elegy shared, "It's not even performing, I crave. I want to make music for me. Late after my shift, alone in my quarters, I want to hear it. I want to feel it with my own hands."

Elegy smiled sheepishly at the two other men at the table with him. "I don't suppose," he asked, "in our race from the Vrav, we've passed by a music shop, or a spare manufacturing factory?"

"Nope but maybe I can make something." Duncan mused thinking on the extra time he would have once the majority of things were fixed and they would have quite a lot of scraps around. It might be possible to create something. "It would not be perfect." He offered.

At the mention of perfection, Elegy shrugged one shoulder and turned a lopsided grin in Duncan's direction. "No instrument should be perfect," Elegy said, shaking his head for emphasis. "If I wanted perfection, I'd blow air through a comm speaker." Leaning into the table, Elegy spoke faster in evident excitement, when he asked, "Have you ever built a musical instrument before?"

"No. But I am eager to please and experienced in other machinery." Duncan said with a shrug. There had to be something about creating musical instruments in the library or someone else experienced in it all. He was hopeful he would not let them down.

As if he were watching a dazzling a fireworks display (instead of a vaguely-bored engineer), Elegy's mouth hung open in an expression of delight. Elegy interlaced his hands together at chest level, and he said, "I appreciate it deeply. I promise: I'll find a way to please you as eagerly in return." To both men, Elegy asked, "If music doesn't soothe your souls, what is there to do at night aboard a starship?"

"I cannot say I do much more than chess at the moment," Duncan admitted tapping his fingers along his box of chess pieces in front of him. It was his only activity other than bugging Mattias and Lexi and singing obnoxiously. He was a simple man at heart.

Aurelius grinned at his answer, " Could always find yourself a girlfriend. Just saying," He held up his hands as if he expected the other man to become offended. "Or read, or write a novel, run around the ship with or without pulling your hair out. Lots of things!"

"I could but the Vrav just do not seem to care about me finding myself a girlfriend. They pop up and break stuff." Duncan said with a huge shrug. He was not in the slightest offended. How could he be at a senior officer suggesting that? "What about you Sir what do you do? Do you have yourself a partner on board?" He asked the Morale Officer back.

"Yeah, it's very new though. Just happened the other day. We really haven't gotten to talk about it that much yet." He shrugged. "I thought I saw you with that girl," he snapped his fingers. "What's her name from science?"

Duncan looked around for a moment giving himself a few moments to think. That was an embarrassing question, when thinking on it the engineer was forced to realized he had not been as discreet as he could have been. “Well…” He scratched the back of his neck. It would not be hard to know which female science officer he was on about as there were so few now. "This is not about me Ensign Nascimento needs our help." He quickly said reaffirming why they were there.

Aurelius smiled. "True, true. But morale is my job, doesn't mean people have to actually come to me for help. I can point out things that are dangling people in the face." But that was enough, he'd embarrassed the man already.

"Gossip will help me too," Elegy said, perking up emphatically. Given how his own flightsuit was piped in Science teal, Elegy went on, "It gives me life. Who precisely is Duncan dating in the science department?" Elegy had his own suspicions, but he hadn't seen anything for himself.

Duncan rolled his eyes as the conversation came back around to him. He hated being the centre of attention. It was one of the reasons he became an Engineer despite his mother being the ships doctor. "Let's focus here Gentlemen." He muttered wishing the conversation had ended at musical instruments instead of this.

"Yeah, stop making the man blush. We're supposed to be dealing with your problem." Aurelius smiled.

Elegy let out a single, "ha," of a laugh in Duncan's direction and he fixed Aurelius with a deadpan stare. Tossing it off quickly, Elegy said, "I'm starting to think a firm breeze could make Duncan blush."

"Anyhow, I'd say now I'm the one intruding on your friendly game," Elegy remarked, making a call-back to when Duncan had tried to exit the conversation early. Waving a palm to each of them in turn, Elegy said, "I think we have a plan? Lieutenant Davis has the personal connections to ask around if there are any instruments I can borrow. Ensign McManus has the technical know-how to see if any torched, scrap materials can be fabricated into an instrument." Elegy then put one hand on his heart and held a palm up, like he was testifying in court. "And I promise not to steal anything."