Cafeteria Muzak

Posted on Thu Apr 15th, 2021 @ 5:02pm by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: Deck E - Sickbay
Timeline: MD 159
1718 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

He didn’t even notice he was humming to himself, as he navigated the corridors on E deck and tapped the door control to Sickbay. Since he had woken up for his night shift, there had been a song stuck in Elegy’s head. As it repeated and repeated on a loop, it was starting to come out of him in idle, quiet moments. The double doors slid open and Elegy Nascimento cleared his throat. Clutching a small case in one of his hands, he hurried into Sickbay before his shift in the science lab was due to begin. “Hullo,” Elegy said, brightly, to the only occupant he could see as he entered.

From behind the desk Avira perked up and saw Elegy enter the bay, "Oh, hello," she had wanted to say something to the effect of good morning but she wasn't so sure anymore what part of the day it was supposed to be. She really needed a break, "what can I help you with today, Ensign?" She asked as she got up from her desk, leaving the PADD she was reading on the already cluttered surface. As she got up from the chair she could immediately tell that she should've gotten up more today. Her back immediately protesting at the fact that now all of a sudden she decided to get up and walk around.

Striding towards Avira on languid steps, Elegy remarked, "You're in luck, Lieutenant. I'm the healthiest patient you've had all day." He made his way around the main biobed, practically bouncing with excitement. Once he'd closed the distance between himself and Avira's desk, Elegy placed the brushed chrome case on the desk. It was a standard small box, most commonly used to transport hand scanners or PADDs. "Today, I'm Santa Claus, just one more time," Elegy said. His face quirked into a bit of a frown, as he admitted, "Late, I grant you. However, I bring you your Christmas present."

"You got me a new medical scanner?" Avira wondered out loud looking at the box, "Thank you, Ensign." she pulled the box closer and opened it up, immediately seeing that it wasn't what she initially had thought it to be. The handcrafted ocarina was very well done, she could immediately tell there was a lot of care and time that was put into this, "Oh, I'm sorry..." she was a bit at a loss for words. There had been many conversations in the past 200 days and for most of them they really didn't amount to anything. It seemed that Elegy had kept his word in regards to wanting to develop themselves musically, "I really do have to warn you that I'm not very good."

Elegy shook his head from side to side when he heard Avira's warning. Although he spoke through a facetious smirk, Elegy seemed to believe every word of his reply. "You can't concern yourself," Elegy said, "with such narrow concepts as good and evil when you're undertaking a creative endeavour." --He shrugged at the losing game that came from only doing things one could do well-- "I haven't touched one of these in over a decade either. Half of the fun will be learning how to play them again. We have the time to kill," he said, that last remark decidedly sardonic.

On that point the man was definitely right, they had plenty of time to squander on such things as learning how to play an old musical instrument, "So, where do we start?" Avi took the ocarina to her lips and blew it softly, immediately producing a rather flat tone, that was at least how she remembered it. She closed some of the holes on the instrument to change the note. All that was missing from this experience was a musical teacher calmly insisting that she put feeling and emotion into her music. She was never any good at expressing her emotions, and her time in the Imperial Guard hadn't really helped her develop that side of her more. Emotions were a liability in her line of work, "there's this melody that I remember, it played in our school, during lunch. It was supposed to calm the youth," it always got on her nerves, ironic then that she now missed that exact melody, "I think it's..." she played three notes, "No, that's definitely not it."

Watching Avira play those first notes, Elegy was pleased to see her visceral gusto at handling an ocarina again. It didn't take him long to decide it had been worth calling in this favour with Duncan. Elegy took up his own ocarina and he matched her finger positions on the instrument, trying his best to echo the three notes Avira had played. Tugging at his earlobe for a moment, Elegy said, "Try humming it for me." When he said it, his brow was still furrowed from what Avira had said about school. "Were the youth in need of calming?" Elegy asked, intrigued by such a purpose for the music.

"There's a lot of hormones going around in an Andorian high school, I read some very interesting papers on that once I got into medical school," Avira mused before trying to think of the notes, she played another few notes before seemingly liking the sound of one of them. She repeated it a bit, "this might be the first one," she wasn't great at music, and she might've been off by an octave or something, but it was nice to let go of the daily pressures of life as the Chief Medical Officer on this vessel, "did they not play music in your schools' cafeteria's?"

Perching himself on the foot of a biobed, Elegy held his ocarina to his lips and mirrored the notes Avira was playing. Having never heard the song before, Elegy added another musical motif that he felt would sound complimentary to the song they were assembling. When Avira asked about his school cafeterias, Elegy opened his mouth to answer, but no words were immediately forthcoming. He lowered the ocarina to his lap; his brow furrowing as he thought about how to answer.

"On my colony, the only school was near the spaceport," Elegy replied, referring to a childhood experience that wasn't exactly the norm back on Earth. "I learned from other parents in the commune, and my dad made me take education modules on the computer so I would have standardized test scores for a university application."

Avira nodded a bit, "not too many hormone-infused hyped-up kids all with something to prove in your cafeteria then," she gave a bit of a smile, people settling on young colonies were always quite intriguing to her. The type of people it attracted, "any siblings to keep you company at least?" she asked as she played another couple of notes when she suddenly perked up hearing him trying to harmonise with her feeble attempts, "That's the one, go back a bit!" she was getting excited now.

Thinking about her question, Elegy tilted his head from side to side in an expression of yes and no. "There were youths on the colony," Elegy answered with caveats, "but they were raised to be independent. No one much believed in telling anyone else what to do. They studied when they felt like it and they ate when they felt like it." After taking a breath, Elegy played the same sequence of notes again, the ones that had pleased Avira. Looking down at the ocarina in this hands, Elegy said diffidently, "My younger brother, Kellin, still lives on Vega Colony."

"Must be hard, missing your brother," Avira knew she had ran away from home for the express purpose of getting away from her family, but the fact was it was just her father she wanted to leave behind. All the others still hurt. Plus she never planned to run as far away as they were now. She smiled a bit, despite herself. The melody, remembering her siblings, for a moment she vividly remembered the good parts of her youth, "thank you for playing with me. I promise I'll get better so I can return the favour some day."

Shaking his head, Elegy grinned at Avira and he said, "I didn't get that made for you so you could perform." He stood up from his perch, so he could look her in the eyes -- look right at her. "Music is meant to be shared," Elegy said, and he believed those words earnestly. "It may be some time before we can see our families again. I'd like to keep practicing with you," Elegy proposed, "if you're up for it."

Avira frowned a bit and immediately nodded, "Of course," more than anything she knew that they would have to build their crew on the ship up to be the family that most of them would never see again. It was the harsh reality of the matter that the only Andorian she would see for the rest of her life would be her own reflection, her antennae drooped at the thought of that "and we can even play melodies you like." She added a smile.

"I'll take a look through the cultural databases to see if I can find the sheet music for some of my favourite songs," Elegy replied, and he chuckled at her offer too. Continuing the thread of their school-child days, Elegy teased, "As long as you don't mind a little homework."

Avira shook her head, it would be a welcome change of pace from her trying to read up on human physiology, an ongoing bit of homework that she had forced herself to take and re-take. She wanted to be absolutely sure that the people of the ship could trust on her if something were to happen to them.

For Elegy's part of the crew, Avira certainly already had that trust. From their recovery from the Vrav attacks to her deft hand with his cochlear implants, she had more than proven her mettle as a chief medical officer. Nodding an acknowledgement at Avira, Elegy offered a hand gesture to wave goodbye and turned on his heel towards the exit. Before he even reached the control panel beside the doors, Elegy was already humming Avira's melody to himself.