Geeking out

Posted on Tue Dec 13th, 2022 @ 5:48pm by Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Mess hall
Timeline: Day 332
2883 words - 5.8 OF Standard Post Measure

With everything going on it was a wonder that Kiyara had found time to sit down and have a meal and now they were just sitting there staring out the window, with the stars lazily spinning by. This was supposed to be a nice and quiet time. Boring chores like fixing recycling things and finding time to optimise the moonshine still. Instead they had been running around like crazy trying to put out fires around the ship, in many cases literal fires. It seemed that whenever they fixed something on one end of the vessel a conduit on the other side popped. In the end they were just happy not to be one of the warp field specialists that had to figure out how to fix the engine with spare shoestring and bubblegum. They leaned forward and rested their head on their hand, letting out a huge sigh. They had even considered joining in one of the community calls to play board games with some other enthusiasts. Digging out a metallic twenty-sided die from their pocket they rolled it on the metal table, the soft clinks reminding them of good times in the past with their high school friends. TTRPGs had been one of the early outlets for their confusion, and it had always held a special place in their heart. The die they carried around reminded them of the support they had felt from their friends.

Over in the line for food, Madelyn stared vacantly at the empty tray she was holding, content to wait her turn and equally as likely to be relegated to the back if she continued to show no signs of awareness of her present surroundings. It wasn't unusual to catch the quiet woman daydreaming but there was a weariness to her stance, the slight waver back and forth of genuine fatigue, that suggested she was more at risk of falling asleep where she stood than simply losing herself in yet another bout of escapism. Hydroponics was in absolute disarray and she'd been pulled from sleep to help attend to the damage and subsequent hard decisions regarding allocation of available power. Fretfulness over food supply was a hefty burden that didn't make receiving any of the current offerings particularly easy. By the time she was jostled and bumped to the start of the line, Madi was left to stare in horror as her tray was laden with what was surely far more than she required. Offering to give half of it back earned her raised eyebrows.

She turned quickly into the room before her attempts to explain only made things worse.

Despite having been on board as long as everyone else by dint of sheer inability to have managed otherwise, Madelyn still found scanning a room for familiarity a particularly daunting task. Even before the catastrophe that had resulted in their current predicament, the young officer had felt the weight of familial expectations as a noose that threatened to tighten at a moment's notice. Surely, and this was mostly a figment of her own imagination, anyone would look at a daughter of serving Command personnel with a degree of anticipation and there was this inherent fear now, unfounded as it probably was, that people expected her to know things that would increase their advantage. Choosing whose company to keep had become an exercise in trying to figure out who would be most critical of her very obvious inability to be of much use to anyone.

It didn't leave a lot of options.

The unmistakable sound of die hitting a solid surface turned her attention to a likely source, at least. A benign presence that Madi mostly found comforting, even if the pair of them could create silence awkward enough to fill an entire cargo bay. Navigating through the chairs, and only needing to stop once to pick up her cutlery as it slid treacherously from her tray, the young scientist drew up to the empty chair opposite Kiyara and smiled ruefully. "Hey. This seat taken?"

Kiyara looked up with weary eyes and mustered a smile in the direction of the familiar scientist. "Hi. It's free." They waved at the chair, "not that you'd have to pay for it otherwise." they covered up the die with their hand and pulled it back in to place it back into their pocket. Looking at the woman made her feel like that was exactly what she'd be looking like as well. They ran a hand through their own hair to straighten out any strays without looking into a reflective surface it was an impossible task and possibly only made it worse.

"Bon appetite." Kiya looked back down to their own empty plate. It had been a decent meal and they had surprised themselves with how much they'd been able to shove in their face. Clearly the work on repairs had left them a lot more hungry than anticipated. They took a moment to rub their eyes, red rimmed and burning with fatigue. There was probably something else they should say or ask of their new table companion but the words eluded them for now and so they simply sat across from each other in silence.

It took a degree of dexterity that really shouldn't have looked as challenging as she made it for Madelyn to set her tray down, and her drink of water, and negotiate sitting without something else ending up on the floor. Clumsiness seemed to dog her at the most inopportune times but never quite as much as when she was bone-tired. With a flop, she arrived safely, and then sat staring at the meal as Kiyara's sentiments reminded her once again of guilt-riddled prior knowledge. Picking up her fork, Madi jabbed at the food half-heartedly.

"Did you eat enough?," she asked hopefully, determined in some way to impose rations in light of what she knew might be inevitable restrictions in coming days anyway. "This is way more than I can manage, so help yourself."

Kiyara quickly shook their head. "No. I mean yes." They then nodded. "I've eaten plenty, thank you." They let a loud sigh escape them looking at how the woman across from them was playing around with her food. They remembered how when they had done the same as a kid their parents would've told them not to play with food. "It's important to eat well." An empty platitude, great they were dealing in those now too.

The words sank like an anvil to the pit of Madi's stomach. "Yeah."

But it wasn't her place to go around telling everyone that a whole heap of the produce was spoilt, and that their chances of replacing all of it were virtually nil. As someone who typically failed at keeping secrets, Madi still sat with the glum certainty that this was not gossip that she could indulge in without serious repercussions. Everyone was already stretched to their limits, inciting panic over imminent starvation wasn't going to improve things.

With visible reluctance, she made it through her first few mouthfuls and then, pausing for a drink of water, lifted her gaze to consider her table partner. "How are things in Engineering?" That was polite, right? Obviously things weren't great, they were practically dead in the water, but offering to be a sound board didn't constitute trying to dig too deep into dangerous speculation, right?

Kiyara's heart seemed to stop at the question. Engineering had been a hell hole. The ship was blowing gaskets left and right, and without proper resupply they'd be limping back to earth, rather than warping. By their estimation what would be a hundred year journey home had become a several millennia one. Of course they could limp to a nearby solar system, but even that could take the better part of two decades and the relativistic effects would mean that it would waste even more time outside of the ship going at maximum impulse in regular space had that effect on time.

"Everyone is strung pretty tightly." They finally settled on. "I'm just tired." They closed their eyes for a second with that admission and couldn't suppress a yawn from fighting it's way out.

"I think everyone is." Madelyn meant it as a comfort but worried immediately that it had sounded like a competitive comparison. She smothered the unintentional slur with a faint smile and stifled her own yawn. "I know I could sleep for a week."

A lapse back into silence was at least made less awkward by the fact that Madi used the time to empty half of her plate. Guilt aside, her fatigue had reached a point where it affected her appetite and, though she refused to waste food given the current situation, there was likewise nothing to be proven by her making herself sick from it. As she slowed down, and the need for a change in topic presented itself, the scientist allowed her racing mind to stumble over options before a flash of inspiration rescued her.

"I didn't realise someone else on board had a die set." She hoped her smile conveyed her genuine interest. "I worried at the time that mine were kind of frivolous but now I wish I'd packed my entire games chest."

Kiya's ears perked up and the weariness seemed to melt away a bit at the mention of a games chest. "I may or may not have prioritised some board games over other things." They felt their face getting warmer, glad for their darker complexion obscuring the blushing.

In similar fashion, Madi's eyebrows raised in genuine interest. "You did? Which ones?" The over-eagerness in her tone prompted a flush similar to Kiya's, though it was tempered by a self-depreciative grin. "I maybe have a few myself."

"Some classics." Kiya shrugged a bit. They had taken a few more than was probably wise. "Not Monopoly though, nobody agrees anymore on how to play it, and from the historical record it seemed like nobody actually liked playing it in the first place." They shook their head a bit. "I like worker placements and deck builders."

Leaning forward, Madi lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I bought all of Catan, the entire expansion set, and every iteration of Uno that I own. Only half my Magic cards though." Her brow furrowed. "My original plan was just to have the rest sent out eventually but..." She hunched a shoulder. "That didn't really work out."

"Oh dude, Catan. Really? That's been such a long time." Kiya was suddenly very excited about the prospect of playing board games. "Do you think we could get a group together?" They'd never considered actively recruiting people to play with, let alone thought other people would've actually brought boardgames aboard. "I never played MTG. I brought Seven Wonders though, have you played that?."

Madelyn's eyes narrowed in thought. "I think one of the guys in Games Club at Uni had it. Not sure that I played it though, any good?" Her expression cleared for a moment and she shook her head to amend. "Well, obviously, you brought it with you."

"Very balanced. Very much easy to learn hard to master." Kiyara was always quite analytical in their approach to playing games. "I also have Stone Age, similarly easy to learn and well balanced." There were another half a dozen or so games they had brought. "Do people always ask you about chess as well?"

Her nose wrinkling slightly before she could catch herself to avoid it, Madi hesitated and then ventured tentatively, "I don't mind chess. It's more..." It lacked imagination, it lacked a narrative, it lacked any sense of humour. "People get really serious about it and then nobody's allowed to talk because of the concentration levels. I always found it kind of stressful."

"I barely know how the pieces move." Kiyara gave a bit of a crooked smirk at that admission, her face getting warmer again. It seemed like it was a bit of scandalous thing to admit to with other boardgaming people. "And yes, so serious! The game of kings? No wonder that antiquated form of government failed."

"My brother's good at it so he used to like playing so he could beat me all the time." As much as the recollection might have once been accompanied by a roll of the eyes, these days there was more a melancholy wistfulness to Madi's tone when she spoke of her family.

Kiya felt the awkward silence grow and as was their nature found it difficult to break it. They looked over at Madi tried to start a sentence a couple of times, only to swallow her words. What would one be able to say on such a topic anyway? Everything will be alright? She didn't believe that. I'm sure they miss you too? True, but pointless. Their gaze returned to the plate they had finished earlier. Why had life gotten so very complicated and depressing, this was supposed to be an adventure, the most amazing time to be alive. Instead they were a hundred years from home and in peril pretty much all the time.

Not for the first time in her life, Madelyn realised she'd thrown a cold bucket of water onto a perfectly good conversation. Just as she had every other time, there was a moment within the silence where she chastised her lack of impulse control. Why did you have to say that? Just like everyone else, she got struck by bouts of homesickness and anxiety about what the future held, and whether she'd ever see her family again, but it wasn't exactly helpful to remain in that mindset. Deflated inwardly but trying hard not to make it obvious, she picked up her fork and managed a few more mouthfuls before trying to restore the tone.

"Maybe, if you wanted, we could play something some time. If we set up in here others might be interested?"

"I'd like that, that would be nice. Yeah." Kiya jumped on the opportunity to break the awkwardness that had grown between them. Though they weren't too sure about the idea of 'playing in public' the tables in the mess hall were well suited for board games and with just two or three more people joining them they could pretty much play any game they wanted. "We should probably set a date otherwise this'll be one of those things we might get to. At some point. Maybe." They knew how it usually ended up with planning game nights.

Madi smiled at that, far too able to relate. Then, poking at her food tentatively, she gave the matter some thought before responding. "Ensign O'Connery has been asking around for things that people might like to do. Perhaps she could help organise it?" Madelyn couldn't speak for her lunchmate but she was coming up short on ideas for garnering interest otherwise. The mere concept of just asking people was preposterous. How the heck was she supposed to know who to approach?

"Oh yeah, that would be nice." Kiyara seemed very eager as well to let someone else handle all the logistics of getting people together and enthusiastic about a board game night. They just wanted to sit down, figure out the most optimal strategy and play. "Will you speak to Ensign O'Connery?" They wanted to avoid having to start that conversation herself. What would they ask? When? How? There was always the risk of being roped in to the organisation and promotion of the thing as well. That would definitely be sub-optimal. "It's just. I don't want to, you know... There's just so much damage to control..."

The remark brought Madelyn's thoughts right back to hydroponics and the sudden rock in her throat made it hard to swallow the mouthful she'd just taken. Setting down her fork and trying her best not to look guilty about anticipating enjoyment when the onboard situation was so dire, the brunette considered the request and nodded. O'Connery, despite being far more confident and popular than Madi could ever imagine dealing with, wasn't intimidating to deal with. "I can ask her."

Kiya nodded at that with some relief. They picked up their plate and took another long look out of the porthole they were sitting next to. "Thank you for the company." With that they rose from their seat and gave a small bow. They wondered why they'd give a bow to one of her crewmates. Felt themselves heating up under their collar again, "have a nice day." With that they quickly turned and hurried off.

As with all her usual attempts not to stare, Madelyn failed miserably. Very slowly, her gaze returned to what was left of her meal and she blinked several times in an effort to figure out what had prompted her sudden plunge into solitude yet again. With a slightly downcast sigh, she put it down to just her luck and rose, trying to squash the last of her guilt as she scraped the remains of her unfinished food into the disposal unit. Then, before she lost her resolve, the young ensign slipped from the room to hunt down the ship's closest approximation of a replacement morale officer.