Time To Be Magical

Posted on Wed Sep 9th, 2026 @ 1:33pm by Ensign Duncan McManus & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore

Mission: Royal Mail
3051 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Duncan grinned as he looked at the still that had been his only project for the last year. It was all finally coming together, and the Captain had permitted him to give some of the moonshine he had created to the other ship to see what they thought and whether they knew any trade ports that they could sell it at on the way to gain some things that they needed in the future. It might just be a small thing, but it had been the thing to keep him sane over the last year when he had given himself 100 days to sort his head out and adjust to their new future.

He crouched to adjust the condenser when someone came into the space. “Be out in a moment.” He called loudly.

"It's only me."

Coming from Madi, it was the kind of statement that, at least in the past, might have been fueled by an insecure desire to reduce her own impact. These days, it came more from a place of understanding how delicate some of what Duncan did with this project was and wanting to reassure him that there wasn't any pressing need to drop what he was doing. Madelyn knew nothing about distilling but she did know that it was important to Duncan and had grown to genuinely enjoy watching him work. It was an uncomplicated way to spend time together.

Duncan grinned to himself at her declaration of only me. "Well, that is the only me I was looking forward to hearing." He called as he cleaned the valve that he was working on. "How has your day been?" He asked, making conversation as he had found himself thinking about her, as it had gotten later in the day. He had found himself wondering what she would be up to or wondering if he could find her after his shift to play a game or have dinner with.

Still a little pink-cheeked from the greeting, though much better these days at accepting the affection without stumbling over herself, Madi squeezed her way around several intricate-looking pipes and joined Duncan rather than trying to talk through the gaps in his contraption. "Fine, mostly. One of the crew from the other ship was sharing pearls of wisdom with Finn for most of the afternoon, so I guess we'll have a brand new project to stress over soon." Her young friend's enthusiasm for the role he'd had to make his own was sweet but Madi, who had still stuck with her shifts in hydroponics for now despite acknowledging a desire to put her real training to better use eventually, struggled at the best of times to keep up with the rigor of their recent explosion of produce. Finn's bursts of inspiration usually meant days of being confused and mildly hesitant about getting in the way.

The man blinked and glanced to his left when he realised she was there with him. “Isn’t stressing over new project your favourite place to be?” He wondered quietly as he leaned over and caressed a thumb over her hand. “Have you spoken to Lieutenant Darru about getting back in the lab?”

A month ago, that question would have produced a very awkward amount of shame-faced embarrassment. Now, Madelyn had no control over the colour her cheeks turned when she was called out but she at least trusted the intentions of her current companion enough to offer him a crinkled nose and sheepish smile that was in full acknowledgement of her lack of results. "Kind of?"

The man looked from the valve to the woman and raised an eyebrow with his usual amused smile. "Kind of?" He asked back and laughed a little as he tried to work out what exactly that looked like.

"Yeah, well..." The hesitation was normal, it was easy to lose count of how many sentences Madelyn started that way. "After we got back from finding fuel, I had a pretty short conversation with him about finding more opportunities to put my actual qualifications to use." When put like that, it sounded like a perfectly reasonable professional conversation. In Madi's case, it had been a bumbled mess that she still cringed about, especially since creating any sort of follow-up was proving complicated. "The problem is, studying alien cultures requires data and we don't have a whole lot of that really. Or at least, what we do have lacks a lot of context."

Duncan found himself smiling a little wider as he noticed the hesitation and slowly leaned over to her and brushed his thumb along her hand. "Why don't you talk to our guests?" He said, offering a suggestion. The new people on board all seemed to be different species other than the captain but no one really knew what his deal was just yet.

"Yeah, those."

Another sheepish grimace saw Madi's expression soften into a huff of self-depreciating laughter. It wasn't lost on her that she was squandering a perfect opportunity by experiencing a sudden attack of stage fright but, in fairness, Madelyn had never expected to interact directly with the cultures she studied. It was her tendency to fade towards the obscurity of archive work that had prompted her father to recommend some time on board one of the Earth Starfleet vessels to begin with. Being inundated with a variety of species as-yet unknown to anyone in the Alpha Quadrant was exciting but it also meant that maintaining any knowledge of them was going to fall to the crew and, by her own request, specifically Madi. Be careful what you wish for.

"Have you met any of them yet?," she asked, curious for another's perspective.

"I have not, but I am hoping to catch their second in command. I think she might be their engineer, and you know what I am like meeting engineers." He said smiling a little. "Have you?" He wondered quietly seeing the grimace but not wanting to push her anymore than he already had done.

Madelyn shook her head just a little too quickly. "The Captain brought an official tour through at one point and that other captain likes to pop in to quiz Finn about our upcoming fruit harvest but I've not met any of them as such." Even if Madi had been proficient at hiding things, which she most evidently was not, it would have been nearly impossible to disguise the hesitant regret in her tone. It was complicated, being both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

“I bet Finn loved that.” Duncan commented with a smile as he thought about the timid crewman. The man had been getting better about joining in and getting involved since moving in with his boyfriend but it was still questionable if he would leave the hydro bay some days.

That provoked a rush of empathetic laughter. Madelyn was fond of her friend, the pair of them tended to console each other over all the cringe-worthy moments they amassed in a single day. "At least we have successful crops to warrant the excitement." Turning her attention to the contraption in front of her, Madi wrinkled her nose in consideration and arrived very swiftly at the conclusion that she still didn't have any idea how it worked. "How's all this going?"

“Aye as a growing lad I appreciate the greens.” The man smoothed his stomach. He joked but he really did appreciate the fact there were fresh vegetables and fruits at points. “This is going really well. This valve was stuck but now works fine and will not explode.” He said making it sound a lot more dramatic than it was.

Madi froze, her eyes once again about as expressively large as they could be without completely absorbing the rest of her features. Instantly, she held both hands up. "I don't think you should let me near anything that might blow up."

It was self-depreciating humour, the kind she was getting far better at wielding whilst actually laughing at herself instead of using it as a way of mitigating disappointment in her capacity. That didn't mean to say there wasn't an element of truth to her caution; nobody could knock the same fork onto the ground multiple times in a row quite like Madi.

“If it blows up it’s on me not you.” The man said finally standing up straight and looked at her. He offered a smile as he took her hands in his and tugged her closer. “So now I am finished what would you like to do?” He wondered moving the conversation to something way more interesting than work.

It took a moment for Madelyn to respond, not because she hadn't already given some thought to how the evening could unfold but because it still caught her by surprise, the sense of warmth that came from a simple matter of affectionate proximity. Being in a position now where touching Duncan was permissible, where leaning into the solid stability of his frame was entirely appropriate, was reassuring in a way that Madi couldn't quite put into words. It had taken a lot of the edge off her loneliness and, for that, she was hugely grateful.

"We could work on the campaign," she said hopefully. Their little gaming group had never ventured much beyond the handful of board games at their disposal but ever since Hera had arrived with Lottie, full of talks of dragons and dungeons and the Captain's input on how that could play out as an actual activity they could all get involved in, Madelyn had been enthralled by the idea. Discovering that Duncan knew what they were talking about, and knew something about getting it up and running, had turned wishful thinking into a fully-fledged fixation. Even if it never amounted to much, creating it with him was worth it.

"We can work on anything you want as long as I can get to have a shower first," Duncan said quietly as he stepped back to give her some space, as he was pretty sure that he was covered in engineering fluid and booze from the valve fixing.

He was, Madi marvelled, the most easy-going person she'd ever met. For the longest time, she'd been worried that he was tolerating her because he had to given the confined nature of the crew's daily living, but she realised now just how unfair that had been to Duncan. Never once had she caught him saying one thing and meaning another and when he seemed happy to go along with whatever the mood dictated, that was usually genuine. It was taking some getting used to, this understanding that he liked seeing her happy, but it felt...nice.

Okay, it felt more than nice but she'd only stopped being tongue-tied around him recently. Eloquence was a work-in-progress.

"You grab a shower, I'll grab some food. Should we stick to quarters for now?" The sparkle in her eyes was a newish development and definitely preferrable to the slightly haunted expression she'd worn for the past year. "Easier to avoid spoilers that way."

“All of this raises whose quarters.” He joked as he started to pack away his equipment trying to be quick with how he did things and still be meticulous with things. He was previous over his tools despite them having ways to replace, repair and manufacture things he was conscious of the fact some of them had been gifts. His parents had gifted things when he had declared he wanted to go into engineering and he had brought them with him every posting so far.

A familiar pause hinted at indecision. It was still early enough in their relationship for Madi to get stuck on the etiquette of where she spent the night. Sometimes, particularly with competing duty rosters, it was just a better idea to get a good night's sleep, but beyond that, they seemed to wind up in Duncan's space more than her own. What little logic there was surrounding it stemmed from a mixture of his quarters being marginally bigger, or at least configured in a way that better accommodated two people, and Madelyn being worried that he'd feel out of place without access to his stuff. She hadn't really come on board with as much, having expected to only be there a few months at most.

"It's probably easier of it's yours since you're showering, right?"

“Never stopped me showering before at yours.” He laughed but smiled at the thought of her kindness. He could shower in engineering locker room but he much prefer some privacy. “I quite like smelling of that vanilla stuff from the Releaians.

It was intinctual, the urge to explain herself. Weeks of intentional practise saw Madi catch herself before the words were blurted out, however, knowing that even if it made sense for him to have immediate access to clean clothing, it wasn't really such an issue that it couldn't be worked around. In her head, it was just the simplest way to make a decision because, honestly, no where felt like home unless he was in it. She'd spent a year not really connecting with any space on board, her quarters had only offered a complicated solitude that wasn't always healing.

"Well I assume," she countered instead, a far more cheerful attempt to make a choice as her arm slipped through his and she dragged him out the door, "that you're also hiding all your dragon-inventing tools in your quarters too." It was a tease, of course, but she was still quite chuffed to find him interested in this form of gameplay. Duncan was a practical sort at surface level, finding his imaginative streak was like uncovering a vein of gold.

“No they are in engineering.” He teased as he looked around at the compartment. It was clean and tidy enough that he felt happy leaving it. “Ready when you are.” He declared, grabbing the last of the tools and heading to the door.

---

"So, what even is Dungeons and Dragons?"

Half an hour later, already committed to pyjamas for the evening, Madelyn sat cross-legged on Duncan's bed and watched him emerge from the shower with the kind of fixated distraction that only she could muster. It was the only explanation for her complete lack of reaction to him being shirtless in her presence because that still had a tendency to stop her in her tracks when she was actually paying attention.

Duncan finally felt clean for the first time all day since he dropped the oily substance in the filter all over his legs, so he had felt dirty all day. He turned around at the question, trying to work out if she was serious as he searched for some loose trousers. "Dungeons & Dragons is a collaborative tabletop role-playing game that has been around for nearly 200 years."

"I know that much," Madi replied, her expression a gentle deadpan for only a second before succumbing to the bright-eyed enthusiasm she was best at. "But how do you actually play it? It doesn't sound like an ordinary board game."

Duncan laughed as he grabbed a box that was under his desk and put it on his bed. Once he had his trousers on, he sat down next to her and opened it up. It was fall of dices, pieces of plastic covered paper and books. "Dice and imagination." He said quietly.

"Well, we've got both of those."

It was hard to put into words just how profound the sensation of hopeful anticipation was. Madelyn had spent the past year lost, unsure of how to redefine her purpose, never quite feeling like she was part of anything because it had never been anyone's intention for her to be on board this long. For her to look forward to anything was a significant improvement in her outlook and, right now, the eagerness in her expression spoke to a growing trend towards optimism that could trace its origin straight back to the man in front of her. And here he was again, giving her another lifeline.

"What do we have to do to start?"

“Create a character. Do you want a pre-made one?” He wondered offering her a few different pieces of laminated paper. He was a little more old school but he was fully aware that eventually PADDS and other machines would break. He wanted something physical in his hands to keep track of as well; he had always found his workouts easier on paper.

"I... How do you create one?"

It wasn't a definitive answer. Duncan knew Madi well enough by now to suspect she would opt for the path of least resistance until her confidence solidified but she at least felt comfortable enough with him to explore curiosity first.

Duncan looked excited as he pulled out a worn-looking book. "What kind of character would you like? Something magical? A fighter? A spy?" He wondered listing of the different type of characters she could make as that seemed to be the best place to start.

A moment of deep thought drew Madi's eyebrows together, though her attention had veered from the immediate topic to a somewhat adjacent recollection that definitely tempted her in one direction. Not long ago, she would have kept it to herself. This time, she mustered a sheepish smile to match her slightly pink cheeks and confessed, "You know, when I was a kid, I had an ongoing story that I wrote where the main character was a girl who discovered she was really from a magical realm. Her best friend was a talking frog." A huff of self-depricating laughter was nevertheless quite fond of the memory. "I think I owe it to baby Madelyn to bring that back to the table, right?"

Duncan laughed and shook his head at the self-deprecation. He did not like it when she did that, as it made him angry that she did it to protect herself. "Sorcerer, then. I can really see their innate magic bringing that character alive. They are users born with magic in their bloodline." He held out the page to her.

Now this was really what he called a nerdy evening, and even better, it was teaching his girlfriend something that they could share.