The first time Chief ever hears Zoya sing, it stirs something hauntingly familiar between her ribs. It's an unassuming Syndican tune, hummed behind closed lips painted the color of plums. She sets her mobile terminal down, her grip on the device slacking in her distraction as her head turns towards the source of her enchantment.
She hardly remembers what she was so worried about just minutes earlier, only knows that she'd suddenly been drawn towards this rare display of ease from the Legion Commander. Long legs eat distance between the neatly arranged shelves of binders to the window offering a view of the bureau's front yard with just a few, slow steps; her hands occupied with absentmindedly thumbing through pages she's not even reading. Chief watches her, watches the way the few rays of sunlight peeking between heavy clouds still manage to make her seem heaven-kissed, pale skin glowing underneath the sun's grace... Most of all her voice, smooth and resonant, gripping her chest in a way that briefly convinced Chief that she could live the rest of her life taking in only half of the air she needed to breathe if it meant being able to continue listening.
Distracted long enough, it only takes the sudden and shrill sound of her own alarm to jolt Chief out of actively daydreaming about Zoya who stood on just the other side of the room. She scrambles to both wrench her eyes away from the woman and make it seem like she wasn't at all enraptured by the sound of her humming just now. A task, she finds after knowing laughter rumbles from Zoya's throat, she had just wonderfully failed at.
