Although far from an expert, Hana took pride in her skills. More often than not she was able to fix her mech on her own —– - experiment on it by herself, even. Improving its performance, adding new features that she deemed important (whether in battle, or outside) but it would seem these "experiments" came to be a bane of hers. Grumbling to herself, Hana found herself dragging her legs towards the base’s main workshop, one hand rubbing her arm as SHAME had already began engulfing her whole.

Here she was, about to ask for help —– - from one of the newer members to boot, forced to rip her pride into pieces all because she had meddled into her mech enough for it to not move at all. She must have accidentally cut some lines or had left a part unattached, though despite having spent hours searching for the problem, she just couldn’t find it. It’s as though the mech just stopped working. One moment it was up and ready to run, and the next, after some basic maintenance, it just died off.

Stepping into the workshop, following the sound of wrench turning against metallic bolts, she finally halted on her tracks. Standing awkwardly before the mechanical engineer, fidgeting in her place, parting her lips to speak only to close it without ever uttering a sound for once too many times before finally —– - ❛ N-Nice wrench. ❜ Almost all too quickly, Hana slapped her hand to her face, cursing to herself. Just what was that?!

hullo!

For as vast and wide as the ocean was, it never seemed big enough to lose the touch of humanity. The boats that was lull over the surface clumsily as if they belonged, throwing their vile contraptions into the ocean to trap the water dwellers--

Satya loathed humanity.

The first encounter with them left her partially crippled, left her arm naught but a marred stump at the shoulder; an eye sore. Never did she wander too close to the surface after that, never too close to shore if she could avoid it. She stuck to the reefs and the familiarity of home, keeping herself elusive to the world and it’s chaos.

Though plans truly never lasted long, did they?  Once one human knew, all of them did like some form of plague. How many of her own kind had been caught by them because of humanities dangerous curiosity?

That was hardly to say that Satya was not a curious woman within her own right. One stray human crossing her path, picturing the tropical fish that lurked within her reef was enough for her to investigate despite the boat over head; enough to give away that she resided in the area, enough for a blurred picture and attention.

Attention brought more humans, more boats-- Nets.

Her heart hammered within her chest, the mesh clinging to her form and constricting with each movement despite how panic pushed Satya onward and away from her reef; away from familiarity and home. 

The lengthy creature curled within a tide pool, the water lapping at her mottled blue and brown body; the clear blue water awash with red as webbed fingers sorely tried to pry away the netting gripping her. Satya’s tail gave a desperate thrash, the flecks of gold upon the edges illuminated within the bright daylight. 

Clear panic was wrote upon her face, chest heaving as she struggled to cling to some semblance of calm-- This was fine, this was fine. Breathe, breathe. It comes off, she had seen it come off!

It’s almost comedic. ( Most things in Brigitte’s life are, actually. ) She’s walking down the aisle, minding her own business on the way back to her dorm from the library, when she feels a hand on her arm. It’s enough to make her stop, expecting someone to tell her she’s dropped something out of her backpack or… who knows?

But no.

It’s this soft, soft touch and then a gentle pull and suddenly she’s in between two stacks. Brown eyes blink and refocus to the lower lighting right here and find– Oh. She swallows convulsively. That look looking back at her behind those glasses makes her stomach flip.

“Satya.” A two-fingered wave from the rugby player. “Hey. What’s up?”

Why had she done that?

Satya frowned at her arm as if it had betrayed her though it seemed to be too late to backpedal from this. She had already tugged the other woman out of the way and silently demanded her attention. A reason needed to be given--

“Ah.” Well, that was not a reason at all. 

Satya did not move, however. She remained within Brigitte’s personal space, the silence both soothing and, yet, deafening at the same time. Alarms blared at the back of her mind that this was a mistake, fumbling for some excuse to leave or some valid reasoning that could explain her impromptu actions.

Eventually, Satya merely settled upon the truth. She had little else to offer.

dead man’s chest starters // @squirehearted