#this is tiny

Canary noticed a new hairstyle. A type of braid, not the most successful attempt, the hair was slipping out in a few places. But Canary knew Alluka would try it again and learn how to get it right.

Trying new things was what Alluka seemed to be about.

“You repaired it yesterday, didn’t you?” Alluka tilted her head and the braid became even more off a mess.

“I managed to get it to function.” Canary turned back to the wires not to stare at the young woman. “But I want to check it one more time.” She lied. She came to talk to Alluka, but she still felt a pretext was required. She was not yet comfortable with coming to hang out just like that. She suspected Alluka would not mind… Hopefully. “It’s not a standard arrangement, to have a bathroom module installed in a place like this. I feel it was a little of a rush job.”

“No? Doesn’t the pilot have a bathroom on other ships?” Alluka asked sitting next to Canary’s tool box. She started inspecting it curiously.

Canary shot her a side glance. Alluka’s whole skin was slightly glowing, as if there were stars flickering underneath it. That meant she was actively interfacing with the ship, probably its memory banks and databases. Passive supervision of the systems was marked only by slight pulsing of purplish lines, like spiral galaxy arms, running at the sides of her neck and around her wrists and ankles. Canary was not sure what Alluka was checking, maybe information about the tools? Although had she not done that before, when Canary had come to repair other stuff? Maybe she wanted to look at schematics of other spaceships.

“They usually don’t, most ships are piloted by AIs not humans. The people who supervise them are not called pilots.” Canary said carefully. The high command did not really consider Alluka to be human. That was why Canary, a chief technical officer, was assigned to take care of the woman. As if she could be repaired like a faulty sensor. Canary found that absolutely idiotic but orders were orders. “This place on a ship is in most cases empty, with one interface desk, manned by alternating shifts of two people. Having a living quarter here is rare.” More like there are two ships like this in existence as far as I know, this one and the other one on this mission, Canary thought but did not say out loud. She was a little careful while talking to Alluka not to direct her attention too much to the fact how different she and her siblings were from everyone else.

“Hmm, but since it’s a common room, typically I mean… then it’s bigger than a regular cabin. So much bigger.” Alluka was clearly comparing it to other rooms on the ship. “That’s so cool. Even the captain’s cabin is smaller. Most people live with room mates. And the bathrooms are also shared in most cases.” She said nodding her head. “I haven’t thought about it before. Oh. And literally no one has their own gym like I do.”

“That’s true we use the shared ones, they are usually crowded and smelly.” Canary said throwing one last glance at the cables and resealing the panel that covered them.

“You could use mine. Whenever you want.” Alluka said and smiled impishly.

Canary bit her lip not to grin too widely. Win, she thought. She hoped to get an invite to be able to come whenever she liked. And now she had it.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to bother you.” She played a little coy for decency’s sake.

“You never bother me.” Alluka said smiling enthusiastically. “I’m always happy when you come.”

Canary blushed a little.