Even Rats Can Only Be Kicked Around For So Long

When he asked what her work entailed she turned away to look back upon the plant she had been fascinated with earlier.

He may not have survived, but he could have joined.

Still, there was this unspoken need to prove yourself as the newest member of the ship, and he was sure Skye felt that as well. But he liked her from the moment she showed up, admittedly for a selfish reason. She was the only one on the ship that didn’t think of him as a traitor, whether currently or in the past.

Her offer of food made him blink. “Ah, right,” he muttered. He always forgot about meals when working on the plants. Hopefully the cook wouldn’t throw anything at him this time for skipping breakfast. “Sure, I could probably do with something to eat,” he said through a bubbling laugh.

His eye swept the room, mind running a quick calculation of when he’d need to be back and what would need to be done then. “I’d stay here all day if I could get away with it,” he nodded in all seriousness. The joke flew over his head by miles. “Taking care of plants is like having dozens of kids all at once, I think. Never had kids, actually. But the captain doesn’t like for me to hang out in here all the time. I have apprentice things to do and whatnot.” He waved his hand as though to brush the responsibilities away.

A slow shrug tugged at his shoulders. "I don't know that anyone on this ship is free from mistakes or regrets. Feel like that's the reason we're all here. Just a bunch of screw-ups. I'm still not sure I made all the right choices, but I guess there could be a lot more people dead than there are. Maybe. Regardless, you're stuck being alive with me, so I count that on my list of achievements whether you like it or not."

(tag: traitorxus)

She was feeling the itch now, in full force, as she walked the lonesome hallways of the ship Arcadia. The young woman knew her time was coming—the moment where she would be tested! She was the newest greenhorn to join the space pirates under the fearsome Captain Harlock’s flag of freedom, of course. She was bound to feel some kind of pressure, some sort of expectation. Sure, she had proven handy when it came to filling in for ship maintenance shifts but this ship was such a well-oiled machine it hardly needed much added effort. The Arcadia was a deadly, powerful ship and her meager learnings in engineering and mechanics couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how such a vessel worked. All the hard questions were typically left to Yattaran to try and explain and many times it came with a small shrug. Don’t worry about it, just mind your own self—maybe you’ll figure it out? Heh.

In the meantime, he jotted down the progress of each flower, muttering to them in either adoration or worry. Anyone who worked in a greenhouse long enough began talking to each plant as though it were alive, and Yama had grown up in one, so each flower was either a friend or a child. Then again, maybe that was the lack of sleep getting to him.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if Harlock let me have some worms,” he grumbled. “Worms fix everything. I don’t care how expensive they are. Well, maybe they wouldn’t fix these mutations. Dark matter does weird things to plants and people, huh?” The little pink flower didn’t bother to respond.

As much as he did it, rambling to himself wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted people to know about, so hearing a crack behind him sent him into a spin. His steps stuttered as he took in the woman standing there and the boxes wobbling at her side. “No!” he howled, running up to the shelf to hold the boxes steady, though they were far from falling. “Enough chemicals in there to fill this whole room with poison,” he gasped once they appeared stable enough. “Really need to put them in a better place.”

With a slow step back, he took in the sudden guest once again. It was the new girl- What was her name? Something with an S. Star… Sun… Ssss… “Skye.” He blinked at the recollection. “Sorry about my little freak out. I haven’t gotten everything organized in here yet, and one wrong move can mess up the whole thing.” He heaved a sigh and tugged on his bangs. “And if you ended up dead from chemicals after we just picked you up, the captain would probably be a little irritated. Trying to find new people with the right mindset is a pain.”

"Let them think what they want as long as they don’t get in our way"

But with the government controlling the information feed and everything else, Yama couldn't imagine a way to turn the viewpoint on them. "I don't want to be a scary story people tell their kids. I don't think I'm frightening enough for that. Maybe I just need a cape."

Apollo craned his neck, staring up into the branches of the massive specimen before him — an oak, if he remembered anything from his science classes. The trunk was too big around for his outstretched arms to encircle it, but that wasn’t what had caught his attention as he’d passed underneath — no, there was something moving around up there, much larger than a squirrel.

Something falling from up there, actually, from the sounds of it—

“Whoa!”

Thankfully the person (for that’s what it was, a young man who was probably about his age) managed to catch himself before hitting the ground. Still, he seemed rather embarrassed — not that Apollo could blame him; he would’ve been too, if he were in a similar situation. (Which would require me actually knowing how to climb a tree, but…)

“Sorry I…almost fell on you.”

"W-won’t happen again."

"I really hope people aren't usually magnetized to fall on you," he twittered through a laugh. He certainly wouldn't have called it fine, but he wasn't going to argue if the guy didn't feel like reporting the mishap. "Right," he muttered in a slow realization. "A ladder... That would have been smart. But it's all good. I've got this!" Famous last words if he'd ever heard them, but really, he could get down from there.

Probably, anyway. He pulled himself up to step onto the branch before hopping down a few feet from the stranger, who he noticed had very odd hair as he turned to properly face him. "There. We're all good," he smiled. The branch responded with a sharp crack just before it fell to land directly between them, leaves rattling wildly.

"I only got here a few days ago… and I’ll help you keep an eye out for angry looking librarians coming our way so you may have a head start in escaping." Tapping her scarf in thought to make sure she had given the right descriptor for the amount of time passed, Ayano spoke with a small laugh to herself for the small joke she could pull off. And she was rather enjoying the company, until she could almost feel the air grow cold when the gardener’s tone changed.

….His bushes? Oh, the plants. Ayano made a quiet note to herself to not bring any harm to the plants unless she wanted to invoke the wrath of the scary gardener. Scary, yet kind-hearted. 

Through that, even as the chill in the air finally passed by, Ayano’s smile hadn’t completely fallen off her face. “Yes, there is a quite a bit to choose from, but I already know that I can barely scrape by for biology and mathematics, so I’m not sure if I should even consider botany or magic…or learning things about the sky…” She definitely hadn’t been the honor student in the class.

"But that’s okay," even after admitting the many things that she wouldn’t be good at, the girl was in high spirits. "I’m sure I’ll find something to fill up my class schedule in time, it’s probably no rush." Clapping her hands together as she spoke, it was as if Ayano was assuring herself of what she said instead of telling the other person about it. 

 There was still something a little off about her personality, but of course he wouldn’t pry. Sometimes it was best to just leave things at face value.

“I don’t blame you,” he shrugged. “It’s good to be picky about your schedule. School always used to stress me out. Never would have thought I’d come back to one. Sometimes just hearing the teachers lecture puts me on edge, but they’re much nicer here than what I’m used to. I’m sure they’ll help you out and all that.” He waved a hand out as though it could elaborate for him. One of these days he’d learn a little more about the education side of things so he could be of more use, not that it was quite in his department.

When she introduced herself, he almost instinctively saluted to introduce himself in turn, but hearing himself called the gardener threw him off at the last second. He brushed it off with a tentative smile, running his dirtied glove through his hair.

Then again, Athena wasn’t old enough to be a defense attorney—but that didn’t stop Klavier, Franziska, or Miles from pursuing the career either. Phoenix just scratched the back of his head as the other spoke to him in the doorway.

"Why don’t you…come in and have a seat? We can discuss this issue without violence, ehehe." He wasn’t sure if his head or the students’ was going to get bashed in first. 

He fumed quietly for a moment, simmering in his own irritation. “I have a higher military rank than them Maybe I should tell them to run laps,” he muttered before turning back to the counselor. “Do they talk back to you too, or is it just me?"

“Y-yes?” he managed after a moment. “I mean, yeah. They’re not hard to make.” He chewed his lip for a moment and rocked back on his heels. He really needed to work on his talking skills. “Learned when I was a little kid, but it’s been a long time.” He laughed weakly. “Suits you a lot better than me.”

Rin blinked. This was a magic school. Why would you need to climb a tree? Surely you should be able to fly or something like that…though apparently not, given how the gardener had nearly fallen on her.

Huh. She wondered if she could work out a tree trimming spell. That would be neat.

"Well…be careful. You don’t want to hurt yourself." Rin looked up at the gardner with concern. It didn’t seem likely that -

Even as she watched, the branch began to give away. The man managed to anchor himself somehow but the branch was still falling. Rin flooded her legs with power, reinforcing them, before jumping back. 

She couldn’t say she had expected this to happen today. 

“I’m not sure of anything really,” he laughed weakly before letting go of his shears. He landed solidly, his knees aching somewhat. “But besides breaking a large branch and stabbing the tree, you know, mission accomplished.” He blinked up at his shears. “Ah, I’ll get ‘em later.”