2023-12-21: A 'Treaty' of Cat and Kin
- Cast: Ruri Hoshino, Eight Orlodhari, Yurika Misumaru
- Where: Magallanica
- Date: U.C. 0097 12 21
- Summary: A historic meeting of mercats and children portends a bright, shining concord between species. Also Yurika and Ruri probably catch up with Eight somewhere behind all the cat-petting.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
It was a cover-up on multiple axes.
From the Nadesico telling the OAC that they couldn't tell them what weapon saved them -- to the OAC telling the media they had no comments -- all the way down to the Nadesico's internal workings, as Yurika made sure that multiple checks and balances were in play before the Phase Transition Cannon would ever fire again.
They're installing turnkeys into the consoles as they speak.
The media is abuzz with fear and anticipation, in the wake of the Vajra disappearing from the sky -- but one member of the Nadesico has escaped the worst of it. Ruri Hoshino hasn't had to talk to anyone from the media. Perhaps it's for the best, even if it wasn't a matter of protecting her: it wouldn't look good for a fourteen-year-old to appear on national news.
Anyway, she's had a... different cover-up to deal with.
"CATS!" Erina stormed out of the storage room, with its aquariums all set up merrily. ... in the audit, they found the mercats.
Ruri of course apologised for her duplicitousness, before pointing out... that Magallanica had no native flora or fauna.
AND SO --
WE COME TO EIGHT'S APARTMENT --
Which is currrently overrun by several mercats. It's fine, they've had all their shots. Ruri tricked Inez into coming up with them by asking her how they'd make people sick, and Inez's superhuman capacity to explain did the rest.
"Hello," Ruri says, with a little black merkitten on her head.
"Miiiii!" Pinnipaw chimes in, between two twintails.
She's sat down on a couch, with another mercat on her lap. She wears a casual dress, all frilled at her sleeves; they're off-duty, after all. "It's good to see you," Ruri says, with her usual moderate expression. (But she's more open, these days, so it might be easier to tell she's comfortable.) "I guess a lot of things happened on Earth, while we were gone..."
A light pause. "... a lot of things happened in space, too."
Ruri looks up.
"We made some friends."
"Miii~!"
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
Yurika's a little late getting to the apartment, given the sheer number of phone calls and general administrative chaos filtering her way, in the wake of the Nadesico staggering back to an already frayed Earth unplanned. Everyone Earthside wants to know just what the Nadesico found out there on Gallia-IV - everyone on the expedition wants to know just what in the world happened on Earth while they were gone. There's a billion questions and Yurika has zero answers.
And so, when the door shoves closed as fast as it opened, a visibly sleepless, grouchy Yurika makes a show of tossing her phone right in the garbage can at Eight's apartment, pulling at her own hair...and then dejectedly reaching right back into the trash can to fish her phone back out. If only it were that easy, Captain!
Flumping into the second biggest cushiest armchair, with the fair assumption that Eight would occupy the Utmost Comfy Throne, a wavy-eyed Yurika melts in exhaustion...and is swiftly healed by a bright orange mercat hoisting up into her lap. She would pet this creature for days if it let her.
"...Too much happened. So much that I don't even know HOW to talk about it all. I don't even wanna think about why those weirdos from ZAFT were there." Scritching under her chosen mercat's chin, Yurika peeks sidelong at Ruri, and whispers, "T...they're cute and all...but aren't cats kind of like...the invasive species ever? Only halted by how they can only live on land? I kind of worry if these kitties get onto Earth, that they'll...like...conquer the world."
The mercat upon Yurika's lap lets out another lazy 'miii~' and yawns lazily. Apex lifeform behavior, clearly.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight's not always in the loop these days; she's too tired to keep up with everything, and classified matters don't always reach her out in Magallanica instead of on the ship. She'll be caught up eventually, of course--but for the past two months, she's been in a flurry of activity completely unrelated to her Captain's duties.
Well, mostly unrelated.
Eight is not yet in the Comfy Throne because she is observing her twins watching a merkitten in fascination. She stares down at them happily.
Aarmi and Zaress make a lot of little noises at the kitten, but are much too young to actually do anything about it. Eight...
Eight is taking a picture. "Look at them," she says, warmly. "Oh..."
Lavhi laughs faintly. "I will watch over them. You should speak with our guests!"
"Oh! Yes." Eight looks a little chagrined, but she waves at her babies again and then turns around so she can talk to the others, too. ...She does keep looking back though.
"These cats are adorable," she says to Yurika. "They probably won't conquer the world."
Then, she says, "A lot of things happened all around, it sounds like."
Eight picks up Aarmi, then, and brings her over to the Comfy Throne, rocking her gently as she takes a seat. Lavhi takes Zaress, and helps him to look more closely at kitten, who stares o_o at him.
"Well," Eight says, "Take your time and think about it. And while you do..."
"This is Aarmi," she introduces. "Aarmi, are you happy to see our friends?"
"Gaaa."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"That's why I brought them here, Captain," Ruri answers Yurika's mercat anxieties, without missing a beat. "Magallanica is a constructed colony, so it doesn't have a native ecosystem. Isn't it fine if they stay here?" And is Eight really going to say no to that face.
(It's Ruri's normal face, entirely stoic.)
She watches, carefully, as Aarmi sits down with Eight. She stares, unblinking, with those big gold eyes. And then... "Hello, Aarmi."
It's the first time she's met them! She's never seen a baby that small before.
"We probably shouldn't talk about what happened," Ruri says, looking back to Yurika, "since the children are still very young. I don't think Eight-san wants them to start talking about that sort of thing." She seems entirely confident in the fact that tiny children can repeat and absorb knowledge at this age.
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
"Well, as long as they don't stow on spaceships and sneak their way down to Earth, it should be fine...is that a thing that even happens?" Yurika hurriedly begins looking up if any animals hitch rides on Orbital Ring elevators and other such crafts, much as rats spread across the ancient world in the bellies of ships.
Of course, the sight of Aarmi and Zaress make Yurika gasp in - is it...hm. It's more just a simple surprise. You'd expect a person like Yurika to coo and lose it in adoration for such adorable babies - Yurika expects herself to have that sort of rush of emotion seeing them, only for it to just. Not really come! What she does feel is relief - "Aaaaah, I'm so glad you had them safe and sound, Eight. Twins can't be easy...It's so good to meet you two. Aarmi, and - what'd you name the other one?"
There's an attempt to bow with hands clasped at Lahvi - however, Yurika is Lap Catted, and is thus utterly unable to leave her seat, so she just sorta. Bobbles forward in her seat a little awkwardly. Strangely, she concurs with Ruri that 'no politics in front of the children', though more on account of- "It's all been a little too...difficult and stressful, and we don't want the bad feelings to hang over the heads of literal babies! At this point we need to be full of positivity and guts to plant that in them early!" ...Yurika's maybe assuming there's more emotional intelligence in them as babies than they really have...
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"That doesn't happen," Eight says. "You read about dogs on trains on Earth, but spaceships are a little pickier about who stows away," she says.
Eight is not going to say no to that face. Not today.
"Thanks," Eight says to Yurika, still warmly. "It wasn't!" Easy, that is. "And they still aren't. But I love them."
Lavhi steps over to show off Zaress, "This little one is Zaress! He is named for our old Captain on the Ra Mari!"
Eight smiles. "They're so well-behaved," she says. "Though they're hungry a lot..."
Are they really well-behaved, or is it just that Eight can generally sense what they need? Hmm.
Eight considers Ruri's statements. "Well, in general--they don't speak language yet. So talking at all in front of them encourages their development. ...But Yurika's got a point," she admits. "I want to keep a positive environment for them. So..."
She smiles. "Just a moment. I'll put them down for a little nap. Come on, Lavhi."
Eight will be a minute doing that, as she walks with Lavhi to the other room. She'll be back shortly, though--alone, for the moment.
"I'll let you hold them later, but I do want to hear what's going on..."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri looks up, to Pinnipaw. "Are you going to sneak onto Earth?" She asks him.
Pinnipaw looks down, paws sliiiiding down her forehead a little in the process. "Miii," he meows, because he's a mercat, and he doesn't understand the question.
"He's not going to sneak onto Earth," Ruri helpfully 'translates', looking back to Yurika.
And, see? Eight's backing them up. She wouldn't say no!!
"Hello, Zaress," Ruri says, and from the deep vaults of her psyche, she summons the positivity of... smiling at the children. Briefly. It's very tiring putting expressions on her face, you know.
She blinks, though, when she looks back to Eight (and puts her smile away before it hurts someone). "They don't? Oh." She looks surprised to hear that, for some reason. Don't worry about it. No more questions, please.
And while Eight is gone with the children, she looks at Yurika, and she asks: "Do you not want to talk about it because of the children, or are you avoiding it, Captain?"
Luckily, before her incisive observations can cut too deep, Eight's back!
"A lot happened," Ruri says, petting the little tabby in her lap, "but I should let the Captain explain."
Just blatantly throwing the ball in her court. It's absolutely the cruelty of children, and not Ruri letting Yurika set the speed for this conversation.
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
"W-wait, you don't have to put them for a nap no-" Yurika waggles her arms up and down as the ~excuse~ for just having a comfy conversation vanishes.
"H-hang on, Ruri-chan, you were right there along with everything, you could-" Yurika goes blue in the face when the line of discourse she's been on nonstop is thrown right back in her face again.
"Mouuuuuu," Yurika grouses, head in her hands.
"Myaaaah," the mercat mumbles, pawing at Yurika's face.
A long, defeated sigh, and a practiced motion from her phone, as a slideshow begins to play - something she's prepared for the countless times she's had to summarize the trip. There's little chibi Yurika-usagis in the corner! How festive!
"Soooo when we got there, planet turned out to have a military base. There's this, uh, space confederation? The Zuvorg Alliance, two weird people told us about it. They're weirdly human and they apparently have, like, myths and legends about the Earth and a story of an ancient catastrophe they ran from, which Inez will probably never be shutting up about." ...After all, that right there is a pretty profound breakthrough in research on precursor technology...
Uh so we fought a bunch of Vajra there...we went to a cool ocean planet one of the Macrosses camps out on, that's where we met these mercats!" A startling portion of this serious business presentation is devoted just to mercat pictures. "Aaaaaand one of those space empires was full of these weird horned guys that we had to fight because they wanted to attack these runaway children...aaaand..."
The sigh intensifies. This is what Yurika dreads talking about most. "...So like two explosions suddenly started going off on Gallia IV, and the whole planet might be destroyed now?? We very nearly could've...died, like, very badly? Ughhhhh..."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight does not wait. Does she look like a waiter to you?
Ruri is being very helpful, at least. And Zaress stares at Ruri. Then... he makes a little happy noise, when she smiles at him. "Yaaa!"
A lot happened...
"It's all right, Yurika. Just start at the beginning."
Chibi!! That's very cute. Eight, for some reason, is even more about cute things these days than one miht expect. But...
"The Zuvorg Federation," Eight repeats, frowning thoughtfully. "So, humans, and they have stories about Earth. That's... that has some real implications."
Lavhi is in the other room, or he might comment. He is tending to the children. He'll be out in a few.
Eight comes around to sit down again. "Vajra, out there too? Concerning." Then. Ah. The mercats. "Mer--Horned guys who wanted to attack children?" EIght frowns sharply. And then--
Then, the blonde's expression softens. "Yurika, Ruri..."
"That's horrible. I'm sorry. I'm just glad that you and the Nadesico are all right."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"Yatta," Ruri smiles, to Zaress.
(Obviously the children are going to learn Japanese and English. Ruri is here to teach them!)
You'd never know that she was about to throw her Captain under the bus. (It's definitely that, and not giving Yurika an out to not talk about this if she really doesn't want to.)
She's quiet throughout Yurika's explanation, until -- "It was destroyed," Ruri adds, stoic, at the end. Her expression doesn't shift from its mild outward presentation, but it bothers her. "The scanning data we collected before we Folded indicated two explosions consuming the planet. The level of destruction wasn't dissimilar to the Phase Transition Cannon, if it were employed on a planetary scale."
Fourteen year olds are TERRIBLE at opsec.
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
With a puffy little sigh, Yurika scritches her lap-cat's chin, gazing out the little window. "...Miss Inez explained the...the...the that a lot to us," Yurika's trying to keep the existence of the Y-Unit's ace in the hole a secret outright. "And I still don't really get it. I don't get it at all, actually! I'm not even sure I WANT to get it..."
Crossing and recrossing her legs a little anxiously, Yurika's doing her best to just...recline and relax, but it's clear so so much has been on her mind the past few days, and the way she's bent forward in her seat is more than a little stiff...
"...And what about here? I've heard the big breaking news...the massacre down in Japan is horrifying, and the big stompy problem...also...in Japan...was pretty terrible too. ...But...you tell me what you've found important, Eight!"
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Yatta...
Eight does not have a lapcat for the moment. That's fine; she's still ambulatory. But she looks between the two of them. Her expression softens further. A whole planet, destroyed...
"I see," Eight says to Ruri. "A weapon capable of that level of devastation..."
She looks to Yurika, and sees about how stressed she is. She notices Yurika's attempt at a secret, but doesn't press on it for now; she knows enough, thanks to Ruri and Yurika already.
"Well," Eight says, "Admittedly, I've been most focused on my family. Everything else feels distant. But... The Invisible Burst is over. Dr. Hell tried to take over existence again, and almost succeeded--the Ra Mari II helped with that. I'm proud of them."
"An old enemy of ours tried to also take over the world with their strange... magic... but that didn't end up happening the way they hoped, I gather--since we're still ourselves. The North Pole is green now, though."
"I'm a little worried about Rena--she was involved. But..."
"That's the hightlights. There's a lot of awful things happening all over. And here I am.."
She shakes her head. "But I can't regret that. I won't. I'll be back to help, when I can. Until then.... this is the choice that I made. We fought hard to have this opportunity at all."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"It's very simple," Ruri explains, because Inez isn't here. (She's the understudy.) "Phase Transition works through the principle of transitioning a state of low energy into a state of high energy. By shifting the area around it into a low energy potential, like before the universe began, the meeting of high energy and low energy creates a massive influx of energy."
Pause.
"In other words, Captain, Nergal weaponised the Big Bang."
OPSEC, RURI!
She listens to all the other devastations, though, with a light frown. "I'm glad the Invisible Burst is over," she says. "The communications systems were all very sad." She's speaking metaphorically, surely.
"And I saw that the North Pole is green, now." It's visible from space! "What happened to Rena-san?"
She doesn't sass Eight staying behind, though. That... is not a foolish act. Instead, she looks up at Pinnipaw, and says, "... I wonder if Akito-san and Megumi-san are okay."
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
"Ruri PLEASE I beg you-" Yurika, in a fit of panic, paffs Ruri with a little throw pillow once, right on her face. The face, yes! "It's not very simple and it's not weaponizing the Big Bang it's just a very cool beam of light that's dangerous and ahahahahaha let's just avoid thinking about it and besides you don't have to worry about it at all it's just my decision if it gets used and I say that's probably a no because aaaaaa-"
Breathe, breathe, Yurika!!! One breath. Two breaths.
"...Oh. OH NO I totally forgot to check up on those two, uhm uhm uhm-!" Still breathless, Yurika hurriedly flicks through her phone, desperately searching for Akito's number that she...got...through...personnel files moreso than ever having GOTTEN his number, and impatiently waits as the phone brrrrs and brrrrs and brrrrs-
<<Oh, you've reached Akito Tenka->>
"AKITO-KUN IT'S ME ARE YOU OKAY THE WORLD'S BEEN BLOWING U-"
<<-wa's voicemail, but I'm busy or at work right now. Just leave a message and I'll get back to->>
Yurika opts for the tried and true method of instead texting him OVER and OVER and OVER at nauseating, worrying length, sending text after text after text-
...In an apartment in OCU Italy...
...It's 3 in the morning, and a highly grumpy Akito Tenkawa rubs his eyes in a frumpy tank top and striped boxers as his phone just will not stop blaring and buzzing and dinging on him. With a bleary rubbing of his eyes, he watches the messages ping constantly, having to scroll a fair bit to find out who the world is even contacting him THIS much...
"...ngmhmh, should've expected she'd be panicking the minute she got back..."
...Back up at Magallanica...
A single *ding* heralds a simple reply of "I was asleep. I'm fine."
And Yurika proudly, excitedly shows it to Eight and Ruri. "Eeeeee he's doing a-okay, phew, oh thank goodness, I was worried about him a lot...!"
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"I see," Eight answers. "That's... alarming." She looks at Yurika, and shakes her head. "I understand that you have to keep things like this a secret. I won't go sharing it around, obviously." A look at Ruri. "But if you're not inclined to use a weapon like that... Good." She regards both of them for a moment. "...But if you are going to use something like that, it is important to think about it."
Pause.
"Yes, I'm sure," Eight says of the communication systems, because she appreciates these updates. And Ruri saw it! "Rena... was hurt, by feedback, during the battle. She's recovering well, but..." But EIght is worried.
But 'them'...
Eight winces. It's... pretty rough.
"Ah..."
"That's great," Eight says awkwardly.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
The pillow falls off of Ruri's face, and her expression does not change in the slightest.
"I see. You're in denial." Beat. Ruri looks over to Eight. "The Captain is in denial," she explains, calmly, "so I had better not talk about how it felt to fire the Phase Transition Cannon."
(As the systems operator, Ruri's the one who handles the weapons systems. That's how it's always been; Yurika gives the order, and...)
"It's good she's all right," she says, of Rena. "She works very hard." And...
"Fool," Ruri says, after she watches Yurika text Akito again and again and again. "Minato-san says it's desperate to text a man more than twice in a row."
(She's glad he's okay, too.)
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
"MINATO'S NEVER HAD TO TENDERLY CRADLE A STRUGGLING BOY'S LONELY HEART AS DELICATELY AS MY HANDS HAVE TO-" Yurika blusters, as her hand grips a tea bottle tightly enough to crack it in half. "It's - It's something you'll understand when you find someone you love, Ruri-chan. ...No, don't even bother trying to tell me something like, 'how foolish, I don't need something that superficial' or whatnot - somehow some way it's going to happen for you, because you have a bigger heart than you know yet!"
With that over-earnest smile and big thumbs up, through Yurika, Ruri can truly know the most deeply human experience: cringe inducing mom behavior.
"Oh no, Rena was at that North Pole incident? Ghhhh, and just when she was at the heart of everything happening out at Denver too...mou, that's crazy unfair, just how much she has to put in for everyone, just how much of our bacon she keeps saving!" Yurika's palms clap upon her knees, startling her lap-cat a little. "I know she's cool and powerful and all, but we need to maybe actually restrain her, somehow...! She'll push herself too hard and crack, I worry! I know she must look super strong to you all, but I get this worry that at she looks utterly fine until she hits her limit, and then might just...sigh and fall pretty far...!" What a strangely specific mental image she has of Rena...
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight is concerned about how it felt. She looks at Ruri with an expression that says so. But she doesn't ask, for now. Instead, she looks between the two as--
"I never went in for the most sentimental boys," Eight admits. "...Or girls. Too messy in either case." A pause. "But Minato's right. You have to value yourself more, Yurika. If you throw yourself at him too hard, he won't go for it."
Eight... shouldn't be encouraging her.
But Rena--Eight frowns, then, and shakes her head. "i'm glad she's all right, too. ...We did keep her in the medbay for a while. She's the sort of person who's always pushing herself for everyone else..."
"It's something I love about her, but..."
She looks at Yurika, thoughtfully. "I didn't know you cared so much about Rena, Yurika." Points up with Eight?
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri's expression, meeting Eight's eyes, is as stone-faced as ever.
She'll bury her feelings on holding the Big Bang in her hands.
It's not like it won't have company.
She's quite mild, though, as she observes Yurika's bluster. "Fool," she says, again, which is not quite what Yurika told her not to say, which means she isn't technically disobeying a direct order.
"The Captain cares a lot," Ruri says, still disaffected. "Loudly. It's everyone's problem." Is she criticising her or praising her?!
<Pose Tracker> Yurika Misumaru has posed.
"Of COURSE I care about Rena, because YOU care about Rena, and I care about YOU, so even though I don't think I've...met her more than once or twice..." Yurika rubrubs at the back of her head kinda awkwardly. "...I know she's a good person who has a lot of responsibility! So that's all I need."
Yurika messes not just with her own lap-cat, but with Pinnipaw's face, sticking her tongue out at Ruri. Bleeeh. "I'll keep making it everyone's problem too, cause that's my job! Nergal pays me to make sure everyone is acutely aware of just how much I care! Oh wait, there's a slogan in that! Be aware that the captain cares!" it is the dorkiest slogan yet known to man.
Speaking of being aware of the captain, though - abruptly, through the more walkie-talkie-esque primary operations channel, Jun Aoi's voice is suddenly blaring over Yurika's phone speaker. "Captain- the Joint Protection Council on the Orbital Ring and Barrier Systems wants a high priority conference with you on everything you saw regarding extraterrestrial weapons systems - can you be available in half an hour?" Jun is pre-emptively recoiling from the speaker because he KNOWS that-
"Half an HOUR? Mou, it was supposed to be time off, damn those suits for - RURI YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT - look we're - aaaaugh, they're so pushy and I barely have much more to say, can't they get, like, Uribatake to do that? ...On second thought no no no no way do I let him - I'm sorry you two I've gotta take this one-" Yurika must, sadly, Resolve the unbreakable Cat Dilemma by lifting up, removing her cat and placing it upon a pillow. [Reputation with Faction: Mercats - DOWN] "...Ah, Ruri-chan, you know where we're at, and Magallanica's pretty safe, so if you need me for anything during that meeting - you know! Thanks for having us over, Eight, the babies are sooo cute I'm sorry I didn't say that much when you showed them, if YOU need anything for ANY reason I will scoot my butt out here to back you up, promise-!" And with that, Typhoon Yurika whirls out the door in a storm of 'being upset about bureaucracy'...
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight worries about Ruri.
"Well thanks," Eight says to Yurika with a smile. "I appreciate that."
Bleeeeh. Be aware that... "Right," Eight answers, trying to hide a laugh. But suddenly, there is a comunication, and...
"It's all right," Eight says. "I understand better than anyone. Take care, okay Yurika?"
"Please, stay," she says to Ruri, and starts to stand up herself. "I know it means disturbing the cat, but..."
"Would you like to hold Aarmi or Zaress?" Eight offers Ruri. "I think they'd love to meet you a little closer."
Yurika whirls out, but...
"And..."
She stops by Ruri, on her way to the other room, waiting for her. "...You can always talk to me about your feelings, all right? Even if Yurika doesn't want to think about them. Lavhi would say the same."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"I guess that's what a Captain does," Ruri reflects, thoughtfully, when Yurika rattles off her slogan.
She blinks, owlishly, when Yurika gets her orders. "It's okay, Captain," she says, "I'm not a child. I know about swear words." She works with Ryoko, after all. She even knows about the fuck word. She's just not saying it, like a responsible adult, because there are babies in the house.
The mercat Yurika unseats meows, sadly. :(
"Good... bye," she starts to say, only for Typhoon Yurika to be gone before she can finish her statement. "Oh."
She's stuck feeling awkwardly left behind, for a moment -- but thankfully, Eight invites her to stay. She actually smiles, when Eight invites her to hold the babies. "Okay. I've never held a baby before. Excuse me, Pinnipaw," she says, gently reaching up to unseat her own kitten and put him on a pillow. ("Miii...")
But when it comes to her feelings, as she's making sure the other cat is also seated properly before standing herself up, she frowns lightly. "It's fine," she says, though it isn't.
Just like her Captain, "It doesn't bother me, either."
It does.