Trooper Station, Thursday

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of alien wild flowers in the station today. Apparently the troopers had gone out to explore the planetoid and liked what they saw in terms of plant life. Jessica decided to play it safe and run some tests on the flowers to make sure the pollen wasn't deadly or the flowers wouldn't sprung to life and start choking everyone, but that was resolved pretty quickly.

And thus, flowers!

Comments

[fjordicswagger]

"Has anybody out here actually checked out the new part of the island?" Tamsin asked of no one in particular and everyone all at once. "I've been getting patrol reports full of cooing about daisies."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Some of the guys have. The report says that the fields are very," Jessica grabbed the report from her desk and read through it quickly. "...Pretty. That's the official word."

[fjordicswagger]

"I don't know whether to call that a good thing because at least nothing came up and ate them," Tamsin said dryly, "Or smack them over the helmets for being a bunch of ten-year-olds."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"I'm going with the former," Jessica decided. "Especially since tests have been run and the flowers seem to be both non-sentient and non-lethal."

[fjordicswagger]

"That's good," Tamsin said. "Then again, everything on this asteroid seems to be childproofed. It's weird."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"As long as it hasn't turned us into children, I think I'm okay with this for a week," Jessica joked.

[fjordicswagger]

"How's everything else out here?" Tamsin asked. Casually. Yep. "Ralph still being Ralph?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"He's taken up photography as a hobby," Jessica noted. "He's got some real skill. He credits his sniper skills, which is a little weird."

[fjordicswagger]

"You're sure he's just taking pictures of living things and not, like, shooting them, posing them and then taking the pictures, right?" Tamsin checked.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"As sure as I can be without being there for every picture," Jessica said. "At the very least, the ones he's taken of the Troopers are both very nice and haven't resulted in any casualties."

[fjordicswagger]

"You just never know," Tamsin said, crossing her arms. "It's the helmet. You can't tell what's hiding under there." She cleared her throat. "So how's your schedule next week?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

Jessica was about to mention that she saw the troopers without helmets all the time - clone bonding time, mostly - but the question caught her by surprise. "Hectic and subject to change without much notice depending on what kind of insanity stumbles my way. So not much different than usual. Why?" She certainly had an idea for why Tamsin might be checking her schedule, but she kind of wanted to hear Tamsin say it.

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin looked like she wanted to groan out loud, but caught herself before she followed on that impulse. Instead it came out through a roll of her eyes, which was slightly better?

"You want to get a drink sometime next week," she said.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Sure. I'm sure I can work any major crises in around that," Jessica decided.

[fjordicswagger]

"Any idea when you're going to have the least amount of major crises?" Tamsin asked dryly, because she couldn't be seen showing too much enthusiasm about this in public, thanks.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Tuesday, after work?" Jessica suggested. "I'll try not to accidentally do any experiments that might shrink and/or disappear myself."

[fjordicswagger]

"Do that," Tamsin said. "Because I'm not bringing a magnifying glass to a bar unless we're playing a really weird drinking game that day."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"The only magnifying glass-based drinking games I know are more 'absurdist' than 'weird,' so I guess we'll have to pass on that," Jessica said. "But someday I'll get you to play 'This Shot Looks Slightly Bigger Than It Should.'"

[fjordicswagger]

"Where I come from, that just means you're about to get hit in the face with a shot glass," Tamsin said.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Do people get hit in the face with shot glasses often where you come from?" Jessica asked. "I can say in all honesty that it's not something I've ever seen happen."

[fjordicswagger]

"I've known a few bars in my day where things got rowdy," Tamsin said. "Boys."

Not always just the boys.

[throughaphase]

"Well, this looks... flowery," Kitty said when she walked in, failing to accurately describe it.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes this job is hard work, Kitty," Jessica suggested.

[throughaphase]

"And you need flowers to make it happier?" she asked. "Mind you, I'm on board with that."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Oh, no. The hard work is picking flowers on slow days," Jessica said. "Especially when there's a non-zero chance that they'll try to kill you."

[throughaphase]

Kitty eyed the flowers. "They're not plotting our deaths right now, are they?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Everything I've checked suggests that they're not sentient," Jessica said. "And they don't seem to be a trap by someone else who's plotting our deaths. I'm reasonably sure they're just flowers."

[throughaphase]

"Oh. Cool. I'm willing to go a while without anyone or anything trying to kill me," Kitty said.

Totally seriously. Because her life.

"Of course you tested them."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. They're alien flowers that a bunch of tough guy troopers felt compelled to bring back to a place with a lot of weapons," Jessica pointed out. "That's the first thing I did."

[throughaphase]

"Smart. Though I'd rather focus on the image of the troopers collecting these bad boys," Kitty admitted. "Something about it just makes me happy."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"If they were just slightly unprofessional, I guarantee they'd have some stuck to their helmets," Jessica said. "But I'm not going to complain too much about them keeping it like this. Just in case the flowers do still try to kill us."

It was a joke! 90%.

[throughaphase]

"You are so close to actually jinxing us," Kitty warned.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"People have been warning me about that since I went to school here and my jinxes never seem to happen," Jessica pointed out. "Other people might get unlucky with that stuff. I don't fear it."

Mostly because she was prepared for the possibility that the jinx might happen. There was a reason why the troopers were near their blasters.

[throughaphase]

"I've been the jinx once or twice," she admitted. "But one of those times was also kind of great, so at least there's that."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"You realize that requires a follow up, right?" Jessica checked. "What was it?"

[throughaphase]

"Everyone had a taste to them?"

If anyone used that for non-dirty reasons, then it was their loss.

"I mean, it did make eating food weird."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"... That day was your fault?" Jessica asked. She was not happy. "I had just transferred to school here and I had to deal with that day."

[throughaphase]

Kitty winced. "Sorry. To be fair, I was new, and didn't know the Fandom jinxing was a thing. Was it terrible?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Spam," Jessica snarled. "I tasted like Spam."

[throughaphase]

"Oh my god," Kitty said, and paused, realizing she had nothing else. "Oh my god. Sorry."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Yeah," Jessica said, crossing her arms. "I'm only forgiving you because I really believe you're sorry."

[throughaphase]

"I am. And I think we've all- mostly me- learned an important lesson about jinxing today," Kitty told her.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"The only thing I learned is to not let you jinx anything or I might end up tasting like spam," Jessica reasoned.