Covent Garden Flowers, Saturday

[1000yearstoolate]

Coven Garden Flowers was full of snapdragons. Seivarden wasn't sure why the island had decided to torment her, but she knew now to stay away from them, and put up a sign in the window:

Any plant that tries to bite you is 50% off.

Then she made tea.

[Open!]

Comments

[1000yearstoolate]

"It was quiet," Seivarden said. "The most exciting thing was being bitten by Amaya's plants."

It was obvious that wasn't exciting.

"My cat tore up a nice pair of gloves."

She took a sip of tea.

"About as exciting as that."

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

Sipping tea was very good at helping to keep smirks hidden, even when you felt you were keeping them relatively held back.

"I'll have to meet your cat sometime, you know," Tisarwat noted. "I--"

She caught herself, though, before she commented on the fact that she couldn't picture Seivarden with a pet, actually having to take care of someone other than herself.

"---have never been a pet person myself," she recovered, "but I do have a fish...."

That she may have forgotten about making arrangements for while she was gone (oops?), but, luckily, that fish was surprisingly resiliant. It had, after all, survived being eaten whole by a Translator.

[1000yearstoolate]

Tisarwat would see Seivarden being bossed around by a cat.

"A fish? Did you get it here? From the pet store?"

She smiled over her tea cup.

"Of course you can meet Issa. I take her to the park sometimes when she gets restless. Or if you want to stop by and watch a proper entertainment."

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

And wouldn't that be a sight to behold.

"Er, no," said Tisarwat, suddenly a little awkward and wondering why she even mentioned the fish. "It came with me, it was..." She gestured that thought away dismissively. "That's a long story. But I'm glad to have it, it...reminds me of home, I guess.

"But that'd be nice," she said, "meeting your cat. Either at the park or with an entertainment. It has seemed like a really long time."

And yet it's barely been a few months. And Tisarwat knew better than almost anyone how much could happen in just a few months.

[1000yearstoolate]

"I'm not sure where you are from, time wise," Seivarden said, as if that comment was something she did feel used to, "but there's a new one I really like. I've watched it with Amaya, but she always wants to fast forward anything that doesn't involve explosions and spaceships."

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

"I may have seen it," said Tisarwat, dancing carefully away from anything about where or when she was from, "but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like seeing it again, especially if it's a good one."

Her casual, almost apathetic tone turned a bit warmer, though, with the rest of it, as she smiled faintly. "And I'm not surprised that she might want to," she noted, "even with how little we talked. She did mention that you've shown her quite a few of them, but then we got distracted talking about ships. She wanted to know more about what kind I've served on, things like that."

[1000yearstoolate]

"A Mercy, right?"

Seivarden took another sip of tea, hiding her hesitation.

"What did you tell her?"

An easier question to ask than admitting she wanted to hear more about it herself.

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

"That's right," Tisarwat gestured agreement. "A Mercy, and that's about as far as my experience goes. But I told her I liked it, and a little bit about my decade, and that I really missed it, especially when being on what this planet considers a ship. But that it's no where near as exciting as I imagine it'd be serving on a Sword."

That last part wasn't exactly true; she hadn't told Amaya anything like that and was adding it merely for Seivarden's benefit. Especially considering that Mercy of Kalr had more excitement during her time than it knew what to do with.

[1000yearstoolate]

"Yes, well, a Mercy isn't bad," Seivarden said. "Your decade? Why... oh, human crew?"

She couldn't see any reason to talk about an ancillary crew, especially since it was something that could upset people here.

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

Tisarwat blinked a little. "Right," she said, remembering that Seivarden's experience with more modern Radchaai politics were limited, if not entirely nonexistent. "Where I'm from, we don't really...use ancillaries much anymore."

[1000yearstoolate]

"No? Maybe I heard something about that."

At that shitty station in the middle of nowhere she had ended up on. She hadn't really trusted those news.

"Isn't that... impractical?"