A Piece of Cake

Posted on Fri Jun 5th, 2020 @ 3:56am by Noah-Jade True & Jacob Lara

Mission: The Milk Run
Location: On the ship
Timeline: Day 2 - Newhall to Hera

Noah hummed to himself as he walked up towards the shuttle, with a little plate with a little slice of cake in his hands. His humming wasn't pretty, to tell the truth; he wasn't quite sure what song he was humming to, and even then he doubted it would follow the rhythm. But it seemed to amuse the bird; the creature swung its head back and forth with every step, clicking in laughter. Noah was easily entertained; but the bird's joy brought some warmth to his heart, and he smiled as he approached the Companion's shuttle.

"Hey," Noah said, transferring the cake over to one hand, knocking on the door with the other. He stretched his arm out even further as the parrot took a step towards the cake. "I got bored and made some cake so, uh, I brought you some." He didn't bother with any greetings or platitudes as he spoke through the door. And it was true, he had gotten bored and made cake, albeit protein cake. With Tristan doing a couple chores this morning, he'd had spare time to cook. He had already offered some to the others, well, most of the others, but he hadn't been able to find Jacob around, so he thought to try the shuttle. Truth be told, the engineer had been avoiding the shuttle. He missed Paul; and the thought that somebody could simply pay for what was between them gave him conflicted feelings. He wasn't sure if it should bother him; or if he should be bothered by the fact that it didn't bother him. Paul had always disliked Companions. He was quite vocal about that. Noah didn't really mind them. Would it be against Paul's wishes to befriend one? That was a question Noah didn't want to face. He didn't want to revisit thinking about the few things he and Paul disagreed on; he only wanted happy memories. So Noah had never gone out of his way to talk to the Companion, and, well, there wasn't much either reasons for a mechanic and Companion to speak otherwise.

Either way, he had no excuse to waste cake.

Jacob glanced up from the terminal, he'd been looking at the Companion registry on the Cortex, looking for new clients, when he'd heard a voice coming down the small corridor linking his shuttle with the catwalk that circled the cargo bay. "Come on in," He said, switching off the screen and standing, stretching, and rubbing his hands over his face, the small bit of stubble on his cheeks rasping beneath his palms. He'd been sitting there longer than he'd thought, and his eyes were a bit tired.

"Cake huh?" he said, as Noah-Jade walked into the shuttle proper. "Sounds good," he added with a bright smile, waving the man to the chair, and leaning against the desk the terminal sat on.

"Yeah," Noah said, setting down the cake on a small table, and sitting in the chair. "Cake." Sure, he'd sit down. He hadn't come with the intention of sitting down, but why not? He wondered if the man was going to try to hold a conversation. He almost found himself worrying that the man would address his avoidance, but surely that wasn't something to worry about. First off, he doubted the man realized it. Noah knew he often acted distracted or whatever, so forgetting to talk to one guy wouldn't have been off par. And secondly, what did it matter? He never worried about people disliking him before. Ruefully, he had to admit that the latter was probably what bothered him. He couldn't deny the fact that this was a pretty man, and some instinct in Noah just made him want pretty people to like him, no matter how objectively stupid such instinct would be.

But the man couldn't just sit there. He found himself glancing around the shuttle. He had fixed up this shuttle when they first got the ship, back before the Companion had moved it. He knew it well; its little flaws, all the things that he so carefully fixed. He hoped that Jacob was treating it well.

Jacob watched Noah-Jade as he settled into the chair, his eyes darting around the room at various things, mostly structural, and his facial expression and body language showing that he was preoccupied. He hadn't been around the guy much and knew next to nothing about him, other than that he had a bird, and seemed perpetually distracted. Picking up the cake he took a careful bite off of it. "Good cake, thanks," he said.

"So, how do you like the ship? She what you expected when you signed on?" he asked.

"Oh, I like it well enough." He did like the sense of adventure in an old classic ship; but truth be told the crew was a bit violent for his preferences. Life was beautiful, even little awkward conversations like this. "And honestly, I wasn't sure what I expected," the engineer admitted. Why did he even care about what Jacob thought of him? He hadn't worried himself with the cares of others in years. "So the answer would be no. When I joined, it was just me, Alden and Alison, and the ship was so beat up that I wasn't sure if they were going to use it for hauling or joy rides or even just resell it. I tend to not bother myself with the intentions of those I work for." He talked with a strange mix of a formal, Core-world accent and some sort of accent that couldn't be placed. "What about you? Was this ship like you expected?"

Jacob shrugged, tilting his head a bit to one side. "Honestly? I had no idea what it was going to be like. Before I shipped out I'd only been on small shuttles between my home on Poseidon, and Ariel, where I studied at the Guild House, and one long-haul passenger transport, for a trip to Persephone. This whole experience has been a very eye-opening one," he replied, taking another small bite of the cake, once again surprised at how good it was for what it was made of.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked, suddenly realizing that he hadn't even bothered to offer the man anything. He'd been so surprised that he'd suddenly showed up at his door that it had completely slipped his mind.

"Oh, tea," Noah said, with an inordinate amount of surprise behind that statement. He hadn't been offered tea in years, not since he had been back on Londinium. Funny - how easy it was to forget what used to such hard habits of hospitality. "Yes. Yes, I'd love some tea. What kind do you have?" He grabbed the bird absent-mindedly as he spoke, setting the small creature down on his lap and scratching the back of its head.

"Eye-opening how? As in, about the ship itself? Or about all the variety of people? And there really is a phenomenal variety of people out here in this corner of the 'verse, even outside of this crew. Everybody is fascinating in their own way." Noah shrugged. "As for the ships - well, there's hardly a class of ship I haven't ridden on. Everything from shuttles to cruisers, and private luxury transports to things like this Firefly. To be fair, it is my job, so," Noah shrugged again.

Jacob smiled at Noah-Jade's enthusiasm for tea and opened the small chest he kept his various tins of tea in. "I've got a full selection. Mostly herbals, honestly, but there are a few in here that aren't. Do you have a particular preference?" he asked, waving his hand to the variety inside the chest so that the man could see what was on offer.

"And eye-opening because it's already shown me a very much more full understanding of life outside of the alleged perfection of the Core worlds. It's shown me that there is beauty in the places the Alliance tries so hard to make you believe are dirty, ugly, backward places, without law and order, and far from the luxuries, the Core worlds can give you," he added.

"Do you have osmanthus in there?" Noah didn't really take the time to read all the labels. "If not I'll have hibiscus tea, or whatever you'd recommend," Noah responded with tea choices that were probably not quite as common out here as they were in the Core, hinting at a time in Noah's life when he had lived there. "And, well, that's no surprise," Noah said bluntly. "Companions can hardly make much money out here near the rim, so why bother even teaching about how good it is? It might be a mercy, that the Companions who chose the easy life of the Core don't have to worry about what they are missing out. Ignorance is bliss to some folk. But I always like to say that there's beauty everywhere. The natural, rough beauty around here is different from the sterile, manicured beauty of the core, but they're both equally beautiful. Doesn't matter if they don't teach it that way, that's just how it is." Somehow he managed to hold both a cynical and amazed view of the world at the same time. Truth be told, he was surprised that he himself didn't share that same view that Jacob so recently had. He supposed he could thank his sister. It was his sister Sibyl that always told him stories about the other parts of the 'verse, she always kept a kindly tone... and well, it was his sister that made him a bit jaded to all the luxuries of the core, because whatever luxuries he had, hers would always be better.

Jacob listened to what the man was saying as he looked through the various boxes. It just so happened that he'd been given a box of osmanthus tea that he'd been gifted by a client not too long before he'd shipped out. Finally locating it he pulled it out and waved it with a smile, indicating he had, in fact, located exactly what his guest wanted. Standing up he opened the tin and measured some into his usual teapot, adding some flash boiled water, and letting it steep, the fragrance wafting out into the air of the small shuttle.

Leaning back against the chest he'd just closed up he let what the man had said wash over him, letting his mind mull it over, and then nodded. "Honestly, you are correct. Most of the Guild Houses do discourage Companions from leaving the Core worlds. We are pretty much conditioned to stay close, and contract with clients from the more "civilized" worlds."

"Well, the Guild is a business, in the end. And it wouldn't be a good business if they always sent their people to places where their people couldn't prosper." Noah spoke rather apathetically about the whole thing; not caring about the fact that he was criticizing Jacob's guild, not seeming to care about the cynicism of it all, either. He just spoke as if that was the way things were, and that was OK. He looked at the tea gratefully as it steeped. It had been a long time since he had smelled the sweet tang of osmanthus... far too long.

Finding the man's blunt honesty to be refreshing, and reinforcing his belief that it had been a good idea for him to venture out into the Verse to get a true taste of what life outside the supposed perfection of the Core could be, Jacob smiled as he turned to pour the tea into the small porcelain cups that sat beside the teapot. Noticing the spot where one was missing, he smiled fondly at the memory of the event and then turned, handing the delicate cup to his guest, and bringing his own up to his face so he could inhale the fragrance.

"What about yourself, Noah-Jade? Do you have a story to tell? Do you even care to tell it if you do?" Jacob asked, switching tacks abruptly.

"I wish I had a story to tell." Noah took the tea and smelled, just briefly, before taking a small sip. He had a couple interesting things happen to him, sure, but none of those things were really his own story. In his childhood, he was just a background character to his sister; then Paul; then just a pawn a military then just a nobody, running from place to place. He was trying to forge a story for himself, sure, but it wasn't quite there yet. He didn't mind this new change of topics - he was eager to leave what smelled of politics behind. "But what about you?" He asked the Companion. "Surely you've got a story to tell? I've heard the like of a Companion is an interesting one, and whatever made you decide to pack it up and move here... that's probably a story worth telling."

"You might be a little bit disappointed, actually," Jacob replied with a light chuckle as he sipped his tea. "Honestly, I really did just leave to see what it was like away from the Core Worlds. I got tired of all the people around me putting up a facade of happiness and splendor. It got old, much faster than I ever thought it would. I wanted to travel to places where I could meet real people, who couldn't care less what people thought of their clothes, or their homes, or who they were connected to."

Back on Poseidon, he'd been surrounded by that. Both of his parents, wildly wealthy, had been centers of attention for the entire elite. They threw parties with food from more worlds than he could count. They had more houses than they could ever justify living in, even if they had fifty children. It was wasteful and extreme. It was while he was on Ariel, in the Guild house that he'd truly learned that life wasn't like that for everyone. Most of what people thought of the training Companions received was woefully wrong. They were also taught history, politics, economics, a vast array of subjects to prepare them for any situation they might find themselves in, and that knowledge had opened his eyes to more than he'd really bargained for.

"Nobody's story is disappointing." Except, maybe, Noah's own. The engineer took another sip of the tea. "I grew up in the Core too. The rules are different there, but I wouldn't call them boring... everywhere is interesting." He rambled. Normally if he didn't have anything to say, he simply wouldn't say anything, but something about the Companions appearance just made him want to keep talking. What Jacob had said about growing up on the Core sounded familiar, but the two seemed to view it differently. Noah liked the rim of the known 'verse simply because it was the closest thing to the great unknown. But if he actually had to settle down somewhere... well, he hadn't disliked his time in the Core. There was something to be said for modern conveniences and the people were just as real and emotional and troubled, if you managed to cut past their social facade. In fact, he was only out here to avoid the eyes of the Alliance as best he could.

"I'll concede that ever place has something interesting to offer,' Jacob replied, conciliatory. He hoped he hadn't offended the man with his comments about the Core. "So, what made you decide to bake a cake? Is it a special occasion of some sort?"

Noah glanced down at the cake when Jacob mentioned it. "The special occasion is that the stowaway did some of my chores so I had some free time to work on baking." Then he shrugged. "You can suppose it's a 'welcome to the ship! for now until we kick you out at the next planet or whatever the plan is-' cake. Actually I don't know what the plan is with him, to be honest. I wasn't really listening when the captain explained it."

"Honestly, I don't think you know any less than the rest of us," Jacob replied. "Doesn't seem to be any real solid plan, actually," he added as he took the final bite of his cake.

"That shouldn't be a surprise." Noah looked down at the now-empty plate. "Want me to take that back to the kitchen?"

"Only if you are already going that way, otherwise I can get it," Jacob replied kindle. "Are you leaving already?" he then asked, curious if the cake had been the only reason the man had come to see him.

"I, well..." Noah hesitated. Sure, he knew he had come here for more than cake, but the cake was also his excuse for being here. "I am heading that way in a bit, yes, as I have some more stuff to clean up, but I don't know about leaving right now. Did you need me for anything else?" Normally Noah would have no qualms about breaking out of a conversation, but things were different when talking to somebody attractive.

"No, I don't really need you for anything," Jacob replied with a smile. "But I've been enjoying having someone to talk to. Especially someone who has such good taste in tea," he added with a chuckle. "No need for you to rush off, in any case, if you'd just like to sit around and chat."

Noah glanced back down at the tea. It had been a while since he had had good tea... and drinking tea brought back fond memories of his time back with Paul. Maybe he could stay and drink some tea and chat. He still might not be entirely fond of Companions, but that didn't mean he couldn't stay and drink tea with a friend.

"I think I just might stay and chat for a bit."