(no subject)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

They gave her a pin for her collar and some patches to sew onto her sleeve today, back at the Citadel. Ellen's good with this. She's also good with having to paint the new markings onto her armor. You do your own work, you don't slough it off onto other people.

Although, considering that come morning she's going to have to round up a few new faces and head for the RobCo factory, she figures she could use a little extra time to get all her gear in order first. Which is why she's currently wearing her old blue-and-gold Vault 101 jumpsuit; she has to sit down and sew the Paladin rank markings onto her Brotherhood fatigues somewhere, and she can't do that very well if she's wearing them, now can she?

(Dogmeat is under the table nearby, loudly and messily snarfing his way through a bowl of some kind of meat. Either one of them, or both of them, are available to be bothered.)

Comments

[courtroomdragon]

There is a thud as a grey-skinned child drops down from the rafters beside Ellen's table.

And then Terezi is kneeling down to sniff and nudge at Ellen's backpack, curious and obviously benign. "There smells to be something delicious in your containment satchel. Let me see," Terezi requests.

One may note she is in complete dragon LARPing gear, scalemate under one arm and all.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"... um," Ellen begins. It's not that she hasn't seen grey-skinned children of about that age before. She's traded scorpions and scorpion parts with Karkat, obviously. The costume's a little... she wasn't expecting the costume.

On the other hand, there's something familiar about-

"I... okay?" she hazards. "But I need to put all my stuff back after you've had a... I'll just take the stuff out for you, it'll be neater."

[courtroomdragon]

"Okay!" Terezi sits there and waits patiently, seeming to not notice Ellen's hesitance or surprise. She places the Pyralspite plush on the table carefully, the white and red eyed dragon squeaking ever so quietly.

"Hello my name is Terezi," she adds a bit belatedly.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The plush gets a curious look. Soft toys in Ellen's world are either two hundred year old remnants, or sewn together from Brahmin-skin scrap, and either way they're not particularly colorful. Or squeaky.

"Hello, Terezi," she says as she starts to take things out of her pack. "My name's Ellen. You're one of Karkat's friends, aren't you? I'm pretty sure I remember hearing your name before."

[courtroomdragon]

"Yes! What gave it away?" And she gives a very sharp-toothed grin at Ellen, head quickly turning at the smell of something bright and metallic and delicious. She grabs a bag of the bottle caps and quickly licks a few.

Then, puts an entire one in her mouth and begins to chew.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The- hey, be careful with those!" Ellen says. "That-"

.... she's just gonna spend that one as soon as physically possible. And the licked ones, too.

"Um. Those are what we use for money, back home, so they're... probably kind of dirty. A lot kind of dirty," she finally says. "I try to keep them clean, but that's kind of hard."

[courtroomdragon]

"Oh I thought I tasted dirt. But the sweet ice cream taste of the metal is so delicious." She licks another one, grinning broadly, before handing the bag back.

"Do you know how to LARP?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I don't even know what that word is," says Ellen, eyeing the bag before carefully putting it back. (She'll wash the caps before she spends them on anything.) "Should I?"

[courtroomdragon]

"LARP! Live Action Role-Playing. Well you should know if you like fun. I was dragon LARPing before I smelled those delicious bits of boonbucks in your physical fetch-modus.

"Would you like to learn?" Hey, at least she's action. Usually she just enlists people along.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh! Is that why you're wearing that costume?" says Ellen. "I guess so, then. Sewing up my new uniform patches can wait a little bit. I should thank you, by the way- Karkat traded me some stuff a while back that he said was based on the way you see by smelling, and it was very useful."

[courtroomdragon]

"Yes! This is my LARP costume! I have a FLARP one too, but I don't wear that any more. Oh if you need help with sewing Kanaya is pretty much the best.

"Did he? Why? What was wrong with your eyes? Are you blind too?" Hey, she can't tell. Not unless Ellen wants her eye balls licked?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's not very much sewing," says Ellen. "I'm just trying to attach some rank patches, not making any fancy changes. And there's nothing wrong with my eyes. A man got kidnapped and I had to track him across two hundred fifty miles of open ground, which I wasn't very good at. Karkat alchemized me a pair of goggles so I could see his scent trail and follow that instead of looking for other clues."

[courtroomdragon]

"Oh I see!" Haha, pun. Get it? "I hope you served them justice!"

Which made her brain go right back to LARPing. She got up, untying the dragon costume from her neck and clumsily draping it over Ellen's. "So you pretend to be a dragon! A mighty, majestic, soaring dragon who can eat people whole and do pretty much anything it wants ever. And those are the rules. Questions?"

[cbucsrule]

"Hey, Ellen." Pulling out a chair, he spins it around and straddles it, his forearms resting on its back.

They haven't talked about it since they got back from her world, but he noticed that the amount next to his name on the tab board went down not too long after. "Do I have you to thank for paying off part of my tab?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen looks up and smiles. "Hi, Sam," she says. "Yes, that was me. I turned in a couple of the guns to Bar and asked to have the proceeds paid out equally against everyone's tabs, and then some extra for Mr. Westen because of the radiation."

[cbucsrule]

With a short intake of breath, he shakes his head. "Yeah. How's he doing?" It's funny how deceptive this place is: it seems small, but he can go for weeks without running into some of the people he knows.

He'll thank Ellen for the tab thing in a minute, but first things first. One hand goes down, reaching for Dogmeat. There's something about being able to pet a dog that just... just frakking makes him feel like he's at home. And that's funny, 'cause as far as he knows, no dogs survived the nuking.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Dogmeat wags his tail cheerfully and butts his head against Sam's hand. Hooray! People are paying attention to him!

"I haven't seen him in the infirmary," Ellen says. "But I think he's doing all right- I thought I saw him going out the door with somebody else the other day, so he's probably recovered enough to get up and about again. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed on that, of course. It was only a very brief exposure, but radiation sequelae aren't fun at all."

[cbucsrule]

Radiation poisoning's something he knows a little bit about. He's seen it, even though his people have plenty enough anti-rads. But a couple of the stragglers, it was too late for them. Watching it sucks, but even Doc says there's not a frak of a lot that can be done for them.

Yeah.

"Sounds like he's okay. Glad to hear it, he seems like a hell of a guy and by the way, I really appreciate what you did. It wasn't necessary." Despite the argument, despite any second thoughts he might've had after talking to Kara, he knows himself well enough to know there's not a chance he wouldn't have offered to help Ellen regardless. "When I do manage to get back home, and if I can get back here after that, I have a lot of things I can bring with me that you might be able to use. I'll do my best to make that happen."

As far as he's concerned, that's just evening things up. Beneath his hand, Dogmeat's warm and furry and willing to just get his share of attention. Just like the dog he used to have when he was a kid, the one who stood guard outside his door all night long.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's only fair," Ellen says. "You went into this knowing there would be danger and you agreed to take that risk. Even though you didn't get hurt, you were still willing to, and that's something I owe you and the others for. I don't like leaving debts like that out there."

"But thank you. If you do manage to get home and get back, and there's anything useful, I wouldn't mind a look. How've you been holding up otherwise?"

[cbucsrule]

"Good, good." That's the long and short of it. Door won't open. He's stuck. It's probably no secret to anyone that it pisses him right the frak off, but there's nothing he can do about it. "This place always has something going for it, and no Cylons, so I don't have many complaints."

He could, if he was the sort of person that was prone to bitching about things. But instead he's decided to make the most of it. "And I've gotta tell you, I wasn't really thinking about danger." That's just it, he wasn't. All he saw was opportunity, and maybe that's short-sighted of him but maybe it wasn't. All of life's a calculated risk, and he's good at making calculations.

"How about you?" He nods toward her, toward the jumpsuit. "Getting ready for anything new? Or still spending your time blowing shit up?" She did have that Mjolnir thing last time he saw her.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh- I've been promoted," Ellen says. She turns the sleeve a little, enough to show the new bar and insignia on the sleeve. "I was admitted to the Brotherhood of Steel about seven months ago, as a Knight. I was promoted to Knight-Sergeant a while back after rescuing the president of the Republic of Dave from the slavers in the Pitt. They just made me a Paladin today. After I'm done sewing these on, I'll be painting the new marks on my power armor, too. Along with the chaplain insignia- that's the little sword pin on the collar."

[cbucsrule]

"Hey, man. That's frakking awesome." A genuine smile takes up residence on his face; he reaches over to pat her arm by way of congratulations. "Fantastic. You said that was coming up, but still."

Yeah, she's gonna be in charge before long, he can tell.

"You oughtta let me buy you a drink or something for that one."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Well, if you insist," Ellen says with a smile. "I can live with that. Maybe that Picon ale stuff you were serving that one time? I remember that being pretty decent. Thank you, Sam."

[cbucsrule]

"Sure, sure. Wait right here."

Like she's gonna up and disappear. It only takes him a minute or two to get back with a couple bottles of ale, and because he's a nice guy, a crunchy bone-shaped biscuit for Dogmeat.

"We can all celebrate. Here you go." He sets one bottle down in front of Ellen, toasts her with his own, lets the dog steal the biscuit right out of his hand. "Here's to Paladin Ellen. And to people on all the worlds who go around making a difference, having a positive impact."

It's something he tries to live up to, or would if he could get back. Instead, he's got no choice but to try to do that here. The pyramid league is helpful, he thinks. At least the people who signed up for it are excited about it, and that's something.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen grins. "Thank you," she says, and raises her own glass in return. "To all of them, and everyone whose paths they ever cross."