Private Floor Grit and Violent Grime

[Milla]

Hyperspace, enroute to Covenant Territory​

Some things were easier to wash off than others were. Blood came off of unmarred skin with nothing much needed beyond hot water and a bit of scrubbing. It stuck to hair a bit more stubbornly, but ultimately a bit of soap did the trick. The feel of old skin along the outside of yourself was a bit harder to banish. New skin even harder.

"Gross," Milla muttered to herself as she soaped up her hair. "Honestly disgusting."

Her voice was just audible through the door to the refresher, though what, exactly, she was referring to was less clear.

The series of events that had led her to hurtling through hyperspace with a stranger had been violent, messy, and well, strange. By and large, Milla had enjoyed most of it. Did she ever want to talk to anyone about it again? Absolutely not. Hot irons couldn't get it out of her. But in the times to come, she'd occasionally look back on the previous 24 hours with something akin to nostalgia, a weight lifted, a chain freed, a very several dead bodies. Good times.

Messy, however, and Milla made a face, scrubbing the rest of the gore out of her hair.

Not long after the sound of the water had faded, she came padding out of the refresher. Mercy had said her clothes needed to be cleaned, which had been an understatement, so the scrawny figure was draped in a bit of loaner wear, comically large and hanging down below her knees despite being a perfectly typical for Mercy sized shirt. Dark hair, wet and stringy, hung limply to her shoulders, making her skin appear paler than it already was. Bare feet padded along the cold metal, and Milla was overly aware of miniscule bits of grit that hadn't yet been swept up by the mouse droid she'd startled a little earlier, and she vaguely resented it for not doing a better job.

Head cocking, she followed the sounds of humming through to the cockpit. She squinted at the viewscreen, the steaking of hyperspace uncomfortable on her eyes as she paused, just behind Mercy's shoulder.

"What is that?" With the same tone someone would use to query about a dead insect found unexpectedly in the bottom of a caf mug.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

She was an odd duck.

Not an actual duck, but if there was ever a duck in a human-shape, it would be Milla. If not a duck, then a drenched little kitten, that mewled loudly and indignantly while you were trying to help it. Which would usually be off-putting to Mercy, but she had been covered in blood by the time that Mercy had encountered her and if Mercy had a soft spot for anything?

It was a murder kitten drenched in blood.

"Gross," Milla muttered to herself as she dried off her hair. "Honestly disgusting."

If it was anyone else, Mercy would have assumed Milla was talking about said blood. But she didn't seem to be that bothered about it back... where they had come from.

So she wasn't really sure what the girl meant.

Mercy blinked and froze a little before relaxing again. She smelled weird, sort of off, in a way that meant Mercy didn't smell her coming. Her stride quiet too, because of how scrawny she was. More bone and skin than meat. And Mercy couldn't sense anything in the Force, so that wasn't helpful either. All that was to say that Milla was one of the few people she had encountered who could sneak up on her.

Even without trying.

"What?" She glanced over her shoulder, following her line of sight towards the viewport. "That? That's Hyperspace." Her expression turning a bit sympathetic.

"Were you not allowed to fly, sweetie?"

 

[Milla]

Just the most hideous glare. White and searing, and it made her a little nauseous as she watched it. Her toes curled against the durasteel decking, like it could ground her, letting the grit worry against the skin.

The word sounded vaguely familiar to her, but she hadn't paid much attention to astronavigation. It had seemed far away and irrelevant when compared to the pump of blood, the pull of muscles and sinew, the electricity of the mind and synapses-

Milla blinked at the shift in tone. Like someone had run a length of wet matted velvet, cold and dank and weirdly furry, down the back of her shoulders. She suppressed a shudder she couldn't place the genesis of. Had it started in her core? Her feet? Disgusting feeling, disgusting tone.

"What? No." The tone derisive. Defensive. Dripping with both to the point it didn't take any special insight to recognize that yes, she was reacting to truth, rather than refuting it. A tone meant to obfuscate but in fact only painting the picture with crystal clarity. Her eyes flicked, rapidly over the console, seeking out anything that looked anomalous. While Milla wasn't familiar with a ship's cockpit, all she needed was something that did not fit in with the pattern of chrome buttons, tidy lines, mechanical certainty-

"I meant that," indicating a jumble of wires that looked regurgitated out of an open plate to the left of the controls.

Well done Milla, she congratulated herself, genuinely feeling a little smug for the immediate recovery.

You'll never fool them.

"It looks dangerous."

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Milla

That was the interesting part.

Milla had caught Mercy studying the Hyperlight seemingly without consequence even when it was making her nauseous.

Mercy tilted her head at that reaction.

She wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Not when it came to emotional intelligence at least. The sort of miniscule details that normal people caught and could act upon were mostly a mystery to Mercy. But even she could parse the tone, the way she shifted. The way her heartbeat went a bit faster too.

"Oh, I see." Nodding there exaggeratedly. "Yes, of course, the wires."

The console was very obviously opened up and exposed. But that was because Mercy enjoyed tinkering with things. Way before, back when she hadn't been a Warlord, she claimed her own machine-shop on Denon.

It was still there, still hers, but she hadn't visited it... in a long time.

Something she needed to rectify.

"I enjoy my little tinkering projects. I have been trying to re-wire some of the console, so I can access the controls while I am in different places of the ship as a fun side-project."

She shrugged there.

"Not as satisfying as clubbing brains in, but still fun sometimes." Then back to Milla. The way the shirt completely drowned her. What a poor thing and Mercy's expression softened again. She always had had a soft spot for fragile little things. It had started with Alcariel and it had continued on so many times since then.

The world could be cruel to girls who weren't prepared.

"Would you like something to eat? My kitchen is fully stocked at all times."

For obvious reasons. The woman she was with was absolutely gargantuan.

 

[Milla]

Excellent, she'd bought it.

Shows what you know, Milla thought absently. Not directly at Mercy, but inward.

"Fun? Yes I suppose it would be," frowning but then, she didn't really smile. Perhaps that could be forgiven, considering the circumstances Mercy had found her in. Surely that would be the main reason for someone to not smile. It was however unclear if she was referring to the tinkering or the clubbing in brains part.

Fifty fifty toss up.

Why are you looking at me like that? Suddenly self conscious for some reason in response to the look on Mercy's face changing. Palms and feet prickling with it. Uncomfortable.

"Starving," she responded without hesitation or even thinking about it.

Milla was in fact not particularly hungry but that hardly mattered. Whatever made the most sense to get out of the line of the weird expression on Mercy's face was all that mattered. If she'd thought about it at all she wouldn't have whirled and hurried off immediately, feeling like there was a target painted on her back, inviting some strange softness. No, she would have asked first.

Where was the kitchen?

She paused for a moment just outside of the cockpit before turning and heading in the wrong direction.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

Mercy understood it, or she thought she did anyway.

She herself used to feel like a feral creature acting on instinct. Scratch the itch, be it hunger, thirst, lust or destruction. Then let everyone else sort out the fall-out of it. But Mercy was trying to be more responsible now. She loathed it, of course. Having to mediate between others, being the adult in the room when Arris Windrun and Vestra Tane came to blows.

It was a scary thing when a creature like Mercy was the responsible adult in the room.

"Um, darling-" ...and she was gone.

Milla would keep walking, but the corridor didn't lead to the kitchen or the cockpit for that matter. Instead it reached the little hangar area they had passed. Back when Milla had been a bloody little murder kitten in her arms. Exhausted and a mess from the disaster they had met.

"You know, pretending you know what you are doing, is not the same thing as knowing what you are doing." Mercy's voice would suddenly pipe up behind Milla. For someone so large, she could move extremely quietly. When it was beneficial to her anyway. "That is a free lesson, I bestow upon you, courtesy of decades of experience in doing the former while pretending to be the latter."

Self-awareness was a schutta.

But in these moments Mercy didn't mind acknowledging it.

"Now, if you follow me, I will show you where the kitchen is, so we can feed your starvation." Offering her hand to Milla.

 

[Milla]

No one who needs the lesson is ever ready to receive the lesson. At least, not that lesson in particular. Just as Mercy wouldn't have accepted it in her younger days, so too did Milla think it wasn't a lesson necessary for her at all. Karma jerking around the wheel at its finest. Perhaps one day Milla would be in a position to give similar advice, look back on this moment and cringe a little internally.

That 'perhaps' certainly doing the heavy lifting.

The lesson Milla did gain here was that she wasn't the only person on the ship that could move quietly. Flinching, dancing up onto her toes, arms coming out a bit as she whirled around, as if, subconsciously, she could make herself look a little bigger, when in fact compared to Mercy it only made her look faintly ridiculous. She stood there like that for a moment before resuming her usual posture - already a little off but significantly less so- as if that hadn't happened at all.

"Well then, don't do that," as if Mercy was only talking about herself. "It sounds awful."

Like she hadn't marched the wrong direction after pretending it hadn't been the lights of hyperspace she'd been talking about.

Pausing there, looking down at her hand, then back at her face, then down at her hand again.

"What? I didn't take anything," defensive but this time a touch different than a minute before. Someone who in the past had been accused of just that. And truthfully, she hadn't! While Milla only had the vaguest concepts of personal property, taking something from Mercy hadn't occurred to her.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

It was like looking at a mirror image of herself in her youth. Well, Mercy had never been this scrawny. She somehow doubted that Milla had any flesh on her bones. Just the bones, some sinew. Maybe some skin if she was lucky.

But the casual disregard for any lessons that didn't fit like a puzzle in her own worldview was disgusting to behold.

Because it reminded her too much of her own mistakes.

"Awful, yes." Pointed look there. "It also is entirely avoidable." Eyebrow went up there. Hoping she'd manage to get through to the woman.

She didn't seem to know basic sort of gestures either.

Gently Mercy snatched her wrist and guided her hand around her elbow. Entirely unnecessary, of course, but it amused her and that was enough reason.

They'd begin to walk. Or Mercy would and Milla had the option to either follow along or be dragged.

"I didn't think you stole from me." She says gently there. "What is your favorite meal?"

Out of nowhere, but not quite.

They were about to enter a kitchen after all.

 

[Milla]

Mercy absolutely had not gotten through to her. Milla had not gotten the message. Milla didn't even know a message had been sent. Nay, lobbed at her head, like a piece of flimsy, folded to look like an x-wing, the point sailed merrily over her head, possibly because she was so very short.

Smoke signals might have been more effective for all the good the comments had done Mercy.

Her hand jerked a little when Mercy snatched it- and the other woman saw for a moment a bit of a feral animal that had just realized the mouth of a trap was folding in on it in those eyes. It was fleeting, but there, if she was paying attention. The bit of a lunge as Milla's feet had to follow Mercy's or get dragged diluted it slightly, but she did not settle comfortably into being led like this by Mercy at all.

"Oh. Good. Because. I didn't."

A little awkward, trying, very slightly, to withdraw her hand. Not that Milla didn't steal. She just didn't steal the way most people expected. But from Mercy ? No. She hadn't taken anything.

"I.... um. What?" That question flummoxing her. Was this a trick? Eyes narrowing slightly at her.

"I like.... meat?" Cautiously. This was true. "Steak." This was not true. Or more accurately, Milla had always thought she'd like steak, but had never been offered it.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

"Yes, I know? I just said that it didn't even cross my mind." Looking at her like she had two heads instead of the one. They hadn't known each other for very long yet, but already Milla had a tendency to flummox Mercy. Which was a rarity because more often than not Mercy was not someone that you could shock or even confuse.

A brick head helped with that.

"Oh, do you?" Mercy patted the hand that she kept around her elbow. "Well, glad to hear you are someone with taste. I think I still have a few steaks in the freezer. I will pull them out and put them up for cooking."

Licking her lips as if they were chops of a predator.

"You don't look like someone who eats steaks on the regular." Innocent question, glance over to her, eyes flickering up and down. She was more sinew and strand than she was meat. They cut an odd figure, next to each other, but Mercy was used to that. Most people looked small when Mercy was walking right next to them.

"Anything else you like? Might be a bit before the steaks are done."

They entered the kitchen and Mercy gestured towards one of the seats at the table. "Salad, fruit?" She let go of Milla's hand finally.

 

[Milla]

"I eat them all the time. Every day in fact," trying to sound casual instead of desperate and avarice. She wasn't particularly adept at it either however.

Letting Mercy bring her into the kitchen, because really, what choice did she have? A part of her brain absolutely was considering at least experiencing the emotion of wanting to gnaw her hand off at the wrist, though more logical thought did (mostly) prevail. Pulling her hand away as soon as Mercy's hold eased as she gestured to the seats and the table.

For a moment, watching Milla, Mercy would get the distinct impression that she had been about to sit on the table. But then she pivoted, like that hadn't been the impulse at all, to sit on one of the chairs. Perching a bit awkwardly on the very edge of the seat.

"Oh, I like fruit too," a little eagerly. "Not salad," making a face. Just the word sounded gross.

But then a crisis of faith in her own impulses caused a beat of silence. Two. And then.

"What's a salad?" The desire to know and a certain base motivation involving food outweighing the self destructive impulse to appear to be what she thought she ought to be.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

"And you are still this scrawny? You poor thing." Mercy murmured gently, which might not be the exact reaction that Milla was trying to achieve. Sadly Milla was exactly in the category that earned Mercy's sympathy.

A small, scrawny, frankly pathetic lady.

Mercy was about to commiserate with Milla about the evils of salads. Ignoring the fact that these days she actually quite enjoyed them. A metric feth ton of meat and then a bit of a salad on the side? It was a great way to keep things fresh. But then Milla ended the stroke by indicating she didn't actually know what a salad was.

If they weren't talking in Basic, with Milla having no real trouble speaking it, Mercy would think she was from a planet that didn't have it as their native tongue.

What an odd bird.

"Salad... are the green things. You know, leafs, herbs, plants. The stuff you put to the side of that steak you have every day." Teasing her lightly as she started dragging things out of her fridge.

Mercy plucked an apple from the bowl and put it in front of Milla.

"Fruit, here you go, while you wait."

 

[Milla]

Mercy

Milla looked down at herself, head cocking, eyes a little critical. Yeah, okay, she supposed, she WAS scrawny. But that was hardly HER fault, was it? No, the circumstances were at fault, she decided. But waste not want not?
You degenerate little fu-
"Sounds horrid," in response to explaining what a salad was. "You don't eat LEAVES." That wasn't food.

She reached out, running her finger tips over the skin of the apple before picking it up. She wasn't really THAT hungry, but she tilted her head this way and that, trying to figure out the best way to apply teeth to the particular type of fruit. It was weird and awkward when she finally opened her mouth - too wide by half for the task at hand - and took what ended up being an enormous bite out of the apple. She paused, her teeth sunk into the skin and flesh, tasting the juice against her tongue, but then, just as awkwardly, tugged the apple away to give it a baleful look and run her tongue over her teeth as she examined the bite marks.

The second bite was comically smaller, barely a peck with her teeth and that seemed to be more her speed because that was how she started to eat the apple, miniscule bite by miniscule bite at a time.

"So where are we going?" Curiously, between bites. "What happens now?"

 

[Mercy]

Milla

It was a good thing that Mercy had turned away to start preparing the steaks.

Otherwise she would have noticed the really weird way Milla ate her apple. Which would have raised even more questions. Which would be funny, because it wasn't like Mercy was a normal type of eater.

"Well, some herbs can be quite nice. And a little salad on the side..." Mercy shrugged. "It can add a little freshness to the food." It had been a total betrayal of her own body. The first time she realized she liked a salad on the side. But Mercy was nothing if not pragmatic, not good at denying herself pleasures, including the evil herb.

"Where do you want to go?" Mercy asked over her shoulder.

They could go to the Tapani Sector, she supposed, but she wasn't in the business of kidnapping scrawny bony things out of bad situations. If Milla had somewhere she hailed from, she'd deposit her there, less messy that way.

The woman was so strange.

Which was a hilarious observation from someone like Mercy.

 

[Milla]

It also meant Mercy couldn't see the face she made at 'some herbs can be quite nice.' Much like a three year old being presenting with an unfamiliar food, her nose scrunched up in a sight of unrepentant absolutely not. The kind of looks parents would be required to interact with, to say, gently Darling Milla, that is a very rude face and you should not make it or other people will feel bad. But Milla had not bee raised so much as shot out of a canon at high speeds so she was missing those sorts of lessons she probably would have benefitted from.

She also had her elbows on the table. In context it seemed like a minor sin.

"Where do you want to go?"

And there for the first time, Mercy would hear.... nothing. No immediate reply. There was hesitation. Even the silence rang with insecurity. Not only did Milla not know, she didn't even know the depth of what she did not know.

Oh she had traveled, though that would not be clear from the quality of the silence. She had been brought a number of places- but each time it was with a parameter. A mission. A goal. A singular focus within the bounds of an order. Beyond an order. A compulsion. She swallowed the little bit of apple she'd been worrying between her back teeth, tongue probing a spot where the skin had gotten stuck as she tried to remember a name of any of the place's she'd been but... had she ever even been told? Could she remember what they had been like? Even the memories were blurs of myopic focus, the features visually damp in the recesses of memories, seen out of different eyes.

There could be a thousand different stories read into that silence as it stretched, heartbeat by heartbeat, past a reasonable series of breaths.

"Somewhere nice." She just finally said, a bit of a mumble, her eyes flicking down to the partially eaten apple in her hands, studying it as if it were the most interesting thing in the galaxy.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

And Mercy for her part did not push her.

In fact, she pretended she wasn't in the room, as she was figuring out the food. Finishing the steaks, putting some leafy greens there, even if Milla would probably hate them. Fry up some potatoes on the side, because you always needed a side dish to complement the meat. Then she began to put things on the plates.

Milla got a small plate with a small steak and a bit of potatoes. She was such a scrawny little thing, Mercy doubted she'd be able to finish even that.

Mercy herself got a large plate and then several around it too. Each one was stuffed to the brink with food. Not just the steak and potatoes. But other things as well. Salads, different fried mixes, pasta left-overs from last night, fried calamari... and so much more. Most of it Milla probably wouldn't even recognize.

"Nice, huh?"

Mercy sat down.

The chair groaned in protest.

"I know of a few nice places." Mercy finally said after some consideration, picking up her fork. "I recently conquered a nice place, in fact. I was heading back there when... well, you know." Not making a point of addressing the situation they had met in. "You can travel with me then and I will drop you off at the capital. It's quite nice."

She smirked.

"Now try that steak of yours."

 

[Milla]

Milla had heard of steak. She certainly thought she'd like it from what she'd heard. But when Mercy put the plate down in front of her, Mercy could absolutely see the blank lack of recognition in her eyes that said, no, this woman had never seen a steak before, let alone eaten one. It certainly SMELLED good, so there was no nose wrinkling of oh that's a steak? at least. She did use her finger to nudge the leaves away, and fussed a little around the dish because the food was touching each other. Eyes flicking up at Mercy picking up the fork and watching what she was doing with it. Picking hers up belatedly and clearly having never once held a fork before.

"Conquered?" Tone interested instead of confused. Looking down at the food as she stabbed the steak with the fork and dragged it to the side of the plate nearest to her. Absolutely no idea how to eat this as she eyeballed the overly large chunk of meat avoiding Mercy's gaze at the 'well you know' comment. Trying to see if she could open her mouth wide enough to just put it into her mouth like that, and no, no indeed she could not. Looking up at Mercy with her face on level with the plate, her mouth open wide, and the fork in the steak, clearly about to try however.

The look on Mercy's face was enough for her eyes to flick instead to what Mercy was doing with hers, pretending like she hadn't just been about to try to shovel the whole thing into her mouth in one go, no, not her, not Milla.

"What did you do?" Acting like nothing had just happened there, wanting Mercy to talk so she could better watch what she was up to with her own meal. Absently pushing the salad further away from the steak again.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

When Milla looked up with an open maw, steak dangling on her fork and ready to try and devour it, she'd notice Mercy practically staring at her. A much much smaller piece of meat (still sizeable, this was Mercy we are talking about) on her fork and about to slip it into her own maw. That fell by the wayside when she noticed that valiant attempt.

"Oh, sweetheart, I know you are hungry but you are gonna choke on that, I promise you." Chuckling there, shaking her head as she finished her own move and chewed through the first piece of steak.

It might have been the first time that Milla noticed just how much food was on Mercy's side of the table too.

"We slaughtered the ancient houses of Tapani, of course." Mercy said with obvious smugness in her voice. She would have been a bit more... careful in the way she described it, but they had met in the sort of circumstances that created a bond between people. Or at the very least an understanding of each other's limitations and boundaries.

"And made it our home."

A temporary home, anyway, it was just a staging ground.

"All to create a launch pad for the next stage of the campaign." Arris Windrun would probably face-palm, hearing Mercy talk so freely about their plans.

Maybe Mercy was the mole, accidentally, without realizing it.

The Acier Moonbound 's of this world could rejoice in that.

"How's the steak?"

 

[Milla]

For a long moment, steak held in the air, Milla just stared in return at Mercy, caught in the most inelegant possible pose, watching her like a dog might that was just ABOUT to put their teeth around something gross and interesting. For a moment, leaning in, very slightly more, like she was going to try it anyway. Then the weight of Mercy 's look won out, and she slowly lowered the steak back to the plate, closing her mouth.

Her eyes going now instead to what Mercy was doing. Wait- why did she have more food? That seemed intrinsically unfair to Milla, size difference between the two of them (significant) be damned.

Anemic gaze flicked up to Mercy's face- her mouth, her fork, her steak going into her mouth on that fork- down to her plate- the knife slicing, cutting - food? why, that wasn't what a knife was for, that was what a mouth was for- teeth, amazing really, Milla deciding she liked them- back to Mercy's mouth as the next bite was brought up.

Slowly, she started to copy her. It was not the awkwardness however of someone who had never cut anything or seen someone cut something. It was slow, methodical, precise.

She didn't blink at the comment about slaughter, didn't even pause in her intent in the food on her plate. Finally bringing a more moderate bite (still too much, Mercy's sized piece) to her mouth and starting to chew. A challenge, strange, but her eyes widening slightly and starting to cut the next piece before finishing the one in her mouth.

"Ib oob." She replied, mouth full of steak, by way of answer.

Milla ignored the salad entirely, so fully that it was clear she was aggressively ignoring it.

Fortunately for everyone, Milla didn't much care about strategy, tactics, campaigns and dominion.

Right now all she cared about was that steak, and spent the next several minutes fully applying herself to it. She'd listen, if Mercy kept talking, but it was with half her attention, which perhaps could be forgiven. She was the only one perplexed as she started to slow down - enough food, more than enough, to fill her was a novel experience. She... didn't want more off of Mercy's plate. She did! Want it! But more out of principle and avarice than out of particular hunger.

That was confusing.
You'll never fool them, they'll know. Someone will know and will destroy you for it, abomination.
Milla shook her head, like there was water in her ears.

"What did you do with the Tapani?" She asked, as though several minutes hadn't elapsed since Mercy had made the commentary.

 

[Mercy]

Milla

Mercy had stopped talking in fact.

That was not the same thing as Mercy being quiet however.

The purpose of the sounds simply shifted from communicating intent towards communicating occupation. For context, Mercy was an incredibly messy eater and was wolfing down her part of the dishes like her life depended on it. She hungered, day and night, and there was little that truly could sate her for very long.

Courtesy of a certain stew.

The refrain of meatmeatmeatmeatmeat never ceased. Never, ever. It simply had transformed into the background chorus that accompanied Mercy everywhere she went at every waking moment.

So present it wasn't even worth being mentioned anymore.

"What did you do with the Tapani?" She asked, as though several minutes hadn't elapsed since Mercy had made the commentary.

"Hrm?" Around a carrot. She snapped it in half with her teeth and swallowed part of it. "I killed them. Not I as in me, but I as in we." Which was very helpful, she knew that.

"We took the ancient Houses and made them crumble." Sticking her spoon deep into the blood pudding and taking a deep bite with a hearty sigh. "We made Lords into slaves and slaves into Lords. It was... absolutely... grand. I loved every moment of it."

She sighed as she finally pushed the last plate off.

"Hm, where are the napkins?"

Mercy had made a mess of things.

If Arris Windrun could see her now, she wouldn't have ever let her hear the end of it.