Private Head Under Heels

[Asori Soto]

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Location: Razorback Island beach, Rishi
Wearing: xxx
Tag: Kenth Typho
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Asori let out yet another sigh, but this time it was one of relief. Knees still drawn into her chest to support the back of her powered-on datapad, she lulled her head back against the grey cushion behind it. She had finished the diagrams she wanted to get done today. Though her eyes fell shut and the broad tree leaves above filtered the bright sunlight, some still seeped between her lids. The steady warmth seemed to chase away the ache in her neck, but the change in posture probably had more to do with that. Again she sighed.

When noise melted away, her own and the resident faunas', she just could hear them above the waves and calling on the wind:

Yonder bouma sequences.

Head complex settled under the heel sequences.

Granted, she hadn't seen the Razorback Turbidites as complete units, but she had a good theoretical idea what they would look like. Bouma sequences were iconic in their basic consistency. Seismic imaging had also told her they were there - there being a deep-sea canyon on the very edge of the continental shelf - as had the dozen bore samples that the dive bots had retrieved. From those, all in clear test tubes and secured deep in her field pack slung over the back of her claimed lounge chair, she had extrapolated a stratigraphy that appeared a column when in reality it would have been more like a row. It was easiest to formulate it in the former way. Plus, she would be the only one with access to her notes. If she ever published, though, she'd do well to fix what could be easily criticized by the scientific community as careless oversight.

 

[Kenth Typho]

Asori Soto

His tenure with the Antarian Rangers had ended some time ago.

After Amon Vizsla had left the force to join the Sons of Mandalore in the New Imperial Order things hadn't quite been the same. He didn't regret not following his friend however. While he didn't have anything against Mandalorians, Imperials was a different story entirely. Now Kenth heard that Vizsla was now part of the Galactic Alliance.

Maybe he'd look him up.

Only after his vacation however. He was relaxing on one of the many tropical islands of Rishi. Swimming trunks, drink in a coconut with a little flashy umbrella, the works.

He was walking on the beach when something hit Kenth.

There was someone else lounging here now. A blink. "Hello? Ma'am? Hi..." Very odd this, Kenth had been sure this was an uninhabited island, but now he found himself no longer alone. Not an issue, but just very surprising. "Have you been here long?" Puzzled glance towards the sea and then farther into the island.

Maybe the shuttle had landed earlier in the day, while he was sleeping?

 

[Asori Soto]

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Tag: Kenth Typho
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Asori hadn't expected company either. She opened one of her eyes to seek out the source of her interruption and then -

Her other eye shot open and she jolted upright on the chair. Her datapad almost tumbled off her knee into the sand, but her rather ungracefully caught it against the side of her thigh, sandwiching the still-illuminated screen to her skin.

"Uh..." she stammered. "Y-yes, hello there." A slight Outer Rim accent punctuated her words, only slightly surer than her intention. Her gaze wander over his bared chest before she tugged in back to meet his eyes. "I, uh..." She processed the question too many moments after he had asked. "No. Not too long, that is." She chuckled through a mouthful of nerves. With one hand, she reached down to clasp the hems of her sheer sundress, blowing in the wind, around her thighs, suddenly self-conscious, and pointed with the other clasping her datapad generally to the sea. "A hoverboat dropped me off maybe...half a hour ago, but they're long gone as you can see. I found this chair here and decided to have a rest."

She glanced back up at him. A stray tress blew into her face; she abandoned her dress to tuck it behind her ear. "Is it yours? I-I can move."

 

[Kenth Typho]

Asori Soto

He watched bemused at the lady's reaction.

It was one thing to be surprised, but this was something entirely else.

"Glad to hear I didn't completely miss your presence here." Kenth grinned there. That would have been embarrassing, a special operative who wasn't even capable of picking up civilian presence before arriving somewhere? They would have laughed him right out of the academy. Probably. She seemed really nervous, but maybe that was understandable.

Being caught by surprise was never a pleasant feeling.

"It is, yeah, put it there yesterday but no need to get up on my account." He winked at her and stretched lightly. "Whatcha reading?" Curious glance over to the datapad, before looking back at her.

"Must be something interesting, if you are risking sand getting into the parts."

Another smile there, maybe it would put her a bit at ease.

 

[Asori Soto]

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Tag: Kenth Typho
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Thank whatever god, surely feathered, graced this lush earth - a distraction.

She jumped at it a bit prematurely, glancing back down to her datapad. Her correction was enthusiastic. "Working, actually. But yes, very interesting stuff." Rambling on about science was a happy place she was all too excited to frolic, but she tried to keep mindful of her audience. That meant she would keep the jargon to only the necessary minimum. "I'm studying the earthquakes in this hemisphere - working on the Razorback area currently."

She paused, laughed more carefreely, and waved her free hand dismissively. "But ones long, long past, so don't you worry." Not that he looked like the type to worry about those things. "The plate margin we're on has been passive for millennia."

She turned the screen right way round before offering it out to him. "You can look if you want," she added as she slid her legs off one side of the lounge chair and into the sand. An additional offer to sit wasn't spoken but clearly there. She shifted on the spot, reveling in the gentle saline breeze as she gave him so reading time if he was so inclined, but not much because all there was to read over were a few labels and captions. Then:

"I'm Asori. Recent xenogeology graduate from Sanbra."

She turned to face him and offer a hand for a handshake.

 

[Kenth Typho]

Asori Soto

"Working, really? Here?"

A smile there as he glanced around inquisitively. "I dunno how you do it. I'd have been too distracted by the beauty." His eyes on hers then as he said that last part. Either way, he accepted the datapad and sat down next to her, studying the data on the screen. There wasn't much yet, but what there was was... yeah... already beyond him.

Clearly a geographical relief of the area, but it wasn't exactly a military op hologram. Which made it out of his wheel house.

"Looks complicated." Before laughing there. "Good, I would hope we wouldn't be in the middle of an earthquake event, while I am trying to take a holiday here." Kenth winked at her, before putting the datapad down and accepting her extended hand. A soft shake there, before nodding warmly. "Pleasure meeting ya, miss Soto."

"Kenth Typho. Former Antarian Ranger, currently in-between jobs and taking a much needed vacation." It was rare, however, to see a scientist just doing some work alone without any escorts these days.

Dangerous times.

"You still working with the Sanbra Institute then? Or are you here on your own accord. Rishi ain't exactly a safe place for a lone person to science. On the account of all the pirates, y'know?" Kenth grinned, knowing fully well how that sounded, since... well... by all accounts HE was alone here. But that was just a little bit different.

 

[Asori Soto]

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Tag: Kenth Typho
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"I dunno how you do it. I'd have been too distracted by the beauty."

She had been glancing at him in preparation to gauge his reaction to her graphics - though he was a layman, she did want to start publishing more accessible articles not just for her peers or even betters. Science communication, she was learning, was as important as scientific research itself. But she had to break line of sight towards the end of his reply. She gained a quick and intensive interest in the sand population, which she could see even from her seated position had intriguing variance, barely in time to hide a majority of rose tint rising in her cheeks.

Get yourself together, Asori, she though. He's just a—

She had forgotten about her hand in the midst of embarrassingly counting quartz grains. Kenth's physical touch coaxed her face, almost back to normal color, from hiding. She swallowed just as quietly as she could and managed to fumble composure back into her grasp. She listened to what she could only interpret as concern. The smile that broke over her countenance at its end couldn't have been stopped even if she had tried, but not because of the seeming hypocrisy hiding between his words but the reality hiding behind her cover.

"Own accord. Don't worry, I carry," she offered as explanation. "I probably," actually, most certainly, "don't know my way around all the hardware that you do, but..." She was blissfully unaware of how that could have sounded. "Even if I couldn't handle a standard blaster pistol or rifle, I would still be out here. And anywhere dangerous, but not because it's dangerous. No, because there's things to be done in the danger that are well worth my life to advance.

"Scientists and soldiers aren't that much different, really."

She even carried some entrenchment tools too, but none of them would be of use during an artillery barrage being too small-scale.