Room 414, Monday Afternoon

[solarhippie]

With both her not particularly exciting mainland therapy session and the seriously more exciting flight class over, Karolina had come back to the room, and gotten to decorating her side of it. Nothing extravagant, and not a lot of stuff. But, she'd seen something nice on sale on the mainland this morning, and decided she could spend just a little

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[fewerexplosions]

Liara had not spoken to Karolina in some time. She wasn't sure what drew her to the girl's doorstep now, but there she was, waffling a little until she caught sight of the posters on the wall. "Ah," she said, "You are decorating."

...Yes, Liara. Yes, she was.

[solarhippie]

Karolina was a little surprised to see Liara in her doorway. Not bad surprised, though. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear a little awkwardly as she glanced over with a smile. "Yeah," she said. "Just felt like it. I've been here for over six months, and even for about four in this room. Felt like high time, you know?"

[fewerexplosions]

"I suppose I do," Liara said. "Though now I am sad I forgot to bring much in the way of decorations the last time I visited Commander Alenko's Citadel." Her eyes shifted to the decorations themselves, and she added, awkwardly, "The image of the flowers is lovely."

[solarhippie]

Karolina turned her smile towards the poster. "I think so too," she replied. "It, um, sort of reminds me of home? I'm not sure why. It just does."

It was bright and vibrant, and it looked warm. Maybe that was it.

[fewerexplosions]

"Are they common Earth flowers?" Liara asked, slowly... very slowly... edging her way into the room.

[solarhippie]

"Yeah," Karolina nodded, looking over again. And not shooing her out or anything. (As if she'd ever do that to anyone.) "Poppies."

[fewerexplosions]

Liara lived in perpetual fear of being shooed out of anywhere, including her own (now single-occupied) room for somehow stepping on toes. Hence, the shuffling did not quite come to an end. "Do you have many poppies where you come from?" she asked. "That may be it."

[solarhippie]

Karolina's smiled took a little turn for the wistful. "It's the state flower of California," she said. "Uh, that's the state I'm from." She wasn't sure that was something Liara would remember, if she'd even said it before. "Well, the golden version of it is. So, yeah, guess I've seen it around a bit."

[fewerexplosions]

"That may cause some of the familiarity," Liara offered, realizing as she said it that it was a terribly cold, rational, and not particularly human way of phrasing it, but she was a little lost for a different way to do so.

"My mother and I lived near a park," she said, attempting to ameliorate that. "It was one of my favorite places as a child. It was also full of flowers..."

[solarhippie]

It hadn't sounded that bad to Karolina, but maybe she was just getting used to people phrasing things a bit funny.

"Oh?" she asked. "Are flowers different where you're from?" Then she reconsidered. "Well, duh. They probably are."

The people were. It would've been weird if other forms of life weren't.

[fewerexplosions]

Liara wouldn't be Liara if she didn't second-guess everything she said - being among humans had just given her a handy excuse for it. "They have longer leaves," she said, "And the colors are often different. More purples and blues."

[solarhippie]

"Ooh." That was a pretty sincere 'oooh', too! "That sounds nice." Although with the way Liara herself looked, you had to wonder whether everything was all blues and purples where she was from.

She was also kind of wondering whether Majesdane had different flowers too, now. "Probably can't get posters of those here."

[fewerexplosions]

"Actually, I could," Liara said, her tone about as wry as it ever got. "Commander Alenko could buy some for me in his version of our world." A pause. "May I sit down?"

[solarhippie]

"Yeah, of course," Karolina said, gesturing to... well, her desk chair and her bed. They didn't have a whole lot of options here. She herself tended to end up sitting on the floor more often than not. "I forgot Professor Alenko was... from your world."

[fewerexplosions]

Liara sat down on the edge of the bed, folding her hands together. "Some time in the future," she added quickly. "Apparently we are only a few decades from meeting humanity in my time."

[solarhippie]

"Really? That sounds pretty exciting." Which was a welcome distraction from the slight awkward standing Karolina was doing while trying to decide whether to sit down as well or not. "I mean, if you can expect it to... not go horribly."