Some Culinary Research [open]
There were some things Aeneas had to attend to before he could continue with his project. Mainly it was contacting the Command Crew and seeing if said project could even begin to be contemplated, much less be carried out; but there was also that matter of knowing his tools, figuring out what he had available to work with and how he could better use
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He knew he should’ve closed that door. But the artificial lighting was similarly unnerving to be immersed in, and having a single human female curiously investigate his studies was infinitely preferable to being stuck in the glow of an emotionless screen upon organic material.
In a vague attempt to make her lose interest (deep down he was hoping she might stay for a while-he longed for the company, just not right now), Aeneas gave Nanashi a vague smile with his brow and a feeble wave with webbed hands.
“Hello.”
The quiet trill that actually emanated from the creature’s throat (but not his mouth, which remained unmoving) was considerably different than the polite tenor that it was translated into. Though, thanks to proximity to the translator core, the gap between the two exchanges was slightly less than usual.
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Still, Nanashi was glad that the door wasn't closed. She had yet to see one of these at work. She took the greeting to mean that she was welcomed into the room and gracefully entered.
"Hello."
She sized up this new species of being. Probably aquatic, clearly intelligent, somewhat aquiline, and clearly alien, like so many other beings on this accursed ship.
"May I sit?" She didn't wait for an answer. She just sat next to Aeneas. "I am Queen Nanashi, of Kuninoryu. Who might you be?" Her voice was like velvet, and she spoke as if every word was in italics. Arranging her black cloak with the bright embroidered family crest on the back around her, she glanced up an met Aeneas's eyes with pale grey eyes that matched the intensity of her words.
Frankly, she was able to make everything about her seem important. After all, she had thousands of years of practice. How could she not perfect the way she carried herself.
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This sense of weirdness was, however, not mutual. Certainly Aeneas could detect some bizarre pheromones (strong ones, too) emanating from her person, but this was no serious indicator of something bizarre. Even the fangs were dismissed; Aeneas had met plenty of not-quite-human crewmembers in his time here, and all of them, though different in some way or another, still classified themselves by their usual species distinction. Why this female should be any exception defied the alien studying her.
That is, until she introduced herself. There was an automatic clicking of mandibles as her title registered and the rallying call of the Hedon Alliance beat itself through Aeneas’s head, political speeches detesting the Empire’s monarchy burnt into what remained of his memory. He held nothing against Nanashi, of course-she was no queen here.
Regardless, the alien felt himself lower his eyes self-consciously. He was sheepish enough around less proud individuals of the opposite gender, let alone the ones that claimed royalty. Something about her eyes…they were oddly piercing. There was no arguing with her.
“A-Aeneas.” He jerkily extended one of those small, webbed hands, still glancing someplace past her head, “A pleasure to meet you.”
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A habit she had managed to swallow until now. It was something about how submissive Aeneas reacted that had brought it out. It was like he was asking to be manipulated.
Nanashi was not the sort of person who would be 'nice' and not take advantage of that.
She looked at the creature's hand for a moment. What a human gesture for such a non-human creature. She took the hand in hers and shook it. "And a pleasure to meet you as well, Aeneas."
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Not that he could react in any definitive way, or in any way at all for that matter. Nanashi had the bashful alien dutifully paralyzed with politeness and charm and, most of all, natural charisma. Aeneas let his mind bumble around for a moment longer as he continued to numbly repeat that trained human gesture, weakly shaking his arm as his lavender eyes gazed ahead, unfocused.
Suddenly he was speaking, a quiet but calm purr ruffling through unemotional feathers. “Excuse me, but highness of what?”
Instantly Aeneas was appalled with himself. He blinked hard, startled-too startled to pull back his hand or stutter out an apology. His conscious screamed at him as he waited for Nanashi to react and break the trance.
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She was more than entertained by this demure alien who was too overcome by Nanashi to react properly.
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It was the start of a beautiful relationship.
Shortly he regained a fraction of his senses, just enough to hastily pull back his trapped hand, where it stayed for less than a moment before it flew to his head and began nervously kneading an auricle.
Maybe she would leave if he was awkward enough. Alas, his brain obstinately disobeyed!
“-So what brings you here?” A horrified pause followed as Aeneas’s conscious self caught up to the impulsive one, “-Ah, Nanashi-denka. Erm.”
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"Tell me, little one, what is it that you are doing on this..." She gestured, realising that she was lacking a word for the display in front of them.
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His webbed fingers working away on that auricle abruptly gestured at the screen in front of them, greedily taking advantage of the opportunity to look someplace other than his human-like company. No matter that she didn’t answer his question, he could’ve cared less.
“This? Ah…I was just…doing some research,” Aeneas purred hesitantly, broad tail unraveling and giving several contemplative thumps on the ground, “Earth lifeforms and such…”
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Nanashi had quickly learned that she was behind on many things. Magic, science, engineering. The two things she could still boast were strength and swordplay, but that was not nearly enough for her.
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“Erm…for the most part,” the alien blinked, somewhat caught off guard by her interest. Though it was obvious that she wanted to use this for other things-maybe she didn’t know how to use it? Well, no harm in telling her. “As far as I know you can look up anything in the media databanks from here, including music and video.”
And, dreading the answer: “…Why?”
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She left out that the technology she was most interested in was weapons. Of course, this was still just for the repair of the fascinating ships.
"Please, explain to me, what are videos?"
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This wasn’t the first time the alien had run into a crewmember that wasn’t familiar with a certain term or action, though most of the time it was in relation to his behavioral and anatomical traits rather than technologies. Aeneas was no less obligated to elaborate.
“Ah…” Instinctively he began rubbing his ear again, the other webbed appendage going to the computer console to find an adequate example. “…Well, a video is like a moving picture-made by taking still frames and showing them in succession, as to create the illusion of movement. Like this.”
By that point he’d minimized his previous search and had pulled up a new window, showing a frame-by-frame sequence of an Earth herbivore-a ‘horse’, apparently-running down a straight track. Once he’d clicked through the loop once, he let the computer take over and play it at full speed.
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Nanashi resisted the urge to reach out and try to use that machine herself. She did not want to break it. "You must tell me more." She wanted to learn as much about the machine as she could. Fortunately for Aeneas, Nanashi was a rather quick learner, so he would not need to explain anything more than once, and she could probably guess things for herself as she learned more about the basic concepts. Like pictures.
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