It's a bitch convincing people to like you. [Open to the 4423]

[phytotoxin]

Characters: Marluxia and whoever wants to bother him.
Content: Marluxia decides that it’s high time he went and saw the different parts of the ship, so meeting some of the crew is probably inevitable. Please feel free to bug him, get on his nerves and/or call him ‘Marlushy’ =D.
Setting: The 4423
Time: While they’re in port, but the time of the day

Comments

[anthypants]

Anthy leaned with her back against the sink, tablet in hand. She was trying to figure out what she could grow in pots around the ship. She'd had plenty of time to think about how much she'd missed her gardens, but she had always been too hesitant to ask the Captain for permission to have some plants in case she said no. But now that she had been aboard the ship longer, Anthy had noticed how people simply seemed to do things, so she thought perhaps she might just put some in someplace they would not be in the way

[phytotoxin]

The kitchen was one of the destinations that Marluxia had been looking forward to seeing. He hadn't really dealt with any airship travel in his life, so seeing a ship's galley was fairly high on his list of priorities.

He didn't walk around like he owned the place, but he didn't head anywhere with the sort of worried nervousness that could be expected of a new recruit, either. He opened the door to the kitchen quite brazenly and stepped inside, unaware of whether he required permission from the cook before doing so. He scanned the room with interest before allowing his eyes to settle on the only person in the room.

"Hello," he said, offering a smile.

He didn't say anything of the obviously startled look on her face.

[anthypants]

"Hello," said Anthy, recovering herself and cautiously returning his smile, although she remained slightly mesmerized by the sight of pink haired man. It wasn't just the hair, his eyes were also a deep blue like Utena's, and like her he was tall as well. And he did look very princely, although not perhaps, the way she might have been.

"You must be one of the new crewmen aboard...Can I get anything for you?"

[phytotoxin]

He shook his head gently and kept his smile in place. Well, she was pleasant. While the 4423 seemed to be lacking in real pirates, it did seem so full of offensive and rude people, even they weren't exactly pirate material. This girl though, she seemed nice on the first meeting.

"No, no. I'm just getting my bearings with the ship, but thank you for the kind offer." He offered a hand. "It's nice to meet you."

He was fairly sure he hadn't spoken to her at all yet.

[komachibi]

Komachi was running down the corridor - not because she was in any sort of a hurry, but simply because running places was much more fun that walking, and because it made you look like you were doing something urgent, which in turn kept people from stopping you and asking you to do things.

She skidded to a halt as she turned a corner, just in time to avoid crashing into someone. Komachi blinked and looked up at him - not someone she'd seen before, and...pink hair?
What had she heard about someone with pink hair? Larxene had said over the journals she had a friend with pink hair, right? And Larxene had also said what to call him...

"You're Marlushy?"

[phytotoxin]

Marluxia walked down the corridor with a somewhat impassive expression as he listened to the thudding of speedy footsteps that were steadily growing in volume as they got closer. He was more than prepared to step aside and let whoever was running whiz past him, but as the cause skidded to a halt, he found that he didn't need to.

He was about to greet her as she called him by that name.

"No, I'm Marluxia." He told her, stressing the correct pronunciation. "How do you know?"

Sure, he'd spoken to her over the network, but she'd never seen him and she spoke first, so she couldn't have recognised his voice...

[komachibi]

Oh, he didn't look at all happy. Maybe Larxene was one of those people you shouldn't listen to when they told you to do things.

"Sorry, Mr Marluxia. Uhm...Larxene said she had a friend with pink hair called Marlushy. And there's only Utena otherwise who has pink hair so I thought it must be you."

[phytotoxin]

Larxene. Well, that made sense. She made no secret of how unhappy she was about being dragged on board a pirate ship and made to do the grunt work, so perhaps the bizarre nickname was part of her petty revenge by making his life difficult.

"That would be her pronouncing it wrong. It's Marluxia, I assure you." He informed her gently. "You're Komachi, are you not?" He asked, recalling a ten year old girl saying hello over the network.

He made an effort to look a little less scary, but it isn't as if a man with pink floofy hair could be taken as scary on first glance anyway, but the soft edge he added to his voice made him seem a little less annoyed at the name mistake.

[gimme_smokes]

Inside the gun room, Badou was leaning over one of the large canons. He'd taken it upon himself to give the canons a good look over and a clean. He'd been down into the often empty room to get acquainted with the tools of his new trade.

It didn't seem like a task anybody else would want to do unless told, so he'd guessed he could sneak down on the quiet and go for it, without risking anybody discovering his vaguely domestic side.

Something about the thought of cleaning canons becoming a domestic task made him chuckle to himself.

So, armed with various bits of cleaning equipment, a pair of overalls and a hair tie (to keep his hair out of his remaining eye), he has set to work.
Being so involved in the task, he was unaware of any other presence until the new pink-haired Quartermaster was right on top of him.

[phytotoxin]

"Having fun?"

The voice came out of nowhere. Marluxia was more than accustomed to creeping around silently; it was part of his job, after all.

He had no idea who this man was, but he didn't worry about disturbing him all the same. He was obviously a gunner, and if not that, he was a Powder Monkey. He looked a little old for the latter though, so Marluxia didn't really consider it an option. He folded his arms and stood beside him, watching what he was doing with a degree of curiosity.

The rest of it was due to muted amusement at startling him.

[gimme_smokes]

"Gah!"

Badou jumped at the sudden voice and he dropped the piece of cloth he was holding. He was just happy that it wasn't something heavier, as it landed on his foot. He stood up straight and turned to face the intruder as he started to grumble.

"What the-... Does everyone around here have to walk around like a friggin' nin-"

As he faced the Quartermaster, he stopped short. At first he looked him in the eyes, but his own then traveled straight to the pink hair in front of him and he had to mask his sudden snort with a rather pathetic false cough.

"Uh, sorry... All the gun powder down here gets t'ya a little..."

So pink. He'd heard talk of a pink-haired new comer but... wow, was that some pink hair.

[phytotoxin]

Marluxia cocked an eyebrow very slightly at the Gunner's initial response to his presence and then the badly concealed snort that followed made his expression settle into something of an unimpressed scowl. Still, at least he hadn't mistake him for a woman, even if the reaction to what must be his hair had been somewhat tactless, especially from somebody with hair of that obnoxious shade of what could only be described as orange.

"Mm, I'm sure." He said, somehow keeping the testiness out of his voice. "It's hard to walk around like a 'ninja' when you have hair this colour, you know. I must be better than I thought."

He was trying to make light of faux pas, and managing somehow. Well, short of dying it or shaving it all off, it wasn't as though there was anything he could do about the ridiculous colour, was there?

[seventh_hero]

Hidden away deep amongst enormous machinery huddled together at the rear of the ship, where the dull, churning sounds of pistons thrusting tirelessly echoed smoothly off the walls and the noise of spinning rotors and turbines endlessly roared, Cloud had busied himself with the task of giving one of the sub-engines a good tune-up. His hands - as well as a few portions of his face - were coated with a brown, murky oil, and he looked as if spending enough time down in the engine room had overheated him a little, his features more flush than normal

[phytotoxin]

The assumption that the oily, blond man was a mechanic was an easy mistake to make and Marluxia made it. He didn't have any reason to think otherwise, after all.

"Are you having a bit of trouble?" He asked, not getting too close to the mess or the source of some of the noise.

His voice lacked it's usual know-it-all arrogance and he sounded genuinely curious, if not concerned. He didn't know anything about the mechanics of a ship to help off his own back, and he probably wouldn't want to get too close to the workings even if he was asked, but he did sort of wonder why the ship wasn't moving, yet. He had heard it was for repairs, so he found himself wondering if this little problem was the reason it wasn't airborne, yet.

[seventh_hero]

Hearing Marluxia's voice made the man, concerned as he may have been, pause in his work. His features immediately changed as a result, the synapses of his brain no longer firing so furiously in attempts to solve the problem; instead, he seemed concerned with the identity of the one lurking behind him and whether or not he needed to be reaching for his sword in a hurry.

Turning his head slowly towards the source, Cloud's brilliantly blue eyes flashed brightly, even in the dull, swaying lights of the engine room, and locked on Marluxia. Cloud straightened up quickly from his slouched position over the machinery, eyeing the stranger with stern caution as he suddenly displayed the strong build of his body.

"Who are you?" he asked quickly; not that it would be noticed by present company, but it seemed his mannerisms had changed somewhat lately, no longer quite so shy to ask questions up front.

[phytotoxin]

Marluxia noted the defensive posturing of the man that he'd disturbed and made sure to keep the decidedly large sword in his field of vision. He wasn't especially concerned about him actually using it due mostly to the delicate machinery, fairly confined space and no doubt large swinging arc of the weapon. Still, he could see that the stranger walked the flimsy line between being surprised by the intrusion and just being downright paranoid, so he wasn't about to put himself too much at ease

[alastinglight]

Takasugi, on the other hand, had already finished exploring the ship, both literally and through studying the map he had secured of the 4423 using his contacts. The man was out on deck now, leaning against the railings, watching the sky.

Conditions like this made for perfect smoking weather.

[phytotoxin]

Marluxia wasn't a smoker, but after being deep in the underbelly of the ship around the engines he rather felt that he needed some fresh air. Well, fresher air, anyway. It had been an interesting exploration so far, but a break was probably on the cards for the moment.

When he got onto the deck, he cast his eyes around and looked surprised that there was only one other person about. It was a pleasant day; he expected more than that.

[alastinglight]

He knew, of course, that he wasn't alone - he had realized that quite some time ago. Judging from the man's movements, he probably wasn't an average guy, much less a bungling civilian.

Well, neither was Takasugi. He took a nice, slow drag from his pipe. When he spoke, he did so without turning around.

"Nice day, isn't it?"

[phytotoxin]

"It is fairly pleasant, yes."

Marluxia studied the other man with interest. He held himself with the sort of poise only seen in people who are either very confident in their own abilities or are very arrogant. He himself was another of these people, but he didn't manage to look quite so lazy about it.

He had a feeling that he was the other new Quartermaster, but he couldn't be sure.