Meetings: The Aftershow

Posted on Fri Jul 27th, 2018 @ 10:49pm by Jacaranda

977 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 95 - Helping Old Friends
Location: Starbase 400 Promenade
Timeline: MD8

Maria had come back from the doctors office, the shop was still setting up so they wouldn’t have too many customers. Jaca had gone off to negotiate relationships between businesses. So she took advantage to set out a collection of books, most of them replicas, but they weren’t replicated she had them printed and bound professionally.

Roberto had taken the Selhat, which he had taken to calling Itchybutt upstairs. Her aunt Ange would be panicking about a large creature around the baby, ‘oh my god it’s going to eat him!’ was her exact response to a picture of Roberto trying to ride Itchi, who had been nothing but gentle with the extremely handsy 3 year old, though when the kid did something the Selhat didn’t like, he was more tempting to shove him on his butt, not roughly but enough to say ‘ok enough now.’ Though Roberto was generally gentle, he loved all animals but had been taught from near birth by the menagerie around her family.

The door jingled as it opened and her friend came back in.

It had taken some force of will to not skip or dance back to the store after reaching an agreement with Camron. All bets were off once she was inside Curious Goods. Her eyes radiated glittering silver sparkles and she giggled, breaking into an excited jumble of Standard and Djabalese. The only identifiable words were “Camron”, “Mechanic”, “Delicious Friend”, and “Deal”.

“In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?” Maria raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Jaca was in the middle of repeating the Standard/Djabalese jumble before it registered to speak in Standard. “Galactic Mechanics is amenable to friendly dealings”, she said while still ready to happily bounce out of her skin.

Maria stared at her, her eyebrow quirked in the best impression of a Vulcan seen this side of the comic vids. “Indeed.” She responded in a cool neutral tone. All she was missing was the pointed ears to truly pull off the look, since most Vulcan women had dark hair and a similar complexion, it worked in so many ways. But she then had to ask, “Delicious friend? Do tell.”

If Jaca’s dialog explosion before seemed only limited by physical form, the description of the owner of the new mechanics store was conveyed with a lot of gestures and very appreciative ‘mmm’s’ and ‘ooooh’s’ enough to make the point he was very physically appealing to the Djabul woman.

Maria just stared for a bit trying to keep herself from laughing since she had just gotten Roberto down for a nap and if Jaca woke the boy her friend was a dead woman walking the struggle was turning Maria some nice shades of purple and red.

Not quite catching on that Maria was trying not to fall over laughing, Jaca smiled at her earnestly, “You should turn that red more, it suits you.”

“Damn you I just got Roberto down for a nap with Itchi.” She grabbed her friend and pulled her in to the forge before finally busting out in laughter. “So I take it you want to be friends with this new guy, delicious friends.”

The sound baffles were set to handle the forge at full hammering, so it easily handled the laughter. “I...YES...wait...I don’t know.”, Jaca said, eyes still going off like sparklers, “I looked into those eyes and….then that face...those shoulders...”

“Sounds like you’re leaning yes.” Maria smiled slightly, “In that case, have fun, just remember leave a trail of breadcrumbs to get back home.”

“I don’t know if it’s a yes. I’ve never been like this about an outsider before.”, Jaca said honestly, “I don’t know of any of my people being like this within my living memory.”

Maria nodded, “And you’re not sure, with your species and all that.” She shrugged, “You once told me to live deliciously. So I say it to you now, just….be happy.”

Jaca’s eyes gradually went from sparklers aflame to soft silvery smoke. The wordplay was worthy of a Djabul. “You’ve been around me enough to word-dance but not Live Deliciously yourself.”, she said, “I’m half expecting you to grow horns.”

Maria smirked, “I do have them, they’re just invisible.”

That was enough to have Jaca’s eyes shift color in that way she was looking through the various light spectrums to see Maria’s horns. “He did say he would visit at some point to meet you and see our store.”

Maria laughed then smacked her friend in the arm, “I was kidding you ass.” She then continued, “As for him seeing the shop, just get me a when and where I’ll be nice. Even dress nice for the occasion.”

In a way it was like bringing up a crush to a teenager, Jaca looked mortified, or at least what passed for it with Djabul. “I can’t go back there now.”, she said with an unspoken ‘I will make a complete doof of myself if I do’. “He will introduce himself when he comes by.”

Again the Vulcan impression came out, in some ways it reminded Maria of when she first started realizing that Peter, who before that day had been that dorky guy she hung out with, to someone who was cute and her crush on him. In some ways it was refreshing to see Ms “live deliciously” didn’t have all the answers.

This would be a work in progress, “Then I will go introduce myself.”

A strangled squeak escaped Jaca, and she looked like she was scrambling for thoughts and words, “I..it’s up to you if you do or wait for whenever he comes by.”

Maria just nodded, many words were left unspoken.

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