ic contact

[14thcommander]

It's Hange, Hange, Hange! Were you looking for me? I'll get back to you posthaste. Or when it's convenient.

[ communicator & actionspam it's all good ]

Comments

[14thcommander]

"I've never heard of such a thing! I have black tea, and bacon, and you can have some toast if you want."

[hellfollowedafter]

"Alright." Dancy isn't fool enough to turn down bacon, even in Hell. "Ice tea's real nice. You brew it slow, in glass jugs in the sun, drink it cold and sweet. Where I'm from, it's real hot, so."

She's babbling.

[14thcommander]

As she babbles, Hange steps back and graciously gestures her in.

Her front room is also her lab and it's a... busy place. One wall is bare, with splashes of paint on it suggesting papers were stuck up there to be worked on; the ceiling is whitewashed and slanted, but beams are exposed, and up among them hangs a mountain bike and a pair of skis. In the corner there's a woodstove and kettle, and a couple of armchairs kittycorner to that, with a little table between them. The rest of the room is dominated with long tables built on tops of cupboards. The back wall is all windows and the table under that has a glass nudibranch prominently displayed, a mint plant that appears to be riotously happy judging by its growth, and a giant globe of... faces. They are clay masks. The other tables are mostly bare, though some boast microscopes or various pieces of glassware left out to dry - beakers, pipettes, and what have you. The wall with the door it in, that they've just come through, has cupboards on the lower part and then is lined with bookshelves, and of course Jedao's gorgeous certificate awarding Hange a D- in interrogation skills is displayed next to the door.

"Go ahead, sit down! Or, uh, look around if you like, but don't jostle my glassware." Hange gestures vaguely towards the armchairs and wanders off to get teacups, which doesn't require her to leave the room.

[hellfollowedafter]

She slouches in, not sure how out of place to feel. It's not the kind of clean, minimalist place that would have her worried about getting chased out right away, and the wood stove almost reminds her off home. But it's still strange, still someone else's space, full of things that certainly aren't for her. She doesn't try to touch anything, although she's drawn to the glass nudibranch, the strange bright loveliness of it.

"No, ma'am," she promises.

[14thcommander]

Hange considers, then takes a quick side trip into her kitchen area and grabs some plates, a pan, enough bacon, and a couple teacups as well. Then she circles back to the main room, where after manipulations a burner flares to life. She'll cook out here, since she doesn't want to leave her unknown factor guest unattended.

"Tris made me that! Do you know what it is? It's a nudibranch, they're little seabound invertebrates, like slugs but more colorful. They really do have fronds like that. The wires mimic internal veining."

[hellfollowedafter]

She shakes her head.

"I never saw anything like that." Unless you count the thing in Bainbridge, the not-a-woman with bright yellow tentacles where her chest should have been.

[14thcommander]

"Not too surprising. They live under the sea, which is not a place where most humans spend a whole lot of time!"

And there's a little assumption in there, but she'll leave it up to Dancy to argue, or not. Otherwise Hange chases a strip of bacon around the pan with a fork, and pushes both tea cups across the table in Dancy's general direction.

"Help yourself to tea. Pour me a cup too while you're at it."

[hellfollowedafter]

One time after a hurricane, I found an octopus thirty feet up in a tree. Stank like anything.

[It'd been pretty cool, though. She pours both cups over-carefully, not sure if there's a special way to do it, if she's even holding the teapot right.]

[14thcommander]

Hange says nothing, a likely indication that Dancy's method of tea-pouring is fine.

"A hurricane! We don't get those. It's a whirlwind, isn't it? An enormous and destructive whirlwind. Help yourself to sugar."

[hellfollowedafter]

"And raining fit to flood the chimneys, all going sideways," she adds, nodding, hesitating for just a few seconds before she gives herself a big spoonful of sugar in her tea.

[14thcommander]

Mostly muddling the bacon around, Hange extends her hand and makes a grabby gesture at Dancy. Bring the tea over plsssss.

"An octopus thirty feet in a tree. Dead, I presume? Poor critter, that must be quite a way to go when you're used to swooshing around in the corals and sea grass... want some bread, kiddo?"

[hellfollowedafter]

She duly passes Hange the tea.

"Yeah. Birds got to it not long after, so at least somebody had a good day."

[14thcommander]

"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!"

Why Hange finds that so funny has to remain a mystery. She sucks down her tea and points towards a door.

"Kitchen's in there. Bread is, uhh, it's under a cover on the counter, go grab some slices! We can set the Enclosure to any time of day, so early-morning scavenging is not a problem to arrange."

[hellfollowedafter]

"I guess it's not even really morning," she muses, trying not to feel unmoored. It's all the maze. She gets the bread.

[14thcommander]

"It is not! Time is an illusion." Hange hangs out with Bill too much. She whips greasy, fatty, delicious slices of bacon out onto a handy plate, and slaps in the slices of bread to fry in the grease.

"I'm very excited to build a still, by the way! Self-sufficiency is a great ideal. Including for booze."

[hellfollowedafter]

"I don't drink much and all. My gran would have rapped my knuckles. But it's handy for cuts and such."

[14thcommander]

It doesn't take long to finish off their breakfast: just a nice light crispy frying, yum yum.

"Hehehehe."

Drinking age? We hardly know her!

"Weeeeeeell, it's good not to get too deep into the sauce in general. When I was around your age I drank when I could get it though! How old are you anyway?"

[hellfollowedafter]

"Seventeen." Although she was fourteen when her grandmother was eaten. And gran was stricter on her after her ma ran off at fifteen and got knocked up with Dancy, more than likely; the Flammarions never gave too many shits about the law.

[14thcommander]

"Old enough for a sniff if you want it!"

But Hange won't push it either. She likes to drink and can hit the bottle a little too hard given the chance, but it's irresponsible, in a sense, for a soldier to let their body go to total ruin so... she does take care.

The bread just needs a touch more, and then Hange flips it out too, lightly browned and greasy on both sides. She comes over and joins Dancy at the table.

"Moonshiners at home could do good business. High quality swill is what everybody likes, of course, but can everybody afford it? Of course not! And when you make do, you know..."

[hellfollowedafter]

"Yeah, we sold ours mostly. Especially after my uncles went to the big house." Both because the men didn't drink as much of it, and because they needed the money more without them.