Participants:
| Scene Title | Purr |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Remi and Silas hire some engineering help. |
| Date | April 28, 2019 |
Bay Ridge Pier - Novelle Vue
Soft spring rains fall upon the New York Safe Zone today, bringing with it blooming life — and that wonderful springtime rain smell. The soft patter of raindrops makes for a rather peaceful but somber setting, especially on the abandoned Bay Ridge Pier, with the lone red supply ship moored to it.
The deck of the Novelle Vue is not what it once was. Work has been done, the bones of a large structure are coming along nicely along the once flat storage deck of the offshore tug and supply ship. However, today is a Sunday, so walking onto the massive ship parked at the otherwise empty pier is a bit like walking into a ghost town, despite the scent of fresh wet lumber that permeates the area.
Soleil Davignon, or “Amelie Laurent”, as she is known to anyone who wasn’t there for her arrival, is under the cover offered by the upper level of the command deck, leaning against the railing and enjoying a nice glass of bourbon on the rocks; today is a much quieter day for the business she’s up to, since it doesn’t have too much to do with the ongoing construction. By the woman’s side is a folded umbrella, just in case she has to deign to go out into the rain.
In her own strange way, the woman, dressed nicely in a dark maroon tank top with a fuzzy dark grey sweater, black leggings, and boots, looks completely out of place here — while simultaneously looking this is exactly where she belongs.
Wind stirs up raven locks into a lazy dance over a leather clad shoulder despite the droplets of rain that cling to tresses and garments alike. Devi lingers at a railing, considering the bay beyond from over the rim of rainbow-colored aviators that have gone and slide down the length of her nose. Neither what she finds out at sea, or there upon the very deck of the ship, stir any reaction in her chiseled, alabaster and tattooed features. An electric blue fingernail pushes the aviators up, covering her dark eyes. Her tongue passes over soft, cerulean lips before she takes a deep breath and turns away.
One hand remains outstretched for support - a railing, a wall, whatever is nearby - as she manages her way to the upper levels as previously instructed. By the time she steps in front of the Captain-ness, her other hand comes to rest on her stomach and she gives an low, unamused groan by way of greeting. A figure of black leather, black locks, and hints of sea-blue accent, the woman cuts an tall and impressive figure … if it wasn’t for being a bit green around the ‘gills’.
“And you’re going to want people to eat on this oversized bouye?” Devi asks as way of greeting.
The redheaded woman can’t help the slightly amused look on her face as she watches the woman make her way up to her — it’s strange to her, sometimes, that not everyone is used to the water, and some people don’t have sea legs even on a moored ship. As Devi nears her, Remi raises her brows slightly, lifting the glass and taking a small sip of her bourbon.
“If you think this is bad,” Remi replies, raising her liquor in greeting, “then you should probably avoid any boat smaller than this one.” She smiles faintly. “The Novelle Vue is about the steadiest ship I’ve ever been on.” She turns, looking briefly over the quiet construction site, before turning her attention back to Devi. “And Silas’ cooking is delicious enough to make most people forget about any lingering seasickness.”
If Devi is at all familiar with the company that employs her, the woman looks strikingly like the late Remi Davignon who died nearly a year ago.
“Amelie Laurent,” she murmurs, a charming smile on her face as she offers the hand that is not holding her alcohol out for a handshake. “I assume you’re Devi Ezell, otherwise you wouldn’t be on my ship.”
The clank of footfalls on steps is audible from the steps behind Devi as Amelie is finishing speaking; someone, clearly, is coming up. "I heard someone talking food!" a jovial voice proclaims.
The top of a black umbrella is visible first; it isn't until he reaches the upper deck and gets out of the rain that the man carrying it folds and lowers it, revealing himself.
Silas is wearing a white button up shirt, black jeans, a grey longcoat, and his best and brightest grin; it makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. He offers a nod first to Remi, then to the newcomer, his eyes studying her carefully. "Silas Dantes," he says, extending his own hand.
There’s a couple hands coming her way and not one of them is offering her alcohol. Why does she do these thi- Oh, right, Toot’s asked her to take on a couple of new “responsibilities”. Externally, Devi’s brief stare at the offered hands is broken and she puts a firm shake out for first to Amelia and then Silas. “Devi, yeah,” she repeats, mostly for the newly arrived Silas’s benefit.
Another quick once-over is turned to their surroundings, the expanses of the boat deck stretching out below. “It’s like I’m moving but I’m not…” The phrase is some middle ground between stoner epiphany and queasy observation. Clearing her throat she looks back to the duo. “Interesting concept here. What can I do you for?” Raytech send a big long email detailing her purpose, but honestly she read something about a day out of the office, overtime pay, and an address. So, tah-dah! Granted, she thought it was more of a beach-thing than a boat-thing.
“It can help to look out at the horizon, stabilizes your equilibrium,” Amelie points out, unable to help the mildly amused look on her face. It’s been so long since she encountered seasickness prior to coming out here that it is a bit off putting when it does come up. “Also, clean your ears, and drink cola while you’re below decks, it can help a bit.”
She smiles over to Silas as he makes an appearance. “I was just talking up your cooking,” she points out, chuckling. “Your fried chicken saved my life once.” A bit of an elaboration, but it’s at least partially true — fried chicken in the middle of the night after the ordeal they both went through will forever be a fond memory.
Then, her attention is back to Devi and the matter at hand. With a gesture to follow, the woman leads the way into a conference room overlooking the port bow, a view of the Manhattan Exclusion Zone looming out of the side window. Within there is a fancy-looking glass drinking set, one of the glasses missing. The woman makes her way over and lifts the glass, refilling her own drink.
“Well, this ship is a good deal more complicated than anything that Silas and I have previously encountered,” she explains. “Bourbon?” She pours one for Silas without asking. “We need someone who can figure out the complicated nature of our girl here, help us figure it out, and possibly improve it to increase our efficiency. Raytech recommended you.”
Good handshake; strong grip, but not crushing; definite calluses on her hand. Good signs. Seasickness — onboard this behemoth, at that — maybe not so much, but everyone's gotta start somewhere. Silas offers a nod. "Pleased to meetcha," he says quietly.
Her observations on seasickness bring a note of amusement to Silas's smile. Yep. Definitely a landlubber. I mean… everyone here is, compared to the likes of us, but… He puts that thought aside. Remi's got good advice, at least. She'll get the hang of it, or she won't, he thinks. He grins a bit at Remi's praise for his cooking — he's always had a soft spot for affectionately told whoppers. As Remi leads the way into the conference room, Silas brings up the rear, closing the door quietly behind them.
He nods gratefully as Remi pours him a bourbon, taking it in hand. "Right. I've served as chief engineer on a boat before, but never on anything this big. Honestly… most of my 'engineering background' comes down to learning how to jury rig repairs in shithole apartments, bootleg cable, that sorta thing; I know how to keep a boat afloat, but… I'm hoping you can do a bit better than that," he says, giving Devi a rueful grin. His expression turns serious as he continues, though. "I'm hoping to take more of a backseat role on the engineering part of things going forward, both so I can learn more about how to do this kinda thing right before I have to do it in a crisis… and so I can focus more on the cooking end of things. I like to think I'm pretty good at it," he says, grinning again as he raises his bourbon.
Devi raises a brow and tips her head, jamming her pinky finger into one of her ears. “My ears are clean,” she says defensively, her naturally husky tone just barely keeping it from sounding a whine.
Silas’s assessment very much has the right of it - everything about Devi’s person screams ’Give me wheels!’ The biker follows after Amelie and gives a single thumb-up when offered a drink. She remains quiet, an easy task for a woman primarily of few words, as the boat-team describe her reason for being here…. now… on a friggin’ boat. Whomever at Raytech ‘suggested’ her for this project is going to get a boot up the ass - a nice, polished, sparkly one - size nine. Kinda exactly like the ones on Devi’s feet now! Funny how that works!
Finally, “I’ve never worked on a boat.” Blink. “Er, ship.” It’s given the same tonality of the good old ‘whatever’. With a pause she looks back to Amelia with a raised brow. “But, that just makes it a bit more interesting now, doesn’t it?” She’s tested her ability on motorcycles, cars, watches, war tanks, and anything-everything at Raytech, but never a boat. She takes in Silas from the corner of her dark eyes, smile canting further into a mischievous smirk. “You let me try some of this life-saving fried chicken, and I may be persuaded to help out around this floating coffin.” Some feel that way about planes. For Devi, it’s boats.
Another glass is poured out for Devi and offered to the taller woman, a smile on her face. “It is an entirely different experience from other forms of transportation.” Once the liquor is handed off, she lifts her own glass and takes a smallish sip, watching Devi and Silas thoughtfully. “Once you get used to it, the sway is actually rather comforting.” Some of the construction crew would disagree — plenty of vomit has been put into New York Bay since construction started. But they aren’t here to protest, thankfully.
“You won’t find better,” she adds to her compliment of Silas’ life-saving fried chicken, an amused smile on her face. “He makes other delicious food, as well, of course. I look forward to whatever he makes for our opening night,” she grins, tipping her head toward the man.
“In any case, we’d both love to learn on top of whatever improvements you can make to her — I’m sure you don’t want to be on call for issues we may have.” She tilts her head toward the woman. “We have an electrician who we’ve been working with — we’re doing our best to put in a system that will help power our theater without the gas guzzling ship’s engine, while also being hooked in to reliably power our ship in the case of technical issues.” She sips her drink. “This is theater, and lighting and sound are quite important. Acoustics design can only go so far, and you can’t have a show without lights.”
Silas grins at Devi, draining his bourbon. "Deal," he says with a grin. "Though with all the hype Amelie's throwing, I dunno if the reality can measure up!" he chuckles.
He grows more serious as Amelie details the work they want done, giving Devi a faintly rueful look; this is not going to be a small undertaking. "One of the reasons we went for a boat was so that we wouldn't be tied to the Safe Zone's power grid," he admits. "The whole draw of this place is gonna be dinner and a show. A power outage in the middle of a show'd be bad for business… and that's without even going into how it'd delay food orders," he says, shaking his head.
Once Devi's tattooed fingers find the familiar contours of a glass of booze, she relaxes considerably. One sip, then two, start a road to better ignoring the slight, subtle shifting of one's center mass gently moved by waters far below. The biker grins at Amelie. "Get used to it… As much as I'd rather take your word for it, sound like I'm going to have to put it to the test."
Devi adjusts her grip on the glass and looks down in the dark liquid inside. "I ain't a teacher," she explains. "Most what I'll be able to do is…" Her cerulean lips twitch up in a shadow of a sneer. "…cheating." She ripple moves across her top lip as runs her tongue over her teeth, considering. Her ability doesn't come with little terms and tables, it's not a manual so much as an unlabeled schematic of what is and what could be. Even then, the ideas of what could be created from what's present are dramatically influenced by what Devi has been able to observe with her ability in the past and warp with her imagination. Want your ship to transform into an amphibious tank complete with flamethrowers? She could do that.
She clears her throat after a moment and soothes her self-wounded ego with a deep draught of bourbon. "But, I suppose I can do some research and translate what I'm able to learn ta something semi-educational." That will be the hardest challenge of this assignment. The biker lifts her gaze back to the pair and inclines her chin, idly scratching her nails along the raven tattoo on her throat. "I can't help your electrician none, but when I'm done this thicc bitch will purr." She taps the toe of her boot down on the boat floor and gives a confident nod paired with an ambiguous smirk in Amelie’s and Silas’s direction.
“Well deserved hype.” Amelie could just have a soft spot for Silas and his cooking, but she likes to think that after the life that she’s lived, she knows good cooking when she sees it. A smile is flashed to Silas, before her attention turns back to Devi as she settles into one of the seats at the table.
The tattooed woman’s answer seems satisfactory to the redhead, whose head bobs gently in agreement. “Cheating is fine,” she replies with a small smile on her face. “I’m quite okay with the idea so long as it is beneficial, so you’re in good company.” A glance is cast toward Silas as Amelie lifts the glass, taking a small sip of the iced liquor within.
“I look forward to working with you, Miss Ezell.” She flashes a bright smile toward the other woman.
Oh god, she's gonna know exactly how awful my kludgework is, Silas thinks to himself… but he's grinning despite that. If she can see his kludgework for how bad it is, then maybe she'll be able to make an actual honest mechanic out of him. Promising! 'Thicc bitch' is… not how he'd ever refer to a boat, but maybe that's how they talk in this timeline? It seems affectionate, at least. He may learn some actual engineering here, but he doubts he'll ever be able to pick that up… but that's okay. He didn't share a lot of Mad Eve's vices, either, but he still managed to keep her boat afloat.
"Oh believe me. I'm fine with cheating," he says drily. "Looking forward to seeing what you do with her," he says, stealthily refilling his bourbon, then raising it another toast. "And, uh… I'll try not to ask too many dumb questions," he says with a grin; he knows well enough that having to explain what you're doing is an annoyance, so he hopes to at least be able to make that part of things easier.
"So. How and when do you want to get started? I think we've got some schematics around here somewhere, or we can go belowdecks and start lookin' around, whenever you're ready."
Devi observes the boat She-ruler, or whatever the nautical equivalent term aught to be, over the lip of her glass. Her painted lips form up a smile before molding to the brim and tipping back the last of the bourbon therein. Glass aside, she inclines her chin the other woman's way. "I'll remind you this was your idea and that you were looking forward to it in a few days." She winks.
Now the ex-Raven Queen turns to consider Silas with a tilt of her head, dark eyes only heavy because of they way they reflect Silas's nervous thoughts back at him without any actual care or concern emanating on Devi's part. When he finishes she slowly closes her eyes, head still canted with a few errant, silky locks of darkness resting against her cheek. "We can go below decks-… " Her lips curl up on the right. "-…and start lookin' round?" Her smirk deepens to a deviously sweet and impish quality. She opens one eye as if the blinding by the brilliant naughty ambiguity that glimmers off that entire statement. "This shit is just going to write itself," she says with a nod. "I think I'm going to like it 'round here after all." She straightens her head and grins with unabashed amusement at the seaworthy duo…
"Alright then, let's go down and see what comes up."
The ex-telepath can’t help but smirk at the woman, watching her thoughtfully at the word play. After a moment, she drains the last of her glass, before raising to her feet, smoothing her shirt out slightly. “I doubt I’ll need the reminder,” she replies, chuckling softly.
While she is rather cool and calm on the outside, inwardly she finds herself liking this woman quite a bit. “We’ll go down, yes,” she replies with a small chortle, slipping past Devi and making her way to the door.
Silas is probably used to Remi flirting with just about everyone at this point — she’s always been this way, even when Jasper was around, so this is nothing new. To be fair, Devi started it! The redhead stands briefly at the door, smirking between Devi and Silas in turn, before slipping out to lead the way down into the engine room.
Silas lets out a dry chuckle, eying Devi with some amusement… and possibly a bit of speculation, as well. "Heh heh," he chuckles, low and earthy. "I like you already." He snerks a bit as Amelie gets in on the action, too, striding after her and catching the door for Devi. He gives a backward look and a grin as he waits for her. "Your tour awaits."