Tactical Symposium and Gala (Levantine Sanctum/Academy or PM for invite)

[Micah Talith]

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

Well this was something he was well used to. Being dragged about by a girl -- granted, it was normally his sisters who did the sudden grab, tug, and pull.

In this instance, he wasn't about to argue! Nope!

They both came to a stop at the Gala Hall, surrounded by cadets that yes, were decidedly a bit more friendly, and yes he had an hankering that it was more due to the punch that was currently being imbibed with gluttonous glee.

At the mention of losing their Gorog tail, Micah gave a parting glance behind him. "Well here's to quick reflexes." he'd breathe out, although he had lost his nuts in the transition.

Welp, his head went swiveling over towards the swashbuckling girl. An eyebrow went quirking up. He had not missed how said adult with the bushy eyebrows had suddenly slowed.

"Who's the the one that was fixating that glower?" he'd ask --- right before he went to try and take one of the Rodian dumplings from her plate. It wasn't with the intention to be rude, just something he was well used to with his family.

Everyone did it. His mum was the worst culprit of them all!

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Micah Talith"]

"That was Captain Dukka - she teaches engineering. Not eyebrow engineering, clearly. Oy." She snatched the plate away, but too late. "Get your own, grubbyfingers. They're right there by the debutantes."

She gestured vaguely in the direction of Laekia's social butterflies, all coiffed to within an inch of their airheaded lives. On the assumption that the orange-eyed kid would spend at least a few seconds drooling over shimmersilk and shapely older girls, she glanced around for opportunities and found a nearby drink table. Not the one she'd spiked, but good enough. An ice cube levitated behind the kid and zipped toward the back of his collar.

 

[Thessa Kai]

[member="Judah Dashiell"]

She finished the carrot, putting it out of its misery and studied her husband silently for a few long moments. "It is strange. I don't trust her. But I trust you. If you think it's okay....I'm willing to put my trust in you."

She pushed off from the wall.

"I just don't want our son getting a big head, either. And I would like to meet her, eventually."

 

[Judah Dashiell]

[member="Thessa Kai"]



I don't want our son getting a big head,either.



Thessa's words had echoed his own. Half a galaxy away he had said the same words, thought on the same issue. It only solidified the feeling that his instinct had been right in the first place. Credits and their associated problems were not something he was willing to bring into their family. Already he had seen what it had wrought on others.


"The company is near bankrupt right now, its going to take a bit to drag it out from the depths. Lets say it actually does pull a profit in time. We can set up an account separate from his education fund and place all earnings in there....maybe with a condition he can't access the credits til he's twenty-five or so, contingent on having a university education as well."


Judah never had the chance to go to school, his family was too poor. Thessa hadn't advanced past the Flight Academy. While they could be considered intelligent in their own right, it wasn't the same as having a real university schooling behind their name. Things would be different for Makai.


Sliding an arm around his wife, Judah pulled her close. Frown graced his features at the aristocratic children and the handful behaving badly. Concern crept into the back of his mind once again.


"Do you ever think about just....abandoning.....our life sometimes? Give up the company, stash away the credits. Live more normally. Does that make sense or am I sounding foolish again?"

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] would be slightly disappointed -- it wasn't the shapely shimmer silk tittering girls the Talith was interested in. Nope. It was the buffet table for the food.

He'd started enthusiastically chewing on the pilfered sweetmeat, having sauntered his lanky self on over to the nearest banquet table when he felt something decidedly cold and wet slide down the back of his collar

That is when the most comical displays of half dance half wiggling came to play, his hand rushing to his back and trying to get that ice cube out.

"The heck!" he'd mutter with notable annoyance, ignorant of the curious and half amused stares he was now getting from the nearest cadets. A giggle came from the right, low murmurs from the left.

His fingers would curl and catch the cube of ice, wet and now cool fingers holding the small ice cube he had plucked just prior to sliding down his back.

He glowered, then instantly began scanning the room, looking for the perpetrator.

Oh no you didn't.

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Micah Talith"]

"Hi."

Suddenly, there was a girl.

She held up a little hardcase, not unlike herself (or the kind of container you'd use to carry around contact lenses).

"You're a little too conspicuous to join my crew. Gotta do something about those eyes of yours." Orange? Bright orange? Some people's cosmetic choices just baffled her. Her eyes were brown. Like her hair, her clothes, her outlook, the crap she lived to disturb, and, for that matter, her mom. Brown was good enough. Who needed orange?

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo didn’t like it. There was too many people and he’d been forced to wear a stuffy suit. He couldn’t even photosynthesize. A frown crossed his face as he looked around. [member="Emerald Sage"] has asked him to join the Academy and this was supposed to be his opportunity to see if he’d like the place. He did not. Nothing about this place appealed to him. And there was so many people, and he didn’t know any of them, worse yet most of them were older and made him feel awkward spending time with.

Standing away from the crowd Hylo observed. A real wallflower if there was any. His stomach growled, and hunger overwhelmed his shy nature. Hylo walked across the room, externally the picture of confidence, but internationally he was trembling. He just wanted to be alone in his garden.

His sister had wanted him to meet new people, maybe even get a few friends… and this was his opportunity. Along the buffet table sat two youths around his own age. Taking a deep breath Hylo walked over to the two, a smile on his face. New friends? He didn’t really have any friends. “Hello…” Hylo said unsure of exactly what to say. Anxiety got the best of him and suddenly his pheromones popped. His face grew red with embarrassment as he stared between the girl and boy. “My name is Hylocereus but everyone just calls me Hylo.”

He smiled to [member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] before turning to [member="Micah Talith"]. “May I say you’re both very pretty…” That is what humans did right? Complimented each other on their looks. His eye twitched as he sought to control the pheromone reaction, replacing attraction pheromones with simple calming and soothing ones meant to ingratiate himself with others. Good, at least there wouldn’t be the repeat of the incident with [member="Kana Truden"]. It was a shame she was too immature for a romantic relationship. “Are you going to attend the Academy?” Stupid question, but it was a start.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] [member="Hylocereus"]

The klaxons started to wail in Micah's head then. There was something in that gleam in her eyes that set his own to narrow further. Bright orange eyes went from the box, to Mara, then back to the box again.

"What do you mean do something with my eyes?" he found himself leaning back a bit, not trusting the way the Short Stack was getting closer. "Wait, what crew?" Unfortunately, that was also when another boy joined the fray.

His attention would swivel from Mara over to the new arrival who introduced himself as Hylo, drawing his focus from the would be space urchin with a flare for a flick of her wrist.

"...what pretty?" Micah would give him a confused expression. Now that was a first.

 

[Hylocereus]

Oh no, he said something wrong. Hylo instinctively pulled at his collar. He wanted his bare flesh to feel the light, photosynthesis. That wasn’t acceptable though, this was polite society. “I uh,” quickly his mind raced through various thoughts. He had said something wrong. Pheromones popped sending scents into the air. What would his mother do? Okay that was a bad question to ask. What about Emerald? He thought about his sister for a moment. Damn, she’d probably do the same thing as his mother. Okay that makes sense, he could do it. It almost worked on [member="Kana Truden"], so he could make it work here.

Hylo put a hand into his pocket and felt the little packet in it. He always carried his seeds with him, it is how he felt comfortable. He took two out and concentrated on the force and watched as a flower bloomed in each hand. One was orange and the other blue. As the flowers in his hand grew so did another single white flower which bloomed slowly from his hair. How embarrassing, to be budding in public! Boys weren’t supposed to flower. Internally he was terrified but he managed to put on a brave and charming little smile before handing [member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] the pretty blue flower. “For you,” he said, “for a pretty girl.”

Then he turned and looked at [member="Micah Talith"] extending his hand and focusing his mental control, “And for a very pretty boy,” he said.”Orange like your eyes,” he leaned in close to the other boy now. He’d seen his sister do it a hundred times. his face blushed green with chlorophyll.

 

[Captain Larraq]

-Meanwhile, Larraq sipped his coffee and pretended to be important.-

 

[Thessa Kai]

[member="Judah Dashiell"]

She relaxed in his arm, leaning into her husband. If any other man tried that, they'd get a cracked-nose or shot. Shorn would know.

"I do," she said quietly. "And you're not," a slight upward curve of her lips, "sounding that foolish. But do we even know what normal looks like? I don't know if giving up the company is the answer but you know I'd follow you and support you with what you want to do. What's making you think about all this now? You love that company."

 

[Judah Dashiell]

[member="Thessa Kai"] had some great points. Judah had to hand it to her, most of the time she was the clear voice of reason between the two of them. Life wasn't exactly normal before everything. There was a small shrug of his shoulders as Judah slowly started to lead her away from the Gala. They weren't exactly Gala type people -- unless it came to the planet of course.


"I don't know. Maybe I'm hitting my old desert hermit phase early in life."


Judah grinned at his own observation.



"We'll figure it out. Until then, lets leave the Gala. We're not quite party people. Are you speaking at the Symposium? Maybe I should have. 'How to properly wax an X-Wing'. I swear I can still smell that stuff on my hands."

 

[Kyrana Gould]

Whilst [member="Judah Dashiell"] was being henpecked by [member="Thessa Kai"] and awkward teen romance between [member="Micah Talith"] and [member="Mara"] D’Lessio Merrill, the Admiral sat in his chair and sipped at his water.

He was blissfully unaware of [member="Captain Larraq"]’s longwinded and often inaccurate thoughts, probably for the best.

“Shall we move on, Captain [member="Jorus Merrill"]?”

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Hylocereus"]

Uh...wut?

One minute she was about to introduce Micah to a really cool solution to his orange eye conspicuousness problem -- hold still while I put these Sithspawn in your eyes, I know exactly what I'm doing -- and the next there was, suddenly, a boy. Sort of a twink, if she remembered the term correctly. And he was giving her a blue flower and filling the air with pheromones. Not pheromones like hers, either; she just recognized their effects and a hint of the scent. Or maybe that was just the flower.

"Uh...wut?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Friedrich Stahlmann"]

"I think that'd be best." The other panelists and contributors, it seemed, would need a kick in the pants, along with the audience. Well, he could pants-kick with the best of'em...especially as he'd just watched his daughter drag a boy into the ballroom. He was in a pants-kicking sort of mood.

[member="Popo"] [member="Captain Larraq"] [member="Anija Ordo"] [member="Camellia Swift"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Jorus coughed and leaned closer to the voice pickup. Part of him very much wanted to say tell me the best starship manufacturer in the galaxy, but he wasn't that cruel. "One topic that we've touched on, that I'd like to examine more closely, is the role of escorts. Let's use Admiral Stahlmann's terminology for the moment, though I think there's some debate over that -- let's talk about starships at or under one thousand metres. Apart from disproportionate brawlers like Dark Blades, open question to the panel and the guests: do you feel modern naval doctrines and fleet composition give enough emphasis to escorts? Do you feel there's a disconnect between how different navies view the role of escorts? Are the great powers' design teams...talking past each other, metaphorically, by designing their escorts for different purposes?"

 

[Hylocereus]

And then the girl spoke. Was that how people were supposed to react? That wasn’t how they reacted to mother. Still that was probably a good thing. Turning Hylo merely smiled at the girl staring into her eyes with his own ocean green ones. “Is it so hard to believe I think you’re pretty?” With a step he shuffled from Micah to Mara his eyes remaining locked with hers. All women, all girls, were pretty in their own way. That is what his mother and sister both taught him. Surely both couldn’t be wrong. A hand extended from his arm and came to rest on Mara’s cheek as Hylo turned his other did likewise to Micah. “Let’s start over should we?” he asked. Leaning he approached closely to Mara and let his lips fall onto hers his eyes never losing contact with hers. “My name is Hylo,” and then he shifted over and let another kiss land on that of Micah, “Can’t we be friends?”


[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

Quick is quick.

And Micah never moved as fast as he did then. His hand immediately came up as a fleshy barrier between his lips and Hylo's; he had had the forewarning from whatever he attempted with Mara.

"Whoa there!" Came the startled cry, taking a step back with a rather confused expression on his angular face.

"Not that close bud!" He's add, not quite sure what to make of him.

"Nice flower but let's keep to the personal bubble boundaries, Kay?"

At least he still had his virgin lips!

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

GALA HALL​

NEAR THE FOOD​

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Hylocereus"]

Blink.

Mara caught up with the situation -- foreign pheromones tickling her Zeltron nose, audacity, boundaries, Micah's reaction, indignation, appeal, shock -- around the time Micah stopped talking. And maybe thirty seconds after the blonde kid kissed her. She strongly considered running, but who ran in the face of a blush? She also considered slapping him, but her empathic senses suggested that it would be like slapping a puppy. Same went for yelling. So in the end, the only option she had left was...

"Uhm...sure, we can be...friends. I'm Mara, and this is Grubbyfingers, also known as Orange for obvious reasons, also known as, uh, whatever he's known as." Her burst of conversational momentum faded as quickly as it had arrived.

 

[Anija Betna]

Etti IV
Levantine Academy
Defense Conference Center

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Friedrich Stahlmann"] [member="Captain Larraq"] [member="Arrbi Betna"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Popo"]

Anija had sat listening to the discussions.. well dissertations... for lack of a better word from both Stahlmann and Popo. She'd found t he topic of discussion quite interesting of course, but Stahlmann had talked for quite some time,and now she was restless. With a shrug, she got up from her seat and wandered towards the food table that was off to one side. When she got there, she took several minutes to peruse the offerings before swiping a few that looked interesting.

And then an idea struck her, piggybacking on her earlier train of thought. She'd noticed some of the guests acting a bit tipsy, and noticed that many of them had glasses of punch. A devious smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, then. There was one thing to be said about the LAA uniform. It had a lot of pockets. Her left hand slipped down into the corresponding pocket, and she grinned. And then promptly turned on her heel and headed to the kitchen, giving [member="Captain Larraq"] a rather pointed glance after Jorus' question.

It would make what she was about to do all that more interesting. Slipping into the kitchen, Anija made her way towards the industrial caff pots which were brewing fresh caff and behot. Before she did anything, she served herself a fresh cup and sipped at it. Into the reservoir of each, she tipped a liberal amount of tihaar from the flask which she'd hidden in a pocket. With that, done, she slipped the now half-empty flask back into it's hiding place, but not before taking a healthy swig.

Now, she waited. It didn't take long for the pot to finish brewing, and Anija grinned to herself as she poured several cup of the steaming liquid and placed each onto a tray, along with one cup of hot behot for Jorus Merill. She hoped that he wouldn't be mad, but she just wanted to have a little fun. When the tray was full, she passed it off to a cadet, with explicit instructions that the blue mug was to go only to Jorus himself. The rest of the mugs held caff, which were to be passed to the rest of the panelists. She watched as the cadet nodded and dutifully headed towards the panelists' table, bending to place a drink near each person. The blue mug did indeed go to Jorus.

 

[Hylocereus]

“I think his eyes are pretty…” Hylo said in a suddenly dejected voice. Looking at his feet there was but one word to describe him, sullen. Yes, that was the word to describe the youth as his kiss was rejected by Micah. “We’re all friends though right? I’ve never really had any friends before.” then he thought about it. “Well not really anyways, Ashin Vararin but she’s family not a friend… and Sasha Santhe, she's here, she is my sisters employer and we kissed once.”

Then he turned and looked between the two of them. “I always thought a kiss was a fine hello.” He shrugged and looked over at the food. “Did you guys get dragged off here to learn as well? Sister said it would be good for me, to get out and meet people my own age.” Suddenly his mood changed completely a happy smile overtaking his features. "I think I'll like getting to know people my own age. How old are you anyways? I'm twenty-four," he said with a few nods taking a bite from some strange ball like food item.


[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]