[ She does, in fact, care about her safety, so she will accept that answer. His tap on her helmet confirms that the fit is snug, and she smiles brightly at him. ]
Actually, the control mechanisms aren't as foreign as I thought they would be. A couple extra levers compared to what I'm used to, but I've already looked them up.
[ Being able to drive manual, as they do in Japan California, is finally paying off. Also, she reaches out to adjust her glasses on Eustace's head so that they're nice and level. Do not sport those chic scientific shades in such a sloppy manner, sir. ]
I figure it's do or die, scientifically speaking. Unless you'd like to give me that demonstration after all?
[ He frowns a little as her hands boldly invade his personal space once again, but holds still as she readjusts the glasses on his head. ]
It's all yours.
[ Sometimes you just gotta drop a person in the deep end and let them figure things out on their own. Nothing like good old-fashioned practical hands-on (and life-threatening) experience to really drill the basics into a person. That doesn't stop him from peering into the cockpit one more time, assessing her positioning - fine - and the placement of her hands and feet against all levers and pedals - also fine.
Is he still worried? A little bit, but presumably Ema is practical enough not to immediately jam her foot down on the gas pedal and zoom halfway across the island before he can even blink. ]
Whenever you're ready.
[ He will just...step aside a few feet so he doesn't get caught in the crossfire. ]
[ They're her glasses and she can do what she wants with them?? They just happen to be on him at the moment.
Anyway, since he is set on remaining hands-off on anything even remotely fun, it's time to fake it 'til she makes it. She mutters vaguely to herself as she reviews the layout of the cockpit, tagging each knob and lever with her fingers as she names it. If it seems like she's being a little neurotic about this it's because, again, she could feasibly die, and she is not exactly famous for her hand-eye coordination. But hands-on experience is indeed the best teacher, and you know what, death is barely real around here anyway.
One last thing. Ema takes a moment to tip-tap at her bracelet and request an audio connection with Eustace. ]
I assume this thing doesn't have a black box, so you'll have to do.
[ While he's accepting/rejecting that, she slides her goggles on, revvs the engine up (??), and settles her hands and feet in the appropriate positions. It's been some time since she's driven anything, but it all still feels somewhat familiar — which is still odd, being that this is a plane from a different world, but she'll have time to think about coincidental engineering later.
The hearty, growling thrum of the engine is invigorating and, she has to admit, encouraging. She eases off the brake and into first gear (or whatever its equivalent would be), a triumphant smile cutting across her face when the speedship doesn't immediately stall and/or careen forward and eat shit, instead peacefully pulling out of its spot in the hangar. She drives for the exit and successfully does not run Eustace over as she makes her way to the runway (or whatever space serves as a runway, who even knows what the hangar's layout looks like).
She takes a lap, feeling out the speedship's controls and handling as well as she can while still grounded. When she's satisfied, she drives to the end of the runway, turns the plane around, and prepares for takeoff.
So, like, the only kind of aircraft Ema's been on is your commercial jumbo jet. You know, the kind that has to go a billion mph, scientifically speaking, before it can manage to get into the sky. With that in mind, she is not jamming her foot down on the gas pedal and zooming halfway across the island... but she is carefully applying her feet to the pedals so that she can shift up to the highest gear possible in the amount of runway provided.
The speedship, being a speedship, is very fast. But Ema being Ema, backing down is not an option. If anything, she leans into it, her focus sharpening to a fierce point. The speedship achieves alarming speed before she finally angles its nose upward and it rockets into the sky, narrowly avoiding becoming a bullet into the side of a building. And now she's zooming halfway across the island.
[ Ema can rest easy knowing that he does in fact accept her connection. Truthfully, it's mostly out of habit; there's something about all this that reminds him the last time he'd been near a speedship (for mission purposes, of course), his transceivers hooked up to Zeta and Beatrix in event of emergency.
Even the hum of the ship sounds familiar, lightly crackling through the bracelet speaker while also echoing through his ears. He's content to watch her as she slowly hovers her way through the rest of the hangar, following behind with one hand loosely gripping the glasses on her head and only stopping so he can stand at the open doorway and watch her take off, blurring into the distance and then into a dot that shoots into the sky.
After about ninety seconds of nothing but whooshing air - and no sign of metal and wood splintering against the ground or the nearest building - he thinks it's probably safe enough to pipe up. ]
[ If Ema's been silent for the past 90 seconds, it's because she's been living in white-knuckled hyperawareness, acutely conscious of the ground falling away and the bland gray expanse of the sky filling her vision so completely that she feels as good as blind. She dares not crane her head around to look at the earth below, so she glances at the various meters on the dashboard instead, carefully leveling the speedship out and downshifting so she can decrease the speed.
It seems like a sturdy vehicle, far from liable to fall apart at a single inept touch, but she still handles the controls gingerly. Nothing like being fatally high in the sky to make her appreciate the well-being of her vehicle.
When Eustace's calm voice pipes up, it's grounding, but also a little too calm for her to relate to at the moment. ]
I don't see how you're so calm about this. This is terrifying!
[ In fairness, he's calm about everything. (Except mass murder, apparently.) More importantly: ]
I'm not the one in the ship.
[ And he's trying very hard not to imagine what it would be like, because the thought of being jammed into that small cockpit (again) with not even a single railing between him and his new future career as a furry pancake on the ground is deeply unsettling. Hence why she is piloting the ship and not him.
Though, maybe she shouldn't be piloting it either based on her reaction. He squints up at the sky again and predictably sees nothing. ]
How fast are you going? Slow down if it's that terrifying.
[ Or simply stop flying the thing immediately and park it back in the hanger so a mysterious unnamed character can casually commit arson one day in the nebulous future. ]
She mutters vaguely about units of measurement, followed by the faint mechanical sounds of pedals pushed and levers shifted as she continues to decrease the speed of the ship anyway. That is, until the speedship begins to wobble ominously, at which point she kicks the speed back up, reaching some sort of stable flight speed.
Finally feeling like she's reached a safe (if still somewhat blistering) constant, she breathes a sigh of relief. It's fine, this is fine. ]
Okay. Everything's under control.
[ She chances a peek over the side of the cockpit. She isn't terribly high up. Enough to definitely die if she falls out, but she's starting to feel comfortable that she won't, barring some freak accident. ]
You said these ships are used for racing? What's the mortality rate in your average race?
[ Does he look like a walking encyclopedia? And about speedship racing, no less. ]
Not sure. Not high enough to get racing competitions shut down.
[ Then again, maybe that has more to do with the prize money that comes with winning the famed Platinum Sky Cup than the possible risk of gruesome death via speedship crash. Either way, he's never been interested enough to even think about signing up. His feet will stay firmly on the ground, thanks.
While she's off sailing across the sky, he takes the glasses off his head and holds them in front of his eyes, squinting through the lenses. Hmm. ]
The piloting itself should be fine. Most of the reported injuries come from various gadgets the racers attach to their ships.
[ He will not be elaborating on that unless prompted. ]
[ The lenses of her glasses make for less "pleasantly pink filter" and more "intense, everything is blood red now," but otherwise, they would seem to be fairly innocuous.
Ema peeks out ahead and finds that she's flying over dense forest. Is there anything interesting hidden beneath those lush canopies, she wonders...? But she doesn't wonder for too long, because the thick fog blanketing the horizon is rapidly approaching, and even she isn't headstrong enough to try to blast through it (without preparation). She steers the ship back around, tracing a wide circle back toward town. ]
[ Creepy. Disturbed by the sudden redness of everything, he carefully pops the glasses back onto the top of his head for safekeeping.
Ema sounds less panicked now, in any case. Probability of imminent death: decreasing by the second. Still, he loiters around the hanger, wanting to confirm for himself that she makes it back in one piece, regardless of how long it takes. ]
Something like that. Speedship races, at least the big ones, are as much a test of pilot skill as they are about how many dirty tricks you can pull on your opponents.
[ Another reason why he refuses to ever enter one. ]
Hmm. Not my kind of race, but I can see why it would pull in the ratings.
[ Real life M*rio K*rt in the sky... It's a miracle it doesn't become a slaughterhouse, but in a way, that's reassuring. It has to mean the speedships are built to take a beating.
By now, she feels relaxed enough to start steering around for the sake of it, weaving loosely and pulling up to a high enough altitude to get a scenic view of the city. She looks down at the motley collection of buildings they reluctantly call home, and having it all reduced to a tranquil blob with nothing but the wind and the ship's engine to fill her head puts her in a certain kind of mood. She makes out the vague shape of the hangar and wonders if Eustace is still standing around there, looking up at her. Then again, she wouldn't be overly surprised if he'd already decided to leave. ]
It isn't so bad up here, actually. It's peaceful. Lots of space to clear the head.
[ Things she would've thought he'd like... After a moment's thought, she engages the ship's cruise control and lifts her bracelet to take a picture of the view. ]
Quick. Say cheese!
[ Snap goes the camera... It doesn't matter because he won't show up in the picture anyway, but it's the thought that counts. She sends the picture to him before taking control of the speedship again and bringing it back around toward the hangar. ]
[ Sorry to disappoint, but he (predictably) keeps his mouth firmly closed and just continues staring up at the sky. Is that dot Ema...
It's a strangely picturesque photo though, a view of the city he hasn't seen before. Not nice enough to make him want to plop his own butt in the speedship, but enough to make him nostalgic for the skydoms and the adventures he's had on the Grandcypher. ]
It's nice, up in the sky.
[ If he sounds a little wistful, it's only partially a figment of her imagination. He certainly looks like the same old Eustace by the time she finally makes it back to the hangar, though maybe the more surprising thing is that he's still loitering around and not already halfway back home. ]
[ It's fine... imagining his deadpan expression is its own kind of fun. The hint of wistfulness in his voice is less fun to imagine, and she falls silent, letting his sentiment linger as she closes back in on the hangar.
And so she discovers that landing is a bit trickier than taking off. She comes in under speed, the speedship wobbling before it touches ground with a jolt; the nose scrapes across the ground, sparks flying for a split second before the ship levels out, its tail swerving left then right before Ema manages to bring the whole thing to a rolling stop.
A moment passes as the dust settles. Then she smacks the engine off and pops her helmet off, hair a little crazy as she hops right out of the speedship and jogs at Eustace with an adrenaline-fueled, death-defying smile. ]
[ Congrats to Ema for not dying during her first joyride in the speedship.
Tragically, whatever relief he feels at her safe touchdown immediately vanishes as she rushes towards him, replaced by a sudden surge of primal fear. If he didn't know the reason behind that wild expression (and hair) he would absolutely believe his life to be in danger. As it is, he tenses a little, head craning a little away as soon as she skids to a stop. ]
Score?
[ First an encyclopedia and now a judge...truly she has such high expectations of him. ]
[ Hey?? Does he have to look so dodgy?? She has a perfectly happy expression on her face... or had, because now she's frowning and putting her fingers to her temple. She is not going to explain the joke. She is especially not going to explain sports competitions or the Olympics. But it was her mistake, really. ]
[ In lieu of an answer, he will simply remove the glasses from his head and stick them back into their natural habitat, aka the top of her head. And then casually just ruffle her hair some more, because it's already a mess and can't possibly get worse. ]
You did well.
[ That's APPROVAL right there, both in his words and tone of voice. Especially given that she'd never touched a flying ship in her life before this. Maybe she really ought to consider a career change from self-proclaimed forensic scientist to professional speedship racer in the future. ]
I'm surprised you're asking me.
[Both since she has never seemed to care about the approval of others and also because he is definitely not qualified to judge ship piloting technique in any capacity. ]
[ That is a surprise mountain of approval by Eustace standards, and it catches Ema flat-footed. She expected a "your landing could use some work," or a "don't text and drive"... And he's ruffling her hair?? She reddens under the overt affection in both his hand and voice but doesn't stop him, simply tapping her glasses back into their precisely proper place. As long as her glasses are in order, the rest of her head can look like she just walked through twenty air curtains. ]
You are the one who gave me the thing, so you're officially involved. Scientifically speaking.
[ Which is at least partially true, but also maybe she does value his opinion? Maybe she doesn't want to look completely stupid in front of him?? Sue her. ]
... Thanks for that, by the way. I had fun.
[ She can say that now that she has definitely survived. ]
[ Don't mind him as he just repeats after her, doubt obvious in his voice.
But, hey, he hadn't actually expected her to just launch herself immediately into the pilot's seat and go for a test drive - test fly? - all in the same day. She's got guts, that's for sure. If she didn't, he wouldn't like her nearly as much.
It is a relief to know she hadn't hated every second of her airborne adventure and that the speedship hadn't been a complete waste. Speaking of the speedship—he detaches himself from her side and goes to give the thing a post-landing inspection, attaching and steadying the supports as he circles around. ]
You can fly it again whenever you want.
[ Whenever she wants to feel the sudden shadow of death clinging to her. ]
[ Scientifically speaking!! She responds to the doubt in his voice with an unblinking look that says, yes, what about it. No one has called her out on this (out loud) in her entire life.
She follows along to watch as he works, filing the steps away for when she needs to do it on her own. ]
Naturally. I do plan on making use of it.
[ It is an actual personal plane, after all. You don't just let these things go to waste. She taps her chin and runs an eye over the ship again. ]
It's a shame there isn't more room for cargo space. I suppose I could figure out how to attach saddlebags of some sort...
[ Rest assured that he will call her out on it again in the future if he needs to.
Things he will not be calling her out on: her sudden delusions of turning a speedship meant for racing into some kind of cargo vehicle. It's his turn to give her a Look now, one that implies that she is probably a little insane for wanting to add saddlebags to the side of the ship. ]
If you break the ship because of that, it's on you to fix it.
[ This is where his (middling) generosity ends, sad to say. Once he's done with his handiwork, he turns back to her. ]
Was there anything else you needed?
[ If not, it's time for him to mosey on out of this joint and go get lunch. ]
[ Wow!! Talk about your negative nancies. The Look he gives her just makes her want to make the dream work even more. Whether or not she succeeds is for another installment in the life of Ema, however.
Now that the speedship is tied back down and her curiosity is satisfied, there's not much else for her in the hangar. She looks at the ship, then looks at Eustace. The fact remains that he gave her a whole damn plane and was nice enough (for him) to come down here. The crackers were for White Day. The speedship was for ???. A simple thanks alone doesn't seem like enough to balance the scales. Something just a little more... ]
Lunch? I'll treat you.
[ Sweating bullets and courting death also makes a girl hungry, deal with it. ]
[ His accumulated wealth on the island might be plentiful, but also he's not going to say no to a free lunch? Unfortunately, he is also not going to be gracious about her offer because being nice and polite is overrated. ]
It's your turn to buy lunch anyway.
[ It absolutely isn't as far as he knows, it's not like he's been keeping track, but maybe if he says it with enough confidence she'll believe it. Gotta have the upper hand somewhere in this household. He will, however, be obliging enough to let her pick the cuisine, with one caveat. ]
No pizza though.
[ Just thinking about the puddles of grease on a slice of pepperoni is enough to make his soul wither. ]
[ So many things are wrong with pizza, thanks for asking!! But wow, just because he can eat most foods doesn't mean he always wants to. Let a man have his preferences. ]
The greasiness doesn't sit well with me.
[ All that grease...all that cheese...all those carbs sitting around and weighing him down. He has things to do that don't involve immediately dying in a carb coma. ]
Curry is fine.
[ Time to go get some delicious (handwaved) lunch... ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Actually, the control mechanisms aren't as foreign as I thought they would be. A couple extra levers compared to what I'm used to, but I've already looked them up.
[ Being able to drive manual, as they do in
JapanCalifornia, is finally paying off. Also, she reaches out to adjust her glasses on Eustace's head so that they're nice and level. Do not sport those chic scientific shades in such a sloppy manner, sir. ]I figure it's do or die, scientifically speaking. Unless you'd like to give me that demonstration after all?
no subject
It's all yours.
[ Sometimes you just gotta drop a person in the deep end and let them figure things out on their own. Nothing like good old-fashioned practical hands-on (and life-threatening) experience to really drill the basics into a person. That doesn't stop him from peering into the cockpit one more time, assessing her positioning - fine - and the placement of her hands and feet against all levers and pedals - also fine.
Is he still worried? A little bit, but presumably Ema is practical enough not to immediately jam her foot down on the gas pedal and zoom halfway across the island before he can even blink. ]
Whenever you're ready.
[ He will just...step aside a few feet so he doesn't get caught in the crossfire. ]
no subject
Anyway, since he is set on remaining hands-off on anything even remotely fun, it's time to fake it 'til she makes it. She mutters vaguely to herself as she reviews the layout of the cockpit, tagging each knob and lever with her fingers as she names it. If it seems like she's being a little neurotic about this it's because, again, she could feasibly die, and she is not exactly famous for her hand-eye coordination. But hands-on experience is indeed the best teacher, and you know what, death is barely real around here anyway.
One last thing. Ema takes a moment to tip-tap at her bracelet and request an audio connection with Eustace. ]
I assume this thing doesn't have a black box, so you'll have to do.
[ While he's accepting/rejecting that, she slides her goggles on, revvs the engine up (??), and settles her hands and feet in the appropriate positions. It's been some time since she's driven anything, but it all still feels somewhat familiar — which is still odd, being that this is a plane from a different world, but she'll have time to think about coincidental engineering later.
The hearty, growling thrum of the engine is invigorating and, she has to admit, encouraging. She eases off the brake and into first gear (or whatever its equivalent would be), a triumphant smile cutting across her face when the speedship doesn't immediately stall and/or careen forward and eat shit, instead peacefully pulling out of its spot in the hangar. She drives for the exit and successfully does not run Eustace over as she makes her way to the runway (or whatever space serves as a runway, who even knows what the hangar's layout looks like).
She takes a lap, feeling out the speedship's controls and handling as well as she can while still grounded. When she's satisfied, she drives to the end of the runway, turns the plane around, and prepares for takeoff.
So, like, the only kind of aircraft Ema's been on is your commercial jumbo jet. You know, the kind that has to go a billion mph, scientifically speaking, before it can manage to get into the sky. With that in mind, she is not jamming her foot down on the gas pedal and zooming halfway across the island... but she is carefully applying her feet to the pedals so that she can shift up to the highest gear possible in the amount of runway provided.
The speedship, being a speedship, is very fast. But Ema being Ema, backing down is not an option. If anything, she leans into it, her focus sharpening to a fierce point. The speedship achieves alarming speed before she finally angles its nose upward and it rockets into the sky, narrowly avoiding becoming a bullet into the side of a building. And now she's zooming halfway across the island.
bye, see you on voice ]
no subject
Even the hum of the ship sounds familiar, lightly crackling through the bracelet speaker while also echoing through his ears. He's content to watch her as she slowly hovers her way through the rest of the hangar, following behind with one hand loosely gripping the glasses on her head and only stopping so he can stand at the open doorway and watch her take off, blurring into the distance and then into a dot that shoots into the sky.
After about ninety seconds of nothing but whooshing air - and no sign of metal and wood splintering against the ground or the nearest building - he thinks it's probably safe enough to pipe up. ]
Still alive?
no subject
It seems like a sturdy vehicle, far from liable to fall apart at a single inept touch, but she still handles the controls gingerly. Nothing like being fatally high in the sky to make her appreciate the well-being of her vehicle.
When Eustace's calm voice pipes up, it's grounding, but also a little too calm for her to relate to at the moment. ]
I don't see how you're so calm about this. This is terrifying!
no subject
I'm not the one in the ship.
[ And he's trying very hard not to imagine what it would be like, because the thought of being jammed into that small cockpit (again) with not even a single railing between him and his new future career as a furry pancake on the ground is deeply unsettling. Hence why she is piloting the ship and not him.
Though, maybe she shouldn't be piloting it either based on her reaction. He squints up at the sky again and predictably sees nothing. ]
How fast are you going? Slow down if it's that terrifying.
[ Or simply stop flying the thing immediately and park it back in the hanger so a mysterious unnamed character can casually commit arson one day in the nebulous future. ]
no subject
She mutters vaguely about units of measurement, followed by the faint mechanical sounds of pedals pushed and levers shifted as she continues to decrease the speed of the ship anyway. That is, until the speedship begins to wobble ominously, at which point she kicks the speed back up, reaching some sort of stable flight speed.
Finally feeling like she's reached a safe (if still somewhat blistering) constant, she breathes a sigh of relief. It's fine, this is fine. ]
Okay. Everything's under control.
[ She chances a peek over the side of the cockpit. She isn't terribly high up. Enough to definitely die if she falls out, but she's starting to feel comfortable that she won't, barring some freak accident. ]
You said these ships are used for racing? What's the mortality rate in your average race?
no subject
Not sure. Not high enough to get racing competitions shut down.
[ Then again, maybe that has more to do with the prize money that comes with winning the famed Platinum Sky Cup than the possible risk of gruesome death via speedship crash. Either way, he's never been interested enough to even think about signing up. His feet will stay firmly on the ground, thanks.
While she's off sailing across the sky, he takes the glasses off his head and holds them in front of his eyes, squinting through the lenses. Hmm. ]
The piloting itself should be fine. Most of the reported injuries come from various gadgets the racers attach to their ships.
[ He will not be elaborating on that unless prompted. ]
no subject
Ema peeks out ahead and finds that she's flying over dense forest. Is there anything interesting hidden beneath those lush canopies, she wonders...? But she doesn't wonder for too long, because the thick fog blanketing the horizon is rapidly approaching, and even she isn't headstrong enough to try to blast through it (without preparation). She steers the ship back around, tracing a wide circle back toward town. ]
Gadgets. Like weapons?
no subject
Ema sounds less panicked now, in any case. Probability of imminent death: decreasing by the second. Still, he loiters around the hanger, wanting to confirm for himself that she makes it back in one piece, regardless of how long it takes. ]
Something like that. Speedship races, at least the big ones, are as much a test of pilot skill as they are about how many dirty tricks you can pull on your opponents.
[ Another reason why he refuses to ever enter one. ]
no subject
[ Real life M*rio K*rt in the sky... It's a miracle it doesn't become a slaughterhouse, but in a way, that's reassuring. It has to mean the speedships are built to take a beating.
By now, she feels relaxed enough to start steering around for the sake of it, weaving loosely and pulling up to a high enough altitude to get a scenic view of the city. She looks down at the motley collection of buildings they reluctantly call home, and having it all reduced to a tranquil blob with nothing but the wind and the ship's engine to fill her head puts her in a certain kind of mood. She makes out the vague shape of the hangar and wonders if Eustace is still standing around there, looking up at her. Then again, she wouldn't be overly surprised if he'd already decided to leave. ]
It isn't so bad up here, actually. It's peaceful. Lots of space to clear the head.
[ Things she would've thought he'd like... After a moment's thought, she engages the ship's cruise control and lifts her bracelet to take a picture of the view. ]
Quick. Say cheese!
[ Snap goes the camera... It doesn't matter because he won't show up in the picture anyway, but it's the thought that counts. She sends the picture to him before taking control of the speedship again and bringing it back around toward the hangar. ]
no subject
It's a strangely picturesque photo though, a view of the city he hasn't seen before. Not nice enough to make him want to plop his own butt in the speedship, but enough to make him nostalgic for the skydoms and the adventures he's had on the Grandcypher. ]
It's nice, up in the sky.
[ If he sounds a little wistful, it's only partially a figment of her imagination. He certainly looks like the same old Eustace by the time she finally makes it back to the hangar, though maybe the more surprising thing is that he's still loitering around and not already halfway back home. ]
no subject
And so she discovers that landing is a bit trickier than taking off. She comes in under speed, the speedship wobbling before it touches ground with a jolt; the nose scrapes across the ground, sparks flying for a split second before the ship levels out, its tail swerving left then right before Ema manages to bring the whole thing to a rolling stop.
A moment passes as the dust settles. Then she smacks the engine off and pops her helmet off, hair a little crazy as she hops right out of the speedship and jogs at Eustace with an adrenaline-fueled, death-defying smile. ]
Ha! I did it! What's my score?
no subject
Tragically, whatever relief he feels at her safe touchdown immediately vanishes as she rushes towards him, replaced by a sudden surge of primal fear. If he didn't know the reason behind that wild expression (and hair) he would absolutely believe his life to be in danger. As it is, he tenses a little, head craning a little away as soon as she skids to a stop. ]
Score?
[ First an encyclopedia and now a judge...truly she has such high expectations of him. ]
Why do you want a score?
[ Eustace "No Fun Police" Granblue Fantasy ]
no subject
Oh, never mind. Just tell me how I did.
no subject
You did well.
[ That's APPROVAL right there, both in his words and tone of voice. Especially given that she'd never touched a flying ship in her life before this. Maybe she really ought to consider a career change from self-proclaimed forensic scientist to professional speedship racer in the future. ]
I'm surprised you're asking me.
[Both since she has never seemed to care about the approval of others and also because he is definitely not qualified to judge ship piloting technique in any capacity. ]
no subject
You are the one who gave me the thing, so you're officially involved. Scientifically speaking.
[ Which is at least partially true, but also maybe she does value his opinion? Maybe she doesn't want to look completely stupid in front of him?? Sue her. ]
... Thanks for that, by the way. I had fun.
[ She can say that now that she has definitely survived. ]
no subject
[ Don't mind him as he just repeats after her, doubt obvious in his voice.
But, hey, he hadn't actually expected her to just launch herself immediately into the pilot's seat and go for a test drive - test fly? - all in the same day. She's got guts, that's for sure. If she didn't, he wouldn't like her nearly as much.
It is a relief to know she hadn't hated every second of her airborne adventure and that the speedship hadn't been a complete waste. Speaking of the speedship—he detaches himself from her side and goes to give the thing a post-landing inspection, attaching and steadying the supports as he circles around. ]
You can fly it again whenever you want.
[ Whenever she wants to feel the sudden shadow of death clinging to her. ]
no subject
She follows along to watch as he works, filing the steps away for when she needs to do it on her own. ]
Naturally. I do plan on making use of it.
[ It is an actual personal plane, after all. You don't just let these things go to waste. She taps her chin and runs an eye over the ship again. ]
It's a shame there isn't more room for cargo space. I suppose I could figure out how to attach saddlebags of some sort...
no subject
Things he will not be calling her out on: her sudden delusions of turning a speedship meant for racing into some kind of cargo vehicle. It's his turn to give her a Look now, one that implies that she is probably a little insane for wanting to add saddlebags to the side of the ship. ]
If you break the ship because of that, it's on you to fix it.
[ This is where his (middling) generosity ends, sad to say. Once he's done with his handiwork, he turns back to her. ]
Was there anything else you needed?
[ If not, it's time for him to mosey on out of this joint and go get lunch. ]
no subject
Now that the speedship is tied back down and her curiosity is satisfied, there's not much else for her in the hangar. She looks at the ship, then looks at Eustace. The fact remains that he gave her a whole damn plane and was nice enough (for him) to come down here. The crackers were for White Day. The speedship was for ???. A simple thanks alone doesn't seem like enough to balance the scales. Something just a little more... ]
Lunch? I'll treat you.
[ Sweating bullets and courting death also makes a girl hungry, deal with it. ]
no subject
It's your turn to buy lunch anyway.
[ It absolutely isn't as far as he knows, it's not like he's been keeping track, but maybe if he says it with enough confidence she'll believe it. Gotta have the upper hand somewhere in this household. He will, however, be obliging enough to let her pick the cuisine, with one caveat. ]
No pizza though.
[ Just thinking about the puddles of grease on a slice of pepperoni is enough to make his soul wither. ]
no subject
[ She's never met a person who said they didn't like curry. That said, she stares up at him... ]
What did pizza do to you?
[ She doesn't go for pizza too often herself, but this is Eustace "food is just stuff that goes in my mouth" Dogson. ]
no subject
The greasiness doesn't sit well with me.
[ All that grease...all that cheese...all those carbs sitting around and weighing him down. He has things to do that don't involve immediately dying in a carb coma. ]
Curry is fine.
[ Time to go get some delicious (handwaved) lunch... ]