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USS Endeavour: Down Time

[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] attn: @TrexelCat

How Egon had convinced her to come to this gathering, she was never quite sure. But he had wrinkled his cute Bajoran nose at her and she had caved. All of her father's training thrown out the window after the flash of doe eyes he sent her. An even greater question was how she had gone from breaking his caller bone to dating him, but she had made the decision not to linger on that one too much. 'Keep your mind on the here and now. Focus on the goings on and environment around you, child.' Her father's baritone voice rang like a klaxon in her head.

Glancing around the rec room, she took note first of the exits, of which there were two, one behind her from where she entered and one to the left 'guarded' by half a dozen off duty personnel and civilians all mingling and enjoying the festivities. She felt a bit justified in having protested as it seemed the Egon had already left her to go mingle with a few of his friends from Security. The tall Bajoran male now stood surrounded by a few human males and a female Andorian, two of whom had once helped him bully her. She chose not to engage them, while things had changed between Egon and herself she still didn't trust his friends to have changed their views about her. Moving through the crowd, doing her best not to run or bump into any of the other bodies, Laurel headed to the replicator, and ordered hot lemon green tea.

Tea grasped in hand she moved to go and stand at a spot where she could see the rest of the room well and settled in to wait for when Egon got bored. "Why do I let myself get talked into these things? First Blue now Egon." She sighed exasperatedly sipping her tea. Positioned so that one of the couches was situated between her and her former enemies, Laurel felt a bit safer in observing the rest of the room. It was lively enough she supposed, a couple of the others had brought board games and  one or two people had instruments out and were tuning them. She suddenly wished she had thought to bring her own flute, it had been a while since she had had the opportunity to play her instrument with anyone else. The Trill and Human females began to warm up and picked up a lively Earth tune, Laurel had once heard her mother hum, but had never known their were lyrics too. She smiled and hummed a bit of harmony absent mindedly.

Re: USS Endeavor: Down Time

Reply #1 –
[ Marlee | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @YasyraTrill
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As far as Marlee was concerned, she didn't have any down time. Sure she took time to physically rest, and every now and then she socialized with others. But in her mind she was constantly running calculations and equations. More often than not she even had a palm sized PADD on her as well, something she could slip in and out of one of her pockets. Today though, one of her coworkers sternly suggested she visit one of the recreational areas aboard the ship. More specifically the one where everyone else was. But they didn't tell her to leave her work behind, so as was her custom she arrived with PADD in hand.

As she entered the area she was only vaguely aware that there were other people here, moving directly towards the bar area. She had been in this room before and had memorized the location of everything so she didn't have to look away from her PADD to navigate. Once she reached the bar she slipped the PADD into her pocket and then reached up to lower the hood of her outfit. Her clothes had a rather Romulan styling to them, though her blond hair practically screamed that she wasn't Romulan. She stood there a moment before someone came to take her order.

"Icoberry Juice please."

Her voice was stern like she knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to ask for it, or demand it. But with a soft polite quality to it. While she waited she turned to look around the room to actually take stock of the people gathered here. Most of them were Starfleet officers in uniform, though there were also a few that were in off-duty clothing as well. But she didn't see any of her colleagues here. Of course they weren't, most of them were either sleeping or working.

Though one woman stood out to her, but not because of her species but because she was standing apart from the rest gathered. This intrigued Marlee because she always though that on a ship like this everyone was friendly with everyone and no one stood apart. She heard the sound of a glass being placed on the counter behind her and she took a moment to turn and pick it up before looking back to the woman standing there. And with little to no hesitation she started over in Laurel's direction.

Once she crossed the distance she stopped and paused, hearing the woman humming to the music being played and decided not to interrupt her, just listen. Her brain often in overdrive, she actually started trying to work out quantum calculations to the tune of the music.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #2 –
[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour] attn @TrexelCat

Laurel continued to lightly hum the harmony to the old tune, lightly swaying and toying with the fabric of the pant leg of her off duty Alpha Centauri style clothing. The loose fitting linen scratched pleasantly at her skin as she swayed, and with the music and her eyes shut she could almost imagine she was back on the porch of her family home, her mother and sister singing from the kitchen as dinner was made.

When the song ended and she reopened her eyes, Laurel was startled to find another woman so close to her without her notice. She stiffened and cursed herself a little for being so oblivious, her father would have been very unhappy. Snapping her posture straight and allowing her hands to be loose at her sides, in order to better defend herself she took in the other woman.  She allowed herself time to analyze her: short only a meter and a half tall, slight too, human at first glance -probable. All in all she held herself like a civilian, and Laurel assessed her threat level to be relatively low. She relaxed a little. The woman also seemed to be staring but not seeing.

Cocking her head a bit in curiosity, Laurel offered the first tentative start to the conversation "Can I help you?" Now staring back, and beginning to wonder if the woman had had some kind of medical problem, she began to look around to see if anyone else had taken notice of the two odd females. Cautiously, she reached out to gently touch the woman's shoulder, just to see if she could bring her out of the state she seemed to be in. No one had noticed them yet, and Laurel was not sure whether drawing attention to themselves would be more harm or help at this point. She wasn't good at this sort of thing. What if this was this woman's custom and she was being horribly rude, what would Blue or Egon do in this situation. . . actually, cursing would likely not make a good impression either. "Are you alright?"

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #3 –
[ Marlee | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @YasyraTrill
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Marlee smiled at the woman as she snapped out of her own thoughts. "That was actually lovely. I'm not sure I've ever heard that tune."

She then moved over to sit down on the couch nearest to the woman, she had been on her feet all day and the chance to sit down was wonderful for her. She let out a rather contented sigh as she did, before looking up to the woman.

"Sorry, been on my feet all day. I hope you don't mind."

She took a sip of her juice, the cold rushing through her and causing her to take a pause before she spoke again. "I noticed that you were standing apart from others, and as a solitary person myself I figured that I would come over and at least say hello. If you wish to be alone though, I can find somewhere else to sit."

She continued to smile up at the woman, trying her best to show that she was being friendly. This kind of social interaction was hard for her. To her, being nice was collaborating on a quantum equation to unravel the mysteries of the galaxy and break all the rules of how the universe works.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #4 –
[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @TrexelCat

Laurel raised one slanted eyebrow at the other woman but merely nodded, "It does not bother me, so long as you do not mind that I remain standing." She studied the other woman, taking in that she appeared rather tired and just as uncomfortable with the situation as Laurel felt.

Deciding to stick to the safe topic of the music still playing in the background she struck a slightly stilted conversation with the other woman. Counselor Reynolds would be proud of her progress in attempting to make friends. "It is an old Earth tune I believe, old too if I am not mistaken, I believe it originated from Hawaii. My mother used to hum it sometimes, that's where she was from . . . before Starfleet became her life." She smiled at the other woman, "Are you a fan of music? Play any instruments? I'm rather sad I did not bring my flute along. It has been too long since I played anything but scales in my room." She chuckled a little then stopped abruptly, trying to make sure she did not draw any attention to herself.

Laurel let the conversation hang a bit, incase the woman had anything to add, then took note of the fact that she did not know the other woman's name and that she had not offered her her own. Her mother would be disappointed in her. "My name is Laurel by the way."

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #5 –
[ Marlee | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @YasyraTrill
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Marlee took another sip of her drink as she listened to the woman, taking a moment to look around the area and get a sense of where everyone was in the room. When she heard a question posed to her she looked up to the woman with a smile.

"Marlee, Marlee Hailey. And actually, I do have a slight interest in music. It has intriguing mathematical properties and recently I've found that the quantum level of the universe can actually sound quite lovely, even musical."

She looked the woman over a bit, noting that her ears were different and brows, from humans.

"Hawaii? I hope I'm not being rude but you're not human. I mean, it's not a problem honestly, I just didn't realized that any Romulans had been born on earth."

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #6 –
[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @TrexelCat

Laurel felt blood rush to her ears as she flushed a little in embarrassment, of course the other woman would notice that she was not human. Clearing her throat awkwardly she proceeded, "Ummm well . . . no, you are correct, I was not born on earth. My mother was though, she is human. I was born on Alpha Centauri." She shifted her wait awkwardly, and gestured at her loose fitting Alpha Centauri styled clothes and sandals.

Deciding to try and keep the conversation moving, Counselor Reynolds would be so proud, "So you are a physicist then? Do you work in the labs? I've only been down there a couple of times when on cleaning detail." She chuckled a little at the memory of the three months she spent doing bitch work for Cmdr. Ducote, as a cadet.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #7 –
[ Marlee | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @YasyraTrill
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Marlee smiled and took a sip of her drink.

"Oh no, I'm not a member of the crew. So I don't spend time in the labs here. I spend most of my work time in the shuttle bay working on one of the runabouts, upgrading it."

Marlee took a moment look around the lounge, she hadn't really spent time there, even her free time was spent in the shuttle bay. It was odd to many of her coworkers, she even slept in the runabout, just to be closer to the project.

"But yes, I'm a physicist. It's my job, and my passion."

Not many can say that their job is something they actually love doing.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #8 –
[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @TrexelCat

"Oh so that's where I've seen you before. You may have noticed me back when I was a Cadet, doing menial labor, for various higher ups." She chuckled at the memory. Ah bitch duty those were the days.

"That's one thing I like about working on a Starship, everyone loves what they do and is ferociously protective of it." Laurel allowed a smile to reach her eyes. "I expect you will have met, Engineer Tiran, so I'm sure you know what I mean."

"I take it you don't come to these sort of thing very often either?" She ventured a guess. Otherwise, I would think you could find better conversation, than . . . " She trails off, realizing that she was about to slip into old habits and Counselor Reynolds would be disappointed, "me."

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #9 –
[ Marlee | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @YasyraTrill
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Marlee smiled as she remembered meeting the brash engineer. Though she was also rather impressed with Tiran's ability to work with her on the project. She had many great ideas for the project.

"No, not very often. I honestly prefer to bury myself in my work and be around others who are in the same field. Or at the very least have an open mind to see other possibilities outside of their limited perceptions of how things work. As you can imagine, not a huge fan of being around military types. So limited, unless they can see and shoot it they don't believe it exists."

She took a sip of her drink, then muttered, "I hate guns."

She took a moment to look around the room, trying to figure out how many of these would be the aforementioned military types, before looking back to the woman she was speaking with. Admiring her features and thinking that under different circumstances she might find her attractive. But she just wasn't wired that way. Brains first, beauty second.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #10 –
[ Ensign Laurel Okhala | Recreation Room 2 | USS Endeavour ] Attn: @TrexelCat

"Ha. That seems fair. I've known a few too many, shoot first ask questions later sorts myself." she chuckled a bit, thinking about how just a few months ago, she would have been on several of those shoot first lists, if she had given anyone half a reason.

"I'm afraid my understanding of physics is pretty limited." She unconsciously played a bit with the ends of her hair as she thought. "I know what I need to to pilot a ship or a shuttle, but haven't ever had cause to explore outside of that arena. I do find the physics of warp very interesting though, even if my knowledge of it is a bit subpar." She shot the other woman a smile. "So, mostly relativistic physics for me, I'm afraid."

"I prefer to avoid phasers wherever possible. Though I'll admit to being a decent marksman. Sometimes stunning is a preferable outcome, to someone trying to fistfight with me however." She shuddered slightly at the memory of dislocating a fellow cadet's shoulder. Egon's shoulder. "Romulan tempers run hot and  . . . well . . . physically I am strong enough to really hurt someone, without even trying." She shyly glanced to see if she had scared Marlee off yet. She hadn't really meant for that last part to slip through.

Oh she had done it now. Here it comes, the look she always gets when people realize she's not a Vulcan hybrid, but a Romulan hybrid. She'd run or worse. Laurel was sure of it.

Re: USS Endeavour: Down Time

Reply #11 –
- FIN
 
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