Poking Around [2430-1-1-Thurs]

[Olive]

Olive had spent a lot of the previous day trying to figure out the mechanics of cooking. Her nose had been mostly pressed to someone's eInkr, watching as many videos as she could and trying to learn the important parts. She was going to have to get Sol to buy her one of her own padds.

Today, she decided she'd learn the mechanics of, well, mechanics, and this is why she now found herself in the cargo bay, standing on the walkway and debating with herself the merits of entering the main engine room.

It made a lot of noise, and it had seemed like a scary place even when the ship hadn't been running, so she'd avoided it in her early ship exploration. But the more she'd thought about it, the more she wanted to learn about how the ship worked, and she figured the engine room was probably the place for that. Sol had explained to her that the engine was like the ship's heart. All the other pieces of the ship were important, but it was the engine that kept most of them running.

Finally she pushed past her fear and headed the last few steps down the iron walkway towards the door, which she slid open and finally peeked into, finding herself at the top of another flight of stairs. She peered over the railing with a little trepidation. That big whirring contraption had to be the engine.

[Caden Breese]

Caden was busy fixing up some wiring for the cooling system that kept the engine from over heating. It wasn't anything drastic but it was a small improvement to the system. He wandered over to his work space and put a few tools down. His table may seem like a mess to most but it was actually quite organized. He had specific tools in different areas, and small pieces of work he had been tinkering with. Things were in order.

He paused as he heard the faint clicking over the engine sound of what sounded like, hooves? Olive... He guessed she wouldn't stay away from the engine room for too long. He only hoped she wouldn't mess anything up or hurt herself. Which reminded him to put the attempt at a laser weapon up out of her reach. She'd have to climb on things in order to get to it, and by the time she got up to it he could stop her.

[Olive]

Olive was peering over the railing when she finally noticed Caden working down below on something. He wandered over to a small workbench in the corner. "Oh hey Caden!!"

She hopped down the set of stairs, trying not to feel intimidated as she reached the main floor of the room and realized how big the engine really was in comparison to her. "What are you doing? Is it important ship stuff?"

[Caden Breese]

He watched as she hopped down the stairs. "Hey," he smiled at her, "I just finished some wiring for the cooling system. So yeah, important ship stuff." He wiped some grease off of his hands and moved a few things on his table.

"What ya looking for?" He asked curiously. Most didn't come down to the engine room unless they needed something or something was wrong. Though Olive, being a faun and probably not having much ship experience more than likely just wanted to explore. But you never know. Maybe Sol sent her down for something.

[Olive]

"I dunno," she shrugged as she hit the floor. "Just wanted to learn some stuff. All this human technology is so crazy." She glanced up, scanning the engine. "Wooow..."

She was about to reach out to poke it, but realized maybe it wasn't safe, so she decided to hold back. She wandered over to the table. "What'cha workin on?"

[Caden Breese]

He kept an eye on her as he moved a few things around. "Just finished something up, so nothing right now." He didn't feel the need to mention the various weapons he had messed with. Besides if she didn't know what they were, it was probably better off it stayed that way. For safety and emotional reasons.

"You can look around if you want. Just be careful," He stated giving her a small warning. The last thing he needed was for her to hurt herself and then have the blame placed completely on him. It wouldn't sit well with the crew, most of them love her and they'd end up hating him.

[Olive]

"Ahhh..." she nodded, still scanning the height of the room with her eyes. "So this is the stuff that makes the ship go, huh? It looks so complicated!"

And expensive. She still hadn't gotten a straight answer out of Sol as to where he'd gotten the ship, how he'd gotten the ship, and most importantly why. But at least he was letting her stay along. And if she was going to stay on the ship, she figured she should learn a thing or two about it.

[Caden Breese]

"Complicated? Nah, as long as you know what you're doing it's easy. Well, I've been working on stuff like this for years, so it's easy to me." He picked up a small screw driver and walked over to tighten a screw that had come a bit loose. He could tell when something needed to be tightened or adjusted, there was always a small rattle that he could pick out.

"What kind of stuff did you do where you came from?" He asked a bit curious. Did they just run around, sleep and eat? What did they do for fun?

[Olive]

"Oh, we Fauns make stuff..." Olive said, peering into a hole in some contraption. "Like out of wood, pretty carvings and stuff. And we like to tell stories, and have awesome feasts, and... lots of dancing!" she smiled, remembering the parties of her friends and family quite fondly. They were always so much fun.

She picked up something, it must have been a tool, because it looked like there was a handle on it. She waved it around a bit, trying to figure it out. "Have you always worked with these machine thingies?"

[Caden Breese]

"Carvings hey?" He asked and gently grabbed her arm to stop her from waving around one of his screw drivers, "Careful with that, please." He put the screw driver down and continued. "You know some people make small carvings and things out of metal back home. We don't have much wood 'round anymore."

"Almost all my life, I guess you could say. I started when I was little." He turned to the desk and picked up a few things moving them closer to himself. He picked up a small soldering tool and very carefully melded a few wires to a small chip. It was a piece that would go into the laser gun. "My brother and I both did stuff like this for a while, then he went off and did something else."

[Olive]

"Yeah, Sol even learned pretty good stuff over the years too. Made me some cool stuff. The earlier ones were funny cause they weren't that good, but they're my favourites." She resisted the urge to pout as he pulled the screwdriver away. "How do you carve metal?"

"Cool you got a brother!" she was excited now. They had stuff in common! "Is he older or younger? All mine are older!"

[Caden Breese]

"Metal needs some heavy duty blades or torches to cut properly. But if you don't know how to use them properly they can be real dangerous." He looked back at her from what he was doing on the table. "But you can make some neat things with it if you know what you're doing. Like, this ship for example. It takes a good amount of skill and time to make up on of these babies."

"Yeah, I got a brother. He's the same age as me." He smiled at her. "We're twins."

[Olive]

"Ohhh..." Olive hadn't even thought of that. Of course this ship had to have been made. Just like huts and houses were made out of wood, same as the carvings. Someone with skill had to make them strong and sturdy. "Boy you Humans sure like this metal stuff."

She was surprised to hear that Caden had a twin. "Ooo that must be weird, having your brother the same age as you. I met some twins once! They were boy fauns. And they were pretty cute!"