Encounters of the Fifth Kind [2430-1-4 Mon 9:50am]

[Blu]

Blu really wanted to jump off the spaceport. Like... really really wanted to jump and hit those beautiful blue oceans underneath him.

He knew better. From this height, the ocean wouldn't be warm and wonderful and it wouldn't smoother him in her bosom, but would just turn him into a pancake. A Blucake. And then the sharks would eat what was left over and he would... Blu wasn't really sure what was beyond this existence but he didn't want it to involve a shark's belly.

Still. The temptation remained.

Blu made himself stand away from the railing and the edge of the spaceport and instead, he wandered back toward the meeting place. He was in rough shape this morning, still coming off of the trip he'd been on last night when he hired the... whatever her name was. The cook. The cook who hopefully knew how to make eggs because Blu just bought a ton of them for the Echo and if Blu had to make them, it would just be a disaster.

Even if she didn't know how to make eggs, as long as she knew how to put those eggs into other things, that would be good. Like cakes. Cakes had eggs in them. So delicious. Brownies had eggs! Blu already knew how to make those, and he did it pretty good, but you couldn't have brownies at every meal. You'd just like... your brain man, your brain.

He pulled off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. Without them on, you could almost see the remains of the too-smart-for-his-own-good architect who once had a massive mental breakdown in front of the cameras. There was a sharpness in his eyes than years of stress and now years of drug abuse had yet to dull. But when he slipped the glasses on, they managed to do their job, managed to make Blu as dopey and friendly and harmless as he really truly wished to be. No brain in here, no sir. Just a bunch of synapses firing at random.

That would make a good design. Synapses. You could feed electricity through them, information. Build a ship like a brain, cover it in a skull. Two eyes for portholes. Mainscreen on the inside where the third eye resides. Where are we headed, sir?

"To adventure." He declared, not noticing the people staring at Blu and his wild hair and his thick glasses. "Awaaaay we go!"

He smiled to himself and took a seat. Away we go.

[Sonya]

The ocean looked so different from above. Looking down, Sonya felt as if she were flying high above the water. And in a way, she was. Soon she would be flying away even from the spaceport, away from Corus, away from the desperately dull life she had led for seventeen years. The excitement was making her giddy, as well as a sense of triumph. What would her mother say when she discovered that three out of her four children had now been “abducted by those horrible humans?” Although admittedly she was not running off with the human she’d expected to. Still, the thought of her mother’s face when she discovered her worst fears had been realized almost made Sonya laugh out loud.

This was rather out of character for her, the girl who was usually frowning at the ground, too busy sulking to even meet another person’s eyes. Still, she felt a bit guilty as she began to wonder what her mother would do to Kati as a result of her disappearance. She might literally tie the poor girl down to the bed. This thought made the smile slide slowly off Sonya’s face. Poor Kati. But then, her sister had chosen to stay behind when their father moved out. That had been her choice, not Sonya’s, so Sonya didn’t think it was fair that she be held accountable for whatever happened because of it.

Leaving these thoughts behind, she stepped away from the edge of the spaceport and began to look around for who ever she was supposed to be meeting. His picture had been rather small in the ad she’d received, so she wasn’t too sure what he looked like. She glanced around again. How was she going to find him? Did ship captains have a specific look to them? What did you expect? She told herself scornfully, That he’d just be right here waiting for you? You know things are never that easy.

A sudden shout attracted her attention. She whirled around and saw that it came from a man with dark hair and glasses standing a few feet away. In fact, he looked something like the too small picture from the ad she’d seen last night. Perhaps things sometimes were this easy. Sonya shifted the weight of the bag she was carrying on her shoulder, and started to walk toward the man. She was beyond proud of the fact that she walked like any other human here, with confidence and ease. Sonya reached forward as she approached the man and tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Excuse me? Are you…” She hesitated, trying to remember the name from the ad, “…Blu?”

[Blu]

Someone was tapping on his shoulder. And they knew his name too. Did he know somebody? Blu looked behind him, and at the girl standing there. She did look familiar. Oh right! The advertisement! Blu got to his feet and immediately grasped her hand, shaking it, "Hi! I am Blu! You're Sonya, right? Am I saying that right? Sonya?"

Blu was excited, grinning a big ol' grin as he shook her hand, "You have no idea how excited I am to meet you! My old cook had to go back to Terra and I've been trying to cook for myself, and it's just not working out too good you know? Not even a little good at all. You like eggs right? Well, I guess you don't have to like them, just cook them!"

After a moment, it occurred to him that maybe he should stop shaking her hand, so he did. "This is great. Grab a seat! Rest your feet!" He grabbed one, pushing his glasses back up his nose. All the vigorous shaking had dislodged them again and they were attempting to make a get-away down his face. They never got very far, unless Blu was really out of it, and then they'd come to a halt right near the very tip of his nose when the curvy part of his frames did their job and stayed hooked to his ears.

[Sonya]

Apparently Sonya had come to the right man. So his name was Blu. Following a random train of thought, she wondered if it was his given name. It very well could have been, she knew close to nothing about human names. Blu reached out and grabbed her hand, shaking it vigorously. Sonya started a moment, before remembering that it was simply a human custom when greeting one another. She shook his hand in return, and as he went on talking, marveled at how so much energy and excitement could be contained in one person.

After a moment however, she began to wonder when he would stop shaking her hand. Eventually he did, but went on talking just the same. Sonya gave a small laugh as Blu offered her a seat, surprising herself more than anyone. Perhaps Blu’s excitement was contagious. But of course, she was already more excited at this moment than she’d been in years. When Sonya had originally received the advertisement, she’d thought it was a joke. It had just seemed to much of a coincidence. Only a few weeks after she started refreshing her skills at cooking human food so that she could leave the planet at eighteen to become a chef, she got an ad asking for a cook? Impossible. But it wasn’t, because it had happened.

“I don’t know that I’ve had feet long enough to worry about resting them!” She joked, but sat down next to Blu anyway. She slowly went back over everything he had said, and answered two questions she could remember, though she wasn’t sure if there had been more. “Yes, it is Sonya. And I can cook eggs.”

[Blu]

"Great! Perfect! You're hired! I just bought a ton of eggs and if I didn't find a cook, I was going to have to try doing it myself!" Blu ran a hand through his hair, but it didn't really help. The disorganized black mess only got even more disorganized, sticking in completely wrong directions. Blu didn't noticed, and, if he had, he certainly wouldn't have done anything about it except maybe laugh at himself. "I'll get Vivian to figure out how much to pay you! She's not a real person, she's just a VI, but she's pretty good at this stuff!"

His brain finished digesting what she'd said, reminding him of the odd phrasing of her first sentence. Had feet long enough? Man, how long did anybody have feet? Long enough? Totally not long enough, you never had feet long enough. There were always roads to be walking down and things to be jumping on, and you got old and died long before you touching everything, so yeah, your feet weren't around long enough!

The brain reminded Blu once again that maybe there was a more direct and clear reason for that sentence. He thought it over, and then stared at Sonya, as if he could see that she wasn't a human just by looking at her. Of course he couldn't, that was silly, so he just went ahead and said, "Are you a mermaid?!"

[Sonya]

Blu made Sonya smile, which was no small feat. And it wasn’t just because he’d given her a job. It was his energy, his enthusiasm, the way he talked, as if he always had too much to say and not enough time to say it. He seemed to be an eccentric sort of person, and even though she liked his enthusiasm, she was still rather shocked by it’s intensity. If she were completely honest with herself, it was partially that she found his physical appearance rather comical, but there was more to it then that. She was truly impressed by how completely he danced to the beat of his own drum.

Sonya had thought she was a rebel for not listening to her mother about the humans, and moving out along with her father. Compared with Blu, however, she was like Kati, still sitting at home listening attentively to her mother, prepared to praise and heed every syllable that left her mouth. Clearly she had a lot to learn from Blu. He was, Sonya decided, the perfect kind of person to set out on an adventure with. The kind of person who wasn’t just along for the ride, but was a part of the adventure in and of himself.

His next question shocked her however. Once the initial surprise had subsided though, she was completely ecstatic at the fact that he’d had to ask. Was she really that convincing? Sonya smiled wider. If this kept up, she was going to have smiled more in the last twenty minutes than in the last three years. But the answer she had to give Blu wiped the cheerful expression off her face at once. ‘Yes.” She said testily, unable to keep the sour tone from her voice, “Yes, I am.”

[Blu]

Blu blinked. Wow. She was totally a mermaid! And... totally not okay with it? Was that why she was unhappy? Or was she unhappy that Blu figured it out? This was getting confusing. It wasn't like Blu was already tangled up unanswered questions, ranging from "why do we have so many vestigial organs" to "why can't I lick my elbow?".

"Is that an unhappy 'you guessed it' tone of voice, or an unhappy 'don't want to be a mermaid' tone of voice?" He quickly enquired and, before giving her a chance to answer, quickly rambled onto two reasons he hoped would make her not-sour. "Because if it's the guessing thing, I only guess because you said you haven't had feet long, and that's actually a really deep observation because none of us have feet for long enough you know? Like, I've stood on four different planets, and I still haven't stood on them all, and even though I've stood on them, I won't ever get to walk all over them because I just won't have feet for long enough. I won't have me for long enough! And that's not even counting the stars! Or all the other planets that are just out of reach a couple of light years away!"

Blu began gesturing with his hands, as he always did when he got excited. If anyone who didn't know Common saw him, they would have thought that the hand-gestures were as much of a part of the language as the sounds coming out of his mouth. "Even if were were immortal, like vampires are supposed to be, we still wouldn't have time to see the whole universe! Our feet would wear out before we got even a quarter of it covered, and even if we replaced them with prosthetics, we'd wear those out too! It's too big, too vast! It's like the largest ocean to ever exist, and we're just standing on the beach with the water around our ankles!"

He sat back in his chair, shaking his head a little at the though of it all, the scope. And then he realized he'd forgotten to answer the second half. "And if you don't like being a mermaid, well... that's too bad. I think mermaids are neat. You've got tails! I don't have a tail, and if I did, it would just be a stubby thing that sticks out my backside. I've seen pictures. It would be neat though. You could hang off of things with it, like a monkey. Do you have monkey's here? Probably not. Unless you've got sea monkeys?!"

[Sonya]

Why did her emotions always have to be so visible on her face? Sonya sighed in frustration. She really didn’t want to talk about it, especially not to someone she’d only just met. But then, she couldn’t really think of anyone else she rather talk about it with. Blu’s observation about her statement was rather deep. Sonya didn’t usually go for all that deep physiological stuff, but she thought she understood what Blu was saying. In fact, it was the very feeling he described that had made her so frustrated of late. A person only had so much time in the world, and every day she spent sitting around on this incredibly dull planet was another day lost from her life.

“I’m not upset that you guessed it.” She said slowly, at last deciding grudgingly to answer Blu’s question. “It’s just that being a mermaid is so… it’s just so boring! All you do is swim! You wake up, you go outside, and you swim over here. Then you swim over there, then you think to yourself, oh, I’ll swim over here now. You can’t possibly imagine how dull it is to spend seventeen years swimming! There has to be more to life! I want to get out of here, so I can finally do something interesting!” As her rant ended, Sonya realized that she was actually rather relieved. It felt good to finally tell someone all this, after ages of hiding the truth from the infinitely close-minded people of her world.

[Blu]

To his credit, Blu did not laugh at Sonya like another human might have. Instead he listened very seriously and nodded along. He both understood and did not understand at the same time. His own life had been anything but typical, but he did know what monotony was. It was the same thing, over and over, even if that thing was strange and fantastic to someone else.

"I totally get that. Like. Not swimming specifically, but everything else? Just doing things over and over and over again? Yeah, not awesome at all." Blu tapped his fingers on the table, nodding moreso to himself than to Sonya, "Life's too short to do the same thing again and again, unless you like it, and then it's completely fine. But if you don't like what you're doing and you don't like where you are, and you want more? You have to go out there and get more! I didn't like living on Terra! That's why I live in space now! I like space! I like waking up in space, and seeing different planets, and meeting new people! That's so much more interesting in doing the same, same, same, same until you die of old age!"

He lent back, smiling at Sonya. "Being a mermaid doesn't mean you have to stay in the ocean! Unless it does. It doesn't right? You guys just need a bathtub once in a while, right? so you don't get all dried out like a sponge?" Blu thought about Sonya shrivelling up and becoming a smaller, dryer mermaid. Brutal.

[Sonya]

Amazing. He understood. Truthfully she had somewhat expected him to, being that he was human, yet it was still surprising how clearly his feelings mirrored hers. Indeed, the only one who’d ever understood Sonya so well was her reflection. “I’ve always dreamed of living in space! It must be so interesting! There’s so much to do, and always new things… honestly that’s why I signed up for this job!” She was smiling wide again. Finding someone who agreed with her philosophy on life always brought out her social side.

Blu’s next words worried her however. “I think so.” She murmured, “I hope so.” Sonya was suddenly hyper-conscious of the fact that she was dry even now. Her skin, her hair, their wasn’t a drop of water anywhere. She’d only been completely dry only a few times before, and it was the only part of being human that she found rather unnerving. Everything felt rougher, the fabric against her skin, the wind on her cheek. “You know what?” She said suddenly, “It doesn’t matter. I’d rather die young having done something with my life, then sit around here getting old and doing nothing!”

[Blu]

"Living in space is amazing. Full stop. Amazing." Blu just grinned. This was why he loved meeting new people. You could always related on some level, you could always find something you both really loved. "It's going to be totally awesome."

Man, she was so brave and fearless. Blu's smile just got even bigger, even if what they were talking about was kinda not good at the same time. "Yeah, right on! Carpe diem! Seize a lot of fish!" Somewhere, distantly in the back of his mind, a part of Blu muttered that it was seize the day, not fish, but it was too late for that.

Instead, he dug around inside his jacket, searching until he found his sheet of digital paper, unfolding it and lying it down on the table. He brought up the blueprints for his ship, the great golden umbrella. Blu flipped it upside down and zoomed in on the quarters, bringing up the bathrooms in the crew quarters. He switched the angle again, so it was facing Sonya, "Okay, so we've got the full-size tubs, and the shower nozzle, but I bet I could like, jury-rig a couple of more if you need full coverage. It would be super easy to punch holes into the pipes here aaaaand here." He marked out the seconds on the paper, red x's forming under his fingertips and extending upwards to show the angle it would enter the pipe. "Let's see... maybe a water collector? Yeah, probably right up here. Yeah, then you don't always end up waiting for it to be piped from the main water recycler."

Blu sat back, giving a little satisfied nod. The blueprint wasn't flashing at him, which meant his changes were structurally sound. "Yeah, there we go! I can hire a contractor next time we're near and make 'em mermaid friendly!"

[Sonya]

Blu was absolutely right. Space was going to be awesome. It was going to be absolutely incredible! Sonya felt her heart racing in her chest, full of excitement. Before yesterday the only incredible in her life had been ‘incredibly boring.’ Today, she would soon be out in space! She giggled as Blu continued. ‘Seize lots of fish?’ She’d never heard that one before. It must have been a newer expression, or she would have picked it up hanging out with her old friend Paul.

Sonya peered eagerly at the blueprints Blu had set down on the table. This was her first look at the ship she’d be traveling on! And who knew, perhaps she’d spend the rest of her life on the Echo. She only hoped she got to stand on a few planets, as Blu had done, before she died. The blueprints, however, didn’t make much sense to her, and moments later Blu was off again, saying something about pipes and water and her being a mermaid. Sonya understood only that he was talking about changing something in the ship to accommodate her possible need for water. “Thanks.” She muttered, feeling rather awkward, “That’s really generous of you, but… well the thing is, I’d hate for you to do all that and then find out if wasn’t necessary you know?”

It was true that she didn’t want to make Blu do extra work, but the main reason for the words she’d just spoken was completely different. Sonya wanted to forget that she’d ever been a mermaid, to shed her history as easily as she’d traded her tail for a pair of legs. That would be hard to do with such a strong reminder built for her right there in the middle of the ship.

[Blu]

"But we'll find out before I even do any changes." Blu pointed out, zooming back out of the rooms and bringing the full ship into view again. The umbrella slowly turned, just as it was slowly turning out there in space right now, tilted toward the sun. "We've got to meet up with the Underworld to sell electricity to them, and then when that's done, we can go to Terra and that's going to be... a week or so? And if you shrivel up or whatever mermaids do if they aren't getting enough water, we'll see that right away."

He really hoped it didn't involve shrivelling. Sonya looked like she was a good size. Any smaller and she wouldn't be the right size anymore. You couldn't risk getting too small. Then nothing fit anymore, and everything was too high up, and people would tower over you and Blu knew from experience that it was just awful being too small around too tall people. You could get a real insecurity complex.

Blu looked down on his spaceship, smiling at it happily. Nobody made him feel short there. Or weird. Or unwanted. On his ship, Blu was good the way he was. And so was his crew. Or. What was the singular of crew? Crow? Craw? He laughed a little and shook his head.

[Sonya]

Everything seemed to be working out perfectly. All of the sudden, it seemed like life had just magically become easy. It was a good feeling, fantastic in fact, but Sonya wondered how long it would last. Maybe forever, since she was about to go into space. In a bit more than a week she’d have been to both the Underworld and Terra. In the next week, Sonya was going to do more and go to more places than she had in seventeen years of life. That was, if she didn’t shrivel up first. The idea of shriveling away was the only thing keeping Sonya from perfect happiness at this moment. But if she did die, at least she would die happy.

That was something her mother could never understand. Her mother just wanted everyone to sit around and do nothing, if only it meant they would live a little a longer. But Sonya knew the truth. It was better to die young and happy than old and miserable. She pictured her mother’s face, had she been there at the moment. ‘Sonya!’ Her mother would cry out, ‘Don’t leave me! You can’t really want to leave with these terrible humans! You can’t go!’ Sonya stood up. “Well, I’m ready to go if you are!” Watch me mother. Watch me.

[Blu]

Blu dismissed the image and folded up the digital paper, tucking it away inside his jacket. He was more of a fan of the paper than of padds, simply because of the additional space and the added hands-on interaction. It was also a remainder from when he was an architect, and had spent hours pouring over digital paper while trying to figure out how to build something structurally sound, attractive looking, and fully self-sufficient.

"My shuttle's just over there." He gestured toward the docking bay, not entirely sure which his was in, but not worried about it. Blu knew what it looked like, he would find it eventually. He got to his feet and headed in that direction with Sonya, feeling happy to have a cook again. No more badly burnt eggs for him!