Heart of the Sun [2430-1-4 Thurs 4pm]

[Blu]

The trip up had been pretty uneventful, with Blu and Sonya getting to know Mai a little better, and docking had gone pretty well. Getting Mai up to the crew quarters had been a little more tricky, since they'd had to show her how to use the compressed air to get around, while also making sure her bags didn't end up smacked into anything.

But in the end, it had all worked out with minimal bruising, and thanks to Sonya's vigilance, Mai hadn't ended up falling down the way she had when gravity had kicked back in. Blu made a mental note that he should always tell new people to stay close to the ground when gravity kicked in, and then about two minutes later, he completely forgot he'd done so.

Blu opened up his room to let Mai see inside, and promptly ditched his shoes and socks since he didn't feel like wearing them. The shoes went by the door, and the socks went into a basket overflowing with dirty laundry. His room was as messy and cluttered as it had been when he'd shown it to Sonya, but Blu still stood proudly in it, smiling while surrounded by knick knacks and other assorted mementos.

"This is basically what it looks like! Only without all the stuff! But you'll probably collect your own stuff as time passes! It's really easy! And you can either be beside me, or beside Sonya!" He pointed to his own window. Corus was still there in the background, blue as ever, but already starting to gain some distances as the ship began to float away.

[Mai]

The zero gravity thing had been quite a surprise, considering she hadn't even been aware of the idea of gravity on a planet versus not. But once she'd adjusted, it was really like being underwater, but with even less effort, as you could stay floating with little to no effort, unlike swimming, in which you still needed a specific motion to stay where you wanted due to water pressure or currents. Movement through the zero gravity was going to take more getting used to, since she usually had her tail when she swam, rather than the weird flail-worthy legs of a human (how they managed to swim with them, she was still confused about).

She was about to ask him why he bothered to switch back and forth between gravity and none--it seemed pointless and confusing not to pick one and stay with it, in her opinion--but he had opened the door of his room to show it off and she couldn't help but stand in a bit of stunned silence for a moment. Besides the mess, it was the view out the window that first distracted her. Despite having watched the stars and Corus slipping away during the shuttle ride, it was still a shock to remember she was no longer on a planet and had to rely solely on the technology around her to keep her alive, rather than the planet itself.

Once she finally tore her eyes away from the window, she felt her eyes being drawn most to the paintings on the wall, and she slowly made her way around the room inspecting them closely. "Wow, did you do all of these??"

[Blu]

Blu's face split open into a bigger grin as Mai noticed his paintings. He nodded and waited for her to finish looking before wandering over to join her, "Yeah, I've been doing it for a decade now, basically since I-" He paused, realizing that he was about to blurt out something he wasn't quite ready to share, "-since I was 17. I really got into the abstract stuff, and I've been doing tons of it!"

He didn't know if mermaids had their own mental breakdowns, and hospitals, and involuntary commitment, and suing for emancipation, but humans did and humans looked at you kinda weird after they found out you'd gone to the bug house. Maybe mermaids would too. Blu really didn't want to scare off Mai and Sonya so quickly, not when they'd just joined his ship. He liked them, he wanted them to stay for as long as they wanted to (and he wanted them to want to stay for a long time).

Blu realized his easel was still knocked-over, and he quickly picked it up, readjusting it. Then he remembered he should set up the scanner for Mai. "Hey Vivian!" He called up to the ceiling, "We need to set up the scanner again!"

"Yes Blu." The VI replied, "Waiting for input."

"Now you can choose a room!" He told Mai, running a hand through his hair, "You just choose which one you want, and then you press your hand against the hand-scanner - that's the metal plate - and it'll read your hand and then when you want to get in, you just put your hand on it and it works like a key!"

[Mai]

"Wow," Mai commented, wanting badly to reach out and touch them, but unsure if that was something Blu would mind or freak out about. It was just that there was so much... she couldn't even think of the right work. Texture? Maybe. "They're so different than what I'm used to." It must have been what he was trying to explain to her back on Corus.

She lifted an eye when he started talking to the ceiling, but instantly recognized the name Vivian. She jumped a little when there was a response seemingly from nowhere. She glanced around curiously, wondering where Vivian was. Then she decided it must be one of those intercom things they had at the space port, that was always announcing things like incoming ships and meetings and even sales some of the shops were having. She would have to meet Vivian later, Mai supposed.

"Choose a room?" she pondered. "Hmmm..." she peeked out into the hallway once more and glanced around. He'd said she would either be beside him or Sonya, which meant Sonya had one of the rooms on the other side. She glanced between them and couldn't quite pinpoint which one was hers, so she decided to play it safe. "Okay, how about this one?" she pointed to the door beside Blu's. He'd instructed her to put her hand on the plate in order to claim it, so she did, unsure of the results to come.

[Blu]

Vivian scanned Mai's print and promptly opened the door. Just like with Sonya's hand, Mai's prints would be circulated around the ship and she'd be given the permissions she needed to move around the ship. Blu really didn't know what he would have done without Vivian to help him. The VI had been a lot of money, but Blu had nothing but money to waste at that point in his life. She'd been worth every penny in the long run.

"Now it's yours! You just put your hand there, and it'll let you in, and it won't let other people in unless you want them to!" He told her, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "You can set up your stuff if you want, or you can do it later, and we can go see the gardens!"

[Mai]

The door slid open and Mai took a second to peek in. It looked pretty much the same as Blu's room, only empty. She would definitely have to remedy that. She hoped she could borrow Blu's easel until she could get one of her own somewhere, and get to work trying to fill her room with her own paintings.

"Oh, let's just put my bags in here for now," she nodded, intrigued far more by the other option. "I want to see these gardens!" Blu had said they were like a forest. She was only vaguely aware of forests, having small type kinds on Corus, but she was excited to see what could be grown right on the ship for their usage. She still had a lot to learn about plants that weren't of the underwater varieties.

[Blu]

Blu beamed, excited to show off the gardens. They were really the thing he was proudest of. Most ships couldn't keep small plants alive in space. Blu had made himself his very own jungle, and it'd made it thrive in a way it never could on Terra. "Come on!"

He hurried back down the hallway, picking up the canisters of air. He'd have to make sure to refill them later, since with three people moving around, they'd be used up much quicker. Blu tossed one to Sonya, and another to Mai, and once they were ready, he opened up the airlock and hopped out, into zero-g. His momentum carried him along, and he waited until he was almost at the t in the umbrella before turning on the air and slowing himself down. He waited under the sign that said GARDENS/WATER RECYCLER, watching the mermaids. It was great how easily they took to a weightless environment. A lot of humans got sick, but they were already used to life without gravity constantly pressing down on them.

[Sonya]

Sonya emerged from her room just in time to catch the air canister as Blu tossed it her way. She’d been rummaging around through her things, trying to find something she wanted to show Blu and Mai. She’d heard the two of them decide to see the gardens, and had been about to abandon her search when she’d finally found the lyre. She tucked the instrument under her arm for now and grinned at Mai. “You’re going to love the garden. It’s not like anything on Corus, not even close.”

The stringed instrument Sonya held had had its origins on Corus, but not among the mermaids. Most mermaids preferred wind instruments or just voice, given that those sounds were much easier to hear underwater, compared with the vibrations of strings. The lyre had come from the winged people. She’d bought it at the spaceport, and the network had taught her to play. Sonya had always loved music, but this strange instrument had instantly become her favorite. She also played flute, but never sang. Contrary to what most humans seemed to expect, she had a terrible singing voice.

[Mai]

Mai caught the air canister and tried to remember how to use it again. She fumbled a bit with it and finally got it into position before following Blu into the zero gravity of the next hallway. She noted it would definitely take some practice, and couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she tried it with her tail. She would definitely dry out a lot faster in that way though, so she decided it probably wasn't worth the risk.

Eventually they stopped under a sign that was blatantly labeled as the Gardens and Water recycler. At least she wouldn't get lost trying to find it, she noted. She looked over as Sonya spoke, noticing the instrument in her arms with interest. She recognized it vaguely as coming from the Winged people, and she was certainly interested in why Sonya had one, but that was a question for another time. It was time to check out the garden.

[Blu]

"Oh hey, your harp!" He was somewhat aware that it wasn't exactly a harp, but Blu could never remember the name of them. They were kinda like harps though, just small, and differently shaped. But the basics were more or less the same. You put your fingers on the strings, and you strummed them and sound came out. Wait, that also covered guitars. Could you call a guitar a harp too? Maybe! It would just probably confuse people a lot.

Blu jetted down to the gardens. He waited until Mai and Sonya joined him, and were ready, and he opened the door. Gravity reasserted itself, and he caught himself as he landed inside the gardens. The air was wet and moist, and condensation covered the walls, little beads of water collecting on every surface. If you stayed here for longer than half an hour, you'd end up soaked to the bone. Blu always tried to remember to leave his sneakers outside when he came in, since they took forever to dry out. But he already wasn't wearing them, so that was no problem at all.

Plants covered every surface, creeping vines growing on the walls and across the ceiling, looking through the lattice that covered it all. Only the floor was clear, and then bushes and certain vining vegetables spilled over into the isles, growing pumpkins and cucumbers and zucchini. Beside them, small shrubs and knobby trees nestled together underneath miniature suns (modified sunlamps, really, turned into a circular shape to provide the maximum amount of sun for the plants). Water ran down a make-shift waterfall in the back, gathering in a pool with some aquatic plants that Blu had picked up during his travels. On the ceiling, sprinklers sprinkled down on larger plants, and misters spritzed here and there, making sure everything was moist.

There weren't any desert plants here, mostly because they would have drown in the moist atmosphere of the gardens, but Blu had plans to someday add a dry-room for them, with more sunlamps, and without all the water. But for now, he was happy to have his garden, his fruits and flowers and blossoming trees.

Blu stepped up onto one of the raised garden beds, and stepped into a patch of grass that he'd grown just to stand on. He turned around to face Mai and Sonya. There was no need for a ta-da this time. He knew what his garden was. A masterpiece. His real masterpiece.

[Mai]

Mai's eyes widened as the doors opened, revealing the garden behind it. As she landed back on the floor and managed to re-balance herself, she couldn't help but stare at all of the green around them. Even more than that, the air was moist, the temperature much more like Corus than the rest of the dry ship was. Just a few seconds into the room and already her skin was feeling better.

Besides the welcomed humidity, the other thing that surprised her was the scent. She'd never before been hit with so many fragrances at once, mostly used to the smell of sea air and the strange smells of the spaceport. She stepped further in, slowly down the path with intentions of inspecting all of the plants. She had never seen so much colour out of the water before. She'd been under the impression that the levels of beauty in the reefs were only found underwater, but she was definitely wrong.

Mai reached out to gently touch a nearby flower petal, noting it's soft texture under her fingertips. She bent down to smell it, breathing in it's amazing new smells. She glanced up at Blu. "This is so amazing, Blu! How did you do this??"

[Sonya]

“It’s a lyre actually.” Sonya murmured automatically. “Harps are bigger.” She held out her hands to demonstrate the size. She wasn’t actually sure of that fact, but she wasn’t about to let Blu or Mai know that. As soon as Blu opened the doors to the garden however, Sonya forgot all about the difference between a harp and a lyre. Her hands dropped to her sides as she stared in breathless wonderment at all around her. Though she had seen the gardens once before, she found them every bit as stunning and beautiful as she had the first time.

But those words hardly did it justice. It was beyond description. Sonya had seen pictures of forests on the network, forests that were much more vast and luscious than the one here, but somehow being in the moment, being present rather than just looking at a picture, made all the difference. She nodded as Mai spoke. “You said it sister!” It was another phrase she’d picked up from her old friend Paul, and she had no idea how completely dated it was. Both Mai and Blu would likely have no idea what she’d just said.

[Blu]

"It was easy. I wanted something more efficient than an air recycler, and plants are the best air recyclers! So I designed a garden that could provide all the oxygen needed to supply the ship, enough food to feed five people, to filter water, and the ability to compost every waste! A fully self-sufficient ship!" Blu spun around, swinging his arms out. "Oh, and then I made it pretty, because it's nice when things are pretty and functional."

He sat down on the grass, legs hanging over the edge of the raised garden bed. "I used to design all sorts of things like this, but the Echo is the best of them all. She's never seen the face of any planet, and she never will. Even if we all went away tomorrow, the plants would keep growing and growing and growing, and they'd compose themselves, and make oxygen and drink the water. I guess they'd eventually run out of water, but they'd be okay until then."

Blu hopped off the grass and crossed over to the gardens. He pulled out a carrot and brushed off most of the dirt, holding up the orange vegetable and grinning. "There's lots of snacks in here, if you ever want some!"

[Sonya]

“Wow! That’s… your brilliant!” It was all Sonya could think to say. Blu’s words made her feel as though someone had tied her brain into a large and complicated knot. She knew she’d never be able to untangle it, so she didn’t even try. But it was easy enough to just… not mention that she had no idea what he was talking about. Sonya moved among the rows, happily inspecting the various plants, some she recognized, many she didn’t.

Blu’s voice surprised her, and Sonya looked up to see him holding something long and orange. After a moment, she remembered that it was called a carrot, and she had used it before in cooking. She grinned at her captain. “Oh good! I might start poking around for prospective ingredients too, if you don’t mind.” That was certainly one major similarity between human and mermaid cooking. Much of it relied heavily on produce. There was certainly enough produce here, though admittedly next to nothing any mer-person would recognize.

[Blu]

"I don't! That's what they're here for!" Blu was always happy when the cooks took from the garden. Fresh things tasted so much better than not-fresh-things, and if nobody ate the vegetables, they ended up in the compost, and then Blu felt kinda sad. They'd worked so hard to make the food, and then nobody was going to eat it.

He munched on the carrot he'd pulled up. There was something about the taste of dirt that he liked. It was just so... earthy. Real. It made everything taste a little better. "Everything in here can be eaten, and everything over there can be eaten-" He gestured to the other garden bed, right beside. That one had more fruits in it, bushes and short trees. "But don't eat the other plants. Some of them can make you sick, and others just don't taste good."