ship status + action

[piacularis]

For a brief period of about ten minutes, the lights all over the ship flicker and fade before returning to normal.

Several hours later, a very tense young blond man dressed entirely in black leather with an angry scar over the left side of his face can be found trying the cabin doors. He’s methodical, moves floor by floor, tests each door in turn; locked doors are discarded in the testing sequence, but any cabin left unlocked will find Mello entering and searching for something in a similarly systematic manner before moving on to the next. Maybe the next one is yours?

[hit me up in prose or brackets, or if you want a custom starter!]

Comments

[albatrossomen]

Now that was strange. Murmur had been working on his golem project when the lights flickered, shrugging it off with intent to question Navi about it later. If they were struggling, or low on power, it might become an issue at a later time. Their survival did depend on Navi's health, after all.

However, before he could do that, he soon heard someone out in the hallway, and very soon his door. He was there before Mello could move away, the door opening and Murmur leaning out to give him an inquisitive look.

"May I help you?"

[piacularis]

Mello takes a calm step backward when the door opens - obviously inhabited, but not by anyone he recognizes. It's not the first occupied cabin he's encountered.

"Not unless you can point me in the direction of a spare jacket," he answers, flatly. Mello may be wearing leather, but his top is sleeveless, and not only is he cold, he also feels uncomfortably exposed. His coat has been an extra layer of identity-obscuring security for months now, and he feels practically naked without it.

[albatrossomen]

He genuinely considers the options, rather than just shooing Mello away. "Clothing is in unfortunately short supply onboard, however you could try your luck with Mammon." He peers down the hallway, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his room. "If anyone leaves and their cabin unlocks he's quick to pillage, granted he'll likely be obnoxious about parting with his treasures." Hey, at least he's honest?

He glances back at Mello, frowning faintly. "I do have one you could borrow until you have an opportunity to obtain one more to your liking?" It's not like he really needed the duster, he just liked the cowboy aesthetic from one of their earlier planets.

[piacularis]

Honesty is something Mello appreciates - no sense in wasting his time with this Mammon character if he's likely to only get jerked around for his efforts. Murmur's offer takes him a little off guard, though, evident by the trace of confusion that colors his otherwise tense expression.

"You don't even know who I am. Why would you offer to let me borrow your jacket?"

Kindness is not something Mello is accustomed to encountering.

[albatrossomen]

Just charged increasingly exorbitant fees, which as a newcomer Mello would really have no way of even beginning to achieve. Or at all, really, knowing Mammon. He is the avatar of Greed after all. Murmur offers a faint shrug.

"Why not? You would not be searching so fervently if it were not necessary to you, and a jacket is hardly an unreasonable request." If he were just pillaging for the hell of it Murmur would be less generous in his offers, but looking for a coat doesn't seem outlandish to him. Maybe he's cold?

"Besides, it's not like you're going far." They are, after all, all trapped on a ship together.

[piacularis]

Murmur's answer is entirely reasonable, from the perspective of pure logic, but people, in Mello's experience, are much more complicated. Kindness offered with nothing expected in return feels like a trap to someone as paranoid and distrustful as Mello, and even as he nods, he expects to have the proverbial rug yanked out from under him.

"It's been a long time since I've met anyone so trusting of complete strangers." In his world, it's a foolish move, with the potential to result in death. But this isn't his world anymore, and while that isn't enough to shake his paranoia, it's enough to allow Mello to relax a small fractional amount.

"Yes, I'd appreciate the loan, until I'm able to procure my own. Thank you," he adds, because he does remember what manners are. He's not entirely feral.

[albatrossomen]

People are not always logical, it's true, and honestly even if Mello did steal from him it wasn't one of the things that was going to upset Murmur. Angels didn't have a particularly strong sense of property ownership. What use did they have for material things? So long as it wasn't his feathers he really wouldn't mind. That said, he didn't think Mello was going to steal from him. Cagey as he was he didn't detect dishonesty from him.

Perhaps a bit of genuine altruism will help soften those wounds that built such paranoid walls. Murmur offered a faint smile and something of a vague shrug. "The world may be cruel, but I do not have to make it crueler." He offered as he stepped aside to go dig out the jacket in question, leaving the door open so they could continue to talk. He didn't directly invite Mello in, somehow that felt like it might be too friendly for him.

He returned with the long leather duster. A bit much, probably, but better than nothing. After checking to make sure he hadn't left anything strange in the pockets he offered it out to the man.