What is it you really want, a Soulmate or just a Perfect Warrior?

Where we could really use a montage (because unpacking bags is soooo exciting)

After turning the music down a bit (because who doesn’t jam when they get dressed, especially when they’re proper buzzing like) and crawling to the door (that’s going to get old proper quick), I find both corporals (with their tunics/jackets/jerkins/whatever they call thoses off), most of the bags we humped through those tunnels... and Markys, out of his robe... and looking scary waifish.

“No robe?”

“Horrible to crawl in, too warm, and I’m not in their hands anymore, so I’m getting free from some of their stupid rules.”

“Good on ya’. What’s with all the bags? I don’t think blocking the corridor with them is a great idea.”

“It’s the things that came through with you, we all assumed they were yours.”

“...Oh... bring them in then.” ... did five of us really cart all that down those narrow tunnels?

It takes a while for them to get them all into the stateroom, 27 fairly large sacks... well, got nothing better to do.

“You two mentalists got any duties to get too, or you feel up to playing ‘What's in the magic bag’ with us?”

After looking at each other for a moment, doing the whole ‘friend telepathy’ shtick, Isenfast and Adeleloc drag a first bag over to the table. “Let’s get started then.”

We tip it out and it is full of boxes of ammo, grenades and dynamite, after a moment of panic, we bag it back up, start a new pile, and get the next one... and it happens again...

“Okay boys... new plan... look before you throw things out into the table...” The marines look suitably concerned... Markys looks more confused than concerned... “You do realise that there’s enough shite that goes boom in each of those two bags to blow us into the middle of next week, right?” Ah, now he gets it...

As we work through the next one, that is filled with a mixture of sci-fi-esque combat rations and de-hydrated fizzy pop, a question of practicality occurs to me. “So do you two have more practical versions of your names I can use? Isenfast and Adeleloc are a bit of a faff to say.” Before I’ve even finished the question, Adeleloc has turned his blackboard towards me;

- Fast and Lock -

And ‘Fast’ immediately follows it up with, “bit obvious really.”

The unpacking continues, most of the bags containing large amounts of fairly standardised supplies, so conversation drifts away from listing and cataloguing off in other directions...

“He is cute, for a bigling I mean.” Fast has a right shit eating grin on his face, “I mean, I might have made a pass if I didn’t grow up friends with his mother... and I thought I had any hope of beating how he looks at you.”

“How he what?!?”

“Well when you started pulling the launch for example, his look wasn’t the usual lechery you see from guys watching girls, it was a ‘how could I get her to notice me’ look?”

“When the spell glow faded off of you he blushed bright red at how you look, and he was more erudite before you... bewitched him.” ... I had hoped Markys would have been too sheltered to join in their banter when it started...

“I’m not that... I mean, I’ve not been this me for very long, it’s not like I’m some seductress aiming to bag me a bit of Royal Totty.”

“Never said you were ma’am, and it would be Imperial ‘Totty’ in any case. Just that it’s obvious that you’ve both got eyes for the other, you were watching him just the same when he was pulling.”

... This is getting too much, need to get away from it...

“Markys, how hard would it be too learn that waterproofing cantrip you were using in the tunnel? A lot of my stuff doesn’t really like water and well, I’m on a boat...”

“Playing ‘I’m On A Boat’,” Lock is looking guilty as he pulls back from where he leaned on my tablet’s search bar, and my tablet switches from reasonable a reasonable Instrumental Metal playlist to:

“~ Shortayyyy ~ Aww shit ~ Get your towels ready it's about to go down~”

...at some point I’ll have a musical interruption that doesn’t make me look fucking loony toons... right?

We continue sorting, finding; an assortment of spy and sci-fi tech devices; bits of futuretech and fantasy armour pieces; a gunbelt with a cowboy-style revolver holster on the left, a fancy 3/4 thigh length ‘magnetic’ ‘holster’ plate and bullet loops in the belt itself; a set of bandoliers; Temporary Tattoos that look identical to the Queen of Bats magic tats (and at her insistence inside my head, I apply them to match hers); a dozen radios with throat mics; and lots and lots more supplies.

And, as we sort, Markys starts teaching me magic... with Her Evil Drow Majesty butting in, hijacking my throat and explaining both how magic works here and how to integrate it with her magics... The combination works for me, and by the time we find My bag, I have already learned both the personal and projected forms of the Waterproofing charm and how to hold it and have gotten fairly far into learning a pair of (fairly wimpy to be fair) fire cantrips that I’m probably going to keep calling the ‘Flick-Click-Flare’ and the ‘Thumb-Lighter’ in my head.

The second of the first two things I pull out of my bag from home (a slightly over large, even for old me, hiking backpack) triggers an noteworthy response, then again, I doubt that super shiny, vinyl hooded jackets are a common sight, even at the Imperial Court (the first is a really warm Chinese bootleg Coke branded hoodie; Bite the wax tadpole, amusing to me, completely over their heads). Now before, when I got it as a bit of a joke, it made big me look like I’d mugged a prostitute (yeah, it’s that kinda jacket), in my new hotness in my phone’s camera (once I’d taught them all how to use it) it makes me look a bit like I’m the hooker... so I threw it to Markys who seems about the same size as me.

...And it kinda suits him, I mean, it is super feminine, but it’s a look that works for him... “ You can have it if you want, it’s never suited me the way it does you.”

And he is blushing, “T-thank you... I um, haven’t had anything that was mine since they took me to the Tower.” Lock turns to comfort him and just as I am about to ask what he means...

... There is a knock at the door. “Enter... Oh, Ric, what can we help you with?” No reaction from the Lt. over the nickname, good guess I guess.

“The Commander wants to see you in the wardroom, and what are you two still doing here? You are still on punishment detail, you’re meant to be cleaning the glowrock off of the launch.”

“Well you ordered us to see that Alice got her things, and she asked us to help her check she has everything... it seemed a logical extension...”

“...What am I going to do with you two?”

“Nothing, as I am the Empress’s best and closest childhood friend and still in favour in court... as long as I stay away from court...”

...Wow, feels awkward hearing that sorta groan about someone else for a change.

“Just get to the cleaning the launch, you can come back here to... play later. So Miss Olo, shall we go? You should probably put a top on first mind, the boys can get away with the bare chest look, girls as... well armed as you... can’t.”