Gemini at Odds

[Blaka]

Space, the final frontier....

Here, nothing mattered. There was only void. Void, and the bright little dots lighting it up. Stars didn't care about earthly concerns. Stars just were. Some far far away, others closer, but still in an unimagineably large distance, they were just hanging there in the nothingness. Absolute. Unbound. Gigantic entities of fire that lit up the night for lesser beings. To Nadya Orlov, there couldn't be anything more beautiful. What in the world could even hope to compare?!

For these and more reasons, Nad had gotten up early. About an hour after sunrise, the first chores would start. Thus, the young stargazer would rise at 4 in the night, do the makeup for the day, grab her telescope and a folding chair and hurry up to the roof. Some fresh air would be the perfect way to start the day. Fort Athen's towers rose high above the city and was safe of any disturbance. Even the usual bullies one could encounter inside the base were fast asleep.

In just a moment, one of the most beautiful events would start. The closest star to earth would crawl over the horizon. Slowly, all other stars in the sky would fade away. Only the moons would stay for a bit, bathing in the gaseous monster's light and reflecting it down to earth.

For the first time in hours, Nadya would take her eyes off of the telescope and stretch. It was best not to look at the sun through the lense, people could go blind because of a simple glance. A single red curl fell on her face, having escaped the confines of her hair band. Yawning, the young Marine fixed her ponytail, took a sip of coffee from the mug next to her and tucked herself a little tighter into her baby blue cardigan. As with all of her tops, this one had two holes cut out in the back, so that her large wings could be free. Below it, she was ready for duty, having put on a regular Marine recruit's uniform.

As expected, the sky above Chryse turned pink soon enough. The gigantic orange ball of light came rising out of the sea, spilling its rays over the city. A wretched place, full of smugglers, drug addicts and other icky folks, as far as Nad was concerned. Nobody would ever dare set up such a thing back home in Marineford. There, everybody was either an upstanding citizen or a loyal soldier, as it should be everywhere. Places like Chryse were hardly worthy of such a beautiful scenario as a sunset.

Mhrmmm...
Just now Miss Orlov noticed the feeling of a big black hole in her stomach. It was making quite the unpleasant noises too.
I should have taken a cereal bar or something with me...
Now she would have to do the running chores around the courtyard on an empty stomach before breakfast.

[viruswithshoes]

SPOILER: Click to show

Blab has my permission to move my character Dagon around how he likes to further the story for the rest of the thread.

The newest of the cooking staff Seaman Apprentice Dagon Basqiat woke well before the rise of the sun with a sigh. The smugglers he had cooked for before were night-owls and noon-wakers and the fresh form basic training Marine had yet to reset his internal clock.

Rising naked, while most of the other men in the barracks were asleep, it was safe to walk to the shower and take his time. The men around heard the entirely true rumor of Dagon being an okama and seemed put off by it. This compounded when the newest and rawest of recruits refused to comply to okama stereotypes. Where okama were flamboyant, Dagon was quiet and conservative in dress. Even among his okama peers Dagon had stood out by eschewing sexuality in general, identifying with neither men nor women. He was simply Dagon and who that was was expressed in his fighting and in his cooking.

Once showered and dressed in his chef's coat over a crude tee shirt his old friends in the Okamahagane had given him reading: Sausage Smuggler.
The people from his old crime days had left the person with the blonde mohawk rich in the coin of amusing but risque shirts and aprons. After dressing in his sleeveless, double-breasted chef's coat buttoned down to his waist Dagon put on his white pants and black boots enhanced with milky dials, a gift from his brother.

Though technically not a violation of the uniform code, it was suggested that Dagon at least wear short sleeves to cover up the circuit pathway tattooed on his neck and shoulders from his days as a smuggler. He brushed the suggestion off of his bare, tattoo-brandishing shoulders.
One last dress code grey area was Dagon's blue nail polish, sometimes used by female Marines but like many rules, did not take into account non-binary gender identity.


Aside from a few sentry it was quiet which was nice. He could cook in peace and have the kitchen to himself. There were times he doubted the career he had chosen with The Marines but seeing the large kitchen with it's giant, industrial grade equipment blew them away.
Dagon began with proofing sourdough bread and the baking it into a log which could have given a small tree a run for it's money. Dagon deftly sliced the log into hundreds of small circles and left them to bake.

The Marine's newest Seaman Apprentice adjourned to the roof to enjoy a morning cigarette, a solitary breakfast and most of all the view. Not normally one for such maudlin things such as sunrises Dagon did like the idea of the city of Chryse coming to life. The cook and former smuggler looked down from the edge of the roof upon which he stood and saw a city dedicated to cooking and smuggling. Though his criminal days were behind him, Chryse seemed like a good fit for Dagon Basqiat. What fit less comfortably was having to share his roof with another person.

He did his best to ignore the winged woman with the telescope but such magnanimity had never been the irritable okama's strong suit. Venting his displeasure via his fists was more his style but that style would have to be amended in order to adapt to life as a Marine which seemed like the latest group of people he could not mesh with. The smell of tobacco and hot peppers filled the air when Dagon lit up an Ifrit brand cigarette and soon mixed with the more appetizing scent of the egg batter-dipped sandwich consisting of grilled ham, turkey and topped with ghost chili pepper cheese, a precursor to the breakfast he was in the middle of preparing for the people of the base, intensely hot pepper cheese optional.

When he heard a rumbling, which many a cook could recognize, Dagon saw the opportunity to get rid of his feathered serenity smasher by picking up the butcher's paper-wrapped sandwich and unceremoniously placing it next to Nadya in order to facilitate her leaving.

[Blaka]

Huh?

More than mildly annoyed, Nadya Orlov noticed the door to the stairs below creaking as it opened. Who in their right mind was already up at this time of day? Aside from herself, obviously.

A quick look over her shoulder kind of confirmed her suspicions that this one was not in his right mind. Was he even a he? Tatooed all over, a wild mohawk on his head, polish on his nails. Right away, this person's appearance was repulsive to Nadya. It wasn't a style that screamed order and discipline, but rather untamed slacker and actual effort put into coming off ridiculous. Two things Miss Orlov despised to no end.

Thankfully, the stranger did not make attempts to disturb her further. His presence was still bothersome, but she wouldn't engage with him about it. No, this was her moment, a beautiful culmination of the past few hours. Mighty as it was, the sun sent its rays out, granting the stargazer this familiar warm feeling on her face.

Not even when she heard the sizzling noise of a little flame being lit did she say anything. Only her stomach rumbled even louder soon after, when the icky smell of what could only be a fat spicy cigar and filed the air. Despite her silence, her pretty mood had vanished now. Still, she defiantly stayed put, loudly slurping her coffee - until the man dropped something next to her: A sandwich.

At first, for but a few seconds, Nady ignored this as well. With a face like thunder, the redhead stared straight ahead into the light. Once again, her stomach rumbled. That moment, she broke. Quicker than one would have assumed her capable off, she plucked the food of the ground and burried her teeth into it. Moments later, it was gone. Only the wrapping was left as proof of its former existance.

"Thank you." Blushing a little, the seawoman looked up with puppy eyes. Clearly, he was part of the kitchen staff, that much one could figure out from the sandwich alone. Involuntarily, the stranger chef had pushed a trigger inside the sky lass' little mind: He had given her a gift. Far worse could be forgiven over a gift.

Putting her hand out to greet the young man, Nad cautiously started a conversation.
"Seawoman Apprentice Nadya Orlov! Nice to meet you!" Now came the point in every conversation with a new person that she dreaded so much. For some reason, most people dismissed her within the first minute or so of talking to her. Words like misguided, hurtful, even awful would be thrown around. Rarely did she ever figure out what had gone wrong. Here was a chance of meeting somebody likeminded.
"I haven't seen you around, you must be new here. Name? Rank? Where are you from?"

Once all of that had been answered, she would confidently go on to find a talking subject.
"Are you here to watch the sunrise too? I love to watch the sky! Look, over there, one of the moons, it's almost fading away! I always find it fascinating, we can only see them because they reflect the sunlight, right? So they should still reflect it right now, right? So why can't we see them during the day still? Power." Without noticing herself, Nadya had jumped straight into one of her little rants. She would always get those when talking about her hobbies. Any time space or guns was the subject, it was hard to get a word in. Appropriately, she didn't pay attention to what her hands were doing, quietly clapping as she kept talking.
"The sun's so big and so powerful and so close to us, it just pushes everything else away! Nowhere on earth can you find a power like that! Imagine what a Marine could do with this much! He could even, like, I don't know, go down to Fishman Island and just burn all those all those gross monsters up with one breath! Then conquer the entire New World from there!"

[viruswithshoes]

Perhaps is was because she was a woman or even stranger, a woman with wings, this Seawoman Apprentice didn't seem immediately repulsed by the androgynous looks and aura of irritability that defined the fresh Marine from Pirate's Market. It moved the needle of Dagon's meter of human interaction a little towards the positve side, though he still would have preferred having the roof to himself.

"First assignment. Dagon Basqiat. Seaman Apprentice, cook." The "Where are you from?" question held more complications for the already oddball Seaman Recruit than most. Most people who grew up on Pirate's Market tended to grow up to be pirates or smugglers, natural for a hub of criminal activity. There were days when the first born Basqiat spoke of his place of birth with pride while others he preferred not to be bothered with the inane opinions of others and kept it vague. Whether it was his fellow Marine enjoying his food or the wonderful view of the city, Dagon could not tell, but he decided to avoid any hassle by being vague about his birthplace.
"South Blue."

"Are you here to watch the sunrise too?"
"No, I-"
A bizarre, soft, clap accompanied and even more disturbing wish of solar-based genocide on a group that Dagon's father, Croin Basqiat, considered almost holy and definitely superior to humans.
"Without fishmen and pirates around there'd be no one left to feel superior to and then we'd just turn on ourselves." Most people could not tell whether the few words that came out of the surly cook's mouth were dark jokes or cynical observations and this time he himself wasn't sure.
"Besides," he said with a straight face but a humorous intention. "Without fishmen we'd only have our weak, human, martial arts."
Awkwardly, the joking okama punched his fellow Marine in the shoulder but with the same stoic look with which he had told the joke.

[Blaka]

Not much of a talker this one, that much was clear. Rank, name, profession and birthplace were all given in rapid succession. He was an apprentice, just like herself. Good to know, as Nadya rarely had any respect for the fellow men and women of her own rank. Most of them were silly people. While criminals were certainly worse to be around, these doofuses usually weren't any use in an actual fight. Most of them around these parts had also rather questionable morals in her opinion, even if they would have said the same about Miss Orlov. It would take time to see if this one was any different. Although he had already earned one point for himself, the sandwich.

However there was one part of his answer she wasn't quite satisfied with.
"South Blue?" That was too vague. "Where did you serve there?"

If it was true that most people couldn't tell the difference between the chef's jokes and observations, Nad sure was not most people. Sarcasm was not something she got, ever. It was stupid to her, why would you say one thing but mean the opposite? Especially exaggerated mimicry of her own opinions irked her. Some considered statements she would make nonchalantly to be so extreme they had to be ridiculous. The redhead could get pretty aggressive if she would discover someone was mocking, not agreeing with her. Something like this was bount to happen again very soon.

"True..." Nady mumbled in response to the superiority comment, sipping on her coffee some more. "Though I would prefer it if they were gone completely... We only have to settle for superiority because we can't get rid of all of them. They've infested the whole world." She was more talking to herself than him, it was a thought she had crashed into many times over.

The punch wasn't nearly as well recieved. Appauled, the winged lass got up from her seat and got up in the stranger's face.
"Oy! I almost spilled my drink!" She didn't really, in truth she was just yelling something, anything out. While she didn't get the joke, the move and comment made little to no sense, it was just confusing. Nadya's conclusion: it had to be something she didn't quite get, which usually humor. And she really couldn't stand this feeling. "You're right, that was weak! For your sake, I hope you got other skills to contribute to the force! Cooking won't save you against the monsters out there!"

[viruswithshoes]

OOC: Nad written with permission from Blab.


It was far too early in the morning for conflict but Dagon was pressed for details that would most likely cause static with his fellow Marine. Once more Dagon's desire to not be bothered clashed against his tendency towards straight, blunt speech.
"I was trained on Cinna Island and spent some time on Pirate's Market." The fact that the blonde okama's time on Pirate's Market was his childhood seemed not worth mentioning to this seemingly decent winged woman.
Then, as the Skypien lass spoke on the outsider among of the Marines felt a little more comfortable letting his freak flag fly. It was one thing to advocate genocide and another to think his martial arts weak.
"Trust me, Miss Orlov, my fishman karate and okama kenpo is more than adequate."
It felt like a lie, though his unorthodox martial arts had won him many fights, Dagon didn't feel that his ability with either style ventured beyond the adequate.

"So...what's your M.O.S.?" The uncomfortable cook asked as both challenge to his vexing woman and a genuine curiosity as to what Military Occupational Specialty she served. It seemed unlikely she had a job as dreary as cook but the irritated, former smuggler felt the pressing need to needle her about something, forgetting to take her wings into account.
"Sniper," she responded bluntly and with more than a little contempt in her voice.

It figured that the feathered pain in Dagon's ass would have the one job he had no intention of talking shit about. He had no interest in the occupation while growing up, but that didn't deter his mother from trying to teach him the trade. As a child he learned he had no interest or talent towards guns, but respected the ability and perseverance required to be a sniper. That respect, however was only for the position of sniper, not for those who held it.
"Standards must have decreased since my mother's time. How far away can you hit a one beri coin...ten feet?"

Then came Dagon's instinct towards antagonism and metaphorical knife-twisting.
"And before this my last job was as a smuggler. How long have you been in The Marines to have the same rank as a former criminal?"

Once more the chip on the new Marine's shoulder caused the normally quiet okama's mouth to ejaculate stupidity for the sake of riling someone up.
"It's obvious this roof isn't big enough for the both of us."