ataraxion | video + conscription

[Passengers who've met Heather before might notice she's a bit paler and a bit darker around the eyes than usual. Passengers who haven't are about to get a charming introduction, if it's delivered in a slightly flatter, wearier tone than her usual.]

Been a while since I've done one of these, so I should probably introduce myself. Heather Mason. I'm a double-oh-two and I work in the gardens, which is why I'm speaking to you today.

The oxygen gardens are what keep us all breathing and eating stuff that doesn't come in a vacuum pack. They're not a petting zoo. There are four of us trying to keep that place running and it's hard enough without worrying about the crops getting eaten or kicked over or people's pets trying to kill each other. So here's the deal: You're keeping something in the gardens? Drugs, pets, livestock. Dinosaurs. Congratulations. Now you work there. I don't want to hear any bitching, either. We all depend on the oxygen gardens to keep us alive, so if you're taking more out of them than anybody else, you need to put more in.

Oh, and if what you've got in there might cause damage to what someone else has there? It's your job to make sure that doesn't happen, not anybody else's. Come on.

[She'd add that the people she's just conscripted should contact her for details but... well, they might take that as an invitation not to.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Listen to you, all scary. If you're stupid enough to commit murder over a cow you don't care enough about to take responsibility for, especially once you've announced it over a public network? You're gonna have a harder time with me than you think.

Unless you had the foresight to steal her some feed or you've been planting to make up for what she's eating on the sly. Have you?

She's not just a cow and I am in there every fucking day taking care of her and my chickens. I feed them, I clean up after them, I exercise them. I worked with the guy with the rabbit to get her in an area where she won't eat anything and Murphy helped me make up a chicken coop in exchange for some eggs -- milk and eggs that I've been putting in the kitchens for people to eat. I stole feed for them when I stole them off the outpost and that's what they've been eating, except for when she nibbled a bit on the rabbit's hay.

Maybe you should check all this before you go around barking orders.

Right, you worked with the guy with the rabbit after he told you what was happening. I missed the feed thing, and I'm sorry for that, but don't act like you planned this all out. You "rescued" [she's not actually doing air quotes but by god they're implied] these animals from a space station that seemed to be almost entirely vegetarian and brought them to a spaceship full of shit we know nothing about. You've only done what you should have been doing from the start since people told you to.

And that's my goddamn point. We're thin-stretched enough around here trying to do our actual jobs without having to chase around after people who pick animals up because it gives them a lovely warm fuzzy feeling and try to make them think a little harder.

You got anything planned to replace the feed when it runs out? No guarantee the next place we dock is going to have livestock, even if it isn't full of mental cases.

I've fed, watered, cleaned up after them, and exercised them from the start. All that changed is where exactly they were living, which took a grand total of a few minutes to get worked out once I knew who the fuck actually worked there and who was just hanging around smoking pot or assaulting anyone with a limited connection to wolves.

They get too old or I can't feed them, then it's dinner time. Not before then.

[Like working that out should have taken more than the first ten minutes the animals were on board, with the details freely available. But the rest of what she says is actually reasonable, and Heather's too goddamn tired to argue for the sake of arguing. So. Sigh.]

Don't suppose you could see your way to making sure anyone else who decides to try their hand at playing farmer is as... conscientious as you? And before you tell me to go fuck myself because it's me asking, it'd keep your girls safe. We don't have the time to spare to make sure it goes down that way.

[ It's tempting, but the woman's right -- and she does want to keep her girls safe. Besides... ] If they're not taking care of their animals, they shouldn't have them. I'll keep an eye out.

[ Pause. It's like a switch has been flipped, taking her from a bundle of blonde, freckled fury to someone fairly normal. ]

's Jaye, by the way.

[ Middle gears are for losers, okay. Even if you can just about hear the clunk in Heather's brain as Jaye says something she agrees with and the tension around her eyes fades. ]

Hi, Jaye.

[ Pause. ]

I'm not gonna cook your cow. And not just because I enjoy breathing.

[ It's true. ]

Thanks.

[ And she means that. ]

I mean, I know it'll happen someday, just... yeah. [ There's a scratch at the back of her neck. ]

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