Joint Personal Log - Capt Ivanova & Noah Waterhouse - "Wind Blows, Fire Burns"

Posted on Mon Oct 20th, 2014 @ 4:18am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova

2,890 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Are You Touched?

The Vindicator was in the hands of fire. Between his sister as XO, and the tiny Phoenix who was the Captain, there was nothing more apt that Noah could say about it. Rochelle Ivanova was like a blue flame though, deceptively cool looking with her icy eyes, but burning with a passion that rivaled a sun and many seemed to underestimate. Given the noise the gossip vine on this ship made, Noah could even tell that her flame was drawing many men as if they were moths. He just wanted to offer his artistic skill to make her a striking costume worthy of her fire, strength, and beauty.

Pond had already agreed to let him help with her costume, but she was stubborn and knew what she wanted. Just leather and slinky fabric, simple really. He could work with simple, but it just wasn't enough. He wanted to craft something larger than life, something that would leave people speechless, and he wanted someone with poise, grace, and power to carry it. So he was seeking out the Captain, and he'd taken the time to dress up nicely: his formal pirate hat, his boots polished, a well tailored vest over clean and properly fitted tunic and pants.

Time, it would seem, was never quite on Rochelle's side. There was always something going on, some issue to correct or mess to clean up. With the 'Pastafarians' aboard, it would seem that mess was incessant and never ending... Though their harassment of the lounge crew was more of an amusement that an irritation. Even still, each piece of the puzzle was requiring more than a little force to sink back together, and when they did fit it was practically torture to keep them together. Glue, she thought, she needed glue.

Glue that would come when they finally reached the Sol system and released Noah back on Terran soil. Even then she highly doubted the scent of rum and tomato sauce would ever leave some of the guest quarters. The sound of boots beating against the carpeted observation lounge deck begged for her attention, the gig was up. Someone had taken the time to track her down when she was certain she could escape for a little bit of quiet time. Turning off the PADD she'd been reading, Rochelle looked away from the words of 'Jane Eyre' and up to see Noah, his hat's feather bobbing with his every step and his eyes locked on her. He wanted something.

"What can I help you with now, Mr. Waterhouse?"

"I was hoping it was I who could be a help to you," he returned, bowing with a twirl of his hat.

A single brow shot up, arcing high in question. "Oh?"

"Pond mentioned something about a Masque, and I was wondering if I could offer my assistance with your costume? As Captain, you do have to have the most fantastic costume at the ball, yeah?" He grinned wide, holding his hat under his arm as he awaited her reply.

If the eyebrow could have inched higher, it would have. Rochelle sat the PADD down and leaned back against the corner and clear aluminum window she'd settled in. Being the Captain had it's perks, sitting on the floor nice and cozy with only the stars as your company was one of them. "That's not quite how it works. Being the Captain doesn't mean I have to have the best of everything. Besides. Costume tastes are like everything else, one person's 'oooo' may very well be someone else's 'ick'." She replied, thought her head tilted ever so slightly in curiosity. "Out of interest alone, what did you have in mind? I wasn't planning on doing anything more than a black dress and a Venetian mask."

"While I am sure you carry understated magnificently, I had visions of you showing off your inner phoenix. Striking holographic wings, feathers, glitter, and a magnificent full ball gown perhaps?" He set his hat on a nearby table; as he spoke, his hands moved, gesturing sweeping and high for the wings, his hands fanning outwards in front of his face as his spoke of the glitter and feathers, and one hand sweeping in front and around him to indicate the full skirt of the gown. "Of course, if I went too far, you can always reign me in. Pond won't even consider holographic anything for her costume, though she's letting me do the leather sculpture work for the mask and the wings attached to the corset."

Quietly, she listened and wondered whether or not the man was drunk, high, or both as she watched his flourishes and movements with eyes that steadily seemed to widen. Feathers, glitter, holographic wings, giant ball gowns. Rochelle held up her hands to stop him. "I'm not an artist, Mr. Waterhouse. I can't even draw a recognizable stick figure so you'll have to forgive my inability to put this all together in my head." She said with a shake of her head, "I'm not opposed to letting you help, but I'd like to see be able to visualize what you're on about. Do you have sketches? Holo-pictures? Something?"

"Not yet..." he allowed, chewing his lip. His fingers moved to the leather band on his wrist, triggering a holographic interface. "But I think I can work something up... hang on one noodley second." As he spoke, lenses materialized off the edges of the piercing through the bridge of his nose, and a stylus floated in midair in front of him. He collected the stylus in hand and started to draw in the air in front of him. As he worked, he made small noises which occasionally the universal translator in the Captain's combadge would translate to mean various colors in Andorian. He'd glance at the petite firebird from time to time as he moved around the holographic sketch that started to materialize in midair, some details filling in quicker than others, and some left vague. In the middle of it, a eerily accurate caricature of her face materialized.

"Oh... Okay..." Rochelle blinked and watched, half mesmerized and half dubious as seconds and details ticked by to create a holographic image in front of her. Her head tilted back the other way as she studied the digital image of her face and the colors of fall and fire that he used with a heavy mix of carelessness and precision that seemed to blend all too well. Art was something she'd never understand or begin to be able to grasp, it had failed her often as a child and as an adult she'd simply given up on it in pursuit of talents she did possess. Forcing something was unfounded, it never worked with any real fluidity. Feathers and what looked like fabric roses, glitter and curls of hair all seemed to appear out of nothingness as the sketch progressed. It wasn't at all as hokey as she'd envisioned.

"I've got a painting started for Pond, for her office," Noah said casually over his shoulder as he stepped back a moment and considered the holographic sketch that lingered in the air in front of him. It stayed steady despite how he moved and fidgeted to consider it from multiple angles. "Once I finish it, I could do one for your ready room, if you like. You inspire visions of a warrior queen with her pet phoenix on her shoulder. Done in oils." He let go of the stylus, and it floated midair, and his fingers fell to the interface projected above his wrist band. A flick of the finger expanded the interface, and he fiddled for a moment until the wings started to move. They stood just a little taller than the figure in the sketch when they were at rest, and as the stretched out, flapped and flexed, the wing span was impressively wide. "They wouldn't be solid holograms, so that you wouldn't bump any of your crew as you moved about the masque."

"That's something I'd be willing to sit and discuss, though would likely find its way to my quarters more than office. I don't tend to hero worship myself." Rochelle nodded, her voice far softer than it had been previously. While she didn't understand art, she appreciated it and held respect for the people who could create such visions. There were still paintings produced by Captain Dar lingering in various parts of the ship. Another visionary. Another loss the ship had seen. She cast the birdwalk from her mind as the wings beat against the air in a perfect imitation of a bird's as they simply stretched and flapped like a person would unfurl their arms just because it felt good. "I'm sure they'd appreciate not being bowled over." She acknowledged with a smile and slowly picked herself up from the floor to walk around the image. "There's one thing missing, though..."

"Oh, I was going to put the Flying Spaghetti Monster likeness somewhere subtle, since I didn't think you were of the noodley faith," Noah said, almost absentmindedly as he tilted his head to the side and considered the sketch.

The look she shot him was one of incredulous skepticism and the words to question his sanity nearly slipped from her lips before she caught herself and shook her head, "I meant it's missing a mask." She finally replied, gesturing to the sketch's head. "After all, it is a masquerade."

"Pond's already got me thinking leather sculpture," he mused, stepping close to the sketch, leaning over to put his face level with the sketched likeness of the Captain. He didn't seem to have noticed the look that was shot at him as a result of mentioning the flying ball of spaghetti and meatballs. He stepped back again, collecting the stylus that had stayed floating right on the edge of his peripheral. He started sketching off to the side of the main drawing, not wanting to cover the face yet. "I'm not sure if I can properly convey the look of the leather with this... have you seen leather sculpting before?"

"I have." She nodded, carefully watching him as he worked. The details were bizarre, the life sized sketch of her face almost unnerving as she looked upon it with that same measured skepticism and awe. "Ren faires were pretty elaborate when I was a kid." Rochelle explained with a ginger shrug.

"I've been meaning go visit one of those. Mum's interest in earth history didn't go that far back, so she always shot it down... Which is funny, since the Faires were a cultural artifact of the 20th century and she's fascinated with 20th century earth history," he mused aloud, stepping back from the drawing of the mask that floated in front of and to the left of the drawing's face.

The little Captain's head tilted ever so slightly, "I'm actually sincerely disappointed that she left that out of your childhood experience. Pirates tend to visit ren faires." It dawned on her then that it was entirely possible that if the boy had managed to explore the swashbuckling tales of Earth's pirate history that this entire issue may never have come to pass. For that, she'd blame Diziara. "Harpy eagle?" She asked, curious of the inspiration behind the mask's raptor like appearance. Birds of prey had always fascinated her.

"Is that what that one's called?" he mused, head tilting to the side as he considered it. "I've always had a hard time pairing nouns with what they speak of, but that one sounds right." He nodded. "I can export this to a holo file for you, if you like. It'd be interesting coffee table art scaled down."

"If it suits your fancy." Rochelle shrugged, "Though I think the actual mask would look nice on display." She circled the sketch and the costume with avid interest, taking it in and considering it with grand interest. "It's truly breath taking." She nodded, looking up towards him with approval. "With your ability as a designer you could be making a small fortune somewhere."

"I'd get bored staying in one place, and besides, I've got people who depend on me," he stated with a shrug. "I had offers when I graduated from the art Academy, but there's too much to see, too much to learn, too many people to touch, to stay in one spot for long." He grinned as he processed what her comment probably actually meant. "So you'll let me dress you for the masque?"

"There's more to life than drifting through space, Noah. You have a talent, you should be using it and preaching on the side." The Captain asserted softly, gesturing to the holographic sketch in front of them as she came to a rest. "I'll let you dress me for the masque. I don't know my measurements, but I can get them to you. It's been quite a few years since I've had anything custom tailored." It had been nearly eleven years, in fact, since her remaining family had forced her through the Hell that was a débutante ball. With it had come a custom, stuffy gown in hopes that she'd have been married off to a wealthy somebody instead of bent on following her mother's footsteps through the stars. The stars won.

"My gift is touching people. Be it through the art I make, the people I speak to while spreading the noodley word, or just the good I do because my belief in a ball of spaghetti and meat balls means I love everyone. One day I'll probably settle down, but while I'm young enough to still spring back when the ship runs aground, I'll learn, experience, and teach as much as I can," Noah insisted, and turned to regard the Captain eye to eye for the first time since he'd started drawing. "I think Mum has a good tailor holodeck program, you'll probably find a copy in Pond's collection... if you don't have a better way to get your measurements."

Arguing, or reasoning, with Noah would prove fruitless. He'd agreed to pull free of the planet and the creatures relatively amiably and for that she could be thankful. At least it meant keeping Pond happy and walking the straight and narrow for a little bit longer. "As long as you use that talent eventually." Rochelle admonished him. He was a tall, lanky thing who's youth shone brightly in his eyes. Or was it insanity? She couldn't be sure. "I could use that or I could just replicate ye olde fashioned measuring tape?" Rochelle grinned, amused by how complicated technology had made some things.

"As long as you have ye olde fashioned friend to take the measurements. They aren't accurate if you take them on yourself," he chastised. "I do use my talents, both as gifts, like this," he waved his hand at the sketch of the Phoenix's costume, "and I take commissions from time to time to cover my expenses. Art is a gift, it shouldn't have a price and a deadline on it. I only accept the reins of such on mine when necessitated by outside influences."

"I'm sure I could get Pond to help." The firebird huffed in quick response. "Just as I'm sure a few design houses would blanch at the idea of their art being a gift. I doubt Versace would ever dream of designing something like this just for fun."

"Commerce, disguised as art, occasionally getting lucky and employing an artist with the gift," Noah dismissed with an eye roll. "We are blessed — regardless of what deity you believe to be responsible, even if it's just lady luck, or the hard work of our fore-bearers — blessed to live in a society with so little scarcity. Monetary concerns only exist where we let them, and there is no civilized reason to put shackles on art in such a society."

That was when Rochelle held up her hands in mock surrender, her head shaking as she listened to him prattle on ever so passionately about his views on art being a gift to society. "Maybe you should be preaching about this back on Earth?" She offered with a sly grin.

"Not my business to decide what people exchange money for, I just do what I believe and hope others follow," he returned quietly. "If you can also get me a 3d scan of your face, so I can fit the mask as I sculpt, instead of having to adjust it after it's mostly done, it'll be more comfortable to wear. And I can leave you to your reading again." He collected his hat from the table it'd sat on, twirling it as he bowed and placing it back on his head.

"I suppose I could find the time." She sighed as if it was the biggest imposition the universe had ever seen, though her eyes continued to give away her excitement and amusement. Halloween was a wonderful time of year and the Masque would only help boost morale and allow people to remember just how important fun really was. They needed it. She needed it, especially after Mikkal.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Captain Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

Noah Waterhouse
Pastafarian Minister & Artist

 

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