Chapter 11
Iwalked with Violet, quite surprised that Lily had allowed me to go off without her. Lily had insisted that the connection between her biomass in the ship and the chunk that was tunneling beneath our building was almost complete, and she was going to spend some time pushing to finish that today.
It sounded like she was irritated with it for some reason.
"Lily was very stern with me before she'd let me take you away," Violet said, walking beside me as we got off the subway and began making our way back up to the city.
"Yeah, well, I think that's just going to be the way of things. She’s very protective of me," I said, giving Violet a small smile.
Violet bobbed her head. Today she had dressed nicer than I'd seen her before.
Then again, we were visiting an old friend of hers, and rather than just wearing a spacesuit, I think she had borrowed some clothes from Tiri.
The green clashed a little against her purple hair.
I wasn't exactly an expert on these things, but it was like there was a winter tone to the clothes, while Violet's hair had more of a warm summer tone beneath it.
I smirked to myself. I was pretty proud of myself for noticing.
"Yeah, well, things should get better," Violet said. "This is a good opportunity to find some work."
"I mean, if she's living here, she's doing well for herself," I said, glancing at the buildings around us. Rather than the space-constrained area we’d been in around the spaceport, this area had a luxurious feeling of keeping buildings low and exposing you to the sky more.
"It's the wealthy part of town," Violet said, her tail swishing behind her. There was a slit in the dress that her tail could poke through, and I was amazed at how the cloth fell in such a way that it seemed in no way scandalous or overly revealing as a result.
Violet glanced over, tilting her head as she studied me. “What are you thinking about?”
"Nothing," I said, doing my best to pretend I hadn’t just been trying to see if the dress would reveal a flash of her ass. Damn my curiosity. "Just wondering about kikai practices. I don't want to come off as rude."
"Don’t worry. You’ll be given a fair bit of grace. It's important that the captain comes for this to show respect. And, if I'm honest, while I can do some things myself, ultimately I need your approval to get everyone else on board. We have no idea what she might offer us," Violet began.
I chuckled at the thought of Violet trying to get Lily to do anything. I doubted whether Melgara would do much unless I asked either.
"They're all very capable people who listen to you," Violet said pointedly.
I nodded, understanding the responsibility I held simply by the fact that I was the only one who Lily listened to.
I looked around us as we moved. The area was far more open.
Where we had docked was cluttered, and outside of the main thoroughfares, everything had felt cramped.
Here, it was easier to take a breath and have some space.
Everything was not crammed into as small a space as possible.
"So this is the upscale area," I said, and Violet hummed. "Did you and your master stay around here?"
Violet shook her head. "No, I grew up on farms outside the city. Though I spent a decent amount of time with my master. In the end, she had a few places. She was a person who liked some peace and quiet when she could find it."
"Her life was hectic?" I nodded.
"Exceedingly so. She took a break from a lot of politics when she took me on as a disciple. Though the politics never really took a break from her." Violet smirked but was rather short when describing a woman she so clearly loved.
I found myself nodding again, more and more curious about Violet's master. "So, she was a politician?"
"Oh no," Violet chuckled. "Only by necessity.
Generally speaking, she was a warrior. She had just…
well, as she would say, ‘some fights no longer required her sword’.
I think she was honestly quite upset to put it down.
But she also said fights could be won through more peaceful means, and it would benefit more kikai. "
I hummed, thinking to myself that this woman sounded far more like an idealist than I would have expected. From what I'd come to learn of the kikai, they seemed far more inclined to respect blatant strength. The kind where you could walk into a room and physically change the situation.
"And, of course, at one point she was a great advocate for peace," Violet added, with a giant smile on her face. There were clearly a number of fond memories tied up in whatever thought came to her.
"Well, she sounds wonderful," I said with a smile, knowing that talking about her master seemed to be one of the best ways to get Violet to open up, but it often ended with a somber mood.
"What about you?” Violet turned the tables quickly before I could ask more. "You've been training on those recordings… What was his name, Gallicard?" Violet asked, and it sounded like she already knew the answer.
"Yeah, I don't know if I'd put much stock in some of the things he says.
Half the time he's like a used ship salesman.
The other half, he's scarily competent. But even if I met him in real life, I'd never call him master.
" I shuddered at the idea, thinking about the swarmy smuggler.
But to his credit, the videos were incredibly helpful.
The man had a certain way of thinking about situations that was very relevant to my new life.
Violet nodded, her ears flopping and nearly unsettling the pins she had in her hair, which was styled into a foreign-looking updo that was difficult for me to describe.
I didn't have a whole lot to compare it to.
There were six pins in her hair, the bases coming out the bottom and almost making a sort of crown as they poked out the top of the style.
Violet pulled out a small datapad, glanced at it, then up at the street signs.
I was always interested to see the lettering, though the characters were foreign to me.
Rather than reading them, I was simply trying to match shapes.
It was uncomfortable being unable to understand the words around me, but at least Violet seemed well-versed.
She pointed to a building just down the street.
I leaned back, my neck craning continuously upwards. "Nice place," I commented dryly. It had to be about twelve stories, which was tall for the area. "Do they own the whole place?"
"Just the top half," Violet said. Given how centrally it was located in the city and the sheer size of it, I had to assume it was wildly expensive. Violet, however, seemed unperturbed.
"Was your master wealthy?" I asked as we walked up to the building.
Violet hesitated, squinted, and stared off into the distance. "Very. Though her main place of residence was a capital-class ship she owned."
"Huh," I said. That was a level of wealth I hadn't been prepared for.
After all, while the classes of ships seemed somewhat straightforward, the reality was an exponential growth curve.
While a battleship might be twice the length of a frigate, it was also often several times wider and several decks taller, which more than doubled the total size. Capital-class ships were even grander.
I stared at Violet briefly, wondering how she had gone from having a master she spoke of so fondly in such a position of power to being a slave at the Wentworth facility. It was a jarring juxtaposition, to say the least. Violet must have practically read my mind by the way she smiled softly.
"My master had a lot of enemies. It was all I could do just to escape and hide after her death," she revealed.
"I'm so sorry," I told her.
Violet waved off my apology. "You had no way of knowing, and it's not like you were rude about it. The curiosity is understandable."
"Still"—I paused—"even though I'm not responsible, I still feel it's best to let people know they have a sympathetic ear, should they want it."
"Thank you." Violet dipped her head. "But it's been long enough that I should be over it." The way her jaw clenched, I knew she wasn't yet.
"Well, if it's any consolation, and I hope this doesn't sound too cheesy, I'll treat you all like family I've chosen," I told her.
Violet smiled at me. "That's so terribly cheesy it might just border on somehow coming back around and not being too bad." She emphasized her point with a smirk.
"Oh, good." I let out what I hoped was a comically relieved breath, which got the desired result as Violet giggled. "So—"
"There is one small problem," Violet said.
"Oh?" I pressed a hand against my chest in mock alarm.
"The phrase ‘Chosen Family’, for kikai, is perhaps a little different than you're used to." She smirked. "By kikai logic, you practically just proposed."
I stared at her in mock horror. "Oh—" The word caught in my throat as the smile fell off Violet's face.
"Would that be such a bad thing?" she asked sharply, hands on her hips.
"Oh, no. Any man would be absolutely lucky to have you," I quickly answered, and some of the smile restored itself. It seemed I had saved myself on that one.
Unfortunately, I was increasingly committed to Lily.
I was fairly certain I would lose my ship at this point if anything were ever to come between her and me.
But I was starting to recognize that humans in this universe weren't quite as monogamous as I had expected from my past life.
It was still a culture shock I hadn't quite gotten used to.
And suddenly, the thought of Lily sharing seemed like a joke, and not one that ended well.
"Shall we?" I said, gesturing at the building before us and hoping to move on to other things.
Violet blinked, turning away from me and staring at the building as if it had scorned her before marching up to it with new vigor.
"So the old friend here…" I tried to restart some semblance of conversation. "Kikai no-no's?"