Ensign Lyra Voss: Social Butterflies
Sarah Terry
((Evan Ross’s Quarters; Upper Habitat Section, StarBase 118))
She’d never been very good at light conversation, and she’d learned during her time on Earth that most people weren't actually interested in hearing about your inner turmoil when they casually asked how you were doing. She’d lost track of the amount of people she’d scared off by being too open too fast or asking awkward questions or accidentally bringing up something she shouldn’t have known. But Ross… Evan? First names made sense off duty, didn’t they? Evan was surprisingly easy to talk to, despite her various inadvertent attempts at conversational sabotage.
Voss: You said you were in cargo before you joined Starfleet, right? What made you want to switch? Oh and also speaking of the pasta… ::she looked with trepidation at the sticky, floury mass on the counter:: I think we might be better off restarting the pasta from scratch. Do you have a kitchen scale?
He rubbed his forehead with a sigh.
Ross: Yeah... I guess we better. It's over there, let me grab it.
He brought over the kitchen scale, as well as the eggs, olive oil, and - of course - flour. He was looking at the flour the way one might look at a grenade you weren’t sure was live or not, and she couldn’t help but grin. They’d conquer pasta yet - he just had to believe.
Ross: How about you'll lead, I'll follow. ::pondering for a moment:: I don't really recall what made me switch, really. I guess I'm a bit like you in a way, always fascinated with stars and space. Just the... vastness of it. But I was never much of a scientist. More of a... ::he shrugged:: Romantic. I just liked to be out there. And believe me, the whole hermit thing? Been there, done that. Somehow I always ended up being the guy they sent in to keep an eye on things in places no one had ever heard of. I mean - I liked it. You meet lots of interesting people out there.
She knew exactly what he meant - there was something deeply romantic about the edges of space. A majesty you couldn’t help but be swept up in. To feel simultaneously like the smallest speck of dust in the face of sublime creation and the only beating heart in existence. What could be more romantic? Well… no, now that she thought about it, that might not be most people’s definition of romantic…
Voss: ::laughing:: You’ve already heard my treatise on space but yeah… ::unable to help herself:: looking out and just seeing the… the immensity of the universe! I don’t know. There’s a magnetism to it - the “call of the void,” maybe. But I imagine it can become cold comfort after too long?
As they spoke, she took an abandoned glass bowl from one of the counters, put it on the scale, and zeroed it out.
Ross: It just got... tiring after a while. Constantly moving, never really... attaching. I thought it was just me, but looking back now, I don't think so. I think I just missed the right moment to leave the ride, and then I was... stuck somehow. And then I got really drunk one night and realised I had done nothing with my life that made any difference.
She started measuring flour into the bowl, but his last words made her head pop up immediately. There was no remorse in it - in fact, he sounded more pragmatic than anything else as he shrugged. But she found herself wanting to step up in his defense.
Voss: I doubt that’s true. At the very least, if you’ve always had this habit of befriending anxious weirdos ::she gestured to herself:: then I bet you made more of a difference than you realize. But I am familiar with the kind of late-night crash out that has you questioning every decision you’ve ever made. It’s not a fun time, ::she laughed darkly:: but sometimes it does inspire change for the better.
Ross: I never thought the fleet would accept me. So you can imagine my surprise when they invited me to an assessment. And then, when I actually joined the Academy, I thought I'd be gone within a year. I was so much older than most of the other cadets... ::he grimaced:: suddenly it felt like High School again. I never really adjusted, so I kind of know what you're talking about. But being alone all the time before - I think that helped. I just did my thing, and sometimes I joined them for a night out. It was... alright. But I didn't really start believing in all this before I ended up here.
It always hurt to feel like you were on the periphery, no matter the reason. Like everyone was part of some club whose requirements you could only guess at. The amount of times she’d bit her tongue, afraid to say the wrong thing, until it was just easier to say nothing… She shook her head as she continued measuring flour - when she’d gone home to Betazed in her sophomore year, she truly believed she’d never make it to the place she was standing today.
Voss: Yeah, I’m still pinching myself at least once a day to make sure this is all real.
Ross: I feel like... in the end it's always the people, no? The friends you can be yourself with. I mean, Corey, Maddie, they are still a lot younger, but it doesn't make as much of a difference now. And it's been the same on those secluded outposts. You were lonely until the nights where you grab a drink with the other hermits and realise they all have some stories worth listening to. I keep wondering... if I've really been lonely all these years, or just wanted to be. If I somehow... chose it for myself.
She was quiet for a moment as she took the flour off the scale, and then she looked at him thoughtfully.
Voss: It’s a tricky thing. On some level, I think it is a choice, yes, though it doesn’t always feel that way in the moment. But if it’s a choice, you have to ask yourself why you really chose it. It’s easy to cast yourself as the author of your own misery, but… that’s unfair, you know? I know, for me, if I chose to be lonely, it was because I wanted to protect myself - that was the actual choice. We didn’t want to be lonely - we wanted to be safe. And it can be hard to feel safe in the hands of others. Because it is about the people, yeah. When you find the right ones, it… it becomes worth the risk.
She was still holding the flour bowl as she waxed poetic, and she put it down on the counter with a self-conscious blush.
Ross: ?
Voss: ::laughing, shaking her head:: Something about talking to you makes me feel very philosophical, apparently. All of this to say, look at us hanging out and being such social butterflies! We should be proud.
Ross: ?
Voss: Well before we line up for psychology degrees - let me show you the way I was taught to make pasta. ::brushing a section of the island counter clean of previous attempts and dumping out the bowl of flour:: Flour goes on the counter. You make a little well in the middle, then we start cracking in the eggs. I think the recipe said two whole eggs and four more yolks, right? How do you feel about separating eggs?
Ross: ?
Voss: Why don’t you crack the two whole ones? Separating eggs isn’t too bad - you just have to be gentle. And cool with touching eggs. Which ::she shrugged:: is admittedly a little gross.
She grabbed another bowl as he cracked the first two eggs into the center of the flour. Her baking experience made her a fairly deft hand at dealing with eggs - she started cracking them one at a time, hitting them on the countertop, not the side of the bowl, so she didn’t accidentally get little shell fragments in the egg. She carefully passed the egg back and forth between the two hemispheres of shell, letting the white fall away into the bowl until only the yolk remained. Then she added the little yellow blobs to the rest of the mix.
Ross: ?
Voss: ::grinning:: Yeah, we’ve reached the most dangerous stage. You have to break up the eggs with a fork and then slowly start incorporating more and more flour until it’s all worked in. You should try it! I’ll make sure we don’t break containment.
She walked around to the opposite side of the island and leaned across the counter to position her hands defensively around the perimeter of the flour and egg volcano.
Ross: ?