"Hi Morgan. Mind if I join you?"

He was taking a turn at Ops on the bridge, monitoring the displays while the two pilots got some downtime. They were four days into the journey, things were finally settling into a routine for this group of strangers. To Qamala's mind, none of them were stranger than Morgan Henley (though Teagan definitely gave him a run for his credits sometimes).

And, she thought to herself, it's likely he thinks I'm pretty strange, too. She wore her usual clothing -- pearlized pale violet tunic belted at the waist, hem rippling over her thighs, soft indoor sandals -- though she'd obviously left the robe hanging in her quarters. She carried bottles of water in both hands, and handed him one. "Thought you could use this."

She had seen him drink little else but water since they had been on ship together. "Thanks." He grunted, "Have a seat." He opened the water bottle and gave it a good pull. Before the Audacity, he had served on ships where he had known everyone and was friends with most everyone. Here, he knew no one and had no real friends, yet. Only mates. And, while he'd take a hit for both, he only liked talking to his friends.

"So far, all's quiet. Nothing on long-range sensors and nothing on the comm-scanner." He said giving her half the bullet. As was his fashion, he was dressed casually: boots, work pants and loose-fitting tank-top. A jacket lay on the deck beside his chair. "What can I do for you?"

"Just your company," she replied, settling into a nearby seat and carefully not touching anything else around her. "Maybe some talk, if you like." Her empathic senses tended to recoil from Morgan instinctively most of the time. His emotions were so primal, so angry, so violent. She didn't know if this was typical for a young human male or if there was something that made Morgan seethe with such uncompromising rage. Sometimes it went deep, like now. Others -- such as the first day they'd met -- it was right on the surface for everyone to see.

None of this frightened her, particularly, but it did make him one of the most interesting persons on board, to her.

Then she looked at him, those violet eyes lighting up as if he were someone she'd longed to see for years. "You are a fascinating man."

Morgan grunted that he didn't mind talking. Not that he really wanted to be bothered during his shift. He liked being alone on the bridge; he liked the privacy here and the sense of belonging to the void that he had spent most of his life in. There was a beauty in the nothingness and it seemed to call to him whenever he was away from it. Still, she was here. Breathing his air, distracting from his time with the void.

He had to admit that he liked that she wasn't scared of him. But, he wasn't sure if this was some kind of alien-princess stupidity or just that she didn't see him as a thug. His money was on alien-princess stupidity; as he rarely ever bet against stupid.

Fascinating? he wondered, What the fuck? "Yeah." He said apathetically, "Why am I fascinating?"

"Because I've never met anyone who was so thoroughly fluent in anger as you are," she replied easily, sipping her water as if this was the most normal thing in the world to say to anyone. "It's as if it's language and currency and weapon and shield -- it seethes around you like a living thing. Beautiful really."

He laughed, he'd heard that before. Wait, that wasn't right, his mother and his therapist hadn't called his angry "beautiful". "I'm not angry," he said tightly, "I'm violent. There's a difference." He looked at her for the first time since she sat down. "I don't have to be mad at someone to beat the shit out of them." His eyes returned to the void on the view screen before him. "That's beautiful." He said, nodding ahead.

Qamala turned to regard it thoughtfully for a long moment. "A different kind of beauty, yes," she agreed, thinking about distant stars and wondering if there would ever be a time when she could simply visit them because she wanted to. "How old are you in standard years?"

"I'm nineteen." He said, still not looking away. "Why?"

The smile she slotted at him was considered infectious in some quarters. "Because I want to know you better? Because I was sincerely curious? Because I wondered if you'd ever encountered bonsai before? It's an ancient art, not widely practiced anymore. Sometimes you have to have been around awhile to run across it."

"Yeah." He said, looking back over at her. "I have never seen any bone-say before. Not that I know of anyway. Other than an ancient art form, what is it? Like broken bones set in unique ways?" He smiled at her, thinking he was funnier than he really was.

"Not too far off," she admitted, easing back in her chair comfortably. "Only with small trees, rather than people." Without warning, the minimal light in the cockpit seemed to gather in the space between them, resolving itself into the facsimile of a tiny tree growing in a glazed ceramic pot. It was miniature, perfect in every detail, and no more than 2/3rds of a meter tall.

WOW. Morgan's eyes when a little wide as the woman seemed to create light. "Nice trick."

"Runs in the family," she grinned. "The artist picks a sapling and bends it using wire and sticks," Qamala's voice murmured in the darkness. "So bound, it cannot help but to grow in an unnatural way. Its roots are kept carefully pruned to discourage fast growth. Each mature tree is a work of art and some live to astonishing ages -- but sometimes I cannot help but wonder what the tree might have looked like, if it had been left to grow unhindered."

Bored now. Morgan thought. "That's ... well thanks for the lesson in tiny-tree-growing. Is there any other point you're trying to make?"

The little tree faded from view, and the bridge seemed much darker afterward. "It's something to contemplate, in the quiet moments," was all she said. "For now, it's just conversation. You know. `Getting to know you' and all."

"I realize that I'm very young and unschooled in lots of things." It came out as more of a verbal jab than he realized. "But, I have often found that the best way to get to know someone is to watch them over time. Asking them stuff usually just ends up in a lot of lies and half-truths. Still, when someone lies to you, that says nearly as much as the truth."

Qamala turned to look at him, eyes sparkling. "That's true," she replied. "You're wiser than your years to know it, already."

"So -- in -- you know -- standard years, how ancient are you?" He asked with no lack of sarcasm.

With a small laugh, she turned back toward the display. "So should I lie to you? Or tell you the truth?"

Morgan regarded her for a moment, before saying "Do you think it matters?" He took a long pull on his water and waited for her to leave the bridge.

"Of course it does. It always matters." She was looking at the displays again, fascinated by the cascading torrents of information provided even if she couldn't understand any of it. "Eighty three."

Morgan shrugged, "You look pretty decent for an old lady," he said, frankly. Morgan could hardly imagine living past 30 years. The universe seemed too violent for anything much longer than that. "But, I guess that's not that old for your people. When did you leave? How long have you been 'out here'?"

Qamala considered the questions briefly, deciding they were safe enough to answer. "About six months," she said softly. "Most of that time was spent aboard the Duranaki courier that brought me to Rigellius station." She shuddered, as she always did when the nightmarish memory of that trip recurred. "And you? You have the kind of competence of someone who's spent his entire life in space."

Morgan plopped down in the captain's chair and rubbed the arm-rests. It felt nicer than he had remembered. "I pretty much grew up in space; from the time I was six, the only real home I knew was on a ship. Seen lots of ports of call and planets; but, home to me, has always been out here." His voice was as close to wistful as it ever got as he was talking and remembering his past. There were times when he liked to think that his life was something out of a kids story and that pirates lived a great life of adventure. He put aside the less pleasant aspects of his life for now.

"You coming to like this ship better than your last?" He asked her.

"I like the people better," she agreed. "Any one of you is more interesting than an entire crew of Duranaki. As for the ship..." Her voice drifted off as she looked at the displays around them. "I'm not sure yet. It's so loud all the time, and feels like it's going to rattle apart at any moment. I'm told those things will get better with time though," she added. "And you? What was your last ship like?"

"Pretty much, the ship is the people." Morgan said to her, somewhat losing his nostalgia over the past. "The ship really won't get much less quiet; but you will get used to it." He spun around his the captain's chair, "My last ship. Hard to say. The captain was like a mother to me and the crew were like my family; but I stabbed them in the back the first chance I got. So, I'm not sure what that says -- exactly.

"I look at Lawrence and wonder, is that what I would have been - had things gone according to plan." He looked up, introspection didn't really seem to suit him. He shrugged.

Lawrence Bourne grew up under bonsai too. Just a different kind, Qamala thought. She wasn't really certain what to say to the rest of that. It didn't seem to be bluff or young human male swagger, but something about it didn't fit quite right, either. "That must be quite a story," she murmured.

There was no shock, or disgust, or loathing, or pity in either words or expression. The Magellen simply sat there, quietly, accepting without judgment, inviting him to continue or not, as he chose.

The moment seemed to pass for Morgan. "Anyway." He said, as if clearing the air, "You never really know about a ship until someone starts to shoot at us -- then we'll see what kind of people we have."

He held up his hand, "Before you start to say that life is not always about violence ... that's not what I'm talking about," he went on, oblivious to the fact that she hadn't moved to interrupt him at all. She simply sat quietly, listening intently to his words. "It's a question of what people do when they are being threatened. Can the doctor treat your wound while people are shooting around her? Can the pilot hold his course and make the jump while people are doing everything they can to kill him or make him change course. That's what I mean."

Qamala nodded thoughtfully. "It's a good question, actually. I've never actually been shot at. I understand it's an invigorating experience. I missed the shoot-out in the hangar."

"We were shot at back in the hanger, but we weren't really a team then; not a crew. Not everyone had bought in yet. Now, we're ready for a test." Morgan finished. "Still, I guess to someone like you, this is all some fancy game."

"A game?" The term startled her somewhat, thinking of the playful games she'd known as a youngling on Eden, and then some of the board games she'd learned to play against the computer during her journey to Rigellius Station. "No, this isn't a game, Morgan," she said, staring thoughtfully at the displays. "Not to me."

Morgan grunted, "Then how do you see this?" He asked. "You're immortal; you're here for some mysterious reason. Risking yourself for no reason known to us. If this is not a giant game, then what is it?"

They sat with that question hanging in the air as Qamala once again thought carefully about her answer. It was in her nature to trust everyone implicitly, but she'd already learned that it was unwise to trust so blindly out here in the rest of the universe. It was probably particularly unwise to trust her truth with this very young, very angry/violent human male, but trust was a difficult habit to break. When she finally spoke, the words were barely audible above the muffled roar of the engines.

"It's a quest."