[ORP] On a Grand Quest!

[Arrien]

Cookies? Dusty sniffed the package cautiously. Cookies were not meat, which he would had preferred, but there were certain varieties that....

Shortbread. His fingers clawed through the packaging, and he began feeding cookies into his mouth, barely waiting for one mouthful to be chewed before starting on the next. He grunted his approval at Kia, possibly preparing to do the unthinkable and - gasp - express his appreciation between mouthfuls, when his ears perked.

Was that Caoi, who was making such a loud noise about wanting to be a guard?

Dusty hurried back on-deck - and sure enough, there the Selkie girl was, in all her loud-mouthed glory. Wiping a crumb-covered hand on the front of his shirt, smiling as best he could through an oversized wad of chewed shortbread, Dusty waved at his friend from the other side of the deck.

"AYYYYY KEE! WHUDUU GED?" Dusty shouted, spraying bits of cookie everywhere. His sharp ears had their limits, apparently - especially when the sound of chewing interrupted their hearing.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

Caoimhe perked up at the sight of Dustin. "SOMETHING RETARDED," she shouted back. "I'M DOUBLE-DIPPING." She waved the handful of SlimJims around and then tucked them back into the front pocket of her teal hoodie.

With her free hand, she reached back into the magical luck box to see if it would give her something more desirable. Like a guard. Really, she just wanted an excuse to wield a weapon and push people around.




(If she isn't allowed to do this, feel free to have it reject her... or her pull the same thing.)  

[Arrien]

Watching Caoimhe reach back into the box gave Dusty a pause. Could you do that? Draw more than once? Granted, he hadn't drawn at all yet, but if he was allowed to....

Heh, heh. Captain Dusty - it had a pretty nice ring to it, didn't it?

Swallowing his mouthful, he hoofed his way purposefully to the box and, slipping past Caoi while she read the contents of her new piece of paper, grabbed out his first slip of paper. Cook, it said - an involuntary shudder rose up the fur on the nape of Dusty's neck. Him? Cooking? What a joke! Dropping this paper to the deck, he reached out to draw again, and....

((Would like for someone to stop him, because Dusty + cook = frickin' loltastic, while Dusty + captain = inevitable headache XD))  

[Akina Tokuwa]

Caoimhe's brow furrowed. "What is this ********?" she spat out. Turning her little slip of paper around, she revealed that it said exactly the same thing as her first did. The selkie threw that one away and pulled another. Again, it said the same thing.

"Goddamnit," she swore, dropping the latest sheet and squishing in beneath her foot. "I wanted to have a sword."

Leaning over, she took a peek at Dustin's paper. "Cook, eh?" she said, ribbing him gently. She pulled out her SlimJims again and thrust them out to him. "I would like these, potentially in a casserole of some kind? Oh, listen to me, telling the chef how to do his job."

With a deep snort, Caoimhe abandoned the little box and headed in the other direction. It was time for her to get her smart on, whatever that meant.  

[Silverah]

"But I'm the cook," interjected Astor, coming up behind Dusty. Ho boy, Caoimhe was here, too? It was good to see another familiar face, but he couldn't help but start to get suspicious. With so many Fa'e in one place, trouble couldn't be far off. (He'd been on Gaia a little less than a year, but he knew this much from experience.)

"I... can't cook very well," he added lowly, looking nervously at Dusty. "Can you cook?"

Hopefully, someone on this ship could cook, or else their journey west was going to be a very short one. He glanced at Dusty's slip of paper and nodded, looking perplexed.

"So I guess we're both cooks. Do you think the lady with the wings is in charge?"  

[MissiePanda]

Taka soon realized that his stomach was trying to eat him from the inside, so he decided to join this quest for food. He didn't really know any of these people though.. but what better place to get to know them?

He eyed each of them individual, and then crept up to the one known as 'Caoimhe', giving her a greeting slap on the back.

"WHAT'S UP, GUYS?!", he screeched, with a silly grin plastered on his face.. as usual.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

Someone was in charge? Who was in charge? Oh no no no. Caoimhe had no intention of taking any direction. She puffed up her chest to her full height -- still several inches short of five feet. (It involved a lot of puffing up.) "As the all around smart person," she declared, her index forward pointing upward as a sign of her properness, "I declare that I am the leader." She tossed a glance across the motley crew. "All aboard, then!"

No sooner had she taken a step than someone (a very tall someone, compared to her at least) clapped her on the back. The selkie leapt up a few inches and whipped around, her pompous finger now stabbing the air angrily inches from Taka's face. "HEY, STRANGER," she shouted, cheeks flushed. "Don't sneak up on me, okay? I could break your arm like that." She snapped.

And then she kept walking toward the ship.  

[Arrien]

Oh great, people were looking. Too many people, it seemed, to try getting another piece of paper. Grimacing, Dusty withdrew his hand - which, oddly, was now filled with Slim Jims. He looked deploringly back at his piece of paper.

After a few moments came his auspicious reply to his chef-in-crime, Astor: "Cook? Like... food?" The words were paired with a hunted look, and the slightest slicking-back of his ears. If the matter of filling bellies was going to be up to him and Astor, this was going to be a long, hungry trip.

And then Caoi declared herself leader.

"Wait, why do you get to be the leader?" The deerkitten stuck out his own chest, frowning deeply. "You didn't draw any better than I did!" Though, if he were to confess, Captain Caoimhe had an even better ring than Captain Dusty... plus, she could probably swim.  

[MissiePanda]

Taka snickered to himself as the irritated Caoimhe walked off, finding her reaction nothing short of amusing. His stomach growled at him angrily again, and he frowned towards the supposed 'cooks.'

"We're going to starve, aren't we?"

He nonchalantly started aimlessly wandering around to check out this wreck- err, ship- they were supposed to be traveling on. So Miss Prissy was gonna be their leader now? Huh.

"And how much experience do you have with LEADERSHIP, shorty?," he laughed gently.  

[Akina Tokuwa]

Caoimhe whirled on Taka. "I am a champion of the battlefield on land and sea." One hip popped out to the side. "And you have ridiculous hair, so, you know, no one could respect you as a leader." This day was certainly starting off on a less-than-good foot.

Her frown softened when she looked at Dustin. "I am the battle commander. You can be ship commander. You," she pointed at Taka, "can go scrub something."

Marchitty march march march.  

[MissiePanda]

"I happen to be a ROCKSTAR, and everyone knows rockstars don't scrub things!"

He rolled his eyes and went off in search of.. cooler things. Maybe there was a treasure map! Then again, that was usually only with sunken ships and pirates.. this was clearly not a sunken ship.

Taka paused for a minute, snatching his piece of paper off the ground when he had dropped it. Dropped by Kia's HAT ATTACK, to be precise. He waved it around, proclaiming, "Besides, I'm apparently supposed to be doing.. all-around.. smart people things," before looking all around to see what he could see!

.. That's a dumb phrase. There's never anything to see!  

[Arrien]

Dusty was a bit torn. On one hand, he wanted to be the battle commander. On the other, being the ship commander still sounded like a pretty sweet gig - and it was a heck of a lot better than being cook. Besides, Caoimhe was already marching off; he was losing his window of opportunity to object....

"That'll do, I guess," the deerkitten groused, but was secretly pleased. After all, there would be plenty of opportunities for him to stage a coup and take over Caoimhe's position as battle commander later, once he'd earned the trust and support of the crew. Better to let her have her way now, and enjoy his newfound prestige as ship commander!

And, as his first action in his new position....

"Okay, all-around smart guy!" Dusty pointed a finger at Taka. "Go make a checklist or something. What all do we still need to keep us from dying horrible deaths?"  

[Silverah]

With everyone marching around giving orders and getting stuff done, Astor felt compelled to make himself useful. He'd never been the part of the actual crew before so much as he'd been an errand boy and mascot. But, then, what did cooks do? Cooks... cooked things. And kept track of what they had - he could remember the cook standing in port with a clipboard while crates were loading on.

He tapped Dusty on the shoulder. "Do you think - should we go catalogue the inventory or something like that?"

Very technical words. He was mostly saying them to sound fancy. "You were in the kitchen earlier, weren't you?" he asked, indicating the bag of cookies. "Shouldn't we go and look?"  

[MissiePanda]

Taka sighed, flinging his arms up in the air as he started to trudge away. Well, it had to be done, right? The smart things were necessary! Whatever that meant anyways..

"Aye aye cap'n!" He shouted back, with a snicker and a slightly sarcastic tone.

But what had to be done first? What had to be done.. AT ALL? The cook was trying to figure out how to cook, so that was taken care of..

He mumbled to himself as he searched the ship, attempting to make notes of anything that seemed important.  

[Arrien]

Inventory? Dust wrinkled his nose, thinking the matter over. Did a ship commander like himself need to worry about inventory?... well, it was part of the ship, sort of....

"Yes," the would-be commander decided at last, "we should. Here." Thrusting out the handful of Slim Jims left to him by the Selkie, Dusty asserted, "We'll be making these into a casserole tonight. Battle commander's request. Get it, got it, good - now, let's go take inventory." Without any more ado, Dusty struck off back for the ship's little cooking area. If he was lucky, maybe he'd find some of that bacon that came in a Cheez Whiz can....