Beauty in All Forms

There's //a lot// of fabric currently strewn over the floor of the compartment, the door wide open. The sounds of soft hammered dulcimer music is playing from somewhere inside. And the fluttering shadow of Carina passes to and fro on the walls visible through the open doorway. She has been aboard the ship for almost four hours now, testing the ventilation by having the fans extract the fumes from the cleaning solvents she has been using to scrub the bare metal of the compartment until it shines with a high gloss finish.

"Prettiest room in the ship." Michi says. She's leaning on the doorway, dressed in cargo pants and a tank top, her head wrapped up in a kerchief to keep the cleaning supplies from getting into her hair. She's been scrubbing, too, though perhaps not quite so hard. "Just talked to the foreman. He figures another month to finish the seals. The interior's pretty much done. We can hit the market tomorrow, look for furniture to install." She's chewing something. Pitch, most likely, since she ran out of gum weeks ago. "I didn't think your Guild allowed you to work so hard. Aren't you worried about your porceline skin?"

Carina holds up her gloved hands, big bulky yellow gloves covering her hands and her forearms to the elbows. "Of course I am. But I wasn't going to start arranging the wall hangings or the painting until the metal was as clean as possible. I don't want to seal in something I'll regret later." The lovely blonde is wearing only a very tight pair of faded blue denim shorts and a babydoll half-tee, owing to the fact the internal temperature is still that of planetside. "I was thinking of a deep rustic red base coat, then some bimetallic leaf detailing, and golden draperies." she offers, for feedback and thoughts.

There's a moment. Maybe its the pose. Or the sweat. Or the clothes. Or all three together, in one moment that makes Michi just stare a little. Her breath catching as she realizes just why people pay so very much to spend time with Carina. Then she clacks her jaw shut and steps forward, looking around the cabin. "Sounds good to me. Honest, I like her with the pipes exposed and the wiring showing. That's character. Makes her honest." She pats a bulkhead. "Our honest girl."

The blonde multiethnic Companion smiles down at Michi, beaming happily. "Well, I'm in favor of honesty. But even an honest girl wants to put on a pretty dress now and then, get her hair done, splash on a bit of makeup. And there's nothing at all wrong with that." Carina doesn't back up from Michi, but actually gravitates towards her, inching closer until she can feel the warmth of the other woman's body against her skin, if not the actual touch yet. "Now that everything's clean, I'll make it pretty. If you want any of the solvents to clean anywhere else, I have a batch left over." She doesn't kiss Michi. But she's close enough to do so.

She is. Michi notices. The woman who can handle hair pin turns and cliff dives and crazy ivans without batting an eye and here she is, her heart thudding like a drum, beating against her ribcage. "... I can't remember the last time I wore makeup." Its a strange thing to say, but her brain's short circuited and the words just tumble randomly from her mouth.

Carina's eyes twinkle merrily as she looks down at Michi, sensing the other woman's comfortable discomfort. She leans into that tiny buffer of personal space and lifts a gloved hand to brush away an imagined - or not so imagined - something on Michi's cheek, while close enough in leaning down that she's less than an inch away from kissing the shorter woman. "Mmm. Maybe when we have the ship done and we're ready to take off, we can take one evening to get made up and celebrate? I could help with the makeup. If you decide you want to."

Michi's eyes have, possibly, never been wider. In the dim light of this room, her pupils are dialated. Her breathing just a little harder now. Enough to make her nostrils slowly flare. "You did that to me when we were kids." She says, softly. "First time I wore makeup. You said I was a girl even though everyone else said I was a boy. You were the first person to figure that out about me."

Carina smiles warmly at the memory of that time together at the Temple. "I remember. I also remember telling you: You decide who you are, and how you want the rest of the world to deal with you. And you make that decision every day." It is a cornerstone of Companion philosophy, stripped of their pseudoreligious trappings. Quite true, too. "It's your choice. I just want to support you." And she takes a moment to press a lingeringly soft kiss on Michi's cheek, just barely missing those lips. This time.

"... fuck it." Michi grabs Carina by the hair and drags her forward. The kiss is hungry. They've been flirting for weeks as work was finished on the ship. She's on the verge of having so many things she's wanted for so long. A new hover bike to race on. A ship to take her wherever she wants to go. And Carina? She's always wanted Carina, even when she didn't know it.

The blonde doesn't fight, doesn't argue, just wraps her arms around Michi and lets the other woman lead where she wants to go. Carina just follows. It's as natural to her as breathing to let who Michi is guide how this should be, for now, together. But inside, she's singing like Julie Andrews in a field of flowers. And to be fair, wow can she kiss.

Not everyone gets to literally take a class on kissing technique. The kiss spins on for a while before Michi slowly draws back and, just as slowly, pushes Carina gently away from her. "We..." She coughs, clearing her throat. It buys her time to force her head to stop spinning. She can't do much about the rush of blood in her ears, though. "We need to work this out if we're going to own this boat together."

Carina doesn't back up any further than Michi pushes her, but neither does she push back. She separates. They will work this out together. And she nods to affirm. "Yes. We do need to work it out. But I don't think that needs to be any harder than absolutely necessary." Because Carina has never doubted Michi's attraction to her, nor hers to Michi, since they were earliest teens. "So. What should we work out? Mmm?"

Michi rubs at her eyes with the palms of her hands. She begins pacing, back and forth, careful to avoid treading on the fabrics fluffed around the floor. "Us." She says. "And could you PLEASE stop being a Companion long enough to help? Answering questions with questions and being the patient head doctor is infuriating sometimes."

Carina reaches out to take gentle hold of Michi's bicep, slowing the pacing for a moment so that she can make eye contact. "I know 'us', Michi. I meant, what sort of solution seems reasonable to you. You started the conversation. I thought it polite to let you lead, at least until we can both see where you're headed. I'm good at people. I'm not a telepath." Though admittedly a good Companion comes damned close. "And I wasn't being a Companion. I was being a friend." There's a sting of hurt in her voice. One thing Michi has never done was make her regret her profession and talent. Using that title in a spiteful, hurtful way does not bode well.

And she knows it. Michi closes her eyes and turns her head away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... you confuse the hell out of me but that's my deal. Not your's." She takes a deep breath, drawing the air into her lungs and holding it. Then releasing it. "We just need to focus on what we're doing until..." Michi isn't sure on the until. She leaves it dangling for now. "Tell you what. First world with a decent place to eat and I'll let you dress me up and we'll go out."

"I would rather not wait like that." Carina admits. She is at least permitted to speak of her own desires, right? "But if you really feel that is what is best, I can wait." She doesn't mention that she's been waiting almost twenty years. She's pretty sure Michi would run like Hell and never stop if she said that, however true it might be. "I just want you to know, that kiss wasn't about being a Companion. It was about being with //you//. You tell me you know that, you accept that, and I will wait." But she will not promise not to give Michi the looks. Because she just won't.

"I know it wasn't about you being a Companion." Michi points outs. "Since I sunk all my money into this ship and I couldn't afford your services." Companions don't come cheap. There's too much value in what they do. Her tone isn't hurtful, however. There's no lilt of sarcasm and not sting of bitterness. "Let's work out being on this ship, okay? Owning it together. Me racing. You Companion... ing." She wrinkles her nose at the awkwardness of the word. "The rest will come." Won't it?