inbox @ comesailaway

[skaikru]

( shiptalk | direct messages | group messages | action )

Comments

1/2

[skaikru]

( she opens the door a short time later, looking like one absolutely expecting another person to be standing on the other side of the threshold and thrown for an appropriate loop to come face to face with thin air. it's not even the venti-style thin air with it's pomp and circumstance and feathers, and the ship is so alive with shadows since the captain showed his face that she can't even parse out the ominous sensation of someone being unseen and pressed against the far wall.

so there's confusion. several seconds of it, looking left and right down the hallway before stepping just outside the cabin and landing a foot directly on the squishmellow's face. that's a startle, and she's stumbling back with approximately 10% grace before realizing she'd just stepped on a —

...what was that?

is it a —

coming from a world where nothing was exactly nice, and anything new had been forged out of old cloth and older machinery parts, it's safe to say clarke's never had a new stuffed animal. maybe a raggedy doll made out of shirts when she was a child, but definitely nothing specific as a jellyfish. as she picks it up and weighs the stuffy in her hands, also absolutely nothing as soft and squishy.

she gives the toy a few experimental squeezes. they look more like gentle strangleholds, yes, but there's a flicker of delight when the faux jellyfish re-expands to its original shape each and every time. it's like a pillow but... cute. and vaguely reminiscent of someone, but she needs a little bit longer to parse out that specific mystery. right now all that registers is that this gift hadn't arrived in that horrific nautical packaging most others did, and thus feels safer to look at for an extended period of time. to hold, and squish to her chest just to see how it would feel.

one more scanning look down each end of the hallway, and then she's just. dawdling there. passing the stuffed animal between her hands as if weighing the pros and cons of taking it to bed with her. despite the perpetual shadow of confusion across her brow, her mouth slips into something akin to childlike endearment and clarke smiles for a moment before snorting at her own ridiculousness. it's a stuffed animal, it has to be harmless, right? it's coming back inside her cabin with her and the door is getting shut behind them both. )