The small girl and the giant Zalavi both looked on in amazement at the broken blender as it continued with its brief parade of clicking and electrically groaned protestations.

After a moment;

“What the fuck?” Aleks asked, rhetorically, in as deadpan a tone as any. “Did you break our blender?”

"Stress tested it." Abigail stopped tormenting the little machine and grabbed a pint glass. She took the lid off and tipped the blender jug upside down. It took...a while, a worryingly long few seconds, for the viscous slush to peel off and slop into the glass.

“You broke our only blender to make soup. Why are you making soup.”

"That's not soup."

"Could be soup," Jakunta pointed out.

"It's not-...soup is supposed to be warm, this is, this is, uh. It's a smoothie. A combat smoothie." Abigail held the glass to her brow, grimacing. The contents looked like muddy snow with grit in it.

“Soup can be cold. Gazpacho is a vegetable soup, and it is only ever served cold, because it is meant to be refreshing in summer. Additionally and in relation to this fact, I find the Spanish to be a very strange culture.” Aleks came closer and inspected the blender personally. “I hope one of the engineers can fix this, or we will be in some trouble with whoever needs it.”

Whatever godawful concoction Abigail created smelt chemically sweet, like wiper fluid or antifreeze, with a bitterness that Aleks couldn't - or didn't want to - identify. There were no broken pieces of metal in her hellish drink. She'd only busted the motor and loosened the blade with her recklessness.

"If you want a glass for yourself, go right on ahead." Abigail gestured with her drink to the cabinets. 

Aleks nodded, retrieved a pint glass for himself, and filled it from the jug. Whilst still looking rather serious, he then proceeded to give it a quick sniff, and then immediately empty it into the sink.

“I would like another.” He looked back at Abi, expression blank, gaze like a dead fish.

"Cowardice doesn't suit you, lieutenant commander." Abigail took a swig of her glass and coughed profusely. "GAWH. OH MAN. HOOOOH." She recovered, ruminated over it, and took another swig. She regretted that one a little less. 

“Jakhunta, help me restrain her, she needs a psychological evaluation urgently.”

Jakunta quirked a brow and didn't move - not yet, anyway.

Abigail was still drinking the damned thing. "I am efficiently making sure my body contains all the vital nutrients it needs. You can't throw me into psych for that. You'll have to get Gansu for his death cocktails - this hasn't got a lick of alcohol in it." She sniffed the glass again. "Not unless some sort of…chemical reaction took place in there." 

“I think that drinking this much sugar is suicide. But ok.” He went for a coffee cup and started preparing himself some hot roasted caffeine bean water. “How are you two feeling?”

"Crack open one of these bad boys alongside my combat smoothie and I'll be able to fight the gods," Abigail patted a small cylinder on her belt. "I'm tired, cranky. Jakunta won't let me nap. A bit beat up."

"Also tired," Jakunta rumbled. 

"Mhm. I agree. I have spoken with the Princess." Aleks added bluntly to the end of his sympathy, with all the decorum and warning of a pebble dropped into a bowl of soup.

Or a bowl of whatever Abi had made - though it occurred to Aleks that whatever Abi had made was indeed liable to contain pebbles already.

He waited for them to ask.

"Is she hot?" Asked Abigail - despite knowing full well what the princess looked like.

"Single?" Jakunta ventured.

"The only way she'd marry you is if you had Zalava in your inheritance, old man," Abigail grinned.

Aleks smirked.

"I don't know if she is hot. I didn't ask if she is single. I have enough for myself in engineering, for now. If you are interested I can only suggest that you ask her on a date - but I say, titles don't suit you, Abigail. Princess-Consort is too fancy for you, you still-" he sniffed.

He frowned.

"I was going to say you still smell of Jaatikar. You do still smell of the battlefield. Perhaps we should have the medics shower you in isopropyl alcohol before you meet your crush."

"I have…[I]literally[/I] just hopped out of the shower," Abigail protested. "That's just Abigail smell. That's my musk you're getting at." She took another swig. She stopped smiling. "Get on with it, then."

“The Princess seems to understand that her decision to inappropriately issue conflicting orders was the result of a poor reaction to intense emotion and combat stress. Ingram has explained that we would prefer her to work through the existing chain of command and leave tactical command to her more experienced juniors. I explained that it is her job to make tough decisions and to give unfair orders, so that she might better appreciate why some must go before her into the line of fire. I believe she listened.”

Aleks nodded, relaxing a little and gazing around the empty room for a second. In the chairs and sofas, gathered at the kitchen counter, reaching for beer in the fridge - he could see the 7th Direwolves. These were memories, he was sure, of a night he didn’t remember.

But here and there, between folk crossing paths and in the flicker of the fading light of the ancient lava lamp and disco ball that had been there for longer than him, just out of the heart of his sight… he could see the princess.

He could see the princess [i]fitting in[/i].

The quiet frost of the hunter’s heart thawed, softened, warmed; the living thought in the back of his mind, half formed and young, at last awakened and burst into its fullness - no longer a thought, but a certainty.

“She listened. She has potential as an officer. If she can overcome her ideals and if she can take instruction, then I think she will even start to fit in.”

"Don't get your hopes up loverboy," Abigail grinned. "Us fodder-folk aren't the sort that she hangs out with. We'll get her back to the inner systems in a few days - if that. Then you lot can go on leave." 

“Us lot. I approved your leave request a week ago, I was shitting you at the debrief. Don’t worry though, I have an instinct feeling that we won’t get any leave for quite a long time anyway.”

"Where'd you get that from?"

“Princess is here to stay. In fact she comes with orders, orders that include her assuming direct command of our battlegroup. She is not coming with us, [i]we[/i] are [i]going[/i] with [i]her.[/i]”

Perhaps a testament to Abigail's alchemical prowess, the sludge she'd been drinking retained its shape long after the glass dropped to the floor, bounced a few times and rolled to the side. She stared at the spot where it impacted with a dull stare as everything seemed to shift gear in her head, then back up at Aleks with a smile.

"Cool!" She chirped. "Happy to have her aboard." 

Abruptly, Aleks put his glass down and reached out for the smaller pilot. 

“What the fuck.” He echoed, much more seriously than before.

Jakunta sighed, finishing his glass of ice water as he rolled back into a seated position. His elbows rested on his knees as he absentmindedly ran his fingertips across his knuckles. 

 "Pips! Did you break the blender again by cramming as much as you could into it? You're gonna get your blender privileges taken away like your Eva-" 

[B]"Yes LIEUTENANT MATHEN? How ma-"[/B]

 "Damn it! Go away! Go away!" 

"Gansu!" Abigail beamed, spreading her arms out wide, shouldering past Aleks as his gaze tracked her across the room. "I never even heard you coming. Made me drop my drink, you lil' bastard." 

 "I need your assistance Pips! You too Griz, D-eye, if you're up for it. We just had a successful mission saving Royalty from the evil clutches of the Coalition, and the rookie didn't get killed! That's a cause for celebration! Especially since we might not get our leave for a while with a Sunnie on board! And since Zoom has never celebrated with the 7th or had a Gansu-Special, I figured the best way to celebrate would be to find her and introduce her to the horrible concoction I made! Plus I'm going to get drunk before we go back into the field again before the politicians change their minds! You in? It'd help shake off that post combat nerves!"

"We're not out of the woods yet," Abi pointed out. "Not until Sunray's back home safe. And you know how I feel about drinking on duty. [I]These[/I] two degenerates, though," she gestured to the two Savonians behind her - stoic, tense, silent, alert and very much not at ease - "would be up to it if they weren't convinced yet again that I've gotten a brain injury." 

"She needs rest," Jakunta grumbled distractedly. "Somewhere quiet. Out of the way." 

"Besides, there's a fifty-fifty chance Sunny's gonna find me and know who I am. I gotta be sober and on call for that. But where [I]is[/I] that FNG anyway?" She looked around, her gaze briefly lingering on the security camera in the corner of the room. "Is she alright? Didn't even get a chance to say hi before the Coalition decided to ruin my day. Tell you what." Abigail stopped to pick up the glass, inspecting whatever was left that hadn't slid out onto the linoleum. "You're enough of a handful as is for a sane, shy-looking thing like her. Try and drag her back to the Lounge if she's not too preoccupied spit-shining her MAS. If she doesn't kick off and start pulling evasive manoeuvres, and I don't end up getting whisked away to do some damage control, then I'll have a drink and we can...I dunno, play Mancala or something. How's that sound?"

Abigail's smile was broader and toothier but lacked the glint that came with it. Behind her, Jakunta and Aleks loomed like two dark shadows - watching him and boring holes in the back of her head with their attentive glares.