[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=steelblue][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mess Hall (C) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/9nVT3Qs/Ash-Happy.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The overwhelming officialness of the last few hours was tilting Ash's demeanor to something more soldierly, and with that came certain traits. Some were more beneficial than others, such as his tendency to speak clearly and respectfully to people around him, befitting his more humble position in the community. Others were less beneficial, like his occasional propensity to horking back a meal like he was still in Basic. It was this impulse that Ash had to stifle. He could already feel himself leaning forward and picking up his spoon like a digging tool rather than an eating utensil before remembering that he was, more or less, a gentleman. More than that, he was taking his meal with Thana, who deserved a more refined dining companion. So he straightened himself, held his spoon like a mannered adult, and indulged in the spicy vegetable-y goodness in front of him. Between veggies and fresh bread, this was something he would have gone for even back Before. Thana's question about how much longer it was going to take initially gave Ash some confusion. Then after a moment, he realized that she was talking about the Court Martial, specifically. He gave her a little nudge and a monosyllabic, [color=4682b4]"Ah,"[/color] when it came to him fully, and responded thoughtfully. [color=4682b4]"Couldn't say. Not far in and they are belaboring some points."[/color] He shook his head and gave a little shrug. He had no idea either. [color=4682b4]"It's not like anyone's disputing anything as facts."[/color] Which they weren't, yet. [color=4682b4]"I'm betting that whatever Monroe says will make or break the trial. Only X factor. It'll be done right after he speaks, one way or another."[/color] Ash gave the occasional glance in Hunter's general direction. His position was not enviable, but it was telegraphed by his actions alone. If anything though, it gave the rest of the new people (himself included) a look at CMB's way of handling things without having to go through it themselves. This could be a learning opportunity, even if it pulled away from time better spent elsewhere. [color=4682b4]"Hope it's soon. I'd love to spend more time with you than it takes to finish a bowl of soup."[/color] His accent, usually slight, was beginning to flare again. Thana had that effect on him sometimes, Ash realized. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=crimson][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mess Hall (C) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Thalia did not like having her plans postponed. Shears was being evasive, but did say that he would pass along what he needed to after food. This earned him two things: 1) A long, hard stare from Thalia, and, 2) a grudging amount of respect about prioritizing supper first. Fine. She had waited this long. While not an overly patient lady about most things social, Thalia had waited this long, and could for another half hour or so. So she went along ahead and got her meal, now sitting quietly by herself as to avoid social situations that might potentially annoy her. Imagine then, dear readers, her surprise when two social situations sought her out, specifically. The first of the two came in the form of Nigel, the fellow with whom she had sparred earlier. The mostly casual way in which they had corresponded before was okay enough, but the look on her face might have tipped people off that she didn't want to be bothered. This was the price for living in civilization, Thalia supposed. She took in a breath and let it out slowly, then looked to the Roman-ish guy. Nigel wasn't causing any harm. She simply wasn't accustomed to his presence. It reminded her a little of that first meeting with Alexander. She didn't particularly give a rat's hindquarters about that guy, either. She had half a mind to ditch him after he entered one of the houses in search of coffee mugs. Things had a way of changing. This did not mean that she was going to welcome the guy into conversation with open arms (though there was some respect due to the earlier fisticuffs). So she went with her usual direct approach, when asked about her history with weapons. [color=dc143c]"Dad insisted."[/color] It wasn't much, and it was said around a mouthful of bread, but there it was. She might even feel better about the answer were it not for the fact that she pretty much got set back by ten years of training, thanks to having to re-learn around a false limb. Then, just to throw the man a bone, [color=dc143c]"Father Benicio Gonzalez. Priest outtah Monterrey."[/color] It wasn't anything he wouldn't have gotten by asking Atticus or Joaquin. Less, in fact. Thalia continued eating her chowder. The second one, the barber, was semi-invited. Not expected that soon, granted. He had said something about food first. Apparently, he meant after he'd gotten his meal, not after he was through with it. It was probably a clarification that she should have inquired into. In any case, he had something she wanted. That dead stare loomed on her face again as she accepted the card, her eyes not leaving Shears's face until she flipped it over to inspect its lettering. [center][color=darkgray][i]~They say many hands make for easy work, yet this one person would know this not to be true.~[/i][/color][/center] It had to be something about [i]hands[/i], didn't it? Thalia wasn't immediately sure what the note could have meant. She lay it face-up next to her on the table and got back to her meal, a slight scowl forming in the face of it all. Could it mean whomever is in charge of the boats? Hands being another word for personnel, and them being busy. Or maybe it was Tesla, the person who labored to make her metal hand. Of those two possibilities, she went for the latter more then the former, but in the end had no idea. A glove maker, maybe. In any case, she continued to hork back her meal, savoring that which could be savored in the relatively shorter amount of time it took her to insert food into her frame. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=burlywood][i][b]Hank Wright[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=deb887]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Mess Hall (C) [i][b][color=deb887]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/5rWFgFJ/PB-mfnJ.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] In the midst of a classic, quite Hank-ish mentality of [i]why-the-hell-not-(?)[/i], our steely, middle-aged protagonist gave a shrug, made a face of exaggerated (if false) consideration, and followed Wayne over to the stage area. Being the ever astute observer of the human scene, this particular chow hall was a veritable library of multiple different personalities, all sitting and eating together in what he observed was relative peace and harmony. At least on the surface. It never ceased to amaze the ordinarily cynical man that circumstances had a way of throwing together people who might have otherwise truly despised one another in such a way as to inspire not only cooperation, but [i]community[/i]. It was a way that humanity often marveled Hank. Not that he might ever let a word of this be breathed out loud and in front of people. It was a beautiful thing, though. The end of life as they knew it served to amalgamize those who remained into a single culture, whether they liked it or not. And as the next generation came up after them, humanity would see a tougher, more apt variation of human rise to claim the world around them. Of course, this was also the beginning of humanity's second Dark Age, so all of the hearts and flowers could take a screaming vault into the back seat of leering pessimism. And with THAT in mind, Hank strode right along behind Wayne, plopped his happy ass down on the edge of the stage next to him, and took a couple of bites before giving his very good friend's words a heartbeat of consideration before returning his commentary with, [color=deb887]"Yeah, I wonder how good he is at distance running. Hell, for that matter, I wonder how he's going to look with an apple in his mouth."[/color] What followed was, albeit a little forced, a chuckle that was reminiscent of one or the other of the puppet duo, Statler and Waldorf. But to follow up, so long as they were entertaining themselves at the expense of others, [color=deb887]"Whoa, hold on a sec there, buddy! It that Sportacus over there, trying to make time with one-armed chick? Oooh Sporty, you nut; got some ball-balls on that one, huh?"[/color] Hank made a cocky expression and nudged Wayne with his elbow. Then he looked to the soup. Yup, that bowl full of happy was going down quick.