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[Cassandra glances over before focusing on her wind up music box, and begins slowly turning the handle. Music starts to play, a tune that may be familiar to people from Earth. She's not doing this to play music for everyone though, so she stops after a handful of seconds, looking thoughtful.]

It's funny. You hate home until you've been gone from it long enough, and then you get homesick and home is all you can think about. No matter how shitty it is, you forget about all of the bad things and only care about the people you left behind.

[The music box is picked up and clinched in her hand.]

Do you think it's possible to get a message back to someone? Has anyone tried communicating outside the ship yet? If things like this - [She drops the music box in her hand on the table she's sitting at.] can come through the Ingress to us, we have to be able to send things back through it.

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That's absolutely correct,

[he says mildly. He glances at the cake, then picks up a fork -- with only his fingertips, and only by the end of its handle.]

I could be anyone. And I could have terrible taste in dessert.

[He drops the joking demeanor before he continues, then uses the fork to separate a small bite off from the cake she's offered him.]

If they've assigned you to an intelligence position, wouldn't it be better not to be too trusting?

I still don't have any idea why they decided to assign me to an intelligence position.

[She doesn't think very highly of herself, and feels that there's probably a lot of other better qualified people. The job hasn't been difficult so far, but she still feels out of her element. Much like she does right now, as she realizes he's using a fork and she's grabbing at cake with her fingertips. It's how she's used to eating things, and remembering table manners is still something she has to do.

So she quickly uses her mouth to remove the frosting that's on her fingertips, and grabs hold of another fork, scowling a little as she uses it to take another bite of cake.]

I wouldn't trust anyone easily, even if I didn't have that position.

[Trust is a huge deal for her, something that is earned over time. She doesn't really feel the need to elaborate to him why that is, she thinks he gets it.]

[He gets it. She's come from an environment where too much easy trust could get you killed -- if not outright, then through theft of any resources that might enable you to survive.

The bite of cake that he's taken is washed down with a sip of coffee before he speaks again, and his fork hangs lazily in the air from his fingertips.]

Couldn't that be why?

Were you good at assessing situations, back at home? Or it might be that people seem quite willing to talk to you. It seems to me that either of those things might be useful in that kind of job.

I'm good at watching things and thinking fast when I need to. And getting people to talk to me, I guess.

[She's the most social of her ragtag group back home by far, and the one people tend to lend their trust to the easiest. So far here, she's had a lot of people talk to her, and she thinks that gives her some leverage here.

Her eyes look over at the fork and the way he's holding it. She decides to ditch her fork, because it tasted better being eaten with her fingertips. She at least daintily picks up a piece and pops it into her mouth. She's not completely uncivilized.]

I'm sure they have their reasons. I just don't want to mess anything up.

[Another deftly separated bite of cake has found its way to his mouth, and this time, he pushes it into his cheek with the tip of his tongue and speaks around it, surprisingly articulately.]

Well -- I wouldn't continue to tell people that you're an intelligence officer during open conversation on the network.

[He pauses, fork in the air -- "wait" -- while he takes a sip of coffee and swallows the cake, which is tasty without being particularly distinguished. Still better, however, than most of what he'd had in several years before coming to the Moira.]

But if I had to guess, I'd agree with your reasoning. It may have been that they wanted to assign someone to the position, and you were the likeliest fit in that particular group of new arrivals. I don't think it's a bad basis for that kind of assignment.

Most people would assume I'm making shit up. I'm not worried.

[Her tone is a little sharp, because she feels stupid and when she feels that way she tries to push others away. She recognizes it quickly though, and instantly gives him an apologetic look, before taking a long drink of her coffee.]

Thanks. For the -

[Tip? She isn't sure what to call it. So she shrugs.]

I won't tell anyone else.

[He develops a tiny frown and gives his head a single subtle shake when she's sharp with him. It's not that he minds it... things like that pass over him like water most of the time... so much as that he doesn't want her to misunderstand.

He seems much more sober and serious than he had a few minutes earlier.]

Among other things, it's that if someone else got in enough trouble on a planet, there are situations in which they might be able to sell you out, and they might make the choice to do so.

It wouldn't be the first time.

[It's said softly, and she switches from drinking coffee to drinking tea. She decides she likes the coffee better, and goes back to it.]

But hopefully it doesn't happen here. Getting killed or tortured on a planet I don't know doesn't sound all that great.

[The fact she hadn't even considered that possibility shocks her. She never really put much thought into what the position was and what it meant in the grand scheme of things. She wasn't going to make that mistake again.]

You can put a black mark in the captains' column, then: they've chosen to make an agent out of an inexperienced person, and they really haven't given you any training. But... [a shrug of both shoulders, and a long pull of his coffee]... I don't think it's something you're likely to necessarily be bad at, assuming you can keep secrets.

[She smiles at that, not saying anything one way or another. ]

It's only a job.

[It's better to act like it doesn't matter than to let someone know that she feels like it's a chance to prove herself.]

There's plenty of other things to spend your time around here doing than working. What do you spend all your time doing?

It seems like one of the more difficult jobs. But I suppose they'd allow you to ask for reassignment if you wanted it.

As to what I've been doing... nothing I'd call exciting. Familiarizing myself with the ship itself and the planets we've visited. Cleaning. [He does more of this than he wants to and less than he's probably supposed to.] That trial recently was certainly interesting.

Peter and Rinzler's? The whole thing was a mess.

[Cassandra's voice is flat as she says it, almost detached. Like she's trying to project that she doesn't care, and cover up the fact that she got involved in things. She picks up her coffee with both hands and takes a sip, but keeps the mug held up near her face as she speaks again.]

Do you know who set up the whole trial thing? Was it already in place when people got here?

[The flatness catches his attention, primarily because it's in contrast to her tone in almost the totality of their previous interactions.]

I don't. I had assumed that it was a system that was already in place, but it might be worth finding out.

[He aims his fork at another bite of cake, then adds,]

What would you have changed about the trial? Most of the stakes seem low... too low for what happened.

I don't know that I would've had one.

[But things are different here than they are back home. There, you could kill anyone and do anything and it was just survival of the fittest. There were no laws, no regulations, no people watching out for what was best for the greater good. Here, it's not like that. But she's still conditioned to life back home, the way things had become. She knows it's not the way it always was.

She takes another drink, setting her mug aside. Her eyes look downward then, staring at her hands.]

I forgot what it was like to have rules and expectations in place.

You could argue that they aren't as clearly communicated here as they otherwise might be.

What would you have done instead of the trials? Anything?

I would've let them figure it out themselves.

[Cassandra wants to be good but she is too true neutral for that. It makes life really hard sometimes.]

What if it had left all of them dead, and taken more people with them?

[L could almost be neutral good if his working methods and mentality didn't lean so far towards chaotic neutral so often.

It isn't even that he has a problem with breaking the law without punishment -- he does it whenever he needs to. Something being illegal doesn't make it necessarily morally wrong, and morality can be flexible in context, but he hasn't typically done any more harm than he needed to.

In the case of the trials, it's the endangerment that bothered him.]

[She feels like this is somehow a test, and only barely resists squirming. That doesn't stop her from looking him in the eye to answer.]

Dying sucks, but you have to be able to fend for yourself to survive. If they had taken other people out with them and gotten themselves killed, there wouldn't be anyone left to punish.

[Or get revenge on, really.]

I guess their people here would've found a way to get even.

[At least she looks him in the eye. And he understands this mindset coming from someone who's lived in the circumstances she says she's lived in -- he would understand an extent of it coming from someone who had lived in his own most recent circumstances prior to the Moira.

In any case, he doesn't sound too troubled by her answer. When he responds, his tone is cool, as if the conversation is more academic to him than anything.]

But where would that end? Also, at what point does a survivalist mentality serve us? It may not be necessary here, even if the basic tenets are always worth keeping in mind.

It doesn't have to serve everyone.

[She says it quietly, forcing that detached voice back to the surface.]

It serves me, and I'm not going to force anyone else to think that way. It's not up to me to decide where other people's mentality leads them.

[She doesn't like discussing things like this, because it reminds her too much of Black Summer, and all the arguments she had made that first summer after the world went to hell against the lifestyle Tobias and the others forced her into.]

Oh, [(he waves the tines of the fork in the air)]... I was speaking of each of us, not everyone on the ship.

[This is all deceptively casual; he's aware that he's touched a nerve. Continuing to touch it doesn't serve him, at the moment. And he rarely shows his ruthlessness when it's not necessary to do so... that's better as a surprise.]

I would ask you what kind of punishment you voted for, but I suspect you may not have voted at all.

[He doesn't seem disapproving.]

I wasn't going to.

[Her voice is barely a whisper, and she idly picks at the remains of her cake.]

I thought that maybe there was a chance Peter would get the least amount of time if I did.

[She voted, but only because Peter is her friend, and she didn't want him to have to go through being confined. In the end, her vote was meaningless, which ensures that the next time she votes will only be because she wants to get revenge on someone for doing something to her.]

Can we talk about something else now?

Of course.

[He's about to put another bite of cake in his mouth, but he stops, and smiles. It's a concession, because he'd rather she didn't run off, and it seems like she might if he persists. The smile itself is a little bit sickly.]

What would you like to talk about? You could tell me what your favorite thing is on the ship so far.

[She very visibly relaxes as he obliges, but she never fully loses the posture of someone that's like an animal that's ready to run if necessary.]

I like getting to talk to people.

[She smiles as she says it, making eye contact with him once again. It sounds stupid to say, but she likes that she gets to talk to so many people. Back home, conversations had to be short and to the point. Here, she gets to talk just for the hell of it.]

And the pool is great too. And having a real, actual bed?

[Her smile grows as she makes a noise that clearly indicates that she loves having a bed. Even if it is dangling from the ceiling.]

It's even better than having food to eat every day.

[She finally eats the last of her cake, and while she's chewing, she thoughtfully adds on,]

I like getting to talk to you.

[He nods, seeming equally thoughtful, but he doesn't immediately address her comment about him except for renewing his smile.]

You like having the opportunity for leisure. I would, if I were you.

[He doesn't point out in any way that this means that they aren't currently in a survivalist context. Cassandra is a trauma victim of some kind... he supposes he is now, too. If she's able to blossom from that, it will come in time.]

Are you enjoying the cake? You liked the coffee better than the tea.

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