gold as grass and butter is green

"I said, y'know, I'm so close, would you just hop me over? And they did, but I think they were a little bit too excited."

In other words, Kell, the tall red-haired Irish soldier with all the classic characteristics you'd expect, really didn't want to have to brave the unknown of injecting t-shots into a robot leg, so instead he braved the slightly smaller, slightly more definite unknown of slipping his request in early, but then the techs reinterpreted that request and decided that he would, in fact, get to be another couple inches taller and beefier, just 'cause. Talk about doing a guy a solid!

There was no fear of a raygun outpacing his wingspan, but he opted for psycho launchers and a javelin anyway. The javelin in particular got relatively little use among the broader BLADE population, so it was a boon to his Outfitter work, he expected, to keep one on.

He seemed perfectly happy to have more or less retained his functional memories, too, so long as it meant that he'd be folded back into the corps as standard-issue as anyone else. What he didn't know, he didn't need, right? No use worrying about it.

"Keep it straight ahead with me, Rook," Elma had told him. "If you think you're not the man for the job that is being on my personal team, then tell me now. I'm sure it's an honor and a privilege, but more than that it's a challenge that none of us are too happy to have to face."

Of course, the strain in her voice had come from the taut memory of Danny and Boris, top-tier BLADEs gone by. Was it a mission done out of love, a great interstellar love that spanned the entire spectrum breadth of human connection? Without a doubt. That didn't make a smiley face on rainbow clouds appear any more than the Samaarians themselves did.

A vocation. A job. A task. Endless, intangible work to be done.

"I don't mean to be disrespectful, ma'am," Kell had replied. "I'd like my own chance to get acclimated. If that's possible while working with you, and you decide if I'm up to caliber, then that suits me fine."

Truthfully, Elma wanted someone who could judge themselves - and only then would she be the judge of whether or not they'd called it right.

But Kell did as she had asked, kept it straight ahead. So her firm answer was what he, deep down, wanted to hear: "You're on. We don't want any heroes. Just show me what you're made of."

Unfortunately for poor Tatsu, Kell's discipline to duty ended at potato jokes, it appeared. Though testosterone hunger hadn't followed him from Earth, his full-grown appetite had, and he tacitly accepted that his payment for the greater share of responsibility would be tendered in the form of Lin's very finest (which, very often, meant meats and pastries most tender).

"You don't just have to eat in the barracks, you know," said Lin, one hand on chest in automatic non-curtsey gesture of gratitude and the other pointed up as a knowing index finger. "There are so many restaurants in the commercial district, you could eat something different every night of the week!"

By virtue of being on Elma's regimen, Kell was a saver. Though he couldn't specifically recall a particular penchant for or against drinking, he figured the time would come when he'd want to - when he actually had buddies he'd met during daylight that would retain some semblance of personality when the moons came up. And he had no one to buy anything for, save some judicious purchases of armor.

So yeah, he could go give his wallet some exercise in the streets named for Melville. But then he'd miss all the fun with Tatsu, and just be eating out alone.

It was in the course of wandering around the cathedral early (to a relative definition) on a Sunday-feeling midmorning that Kell met Hope, of course. He wasn't so scarred by the circumstance of the group stranding on Mira that he'd call it "finding" her, very literally, but once introduced to the romantic little play on words, he was easily nudged closer to such barefaced adoration.

Hope, for her part, just wanted someone genuine, someone kind, someone who remembered Earth the same way she did so that she wouldn't automatically become positioned as the fixer. Right? Someone to save her from herself, in a way.

Would Kell save anyone, consciously? Not so. Even though he probably would have greatly relished the role of a healer, he was too stubborn with his initial class picks to switch to dual guns or a knife. The former was so that he'd stay matching with Hope. The latter was so that they wouldn't be match completely.

Not that they'd ever be confused with each other, so different in stance and build, posture and features.

Red hair. Freckles. Uncanny gray-green eyes. The works! There were no hijinx involved with it, and Hope was quite glad of this fact, because if she'd had to match Kell up with someone, she was almost certain she'd end up staring mopily at his departing back as he, so easygoing, tried his luck and his credit card with whoever she had thought best that definitely wasn't her.

Even if he didn't always know the subtext lurking below him, Kell knew when to speak his mind. He'd had a lifetime of wondering, of what-ifs and quiet shouting down.

So if he turned around, saw Hope, and uttered his first thought - "Which would you recommend for a guy's first foray into the restaurants of the residential district? I mean, the commercial district? Um, delivery?" - obviously he'd say yes when she asked if he'd like her to accompany him.

Not that he wouldn't know what it meant. No, he'd figure that part out pretty quickly. He'd smile to himself and decide that whatever it was that this was, there were much worse ways to spend a leisure day. Had he done it, ever, before, back on Earth? No way of knowing. No better time than now.

Hope might not get it, though. Not until they circled back to the park with their leftovers and Kell said with an easy gap-toothed grin, "Thanks for going out with me."

"You're wonderful company," replied Hope. "I enjoyed myself."

Kell gently tapped at her upturned elbow with the corner of the takeout box. "You'll be here, right?"

"Well, I work out of the cathedral, but in my spare time..."

In her spare time, she had been pacing the grounds of the park, building up a wellspring of anxiety toward the coming week's work.

The styrofoam container struck again. "Maybe drop by the Outfitters' Hangar? I could use some company while I set up my station."

More people with more problems. More personal effects.

Or, none of that. It was her own time, after all. Her own time she could choose to spend - or not - with Kell.

As if lending company was the bread and butter of the Mediators anyway. Hope smiled to herself, though she didn't really feel it, as Kell walked (in the wrong direction) away.