Flowers and cookies

[Chronicron]

As they finished their meals, Tricia put the bowls back in the dishwasher. "Some very, very dark sorcery is at hand..." She said jokingly, reaching back to the locker with climate-control. For some reason she remembered having some peaches in it. She washed them and put them on a plate near Isla.

Leaning on a counter, she stared off in the same direction Isla was looking. "Our mind is an interesting construct. I had nightmares as well, way back in a day when I was court-martialed. Rarely any good dreams... " She grabbed a peach from a plate and sliced it in half, taking a seed out of it by picking it with a knife, giving seedless halves to Isla. The seed remained intact, barely opened by a knife, which is good - Tricia was looking forward to growing a peach tree one day. "One night, back in my late Core days, I remember I saw my own ship on fire. I was inside, clawing my way through her burning halls. She was a battlecruiser back then, before the whole retrofit... As I walked through, I got jumpscared by my XO. His eyes... They had that purple glow in them and that... thing sticking out of his mouth... And then I wake up. In cold sweat." She shivered. Either it was a vision caused by a Nomad or just a bad dream, she remembered it to this day."For two weeks straight, same dream, over and over again. Every time I tried to predict when I get jumpscared, I was always wrong. On my second week, I started noticing scratchers on my blankets, on my pillows... One day, though, I didn't see him. There was a... Feminine figure, floating in the burning halls, with long, very long snow white hair. And that cape, that damned black cape. Her face was completely covered by it... She was just floating there. But I felt like that void below her cape was staring back at me. And then... She was gone. With the rest of the ship. After that, I had no such nightmares. Just regular cursed sh*t." She reached out to the plate with peaches, slicing another one in half and picking a seed out. A sweet, slightly bitter taste helped her to escape this unpleasant flashback.

"Sorry, I... Didn't want to make you feel guilty for this." She snapped back out of it, focusing on the moment at hand. "Tea? Coffee?"

[Tenshi]

Isla smiled as she saw Tricia's instant interest in finding peaches for the two of them. She honestly didn't expect her to have any and yet here Tricia was proving her wrong. Isla turned her head to look at Tricia as she spoke. "She was court-martialed..?" Isla thought for a moment before letting go of the incident and staring at how Tricia took out the seeds from the peaches and handed them to her 'clean'. A huge smile covered her face, one that would unfortunately soon disappear.

Isla just sat there, watching as Tricia kept on talking about her past nightmares, her facial expression depicting the sympathy she felt for Trish. At some point, before Tricia was done talking, Isla got up and hugged her, standing beside her at the counter.

"Hey now, no need to be sorry," she replied to her with a calm whisper, "-I- am sorry, sorry for not being there to help you out of that back then." Isla sighed. "I'm sorry you had to go through all those sleepless nights, I do hope the entire nightmare situation has gotten better."

She leaned her head on Tricia's and looked towards the floor. "My own nightmares are not in a rather realistic setting, at least most of them aren't. The most usual nightmare I have is being on some derelict island, chased by a creature, the whole setting is like a game. If the creature catches me I 'die' and everything just starts over, I've never managed to 'finish' it. But the more times I see the same nightmare the more used to it I become. And then there's the second batch of nightmares which revolve around me losing someone very close to me." She paused for a few good seconds, thinking.

"Hell, I even dreamt about you a few weeks ago... It was.. It was an odd dream that I thought I had pushed so far back on my memory list that I forgot, but apparently it's still there. Heh!" A very slight blush was visible on her cheeks as she almost forcibly snapped out of her thoughts and looked back at Tricia, straightening her head.

"I would love some coffee right now considering how sleepy I am this early on. I still have a full Saturday in front of me."

---

[Chronicron]

"Well, I bet your dreams about me were nothing but pleasant." She smirked as she reached out to two mugs and put them under a nozzle near the sink. By the press of a button, a hot coffee stream poured out right into the cup, filling it up with hot, energizing liquid. Tricia reached out into another locker and took out a bag of her favorite oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips, tearing the bag open and leaving it on the counter. "Anyway. Heard you got a new job. I know there's an info page available to public, but I'd like to hear it from you. You know. How you feel about it, what's your thoughts on it and all." Leaving the mugs on a counter, she opened a fridge and took out a bottle of fresh cream, pouring some into her coffee. "Want some?"

[Tenshi]

"They indeed were!" Isla said with a shy chuckle, her cheeks blushing softly once again. She watched as Tricia inserted the mugs at the coffee maker, hearing the sound of the liquid pouring into them.

"So you heard huh? Damnit, and I -really- tried to keep that one secret!" She giggled, her eyes constantly fixed on Tricia's. "Well, the Marshals were a unit of the old Liberty Police Department that took care of Liberty's security before the LPI took over. The Marshals were some elite members of the Police Department back then, which got shut down along with the rest of the LPD when LPI took over, around one and a half century ago. That's when the Government decided that a corporation would do a better job at securing Liberty, and it is today, after all this time that the Police Department is being semi-brought back. The reason for this return is the worryingly increasing incompetence and corruption of the LPI and the Marshals are the first unit of the Department that is getting 'revived' to hopefully solve that problem."

Isla paused for a few seconds, letting Tricia take all that information in before continuing.

"That's basically the entire story of who the Marshals are and why the Marshals are. As for my own opinion on them, honestly it's tough work. Being a Deputy Chief in LPI was nothing like this, basically everything involving the Marshals has to go through me before being implemented and you can guess why that's a lot of responsibility. But alas, it's good to be working in an environment where everyone is as serious about their job as I am. LPI just felt wrong, you know?"

"Yes! I would love some cream on my coffee too! Do you perhaps have cinnamon too? I love cinnamon on my coffee." She replied, watching as Tricia left the mugs on the counter and walked towards the fridge, taking out the bottle of cream and serving herself.

---

[Chronicron]

She poured some cream into Isla's cup, closing the bottle and stashing it away into the fridge. "Well, it's not going to be easy." Tricia leaned back on the counter, sipping coffee and nibbling on a cookie. "I loved responsibility, back in a day. Being the number one Core lady, it was like... Almost running the government. And to make sure that things are going the way you want, you have to control every single step your organization takes. Otherwise, things might take a completely different turn." She sighed lightly. "But alas, sometimes things that are way out of our reach happen. "

[Tenshi]

Isla sighed softly and yawned before taking a sip of her coffee. She looked out the window momentarily before turning towards Tricia again, who was putting the bottle away.

"It's already tiring enough, to be honest. But I can imagine how leading Core must've been harder. Completely different circumstances out there, you're basically on your own." She said, noticing a slightly nostalgic tone in Tricia's voice. Isla extended her arm and held Tricia's hand who was by now seated on the table with her. "Hey, Trish," she whispered, "it's alright, you're not there anymore. Stuff happens and sometimes the right choice is to just leave it at the past and move on."

Isla yawned once more as she grabbed her mug with her second hand and took another strong sip of her coffee, her other hand still holding Trish's tightly.

"It's so early in the day and yet I am so tired, I didn't even do anything tiring today. Guess I gotta depend on the coffee." She continued after her sip, looking back out the window.

---

[Chronicron]

"Uh... I should've kept in mind that it's early for me, not for you." On the opposite wall, right behind Isla, there was a digital clock, displaying both Sirius Standard Time and Manhattan Bayport Time. Coincidentally, both times were polar opposites of each other - when it was morning in Bayport, it was getting late for the rest of Sirius. "Well, if you stay up at night - the blame's on me" She chuckled. "It's okay, though. Once you realize that it's something you like - you won't even find it exhausting. Trust me on that, I mean, look at my garden! I couldn't stand spending another minute in it, and now? I practically never leave it, whether I'm tending to my flowers or just enjoying the work I've done."

[Tenshi]

Isla chuckled along with Tricia, not having noticed the digital clock behind her. She still had no clue how far apart the time-zone here was than the rest of Sirius.

"So you never get tired spending time in something you like? Does that mean I'll never get tired being with you?" She giggled for a few seconds on her half-true, half-joke statement. "It indeed is confusing that I left my place to come here in the evening but it's like almost noon here. It kinda messes with me actually; my brain's trying it's hardest to convince me that I'm tired and I need to go sleep but my eyes are like 'No you don't, it's still daytime, look..!'. But it's fine, just another saturday night - I have no work or anything to do tomorrow, hopefully. That means I should be able to spend day with you without regretting it tomorrow... I can always just sleep through the afternoon."

After a few seconds of silence passed with Isla thinking about something and chuckling to herself, she finally spoke. "So... tell me... How's life in the future?"

Even though time-zone jokes are the least creative ones, it still made Isla chuckle for a while before she gave her statement a second thought. "Wait... Future.. no.. that's not right. It's Saturday morning for you, Saturday night for me.. Crap, I'm the one who lives in the future.. whoops!"

Her realization only made her laugh even more.

"So, anyway, how're we gonna spend our night? Ugh.. our day.. whatever..! You get what I mean." She finally snapped out of it.

---

[Chronicron]

"Let's head off to the guest room, shall we?" Taking her mug and a bag of chips, she walked out of the counter and headed back to the black sofas. "We've got some hours to spare, so let's just watch the TV. "

It was how they spent the rest of their time at Tricia's place. After the Curacao Nature Documentary, they watched some news and had an unpleasant political discussion - neither of them enjoyed it in particular, yet the reason this topic was brought up in the first place was soon forgotten. Watching nature documentaries was a time well spent. Some of these documentaries were about Gaia, some - about Curacao, about Cambridge and other garden planets, including Earth itself.

Yet their time together was coming to a close. After a day well spent, duty was calling to Isla, as well as Tricia's garden was demanding an another batch of attention. They partied, promising to each other to meet again in the near future. But a question of "how" and "when" was a story for another time...

---

[Chronicron]

04.03.828, 7:00 PM Bayport Time (7:00 AM Standard Sirius Time)

Time was weird in Bayport. Even if the sunset looked like an actual sunrise, it was still the exact opposite from the main time. Nevertheless, Tricia and Isla just so happened to live as the rest of the Sirius used to.

She woke up earlier, carefully leaving her bed so that she wouldn't disturb Isla, leaving the door to her second floor open.

She was in a kitchen, wearing nothing but her long cyan t-shirt. She already laid out the plates and a big glassy bowl, filled with the same salad she made way back when Isla visited her for the first time. Instantly fried toasts were already on the plates, smeared with some butter. A final touch - finely roasted eggs - was on its approach. For the first time in her life, she was cooking for two.

Finally, their breakfast - or their dinner - was ready. She turned on the TV screen that was hanging one a wall by the doorway, right above the kitchen counter, listening to some news and turning the volume a bit on, just so that Isla could hear some noise coming from below.