Chapter Fifty - Temporary Goodbyes

"Thank you," Ivil said. "That was an amusing way to spend the day."

Across from her, Pixie smiled wide and gave Ivil a little bow. She bounced back straight, the bags she held onto swishing with the motion. "No, thank you. That was... more fun than I've had in a long while. I guess it's a little bit of an old-Earth cliche to spend girltime shopping, but it was a lot of fun."

"I hated every minute of it," Missy said.

Ivil and Pixie both ignored her, as they'd been ignoring most of her complaints for the last few hours.

Missy was standing slightly to the side, weighted down by several bags. The contents of these ranged from the softest, most silky pyjamas available on the station, to lingerie the cost of which could very easily be calculated on a dollar-per-thread basis. There was some more normal stuff as well, though Missy had very much insisted on keeping to her style. That mostly meant that she'd picked up more jumpsuits, but they were at least of higher quality with fewer company logos on them.

"I hope we see each other again soon," Ivil said honestly. The date with Missy and Pixie had been both educational and amusing. It had, in many ways, matched up to what she'd imagined from seeing soap operas and romantic comedies. Not every detail, of course, most of those didn't take place on a rickety space station, but there had been enough similarities that she had found herself able to rely on her romantic education to figure out what to do next.

"Y-yeah," Pixie said as she kicked at the ground, scuffing her shoe on a grating. "Well, uh, it was nice seeing you, and Missy too, and I hope that I'll see both of you again soon. Oh! I might need to meet you again once I have news from the Bounty Hunter's Guild."

Ivil nodded. She couldn't see why any such news couldn't be transmitted via electronic mail of one sort or another, but another excuse to meet Pixie wouldn't go amiss.

Ivil had very few friends, and her therapist was always egging her on to meet more people and become closer to them. It was supposed to 'humanize' her.

She wasn't so sure if that would truly work, but today had been fun, so maybe they were onto something. "Well... goodbye." Ivil nodded, then turned to start walking off. Her bags hurried after her, knowing better than to slump on the ground and not follow. She hadn't purchased much, really, a few changes of clothes and one or two items that Missy had suggested.

For someone who only wore one thing, Missy had an impressive eye for fashion.

Though she had insisted that Ivil buy a nice luxury jumpsuit.

Ivil waited until Pixie was far out of hearing range before she spoke up again. "Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked in a more subdued tone.

Missy shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. Never was one for shopping. Usually just order what I need and get it over with, but this was nice. We burned through a lot of money though."

"It's my money to burn," Ivil said. "And besides, we're expecting a decently large payday, aren't we?"

"I suppose. One of the first things that I learned when I became first mate on the Held Together was how much maintaining a ship cost, and then I quickly learned that company money isn't the same as people money."

"I'm not sure I follow," Ivil said. They were both navigating out of the nicer, centre-most stations of Driftwood and towards the less-reputable ones on the edge, specifically towards the one that had the docking facilities they were using now.

Missy hummed. "It's just a matter of scale, I guess. Nevermind."

"No, I want to understand. Do you mean to say that the amount of money one person can move is nothing compared to a company?"

"More or less, yeah. The Held Together ain't the richest ship around, but just keeping her going costs more than a station-living person makes in a decade. But it also makes as much every trip. In the end, we're still just scraping by, but the numbers have more zeroes tacked on."

"I see," Ivil said. She nodded along. "I think I understand. I had a similar shock when I started to question the amount of money the government could spend on things around Mars. Even the simplest of budgetary shifts start in the low billions."

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"Yeah, I guess it's all scale," Missy said. "Anyway, I never was much for bigger-scaled things. I'm a simple kind of woman, you know?"

"Hmm," Ivil said noncommittally. "I do hope you had a simple kind of fun. I enjoyed myself."

She felt rather than saw Missy eyeing her from the corner of her eyes. Her hair was pulled up a little before her face, masking the look to those without Ivil's senses. "Yeah, I guess I did. Has anyone ever told you that you're weird?"

"And survived?" Ivil asked. She hummed. "You'd be the first."

Missy chuckled. "You know, I feel like your big scary-woman act loses a lot of its bite after spending half a day with you acting like you're sixteen and shopping with daddy's credit card."

"I have to admit, that never actually happened. I was never much of a... family person."

"Oh?" Missy asked.

"Orphaned, raised by the big scary government," Ivil said.

"Ah," Missy replied. "Sorry for digging."

"It's nothing," Ivil said. She was aware that sharing about her past was a required part of building a healthy relationship, so she was ready and willing to speak about it. Not that her young life had been overly traumatic or was all that interesting. "So... you and Pixie?"

Missy grumbled. "Yeah. But hey, I apologised to her, we're good, I think. She's a good woman. I kinda... fucked her up a little. It was dickish of me. Sorry for bringing you into that, even if it was just in the periphery. You don't deserve to get caught in my drama."

"It's fine," Ivil said. "I appreciate that you're so... mature about it."

"If I was more mature, I wouldn't have dug myself into that hole in the first place," Missy said. "Maybe I'm growing too old for the whole lady at every port thing. You might have the right to it, Evelyn, I should think about settling down one day." She snorted. "If you told me that I'd be thinking that even just two years ago, I'd think you were delusional."

"Why? I think it's a very normal way of thinking as we grow older. I wasn't too keen on romance until a few years ago. Before that I mostly focused on becoming stronger, gaining a reputation, making sure that people knew their place."

Missy grinned. "Sounds like you might have been good at that."

"I'm the best at it," Ivil said. She was. "What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't be nervous about changing your approach to things in life. Maybe the next step really will be to find a place to settle down in."

"I don't know what kind of place would want me," Missy said.

Ivil grinned smugly. "You can live in my palace, of course. You have experience as a first mate, I'm sure that would translate well into a more managerial role."

Missy laughed. "Sure! Does your butler uniform include jumpsuits?"

"Only if you're wearing nothing but the contents of that bag underneath," Ivil said with a gesture to a tiny pink bag that Missy had stuffed shamefully into a larger one.

Missy's laugh changed in pitch, turning a little more nervous. "Yeah, that's not a kink I'm familiar with... might be kind of hot, though."

"The classic butler outfit would suit you well too, I think. You've got the figure to pull off wearing a three-piece," Ivil said. "Ask Aurora, I'm certain she'd agree."

"I think I've had enough people poking at my way of dressing for one day," Missy dismissed.

Ivil smiled, then paused as she noticed someone approaching them with a knife in hand. "Hey ladies, looks like you had some cash to spend, how about yo--"

Ivil continued to walk on. There was a slight hitch as Missy went around the mugger's lower half after it fell to the floor, but she soon caught up, looking somewhat paler. "What the fuck was that?"

"Hmm? Oh, a mugger, I think," Ivil said.

"Fuck. Uh, okay, we should probably hurry up, then," Missy said.

"Yes, I suppose if there's one, there might be more about. They're like roaches, I swear. I suspect that I'm somehow cursed to always run into some unimportant mugger or mook every time I enter a location of ill-repute," she said with a shake of her head.

***