Perpetual Commotion | The Santini Family

[Thexare]

A pair of old variant Scimitars, a Switchblade, a Sabre, a prototype Gladius, and an X-Shuttle set down at a private spaceport on Planet Cambridge. The hangars were situated behind a rather large residence, and already held a Roc and a heavily remodelled Manaslu.

The pilot of the Switchblade was the first one to disembark, and before she could react she was nearly tackled by the owner of the house - her sister, Mia. Physically they were very different; Mia quite curvaceous and perpetually smiling, and Tiana more slender, with a body more akin to that of a gymnast, and of course far less cheerful - now more than ever, though she forced a smile for Mia.

"Ease up a bit, sis, pretty sure she needs to breathe," the pilot of the Sabre commented as he walked toward the X-Shuttle. Their adopted brother, Santiago Mirez was a reasonably well-built man, and probably would've ended up as an enforcer if his skill at sniping wasn't more useful. His dark brown hair was, as always, uncombed and sticking out everywhere, and his brown coat barely concealed a large handgun holstered at his left hip.

The two Shamshir pilots were even more different than the sisters - one was, of course, Ayumu Ishida, a quiet Kusari man wearing a long green coat, with a concealed shortsword inside. The other, a beautiful bespectacled woman with tan skin and golden-brown hair who didn't look nearly her age - she was the girls' mother, Serena Santini.

Before he could move toward the X-Shuttle, Ayumu found himself as Mia's next target, so Santiago, Serena, and Emilio started unloading the X-Shuttle - it was nowhere near full, of course, but it was easier to pack everything and keep each person's belongings seperated this way.

The Gladius pilot, a largely unremarkable Kusari woman named Aina Kouryo, approached Ayumu and waited for Mia to calm down for a moment before speaking. "Ayumu, the Gladius is almost ready for combat. I'm going to return to Malta for more testing. I'll be in touch with Mia so you can keep up uwith what's going on."

"Thank you, Aina. And... be careful."

"I will, Ayumu." She returned to her ship and launched without another word.

While Emilio, Serena, and Santiago were going through their belongings, Mia pulled her sister and brother-in-law up to the house. As soon as Tiana opened the door, however, a gigantic green spider easily a foot in diameter swung across the doorway. She stumbled back, and Mia started laughing uncontrollably. Tiana quickly realized it was just a stuffed animal hanging on a string and really felt quite stupid about the whole thing.

"Aww, don't be like that, sis. I made him, you know. Wanted to show you, and, well... there he is!"

"Wait, you made this?" Ayumu repeated, looking more closely at the oversized spider's stitching.

"Mhm! There's quite a few more inside, different animals. Made 'em as references for The Adventures of Spinny, needed to get the proportions and positions right," she explained as she led them to the sun room just off the side of the entry.

"I'm not sure why," Tiana commented as they sat down. "Plenty of comic artists over the years have ignored physics and anatomy."

"Yeah, but the art is the entire point. I want to get kids interested in seeing other worlds. There's so much in Sirius we don't know. I'm sure there's no friendly talking spiders out there, but it's a lot easier to make a stuffed spider to draw than it is to find a guy willing to pose for me."

"I don't think you'd have any trouble with that, Mia," Tiana said, glancing at Ayumu. Just then, Santiago and Emilio walked in with boxes.

"Oh, hey, dad! Could you put on a pot of tea? Kitchen's down the hall, to the right."

"Of course, Mia. You have this under control?" he asked Santiago.

"Yeah, just set it down here, I'll get it in a bit."

"Right, then. I got your message, sounds like it's gotten pretty bad up there," Mia continued after the two walked away. "What'll you do now?"

"Honestly, Mia, I don't know. I just... I need to find something worth doing."

Mia smiled, hoping to reassure her little sister that everything would be fine. "I already figured that, so I did a little digging. Based on your work with Mirage, I'm seeing two possibilities... one is, of course, Bretonian Intelligence. You'd have to ease up on the knifework... probably... but other than that it seems like a good fit for both of you."

"What's the other?" Ayumu asked, not particularly thrilled about the idea. He'd helped the Bretonians a few times, but never really liked the idea of answering to any House authority.

"Have you heard of Natio Octavarium?" From their reactions, it was obvious that neither had. "I'm headed out to the city they've settled in a few days to do some research for the next book, Why not come with me and see if they might need anything?"


Meanwhile, Serena had let herself in and slipped past them unnoticed. She walked into the kitchen and found Emilio standing over a kettle of water and asked, "Dear... what are you doing?"

"I'm making a pot of tea for Mia."

"And... why are you doing that?"

"... why am I doing that?"