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?"