Posted by Ensign Quinn Dagget (Helmsman) in Side-Sim A Cure For Boredom

Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in Side-Sim A Cure For Boredom
Nearly a week of space travel. Before long they’ll have reached this Abyss place and then the real work begins. Kovan normally avoided Deck 9, but a week spent crawling up and down engineering preparing for their trip through the nebula could wear any man down. Kovan needed a change of pace. A different setting to settle the nerves scratching up his spine. Something different, surrounded by different people. New things to calm the boredom that crawled over him like insects across his nerves.

So Kovan made a rare appearance in the crew lounge. He ignored any greetings, and took the only open table. Settling down, he set a pad of real paper down and began to draw with a charcoal pencil. With each stroke he pushed aside the background noise, and focused on putting the image within his mind to the page before him. Slow but surely, the landscape of an alien world appeared on the page. Strange alien birds filled the sky, and in the foreground accurate renditions of the native sentient life performing an ancient but still honored religious rite.

Kovan

“Hey there, dude,” Quinn sat down across from Kovan without asking. She held a thick book and plopped it down onto the table. Kovan probably wasn’t curious about what book she was reading, but if he did look he’d find that she was reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. “What’s up?”

She didn’t examine his drawing - as curious as she was, Quinn knew well enough that some people didn’t like it when you nosed into their art.

Quinn, Helm

It was easy to tune out background noise. Not so much the sound of someone sitting across from you and speaking. Kovan glanced up, blinking away the eye strain from focusing upon the page for too long. Much of the foreground was finished, leaving the background a scatter of strokes that hinted at mountains and clouds. He recognized Quinn, and figured there were worse people to speak to aboard this ship. He couldn’t be picky. “Quinn,” He answered and noticed their book.

“I know it’s called the lounge, but I wouldn’t call this the best place to be reading a book.” He added, his usual sarcasm completely lacking from his words. Then, as if to prove his point there was a loud cheer from one of the other tables as that group played some kind of board game.

Kovan