Welcome to Gaia! ::

Weaponry was hardly her specialty, and although the episode with the murderous robots directly before her promotion had made her doubly aware of the need to be able to defend herself and her fellow Vanguard members if needed.

It had taken a lot of research, though, to figure out how to replicate certain molecular structures in her beloved mushrooms, and from there, how to transfer that into energy. On top of that, she'd been distracted over the winter by some of her research on edible fungus, which had to be equally important as something that with luck could increase efficiency back home and buy Velencya more time.

Finally, though, she held a sleek rifle in her hands. The calculations had added up. It should be able to fire a blast that would be able to subdue and distract an opponent without harming them.

That part had been important to Naeria, after everything she'd experienced with the misguided humans.

It should work. Now she just had to try it.

She'd asked Aliez to join her. Hopefully she wouldn't need medical attention, but she was learning not to take chances.

When he arrived at the patch of woods she'd asked him to, she waved at him.

"Um, hello?" she said slowly, not sure how to introduce something like this. "Thank you," she glanced down, the words already sticking in her throat, "For helping me."

Was she nervous around him? Naeria hesitated, eyebrows drawing together, for she wasn't sure that he would be happy about her answer, but she didn't want him to be upset.

"Yes," she said, but then added, "Also around, um, everyone."

Andreyia and Fae-Fae might be the members of the Vanguard that she was closest to, but she was almost as likely to freeze up around them as she was to freeze up around anyone else. The nerves constantly gnawed at her. It was a rare thing for her voice to come easily, even around those who she knew better.

"I'm not good with people," she told him, and those owlish eyes flicked to his green ones for a second before they flicked away again. A cardinal was flitting through the branches. That was something easier to watch.

"The words," she paused, because it was happening even now, "Stick. Or, I get emotional and say too much of the wrong thing."

He would know that. He'd seen the way she'd snapped in the aftermath of Astraya.

"But, I'm trying," she said, as the bird flitted off into the distance. "The Commodore promoted me, and I told him I would try again."

She might never be charismatic like him, but she could try to at least manage basic communication.

"I was going to test this on myself," said Naeria, tapping her close-cropped fingernails against her rifle.

However, she did not seem like she was in a rush to do so. She kept the gun held, relaxed, against her side. Her eyes flicked to his again before her gaze went off to some other point of interest in the distance, because she'd never been one for staring into the faces of others, and now was not the time to start.

"You don't have to apologize for your honesty," she told him, her voice coming out just slightly stronger. "Not then. Especially not now."

The thoughts and emotions swirled around in her mind freely, thoughts about the fact that their world was in danger of dying, that Commodore Lyndin was weakening with it, that the person that should be their other leader was instead in hiding from his own people.

She didn't externalize those thoughts often. Even now, it wasn't something she could put into words all at once, but she managed, "It might be better. To talk about these worries. Instead of waiting for them to turn into conflict during emergencies."

Mentally, as if he could hear her, she told the Commodore that she was trying.

"I feel it, too."

She channeled so much of those anxieties into her research, into her work, into those late nights, and those desperate calculations. It didn't mean she didn't feel them. She felt them.

It took her a few seconds to process what, exactly, it was that he was saying, but when she did, her face relaxed and her eyes lit in the most that they had since she'd arrived out here in these woods. Caedus. He was someone that she so rarely spoke of, since she knew that his life was at the center of much of the conflict among their own people, but she could not hide the fact that she was happy that he was alive.

"I will not speak of it," she promised Aliez, and then added, after a moment of hesitation, "I do not wish harm on anyone, either."

For now, she thought, that was all that needed to be said.

Maybe after this she could show him some of her research, the speadsheets that she was pouring all of her worries into. Maybe she could show him how she was working on another way, and even making some small progress there.

For now, she shifted her gun.

"I will try it on myself first," she told him. "It is meant to cause rapid hallucinations, not to cause any harm. I might need help to try something past a glancing blow, however."

For now, she took half a step forwards, and took aim at her own toes. When she squeezed the trigger, a beam of purple light shot from the tip of the blaster towards her food.

She felt the impact, but only a little.

However, her gaze slid away from anywhere near Aliez, who she could no longer focus on. She looked up towards the branches of the trees, which also blurred, and shifted to a bright violet color.

Naeria's pupils were, in fact, dilated, so much so that her golden eyes were near black. She stopped looking at the trees so that she could meet his gaze, which also shifted and blurred until a few seconds later the effects started to fade, and she could see the lines of his face clearly again. Her wide eyed look faded some as her pupils partly closed. Aliez's ComTech would find that her pulse had spiked from a resting rate to an active or excited one, but it was nowhere near dangerous levels.

"I feel stable," she told him, and while she didn't want him to feel afraid to speak about Caedus, or the Commodore, or the rest of the conflicts and challenges that were facing the Vanguard, it was easier just to talk about this. "It was effective. My senses were compromised, but not in a harmful way. It's done now."

She was smiling, because that had been utterly fascinating, and more than that, it seemed that her hard work had paid off. Her heartbeat gave away that excitement as she looked over to Aliez for his opinion.

She wanted to try it again, but she had to give the weapon a moment to recharge, and also make sure that it was safe.

"Do you have any concerns?" she asked.

"Addictive?"

Naeria considered this for a moment. "The chemicals used here do not have a strong trend towards physiological addiction, even in humans," se said, because of course that had come up in her research while she'd been putting this together. "Although that does not eliminate the possibility of psychological addiction."


The thoughts spinning through her head were almost visible behind her eyes, and her voice didn't falter at all now. She was taking this seriously, trying to problem solve. This was her project, her pride. She wanted it to be the best and most effective and the safest that it could be.

"If I'm mainly using it briefly for defensive reasons, I don't know that it would be an issue, but just in case," because Earth was strange, and unpredictable things kept happening, "I could try it on myself for a few weeks? Report any issues to you?"

Naeria went quiet again, because it was always harder to find the words when she wasn't talking about her own research, or the research of her friends.

She knew that there was more to Aliez handing her a bottle of water than Aliez handing her a bottle of water. She knew, just from his brief moment of vulnerability, that he had his own secrets, his own fears and desires on top of the ones that all of the Vanguard shared.

Still, he was here, not only offering her water and snacks, but he had also gone above what she had asked for, and above what would be approved of, to let her know that Caedus was okay.

"I, um, think I will go write a report on this now, but thank you," she told him, taking the bottle and then, a moment later, one of the granola bars. "For everything."

A moment passed, because this was not something that was always talked about on Velencya, but she thought that she should say it. "You are a good friend," she told him, and there was no sign that she was under any sort of influence as she said it.