Label Gun

Quill could not fail to notice the nervous glances Nestys gave to her direction when she arrived to the cockpit. The cyborg sat comfortably in an arm's length from the pilot. What drove her to the seat next to the young wman was perhaps curiosity, perhaps simply the need to chat up the pilot who seemed quite lonesome doing her work she had not, originally, signed up for. Most importantly, however a growing fondness in Quill's cybernetic chest was letting its presence be known, and it would not stand being ignored.

"How long have you had this ship?" Quill asked and looked around her. Hyperspace glowed in its bright light blue from the window in front of them. Nestys gave Quill a glance before an answer. She still barely believed that Quill, the aasimar she had bargained for in return for her mother, still spoke with her at all.

"Well, you see, it isn't exactly..." She cleared her throat. "I got it from my mom."

Quill lifted a brow. "Oh, yeah?"

"Mhmm. Yeah. She kind of stole it."

Quill lowered her chin and an amused grin spread on her thin lips. "KIND of?"

"We got it when we attacked one of those prisons back in Ravaskir, then, then Mom gave it to me. It's mine now, it's got my name on it." The pride that shone from the way she spoke made Quill feel a spike of fond nostalgia.

"It does?" Quill asked. "Your ship has your name on it," she repeated.

"It does! Look!" Nestys pointed at a label sticker that had been put on the dashboard. It was pink and had Nestys' name written on it, and it was one of those labels upon which you could feel the text with your fingertips. Quill let a laughter escape her lips. Truly it was something easy to believe from Nestys, a pink label on her ship, fitting her hair colour and girly demeanour. Quill pointed at the sticker with her finger.

"Makes me almost wish I had my name on my vibroblade too."

A mischievous glint appeared in Nestys' little tiefling eyes. She dug to the other side of her pilot seat and pulled out a label gun. She handed it over to Quill who took it with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. She had never seen one of those contraptions before in her life so up close. The ship Ambition did strike Quill as one of those that withheld all kinds of equipment, anything from surgery instruments to shopkeepers' tools.

The short explanation Nestys gave of the label gun's functions did not quite land in Quill's mind. The buttons and the handle all confused the cyborg terribly. She fiddled with the gun for a while, aware of Nestys' returning glances in her direction. They further distracted and confused Quill. She didn't snap at the young woman, for in a way she did enjoy these looks. Even if they were because Quill after 15 minutes of trying still could not figure the secrets of the label gun.

Without a shrivel of frustration, Nestys switched to autopilot. A smile decorated her face as she opened her seatbelt and walked behind Quill's seat, behind the cyborg's back. She brought her arms around Quill and directed her hands from behind to the right buttons of the gun. Quill became fully aware, in high definition, what Nestys smelled like and in what pace she breathed. Two decades of deprivation flashed through Quill's body like a bolt of lightning. Keeping her cool was a struggle. How old was Nestys even? Quill, compared to her, was ancient.

"There we go." Nestys added a little heart symbol to the end of Quill's name and soon a small pink label sticker was printed out of the gun. Nestys sat back to her sea as happy as ever. And ust to show that she was not all talk, Quill took forth her vibroblade and stuck the stickers to its hilt.

"There," she said. "Now no one can steal it from me."

Nestys giggled and blushed green. Quill took the sticker as a good luck charm, and smiled at the pretty woman who had given it to her.