4996/What I Learned On Earth

What I Learned On Earth
Date of Scene:	03 February 2021
Location:	Crew Bunks - Milano
Synopsis:	Mantis finally hunts down a Guardian who will hear of her awesome experiences on Earth
Cast of Characters:	Mantis, Gamora

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Mantis has posed:
Mantis, keeping mostly to herself and attempting to avoid burdening anyone, has been finding it difficult to share one of the experiences she has been through on Earth. But lately, she's been feeling a growing need to share. She eventually surmised that Gamora might be the most tolerant (silly idea!), and so she more or less been passing regularly by the Crew Bunks, just waiting on Gamora to wake up so she can share her tale.

Gamora has posed:
    Gamora as laid awake for some time now, staring blankly at the ceiling with her hands behind her head. There's concern going around that the green woman may never actually sleep, but, either way, she has to get up eventually. Forgoing her cloak, Gamora opens the door to her quarters, and her eyes immediately light up with alarm when she finds someone waiting outside.
    "Gah!" Gamora gasps shortly and immediately whips out a dagger and lets it fly. Only at the last instant does she process who her 'ambusher' is, and though she's already commited to the act of throwing the short knife, she does manage to adjust just enough that it flies past Mantis' head, and embeds itself into the wall behind her.
    Gamora takes a deep, slow breath, and then says, evenly: "You surprised me." before walking past Mantis and yanking her dagger out of the wall, leaving a deep mark on the wall.
    There are many such marks on that wall.

Mantis has posed:
"Ack!" Mantis cries in surprise just as hard if not harder than Gamora, at the very least, she's much higher pitched. Because her cry reaches a higher level of duress when Gamora whips out her dagger. As the knife flies her way, Mantis reveals surprising reactions, as she does a Neo-Matrix-Evasive maneuver, bending backwards and then straightening up again. Looking quite shocked, her dark pool of eyes widened cartoonishly, "...eeeeekk..." she adds fearfully.

"I am very happy you did not cut my head in two! Hehehe..." Mantis laughs nervously, before quipping, "I am sorry to have surprised you, Gamora, I did not mean to surprise...are you okay?" She asks strangely enough, considering she was the one who nearly got a dagger instead of her nose.

Gamora has posed:
    "I should think so." Gamora replis with a slight quizzical tilt of her head, before sliding the dagger back into its sheath on her lower back. Gamora looks borderline suspicious as Mantis goes on. "I am... I am well." She replies cautiously. Honestly, of all of her crew mates, this one may be the hardest for Gamora to understand, on a few levels. "Why were you hovering outside my door?"

Mantis has posed:
"Sooo....you remember how we were on this Earth planet recently, correct?" Mantis murmurs hesitantly, sounding quite worried, potentially that Gamora wouldn't care to talk to her at all. "Am I vexing you...?" She adds curiously, "Drax said I sometime annoy people, and I don't mean to do that."

Mantis takes a couple of steps back when asked about why she was lingering in the area, and with a sheepish grin, she admits, "I only wanted to talk..."

Gamora has posed:
    Gamora watches Mantis for a long moment, her brow slightly knitted as she processes what Mantis says. Though emotional intelligence is a... work in progress for Gamora, it occurs to her that Mantis seems significantly more delicate than the killers and fanatics she's used to dealing with, and that dismissing her outright may work out poorly.
    Which is to say, Gamora doesn't want to be mean.
    Pointedly not addressing the matter of annoyance, or the hopefulness of Mantis' explanation, Gamora simply returns to the first point. "... I recall being stranded on Earth for some time, yes."

Mantis has posed:
"Ah!" Mantis brightens as Gamora admits to recalling being on Earth, even if not in the sort of tone that invites further conversation, "so while we were there...I met a human, by the Elder Groot, did you know they had an Elder Groot there? He was silent though...didn't say much at all."

Gamora has posed:
    Gamora looks perplexed. "There is-" she starts to ask, then shakes her head, "I was not aware there were Elder Groots." Gamora glances to the side, "Or other Groots, for that matter."

Mantis has posed:
"Oh, he didn't tell me, but I'm pretty sure it was an Elder Groot, it was very very tall!" Or it was just the Rockefeller Center's Christmas Tree, that was always an option, just one Mantis was unaware of, "but that human I met...he taught me a new skill. I wanted to share that, but didn't know with who...I thought, maybe you would like to hear of it? Did you know there was an 'ice skating'?" She asks while making funny finger gestures, which unbeknown to her is 'air-quotes'.

Gamora has posed:
    Gamora watches Mantis stiffly, quirking an eyebrow at the quote gestures. "... I was not." She says blandly. A moment later she sighs very softly. She... has no feel for actual conversations that are not meant to resolve a matter. How does this work? Uuhhhh... "... ... ... Describe it." She manages, after a long pause.

Mantis has posed:
"Oh! It works like walking, but it's actually gliding!" Mantis squeals with delight when Gamora asks her to describe it, meaning she wants to hear her story! What joy! "See?" Mantis lifts up her legs, revealing a surprising flexibility that would point at dancing, gymanstics or martial arts expertise of some sort. Holding her leg up, with the sole of her shoe displayed for Gamora, she explains by tracing a finger over it, "they have shoes with tiny blades on them, and then you use those to slide on an ice surface! It's called skating and it's really fun! But you need good balance...and it can be a bit scary, because it's easy to go very fast!"

Gamora has posed:
    Gamora moves her eyes to Mantis' leg without moving her head, and then looks back to Mantis. "That sounds..." Gamora tilts her head ponderously, "... highly specialized." She says. Of course, having heard 'bladed feet' and 'high speeds', her thoughts drifted first to murder; which is, of course, her area of expertise. "Hm." Gamora hums and then straightens up. "Come with me to the lounge; tell me more." She says, walking away from Mantis in pursuit of, frankly, the frendliest gesture she can muster right now.

Mantis has posed:
"You'd like to hear more? Wow! You are so very kind, friend Gamora!" Mantis risks calling Gamora friend, her antennaes shifting nervously as she waits a moment to see if there's any reaction, before turning to follow Gamora's lead towards the lounge, throughout she keeps yammering of her experience and the kind of edible fascinations that human had gotten her. It works out rather well with Gamora not truly listening, and Mantis just being happy to have someone to talk to about her experiences on Earth.