Personal Log.
Willow
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Other Willow writing:
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// STARDATE 102169.7 //
The cadet flops exhaustedly into her desk chair, which rotates a little from her transferred momentum. She leans forward to peer closely at her console, checking the fidelity of the video feed, before relaxing back and bringing her gloved hands forward to sign.
“I just came back from turning in my project for Federation History,” the synthetic voice translates her lazy gestures. “Cannot say that it was all that much fun, but I am pretty happy with the result, I guess. The professor let me focus primarily on the history and operations of the 38th Fleet, so that at least made it bearable.”
She draws her feet up onto the chair’s seat, bending her knees and hugging her arms around her legs, leaving herself little room to sign. “But I will not be sorry to never see another PAO dispatch ever again! At least, not until I have to.”
“I know they say those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it, so it is important to learn. But it is just… so… fixed. So immutable. And I hate that feeling of watching or reading about something happening and not being able to change the outcome, not being able to affect something better.”
Her hands pause as her thoughts drift aimlessly for a moment, antennae twitching minutely before drooping dramatically.
“Then again, the future is not much better,” she signs glumly. “I still have not decided on what track to pursue. I have narrowed it down to something in sciences or medical… or engineering… or operations.” She blows out her cheeks briefly as she recognizes that it would have been quicker to list what she’d already eliminated, rather than what was still in the running. “I have asked everyone I know for advice. Esios, Counselors R’mori and Zesara, even poor Ensign Weldon had to endure my desperate questions! If history is stuck being forever unchangeable, the future is over-plagued by variables and uncertainty!”
“I suppose that is why it is so much more fun to focus on the here and now. I only have to look a few steps ahead of me to know what I need to do next, what would be the most productive. I do not have to be a fortune teller to know that my next problem set is due on Tuesday so I better get started on it now.”
Willow stares at the ceiling for a little bit longer in a contemplative silence. She drops her legs off the side of the chair and then reaches out to the desk, pushing firmly enough against it to give herself enough momentum to spin around two, three times. As it slows to a stop again, she brings her hands up in front of her chest to sign as she springs to her feet.
“Maybe not right now, but after some ice cream?” Her expression brightens at this. “Computer, end log!”
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OOC
Argo's timeline tool has gotten a facelift. Please enjoy. :x
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// STARDATE 102259.8 //
The video feed comes on to show Willow tearing around her small dorm room, as she attempts to find something she’s evidently misplaced. She lifts up stray items of clothing to look under them, presses her cheek against the wall to peer down the dark crack behind a desk up against the wall, and her figure at one point briefly dips out of sight when she ostensibly looks under the bed. She comes up empty-handed and huffs once, trying to calm herself and actually think about it.
After a moment, she starts as she remembers she turned on recording for her personal log. “The Academy is on spring break and today is First Contact Day,” she signs at the screen. “Esios and me and Cobalt went to go check out the First Contact Day festivities and we signed up for the mini-Phoenix building races, for kicks. I remember watching one years ago when we first came on board the station… maybe when I was thirteen or fourteen?”
She smiles a bit nostalgically, as if it were twenty years ago, and not just six.
“We only watched that time, but this time I understood more about what to do. Run around, collect parts, fix them up a little and put together a mini-Phoenix to launch and see how you do, right? I am not the best engineer, let alone for chemical rocket propulsion, but I was feeling pretty good about my work!”
The cadet takes this moment to stomp up to the camera to sign about this next part.
“And then we launch them, me with my blue rocket and Esios with his green one, and what happens? What happens, I ask you? Esios’s rocket flies ONE METER farther than mine! One blazing meter!”
Her mouth falls open with silent laughter at the absurdity. It is clear it is annoying to lose so narrowly, but she clearly finds it extremely entertaining, too. She calms after a moment and sinks into the chair in front of her recording console.
“There was another thing, though. Cobalt’s rocket was last place. I was surprised he did so poorly, he is a much better engineer than I am in most respects. But when I asked him about it later, he explained what happened.”
Her expression shows sudden surprise and glee. Evidently she has finally spotted whatever it was she was looking for and she reaches somewhere off behind the camera to pull something large and white towards her: it’s her Moopsy hoodie, which she promptly pulls on. The large fabric teeth comically frame her face for the rest of the log.
She settles back in her seat, her gaze turning upwards towards the ceiling as she recalls. “Where was I … oh yes. Cobalt said that another team in our race was this dad and his seven year old kid. Obviously the kid is not going to be that much help and the dad was not particularly expert level either. But Cobalt was searching for parts at the same heaps as them and they were chatting about how they lost their mom a year ago and she was a great engineer and they used to do this festival together.”
“Cobalt could not help himself, he gave away all his good parts to the family, so that their rocket would fly. They got third! … And Cobalt’s rocket barely broke twenty meters.”
Willow looks a little teary-eyed as she says this part and she ruminates on the family, their loss, Cobalt’s growth. All of it feeling like a little bit too much.
“I have to confess,” she signs quietly, “As the oldest, I of course always felt like I am responsible for all my siblings, to make sure they will do OK without me. I am so frightened for them sometimes. But… days like today make me think it might be OK. That they will be OK, even if I have to be posted to a ship and go far away.”
She thinks about it for a moment. “And I will be OK, too,” she decidedly signs.
She gets to her feet and looks at the camera. “Cobalt, in case you ever see this, I am so proud of you! So, so, so proud.”
Willow beams at the camera for a moment longer before signing, “Computer, end log.”
((Backdated to, when else?, First Contact Day.))
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