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“Why’d you decide to travel with me?” There’s a moment of silence, and Marius scrambles to fill it, continuing, “I mean, you said you needed me to fix your ship, but I’ve seen the kinda thing ya can do-” Nope, not fancy enough, he’d told her he was a baron and barons were posh. “I’ve seen the, er, lovely work you’ve done, er, previously, and you could’ve done it yourself.”
Raphaella pulls her wings in close, fidgeting with her skirt. “I didn’t want to be on my own, I think. I mean-” She talks quickly, even compared to Marius, and it’s worse when she’s nervous, but he thinks he can just about make out her next words. “I don’t like just having my thoughts, I mean, course I do, having thoughts is great you can’t do science without thinking them, but I mean the bad ones. And so I keep on doing experiments and keeping busy, but sometimes it’s just. Not as nice. And I thought having a new person around would be nice. You’re awfully interesting.” She takes a breath, and when she next speaks, her words are tinged with venom. “I used to have a lab partner, you know, but they backed out. Couldn’t appreciate the kind of groundbreaking work I was doing. You can’t do good science without breaking a few rules.”
“I could be your lab partner!” Marius leans on her shoulder as he continues to talk, attempting to fit on the pilot’s seat with her. “I have… a degree.” Nope, not impressive enough. “I have several degrees!” (He’d never been to school. He was still attempting to cover for the fact that the only language he could read had been dead for thousands of years; she didn’t have many books, and he’d thrown out all the safety manuals so she couldn’t try to get him to read ‘em.)
“Several degrees!” Raphaella says in mock amazement. “Why, Marius, I simply must have to hire you!”
Marius did a little bow, happy that he’d cheered her up. “Thank you. Don’t worry, I won’t quit on you because of a few-”
“Crimes against humanity.”
“Those! I won’t quit on you, or betray you and leave you and cut off your arm and then you almost die with no friends to help you and have to build a new one.”
“That’s… specific,” Raphaella says, looking at his metal arm.
Marius flapped his hand vaguely. “Don’t worry about it. I’m looking forward to our partnership, Dr. La Cognizi.”
“You know what, I think I am as well, Baron Dr. Marius.”