Hoppou looked at the marvel of construction in front of her. It was a wooden cabin, ordinary and unassuming against all the snowy landscape around the entire island. She wasn't sure how the building stood unscathed throughout the years of various bombings made by the previous Abyssal flagships and their fleets, but at this point she would settle for anything that wasn't ice.
She shuddered at the thought. Her time as an installation had been extremely lonely, with only feral I-classes around. Contrary to the others, she wasn't allocated much material aside from several destroyers and a few coastal guns, and whatever structure she made that was not made of Abyssal steel would be bombarded by stray aircrafts from various Nu-classes of other fleets. She never held it against them - it's simply in their nature as feral Abyssals - but it was pretty sad regardless.
Clutching the aircraft she found on a nearby island, she slowly pushed the door open. Warmth blew against her face, the difference in temperature tickled her funnel. She quickly entered and closed the door shut, but it was futile. Her nose twitched and danced as her generators sputtered, and a mighty blow resulted from it.
"ACHOO!"
"Bless you, dear," an elderly voice said, dangling a tissue in front of her.
"T- thank you." Hoppou sniffed, and proceeded to wipe the ashy snot with the offered tissue. Throwing the used tissue into the trash bin, she then froze.
No one was supposed to be there. No one was even supposed to be anywhere around.
Hoppou slowly, jerkily turned toward the source of the voice. A miniaturized coastal gun appeared on her hand, while the other held the aircraft to her chest in a vain attempt to protect herself. Before she could see who that was, a hand shot towards her, front and center against her face.
She slammed her eyes shut, shivering in the thought of it being another of those equatorial princesses. She was going to be bullied again, like back in Training. They would yank her collar around, push her head underwater, or even cut her outfits to shreds. Against the big and powerful nee-sans, she couldn't do anything.
She was so powerless, undergunned, weak-
The hand touched her head, warm and soft against her white hair. It rubbed her head in a stroking motion from left to right. It wasn't uncomfortable. It didn't hurt.
It was… nice.
Hoppou slowly opened her eyes, and her pupils shrunk as she immediately regretted it.
Worse than the nee-sans, it was a human. A wrinkly, nightgowned human, holding a cup of hot, liquid torture on her other hand. Black curls were all over her head.
Hoppou heard a lot from her time in Training. Humans are the big baddies of the planet, playing God with the lives of all living beings everywhere. 99% of ships were killed before they could even reach commission, and even the most decorated ones aren't spared from the cold, methodical cutting that slowly killed them. Yet somehow, they also managed to breed and brainwash fanatical ships to defend them to death.
Hoppou shakily lifted her gun, trying to align it from where she remembered the human last stood. Ice shot through her back as the ten-ton cannon slipped from her mittens instead, and blew a hole in the wooden flooring, down to the snowy ground beneath.
The human gasped, no doubt about to yell and curse at her for all her wrongdoings. She should defend herself here and now, remember that she was infinitely stronger than them, and all it took is- "Oh my! That's dangerous! Are you okay, sweetie?" the human asked.
Whuh?
What?
Hoppou slowly opened her eyes. The elderly human woman fussed around her, checking her limbs for any sort of injury. "Dearie, are you okay? The flooring broke under you and I'm afraid that you might catch some splinters."
The human was… concerned for her?
The old human gestured for Hoppou to sit on a stool that she took from somewhere. Hoppou warily sat on it, cautiously observing the human for suspicious movement. But during those five minutes she looked over her propulsions, the only thing suspicious was the amount of water she used to clean her feet.
"Nothing, thankfully. You're healthy as a horse!" the human announced, before sitting on a couch next to her. "What's your name, dearie? Where did you come from?" she asked.
Hoppou eyed the human. She was different from what Training taught her. She was soft spoken, polite, and kind. Hugging her aircraft to summon her courage, she answered back, "H- Hoppou. They call me Hoppou. I am fr- from the airport nearby."
The hand reached once more, and the soft rubs on her head continued. "No need to be shy, dear, ol' Gertrude here won't bite. Oh, and here, hot chocolate. Careful, it's hot."
Gertrude held a cup in front of Hoppou, its content brown and spinning all around. "It must be poisoned!" Hoppou thought, yet the smell was nothing but enticing. Her internal readings told her that it was similar to one of the better rations. Trusting her guts, she took a sip, and-
"D- delicious!" Hoppou couldn't believe what she had just permitted to enter her supply lines. Flavours danced around her mouth, pinching against her tongue in all the correct ways. She never tasted something so sweet and delicious before. Not even Wanko-neesan's cooking was this nice. "W- wh- what are you- what is this?! It's… delicious. So delicious…"
Gertrude giggled. "I'm glad you like it, Hoppou dear. It's my own recipe." She set her own cup on a table. "By the way, sweetie, where are your parents?"
Hoppou looked at her, confused. Before she was able to answer, however, heavy footsteps emerged from inside the house. Unlike Gertrude's soft and muted taps, this one was heavy and rough, sometimes scratching on the floorboards.
A tall, lanky figure, covered in layers upon layers of cloth emerged, carrying a big, long, massive rifle almost as tall. His face was similarly wrinkled, but much thinner, and without anything above his head. Looking up to his face twisted something in Hoppou, and condensation threatened to pool around her searchlights.
"Who in the unclean heavens is this lost child, Gertrude?" he spoke, his scratchy and shrill voice sounding loud and clear. "We're literally the only two people left alive on this forsaken island and you're bringing child ghosts home, now?"
Her waterworks flowed, and Hoppou scrambled towards the back of the sofa, various chalk images of big bad humans flashing through her mind. That was pretty much the cardboard cutout of a shooting range target personified. Now he would aim that gun at her and the old woman won't do anything about it, and she then have to defend herself and everything will-
Gertrude gasped loudly. "Arthur Jameston Crawford! You should be ashamed of yourself! That's awfully rude of you to call her a ghost child. Apologize now."
Arthur stood there for a minute, eyeing Hoppou who was failing badly at hiding. "Meh, sorry," he eventually said, and trudged outside the house with his equipment in tow. Soon, the cabin was quiet once more.
Hoppou bawled and hugged Gertrude at the legs. The old lady just smiled and patted the little installation's head some more. "There, there, Hoppou. No need to be scared of my husband. He's cranky and rough around the edges, especially because of the recent happenings, but that's just how he is. He's not going to eat you either, dearie."
"He- he won't hurt me?" Hoppou asked, snorting and choking on Gertrude's legs.
"Not if I have a say about it." Gertrude offered her more tissue. "Now, wipe your nose and eyes, alright? Maybe you need to head back wherever you're from, at least for now. It must be scary, meeting him for the first time. He's as unapproachable as someone can get, I know."
"U- uh huh…" Hoppou wiped her face - and Gertrude's legs too for good measure - clean, and moved to exit the house. At the door sill, she stopped and turned at the old lady. "T- thank you for t- the… chocolate."
"Anytime, dear. Visit again if you can, or safe travels if you can't," Gertrude offered, and waved her hand at the little installation.
Hoppou returned a nod, and the door closed as she slipped outside.
Her power plants thrummed slightly harder, relieved and scared at her successful survival against a human encounter. It wasn't all like she predicted. The old lady human wasn't hostile at all, welcoming in fact! Did Training lie to her? There's no way the Abyss lied to her about humans, right?
Or… is it possible that even humans, too, have outliers?
In the ranks of the Abyss, most of them valued strength, beauty, and figure much more than things like honor and tactics. Those who are just "friendly", those that are ambivalent, and those that bullied Hoppou all the way to graduation, all of them pretty much had the same thoughts. "Except Wanko-neesan," she thought, eyes brimming with realization.
Hoppou hurried back to her little radio shack to tell Wanko-neesan about what had just happened. She would love to hear it, for sure!
With the little girl gone, excitement stopped, and the day returned to normal with peace and quiet peppered by the usual distant bombings reigning once more. Gertrude reached for her weekly newspaper, then stopped. "Hold on a minute now, this isn't the day where that supply girl is supposed to come?" she thought. "From where could little Hoppou be, then?"
After a minute, she decided that it wasn't worth mulling over, as the weekly sudoku wasn't going to fill itself up.