Iowa awoke slowly, pains and aches covered her body even further than the scars on her hull wove about. Nervous confusion about the pain receded as hazy memories of her injuries flooded back, but as the memories returned and the gaps revealed themselves, a faint nervousness began to creep up on her as she began to realize how little she recognized her surroundings.
The comforting sheets she found herself wrapped in gave little clue, sitting slowly up, she began to survey the room, plainly fashioned and adorned with white walls and cleanly varnished wood floors, the room was modern, but clearly betrayed hints of minor Asiatic influence.
The soft murmur from the corner broke her analysis of the room, spinning to find the owner of the soft murmuring, the battleship was confronted with the sleeping form of USS Franks, sitting on a nearby chair and wrapped in a blanket, besides her a small table lay coated in various flowers and other ornaments as well as a neatly folded pile of clothing, prompting the battleship to notice she had been put into shorts and a t-shirt with some mild embarrassment.
Her embarrassment was almost entirely offset by Franks's sleeping form and Iowa smiled warmly, before sliding herself off the bed and standing up.
Or at least that was the plan, but as her body raised itself off the bed a dull but intense ache in her right leg informed her something was wrong and the warship toppled ungainly to her side, dragging a good portion of the bedsheets down with her in an effort to dodge her fate.
Returning to her knees, the battleship attempted a more balanced approach and, on unsteadily legs, rose herself slowly to a standing position, glancing over to the destoryer, Iowa was mildly surprised to discover her completely unphased and still sleeping, despite the commotion.
Taking a few experimental steps and eventually settling on a again that left her with a mild limp, Iowa walked herself over to Franks, grabbed the clothes and dressed herself, noting with a few experimental and displeased tugs that the skirt she was given was distressingly short.
Having dressed herself and acclimated herself to her surroundings, the Battleship turned her attention to aquiring food.
The base's hallways were less sterile than their American counterpart and Iowa limped slowly down the pathway, sticking close to the wall due to the frequent need to stabilize her walk, she felt a small feeling of relief at the lack of other girls to notice her predicament.
The signs were frustratingly mostly written in Japanese, though to Iowa's surprise a few had dual texts and the battleship soon found a sign reading "cafeteria".
The opening of the doors was a mild inconvenience as the battleship struggled slightly with her limp, however bursting through the doors revealed a busy scene of a good dozen shipgirls eating and chatting with each other, a few stray glances and curious looks greeting her.
The serving counter was full of bright curries, vegetables and other exotic, at least to the battleship's standards, foods. Her hunger overcoming politeness, Iowa took great ladles of food and laid her tray high with mountains of whatever she vaguely recognized.
Turning to find a place to sit, Iowa landed unsteadily on her right leg, which collapsed from under her, driving her to one knee and only narrowly allowing her to hold onto her tray.
Her face flush with embarrassment, Iowa attempted to regain her footing standing steadily, she noticed she was confronted by the worried expression of a young destroyer in a short black ponytail and schoolgirl outfit.
"I can take that tray for you." The girl offered.
Pride initially dictated for Iowa to refuse, but the faint pain in her leg threatened to do more than just have her ungainly topple over and Iowa relented with an embarrassed nod, handing the tray to the smiling girl who took off and set it down with two familiar looking Japanese destroyers, who greeted her with a nervous smile and a death glare respectively.
Iowa sighed and limped over to the table, setting herself down with an unladylike thud.
"So- you're the American ship." The new girl began, "I'm Fubuki! Of the Fubuki class."
"Iowa," responded the American, before shoving a large spoonfull of curry into her mouth.
The girl smiled, "I heard about you from Ushio-chan, are you feeling okay?"
Iowa nodded, "just a bit of damage to the props, I've taken worse."
"I'm not surprised an old lady like you couldn't handle a gunfight!" Akebono retorted.
The battleship shot an angry glare but decided instead to focus on her meal.
The silence began to creep into the group as the hostile exchange led to a growing awkwardness in the group.
"So- um, miss Iowa-" Fubuki started.
"Just Iowa, please," the battleship replied, as she polished the last of her curry.
"Oh-sorry. I just wanted to offer you any help if you need it. If you need anyone to show you around or explain things to you."
Iowa cast a lopsided smile at the destroyer. "Thanks," she responded, "I'll keep that in mind."
As Fubuki finished her explanation the doors to the cafeteria opened again and distinctly english and excited chatter filled the room, the Taffys and their British counterparts entering a big excited mob of escorts, filtering over to the counter. Franks throwing a big excited wave to Iowa, who returned a much smaller one.
The first to sit down was Glowworm who dropped her tray with a joyful clunk on the table, the sound seeming to darken Akebono's mood.
"Good to see you girls again!" She declared cheerfully, "How's the leg? It looked to us like it was nicked pretty bad."
"Bit sore," Iowa reflected, "but I can't complain."
Franks and Ardent joined close behind, finding a place across from Iowa, perilously close to Akebono's growing ire.
"You feeling good? Doc said you were nicked up pretty bad." Ardent asked in parallel to Glowworm's earlier remark.
"Fine, how are you all holding up?"
"You're the only one who got hit, you daft broad," Ardent stated with a teasing grin, "except Franks here who got a bit of recollection as to why we're not too keen on spending time with battleships" she laughed, slapping the destoryer on the back, causing Franks to let out an adorable squeak.
Iowa cast a confused glance at the pair.
"You're alright though, less big guns, smaller and stockier, like a little battleship plushy," Ardent backpedaled nervously.
Iowa's gaze deepend into a confused scowl as Franks's face reddened.
"Look, I shouldn't have brought it up, nevermind, point is she was worried for you and now we're all happy." Ardent said, guiltily diving into her curry.
Iowa opened her mouth for a question, but conceded the point for later and instead opting to drive a spoonfull curry into it.
The mounting silence was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder which, upon her whirling around to greet it, revealed the form of Hailey, looking extremely smug and holding a, to Iowa's standards, adorably shy looking Haggard by the wrist.
"What's this about?" The battleship asked as the rest of the table whirled around with equally confused expressions, save for Franks who smirked mildly.
"'lanta said you had to!" Hailey teased her sister.
Haggard shook her head reluctantly.
"She'll know of you don't do it." Hailey admonished.
Iowa raised a confused eyebrow, until she glanced down into the destryers hands.
At the pair of brightly colored flags.
Haggard grabbed Iowa by the wrist and gave and embarrassed look at the floor before gesturing towarda the hallways with her flags, giving emabarassed glances to the other assembled destoryers.
A knowing and vengeful smile crept up on Iowa's face as she briefly pondered demanding Haggard to do her punishment in full view of the cafeteria, before noting with some pity the massive levels of uncomfortable squirming the destroyer was going through just by being there.
Standing up unsteadily Iowa turned towards the less embarrassed of the two destoryers, "Could you help me with the tray?" Iowa asked.
Hailey grinned and grabbed the tray, running to toss it over in the collection areas before attempting to follow the limping battleship out the door.
"Hey Hailey," Iowa asked softly.
The girl still grinning, gave a slightly confused look.
"Do you mind waiting here?" The battleship asked aside, before glancing over at the girls anxious ly squirming sister "I think Haggard is probably going to come pretty close to dying of embarrassment just with me being there."
"I'll let you know if she spells anything wrong," Iowa compromised with a grin, eliciting a frustrated noise from Haggard.
"But I want to see for myself!" Hailey whined before relenting to the mixed pleading expression of her sister and authoritative expression of Iowa
"Please Hailey, its not like you would know the difference anyways," Iowa rebuked. "Come on Haggard, let me see your semaphore."
Stepping out into the hallway Haggard carefully closed the door and checked both ways up and down to guarantee it as clear, her face beat red and staring shamefully at the floor.
"I-" she began with an experimental wave. "A-M S-O-R-R-Q F-I-R B-E-O-N-G R-U-D-E." she announced, rapidly firing off the flags before pointing them frustratingly at the floor her face staring red in the same direction.
Surpressing her giggles, Iowa instead elected to give the destoryer a forgiving ruffle of the hair.
"Apology accepted, now go eat."
xxx
Can you hear something?
"Nothing"
It's pretty distant, it sounds like a bell, it sound like our Bell!
"Our time has past, we were abandoned no one will call."
"A light is there, I think we're being called."
"Just let us sleep, we've already been denied our peace once."
"I- I think it's time we go back."
"I can't take being lost again."
"But it's our duty!"
"To hell with duty, we've been through so much, can't I just rest?"
"They need us, they're calling."
͜"JUST LET ME STAY!"