Author's Note:

And now, on to the next day!

Chapter 15: Metaphorical Purps

Ariah awoke early the next morning, feeling much healthier than she had expected. She hopped out of her hammock, being carefully not to hit her head against Birdbrain Mary's hammock, directly above her own. She looked around her. Everyone else was still asleep.

She sighed happily and quickly removed her peasant top, opting for just her laced up red vest and her bandaged torso, and pulled on her dark brown trousers. She left her excess clothing at the bottom of her duffel bag. She grabbed a piece of twine, and tied her black hair in a ponytail and pushed back her bangs with her red bandanna.

The young sailor tugged at the bottom edge of her laced up vest so it covered most of her bandaged torso. There was only about an inch of visible bandages between her belt and her vest, but it wasn't likely that anyone would notice this.

Then she zipped up her duffel bag and shouldered it. She would need a few things from it and it was basic knowledge not to leave one's effects sprawled around their hammock while using their duffel bag for other purposes… especially with this crew.

Ariah left the crew's quarters, ambled around the lower deck, and finally entered the RLS Legacy's longboat dock house. There was no one in sight and the two longboats swung gently from the ceiling from the steady movement of the ship.

The young inventor began pulling out the needed effects from her duffel bag. She pulled out her blueprints of a new addition to the solar glider. They were for a pair of gloves, which would have the system's functions and controls installed into them, so the user wouldn't be restrained just to the normal controls that stuck out of the glider. Ariah smoothed the blue prints across a bulletin board; pining each dog-eared corner into place.

Ariah slipped on her elbow-length work gloves and searched the bottom of the duffel bag for her pair of large welding goggles. Once she found them, she hung them on a hook by her blueprints and continued assembling her things. Ariah pulled out a toolbox from one of the lower shelves in the dock house and got to work.

Jim was back into the monotonous schedule of being cabin boy. The moment he woke up and left the crew's sleeping quarters, Silver had ordered him to scrub the upper decks.

He used a hand-held scrub brush to push around the puddle of warm, sudsy water. Morph zipped around his head. He cheerfully babbled and occasionally turned himself into a miniature scrub brush to help Jim. So now things were back to normal…

After hours of tedious work in the dock house, with the occasional stop to pick up some purps or a small meal from the galley, and Ariah had finally completed the solar glider's control gloves.

They were built into her work gloves and they responded to the correct functions as far as she could tell. She sighed and started putting away her things.

Perhaps later on in the week, she would test out the gloves with her solar glider; that is, if both she and Jim got some free time.

Ariah zipped up her duffel bag, now much heavier from the amount of equipment she was storing in it, and brought it to the crew's sleeping quarters. She placed it under her hammock and immediately left the room.

She stepped out on the main deck into the evening air, now pleasantly cooled by the nightly rotations of the stars and planets in surrounding galaxies. She stretched her bare arms out in front of her and pulled her hair out of her ponytail. Ariah didn't sense that she was in fact, being watched.

"Hey Ariah." Jim greeted the black-haired teenager. He was carrying a basket of purps in his arms.

"Hey Jim." Ariah smiled faintly. Her black hair was down from its ponytail, dropping elegantly to her shoulders.

"I guessed that you didn't want to come down for dinner." Jim smiled. "So I decided that maybe you'd like a starlit picnic…"

Ariah giggled. "Sure, why not." She sat down beside Jim, with Morph buzzing by their shoulders, and they began feasting on the purple-skinned purps.

"Yuck." Jim shuddered after he took a bit out of a smooth-skinned purp. He spat out the chunk he had been eating and tossed the purp overboard. "It's rotten inside." He growled disgustedly. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. "And I thought that was one of the good ones." Jim coughed a couple times, trying to rid his mouth of the unpleasant taste. "Ever had that happen to you, Ariah?" He asked randomly.

Ariah sighed hopelessly. "Yeah, I've had that sort of thing happen to me before." She leaned against the polished, wooden railing. "Both by just eating purps and sort of metaphorically; at least I think."

"Metaphorically? What do you mean?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well." Ariah glanced out at the stars. "There was this one guy I met a few voyages before this one." She paused and fiddled with the ends of her hair. "He seemed to be an all right guy, I guess." Ariah's soft smile disappeared. "But, when I got to know him..."

She huffed and pushed herself away from the railing. She walked towards the bow.

"He ended up being a smarmy jerk." She sighed. "But you know." Ariah grabbed a smooth-skinned purp from Jim's basket, tossing it lightly in her hand. "I learnt a valuable lesson from that idiot's betrayal." She looked at the purp meaningfully and then heaved it as far out into space as she could. "You can't trust many people."

"Oh." Jim stepped up beside Ariah at the bow's railing. "Did he hurt you?"

Ariah frowned and leaned against her elbows. "Not physically." She shook her head and looked away from Jim, out to the stars. "But yes… it hurt." She murmured the last part more to herself than to Jim.

Morph whimpered at the sad expression on Ariah's face and began crying loudly.

"Oh Morph." Ariah smiled at the little blob. "I'm sorry I upset you." She apologized dearly to the transformer as she cuddled him in her hand.

There was a small pause.

"Did you cry?" Jim asked.

"A little." Ariah admitted quietly.

She nuzzled her cheek gently against Morph's cool rubbery body. She smiled and picked up another purp from Jim's basket.

"But you know…" She laughed. "I've also had the alternative happen too." She grazed her hand over the purp; it was slightly bruised and battered on the outside. "Sometimes you get a purp that looks pretty unappealing." She looked at the purp in her palm. "But most of the time, they're just as sweet and normal inside, despite their exterior."

Ariah smirked at Jim, who raised an eyebrow.

"The only way to truly tell is if you sink your teeth into them."

Ariah gently bit into the purp and Jim laughed in agreement.

Morph looked at the two teenagers, seeing how close they stood to each other. A plot began forming in his little head. The tiny transformer giggled sinisterly –though with his high-pitched voice it was quite comical- and acted quickly.

The pink blob pushed Jim forward with astonishing strength that one would never have guessed he possessed from his size between the shoulder blades.

"Morph!" Jim yelled at Morph, who ignored him with a giggle. Morph continued shoving Jim until he fell against Ariah.

Ariah dropped the purp she was eating and she quickly grasped Jim around the shoulders, trying to steady them both so they wouldn't fall overboard. Jim's arms were above his head, and he was trying to locate the evasive transformer with a scowl on his face.

Morph chirped victoriously, wrapping the two teenagers together in a pink rope around their waists so they were even closer.

"Morph." Ariah scolded. "This isn't funny…" She snapped.

The little transformer laughed loudly.

"C'mon Morph." Jim groaned. "Let us go." He prodded the pink rope.

Morph protested audibly. He changed a small part of him into two lips smacking against each other, to illustrate what had to be done.

"You can't be serious." Jim moaned.

Morph wrapped more of himself around the two teenagers pulling them closer together.

"Oh he's serious." Ariah winced at the tightness of Morph's rope against her bandaged torso. Not that the shifter was to blame; neither he nor most of the crew knew about he only recently healed injuries.

The teenagers stared awkwardly each other and the scowls melted from their faces.

Jim's pale blue eyes locked with Ariah's copper-brown eyes, and he couldn't help but notice how dazzling they looked in the starlight. Ariah looked back at Jim and noted that he was quite dashing with the hundreds of stars surrounding him.

Ariah's hands instinctively moved from Jim's shoulders to the base of his neck and her fingers spread open. Jim shivered, cupping Ariah's chin with one hand, the other instinctively wrapped around her ribcage.

They stared at each other for a while, until Morph urged them impatiently.

"Morph cut me some slack." Jim growled irritably, his hand moved from Ariah's chin to her shoulder. "It takes;" He paused awkwardly. "Time…"

Morph grumbled, extending the end of his rope to Jim's ear and making kissing noises.

Ariah giggled at Morph's antics. "You never done this, have you?" Ariah smirked minutely at Jim's unease.

"No…" Jim admitted defeat, looking away. "I'm still the loser I was back at home."

"Hey, join the club." Ariah laughed knowingly with a smile. "On my home planet… people treated me differently because of who I was…"

"You?" Jim raised an eyebrow. "No way."

Ariah nodded. "It's true…"

"But you're so…" Jim looked down into Ariah's eyes, "…amazing." He paused. "How come you don't have a mob of guys chasing after you?" He sighed. "And, here's me…"

Ariah giggled. "Don't beat yourself up, Jim." She looked up into Jim's eyes. "I've never met anyone like you… and…" She cleared her throat. "Well, I haven't had much practise with this either."

The black-haired teenager eased up onto the tips of her toes to make up for their height difference. She gently pulled Jim's neck down and locked lips with him tenderly.

Scroop snarled loudly from where he hid in the dark shadows of the closed solar sails' riggings. He was very tempted to slice a hole through the mast, but his self-control to keep himself hidden -for the time being- stop the release of burning rage.

His golden eyes couldn't stand the sight of Ariah and Jim kissing, yet they couldn't deceive him from the naked truth. Ariah was getting too close… again.

Morph hooted, exploding into fireworks around Ariah and Jim's heads as his rope disappeared from around their waists.

They held the kiss.

"Mmm…" Ariah smirked as she gently pulled away from the embrace. "Sweet."

Jim laughed, unwrapping himself from her.

"And now." Ariah gently clutched Jim's hand within her own. "We should go down to supper..." She smiled. "After all, we can't just live off of purps."

"Sounds good." Jim smiled. He entwined his fingers with Ariah's and led her down to the mess hall with the half empty basket of purps under his arm.

Scroop panted, trying to control his fury. Quietly, he skittered down the mast and kept to the shadows until he was on the main deck.

His golden eyes burned the colour of molten lava as he was nearly consumed by his rage, by his jealousy.

Author's Note:

Hmm… I think an action scene is needed pretty soon.

What do you guys think?

MG#6

PS: Thanks a bunch to Whisperwings, again, for editing this chapter.