Ragnar Meral had been aboard the Dutchman for just over a sol day, which was long enough to know where his assigned bunk was, where the main communal areas were, and how the ship’s internal rhythm sat against his nerves, as well as the place to drink and the place to eat. It was not long enough to feel like he belonged. That would come, probably, if the ship did not explode, betray him, or turn out to be crewed entirely by people with more confidence than common sense. He had not discarded his coat either, but wore it like a second layer against the world, the flask in the inside pocket a comfortable weight against him. He had not taken any blockers, not yet anyway. The sporadic, stray empathic noise of the ship's crew sat under his skin in uneven layers, too muddled for him to turn into numbers or names, but none of it had come with cold hatred, so...that was something.
Deck Three had two lounges, apparently, which meant somewhere to be except the quarters. It would be a good place to start for the lay of the land. Ragnar stepped inside with his hands loose at his sides and his shoulders relaxed enough to pass for casual, eyes moving once across the room before settling on the replicator. Ordinary enough, which was not the same as comforting. Ordinary was just what trouble wore before it introduced itself. He crossed the lounge at an easy pace, coat shifting around him, and brought up the drinks menu, scanning the options with the faintly guarded concentration of a man deciding whether the machine could be trusted with anything more ambitious than water.
The door opened once more while Ragnar regarded the replicator.
"Yes, see to it Rallid. I'm not entirely sure when we will be leaving, but it is best to get it done now." The woman who spoke had a low, melodic voice full of easy confidence. Whoever she had come in with didn't respond, but his presence withdrew from the room.
Tiraa's black eyes moved quickly over the lounge then fixated on the man standing by the replicator. She had yet to meet any of the crew having been more or less newly arrived and busy making sure she wasn't living in a hovel. Immediately, she could tell this one was different. It was a familiar feeling to her, an opening left bare for connection from an untrained, undisciplined mind. One manicured brow quirked, and curiosity moved her toward him. Were this any other situation, she would have taken hold of that vulnerability and used it to her advantage, but that wasn't exactly the best way to endear one of the people who was supposed to be working for to her.
She slowed and stopped a respectful distance away, then smiled at him even before she spoke. "Good afternoon."
Ragnar did not look round immediately, though the voice reached him before the woman did, low, musical...confident. Like the person it belonged to owned the room. He let the drinks menu sit in front of him for another second, not reading what was there as much as recognising shapes, then pressed one. It should be tea of some sort. Probably. But his attention was on the woman approaching, and when he turned, some old instinct made him feel briefly and unpleasantly like prey, pulling himself closer in the equivalent of a child trying to push a hatch closed against water. Without the blockers, he knew he had open places, places where other Betazoids, half or otherwise, would have been trained to guard properly. He exhaled a little sharply, because someone finding the loose panels of his mind within hours of him being aboard never sat right with him.
He turned his head enough to look at her properly, taking in the light green skin, the long black hair, the tailored precision of her clothes and the black eyes that made her expression harder to read than he liked. She looked soft in the way expensive things looked soft, which usually meant someone had paid a great deal to make sure the sharp edges were hidden. Ragnar did not step back, because that would give too much away, but one hand came to rest against the edge of the replicator as if he was only waiting for the drink to materialise. “Afternoon,” he returned, his voice dry rather than hostile, polite enough to cover the uncomfortable sensation. “Love the outfit.”
"Thank you, that's very kind." Tiraa maintained the distance she was from him; she didn't need to be an empath to see he wasn't exactly comfortable. She moved her attention away from his face briefly to give him a moment of respite and instead turned it toward her own clothes. Her fingers traced the gold threaded edge of the duster style jacket she was wearing, and she took a second to consider exactly how long it had been since she had worn something in this fashion out in a more public setting. She'd spent the majority of the last seven years wrapped in the finest silk dresses her money could buy, and her money could buy substantially.
