[center][h1][color=LightPink]Rose[/color][/h1][/center]

Nero wasn’t the only one marveling at the ship the shuttle was approaching, though with the presence of a contingent of engineers onboard that should hardly be surprising. Something interesting that could be gleaned from this, however, was the way that more or less all the Rosnians were set chattering by the sight, marking most of them as engineers. The sound of their chattering would have been described by a 21st century human as sounding exactly like some cheesy b movie alien would make, unaware that the beings before them were very much responsible for that trope due to their ancestor’s abductions and experiments on humans.

At any rate, there was one exception to the nerding out over the vessel, and that was the older lady who saw it as the absurd resource investment that it was, and thought only of how much would have had to be sacrificed to make it possible. An investment and sacrifice she wondered just how long they could endure making. 

Still, she didn’t throw a damper on her people’s enthusiasm for the marvel of technology, and especially not that of her daughter’s, Rose’s third eye giving her just the right amount of attention to indicate that yes, she was paying attention, even as most of the technical terms went over her head.

She genuinely wasn't bord or faking attention however, it was always nice to listen to She Who Notices The Little Things In Life And Sets Them Right (who went by Fixi when humans asked) talk about something that excited her, and so she was paying plenty of attention to respond when her daughter said “[i]and to think that She By Whose Hands We Will Forge A New Age Of Wonders has had a hand in it! It is just so amazing! I can’t wait to see her again[/i]”

[color=LightPink]“[i]Neither can I[/i]”[/color] the woman who was ever so proud of her daughter (who went by Val when humans asked) replied, before telling her other daughter that she was also ever so proud of that [color=LightPink]“[i]as soon as we’re settled we’ll need to organize time to see her[/i]”[/color]

As it turned out, such an formality was not necessary, as the pair were ambushed by Val right as they were coming down the ramp (a fairly easy task given that the humans loomed over them all and how she’d had to weave between them all to get to them) 

The trio embraced, foreheads touching as part of the hug (which, due to gesture needing them to close their third eyes, was one of great trust and affection) and then broke apart as they began chattering in their native tongue.

[color=LightPink]“[i]My child! I hadn’t expected to see you here. Do they not have you working?[/i]”[/color] Rose asked, which got her a negative ear wiggle in response from Val, who then explained “[i]They do, but we got everything sorted for you in advance so I could come greet you. They insisted. It's a human thing to welcome people right when they show up apparently[/i]”

[color=LightPink]“[i]A good human thing then, though it is sad this will be such a short reunion[/i]”[/color] Rose replied, her third eye having seen both the engineers moving off and the lieutenant preparing to address the Pilots.

Rose pivoted and snapped to attention, ears up and alert, while her daughters stepped behind her. What followed was a very… interesting introduction to the people she’d be working under.

While Ritsu Kaname seemed like very typical human military personnel, she was entirely bemused by the comment about brothels made by the Professor. Rose had been around humans a fair bit, and so she thought she knew a lot more than average about how their body language and the ‘tone’ they used to communicate verbal intent worked than the average Rosnian. Here and now she was, however, entirely stumped and could not tell if this was some kind of joke, an attempt at hazing, or if he was actually flirting with her.

As such she just smiled at him, mouth spreading wide enough to reveal the 2 extra sets of pointed teeth her kind had, while fixing him with a three eyed stare. Smiling was, notably, not a Rosnian thing, and their attempts at it sometimes made humans uncomfortable, especially with the extra teeth. In Rose’s case this was an entirely intentional mixed signal. The way she looked at him with all three eyes (an act normally reserved for threat assessment) meanwhile made it clear, to her daughters at least, that she did nor approve of this man.

Given that she worked around him, Val felt the need to drop in the flimsiest of defenses, quietly saying that he was “[i]He’s a bit[/i] eccentric” the last word being a human tongue rather than their own due to a lack of an equivalent term.

Rose would have had words about that later, but she tentatively accepted the explanation with a flick of the ear and dropped the fake smile, while her eye began idly roaming around again, inspecting her fellow pilots, and only periodically flicking over the pair of superiors as they kept speaking.

As such she picked up on the Marques’ subtle gestures, Zane’s wince and heavy breathing, and Elora’s trembling though she received little idea what any of them ment at the instinctual level the third eye was operating at. It also, for some reason, kept looking at Minerva for uncomfortable long stretches of time, as if seeing something it couldn’t quite put its metaphorical finger on. 

The sudden change in the professor’s disposition at the end when looking at the white haired woman certainly didn’t help Rose work out what it had been so interested in, but she did mentally file it away for later. Top priority was Elora, because that was the worst case of pre-battle jitters she had ever seen in a human.

Still, while some of the others addressed that directly, adding extra crowding wasn’t going to help at all. Nor was focusing everything on her either, so after reminding her daughters “[i]Don’t stare[/i]” she did her best to soothe some fears without, specifically, singling out the person who was gripped the most by them.

Admittedly her style of doing this was, well, somewhat unconventional. Mainly because Ronsian’s lack of natural tone modulation made them sound energetically, bordering on manically, chipper about anything and everything they said, something Rose tended to very much lean into rather than attempt to mitigate. 

[color=LightPink]“Enthusiastic: I’ve heard of these! Will be good to make our mistakes before meeting the enemy!”[/color] she began, and then in the exact same enthusiastic tone said [color=LightPink]“Serious: But if it will feel like the real thing, I’ll treat it that way”[/color] before insisting [color=LightPink]“Confidence: So I, Rose, will be making sure each and everyone of you makes it back alive!”[/color]

Val’s ears perked up at that, thinking it might work, while Fixi’s drooped a little. 

In her capacity as part of her mother’s pit crew, the younger of Rose’s remaining daughters had heard the woman make and then fail to keep that promise one too many times. As such she knew just how much each failure weighed on her mother and none weight more than the first. 

That was, however, exactly why she kept making that promise.