“Hey Frost!”
“Hey Volt!”
Frost had just gone to Larunda to transfer some credits and ducats. He hadn’t expected to bump into his old buddy Volt. He’d known the electric yellow menace since they’d met on a random E Prime Lith Fissure a year and a half ago, and they’d been good friends ever since. These days though, they mostly did their own things, unless Frost wanted to open rare relics and was in need of reactant. For some reason, Volt always had so much of the stuff.
“What you up to?” Volt was in a particularly bouncy mood.
“Oh, nothing. Just seeing what Baro’s brought. Primed Disappointment, probably.”
“Yeah, it ain’t great to be honest…” Volt shrugged. “There was a weapon I got though, simply because I didn’t have it yet. So I got that. Rest of it is meh.”
Frost sighed. “Guessed as much. Might just save this stuff then. You doing anything?”
“Wellllll…” Volt trailed off. “I was going to go and buy more decorations for my ship. You want to see?”
“You decorated your ship?”
“Yeah.”
“With what?” Frost was confused. “I thought you had no platinum to spend on decorations?”
Volt shrugged again, then headed off, back to his landing craft out in the hangar. “I guess I’ll just show you!”
Frost glanced around, then decided to follow.
In order to visit Volt’s ship though, they needed to leave the relay via their landing crafts. Once Frost was back on his own ship, he waited patiently for Volt to send him the coordinates of his ship, and Frost would take his landing craft to see him.
As Frost waited, he glanced around his private quarters. Just like him, everything was white and grey, with a blue highlight. His ship was boring. Well, apart from all the Ayatan Sculptures he had. Rather than put them in tasteful places around his ship or make some sort of weird, exotic, Orokin statue out of them, Frost had dumped every single one in the corner by the stupid, shitty, infested door. He hated that room, it made him feel uneasy. A lesser writer would have said that the room gave Frost chills, but both Frost and the author of this story were above such silly comments.
Still, the pile of statues helped hide the horrible ugliness of the infested door. His private quarters had a fish tank and his music player. The only other decorations were some old trinkets from some old missions and another, smaller pile of statues. There was a horrible thing in that room as well, something Frost wished to hide away.
The only other decoration was a snowy Tennobaum decoration that put snow in the navigation area of his ship. He liked snow, he saw no reason to remove the decorations, even if it was January now, and he’d been using the decoration for about three years now.
The invitation arrived. Frost readily accepted it, and after a quick jump, he was inside Volt’s ship.
“Holy fucking Lotus, it’s so yellow!” was what Frost wanted to scream at the top of his Operator’s lungs, but he didn’t want to seem rude. Volt’s ship was indeed very yellow, and just like Volt himself, there were dark blue accents as well. Mostly on the metal parts.
What intrigued Frost most though was the large number of small, shiny, gold spinning things. They ran down the length of Volt’s ship, spinning happily to themselves. A multitude of Dondas.
“Well this is… interesting…” Frost muttered.
“You like it?” Volt asked. “I know the yellow is probably too much for you, but I like having everything match.”
“Fair enough…” Frost wandered around. “Why do you have so many Dondas on your ship? I thought that weird priestess from Red Veil was only willing to sell one?”
Volt shrugged, then went to pet his little Kavat. It was yellow and blue, just like Volt was. “She just lets me buy them. As long as I place them all first before I buy more.”
“But why do you need so many?”
“They help me concentrate.”
“Are you…” Frost paused and decided not to finish his sentence. “Can I see your… Operator Room?”
Volt hesitated. He knew Frost was his friend, but it had suddenly occurred to him just how vulnerable he was with someone else in the ship. “Uh, you can, but just stand by the door.”
The yellow Warframe led the way. Frost walked slowly behind him, impressed by the number of Dondas everywhere, as well as the tasteful placement of statues.
The door to the Operator Room opened up slowly and awkwardly. Frost blinked his neuroptics, surprised by just how beautiful the room was, with two lines of Dondas running up to where Volt’s Operator sat.
“No further.”
“Why?”
“I’m… rather vulnerable, sitting in that chair. Brings back bad memories. Second Dreams and all that.”
Frost glanced at Volt, then at the Operator chair at the back of the room.
“I.. I totally get that.”
Volt nodded, led Frost out of the room, then made sure the door closed. Frost wandered into the living quarters and looked out the window. Outside were the rings of Saturn, glistening and shining. Maybe that was why it had taken so long for Volt’s invitation to arrive.
After a while, Volt’s voice echoed across the ship.
“Hey Frost?”
“Mhm?”
“There’s an Axi Defence fissure on Hydron. You want to do it?”
“Yeah, sure, why not?”