"Whatcha need help with anyway, 'Essa? You've listened in on enough missions that you should know more about what it's like than you should even need to ace the rankings. Mmm… I'm pretty sure I've even overheard Theo describe most of the controls over on the Agent's side to ya, too." Stopping in between mouthfuls of nutri-snot, Celeste cocks her head a bit when questioning the woman seated so close to her that she has to mind where her elbow is while eating.
"I'm pretty sure that 'and when your obnoxious partner won't stop singing show tunes, this switch will mute their audio and put it on keyword auto-detect for the AI system so you can pay attention to what actually matters' won't be on the test." Doing an exaggerated mockery of Theo's voice during her quote, the younger woman bursts out laughing afterward.
"It should be." Completely deadpan, Theo stuffs a wedge of orange into his mouth and drops the extravagant dagger onto the tray with the same amount of pomp and circumstance one would give an old dinged-up butter knife.
With a mischievous glint in her eye, Celeste straightens up her posture and loudly clears her throat, a look of horror taking over Theo's face before she's even begun.
"I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of E-Mmph!" Successfully gagging her with a handful of three orange slices, Theo sighs with relief the moment she stops singing.
"Aww, I kinda was looking forward to when she started doing the fast parts." With legitimate disappointment, 'Essa sighs theatrically while Celeste grins around her mouthful of citrus.
"One more word of lyrics I'm gone, you can bring your dishes back to Ogden yourself." Making his stance clear, Theo picks up a second orange as well as the previously used blade, repeating his actions from before since his sister stole the rest of the previously peeled one while he was distracted.
Chewing a few times, Celeste smiles brightly again.
"I… Am..." As she begins, Theo has started standing up from his lazy position of leaning against the backrest of the chair with his elbows, his movements at the same pace as Celeste's speech between mastications. "Sorry." He falls back down onto the seat, getting comfortable again.
Before he has a chance to respond, she continues further. "That." Now raising an eyebrow, he's looking straight at her. "I… Am…" Narrowing his eyes into a glare, he pauses in his motions of peeling the orange, deliberating what method would be best to threaten her with.
"The…" While she's clearly winding up to begin anew, Theo opts for stabbing.
"Very…" Standing up once again, he starts leaning towards her, blade at the ready.
"Best…" When she changes her direction of dialogue, he can't help hesitating, standing over the chair and leaning toward her at an awkward angle, but still moments away from attacking.
"At…" By now, she's nearly finished eating the late gag comprised of fruit. Frustrated in a new fashion, Theo sighs heavily before plopping back down again.
"Being a giant fricken' troll." Rolling his eyes, he decides on a new finale for her statement, picking the orange up once again to resume his work.
Both women burst out with a mix of giggles and laughter, Theo just wordlessly grumbles to himself while they do.
"But really though, I know you guys keep saying I shouldn't worry, but every time I hear the others complain about how hard it's going to be, I can't help but start to worry." As 'Essa voices her concerns, now it's Celeste's turn to roll her eyes.
"Oh please, they're just idiots. The only parts of the exam that won't be making logical choices in different theoretical scenarios, or the magical aptitude portion, is just picking out the names of different parts of the equipment in base, and that's all multiple choice. It's all pretty brainless too, knowing it needs to be translated into every possible language they really just named everything exactly what it is or what it does. Frankly, you could have never even opened any of the texts a single time, but would still ace the whole stupid thing, and with your aptitude levels as well as compatibility rates, you could just directly join our team without even having taken the courses in the first place." Having swallowed the last of the citrusy goodness, Celeste makes her opinions regarding the testing process known. Throughout her narration, Theo started smiling and occasionally nods along.
"Seriously, the biggest 'crisis' we had to go fix in the last what, ten? Missions was just a translation error, and the natives thought we were just being overly polite by making such a big deal out of it all." When Theo adds on to Celeste's rant, she nods along while he's speaking a few times as well.
"I can't just will myself to stop stressing about it though… What if the others are right, and you're just not worried about it because you're used to how easy the missions keep turning out being!" While his sister continues worrying herself into a tizzy, Theo snorts and hands her half of the now-peeled orange, effectively silencing her as she promptly begins eating it.
"The exams are what, next Friday, right? Tell you what, make Theo take you to get permission to sit observation for the entire next mission, I'm heading out in three days whether I'm done recovering or not. Frankly, chances are the mission will be over faster than this dumb immunoresponse to the shots I had to get. He's probably gonna be bored stupid anyway, put him to work helping you go over everything in person, though I can almost guarantee you know it all already. Hey, gimme another piece, I crave delicious citrus-flavored snot." As Celeste offers Theo's services, he merely snorts and eats another slice of orange. Once she makes her request, she simply holds her mouth open expectantly.
Sighing softly, he hefts the weight of a piece of the almost-entirely-consumed orange, rocking it back and forth a few times before accurately tossing it right into her waiting mouth. She simply eats it without even acknowledging the process, nor thanking him.
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Even with surprises, there isn't really potential for it going on for a long time. Just need to go slap HFF on the wrist for the millionth time for overstaying their welcome harvesting on yet another world. Frankly, we're probably not even going to interact with a single sentient native, but since whatever you're going through is apparently a weak form of their common cold, it's just better to be safe than sorry." Finishing his contribution, Theo grabs the pile of peels and spins the chair in place, throwing the fistful of rinds directly at the abused award certificate with a satisfying thump, dragging along its surface a short distance before falling down into the trash can.
"I still don't get why only Celeste got the certificate, you were part of every single mission with her, one way or another?" Glancing over at the crooked document, 'Essa helps herself to a cupful of water after her rhetorical question.
"...Because I'm more easily replaced." Pausing for a moment, Theo gives a serious answer in a quiet voice.
"Don't say that! Come on!" Immediately getting riled up, 'Essa nearly spills water all over Celeste when she starts gesticulating at him.
"He's not being self-deprecating. My compatibility rating is so high that practically anyone in the base could be my agent for most tasks. The number of worlds with enough native technology that he can actually get away with using a gun is so few that most of the time he's just stuck being a warm body. Even when he can openly carry a gun, he generally wouldn't need to use it anyway. The joys of being a specialist, eh? It's all well and good that he could probably snipe a gnat mid-flight at long range, but clearly, the more important skill is keeping a smile on your face while some xenophobic native screams at you for a mess the HFF made." Expounding upon Theo's answer, Celeste has a wry smile for a few moments after she's done speaking, then finally resumes finishing off the rapidly cooling meal.
"Tch, technically you're a specialist too, you just don't have native tech restrictions. But also, anything that doesn't require a specialist gets dumped on you as well. And, since you're better at de-escalations than probably anyone else in the division, you get the joy of being in high demand for that too. They probably should be sending the delegation team for at least half of the missions they send us on, they just like to insist there's a threat of violence to make us go instead. Seriously, when isn't there a chance of escalating into violence?" Finishing his follow-up, Theo snorts and rolls his eyes.
"...Even still, don't say it like that." Grumbling out her answer, 'Essa sulks for a moment before being distracted by a small bunch of grapes being held in front of her face by her brother.
"Hah, yeah, we're all irreplaceable. Maybe that's why we have so many vacancies." Finished with her porridge, Celeste can't resist one more moment of snark before neatly stacking things up and putting the lid back on top of the bowl, figuring she could at least put in this much effort before Theo takes care of the rest.
Theo starts scooting over towards the wall-mounted display he originally took the curved dagger down from, then looks at it and realizes just how much citrus juice is on the blade.
"Uhh, will it be okay if I just wash it like a kitchen knife?" Holding the blade up for Celeste to see, Theo spins around again to be facing her, just to see her shrug.
"I don't even remember which world that was a memento from anymore, to be honest, let alone what it's even made of. It should be fine I guess?" Intensifying her shrug further, she raises her hands up in a universal 'I don't know' motion.
Putting the chair back in its original location by the desk, Theo lightly tosses the sticky blade onto the tray with everything else, lifting it up to hold with one hand as he folds the legs in with the other, and starts heading towards the door with it.
"I'll catch you later, snot-lord." Receiving a raspberry being blown in his direction from Celeste in answer to his parting, off Theo goes.
"Bah, okay, okay. I'll try not to worry about the test. I'll let you get some more rest while I try to figure out what to do to distract myself for now, see ya later." 'Essa receives a far more polite wave in parting from Celeste as she gathers her books and heads out the door as well, closing it properly behind her.
Nestling back into her den of snuggly fabric, Celeste glares at the open window for a moment but ultimately decides that getting up to close it would be too much effort.
Resuming her binge-watching of low-effort alien movies, Celeste with the occasional Theo accompaniment maintains a similar cycle for the next few days, until it's finally D-Day for the latest assignment.
Fortunately, she's even mostly recovered from being forcibly transformed into a snot elemental.