the light catches the eye but shadows have (moretosay) wrote in revoltic,
"Better by the moment." It was a terrible joke and a terrible line that Vala had heard from an equally awful daytime television show when she was stuck in the infirmary once. But it fit the moment somehow, and Vala laughed at herself easily with the air of a shared joke between them. She propped an elbow up on the sign to the apartments and relaxed visibly, presenting herself as not a threat with her posture - at least the traditional kind of threat.
Although she did raise an eyebrow when the motions with the bags were watched, as if to ask if asking of the other was going to stop her or try and make her go away. The curiosity, or assessment, whichever it was, didn't phase her. After what she had seen and been through it took a great deal to really through her off her game or make her back off when she didn't want to.
Vala nodded with a bit of a frustrated sigh and a pout. It's not that she didn't appreciate having a roof over her head, because she did! Really. But it left an itchy feeling in her skin. At the SGC her quarters were assigned as well, and she had been petitioning to get offsite housing of her choosing for months. For her safety they said, and it was hard to argue with that considering she had once been kidnapped when they went off base.
But that didn't stop her from trying.
This though, felt worse. It felt like she owed this company, and she didn't like that. Debt left a rotten taste in Vala's mouth, she didn't trust it. Didn't trust people who offered gifts too easily, SadTech weren't the Ori or the Gould but they weren't so bad at first.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. The pout dropped as she focused on what the woman said, connecting dots even as she extended her hand and the answer she had been building to was answered for her. Vala's usual exuberant grin was suddenly stretching across her face, all energy and curiosity, the flirtatious expression dropping in favor of genuine excitement, "Commander Muscles! So good to meet you in person!" Vala found herself trying to mimic Sammantha's signature woman still trying to prove herself in the military handshake with Adeleis.
Then she went backwards, so caught up in one thing she missed another, like she was known to do when she got excited, "Oh! I've seen that film! I love Tau'ri television!" And not just because it helped her catch the references Mitchell made all the time, "That's quite alright, I am an expert on 'culture shock', or so the base psychologist says" Yes, the air quotes were necessary, another thing she loved about the Tauri. Vala already had a flair for the dramatic and they just enabled her with some of their gestures and colloquialisms.