<span style="font-style: italic">~Jack Ra...Rabid? Rapid? Rabbit?... ~</span>Isa had trouble with lipreading Koles heavy accent, but she could read the gestures and the ~here you go~ clearly. Content, she grabbed her portion. But even if he called her a rabid dog, she would still smile and nod.<span style="font-style: italic"> ~No person that can cook so well, can be evil.~ </span>she reassured herself. And her small wry smile could only rarely be widened into a grin – but often it was seen when she successfully managed to grab an extra seconds or thirds from Kole.<br/>„Ay ay.“ she replied smiling softly, not sure if it was heard or not.<br/>Maybe it was too quiet.<br/>Then her attention focussed once again at the capitain, and she made a small salute, with a try to make her voice significantly louder, but she did not know if it turned out alright.<br/><br/>„<span style="font-weight: bold">G'd day Captain</span>.“<br/><br/>To a stranger, she would not sound like a deaf person – but experienced people might notice the wrongly intonated words. Of course only her family knew of her melodic voice from before, Isa had even liked to sing, when she still could hear, right now it sounded quite flat, monotone, and a little fragmented, accentuating each letter, as she used only one sharp breath to speak.<br/><br/>Her cheeks had now small red spots growing bigger and deeper shade of red, as reaction to the capitains words, and watching her handsigns Isa smiled a little apologetically at first.<span style="font-style: italic">~It is not a dragon, but my body tries to store up some food reserves, maybe.. ~</span><br/>She made some vague handsigns, implying that it was not that bad, the simple combination of signs for<span style="font-style: italic"> 'very small dragon'</span>and<span style="font-style: italic">'enjoying good food'</span>emerged, and she hoped that the capitain could grasp her signs, before her attention was grabbed again by Ragna.<br/><br/><br/>„<span style="font-style: italic">We should give Coren a wide birth..</span>“ something must have happened, maybe Ragna had a misunderstanding last time with the aliens there... Isa frowned, lipreading her words, they did look a little more agitated than usual, but she did not pay it any mind that time, when she accompanied Ragna to the negotiation with the corenans. Corenans were usually angry, they liked to flare up a lot, when they didn't talk about their technology. Or maybe it was just percieved as angry – with their aggressive nature, fights were a part of their life.<br/><br/>She tried to catch Ragnas eyes, to signal her not to worry about the corenans in sign language, if she was successful. The practical side of sign language, was that it would not really interrupt the conversation. The unpractical side was that both people had to pay attention.<br/><br/><br/>To lipread, was a good training, because she was still not perfect at it – losing her hearing just a year prior, the first few months were a nightmare. A whole world of fear and deadly silence, but she learned to survive, and care for the slightest vibrations she percieved. It also sharpened her senses and her instincts.<br/>Trying to keep her eyes on a persons lips each time the person was in vision range, to not miss anything they said, even if they did not always talk to her, was something she did automatically now. Same as never keeping her back to others – maybe besides turning her body a little when kole made attempts to spank her. He never did though, so she might need to get rid of that habit.<br/><br/>If you have no other choice, you learn fast, but honestly, sometimes it was easier to read aliens, than peoples accents. Isas only merit was, that she could read and write quite well. She preferred it, instead of talking for long explanations, or with dialogue.  She read and wrote in only the basic language, but that was quite good already.<br/><br/>Swiping her eyes across the cafeteria, she noticed that Johan looked a like a good patient for the hospital wing – dark shadows under his eyes and wandering, absentminded glances here and there, not even noticing Kole ... pitying the man, she decided to not point out the footprints today... or maybe it was Koles meal that made her mood a lot better, so she was not in the mood to bicker.<br/><br/>She made another small nod to everyone in the now lively round of people, before she darted off into a corner, to sit down. From there she could eat and had no blind spots in her back. Her former sitting place was now filled by somebody else , but that did not really bother her.<br/>A glance at Ber and her small portion made Isa blush a little, but the guilty feeling of eating for three or four people, disappeared with the first bite of the food and it melting in her mouth.<br/><br/>This time she ate slower, while another of her habits emerged, mainly watching the crewmembers, and lipread their words.<br/>Fragments, reached her eyes, to be deciphered by her randomly<br/><span style="font-style: italic">~I am not spying on them, I am just making sure they are happy and well~ </span>she mused to herself, while something caught her eye -<br/><br/>„<span style="font-style: italic">you. ..sure you not pregnant?</span>“she saw Kole talking to the Doctor and Isa almost parted with the food she was just chewing on, coughing slightly,  then looking again, sceptically, watching the two men. She must have read wrong, no? Or maybe it was something like : you.. sure you didnt make her pregnant? Slightly shy she looked around for any sign of pregnancy on the female crew members and then scratched her head.<span style="font-style: italic">~Can it really be..?~</span>He looked really tired today.. so that was<span style="font-style: italic"> that?</span><br/><br/>No, wait, Fiske was a doctor.<br/>He might have diagnosed it. So maybe another of the crew members … she did not notice her small mouth hanging open and not closing for quite a while, and lost in thought , Isa dropped a bite of her food on the table.<br/>Noticing it, she scowled at her spoon, as if it was at fault, and quickly scooped it up and chewed it before somebody would point out that it was unhygienic.<span style="font-style: italic"> ~Good thing it did not drop on the floor.~ </span>Putting her nose in her bowl for a while Isa concentrated on her food, only glancing up now and then, to check if all the crew members were present, and if maybe somebody had a task for her today, besides her usual work scedule.