<div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/ac/13/9aac13acec7d0c12801da6ae61f4ab48.jpg)</div><strong>Character Name:</strong>Arik Soong<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Starfleet Academy, his old office<br/><strong>Tagging/Mentioning:</strong>Jean-Luc Picard<br/><strong>NSFW Warning:</strong>None<br/><br/>Arik gave a small nod at Picard's words about experiencing versus learning. "I believe I understand," he said, offering a tiny smile of his own, "I have found that while we learn many things here... it is not until you are light years from Earth that you actually learn what it all means and how it all fits together." Perhaps that's part of what differentiated him from some of his predecessors - Arik thrived on experience. Like any good android he consumed copious amounts of data in the form of manuals, instructions, videos and Starlogs, but his positronic brain seems to do so much better with actual experience. He just needed to learn to trust himself more.<br/><br/>He then listened carefully to Picard's advice, eyes focused on the man perhaps unnervingly as he paid attention. He focused on it completely, worried he would miss some small bit of sage advice from one of the greatest Captains the Federation had ever known. Picard spoke of wrong choices - luckily it seemed like those things didn't get recorded so much as the right choices, at least from what Arik had read. Finally, it seemed as if Picard was done and it seemed like the man was heading for the door all too soon. There were a million things that Arik wanted to ask him, about how to be a Captain, how to interact with new species, how to lead and inspire people. But there was no time for that, really, and Arik would just have to make due. He had to keep reminding himself that he had gotten this far on his own competence, and hopefully it would continue to serve him well.<br/><br/>"Thank you, Jean-Luc," he said warmly as the man seemed to wrap things up, "I will... own it, as you said. It is quite a large responsibility that I intend to take seriously. I have many people who are depending on me now."<br/><br/>He gave the Captain another smile and stood as the man left his office, watching the door after it closed for several long moments as he assimilated everything the man had said. Eventually he shook his head softly and moved on with his previous task, packing up the rest of his things into several more small boxes. It wasn't much, but it was enough to at least reflect his tastes and hopefully make him seem a little more 'human' to his crew. He knew that this might not be easy for some of them, even as a First Officer he had met some occasional resistance as an Android, but now the whole ship was his, and hopefully there would be no major issues.<br/><br/>Eventually he was done packing and he left the small boxes on his desk to be picked up shortly and transferred to the ship. Taking one last look around he paused for a moment before heading to the door, and from there on to the - his - ship.