mardinofchatzuk:

“So you know that Arcadia chassis I salvaged a few years back?”

“Yeah?”

“So I’ve been cleaning it up a little now and then, fitting in a few parts. Never figured I’d get it flying hot, but thought it might eventually be nice for the occasional joyride. But then, a while back, I see Cayde bringing his ride up for maintenance.”

“Cayde flew an Arcadia, right?”

“Of course. The man had classically-inclined tastes. Plus of all the serviceable jumpship patterns we can service, the Arcadia can handle the biggest boosters being strapped on, and, well… I’ll get to that.”

“So you got some ideas, I take it.”

“Indeed I did. I’ve been sneaking peeks at it whenever I had the chance, and trying to pry some details about the specs out of Holliday. She wouldn’t say a word, but I managed to guess a bit about the modifications from trying.”

“You guessed? With a custom rebuild of an Arcadia? With extra-large boosters, from the sound of it?”

“Yeah, well, I did what I had to for the sake of the project. Obviously I checked everything for tolerances and in simulation before proceeding, and it all checked out.”

“Really?”

“Technically, yes. The math doesn’t lie.”

“OK. So you’re saying you’ve built a scrounged knock-off of Cayde’s souped-up Arcadia, and I supposed you’re telling me because it’s ready to fly—at least technically.”

“Well when you put it that way it really takes the wind out of my thunder… or whatever… but yeah, I did, and it is. Thought it’d be the perfect thing to take on a little foray into the Reef.”

“First flight of a probably dangerous high-performance space jalopy, and you wanna take it into the most treacherous space in the system?”

“…So you’re in, right?”

(Queen of Hearts w/ Tangled Rust)