Reimi was in a bad mood. Not just her regular frustration, not just with her regular jealousy, but as of late, she was flat-out murderous.

Her "monthly feminine problem" had come on.

Edge had caught wind of Reimi's storm-signals and – as the all too common victim of her regular angers - had the wits to make himself scarce.

Faize on the other hand, was not so fortunate.

Reimi slammed the off-switch for item-creation. No luck whatsoever. Her hands just would not cooperate with her. For the life of her when had she become so clumsy? She never dropped or fumbled with things – she was an archer! And now she was spontaneously dropping spoons and banging into things! What the heck?

The side room door slid open as she strode into the room, fuming. Now just to grab some new supplies and get that new weapon the hell out of the way already-

Reimi didn't even notice Faize until she nearly rammed into him headlong. Grunting in annoyance, she went over to one of the containers and aggressively began shifting through its contents.

Faize adopted an expression of surprise. While he and Reimi didn't really have much more than professional contact and the occasional chat, she was never actually rude to him, nor was he ever discourteous to her. He regarded her silently.

Not finding whatever she was searching for, she angrily banged the lid shut and tore open another crate.

"…Reimi?" Faize asked, deciding to risk his neck. He knew the power of her wrath, and in no way wanted to be a new outlet for her rage.

She turned halfway and gave a barely subdued glare of annoyance. "What?"

"Forgive me for saying, but you seem to be in a very bad mood."

"That's because I am" she said icily. She turned back to the box and her rough searching.

"…What exactly are you looking for?" he questioned.

"Leave me alone" she snapped.

"You're the one who's walked in on my training room" he pointed out.

"Oh yeah, so now it's YOUR training room?" she said as she turned around all the way this time, hands on hips. "What exactly is wrong with the battle sim room?"

"I prefer to keep my practice less obvious. I enjoy privacy."

Reimi grunted in response.

"If I may," Faize ventured again, "you are acting very emotional and short tempered right now. It doesn't seem like you, Reimi. Has Edge done something?" Faize seriously doubted that his captain would ever deliberately do anything to arouse anyone's anger, especially Reimi's, even though Edge really didn't return Reimi's so-called 'feelings' for him. Edge was just too good-natured and caring to ever deliberately make someone upset. Perhaps if Edge wasn't so caring, he might not be stuck with Reimi's 'jealousy'. Then again, maybe someday they really might grow on each other more.

That is, once someone managed to mature a bit more…

"Edge is just Edge. Look, Faize, I don't feel like talking now, OK?" She had simmered down somewhat, but her words were still thrown sharply.

Faize puzzled. It was probable that this was some kind of mood swing, and it could wear off at any time from an hour to a few days. This seemed especially strong though, more so than her usual erratic shoot offs. Women were odd creatures. Especially the women of Earth, it seemed…

…Was that something to go on? Eldarians were raised in segregated sections depending on their genetically engineered use to society in the future (as an intellect or a soldier, for example) and then further broken down into groups by age and sex. As such, Faize had had less exposure to Eldarian women than he had to men, but he was quite sure that the Eldarian women did not display problems such as this. Not in front of the males, anyway.

Lymle also didn't have this sort of problem either. Then again, she was always giving him a hard time. But generally she got along well with everyone else, for some reason. Yet another puzzle.

Meracle….Was Meracle. Faize didn't see any help there.

To be honest, Reimi was acting quite like Myuria right now. Perhaps he should ask her? …No, talking to Myuria usually resulted in a headache for any male questioner. Better not. Faize looked over at Reimi, who had gone back to shifting through the crates' contents.

Faize sifted his brain. This was like something he had read about in the file of the known information the Eldarians had about Earthlings before their first contact on Aeos. Not much, really. Language, technology, some very basic geography of Earth, and some forms of human biology, like anatomy and breeding.

Breeding… Hmm…

"Reimi?" Faize asked again. Be ready to bolt if this one was wrong.

She turned towards him halfway again, irritation clearly written on her face.

"Are you in heat?"

Edge didn't move as the door to his and Faize's room slid open. He was far too engrossed watching some comedy on his computer to really care much. Faize sat down and sighed heavily. Edge tore his eyes away from the screen to look at Faize.

A large, red hand-shaped mark on Faize's face was far from what he was expecting.

Faize sighed again and ruffled his own hair. "Women are impossible, Edge."

Holding in any rebellious laughter that threatened to burst from his throat, Edge could only nod.