pistachio and fresh strawberries
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: If You Don’t Scale The Mountain
Rating: G/PG
Challenge: Pistachio #2: arrival/departure
Toppings/Extras: fresh strawberries
Wordcount: 804
Summary: Victor Blackledge is helpful, though Lord Ashdown doesn’t think so.
Notes: The picture of the day was irresistible. Yay, helicopters!
Control panel cool under his slender fingertips, Victor Blackledge couldn’t help but smile as he ran his hands over the machinery. He liked machines. To work them it was only a matter of remembering.
He was good at remembering.
The door was open and the winds at the top of Hamlet Tower were high, causing a strong current of cold air to whip through the cockpit of the helicopter. Standing in this open doorway was his good friend Robyn Walshe, head tilted to one side slightly, a large unbuttoned overshirt flapping around her torso, the thin white vest she wore beneath it offering her hardly any protection from the cold. She looked worried but there was a familiar spark in her eyes: things were, as she often said, about to get interesting.
She attempted a smile and he smiled back quite happily.
“Vic,” she said, hair thrashing into her face. She batted it back, for once without any sign of irritation. “You don’t have to. If you don’t want to. You’re just the only person that knows how to drive one of these things and… well, it’s your choice.”
Victor almost laughed. She amazed him. How could she feel guilty?
He wanted to do this more than anything in the world.
“I know,” he said. Behind her he saw Edward Ashdown and Pia Rees exit through one of the rooftop doors and fight their way across the high wind towards the helicopter. “It’s OK. I want to help.”
“I’d do it myself if I-…”
“I know,” Victor repeated, prompting a sheepish smile from her.
“Yeah, well,” Robyn leaned away from him, arching an eyebrow. Her grin was an admirable display of bravado of the type he could always rely on her for. It wouldn’t do for the leader of the black ops team to appear fazed by anything. “Don’t get shot, right? That’d be bad.”
There was no time to respond: Pia and Ashdown were upon them.
“What is this?” Ashdown asked nervously. “It flies? It doesn’t have wings!”
“It’s going to get you out to your wife, short-arse,” Robyn said; all chance of meaningful conversation eluded them as her apparently instinctual need to engage Ashdown in verbal horseplay took over. “Hop in.”
“I know that, Gargantua,” he responded, one brow having twitched upwards a fraction at her reference to his lesser height, “but wouldn’t a ship do just as well?”
“Not in the timeframe we’re thinking,” Robyn said, and then hesitated. “Not the time-travelling sort of timeframe. The normal one.”
“What?”
“Awesome! I’ve never ridden one of these,” Pia interrupted as Ashdown moved aside to gaze at the gleaming helicopter sceptically. Grabbing him by the back of his collar, Robyn dragged him through the door like an unwilling cat into a bath and then helped Pia up and into the seats behind Victor with one hand. The teenager sprung in cheerily, brightly examining anything and everything nearby.
“Buckle up!” Robyn called to both of them. Then she turned back to Victor. “Remember what I said,” she repeated to him. “About not getting shot.”
“I’m not going to forget,” Victor replied, smiling. Robyn nodded and stepped out of the cockpit, proceeding to slam the door shut. With all of the precision he had been born with, Victor ignited the engine. Nutriware Ltd made use of the best technology and the whisperblade helicopters were ghostlike in comparison to the helicopters of old: nonetheless, the sound was enough to startle Ashdown terribly.
The gleaming onyx sphere of the helicopter, with a thin tail and narrow rails at the feet, jerked momentarily and then zipped upwards smoothly. The figure of Robyn Walshe, cord of hair whiplashing in gusts of helicopter-produced wind, diminished as they rose. They darted amongst the endless columns of metal and glass that made up the skyscrapers of Britannia, weaving to avoid the hungry camera-packed TV birds and roaring bikes darting about. The glassy track of the Tube gleamed like a silvery snake, weaving through storeys and between each building, the metal locomotives within screaming through the city, halting at various stations.
Victor admired the sight-he had never been given clearance to fly so high before. Well, strictly speaking he still didn’t have official clearance but Robyn’s permission was good enough for him. The city looked as beautiful as it did terrifying.
“Look,” he said; soft-spoken as he was, he couldn’t let the view go unnoticed. Pia heard him and leaned forwards as far as her seatbelts would allow, gazing at the city of her birth with her eyes wide before giving a long whoop, impish grin stretching her lips.
“Shit! This is amazing! Look, it’s… fucking hell, Eddie, come take a look at this!”
He didn’t. Lord Ashdown was rather too busy trying to bury himself under his seat at that point.
Title: If You Don’t Scale The Mountain
Rating: G/PG
Challenge: Pistachio #2: arrival/departure
Toppings/Extras: fresh strawberries
Wordcount: 804
Summary: Victor Blackledge is helpful, though Lord Ashdown doesn’t think so.
Notes: The picture of the day was irresistible. Yay, helicopters!
Control panel cool under his slender fingertips, Victor Blackledge couldn’t help but smile as he ran his hands over the machinery. He liked machines. To work them it was only a matter of remembering.
He was good at remembering.
The door was open and the winds at the top of Hamlet Tower were high, causing a strong current of cold air to whip through the cockpit of the helicopter. Standing in this open doorway was his good friend Robyn Walshe, head tilted to one side slightly, a large unbuttoned overshirt flapping around her torso, the thin white vest she wore beneath it offering her hardly any protection from the cold. She looked worried but there was a familiar spark in her eyes: things were, as she often said, about to get interesting.
She attempted a smile and he smiled back quite happily.
“Vic,” she said, hair thrashing into her face. She batted it back, for once without any sign of irritation. “You don’t have to. If you don’t want to. You’re just the only person that knows how to drive one of these things and… well, it’s your choice.”
Victor almost laughed. She amazed him. How could she feel guilty?
He wanted to do this more than anything in the world.
“I know,” he said. Behind her he saw Edward Ashdown and Pia Rees exit through one of the rooftop doors and fight their way across the high wind towards the helicopter. “It’s OK. I want to help.”
“I’d do it myself if I-…”
“I know,” Victor repeated, prompting a sheepish smile from her.
“Yeah, well,” Robyn leaned away from him, arching an eyebrow. Her grin was an admirable display of bravado of the type he could always rely on her for. It wouldn’t do for the leader of the black ops team to appear fazed by anything. “Don’t get shot, right? That’d be bad.”
There was no time to respond: Pia and Ashdown were upon them.
“What is this?” Ashdown asked nervously. “It flies? It doesn’t have wings!”
“It’s going to get you out to your wife, short-arse,” Robyn said; all chance of meaningful conversation eluded them as her apparently instinctual need to engage Ashdown in verbal horseplay took over. “Hop in.”
“I know that, Gargantua,” he responded, one brow having twitched upwards a fraction at her reference to his lesser height, “but wouldn’t a ship do just as well?”
“Not in the timeframe we’re thinking,” Robyn said, and then hesitated. “Not the time-travelling sort of timeframe. The normal one.”
“What?”
“Awesome! I’ve never ridden one of these,” Pia interrupted as Ashdown moved aside to gaze at the gleaming helicopter sceptically. Grabbing him by the back of his collar, Robyn dragged him through the door like an unwilling cat into a bath and then helped Pia up and into the seats behind Victor with one hand. The teenager sprung in cheerily, brightly examining anything and everything nearby.
“Buckle up!” Robyn called to both of them. Then she turned back to Victor. “Remember what I said,” she repeated to him. “About not getting shot.”
“I’m not going to forget,” Victor replied, smiling. Robyn nodded and stepped out of the cockpit, proceeding to slam the door shut. With all of the precision he had been born with, Victor ignited the engine. Nutriware Ltd made use of the best technology and the whisperblade helicopters were ghostlike in comparison to the helicopters of old: nonetheless, the sound was enough to startle Ashdown terribly.
The gleaming onyx sphere of the helicopter, with a thin tail and narrow rails at the feet, jerked momentarily and then zipped upwards smoothly. The figure of Robyn Walshe, cord of hair whiplashing in gusts of helicopter-produced wind, diminished as they rose. They darted amongst the endless columns of metal and glass that made up the skyscrapers of Britannia, weaving to avoid the hungry camera-packed TV birds and roaring bikes darting about. The glassy track of the Tube gleamed like a silvery snake, weaving through storeys and between each building, the metal locomotives within screaming through the city, halting at various stations.
Victor admired the sight-he had never been given clearance to fly so high before. Well, strictly speaking he still didn’t have official clearance but Robyn’s permission was good enough for him. The city looked as beautiful as it did terrifying.
“Look,” he said; soft-spoken as he was, he couldn’t let the view go unnoticed. Pia heard him and leaned forwards as far as her seatbelts would allow, gazing at the city of her birth with her eyes wide before giving a long whoop, impish grin stretching her lips.
“Shit! This is amazing! Look, it’s… fucking hell, Eddie, come take a look at this!”
He didn’t. Lord Ashdown was rather too busy trying to bury himself under his seat at that point.