fic post
Title: fishing
Fandom: Black Lions (Gundam Wing RPG)
Word Count: 1091
Characters: Ming and Rhiannon
Note: This is in gratitude to miyabiarashi for being awesome and helping me SO MUCH with my JET application essay. <3 Hopefully Ming is reasonably in character? I'm never sure when I write other people's people. Also, I fail at titles. Enjoy.
* * *
Ming looked up as a lunch tray was set down across from her.
“You look happy,” she commented as Rhiannon slid into the corresponding seat.
“Do I? I guess that would be because I am.” The spy tucked a sheaf of dirty-blonde hair behind her ear, took a bite of salad and chewed vigorously. Ming continued to eat her soup, radiating patience; Rhiannon wasn’t often this excited, and it was clear that she couldn’t keep silent long.
Sure enough, as soon as she’d swallowed, she couldn’t keep back the news. “Giulia’s back,” she explained, eyes shining. “I got a call an hour ago. They’ll have just gone into jump; she’ll be here by Tuesday.” Ming’s brow furrowed briefly.
“Giulia…” her face cleared. “Wind Second Corelli, right?”
“Yup. She’s been gone nearly a year.” Wing Second Giulia Corelli, fellow Intelligence officer and close friend to Rhiannon, had been in deep cover for forty-three weeks; her infiltration mission completed, she was headed back to base. Rhiannon was barely containing her emotions. She’d already provoked random euphoria in a nurse as they passed one another in the corridor.
“That must be really exciting for you. Are you still up for this afternoon?”
“Of course.” Rhiannon produced a crooked smile. “I’ll go crazy with the waiting if I have nothing to do.”
The two women finished their lunches, then retired to the Den.
“All right.” Rhiannon plopped down sideways on a couch; Ming sat facing her. Now that both of their control had improved so much, they had decided to try playing around with their clairvoyance again, just for fun. The last time they had joined had been under the looming shadow of coming conflict, and they had been mostly developing basic control in the hope of refining the power into a useful attribute rather than a liability. Having now gained more finesse, and with no immediate crisis apparent, it was time to have some fun with it.
“So how do you want to do this?” Rhiannon pulled off her right glove and watched Ming do the same. It seemed that the diminutive pilot still hadn’t managed to find gloves in her size; the empty fingertips drooped, making her hands look even tinier. Rhiannon thought it was sort of cute, but valued her life too much to say so.
Ming rearranged herself into a more comfortable position.
“I was thinking about it earlier, and I thought maybe we could sort of make a game out of it. You know, go in, pick out a random memory, follow it through, and then describe it to each other and see if we can tell what it was.” She shrugged. “Something like that. What were you thinking?”
“I hadn’t given the specifics a whole lot of thought, to be honest. I like your plan. It’ll be good for detail focus.” Rhiannon held out her hand. “Shall we?”
Ming nodded and reached out her own hand. “Let’s.”
Their hands met and clasped, and they were among one another’s memories, each woman honing her focus to isolate just one from the morass. Rhiannon, feeling it appropriate for her current mood, sifted for celebrations. One in particular caught her attention. What she was seeing seemed to be the middle of the story, so she backtracked a bit, then followed the memory through. When she came back to her surroundings, she was grinning.
Ming was already through and waiting. Seeing the look on Rhiannon’s face, she chuckled.
“I think you’d better go first; it looks like you found a good one.”
“Did I ever.” They dropped their hands and Rhiannon shifted back a few inches to settle more firmly into the corner of the couch. “All right. You were at a wedding, probably family, possibly one of your brothers’ if I’m reading it right.”
“Okay, that maybe narrows it down to two possibilities… keep going.”
“Very traditional, I think - the bride was in red.” Ming shook her head.
“That doesn’t help. Weddings in New Taipei are usually as traditional as you can get.”
“Okay, then, how about this? I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure you’d been drinking, and…”
“Uh-oh.” Ming’s cheeks went pink; her embarrassment was practically tangible. “You can stop there. That was Kang’s wedding. The first and only time I ever consumed alcohol in a public place.” She looked imploringly across the couch. “I can count on your silence, right?”
“Hey, it’s me, remember? I’m ace at keeping secrets,” Rhiannon said reassuringly. “So. What’ve you got on me?” She pulled her glove back on so she wouldn’t have to keep trying not to touch the couch.
“Appropriately enough, you were with Giulia,” Ming began. Rhiannon made a wry face.
“Great. There are a lot of those, you know.” Ming grinned.
“I do know. I tried to pick a distinctive one for you. You were shackled together.” Rhiannon’s eyes widened.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she began hastily, then paused. “Hang on; actually, it might be exactly what it looks like. Where were we?”
“A lot of places,” answered Ming, trying not to laugh and almost succeeding. “I’m not sure of the general location, but the two of you seemed to be executing a daring escape of some kind.” Rhiannon nodded, her theory confirmed.
“We got captured in London one time,” she explained. “Deliberately, actually.” Ming arched an eyebrow.
“Really. Why?” Rhiannon shrugged.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Inside research, and all that. We took down the syndicate a week or so later; it wasn’t that big an operation, but it was a real nuisance, and England wasn’t stable at that point.” Ming nodded.
“I remember hearing about that. Didn’t they nearly assassinate the Queen?”
“Yup. Actually, that was when we were captured. We were trying to distract them.” She blew out a wisp of a laugh. “It worked.”
“I guess so.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Ming, drawing in a breath and sitting up straighter, said, “Okay, I have to ask: what wasn’t what it looked like?” Rhiannon grimaced, dropping her head sideways to rest on the back of the couch.
“I knew you were going to ask,” she sighed. “It was… a really strange costume party. We don’t talk about it.” Meeting Ming’s narrowed eyes, she continued, “In much the same way as you don’t talk about that wedding, I imagine. Fine.”
She sat up and stripped off her glove again. “Allow me to stress that we were undercover at the time.” She held out her hand. “Here. I’ll show you.”
* * *
Fandom: Black Lions (Gundam Wing RPG)
Word Count: 1091
Characters: Ming and Rhiannon
Note: This is in gratitude to miyabiarashi for being awesome and helping me SO MUCH with my JET application essay. <3 Hopefully Ming is reasonably in character? I'm never sure when I write other people's people. Also, I fail at titles. Enjoy.
* * *
Ming looked up as a lunch tray was set down across from her.
“You look happy,” she commented as Rhiannon slid into the corresponding seat.
“Do I? I guess that would be because I am.” The spy tucked a sheaf of dirty-blonde hair behind her ear, took a bite of salad and chewed vigorously. Ming continued to eat her soup, radiating patience; Rhiannon wasn’t often this excited, and it was clear that she couldn’t keep silent long.
Sure enough, as soon as she’d swallowed, she couldn’t keep back the news. “Giulia’s back,” she explained, eyes shining. “I got a call an hour ago. They’ll have just gone into jump; she’ll be here by Tuesday.” Ming’s brow furrowed briefly.
“Giulia…” her face cleared. “Wind Second Corelli, right?”
“Yup. She’s been gone nearly a year.” Wing Second Giulia Corelli, fellow Intelligence officer and close friend to Rhiannon, had been in deep cover for forty-three weeks; her infiltration mission completed, she was headed back to base. Rhiannon was barely containing her emotions. She’d already provoked random euphoria in a nurse as they passed one another in the corridor.
“That must be really exciting for you. Are you still up for this afternoon?”
“Of course.” Rhiannon produced a crooked smile. “I’ll go crazy with the waiting if I have nothing to do.”
The two women finished their lunches, then retired to the Den.
“All right.” Rhiannon plopped down sideways on a couch; Ming sat facing her. Now that both of their control had improved so much, they had decided to try playing around with their clairvoyance again, just for fun. The last time they had joined had been under the looming shadow of coming conflict, and they had been mostly developing basic control in the hope of refining the power into a useful attribute rather than a liability. Having now gained more finesse, and with no immediate crisis apparent, it was time to have some fun with it.
“So how do you want to do this?” Rhiannon pulled off her right glove and watched Ming do the same. It seemed that the diminutive pilot still hadn’t managed to find gloves in her size; the empty fingertips drooped, making her hands look even tinier. Rhiannon thought it was sort of cute, but valued her life too much to say so.
Ming rearranged herself into a more comfortable position.
“I was thinking about it earlier, and I thought maybe we could sort of make a game out of it. You know, go in, pick out a random memory, follow it through, and then describe it to each other and see if we can tell what it was.” She shrugged. “Something like that. What were you thinking?”
“I hadn’t given the specifics a whole lot of thought, to be honest. I like your plan. It’ll be good for detail focus.” Rhiannon held out her hand. “Shall we?”
Ming nodded and reached out her own hand. “Let’s.”
Their hands met and clasped, and they were among one another’s memories, each woman honing her focus to isolate just one from the morass. Rhiannon, feeling it appropriate for her current mood, sifted for celebrations. One in particular caught her attention. What she was seeing seemed to be the middle of the story, so she backtracked a bit, then followed the memory through. When she came back to her surroundings, she was grinning.
Ming was already through and waiting. Seeing the look on Rhiannon’s face, she chuckled.
“I think you’d better go first; it looks like you found a good one.”
“Did I ever.” They dropped their hands and Rhiannon shifted back a few inches to settle more firmly into the corner of the couch. “All right. You were at a wedding, probably family, possibly one of your brothers’ if I’m reading it right.”
“Okay, that maybe narrows it down to two possibilities… keep going.”
“Very traditional, I think - the bride was in red.” Ming shook her head.
“That doesn’t help. Weddings in New Taipei are usually as traditional as you can get.”
“Okay, then, how about this? I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure you’d been drinking, and…”
“Uh-oh.” Ming’s cheeks went pink; her embarrassment was practically tangible. “You can stop there. That was Kang’s wedding. The first and only time I ever consumed alcohol in a public place.” She looked imploringly across the couch. “I can count on your silence, right?”
“Hey, it’s me, remember? I’m ace at keeping secrets,” Rhiannon said reassuringly. “So. What’ve you got on me?” She pulled her glove back on so she wouldn’t have to keep trying not to touch the couch.
“Appropriately enough, you were with Giulia,” Ming began. Rhiannon made a wry face.
“Great. There are a lot of those, you know.” Ming grinned.
“I do know. I tried to pick a distinctive one for you. You were shackled together.” Rhiannon’s eyes widened.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she began hastily, then paused. “Hang on; actually, it might be exactly what it looks like. Where were we?”
“A lot of places,” answered Ming, trying not to laugh and almost succeeding. “I’m not sure of the general location, but the two of you seemed to be executing a daring escape of some kind.” Rhiannon nodded, her theory confirmed.
“We got captured in London one time,” she explained. “Deliberately, actually.” Ming arched an eyebrow.
“Really. Why?” Rhiannon shrugged.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Inside research, and all that. We took down the syndicate a week or so later; it wasn’t that big an operation, but it was a real nuisance, and England wasn’t stable at that point.” Ming nodded.
“I remember hearing about that. Didn’t they nearly assassinate the Queen?”
“Yup. Actually, that was when we were captured. We were trying to distract them.” She blew out a wisp of a laugh. “It worked.”
“I guess so.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Ming, drawing in a breath and sitting up straighter, said, “Okay, I have to ask: what wasn’t what it looked like?” Rhiannon grimaced, dropping her head sideways to rest on the back of the couch.
“I knew you were going to ask,” she sighed. “It was… a really strange costume party. We don’t talk about it.” Meeting Ming’s narrowed eyes, she continued, “In much the same way as you don’t talk about that wedding, I imagine. Fine.”
She sat up and stripped off her glove again. “Allow me to stress that we were undercover at the time.” She held out her hand. “Here. I’ll show you.”
* * *