Fic: Like A House On Fire (DW/B7)
Here's a slight ficlet for the 500 Prompts meme I found lurking on my hard drive...
Title: Like A House on Fire
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: 666
Characters/Pairings: Ace, Dayna Mellanby
Notes/Warnings: Possibly spoilery for B7 episode “Aftermath”. Mentions of violence/explosives/canon death.
Summary: Ace and Dayna swap tall tales round the fire. They’ve got a lot in common.
For paranoidangel42 in the 500 Prompts Meme: #341. Tales of long ago - Ace & Dayna Mellanby (DW/B7)
***
“… and then I got expelled,” said Ace, who’d been busy explaining to Dayna why school was overrated anyway and Dayna shouldn’t feel bad at having missed out. Not that Dayna seemed inclined to, but you never knew. “Just because I blew up the art room.”
Dayna sat up, taking a professional interest. “What did you use?”
“That was early days,” said Ace. “It was this whole thing with a blob of gelignite that the teacher thought was plasticine when it wasn’t. I hadn’t even started seriously working on Nitro 9 back then. I got the time to do that after they kicked me out.”
Dayna stared into the fire. “Nobody understands, do they? If you want to get explosives right, you’ve got to practice. Same as anything. And of course, I couldn’t try indoors at home, not if I didn’t want to bring the sea in on us.”
“Yeah, I can imagine you wouldn’t want to cause a leak.”
“And when we were outside, we had enemies to worry about. Lauren and I used to have to take it in turns standing guard while we experimented. Of course, it’s better on the Liberator. There’s this great blast-proof room, and, anyway, the ship’s pretty good with automatic repairs as long as you don’t puncture the hull - and I only did that once. Zen still sounds reproachful about it some days, though. The others aren’t that keen, but they get that it’s better than me blowing them up on the next mission.”
Ace hugged her knees. “Yeah. I’m not supposed to experiment on the TARDIS. I do, of course. It’s, like, unbreakable in there. The only thing I need to watch out for is the Professor turning up when I don’t expect him. Either he’s going to catch me out, or I’m going to blow him up because he was sitting under the sink in the spare kitchen and how was I supposed to know?”
“Sounds all right, though.”
“Yeah. Better than everyone at school. You’d have thought I’d murdered 1C, not just their crummy pottery pigs.”
“I know what you mean. I killed my father’s main computer when I was ten, though. I think that was the angriest I ever saw him.”
“Killed it?”
“With a bow and arrow,” said Dayna. “For target practice. It was a good shot for a ten year old.”
Ace grinned. “Wicked.”
“And it’s not as if I killed all that many of the Sarrans before my aim got better. Accidents happen.”
Ace looked slightly worried. “Well…”
“They killed Lauren,” said Dayna. “They tried to kill all of us hundreds of times. As I said, it wasn’t safe where I grew up. It was just safer than the Federation. They’re even worse.”
Ace nodded glumly. There were always people like that, weren’t there? Straight-forward bullies making people’s life a misery, or anyone with a bit of power who had to come down on those under them at the first excuse they could think of - they were different, they didn’t do what they were told, somedays even for being unhappy. What about Manisha and Karra and Gwendoline, Bellboy and Mike, Sorin and Jean and Phyllis and too many others? “Like that Servalot woman you were talking about?”
“Servalan,” said Dayna. “Yes. And I will kill her next time we see her.”
Ace looked around her. “We’ve been here a while. Do you think we got the fire big enough so that they’ll see it?”
“They can’t say we didn’t try,” said Dayna. “That was the biggest building left standing in this dump - before we blew it sky high.”
They grinned at each other.
“Yeah,” said Ace, savouring the memory.
Dayna’s smile didn’t stop. “We should do this again. How about it?”
“Love to. But only if you teach me how to use a bow and an arrow next time.”
“Provided you show me how to make Nitro 9. I might even be able to come up with some improvements.”
“Deal!” said Ace.
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
Title: Like A House on Fire
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: 666
Characters/Pairings: Ace, Dayna Mellanby
Notes/Warnings: Possibly spoilery for B7 episode “Aftermath”. Mentions of violence/explosives/canon death.
Summary: Ace and Dayna swap tall tales round the fire. They’ve got a lot in common.
For paranoidangel42 in the 500 Prompts Meme: #341. Tales of long ago - Ace & Dayna Mellanby (DW/B7)
***
“… and then I got expelled,” said Ace, who’d been busy explaining to Dayna why school was overrated anyway and Dayna shouldn’t feel bad at having missed out. Not that Dayna seemed inclined to, but you never knew. “Just because I blew up the art room.”
Dayna sat up, taking a professional interest. “What did you use?”
“That was early days,” said Ace. “It was this whole thing with a blob of gelignite that the teacher thought was plasticine when it wasn’t. I hadn’t even started seriously working on Nitro 9 back then. I got the time to do that after they kicked me out.”
Dayna stared into the fire. “Nobody understands, do they? If you want to get explosives right, you’ve got to practice. Same as anything. And of course, I couldn’t try indoors at home, not if I didn’t want to bring the sea in on us.”
“Yeah, I can imagine you wouldn’t want to cause a leak.”
“And when we were outside, we had enemies to worry about. Lauren and I used to have to take it in turns standing guard while we experimented. Of course, it’s better on the Liberator. There’s this great blast-proof room, and, anyway, the ship’s pretty good with automatic repairs as long as you don’t puncture the hull - and I only did that once. Zen still sounds reproachful about it some days, though. The others aren’t that keen, but they get that it’s better than me blowing them up on the next mission.”
Ace hugged her knees. “Yeah. I’m not supposed to experiment on the TARDIS. I do, of course. It’s, like, unbreakable in there. The only thing I need to watch out for is the Professor turning up when I don’t expect him. Either he’s going to catch me out, or I’m going to blow him up because he was sitting under the sink in the spare kitchen and how was I supposed to know?”
“Sounds all right, though.”
“Yeah. Better than everyone at school. You’d have thought I’d murdered 1C, not just their crummy pottery pigs.”
“I know what you mean. I killed my father’s main computer when I was ten, though. I think that was the angriest I ever saw him.”
“Killed it?”
“With a bow and arrow,” said Dayna. “For target practice. It was a good shot for a ten year old.”
Ace grinned. “Wicked.”
“And it’s not as if I killed all that many of the Sarrans before my aim got better. Accidents happen.”
Ace looked slightly worried. “Well…”
“They killed Lauren,” said Dayna. “They tried to kill all of us hundreds of times. As I said, it wasn’t safe where I grew up. It was just safer than the Federation. They’re even worse.”
Ace nodded glumly. There were always people like that, weren’t there? Straight-forward bullies making people’s life a misery, or anyone with a bit of power who had to come down on those under them at the first excuse they could think of - they were different, they didn’t do what they were told, somedays even for being unhappy. What about Manisha and Karra and Gwendoline, Bellboy and Mike, Sorin and Jean and Phyllis and too many others? “Like that Servalot woman you were talking about?”
“Servalan,” said Dayna. “Yes. And I will kill her next time we see her.”
Ace looked around her. “We’ve been here a while. Do you think we got the fire big enough so that they’ll see it?”
“They can’t say we didn’t try,” said Dayna. “That was the biggest building left standing in this dump - before we blew it sky high.”
They grinned at each other.
“Yeah,” said Ace, savouring the memory.
Dayna’s smile didn’t stop. “We should do this again. How about it?”
“Love to. But only if you teach me how to use a bow and an arrow next time.”
“Provided you show me how to make Nitro 9. I might even be able to come up with some improvements.”
“Deal!” said Ace.
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: