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Disclaimer: Not mine. Set: Post-Star One.
Notes: ...not sure if this works or not, really, but it's what was in my brain. Cally, tea Raised Cup by ALC Punk! There is serenity in watching the leaves steep. Caramel slowly wending into the clear water in washes of color and strands of pungent flavor that will mellow with dilution and the sweet sugar cane Vila procured for her. Like carefully peeling away the layers of Avon's mind--not that she would, that would be an invasion of his privacy. Besides, he has layers she doesn't think she wants to penetrate. A lie, even if she doesn't believe it in what would be daylight. Assess your enemy, they taught her long ago. Assess your allies, has become second nature. Probe their minds, and determine their liability to you. Blake's mind was easy, of course. All flash, very little depth. I just want to know that I was right. Well, she could tell him now, as the caramel softens to claret, you were. Gan was simple. Naive, bright in his own way, yet simple. There were no barriers, like a tea bag against the mind. It is a ridiculous analogue, she decides, mulling over Vila, and the tricks she took to get into his brain. So many nooks and crannies, filled with mundane and strange items (much like the pockets which had produced her tea and sugar cane). She had left Jenna to the last, somehow sensing that violating the other woman's mind breached more ethics than it had with the men. Perhaps there was a sense of sisterhood, of, "we're all in this together against the men." Perhaps not, she thinks as she swirls the water in the teapot and watches it swiftly change color again. Pettiness, cruelty, even latent hatred for her own sex (and Cally) had lurked in Jenna's mind. Like finding scattered tea leaves in the bottom of your cup, when you'd been certain the pouring had been clear. Of course, now there are two new people she has to weigh in the balance. She carefully pours the tea into her cup, watching it swirl as it fills. Unlike before, she slid her way into Dayna Mellenby's mind that first night. The young woman has no idea. Dayna is like ripples of music cast into a river. There is something ageless and deep buried inside of her, but Cally doesn't think the girl has any idea of her potential And may never tell her. For Tarrant, it was also simple, once she was past the beginnings of his Federation training. All organization and compartments (yes sir, no sir), kill anyone who disobeys. Under it all is the pilot's flash, the arrogance that makes him walk the corridors of the Liberator like he owns them. Something Jenna had also had, at times. Perhaps it came from the love of flying, battling against space in a ship that responded as you wanted it to. Cally holds her cup to the light, inspects the color, sniffs the pungent scent, and smiles. There is nothing quite like tea. -f- © 2005 ALC Punk! |