YURI SHIPPING OLYMPICS 2024 - BONUS ROUND 4

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for this bonus round, the theme is historical fiction! prompts inspired by specific moments in (real or fictional) history.

this round will end on july 15th

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

POINTS - BONUS ROUNDS
For prompts: 10 points each (maximum of 150 prompt points per team per round)
For fills:
First 4 fills by any member of your team: 100 points each
Fills 5-10: 50 points each
Fills 11-20: 40 points each
Fills 21-50: 30 points each
Fills 51+: 25 points each

Comments

FILL: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

[ghostvines]

“You’re sure they won’t mind?”

“Come on, Sooze, they’ll love you,” Gina says for the third time. They’re holding hands — only because Gina has to show her the way, Susato reminds herself. That’s the only reason.

She glances around anxiously at the towering metal walls that stretch around narrow passageways, one of which Gina is leading her through, steps more confident than anywhere Susato’s ever seen her. She wonders how Gina even knows which turns to take; Susato usually prides herself on her memory, but she can’t even remember whether their last turn was a left or a right.

“I don’t want to impose,” she says, almost squeezing Gina’s hand before she forces herself to stop.

Gina rolls her eyes. “You’re not imposin’. Not even when you use ’em long fancy words.”

Susato feels herself blush. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not wot I — oh, we’re ’ere!” Gina’s stopped in front of a thin, winding maintenance ladder built along the wall, something Susato surely never would’ve noticed on her own. She cups her hands around her mouth and yells upwards: “OI!”

There’s a rustle, and then a black-haired man — no, boy, probably younger than her — pokes his head out from above.

“Gina! Where the ’ell’ve you been?”

“Iris got to me,” Gina shouts back, almost sheepishly. “Ya know how she is.”

“Oh, the pink girl! Tell ’er I said hi!”

“I did!” Gina hops onto the ladder, then extends a hand to Susato. “C’mon, up ya get.”

“Is it… safe?”

Gina snorts. “’Course it’s safe, I’ve climbed it for years.”

Susato hesitantly grabs onto a rung. It’s surprisingly unrusted, now that she really looks. She pulls herself up, then again, then again, don’t look down don’t look down — until somehow she sees sky instead of wall, and a pale hand reaching for hers.

Gina pulls her up and grins. “There ya are.”

The boy from earlier cocks his head at Susato. “Friend of yours?”

“Yeah,” Gina says, as though it’s obvious, and Susato really shouldn’t feel as warm as she does from the reminder. “Sooze, this is Eddie. Eddie, Sooze.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Susato says awkwardly.

The boy — Eddie — squints at her for a beat. “Haven’t seen you round these parts.”

“You could say I’m new,” Susato says, increasingly awkwardly. How to explain my brother landed himself in prison on purpose and disappeared and I’ve been looking for him ever since? She still doesn’t know who to ask about the squid people!

But Eddie isn’t looking at her with suspicion or disgust, just plain curiosity. “Well, d’ya want to do the form?”

“The…?”

“Y’know,” Eddie explains. “Are ya a sir, or ma’am, or somethin’ else?”

Half a year ago Susato would have said ma’am easily. Now something gives her pause. “Er… what are the other options?”

“’Ang on a sec,” Eddie says, and produces a… is that a governmentally signed scroll? What is happening? “Right, ’ere: Citizen, Deacon, Lieutenant, Private, Doctor, Lady, Lord, Captain, Professor—”

“Sir is fine!” Susato blurts. Wait, no — although the idea of being called “sir” does send some sort of thrill down her spine — “I mean, madam! I mean—”

“Oh, got it,” Eddie says, nodding as though Susato has not been spluttering for the past minute. “See ya later, si—er, mad—er, yes!” And then he’s off.

“That was strange,” Susato says, blinking.

“He’s off to tell coves what ya like to be called,” Gina explains. “It’s his job. Sorta.”

Susato has so many London customs to learn, still. But she clears her throat. “So, um… What did you bring me here for?”

“Oh! Right.” Is Gina blushing? No, the light from the sunrise is just playing tricks, surely. “I, er… well. You said ya liked looking out the window in the mornin’.”

“I do,” Susato says, surprised. She hadn’t thought Gina would remember that; she doesn’t even remember telling anyone.

“And, well—” Gina kicks a rock. It skitters off into the eaves. “Ya know. It’s the mornin’ of New Years, innit? And this is the place I know wiv the best view, so… So.”

Susato looks around, then, careful to maintain her footing. It is a sprawling view; Spite is all factories and smoke, even on January first, but she can see each individual alleyway, the specks of people darting about their everyday business. If she squints she can almost see the ferris wheel, ascending into the hole in the glittering sky.

Oh, she misses home.

But with Gina at her side: London takes on a beauty all its own.

“It’s gorgeous,” she whispers, and pretends she’s not enraptured with the way Gina’s whole face lights up. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothin’,” Gina says, looking at the ground again.

“It isn’t,” Susato insists, and on some instinct catches Gina’s hand again. Gina looks up at her, eyes wide. “Thank you, Gina. Mr Sholmes and Mr Naruhodo and Iris are all wonderful, but—” She swallows. She suddenly can’t bear to look into Gina’s eyes, blue like the sky she’s never seen. “You’re one of the best friends I could ever ask for.”

Gina is blushing, Susato realizes, a pink dust settling on her cheekbones. She’s beautiful. “Shut up, Sooze,” she says, but she’s smiling back. “And, um — happy 1900, I guess.”

“And you as well,” Susato says earnestly, before remembering. “Oh — although I suppose it’s still 1899.”

Gina snorts. “Couldn’t Iris tell ol’ Vicky to change her mind?”

“I doubt any tea would be convincing enough for that,” Susato sighs.

A beat. Then two.

Susato glances over, and recognizes the conspiratorial look in Gina’s eyes instantly.

“Wait ’ere, Sooze.”

“What?”

But Gina’s already gone.

It takes no more than five minutes for her to return, five minutes that Susato spends gazing out at the sunrise again.

Her mind wanders to Kazuma. He always loved the sunrise.

“Sooze!”

Gina’s out of breath by the time she races back, waving… a can? A red can?

“What is that?” Susato asks.

“Spray paint,” Gina answers, grinning, extraordinarily cat-like.

“You — have that?”

“Where d’ya think all the murals come from?”

Susato turns in the direction of Gina’s point. The wall rises upward in the southwest. What Susato had taken at a distance for rust, she realizes now, are paintings — tiny ones. Crude stick figures, a few landscapes, a stunning render of a cat…

“’Ere,” Gina says, and holds out the canister to Susato. Susato takes it, too startled to refuse; it’s heavier than she expected. “Er, you can — I dunno. Draw somefin’.”

“But—” Surely this can’t be legal, but for some reason, Susato’s first objection is: “I’m not an artist.”

“Don’t look at me like that wiv ’em big ol’ eyes!” Gina pushes at Susato’s shoulder. “It’s a New Years tradition up ’ere, alright? Ya don’t have to do it.”

The heft of the canister weighs on her arm.

New Years, 1899. Again.

For some reason, the thought of that is suddenly unbearable. Not when so much has changed. Not when she’s met Naruhodo, and Iris and Mr Sholmes, and the girl standing next to her right now, giving her a living canvas and letting her draw.

Susato raises the can. Her handwriting is normally neat, but she doesn’t have any experience with spray paint, so the lettering that comes out is wobbly and uneven and new:

HAPPY 1900

Susato exhales and steps back.

Gina whistles. “Never took ya for a rebel, Sooze.”

“Perhaps I learned from the best,” Susato says; and looking at Gina then, at her smile and her stance and her ponytail in the wind — she’s never felt more alive.