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yurishippingolympics2024-07-16 11:56 pm
a1c0bb) wrote in yurishippingolympics2024-07-16 11:56 pm
Entry tags:
trying to get the last tickets for a concert
competing for the same promotion
sign war between two businesses
psychological warfare complete with death note-esque internal monologues
community season 3, episode 14- pillows and blankets
Edited 2024-07-20 21:08 (UTC)
They meet for the third time outside Vacuo, in the shade of a dune rising high enough to blot out the sunset. Winter waits patiently, as though she’s ever had the patience for anything, and Cinder arrives burning through the sand as the sky dulls to purple, leaking fire.
“You called me,” she says. Not much of a greeting, but it’s enough.
Winter tilts her chin up. “I’m ending this now. Think of me when you die.”
Cinder laughs disbelievingly. “You’re — what? You think you can just — call me out here for a duel and it’ll all be over? That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.”
She squares her shoulders, sets her jaw. “Well, it is now. This is the choice I’m giving you: fight me now or run away.”
“Whatever happened to good old-fashioned battle?” Cinder sneers, all teeth. “What do you want me to do, lay down and die? Wait for this —” she gestures with her Grimm arm, fire blooming in her palm, “to finish the job?”
“I won’t play fair if you won’t,” Winter says, and sends a spear of ice towards Cinder’s throat.
“Dip me,” Cinder says under her breath.
The floor moves around them — lights whirling, bodies jostling for space. Winter refused to dance in anyway that wasn’t distressingly formal, so this is what they’re doing, brushing past each other as though touching is a game. Winter tilts her head inwards to catch the way her breath hitches as she looks past her, gaze fixed on something she can’t see.
“What?”
“Dip me,” she repeats, more urgent. “Dip me, she’s looking —”
“Oh my G-d,” Winter mutters, “do it yourself if you’re that desperate,” and Cinder glares at her for about two seconds before she takes her up on her offer. Winter has to bite down hard on her tongue to stop herself from yelping as she sweeps her feet out from underneath her, holding her low to the ground, and for a moment the lights above them spin gold and Cinder is staring down at her, eyes heavy-lidded, and —
She rights her barely a second later, scowling as they turn away through the crowd. Winter doesn’t even try to catch who she was looking at, still recovering from two very different kinds of swooping feelings in her gut.
“Good enough for you?” Cinder asks through gritted teeth.
Winter stares at her again. Something competitive in her rears its head, pushes up against her lungs — determination to find her footing again, probably, or irritation at being upstaged — “I’ll do it better next time.”
Cinder blinks at her, surprised. The lights flash red, blue. Her mouth spreads into a slow, lazy smile. “We’ll see.”
//
She does it better.
When she pulls Cinder upright, both of them turning red, Winter makes a show of tugging on her hands until she takes the hint and presses up against her, buries her head in her shoulder. It’s a little awkward, since Cinder is taller, but it takes the edge off the eyes watching them in the crowd. They move in a slow circle, bodies laced together — and it’s almost nice, she thinks.
It would be nice if Cinder weren’t talking.
“Next time,” she’s saying, “next time I pick the date location. Next time I stalk her socials to see where she’s going. This sucks. This sucks so bad.”
Winter is inclined to agree, but she doesn’t point that out. “I thought you liked clubs,” she says instead, spreading her fingers over the small of Cinder’s back.
Cinder huffs against her neck, sending heat shooting up straight through her spine. “I liked clubs because my ex likes clubs.”
“Well, excuse me for wanting you to have fun,” Winter says idly.
“Fuck you,” she mutters, but there’s no heat behind it.
//
“She’s going to some Vale restaurant,” Cinder announces, “that’s romantic, isn’t it? You want to be taken to a shitty Vale restaurant, sweetheart?”
“I’ll hang up,” Winter threatens. “I could find somewhere nicer to take you. We could go right now.”
Cinder snorts on the other end of the line. There’s the sound of a thud and fabric rustling, a body hitting a bed. “And do what?”
“Post it on your Instagram,” she suggests boredly. “It looks weird if we show up everywhere she does. I’ll take you on a nice date and you can brag about how much better I am.”
She scoffs. “See, but that fucks with her, doesn’t it? She starts to think maybe she’s the —”
“I’m not interested in your weird psychological fuckery. Come on, I’ll pick you up at seven. Dress nice.”
//
“‘Date with my one and only’,” Winter reads out, eyebrows raised. Cinder scowls up at her from her seat on Winter’s expensive couch, arms folded over her chest. “That sounds effective.”
Her scowl deepens. “I can beat that.”
There’s a challenge there, an expectation. Winter takes the bait. “And how will you do that?”
She stands up, takes the phone out of Winter’s hands. There’s no force behind it, more — comfort, brushing up against her boundaries and finding them malleable. “You like theatre, don’t you?”
“Where did you get that idea?”
Cinder raises her eyebrows at her over the phone, the mirror image of Winter’s surprised disapproval face. “Your sister. Duh. Favourite musical?”
“It’s not showing anymore,” Winter shrugs.
“Fine, I’ll find a pro-shoot and rent a cinema. Take good photos. Deal?”
Heat rushes up her spine. She bows her head to hide how hard she’s blushing, mouth working. “I — yes. Fine.”
“Winter?”
Winter recognises that voice. She turns around, breath caught in her throat, and there she is: Cinder Fall, eyes wide with disbelief and amusement, propped against the wall in the corridor like she belongs there.
“Cinder,” she says feebly, “you’re here too?”
Cinder rolls her shoulders, stepping forward. “Of course I’m here. I’m a courtier.” She narrows her eyes, blazing gold, “You’re a courtier too?”
“Of course,” Winter echoes, finding her footing. “I’m — I’m here for —”
She throws her hands up suddenly, exploding into motion. “I don’t care who you’re here for, I care that you’re here! What happened to the army, huh? What happened to staying the hell out of my way?”
Now, that, she knows how to respond to. Winter draws herself up, feeling for the familiar hilt of her sword. It’s always been an anchor, a guide, her future on the edge of a blade. “I’m doing my duty for my country,” she parrots, “and General Ironwood believes I’ll serve him best at Lady Marigold’s side.”
Cinder snorts. “So, what? You’re giving up the dream you gave up everything else for?”
“I’m not giving anything up,” Winter says defensively. “I knew what I was getting into and I accepted the job. Why are you here? Aren’t you doing the same thing?”
Cinder halts, then draws herself up too. It’s hard to forget they’ve had the same training in moments like these; hard to forget that they were spat out of the same academy not that long ago. “I’m seeking a greater foothold for my Lady,” she says haughtily, “because unlike you, I never bothered to delude myself with dreams of becoming a knight.”
“Hold on,” Winter says, hardly noticing the barb, “hold on, I am a knight. You forget — you come here and you think you can just — I am a knight. I’ve been a knight for years. I don’t have to dream because I’ve already —”
Cinder steps forward into her space, crosses half the corridor before Winter can even finish her sentence. Her eyes burn bright up close, warm and amber and deep. She used to love those eyes. Still does, maybe.
“And what good is a knight,” she says, voice low, “up here in this palace?”
There’s something there behind her words; a memory she’s trying to draw out, and it hits Winter all at once.
(Her body will always carry the memory of it, she thinks. You never forget how to hold a sword.)
//
Lady Marigold asks to see Winter in her rooms the day before the last ball of the season. She keeps her distance, as she has always done, standing shadowed against the light streaming in from the balcony, and her voice is soft as she tells Winter to leave.
“What?” Winter says hoarsely. “Why?”
May looks down her nose at her, arms folded over her chest. She looks every inch the girl Winter grew up with, every inch a stranger. “You don’t want to be here.”
She fumbles for the sword at her waist, draws it as she kneels, holds it out. It’s a clumsy display of loyalty, but it’s loyalty nonetheless. And loyalty is what May — Lady Marigold — needs to see, loyalty is what will keep here here —
“Don’t,” May says softly. “I’m not stupid, Winter. You’d do the General more good on the battlefield.”
It stings. Winter blinks, sure the ache in her chest is only the momentary pain of a blow. “I — if the Fall Maiden —”
“Cinder hasn’t said anything to me. I have eyes.”
That’s that, then.
//
Cinder shoulder-checks Winter as she passes by, as she always does, and then falters when Winter doesn’t push back. She spares her a glance that lingers, a glance that Winter feels through the back of her shirt, and when she opens her mouth to say something Winter heads her off.
“You won,” she says flatly, “I’m going home. Have fun at the ball.”
Cinder falters. Winter doesn’t turn to see her expression change. “Aw, but I was counting on you saving me a dance.”
“Counting on me for what?” she mutters.
A body presses up behind her. Winter stumbles forward as Cinder’s arms snake around her waist, pulling them together. Heat flushes up her spine, sends her spinning. “You’ve never gone down without a fight, have you?” Cinder murmurs in her ear. “You’ll have to show me what makes you so eligible.”
let me know if this is a bit much lmao
//
“Spar with me,” Cinder suggests, and Winter has never been one to say no to a fight.
This is how they wind up here: Winter’s own sword at her throat, Cinder crouched over her, hands caressing the hilt like a lover. The tip of the blade presses against her skin, cold and unforgiving, and there’s something in the danger of it all that makes her want to —
Cinder pushes a little, as much as she can without breaking skin. It may as well be her blade now. As if she notices the way Winter is looking at her, she slips up, draws the hilt of her sword under her chin and tilts it up, and smirks when an involuntary whine slips past Winter’s lips.
“That desperate, huh?”
“No, I — fuck you,” Winter says. It comes out weak, choked. She swallows thickly.
Cinder tilts her head to the side, smirk turning pitying. Has her boot always been on Winter’s thigh? “Oh, sweet thing,” she purrs, moving the sword away from her throat, “you want this back?”
Winter can’t think of a response. She resorts to gaping up at her, which communicates basically everything.
Her smirk widens, grows sharp. Cinder removes her boot and stands up to her full height, which of course makes everything markedly worse. When she offers Winter a hand, it takes her a second to process the intention.
Weiss groans, tilting her head back so it falls into Winter’s lap. “She’s being mean to me.”
Winter glances up from her phone to where Cinder is smirking on the floor opposite, arms folded smugly over her chest. Weiss’s token, predictably blue, is in jail. “Don’t be mean,” she says idly.
Cinder throws back her head and laughs. She does a lot of that, mostly to prove she’s laughing in the first place. “I’m not being mean. Weiss just sucks.”
“I do not,” Weiss says hotly, sitting upright. She snatches up the dice from where Cinder left them and groans when she rolls. Winter mostly tunes it out. “Winter, back me up here.”
“Two things can be true at once.” She blocks the third number Qrow is using to contact her, continues to scroll idly. “Cinder is generally quite mean.”
“I am not,” Cinder mutters.
“Come on then, if you think you can do any better.” Weiss leans backward and drops the dice in Winter’s lap, then scuttles out of the way before Winter can chuck them back at her. Ruby, in the kitchen, takes her graciously into her arms and sticks her tongue out at Cinder.
Winter sighs, because now Cinder won’t let her get away without playing. “Fine then,” she says, slinking onto the floor. Cinder grins ecstatically at her.
“I love it when you’re spiteful.”
//
"come pick up your girlfriend she's beating me at monopoly"
i do not even know whether the original yuri i intended to write in this fic was the couple being bet on, the couple betting, or the other side couple that gets roped into the betting (all of which are yuri) but here is whisper me a love song yuri - link to ao3 fic here!
Ship: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus, The Locked Tomb
Words: 598
Notes: I am extremely sorry about all of this, unless you are familiar with Crusader Kings II in which case I am not sorry about any of this.
---
G: harrow
G: HARROW
G: since when have you played crusader kings
H: Since when have I NOT played Crusader Kings?
H: What kind of question is that?
G: ok fine
G: you have a point
G: you could have told me though
H: I thought it would go without saying.
H: Is this not the game most perfectly suited to my machinations?
G: again
G: you have a point
H: I usually do.
G: ok ok but
G: how many hours have you played
H: …
H: I am not answering that question.
G: COME ON
G: ill answer first
G: 4386
G: ok
G: your turn
H: That is impressive given your chronic lack of focus.
G: rude
H: But nonetheless, I am not answering.
G: i can focus just fine on things
G: when i like them
G: for example
G: when the thing is crusader kings
G: you at least have to tell me how many digits are i. The answer
G: look
G: give me something at least
G: how many digits
H: …
G: im not going to stop bothering you about this
H: 5
G: no
G: thats a typo right
H: Five (5).
G: wow
G: you are insane
H: Yes.
H: This is a well-established fact.
H: Please tell me something we did not already know.
G: ok
G: ok ok ok
G: inquiring minds need to know
G: favorite empire
G: its me im the mind
H: Ireland.
G: maybe you heard me wrong
G: i said empire
H: As a merchant republic.
G: ireland is not an empire
H: Oh. You were being literal.
G: a merchant republic?
G: an irish
G: merchant republic
H: Tibet can be fun.
H: But I still prefer Ireland.
G: i guess merchant republics do have some nice casus bellis
G: causes belli
G: casuses belluses
G: whatever the plural is
G: so do you like
G: take the entire atlantic coastline first
G: or what
H: I do not expand beyond the natural borders of Ireland.
G: what
G: what the fuck
G: thats not how y9ou play this game
H: That is PRECISELY how I play this game.
G: but
G: what
G: WHY
H: Playing tall is a completely viable strategy.
G: thats not how this works
G: thats not how any of this works
H: Incorrect.
H: Let me guess.
H: Your sole objective in playing Crusader Kings is to paint the map in your preferred color?
G: duh
G: thats the POINT of the game
H: It's the point of the game when played by dullards with no imagination.
G: excuse me
G: i have plenty of imagination
G: i can imagine so many different ways to conquer the world
H: Of course you can.
H: But can you imagine a way to win WITHOUT conquering the world?
G: NO
G: BECAUSE THEN IT WOULDNT BE WINNING
G: look
G: it seems we are at an impasse
G: i am not going to convince you
G: and you are not going to convince me
G: we need a third party
H: No.
G: to act as a tiebreaker
H: Do not.
*Palamedes has been added to the chat*
G: so palamedes
H: Do not do this.
G: we ahve a question
H: No we don't.
G: you play crusader kings right
G: so
G: what is the correct way to play it
P: oh that's easy!
P: I don't bother with conquest
P: I'm just in it for the royal court drama
*multiple people are typing*
Words: 598
Notes: I am extremely sorry about all of this, unless you are familiar with Crusader Kings II in which case I am not sorry about any of this.
---
G: harrow
G: HARROW
G: since when have you played crusader kings
H: Since when have I NOT played Crusader Kings?
H: What kind of question is that?
G: ok fine
G: you have a point
G: you could have told me though
H: I thought it would go without saying.
H: Is this not the game most perfectly suited to my machinations?
G: again
G: you have a point
H: I usually do.
G: ok ok but
G: how many hours have you played
H: …
H: I am not answering that question.
G: COME ON
G: ill answer first
G: 4386
G: ok
G: your turn
H: That is impressive given your chronic lack of focus.
G: rude
H: But nonetheless, I am not answering.
G: i can focus just fine on things
G: when i like them
G: for example
G: when the thing is crusader kings
G: you at least have to tell me how many digits are i. The answer
G: look
G: give me something at least
G: how many digits
H: …
G: im not going to stop bothering you about this
H: 5
G: no
G: thats a typo right
H: Five (5).
G: wow
G: you are insane
H: Yes.
H: This is a well-established fact.
H: Please tell me something we did not already know.
G: ok
G: ok ok ok
G: inquiring minds need to know
G: favorite empire
G: its me im the mind
H: Ireland.
G: maybe you heard me wrong
G: i said empire
H: As a merchant republic.
G: ireland is not an empire
H: Oh. You were being literal.
G: a merchant republic?
G: an irish
G: merchant republic
H: Tibet can be fun.
H: But I still prefer Ireland.
G: i guess merchant republics do have some nice casus bellis
G: causes belli
G: casuses belluses
G: whatever the plural is
G: so do you like
G: take the entire atlantic coastline first
G: or what
H: I do not expand beyond the natural borders of Ireland.
G: what
G: what the fuck
G: thats not how y9ou play this game
H: That is PRECISELY how I play this game.
G: but
G: what
G: WHY
H: Playing tall is a completely viable strategy.
G: thats not how this works
G: thats not how any of this works
H: Incorrect.
H: Let me guess.
H: Your sole objective in playing Crusader Kings is to paint the map in your preferred color?
G: duh
G: thats the POINT of the game
H: It's the point of the game when played by dullards with no imagination.
G: excuse me
G: i have plenty of imagination
G: i can imagine so many different ways to conquer the world
H: Of course you can.
H: But can you imagine a way to win WITHOUT conquering the world?
G: NO
G: BECAUSE THEN IT WOULDNT BE WINNING
G: look
G: it seems we are at an impasse
G: i am not going to convince you
G: and you are not going to convince me
G: we need a third party
H: No.
G: to act as a tiebreaker
H: Do not.
*Palamedes has been added to the chat*
G: so palamedes
H: Do not do this.
G: we ahve a question
H: No we don't.
G: you play crusader kings right
G: so
G: what is the correct way to play it
P: oh that's easy!
P: I don't bother with conquest
P: I'm just in it for the royal court drama
*multiple people are typing*
Edited (sorry for the approximately 500 edits I keep catching autocorrect fixing gideon's lines and I have to un-fix them. since when does notepad even HAVE autocorrect?) 2024-07-22 06:21 (UTC)
The thing is that Kiriona almost feels bad for them. Buuut there’s been a persistent itch underneath her dead-girl skin ever since she stepped foot on the landing pad.
They stand together in the electrical room. Nova’s spacesuit is a sleek black, contrasting delightfully with the blinding white of her own uniform. Too bad it’s soon to be covered in guts ‘n’ gore.
Kiriona does not dare fuck with the woman in the grey suit — Millie — or the one in yellow — Crown — and she’s even tentative to kill the one donned in cyan, despite the way she seems to dance around her in every empty room. Almost baiting, she would say, if she didn’t know any better.
The Gaia girl is, unfortunately, a complete fucking sucker. In more ways than one, she grins to herself.
Absurdly, she thinks first of giving head.
Second comes her alien tendrils, twisting impatiently inside her open wound of a chest.
“Nova,” she calls gleefully. Oh, she’s gonna fuck this bitch up good.
“Griddle,” Nova’s voice returns flatly, “I do insist you call me Harrow.”
Kiriona’s nose wrinkles. “Well, call me whatever the hell you like, as long as you’re screaming my name.”
(There is a sputtering over the — mic? No, the intercom. Static shaped like sound — like uncontrollable fucking laughter. She didn’t even intend the innuendo… this time.)
“I despise you,” Nova sighs, “so dearly.” And: “Get on with it.”
“Whuh — hey,” she whines. “You had me figured out?”
“Ever since you butchered Tettares,” she says dryly. “He cursed you out rather loudly.”
“Whatever,” Gaia sniffs. It’s not like this affects her in any way at all. “C’mere, girl.”
The scene flashes red — fades to black.
-
‘VICTORY’, emboldened across the top of the — oh, to hell with it now — iPad screen. Weird little bean thing standing proudly in the center.
Which is, coincidentally, what Gideon calls her c—
“Oh, good game, Gideon Nav,” Dulcinea rejoices, admiration evident in her voice.
“It was nothing, ma’am.” Gideon pictures tipping an imaginary hat, face flushed.
“I introduced you to this stupid game,” Isaac bemoans, “and you betrayed me!”
“Get good,” Gideon snarks — to a chorus of utter despair and disappointment.
So begins another round.
They stand together in the electrical room. Nova’s spacesuit is a sleek black, contrasting delightfully with the blinding white of her own uniform. Too bad it’s soon to be covered in guts ‘n’ gore.
Kiriona does not dare fuck with the woman in the grey suit — Millie — or the one in yellow — Crown — and she’s even tentative to kill the one donned in cyan, despite the way she seems to dance around her in every empty room. Almost baiting, she would say, if she didn’t know any better.
The Gaia girl is, unfortunately, a complete fucking sucker. In more ways than one, she grins to herself.
Absurdly, she thinks first of giving head.
Second comes her alien tendrils, twisting impatiently inside her open wound of a chest.
“Nova,” she calls gleefully. Oh, she’s gonna fuck this bitch up good.
“Griddle,” Nova’s voice returns flatly, “I do insist you call me Harrow.”
Kiriona’s nose wrinkles. “Well, call me whatever the hell you like, as long as you’re screaming my name.”
(There is a sputtering over the — mic? No, the intercom. Static shaped like sound — like uncontrollable fucking laughter. She didn’t even intend the innuendo… this time.)
“I despise you,” Nova sighs, “so dearly.” And: “Get on with it.”
“Whuh — hey,” she whines. “You had me figured out?”
“Ever since you butchered Tettares,” she says dryly. “He cursed you out rather loudly.”
“Whatever,” Gaia sniffs. It’s not like this affects her in any way at all. “C’mere, girl.”
The scene flashes red — fades to black.
-
‘VICTORY’, emboldened across the top of the — oh, to hell with it now — iPad screen. Weird little bean thing standing proudly in the center.
Which is, coincidentally, what Gideon calls her c—
“Oh, good game, Gideon Nav,” Dulcinea rejoices, admiration evident in her voice.
“It was nothing, ma’am.” Gideon pictures tipping an imaginary hat, face flushed.
“I introduced you to this stupid game,” Isaac bemoans, “and you betrayed me!”
“Get good,” Gideon snarks — to a chorus of utter despair and disappointment.
So begins another round.
“What,” Winter says flatly.
Cinder grins over at her and finishes putting the poster over the front of her locker. It’s an ugly thing, really, but she’s proud of it, because she’s seventeen and she’s got nothing better to do. “What?” she echoes innocently.
The newspaper in Winter’s hand crumples into a ball in her fist. She glares at Cinder like she can unwind her, like she can peer through to the truth of her and figure out a ploy, a trick. “What,” she repeats, “are you doing?”
“Oh, this?” She gestures towards the poster on her locker and the dozens like it, covering the whole hallway. “My campaign.”
Winter inhales sharply, looking incensed. “Okay, first of all — that’s not — you can’t just campaign by putting pictures of your face all over the school and calling it a day. What do you want, Cinder?”
“Want?” she tilts her head, hums. “Why? I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re doing —” Winter takes a deep breath, dropping the newspaper. Someone passing by the corridor kicks it away and it disappears into the crowd. “Why are you running for treasurer?”
Cinder eyes the blank space in her hand, the page in the newspaper where she knows Winter has written an eloquent essay applying for the same position, and shrugs. “Just felt like it.”
“And your qualifications are?”
She spins around, propping her hands on her hips. “Who the hell needs qualifications for a high school student council?”
Winter’s jaw works. Cinder loves it when she gets wound up. “Not you, apparently.”
“Exactly.” She kicks away a stray bit of paper that appears under her foot and prays to G-d it’s one of Winter’s stupid newspapers. Who even runs for treasurer through the newspaper, anyway?
She glares at Cinder for a moment longer, wordless, and finally settles on spitting out, “Well, good luck. I’ll see you around.”
She nods once, turns on her heel, and marches away. “Sure,” Cinder says to her retreating back.
Ruby leans over the side of Weiss’s desk, watching Cinder give Ironwood her best smile. “So,” she says casually, and Weiss groans, “do you think she’s got a chance?”
Weiss glares at her once before she resumes typing. Her hands move delicately over the keyboard, faltering only when she speaks. “Of course not. Winter is practically his right-hand man, obviously she’ll be the one getting promoted.” She pauses to drag a file into an email. “Besides, she’s far more qualified.”
Ruby, who stumbled out of university and straight into this job, shrugs a little. “I don’t know, I think Cinder’s still got a chance. She’s, like, efficient.”
“She’s efficient because her sole purpose in life is to fuck with Winter,” Weiss retorts, hammering the enter key. “Qualified, though,” she adds, as though in afterthought. “Winter knows her qualifications off by heart, she rants about them all the time.”
“Let me guess,” Ruby starts, at the same time as Weiss says, “Masters.”
She coughs, bracing her hands on Weiss’s monitor. “In what?”
Weiss shrugs. “Journalism, apparently.”
“She’s basically tech support.”
“You have a PhD in architecture,” she fires back, opening a different email. “Besides, she used to work under Salem. Tech support too, apparently.”
“Huh,” Ruby says, focus drifting. It’s hard to imagine Cinder Fall as anything other than a hacker who stumbled into an office job, really. “And that makes her better than Winter because….?”
“Exactly!” Weiss throws up her hands, voice pitching up an octave.
“So we’re all overqualified for the job then,” she muses. “And Winter is like, extra overqualified.”
“Qualified enough to run the whole g-ddamn company,” Weiss says.
Ruby glances over to Ironwood’s desk in the room at the end of the office, to where the shape of his shoulders are just about visible through the tinted glass. The door swings open as she turns her head to look and Winter backs in, tray of coffees in hand — she stops at Ironwood’s room first, because of course she does, and then circles around to drop a cup on Weiss’s desk as Weiss starts a particularly impassioned rant about “the skill and training required to manage the SDC’s funds alone”.
“Talking about Father, then,” she guesses, and Weiss yelps. Ruby grins sheepishly up at her, backing away from Weiss’s desk.
Winter wordlessly hands her a cup with RR written on the side in looping cursive and turns back to Weiss, who is stammering something about Cinder and job histories.
“I don’t care about the promotion.”
Weiss pouts. “You’re a shitty liar.”
“I don’t,” she says, a little defensively. Ruby takes a sip of her coffee and risks scalding her tongue so she won’t have to look either of them in the eye. “I have faith in the General.”
“Okay,” Weiss says, rolling her eyes, “just because he used to be one doesn’t mean you have to call him that all the time —”
“It’s only polite.” Winter leans over the partition next to Weiss's desk and hands a tired-eyed Blake a travel mug. “And old habits die hard, really.” She pauses, regards the two of them. “It would look bad if he gave me the promotion, considering our history.”
“Oh, please, that was only a ten-year stint in the army.”
Ruby backs away, leaves them to their bickering. Cinder spares her a glance as she passes by her desk, clearly having heard their discussion, and so Ruby grins awkwardly at her as she slips into her seat.
Miorine can’t stop glancing to her left. It’s been a habit for a while, really, ever since Suletta sat down next to her for the first time in History she’s been unable to look away — but it’s only presenting a problem now, now that looking away could —
“Miss Rembran,” the teacher says sharply from the front of the classroom, “eyes on your own paper, please.”
She flushes furiously, turns back to glare hard at the essay in front of her. Next to her, Suletta is fidgeting nervously and staring down at the notes scribbled on her palm, and it’s all the more endearing for how unsubtle it is. She’s even muttering under her breath, Miorine thinks; it’s a miracle she hasn’t been caught yet.
Right, okay. Well, if they’re both cheating, she might as well get on with it. She looks up at the clock — one hour left, plenty of time to get through this essay question — and fidgets with her tie, flipping it up so the label on the end is facing her. It’s hardly the most practical way to cheat but it’s worth it; all she really needs is the Jeturk founding date and then she’s set.
Or she would be, if Suletta could stop muttering next to her.
“Shinsei founding date,” she thinks she hears, “1931.”
Miorine stiffens instantly. It takes a great deal of effort not to turn and look at her, curling her fingers into fists over the point of her tie. The Jeturk Heavy Machinery Company was founded in 1932 with the aim of competing with the Shinsei Development Corporation, she writes, and pauses — because Shinsei wasn’t founded in 1931, it was founded in 1928, and Suletta’s mother is the current CEO —
“No, no,” she hears, “no, it’s not, it’s — mom’s plaque. It’s mom’s plaque. Shinsei, S-H-I-N-S-E-I. Founded 1928, Benerit Group ‘n’ all.”
Apt. Miorine turns back to her tie and scribbles down the notes she can read onto the corner of her paper. She’s gotten pretty good at Benerit shorthand since she started cheating on her tests and her father openly refused to get her tested for ADHD. She thinks of it as a form of spite, really. And look at her now.
Suletta’s hand tilts towards her, and out of the corner of her eye, Miorine catches a glimpse of the scribbles on her palm. She thinks she recognises the same Benerit shorthand, admittedly in much more unreadable handwriting — the words and and the and CEO, something that could possibly be drastic action — and then she feels the teacher’s eyes settle on her and has to look away again.
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