For convenience, I'm going to use my current avatar's name, Fiora. This is NOT the same Fiora from the original Xenoblade Chronicles in this story.
This is inspired by Elma's Heart to Heart titled Petting Zoo. It had a hilarious option for a choice that made me want to turn it into a oneshot. Unfortunately, Elma gives off the vibe in game of complete annoyance and passive aggressive anger. Here, not so much. In game Elma is killing my shipping dreams! XD
Petting Zoo
Night descended over NLA, and Fiora found herself wandering the Residential District. She really should be in bed, resting for whatever missions Elma had in store for the next day. But sometimes her mind just felt to preoccupied to rest.
Amnesia was annoying.
Fiora's walk took her to the water plant, where she began to traverse around it.
To her surprise, she saw Elma crouching down by a small gap in the wall. Fiora's mim eyes could see far better in the dark, and let her discern that it was a cat Elma was petting.
Fiora stood where she was, watching the woman in red. In all her time with BLADE, she'd never seen the white haired woman relax.
It was humanizing and enticing at the same time.
Despite Lin's urging when they were alone together, Fiora never had the courage to admit her feelings for the colonel.
"I can kill gigantic unicorns with wings, aliens trying to wipe out my race, and dinosaurs that look like they could step on me without notice," Fiora muttered to herself. "But I can't manage to tell a woman that I like her?"
Fiora kicked the wall angrily, "Ugh, such a coward."
A craven woman she may have been, but it did not stop her from walking up to Elma and engaging her leader in conversation.
"Oh, Fiora," Elma said with surprise. "Fancy seeing you here."
"What're you doing at this time of night?" Fiora asked, crouching down like Elma was.
Allowing the smallest of grins, the colonel replied, "I could ask you the same thing. But I just saw this cat, and I had to give it some attention."
"I didn't know you were a cat person," the brown haired woman remarked.
Elma laughed, "Does it surprise you? I had a cat back on Earth. When I had a day off, it would lay in my lap as I'd read a book." She gave the cat another scratch behind its ears. "Do you remember ever having a pet at all?" Elma asked, turning to look at Fiora.
She thought about the question, and replied, "I think so. Maybe. It's still unclear, but the idea of it sounds familiar."
Elma smiled, one of the few times Fiora had ever seen her do that. The Reclaimer spoke, "If you don't mind a personal question, what would be your ideal pet?"
Several responses shot through her mind. One was obvious, the cat. That was sure to get her into Elma's good books, right?
But what if she was a dog kind of girl? Lying didn't feel right, not to Elma. Though being crippled with amnesia made it rather difficult to distinguish lies from truth.
Or maybe she could say…no, she couldn't say that. But…maybe the time to do it would be now?
"I'm more of an Elma person, actually," Fiora said, unable to keep the light smirk off her face. Hopefully her risky words would pay off.
Elma fixed her with a look that either was contempt or sheer puzzlement.
"That's…interesting," Elma said, her former humor gone. "You know I'm not a pet, right? Why would you even say that?"
Before Fiora could reply, Elma stood up and continued, "Perhaps this is a symptom of your memory from the crash. I'll go make you an appointment with the Mim Maintenance Center for a diagnosis."
And with that, Elma departed to do just that.
Fiora sighed and sat down next to the cat. It crawled into her lap, begging to be pet.
"Guess my luck will never change," she sighed, petting the cat for the rest of the night.