A/N: So, I'm back. This is a kind of spin off of the TLC Shipweek's "Tea Party" theme, since it doesn't really focus much on a specific relationship.
Hope you guys enjoy!
"So...why are we here again?"
Scarlet glared at Thorne from where he sat on the other side of the conference table, legs crossed, ankles propped up, one arm draped across Cress' shoulders.
She had thought it might be a good idea to gather the entire Rampion crew together to discuss wedding plans for Kai and Cinder (minus the two royals, of course), but she could already tell by the atmosphere in the room that it was going to be a disaster before it even began. `
Winter was spinning delightedly in her padded rolling chair, seemingly oblivious as she enjoyed New Beijing's "famed" technology (although Scarlet refused to believe that this was the first time Winter had ever sat in a spinny-chair).
Jacin sat stone still in the seat beside her, arms crossed in front of his chest and a bored, I-could-care-less expression plastered to his features.
Wolf seemed restless, nervously tapping his fingers on his kneecap and fiddling with the dark suit Scarlet had forced him into that morning (she had claimed that the conference was an "important" occasion, and one worthy of a little primping).
And, as she'd already noted, Cress and Thorne were being of no help just sitting there and staring blankly at her.
Scarlet resisted the urge to string her hands through her hair and start screaming curses. Are these really the same people who showed such competence when they planned my wedding?
However, before she could open her mouth to start vocalizing her frustration, Iko came bursting through the doors, a fancy imperial tea tray balanced between her arms. She set it carefully down in the center of the table, and beamed.
"Guys, I brought tea!"
Tea. Fantastic. That was all Scarlet needed at that moment.
Sadly, nobody else seemed to share Scarlet's train of thought.
"Thank you, Iko!" Cress picked up a teacup from the tray Iko had placed on the table, and gingerly gripped the it's handle, sniffing at the aromatic steam wafting from its lip. "What flavor is it?"
But before could even bring the teacup to her lips, Thorne dropped his arm from around her and plucked it out of her hand and lifted it to his own nose, eyes squinted in...concentration? Cress gave a little squeak of indignation, but Thorne ignored her as he carefully examined the cup from all angles.
"It seems to me that this tea is of the chrysanthemum variety," he said almost scrupulously, "with perhaps an infusion of sugar added for flavor enhancement?"
Everyone stared at him, including Scarlet, who wondered when Thorne had suddenly decided to start researching his Commonwealth tea flavors.
"Actually, Captain, this is just jasmine tea in water..." Iko's voice came across as unnaturally small.
A heartbeat.
And then Jacin gave a snort, and Winter giggled from beside him. Even Wolf let out a bark of laughter. Scarlet groaned.
For once I'd thought Thorne had actually known what he was talking about...
She shook her head. Back to business.
"Guys, enough with the tea already! We have an actual, non-politically-enforced royal wedding to plan. For our best friends. Who will probably be needing this conference room that I have worked so hard to secure for us any minute now. So can we PLEASE start discussing wedding plans?"
Thorne rolled his eyes, and Scarlet was about to actually step forward and start strangling him for his lack of manners, until he raised his hand obediently.
"Yes, Thorne?"
"I propose that we have a wedding theme. Like, something to tie together the whole affair, or whatever."
Scarlet blinked. It was actually a decent idea, now that she thought about it. She gave a brisk nod.
"Alright, that sounds...good. Did you have any ideas as to what the theme should be?"
A smirk spread across Thorne's features, but before he could open his mouth to reply, Cress cut him off.
"No, no he does not. He has absolutely no ideas whatsoever. Let's move on!" She looked around nervously, and released an awkward giggle. Scarlet decided that she didn't want to know what Thorne's idea had been.
"Umm...anyone else?"
"Oooohhh, I know!" Winter jumped up excitedly, her flouncy pink skirt bouncing with her, and pulled out a folder that Scarlet hadn't even known she had. "The theme should be: ta da! Kai and Cinder!"
Everyone sweatdropped, until, from inside her folder, the princess-turned-ambassador slid out several images, all of them depicting Kai and Cinder in some various situation or another. There was one of the two of them standing at the palace gates on the eve of the Peace Festival directly after the Lunar revolution, one of Kai stringing his hands manically through his hair, one of Cinder with her head inside of some mechanical contraption or another.
And then there were the interesting ones. Kai and Cinder sleeping with their heads piled together on some couch in the palace, Kai and Cinder holding hands during a walk in the gardens, Kai and Cinder kissing in what Scarlet could only assume was the foyer of the Rampion.
Thorne whistled with appreciation, and a flush spread across Cress' freckled cheeks. Wolf turned away with embarrassment, and Jacin buried his face in his hands. Iko squealed with appreciation, and started rifling through the photos, probably making internal copies of the most blackmail-worthy ones.
Scarlet stared at Winter. "Have you been sniping at them since we got here?"
"Well, no... Some of these pictures I pulled from the net-"
"And since when did you know how to use a camera?!" Scarlet turned on Jacin, who gazed coolly back at her. "Did you teach her?"
Jacin shook his head and gave her a deadpan look. "Her portscreen comes with one, Firework."
Scarlet blinked at him. Oh.
It was Thorne's turn to snicker, and Scarlet rounded on him. "Hey, don't tell me the first that came to mind when you saw these pictures was a portscreen, O Mr. Sugar Enhances the Flavor of a Tea!"
Cress burst into giggles, and Thorne glared at her.
"W-What?" She asked him, clutching her stomach with laughter. "It's...f-funny!"
Thorne rolled his eyes and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "May you never change, my socially awkward Cress. May you never change."
"It's okay, Scarlet-friend." Scarlet turned her withering stare onto Winter, who remained completely unfazed. "They are just pictures, and I thought it would be a good idea to hang them above the altar during the wedding ceremony."
Iko started cackling out loud. Scarlet almost popped a vein. THESE PICTURES?! Above the ALTAR?! Winter needed a serious lesson in what was "wedding appropriate" and what was "a blatant breaching of privacy that Cinder and Kai would most definitely not want publicized to the entire world".
Scarlet realized that her face probably spelled out "Pure Rage" as of that moment, and took a few breaths to calm herself down.
Kai and Cinder, she thought. This is for them. Do not let your anger and the idiocy of your friends ruin the making of their happy wedding memories.
"Winter," she began slowly, "don't you think Kai and Cinder would appreciate something a little less, ah...intimate-"
"I think it's perfect!" Thorne's sudden announcement was backed up by a devious grin, and Scarlet fought the urge to slap him.
"THORNE! Don't encourage her! This wedding is being broadcasted to the ENTIRE WORLD. I don't think Kai and Cinder would appreciate having a picture of them kissing shown to the EVERYONE IN THE GALAXY!"
She turned to Wolf, who was currently the only person who had not spoken during the entire meeting so far. "Wolf, you agree with my perspective, don't you?"
Wolf shrugged. "Frankly, I don't really see what difference it makes," he growled. "They're going to kiss anyways when the vows are over with, so..."
Scarlet stare at him in utter betrayal. "That's it. I'm done." She sat down with a thud in one of the spinny chairs at the end of the conference table, and lifted a cup of sugarless jasmine tea to her mouth. She downed the entire cup in one gulp.
Everyone else was staring at her, and she glared at all of them. "What? If you guys are going to act like idiots and not take matters seriously, then by all means, go ahead! Just know that I want nothing to do with it!"
They stared for a second longer, before Jacin shrugged. "Alright. Winter, do you want to share the rest of your plan?"
Scarlet looked at Winter. There was more to her crazy idea?
She braced herself for what was sure to be the most disastrous wedding plan she would ever hear in her entire life.
"Well, in addition to the pictures, I thought we could decorate the room with a timeline of their relationship. We could start in one of the corners, with a memoir from their first meeting or something, and then thread it all the way around to the other far corner. This way people might be able to better understand why the love they share is so special, and that they've been through a lot to get where they are today. And then-"
"Alright, alright, that sounds like a brilliant plan, Winter. We'll do the timeline, blah de blah, but Cress and I also had some ideas." Thorne cut in with a wave of his hand, and then nodded to Cress. She then put her portscreen, which had previously been resting on her lap, onto the table.
"So, we were thinking that maybe for their honeymoon we could take them on a intergalactic trip through all of the places we traveled to during the Lunar revolution, and-"
"No, not that one, Cress!" Thorne gave an exasperated sigh. "My other, more brilliant idea!"
Cress fervently shook her head. "N-no...I really don't think that's such a good-"
Thorne reached out a hand, and she reluctantly handed him the portscreen before burying her face into her hands. A twinge of interest sparked inside Scarlet. This was either going to be the best idea of the evening...or the most ridiculous notion anyone in that room had ever heard.
"Okay, so we all know that Cinder and Kai's relationship, or "Kaider" as we'll call it, began with Cinder playing hard-to-get, Kai falling in love with the first real girl he ever met, and a lot of mutual distrust and confusion, right?"
Scarlet blinked at him in utter amazement. She did NOT want to know where this was going. Jacin, Winter, and Wolf seemed to be sharing her thoughts, if the looks they were sharing was any indication. Cress had still not left the safety of her palms.
But Iko was staring at Thorne like he was a love guru of some sort. "Captain, that is exactly what I think! Isn't it sooooooo romantic?" She gave a dreamy sigh and leaned back in her chair, as if her wires had suddenly went on overdrive.
Scarlet wondered if Iko needed a software update.
But her train of thought was interrupted when Thorne climbed up onto the conference table, rattling the teacups, and raised his portscreen in the air.
"Men and women gathered here today, whether you be Earthen or Lunar-"
"Or android!" Piped Iko.
"-or android," Thorne amended, "I am now proposing the most ingenious idea of the century! The most stupendous, magnificent, greater-than-the-entire-city-of-Artimesia-great-"
"Get on with it, Thorne." Jacin grumbled.
"Well then, Mr. Grumpypants," Thorne glared at Jacin, but then continued. "As I was saying, I have a brilliant idea." He pulled his portscreen to his nose, consulting it for a moment before continuing. "I say that, in honor of Cinder and Kai's adventurous love story, we hire a troupe of actor look-alikes to act out a play of the Lunar revolution, and specifically Cinder and Kai's romance, as entertainment before the wed-"
"NO!" Scarlet, Cress, Iko, and Jacin all cried out immediately. Even Winter was frowning.
"Captain, as enchanting as the idea of live entertainment is, I really do not believe that our friends will appreciate watching actors reenact their experiences during the Lunar revolution."
Scarlet nodded fervently, and turned to Wolf.
Tell him it's a bad idea.
Will he even listen to me?
You're the only one here who even remotely scares him.
You can be pretty scary yourself.
That's not the point! Just pull him off the table or something— c'mon, Kai and Cinder's reputation lies at stake!
Wolf sighed and stood up, easily scooping Thorne off of the conference table unceremoniously dumping him onto the floor.
"Hey!"
Wolf sat back down without a word, and everyone stared at him for a heartbeat before deciding that it was just another normal act of un-normalcy in their lives.
"You know what?" Scarlet reached across the table and started unstacking teacups. "Why don't we all just sit still for a moment and enjoy a nice, relaxing cup of tea? I think we need a break."
Cress let out a sigh of relief and picked up her teacup from where Thorne had left it on the table. She took a tentative sip, and sat back in her chair.
Winter, too, took a cup for herself, and daintily lifted it to her lips.
Jacin accepted the teacup Scarlet handed to him, but made no open move to drink it.
Wolf simply downed his serving in one gulp, and set his cup carefully back onto the table.
Thorne poured tea into the fanciest teacup for himself.
Iko glared at all of them, and quietly cursed android manufacturers for not having already invented technological tastebuds.
Scarlet slowly let the tension ease from her limbs and closed her eyes, trying to block out the chaos of the day with the clean aroma of the tea.
It had been one hell of day.
And then the door opened, and Cinder and Kai walked through with arms full of documents and a coffee cup each.
Great.
Just great.
Their eyes flittered from the teacups in front of everyone's seat to the suspicious looking footprints on the shiny conference table, to the intimate pictures of them laid out for all to see.
Time froze. Nobody moved, and everyone's nervous gazes were centered on all of the incriminating evidence strewn across the room.
It was a nightmare.
It was the funniest thing Scarlet had ever seen.
She burst out laughing. For a few awkward seconds there was only her maniacal cackling filling the air, but soon the entire gang joined in until they were all doubled over in fits of giddiness. Thankfully, Winter managed to pull her photos back into their folder in between giggles.
Cinder and Kai stared at them as if they were all mad (which they might as well have been, for all Scarlet could tell). When the laughter had finally died down just a bit, Cinder took the first plunge.
"Umm...were you guys just having a tea party?"