While the room is quite nice for a treasonous band of murderers living on the fringes of civilization and I am oh so outwardly grateful to the Successor for the accommodations, compared to my hive on Continent 14, it's a bit shit.
Mercy sets down her bag and collapses onto the loungeplank. "Well. That certainly could have gone better."
"Indeed." Sparrow likewise slides his white leather duffle under a recuperacoon, the cylindrical form fitting perfectly into its storage compartment as though it was made specifically for imperial stows. I wonder briefly who inhabited these quarters before us.
There are three recuperacoons, sectioned walls to give the illusion of privacy, and a single ablution block, all with the rustic charm of a spaceship barely holding together. I've never had to share a hive with anyone before, but Sparrow and Mercy are my crew: if I can survive living with anyone, it's them. For now, I am happy for their company, the ring of their familiar chatter a comfort when I look at a half-free screws and try not to think about the structure under my feet falling apart at the seems.
At least we're not expected to share with O'Deorain. That would be a quadrant tic-tac-toe no one would benefit from.
"I'm going to secure the perimeter," I tell them.
By now they've shuffled together onto the loungeplank, Mercy with one of her books pulled on her reader and Sparrow with his head on her shoulder. She looks up, not dislodging her morail. "By that you mean you are going to poke around the ship?"
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. "Guilty as charged." She grins back, and I circle around the backrest to plant a parting kiss on her upturned face.
"Be careful of the Inner Circle," Sparrow says as I depart. "There is no doubt there will be some sort of retaliation."
I sigh. "Less than hour aboard, and already there's a clusterfilial. Why am I not surprised."
"I hate space," Sparrow and Mercy say in unison.
They return to their book, some vacillation-based romance of hers no doubt, practically piled with the blankets stuffed around them. That's, of course, when it bites at me again. An increasingly familiar spike of jealousy rushes out of nowhere, and the smile I'd meant to throw them wavers. These new, stupid, selfish thoughts begin to plague me, and I slip out the door before I can start to stare.
Why am I getting like this? I have a perfectly stable matespritship, and now I've gone and ruined it be developing…other…feelings. The walk is meant to clear my head, but instead of getting a lay of my new position in enemy territory, my mind keeps wandering, catching on them when they've done little shooshes in the long journey to this distant nebula. Usually those things are kept behind closed doors, but my close proximity in the past few wipes has made me privy to things I'd much rather ignore.
I don't want to give up on being matesprits with Mercy. I love what I have, being able to wrap an arm around her waist or plant a kiss on her neck. And even if I did decide I wanted to flip, how would she see that? Certainly she wouldn't end things with Sparrow, they're wrapped in each other's pity more than a sleeksqeaker trapped in a net.
No, I know exactly how she'd see that. She'd think I was being greedy, and she'd be right. I pick at my gloves and again reaffirm the only thing I can do is shove these newly developed pale aspirations back into the dark corner of my being where they obviously originated from. So busy and successful am I at doing this, that I nearly trip over the pitched couple rolling around on the floor.
"Shit!" I jump back.
Unfortunately, they're not even engaged in the interesting sort of caliginous entanglement, but instead are trying to beat the shit out of each other. Or at least, the violet is trying to beat the shit out of the teal, her hands wrapped tightly around their chug column as they kick out uselessly at her stomach.
"I told you I was coming for you, Seventeen."
"I thought you were kidding!"
I have just enough wherewithal to recognize these two from the incident in the throne room, when another figure I desperately don't want to meet alone in a dark ship alleyway comes barreling around the corner.
I've never seen one this close. In fact, until today I'd never seen a fuchsia at all, save for artists' renditions or on public broadcasts. Not only is she a rarity, but if I was asked if I was to ever see a fuchsia in my normal lifespan, I certainly wouldn't expect an heiress. There hadn't even been an heiress on Alternia when I was growing up, and I'd only seen pictures of the one who'd hatched after I'd left.
But the troll in front of me is not digitized or represented in a very awkward East Alternian Animation; she is here in the flesh and then some. She is raw power, muscle upon muscle, clearly beating me in width as well as height. Her hair is nothing like the billowing mass of the Empress's, and instead of adorned bangles, she has a tattoo carved in one arm. All this I had only caught glimpses of before, no matter how openly I had stared.
She looms over the scuffling pair. "What is going on here? You kno, I have just realized I do not care."
With that, she reaches down and extracts Widowmaker from the tangle of limbs. The seadweller hisses, but does not attempt escape as she is encased in a truly massive arm, reaffirming my assumption that this is all some sort of pitched exercise. Does that make the Aspirant their auspistice? Now that's something that would make some truly bohemian literature if it were ever allow into publishing circles.
None of them seem to notice or care that I am there. Exhibitionism? Perhaps but-
"Lynx Seventeen is fucking Sombra!" Widowmaker shouts.
Okay! Wasn't expecting that! Exhibition or no, this is getting way too interesting to dip out now.
Zarya's grip loosens somewhat. "What?" She then turns to her Strategos. "Really?"
They stagger to their feet, massaging where aqua bruises are already forming on their swallow pillar. "Yes," they cough indignantly. "And I see no reason why anyone would need to strangulate me for it."
Widowmaker snarls, "I told you-"
"We all threaten to kill each other, Amélie!" Strategos, or Lynx apparently, throws their hands in the air. "All the time! It's a cute little banter we do, skirting the customs of what is acceptable ashen facsimile."
Zarya is still dumbstruck. She blinks at Lynx. "Sombra? Really?"
They massage their nub link. "Yes Zarya. Sombra."
She thinks again for a moment, then reiterates, "Sombra?"
"Zarya."
"Right, right, sorry." She scratches the back of her head with her free hand, apparently only needing one to hold the furious violet. "Flushed then?"
"No, pitched," Lynx says drily. "My adulterous ways have finally been revealed."
Wait what? I'd broken out the metaphorical popcorn because I thought I was going to see some juicy double reacharound drama, but the teal and the fuchsia are kismesises? And a moment ago I swore Lynx refer to themself and Widowmaker as ashen, but at the time I'd assume that was exaggeration for comedic effect.
The pure illogic of the situation makes me garble a very audible, "huh?"
Three sets of lookstalks turn to me. The Aspirant raises her eyebrow in my direction. "Pharah, yes? My apologies for my associates, I am aware we have not made a very good first impression today. We are usually not so quarrelsome." Widow scoffs under her breath. Zarya ignores her. "It appears we are dealing with some interpersonal issues. Very, very strange interpersonal issues."
Lynx puts a hand on their hip. "Why is this hook so hard for you to swallow?"
Zarya shrugs. "I am used to you having standards."
"May I remind you," Widow cuts in with a growl. "That that is my clover you am referring to."
"She is not!" The bellow from the formally composed Lynx makes me jump. "You three are not dating, she is not in an auspisticism with you, and that is the whole damn problem. If you had sorted this out sweeps ago we wouldn't be in this fucking mess, but instead you've dragged your childhood drama out for so long you've convinced yourself it can't be solved!"
Widowmaker's cheeks are a bright lilac, hot with rage. "I tried-" Her whine is cut off again.
"Sufferer's bruised balls Lcroix I am tired of repeating myself." They storm over, getting right in her face, which I think is a monumentally bad idea when she's only partially secured by the enthralled Aspirant. "Deal with your shit, and stop taking it out on the rest of us. I want you to march over to them, get them in the same room, and talk things out. Do I make myself clear?"
She breaths out hot through her nose, bottom lip curling up in indignation. Zarya looks between the two of them. Finally, Widowmaker lets out a "fine."
Zarya lets her go. She doesn't attack, merely straightens her spine and wipes non-existent dust off her purrbeastsuit before marching past me without a glance.
She reaches the end of the hallway, where she turns on her heel, getting her last word with, "Lynx Seventeen you willstay away from Sombra-"
"Widowmaker!" Lynx's voice is nearly a shriek. "Go! Figure out! Your triad!"
Widowmaker's cheeks puff up. Then she spins again, disappearing around the corner.
As soon as she's gone, Lynx leans over their knees. "Empress alive. This has been going on for way too long."
"I see you've gotten a bit closer than usual to the disaster omniscuttlecaravan," Zarya notes unsympathetically.
"…I may have gone a little deep in the pudding, so to speak," they admit.
After a moment, she asks, "do you really like Sombra?"
"Good in the sack."
"You are an embarrassment," she says, and there, that is something I can recognize. Just some good, old-fashioned, potent arch-rivalry. It's like a lifebuoy thrown in a hurricane.
The sense of normalcy gives me the confidence to find my voice. "Well," I say a bit loudly, drawing attention to myself yet again. "I must be getting back. It was nice to meet you all. Again." And I make my escape.
From behind me, not entirely sure if I am imagining it, I hear the Aspirant's voice smugly say, "I'm sure it was."
Yeesh. All I want to do is return to my cabin. Suddenly, a pale-flushed flip-flop don't seem that bad.
