Elizabeth Guest asked a lot of big questions, made a lot of big suggestions and while I appreciate the earnest, I cannot bare to work on any of the Ben 10 series other than Original and maybe a little Alien Force. I have done my best to answer some of her questions here, anyway. Also, I added in another odd pairing, the entire purpose of these drabbles and shots.
-:-
"We don't have to go to extremes. We don't want to frighten people. We want to have them on our side. Our top problem is, will they... will they accept it at all?"
-Atlas Shrugged.
Agonies-:-
There are some days, on the ship captained and controlled entirely by the will of Vilgax, when the quiet familiarity between the warlord and Gwen is shattered and it can't be gotten back for a few days when she finally stops looking at him as if he had betrayed her in some way, as well as after he removes her from one of the locked rooms in the back of the ship where nobody could get to her. These days are when (and she knows this is the truth, regardless of the fact that Vilgax has never given her a yes or no answer; his eyes focused on battle plans or on the food that was made by some of the other staff as she often refused to make anything after being locked behind a door for hours on end) Ben and Grandpa tried to take her back to Earth. Back to bumpy movement of the Rust Bucket, to the cramped bottom of the bunk bed shared between her and Ben, back to when she would often be used as a human shield or bargaining chip for anyone stupid enough to think Ben wouldn't figure out a way to get her out of a bad situation unharmed.
The room she is placed in (when the ship starts to rattle in a way that is very bad and when the other aliens start yelling out up-dates to Vilgax every five seconds about enemy fire) is all green glowing light from protective liquid moving through the walls like mutated water, and warm cushions that are big enough to make a bed for Vilgax when and if he ever sleeps. Lying down in the middle of one of these cushions like a ladybug in the middle of a giant yellow peony does not ever relieve her agony of spirit and the tears the inevitably come when the noise and rocking stops and she is still there.
"Why can't you understand that Ben has the Omnitrix and he's not going to give it up for something as stupid as a war that's not going to help anyone? Is it so horrible to think that you could be wrong about gaining ultimate powers for such petty reasons? …Will you ever let me go?"
She wants to ask these questions every single time Vilgax comes back to get her within the next twelve hours. Sometimes there are injuries to his person and sometimes there is this smug air circling him right up until he pats and nudges her awake and then he just goes blank because of the look she gives him that surely shrivels up whatever he was going to say (had planned to say; practiced perfectly to explain himself) to her.
Vilgax will never explain himself to someone (a little girl, no matter how brilliant) like her. She will have to accept this, eventually.
Spines and Tuberoses-:-Albedo/Charmcaster-:-
She can cook, he can't cook. He eats enough for both of them, and though he's loathe to admit it (ever), he worries over the fact he only sees her eat at breakfast and maybe a little at dinner.
Albedo can tell she's not anorexic, otherwise her facial bones would be more pronounced and Charmcaster's ability to walk like a normal person would be hindered with the swagger of one of those fashion models he'd found himself absently watching in the little television of their abode whenever the clock struck eight in the evening and a woman named Victoria was mentioned.
It wasn't until one night, when he was greeted by a bout of insomnia his current body seemed to come equipped with after eating something even remotely as healthy as a salad with a cup of strawberry pink yogurt, that he found that she did have three meals a day…just not at a normal time.
A yellow, dim light hung above their kitchen (small and round and hanging by a shoestring chord with three beads that had ruins carved into them—for luck, she'd said when he'd asked—looped around the middle of the chord like earrings) and cast a long reaching shadow from her body as she used a thin, silver knife to cut out the backbone of a small black flounder fish and then chucked the bones into the sink where they sat in a little cluster of gummy pink scale and some sort of blood liquid that meandered into the drain of the garbage disposal. Hair like hers, which she often let stay out of any sort of binding during the day (in living quarters, in battle, in conference with anyone they might consider an ally), didn't seem right when it was placed in a high ponytail, but Albedo almost found himself reaching out to touch it—right up until his pointer finger grazed one silver hair and his mind screamed, 'What in Hell are you doing?!' At which point he pulled back and made his presence known (waiting until she placed the knife down, of course; he didn't want to be…shanked? That was the word, he was pretty sure) by clearing his throat and sitting on the counter behind her; his legs almost touching the ground even when lifted into a comfortable position.
She turned around and the look on her face read as if she had been caught disposing of a body or watching some inappropriate video Albedo had once questioned her about (the kind with two or more humans in the act of mating) after he'd gone to the video store when they were out of plans and brought back what he thought would be something to get them in gear for more brain activity (ah, and what on auspicious occasion that had been; he actually found out what a chick flick constituted as when he'd slipped the other movie he'd rented, Mona Lisa Smile—he'd thought it had been an explanation by the Discovery Channel, there were no pictures on the case—into the DVD player, and became stuck in what he thought Hell might be while Charmcaster snuggled into his side and shushed him each time he interrupted to critique the plot). It was actually almost charming when he noticed that the plate next to her held fish she'd already cooked, as well as some flowers she often used with spell casting that were drenched in vinegar and ranch.
"Well, at least now I don't have to observe whether or not you're going to pass out on the field," he mused, smirking wide when she tried to wipe the traces of fish slime from her hands on the fluffy white apron she donned around her waist.