“You know, I’m beginning to think they’re not taking us seriously.”
Dolce’s ears flicked; they ached terribly under the lamentations of a god, but he didn’t dare stop them up. Nor did he take his eyes off his teapot. Listening and watching. Both were too important. Forty-eight seconds until properly steeped.
“They go through all the trouble of bringing a fleet of a thousand thousands, and they send one ship to apprehend us. One!” Vasilia’s boots marched a slow, sulking track across the bridge behind him. “It’s not even the biggest. There’s a dozen at least that dwarf it. Like their flagship over there, too busy twiddling its thumbs to lift a finger to help.”
“It must have been very difficult to move so many ships here at once,” he observed. Thirty-four seconds until properly steeped. Receiving saucer for infuser: Ready.
“Precisely! A quarter of this would have sufficed to hopelessly crush us. Send a gang of them in for the kill, have the rest running a tight patrol screen. Nowhere to run, overwhelming odds, end of story. Look at them! A scant few circling the perimeter - and doing a terrible injustice to the concept of circles in the process - while this one, measly ship comes to do battle with us. It’s like they’re not even trying.”
Dolce did not look at the ships. Looking at them was not conducive to making a cup of tea, so he did not look at them. “Perhaps they’ve decided they don’t need to try.” Fifteen seconds until properly steeped. Ingredients: Ready. Teaspoon...
“Perhaps they have. Perhaps they’ve decided chains aren’t good enough, they have to spit on us on our way down too.” She slid into her captain’s chair with a miserable sigh. “Enough effort to bring a gaudy show of force, too little care to wield it properly. We ought to track one of them down and lodge a complaint.”
Teaspoon?
Eight seconds.
Dolce rooted around his personal kitchenette, not daring to breathe until he had the silverware drawer open and eyes on the small legion of spoons he knew were there. How strange! How very strange. To forget such a critical tool, whyever would he do that?
Out came the infuser, onto a waiting saucer. Slowly, slowly, he poured the tea, filling the cup with just enough room to spare. Shake, shake, shake, in went the seaweed. In went flecks of scrapped hull. In went shards of shattered window. All stirred together, not spilling a drop.
Done.
Balancing cup, saucer, and teapot on a tray, he waited by his Lady’s side. Watched her stare, unflinching, into the Grand Armada, and the corpse of the nightmare they’d slain. No fear on her brilliant face.
How did she do it? It just didn’t make any sense. The skies were full of foes, the odds were impossible, he could still feel the clap of thunder that’d rang through the ship, and here she sat. The fearless Captain. His Captain. Finding the way that no one else could see, and walking it with the composure of a Queen. Unconsciously, he stepped closer. Her hand found itself in his wool, and gently stroked his heart calm.
He wished - oh, how he dearly wished! - that he had more than a cup of tea to offer.
“We are not the ones with the strongest complaint this time,” he added quietly, glancing to their guest.
“No. No I doubt that we are.” She turned in her chair to the mourning god. “Earth Shaker, Outer Dark, Space Between, hear our prayer: Turn your storms upon our foes. Drive back their boarding parties, make slow their pursuit. And we shall break the remains of the Lupincas that disgraces your child’s end. No more shall it be a trophy to the Armada’s triumph, but a reminder of their own folly.”
Without a word or gesture of order, Dolce stepped forward, and offered up his humble tea set.
“And tea, brewed to your liking, for it is a terrible thing to mourn thirsty,” he added.
[Rolling to Talk Sense, with Sense, with Hope: 6 + 6 + 1 = 13]
wintersoldier
RevekaRed
Lildear18
Balmas
LittleMouse