Please Hold your Applause

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

The young woman shrugged, playing with her helmet in her lap.

"Usually that's the case," she replied, "But up north, way, far up north, we do things a little differently. We hunt, we forage, we live together as a community. Tech in my village is not exactly rare, but we don't depend on it as much. We give gifts like..."

She pulled out her hunting knife, the one with the black horn handle.

"This. Things made from the heart, not bought from a shop."

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane's smile turned a little bit sad as he looked at the knife Rawnie held in her hands. He pulled one of his guns out of its holster and looked at it, a little bit more fondly than most people would consider normal.​

​

"See, there wasn't a community in the gutters. All my heartfelt gifts are guns... from myself. The ship was an acknowledgement of the fact that I wasn't a waste of money. That is how my adopted family was."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

"It... is a beautiful ship," Rawnie said once more, this time trying to cheer up the sad looking chiss, "I think they meant well by it."

Her fingers ran along the blade her Mother had made her. She'd watched her do it. Carve the horn herself, forge the blade. Mom was good at making weapons. Simple weapons though, not anything too fancy. The blade was strong though. It did it's job and Rawnie adored it. Took it everywhere.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane's smile crawled back up onto his face as he looked at Rawnie again.​

​

"Oh, they did... That's not what bothers me. What grinds my gears is that my dad insisted on getting into a duel he couldn't win, and then went through with it, no matter how much I told him it was bad for our House. Right after I left, he and his opponent killed each other during the same fight, and the damn place collapsed."​

​

His face twisted into a somewhat sarcastic fake smile.​

​

"That is what I could use cheering up about."​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Rawnie was silent for a while after his story. Fathers... did stupid things. She knew.

"I... understand," she said quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest, looking down at the helmet she kept cradled in her hands, "You know. My father disappeared one day and it all just... fell away. Mom used to come home and read to us, tell us stories by the fire, she taught me how to use a blade. Now when she comes home, we're lucky if she's sober..."

Not that Rawnie much blamed her Mother. Rawnie had been young at the time. only eleven. Sometimes, she had trouble remembering what her Father even looked like. She imagined that of she could just keep his imagine in her mind, she could feel the same pain Mother and Corrin seemed to feel. But she just couldn't. She didn't miss him exactly. She resented him.
Hated him.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane sighed and gave Rawnie the closest thing he could have to a sympathetic expression. And then had a rather un-sympathetic thought...​

​

"Would it be mean if I asked whether you not drinking yourself into oblivion like Zandra is because of distaste or lack of ability to keep alcohol down?"​

​

Wow, did he feel like a jackass when he asked. He looked at the ceiling and silently prayed that whatever deity he didn't believe in wasn't watching and groaning at him.​

​

"Sorry... I'm trying not to be stupid, but that was a question I had. I'm not much better, by the way. Only a little less alcoholic than she is."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Her cheeks went bright red. Blushing made Rawnie a little irritated. She hated when her cheeks went pink. She was so pale, any bit of red in her face was like a bright red beacon. And further more, why was he asking this? It was none of his business how much she could drink! Unless he was wondering how easy she'd be to get drunk. It was why she drank so infrequently. The boys from the outside villages thought that if they got her drunk enough, she might...
Well.

"Why do you ask? Wondering how many it'll take before I'll go to bed with you?"

If he could make her blush, she'd just have to return the favor.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane turned red for all sorts of reasons. The thought of sleeping with Rawnie wasn't horrible, but the indignation he felt at the assumption that he was trying to get a girl into bed with him whenever he talked about drinking outweighed anything else. He leaned on the copilot's chair, a little bit more aggressively than he'd meant to.​

​

"Dammit. As soon as I bring up alcohol, everybody assumes I'm trying to get into a girl's pants. I'm an alcoholic, for frak's sake. It. Means. I. Drink. And I hate drinking by myself. That means I'm going to ask people to drink with me. Mostly random people because I'm a sick, lonely, bastard."​

​

Lorane began walking towards the door out of the cockpit.​

​

"I'm gonna go crawl into a corner now."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

"Wait."

Rawnies hand shot out like lightning to grab his, to stop him. For once, she felt a little guilty for embarrassing him.

"Sorry. Look. I'll drink with you. Just... don't take advantage, alright?"

It happened too often. She didn't like to think about it. Truth was, she had a scary low tolerance. And people did take advantage of that. Was she willing to put herself out there for someone she just met? Well... he couldn't be worse than anyone else. And frankly, she was getting sick of playing safe.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane smiled weakly at the blonde girl when she grabbed his hand. Then his expression turned a bit more serious.​

​

"Deal, Icy. My end of this one is that you don't bring up anything I say tonight unless I do first, okay? Things come out that I don't want to talk about."​

​

He gently pulled Rawnie out of the chair, picking up her helmet as he led her to the gravity-change back to the rest of the ship.​

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"And... um... If you start feeling uncomfortable, tell me. Please? Or at least warn me so I can duck."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Hand in hand. Dear Stars above, this felt weird. She didn't like to touch... anybody, really. But for some reason, it was okay now. It confused her. It had been long enough that her drink had worn off, but she still felt... a little tipsy?

"Deal."

Yeah. She would have no problem with that. If he didn't want to talk about something, why would she think it was her business? It wasn't. She wasn't his sister, his girlfriend, or his mother. She was a friend... a very new friend.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

"Thanks."​

​

Lorane smiled as he put Rawnie's helmet on the table next to the couch and reached into the fridge for a bottle of Gargle Blaster. He was about to grab another, and then remembered her reaction to the acid earlier. No matter whether his new friend was going to let him drunkenly mope at her, he wasn't going to force his booze on her.​

​

"Umm... Do you want something that's not the green stuff?"​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

She went to the couch, eyes on her helmet. She'd even let him pick up her helmet. That was strange too. Usually she was really defensive about it. It had belonged to her uncle, after all. It was special. She looked up and gave a stiff shake of her head.

"That's fine. I think I can get used to it."

Free booze. She wasn't going to complain about what it was.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane laughed as he handed Rawnie another bottle.​

​

"As long as you don't sneeze it on me like earlier... That was funny, but not funny enough for me to want to watch your nose get set on fire." ​

​

He wouldn't have admitted it, but even with the few minutes of stupidly introspective thoughts he'd had before, the Chiss was having more fun than he'd had in a while.​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

She opened the bottle, giving the chiss an icy look... one which quickly melted into a sunny smile. She hated when her brother teased her, but this chiss was alright. He kept things light most of the time.

"Yeah, yeah. Drink your booze and shut it already."

Her tone was light, not a single hint anger or annoyance. She took a careful sip, once more caught by surprise at the taste.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane grinned back and cracked the cap off his bottle.​

​

"Well, then... cheers, Ice Girl."​

​

He took a long sip of the green acid and sighed happily as he leaned back into the couch cushions.​

​

"That's better..."​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Ice girl. She was almost sick of that nickname. Almost.

"You know, if you have to give me an obnoxious nickname, could it be something a little less stupid?"

Less stupid than...? What? The nickname that she'd also had at home? Snow Angel? Mom called her that first. She guessed Ice girl was better than that at least. She took another sip, then another, slowly getting used to the taste.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane snorted at Rawnie.​

​

"What, am I supposed to switch to something stupid and cliche? I could call you Blondie, or Sweetheart, or whatever, but I hate people who do that. It even bothers me when people only refer to me as Doc."​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

The blonde considered that for a moment. She'd been calling him 'Doc'. Was he irritated by her now too? Probably. She really should have found out his preferred name when they started being friendly.

"Sorry, Lorane," she shrugged, using his full name intentionally, "Call me whatever you want then. It's better than what they call me at home, anyway."

She took another swig, quickly realizing her bottle was only about half full now. She really had to slow it down. It was not uncommon for her to start feeling tipsy after only one drink.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane smiled into his bottle of Gargle Blaster.​

​

"If you've gotta give me a nickname, it's gotta either just be 'Lor' or something related to the fact that most of my time is spent building things to make other people go 'boom'."​

​

He took a quick look at Rawnie and saw how woozy she already looked.​

​

"Y'know, you don't actually need to drink. Just having somebody around while I Gargle Blast myself to sleep is a huge improvement."​

​

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​