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eatthepenOriginally written for Cohost as a fanfic of caffeinatedotter's series 'Callsign: Bitchless', set shortly after its fourth installment
Callsign: Morning
The call connects and the blonde woman on the other end is speaking before the fritzy LR booth monitor can resolve her image. "Anna-Maria, what is this ghastly rumour I am hearing from Fabriana de Winter about your conduct at the Admiral's birthday?"
Anna-Maria van der Fabriek's face has been locked under the iron control of her training since before she swiped her pass to log into the long range comm room. By the time she'd stepped into the booth, closing the vacuum-panelled glass around her like a cape, her expression was a sculptor's marble mask. She starts to speak and finds, despite all that, despite two decades of habitus, her cheek wants to twitch with a smirk.
She makes a decision. "I don't know, mother. Aunt Fabbi was spreading gossip?" Her tone is as sweet as the sickening pudding wines from the Fabriek estate.
The Baroness Fabriek's voice, always high, begins its ascent. "'Spreading gossip'? Don't speak so of your betters, Anna-Maria-"
"You just called it a rumour, mother." It's almost too easy, these days. When she only had an aristocrat's playbook at hand, Morning could never have dared this sort of thing, but now she does it for the hell of it. The other pilots are the best kind of bad influence. They give her tools, to say nothing of the practice using them. Her face doesn't even flicker. "Rumours are the stuff of gossip, are they not, mother?"
"She told me you used a most unladylike word. In front of the General, no less!" The transmission resolution isn't great and the screen is old, squeezing the colourspace, but it looks like there's already a hint of pink in the Baroness' face.
Morning has known this call would be coming since her faux pas at the ball. It's been swinging towards her with the inevitability of planets, only briefly delayed by the mission to McLuhan's world. She's spent far more of her planned sleeping hours thinking about what to say than is healthy or wise. It's the callsign of the other pilot in the conversation, mother, or I apologised immediately, and the General assured me he was not offended, or just a desperate please give me a moment to explain.
Instead, blood fizzing, she says, "What word was that, mother? I spoke to the General at some length that evening, if I remember correctly." Exactly what a good baronet at a reception for the upper ranks should do.
"You know exactly what word I mean, young lady."
It's getting harder to hold the mask. Is this how Sierpinski feels, those rare moments where the cold spectre that haunts her relaxes its grip and she cracks one of those dreadful puns? Anna-Maria takes a breath, hoping that the camera in the booth is as bad as the screen and won't betray her to the Baroness. Does she dare let mother think she might have said more than one inappropriate word? "I've had rather a busy and confounding few weeks, mother, and it was a lovely evening. I said a great many things. Which one did you have in mind?"
No mistaking the colour in the Baroness' cheeks now, or the audible intake of breath. "You are being childish, Anna-Maria van der Fabriek. I expect better from you."
She's committed to it too hard to back out. Can she really get mother to say it out loud? "I'm sorry, mother, I really don't know what you're talking about." Did her voice just waver in her throat? She can feel her nails biting into her palms. Can't start second-guessing now. "What was this word that was apparently so heinous?"
"B-" For a moment Morning thinks the moment has slipped away, but the Baroness only catches herself to rally, "She told me you said-" And her throat closes on an outraged squeak.
"Yes, mother?" Morning lays it on thicker, tone as bright and earnest as she can make it.
"You said-" Come on, you old bag, say it.
"Yes?"
"…Bitch… less!"
Morning laughs, not the laugh she needs so desperately to let out right now, not the hoarse, coarse cackle chewing away at the underside of her heart, she has to save that, even now. Instead, she titters delicately, lifting the back of her fingers to her lips. "Oh, that. Mother, it's one of my wingmate's callsigns, nothing more than that. Standards are different in the military, the General didn't so much as bat an eyelid. Why, if anything-"
"Am I to understand," the Baroness interrupts with a fury Morning used to dread, "that you are piloting your silly little machine alongside a man who answers to Bitchless?"
"A woman, actually," says Morning. She says it easily, smoothly, snappily. Her mother's voice has lost all power, somehow, the 'bitchless' was the final thread snapping. Burning inside in a way she's never felt before outside of combat, she lets a lopsided grin slide onto her face with the precision of a laboratory technician performing millilitre titrations. "She bit me the other day."
"She- what?"
"Oh yes," says Morning. So easy. Why was this ever hard? "In the consensus audience chamber on McLuhan's World."
That was a misjudgement, she sees immediately. On the other end of the call, the Baroness changes targets in an instant. "Well I hope you are pursuing appropriate disciplinary action-"
And yet even there, Morning sees the way to regain the upper hand. "Oh no, it was critical for the success of the mission, and might even have saved my life to boot."
"Saved-" There, again, is the thin, tight noise of rage getting the better of Baroness Fabriek's larynx. "Anna-Maria van der Fabriek, you cannot allow these commoners to treat you like this. You must-"
"Don't worry, mother, I bit her back shortly afterwards." Morning's shaking as she fights back the gnawing laughter has to be visible on the other end of the call, right? She's doing her best but she was trained to lose demurely, not to win, especially where her mother in concerned.
Face a pink smudge on the screen, the Baroness audibly gasps. "Your father will hear of this!" The call cuts off.
Morning sags against the booth wall, gut convulsing. The sound she hears coming out of her throat is more crow than human. She has to slam her hand against the glass a couple of times. She's not afraid of the Baron, not if she can do that to her mother. For a wild moment she considers finding Sierpinski and… but it would take too long to explain everything, whatever Bitchless' background is she definitely doesn't know shit about aristocratic conversational bloodsports.
She'll have to save the story for later, when she's earned a little more of Bea's trust. And, well, when she's able to breathe again without cackling.
caffeinatedotter's series 'Callsign: Bitchless', set shortly after its fourth installmentCallsign: Morning
The call connects and the blonde woman on the other end is speaking before the fritzy LR booth monitor can resolve her image. "Anna-Maria, what is this ghastly rumour I am hearing from Fabriana de Winter about your conduct at the Admiral's birthday?"
Anna-Maria van der Fabriek's face has been locked under the iron control of her training since before she swiped her pass to log into the long range comm room. By the time she'd stepped into the booth, closing the vacuum-panelled glass around her like a cape, her expression was a sculptor's marble mask. She starts to speak and finds, despite all that, despite two decades of habitus, her cheek wants to twitch with a smirk.
She makes a decision. "I don't know, mother. Aunt Fabbi was spreading gossip?" Her tone is as sweet as the sickening pudding wines from the Fabriek estate.
The Baroness Fabriek's voice, always high, begins its ascent. "'Spreading gossip'? Don't speak so of your betters, Anna-Maria-"
"You just called it a rumour, mother." It's almost too easy, these days. When she only had an aristocrat's playbook at hand, Morning could never have dared this sort of thing, but now she does it for the hell of it. The other pilots are the best kind of bad influence. They give her tools, to say nothing of the practice using them. Her face doesn't even flicker. "Rumours are the stuff of gossip, are they not, mother?"
"She told me you used a most unladylike word. In front of the General, no less!" The transmission resolution isn't great and the screen is old, squeezing the colourspace, but it looks like there's already a hint of pink in the Baroness' face.
Morning has known this call would be coming since her faux pas at the ball. It's been swinging towards her with the inevitability of planets, only briefly delayed by the mission to McLuhan's world. She's spent far more of her planned sleeping hours thinking about what to say than is healthy or wise. It's the callsign of the other pilot in the conversation, mother, or I apologised immediately, and the General assured me he was not offended, or just a desperate please give me a moment to explain.
Instead, blood fizzing, she says, "What word was that, mother? I spoke to the General at some length that evening, if I remember correctly." Exactly what a good baronet at a reception for the upper ranks should do.
"You know exactly what word I mean, young lady."
It's getting harder to hold the mask. Is this how Sierpinski feels, those rare moments where the cold spectre that haunts her relaxes its grip and she cracks one of those dreadful puns? Anna-Maria takes a breath, hoping that the camera in the booth is as bad as the screen and won't betray her to the Baroness. Does she dare let mother think she might have said more than one inappropriate word? "I've had rather a busy and confounding few weeks, mother, and it was a lovely evening. I said a great many things. Which one did you have in mind?"
No mistaking the colour in the Baroness' cheeks now, or the audible intake of breath. "You are being childish, Anna-Maria van der Fabriek. I expect better from you."
She's committed to it too hard to back out. Can she really get mother to say it out loud? "I'm sorry, mother, I really don't know what you're talking about." Did her voice just waver in her throat? She can feel her nails biting into her palms. Can't start second-guessing now. "What was this word that was apparently so heinous?"
"B-" For a moment Morning thinks the moment has slipped away, but the Baroness only catches herself to rally, "She told me you said-" And her throat closes on an outraged squeak.
"Yes, mother?" Morning lays it on thicker, tone as bright and earnest as she can make it.
"You said-" Come on, you old bag, say it.
"Yes?"
"…Bitch… less!"
Morning laughs, not the laugh she needs so desperately to let out right now, not the hoarse, coarse cackle chewing away at the underside of her heart, she has to save that, even now. Instead, she titters delicately, lifting the back of her fingers to her lips. "Oh, that. Mother, it's one of my wingmate's callsigns, nothing more than that. Standards are different in the military, the General didn't so much as bat an eyelid. Why, if anything-"
"Am I to understand," the Baroness interrupts with a fury Morning used to dread, "that you are piloting your silly little machine alongside a man who answers to Bitchless?"
"A woman, actually," says Morning. She says it easily, smoothly, snappily. Her mother's voice has lost all power, somehow, the 'bitchless' was the final thread snapping. Burning inside in a way she's never felt before outside of combat, she lets a lopsided grin slide onto her face with the precision of a laboratory technician performing millilitre titrations. "She bit me the other day."
"She- what?"
"Oh yes," says Morning. So easy. Why was this ever hard? "In the consensus audience chamber on McLuhan's World."
That was a misjudgement, she sees immediately. On the other end of the call, the Baroness changes targets in an instant. "Well I hope you are pursuing appropriate disciplinary action-"
And yet even there, Morning sees the way to regain the upper hand. "Oh no, it was critical for the success of the mission, and might even have saved my life to boot."
"Saved-" There, again, is the thin, tight noise of rage getting the better of Baroness Fabriek's larynx. "Anna-Maria van der Fabriek, you cannot allow these commoners to treat you like this. You must-"
"Don't worry, mother, I bit her back shortly afterwards." Morning's shaking as she fights back the gnawing laughter has to be visible on the other end of the call, right? She's doing her best but she was trained to lose demurely, not to win, especially where her mother in concerned.
Face a pink smudge on the screen, the Baroness audibly gasps. "Your father will hear of this!" The call cuts off.
Morning sags against the booth wall, gut convulsing. The sound she hears coming out of her throat is more crow than human. She has to slam her hand against the glass a couple of times. She's not afraid of the Baron, not if she can do that to her mother. For a wild moment she considers finding Sierpinski and… but it would take too long to explain everything, whatever Bitchless' background is she definitely doesn't know shit about aristocratic conversational bloodsports.
She'll have to save the story for later, when she's earned a little more of Bea's trust. And, well, when she's able to breathe again without cackling.