Ivil Antagonist

Omake - Ivil Does fiction

Twenty-Six fluttered her eyes open, then yawned. There was a nasty crick in her neck, and she felt a bit of saliva sticking to her cheek, which was weird. She wasn't much of a drooler except when she was sleeping really well.

Blinking, she took in... a very large, fancy room, and was struck with the painful realisation that she'd fallen asleep in the middle of a meeting.

Fortunately she was off to the side, sitting on one of those benches along the outer wall, far from the action and arguments.

Unfortunately, she was still leaning to the side, her face pressed up against something warm and rough and... she sat up straight and wiped her face clean while hoping beyond hope that she hadn't drooled too hard.

"Awake?" Evelyn asked.

Twenty-Six nodded. "'M sorry," she mumbled.

Evelyn smiled, then casually waved Twenty-Six's concern away. "It's fine. Even tug boats need to be moored at times, right?"

Whatever blush had been fading returned and Twenty-Six found herself glaring at Evelyn for all she was worth. "Stop that," she said. It sounded whiny and weak, even to her.

The tug boat metaphors had gone too far. Too far! Yes, they were funny, in a sort of embarrassing way, and yes she liked it when Evelyn thought of her that way, but still, it was humiliating. Worse, it was a humiliation of her own making. She should have never told Evelyn that she sometimes thought that way.

"Did you sleep well?" Evelyn asked.

Twenty-Six swallowed. At least the teasing had stopped... for now. It wasn't the right place for it anyway. "Yeah, I guess," she said. She did feel really refreshed, though she put a hand up against her neck and twisted her head around a few times. Back on the first station she could remember living in, her bunk had been sized for a normal, Earthly human. She'd quickly grown too big for it, and that led to years of sleeping crooked.

"Want me to fix your neck?" Evelyn asked. "I've got deft fingers."

Twenty-Six felt herself stilling for a moment, then shook her head. "It's fine," she said while trying her best not to squeak. She even succeeded for once, but now she needed a distraction.

The politicians were... boring. Someone was talking on and on, and even while trying to catch on to some context clues to know what was happening, Twenty-Six found herself unable and unwilling to actually listen. If it was Aurora talking, then maybe. That woman had a voice on her. All smooth and dulcet with this little upper-class Martian accent that sounded very posh.

It reminded Twenty-Six of the automated warning voice on some of the nicer equipment she'd used.

She'd have to ask Aurora to record a few lines sometimes. "Hull breach detected." Or maybe a sultry, "Fire suppression system activated."

"What are you doing?" Twenty-Six asked Evelyn. The taller, older, prettier... frankly mostly just better woman was sitting on the same bench as Twenty-Six, but she somehow managed to make it look like this was a throne. She had a tablet hovering before her. One of those little personal computer sorts that she'd seen Pepper and Evelyn carrying around.

"I'm writing," Evelyn said with a gentle smile. "I've discovered that I'm not very talented at it, and none of my cores assist me, so it's an interesting puzzle."

"Oh?" Twenty-Six asked. "What sort of things do you write?" It was interesting, seeing Evelyn have such a normal hobby. It wasn't as interesting a hobby as, say, CAD sculpting or 3d printing, but it was still kinda neat.

"Did... you want to read?" Evelyn asked. She sounded surprisingly shy in that moment, and Twenty-Six realised that she'd never heard Evelyn shy before now. It was cute, but it also didn't suit her at all.

Evelyn was made for... like, scaring captains and threatening mean dock workers. Not being a wilting wallflower. Evelyn and being vulnerable fit together like a Martian nut on an Earth-made bolt.

"Here," Evelyn said after scrolling to the top of a long text document.

Twenty-Six took the tablet and blinked a few more times to clear her vision. Then she started reading.

Chapter One

That was an auspicious start, she supposed. She was never really one for fiction reading. Mostly Twenty-Six read manuals and sometimes articles. She did do a fair bit of reading, it was just not usually... sit down and read, reading. She refocused. This was important to Evelyn, she she ought to pay attention.

Hi my name is Emma Olivia Isabella Brown (that's how I got my name). I have brown hair with nothing special about it, beige skin, brown eyes that look like pebbles, and I look like an average person (AN: if you don't know what that looks like, imagine a person). I'm not related to any celebrities, politicians, or Empresses or Emperors, but I wish I was because I think they're pretty cool. I am a regular human, and my teeth are regular and white. I have average skin. I am also a student who goes to a normal school called School One in the Martian suburbian domes. I'm in the eleventh grade (I'm sixteen) and I'm normal (In case you couldn't tell.) I wear normal clothes that I buy at Marsmart. For example, today I'm wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans and white sneakers. I was wearing no makeup. I was walking outside of School One. It was raining time in the dome, so rain was coming down from above. No one stared at me. I waved at them.

"Hey, Emma!" shouted a voice. I looked up. It was... Aurora Sterlingworth!

"What's up Aurora?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said shyly.

But then I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.

Twenty-Six blinked, then carefully forced herself to re-read everything on the page. "I-is this the entire chapter?" she asked.

"There are more chapters below," Evelyn said. "If you scroll."

"Oh,yeah, would you look at that. There's more. Uh."

"So, what do you think?"

"Uh," Twenty-Six said. She looked at the tablet again, hoping that maybe it would glitch and suddenly some other text would appear. It didn't. "So, um. The Aurora here, is, uh, our Aurora?"

"It's a bit of a self-insert," Evelyn said.

Twenty-Six nodded slowly. "Okay. And what kind of story is this supposed to be?"

"Slice of life romance," Evelyn said. "You show up in chapter three."

"Ah," Twenty-Six said intelligently. "What's it called?"

"My Mortal."

"That's a nice title," Twenty-Six said. "So... romance?"

"I usually write action, but it grows tiresome. Page after page of details for each actor's actions and reactions." She shook her head. "A single small fight can take me weeks."

"Weeks," Twenty-Six repeated. She shook her head. "Um, uh...." She didn't really have anything to say but she needed some time to think. It was like holding a leak closed with her thumb while trying to remember which switch she had to flick to bypass it. She had not be prepared for this situation.

In fact, it was kind of ruining her entirely outlook on Evelyn in general, because, well, Evelyn was the tall sexy lady who was strong and knowledgeable and sexy. She really was like one of those Martian Super Dreadnoughts the way she so easily commanded attention and was such a huge threat no matter where she went.

Twenty-Six could probably figure out what to do if the Super Dreadnought had a heating issue, or if its guns needed reloading, but her mental catalogue was entirely empty of instructions for the Super Dreadnought writing bad fiction in its spare time.

"It's very nice," she settled on. The same words her own mom had used on her when she was a kid drawing her first wiring schematic.

Evelyn's reaction was the same as a young Twenty-Six's. She beamed, bright and proud. "Thank you. Do you think I should display my work?"

"Uh, I mean, um. No? I mean. Think about it this way. Art is like...." She swallowed and racked her brain for a metaphor that had nothing to do with ships or engineering. It was surprisingly difficult. "Art, good art, is like those private moments you have with your family between stations. When you're all huddled together and hoping that your shuttle doesn't break halfway to its destination. It's something private, right? And I think it's much nicer when it's very private and no one sees it."

"I suppose. I know little about art," Evelyn admitted.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Twenty-Six said, then she clamped her mouth shut because that could be easily misinterpreted.

Fortunately, a distraction was at hand! The conference was ending, and some of the political sorts were standing, including Aurora. It looked like she was saved!

Twenty-Six never thought she'd be thankful for political interference, but here she was.

Anything to stop her from having to read chapter two.

***