JDL - Com Ivanova, Cmdr Waterhouse - "They Keep Trying To Row Away, Row Away"

Posted on Thu Feb 26th, 2015 @ 11:25am by Commander Amelia Waterhouse & Admiral Rochelle Ivanova

1,680 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: A Spot To Kill

Her stroll with Almar had been… Trying. Enlightening, but trying. Every step and word seemed bent on tugging at some deeper part of Rochelle’s psyche, demanding from her a performance or a failure; tell him, or continue the rouse. She chose to continue the rouse. Returning from that drawn out wandering chit chat, the redhead wasn’t all too entirely shocked to find Amelia standing by her door. If anything, she was more surprised that the taller woman hadn’t come running the night before when Archer had finally severed her last tired nerve. He’d cleaned up the broken vase, not a trace of it had lingered when she’d risen that morning.

"Have a good walk?" Pond asked, her eyes looking to Teá a fleeting moment before she reached for the door to open it for Rochelle.

The Commodore decidedly ignored the Trill standing there in her dress whites. Too many questions, too much confusion... It was all so much better left unasked and unanswered when push came to shove. Tugging the gossamer head covering from where it lay wasted around her neck, Rochelle nodded and motioned her friend inside, keeping relatively quiet until the door was shut. "I did." She finally answered with a nod, "Almar and I explored just beyond the walls. Haven't gone into the city yet, but the forest was nice. Beautiful scenery." The smaller woman shrugged as she slipped off her shoes.

"That's good to hear," Amelia allowed as she followed slowly into the room. "What happened last night? Cecil wanted to tear down the wall to come protect you from Archer, though I know you can handle him."

"Cecil?" Rochelle asked with wild amusement glittering in her eyes, "Archer would kill him." She chuckled and inwardly praised her yeoman's seemingly undying loyalty as she moved the big bad babysitter's bed linens to a side table and took up residence on the couch. "He said something he shouldn't have about Almar and I reacted a little..." She paused and twirled her fingers lazily in the air from where they draped over the arm of the couch, "hotly. No blood, no foul."

"Why do you think I held him back instead of letting the amusement unfold?" Amelia smirked, kicking her sandals off and settling on the couch with her legs tucked up under herself. "What, did he ask if Almar was ribbed for your pleasure, or something?"

"Good call." The Commodore was content to simply stay there, warm and quiet... Unseen by the eyes of Atlantis as they followed her in a slipshod manner to see what it was she saw and hear what it was she heard. She hated it. All of it. And then she choked at what flew from Amelia's mouth. Her head snapped in the other woman's direction with her narrow kohl lined eyes boring into the other woman's. "No." She replied pointedly, "He asked if Cardassians have two penises." The glower continued, "I replied with a vase."

"Ah, the traditional way of saying no," Amelia returned with a giggle. "Too bad that's nothing more than Archer's fantasy, could make for some entertainment." She grinned wide at her friend.

Rochelle blinked slowly, not sure whether to be amused or put off by the continuous line of jokes with the Cardassian as the punch line. "Archer cleaned up the mess." She said, gesturing towards the wall the porcelain thing had dashed against, "I think he may have learned his lesson."

"Hardly, Intel just teaches us to clean up well after ourselves and others," Amelia scoffed with a snort. "How long are we expecting to have to keep up this dog and pony show?" Her expression darkened as she turned conversation to more serious matters.

"Wishful thinking." The diminutive one sighed to herself with a scowl. Archer would likely never learn anything other than new bad habits. And then the conversation went to Hell in a hand basket, dabbling on inconveniences brought about by the Atlanteans themselves. "They haven't said," She responded, "So far they've only been giving us the fishbowl treatment."

"If you're their queen, even if you don't want to be, can't you just order them to do what you want them to do?" Amelia rolled her eyes, slumping back against the couch.

Rochelle narrowed her eyes again, this time in thought. It was as if the very option hadn't crossed her mind before, and in truth it hadn't. As a Commodore, or Captain, orders were orders but they generally didn't involve things of a personal matter and she hadn't quite married the connective tissue between the two roles she filled. It wasn't much different. As Queen, she was just the commanding officer of an entire race of people. "Y'know..." She mused and nodded, "I could try that, though somehow I think there's probably some bullshit law or another keeping me from my idea of happily ever after. It's never that easy."

"Of course not, but we can't find our obstacles until we push out, right?" Amelia smirked as she sat up again. "And I know you can have them running around like a ring leader guiding a three ring circus, if you want."

"IF being the operative word." The Commodore grumbled and leaned deeper into the warm, comforting back of the couch. Amelia wanted her to push them, to crack the proverbial whip and see just how many tricks they could perform before they snapped and gave up their game. A small smirk of her own tugged at her lips just at the thought of causing them the same amount of discomfort they'd already caused her — and that was the bare minimum damage she'd accept leaving them with if she decided to trade apathy for caustic abhorrence.

Rochelle's nose twitched as she further allowed herself to explore the thought and brought her eyes back up to Amelia's, "Do you think they'll dance in tune or push back?" She asked, her smirk widening broadly with no small sense of wickedness. A plan was being hatched.

"Push back, if course, but they'll try to be clever about it, make it look like they're dancing." The taller red head has visions of those Atlanteans she'd previously met run through her head as she said this; William Taggart, Mikkal, and Kyym to name the ones she knew best... For some definition of the word. "But carefully guided, they may push us in the direction we want in the end."

"And just how you to suppose we go about this?" Rochelle asked, crossing her legs and watching her friend avidly. She was interested, thinking, scheming, but as a straight shooter who had an extreme distaste for playing mind games, she would need to learn a thing or two and employ those who took a different path in life. Amelia Waterhouse was just such an exhibit a.

"We first need to know what their goal is," Amelia explained, finding herself subconsciously looking around the room. If she'd had any sort of bug detector with her, she'd be tempted to stroll the suite, but she didn't doubt that Archer had done just that last night, so there really was no need other than to calm her own nerves. She shifted with a sigh. "Anything else you think they're gunning for, other than keeping you here in the queen's gilded cage?"

Rochelle watched as her friend looked about the room, practically twitching. She wanted to say that Archer had already tirelessly searched high and low throughout the entire place, but figured Amelia, by the way she continued, had already come to that conclusion on her own. "Nothing else fits the bill at this point." She shrugged gently. "They just seem bent on keeping me here to perform my Queenly duties."

"Then start by flexing your queenly muscles, and demand an audience with Kyym and a list of who your options are to take on as your porter, and to name as your regent," Amelia allowed, noting Rochelle's gaze as she finally settled back from looking around the room. If there had been any doubt of Archer's efforts before, not that there really was reason to have any, Rochelle's look confirmed the chief intel officer had indeed done his job between teasing the Phoenix. "Hopefully acting the part they want of you will gain some measure of cooperation. At least for now."

"Fair enough." Rochelle nodded, making mental notes while listening to and agreeing with what Amelia had to say. "I'll snatch Kyym up by her hair in a little bit here and see what she has to say for herself. In the meantime, keep a sharp ear and see what can be learned. They don't appear to be particularly Federation friendly and the way they keep staring Almar down is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth." She grumbled, "Either they've never seen a Cardassian before, or they have. The latter troubles me, frankly."

"They're raising the hairs on the back of my neck, I feel like I'm back doing field work with how uneasy I am. I'll easily admit that I miss field work, but it isn't supposed to have people I care about surrounding me." Amelia sighed as she started to fuss with the fabric of the skirt of her white dress. "I've noticed how they look at Almar, even Cecil noticed. He said something last night about it. They look at me too, but that's more like I'm just some side show freak because of my genetic makeup."

With a sigh, the little Commodore nodded in perfect understanding. "I think we've all felt it. They seem to be walking around with a significant chip on their shoulder." She sighed and licked her lower lip. "I don't like it. Not at all."

"The sooner we're off this horrorshow rock, the better off we'll all be..." Amelia insisted, then looked down at the dress she wore. "I'm keeping the dress though."

=/\= End Log =/\=

Commodore Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

Commander Amelia Waterhouse
Executive Officer
USS Vindicator, NCC-78213-E

 

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