Arknights | White Peony

[veryroundbird]

Rating: Mild
Words: 761
Characters: Ceylon, Schwarz
Relationships: Ceylon/Schwarz
Summary: Schwarz appreciates the regular ritual of making tea for Ceylon—but Ceylon has some unusual things to bring up in conversation, today.
Notes: Written for Day 1 of 2021 Arknights WLW Week. Somehow this got me my first weird "you can't ship that" twitter DM

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Schwarz's life falls into routines, when it can. The kind of life she lives lends itself to surprises and sudden needs to move, but the stability of life in Siesta—and then at Rhodes Island—has had its advantages. For one thing, the part of her routine she looks forward to every day, which is: pouring tea for Lady Ceylon.

By now, it's something she's confident in. When Lady Ceylon first asked her to do it, the tea came out awful, and Schwarz nearly dropped the tray with shaking hands, but Ceylon was kind—thanked her, in spite of the subpar work, and made gentle suggestions on what she might do next time. She even came along to the kitchen to show her the measuring spoons—standing on tiptoes to guide Schwarz's hands in the first gentle duty she'd ever had.

It was weird. It didn't feel right. But she approached it with care and precision, and the next time Ceylon asked her to make it, she followed the instructions and—she still remembers the spark of satisfaction, when Ceylon told her it was perfect. The little smile she makes...

...for a moment, it makes Schwarz feel like she can be the sort of person Lady Ceylon wishes she was.

Today, though, Schwarz pours the tea—a delicate white, which needs particular care not to oversteep—and Ceylon stops, abruptly, the cup halfway to her mouth.

"Schwarz," she says, "you can't relax around me, can you."

Schwarz sets the teapot down, heavily, and feels herself recoil, slightly, on reflex—"I don't know what you mean, Lady Ceylon."

She tilts her head up, and gives a smile—soft, and sad. "Why don't you sit down," she says. "Pour yourself a cup."

It's uneasy—she realizes, she's suddenly feeling almost how she did when she was making tea that very first time. Suddenly, she's off-balance; that shouldn't happen, should it? But she sits, as instructed; she pours herself a cup of the delicate, floral tea.

"I talk to the other operators here, you know," Ceylon continues, looking down at her cup. "We don't get assigned on missions together often, but—of course I ask after you, when I can. I know you act very differently around me than you do around others."

She should have seen this coming. It was easier to hide, in Siesta, when Ceylon was rarely privy to the details of her other duties, but...

"Lady Ceylon," she starts—

Ceylon shakes her head, though. "Just Ceylon. Please. But if you're trying to protect me from something, like this—"

Schwarz sets her hands around her own teacup, but doesn't lift it. "That's my job," she says, quietly. "To protect you from all danger."

"That's not you, though," says Ceylon, and Schwarz aches for that to be true, even though it's not. "Or rather—I don't want to be protected from you. Even if you're still my bodyguard..."

She shakes her head. "Even if you're still my bodyguard, we're not in Siesta, anymore. There's no appearances to keep up." And smiles—"If I can handle working with all the operators here, I can handle all of who you are, can't I? Even if it's something ugly, or brutal, or vulgar—you're dearest to my heart, regardless."

Schwarz pauses, for a long moment, and then says: "Fucking Blaze can't shut up, can she."

Ceylon laughs hard enough that she has to set her teacup down. "It wasn't all her! The rest of the medic staff can get quite colorful."

"I can't believe this." Schwarz, in turn, picks up her own teacup to hide her face in it. "If it's what you want, but—" She stares down, fixedly. "You won't like a lot of it."

Gently, Ceylon reaches over to put a hand on Schwarz's shoulder, and Schwarz stiffens. "I know enough," Ceylon says. "And if I can't accept it—no, I will, regardless. After all: so much of what you've done has been done on my behalf. I haven't been blind to that, Schwarz; at a certain age, I had to realize. So this is what I feel I owe to you—among many other things."

Schwarz has to think about this for a long moment. And then she nods. "All right," she says. "You have to earn going drinking with me, though."

"Oh, come now! I'm of age."

"Hah." Schwarz, in spite of herself, smiles. "But in the meantime—there's this, after all."

And when she pours Ceylon another cup of tea, she makes that smile, finally. All's well in the world.