kinkfest | Necessary Solution (Illusion of Gaia, Lilly/Kara, PG)

Title: Necessary Solution
Author:

ceylmallyn
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1269
Warnings: None really, it's basically fluff.
Prompt: Illusion of Gaia, Kara/Lily: gags -- If Lily had known this would get the princess to shut up, she would have done it the moment they met
Notes: Argh, still running behind on a couple of claims. I somehow picked up this stupid cold that made me sleep all the time. I do write while lying in bed a lot, but it's kind of hard to write when you're asleep.
Also thanks to Sei Kasagi, compiler of the IOG script at gamefaqs.com, for refreshing my memory on all the weird little details of this game. Takes place while the group is traveling to the Nazca plain.

The world all around the group of travellers was cheerful, sunny and pleasant-- the mountain pass was bright and breezy, warmed by the morning sun, but cooler than the stifling desert plain their path was set to take them into. The wind whistled gently through a grove of trees, and from time to time, a lonely bird called from far off on a distant peak.

It was also very, very quiet. And none of them were exactly used to quiet any more, by this point.

Lance, Will and Erik sat clustered on one side of the fire, picking busily at what remained in their bowls of oatmeal. Neil sat on the other, still looking groggy and bleary and as though he'd just this minute been shaken out of a sound sleep, sipping coffee out of a chipped mug.

He was the first to break the silence, despite his perpetual look of being about to fall over and collapse into sleep on the ground. "Wasn't that a little bit..."

"A little bit what?" Lilly glanced sharply at him, the annoyance in her eyes evaporating into innocence.

"Maybe a little, um, overly..." Will began, and Neil finally fished the word he wanted out of his gadget-cluttered memory. "Harsh! That's it, harsh."

Lilly glanced behind her shoulder at Kara, who had stopped kicking the rock she was sitting on in frustration, and was now simply glaring daggers at the entire lot of them from over the dingy bandanna stuffed in her mouth.

"Come on! She needs to learn how to hold her tongue for five minutes if she's ever going to learn to survive outside the doors of a castle. If she doesn't want to be a princess, it's good training for her to learn not to act like one."

"Well, yes," Erik began, "but you could've done that without--"

"And besides--" Lilly's eyes narrowed-- "she insulted my cooking. My porridge recipe has been passed down in my family for generations! Who does she think she is?"

Rather than point out that even if the recipe had been passed down for generations, the method for how to cook it properly apparently hadn't been, Erik noted a bit weakly, "Well... but she complains about everything."

"She insulted mine, too," Neil said affably, sipping at the questionable liquid in his coffee cup. "And I didn't--"

"But, Neil, your cooking really is awful," Will said, before he could stop himself. "Er, I mean, that is..."

"Haha, no need to worry. I just never had the time to learn to cook-- I tried, but I ended up burning everything, because I'd get distracted every time. Good thing I learned how to make sandwiches, eh?"

"And mine isn't awful at all-- right?" Lilly stood up, arms folded, glaring at the boys huddled on the other side of the campfire.

"Um--" Will began.

"No, no-- of course it's not!" Lance quickly interrupted.

"She said the raisins looked like dead bugs!" Lilly put her hands on her hips and glowered around at the lot of them. Kara, who apparently hadn't realized she was committing an unpardonable sin in saying so, shot another mute glare at her.

"Kara doesn't like raisins," Will offered weakly. "It's not about you, I don't think."

This wasn't strictly true: Kara probably would have been able to deal with a feminine, properly bred young lady, but not so much a ragtag girl who dressed like a boy, chopped her hair short like a boy, and insisted that she had to accompany Will on his journey. Let alone one with all of the above plus a smart mouth.

"Anyway--" Neil shook out the rest of his suspicious-looking coffee, and slipped the empty mug back into his pack. "We should get back on the road, if we're going to stick to our schedule. Lilly, er-- aren't you going to...?"

"Going to what?" She blinked innocently at him, brushing some of her shaggy blue hair behind one ear. "Oh! Did you think I was going to leave Kara behind? Come on, I'm not that cold-hearted!" Shrugging, she added, "Besides, she'd follow us anyway, if we didn't tie her up. Come on, let's get going!"

The group began to shuffle to its feet, stuffing dishes and blankets into packs, pouring water on the fire, and gearing up for the next leg of the trip. Kara sullenly climbed off the rock in defeat, and began rolling up her own blanket clumsily, jamming it into her pack, while her pig tagged along after her, snuffling in concern. (It was, they all had to admit, the first morning without loud complaints about the smell of the blankets, or speculation on what they might be infested with.)

Once they were back on the mountain trail, Will made a few covert attempts to remove the bandanna, but was interrupted each and every time by Lilly's watchful glare. "It's so nice to be walking in the mountains on a morning like this, isn't it? So peaceful. So quiet." Death glare, quick staring contest, and the group went on its way.

***

The gag did, of course, have to be removed eventually-- specifically, when they all stopped for a water break. Lilly's animosity didn't extend to letting any member of the party die of dehydration, and she'd admitted grudgingly, "I guess there's nothing more that can be done." They were, after all, heading down the mountain into a desert.

At the day's end, they stopped and made camp in the desert. Lilly found herself wide awake, staring blearily into the night sky, at the clarity of the bright stars in the desert air; finding her gaze drawn, with mixed disturbance and interest, to the new red star hovering in the darkness.

She got tired of looking at it after a while-- tired, and unsettled. Finally she rolled over and stared at Kara, fast asleep a few feet away from her-- Kara, apparently, was either ignorant of what the new star portended, or had been too exhausted to think about it.

Next to her head, her pet pig was curled up, snorting faintly as it slept. What kind of a princess had a pet pig, for crying out loud? At least the pig didn't complain about Lilly's cooking-- or anyone else's, for that matter.

It wasn't that Lilly minded Kara being around. She was kind of cute, and charming, in an ignorant way; and the way she followed Will around like a puppy, even when she apparently hated everything else about her surroundings, was kind of endearing. Sort of. Maybe for five minutes. It was just that Lilly's ability to tolerate her seemed to run out every time Kara opened her mouth.

At least she didn't talk in her sleep, or snore-- thank Gaia for small blessings.

Lilly propped herself up on one hand, staring at the princess's tangled black hair against her pale cheeks, her dirt-smudged dress. It was kind of a shame, she thought, that the girl just never shut up, because she was kind of pretty when she was quiet. Not any kind of pretty that Lilly could ever be-- too girly, too doll-like-- but still one that she could admire. I guess, she thought to herself grudgingly, I can see why Will likes her to follow him around.

When Kara was asleep, anyway. The minute she woke up, all bets were off.

She crawled back under the musty blanket, trying to find a comfortable place for her head on the hard desert ground, and let the pig's snorting lull her to sleep, the bandanna tucked safely into her pocket.