#sily!!!

meka trouble!

after being forced into vacation by their archon herself, joachim finds themself picking up a rather odd commission. hopefully nothing too horrible happens!

hi! so for my first commission for the ebg event by the super cool awesome mods at @astronetwrk, i wrote the ones with the most points because i am greedy and extremely paranoid when it comes to these things.

wc // 1.1k

tw // none, property damage ig?, absolutely down bad lesbian, thats not a tw thats just a character i made up for this piece

“You must be, er, Lady M?”

“That’s me!”

Joachim quickly rakes their eyes over the lady in front of them.

While on their “vacation” to Fontaine (which was really just the Dendro Archon forcing them to have fun that wasn’t just upkeeping the Akademiya), Joachim was growing bored of their mind. It was fun, yeah, but there wasn’t much to do besides watch a couple plays and trials in the Opera Epiclese and read the new Steambird article every morning.

So, after skimming through the Steambird of their commissions section, one in particular caught their eye.

“Pranks? And on meks that patrol the main city of Fontaine?” Joachim pauses.

“How childish.”

To which they walked to where the commission detailed where to head if any person was interested.

What were they supposed to do? Ignore it? Vacation was already boring enough, they basically saw 90% of what this new place had to offer. Nahida even threatened them if they wandered off into some ruin (and she even hinted at the fact that she would know if they started sneaking off into some unknown plane on the map. How overbearing.)

“I’m here to discuss your commission.”

“Of course! Any questions? Any ideas?”

Joachim shrunk back as the commissioner, who wore a strange mask and went by the moniker “Lady M,” only eagerly leaned in more and more.

“No questions so far… I was just wondering if you had any plans for this prank you’re going to pull off.”

“None! I was hoping you had one!”

She looked a bit too happy with herself despite the shine in her hooded eyes. Joachim had no idea what to do with this whole commission, but the mysterious Lady M certainly isn’t selling it to them very well.

“Okay… Then please hear me out.”

“Hmmm… It could work, but wouldn’t that need a lot of work on your part to pull it off?”

Joachim shakes their head, “Don’t worry, I’ve acted before in plays and such. I’m confident enough to try it out.”

Lady M doesn’t think for long before she decides that screw it, this stranger is weird enough to be helping her with her “pranks,” might as well let them in on it with their just as weird plan.

“Do you have a time in mind?”

“I do!” Joachim raises their brows. “What about midnight tonight?”

“That’s rather specific. Is there a reason why?”

Lady M flushes red, and her mask can’t hide the redness of her ears. Oh, so that’s how it is.

“No, it’s just to make sure that the public doesn’t see and there’s less eyes on us at night! That’s all.”

Joachim nodded, pretending to agree. It was sensible, but why think of such a scheme to mess with public security so much at night?

“Alright then. Let’s meet back here at midnight, then. Please be ready before then. Also, I dislike those who aren’t punctual. Please be here on time.”

Lady M sweatdrops as her soon-to-be-accomplice walks off into the evening sunlight. Was it really necessary to warn her that many times to be on time?

~~~

Joachim, from their limited knowledge about Fonataine as a whole, had to be careful. They didn’t have the protection of the Dendro Archon in a different nation.

So sneaking around the maze that was the main city of Fontaine, Joachim had to double their caution.

They slowly drew the attention of many of the meka patrollers, hiding behind a black cloak to hide most of their face and body. They purposely tripped and hissed and flapped their cape to alert the meka towards them.

Then, as they walk out in the open and pretend to look around to see if anyone was following them. Then…

BONK!

After activating their vision, the brick flooring of Fontaine’s great streets uproot themselves and causing all the mekas to fall over. Even better, a good portion of them were lined up and caused a domino effect to knock them all down in one.

Moments later the chaos died down, perhaps a bit too loud and attracting a lot of attention, and in the corner of your eye you spot the feather of a familiar mask and the same mint green dress from earlier that evening.

Joachim sighs. Goodness, this girl needed to find better ways to sneak out. Maybe with a lot less property damage.

Luckily for Joachim, having a geo vision was certainly very useful at making sure large portions of land weren’t left to dust. With a wave of their hands, bricks that were previously laid to waste shiver into place to where they were before. Before the job was finished, they thought, maybe checking up with their commissioner and reporting to them all that had happened would be the best idea.

“Mirielle, what was that noise? Are you okay?”

“Lizette! There you are.”

Two voices whisper to each other behind the corner of where Joachim trailed Lady M. The rustle of clothes, deduced Joachim, was from a tight embrace.

“But really, are you okay? I’m pretty sure a lot of people heard that.”

“I-I’m sure it was nothing! C’mon, we’re running out of time.”

She needs to work on her acting.

“What? Who said that?”

Oops.

“Sorry, ‘Lady M.’ You should really do something about that horrid acting of yours, though.”

“You-You! I thought you had left!”

“I thought I should at least tell you the job was done. I wanted the commissioner to know my hard work won’t go unpaid.”

Lady M, know Mirielle, glares at them once more. Without her mask, her red face and ears are a lot more noticeable.

“Um, Mirielle, who is this?”

“Lizette! Um, don’t worry, this is just a person who helped me out tonight!”

“What?” Lizette frowns. “But I thought you were just sneaking past the meka again. Was that the loud noise?”

Mirielle glares at Joachim, who can’t do much but shrugs. Seriously, this was her idea in the first place. Humans were so odd sometimes.

“I’m assuming you don’t want me to tell anyone, so rest assure knowing your secret relationship will be kept a secret. I don’t make it a hobby of spilling this kind of stuff.”

“…”

Mirielle and Lizette, both at a loss for words, stare at Joachim with open mouths and wide eyes.

“What? Go off now. It’s like Lady M said, you probably don’t have a lot of time to hang out.”

Lizette is the first to move as she tugs at Mirielle’s sleeve.

“Let’s go, Rielle. We should make use of the time we have tonight.” She turns to Joachim. “Thank you for helping my poor girlfriend.”

“Enjoy your night.”

Joachim waves them off as Rielle tries her best to cover her face. From the embarrassment of being called a lover by Lizette or simply just from the whole situation, Joachim will never know.