For relativeprompts
Prompt Two
When you're the chemist of the group, your friends invariably end up asking you for things. And regardless of location, regardless of civilization, regardless of anything... it's always the sort of things they're not supposed to have.
Like wine.
She'd been working on an assignment when she'd started the branch of research that had allowed her to discover a method of fermenting which only took a night to produce a drinkable alcohol, but the result had been atrocious, utterly unpalatable. It took her longer to augment the process for any reasonable use, but she was rather proud when she finished the first bottle of schlenk blossom wine.
It still tasted foul, but they'd toasted their achievements with it and no one had said anything because the novelty had taken precedence over the actual experience.
But in between her assignments, she'd continued tweaking the process; no one had said anything, of course, but it hadn't mattered. She'd known that it tasted awful and that meant that she still had work to do. So she'd worked.
The next time they'd insisted she make them up a bottle, it had been much smoother, slightly sweeter, and had an undercurrent of lushberries that had had them all asking her how she did it, what her secret was.
She'd smiled at that, smug and satisfied, and slapped Koschei's hand before he even thought of grabbing for her datapad. The request for the next bottle had come much sooner, another toast for another achievement, and she hadn't even minded that the achievement was just an excuse because they enjoyed it, enjoyed each other, enjoyed having something forbidden and delicious and just a bit toxic.
That's why there was a bottle in her TARDIS, one sealed with wax and a Memento Mori blossom dried around the cork. The final bottle, the one that she'd declared perfect before pouring it into the dark glass as she'd smirked at Theta Sigma and held Koschei away with one foot and told Mortimus that the best things come to those who wait. The bottle that she'd decided to save for their grand reunion one day, the one they'd share when they were all ridiculously successful and could have gotten the finest vintages from all of Gallifrey if they wanted.
It had to be vinegar by now.
And most of the time, the Rani could pretend she didn't care.
When you're the chemist of the group, your friends invariably end up asking you for things. And regardless of location, regardless of civilization, regardless of anything... it's always the sort of things they're not supposed to have.
Like wine.
She'd been working on an assignment when she'd started the branch of research that had allowed her to discover a method of fermenting which only took a night to produce a drinkable alcohol, but the result had been atrocious, utterly unpalatable. It took her longer to augment the process for any reasonable use, but she was rather proud when she finished the first bottle of schlenk blossom wine.
It still tasted foul, but they'd toasted their achievements with it and no one had said anything because the novelty had taken precedence over the actual experience.
But in between her assignments, she'd continued tweaking the process; no one had said anything, of course, but it hadn't mattered. She'd known that it tasted awful and that meant that she still had work to do. So she'd worked.
The next time they'd insisted she make them up a bottle, it had been much smoother, slightly sweeter, and had an undercurrent of lushberries that had had them all asking her how she did it, what her secret was.
She'd smiled at that, smug and satisfied, and slapped Koschei's hand before he even thought of grabbing for her datapad. The request for the next bottle had come much sooner, another toast for another achievement, and she hadn't even minded that the achievement was just an excuse because they enjoyed it, enjoyed each other, enjoyed having something forbidden and delicious and just a bit toxic.
That's why there was a bottle in her TARDIS, one sealed with wax and a Memento Mori blossom dried around the cork. The final bottle, the one that she'd declared perfect before pouring it into the dark glass as she'd smirked at Theta Sigma and held Koschei away with one foot and told Mortimus that the best things come to those who wait. The bottle that she'd decided to save for their grand reunion one day, the one they'd share when they were all ridiculously successful and could have gotten the finest vintages from all of Gallifrey if they wanted.
It had to be vinegar by now.
And most of the time, the Rani could pretend she didn't care.