halfamoon | halfamoon day 10

Title: Balancing Act

Fandom: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Rating: PG-13/Gen

Characters: Poppi & Brigit, mentions of Sheba

Length: 280 words

Tags: slice of life

Summary: In which Poppi is naive and Sheba is a con artist.

"Yes, I can see that we are balancing an assortment of random objects on our head," Brigit commented drolly, "My question was, why?"

"Poppi's posture correction practice!" The wide-eyed, serious-faced android replied, "Poppi must learn to bear herself gracefully and regally, as a true lady like Sheba does!"

Brigit sighed, "Poppi, Sheba floats around in a magically refilling, levitating bathtub all day. Have none of the other BLADEs taught you never to trust Sheba or do anything that Sheba says?"

Poppi shook her head, "Sheba is very gracious. Sheba gave Poppi a whole 100G and even promised to allow Poppi to join her retainers if she successfully balanced all the objects for thirty seconds!"

"One hundred... So that's what all the small transactions on the party's communal bank account were," she snarled, "I thought we'd been hit by fraud! Well, actually I wonder if Sheba's entire existence as a Blade isn't some kind of scam..."

"That is not very nice," scolded Poppi, waving her arms frantically up and down. The objects balanced on her head all tumbled to the ground, except for the teapot and cups, which Brigit reached forward to catch before they could shatter against the floor.

"I'm sorry. I'll go and have a very calm and civilised talk with her right now," said Brigit. Poppi stared at her retreating form, still unable to tell when a voice was dangerously, icy calm, or how to tell if someone not facing you has drawn a sword. She did, however, realise that the cups and teapot were still gone, making her balancing exercises impossible. Leaving the other objects where they were, she returned to her paused game of Tiger Tiger.