Dangan Ronpa/FF6 fusion

[lirillith]

Title: Fortune Favors
Fandom: FFVI/Dangan Ronpa
Characters: Celestia Ludenberg/Setzer Gabbiani
Word count: ~1k
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Celes finds her way onto the Blackjack at last.

****

She spent weeks shopping for the perfect blonde wig, and dresses to go with it; red, she decided, not black.  Jewels.  Even a new perfume.  Celestia Ludenberg intended to be at her very best when she finally set foot on the Blackjack.

She stepped on board the vessel on the arm of an invited guest, a colonel or something in Vector’s army whose name she stopped remembering as soon as she met the pale eyes of Setzer Gabbiani.  Gray, she thought, or maybe pale blue; the scar tended to draw the eye more than anything else about his face, a helpful feature for a gambler.  She’d heard it was a duel, or an airship crash, or an explosion, sabotage at the hangar; she suspected he was behind all three stories. 

Except for the moment of their introduction, however, when he bowed over her hand and she felt a touch of the real flutter she’d expected she’d need to feign, she had little luck getting near him all night.  Her luck was spending itself at the roulette table instead, but it was hard to complain about that.  Their host stayed busy, usually trailed by a shifting crowd of supplicants or admirers, coming to light now and then on a game (always when she was otherwise occupied.)  Finally, in what felt like the early hours of the morning, she was surprised at the blackjack table by a voice near her ear: “Counting cards, Mademoiselle Ludenberg?”

He wasn’t without accent; he sounded like he was from Jidoor, despite the southern salutation.  She gave him the enigmatic smile she’d practiced so long, and simply replied, “Monsieur Gabbiani.  You can be difficult to reach in the thick of a party.” 

“Had I known so lovely a lady was making the attempt, I would have remedied that, I assure you.” 

She laughed lightly, acknowledged her winnings with a nod, and turned her back to the table and her attention on him.  “What was the occasion for you to seek me out?” he continued.

“Oh, just… curiosity.”  One of the more vexing matters in her life was the difficulty of gracefully gathering up one’s chips or coins without appearing to care about them in the least; it was either a widespread difficulty among gamblers, or she hadn’t concealed it well, because he snapped his fingers and spoke in an undertone to one of the uniformed staff.  She wanted a uniformed staff.  With fewer balding men than his had, granted.  “Giuseppe or one of his aides will see to it that your winnings are placed in your stateroom,” he said.  “Will you walk with me, Mademoiselle?” 

Of course she would.  It was why she was here.  She’d walk with him, and drink wine, trying to soak up what he said about it as much as the taste, and nod appreciatively as he talked about The Dream Oath; when she went back to Jidoor, she vowed to obtain, if not a box, at least seats at the opera.  She’d play a low-stakes game of poker with him and a trio of officers — one, she realized after the first hand, had been her escort aboard — and toast to her win in his stateroom.  And she’d eventually admit, there, that he was on the very short list of gamblers she’d been planning to meet.  She nearly said “to challenge.” 

“Your name’s come to my attention as well,” he said, reaching out to toy with one of her ringlets, “though I must confess, I’d been under the impression your hair was black.”

“A lady likes to maintain some flexibility,” she said.  She’d done her research.  She knew about the lover who’d vanished, and the soprano who was the reason he was discussing The Dream Oath and not some other opera.  “I’ve been meaning to try red hair one day, as well.” 

“Auburn, mademoiselle,” he said, leaning just far enough into her space to speed her heartrate a little.  “Above a certain social grade…”

As she was chuckling, he kissed her.

*

By throwing in with their host, Celes had found herself a guide to the odd rhythms of a weekend aboard the Blackjack.  It seemed to be within a few hours after dawn when they left his room, and many of the guests and staff appeared to have reached the same conclusion.  The music had subsided to a single pianist, playing something so desultory it might not even have been a real tune; a few dealers and gamblers were still awake, but the gaming room was quiet and virtually deserted as they stole out of Setzer’s stateroom and up to the deck.  “I almost wonder what time it is,” she murmured, on the stairs.

“Who’s to say?  We’ve been flying west.  If we were to land, the people would call it a different time than it seems to be in Vector at the moment.  An airship keeps its own time.”

Oh, she wanted one.  A floating world with its own time, divorced from the ground.  Or a regular place on this one; that would do, too, for a while. 

It felt like morning on deck, anyway, and it also felt windy and brisk.  Her evening gown had short sleeves, and she’d discarded her wrap somewhere along the way.  He shrugged out of his coat and placed it around her shoulders, and she smiled gratefully at him even though she felt like a child wearing an adult’s coat, swallowed up in it.  “I suppose you’re used to it,” she said, meaning both the keeping of time in the air and the stiff wind of the airship’s deck.

He smiled vaguely at her.  “I should let you know,” he said.  “As much as I hope to continue our dalliance, I’m not… in the market for a partner.  Not now.”

Poker face, she reminded herself.  Who’d ever said she was, either?  It was more the timing of the admission that stung, and the things it said he’d assumed about her, than the fact that he’d said it all.  “Naturally,” she said.  She reached up beneath her ringlets to work the first of the hairpins free.  “Nor am I.”

“Lucky, that.”

“It’s our stock in trade, isn’t it?  Luck.” 

“Indeed.”

In the silence, she continued to undo the hairpins.  He’d let her see how far his scars extended; she could reveal a thing or two herself, especially when it accomplished more than one purpose.  He leaned against the deck, seeming unaware of what she was about, but when she removed the wig and shook her own hair free, he noticed immediately.  “I see you did your homework,” he said.  It was so nice when a man took your meaning immediately.  “But I think your own locks suit you better,” he added, reaching to ruffle the close-cropped hair at the back of her head.

“You flatter me, monsieur.  But as I said, a lady sometimes enjoys flexibility for its own sake.”  Although she might also enjoy the breeze, or a man’s touch, on the nape of her neck.

“I have no doubt of that.  At least one lady.”

“Tell me, monsieur, how much would it cost to commission an airship from you?  A smaller one than this, of course.”

He laughed ruefully.  “Oh, my dear.  If it were only a matter of money…”

Comments

[quicksilver_ink]

Oh, this is fun! Setzer and Celestia deal well together -- and it's nice to see Celestia Ludenberg living her life outside of Monobear's Happy Fun Land.