Raising the Bar

”Wow, Yorkshire is that small? I always thought…” She closed her mouth for a moment, taking some time to compose what she was about to say. She’d heard of Yorkshire before, though she couldn’t recall exactly where. Probably some movie. Still, just based on the fact she’d heard about the place, she assumed it couldn’t have been all that tiny.

”I don’t, I guess I kind of forgot that middle-of-nowhere towns aren’t purely an American thing, I guess. Definitely a far cry from what I thought Britain was like when I was a little kid - kings and castles and knights and magic and all that stuff.” She shrugged it off with a little blush, remembering some of her childhood fantasies.

Before they could go down a potentially embarrassing road, Millie brought her back with the talk of drinks. ”Yeah, sweet is more of style. Something that kind of goes down smooth. And cherry’s are cool, soooooooo…”

Blossom ordered the Mort Subite, though it took some doing to figure out the right Japanese words for it.

That one brought out a full on laugh from her, not even her lessened mood could stop her from finding that one funny, and it was the kind of stereotypical Yank comment that a certain pink haired friend of hers would always make jokes about. Millie didn't take any offense to it though, she just couldn't help but find it funny.

"You'd be right. Yorkshire's a county." She replied, a small smirk making its way onto her face. "There are a lot of towns in it." She continued, letting the bit about kings and castles and magic drop - for now, at least.

To be honest, the Brit was pretty terrible at actually speaking Japanese herself, embarassingly bad in fact. She had made it a point to never speak a word of Japanese even when at work due to how terrible her grasp of the language was. But, she knew enough to be able to ask for two of her usual, or as it probably translated, "Usual, two. Please." as the bartender approached, and was shortly rewarded for her grasp of the language with two pints of a dark maroon liquid, one of which she practically inhaled immediately.

"So, how did you get into the AFW?" She asked, wanting to keep talking to her new friend.

Blossom made a mental note to do some research on Great Britain between now and the next time she and Millie got together. If they were going to be friends - and she hoped they would be - it wouldn't hurt to be knowledgeable. A little cultural exchange.

”Yorkshire. County.” She hit the mark on an imaginary box. ”Got it.”

It wasn’t a long wait for their drinks to get back, and she took a couple of tentative sips, sampling the taste. Nice. Sweet. Had a little punch to it, enough to make her giggle. That went on for a few seconds, before she gained enough sense to actually answer the question.

”Huh, me?” She sat up, ramrod straight and wide-eyed, before she eased up and slid back into her seat. ”Well, I guess it was pretty simple. I used to wrestle back home, was pretty good-” She had a quick hiccup. ”-pretty good at it. And I always wanted to travel, and the AFW was hiring, and the money was good, and I maybekindasorta liked the idea of rolling around with other girls, so...yeah. Here I am.”

She took another sip and shrugged. ”Not really all that big of a story, sorry.”

No bad mood that Millie might have been in could have withstood that little imaginary check mark that Blossom hit the mark on, and the way the American seemed to want to learn more made it so that she couldn't really hold any lack of knowledge against her either.

The Brit went about sipping at her drink for her new friend's explanation of her path into the AFW, only stopping to raise an eyebrow at the girl's hiccup. Was she getting tipsy already? She'd barely touched her drink. Maybe everything they said about American beer was true.

Millie snapped back to her story almost immediately, her already-eased rough mood soon evaporated all together, leaving her smiling warmly over at Blossom.

"Maybekindasorta?" She asked, placing her already half-finished drink back on the counter and looking over at the American with a teasing raised eyebrow.

"Don't apologize, it's as good a story as any." She added, before lapsing into a distant stare, mentally fretting over how to tell her own story, figuring she could probably at least give the toned down version of her own story to her new friend. Didn't feel right keeping secrets, not from Blossom at least.

"To answer your question, while I was in the RAF there was..." She trailed off, pondering her next words carefully. "An accident. I lost a friend, and it never felt the same. When the time came to re-enlist, I didn't. I'd done some wrestling in high school, and admittedly a little while drunk in the army - though you did not hear that from me." She spoke, idly spinning her glass in her hands, glancing down at it every few moments. "So I took a few matches in an amateur group, and I managed to attract a Manager, who wanted to see me over here."

Sip, sip, sip.

Millie was smiling now, so Blossom was reasonably sure they were on a good field. It was weird, really - she’d gotten the idea that the Briton would be all strict and stuff, just like she was inside the ring. But, instead, this was quickly turning into one of the most pleasant conversations she’d had in a long time. And with someone who spoke her own language, for the most part. Nice bonus.

She wanted to learn more about Millie, but at the same time, she feared prying too deep, not wanting to make her say anything that would put their budding friendship on edge. Luckily, the former pilot made the decision for her. She spoke. Blossom listened with honed attention, whittling away at her drink the whole time.

”Oh, wow.” Blossom bit her lip. ”I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. Like, I’m sure you hear that all the time, but...well, I’m sorry.” Seemed like the right thing to say. Sip, sip.

”But it’s cool you have a manager. I always wanted one, but I was never all that attractive.” She held up a finger. “In the ring, I mean. What’s your manager like? Did she catch our match?”

Millie was honestly impressed. She was both impressed at herself, and at Blossom. She hadn't really told anyone that story in the AFW so far - well, aside from one person, but it had taken much longer to trust her enough - and those that she had she usually only started talking after four or five beers, plus some shots. There was just something about Blossom that she found trustworthy. She was hoping they'd be friends.

"Thank you," She said, shooting a faint smile at Blossom. She actually didn't hear it often, but then again she didn't talk about it all that often, so that wasn't surprising in the least to the Brit. "I appreciate it."

Blossom's next comment and her correction brought out an involuntary snicker just as Millie was going to take another drink, causing the Brit to put down her glass lest she start laughing her drink out of her nose.

"Eeh by gum, I hope not!" The Brit suddenly exclaimed at Blossom's prodding. "You don't know Cammy but she's a bit of a..." Millie trailed off, trying to find the right word for her manager. Bitch? Control freak? Jerkface? "Total and complete twat." She settled on, nodding to herself.

"She stuck me with that whole 'Major' nickname, despite my objections." The Brit complained, rubbing her forehead. "Said it would make me 'more marketable', ugh."

Blossom exhaled at the release, glad that she hadn’t set anything off by poking at an old wound. It was clearly a touchy subject for Millie, not something she’d want to talk about everyday, and she was honestly kind of surprised that the Briton was willing to go so far in their first get together. Definitely a good sign.

What came next though surprised her and made her laugh at the same time, so much that she almost spat out a bit of her drink in the process. While she wasn’t exactly up-to-date with her English slang, she was familiar enough to know that ‘twat’ was pretty far from a flattering remark. Though it did beg a couple of questions.

”I’ll keep that in mind. Even if I kind of like your ring name. ‘Major Millie.’” She shuffled about in the chair with a brief flash of a playful smile. ”If she’s such a you-know-what, though, why do you work for her?”

"That's just it, everyone likes it." Millie sighed, leaning her head on an arm as she idly spun her drink. "But it weren't my rank. Major's not even a rank in the RAF. Might be that I'm just too held up on it, but it feels wrong."

The Brit slouched, grabbed her drink, took a gulp, and put it back on the counter, fiddling with it some more, before Blossom's next question caught her a little off guard.

The former pilot gave a bit of a flustered smile, "It's, kinda, well... It's complicated." Millie said, fidgeting in her seat as her cheeks flushed red for a second. "I maybe- well, you know..." She took a breath, her rambling wasn't getting her any closer to actually answering Blossom's question.

"Cammy can seem very charming when you first get to know her, and I maybekindasorta fell for her, just a bit. Might be that I still like her a bit in that way." She said with a shrug, picking her drink back up before pausing. "Well, that, and her rates are very reasonable, surprisingly."

Now this conversation was taking an interesting turn. Not that it hadn't been before, of course, buT THINGS were taking a term for more comfortable ground.

”Well, I mean, that’s a lot of the fun about wrestling, right? We get to be things we’re not in ‘real life’.” Blossom even held up the air-quotes for emphasis. ”You should have some more fun with it, embrace the silliness.”

As Millie went on about Cammy, Blossom leaned forward and let her smile widen, trying her best not to look to sly and curious. Even though she was. Immensely.

”Oh, really?” She tapped the side of her glass. ”Well, that’s as good a reason as any, I guess, but now I kinda want to meet Cammy even more.” After a few more sips, Blossom worked her way to the bottom of the glass, and motioned for the bartender to send a refill her way. ”So you’re into women, too, huh? That’s oddly common in the AFW, yeah. Not that I mind.”

Millie thought on that comment for a second, looking ahead at the bar, then closing her eyes as she took a moment for herself. She could see the argument, the AFW was a great place to be someone who you weren't otherwise, but rank was meant something different to her.

"I see what you mean." Millie said after a moment, opening her eyes and looking over at her friend, "But my thinking is that I haven't earned it. What I did earn was Flight Lieutenant, Major's a yank rank, and I haven't been a part of the US Air Force. Just feels wrong to take a rank someone works hard to earn and start using it as part of my name, instead of the one that I earned. You know?"

The Brit paused, realizing that she'd gotten into a complicated topic, and gave her new friend an apologetic smile. "Sorry if that got a bit heavy. Been mulling on that one for a bit."

Her apologetic smile turned to an amused one at Blossom's leaning forwards. She certainly was a curious one.

"If you really want, I'm sure I could introduce you." She replied, taking her glass and polishing it off, watching as the bartender immediately collected the empty glasses and gave both girls refills. She might have developed a reputation around here.

"And yeah, pretty much exclusively." She said, smiling. "I'm not super surprised. Definitely not something I mind either though." Honestly, Millie had already suspected that piece of news. From some of the match types, the Brit had been certain that a good amount of the wrestlers would be into women, so hearing it from Blossom just confirmed her beliefs.