[OOM] Eiattu - Palace Conference Room

[fighting_mad]

The meeting finishes at a good time, just as Plourr is coming in. The empress slips past the last woman leaving (nodding to those who bow to her, brushing off the one duke who tries to corner her) and into the conference room. Inside, Rial leans over the table, brushing hair impatiently off his face and gathering some sheets of flimsi, and she stops on the same side of the huge table.

She sets her shoulders, face a touch pale.

"Hey."

Comments

[eiattu_pride]

"Mmhmm." He shakes his head, "But we don't need to worry, remember? The genetic engineers said that there wouldn't be a problem."

[fighting_mad]

She pulls away, at that, leaning back so that she can look him right in the eye. Her coloring is pale, still, her eyes over-bright. "The genetic engineers said the same thing about my parents."

Look where that got them. More accurately, look who that got them. Three perfectly normal, beautiful daughters, yes, but the fourth child--

"His screams mixed with the screams of my family as they were put to death, and there was only one thing I wanted to do.

Put an end to the screaming."

K R A K K.

[eiattu_pride]

There's not much Rial can say to that, because it's true. And he can't exactly say that it was a mistake because then, well, what if they made the same mistake with him and Plourr?

So in the end he rests his head on hers and whispers, "That won't happen."

[fighting_mad]

She has killed one child like that already; with a black hole where its heart should be and a love for other beings' blood. Granted, it wasn't on purpose. She was trying to escape and Harran was screaming she just needed to stop the screaming she didn't mean for him to die -- but sometimes, she thinks it was for the best.

Doesn't mean she hasn't been living with the guilt for years.

Plourr doesn't think she could do it again. And she couldn't raise a kid like that, either. She doesn't know how her parents did. She sure as hell doesn't know how her mother loved him like she did, right up til the end.

"It can't."

And she is so afraid it will.

[eiattu_pride]

"It won't," he says again.

It won't. It can't because it can't and Rial won't let it happen. Not again.

[fighting_mad]

There's no way that he can promise her that. Neither of them has a say in this. It's biology. It's genetics. It's genes crossing in a too-small pool.

There's no way to be reassured on this. She stands silently and leans on him.

[eiattu_pride]

"Tell you what," he says finally, voice sounding almost too loud. "We'll go back to the genetic engineers, get them to rework the data from your parents and see if they can find what went wrong. Then they can rework the data from us as well, just to be sure."

It's not much of a plan, but it's all he's got.

[fighting_mad]

She doesn't respond for a long moment, and then she raises her head. "You think they would?"

[eiattu_pride]

He nods, looks more confident then he feels. "Sure they would."

[fighting_mad]

"It'd be worth a shot," Plourr says, and it doesn't make the situation immediately better, but -- it helps, a little, to have a plan of action. "I can make a few calls tonight." She rests her forehead against his and her voice is quieter when she says, "Thank you."

[eiattu_pride]

"Hey, it's fine." He's still got both arms wrapped around her, holding tightly.

"We're going to get through this and we are going to be the most astral parents ever."

[fighting_mad]

"You," she says, and she smiles, soft and fond, "are going to be kriffing fantastic."

[eiattu_pride]

"I'll be nothing compared to you."

Rial beams down at her.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr's eyes flick down and back up so fast as to almost be unnoticeable. She smiles, faintly. "Don't think I've forgotten my favorite babysitter, Rial Pernon. I was young, but I wasn't that young."

[eiattu_pride]

"You were a holy terror," he says fondly. "But oh, it was fun."

[fighting_mad]

She snorts quietly, hands resting on the back of his neck and forehead still pressed against his. After a moment, she asks, "We have anything we have to go to tonight?"

[eiattu_pride]

He thinks back, and then shakes his head. "Can't think of anything, no. We're free."

[fighting_mad]

"Good," she says with quiet fervor. "Think we can talk the kitchens into making us some dinner, and Lelian into fetching it?"

It's a rhetorical question. They are the emperor and the empress; their wish is everyone else's command.

She cut out on a meeting and two audiences earlier in order to make it to the infirmary, mostly just to sit and wait for test results, her heart in her throat. She has catch-up to play, and feet to put up.

[eiattu_pride]

"I'll hold him, you threaten."

Rial steps back to stretch, and pick up his sheets of flimsi from the table. It's been a long day.

[fighting_mad]

He can fucking think that again.

The color has been slow to return to her face, and she is still disheveled, and -- she just wants to go home now, yeah. She's got a comm to compose to some geneticists.

She holds out a moderately steady hand to him.

[eiattu_pride]

And Rial takes it, as always.

He squeezes her hand, lightly, and smiles at her. He doesn't need to say anything, Plourr knows. He'll always be here. He'll always take her hand.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr squeezes Rial's hand a little tighter as they walk through the corridors, talking quietly, but she knows he can take it. For all the complaining he does when she hits him, he's a strong man.

Sometimes, she is incredibly grateful for that.