[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]

"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.