[OOM] Eiattu - Royal Apartments

[fighting_mad]

Plourr takes a seat (slowly, bracing her hands on her knees) on the chest in the little room, taking a look around at their handiwork.

The room is light, cheerful, and airy in greens and yellows, the window open to the humid, sunny air of Eiattu VI, birds singing in the distance. There's a closet, a chest of drawers, a changing station, a chair, and a number of smaller items tucked here and there. A quietly proud someone (read: Plourr) has hung several cheery abstract paintings, along with a portrait. The six people in it share certain characteristics; Plourr and Rial stand together, and so do the other two pairs. One duo is elderly, with the white-haired and white-mustached, dignified man leaning on a cane, and his aristocratic wife standing beside him. The other pair are in early middle age, the man tall and broad-shouldered and handsome with brown hair and a broad smile, and the woman graceful and slight, her red hair wound up into a loose knot and her smirk mischievous.

(Plourr had looked at it for a long, long time, when Rial had first showed it to her.

"I -- thought it might be appropriate. The Pernons and the Estillos, yeah?"

"It's perfect."

"What?"

"It's perfect, Rial. It looks just like they did.")

Plourr glances at the portrait, then away.

Comments

[eiattu_pride]

Rial, on the other side of the room, is whistling softly, setting up a small spinning X-Wing mobile, complete with little flashing lights and the soft hum of contented machinery.

He glances over at Plourr, decides that she's not looking at him, and attempts to sneakily remove another small figurine from his pocket, one that bears a suspicious resemblance to a modified Z-95 Headhunter.

[fighting_mad]

"It looks good," Plourr decides, leaning back against the wall and glancing to the window, where the white curtains are moving just a little with the warm breeze. "You'd think you were an interior designer in another life."

[eiattu_pride]

"Well, you know." He grins, tying the different model onto the mobile with a bit of string. "Emperor by day, interior designer by night...sounds like a bad holocomedy, but you must agree, the idea has some appeal."

[fighting_mad]

"No," Plourr says practically. "I don't have to agree. When would you sleep?"

A pause.

"Right, meetings, I for--" She turns her head to look at the crib, and her eyes alight on the mobile. Her smile softens. "--got."

[eiattu_pride]

He's going to say meetings when she does, and grins instead, holding the mobile up and twirling it.

"Once upon a time there was a princess who lived far far away among the stars, along with eleven of her best friends in the whole universe..."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr's expression is currently warring between fond resignment, 'oh god,' and really, really amused.

"We never really had twelve in the squadron; we were always missing a few." She pauses, though, and squints at the mobile. "But there are thirt--" She stops again as she notices the craft that flies alongside Not-Rogue Eleven.

"Where did you get a blue-painted Headhunter model?" she asks, amusement toying with the corners of her lips.

[eiattu_pride]

"Well. Friends, anyhow."

The grin gets a little wider. Rial's having fun with this whole baby thing, really he is. "I scrounged around a bit. It's part of a mobile that I used to have, actually, way back when."

[fighting_mad]

Her smile grows a little stronger. "You're my wing."

Whether it's a physical observation or an abstract statement, it's hard to say.

[eiattu_pride]

"Always."

A faint, soft grin, the sort that doesn't need to really show up on the face to exist, and he puts the mobile down.

"Taking a break?"

[fighting_mad]

She exhales, leaning back against the wall. "Feet could use the rest." She taps the lid of the chest. "Stress-testing this, too; if I can sit on it without it breaking, you know it'll be fine for the kid to climb all over."

[eiattu_pride]

Rial moves to her side, settling down on the floor next to the chest. "Ah, it'll be fine. Hopefully the kid'll inherit my genes and settle down with some paints once she's been born."

And - not climb over everything and shriek and scream and beg to be taught how to fly.

[fighting_mad]

That narrative statement does not at all resemble either of the pair sitting here, clearly.

"Your genes aren't so different from mine, you know," she reminds him, pointedly, resting the back of her head against the wall.

[eiattu_pride]

Clearly not. At all.

"Tall," he says, and pauses, thinking. "Large. Muscled. Stubborn." A small smile curves his lips. "Beautiful."

[fighting_mad]

"I meant that you're my father's cousin," she says, but she's letting her head roll to the side so she can shoot him an amused look. "But that works."

[eiattu_pride]

"Weeeeeeell," he says, drawing the word out into one long noise.

"Family resemblance. Although I can't say I ever called your father beautiful to his face."

[fighting_mad]

She snorts softly. "You'd have had the wrong ruling Estillo, if you had," she says with a faint smile, thinking of her delicate, proper mother.

[eiattu_pride]

"Manly beauty," he points out, and strikes a pose.

(this is your cue to admire, Plourr)

[fighting_mad]

Or perhaps it is her cue to swat his shoulder.

That's what she does, anyway.

[eiattu_pride]

Oh, she's mean. He ignores her, as it is, abandoning his pose to glance around at the room.

"We should try and finish this, maybe."

[fighting_mad]

"Slave driver," she grumbles, and she holds up her hands to him.

[eiattu_pride]

"C'mon, my princess." He takes her hands, leaning back to haul her to her feet, but doesn't let go of them quite yet.

[fighting_mad]

It takes a second to get her up, but once she's upright, she glances down at their hands, then up at his face.

"Yes?" she enquires, but she's winding her fingers more closely into his.

[eiattu_pride]

"What?" Maybe he's teasing, a little, moving backwards and stepping to the side like he's starting a waltz.

[fighting_mad]

"You're not letting go of me," she points out, but she's following, barefoot, with less than her usual grace.

[eiattu_pride]

"Oh, no. Whatever could I be thinking?"

Not letting go, like maybe their hands have been glued together.