[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]

"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.

[fighting_mad]

The dance is awkward, not least because Plourr is a touch ungainly, but also because it's next-to-impossible to waltz successfully with her hands still clasped in his.

She gives it a shot for a second or two, and when it isn't working out, she firmly plants her feet, leans up, and kisses him (also firmly).

[eiattu_pride]

Well. He's not really complaining.

Rial lets go of her hands to wrap his arms around her body, letting his hand trail over the visible curve of her belly before it rests on her back.

[fighting_mad]

She can't press flush against him like she could a couple of months ago, but she can (and does) kiss him slowly, fingers tangling up into his hair.

"Feels pretty kriffing real now, doesn't it?" she asks, once there's a break for air. She rests her jaw against his shoulder with her face turned away from him, her eyes following the way that the tail of the stuffed bantha on the dresser moves in the breeze. "With a place for her and everything."

[eiattu_pride]

"Pretty kriffing good, though," Rial admits, voice low and soft. It feels real and sometimes he can't wait (sometimes he can, as the practical part of his mind points out that everything he's read suggests that it's going to be rather a lot of work, but he's gotten better at ignoring that part the last year or so and cheerfully tells it to go to hell), wants to hold their - his - daughter in his arms, see her face.

He doesn't always voice these thoughts, but they're there for Plourr to see if she just looks at his eyes.

[fighting_mad]

She shrugs one shoulder against his.

After a moment, though, she lifts her head, and she meets his eyes. "I don't do anything half-assed," she says, and it may seem sudden, but it's been something she's been thinking about, lately.

(Hard not to, really. There is this little reminder that she sees every time she kriffing looks down.)

Her mouth sets in a familiar stubborn, determined line.

"I'm going to be the bad-assingest mother the galaxy's ever seen, or die trying."

[eiattu_pride]

...









"Yes, dear."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr squints at him for a moment, frowning, and then she says, "That's not what I meant."

[eiattu_pride]

"Came out like that," he says, a little weakly. Possibly trying to hold back laughter.