[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]

"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.

[fighting_mad]

Rial may be laughing, but Plourr isn't. She shakes her head. "You know what I meant. This isn't what I would've chosen in the first place, but I'm going to do my damndest."

She folds her arms. "Gonna be decent at this if it kills me."

[eiattu_pride]

"Yeah," he says, finally containing his amusement and looking up with a straight face, quieting. "I know you are, Plourr. Always did."

A little trite, a little cliché, maybe. But isn't that just the way things go?

[fighting_mad]

Her mouth twitches wryly. "I'm glad one of us has faith in me."

He always does; always has.

Probably always will, too, the faith-having bastard that he is. (Her faith-having bastard.)

"You do realize, if you think you're getting off with pacing outside while she's being born, you're out of your vaping mind."

[eiattu_pride]

"I could pace and wring my hands," he suggests, demonstrating. "I'm sure I'd look very distraught. Nice young female aides could pat me sympathetically and bring me cups of caf."

It's a hard life for a father, clearly.

[fighting_mad]

"No," says Plourr, matter-of-factly, "no, and hell no."

[eiattu_pride]

:(

[fighting_mad]

Plourr is singularly unimpressed by the pout.

"Keep it up, Pernon. At this rate, by the time this kid comes out, you'll be lucky to still have un-shattered bones in whichever hand you give me."

[eiattu_pride]

"I could have married a nice, quiet duchess who liked whisperkits and sewing and cooked fantastic meals. But instead I married a woman who's almost my height, can take out an entire fleet of capital ships in a single X-Wing, and doesn't cook. Or make caf that's actually fit for consumption."

Here, he leans forward, and drops a quick kiss to her cheek.

"Fortunately she's also unbelievably gorgeous, and happens to be the love of my life."

He's said it before. He's said it with regret, like maybe once upon a time his future included some nameless silent woman and a marriage based on politics. This time, he says it cheerfully, knowing that after all, he got the best end of the deal.

By far.