fighting_mad | [OOM] Eiattu - Royal Apartments

[OOM] Eiattu - Royal Apartments

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.

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

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."

"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?

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."

"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.

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

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."

"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.

"I'm fat," says Plourr, "and my caf tastes fine," but she's grinning (right up at him) so broad and passionate and fiercely pleased that her face hurts.

She likes that. 'Love of my life.'

She likes it very much.

She says, "Jaedian."

"You're pregnant," he corrects, "not fat. There's a difference. For one thing, if you were fat, you probably couldn't lift me with one hand. And your caf could double as solvent."

A thoughtful pause.

"Ianna."

"I--" says Plourr, and then she stops.

Yes, says Rial's expression. Go on, tell me I'm a genius.

She absently socks Rial in the shoulder as she looks around the room. The pale green walls, the cheery stuffed creatures, the mobile that will set to tinkling over the crib once they actually get it working, the dresser... She runs her hand over the smooth rail of the crib, slow and considering, wondering if this looks like a room that an Ianna could live in.

"There'll be plenty of noise about giving a princess of Eiattu a Corellian name, you know."

She looks at Rial.

She's grinning.

Rial rubs his shoulder, moving a couple of steps backward to lean against the wall, taking in not so much the look of the room as the look of his wife in it.

"Her middle name can be the name of some ancient so-and-so, that'll appease them. And Ianna's a good, strong name."

A good name for his daughter, he thinks, and even though it's been - how long now? - he still blinks in faint surprise at how well the words his daughter seem to fit.

Plourr looks down. "Well?" she enquires gruffly. "What do you think?"

Pause.

"Never kicks when I want her to." She makes her way over to the comfortable, padded chair (added to the room on her insistence) and slowly, carefully sinks down into it. "Only when I'm trying to sleep. Kriffing contrary." She props her bare, swollen feet up on the open lowest drawer of the dresser.

"Ianna Estillo-Pernon," she says, and she smiles.

"Takes after her mother," he says dryly, leaning against the wall. "Kriffing contrary and likes to kick things, occasionally while I'm trying to sleep."

Beat.

"Ianna Pernon-Estillo."

Plourr eyes him.

"Estillo-Pernon."

Um, sorry, Plourr, it just doesn't work like that.

"Pernon-Estillo."

She fixes him with a look. "What the kriff's so much better about Pernon-Estillo?"

"It's got my name first."

The look is rather less friendly, this time around.

"That doesn't answer my question."

That's okay, because the grin stays exactly where it is.

"No, no, that was the answer."

There is nothing within easy reach that she can throw at that grin, much to Plourr's unhappiness.

"Does it really matter to you?" she asks, rolling her eyes.

(This is slightly hypocritical, as it matters to her.)

Rial looks at the pout on Plourr's face (although he's pretty sure that if he called it a pout out loud, he'd be looking for his teeth) and decides that it could transform into a full-blown scowl any moment.

So he makes a wise decision influenced by the ever-powerful survival instinct, and backs down.

"Er - no, dear."

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