[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]

"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."

[fighting_mad]

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

[eiattu_pride]

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

[fighting_mad]

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.

[eiattu_pride]

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.

[fighting_mad]

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.

[eiattu_pride]

"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."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr eyes him.




"Estillo-Pernon."

[eiattu_pride]

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

"Pernon-Estillo."

[fighting_mad]

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

[eiattu_pride]

"It's got my name first."

[fighting_mad]

The look is rather less friendly, this time around.

"That doesn't answer my question."

[eiattu_pride]

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

"No, no, that was the answer."

[fighting_mad]

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.)

[eiattu_pride]

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."

[fighting_mad]

Her expression clears abruptly. Well-accustomed to Rial's occasional habit of letting her have her way rather than getting into an argument (not that she minds it, all the time), she looks at him, momentarily serious.

This is rather a saner expression.

"Does it really not matter to you, Rial?"

[eiattu_pride]

His expression softens, and he pushes off the wall to come stand in front of her, a hand resting on her shoulder.

"It doesn't, Plourr, honestly. Ianna Estillo-Pernon."

[fighting_mad]

She tips her head back and studies him, and then she nods once, in assent. "I always thought I would be, but I guess I won't be the last Estillo after all, huh?"

[eiattu_pride]

"Not at all," he says, and lightly flicks her chin. "We'll have a whole herd of children and they'll give us grandchildren and they'll give us great-grandchildren and every single one of them is going to have Estillo as a last name."

Beat.

"Estillo-Pernon."

[fighting_mad]

The last person to carry her family's name, the last to guard their honor--

--She very much likes the idea of not being the only living Estillo.

Her smile, though, takes a swift hit, though, as if it had hit a ferrocrete barrier and rebounded. "A herd," she repeats.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial stands, and swings his arms out wide, indicating the room. His tone is more joking now, even if he hadn't been, exactly.

"Ten at least. Maybe twelve."

[fighting_mad]

"Try nine less than that," she says. "Maybe eleven."

Husand and wife are in their usual bantering mode (where Rial banters and Plourr rolls her eyes and scowls and tries to pretend she's not laughing), Plourr's eyes narrowed -- but the truth of her feelings is easy to read on her face.

[eiattu_pride]

Which is, possibly, exactly why Rial's not pushing the multiple children thing for real right now.

"What about five? Could we do five?"

[fighting_mad]

"We could 'do' the exact amount of times I accidentally get knocked up," she says, shaking her head.

"Which is once."

And only going to be once, says her face.

[eiattu_pride]

"Oh, fine." Rial sulks momentarily, before plonking down on the floor next to Plourr's big chair.

"How're you feeling?"