[OOM] Eiattu - Royal Palace

[fighting_mad]

Dinner over with, the sky outside dark and filled with stars, Plourr is sprawled across the sofa, her feet in Rial's lap. "I don't know how the idiot ever thought it was a good idea."

She shakes her head, but here's a rare thing, amid all this misery and restlessness and rampant boredom and discomfort and fucking helpless waiting: there's a thoroughly obnoxious grin threatening.

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[eiattu_pride]

"Plourr," he says, holding onto her just a little too tightly although right now he doubts that she knows it. She's not responding to him, at all, and he swallows hard before just forging ahead.

"Remember, uh, remember when we were painting the nursery? And I got paint all over myself and then, naturally, all over you and you were so mad that you reached out and painted a mustache onto me?" He laughs, soft and almost surprised that he can. "I was just thinking of that the other day. Uh, mosy 'cause of that time I painted my mustache for you, on the night of that dinner? Remember how horrified everyone was? And my dad...gods, I've never seen him that mad at me in my life."

He's rambling, voice soft and low, one hand rubbing her back and the other lightly stroking the tears and sweat from her cheek. At this point, he isn't talking for himself, or even for her. He's talking so she'll have something to grab onto and focus on and maybe then this will just be over and they'll have their daughter with them.

[fighting_mad]

Gradually, she becomes aware of the familiar low voice talking, a constant buzz in the back of her mind.

A few seconds after that, she starts hearing what he's actually saying.

"Rial," she says, and she makes a grab for the big hand touching her cheek. She turns to him, face pinched and eyes dark. "This kriffing sucks, Rial, I can't-- I can't do this, Rial, Sithspit I can't--"

[eiattu_pride]

"You can," he says, and means it with every part of him. "You can, Plourr, I know you can, you're not just going to give up now." Holding her tightly and close to him he feels her skin, sweaty under his hands, feels her pulse pounding through her body. Life.

"You can do it, my princess," he says, and he knows she can. He just knows.

[fighting_mad]

She grips his hand like the lifeline it is.

'You can,' he said fiercely, his eyes square on hers. 'You're not just going to give up now.'

Easy for him to say, she opens her mouth to say, but that's pain slamming through her like a physical thing, and what comes out instead is a low cry.

You're not just going to give up now.

She pants through the strong contraction--and it's not stopping and it's not stopping and she holds his hand tight--her jaw clenched, and if another, louder outcry or two escapes her (and it does) -- she doesn't have the time or the inclination to regret it.

This had better be worth it. Goddamn but this had better be worth it.