fighting_mad | [OOM] Eiattu - Royal Apartments

[OOM] Eiattu - Royal Apartments

The gathered advisors and aides look very, very wary and are very, very hesitant when Isplourrdacartha calls them inside; they saw the emperor's expression and his bloody mouth when he stormed out. It isn't difficult to put two and two together, particularly after noticing the unnatural bent to two of the empress's fingers.

The look that she skewers the admiral on when the older woman asks if she is alright is more than enough to prevent any further questions.

Plourr finishes the meeting.

Afterward, the admiral pulls her aside and requests further discussion of the speculative points of the Kuati shipyards' bid; she says that she knows that the empress is terribly busy, but asks if the empress will walk a ways with her and debate it.

It isn't til they're nearly right on top of the infirmary door that Plourr recognizes Admiral Almied's diabolical genius; she stops and lowers her eyebrows at the officer, but Almied only smiles and bids her farewell.

Plourr takes the hint.

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It's an hour or so after dark when Rial gets home. It's been raining softly but steadily for about that amount of time as well, and he stamps mud off his boots before pulling them off in the little entrance hall.

There's a rather spectacular bruise blossoming on his jawbone, and he's damp from the wet. His expression is still closed off, quiet, deliberately blank.

He doesn't call Plourr's name, but checks through every room. When he doesn't find Plourr or Ianna he goes to the bedroom, showers quickly, and changes.

Expression exactly the same as when he walked in the door, he goes to his easel - currently sitting in the living room - takes out his paints and brushes, and sets to work.

An hour later, Ianna advertises the advent of the empress and the princess far before Plourr does.

"Ba!" The little voice is muffled through the front door, but audible, and coming closer. "Ba, na na na!"

Rial smiles quietly, pausing for just a moment before continuing his work, long easy brushstrokes and the slow drawing out a huge, vaulted room.

His hand only falters very, very slightly when he realizes who must be bringing his daughter.

"Yeah," says Plourr's voice. "Na na na is right, kiddo."

The front door hisses open, then closed. Ianna's happy babbling is suddenly a great deal louder; so are the heavy footsteps, followed shortly by the clatter and thud of boots being toed off.

To Plourr's credit, she doesn't start when she comes down the hall to find Rial sitting in the low light in the living room. She's dressed for the outdoors, as is Ianna, who's riding high in her mother's arms, wearing a rain jacket and a hat, with her fist tight on the upturned collar of Plourr's flight jacket. The middle and ring fingers of Plourr's left hand -- the hand steadying Ianna's back -- are splinted together and taped up. She looks tired, her hair wet. Ianna looks bright-eyed, satisfied, and bone dry.

"--Hey," Plourr says after a second's pause. "Take her for a minute?"

Ianna squeals and wriggles as she is brought closer to her papa, and she lets of of Plourr's jacket to make grabby hands at him. "Ba-ba!"

"Yeah," Rial says, and puts his brush down, turning to scoop her from Plourr's arms. It's impossible for the unreadable expression to stay on his face and he smiles, soft and crooked, brushing a finger over Ianna's cheek and shaking his head slightly when she grabs at it.

She burbles happily and he joggles her up into a more comfortable position, one where his own damp hair is slightly less within reach of happily grasping fingers.

He doesn't say anything, not quite yet. But he's not angry, not anymore.

He's quite sure of that.

"Ba-ba!" She flings her arms around his neck in a wildly uncoordinated baby-hug, and is quite happy to rest there and blow raspberries against his neck.

Plourr, meanwhile, carefully tugs the rainhat off Ianna's head, ruffles her hair, and slips wordlessly into the kitchen.

Her usual crashy clattering noises are subdued.

"Hey, angel." Rial's pretty happy to have her blowing raspberries against her neck, to be honest. It's a little slice of normality in the lunacy that's been the day so far.

He could wait for Plourr, but he doesn't. Instead, he goes to lean against the kitchen door, watching her wordlessly, gaze drawn like a magnet to her fingers.

She's been caught in the act of gathering ice into a towel, movements quick and easy and all-too-familiar, despite the element of clumsiness added by the splint on her dominant hand. Her eyes flick up briefly; one side of her mouth looks, for a second or two, like it wants to lift at the sight of Ianna draping herself all over her father.

Another twist or two of the towel and she has a perfectly serviceable icepack. She steps back toward the two of them, and there's a split second's hesitation, the kind that wouldn't be noticeable to anyone who didn't know her very well, before she puts a hand on Rial's shoulder and nudges him to turn around. Her hand is uncharacteristically light; asking rather than cheerfully shoving.

"C'mon," she says. "Come sit down."

"Okay," he says. His voice is soft, half-gentle, like her hand on his shoulder. Different.

He leads the way, Ianna giggling to herself on his shoulder, occasionally waving a chubby little hand at Plourr, and sits down on the couch with his legs propped up on an ottoman. Ianna is transferred to his lap (where she instantly manages to find the only wet drop of paint on his shirt and smear her fingers happily through it), and he looks over at Plourr, his whole attitude one of quiet apology.

"I'm sorry, my princess."

"Shut up," she says, and her fingers are cool on his chin as she brusquely turns his head. His right side facing her, she sits down, one leg under her, and presses the ice to the worst of the lurid bruising more gently than most would give her credit for. "I'm sorry, and don't you dare say it's okay, because it's not. I don't--

"I never should have hit you." She shifts her grip on the ice and raises it so that it touches his swollen lower lip, too. A definite twinge of guilt, as she sees the damage up close and personal.

Her eyes are dark and frank and soulful, and on his. "I'm sorry, Rial."

She's not sorry about the argument; she'll stand by every goddamn word she said. But she feels like shavit that she punched him. She's supposed to stand by him; she's supposed to protect him. She's not supposed to be the one hurting him.

His smile is lopsided, although that might be more to do with the ice then with any particular conflict of emotion. Indicating her splinted fingers with a wave of his hand, he says "Looks like my jaw got back at you, anyway."

Seriously, though, one hand stealing out to very lightly rest over her knee, he meets her eyes. "I'm sorry for what I said. I should never have - that was inexcusable. Completely."

And he means it, too - it's written all over him.

Edited 2008-07-06 06:35 (UTC)

It wasn't what he said -- besides the cowardly comment, besides implying that she had her own interests at heart rather than Ianna's; that did smart -- so much as the fact that he said it. He knows that to say that she hates to talk about her family is an absolutely mammoth understante, and he dragged it right into the argument.

He's apologizing; genuinely and sweetly at that, and something in her face shifts and softens just that little bit more.

"Stop talking so damn much," says Plourr, intent on her ice. "You're making this much more difficult than it needs to be."

(Still, though, she touches her lips to his skin just above his eyebrow; a featherlight, private brush. Ianna coos, momentarily trapped between her parents.)

"Your head's as hard as I always said it was."

Rial closes his eyes, for a moment, that lopsided smile curls up the edges of his lips just a little bit more. "Of course it is. We're a hardheaded bunch."

His hand squeezes her knee and he shuts his eyes again, quietly and absently playing with Ianna's hair. "Hey, it's a survival instinct. Talk under pressure."

This feels better. Plourr's being herself, maybe a little quieter, little more gentle then usual, but still Plourr. Still his princess, not a wild-eyed and angry warrior woman who he hopes, in a deep part of himself, he doesn't see again. They're together, and apologies have been made, in the soft light of the living room with ice cold against his cheek and Plourr's knee warm against his hand, he thinks that this is what makes things right, these days. Family.

Just knowing that at the end of all things, it's still him, and Plourr, and Ianna.

The smile is softer, now, and maybe somehow more real then before.

"And besides," he says, squeezing her knee once more. "You love me for it."

I love you.

Plourr is still wild-eyed under it all. She wouldn't be Plourr if she wasn't.

But she's quieter; she's apologetic. Taking a swing like that, she could have broken his jaw or given him a concussion. And while Rial said things that he shouldn't have said -- she's furious with herself for letting her snap-reaction go so far.

"I never said that," she says, but the roll of her eyes is fond, and her gruff isn't really so gruff. She wiggles her fingers on the icepack and jerks her chin at Ianna. "Here, I'll trade you."

"She's got paint on her hands," Rial warns, but willingly trades off, scooping Ianna up and depositing her, babbling excitedly, in her mother's lap.

Reaching a hand up to grasp the icepack, glances sideways at Plourr. "Where'd you take her?"

"I noticed," says Plourr dryly, as she rolls up her flight jacket sleeve and sticks her arm in the path of Ianna's hands just before small hands would have slapped her stomach.

"On a walk." She wipes Ianna's hands off on her forearm (Ianna starts making threatening noises, unhappy to be deprived of splattery color, even if it is going all over Mama's skin) and strips her out of her raincoat. "Checked out a couple of your favorite hiding spots."

Rial grins somewhat sheepishly, ducking his head and reaching over with his non-busy hand to grab the rainjacket, hanging it over the arm of the couch.

"I don't think they count as hiding spots anymore if both of you know about them." Not that Ianna's going to remember, but still.

"Did you eat dinner?"

Edited 2008-07-06 23:49 (UTC)

"Yep," she says.

(Never let it be said that Plourr Estillo isn't a practical woman.)

"Bet you didn't, though. Order something up from the kitchens."

"There's a surprising lack of decent food in the jungle," Rial notes, but gets up and starts to wander towards the com. "We should fix that."

Teach the wild thaks to cook!

"Do you want anything as well?"

She waves him off. "Just get more than you think you'll eat, of whatever you're ordering."

Her eyes flick to him, as she pauses with Ianna mid-bounce; Ianna thinks this is part of the game and shrieks with delight. "The jungle?"

"Right." He ignores the second part of her comment long enough to order, then turns back, arms crossed over his chest.

"Yeah. I went out for a walk." A very long one.

"If you tell me that you went completely alone, into the jungle, with rabid thuvasaurs, and didn't bring any kind of a weapon, I might hit you again."

(This is said dryly enough that it's a joke and not an actual threat, but there is a light in her eyes that suggests she'll be more than unimpressed.)

"Nnn! Nnnnnnnnn!" shouts Ianna, and Plourr gives her a gentle toss, catching her easily; Ianna shrieks with laughter.

Edited 2008-07-10 03:37 (UTC)

Rial avoids her eyes for a moment, shifting on the balls of his feet. "I had a comlink. And a holdout blaster. You know the thuvasaurs aren't actually rabid, right?"

Ignoring the fact that his holdout blaster is a tiny thing designed for hastily wounding or possibly killing an unarmed assailant, he feels that he was actually pretty safe. He's been through those jungles since he was a child, knows the dangers and accepts the risks when he needs to.

Ianna gets a soft grin and a quiet chuckle, and Rial goes to move closer to Plourr, pulling a small face at his daughter.

"No," she says, "they're not. They're meaner than you, though, and they could eat you in about two bites."

She socks his shoulder. Ianna makes a grab for the moving fist.

"The next time you go for a stroll in the jungle, take a goddamn heavy blaster. Or an ion cannon. Agreed?"

"Three bites," Rial protests, measuring his chest with his hands. "Maybe four."

Ignoring Plourr's fist smacking into his shoulder (not particularly hard, it must be said), he grins and shakes his head. "Or I could just take you."

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