fighting_mad | [OOM] Eiattu

Princess Isplourrdacartha Estillo is in a Mood.

She has been pressed into wearing a dress. This is bad enough in and of itself, but the green gown has a train that she keeps nearly tripping on, and also involved are: makeup, earrings, high-heeled shoes, and some sort of weird styling substance in her short hair. She looks beautiful; she feels a fool.

Train gathered up in one hand, she stalks through the palace, two members of her Guard following at a safe distance. She hardly notices the startled palace staff and assorted courtiers that she passes as she makes her way down several levels, toward the Great Hall. She was already annoyed enough to have to take time out of a very busy schedule for a formal supper with assorted nobles and high muckety-mucks, and this evening seems to be intent on raising her blood pressure by the second.

She veers from her path; throws open a set of old-fashioned wooden doors and steps out onto the small balcony, into the heavy Eiattu night air. She whirls back and barks, "Come out here and I'll vape you!" at her bodyguards.

She doesn't have a blaster--can't fit even a holdout anywhere under this kriffing clingy thing-- but they don't know that. The man and woman glance at each other, then hurriedly close the balcony doors to wait in the corridor inside.

Plourr leans on the railing, looking at the bright lights of Eiattu's bustling capital city through the low-hanging leaves of a courant tree, and she grits her teeth.

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"Are there any stories that do not involve bloodshed, Isplourr?" asks the Duchess Pernon with some distaste, using the childhood nickname. "I believe most are hardly suitable for dinner conversation."

Her eyes harden just a little at the se of the name, but the face doesn't change. "Please, Duchess; do enlighten me on what is suitable for dinner conversation." Her words are cool, but could ostensibly be taken as serious.

Rial snickers.

Then carefully rearranges his features into something resembling polite attentiveness.

Gror Pernon is not a stupid man; he knows the furiously polite look in his wife's eyes (the one directed for a half-second at their be-painted son, then mostly at the tall young woman who is glaring politely right back). He steps in.

"I am certain that discussions of etiquette can wait for another opportunity, my lady," he says to his wife. She shoots him a look, but falls silent, and the conversation turns to a spirited discussion of Eiattu and its future, one involving most of the nearby diners, that continues right through the third course of the meal.

A conversation that involved some rather frosty rejoinders between a certain princess and a certain grand duchess. Still, no tempers are lost outright, and Plourr is in her element, discussing the mechanics of various speeders with several men seated near her. She gestures and talks, arguing stubbornly but laughing often.

Rial watches her with something like a goofy smile on his face.

It's times like these that he really does love her.

The duchess taps her wine glass with a salad knife, hard enough that one might start to worry for the safety of the glass. Conversations and goofy smiles everywhere are rudely interrupted.

The duke nods to her in stately thanks. "I do believe there is a reason that we are all here."

Rial shifts slightly, catches Plourr's eye.

:D?

"Synna and I," with a look to his wife, "are pleased to formally announce the engagement of Rial and Isplourrdacartha." He finally cracks a smile, as small as it is. "It has been a long time coming." He raises his glass, and the duchess does, too, beside him. "To Rial and Isplourrdacartha." Everyone at the table choruses their agreement, toasting the pair.

Okay. Maybe Gror at least isn't so bad. Although she still doesn't regret having punched him in the face.

Plourr folds her hands in her lap, resists the urge to run her hand through hair that still feels utterly foreign, and she does smile. If faintly.

Rial's watching her, looking almost concerned.

"Plourr?"

She glances up, asks a somewhat confused, "What?" under the cover of courtiers still clinking glasses.

"I need to talk to you. After."

Then smiles, hearty and almost fake, smiling and nodding under the congratulations.

* * *

It is some hours later when the dinner breaks up. Plourr leaves, predictably, with Rial. She is a little tipsy; not incredibly so, but a little, which speaks to the amount that she had to drink. Her alcohol tolerance is legendary among even Rogue Squadron.

She is laughing, leaning on him as they walk down a deserted hallway. "I can't believe you actually painted your mustache."

He's laughing as well.

"I told you I might. And you'd been looking so down, lately, I thought it was the perfect time."

"I was looking angry, not down," she corrects, with a-- Is that a giggle? Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Although there was probably also some down in there somewhere.

He gives an exaggerated bow.

"My apologies, Princess."

She snorts. "Y-- Hey." She holds out an indignant hand. "My knife, Pernon. As pretty as it is, you can't keep it."

"I might."

He finds the knife and dangles it teasingly out of reach.

She reachces up for it-- yeah, even with the boost of the heels, her fingers fall millimeters short. His arms are too kriffing long.

She halts and crosses her arms over her chest. "If you think I'm jumping for it, you're sorely mistaken."

"Oh, fine."

He hands it over, still grinning.

"Thank you," she says haughtily, taking it back and sliding it up her arm. Fuck not matching. That matches. That so matches.

(It doesn't.)

Of course it does.

Rial watches her quietly for a moment, and then, "I need to talk to you."

She looks up from her arm-- and her smile fades as she sees his expression. "About?"

"The engagement."

He sighs.

"I don't want to ruin your life. I'm in love with you, Plourr, and I'm not going to deny it, but you've got a long time still ahead of you. I just mean - look, go date other people. Stay out late. Have a contest to see who can do the most shots of Whyren's. I'm not going to become a husband to an unwilling wife."

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