[OOM] Eiattu - Back Stairway

[fighting_mad]

The city is bustling, buzzing with excitement and happy voices and visitors. The palace is even more busy, stuffed to bursting with distinguished visitors and distant relatives and staff scurrying about. The Great Hall is bright with flags and ribbon streamers and rows upon rows of seats.

You would think it might be difficult to miss a six-foot-tall princess in a wedding dress in all that, but Plourr has managed to escape the maids, the bodyguards, the well-wishers, the soon-to-be mother-in-law. She is sitting in a little-used back stairway. It leads down to a small kitchen that is gathering dust now that the kitchens are staffed by 'droids; it's one of her favorite hiding places.

Of course, she isn't doing a very good job of hiding right now; the wedding dress sees to that. The bride herself has one muscled, bare shoulder pressed against the wall, a single pale yellow flower tucked behind her ear. Plourr had lost on the dress, but won on the no-veil; auburn hair is cropped close to her head, as always. She has been poufed, primped, perfumed, and made up to the nines, and now all there is to do now is wait.

A full, small silver flask dangles from her fingers (with polished fingernails). She waits.

Plourr hates waiting.

Comments

[eiattu_pride]

One wonders what for.

Perhaps, it is for the groom, dressed in his best uniform, nicely pressed and shined, hurrying down the staircase.

Or he was, before he spotted her.

"Princess?"

[fighting_mad]

Plourr turns and glances back at him with brown eyes lined in dark kohl. "Rial."

[eiattu_pride]

She looks beautiful.









"Uh - you look beautiful."

[fighting_mad]

She feels stupid. But she says, "Thank you," spread out across the step. "What are you doing down here?" It's not accusatory; just curious, mostly. Maybe a little resigned to losing her solitude.

[eiattu_pride]

He shrugs.

"Pre-wedding jitters. You?"

[fighting_mad]

"Waiting; Malia is to fetch me when it's time." Painted lips curve. "Pre-wedding jitters on this certain little-used back stairway for no particular reason, I assume?"

[eiattu_pride]

"Of course."

He's watching her thoughtfully, head on one side.

"It's bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding, you know."

[fighting_mad]

She laughs. "You don't really believe that shavit."

[eiattu_pride]

"Of course not."

Maybe a little.

[fighting_mad]

A low chuckle. "Of course not," she says wryly. She glances back and up at him again. "We still have a while yet?" She can't exactly wear a chrono on her wrist, after all.

[eiattu_pride]

"Couple hours."

He's not precisely sure, but it sounds right.

"You're - well, you're comfortable with kissing me in front of everyone?"

[fighting_mad]

She smiles, quietly bemused. "In case you haven't noticed yet, I have very little in the way of inhibitions. It's fine, Rial." And there's also the fact that she has kissed him before.

[eiattu_pride]

"Okay."

There's silence as he quietly picks at his cuff.

[fighting_mad]

"You could take a seat, you know." Beat. "Or you could stand there for the next couple of hours."

[eiattu_pride]

He grins crookedly and sits.

"Ready?"

[fighting_mad]

She takes a sip from the flask (high-quality whiskey; thank Milliways) and then offers it to him. "For what?"

[eiattu_pride]

"To be married."

Takes the flask, and delicatly cleans the lipstick off the top before drinking.

His eyebrows rise.

"Good stuff."

[fighting_mad]

Oops. She isn't used to remembering things like that.

"Yeah, I'm ready," she says, resting a hand on a skirt-covered knee. She hopes she is, anyway. She sighs. "I'm ready for all the kriffing fuss to be over, too."

[eiattu_pride]

Grins.

"Me too. Just think, all the wedding fuss will be over, and we can get back to being diplomatic."

[fighting_mad]

"Oh, good. That's exactly what my life has been sorely lacking."

[eiattu_pride]

"Hey, I do more work then you do."

[fighting_mad]

Outraged look. Outraged.

And it's joking, because he does do a hell of a lot of work and she appreciates that, and she's amused at the response, but-- she's the princess. In the end, everything is her responsibility. And she's the one who takes the responsibility, who takes on the audiences and the appearances and the treasury reports and the minute decisions. There's only so far that her advisors' help can extend.

But, yes. Mock outraged look.

[eiattu_pride]

He raises an eyebrow.

Smirks.

[fighting_mad]

She punches him in the shoulder (but not all too hard). "Stow it, you."

[eiattu_pride]

"Did I say something?"

Innocent.

[fighting_mad]

She rolls her eyes, falls silent.

[eiattu_pride]

"You okay?"

One hand light on her shoulder.

[fighting_mad]

Plourr starts, but doesn't shrug his hand off. She looks up at him sitting on the step above her. "Yes. I am just--" Her teeth indent her lower lip.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Rial? I'm not an easy person to live with." More metaphorically than literally. "I will be a terrible wife."

[eiattu_pride]

"That's okay."

His voice is soft.

"I don't mind."

[fighting_mad]

"It's a hell of a thing to not mind," she says matter-of-factly, quietly.

[eiattu_pride]

"I guess I mind a little."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr says nothing for a long moment, looking up at him.

"It's not too late if you don't want to do this."

She smiles with no real humor. "Hells know I wouldn't want to marry me."

[eiattu_pride]

"Uh."

There's a pause.

"Yes, it is."

[fighting_mad]

She is tempted to snort, but she doesn't. "You're not answering the question." Not that it's really a question.

[eiattu_pride]

"I'll marry you."

[fighting_mad]

Wow, good to see a wedding where both the bride and groom are so enthusiastic over the prospect of being married.

Plourr doesn't say that. She doesn't blame him for not being rah-rah over it. She just leans up and kisses him on the cheek.

[eiattu_pride]

He smiles quietly.

"This ought to be interesting."