Logs:Incommunicative
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| RL Date: 5 June, 2015 |
| Who: Nala, Lilah, Grace, Eliyaveith |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Nala and Lilah try to put the past behind them. |
| Where: Nighthearth, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 1, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: M'vyn/Mentions |
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| Lilah is half-asleep where she is curled up in a chair near the hearth, here. Late enough in the afternoon that lunch has since passed, but too early for even the aunties and uncles to show up for dinner, it is just the weyrwoman alone. A brightly colored quilt is wrapped around her shoulders, clutched to her chest even where it clashes with red-gold curls, and her chin is pillowed on one of those fists as she gazes into the fire, there. A plate of half-eaten lunch sits at hand, ice cold by now, but no one has been by to take it away. Or she has not let them. Leading Grace by the hand, Nala could not possibly look more awkward about keeping company with her two turn old daughter, a far cry from the early days of the girl's life, when the bluerider hardly let her out of her arms. She doesn't have words for her, even though Grace babbles quietly along to herself, and though Nala is patient about the slower progress of her daughter's smaller strides, she plainly has a destination in mind and is paying more attention to that end point than the girl. When they move through into the nighthearth, Nala moves for the small assortment of pastries and selects one, breaking it in half before she hands one of the pieces to Grace without comment. It is the toddler that draws Lilah's attention first, recognition immediate with the same immediacy to the curve of the weyrwoman's smile for the young girl. It is only after that her gaze lifts to Nala, as the bluerider moves for the pastries there. But the goldrider only shifts, straightening, to greet, "Grace. Nala." Nala is watching Grace with a distant kind of wariness when Lilah speaks, and only then does she actually seem to notice the goldrider's presence, and in that moment she even steps away from her daughter as though to deny her. "Lilah." Grace watches the weyrwoman through dark eyes that are too like her mother's, a shy kind of smile working free around the flakes of pastry she's intent on consuming, and then the girl's attention darts abruptly to the fire. She begins to move for it, one hand reaching, and then Nala is quick to move, to grab her by that reaching hand before damage can be done. "No," she tells her. Lilah's lips press together in a line at Nala's response, though the goldrider doesn't seem intent on pressing at it, for once. There is a certain weariness to her presence, the only hint of energy coming when Grace moves for that fire and it seems like she will rise to stop her, but than Nala does so and she seems to relax again, her gaze lingering on the toddler. Grace shrieks, a piercing thing that shares the full extent of her frustration at being denied by the unfamiliar presence of her mother. Nala almost lets go of her, startled, panic tainting her expression, but before the toddler can kick off any further, the bluerider gathers herself and gathers up her daughter, to plant her in one of the comfortable chairs, once again without remark or explanation. How Nala has interpreted Lilah's response to her single word greeting becomes apparent enough when she amends it to, "Weyrwoman," instead. It is Eliyaveith's flickering flames that reach out to replace the fire that Grace is denied, a brush of what attempts to comfort the young girl with all of her overflowing maternal instinct. The girl that is their child, their baby, at least in a way as she seems to think. Yet, even as her dragon does that, intrudes, Lilah offers an immediate, "I am sorry. She--." She shakes her head, rather than finishing. Grace stares, at first into some middle distance, then at Lilah, then at her mother, and then at the fire, seeking the source of the flames and offered comfort. It can't be the first time that a dragon has touched her mind, but with no physical presence to match Eliyaveith's touch with, she keeps searching, lips parting as though to speak, though ultimately she makes no sound. At least she's quiet. Nala is oblivious, except to note the sudden silence, and looks sharply between Lilah and Grace. "She what?" she demands. "Who?" "Eliyaveith. She just wanted-- Nevermind," Lilah dismisses, her lips again flattening at the sharp look and the demand as she flicks her own gaze to the fire as well. Whether she somehow grasps the name from Eliyaveith's presence or just echoes and trips over the word she hears from Lilah, Grace pronounces, "Ellie." And then again, stretching out the final syllable and that E-sound with a low key sort of glee that makes her wiggle in her seat. Ignorant of what other words Grace might repeat, Nala still initially bites back the response she has for Lilah, until it decides it wants out on its own. "You are a stubborn, selfish, incommunicative bitch," she informs Lilah, low-voiced. "And I don't know why I love you." There is an incredulous breath that slips past Lilah's lips at Nala's accusation, half of a laugh, as she challenges, "I am? If that isn't the pot and the kettle--." But there's a sheen to the goldrider's dark gaze, and she doesn't press on before she breaks down to add, "Because we're... us. We are the only ones who understand each other, Nala. Really understand." "...Bi--" The child isn't permitted to get past that first syllable before Nala is telling her, "No!" again, more hastily than before, and she buries her head in her hands a moment later. "Her father is going to kill me..." she mutters, words half-smothered. She peeks out at Lilah from between her fingers, and maybe it's just an excuse to give her a second or so to school her expression as much as it is an gesture of despair. "...I don't think I want anyone else to understand," she says a little darkly, letting her hands fall away from her face. "Like he hasn't said that word around her. I am sure he'll just think it was his slip," Lilah assures her dryly, her words coming easier now where it seems like a weight has shifted off the goldrider's shoulders, tension that has been there since Nala's entrance and before seeming to melt away at least for the moment with the bluerider's confession. She doesn't even seem to care about the moisture forming at the corners of her eyes, as she meets that dark statement with a quiet hesitation over, "Nala-- I--." Nala turns, reaching for the other half of the pastry, which she hurriedly supplies Grace with, in an effort to both redirect the girl's attention and prevent her from trying to repeat any other interesting words. She stays standing at the foot of the chair in which her daughter sits, and rather than try and rescue Lilah or interrupt with more words of her own, she remains silent, waiting, her observation of her with an expression softened since a matter of minutes ago. "I am tired of losing people," is what the weyrwoman exhales on a note, her lips twisting into wry smile before Lilah continues, "I know I should say something and ask you to forgive me, but that isn't me, is it? I love you, too, and I don't want to keep doing this." Losing people, fighting; she doesn't clarify as she instead meets Nala's gaze as she falls silent. It's her turn, now, to wait expectantly. "I don't forgive you," Nala replies, not unkindly, but matter of fact. "I don't think that you will ever understand why I did what I did. It was a matter of survival." She glances down at the floor. "...You say you are tired of losing people," she murmurs. "If I had not... you would have lost me for good. Jynth too." The flex of her shoulders is an uneasy shrug. "If you cannot understand it, then you cannot. But I am here. And so are you. Maybe that will have to be enough." "It was never that you left, Nala--. But, you are never going to understand my side of it, either, will you?" replies Lilah with a hint of sharpness, a moment's defense there as she studies the bluerider for her answer. Then she shakes her head, a simple gesture. She only agrees on a murmur, "Maybe it will." But her gaze slides away before Nala's returns, finding the fire again instead. "No." And Nala is honest enough to admit, "I cannot afford to. That is a matter of survival too." Though she hasn't flinched from that sharpness, there is some reluctant, unconscious retreat in the hunch of her shoulders that wouldn't have been suffered before. "I understand that I cannot, and I understand that you won't. So, you can stop making accusations, and I can stop being defensive about it. Either we accept that, or we live without each other." "It isn't that I won't. I understand your side, Nala. Believe me that I do; if I could do what you did--." But Lilah cuts herself off, finally adding a soft murmur of, "I'm sorry," for those words she cut off. "You did what you needed to do. I understand," is the note she ends on, a silent acceptance. Perhaps it's best that Nala doesn't manage to, or simply can't, summon the words to speak on the subject any further, even to proffer her own acceptance. At least, she doesn't manage to do the latter in words that directly address it. She glances from Lilah to Grace, her gaze lingering on the child with no more affection than before, far more guarded for her than she is for the goldrider. "...Are you going to take Grace to see Eliyaveith, or am I going to have to answer questions about her all day?" she gently proposes. It is a lighter subject, and it summons a smile, only slightly forced, from the goldrider. "Gracie, have you ever been seen a pregnant dragon?" she questions of the toddler. "A gold one." She moves to stand, reaching out a hand not to Grace but to Nala. "We'll take her." Grace's focus swings to Lilah when she hears the diminutive of her name, her mother's utterance having earned only a flicker of interest. Either she mirrors her when she begins to wriggle out of her chair, or she understands from both words and tone that they're going somewhere, and it's 'dragon' that she latches onto and begins to draw from her a list of all the dragons that she knows, even if she mangles the pronunciation of some. Nala reaches to keep her from the fire again, capturing her hand in the half-second before she curls her fingers tightly around Lilah's, then offers her her arm. |
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