Difference between revisions of "Logs:Post-Pirate Patter"

Madilla's Quarters, High Reaches Weyr

Larger than most of the quarters in the Complex, this suite is made up of three distinct rooms, all rough-hewn but of a reasonable size. The main room is a living area, largely filled by a table with several chairs, as well as a small desk. Beyond, the two further rooms are both bedrooms, the larger one filled by two single beds, whilst the other, smaller, contains a double bed, one that fills most of the available space.

Rag rugs cover the floors throughout all three rooms, while heavy quilts provide both insulation and decoration, hung from the walls.

Even out in the orchards, it didn't take long for word to spread: Devaki's news (which can't have made Madilla terribly pleased), and then, afterwards, the whole shipwreck-oh-wait-pirates debacle. Madilla's smart; no doubt it didn't take her too long to put two and two together, and even amidst everything, it probably wasn't difficult to find a ride home in short order. It's mid-evening, now, and two disappointed children have been put to bed, leaving Madilla to sit in her little living room, bent over her sewing. Most of the glows are half-lidded, but sewing requires a certain amount of light, and that spills out beneath the door into her quarters, confirming that she is, indeed, in.

H'kon can't have been said not to have looked for the Weyrhealer briefly before taking his leave from the Hold; he did a dutiful scan, even asked cryptically after some of the Weyr's residents. It may have landed him with an extra passenger for the ride home, but once that is all dealt with, and Arekoth has been excused to the feeding pens to retell his part of the adventure in ever-increasing epicness over a hot 'beast of blood, well. After all that, H'kon is freed up to see to his own concerns. And apparently, among the most pressing is behind that door with the light beneath it. He knocks softly, rests his hand on the door, but doesn't try it.

The sound of that knock lifts Madilla's head from her work, though that's the only movement she makes for one second, two seconds, three. Then, she carefully secures her needle into the fabric, and sets it down on the table so that she can rise, cross to the door, and open it. It's not locked, but then, it rarely is; still, she doesn't seem surprised to see H'kon - actually, mostly, she seems concerned. "You're all right?" she asks. "Everything's all right? We heard something about pirates, but I--"

But for the smells of sweat, smoke and seawater that have worked their way from his skin into what might otherwise have been almost a nice shirt, and a bit of a cowlick where headgear had pressed his hair, H'kon certainly shouldn't seem the worse for wear. The hand he reaches for Madilla's arm is clean, at least, and the brownrider nods a solemn reassurance. "Fine," is slow, steady. "Arekoth and I both." The droll sort of smile that tries his face on for size has all that look of being dragon-related.

It takes verbal confirmation before Madilla seems convinced, but at least she nods, then, and nudges the door open the rest of the way with one foot, so as to encourage him inside. But first, before she can move away, she lifts her hand - the opposite one to the arm he's reached for - to brush her own fingers over his hand, just for a moment. "I take it he's feeling very pleased with himself. A daring rescue?"

It's when she touches his hand that H'kon's mouth opens - but whatever it was that had meant to be said ends up waiting, replaced instead by something of a smile, for which he's more responsible this time. "The best rescues," the man nods as he steps in, "are those in which you are personally responsible for all the saving, and all the growing number of explosions." Meanwhile, at the feeding grounds, Arekoth is made of awesome. Check it.

His smile makes her smile, and it's genuine enough, if half-hidden as she turns to close the door behind them. She waits, then: not going to sit, not even moving away from the door. "Explosions," she repeats, but at least it has something of a laugh in it, beneath the seriousness that must, surely, be aimed at those who had needed rescue, rather than at brown or rider. "No doubt."

H'kon's slight lift of eyebrows is some sort of affirmation. "He will once again be unbearable. But even I cannot argue with having actually done something." Thereafter, he turns his head from Madilla, for his first proper look around her quarters, head cocking a bit for his first proper listen. "They're asleep?" is surmised when he turns back to the woman.

"I think he's allowed. This time." Madilla's got affection for the brown in her tone; it's easier, of course, when the unbearable is not in one's own head. Her gaze follow's H'kon's - or, rather, follows his face as he glances around. "Fast asleep," she confirms. "Having eaten far less sugar than they had hoped. Though," and she sounds distinctly less pleased about this, "I'll probably have to take them back. Since we didn't, in the end, see Devaki." Bad choice of day for the excursion all 'round, clearly. She had promised the now-Lord, however uncomfortable with it she seems.

"I had just secured the pies when the drums started beating." There's almost something mournful to the brownrider's tone, and to the slight dip at the corners of his eyes. Sad H'kon doesn't last for long, his chin lifting faintly at the mention of that newly declared Lord of High Reaches. "I was going to ask next," isn't rightly defiant, though there's a firmness in it, as in the look that now settles on the rider's face. It stays even when he starts into, "I'm sor-" and then changes to, "It was unfortunate, to have to leave you, still." At least he dips his head down a bit.

Colour flares in Madilla's cheeks, but the shake of her head is firm, a visible dismissal of-- something, anyway. Something that's made clearer when she says, "No, no, of course. You had to go. I knew as soon as we heard what was going on that you would. It was important. I'm not trying to--" Failing to come up with the words, she tries shaking her head again. "We were fine. The people on that boat were not."

"Had to," H'kon agrees, "and that is the way of it. But," and something in his demeanour relents, leaving a bit more of an apologetic look on him, with shoulders more relaxed, head tilting a bit once more, "still." He makes a study of her thereafter, green eyes darting across her, not uncomfortable, if maybe a bit hurried. A moment, and he's lifted a hand to rub over the stubble on his jaw and chin.

"And if I hadn't had the children with me, I would have been hurrying in to help the Hold's healers," concludes Madilla, with one more (hopefully final) shake of her head. "I'm glad you were there to help. You, and everyone else who did. Though I'd certainly prefer a less-- eventful day out, next time. So." Her chin has lifted, her expression turned determined. "Everything's fine. You're safely home."

It could be just the dip of his head casting different shadows, or that could be a bit of ruddiness creeping into his cheeks. In a moment, he's mirroring that determination of hers, all in an impulse to close what distance had come between them in the whole 'entering the room' business. The hand reached for Madilla's cheek is invite to deal with the gap in height - practiced and common enough by now, for all H'kon's not the most demonstrative of men - in the stretch for a kiss. And then, "Yes."

Practiced, common - and comfortable, too. Madilla tips her head down to meet that kiss, smiling into it, and smiling more, afterwards, her arms snug about his waist. "Good," she says, in answer to his 'yes'. "Now," because that issue, and everything else, is apparently no longer relevant or important, "Have you eaten? Do you need anything?" Though she's clearly not concerned about the sweat-smoke-salt smell.

"Madilla," and her name is said with a bit of amusement behind it, for all he's now studiously watching his own fingertips, which have not quite pulled away from her face, as they brush at her skin, "I'm fine. Here," is added with a lift of eyebrows again, for all he's still watching his fingers move.

"You're s--" Sure? But Madilla stops herself, forces herself to laugh, self-deprecating. She might shake her head, but that would dislodge his fingers, and-- she doesn't. She's staying right here, then, quite still, except for the way she extracts one of her arms so that she can smooth (or, okay, attempt to smooth) the cowlick of his hair. "Of course you're sure."

H'kon almost laughs there - there's movement in his throat that doesn't quite produce a sound, so much as an interruption of air - and he echoes, "Of course." He lets his eyes close a moment, takes in a breath, eases it out, with fingers never stilling throughout. "Though," and he's looking at her once again, peering more, in such proximity, "I'd not object to your bed."

That last makes Madilla's eyes laugh as much her mouth, both all the more obvious given proximity, both cheerfully content. "Bold of you," she teases, though she's already leaning in again, initiating a kiss of her own that lingers for a few seconds before her arm unsnakes from about his waist, all the better to take his hand and lead the way.

"There are times a man must be bold," H'kon offers dogmatically. Any further declarations are neatly silenced in that kiss. The only voice thereafter is not so much words as a low, "Hm," something not unlike contentedness as he allows himself to be led, albeit along a way he knows well enough by now. Boldness sometimes has its limits, too.

Later, curled up beneath the quilts, Madilla rests her head on H'kon's chest (so much more practical when they're laying down, see), and lets out a low, contented sound, one that could almost be a 'Hm' of her very own. She didn't bother with many of the glows on the way in, so the room is dim, and quiet, but cozily warm (or maybe that's just the quilts).

The quilts, and possibly also the dragonrider, who is playing the role of central heating system. (And yet how few people would apply the term hot-blooded to the taciturn man...) H'kon had, at some point in all this, brought his arm across his belly to rest his hand on Madilla's back, and has otherwise barely moved since then. His quiet has lasted even longer than the stillness, that last bit of speech (her name, adorable) long since died away. So when he lifts his head a bit, core tensing, there's something abrupt to it. "Does it worry you?" And now he's squinting at her, instead of the ceiling, in the low light. "His father," stress on the relationship, "as Lord?" So much for romance.

There's a pretty immediate answer in the way Madilla so abruptly tenses-- and another, in the glance she aims at him after she's shifted her weight so that she can lift her head and do so: worried and unsure. "Yes," she says, finally - answer number three. "It was hard enough, before. Exile, supposed murderer, Blood. But Lord? No wonder he didn't want anyone to know, yet, if he knew this was coming."

It's an awkward thing, trying to get the arm nearest her slightly under him to help support as he looks at her (success rates may vary), all that the other hand might remain at her back. Where it presses, with what might be protectiveness. Or caution. Or even some type of nascent jealousy. "It's a truth that would make things difficult. For your son. More so now." And his gaze on her sharpens, so much as the light allows. "More so outside the Weyr as well as in."

After a moment, Madilla sighs, dropping first her gaze, and then her head-- as if she could bury it into H'kon's chest and never have to deal with anything, ever again. It means her words are slightly muffled, even if she's turned her head to the side, when she agrees, "Yes. I'd gotten used to-- the rest. As much as I could. But Dee..." And a few seconds later, not much above a whisper, "I didn't ask for this. He was just... a man. A friend. I didn't know."

Whatever that hand of H'kon's was, it takes a shift more towards the protective now, fingers splaying wider, arm moving to take her a bit more firmly in what's becoming something of an embrace. He holds his tongue for some time (or maybe it remains still out of habit), until he's worked some thoughts through. "But you want your son to," is as much question as it is a sideways statement of opinion. For all the comfort he might seek to offer by way of touch, his voice isn't overly emotional.

Madilla, too, holds her silence, though she seems more content with those arms around her - enough so that she can lift her head away again, eventually. At least she's not crying, and nor are there even faint signs of tears, gathering: she's relatively calm, despite her emotion. "He has to, now," she answers. "Now that Devaki knows." She won't say it outright, but there's a suggestion of it in the glance she aims at H'kon: maybe she's no longer certain that was the right thing to do. "But - it's not fair, to deny a child their father. Or a father, his son. Is it?"

H'kon presses his teeth together, and exhales a slow sigh through his nose. "Now." Another sigh, this one shorter, deliberative, even. "He's very young." And whatever trail his thoughts would follow there is abandoned, in favour of a shift, both of line of questioning and of that elbow that's trying so desperately to support him, them. "Would you have this man act the father, raise your son?"

Poor elbow. If Madilla were less distracted, she'd probably be more conscious of that poor elbow, and probably push for a different position, but - alas. "I put off telling him for so many months," she says, half-rueful. "And if I'd waited just a little longer..." Would she have changed her mind? She doesn't seem sure. What she is sure of is the answer to his last question: "No. I don't mind him knowing him, meeting him. But he's my son."

H'kon nods, and goes so far as to bite his lip. "I have no say in this," he decides, after one of those long moments of quiet that are so typical of him. At least that arm about her doesn't move, and that arm under him doesn't give out during all that time. "But I imagine there are few boys so young as your son who would be able to keep such a thing secret. If you were to tell him now." His fingers press her back. "I suppose it depends how soon you want your son to begin to learn what all that might mean. His blood. And what would be thought of it."

Madilla can't seem to help herself from sounding bitter when she puts it into words: "Bastard son of a supposedly murderous Lord Holder." She lets it hang for a moment, not flinching away from her word words, but not entirely comfortable with them, either, then gives H'kon a lengthy glance. "No say, maybe, but I appreciate your insights. Maybe it would be better if, for now, he was simply... Uncle Devaki. If only Dee looked less like him." She lets out a breath that isn't far off a sigh, then concludes, "He may be Lord Holder, but he's not in charge of me."

"And it is certain that your son will some day ask after his father, if perhaps not certain when." H'kon starts to settle back, and then pauses. Poor arm. "And if you believe this Lord Holder will respect your decision, if you do choose not to tell Dilan just yet," and there's a look of worry that weighs on his brow in that, "then... I do think that might be easiest. For both you and the boy." The arm either begins to tire, or begins to be relaxed. "For now." And he eases the rest of the way, until his head finds that pillow.

"Mm," agrees Madilla. And if she's well aware of H'kon's worry (and she is, she must be; she almost certainly shares it), perhaps, right now, she chooses to ignore it. "We'll see," she adds, then, as she slides over-- because now that he's not supporting them both, why not use a pillow instead? The quilts get readjusted around them, as she adds, quietly, "I'll talk to him. We'll work it out." But not... tonight.

And that arm gets a stretch for the service it'd done, holding up that heavy conversation, before H'kon turns onto its shoulder. "And if you need me," offers the man with no say in all this, "I will be there, so much as I can." More confident a promise than when she'd asked for his presence at the Hold, for sure. It's once he closes his eyes, once the events of the day start to numb his limbs toward sleep, that he adds, in a strange tone of voice that might even have an element of the boastful taking advantage of his fatigue to creep into it, "Pirates allowing."

Is that a laugh, half buried in the pillow? Certainly, Madilla's shoulder twitches, just slightly. But still: sleep.