Logs:Outnumbered
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| RL Date: 17 August, 2013 |
| Who: Anvori, Leova, Varian, Veylin |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: Exhausted weyrmates attempt to deal with their infant offspring and each other. It's hard. |
| Where: Anvori's Quarters, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
| Mentions: E'dre/Mentions, Via/Mentions |
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| Baby in a basket. Second baby in a second basket. Leova sits on the floor, leaning sideways against Anvori more than backwards against the loveseat, amber eyes flickering over them like they'd wake up if she looked too long. One of them has already started to stir, squirming against its wrappings before going still again. "They outnumber us now," she says, low. "We were outnumbered a long time ago," replies Anvori, his voice equally low and also tired. He reaches forth to press a calming hand atop squirmy's swaddled belly, turning the small pressure into a caress of his thumb against the shape of his squished arms. "I don't mind." The arm around his weyrmate's shoulder tightens, gentle with his fingers slipping down to rub her upper arm. "Did you want another?" Is that a tease? He seems absolutely serious. Maybe, if you ignore the glint in his hazel eyes. Leova can't see his eyes, and perhaps she should know better, but she's tired. The beginnings of relaxation from the caress turn into a flex of muscle that isn't as solid as it had been before all that bedrest. She turns, and then she can see her weyrmate's eyes, only to narrow her own. "No others. With our luck, we'd have triplets," she says gloomily. "And then quadruplets, if I hadn't thrown myself off a cliff first." She might sound like she's joking. A wry smile shapes on Anvori's lips, his lashes lidding briefly as he exerts a tired sigh. "You or Vrianth first, you think?" Conspicuously, he's not in that listing of either or. "Oh, Ell." It's not often used, her initial rather than her name, and the way it's exhaled now is like a long extended prayer, the 'l' sound exceeding normal length limits. "Do you need anything? Should I-," he pauses, as another stir from the girl this time along with the soft mewling of an infant indicates something going on, and then it subsides, and even happy father looks relieved. Stay asleep, babies. "Maybe on Vrianth. So she can catch me." Leova's trying. She looks at him, then leans in to rub her nose carefully against his, the way he'd started doing it to her these Turns ago, then... freezes with his pause. The sound subsides, she subsides, with a frayed sigh of her own. "It's just like... I don't feel like... When did it come back, before? I don't even remember." And he's been such a shoulder to her. Helping. Doing. How can she rightly complain to him more? The tired makes deciphering her statements too difficult, perhaps, for he does a quite un-Anvori-like thing and goes, "When did what come back before?" The bridge of his nose pinches as he pries his eyes open, only to close them again to nuzzle his nose affectionately against her cheek and then down, drifting into her neck. "I think the boy looks like you. Has your nose. Your. Ever. So. Cute. Nose." Her nosy-nosy-nosy-nose? Or perhaps it's Vrianth with the long and nosy nose. "When did I... " He interrupts her. Touching her interrupts her. Leova sighs, more of a catch in it this time. She doesn't lean over to examine their son, not when she has to turn her head to try and protect her neck. "You can call him Var now, you know. Your boy, your proof of virility." He takes a long look at her, pulling away from her neck and the arm about her stiffening somewhat. The look turns into something mild, the lines of his face retreating as he merely nods and repeats, "Var," leaving it at that. There's further retreat though, as he shifts his body, however subtly and however unintentionally, to find himself closer to the basket of his son, outstretching that finger again to trace the lines of his too tiny body in the air. Lest Vey be ignored, the other hand reaches out to do the same a split second later. That's what she wanted, surely. It's a fatherly thing to do, and a mother should want that for her children. Which means Leova could only be crossing her arms because she's cold. The air tracings must work some kind of poor magic, for Veylin wakes with that piteous mewling once more, and the finger that hovers, stills, uncertain. He waits, listening, waiting, hoping, and the crying just intensifies, and the moment's indecision disappears, his fingers scooping beneath the small bundle to lift and cradle her close to his bare chest. Which doesn't stop the crying, but what more can a parent do? "Shhhh shh shhhh," is Anvori's fatherly soothing, while bouncing gently in place. Leova watches them for a few moments, amber eyes a dark brown in the light, holding her breath. Veylin keeps crying. Varian starts crying. She waits. But it's too late, she can't hold her breath anymore. She has to unfold her arms if only to pick him up and do the same thing as the baby's father, her weyrmate. "I love you," she says quietly, rubbing her nose against their baby's still-soft head and its fine hair, inhaling. He hiccups, gasps, mewls again, quiets. Maybe she's talking to him, maybe those were the magic words, but Leova continues, "Anvori?" and again there's that thin sound. If he's heard those magic words, Anvori gives no indication, opting to stand instead to give the bouncing a better go, full knees, gently rocking and the constant shushing in their daughter's ear. It's more effort, and takes longer time, but soon, the fuzzy-haired baby quiets, drifting back into sleep. It's only then, as he continues to rock Vey back and forth and back and forth, that he responds, the hesitation only heard in the breath taken in at first, "Leova?" Magic words indeed, if they can quiet a baby without even being said to him. Still on her knees, her muscles still tired from that long forced stillness, Leova can only practice that soft jostling rock and sway. Var cries again, thinner, as though reminding himself that he still can. "You're better at this," she says wearily. "You're still better at all of this." Of course that's when Var starts being the one to try for her neck, and then start rooting lower, when already she has so little to give. Thin-pressed lips, not so oddly like his more known sister, but odd for the time and place the likeness comes, whiten and then release. He'll allow her another of his attempts at peace, "I'm not as tired as you are. My body's not recovering still." He's not as... tense as she is, is what he might say, but a glance back at her with Var has him swearing, albeit inaudibly (but those lips form in all the right ways for expletives), at what babies do by nature. He plasters a chagrinned look on his face and offers the sleeping Vey, "Let's trade. My legs have a few rotations around this room left. And barring that- our neighbors can afford to hear a baby cry up and down the hallway. No one really needs to sleep at-," whatever o'clock this is. Leova had thanked E'dre for help in moving. She's had to thank so very many other people. For her weyrmate, she has to look grateful, and she is, though she's too tired to make the best job of it. Of making it show instead of letting it pass through her like a ghost. He's right. He's right about what he didn't say, too. That's even before he offers and she wedges a hand on the base of the loveseat, levering herself up. Then she can balance on its edge and make the trade, let the cushions cushion her. "She'll be back soon," the wetnurse. "It was just a break." That may be wishful thinking. "Thank you." This time she can make the gratitude show a little more. He could offer to find her, but there's an appraising look out of the corner of his eye that makes that open mouth turn more hang dog than about to say anything of importance. Instead, he shuts his jaw and makes the trade; in this, the two of them have some rapport, passing one baby into the free crook of an arm and accepting the other into the opposite side. Var, however, did not get the memo that daddy has magic powers and continues to make those infant noises that aren't quite shrill enough to be grating just yet. Just wait a few more weeks. Anvori begins to walk, a slow, rocking, bouncing, steady pace around the room. Around that couch Leova balances herself on. He circles her in a wide, slow loop. "You don't have to do that. Thank me. I mean." If she didn't know. "They're my children too." It's the proof of his virility after all, is somehow unspoken but conveyed in the shifting eyes that draw his attention conspicuously from Leova back to the boy bundle in his arms and the seeming, slight crink in his neck as he walks the loop away. "But swapping made it easier for me," Leova says over the top of little Veylin's head. "Not just them." Her smoky voice is weary. Wearier, for trying to talking him into letting her be grateful, or whatever this is that they're doing. She sways, hip to hip, shoulders balancing the movement so she doesn't fall over, but also taking a moment to sniff the top of Vey's head too as though it might have somehow changed. Her cries, when she does cry, aren't yet grating. She still, mostly, smells right. "You either." He pushes this whatever it is dance. "I love you. There's no gratitude in love." It's very simple for him, even as tired as he is. Var still exercises his, not quite perfect lungs, though the sounds are weakening their resolve in light of the triple attack of sway, intermittent shh, and bounce-walk. However, not crying just means he's distracted again and trying to root against Anvori's bare chest, which elicits an unchecked chortle. Enough of a sound and vibration to startle the little boy's blue eyes open. And then there's the d'awww look, and a verbalized sigh, "I wonder if his eyes will stay blue." Leova can nod, given that. "All right." It's all but silent. Her eyes track him as he walks. Unfocus when he goes out of range. Roll upward, not like a teenager but by someone too tired to really turn her head, at the mention of blue eyes. "I wonder... who will get teeth first." It could be a game. "Vey. She's feisty," is Anvori's immediate response. "Grow hair faster?" He's stopped moving now, just rocking and bouncing in place as he looks to Leova. There might even be a glint of hope flickering in the back shadows of his eyes. "Vey," her too, and Leova's wry about it but amused, too. She smiles at him, tiredly but there. "First to say 'Vrianth'?" Vey three? Anvori purses his lips, smiles in an impish way reminiscent of the name he voices, "Via." "That's cheating," claims his weyrmate, narrow-eyed. "Cheating and you know it." Then, "Kiss me." He's holding a baby, who is trying to latch onto his nonexistent boob, though there's a man-nipple there. And they're playing a game and suddenly the game turns into a request. A demand? No, by the lack of irritation on his face, he's taking it as a request. His return loop is slow, but not hesitantly slow, just cautious of jostling the baby in arms. He slowly drops to his knees, and leans in to kiss the inside of her thigh, and smiles upwards. Leova has a one-cornered, no, a two-cornered smile as she tracks his approach, eyes closing briefly until suddenly they're open again. On his... knees. Kissing her thigh. Her... thigh. She looks at him, all bemused, then reaches out with stockinged feet to try and capture his body without disturbing either baby... and lightly give her feet a shake. "You." What else can she do? "You." If he's not smug yet, could be he should be. If there's relief in him, he's doing a good job at not showing it. Not yet at least. Later, he might nurse a glass of brandy alone out here while she sleeps, but for now, he needs to find that wet nurse, help her change her dressings, tuck her in to bed and make sure there's food close by for everyone. But then, maybe then, there will be some medium drinking alone time. |
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