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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Ahead of the eclipse, Shine returns home unexpectedly from the Highlands on a Thursday (a Billiards Night), to ask his friend Avrenne if she'd liked to do an activity with friends, and to give and get what information they can about two beloved subjects: war and children. 6900~ words (nice). |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
There's been a pall over House Fallon since the news broke of the devastating naval loss obtaining a foothold in the Highlands. Underneath it churns a grim determination towards action and retribution, the turning of the wheels of resources and politics unsatisfyingly slow and reluctant.
Lady Fallon has drawn her veil of cold calculus and logic around her so tightly it's hard to imagine that this woman could ever seem warm, as she sets herself to her work to find the difficult paths forward.
She has lost a little weight since the start of the month. Food at every meal time is a thing that other people should do; she has skipped many meals when not observed. The only thing she has regularly is tea.
Today, her dress is simple and not meant for company, a house dress of technically spring colors of a deep pink, but decorated with sharp shards of beads with edges that glint. She wears no jewelry on her hands, nothing at all, and she works with a stainless-steel pen, careful with what she touches as she writes at her desk, two weights holding down the paper on either side.
Her door, however, is still half open. Whatever she is doing, it can be interrupted.
It is nearing the hour of the afternoon when Catrin will arrive with tea.
Sure enough, just as the minute hand of Avrenne's very precise watch ticks the hour, there is a soft finger-tap at the door. It is a familiar notice, and in the next moment the door swings silently wider and the Duchess Esprit's tea arrives — but it is not Catrin who brings the tray. This tall, lean figure is at least as familiar to Avrenne as the housemaid, but considerably more unexpected.
"Lady Fallon," says Shine with his very best bland footman's manner. "Your tea."
If there had been any doubt of the difference between the duchess the world is presented, and the person Avrenne allows her friends to see, it may very well put to rest.
Avrenne gasps as she recognizes the voice, tearing her attention from her letter — a glance would reveal that it is to one of her peers entreating them to reconsider allocating one of their linen resources to donate the canvas to the Alliance and switch to another material for their own purposes — and setting down the pen mid-sentence.
She rises from her chair, a bright smile lifting her expression up into lightness that banishes the shadows. She steps towards him and reaches out to embrace him (with all the unquestioning faith that he can manage the tea service and a hug without a hitch or help from her, respecting his expertise).
"Shine!" The hum of a held in startle-pleased laugh warms her voice. "I wasn't expecting you here."
Shine does manage both a hug and the tea tray, shifting the tray out carefully one-handed to the side as he returns a gentle hug with his other arm. "That's what I do these days, isn't it?" he asks lightly. "Turn up where people don't expect me. Most of the time I'm bearing a blade rather than their tea, though."
He looks around the room — which he can do even while hugging Avrenne, because she is smol — and asks, "Where will you have it? Shall I put it on the desk? By the settee?"
Avrenne releases him from the hug with a motherly sweep of her hands across his shoulders, brushing imaginary dust from his shirt. There's a bit of scrutiny now, as if checking over for evidence of recent weeks lingering on him.
"I suppose that depends on whether or not you intend to be here long enough here for company, or simply passing through on your way. I would not be averse to a pause, if you did care to stay a while," she says, her eyes flicking over to her unfinished letter.
"I would be very glad to pause a while, if I'll not be interrupting your business there." Shine crosses the room to the pretty white and gold seating area before the windows and sets the tea tray on an end table by an armchair.
Avrenne moves to the door, closing it with a steady hand to a near perfect degree to be three-quarters shut. She may be interrupted still, but the reason had better be a good one. Her eyes flick to the letter on the desk as she follows him to her chair by the window, in a precise most direct path.
"It's less…business, and more politics. Nothing at all that will not keep, whether I finish it today or tomorrow or next week, since I expect it will be sitting in some mail collection for a month at least," she explains as she sits, arranging the folds of her dress to mathematical perfection, another small exertion of control over herself and her surroundings.
"You seem well," she continues, looking him over, "but then you always do." She reaches for her tea, letting the opening stand in place of a more direct question, for now.
Shine settles into an armchair as well. He sits upright with that military posture of his, not the sort of lazy sprawl one might see on the couches in Siamus's office, but then again Avrenne's little gilt sitting area does not seem to invite casual sprawling in the same way that a sturdy hearthside couch and a bottle of whiskey might. He doesn't seem uncomfortable in any way; the posture is every bit as natural to him as a sprawl might be.
"I'd say I've been well," he says, "but it seems a little callous in view of how… any number of other things are going at the moment." He pauses. "I have been, though. Well. How are the babies? Lady Ery ruling her brothers with an iron fist yet?" He smiles faintly.
Avrenne has the bearing of a woman who sets an illusion that she has never sprawled in all her life, but he knows better. She breaks into an indulgent smile, a parent pleased to have a reason to discuss her children.
"Oh, well. I have encouraged her to seek better diplomatic cooperative actions," Avrenne says, which both confirms the developing iron fist of the eldest, and that Avrenne is still speaking to the one-year-old like she can understand complex if-then statements.
"It's peculiar, though. The boys have begun to speak in the start of sounds, and the way they do, it's as if they have developed their own language in between. It cannot be only a baby's words, because it's clear Ery doesn't understand them. It seems to equal parts frustrate and intrigue her, where I do think she has wanted, demanded in her own way even, to spend more time with them to…" Avrenne articulates a circle in the air with a hand. "Break the code of it, an irresistible puzzle."
Yup. That's Siamus' kid, all right
Shine laughs. "Ah, she's her father's daughter. Which also means you may not have luck instilling 'diplomatic cooperative actions.'"
His smile fades a little. "How is he?" he asks Avrenne quietly. "Lena said he wasn't… that it was a blow to him. As I expect it was."
Avrenne drops her eyes to her tea, staring into the steaming liquid like it can scry a line to check on Siamus (it cannot, at least not in her hands).
"Yes," she confirms, a squaring off of her shoulders a little more. "So long as there is still an action to be taken, some course forward, no matter how strong the tide of it may be, he will be well enough as he can be. It is the narrowing of our options forward, the denial of the sheer time we truly need, to regrow our forests, to establish our soldiers, that wearies us all."
She raises her gaze back to Shine. "The work you see to in the north is part of all we have buying us that time, a little at a pace, but every tick of the clock significant. If I may ask, has it been difficult, or cathartic to find yourself back in the fray among the ships and orcs once again?"
"That's all Fallon's ever needed," Shine says; though his expression is somber, his tone is warmed by gentle affection. "Give the man a course forward, no matter how narrow, and he can thread it. And he always will find that channel. But I'm sorry for all the — for all of it. The waste, the grief."
He does settle back in the chair now, though not slouching. "As to the work — not among the ships so much, though I did a little salvage work a couple've weeks ago. And I ought to tell Fallon the story, if Lena hasn't already — we ran afoul of a siren, of all the bloody things. A touch of welcome-home up there in the northern mainland wilds. Beyond that, it's orcs and more orcs, and work I'm only too glad to be doing. It's Dragonmaw up there, or was, but now Hellscream's Horde seems to have the running of the place and the Dragonmaw at their beck." He pauses. "It's Dragonmaw orcs and it's dragons. May not be the best place for Fallon to come visit, though who knows? Maybe he'd enjoy it particularly."
Avrenne's fingers tense on her cup for just a moment, some flash of memory perhaps. "I can't speak as to the dragons, if they would be too similar. But the orcs at least are straightforward, something potentially gratifying in being at last unleashed once more on an enemy. How much worse it would be if they were there because we were once again forced into some 'treaty' with them, pretending that they could ever be allies. Waiting for them to launch yet another stab in the back while we listen to apologists claim we need their help."
Something rises behind those dark eyes, something cold and unforgiving. "No, they are once again asserting their true natures, and it will finally cost them at last. Their aggression now may have won them part of a battle, but it will be their downfall when it at last brings down the true wave of war. There will be a response. And with that, once our lines of affiliation are clear once more, we also draw one step closer to a potential true entreaty to reconcile with Kul Tiras." She clearly took to heart his advice and insight offered about the Kul Tiran mindset into what might be a way to open that dialogue.
Shine smiles, a blade-edged expression. "Aye. Ye may be sure they'll suffer some regret over Kul Tiras and the Alliance while we're there. Or, if they don't care to regret, they'll suffer all the same." This is delivered with his usual bland public courtesy, and would no doubt disconcert anyone not well-acquainted with him.
Avrenne smiles at him, that cold thing still staring out behind her eyes. "A worthy goal," she agrees, a freezing viciousness under her words usually hidden in public, to obscure the Lady Fallon's true thoughts in her political game.
She releases it in part, a motivation set aside for other days as she pushes towards war. "And the work with Cobalt Company, it has been satisfying?"
"It has." Shine nods. "Began with killing orcs, now with recruiting Wildhammers to the Alliance. The Wildhammers — Fallon's told ye, I'm sure, but they must be heroes to every Tirasian past a certain age. Bringing down dragons with their stormhammers, defending the fleet — there were children used to pretend to be Wildhammers, play Wildhammers-and-dragons in the streets." He shakes his head. "And there's Kurdran Wildhammer in the flesh, knows half my squad personally and by name. A couple of weeks back, I rode on the back of a Wildhammer gryphon and threw a stormhammer at Twilight cultists, and myself at fourteen would never have believed it. We're helping them wi'the orcs, and they'll help us with the Twilights."
Avrenne listens with a growing smile as she sips her tea. "Wonderful work. To have joined in on a Wildhammer's assault must have been incredible. I can only imagine. I have not had much contact with the Wildhammers myself, and never had the opportunity to meet Thane Kurdran Wildhammer myself." Somehow, there are still people out there Avrenne has not met. At least another dozen maybe.
"The reciprocal approach is a reasonable one," she adds, as she rests back against her chair, wheels in her head turning, "especially as they will not only be an ally against the Twilights, but once more firmly engaged with the Alliance, they will all prove more likely to be another louder voice calling for appropriate retribution against the orcs. Additionally, the forests up there may become increasingly necessary as resources."
A thing the goblins already know all too well, unfortunately. Sorry, Avrenne.
"There are goblins," Shine says. "With the orcs. They were clear-cutting the southern forest along the coast. But we've… deterred them somewhat, for now. And the forests west and in the northern hills are sound. Excepting the — Twilight ruptures in the land."
He knows that it hits a note somewhere to dim a greater hope. For just a moment her hand goes to her waist, a hard pressing of her lips together, adjusting some internal ledger by striking a harsh line through and altering the numbers. And then she takes a breath and continues forward into the increasingly narrow channel of opportunities to navigate within.
"I see. Thank you," she says sincerely. "My sources of fresh, detailed information from that region are limited, and few would think to pay attention to the forests, as their observation is more likely to be what is in front of them. Once the landing has been stabilized and secured, I should make a journey there myself, but in the meantime, perhaps I might rely on you a little more to obtain what I could use now." A difficult task at times for the independent minded duchess, used to doing most things herself, and rarely thinks to even ask for help.
"It's simply what you may already do naturally, but with some focus on specifics. Not only the resources that might be added to the Alliance's efforts, but to know what it is costing them to hold their position, and what might serve them best to have, increasing their chances of success with minimalized losses," she says. "Anything you have already noted could be useful."
"I'd be glad to," Shine says seriously. He turns his gaze upward a moment, wearing a thoughtful frown. "Let me think on it and I'll write a report on what I know. I can send you updates regularly, once we're back there. — I'm back there. Once I'm back there."
It's a good attempt at a recovery, but the twinkle in her eyes tells him she caught the brief slip. Her discretion however only has her raising her brows, to invite the explanation, if he wishes to divulge it.
Shine clears his throat. He glances toward the window, possibly to conceal his own slight smile. "Lena has — ah. Lena's been up there with me for a time. As I suspect you know." Does the window know that? He definitely seems to be addressing the window.
"I suspected," she admits, sipping at her tea. "We spoke on it, she and I, about what sort of partnership she hoped for. She could not say definitively, but I got the impression that she could never be content with a partner who preferred her to stay behind at home, or worse, expect it.
"It is one of the few places Miss Coit and I diverged in specifics, if ultimately not the general spirit. It was imperative that no marriage option expected me to be a soldier. Not only would that have been contrary to my own goals, but it would be largely against my natural capabilities. I can be many things effectively, but a soldier is not one of them," she says, with neither bitterness or envy, only self-awareness.
"Does Miss Coit intend to join the war efforts? As she is not part of Cobalt Company any longer, and therefore no longer has the benefit of their negotiation system, if she would like a contract written for her to be paid fairly for her quality of abilities, I would be more than happy to write it."
Can the duchess have a little contract to write, as a treato?
Shine considers this, brow raised. Far be it from him to deprive his buddy the Duchess of a fun afternoon activity. "I can't say for certain," he allows, "but I expect she'd appreciate it, aye. You should speak with her. I think she… respects your advice."
There's no surprise in her expression; having her advice be respected and respectable is a large part of the reasoning and design of her public persona. What there is instead is curiosity. "Of course I can speak with her," she agrees. "Is there something in particular she needs advice on?"
"I don't — think so. That is, I couldn't say. If there is, she'd have to ask you." Shine plucks absently at the arm of the chair. "Might be nice for you and Fallon and Lena and I to… I don't know. Do something together." His tone is a little too casual.
Now there is surprise.
"Something together?" What, like a hobby? Don't suggest they could go over a very long, complex contract together, Avrenne. That doesn't count as a hobby or an activity except in very selective groups.
"I am not as familiar with Miss Coit's hobbies to know what might suitable to suggest that would not be hampered by my participation, if that is desirable to have." Sailing and dancing are out entirely. "Was there something in particular you had in mind?"
"Not in particular," Shine admits. "Just thought it might be nice. The four of us. If Lena's to be — ah. You know." He plucks at the armrest again. "I can ask Fallon what he'd like to do? Or, no, probably best if the pair of you discuss it?"
Avrenne is much too diplomatic to either show on her face or say in her words what she might suspect what Siamus would like to do with the aforementioned people as a group activity that everyone enjoys as a hobby. (Plus, let's be real, Shine already knows.)
"I can discuss it with Siamus, as you like," Avrenne says, and she pauses.
"Are you certain you wish for me, specifically, to be part of the equation of an activity? I ask because I am aware that my company is often preferred for what I can offer as a usefulness in advice or connections, but not something sought for its own sake in leisure. I take no insult in it, you must understand. And if I were not a factor to consider, you have several more options of known shared interests available, such as dancing or sailing." There's no sense of an attempt to dodge the invitation, only of a person taking notes to appropriate account for the numbers as they are, willing to write herself out of it as an undesirable variable.
Shine looks genuinely startled. "Of course I do. We're friends, aye? And I'd like to spend some time with my friends and my… with Lena." He tips his head and smiles faintly. "I can bring a dish of lemon slices to whatever it is, if it would seem more ordinary that way."
She smiles back, a low hum of laughter in her chest. "No, I wasn't speaking of your preference, but of Miss Coit. I'm not likely to be a comfortable sort of company to her, with or without lemon slices. She has never sought out my company directly," she says. "Our conversations have been of my initiation and to a purpose."
"Well," says Shine reasonably. "This one is of my initiation, and it's to my own purpose of spending time with my friends and my lady. If I'm… of a mind to settle our relationship more permanently, I'd like to think the four of us can all — " He gestures vaguely.
He probably means be friends, Siamus, and not the thing you're thinking.
"Of course. A cordial relationship is always beneficial," Avrenne agrees. That's not quite friendship, but then again, Avrenne can count on one hand her friends and have several fingers left over. She doesn't remark on the permanent settling of the relationship because she's a lady who can hold her questions and not prod at a thing while it's still forming.
Instead she leans forward. "Well then, an activity the four of us can enjoy. I expect it's still a little too cold for swimming. Does Miss Coit have any interest in," she says as she makes a circle in the air as the gears in her head turn. Tides, what do normal people like to do? "The theater, or the symphony? Or enjoy any games of four players… Charades? Cards?" She says the suggestions the way people talk about Foreign Concepts they have heard of from far off countries, never before seen, but have on good authority people do.
Shine settles back in his chair to ponder these options. "Theater she might like, but that's not so much a thing the four of us… it's not for conversation and the like. Games…." He weighs these.
"Theater and the symphony were two of the places my father sent me, in order to provide me with what he considered appropriate charming conversation topics, lest I indulge in discussing my own actual hobbies. The opera and music were another requirement for the same reason, to ensure that I was espousing ladylike pursuits and interests," Avrenne says, a touch of a distancing tone in the words. Just normal things that people's fathers did, of course.
"I must admit that I have not played parlor games in quite some time, and some not at all personally, though I have seen them done. My sister and I mostly played games of our devising that I have found few people would enjoy. Still, they can't be too difficult to learn, I'm sure." Her chin goes up in readiness. Set her at it, she'll learn Trivia Night and Pictionary.
"Would you be brilliant at charades, I wonder?" Shine muses, a gleam in his eye. "I can't decide. But Fallon's miserable at it, so maybe not. Though I expect as a rule the pair of ye both like a guessing game. And it might be good for a laugh, Fallon being miserable at it." He rests his head on the back of the chair, fully at ease now. "Do you play any cards?"
"Not as such, I admit. Father disallowed card games as a rule. He considered it… low entertainment," she explains, and one gets the sense that she is phrasing the actual words as diplomatically as possible.
"That is not to say that Abrielle and I weren't sometimes among those who did play, and picked up things here and there. Abrielle brought home one game once that I was mistakenly persuaded by the name to try: War." She hums a laugh, as she shrugs in a controlled motion up and down. "It turns out it has nothing to do with war, or strategy. It's merely a game of chance of turning over cards, and often the general outcome arrives to a point where the nature of the limited amounts of cards eventually reveals the remaining ones yet unturned by statistical inevitability, and thus the winner of the game is known even before it plays out."
Sure, if you're the kind of person who can memorize all the cards in play and the statistics surrounding remaining cards, like a very normal person.
"But I would be willing to learn." But do they want her to play is the real question.
"Oh," says Shine, and raises his brow. "You might make yourself a dangerous lady at a card table." This does not sound like a negative in his book. He's trying not to smile. "I've known your husband to count cards in his time; that's why we keep the games room stocked with whiskey now. I should ask what games Lena knows, and we can see about unleashing you on them. I expect it would take ye inside half an hour to learn."
There's a brightening of her expression, a smile that he's seen before that suggests for her, being a dangerous lady at a table is not a negative either. Someone less restrained than the duchess might have even indulged in a villainous Evil Laugh.
"Well, I must admit that does sound exciting, and intriguing, to be unleashed upon unsuspecting cards. We will have to find something else besides whiskey for me, although it's entirely possible that the only way to avoid me knowing the statistical likelihood of cards is when I am unconscious, which the whisky would do. I suppose we could also keep lemon slices on hand to have someone squeeze out a spray into my eyes in a more direct approach," she says teasingly.
"Ah, but that veers into the unsporting," Shine says dryly. "Also, Fallon would demand satisfaction and I'd hate to find out in that fashion whether I'm still his match with a pistol."
Avrenne laughs, a warm crackle of a hearth fire sound, fondness obvious in the curve of her smile.
"Tides forfend," she says, as she considers the last of her tea, which should have grown cold and has not. "Mm. Charades though… if one considers the underlying principle as more than ability to act out a concept, but instead as an ability to convey a concept to another person, to know how their mind works and what associations they have to guide them to correctly leap from an action they see to an idea held in another, well, it almost becomes something of a test of how well one can speak to another in a personal Language In Between. I admit I'm curious to see how that might work among the four of us."
"Oh," says Shine. "So ye mean to be a menace at more than one game, is it?" He shakes his head. "I'd've said once that no one save Lady Sintha could read him as well as me, but I sometimes think you and he must share a skull."
He plucks at the chair's arm. "Lena and I are — suited. But not… like the pair of you. I suspect you'd give us an uncanny thrashing."
Avrenne's smile is a brilliant thing, all light and fondness, so much so that it's difficult to see how this woman ever manages to seem cold hearted.
"Well, some of it is time known. After all, we will have been married for two years come this June," she says, because time has been passing. "But admittedly, much of it was an accord, a meeting of the minds from the very first, to discover in each other reciprocal equations at last arriving at an equal point."
Her eyes flick to Shine's plucking fingers. "Still, that is not always the perfect measure of success of a partnership, to be of such similar natures. Sometimes one may want someone who helps one get out of one's own skull, or complements one's abilities so each may shine in one's own way, for a fuller experience beyond the singular self."
Shine arches his brow. "Was that a pun?" he asks dryly. There's a glint of humor in his eye.
He nods then, and glances down at his own fingers on the arm of the chair. He stops fidgeting and smooths the fabric a little self-consciously. "We're something of a balance, I think. Lena and I. As Fallon and I are too, so perhaps that's what I find best." He pauses and then smiles faintly. "I was going to say I've more in common with… and then realized I don't know which. Different things in common with each."
He looks up at Avrenne again, the spark of humor returned. "Obviously my relationship with Fallon is different from the one with Lena."
Avrenne neither admits to or denies any puns involving anyone's name.
"Well, that is always true, isn't it? All relationships, even with significant overlaps of similarities, are always unique unto themselves," she says, as she sips at the last of her tea, and sets the teacup back onto the table, smiling still. "You do know, I am sure, that it would not bother me if your relationship with Siamus had other similarities with your relationship with Miss Coit, in the past or the future."
Shine regards Avrenne blandly. She knows him well enough to tell that this is his footman's screen, not a genuine indifference. "Never would, in the future. Certainly not if Lena — if Lena. In the past, though, aye. Long while back. School days."
As she said, she is unbothered by the information, and also unsurprised (far be it from her to deny the appeal and persuasiveness of Siamus Fallon, after all).
"Mm." She sits back, folding her hands together over her lap. "On the matter of Miss Coit, I did wonder if you two had considered arrangements here at the house. The Summer Suite is open on the third floor, if you would like the privacy of separate places, but would prefer a closer proximity."
He weighs this. "That's… very kind of you. I wouldn't like to displace her if she's — I know she's quite comfortable where she is now. But I can ask her." He drops his gaze and resumes absently plucking at the chair's arm. "I don't know if I ought to… think of moving out."
There's an immediate distress around her eyes, a squeezing of her hands together, and a faint intake of breath, though she settles it all as quickly as she can.
"Oh,I — " Her eyes flick from object to object before they return to Shine. "Is there a particular preference or requirement of a living arrangement that is not currently present at the house that we could perhaps ameliorate? Something we could build, or a wall that could be removed, or…an addition that would satisfy?" Look, does Shine need a personal tower addition onto the house or like an indoor bowling alley or what? It can be done.
Shine's expression softens. "This is… home, on the mainland. And family. But — " More chair-plucking. " — perhaps Lena will expect… perhaps it's time?"
"I couldn't say. Back in Lordaeron, the Great House of Esprit was home to, oh, dozens of families, to speak nothing of the houses of the lands and the park. We had something of a reputation though, of retaining people and building greater rather than gathering those we had already room for." The gray strand of grief that weaves through her voice.
"And there is of course the consideration of Miss Coit's background. The farming community often holds onto its people, multiple generations in their homes, and they are not expected to leave unless they go to establish a new homestead, if I recall the practices correctly. But, Miss Coit is no longer part of the farming community herself, and has no intention of returning at present, so her expectations may have shifted. I suppose there's really no way to know precisely until you ask her," she concludes.
"I'll ask her, aye," agrees Shine, his gaze turned toward some unseen distance. After a silence he says, "I suppose I'd always expected myself to settle in a little house on the water, like the one I was raised in. Of course, I'd expected it would be on the isle, too." His expression is fleetingly rueful.
"When I came here with Fallon, I'd… stopped thinking much of settling down myself, and staying tied wi'the House seemed natural." He turns his good eye toward the window. "And it still does. And Lena's here with the House also. But…." Another soft silence. "Maybe a little place at Fallon Harbor?"
He shrugs, smooths a hand over his hair, and casts a faint smile at Avrenne. "It's all moot anyway, until the lady's consented to live with me at all."
"Naturally," Avrenne agrees. Whatever thoughts go on inside her head, her composure draws a veil over them, leaving only a small smile. "Regardless of where you settle, you can be assured no matter what that there will always be a pocket of home in the house to come back to, if only to visit."
Yes. Visit. The thing that people definitely find themselves doing for normal amounts of time in House Fallon.
Shine's smile warms. He inclines his head to Avrenne. "It will always be at least a piece of home. And I'll be sure to check with Lena as to what sort of game she'd like you to inevitably crush the pair of us at, as well. How's my little namesake doing? And his brother?"
Again that brightness of a parent given full permission to speak of her children, something the duchess usually holds back in restraint with her business and politics conversations.
"They are doing perfectly well, and growing exactly as expected. My physician expects that they will adhere to a similar curve of growth as Ery within the next six to seven months, growing more rapidly by percentage than she did but ultimately aligning with hers." Dr. Alma probably didn't phrase it exactly like that, but that is the data analysis that Avrenne understood from it.
"You may want to stop in and see them while you are here at the house, if you have the time and inclination. They do change so quickly at this stage, and it has been a month since you last saw them. They will try to speak to you now, in their own way, and they will smile if you do something amusing." What exactly the three-month-old twins find amusing though is probably anyone's guess. "Eamon likes to try to grab at people's hands when one wiggles one's fingers at him, and Elliot likes to roll over closer to people if one sits on one side of him."
"They're to be my next stop, in fact," says Shine. (How Siamus feels about being relegated to third priority after his wife and infant children, we may never know.) "I've a gift for the Lady Ery, if you think she'll forgive its belatedness. But I'd like to see the boys as well, so perhaps she'll accept the gift, if not for her birthday, then as tribute for letting me pass in the nursery."
Avrenne laughs, a swirling spool of honey sound. "Oh, I am certain she will accept the tribute," she says, and doesn't say if it will buy off the one-year-old in forgiveness or allowances into the nursery. "She is a child of the sea, after all."
There's a long enough moment of a pause that the shift in her tone is not as noticeable, but it is there. "The boys don't yet show any sign of the same gift, though as I understand it, that is more usual, and Ery was an exceptionally early showing of it. There is still no way to tell if there is any difference of the boys being… after." After Siamus bargained away his gift, after the Great Wave of the Shattering goes unspoken but understood.
Shine's own smile fades. "Ah," he says, and is silent for a moment himself.
"It's true the Lady Ery was an exceptional case. Is exceptional. But it's not — he himself was later than Ery. You can only expect so much exceptional in a generation; they can't all be outliers. Give it a year or two to know. And Avrenne." His lone eye is somber. "You know and I know that it doesn't matter. Whether they have the gift or not. He'll be besotted no matter what. Besides, no child of yours and his could ever be entirely ordinary." His faint smile returns.
There's a reflection of his smile on her face, but she drops her eyes to the teacup on the table. "Oh, I am well assured of his affection for all his children, regardless of their abilities. He knew and acknowledged the inherent risk of certain outcomes in marrying a mainlander woman.
"It's only this new unknown, of whether we combine a 1 and a 0, or a 0 and a 0, that space of hovering in between hope and acceptance of consequences that keeps him on a precipice, not of what he knows of the children, but what he knows of himself."
She raises her gaze back up with some effort, her shoulders squaring a little more, chin lifting. "We still don't know the answer to that question, and there is no relief yet in the knowing one way or the other, and it wears on him even when he tries not to show it."
Shine nods. "The only man harder on Fallon than the old Admiral was is himself. He's got me and he's got Lady Sintha and now and again we remind him he's only human. But he's got you now as well, and the babies, and if anyone's going to make him see how valuable a human he is, I imagine it's you. The lot of you. It's just… it's going to take some time. But you know that. If it wears on ye — the waiting, his worrying — then you've got me, and Lady Sintha and the rest."
"I do, yes. Though in my case, the time passes differently. As I understand it, the waiting is one of the worst things for a soldier, holding in between the known and unknown. But, as we well know, I am not a soldier," Avrenne says with the softer curl of a smile. There's a small movement around her hands, as she shifts the clasp. Speaking of the reminder of soldiers…
"I realize, of course, that asking you to be careful is akin to asking gravity to be a constant force, so I won't ask it of you. I will only say that I have many acquaintances and connections, but I have few that I call a friend. I very much would not like that number to be subtracted from, so do be sure to come back." The formal wording is at odds with the look on her face, a vulnerability around her eyes, and tension around her lips that speak of an expression not perfectly hidden by the mantle of composure.
Shine's own faint smile is no different than his usual, but he sits forward in his seat casually, resting his elbows on his knees in a looser posture than he wears in most situations. "I'm careful," he affirms. "I'll be careful. I've got good people with me — the Cobalt team's a good group — but I'm always careful. You won't lose a friend. I promise ye."
"I will hold you to it," she tells him quietly. She unnecessarily adjusts the way her dress drapes around her before she rises to a stand, clearing her throat to steady her voice once more. "Now, if you would like to see the children, perhaps I could accompany you as a diplomatic attaché to the Ery Nursery to increase your likelihood of success."
Shine rises as well at once, and steps forward to offer Avrenne his arm. "You may regret my success," he warns her with a smile in his voice. "If there's anything nephews and nieces have taught me, it's that the toys best-loved at one year old are the ones that are noisiest. I've put this knowledge into effect, and intend to be back in the highlands on Sunday before Fallon can throttle me."
Avrenne takes his arm without hesitation, a conditioned response as much as a choice. "Oh, I see. Mm," she says as they begin walking towards the nursery in the direct routing system of Avrenne's way. "I think you may be underestimating the variable of the transformative alchemy that Ery possesses for her father, wherein anything she does that might be disruptive or irritating in one person becomes transcendently wonderful in her. No, it's not Siamus I think you need to worry about. The staff on the other hand…" She trails off ominously, a warning of potential rocks ahead for him to consider. Think about what Moirin might do to you, Shine.
"Perhaps," Shine says thoughtfully, "I might be deployed direct to Tol Barad after the highlands."
A paper-wrapped parcel has been set down — alongside a weatherworn duffel bag — in the hallway to one side of the nursery door. Evidently someone knew he'd be coming this way and stopped to set his things down before intercepting Catrin with the tea. He pauses now to pick up the wrapped box from beside his bag. It is a little bit bigger than a shoebox. The paper is blue and printed with what look on first glance to be flowers; a closer look reveals they are in fact starfish.
Avrenne makes an amused sound that ends in something of a sigh. "Goodness knows they could use the competent manpower," she says, an ivory thread of weariness weaving through her voice, before she twists it back into something lighter.
"I expect anything you have brought her will thrill Ery, and her delight has its own charm. Shall we?"
"Oh, aye," says Shine, and the curve of his smile might even be described as impish. "We shall. Just remember I apologized in advance."
He opens the nursery door.