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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Siamus returns home from the Battle of Bladefist Bay with grim tidings, and a report he must make on the devastating costs of victory. But at least at home, there is his wife to keep him out of the black. 6k~ words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Chain: Siarenne
It is late in the mid-July evening, the tranquil stretch of time after the dinner hour when the children have been tucked into the nursery for the night and the rest of the household is at leisure, when the Admiral comes home.
He is accompanied by Lena Coit, Fleet Warlock, and the pair of them enter in a weary, shared silence. Lena does not linger but only nods at Siamus before she heads for the stairs, making a tired retreat to the refuge of her rooms. Siamus himself remains standing in the foyer, abruptly overcome with some weight of inertia. He does not address or even acknowledge Vane; he stands gazing at the portrait of his hollow-cheeked, resolute wife, his expression blank.
After several silent moments have passed, Vane suggests quietly, "Tea, sir?"
"Tea?" Siamus is still staring at the picture. It does not sound like he is familiar with this tea of which Vane speaks.
The living, breathing wife — nearly a decade older from her portrait, softer and warmer so much so that at times she appears younger than her younger self, the resolve bolstered by a sure foundation beyond her own — is at her desk in her room, the door opened only to a quarter. She's made ready for bed, her hair freshly washed and dried, the whole of her sweet scented, clad in her silken, shimmering golden nightgown and long, modest white dressing gown; the seastalk case rests between her breasts on the golden chain.
The sound of the front door opening grabs her attention off her work, as she resurfaces from the focus, setting the pen down to listen more purposefully — is it only one of the children out for a night time wander, a courier to the House, or something else? When no other information readily presents itself, the Lady Fallon rises up, and makes her way through the hallway, and down the steps in that regal pace of hers.
She opens her mouth to ask Vane who was at the door — or leaving it — when she sees the answer.
"Siamus!" She abandons all elegance for sentimental joy and relief so powerful it practically makes her fly as she rushes down the rest of the stairs to him, arms out stretched, that light of her face a shining of love so strong she might as well have spoken it out loud. "Oh, Siamus."
Siamus takes two steps forward to meet her, awakening from whatever strange torpor had possessed him to catch her in his arms and crush her to him. He smells warmly of clean wool and oakmoss and sea salt. "Anamchara," he says roughly. "Tides, how I've missed ye."
Vane has been struck politely deaf and blind.
She breathes him in with deep pulls of air, a shaking of emotion on each exhale, her shoulders curling inwards as she presses herself even closer, an aching clutching of him as though even this crush is not quite close enough. The seastalk case is an unyielding point in the softness of her, caught between them.
It takes several breaths for her to even start to relax, to ease the desperation of her embrace, just enough to be able to raise her head and tip it up to look at him like she's been starving for the sight. "Welcome home, Admiral," she breathes out. "I cannot even say in words how glad I am to see you."
She looks it though, burning clear and bright as a lighthouse in the midnight darkness.
The shadow in Siamus's gaze fades a little in the reflection of that warm light, but he does not shed the mantle of weary, withdrawn resignation. No light of his own answers hers, none of his laughing charm; he looks older, his face etched with tired lines.
"I cannot tell ye," he says, "how glad I am myself." His grasp does not relent; he does not want her to draw away. "But it's heavy weather ahead of us, mo chroi."
Her eyes flick a path along those tired lines, as if reading a message in them, swift with familiarity. Her hold tightens, the press of her hands into his back palpable with pressure, but not with heat; she is not afraid. She is simply here.
"Anamchara. My husband of heliotrope and mignonette. If it's heavy weather ahead, then we will sail into it together, whatever may come." Her words are soft and steady, spoken only to him no matter if there is another audience in hearing, and there is such resolve in her face, the echo of the woman in the painting even stronger than that younger self. "We will not let this world break us. It cannot, for as you are my seawall when the waves crash, so too shall I be your lighthouse when the darkness comes."
He closes his eyes for a moment, his jaw tightening on some restrained emotion. When he opens his eyes again, he nods at her and lifts a hand to cradle her cheek for a moment. "Will ye — as much as I would like otherwise, I've work to do yet this evening. But will ye come up to the office with me?"
"Yes," she answers readily, resting a gentle weight of her face in his hand as she might soak up something into herself in the touch while she can.
Now she does release her hold, at least in part, not breaking the contact as she moves to set herself in place at his side, wrapping her arm around his in something far more intimate than an arm escort, sliding her hand along his arm in search of his hand to hold.
Siamus takes her hand readily, lacing his fingers with hers. He looks over his shoulder. "We'll take that tea, Vane," he tells the miraculously-cured butler.
"Aye, sir," says Vane, and vanishes down the hall toward the kitchen as Siamus leads Avrenne upstairs.
When they step into his office, he halts for a moment inside the door, taking the place in as if trying to remember it. He releases Avrenne's hand carefully, as though trying not to break the ice sculpture they both know she is not, and then scrubs at his face with a hand. He shrugs out of his uniform coat and goes around his desk to drape it over the back of the chair, then stands for a moment gazing down at the desk as though it has just diagnosed him with some fatal condition.
Avrenne pays much more attention to Siamus than the What's-Different in the office, as she follows him into place, standing to his right. As he stares at the desk and its terrible metaphorical news, she sets her hand on his shoulder, the natural warmth of a woman's touch. She doesn't say anything; she's simply there, waiting with him as he gathers his strength to start the grim task of work ahead.
"We lost four," Siamus says to the desk's surface. And then he adds, "Ships," in case Avrenne thought he meant four guys or something maybe. "Kestrel, Storm's Daughter, Golden Lion, and Lion's Grace."
She sucks in a breath, her other hand flying to her waist to press there as if she's been stabbed, and she's trying to keep it from spraying out over the desk. Two sharp inhales, and a hold. She squeezes her hand on his shoulder, grounding herself as much as him in it, and turns further into him, her head against his arm.
"What of the crew, of our people? Did they… Was Miss Coit able to pull any to safety?" she asks at last, the words held in place without shaking through sheer force of will.
"No," says Siamus. "Lost with all hands. It was — we couldn't see. Had no idea — it was all we could do to heave the Blanche to and keep her from colliding with anyone else. By the time the fog had cleared…."
A small, pained sound escapes, as her hand leaves her waist to clutch onto the seastalk case as if holding it tighter will reverse time, or could be used to communicate in some way to the sea to give back what She's taken. Or perhaps it's only that the case has become an object of comfort and a habit.
Her shoulders curl in, the whole of her now pressed to his side, the shaking of her body the only real indication of the tears that fall silently, the way she has learned to cry.
"Tides have mercy," she whispers hoarsely into his arm, not a curse, but a heartfelt prayer of entreaty she already knows falls on deaf ears. The sea has no mercy.
Siamus turns from the desk toward her to wrap his arms around her again. He kisses the top of her head softly. "Aye," he says. He's silent for a moment, breathing in the fragrance of her hair, the warmth of her closeness, and then he says, "Nine of Stonehull's fleet were lost. Including Stonehull himself."
"Nine?" she repeats, not in doubt of the count, but in horror that it was so high. She makes no mention of Stonehull directly. In his arms, the shaking lessens but does not stop, as she does the continuing horrible math of what remains.
It takes her only a few moments as the wheels spin now in another direction, the gathering of information as she processes the end result, to ask, "How? What did they use?"
"Kraken," says Siamus, and there is a black note of grief or fury in his tone. "It was just as at Theramore. They didn't want a war, they were after a slaughter. They were only five ships. Five, against our two dozen. But Hellscream's orc shamans were with him, and they summoned a — fog, a darkness. And then in the darkness they called the kraken. The creatures were maddened. Tides only know what the orcs had done to them."
There's a surge of heat along her hands, a pulse that is swiftly repressed to a simmer. She gasps out an incredulous, bitter laugh that punches her chest in and out.
"What a task they put before us," she says into his shirt, rage hardening the clipped vowels of her accent. "To try to predict our enemy's actions, and yet that we might never be capable of anticipating it, for we do not naturally conceive in going so low. How we must always bear in mind there is no depth to which they will not sink. As all the rest of the world learned of what horrors Twilight's Hammer inflicted for the Old Gods, of what they twisted of nature and the rightful order of elements, of what threatened us all and the lesson that they had to be stopped at all costs, apparently the Horde was busy jotting down tactics and tips for their own use later."
Siamus nods, a weary movement above her. "Eleven ships," he says. "We came away from there with eleven ships, mo chroí. The numbers we're left with — for a navy — Tides. It doesn't bear thinking. I'll have to see the shipyard figures, it may be more soon enough, but — " His hand moves gently on her back, preemptive consolation. "I'll have to go. Down to the harbor. Myself, tomorrow, the first thing. They'll all — they should be told in person. I should tell them. We'll have to arrange… a memorial. Funds for the families."
"Of course," she agrees, the words barely enunciated. She lifts her head to look at him, chin resting against his chest, searching his expression with red-rimmed eyes, grief etching in lines over her face. "I shall come with you, if you would like."
He is gazing bleakly over her head at the wall, lost in some inner calculus. "I would," he says. "They would, I think. If their Duchess were to come herself." His hand moves meditatively on her back again in the silence, and then he says low-voiced, "I should have gone tonight, tides know. Should have gone straight there. But — " He shakes his head heavily.
There is a light tap at the door; Catrin sidles in discreetly with a tray. She bears it silently to the table by the hearth and sets it down, then turns to curtsey briefly and vanish again. On the tray are arranged both a tea service and a simple, homely supper of roast beef sandwiches with sliced summer tomatoes and fresh basil and a plate of lemon shortbread cookies. (Cook says welcome home, Admiral, and no you may not skip dinner.)
Avrenne acknowledges Catrin with a nod, waiting until the door is closed once more before she speaks to Siamus, reaching up a hand to brush lightly over his cheek, the touch of something so precious.
"You made the right decision to come home, and to wait for a new day to break it. It will give them the night to rest, for the children to have one more sleep before the news alters it all, and the morning will come soon enough," she says, a reassurance that as always, he's chosen correctly.
She doesn't ask him when was the last time he had anything to eat and drink, but continues straight on into the next. "I will make up a plate, and serve the tea. At your desk, I assume?" It's barely a question.
"Aye," he says. "Please." He looks wistfully in the direction of the couches, then down at his malevolent desk again. "I should write…." What is it he should write? He passes a tired hand across his eyes. "A report. I should write my report."
Avrenne skims a hand around the same sweeping path of his own hand, as if she might imbue him with more energy from her own, before she steps away, striding to the tea service to fulfill her stated purpose.
She first pours the tea into its cup, all elegant lines of normalcy in the action. "Of course. Do you intend to have it sent out tonight, or with the morning?" Siamus' teacup filled, she takes it with her to make a dedicated trip to this delivery, using the opportunity of setting it down on the desk to once again rest her hand on his shoulder.
"In the morning, I suppose. Jes-Tereth will have had the gist from His Majesty already, so there's no urgency in the headlines, at least." Siamus picks up his cup of tea and then just holds it as though he's already forgotten about it. "We retook Northwatch, in the end. And Miss Coit saved the King. I expect she'll be up for honors of some sort or another. Ought to be, at least."
Avrenne is halted in her intended pathing by the absorption of these facts. "Miss Coit saved King Varian? How extraordinary. Of course she will be recognized for it," she says as if it's that simple to have it done. Maybe it is for the duchess, or maybe it's only that having it been decided upon, she will be sure to make it so even if some might require a nudge here and there. "I hadn't realized that retaking Northwatch had been an option for this endeavor. Was it an opportunity that presented itself?"
The reminder of shifting locations has her leaving his side once more to return to the tea service, arranging the dinner on its proper serving plate.
"As we were retreating from Bladefist, His Majesty realized the opportunity of Northwatch's proximity, and that the harbor would be unguarded. The five ships they'd brought to Bladefist were the ones from Northwatch, they had to take 'em from the harbor there because we did catch them by surprise, they had nothing in readiness. So with the lot of those sunk in the battle, Northwatch was open to the sea. We sailed right in to take it. At which point Rogers showed up to give the coup de grace, as she'd figured out eventually that the attack on Orgrimmar was not going to plan and came south to look for us."
Siamus remembers he is holding a cup of tea. He drinks some of it.
Avrenne listens as she assembles the food, pours herself a cup, and brings both back to Siamus, setting the plate to his left so he might eat with one hand and write with the other as the Business Gods created two hands for.
Her own tea she sets to his right, out of the way from where papers will go, as she settles herself into place.
"Quite the coup de grace, indeed," she remarks. "A relief as well, provided we have the necessary force to hold it against whatever is next. At this point, it may be impossible to rule out anything the Horde will do, including something as foolish as summoning a new elemental lord. We will have to prepare accordingly. Northwatch is a critical operations point now."
She sets her hand back on his shoulder, rubbing along the muscle. "Do sit down, dearest. I would rather stand here with you than sit across the desk, where I might hold onto you a little, if you will indulge me."
Sitting down, yes. That is what the chair is for. He draws it out so that he can settle at the desk. "I will indulge ye in anything, my heart, and I'm glad myself for your company," he says, and reaches up to lay his free hand briefly over hers on his shoulder.
Avrenne leans down to press a fervent kiss to his hand, another to his jaw with a soft exhale of feeling caught in her chest, and then she's stretching closer to seek out his lips, having already come this far after all.
He turns in his chair to answer that request with something like relief in his manner; his free hand slides into her hair, and then he has set down the teacup so that he can get both hands in her hair.
His hands evoke a soft, needy little sound in the back of her throat, as she reaches out in turn to hold onto him, pulling herself closer to him, curling towards him.
What begins as a press of lips as a simple touch, grows hotter with each passing second. There's a few small attempts to break it, as if some part of her pings a reminder that he intends to work, and is met instead by a rush of need that demands just a few moments more, and a few moments more.
Until it seems likely she's begun to forget about anything else in the room but him, forgetting the tea and the food and the report; there's only Siamus.
Siamus slides his chair back without letting go of Avrenne. He angles himself so that he can encourage her gently down onto his lap.
She needs very little encouragement, and it probably says something that she doesn't glide in sideways for a sweet holding embrace, but lifts up her robe and nightgown roughly with one tight fist, bracing on his shoulder with her other hand as she climbs up into the chair to straddle him directly.
All without ever breaking the kiss as if it connects her to something that keeps her free of returning back to a true awareness of the room and the sorrowful, difficult task of reporting awaiting Siamus.
If Siamus remembers the impending report and what awaits him in the morning, he is very much not thinking of them now. Perhaps he does not want to think of them. Certainly he now has a lapful of something he'd much rather think of.
He tightens a hand in her hair to drag her head back as he breaks the kiss to put his lips to her throat instead. The teacup on the desk may be imperiled soon.
She's a bow he's stringing tighter and tighter, and yet a softly moaning surrender in the directing of his hands to further tip her head back with a shifting of her hips over his lap in counter point. Her hands are locked on his shoulders, grasping at the shirt so tightly there's the prickle of her nails against his skin palpable through the cloth.
And then, there is an embracing of the stolen moment in between as she gasps his name through the kiss on her neck, her eyes opening to nothing more than narrow slits to look at him and only him.
"Indulge me," she repeats in a husky whisper, and it's neither an order nor the same sort of indulging she was speaking of before to remain standing while he sat at his desk. "Please, Siamus."
He lets go of her hair; his hands drop to slide up her thighs and he takes her by the hips. "In anything, pet," he promises, the whisper warm against her throat. He shifts to lift her onto the edge of the desk.
The teacup — and the food — are definitely both in trouble now.
Avrenne does not have to see them to know where both are.
The moment she's near the edge of the desk, she moves her hands out to push both teacups further to one side, and the plate to the other, each placement extended beyond her physical limited reach as the arcane scoots them away to a rather precise measurement from each edge of the desk, a mathematical understanding of relative spaces held in her mind, making enough room for her.
She never takes her eyes off him as she wraps her legs around his hips.
He wraps a strong hand around the back of her neck to lower her gently to the desk's surface. He draws the front of her robe open, and the backs of his fingers skim lightly across her breastbone. His fingertips trail up her throat and then down again toward the low neckline of the silken nightgown, and then he bends over her, a warm and solid weight pinning her down as his mouth finds hers again.
Soft sighs and gasps of encouragement follow his touches.
There's less impatience in her with the surety of a foregone conclusion, a request granted, the waiting task tabled (metaphorically).
Instead, there's a slow pressure as her hands stroke along his body and face. Her touch lingers on his jaw, the lines of his beard, the curve of his ear and the fall of windblown curls around it, the arch of his neck and where it meets his collar, as if she's pressing them all into reality, solidifying a ghost of a memory back into flesh and blood.
As he pins her down, she undulates her hips back at him, her right leg encouraging him towards her as she seeks greater friction at her core. She's not all patience, after all.
TIME PASSES
Siamus is sprawled on one of the couches by the hearth. He has one hand tucked behind his head, one foot on the floor, and a tiny wife draped over him. They are both in a certain state of undress. He is stroking her hair absently, drawing his fingers through the fine golden strands, as he gazes up at the ceiling. His mood seems gradually to be sinking into somber weariness once more now that the fever of ardor has cooled.
"I should write the report tonight," he says, as if to himself. "So that I can go to the Harbor first thing tomorrow. It doesn't seem right that they should have to wait on the Admiralty."
Avrenne is still tracing the lines of her tattoo on his chest, fingertips grazing lightly but unerringly, even though she looks not at it, but at his face.
"Of course," she agrees quietly. She lets the words hang in the air for several seconds, studying his expression the way one watches the clouds gathering on the horizon. "Oh, anamchara. The commander and House's burden to bear, that one must not only carry the sorrow and the loss, but put it to paper in stark terms, to have precious lives and treasured objects reduced to numbers, a few lines of words to stand in for hours of devastation. I know it."
Her hands say something more in the press of her palm over his heart, the curl of her body over his — he is not alone. She is there. Whatever it can count for in the face of grief and pain, it is what she offers unwaveringly.
Siamus is silent for a time, his fingers still sifting slow and idly through her hair. Then he sighs, and his hand slides down from her hair to rest in the warm curve of the small of her back. "In truth I should have written all of it on the way home. But after this last year — " He shakes his head. "I couldn't bring myself to it. I knew His Majesty would be ahead of me with news of the action anyway, so the report… but the families. The families should hear it from me. All the ones who can, at least." He rests his other hand across his eyes. "I'm so glad to be home to ye, my heart."
There is another silence and then he says, "We'll have the memorial at Storm Rock. We should change the plaque on the rock. Put the names of every man lost since Icecrown, instead." A pause. "The ships, at least. If the men's names are too many." If his tone were a touch drier, it could almost be a joke. His tone is not dry. It is quiet and tired.
Avrenne's initial answering quiet is the gathering of thoughts, and he knows she closes her eyes only from the soft brush of her lashes over his skin.
She takes a breath, and when she speaks her voice is steady and measured, each pause between each name deliberate, given a weight. It starts with the Nimble, and then every name of crew, men and women she never knew at all, organized by rank low to high and alphabetical in each category. Onwards it goes, through every ship and crew lost in Northrend, to those lost in the Cataclysm, to those lost most recently in the growing war with the Horde, all the way until the Lion's Grace, ending with Captain Thom Berdon, a pause some additional pain in the last.
"If I can hold them all, so too can a rock," she concludes solemnly. "I agree with it, even if we must add another rock to hold the plaque. They should see that those lost are remembered."
A stillness comes over him gradually as she recites; it is an intent, listening stillness rather than the lassitude of a few moments ago. By the time she finishes, he might be carved of stone himself.
Then he exhales and takes his hand from his eyes to regard her, somber and tender at once. "Ye've got a heart bigger than Storm Rock, anamchara. And our people know it. They're blessed to have a lady like yourself." His hand slides meditatively through her hair.
After a moment, he says, "Miss Herald asked we invite her to the memorial."
Avrenne's eyes flicker back open, tilting her head back to look at him. "Did she? What did you tell her?"
"I told her that it wasn't a service of the Light. She said she didn't expect it would be, she wasn't asking to conduct the thing, but that she wanted to be there to pay respects. She fought beside 'em, she saved a number of 'em, but there were…." He trails off.
"I believe she feels some responsibility," he says at last.
There's something around her eyes that is almost a question, but she doesn't ask it, holding it for later. "I see. I have no objection if you don't. I am certain of your judgement of her character," she says.
"Did I tell ye," he says, "what Mordecai Aspenwood said to me at the dancing party?"
As she searches her memory, a smile flickers across her lips, a light in her eyes. "I remember a lot of things you told me that day," she says with a shift of her legs over his. "But, no, nothing specific of Lord Mordecai comes to mind."
That warms his mood again, and he laughs softly and plays with the ends of her hair threaded between his fingers. "He knew of the Tidemother. There was a Kul Tiran fellow he knew in the army, at Hyjal, when Mordecai was a chaplain. He didn't… know the funeral rites, when it came to it, nor could he have done them anyway. He gave the man to the Southfury River. He wanted me to know that he'd done his best. That's what he said: 'I did my best.' It grieved him, I think, that he couldn't do it properly. I think he was… asking pardon, in a way."
Avrenne's expression gentles and warms both. "How good of him," she says sincerely. "I expect that sort of compassion and respect for others and their beliefs, even if they differ from his own, is part of what decided the Church of the Holy Light to promote to a bishop. Duchess Aspenwood is rather proud of it."
"He's a good man," Siamus agrees. "An ornament to the Church. When Miss Herald asked me about the memorial — that conversation is what I thought of. The man grieved that he hadn't been able to see a son of the Tidemother off with the ceremony due. To pay him the proper respect. Miss Herald's request felt… similar. Not prying, not judging, not of academic interest. To see a respect paid that she couldn't otherwise."
"Mm. Then it sounds as if it would be best that she does attend, if you would like her to work more with the Fleet in the future, so that if necessary for any reason, she will know what the proper rites are, and better understand the perspective of those she is serving alongside," Avrenne says. If it also provides Estel with a pamphlet on the Tidemother and results in a conversion from the Light, well, Avrenne certainly won't complain.
Siamus nods. He traces his fingertips idly in the hollow at the base of her spine, his absent gaze turned upward toward the ceiling again.
"Ismene Hazan died," he says at last. "In the assault on Northwatch."
"Permanently or was she able to come back?" Avrenne asks, because in Azeroth, you do have to ask.
"Her husband raised her, I believe," Siamus says. "That is, I know she was raised. I believe her husband did it. I didn't see it. But they were both on the Blanche for the return voyage. They could have chosen to go with Rogers in the air fleet, but they didn't."
"I see. That is a relief." Avrenne considers the rest, making mental notes as she goes. "Was that typical of Cobalt Company on the whole, that they returned on the Lady Blance rather than Admiral Rogers' air ship?"
"It was," says Siamus. "I don't recall a one of them changed vessels." He pauses, and then adds with the trace of a smile in his voice, "Not even Atley, and he swears he can't abide a ship."
"Oh? Well, it may be that he and Lieutenant Hazan stayed because the others did, and some greater loyalty of the Company knowing the quality and competence of the Fleet. Or perhaps Sir Atley might find other compelling reasons of interest aboard the Lady Blanche that Admiral Rogers cannot compete with," Avrenne suggests, as her hips suggest in another way.
That startles a laugh out of him, and he grins at her. "Ah, if only," he tells her, his smile belying the regret in his tone. "But I'll find flattery in the fact that Cobalt favored the Blanche over Rogers' ship. They'd flown aboard the Skyfire in the battle against Deathwing, so she's a familiar vessel as well."
He tucks his free hand behind his head and gazes up at the ceiling again. His smile gradually fades as Thoughts move back in.
Avrenne stretches up a hand to brush a line over his eyebrow. "Where are you going in there, mo ghrá?"
Siamus grimaces."The report," he says. "I'll have to — the King will have given Jes-Tereth the shape of the thing, but it was Stonehull and myself from the navy as commanders, and she'll want… the navy account. I'll have to account for Stonehull and his ships as much as my own." He withdraws his hand from behind his head to rub roughly at his tired eyes. "I can't even account precisely what happened to mine. There was the fog, and I know there were collisions. I can't say who collided with whom. There were screams and the kraken — by the time the fog cleared and we were free of the kraken ourselves, the sea was nothing but splinters."
Avrenne's eyes are dark with sympathy, and with strange flickers of lights that don't belong of reflected firelight. "What a horror it must have been, and still is, to have chaos in place of answers. May the Horde's savage manipulations of forces they have no right to and used most cruelly be someday repaid in justified vengeance of those forces' rightful champions."
The lights recede as she turns in his embrace, rising up partway over his chest to look at him, the gold curtain of her hair falling across his arm, her voice soft and sweet as a wife, not a duchess. "Even if you do not have all the answers of precise accounting, you have more than anyone else there could have in one voice to put it to paper. Your expertise will guide your hand. You know more about kraken than any mainlander sailor. You know about the elements on the water, to know when they have been called against their will. You know the Horde's nature.
"You cannot part the fog of the past to see more clearly now than you could then for the Grand Admiral's picture, but you can inform her of what she really needs to know of what to expect, and how we might guard against it. If you tell her what you have told me, she will understand what it means, and it will be enough."
He lifts his hand to touch her cheek, trails fingertips absently down the line of her jaw. "Aye," he sighs, and tips his head back awkwardly against the arm of the couch to survey the desk behind him. "I'll make a start of it, then. Will ye sit in here, pet? Keep me some company."
"Of course. I'm not going anywhere. I shall reheat the tea, and you should also make a start at least on dinner. You always work your best when you are properly fueled." There's a habitual motherly tone that she can't quite help using. "I will leave it to your discretion for what picture you would prefer to gaze upon whether or not I dress," she says, which might cancel out the motherly tone. It's math.
Siamus slides his hand along her hip. "It would be a distraction, mo chroí, were ye not to dress," he says very seriously. And then: "I could do with a lovely distraction while I work. Somewhere to rest my eyes."
It sparks a warm laugh from her that tips her head back, and an indulgent smile. "Very well. Where do you want me, Admiral?" The huskier notes in her voice imply a few layers to the words, although they are more promises for later than suggestions for now.
"Everywhere," he says, his smile glimmering back to life for a moment, and then it fades. "Come and sit across from me, pet, and keep me out of the black."
Avrenne strokes her hand into his hair, her fingers curling lightly as if grabbing hold of him then and there. "As you put it to paper and see it in your mind to do so, to recall and purge it both, you must remember that I would not strike a single number from the ledger," she tells him. The ledger of his accounting of actions that Avrenne gave him, the one where the numbers only increase — or has thus far.
"You must know that with all knowledge of what has occurred, the good and bad alike, that I love and admire you all the more. That I am grateful that you came back, as I knew you would." Each word is cast out like a lighthouse's shine, a promise of safe haven and light's path to ward away from the rocks. "That I know you acted with honor, and did all you could. And as always, that I am proud of you."
Or, in short: good man, Fallon.
Siamus slides a hand into her hair and draws her down to kiss her. "My fixed star," he murmurs.
She kisses him gently, a careful choosing to not escalate for a second round on the couch, and when she draws back there is that golden haired, sweet voiced siren he knows, all practiced elegance as she disentangles herself and draws him with her with the lightest of touches to the desk and its daunting paperwork.
"Then follow me sailor to the night's final working, one more task, and then at last to the reprieve to rest, to bed, to home again."