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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Hana Levesworth tries the Ol' Lathrik Method to cope with the fallout from Finley's decision, and much like Lathik would, finds herself at Lathrik's house. 4800~ words. Personal/Romance Plot RP. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
In an hour after midnight, along the darkened streets of Stormwind’s Old Town lit by faintly glowing lantern light, a single woman wanders. She isn’t dressed for the weather, her only protection a pastel blue sweater and a pair of soft brown pants, and her breath comes out in misty puffs as she meanders towards her destination, a certain house belonging to Lathrik and Natalyah.
She climbs the stairs leading up to the door and glares accusingly at it, then with fingers red from the cold, knocks loudly enough that one might believe the resident within is hard of hearing.
Which is, in fact, the opposite. There's a delay of time, and then a crashing sound from within as something very heavy hits the wooden floor with a thump, and then complete silence as a worgen glides soundlessly and eerily over the floor at maximum speed to yank open the door with a, "What — oh." Natalyah's entire demeanor changes almost instantly. She's dressed in one of Lathrik's shirts, and underwear, and nothing else but lots and lots of silken black fur. "Hana??"
Natalyah sniffs. And then sniffs again, and moves over, practically pulling the other woman into the house without actually touching her, one worgen clawed hand extended and demandingly beckoning. "Come inside, right now." The order tone is habitual, but the concern in her voice is audible in greater measure.
Hana obeys the order automatically, but then just lingers in the doorway, gazing at Natalyah as though she’s not really sure what the worgen is doing here. “So,” she says eventually, her tone casual, as if this is an ordinary visit on an ordinary day. “I can’t go home.”
"Then you can stay here," Natalyah says immediately, and somewhat impulsively, but with an absolute certainty, and honestly a bit of a growl at whatever made Hana say her thing. She pushes a little past Hana to start closing the door behind Hana to make it clear where Hana's going — inside. This is your home now.
“Oh,” Hana says, a little surprised. “Really? Okay. Thanks. Do you still have any of that bourbon stuff Lathrik gets into? I’m starting to see why he likes it. It tastes awful.” She rubs her chilled fingers with the sleeve of her sweater, trying to massage some of the warmth back into them.
Natalyah's expression is hard to read as a worgen for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it's dark and her fur blends fully into the darkness, but she's gliding over to the kitchen. An electric light switch blinks and hums to life, making at least one of these problems easier, and Natalyah keeps floating into the living room towards the fireplace.
"First off, if you're going to behave like Lathrik, then the first step is you're going to come over to the Brooding Couch," Natalyah says tartly as she starts working on setting up the gas light and wood in the fireplace. "And you're going to get under a blanket." Does Lathrik get under a blanket? That part might be extra. Doesn't matter. "And yes, as a matter of fact, I do have more of the bourbon, which is called Badlands for a reason. And second off, I will trade you some of it only if you tell me why you already smell like you drank a bottle of it and why you can't go home. Deal?"
“The first question’s easy,” Hana says, heading over to the couch to take a seat. “It’s because I did. Drink a bottle. After work, actually. And then before I knew it, it was…” she squints at the window. “Whatever time it is right now. I don’t really do this, you know, with the bourbon? Aunt Miralynn and Uncle Hann would ask me things if I went home right now. Besides, my bed doesn’t work anyway. It’s supposed to be for sleeping, but it’s not… I can’t. Sleep, that is. I considered burning it.”
Hana peers around at the view from the couch. “So this is what Lathrik sees…”
Natalyah gets the fire going, and swipes up a gray, soft woolen throw blanket with a tiny, barely there scorch mark and wraps it around Hana while she speaks in an almost aggressive sort of make-shift cocoon.
The worgen floats ominously towards the kitchen, where she takes down two glasses, and two mugs, and pulls out a bottle of Badlands Bourbon and also starts up a pot of coffee, in a classic Natalyah way.
She's scooping coffee into the fancy gnomish machine carefully when Hana gets to the part about burning her bed, and she's distracted from commenting on how Lathrik doesn't really see that particular view at the moment.
"You can't sleep in your bed, so you're going to burn it? That makes absolutely no sense," she says directly. "Why can't you sleep in your own bed? And why isn't it for sleeping anymore? What happened? And what would your aunt and uncle ask about?" No, she will not slow down her questions.
“Have you ever had a man carry you to your bed, and then you start fantasizing about him, but before you can tell him how you really feel, he starts acting extremely cold to you, and then he shows up in front of you with another woman, a Lady, who basically climbs all over him, and you never did that because you thought it’d make him uncomfortable, but now you wonder if he always sort of thought you were gross and didn’t like the idea of touching you but he did because he was being nice?” Hana finally pauses for breath. “And then when you finally do tell him how you feel he stops calling you by your name and goes back to Ms. Levesworth to force a distance between you? And you keep wondering if you just hadn’t said anything, maybe he’d still call you ‘Hana,’ even if the coldness stayed the same?”
Hana’s eyes have a shimmer to them now, and her voice has gradually dissolved into a wobbly mess.
Natalyah sets the coffee going, and if she hadn't already been in worgen form, she probably would have ended up there anyway halfway through the explanation/question. She aggressively pours Hana a small amount of bourbon, and then herself a larger, angrier amount, and slams the bottle back onto the counter with a dangerous thud.
"Men," Natalyah growls as she grabs up both drinks tightly, drifting eerily back towards Hana as the coffee brews. "Sinners and martyrs, Hana, I'm so sorry. And, I mean, to I suppose answer the sort of question of it, no, I haven't exactly, even if we do the obvious replacements of names and things." She sets Hana's drink in front of her, which is not necessarily helpful with the cocoon wrap, as Natalyah takes a seat on the brooding couch next to her, dropping the levitate.
"But, I did have a fair share of insincere men who flirted shamelessly, and were only ever interested in the chase. As soon as I showed any interest back, anything real, suddenly they weren't really interested, and they moved on to the next pretty thing to chase after," Natalyah continues with that bitter tartness that Hana might remember from the first time they met. "It's what I thought Lathrik was doing, honestly, when I saw him with that woman in the bar. But he never acted cold towards me. It was me who really kept running away, instead of chasing after him or telling him how I felt. That was the first time it was different though. Men are really stupid." Natalyah's frown is visible as she looks over at Hana with equal parts concern and almost accusation. "I didn't even know you had someone you had feelings for, or wanted to be touching. Or was carrying you to bed. Is that why you can't be in your bed? Wait, is that a euphemism carrying to bed or did he —"
How angry should this worgen be?
Hana wriggles around for a moment, her eyes on the bourbon just out of reach, but the blanket has her cocooned too tightly. Eventually, she goes limp and accepts her fate. “It wasn’t like that,” she says, resting her head back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling. “I could swear it wasn’t like that with him. What I saw… it looked real. It felt real. He took care of me after I sprained my ankle, and it all seemed genuine. Then suddenly it was gone, like it never existed. I don’t know what I did wrong, except…”
She straightens, then, and turns to look at Natalyah. “Did you know Count Amerith met my mother?”
Natalyah blinks, and then tips her head back, and downs most of her bourbon. That's sort of an answer. The next part is more definitive. "No, I didn't. Why is he always everywhere in everything?" she says darkly. "Is that why he's been so obsessed with you all this time, do you think?"
“Might be.” Hana stares towards her own bourbon again. Maybe with her feet…? “And Finley said he’d find out what his interest was, then suddenly the Count’s invited me to some Society party and Finley got cold, and do you think the Count threatened him somehow?”
She sighs. “But still, I don’t think that would explain everything. I’m just making excuses.”
"We're going to need Siamus' notebook — " Natalyah starts to say and then it occurs to her. She knows someone with that man's name. "Wait, wait, did you say Finley. As in Finley Boutille, of House Fallon? That Finley? Not, say, Random Bar Man Finley of House Stupidcads?"
House Stupidcads, who have repeatedly petitioned the king for a new name, known for their invites to Count Amerith's parties, of course.
A stab of bitter pain passes over Hana’s face at the name Boutille, but she pushes it away, deflecting immediately with, “House Stupidcads? Is that for real?”
"No, but he could always start his own House, because it sounds like he'd embody it," Natalyah says. "There's no way someone from House Fallon got scared off by the Count. They have Siamus' scarier wife. I don't know what to tell you, Hana. Isla talks about her brother a lot, and I don't really know him. He sounds like a good brother, most of the time. But that doesn't mean he's a good man to other women. He could have just gotten bored, or some other woman waved what he wanted. It doesn't mean anything about you. You're wonderful. He's a bastard." The word is said the way people do when they mean a certain type of person. She doesn't seem to know how true it is.
The word elicits a sharp inhale from Hana, a lurch forward as if she’s been sucker punched somehow, and the tears that had been gathering finally spill forth. “Don’t… don’t call him that,” she says in a small voice, a near whisper ready to be lost in a windstorm. “Call him a jerk, call him cruel, just not that. Anything but that. Please.”
Natalyah, who lives her life in an emotional windstorm, is only briefly taken aback as if stung, before she's immediately contrite. She doesn't know what's going on, but something obviously is. The smell of coffee is strong in the air, enough to give the worgen a brief shimmer, but not a human form, and instead the Hana cocoon is snatched up into a penitent, impulsive worgen embrace.
"All right, I won't. Not that one. I'm sorry. I'll think of something better with coffee," Natalyah says with a hint of a tartness. But it doesn't last, as concern and regret fight for supremacy in her voice. " Light, you really care about him, don't you?"
“It was different this time,” Hana says, sinking tearfully into the embrace. “It was different every time, but this was different different. I don’t know how to explain it. I really thought…”
Then she pulls back sharply. “He’s still Elle’s friend. I made him promise. If you write anything to Lathrik, make sure he keeps this a secret. The feelings, what came of it all… Elle can’t know.”
Natalyah grumbles. "Secrets, again? Really? But fine. As long as it doesn't do anything that puts you in danger or something if things get really weird with the Count again, because then I will talk to you about this and keeping it a secret. But they're in Pandaria right now, so it's not like they can do anything anyway." She pats the Hana cocoon, and sniffs the air. The coffee is done, and starting to overheat. "I'm getting up to get you coffee, because I think you need it, and so do I. And then I'm coming right back with it with another hug, because this is terribly sad." She floats upward, weirdly angelic in a black furred worgen way.
"How long has this been going on? The whole Finley Stupidcad thing?" she asks as she floats towards the kitchen.
“When they first joined the army,” Hana says, shrinking back into the cocoon. “Elle wanted to write him after the Gala, but he kept wasting all my stationery, so I wrote the letter for him. And he never wrote back, and Elle left on that ship, so I paid a visit to see what sort of friend he really was. We got along, I thought, and he visited our house — for Elle, at first, but then… Elle left again, and he visited me, and we were alone… His gifts were always so thoughtful, and I wrote a song for him for Winter Veil — I don’t do that either, write songs for people usually. My songs are for everyone, but his was our secret. Until… he…”
A tremor runs through her and she falls silent, staring once again at the bourbon.
Natalyah pours out the coffee on automatic. Hopefully Hana likes hers with cream and sugar, because that's what she's getting, since it's how Natalyah makes hers, and Natalyah was not paying attention to making only one coffee this way. Whoops.
Natalyah drinks some of her (extremely hot, I should mention) coffee then and there, and shudders into human form, revealing a thunderous expression and lightning sharp eyes. "Until he what?" she demands as she snatches up both coffees and hovers back towards the living room, almost spilling some in her haste, slapping on a [Renew] for her slightly burnt tongue. It's fine.
“He asked me to write the notes out,” Hana says, almost too softly for an ordinary person to hear. “So he could have Lady Julissa play the song. It’s going to be hard for me to want to touch my harp again. I’ll have to, but it will be hard. I won’t like it the way I used to.”
Natalyah puts down the coffees with a force enough to spill some of Hana's over the sides. It's fine. That's why it's called a coffee table.
"Absolutely not. You can't let a man like that take away something you love like that," Natalyah scolds passionately, scooping up the cocoon again. "Wait — Julissa? Julissa Noonin? Baby Julissa?" She sounds scandalized until she does start doing some mental math. "Ugh, no, wait, I guess she would be around 18 or 20 now. Oh, that's a bit horrific. She did play the harp though, even as a little kid. He made you give her your secret song?" Natalyah's rage has begun to build like a gathering storm, enough for flickers of black fur to appear on her hands, and a growl to edge around her voice.
"I'm thinking of other words. I'm thinking of other words," she grinds out. "I have no idea why ogre is coming to mind, but I'll take it for now, because there's definitely a load of shit going on here."
“Because ogres…”Hana lets out something between a laugh and a sob. “They do make a mess. But you’re right, and that’s why I have to keep playing. So it gets better. So my last memories of it aren’t awful nightmares that I’d rather forget. I know all of that, but for a while, it’s going to be hard, that’s all.”
She gives an attempt at a teary but reassuring smile. “I loved him, Natalyah. And what’s terrible is, when I made him promise to stay friends with Elle, it wasn’t only for Elle’s sake. I had the thought that… maybe if the Finley I thought I knew was still there somehow, if it wasn’t all some elaborate lie, if he really does consider Elle a friend, then… maybe he’d need him to stay that way. A friend. Or, at the very least, maybe Elle’s kindness could rub off on him. I feel like I’m sacrificing my cousin, if he turns around and hurts him anyway. If something happens in Pandaria, and Elle doesn’t come home, and it’s because of all this, then… I don’t know what I’ll do.”
"We won't let him," Natalyah says immediately and fiercely in defense of Elle. And she pulls back to be able to look Hana in the eye, a war of righteous anger and compassionate sympathy vying for space on her expression. "If it helps at all, I don't think it will be like that, not unless Elle maybe has feelings for him and this maybe goes a horrible repeat." Way to tempt fate, Natalyah, but okay.
"What I mean is — if he was just a free form all around asshole," that's an image, "he'd be cruel to Isla, and he's not. So, there's some shred of decency in him, which only makes it worse, I think. This is men being stupid, and careless, with hearts, like they are. This is the whole horrible flirting nonsense that I hated so much, where you can't trust any of them in that nobility game. They don't mean it," Natalyah says with feeling. "Honestly, Hana, he probably doesn't even mean it with Julissa. It's just another chase. Which is also why she shouldn't have your song. Or any other gift. He didn't give away anything else did he? How many gifts are we talking here?"
“I don’t think he’ll give her the broom,” Hana says, her expression finally settling on miserable. “It has his name on it, and I’m the only one crazy enough to give a broom as a gift. Plus I don’t think she’s ever touched a broom in her life.”
Natalyah is startled into a partial wicked laugh before she can stop herself. "You gave him a broom with his name on it?" she asks in delight. "Like your weapon of choice?" And then the thunder returns, full of suspicion and ready willingness to throw Finley into the metaphorical fires of hell for misuse of a broom. "What did he do with it?"
At that question though, she does take mercy on the cocooned harpist/archer/barmaid, both releasing her, and untucking her a bit, allowing her access to now both bourbon and coffee. Hana's choice.
“It was half-threat, at the time,” Hana says, claiming her coffee and blowing on it a bit to cool it. “And I don’t know where it is now, but he painted it. And gave it to me. The painting. Why would he do that, if it didn’t mean anything? If I didn’t mean anything?”
The tears spill down her cheeks again, and she takes a sip of coffee.
"He is a painter. Maybe it was off the cuff," Natalyah points out, but even she is frowning as she picks up her own coffee, blowing on it to cool it down more, and drink some.
She also doesn't know how extensive the painting is, how many hours it would have taken, even if he had rushed it. And it isn't rushed.
"I don't know, Hana. I do know that men can act like they care, even for a long time. That they can seem like they want you, and want you to touch them, when they're thinking of someone else. I know that they can even tell you that they love you, because they think they owe that to you, and they don't. I've been on the receiving end of that." She holds herself still for a pained moment, breathing shakily, staring bleakly into her drink, and shakes her head, tossing her hair back, as she adds the rest of her bourbon into her coffee like that's a normal thing to do. Look, it's 1am, she's having Feelings, these things happen.
"Okay, so maybe not the broom. So just the song, that's the only thing?" she asks, a brittle sharpness in her voice.
Hana nods, then promptly follows Natalyah’s lead, adding bourbon to coffee, because coffee isn’t strong enough. “Just the song,” she says quietly. “And… I gave him an enchantment. Do you remember the pandaren at Paws for Pumpkins, Xueye? She was selling enchantments and they were really cute so I bought him one, in a little brown pouch with a rabbit embroidered on it. He didn’t… seem to like it. Sort of… threw it on the couch.”
She takes a long drink of coffee/bourbon.
"Oh, I saw those, they were so cute." But Natalyah's already grinding her axe again, sipping at her full coffee mug of bourbon caffeine. "Threw it on the — Urgh, what a rabbit shit rag of a man," Natalyah declares, taking inspiration from the charm. The coffee is working. Maybe. "At least we can also rule that out. He's too wealthy to do that sort of turn around of a gift, probably. Unless he's a cheapskate, which I guess we won't rule out. But, most likely I won't need to make a plan for it. So, we'll just work on getting back the song then. What does it look like? Does it have a name? I mean, a non-obvious name. If it says 'Finley's Secret Song,' I am going to know what it is, clearly."
Going to know what it is clearly…when? What?
“A name… I’ve just been calling it Finley, but I don’t think I wrote it —” Hana frowns, suddenly. “Wait, get it back?”
"Get it back," Natalyah confirms. "She shouldn't have it, and he shouldn't have given it to her. So, the obvious conclusion here is that we'll take it back. I'm sure I can get into the Noonins. I know where the music room is, or at least where it was and probably still is, and a little creative swiping and dropping of droppings to convince Julissa that something got into her music, and there we have it. Justice restored. And it's not like Julissa is going to be hurt by it." Natalyah points a finger up, arching a brow in an arch voice. "She doesn't even know or care, I'm sure. That's part of the worst of it! The only person this hurts is you, and so the only fair thing to do about that is undo it. And that means a heist, obviously."
Obviously.
“Oh,” Hana says, drooping a little. “That’s okay. You don’t have to go that far. I gave it up, so… it’s fine. I’m sure she’ll play it better anyway.” There is a hint of bitterness at the last, and her hands tighten on the coffee mug.
Has Hana met Natalyah before? When has Natalyah ever stopped before going too far? Or given up? "I'm getting it back," Natalyah threatens, probably to Julissa more than Hana. And shakes her head. "And, really? You don't actually think that, do you? How could she possibly? You're the one who wrote it, so you're the one who understands it best. Not that you should play it, except to prove that exact point, because we should probably ritually burn it afterwards, so you can let go of all this. Not that I'm exactly an expert in letting go myself. Even after everything with the man I loved who did all the wrong things, there's still parts of me that love him. Or remember loving him. Something of it. I can't hate him. I want to sometimes. But, I can't.
"I think yours sounds worse, and more straightforward, and if you can't hate him, then I'll do it enough for the both of us," Natalyah says tartly, and with all the banked fury of a worgen who will make good on that promise, Finley Boutille. "But, if you can't hate him all the way, I do understand. It's worse when it's like that. And you can stay here as long as you like. Or we can go shopping for a new bed tomorrow if you want."
“Love is stupid,” Hana says decisively. “I can’t hate him, and I’ll just have to live with that. Besides, I’m saving my money to go to Outland, so I don’t have time for it. I can’t afford a brand new bed because I just donated the commission money he gave me and the money from Count Amerith’s party to the Stormwind Orphanage, but I could get rid of the mattress and just lay out a mat on the floor. That should work.”
Natalyah understands spite at least, and of getting rid of Count Amerith cooties. But she gives Hana a look that Lathrik would recognize at the suggestion of sleeping on the floor. "Really? You're going to let him win, and make you sleep on the floor?" Natalyah scoffs. "Not a chance. It's not fair that he gets out of this sleeping like a baby in his golden bed or whatever, and you suffer. Besides, I've slept on the ground before, and it's horrible, Hana. I'll get you a new mattress." Or else. That probably shouldn't sound so much like a threat. "Peril and Penny might know better where to shop. And Bren and Harvey might have some idea of where there are some extra bounties we could do quickly to get some fast cash."
Something in Natalyah’s words causes Hana to stare forlornly into the coffee mug. “Do you think that’s winning, for him?” she asks. “If I sleep on the floor, he gets what he wants? I think it would bother me more if he didn’t care at all, honestly. Either way, he’ll never know, and I need practice for the wilderness.”
"Sleeping on the ground is not a thing you have to practice," Natalyah says with feeling and bristling memory. "It will feel terrible every time no matter what, and it never gets better, and you just accept it, and it's not going to be the same as sleeping on a mat in your room. Trust me. Sleeping in the wilderness feels like sleeping in the wilderness, period. There's rocks and things make noise and the wind blows on you randomly and ruffles your fur." Okay that last part may not be relevant, but she hasn't had enough coffee or sleep or bourbon or all three.
"And I'm certainly not going to tell him anything about you. I'm not going to tell Isla either, who also won't say anything. He's not going to hear a single word. If he wants to find out how you're doing, he can come looking, and if he wants to actually know, maybe he can start with groveling. Belly crawling groveling," Natalyah stresses with a growl. This is definitely a threat.
“Come looking…” Hana says thoughtfully, then she finishes her coffee. “Yes, he certainly can. I’m sorry, Natalyah, if I woke you. I’ll figure it all out tomorrow, so thanks for letting me use Lathrik’s method tonight. He really must have been miserable before you came around.”
Natalyah's expression wobbles dangerously for a second, and she does her own long drink of her bourbon coffee. "I don't know if he's any better now, because it's not like I'm there right now," she says miserably with a sniffle. "But, that'll change soon enough once I'm in Pandaria. They have to let me in. What if Lathrik is miserable?" Uh oh, worgen fur on the horizon again, but she swallows it harder, sweating more in Lathrik's shirt. "And it's fine about waking me up. I don't care about that. And at least you only did the one part of the Old Lathrik Method. I… think. Unless you did take a girl home or have her take you home earlier, in which case. I don't know. Good for you? You probably won that round on Finley at least if so."
Hana hesitates for an awkward amount of time. “Nah,” she decides. “I don’t think I flirted with anyone at the bar. Guess if we’re being super technical I did end up at a girl’s house though. Y’know, this one.”
Natalyah throws back her head and laughs, an unfettered, wicked sound.