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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Bryn Baird returns from his trip out to Lion's Landing with some news, and some casual questions about weddings out of curiosity, among other questions. Melancholy has snacks and some answers, and as always, she's on the lookout for more signs -- some more literal than others. 4600~ words. Personal Plot. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Melyn
It's the quiet, dark hours before the dawn and Melancholy is by her tree, on her black picnic blanket with her snack tray of a breakfast, facing out into the Golden Vale still in the predawn hues, the lingering faint chill of the night not yet dispersed by the warmer spring morning.
She's not dressed for combat today, in a tight sateen mermaid skirt in a rich, shiny black, paired with a deep purple corseted bodice with an overlay of sheer marquisette fabric over her arms and buttoned at her throat. Her hat is a familiar rich purple with two feathers, and the pinned netting lace over her eyes, made up with the deep mauve and paired with the dark, deep plum for her lips.
A familiar figure, unhurried and also perhaps unexpected, makes his way up the slope from the direction of the Shrine of Seven Stars. This morning Baird is wearing his laced boots and blue canvas trousers with a white shirt and his dark blue naval uniform jacket. The rifle on its strap seems like an ordinary accessory: Some men wear a watch or a pocket square, Bryn Baird wears a gun.
"Good morning," he says as he approaches. "Is it a private sunrise this morning, or is company okay?"
Melancholy startles just enough for a fwuh! and a laugh, as she looks up at him with a wide smile, and she considers the question for a moment. "I don't think I have sunrises that are private from you, so, you're always welcome company," she decides as she scoots a little more to her left, and pats the blanket with a black lace gloved hand. "Are you up early or late today?"
"Late," he says. "I got back a couple of hours ago. Decided not worth sleeping yet when there's a sunrise to look forward to." He settles down comfortably beside her, setting the rifle aside. "How was your yesterday, Veil'd Melancholy?"
She goes to pick up some dried cherries, and thinks about it for a second, before she fully picks up the breakfast tray and sets it between them, nudging it encouragingly in open offer of sharing.
"It was productive, and interesting," she says brightly, selecting a few black cherries for herself. "I went out to help the Golden Lotus, because there was a group already forming up, so it would be fine. I learned that not all druids can speak in their other forms, but some can, and some find it easier to become some forms than others. Oh! And Mordecai began teaching me some rudimentary first aid, and offered to demonstrate more, so I'm going to learn how to do that soon." Because she would like to know, and now she has a teacher, so there's nothing that will thwart her from her new goal.
"And I also learned that I am growing a little too powerful to easily work with the new trainees. My curses are becoming overwhelming, and I don't think I can use other spells without causing serious harm," she says lightly. "How was your yesterday? Or is it still a Today because you haven't slept yet?"
Baird thinks about it for a moment and helps himself to a cherry while he does. "No," he decides. "Yesterday was yesterday and today's today. I wouldn't expect the forward movement of time to rearrange itself on my account."
He eats the cherry and then leans back to prop himself on his hands. "It was a good day. And I'm glad you have confirmation now as to how your skills have progressed. Did Mrs. Shine say anything about it?" He pauses. "How many forms can druids have?"
"Oh, no, no, Lena wasn't there yesterday, so she didn't see it to remark on it one way or another. I was out there 'on my own' so to speak, with a group of other people — Mordecai, Ceiya, Caspis, and Florande. I'm even fairly certain I took out a mogu by myself," she says with a pop of a smile, and a selection of a yak cheese curd. "I don't know that it's easy to notice much progress in power because I'm not usually fighting anything without any help, so it's hard to know how much of my contribution has altered over time. The trainees were something I could compare from before in particular. So, maybe Lena and I should test where I am sometime soon."
She holds onto the cheese curd, and raises her other hand up for counting. "Let's see, I don't know for certain how many forms a druid has — I've never asked directly. But, I've seen a Stormcrow, a Bear, a Panther, an Orca, a disturbing sea creature I don't know how to identify," she says brightly, putting up a finger for each type. "Oh, and a Moonkin, which is adorable, but I don't know if it's rude to say so to a druid — you know, like calling a gnome cute, which I'm fairly certain is rude. So, I've seen six forms!" She pops the cheese into her mouth.
"Owls," says Baird, probably to himself. "First aid will be useful with the fleet, too."
"I don't know what 'owls' means in this context," Melancholy says, looking at him expectantly while she selects another cheese curd. "I hope it never comes down to me knowing first aid for the Fleet — that must mean something has gone terribly wrong, but I don't know the future, and since I have come to the opportunity, it seems like I probably should learn while I can."
"'Owls' was me making a mental note to ask a druid how many kinds of birds they might turn into, and whether moonkin, sometimes called owlkin or owlbeasts, are considered a kind of bird. Because I don't know that. The taxonomy of a moonkin. Or whether a druid could learn to be an owl or a hawk instead of — or in addition to — a stormcrow." He reaches for another cherry. "Would you like to go out with Sil and Lady Cressidha sometime? The four of us, I mean."
"Oh, I don't know that either about moonkin. I know them mostly from pictures, and one notable short story, but not the taxonomy — the short story didn't make mention either way, and it was fiction, so it wouldn't be a good source," Melancholy says blithely. "Go out into the Vale's defense?" A pause. "Oh, or 'go out' like a social date? Wait, no, it doesn't matter for clarification, the answer's the same: I think it would be enjoyable. I like both of them, and I love spending time with you, so I'd expect I would have a good time, one way or another."
Baird flashes his quicksilver smile. "Like a date, yeah. I'd like to take you on another date. Dates. Thought it might be fun to hang out with Sil and Lady Cressidha." He watches her for a moment. "Take you on other dates, too. Not as easy as at home in Stormwind, but more extraordinary, and that suits you. When we've got the time." Another pause. "I'm going before the Board on July 10th."
"The board? Oh, the Admiralty School Board?" Melancholy first pops a smile, and then the implication registers, and she reaches for his hand to hold instead of another snack. Oh. "When will you leave for it, then?"
"Not until that week sometime. The 10th is a Friday, so maybe that Wednesday? I'll need to study between now and then. It's the oral exam before the Board on the 10th — I'll know on the spot if I pass or fail — and then probably the following week they'll tell me about classes." He takes her hand. "I don't… have to worry about figuring out my finances, I guess. There's a scholarship."
She gasps and squeezes his hand, bobbing forward once in an !! "A scholarship! Well, isn't that a sign!" Or a deliberate action made, one of those. "That's fantastic. So, if you leave on that Wednesday, that's maybe when I could go back with you for a day, and we could go to Duskwood and Fallon Harbor. And then, I'll come back here." It makes her expression go distant, and so she casts it off and pulls up a smile instead.
"I had a letter from Phryne the other day, introducing herself. She sent me a sweater after all — a shawl, really, for the cold weather on the sea, black, of course, which was so thoughtful," she says brightly. "She spoke about when she met your father, and how she met you when you and your sister were mischief minnows — which I think is the most delightful turn of phrase."
Baird laughs. "'Mischief minnows?' Yeah, that's one of Phryne's. She's a sweet lady. I hope you like her. I'd be glad if you'd come with me. It'll save me by myself getting interrogated about you instead." He pauses and makes a wry face. "Not sure the scholarship is a sign so much as it is… well, it's the Admiral Simon Fallon Scholarship." He shrugs.
Melancholy only brightens further, bouncing their linked hands once. "Oh! That only seems more like it, doesn't it? Didn't you say you thought you would have to stay in the Fallon Fleet to make captain, and if you have a Fallon Scholarship, it's like the Fleet is coming along with you on the journey."
Baird considers this. "More like… the Captain pulling more strings for me, I think. But maybe that's it, yeah. A sign that the Fleet's coming along. Or that… I'm not really leaving it. The Fallon Fleet."
"I'm glad of it, really." Melancholy reaches across with her left hand to pluck up a black sesame cracker. "Where will you stay? At the Fallon Harbor house, or in the city?"
"Figured I'd stay at home, in the Harbor. Cheaper, and no reason not to. Don't know how bad the commuting will be but I'd have to rent a place in the city so I may as well save the money and pay the time instead." He shrugs. "Be nice to be home, too. Can see if my dad needs help around the place. Have home cooking." He flashes that smile.
"Oh, that will be a treat, won't it? Reason enough, I think," Melancholy agrees. Go where the food is best, that's her life path. "Torment is in the city, but he doesn't have a place that would be shareable; it's a little poetic garret on Resurrection Row in Old Town." Some might consider it a Spacious Garret, compared to a ship cabin. "But, you might still be able to meet him while you're in the city, if you would like some Grimlocke company."
"Yeah," says Baird, "I'd be glad to meet him. Maybe hang out. Probably wouldn't want to share a place with him anyway. No offense, I mean, I'm sure he's great and I want to meet him. What's he like to do in the city? He go out a lot?"
"I don't know what he likes to do these days. I haven't been around often," Melancholy says, not quite managing a light tone, as she studies the other sesame crackers. "I know he likes a coffee shop, because Mom talks about it." She selects another, and gives Bryn a smile. "I don't think Torment is too upset with me though. He sent a card to Woe and me, and I don't think he would do if he was. The only one I haven't heard from at all is Malaise, so she might be." She shrugs, but it has a heaviness to it.
"Oh!" She leans closer to Bryn, eyes widened in a soft honey imploring. "But if you do meet with Torment, you must promise not to be a harsh critic with any of his working poetry if he shares any with you. He has a poet's soul already, he's just still finding all the right words to make it something other people can see it, too. He works so hard at it, really."
"I wouldn't be," Baird says, sounding a little baffled that this is in doubt. "I can't write poetry. I think anyone who can — or who's trying to — deserves some respect. I don't expect it's easy." He watches her for a moment. "I'm sorry that you haven't heard from your other sister. If everyone else in your family is okay with what you're doing, she'll probably come around. Right?"
Melancholy cronches a cracker, and shrugs again. "I don't know. I don't know which part might have been the crux of the matter. I haven't been a particularly good correspondent the past two years," she says. "It might be too many things, and I've crossed into unforgivable territory." Even in the dim pre-dawn light, the shine to her eyes is unmistakable, and she can't hold a smile. "I don't exactly have good explanations for most of it, so it might just be that she won't care for me as I am now, and I can't do much about that."
Before the tears can start to spill over, she seems to deliberately flick off the mood, and pulls a smile back up. "I don't think I should like to talk much more about that right now before the dawn. What about your sister? Did you hear back from her?"
Baird is silent for a moment, and then he shifts the snack tray between them so that he can ease around to sit with his shoulder against Melancholy's. "Yeah," he says. "Bryling wrote me. She… uh." He pauses. "I don't know if you heard about it already from your brother, actually? She went to see him. Torment. She's… like that."
Melancholy leans back against his shoulder. "Oh! No, no, Torment didn't write anything to me. I did tell Bryling that he was in the city, because I thought they might meet by chance someday, and she could recognize the name." She laughs. "I suppose that's one way for chance to happen. I still don't know if Bryling and I have ever passed each other by in the Keep. We might have!" She selects a little bit more of the cheese.
He smiles faintly. "You'd recognize her now if you saw her. She looks like me, but smaller and pretty." He pauses. "Also louder."
"That sounds like I would for certain, then. It's the uniformity of the guards that makes me unsure if I ever have. I don't remember anyone looking like you, but I can't really recall much of anything of those I know I saw. Every guard sort of looks like every other, and I didn't get their names. It didn't occur to me at the time. I think there's only one guard I would recognize, even outside the armor," Melancholy says, and there's that strange distant expression for a moment, before it's brushed aside like a cracker crumb. "How did it go, then? I hope Bryling had a good meeting with Torment."
"She had… a Bryling meeting. I only heard the Bryling version of it so you might want to check with your brother and make sure she wasn't rude? She went to his apartment to… introduce herself. And probably to ask questions about you, though the Bryling version of it didn't mention that motive. But I know Bryling. She said his apartment's interesting and he seemed very sweet and they had coffee together." Bryling may or may not have used some or all or none of those words in combinations of various kinds.
Melancholy makes a hm! sound. "Oh, that's so good to hear that she liked his garret, and spoke well of him. I'm sure it went pleasantly, though. Otherwise I think I would have heard from Torment, or from Mom through Torment after he said something to her," she says lightly. "But I could still write to him and also let him know when I might be at home for at least a little bit of time, so he can plan for it." Out of his busy poet schedule.
Baird nods. He watches the line of the eastern mountains above the Shrine. "That was nice news about Lady Cressidha and Sil. The other day."
"Oh! About the engagement? It was such a treat," Melancholy says. "I wonder if they'll do a party for it." She laughs at a thought. "If Miserie finds out, and visits soon, she might throw one for them, just because. Unless, of course, Cressidha wants it to be a more private celebration. The Aspenwoods getting engaged and married are always big news though. When Lord Amadeus, Light rest him, was married, it was an enormous wedding, and the biggest news for months. I wonder how big Cressidha's will be, since she'll be the last one to get married. Her twin brother's was smaller, only around 300 people, but even we were still invited. I didn't go, not to any of the Aspenwoods' weddings." She pops a dried cherry into her mouth.
Baird coughs as though he has choked on something. He is not eating anything. He clears his throat. "Three… hundred people? Was… smaller?" He hesitates. "What, uh. What sort of… wedding would you… be hoping for?"
Melancholy looks briefly surprised, and then laughs. "Oh, no, no, no, don't worry — I'm not an Aspenwood," she says brightly. "It was never going to be several hundred Houses of nobles at my wedding." She picks a little at her breakfast snack tray. "I stopped thinking about all that for a while, though. Let's see. When I was younger, I always assumed Miserie would make the wedding for me, and that I would be like a princess for a day.
"And then when I grew older, I… well, I don't want you to think it means I don't love her as much as always, but then I started to dread it a little, even the princess part. It turned out that I don't like large events like that with so many people I won't really know, especially something where I would be expected to behave a certain way and scrutinized for my family's reputation against some template of what I'm supposed to be like, when all I'm doing is trying to be myself. It's uncomfortable.
"And then, I assumed I would never marry, so, I stopped worrying about it," she says blithely, plucking up a cherry, and while the sky also lightens into shades of pink, her cheeks darken in similar shades. "Now, I don't know. It might depend. Maybe I could have something that I like, small and private, and no one there who doesn't expect me to be exactly what I am like, because I'm not part of that world anymore." She smiles at him. "What about you?"
"I can honestly say," Baird says honestly, "that I had never given it that much thought before. I suppose if I’d thought about it, I'd just have assumed… a family wedding? Maybe the Captain officiating, to save religious stuff? But I'm not — I hadn't really thought about it. I think it'd be most important to me what my bride wanted." He pauses. "Unless she wants three hundred people. I don't think that's — uh."
Melancholy laughs again. "Well, luckily, Sil has snapped up the last Aspenwood of Three Hundred People weddings," she says brightly, opening and closing her free hand like a quick snatch claw in the air in illustration. "I don't know what you might consider 'religious stuff.'" She looks at him expectantly though.
"Just, if the ceremony's religious. Probably simplest to get married by a Light priest, but my family's blended and I don't want to leave out the Kul Tiran side of things. If it's a shipboard wedding by the Captain, then everyone's in line with that." Baird shrugs.
"I don't know what the Kul Tiran side of things would be," Melancholy says. "It sounds like a ship would be an appropriately private a place, where only so many could attend. It also seems like it would be the best thing, for you to marry in your proper kingdom, where you feel most at home, the world moving right the way it should be. 'And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; / and the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, / And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.'"
Baird smiles at her. "'For the call of the running tide / is a wild call and a clear call that cannot be denied.'" He nods. "If it were my choice, I think I'd like that best."
Melancholy smiles wide at him. "Then, I'll hope that's the one you get, no matter who it is," she says, and it has a touch of melancholy hope in it, as she looks out at the way the dawn has started to take shape over the mountain range. "I hope I'll be there, one way or another."
"I hope you will be too," he says seriously, watching her.
She goes pinker, but her smile stays, softer and fuller, as she looks from the light to their linked hands, her fingers moving along his for a moment, as her left thumb traces a line under her ring finger, and she blinks. "Oh! Your hand — " She raises her gaze back up to his eyes. "That hand sign you made the other day — I've already forgotten most of it. I didn't know how to write it down, and I didn't practice it enough times to remember well enough, and I'll need to see it again I think to study it to use it. I didn't even know that there were hand signs I could learn. Is there only the one?"
"Oh." He looks startled. "No, there's — well. Some people who are deaf, I guess — properly deaf — use hand signs to talk. Or for people to talk to them. Those are a whole… there's a whole dictionary of those, I guess. I don't know those. It'd be like learning a whole language. Which seems like a lot to ask of other people just to get something across to me now and again? So I just have… there are standard hand signs we use in the military. In combat or when we're being quiet? So I have some smashed-together versions of those that we use on the ship sometimes. Lieutenant Shine was signing at me the night we stole the cannon."
"Oh! Because we were being so quiet, of course," Melancholy says with a gasp of understanding. "I sometimes forget to revise some memories, from before I knew." She rotates more to face him, tucking her legs up against her side to balance, her breakfast and the early rays of the dawn set aside for a different focus of her attention. "I want to learn all the hand signs, please, if you're willing to teach them. I'm curious to learn about the whole dictionary of the other language, although I don't know where I would learn it from. I don't know if there's a book for it. It seems like the sort of thing that would be good to have, and I would learn as many languages as I could fit in my head to be able to talk to you. Even if you changed languages every year, I'd just be following behind, picking them up." She walks her left hand skippingly through the air towards him.
He stares at her. It's hard to tell in the half-light whether he's struck by something in particular or he's just Baird-staring. Then he exhales. "I don't know other languages. I don't know if I never had the aptitude or it's because I'd already lost my hearing by the time I realized I could study other languages. And it's hard to hear… it gets confusing when people are speaking a foreign language, because if I don't know they are, sometimes I think I'm just not hearing them right."
He hesitates and then confesses, "It would be interesting to know the proper language. I'd like to learn it. It just never seemed like much point if no one else I talk with knows it. I don't need to know how to talk to myself in hand signs. And I wouldn't ask anyone else to learn something like that just to talk with me. That's a lot to ask of someone."
Melancholy smiles at him, lifting their hands up to press against her breastbone, which may be meant more emotionally than suggestively. "Oh, well, in this case, it's me who is asking to learn, so I don't know if that makes the math come out differently, since you didn't ask. We could learn the other proper language together. It would be fun. I'm sure if a book exists, I could find it, and if not, someone must know a teacher," says the local goth girl who has never met a subject she couldn't learn when she made up her mind.
"In the meantime, there are the ones you have, and I would like to learn them. Oh! We could also come up with something for us that I could use if I hear someone using another language, or if I do with Aszera — something to let you know there's been a switch." A pause of thought. "I wonder if Aszera might like some signs that people might use for her, too. She can see a lot of things, but I don't think she can read expressions. So I think she misses things sometimes, like people smiling or frowning. Maybe a bigger hand gesture would be something she could see, and people could make it where she could see it."
"It does," Baird tells her quietly. "It makes the math come out differently. If you'd want to learn it with me. Not for me. That's different." He studies her. "Thank you. I'd really like that, remarkable Melancholy." His hand moves slightly in hers, as though he meant to unlink them and touch her breastbone directly, but the impulse is stayed; he continues to hold her hand instead.
"I'll teach you the ones I use now. For Aszera — I don't know. If people are making an expression subtle enough she can't hear it in their voices, they probably mean to be too subtle for hand gestures big enough that she can see. I'd be willing, but we should talk to her and see what she thinks and how useful it would be."
"That's fair. I'll ask her what she thinks the next time I see her," Melancholy says. "I'll do my best to be a good student at Sign Lessons." She squeezes his hand against her chest for another moment — there's a thump of her heart against the back of his hand — and then she raises it up to kiss the back of his hand in lieu of other things. It leaves behind a slight transfer of her plum lipstick. She sees it almost immediately, and startles slightly
"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry." She laughs self-consciously, as she lets go of his hand, reaching instead for her pocket. "I forgot I wasn't wearing the stain. It's lipstick, because I wasn't expecting you. I have a handkerchief. It should come right off."
"That's okay," he says, and inspects the back of his hand. He flashes a smile. "You can leave it. Melancholy mark'd him for her own."
Melancholy laughs again, and she lets her pocket fall closed again. "Well, that one will wash off. The real one can't," she tells him.
As the dawn breaks overhead, spilling golden light into the Vale, glinting off the rivers and lakes, and setting the bright trees alight, Melancholy smiles at Bryn and claps her hands together.
"All right, then, which sign should we start with?"