Ezra Amos (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
coolmonsoon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
zenderael_rl2013-06-10 09:39 pm
coolmonsoon) wrote in zenderael_rl2013-06-10 09:39 pm
Entry tags:
Ezra + Lera // Meet the Parents
Who: Ezra and Lera
When: Monday, 15/8
Where: Underwood >>> Lera's apartment
Before/After: n/a
Warnings: some language probably, Lera's old online habits, nothing much otherwise
Before she did it, Lera was convinced that meeting her (maybe?) boyfriend's family would be harder than fighting the god of war. If she failed against Mezzron, she was just dead. If she failed to make a good impression, her life was over.
Now that it was done, though, she felt much better.
She no longer had to hide the nervousness from him (and fail at it, of course, even if she did not realize it). They were all wonderful, in her opinion. His dad reminded her of Nadir; she wasn't sure if Ezra saw the parallels or if it would be polite to point them out, but it still made her smile to think of. And his mother had been quite chatty! It was a relief, really; it meant that when Lera started babbling nervously, she wasn't making a quiet person feel awkward. Even his siblings had been wonderful!
By the time they had to leave, she wished they could have stayed. Even her chocolate chip cookies -- and her baking skills were far from grand (and caused no small amount of confusion at the Mazda's insistence that she do it herself back in camp) -- seemed to go over well.
Now that they were walking back, she had a bright smile on her face. The way home led them through one of Underwood's parks, which had partially merged with some scenic Zenderean woodlands. She had her hands pushed into the pockets of her jeans, which she wore. Wearing a military uniform seemed silly and it felt nice to be back in Earth clothes, doing Earth things for a day. It was enough to almost forget the things that they had been doing last week; it was certainly enough to make her think about other things.
She kept an arm slid through Ezra's while they walked; it wasn't just a silly romantic gesture, but an awareness that he could get vertigo from the injured eye and might need the help if he got dizzy. Disguising the support as a cute gesture seemed a good way to not bring attention to it -- and she wanted to, besides. He had taken her home! It gave her a sense of satisfaction, which was maybe childish, but she had helped defeat an evil king and a god of war. She was allowed to indulge a little childishness.
She nodded cheerfully. "Your mom's cooking rocks."
It had been almost overwhelming. He'd gone to see them beforehand, two days after the merge had happened, because it had taken up a lot of courage to do it. His family. He'd been gone almost six months with next to no communicated- all on his side- and if it hadn't been for his eye, he was sure his mom, Rebekah and Miriam would have lined up to slap him.
He almost wished his face was fine so that they could. He couldn't deny that he'd deserved it.
But it had been good. Every bad thing had, for a little while, washed away under his mother's fuss and concern, even though she was angry with him. Get into some huge battle and get himself warped to some alternate dimension and not say a word and come back with an eye missing- it had gone on and on, but she finally gave up when she saw how goofily he was smiling under the heat of her wrath. Then she'd simply hugged him and he'd patted her back while she sobbed about her baby boy.
There were a lot of complicated feelings, of course. He wasn't the same person he'd been when he'd left, for better or for worse. It was strange to be at home and be the Spenta, to be in a peaceful place after such a bloody war.
It was something he was all right with letting be.
Bringing Lera over hadn't been something he'd intended, just something that Rebekah had gotten out of him and insisted on meeting her, backed up by Miriam and his mom. He'd hoped she would refuse, but she'd accepted, and her own nervousness had eased some of his own. Was that mean? So long as he wasn't alone in the nerves department.
A good dinner, a lot of yelling and arm-smacking and coffee and food, a lot of photos (Ezra'd been in a lot of casts even before Zenderael by the looks of it), and a brief, awkward silence as they went over his high school friends and carried on as though nothing had been amiss.
And then they were walking out of the whirlwind of Amos activity. It seemed an old-fashioned sort of family, the sisters and mom taking Lera aside to chat with her while Ezra stood at a distance with his older brother and his dad, talking about other things entirely, and they'd been sent off with a reminder to come back over the weekend maybe if they weren't too busy (what did a guild leader do anyway) and now, now they were walking... walking where? He didn't know. He was trying to recognize where he grew up amidst all the Zenderean wildlife.
"I haven't eaten anything that good since those grilled cheese sandwiches Rhys and I made."
He didn't mind her holding on to his arm. He had to stop every now and then, apologetic and a little embarrassed. Once they had his eye figured out, they could fix it all up, but it was a small price to pay for the time being if Harriet could get a working eye going. "Ah, they all talk a lot, sorry." Was the old park still around, or had it been uprooted? He hadn't completely been able to get back into Earth clothes, wearing slacks and a nice shirt with his old bomber jacket Nadir had dropped off for him. It was an acceptable balance.
It felt easy enough to slip into that role. Talking with her mother and aunts had been similar -- if a little different, because Lera was the only woman her age in her family -- and she fell back onto those old family habits. It was easy to draw upon while talking to his. She hadn't realized that she missed it until it was over. Part of her wondered if they could come back over the weekend, but there was a lot of week to get through first. She looked up and let those thoughts drop when he responded.
She smiled at him. "Mm-hmm," she murmured quietly. "I wish I could cook like that. I never learned how to make anything quite like that, though." It was not self-depreciation; she never had to cook in the army and by the time she lived on her own, she had a penchant for simple things like grilling up hamburgers and making salads. She never quite learned to really cook.
Her smile turned into a grin. She poked him fondly in the side. "Talk a lot?" she asked. The grin turned sheepish and she leaned in closer to him. Her tone got a slight sing-song to it. "Let me introduce myself. Private Prissypants, prone to babbling and blathering, at your service!"
He kept her on his left side so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. He grinned at the 'introduction'. "Sorry," he said, "I mean talking so much on purpose and not because they were nervous." He nudged her side with his elbow and smiled, walking along still.
"I felt like I was in a bad comedy movie. She even broke out the photo stream. You know, I told you I went over yesterday, right? She kept fluffing up my hair like it was the most amazing thing. I haven't had hair since I was sixteen or seventeen."
He reached up to rub at his cheek where the eyepatch dug in. How did Nadir stand it? It didn't cover the whole of the scar, faded thanks to healing but deep, Aerveas' blade having dug into the cartilage and bone. The eye itself looked terrible- milky and bloodshot, useless for anything except detecting light and giving him a blinding headache while it was at it.
It was nice being on his left. Her wounds were healed, but she still felt a little sore on her left side. One of the clerics told her that was common; all the healing in the world could not repair the damage that the mind imagined and she had been beaten around enough that the soreness lingered sometimes. She forgot about it more often than not, but brushing against something sometimes brought it back. Not to mention her arm, with that scar along the forearm, actually ached sometimes.
Lera chuckled, covering her mouth with her free hand while she did. She let out a contented sigh and nodded. "Really?" she asked, looking up at him with the grin still on her face. "I saw some pictures of you without hair, but I didn't realize. I'm not surprised, though. Your hair is pretty adorable!" She paused, then realized how that could sound, and flustered. "I-I mean, you looked cute with a shaved head, too, it's just--um--both are independently and differently good-looking! It's--um..."
The ramble ran its course and the sigh was flustered this time. Her cheeks stayed red while they kept walking and she was quiet. She looked down at the ground and kicked her foot into it while she walked.
"I liked seeing the photos," she added, her voice more subdued. "It was nice seeing where you came from, you know? And fun." The remaining embarrassment threatened to make another ramble come on. She ended with a quick, "And everyone was really nice."
He let out a laugh- well, more like a nerdy snicker- and let her run herself out. "Think they might do a magazine article on us? I'll have tons of preteens going 'oh, his hair is sooo adorable'," he teased, pitching his voice higher for her as he grinned. "And that eyepatch! Mysterious!"
He considered a moment. "You'll probably get a pin-up. Teenage boys everywhere will have you posted to their lockers or set up as their screensaver." He grinned at her impishly. "That Mazda, I'm telling you." His arm went from linking hers to wrapping about her waist. "What a hottie."
He looked that little bit down to her while she continued, considering that. Good to see where he came from. "They're good people. I've been really lucky." That was an understatement. He still had trouble believing he deserved them. "...now, about your mom," he said, visible eyebrow lifting.
She let out a surprised, but far from displeased squeak when he wrapped an arm around her waist. Her cheeks stayed red but her expression was happy and a little playful, instead of embarrassed. She leaned up against him for a moment and laughed softly. "I'm sure all the teenyboppers will be saying how dreamy you are, mister." She wagged a finger in front of him, then poked him in the side, and stopped leaning into him quite so much. They still had to walk. "I'm just scared of the fanfiction."
She said it jokingly, but then her face screwed up as she thought about it. Duncan had been a fan boy of Morvarid's. Would she get her own? Would there actually be fanfiction? Would someone write some sort of weird slash fic with Ezra and Rhys, and then Lera would have to track them down and challenge them to glorious combat? Is this a thing that would happen?
She remained in this terrible world for a moment or two longer. His words finally roused her from that place.
She looked sideways at Ezra and smiled at first, before she nodded. He was lucky, but the good sort of lucky, she thought. When he asked about her mom, though, she flustered. Her mother was insane and judgmental and nothing was ever good enough! "What about my mom?" she asked. She hesitated. "I haven't gone to talk to her yet since the whole Bastan and Fall City got together thing happened."
"Fanfiction?" he echoed. That was a thing he wasn't familiar with, so he thought on it briefly but it didn't go nearly as far as it did with Lera. He looked down to her and wondered what the hell she was thinking of to get that look on her face.
He grinned again at her reaction. "What if she's been watching you the whole time anyway?" he said, waggling his free fingers at her in a mock-menacing sort of way. "Well, maybe you should consider seeing her sometime." He didn't say with me- it seemed presumptuous, given her reaction, that she should want her mom to meet anyone, even herself.
Looking aside, Ezra seemed to spot something and he nodded towards it. "Let's go over that way," he said. They could get to the warp point later. For now...
The kid's park came up faster than he thought it would. Moving his hand from her waist to her hand, he almost ended up tugging her along with him to get to the swings, where he let go of her hand and plunked down on one, looking quite pleased with himself. A druid and her wind elemental were on the other side, playing on the merry-go-round. Ezra watched them for a bit until he got dizzy looking at them.
Lera sat down on the swing next to him, smiling sheepishly at the remark about her mom watching her. Until she thought about it -- she was an alchemist now -- and her face screwed up some with mounting horror. What if her mom really was watching her? It seemed like tracking her every movement with a paper map of Zenderael and Bastan, with pins marking her locations, was the sort of thing she would do! She shook her head and looked sideways at him.
He was probably right, she realized. Even if her mom was a little crazy, sometimes, she was probably worried. "Yeah," she said, "I'll do that. I'm just kinda nervous, I guess. Mom seems like she had all these plans for me, you know? Like thought I'd get a lot of promotions or maybe become an engineer some day or--you know." She waved a hand in front of her. "I won't really do that -- um, I didn't want to do a lot of that -- but I have to tell her it's not possible, if she didn't get that already."
Maybe she had and Lera was worried over nothing. She grabbed the chains of the swing with both hands, which put an idea into her head.
Her ability to resist the swing's temptation was nonexistent. Lera kicked her feet into the playground's grass and sent her swing backward, albeit not too high, and stuck her legs straight out for when it came back again. She laughed when she did.
He watched her with his head tilted to see her more fully with his good eye and he grinned a little, though sheepishly. She knew her mother best, of course- the look of terror on her face had to mean something.
He settled in to listen to her talk, and wondered if he'd suffered anything similar from his mother. "Yeah, being the Mazda's kind of a full time job, you know?"
He watched her swing, grinning again, while he just rocked back and forth, heels in the dirt beneath him. "...I think maybe I wished my mom had some expectations," he said finally. "She was always the 'I trust your judgement' sort, when I really don't think she should have." He sounded sheepish about that. "I've done some pretty stupid shit. I mean, Nate's taking over from dad, Rebekah's going into physical therapy, Miriam's not even out of high school yet but dad was saying she's been picking Rebekah's brains about psychology. And there I was, delivering fast food."
A small shrug. "I didn't know what I wanted to do anyway, so maybe it's for the best something chose me instead."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do some freelancing on the side." She grinned back at that, keeping up the big sweeping swings that she liked. She could still hear him just fine, though, and she looked at him. The grin turned into a softer smile and she nodded. She could understand what he was talking about; her father had been the sort to tell her to follow her own judgment, do what she wanted, and the like. He just never contradicted her mom about it.
"I think I see what you mean. I'm glad it worked out the way it did. Like, ah--I wasn't really happy with wherever I was working, I wasn't even happy in the Army," she said. "I kept doing things to impress them, but it never felt like a direction, you know? Just sort of treading water."
She looked down at the ground, but didn't stop swinging. When she came down, she kicked her feet into the dirt and kept herself moving. "I didn't ask to be doing this, but there's a lot I like about it. And we're all pretty good at it, you know?" They managed to win the war. It seemed strange to act like they were still fledgling novices at being guild leaders, after that, even if they had a lot to learn. "And I got to know you because of it. Definitely an upside."
She flustered after she said it. It was spoken automatically, without much thinking about it, but it was easy to see that it was true once it was out there.
He watched her as she kicked off, content to let himself go back and forth that little bit while she went higher and higher. Inwardly he wanted to, too, but had to give a slight sigh, knowing he'd probably just make himself sick going that high that fast.
He understood the sentiment. Treading water had definitely been how he'd felt after his falling out with his friends. Anything to get away, anything to move on and forget, anything to be important to someone, anyone. And now, now he felt as though he'd accomplished that, if by accident. So he could sit here on a swing and relax. He knew he should get back, he should get some work done. The headaches were brief, the vertigo never lasted long. Heimdall- Duncan- was probably still running and a breakneck pace trying to sort everything out, and the least he could do was be there to help him out.
But the lazy summer heat and the slowly sinking sun and a swingset had him putting it off a little longer.
He stared at her a moment after her comment, and he grinned without a verbal answer.
Looking back ahead, he rocked backwards and forwards before speaking. "It's something to strive for. A challenge. A place to belong. A lot of responsibility," he said, more to himself than to her. It wouldn't be for her, but morality played a huge part in his role. "Who knows? I might have become a paladin on my own."
The grin told her all she needed to know. It wasn't hard to understand his feelings, after this much time with him. He smiled when he liked what he heard; he certainly could be commanding and remote to his subordinates, but once she knew what to look for, it was easy to realize that his expressions let on a lot about him. She smiled right back at him, keeping her swings up with the occasional kick off the ground. It meant she had to turn her head back here and there.
"Yeah," she agreed. "And you make a great paladin--" And even where he didn't, it seemed like things that he could be. "So I wouldn't be surprised. I liked being a spellsword, even, before I inherited the title. I planned to stay one for awhile."
There were still things she wished she could do, but there was no way to tell her boyfriend that she wanted kids some day and leave it as just a hypothetical. Neither of them were remotely ready for that talk, so she left it silent. She even kept smiling. "I guess I'll miss the chance to explore Zenderael a little, though." She sighed, shrugged, and looked forward. "Oh, fanfiction."
She skipped a beat. "It's stories about people, that fans write. Most are usually romantic."
Unaware of her thoughts, Ezra looked perfectly peaceful just swinging back and forth a little bit, barely even moving by Lera's standards. He had his arms wrapped about the chains, fingers linked in front of him, his tattoos winding up his wrists and disappearing under his sleeves.
"I wonder if I woulda gone paladin if I'd had the choice. Maybe rogue?" It was a question most of everyone asked themselves when playing Zen. It came up as a conversation piece on the forums, there had been a handful of online quizzes. Rogue had definitely seemed to suit him more.
He felt a bit of disappointment thinking about it. The Vairya was dead. He'd wanted her as badly as he'd wanted Aerveas. And it just continued to dredge up all of those awful feelings surrounding the old Vahishta. Ezra still felt muddled about that- perhaps it had been easy for him to decide his course with people on the line just because he was so far removed from them. Twenty-one hundred years old...
His head came back up as she spoke. "Eh? Oh! Oh, yeah. I know about fanfiction. I was just wondering about that weird face you made earlier."
Clearly he didn't know about the same kind of fanfiction that she did.
"I could see you as a rogue," Lera said lightly. "But I think paladin suits you better." She grinned at him -- but then she was mentally and verbally back on fanfiction again. Her face screwed up once more as she thought about it.
"You know... fanfiction," she said. "You know."
Clearly, he did not. She accepted that a little after she said it. She flustered and looked down at the ground. Her swinging slowed and she did not kick off the ground just yet. "It's--um. A lot of the time, the weird fans--" She flushed with embarrassment again. She turned bright red. "--they'll pair up people who might not otherwise be interested in each other. Like are just friends. Or maybe enemies." She sputtered. "Or don't have orientations that line up. Like that."
He watched her as she spoke, frowning a little, eyebrow drawing in. "So like..." He took a moment to think. "Like... you and Harriet?... Or Villiers and Cuthbert?"
That one was definitely amusing to think about.
"People do that shit with fanfiction, really?"
She stared at him with the gravity of a thousand dying suns.
"Or you and Rhys."
........
"No."
What.
"No, no way. No way! How, even!"
Lera's shoulders slumped as she thought about that one for a moment.
"Probably some undersexed horny eighteen year-old girl would decide, I dunno, that you saw Rhys wearing my clothes and it really worked for you," she said, her face screwing up. "And then true love blossomed because something something true love. And then--"
Her expression went from thoughtfully mortified to flustered and embarrassed. She pointed a finger directly at him. "I mean, uh, la la la, shut up, I never wrote weird fanfics like that when I was a teenager, I have no clue at all!"
"Oh my God," he said, somewhere between shock and wild amusement. "Oh my God! You did! You totally did! I bet you were thinking about it when it happened, too! You've been writing it all along- do you have a copy of it on your computer or anything??"
She shook her head rapidly and repeatedly, like doing it quickly could make it less true or perhaps make time rewind. Lera sputtered when she kept trying to talk. "No, no, no! Nothing of sort! It was--it was in my younger and stupider days! I've stopped, now! I don't slash you with other boys, that would just be weird!"
She decided to not answer the question about her computer until she could destroy it with a magnet turned into a hammer.
She groaned and put her head in her hands, looking up to the sky like it could somehow save her. "It's mistakes from my younger, stupider, fangirlier years! I didn't know we'd be famous and get our fanfics some daaaaay!"
He grinned while she had her face in her hands. "Oh man- what was your username?? Was it like, uh, like... red social girl with two Rs? Motherslashland? Sovietunions666?"
She pulled her face out of her hands and looked at him incredulously. "Motherslashland?" she asked. She sputtered again, still red-faced, and looked away from him for a moment. Then, she started giggling. Then, she started laughing and fell over from the swing onto the ground. "Sovietunions666? Oh, come on--oh, man!"
He grinned widely, cheekier than ever, even if it hurt his face to do it. "Was I close at least?" he asked, watching her roll around on the ground a bit before he got up and crouched down beside her, hand down on the ground to catch himself just in case. "At least tell me it had the word 'commie' in it."
Lera laughed again, sitting up a little straighter, but only to lean in closer against him. She put her head on his shoulder -- partly to hide her face, partly to be up against him -- and giggled again. "Close. You're more creative, so..." She reached a finger out and poked him in the stomach, gently, and then she sighed. She colored with more embarrassment. "Kissack. Like Cossack. I'm lame, remember?"
Pleased with himself (though making Lera laugh or become flustered was more like shooting fish in a barrel than an actual accomplishment), he watched her with a smug look on his face, swaying a bit when she leaned on him before straightening, resting his arms around his knees. He sighed a bit.
"Yeah," he said in contented agreement. "You are pretty lame."
"Oh, hush!" she said, though there was no offense in her voice. She laughed again (proving his theory right, perhaps) and smacked him softly in the side. She kept her head leaning against his shoulder and sighed. It was a contented one and the smile on her face was equally contented. She scooted closer, nudging herself up against him.
"Do you want to meet your lame girlfriend's mom sometime?" she asked. Was it okay to call herself that aloud? It seemed like the best word to give whatever they had. It was certainly the best way to explain it to other people, like parents, who did not need to hear exactly how complicated it was. "And her dad and younger brothers, who are nice and not scary." She paused. "Actually nice and not scary."
He snickered when she smacked him in the side and smiled like an idiot in the aftermath. If he reached out, he could touch the swing ahead of him and a bit to the side. He did so, giving it a small push. Girlfriend. That pretty much explained it, didn't it? He could live with that labeling.
"Sure," he said, smiling a bit, resting his chin in his hand, elbow on his knee. It was a pretty good way for him to hide the slightly swaying feeling of his head. Even a few day's experience told him already that it would die down in a few minutes. "Make a date and let me know," he added, putting the timing of it in her hands. There wasn't any need to rush and it would be best when she was comfortable about it anyway.
She heard no complaint. It made her smile further, and she kept her head leaning against his shoulder. She let out a sigh, half-closed her eyes, and nodded her head. He knew how to handle things like this. She could suss out the situation and do it when it seemed best. And go talk to her parents, first, which seemed like the right step.
If it went half as well as it did when she met his parents, she would be happy. He wasn't the part of the equation that she was worried about, though. Maybe it would do a lot of him; it certainly left her feeling good to be shown off to the family.
"Sure," she said. "I'll do that. Maybe I'll go by tomorrow and talk to them, at least." It was like pulling off a band-aid. She sighed, then she sat up straighter. "Maybe we should get moving--hey, my old apartment is on the way back. I don't think anyone is still there--" Marlene moved out and Missie was with Nadir. She thought Rasmus moved back in with the guard, but maybe he would want it. "You want to see it, before I get rid of it? It's where Ras was staying, too."
"Yeah, best talk to 'em first," he said, shutting his eyes as the vertigo came and went. He let his head rest against hers a moment, humming and lifting his own head up as she shifted and straightened. "Oh, is it? I guess a lot of stuff's gotten bumped around since the merge... still haven't got it quite nailed down yet." One thing he could do was study maps. He didn't enjoy it- in fact, Ezra hated studying. But having a position of responsibility change his attitude towards it, at least.
"Yeah, let's go," he said, shifting to stand, blinking a few times to keep his vision from wavering or blacking out. "Ah, I forgot to say, I guess- Ras is back on my personal guard, so he's back at the HQ, same as Whitehall and Cuthbert." And trying to figure out some way to pay back Lera and Missie and Marlene to boot, with the usual fretting. Ezra didn't know what to say to that but was sure he'd come up with something.
Ahh, and Missie with Nadir. Nadir had told him he'd be busy the next couple of days helping her adjust. Blinded from resurrection. It hadn't made a lot of sense but he hadn't pressed the issue. (Why was Nadir doing it? Well, tit for tat maybe, she had looked after him when he'd first arrived...)
The dizziness passed so long as he stood slowly and he reached down for her hand to help her up. "Let's go."
She did not want to linger on Missie; it was sad to think about and she had no desire to mope. Rasmus was no surprise; she nodded her head. It was like that with Virelai, too. The trust seemed to be useful. She wasn't jealous.
Okay, she was a little jealous.
"I'm glad," she said, with a smile. "He missed you a lot." She grabbed Ezra's hands and helped herself to her feet with his hand. Once she stood up, she slid her arm through his and grinned. "This way!"
Her apartment, it ended up, was not too far away. They had to take the light rail for a few steps, since it was technically in Fall City, but once they did, it was just a couple of blocks to the apartment. The ride had that strange familiarity to it; she rode the light rail all the time, before she came to Zenderael. Now, it had some of that strange familiarity. It was how she remembered it; a red brick building, a few stories high, with apartments all inside. The parking lot was gated off, which also included the side door for residents. Lera tried her key and it worked; she held the barred iron gate open for him.
Inside of the covered lot, she saw her Toyota, sitting there. She pointed at the tiny, dark blue car. "That's what I tried to ferry Ras around in." She looked crestfallen for a moment and sighed. "I don't think he liked it."
He'd used the light rail sparingly. Buses, too. He simply hadn't had the cash for them, and thus had taken his bike everywhere. He considered that while they rode the rail. His bike- and Alison's bike- had been totaled. Was it even worth it to get another one? He missed having one, but on the other hand, maybe he could look into getting a mount.
... oh man, oh man. A mount. He hadn't thought about that at all. And that was even knowing that Lera had one! Was he stupid?? Oh man.
He let her lead the way, having no idea where they were going except the vague idea of one following the street signs.
He took one look at the car and started to laugh, the nerdy cackle that eventually devolved into wheezing, though it came with a bit of dizziness too this time. "Of course- shit, of course he wouldn't- are you serious? No way he could fit in that," he said, approaching the car curiously.
Oh, no. There was some bend to the door and the frame. He held in another snicker. "Oh my God."
Lera thought mounts were one of the best parts of the job. Nevermind the fact that Colonel Sanders was an ornery, sometimes vicious bird that could drive other people up the wall. She preferred him to her car, which was altogether quite boring, even if she had sprang for the fancier options on the interior. The seats were quite nice. Unfortunately, though, the frame and the door had that bend to them. And, if he looked in closely, Ezra might have seen that the dashboard was deformed slightly, probably where Rasmus's knee had been or something. The plastic had that lighter color from being bent.
She sighed and visibly deflated. "Yeah... yeah, we tried that," she said. Then, she sighed again, and put her hand up over her face. "Twice. I promised I never would make him do that again after the second time."
The party to watch the tournament. It felt like an eternity ago now.
"You're a cruel woman," he said, looking at her with something between a grin and a look of awe. Getting Ras in there and out of there- twice, even- was no small feat. Ras didn't like small spaces to begin with.
He shook his head, not really thinking much more on it. "Well, car, you did your duty and you did it well." He gave it a thump on the top like a pat. A mount... yes, he'd have to look into that. Rhys had direwolf puppies, didn't he?...
"Think there's coffee in there?" he asked, jutting his chin towards the building.
"I felt bad about it later..." Lera said, trailing off, and then sighing. She looked back at Ezra with a smile. Clearly, it had never really bothered Rasmus; they stayed on good and friendly terms after all of that. Of course, that would make selling her Toyota a little hard.
She looked back at the building and nodded. "Sure is," she said. "Come on."
She opened the door to the apartment building and held it for him. She was on the fourth floor, which meant a short trip up the elevator. One of the lights was blinking inside it, just the way it had when she left. The complex was nice, altogether, if one of those ones that screamed that it was prefabricated for office workers. Ezra might have recognized it; she had gotten delivery from him once, after all, even if she never thought about it too much. Her apartment was one of the two bedrooms; when she got to the door and opened it, she felt compelled to issue a little, "Ta-daa!"
There was a hallway that led into the living room, with the two bedrooms connecting on either side. It looked lived in still -- it had been, until recently -- and the most notable features were a bar separating the kitchen from the living room and the big television mounted on the wall.
"Ha ha, I bet he was feeling it later, too." He couldn't get over it. Ras, in that little bucket?...
He followed her in, arm in arm, needing it a little as they came out of the elevator. Gravity, his greatest foe!
Did he recognize it? Not really. It blended into a hundred other places he'd delivered to. Even recognizing Lera had taken some prompting of his memory. There was no way he'd recognize the building. But it was nice inside, and he let her go in first while she went about exploring the place. Ras, and Missie, and Marlene, and Lera, all in here at some time or other. He still couldn't see Ras there, though he couldn't see him anywhere that didn't have vaulted ceilings or wide hallways. Poor Ras... that explained the relieved look on the man's face when he'd come back to Paladin HQ.
He looked around with interest, looking down and thinking to slip his shoes off before padding in, door shut behind them. He was still getting used to having to turn his head too much in one direction to get a proper look at things. "Jesus," he said, "better than anything I could have ever afforded... ever."
She kept a grip on his arm, until they got in. Her shoes got taken off, too, and she started prying her socks off with her toes. She liked going about barefoot and this was her apartment. She was allowed here. She was even allowed to flick her socks near her shoes with her feet. She looked sideways at him and smiled. It was a little awkward; she could see pretty plainly that they came from different backgrounds on Earth, after hearing a few stories.
"I was pretty lucky," she said. "I saved a lot of money when I was in the army. I was posted overseas some and got money--uh, I was in Korea and they said it was hazardous at the base I was at, so I got extra money for that posting. I don't know if I could have afforded this place otherwise..."
She made a face. "Seems stupid, now. Dipping into savings just to say I had a better apartment than I could really afford on my pay?" She shook her head, looking at him, before she started walking to the kitchen and the coffee maker. "I wanted to impress my parents. They didn't like that I joined the army. So I thought if I had a nice place, they'd see they were wrong." She sighed, blowing air upward, and sending some of her bangs up over her head. "Because that's not crazy of me or anything."
"No, not crazy at all," he said, watching her get her socks off and then go walk about her place barefoot. It was strange to think that, all of a sudden, there wouldn't be anyone else around and she was just moseying on into her place after a month or two or three of not having been there.
(How long had she been gone? He lost track himself sometimes how long he'd been gone.)
"I mean, not that I proved my parents otherwise when I got my place here. I'd offer to show it to you, but, uh, Nadir kinda lives there." And Missie was there learning how to be blind or something? "It's nothing interesting anyway, unless you feel like hanging out on a roof."
He saw the couch looking into the kitchen and decided to take a spot there, flopping down and reaching up to rub at the line underneath the eyepatch, still not used to it there.
She intended to enjoy every minute of it, too. She curled her toes again, until she got to the tile of the kitchen, and began preparing the coffee. She remember how he liked it from when she used to bring him coffee; black, instead of mixed with milk. A quick check of the refrigerator showed that she could still find some milk in there. Lera looked back over the counter and smiled at him while he talked about it. "I won't say no. I'm curious."
She grinned, then. "Besides, nice views from the roof!"
She started the coffee maker up and leaned against the granite counter, letting out a sigh. She noticed how he was playing with the eyepatch. It must have bothered him; it probably dug into the skin.
"It seems like it would itch," she said, a little more softly.
"Yeah," he said with a grin, "a view of the next roof over. And down onto the street. Right over a Korean grocery."
He didn't realize she was talking to him right away. "Huh? Oh! Yeah," he said, "sort of. I'm just not used to having it on my face." Thoughtfully he continued to rub along the edge of it. "...won't have to wear it for too long, if the Khshathra manages to bring everything together. I just can't imagine what it'll be like. It's not even on the same level as Cuthbert's leg, it's... I mean, it's my eye."
He looked somewhere between disturbed and excited, rubbing lightly at his nose, distorting the scar across it, a deep, jagged line showing the path where the blade had dug into his face. He still thought all he could smell or taste sometimes was blood.
"That something can even be done- that's pretty crazy, right? Maybe I should ask to get laser surgery done in the other while they're at it..."
"Sounds scenic," she said cheerfully. She stayed where she was while the coffee brewed; it wouldn't take so much time that there was a lot of reason to sit next to him. She stayed still, though, just so he did not have to turn his head every which way to look at her.
"Yeah, Harriet's stuff..." The Khshathrabot came to mind; even if it had been totaled, it had been an awe-inspiring thing to see. That thought made her trail off for a moment, as she looked distant. "Sometimes we say Zenderael isn't -- wasn't? -- as advanced as Earth, but her stuff makes me rethink that. We don't have artificial eyes and legs like that. We also don't have constructs the way that the alchemists do or--or, well, a lot of things. Those things make me think it's more complicated than saying one world is more advanced than the other."
She smiled, the thoughtful look running away from her face. "But I'm glad that she can make an artificial eye for you, even if it's crazy to think about." She tilted her head, looking at him. "Laser surgery might not be a bad idea. I remember how much trouble you had before they found your glasses in the temple. Though..."
Lera flustered slightly, realizing what she thought of and said was absurd even while she said it. "The glasses are pretty cute."
"Well, I mean... it's an alternate universe, Heimdall said?" Duncan, but he still wasn't used to calling him Duncan. Or Vahishta. Vahishta was still a flowery, almost middle-aged man with a curly blonde mustache. "And instead of technology, it got magic. Well, technology as we know it," he added, glancing at the television. Television! He didn't even know what to do with it.
...shit, his guitar! He could get his guitar back!
"I always said I needed to do something about my sight," he said, almost nervously. That was partly what had led to his problems. The glasses themselves were nigh indestructible, but his face behind them...
He didn't get to focus any further on that. "Wh- oh my God, Lera," he said, and laughed. "Now I know why girls get uncomfortable with attention guys put on them. How many pictures of me do you have on your phone?" he asked, teasing, the same way he'd teased her earlier about the possibility of fanfiction on her laptop.
"What!" Lera whined. "I-I don't have any--okay, so I have a couple I got of you with my phone!"
And perhaps one of him laughing was her phone's background, but that seemed like incriminating information right now and she chose to plead the Fifth. She pouted at him, shaking her head rapidly to emphasize that she was not up to no good at all! "It's totally normal! I bet you took a picture of me or--or something, I don't even know, but--but--" She stammered that out, clearly flustered, and turned a bright red shade. "Or something!"
Said as if it was a convincing piece of evidence to the contrary.
Then the coffeemaker finished, which it did with a musical jingle: "HAPPY HAPPY, COFFEE'S DONE! WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD! COFFEE'S DONE!"
Lera just wilted behind the counter. Life: OVER.
"Oh, are you giving me permission?" he asked with a wide grin. "I didn't wanna sound like a creeper or anythi-"
He jumped at the sound of the coffee machine and stared at it, stared until a short laugh escaped him. "Did that- did your coffee machine-" Another laugh before he full out started to cackle. "Oh my God! That's the tune Ras keeps humming!"
"I'm behind the counter!" Lera wailed. "You can't see me!"
"Jesus!" he said, wheezing. It was giving him a headache but he kept on. "You've gotten my alt hooked on a musical jingle from your fuckin' coffee machine!" He was practically howling with laughter, fallen over on his side on the couch.
"I thought it was cute in the store and maybe the first week I had it!" she protested in a whine. She crept up the counter, sighed, and started pouring their coffee from the machine -- which mercifully stopped the jingle. She remained flushed, though, as she prepared her coffee with its milk, and then made her way over to him.
She extended the coffee at him and gave Ezra a look.
Then, her face screwed up and she started giggling uproariously. But through it, she managed, "Happy happy, coffee's done! Wake up, sleepyhead! Coffee's done!"
"I swear to God," he said, looking up at her again, gulping air, "if I ever catch you saying that to me in the morning I will smother you with a pillow."
What how to get up help gravity rrrrnnngg okay up. He reached up and took the proffered cup of coffee.
She kept giggling at that, while she walked around to the other side of the sofa and sat down next to him. By now, sitting on the side with his good eye just came second nature to her. She stopped giggling enough to take a sip of her coffee.
"No promises," she said, which prompted another round of giggles.
This was nice, she thought. The joking around, the laughing, the little mundane things that they had been able to enjoy together. She took another sip of her milk-laden coffee and leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder and smiling brightly. "You wanna stay over here instead of going back to the castle tonight? I think Duncan, Rhys, Gabe, Cuthbert, Villiers, and the partridge in a pear tree can handle themselves."
It was already well past dinner, anyways, she thought. It might be the last time she ever stayed here, anyways. Better to do it with company!
"I promise not to sing the song tomorrow, though."
"It'd be a lousy thing to promise," he said, his smile settling into contentment as she came to rest her head on his shoulder.
The question made him pause, and he kept the coffee cup up to his mouth before taking a swallow and putting it back down in his lap, looking down at her.
He could. There wasn't much of anyone left anymore to say he couldn't. But it left a terrible feeling in his stomach and he was quiet a moment longer before he sighed. "Sorry," he said, looking down to her. "I should get back soon. I've still got a lot to get sorted."
Telling her no wasn't easy, but there'd be other times. There would be a lot of time put in to getting Bastan back together, too, but to leave it, and everyone else there, at a time like now... no, the uncomfortable look on his face lingered. It was his city, and whether the others could look after it or not was hardly the point.
Lera sighed. When she looked up at him, she smiled, though. "I understand," she said. "I'd say the same if I was needed back in Safta."
She took another sip of her coffee, keeping herself cuddled up next to him just the same. It stung a little, but she knew by now that they would make time -- for that matter, they usually did, even if it was late at night (or very early in the morning). They were guild leaders. Their first priorities were their guilds and their cities, even if she occasionally entertained the idea that they could be put each other first. It wasn't a bad thing to imagine; it just had to stay in her imagination. She slid her free hand around, found his, and gave it a good squeeze.
She took another sip of her coffee, then tilted her head to look back up at him. How she could sip coffee without spilling it on his shoulder was a mystery. "I'll come back with you," she declared. "I'm here to help, not just seduce you to the musical coffee maker side."
Ah, there was the other feeling bad. But, it was easier to ask one person forgiveness than ten, or a hundred, or ten thousand. "Besides, Heim's ceremony is tomorrow," he added, though his words trailed awkwardly. It sounded like an excuse, but it really wasn't. Security detail for a huge ceremony promised to be a gongshow.
Well, she didn't seem angry at least. He found himself caught in uncertainty, how he should feel about this development. The squeeze to his hand helped and he smiled a little, and let the tension fade with another sip of coffee.
"Oh! Well," he said, looking back down to her. "That's going to take a lot of seduction anyway. Even if I stayed, we wouldn't have enough time."
"Oh, right... those things are always a pain in the ass," Lera said. "Mine was a headache and a half."
He hadn't had to come to that one, but she remembered Whitehall and Cuthbert both being there. It probably had been some stress for him. She squeezed his fingers, as if to say that everything was okay, that she didn't mind. She minded a little, but she could see it was a selfish thought; she hadn't spoken falsely and had it been in Safta, she would have told him the same thing that he told her. She leaned in closer, cuddling up against him again, and looked up at him. She smiled warmly.
And, maybe, a little playfully.
"I'll consider it a work in progress to get you to like those, then." She leaned up and kissed him on the lips, but briefly. It wouldn't be playing fair to make it more than that and she cuddled back against him. "I can play a long game, after all. We'll just need the right tone for you."
"Uh-uh, don't even try," he said, even as she pressed her mouth to his. "I will have no getting of the used to with that. The Spenta decrees it is so.
"...is that how you say it? Well, I don't care, it sounded good."
He looked down at her, nestled against him. Damn. Not fair, Lera. "I'll make you a playlist instead," he said, "and you can try to seduce me with something from that. In the meantime, does your tv still work? I haven't watched anything in months."
"Sure," Lera agreed. She kissed him on the cheek, then took another drink of her coffee. "I'm curious about what kind of music you like, anyways."
She looked at her television. No sign that Rasmus had destroyed it by accident, despite the close call. She tilted her head to the side, before she nodded, and grabbed the remote with a hand. She stared at it for a second. This, the most ancient battleground of the sexes. Would she relinquish it?
Yup.
She put it in his hand. "I hope they paid the cable bill," she said. "I got a ton of movies on my Netflix account if not, though..." She stayed snuggled up where she was and left the rest to him. She was happy just like this for the moment. Besides, if he picked a movie she hated, she could just sing the coffee song.
When: Monday, 15/8
Where: Underwood >>> Lera's apartment
Before/After: n/a
Warnings: some language probably, Lera's old online habits, nothing much otherwise
Before she did it, Lera was convinced that meeting her (maybe?) boyfriend's family would be harder than fighting the god of war. If she failed against Mezzron, she was just dead. If she failed to make a good impression, her life was over.
Now that it was done, though, she felt much better.
She no longer had to hide the nervousness from him (and fail at it, of course, even if she did not realize it). They were all wonderful, in her opinion. His dad reminded her of Nadir; she wasn't sure if Ezra saw the parallels or if it would be polite to point them out, but it still made her smile to think of. And his mother had been quite chatty! It was a relief, really; it meant that when Lera started babbling nervously, she wasn't making a quiet person feel awkward. Even his siblings had been wonderful!
By the time they had to leave, she wished they could have stayed. Even her chocolate chip cookies -- and her baking skills were far from grand (and caused no small amount of confusion at the Mazda's insistence that she do it herself back in camp) -- seemed to go over well.
Now that they were walking back, she had a bright smile on her face. The way home led them through one of Underwood's parks, which had partially merged with some scenic Zenderean woodlands. She had her hands pushed into the pockets of her jeans, which she wore. Wearing a military uniform seemed silly and it felt nice to be back in Earth clothes, doing Earth things for a day. It was enough to almost forget the things that they had been doing last week; it was certainly enough to make her think about other things.
She kept an arm slid through Ezra's while they walked; it wasn't just a silly romantic gesture, but an awareness that he could get vertigo from the injured eye and might need the help if he got dizzy. Disguising the support as a cute gesture seemed a good way to not bring attention to it -- and she wanted to, besides. He had taken her home! It gave her a sense of satisfaction, which was maybe childish, but she had helped defeat an evil king and a god of war. She was allowed to indulge a little childishness.
She nodded cheerfully. "Your mom's cooking rocks."
It had been almost overwhelming. He'd gone to see them beforehand, two days after the merge had happened, because it had taken up a lot of courage to do it. His family. He'd been gone almost six months with next to no communicated- all on his side- and if it hadn't been for his eye, he was sure his mom, Rebekah and Miriam would have lined up to slap him.
He almost wished his face was fine so that they could. He couldn't deny that he'd deserved it.
But it had been good. Every bad thing had, for a little while, washed away under his mother's fuss and concern, even though she was angry with him. Get into some huge battle and get himself warped to some alternate dimension and not say a word and come back with an eye missing- it had gone on and on, but she finally gave up when she saw how goofily he was smiling under the heat of her wrath. Then she'd simply hugged him and he'd patted her back while she sobbed about her baby boy.
There were a lot of complicated feelings, of course. He wasn't the same person he'd been when he'd left, for better or for worse. It was strange to be at home and be the Spenta, to be in a peaceful place after such a bloody war.
It was something he was all right with letting be.
Bringing Lera over hadn't been something he'd intended, just something that Rebekah had gotten out of him and insisted on meeting her, backed up by Miriam and his mom. He'd hoped she would refuse, but she'd accepted, and her own nervousness had eased some of his own. Was that mean? So long as he wasn't alone in the nerves department.
A good dinner, a lot of yelling and arm-smacking and coffee and food, a lot of photos (Ezra'd been in a lot of casts even before Zenderael by the looks of it), and a brief, awkward silence as they went over his high school friends and carried on as though nothing had been amiss.
And then they were walking out of the whirlwind of Amos activity. It seemed an old-fashioned sort of family, the sisters and mom taking Lera aside to chat with her while Ezra stood at a distance with his older brother and his dad, talking about other things entirely, and they'd been sent off with a reminder to come back over the weekend maybe if they weren't too busy (what did a guild leader do anyway) and now, now they were walking... walking where? He didn't know. He was trying to recognize where he grew up amidst all the Zenderean wildlife.
"I haven't eaten anything that good since those grilled cheese sandwiches Rhys and I made."
He didn't mind her holding on to his arm. He had to stop every now and then, apologetic and a little embarrassed. Once they had his eye figured out, they could fix it all up, but it was a small price to pay for the time being if Harriet could get a working eye going. "Ah, they all talk a lot, sorry." Was the old park still around, or had it been uprooted? He hadn't completely been able to get back into Earth clothes, wearing slacks and a nice shirt with his old bomber jacket Nadir had dropped off for him. It was an acceptable balance.
It felt easy enough to slip into that role. Talking with her mother and aunts had been similar -- if a little different, because Lera was the only woman her age in her family -- and she fell back onto those old family habits. It was easy to draw upon while talking to his. She hadn't realized that she missed it until it was over. Part of her wondered if they could come back over the weekend, but there was a lot of week to get through first. She looked up and let those thoughts drop when he responded.
She smiled at him. "Mm-hmm," she murmured quietly. "I wish I could cook like that. I never learned how to make anything quite like that, though." It was not self-depreciation; she never had to cook in the army and by the time she lived on her own, she had a penchant for simple things like grilling up hamburgers and making salads. She never quite learned to really cook.
Her smile turned into a grin. She poked him fondly in the side. "Talk a lot?" she asked. The grin turned sheepish and she leaned in closer to him. Her tone got a slight sing-song to it. "Let me introduce myself. Private Prissypants, prone to babbling and blathering, at your service!"
He kept her on his left side so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. He grinned at the 'introduction'. "Sorry," he said, "I mean talking so much on purpose and not because they were nervous." He nudged her side with his elbow and smiled, walking along still.
"I felt like I was in a bad comedy movie. She even broke out the photo stream. You know, I told you I went over yesterday, right? She kept fluffing up my hair like it was the most amazing thing. I haven't had hair since I was sixteen or seventeen."
He reached up to rub at his cheek where the eyepatch dug in. How did Nadir stand it? It didn't cover the whole of the scar, faded thanks to healing but deep, Aerveas' blade having dug into the cartilage and bone. The eye itself looked terrible- milky and bloodshot, useless for anything except detecting light and giving him a blinding headache while it was at it.
It was nice being on his left. Her wounds were healed, but she still felt a little sore on her left side. One of the clerics told her that was common; all the healing in the world could not repair the damage that the mind imagined and she had been beaten around enough that the soreness lingered sometimes. She forgot about it more often than not, but brushing against something sometimes brought it back. Not to mention her arm, with that scar along the forearm, actually ached sometimes.
Lera chuckled, covering her mouth with her free hand while she did. She let out a contented sigh and nodded. "Really?" she asked, looking up at him with the grin still on her face. "I saw some pictures of you without hair, but I didn't realize. I'm not surprised, though. Your hair is pretty adorable!" She paused, then realized how that could sound, and flustered. "I-I mean, you looked cute with a shaved head, too, it's just--um--both are independently and differently good-looking! It's--um..."
The ramble ran its course and the sigh was flustered this time. Her cheeks stayed red while they kept walking and she was quiet. She looked down at the ground and kicked her foot into it while she walked.
"I liked seeing the photos," she added, her voice more subdued. "It was nice seeing where you came from, you know? And fun." The remaining embarrassment threatened to make another ramble come on. She ended with a quick, "And everyone was really nice."
He let out a laugh- well, more like a nerdy snicker- and let her run herself out. "Think they might do a magazine article on us? I'll have tons of preteens going 'oh, his hair is sooo adorable'," he teased, pitching his voice higher for her as he grinned. "And that eyepatch! Mysterious!"
He considered a moment. "You'll probably get a pin-up. Teenage boys everywhere will have you posted to their lockers or set up as their screensaver." He grinned at her impishly. "That Mazda, I'm telling you." His arm went from linking hers to wrapping about her waist. "What a hottie."
He looked that little bit down to her while she continued, considering that. Good to see where he came from. "They're good people. I've been really lucky." That was an understatement. He still had trouble believing he deserved them. "...now, about your mom," he said, visible eyebrow lifting.
She let out a surprised, but far from displeased squeak when he wrapped an arm around her waist. Her cheeks stayed red but her expression was happy and a little playful, instead of embarrassed. She leaned up against him for a moment and laughed softly. "I'm sure all the teenyboppers will be saying how dreamy you are, mister." She wagged a finger in front of him, then poked him in the side, and stopped leaning into him quite so much. They still had to walk. "I'm just scared of the fanfiction."
She said it jokingly, but then her face screwed up as she thought about it. Duncan had been a fan boy of Morvarid's. Would she get her own? Would there actually be fanfiction? Would someone write some sort of weird slash fic with Ezra and Rhys, and then Lera would have to track them down and challenge them to glorious combat? Is this a thing that would happen?
She remained in this terrible world for a moment or two longer. His words finally roused her from that place.
She looked sideways at Ezra and smiled at first, before she nodded. He was lucky, but the good sort of lucky, she thought. When he asked about her mom, though, she flustered. Her mother was insane and judgmental and nothing was ever good enough! "What about my mom?" she asked. She hesitated. "I haven't gone to talk to her yet since the whole Bastan and Fall City got together thing happened."
"Fanfiction?" he echoed. That was a thing he wasn't familiar with, so he thought on it briefly but it didn't go nearly as far as it did with Lera. He looked down to her and wondered what the hell she was thinking of to get that look on her face.
He grinned again at her reaction. "What if she's been watching you the whole time anyway?" he said, waggling his free fingers at her in a mock-menacing sort of way. "Well, maybe you should consider seeing her sometime." He didn't say with me- it seemed presumptuous, given her reaction, that she should want her mom to meet anyone, even herself.
Looking aside, Ezra seemed to spot something and he nodded towards it. "Let's go over that way," he said. They could get to the warp point later. For now...
The kid's park came up faster than he thought it would. Moving his hand from her waist to her hand, he almost ended up tugging her along with him to get to the swings, where he let go of her hand and plunked down on one, looking quite pleased with himself. A druid and her wind elemental were on the other side, playing on the merry-go-round. Ezra watched them for a bit until he got dizzy looking at them.
Lera sat down on the swing next to him, smiling sheepishly at the remark about her mom watching her. Until she thought about it -- she was an alchemist now -- and her face screwed up some with mounting horror. What if her mom really was watching her? It seemed like tracking her every movement with a paper map of Zenderael and Bastan, with pins marking her locations, was the sort of thing she would do! She shook her head and looked sideways at him.
He was probably right, she realized. Even if her mom was a little crazy, sometimes, she was probably worried. "Yeah," she said, "I'll do that. I'm just kinda nervous, I guess. Mom seems like she had all these plans for me, you know? Like thought I'd get a lot of promotions or maybe become an engineer some day or--you know." She waved a hand in front of her. "I won't really do that -- um, I didn't want to do a lot of that -- but I have to tell her it's not possible, if she didn't get that already."
Maybe she had and Lera was worried over nothing. She grabbed the chains of the swing with both hands, which put an idea into her head.
Her ability to resist the swing's temptation was nonexistent. Lera kicked her feet into the playground's grass and sent her swing backward, albeit not too high, and stuck her legs straight out for when it came back again. She laughed when she did.
He watched her with his head tilted to see her more fully with his good eye and he grinned a little, though sheepishly. She knew her mother best, of course- the look of terror on her face had to mean something.
He settled in to listen to her talk, and wondered if he'd suffered anything similar from his mother. "Yeah, being the Mazda's kind of a full time job, you know?"
He watched her swing, grinning again, while he just rocked back and forth, heels in the dirt beneath him. "...I think maybe I wished my mom had some expectations," he said finally. "She was always the 'I trust your judgement' sort, when I really don't think she should have." He sounded sheepish about that. "I've done some pretty stupid shit. I mean, Nate's taking over from dad, Rebekah's going into physical therapy, Miriam's not even out of high school yet but dad was saying she's been picking Rebekah's brains about psychology. And there I was, delivering fast food."
A small shrug. "I didn't know what I wanted to do anyway, so maybe it's for the best something chose me instead."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do some freelancing on the side." She grinned back at that, keeping up the big sweeping swings that she liked. She could still hear him just fine, though, and she looked at him. The grin turned into a softer smile and she nodded. She could understand what he was talking about; her father had been the sort to tell her to follow her own judgment, do what she wanted, and the like. He just never contradicted her mom about it.
"I think I see what you mean. I'm glad it worked out the way it did. Like, ah--I wasn't really happy with wherever I was working, I wasn't even happy in the Army," she said. "I kept doing things to impress them, but it never felt like a direction, you know? Just sort of treading water."
She looked down at the ground, but didn't stop swinging. When she came down, she kicked her feet into the dirt and kept herself moving. "I didn't ask to be doing this, but there's a lot I like about it. And we're all pretty good at it, you know?" They managed to win the war. It seemed strange to act like they were still fledgling novices at being guild leaders, after that, even if they had a lot to learn. "And I got to know you because of it. Definitely an upside."
She flustered after she said it. It was spoken automatically, without much thinking about it, but it was easy to see that it was true once it was out there.
He watched her as she kicked off, content to let himself go back and forth that little bit while she went higher and higher. Inwardly he wanted to, too, but had to give a slight sigh, knowing he'd probably just make himself sick going that high that fast.
He understood the sentiment. Treading water had definitely been how he'd felt after his falling out with his friends. Anything to get away, anything to move on and forget, anything to be important to someone, anyone. And now, now he felt as though he'd accomplished that, if by accident. So he could sit here on a swing and relax. He knew he should get back, he should get some work done. The headaches were brief, the vertigo never lasted long. Heimdall- Duncan- was probably still running and a breakneck pace trying to sort everything out, and the least he could do was be there to help him out.
But the lazy summer heat and the slowly sinking sun and a swingset had him putting it off a little longer.
He stared at her a moment after her comment, and he grinned without a verbal answer.
Looking back ahead, he rocked backwards and forwards before speaking. "It's something to strive for. A challenge. A place to belong. A lot of responsibility," he said, more to himself than to her. It wouldn't be for her, but morality played a huge part in his role. "Who knows? I might have become a paladin on my own."
The grin told her all she needed to know. It wasn't hard to understand his feelings, after this much time with him. He smiled when he liked what he heard; he certainly could be commanding and remote to his subordinates, but once she knew what to look for, it was easy to realize that his expressions let on a lot about him. She smiled right back at him, keeping her swings up with the occasional kick off the ground. It meant she had to turn her head back here and there.
"Yeah," she agreed. "And you make a great paladin--" And even where he didn't, it seemed like things that he could be. "So I wouldn't be surprised. I liked being a spellsword, even, before I inherited the title. I planned to stay one for awhile."
There were still things she wished she could do, but there was no way to tell her boyfriend that she wanted kids some day and leave it as just a hypothetical. Neither of them were remotely ready for that talk, so she left it silent. She even kept smiling. "I guess I'll miss the chance to explore Zenderael a little, though." She sighed, shrugged, and looked forward. "Oh, fanfiction."
She skipped a beat. "It's stories about people, that fans write. Most are usually romantic."
Unaware of her thoughts, Ezra looked perfectly peaceful just swinging back and forth a little bit, barely even moving by Lera's standards. He had his arms wrapped about the chains, fingers linked in front of him, his tattoos winding up his wrists and disappearing under his sleeves.
"I wonder if I woulda gone paladin if I'd had the choice. Maybe rogue?" It was a question most of everyone asked themselves when playing Zen. It came up as a conversation piece on the forums, there had been a handful of online quizzes. Rogue had definitely seemed to suit him more.
He felt a bit of disappointment thinking about it. The Vairya was dead. He'd wanted her as badly as he'd wanted Aerveas. And it just continued to dredge up all of those awful feelings surrounding the old Vahishta. Ezra still felt muddled about that- perhaps it had been easy for him to decide his course with people on the line just because he was so far removed from them. Twenty-one hundred years old...
His head came back up as she spoke. "Eh? Oh! Oh, yeah. I know about fanfiction. I was just wondering about that weird face you made earlier."
Clearly he didn't know about the same kind of fanfiction that she did.
"I could see you as a rogue," Lera said lightly. "But I think paladin suits you better." She grinned at him -- but then she was mentally and verbally back on fanfiction again. Her face screwed up once more as she thought about it.
"You know... fanfiction," she said. "You know."
Clearly, he did not. She accepted that a little after she said it. She flustered and looked down at the ground. Her swinging slowed and she did not kick off the ground just yet. "It's--um. A lot of the time, the weird fans--" She flushed with embarrassment again. She turned bright red. "--they'll pair up people who might not otherwise be interested in each other. Like are just friends. Or maybe enemies." She sputtered. "Or don't have orientations that line up. Like that."
He watched her as she spoke, frowning a little, eyebrow drawing in. "So like..." He took a moment to think. "Like... you and Harriet?... Or Villiers and Cuthbert?"
That one was definitely amusing to think about.
"People do that shit with fanfiction, really?"
She stared at him with the gravity of a thousand dying suns.
"Or you and Rhys."
........
"No."
What.
"No, no way. No way! How, even!"
Lera's shoulders slumped as she thought about that one for a moment.
"Probably some undersexed horny eighteen year-old girl would decide, I dunno, that you saw Rhys wearing my clothes and it really worked for you," she said, her face screwing up. "And then true love blossomed because something something true love. And then--"
Her expression went from thoughtfully mortified to flustered and embarrassed. She pointed a finger directly at him. "I mean, uh, la la la, shut up, I never wrote weird fanfics like that when I was a teenager, I have no clue at all!"
"Oh my God," he said, somewhere between shock and wild amusement. "Oh my God! You did! You totally did! I bet you were thinking about it when it happened, too! You've been writing it all along- do you have a copy of it on your computer or anything??"
She shook her head rapidly and repeatedly, like doing it quickly could make it less true or perhaps make time rewind. Lera sputtered when she kept trying to talk. "No, no, no! Nothing of sort! It was--it was in my younger and stupider days! I've stopped, now! I don't slash you with other boys, that would just be weird!"
She decided to not answer the question about her computer until she could destroy it with a magnet turned into a hammer.
She groaned and put her head in her hands, looking up to the sky like it could somehow save her. "It's mistakes from my younger, stupider, fangirlier years! I didn't know we'd be famous and get our fanfics some daaaaay!"
He grinned while she had her face in her hands. "Oh man- what was your username?? Was it like, uh, like... red social girl with two Rs? Motherslashland? Sovietunions666?"
She pulled her face out of her hands and looked at him incredulously. "Motherslashland?" she asked. She sputtered again, still red-faced, and looked away from him for a moment. Then, she started giggling. Then, she started laughing and fell over from the swing onto the ground. "Sovietunions666? Oh, come on--oh, man!"
He grinned widely, cheekier than ever, even if it hurt his face to do it. "Was I close at least?" he asked, watching her roll around on the ground a bit before he got up and crouched down beside her, hand down on the ground to catch himself just in case. "At least tell me it had the word 'commie' in it."
Lera laughed again, sitting up a little straighter, but only to lean in closer against him. She put her head on his shoulder -- partly to hide her face, partly to be up against him -- and giggled again. "Close. You're more creative, so..." She reached a finger out and poked him in the stomach, gently, and then she sighed. She colored with more embarrassment. "Kissack. Like Cossack. I'm lame, remember?"
Pleased with himself (though making Lera laugh or become flustered was more like shooting fish in a barrel than an actual accomplishment), he watched her with a smug look on his face, swaying a bit when she leaned on him before straightening, resting his arms around his knees. He sighed a bit.
"Yeah," he said in contented agreement. "You are pretty lame."
"Oh, hush!" she said, though there was no offense in her voice. She laughed again (proving his theory right, perhaps) and smacked him softly in the side. She kept her head leaning against his shoulder and sighed. It was a contented one and the smile on her face was equally contented. She scooted closer, nudging herself up against him.
"Do you want to meet your lame girlfriend's mom sometime?" she asked. Was it okay to call herself that aloud? It seemed like the best word to give whatever they had. It was certainly the best way to explain it to other people, like parents, who did not need to hear exactly how complicated it was. "And her dad and younger brothers, who are nice and not scary." She paused. "Actually nice and not scary."
He snickered when she smacked him in the side and smiled like an idiot in the aftermath. If he reached out, he could touch the swing ahead of him and a bit to the side. He did so, giving it a small push. Girlfriend. That pretty much explained it, didn't it? He could live with that labeling.
"Sure," he said, smiling a bit, resting his chin in his hand, elbow on his knee. It was a pretty good way for him to hide the slightly swaying feeling of his head. Even a few day's experience told him already that it would die down in a few minutes. "Make a date and let me know," he added, putting the timing of it in her hands. There wasn't any need to rush and it would be best when she was comfortable about it anyway.
She heard no complaint. It made her smile further, and she kept her head leaning against his shoulder. She let out a sigh, half-closed her eyes, and nodded her head. He knew how to handle things like this. She could suss out the situation and do it when it seemed best. And go talk to her parents, first, which seemed like the right step.
If it went half as well as it did when she met his parents, she would be happy. He wasn't the part of the equation that she was worried about, though. Maybe it would do a lot of him; it certainly left her feeling good to be shown off to the family.
"Sure," she said. "I'll do that. Maybe I'll go by tomorrow and talk to them, at least." It was like pulling off a band-aid. She sighed, then she sat up straighter. "Maybe we should get moving--hey, my old apartment is on the way back. I don't think anyone is still there--" Marlene moved out and Missie was with Nadir. She thought Rasmus moved back in with the guard, but maybe he would want it. "You want to see it, before I get rid of it? It's where Ras was staying, too."
"Yeah, best talk to 'em first," he said, shutting his eyes as the vertigo came and went. He let his head rest against hers a moment, humming and lifting his own head up as she shifted and straightened. "Oh, is it? I guess a lot of stuff's gotten bumped around since the merge... still haven't got it quite nailed down yet." One thing he could do was study maps. He didn't enjoy it- in fact, Ezra hated studying. But having a position of responsibility change his attitude towards it, at least.
"Yeah, let's go," he said, shifting to stand, blinking a few times to keep his vision from wavering or blacking out. "Ah, I forgot to say, I guess- Ras is back on my personal guard, so he's back at the HQ, same as Whitehall and Cuthbert." And trying to figure out some way to pay back Lera and Missie and Marlene to boot, with the usual fretting. Ezra didn't know what to say to that but was sure he'd come up with something.
Ahh, and Missie with Nadir. Nadir had told him he'd be busy the next couple of days helping her adjust. Blinded from resurrection. It hadn't made a lot of sense but he hadn't pressed the issue. (Why was Nadir doing it? Well, tit for tat maybe, she had looked after him when he'd first arrived...)
The dizziness passed so long as he stood slowly and he reached down for her hand to help her up. "Let's go."
She did not want to linger on Missie; it was sad to think about and she had no desire to mope. Rasmus was no surprise; she nodded her head. It was like that with Virelai, too. The trust seemed to be useful. She wasn't jealous.
Okay, she was a little jealous.
"I'm glad," she said, with a smile. "He missed you a lot." She grabbed Ezra's hands and helped herself to her feet with his hand. Once she stood up, she slid her arm through his and grinned. "This way!"
Her apartment, it ended up, was not too far away. They had to take the light rail for a few steps, since it was technically in Fall City, but once they did, it was just a couple of blocks to the apartment. The ride had that strange familiarity to it; she rode the light rail all the time, before she came to Zenderael. Now, it had some of that strange familiarity. It was how she remembered it; a red brick building, a few stories high, with apartments all inside. The parking lot was gated off, which also included the side door for residents. Lera tried her key and it worked; she held the barred iron gate open for him.
Inside of the covered lot, she saw her Toyota, sitting there. She pointed at the tiny, dark blue car. "That's what I tried to ferry Ras around in." She looked crestfallen for a moment and sighed. "I don't think he liked it."
He'd used the light rail sparingly. Buses, too. He simply hadn't had the cash for them, and thus had taken his bike everywhere. He considered that while they rode the rail. His bike- and Alison's bike- had been totaled. Was it even worth it to get another one? He missed having one, but on the other hand, maybe he could look into getting a mount.
... oh man, oh man. A mount. He hadn't thought about that at all. And that was even knowing that Lera had one! Was he stupid?? Oh man.
He let her lead the way, having no idea where they were going except the vague idea of one following the street signs.
He took one look at the car and started to laugh, the nerdy cackle that eventually devolved into wheezing, though it came with a bit of dizziness too this time. "Of course- shit, of course he wouldn't- are you serious? No way he could fit in that," he said, approaching the car curiously.
Oh, no. There was some bend to the door and the frame. He held in another snicker. "Oh my God."
Lera thought mounts were one of the best parts of the job. Nevermind the fact that Colonel Sanders was an ornery, sometimes vicious bird that could drive other people up the wall. She preferred him to her car, which was altogether quite boring, even if she had sprang for the fancier options on the interior. The seats were quite nice. Unfortunately, though, the frame and the door had that bend to them. And, if he looked in closely, Ezra might have seen that the dashboard was deformed slightly, probably where Rasmus's knee had been or something. The plastic had that lighter color from being bent.
She sighed and visibly deflated. "Yeah... yeah, we tried that," she said. Then, she sighed again, and put her hand up over her face. "Twice. I promised I never would make him do that again after the second time."
The party to watch the tournament. It felt like an eternity ago now.
"You're a cruel woman," he said, looking at her with something between a grin and a look of awe. Getting Ras in there and out of there- twice, even- was no small feat. Ras didn't like small spaces to begin with.
He shook his head, not really thinking much more on it. "Well, car, you did your duty and you did it well." He gave it a thump on the top like a pat. A mount... yes, he'd have to look into that. Rhys had direwolf puppies, didn't he?...
"Think there's coffee in there?" he asked, jutting his chin towards the building.
"I felt bad about it later..." Lera said, trailing off, and then sighing. She looked back at Ezra with a smile. Clearly, it had never really bothered Rasmus; they stayed on good and friendly terms after all of that. Of course, that would make selling her Toyota a little hard.
She looked back at the building and nodded. "Sure is," she said. "Come on."
She opened the door to the apartment building and held it for him. She was on the fourth floor, which meant a short trip up the elevator. One of the lights was blinking inside it, just the way it had when she left. The complex was nice, altogether, if one of those ones that screamed that it was prefabricated for office workers. Ezra might have recognized it; she had gotten delivery from him once, after all, even if she never thought about it too much. Her apartment was one of the two bedrooms; when she got to the door and opened it, she felt compelled to issue a little, "Ta-daa!"
There was a hallway that led into the living room, with the two bedrooms connecting on either side. It looked lived in still -- it had been, until recently -- and the most notable features were a bar separating the kitchen from the living room and the big television mounted on the wall.
"Ha ha, I bet he was feeling it later, too." He couldn't get over it. Ras, in that little bucket?...
He followed her in, arm in arm, needing it a little as they came out of the elevator. Gravity, his greatest foe!
Did he recognize it? Not really. It blended into a hundred other places he'd delivered to. Even recognizing Lera had taken some prompting of his memory. There was no way he'd recognize the building. But it was nice inside, and he let her go in first while she went about exploring the place. Ras, and Missie, and Marlene, and Lera, all in here at some time or other. He still couldn't see Ras there, though he couldn't see him anywhere that didn't have vaulted ceilings or wide hallways. Poor Ras... that explained the relieved look on the man's face when he'd come back to Paladin HQ.
He looked around with interest, looking down and thinking to slip his shoes off before padding in, door shut behind them. He was still getting used to having to turn his head too much in one direction to get a proper look at things. "Jesus," he said, "better than anything I could have ever afforded... ever."
She kept a grip on his arm, until they got in. Her shoes got taken off, too, and she started prying her socks off with her toes. She liked going about barefoot and this was her apartment. She was allowed here. She was even allowed to flick her socks near her shoes with her feet. She looked sideways at him and smiled. It was a little awkward; she could see pretty plainly that they came from different backgrounds on Earth, after hearing a few stories.
"I was pretty lucky," she said. "I saved a lot of money when I was in the army. I was posted overseas some and got money--uh, I was in Korea and they said it was hazardous at the base I was at, so I got extra money for that posting. I don't know if I could have afforded this place otherwise..."
She made a face. "Seems stupid, now. Dipping into savings just to say I had a better apartment than I could really afford on my pay?" She shook her head, looking at him, before she started walking to the kitchen and the coffee maker. "I wanted to impress my parents. They didn't like that I joined the army. So I thought if I had a nice place, they'd see they were wrong." She sighed, blowing air upward, and sending some of her bangs up over her head. "Because that's not crazy of me or anything."
"No, not crazy at all," he said, watching her get her socks off and then go walk about her place barefoot. It was strange to think that, all of a sudden, there wouldn't be anyone else around and she was just moseying on into her place after a month or two or three of not having been there.
(How long had she been gone? He lost track himself sometimes how long he'd been gone.)
"I mean, not that I proved my parents otherwise when I got my place here. I'd offer to show it to you, but, uh, Nadir kinda lives there." And Missie was there learning how to be blind or something? "It's nothing interesting anyway, unless you feel like hanging out on a roof."
He saw the couch looking into the kitchen and decided to take a spot there, flopping down and reaching up to rub at the line underneath the eyepatch, still not used to it there.
She intended to enjoy every minute of it, too. She curled her toes again, until she got to the tile of the kitchen, and began preparing the coffee. She remember how he liked it from when she used to bring him coffee; black, instead of mixed with milk. A quick check of the refrigerator showed that she could still find some milk in there. Lera looked back over the counter and smiled at him while he talked about it. "I won't say no. I'm curious."
She grinned, then. "Besides, nice views from the roof!"
She started the coffee maker up and leaned against the granite counter, letting out a sigh. She noticed how he was playing with the eyepatch. It must have bothered him; it probably dug into the skin.
"It seems like it would itch," she said, a little more softly.
"Yeah," he said with a grin, "a view of the next roof over. And down onto the street. Right over a Korean grocery."
He didn't realize she was talking to him right away. "Huh? Oh! Yeah," he said, "sort of. I'm just not used to having it on my face." Thoughtfully he continued to rub along the edge of it. "...won't have to wear it for too long, if the Khshathra manages to bring everything together. I just can't imagine what it'll be like. It's not even on the same level as Cuthbert's leg, it's... I mean, it's my eye."
He looked somewhere between disturbed and excited, rubbing lightly at his nose, distorting the scar across it, a deep, jagged line showing the path where the blade had dug into his face. He still thought all he could smell or taste sometimes was blood.
"That something can even be done- that's pretty crazy, right? Maybe I should ask to get laser surgery done in the other while they're at it..."
"Sounds scenic," she said cheerfully. She stayed where she was while the coffee brewed; it wouldn't take so much time that there was a lot of reason to sit next to him. She stayed still, though, just so he did not have to turn his head every which way to look at her.
"Yeah, Harriet's stuff..." The Khshathrabot came to mind; even if it had been totaled, it had been an awe-inspiring thing to see. That thought made her trail off for a moment, as she looked distant. "Sometimes we say Zenderael isn't -- wasn't? -- as advanced as Earth, but her stuff makes me rethink that. We don't have artificial eyes and legs like that. We also don't have constructs the way that the alchemists do or--or, well, a lot of things. Those things make me think it's more complicated than saying one world is more advanced than the other."
She smiled, the thoughtful look running away from her face. "But I'm glad that she can make an artificial eye for you, even if it's crazy to think about." She tilted her head, looking at him. "Laser surgery might not be a bad idea. I remember how much trouble you had before they found your glasses in the temple. Though..."
Lera flustered slightly, realizing what she thought of and said was absurd even while she said it. "The glasses are pretty cute."
"Well, I mean... it's an alternate universe, Heimdall said?" Duncan, but he still wasn't used to calling him Duncan. Or Vahishta. Vahishta was still a flowery, almost middle-aged man with a curly blonde mustache. "And instead of technology, it got magic. Well, technology as we know it," he added, glancing at the television. Television! He didn't even know what to do with it.
...shit, his guitar! He could get his guitar back!
"I always said I needed to do something about my sight," he said, almost nervously. That was partly what had led to his problems. The glasses themselves were nigh indestructible, but his face behind them...
He didn't get to focus any further on that. "Wh- oh my God, Lera," he said, and laughed. "Now I know why girls get uncomfortable with attention guys put on them. How many pictures of me do you have on your phone?" he asked, teasing, the same way he'd teased her earlier about the possibility of fanfiction on her laptop.
"What!" Lera whined. "I-I don't have any--okay, so I have a couple I got of you with my phone!"
And perhaps one of him laughing was her phone's background, but that seemed like incriminating information right now and she chose to plead the Fifth. She pouted at him, shaking her head rapidly to emphasize that she was not up to no good at all! "It's totally normal! I bet you took a picture of me or--or something, I don't even know, but--but--" She stammered that out, clearly flustered, and turned a bright red shade. "Or something!"
Said as if it was a convincing piece of evidence to the contrary.
Then the coffeemaker finished, which it did with a musical jingle: "HAPPY HAPPY, COFFEE'S DONE! WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD! COFFEE'S DONE!"
Lera just wilted behind the counter. Life: OVER.
"Oh, are you giving me permission?" he asked with a wide grin. "I didn't wanna sound like a creeper or anythi-"
He jumped at the sound of the coffee machine and stared at it, stared until a short laugh escaped him. "Did that- did your coffee machine-" Another laugh before he full out started to cackle. "Oh my God! That's the tune Ras keeps humming!"
"I'm behind the counter!" Lera wailed. "You can't see me!"
"Jesus!" he said, wheezing. It was giving him a headache but he kept on. "You've gotten my alt hooked on a musical jingle from your fuckin' coffee machine!" He was practically howling with laughter, fallen over on his side on the couch.
"I thought it was cute in the store and maybe the first week I had it!" she protested in a whine. She crept up the counter, sighed, and started pouring their coffee from the machine -- which mercifully stopped the jingle. She remained flushed, though, as she prepared her coffee with its milk, and then made her way over to him.
She extended the coffee at him and gave Ezra a look.
Then, her face screwed up and she started giggling uproariously. But through it, she managed, "Happy happy, coffee's done! Wake up, sleepyhead! Coffee's done!"
"I swear to God," he said, looking up at her again, gulping air, "if I ever catch you saying that to me in the morning I will smother you with a pillow."
What how to get up help gravity rrrrnnngg okay up. He reached up and took the proffered cup of coffee.
She kept giggling at that, while she walked around to the other side of the sofa and sat down next to him. By now, sitting on the side with his good eye just came second nature to her. She stopped giggling enough to take a sip of her coffee.
"No promises," she said, which prompted another round of giggles.
This was nice, she thought. The joking around, the laughing, the little mundane things that they had been able to enjoy together. She took another sip of her milk-laden coffee and leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder and smiling brightly. "You wanna stay over here instead of going back to the castle tonight? I think Duncan, Rhys, Gabe, Cuthbert, Villiers, and the partridge in a pear tree can handle themselves."
It was already well past dinner, anyways, she thought. It might be the last time she ever stayed here, anyways. Better to do it with company!
"I promise not to sing the song tomorrow, though."
"It'd be a lousy thing to promise," he said, his smile settling into contentment as she came to rest her head on his shoulder.
The question made him pause, and he kept the coffee cup up to his mouth before taking a swallow and putting it back down in his lap, looking down at her.
He could. There wasn't much of anyone left anymore to say he couldn't. But it left a terrible feeling in his stomach and he was quiet a moment longer before he sighed. "Sorry," he said, looking down to her. "I should get back soon. I've still got a lot to get sorted."
Telling her no wasn't easy, but there'd be other times. There would be a lot of time put in to getting Bastan back together, too, but to leave it, and everyone else there, at a time like now... no, the uncomfortable look on his face lingered. It was his city, and whether the others could look after it or not was hardly the point.
Lera sighed. When she looked up at him, she smiled, though. "I understand," she said. "I'd say the same if I was needed back in Safta."
She took another sip of her coffee, keeping herself cuddled up next to him just the same. It stung a little, but she knew by now that they would make time -- for that matter, they usually did, even if it was late at night (or very early in the morning). They were guild leaders. Their first priorities were their guilds and their cities, even if she occasionally entertained the idea that they could be put each other first. It wasn't a bad thing to imagine; it just had to stay in her imagination. She slid her free hand around, found his, and gave it a good squeeze.
She took another sip of her coffee, then tilted her head to look back up at him. How she could sip coffee without spilling it on his shoulder was a mystery. "I'll come back with you," she declared. "I'm here to help, not just seduce you to the musical coffee maker side."
Ah, there was the other feeling bad. But, it was easier to ask one person forgiveness than ten, or a hundred, or ten thousand. "Besides, Heim's ceremony is tomorrow," he added, though his words trailed awkwardly. It sounded like an excuse, but it really wasn't. Security detail for a huge ceremony promised to be a gongshow.
Well, she didn't seem angry at least. He found himself caught in uncertainty, how he should feel about this development. The squeeze to his hand helped and he smiled a little, and let the tension fade with another sip of coffee.
"Oh! Well," he said, looking back down to her. "That's going to take a lot of seduction anyway. Even if I stayed, we wouldn't have enough time."
"Oh, right... those things are always a pain in the ass," Lera said. "Mine was a headache and a half."
He hadn't had to come to that one, but she remembered Whitehall and Cuthbert both being there. It probably had been some stress for him. She squeezed his fingers, as if to say that everything was okay, that she didn't mind. She minded a little, but she could see it was a selfish thought; she hadn't spoken falsely and had it been in Safta, she would have told him the same thing that he told her. She leaned in closer, cuddling up against him again, and looked up at him. She smiled warmly.
And, maybe, a little playfully.
"I'll consider it a work in progress to get you to like those, then." She leaned up and kissed him on the lips, but briefly. It wouldn't be playing fair to make it more than that and she cuddled back against him. "I can play a long game, after all. We'll just need the right tone for you."
"Uh-uh, don't even try," he said, even as she pressed her mouth to his. "I will have no getting of the used to with that. The Spenta decrees it is so.
"...is that how you say it? Well, I don't care, it sounded good."
He looked down at her, nestled against him. Damn. Not fair, Lera. "I'll make you a playlist instead," he said, "and you can try to seduce me with something from that. In the meantime, does your tv still work? I haven't watched anything in months."
"Sure," Lera agreed. She kissed him on the cheek, then took another drink of her coffee. "I'm curious about what kind of music you like, anyways."
She looked at her television. No sign that Rasmus had destroyed it by accident, despite the close call. She tilted her head to the side, before she nodded, and grabbed the remote with a hand. She stared at it for a second. This, the most ancient battleground of the sexes. Would she relinquish it?
Yup.
She put it in his hand. "I hope they paid the cable bill," she said. "I got a ton of movies on my Netflix account if not, though..." She stayed snuggled up where she was and left the rest to him. She was happy just like this for the moment. Besides, if he picked a movie she hated, she could just sing the coffee song.