[F02-PP] Better Late Than Never

[Freyd 0]

His hand found hers as they worked, though he wasn't sure how it had gotten there.  Instinct, perhaps? His had never been inclined towards empathy. Thanks to her, now they could. It only seemed right to repay her in kind. A degree of personal pain had been evident as she spoke, cloaked beneath the same styled veneer she applied over most of her statements. It had long since become familiar. There was always another layer, though she had finally begun to peel them away of her own accord.

"Thank you for that."  Superficially, his words replied to her veneer, but his eyes conveyed truth.  Thank you for trusting me with what you struggle to share with others.

"I.. never really had a proper family.  The very concept had always been alien; something other people had." Regret, then eyes softened by epiphany.  He smiled a little smile. "Tell me more about yours.  Do you have siblings?  I forget.  Didn't you mention something about a brother?" He rambled on a bit, forcing himself to keep engaging in the conversation and stay firmly outside of his comfort zone.  With luck, it would help her do the same.

"We need to build more of these rituals." Pausing, he absorbed his own unexpected comment.  Why not?  Then fate blurted out more unbidden thoughts.  "Is it possible for us to build a family in here, I wonder?" Sincerity. Eyes widening, his back suddenly petrified. Where had that even come from!? Was it a thought too far? Why would it be?  They'd just built a house for them to live together.  Was the next step even so far a stretch to consider?

"I..."  Lips pursed where words failed, blush overwhelming his normally controlled nature.  Backpedaling would suggest he wasn't willing, yet she might retreat if he had pushed too fledging a thought out into the open.

Ugh... why do I suck so bad at this feeling stuff?!

[Elora 0]

She shelved her confusion at his thanks in favor of an awaited reply.

"I.. never really had a proper family.", stated Freyd as sorrow seemed to eclipse his features. "Tell me more about yours." 

His redirection puzzled her. After all, she had posed the discussion with the intention of learning more about his history and interests. Dispelling the invitation so immediately made her reconsider his newfound willingness for transparency. Despite that, she considered that her judgement might be unfair. Freyd had been making visible attempts to lift the veil, to allow her a glimpse at the more sensitive foil to his outwardly-stoic behavior. Perhaps there truly were fewer memories entangled with bittersweet nostalgia, or at the very least, uglier ones he wasn't yet ready to share.

Elora's expression softened as she strode over to their stovetop to begin heating a cast iron pan. "Yes - I have an older brother, Liam.", she reminded him. A smattering of oil entered the pan, crackling as she tilted it to and fro to evenly coat the charred surface. 

"We need to build more of these rituals.", Freyd agreed before adding, "Is it possible for us to build a family in here, I wonder?"

Elora barely managed to catch the pan as its handle faltered in her grasp. The dull 'thud' of its underside smacking the stove below might have been enough to conceal her wheeze of surprise. Turning to him with a stupefied look, her face was quickly flushing crimson from chin to forehead.

"Do you mean kids - ?", she practically blurted out. In the background, her mind was already off to the races. He knows what it takes to make kids, right? OF COURSE HE KNOWS! Wait -- but that wouldn't even matter, would it? No - you can't have kids in here, can you? Obviously someone's had to have tried! Wouldn't that mean -- 

"You would have to adopt --", she abruptly stated.

Gears turned some more. 

And what would that even look like -- in here, when we get out --?

Rising smoke carried the smell of something sour. Her attention rebounded to breakfast.

"A-are you finished with the potatoes?", she inquired with an awkward laugh.

Edited July 31 by Elora

[Freyd 0]

Freyd might have been found clinging to the ceiling after the pan clattered loudly against the cast iron stove.  'The Beast', as he called it, had proven difficult and expensive to obtain let along haul to the edge of the Fields of Crossing to become part of Witherwind Rest.  Though he jumped, his boots managed to remain on the ground. The hamster in his brain, meanwhile, was already running flat out to keep ahead of pending cardiac arrest, hoping to piece together what happened before it lost the race.

"Do you mean kids - ?",

Wut? You could practically feel, let alone hear, the needle scratch and scrape its way across the surface of the vinyl record in his mind, decoupling any effort at coherent thought.

"You would have to adopt --",

Who said anything about... Where did... Dr. Penfield, I smell burnt toast...

"A-are you finished with the potatoes?"

A non-sequitur for the win.  Freyd was thoroughly stunned, at least until Persi nudged his arm forward, water-filled pot in hand and filled with tatters peeled and prepped to meet their timely demise.  Every whirling thought suddenly congealed into consolidated awareness, realizing what he'd unintentionally implied.  Tension bled immediately.

"Elora."  He spoke softly, closing his eyes slowly to wash away uncertainty, then smiling right up to the crows' feet on the edges of his careworn gaze.  "Roisin.  That's not at all what I meant or how I meant it.  This place... and us.  It's meant to be your... our... outlet and safe haven, not to add stress and expectations.  I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything like that."  A shade of blush added a rare tint of colour to his pallid cheeks.  "It was just a clumsy way of me trying to figure out how relationships work, in here as much as anywhere."  Moving the pan aside to prevent their second attempted breakfast from going up in flames, or becoming a solid carbon mass, he took her hands and pressed them gently against his chest.

"I love you, you know. I'm just trying to feel my way through all of this, and my brain keeps getting in the way."  Despite the momentary frazzling, his heartbeat was slow and steady - the reliable rock within kept him level and focused despite any abounding craziness. "It was a big step for us to move in together, but it feels right, in here."  His free hand tapped hers, the steady beating still pulsing calmly. "We just need time to let it all sink in." 

For the first time, a true longing dawned within, his imagination exploding with possibilities and potential for a future with the woman whose passions had somehow tamed his querulous logic. Does... does this mean I want us to be more someday?  The vaunted Whisper found himself at a complete and total loss on how to proceed, until he remembered the pin of the Shadowed Rose resting between her hands and his heart.  The bond was already there.  He was only just learning what it meant to explore it openly, hoping that she would also want the same.  Gazing down upon her, from the depths of his eyes she would see only the rarest and most ineffable thing, itself so alien to Freyd's nature that it seemed impossible that it even existed.  There was joy.

[Elora 0]

"HAH! Oh --", she exclaimed with relief, "Yeah, I thought that seemed kind of sudden --" The hue of embarrassment had already spread to her ears by the time Roisin relinquished the smoking pan. Freyd carefully accepted the vessel, guiding it to safely rest atop a cool burner nearby. 

"I love you, you know. I'm just trying to feel my way through all of this, and my brain keeps getting in the way.", he explained with a candid touch.

A widening smirk could have revealed the intrusive remark that threatened to escape Elora's lips.  "Yeah, I understand -- feeling the way through...", she agreed with an awkward cough.

"It was a big step for us to move in together, but it feels right, in here.", Freyd reassured, "We just need time to let it all sink in." 

She nodded before saying, "Yeah, definitely...I'm surprised that it's gone so well, honestly -- I didn't expect it to be horrible, but I kind of figured we'd be arguing more by this point - potatoes aside." There's still plenty of time for that., a part of her insisted. With a steady exhale, Elora slid her arms up and around Freyd's shoulders to pull him into a warm embrace. "I'm glad to finally be here with you.", she stated before adding, "And grateful to be out of that sh*thole of an inn --" 

Elora leaned into him, cackling as she reflected on the sheer shoddiness of her previous accommodations. The trip from there to Freyd's home at Angel's Point had something to be missed, despite its treacherous path through a landscape of swamps and zombies. Perhaps the distance had somehow brought them closer together. Every day one of them chose to visit the other felt like a continuous commitment to their relationship.

Her heart thrummed at the thought of that.

"Did you ever believe it would turn into this...?", she swooned aloud. 

[Freyd 0]

"I didn't even realize this could exist, before you showed me."  The smile creasing across his eyes shone with sincerity, daring to trust and be open with those most vulnerable aspects of himself.  Wrapping both arms around her slender waist, Freyd held her close and kissed her gently on the forehead, treasuring every aspect of the moment. The scent of freshly washed hair mixed with an assortment of spices used in their latest attempt at breakfast alchemy.  Fingers wove their way upwards to play with dew-like droplets - stray towel survivors - trailing down her back in a vain attempt to escape from gravity's pull. Her warmth provided sharp contrast to the only version of the world he had ever known, and a yearning for tenderness and passion still largely unknown to a cold and overly ironclad will.  Letting go of that was still hard, muscles struggling to decide whether to tense or relax, ending up feeling like they were twitching uncontrollably. Sighing and chuckling at his own awkwardness, she could sense that he was struggling to let himself live in the moment.

"It's all so new, but I can say with absolute certainty that I have no doubts, nor any regrets - especially not about the Hummingbard. Even in those early days together, wandering the woods in search of the Borris we didn't know was Borris.  It makes me wonder what ever happened to that poor wyrmling you kept trying to kidnap."  Laughter rumbled through his chest, echoing in her ear and reverberating through them both.  "Maybe we could go for a walk after we're done here, and explore?  For old times' sake?  It kinda seems like our 'thing', and I've rarely seen you as happy as when you're wandering through the woods."  A fingertip traces along the edges of one of her ears, suggesting that there might be some connection.

"But first, let's savor a bit of plunder from our hard-fought breakfast victory."  A playful wink placed a scoured bit of boxtie into her mouth for tasting while blue eyes met and locked.  They would say what words themselves could never properly convey. 

[Elora 0]

A fleeting grimace eclipsed Elora's features as she recalled their failed attempts at claiming her first familiar.  Elora could vividly recall it's fiery personality, which was far too explosive when compounded with her own. From wrestling the wyrmling to smacking it with her spear, the smarmy creature was more a victim to her antics than the other way around. "Ah, the time you lent me your cloak", she reminisced with much greater fondness, "And we ran away from those crazy carnies to cuddle in the woods." Saying that aloud made it sound more like a German fairytale than a shared experience. For a moment, she sank further into Freyd, laughing at the sheer ludicrous of it all.

"I would like that very much.", she agreed to his proposal. "Something something -- we have a house now, which means there's more room for treasure., she joked with a twirling hand, "And I could always use more cuttings to propagate in my greenhouse!" Peeling away from him, she began the ritual of forming the potato-based patties, searing each in oil until it reached a perfect crispness. With a smile on her face, Roisin remembered an old rhyme her mother would say every time they made the comforting dish: Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan; if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man. It seemed that some rituals served more than one purpose in life.

[Freyd 0]

Thread Closing:

Elora receives:

3,038 EXP (Word Count [10858/10*4*0.7])
655 col (1 page [200] + 15% P5 Reward [455])

Freyd receives:

12,911 EXP (Word Count [10858/10*17*0.7])
2136 col (1 page [200] + 15% P5 Reward [1936])