SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer

[glacial_queen]

Hell's fire and Mother Night. When Karla had left Fandom, she'd expected to be tired and run ragged. However, she'd been thinking she'd get that way by dashing across Glacia saving Black Widows, fighting Hobart's idiots, and building a village for the refugees to settle into.

Hopefully they'd get around to doing that soon.

Instead, her time had been spent searching for a suitable location in Arceria, gathering the necessary supplies to start building said village, researching, arguing with Morton, and, of course, meeting after meeting after meeting. It was exhausting, and she didn't even have any concrete feeling of accomplishment after it all--well, sure, now she had a rough idea of how much farmland a village of a few hundred people needed and knew more about sanitation procedures than she'd ever really wanted, but neither of those carried the same weight as actually, you know, saving lives.

And now after yet another fight with Morton, Karla had a headache and wanted nothing more than to take a nap for an hour or so--preferably while curled up around Warren. Except to do that, they had to both stand in front of Saetan and declare themselves as lovers; something they hadn't yet had a chance to so, what with running hither and yon for the past few weeks. Honestly, it was one of the last things she wanted to do just for the privilege of taking a nap in her boyfriend's bed, but Karla also knew that she'd get off easier if she blew up the kitchen again than if she broke this rule of Saetan's.

So rather than napping or snuggling as she wanted, Karla was hanging around the Hall, waiting to ambush Warren and tell him they had to go announce to the Hall's patriarch that they intended to sleep together while still under his roof. This would hardly be awkward at all!

[NFB & for one, please.]

Comments

[wwiii]

Awkward? What would be awkward? Warren was completely oblivious, if a little tired, as he walked down the hallway. There was a stack of receipts in his arms that was tall enough to bury a small animal under if they had the misfortune of tripping him up.

Warren was really, really hoping not to get tripped up.

[glacial_queen]

Well, not a small animal, but what about his girlfriend?

"Kiss kiss," Karla said, with a ghost of her usual mischievous humor. "I assume that's a Warren under that stack?"

[wwiii]

"Unless something else has gone and crawled in here with me," Warren replied, craning his neck a little so that he could peer around the papers to see her. "Which is entirely likely."

It was not a small stack.

Another moment later, and he was finding a spot on the floor to set the receipts down on. She sounded at least as tired as he felt. Maybe moreso. There were some things that were more important to have in his arms in moments like these than others, and she was very much one of those things.

"Hey."

[glacial_queen]

Burying her face in his neck in five...four...three...

"You okay?" she asked, voice muffled against his skin. On top of everything else he was doing--and it said something that Karla wasn't even entirely sure whatall he was up to, honestly, just that everything he did meant less she had to do--he was also heading back to the island for classes. "That looked like a pretty big stack of receipts there. Do I still get kisses for those, too?"

[wwiii]

"One for each and every one," Warren replied, one of those crooked little grins of his tugging at the corners of his mouth. "But we'll have to pace ourselves. Your lips are bound to get chapped if we try to tackle them all at once."

He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair, sighing and folding a wing around her.

"I'm fine, you know. You're the one with the whole territory sitting on your shoulders. I'm just doing what I can. How are you holding up?"

[glacial_queen]

"I've had a headache since last night," Karla admitted. "And the more I read about sewage and sanitation, the less I'm interested in eating."

The books she'd been pouring over had been graphic in some of their descriptions of what happened when people used substandard systems. Ick.

"I was thinking of taking a nap and seeing if you were interested in one, too." One that didn't involve them sleeping two hallways apart, specifically. "But if you are...it gets kind of complicated."

[wwiii]

"Complicated?"

Of course Warren had noticed that his sleeping quarters were nowhere near Karla's. He'd kind of taken it as a matter of course, around here. Things were just... done differently. He already felt as though he had to work extra hard to earn his worth around here, being the one with no craft to speak of, and so he'd never really asked about it. He didn't know where his limits were, as a landen. He didn't know how badly he wanted to push.

But if Karla wanted to address that issue, then he was more than willing to do so with her, yes.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, okay, it's actually really easy," Karla said, clearing everything right up.

You know that unsure-but-game smile, Warren? She was wearing it again. "We just have to corner Uncle Saetan in his study and tell him that we want to sleep together while we remain at SaDiablo Hall. It's sort of a rule of the house."

[wwiii]

See, Karla, how Warren's eyes widened just a little at that suggestion? That would be because he hadn't been expecting you to suggest he corner the High Priest of Hell to ask if he can share a room with the guy's niece.

He might as well jump off the roof while wearing his harness. It would probably get him similar results, with a bit less time between the start and the end of the ordeal to panic.

"... That's all, huh?"

THAT WAS NOT EASY, KARLA.

[glacial_queen]

IT WAS! FOR CERTAIN VALUES OF 'EASY!'

"Yes?" Karla said, peeking up at him. "It's just so no one freaks out if they find us together." There were any number of males in the house who would be happy to yank him out of her bed if they weren't absolutely sure he was there by her choice.

And then there was Lucivar. Who would do it anyway because it was funny.

"It sort of cuts down on confusion."

[wwiii]

"And confusion is bad," Warren offered. Because he was very insightful that way. "And freaking out is definitely bad. Okay. So... we just... go and talk to him? Just like that?"

He was going to die today, wasn't he?

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded, relieved that he was taking this so well. "Exactly! We go tell him and then we can go and nap. Easy-peasy. It'll take like...three minutes. Tops. And that's including the time it takes to get from here to his study!"

It was not going to take three minutes.

[wwiii]

Warren was already blocking off a couple of hours in his handy-dandy little mental black book. And then another twenty minutes to an hour after that for hyperventilating or letting his healing factor do its thing. One or the other.

"The study's that close, huh?"

See how gung-ho he was about this? Looking in that direction and everything!

"I guess we should, uh... Do this, then."

[glacial_queen]

It felt very odd to be in a new room; specifically, a new room that wasn't in the family wing. She probably would have felt the distance from Jaenelle more keenly if there wasn't a door leading to the inside courtyard from her room. She was directly across from Jaenelle's and could simply airwalk across if she wished.

...She might also have felt it a little more keenly if she wasn't still trying to process what had happened in that other-Glacia. She knew that that Jaenelle wasn't this one, but the feelings of bitterness and betrayal still lingered. If Jaenelle had noticed the coolness in her demeanor, she wasn't saying much about it. Was she giving Karla space to work through things or yet another sign that they weren't as close as Karla believed?

Moving into her new suite was a welcome distraction from all sorts of problems right now. It was a Queen's suite, with a set of rooms that connected via a door in her bed chamber--she hadn't been surprised to find Warren's belongings in there already--and several other sets of rooms radiating off of her public sitting room. Those would be given to the members of her Cour when they came to stay at the Hall with her. One already had a courtesy lock on it; she was guessing those led to Raven's suite. Another was unlocked, but had a few scattered possessions within. Probably Morton's? Karla had plenty of time to explore while the Hall's staff moved her things in and she waited for Warren.

And waited. And waited.

This was so not three minutes.

[wwiii]

It had certainly been one of the longest three minutes of Warren's life. And it had taken him a while after being dismissed from Saetan's study to find his way to where he was supposed to be headed. He'd taken a few extra minutes to put his new reading material away, and then sort of numbly backtracked to locate the receipts that he'd put on the floor in the hallway.

By the time he'd gotten all of that done, Karla's three minutes had easy made its way into well over an hour. But at least he was on his way, now. That nap sounded better than ever.

He did a bit more wandering before he figured out which door was Karla's, and stood outside for a moment. Took a deep breath. Calmed himself down. Knocked.

Once. With his forehead and a single, solid thud.

[glacial_queen]

...That was a weird sounding knock.

Karla opened the door, took one look at Warren, and opened her arms to him. She didn't know what had happened in Saetan's study, but she resolved to find out--possibly with Triela's special boots if she had to.

But all that could wait. Right now, Warren was her top priority. "Come here," she whispered. "I got you."

And was never letting go.

[wwiii]

Never letting go. Warren could so handle that, right then. He nodded, and sighed as he stepped into her arms, folding his wings around her and jjust kind of clinging for a moment.

He'd kind of been hoping to be a little less of a mess by the time he made it to her room. But the moment he heard her voice, there was that echo right behind it, asking him if what he was doing was best for Karla's future.

"Hey," he murmured. Because that was a word that he could get out without choking on it. After another deep breath and a moment taken to clear his throat, he managed something a little more coherent. "Sorry. That... took a little longer than three minutes."

[glacial_queen]

Oh, if only Karla could kick echoes, she would.

Except kicking might require her to let go of Warren and that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Thank the Darkness for Craft, because that meant she could close and lock the door while keeping her arms locked around him and slowly leading him further into her room.

Bed. Yes. They could sit and he could explain and she could hold him and pet him and swear to make everything okay.

"Not your fault," she said, pressing feather-light kisses on his temple. "So not your fault. I'm sorry--I didn't know--"

Didn't know what would happen. Didn't know what had happened.

[wwiii]

"It's nobody's fault," Warren sighed, following wherever she led him. He didn't really seem to care so much about where that happened to be. She could sit him down on the floor, and he'd probably barely notice. "It's not. It's... it was important, that's all. And big."

Everything here was always so big. That just served to make him feel even smaller.

[glacial_queen]

She sat them down on the bed and continued to hold him. "Important?" she asked. "Big?"

No matter how important it was, she didn't like it. Warren's feathers were drooping and his psychic scent was a snarl of insecurities and bitterness. Part of her wanted to stomp downstairs and explain to Saetan that if he ever did this to Warren again, replacing a kitchen would be the least of his worries. The rest of her wanted to curl up around Warren and never let him go.

That part was winning by a landslide. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, adding a layer of soothing and warming spells to the blanket of her bed and then wrapping it around them. "If not, I'm just going to sit here and remind you of all the reasons I love you."

Take that, snarl of insecurities.

[wwiii]

"You suppose you could keep going with those for a while?" There was that little smile of his. The one that said that he was trying to cheer up, and he was sort of failing at it. "I guess we could talk. I mean... it's nothing that I didn't kind of see coming. A little."

All of those 'landen in a Hall filled with Blood' insecurities had been sneaking up on him or a while now. Saetan had just brought them crashing on down, and then had held them under a magnifying glass and made damn certain that Warren knew that they were completely legitimate.

[glacial_queen]

Funny how a single little smile could make Karla's heart break so damn much. "I definitely could," she assured him. "I could go on for hours. Because you're far more amazing than you know."

She squeezed him tighter as she said that, wanting him to know she truly believed that.

"Talk to me. Whatever happened, I'm here to listen. And help."

Though Karla had a sick feeling that she knew what they'd talked about. Mother Night.

[wwiii]

"It's... it's complicated," Warren ventured, sighing and leaning forward to rest his forehead on her shoulder. He kind of wanted to just fall over and become a big feathered lump for a bit. And at the same time, he didn't want to let go at all. "I mean, I guess it always is. I just..."

That right there was a very ragged sigh.

"Do you ever see many Queens with landen consorts?"

Might as well just jump right to it.

[glacial_queen]

Dammit.

Karla flailed around, trying to find an answer that wasn't horrifically bleak. But there wasn't one, was there?

"No." The words were quiet, but carried the weight of rocks. "Some Queens have had landen lovers, but I can't think of any who have made them a part of an official Court."

[wwiii]

In a voice so soft he might as well not be speaking at all, Warren murmured.

"Ah."

And then he didn't move for the better part of a minute, eyes on the floor, absorbing that. Trying to rationalize past it.

"Why do you suppose that is?"