isleofavalon | Down to her Embers [CLOSED]

"Blast it."

The doorkey manages to slip from Chris' fingers as she fumbles trying to get it into the lock. Her armour's not exactly the easiest thing to bend down in, but with some difficulty (at this point she's too tired to care about how undignified she probably looks) manages to kneel down, and after some more fumbling, take the key and rise. This time, with a little more concentration (what she can muster), she manages to get it in and unlock the door.

Stepping inside, and shutting the door behind her, and forgetting to actually remove the key, Chris blearily begins unfastening her gauntlets as she heads for...no, not up the stairs to her room, she decides. Not like this. The den...she can sit in the den and catch her breath.

She collapses onto a sofa, managing to get her first gauntlet off, and letting it drop onto the cushion, and from there the floor. With a sigh she leans back. Things in Camelot have been bad since...since that night. The militia's been more than proving its worth though, keeping tensions between the city's native residents and its sudden influx of refugees from flaring over. But it's been weeks of grueling work overseeing everything. And watching for Yuber to poke his head out of whatever rock he's managed to hide under. And be there to help Claire get back on her feet now that Sherry is gone, and deal with what they both encountered the night of the equinox.

And, and, and, and, and...

...What was she doing again? Oh, right. Trying to get her armour off. Sitting up, and almost entirely on autopilot, Chris begins pulling off her other gauntlet, and then her boots. Rest would be good, but no, not yet. The militia has managed to scrounge up some supplies to be delivered and disseminated to the refugees currently at the hotel. Foodstuffs, toiletries, things of that nature. They'll be handing them out before the lunch hour in...what time is it anyway? Last night's patrol went long and there was another pub brawl that spilled out, dealing with that was...no, but the sun was out when she came in, so it's definitely morning, but she has to be there to make sure no miscreants try to upset the distribution.

So...why was she...taking off her armour? Goddess, what was wrong with her? Leaning back onto the couch again, Chris tries to force herself to concentrate through the fog. If she'd been this careless during her training at Brass Castle, she'd never have...hm. This sofa actually almost feels like the one in the officer's lounge at Brass Castle. Yes, she knows that room well. Apart from her own quarters it's the place where she spends most of what recreational time she allows herself, usually in the company of her trusted Mighty Knights. Where are they anyway...? Off attending to other duties probably. There's always so much to be done.

Chris reaches up and tries to unhook a shoulder strap keeping her breastplate on, but the damn thing won't cooperate. Where's Louis? This is normally easier to do when her squire is present. It's not like him to be tardy. She has to...has to...goddess, she had it a moment ago.

That's when she hears a door close and nods in relief. "Louis, there you are. Help me with this strap, will you?" Chris asks, half out of her armour, on the sofa in the den of her and Rinea's house, and very much not the officer's lounge of Brass Castle back in Zexen. And it is most definitely not Louis who just came in. "Confounded thing won't come loose at all."

Seeing the house lights shift drew Rinea quickly from her alchemy shed to the main dwelling to greet her roommate. Chris had been spending longer and longer hours away, leaving Rinea largely on her own. Sometimes Chris would not even arrive home at all! And the knight was often too tired to converse much on the evenings she was present. Rinea knew she was hard at work, and Gods know that Avalon needs all of the able hands it could get... but still, Chris's harried expressions were weighing on Rinea's conscience. What could she do to ease the woman's burden?

To see her dear friend collapsed, clearly exhausted and delirious enough to refer to her by another name, is finally enough.

"Chris," Rinea prompts gently. She sits on the edge of the sofa beside her, eyebrows creased with concern as she reaches to loosen the shoulder strap with practiced hands. "All of this work is taking such a toll! Please tell me you have come home to rest for a long while."

The voice that greets her isn't Louis, and her head rises in surprise. Wait, this isn't the officer's lounge at Brass Castle, it's...her...right. Her home in Avalon, and of course that's not Louis, it's Rinea. Her housemate and friend, and she can see the worry and concern in her eyes.

Chris sits up and slaps her cheeks a few times to try and wake up a little. "Rinea...forgive me. I'm all right." The words sound as hollow as they are. "I'll rest soon, I promise, but there's...at the hotel, the militia will be delivering rations and supplies." The commander needs to be there to oversee, make sure nothing happens or anyone tries to disrupt things. "A spot of tea and something to eat and I'll be right as rain. After that, rest, I promise." Assuming nothing else comes up, which if the last few weeks have been any indication, is almost a certainty.

"Absolutely not," Rinea decides. She has seen this before, even if the circumstances are different. In Rigel, the bags under Berkut's eyes only got deeper and deeper as he ran himself to the ground... and in the end, what was it all for?

"Absolutely not," she repeats, expression drawn tight and voice firm. Rinea has hardly ever disagreed with her roommate before, but now her chin lifts in almost comical defiance.

"What sort of rations delivery could possibly require the head of the militia? Part of your duty as head is to delegate tasks, is it not? You will stay here and sustain yourself." She grabs Chris's hands at her cheeks and places them firmly back in the woman's lap, then stands up.

"I will prepare your meal and call ahead to the hotel to let them know who to expect. You will sit here and finish removing your armor. Do you understand?"

Chris blinks in surprise, hearing a sharpness in Rinea's voice she is not at all used to, as Rinea takes her hands and places them firmly in her lap. This is...new. And she knows her housemate is correct, that she's worn out by overwork and needs to delegate, but...

"Rinea, please. I understand your concern, truly, I do, but things in Camelot are on a knife's edge right now. If something goes wrong with the supply hand-off, and I am not there, if...if things boil over..." Chris looks down at her hands. "I cannot take the risk." She did have people she could delegate this to, but...she lacked the experience, the bonding with them that she had with her Mighty Knights. The kind of teamwork that came effortlessly, each knight working in sync because they knew themselves and their comrades, and could easily adapt and work in tandem together. That sort of bond did not happen overnight, and as bad as the war in the Grassland got, it never reached Vinay del Zexay. There are too many unknowns for Chris to rest easy...or so she tells herself, though part of herself wonders at how easy it might be to pass out in her warm, comfortable bed and she is intentionally trying not to find out.

"Once I've...once I've finished, I'll rest. I promise you, Rinea."

Even with everything else going wrong in the city, and the dozen or so matters that required her attention, there was another obligation Chris could not ignore, and that was the ongoing search for Yuber. And thanks to Elza, they had strong leads; two libraries that their quarry was seen to be frequenting...or at least he had been until everything went wrong on the Solstice.

But surveillance had to be kept up, and that included Chris. Across the street from the library that had apparently been Yuber's favourite to visit, Chris watches from out the window where she sits, nursing a coffee that has long since turned cold.

Or...well, she's certainly staring, but her gaze seems a little unfocused at the moment, if her partner has any eye for it. The bags under Chris' eyes have been getting steadily more pronounced as the month has gone by, and it seems to be finally catching up with her.

After a moment, Chris blinks in confusion, and rubs her eyes. She'd zoned out again, hadn't she. "I'm sorry Nash, did you say something?" She asks.

"Of course not. I'm known for my total lack of words."

Maybe he talked so much because his work was so often filled with these long silences. But it's been more than an hour and there's been no sign of Yuber, but small signs of her exhaustion, the way her gaze falls and catches itself.

From a war at home, to all of this. It's enough to make even a twenty-two year old tired.

"But you look like you need a distraction."

He stands up, stretching his legs and arms. Maybe what they both need is more coffee.

Chris lets out a small laugh. "Oh, is that it?" She asks, stifling a yawn. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm all right. I know I've been burning the candle at both ends of late, but given the situation...needs must." And because Salome and the other Knights weren't here to shoulder more of the load, by insistence if necessary.

Still, as Nash rises, she leans back in her chair. "That said, I wouldn't look askance at another cup of coffee." It's unlikely Yuber will pass by in the next few minutes if he hasn't yet already. Maybe the city is a little too full for him right now. With all the refugees from Celliwig and Lestari, it might be hard even for him to find privacy.

"I suppose your wife appreciates your laconic nature." She observes afterwards. She's still not entirely certain this woman Nash claims to have pledged himself to is real or not, and if she is, if "husband and wife" is an accurate descriptor of what they actually are to each other. But she can't resist the urge to needle him just a little about it, a privilege bought by their time together on the road in Grassland during the opening salvos of the war, looking for Wyatt. "Is it what drew her to you in the first place?"

"I don't know what she appreciates about me," he says, almost honestly. Nash isn't much for false modesty unless it gives him some kind of advantage, but he can't claim to be steadfast, or reliable, or have any decent prospects. He barely even had a name anymore.

Looks and wits fade, after all. For most of us.

The floor squeaks as he rises to make another small pot of coffee. "Let me think about what drew me to her. Was it the constant insults? The imperious attitude? The fact that she was obviously just using me to solve one of her own problems?" He shakes his head, heating water in a kettle. "All of that, probably. We want the things we can't have."

Saying that aloud reminds him, actually, of how much he misses her.

Listening to Nash talk, in such a wistful fashion, causes Chris to perk up more in genuine interest, blinking away some of the tiredness. "I don't think I've ever heard you talk about her this much before." She notes. "...I think she may indeed be real after all."

She considers what Nash has told her about this strange woman. "I have to say, you paint a rather different picture from what I had imagined in my head. She sounds..." Chris thinks a moment. "Difficult to please." She finishes diplomatically. "How did you two meet?"

But then again, can she really talk, considering her own current romantic circumstances?

He inhales sharply. "I know about that little wager between some of your knights." About whether Nash was really married, or not. "But what makes someone real, anyway?"

Nash never sticks around long enough for anywhere to feel the weight of him. He doesn't always feel real, even though

"She was using me to take care of some vampire problem, and then ditched me as soon as I did all of the hard work."

Chris holds up her hands placatingly. "I never placed a bet myself, I'll have you know." She says. "But to answer your question, assuming you don't mean the obvious...I suppose what makes someone real, someone important are the feelings they stir in us, good and bad. Fond and aggravating. Proof that they touched our lives in some way, even if our paths drift apart."

A vampire problem? "Don't tell me that dreadful Neclord's End play was actually about you too." She remarks. Nash has spoken of being in Dunan during the time the play was set, the war with Highland. And of course, Neclord's attack on Tinto is established fact.

"But clearly you found each other again. Did you find her or was she compelled to seek you out again?" Even if this is a story Nash is spinning for her benefit, it is an intriguing one. And it gives Chris something to focus on rather than staring blankly at the library across the way hoping to catch a glimpse of Yuber.

"What part would I play? Kahn Marley?" He shakes his head. "He's Harmonian, you know. I could do the accent." The Marleys old First Class family, taken up with a somewhat eccentric and decidedly hazardous vampire hunting hobby. Nash had met Kahn once, during the siege of Greenhill. "Neclord's End took a lot of dramatic liberties, and so did Lilly Pendragon."

Nash pauses a second before going any further, pressing his lips together. Like he's debating his next words, or pretending to.

"Sierra was on a quest to destroy the world's renegade vampires. By the time of the Dunan war, the only ones left were old enough to be very powerful. Neclord was the last of them."

He waves a hand over the kettle— is it hot enough yet?

"After the war, she wanted to live around people, again. To try to, anyway."

Nash remembers how lonely she'd been, when they first met, how sad her eyes were. How much he'd say anything to get that mournful look out of them.

"Yes...Lilly does enjoy her dramatic liberties." Chris replies, thinking of a few of them that cropped up about the night of the Founding Day Ball involving thrown chairs and pulled hair when it was really just some angry words and a single slap.

Liberties it's only now occurring to her Lilly might have spread herself. Ooooh, that girl...!

But then Nash drops his mysterious' wife's name, the first time she's ever heard him say that, and her quest. And, well...they had just been talking about Neclord's End.

"I'm sorry, are you telling me you're married to a vampire?" Actually if he is talking about the same Sierra Mikain from that dreadful play, more like the vampire.

She also might have said that a little too loudly, considering.

Nash raises a finger to his lips, like a librarian. Or like a spy on a stakeout.

"A lot of people are," he responds, slipping into his henpecked husband act. "It's not that uncommon." Just commonly less literal.

He takes the kettle off the heat before it starts singing.

"True." Chris replies, but she's still kind of reeling from the implications that Nash somehow managed to win the (unbeating, presumably) heart of the world's first vampire. After a moment, her gaze refocuses on Nash, looking at his handsome features...fifteen years after he and Sierra first met in Dunan.

"Well, then I suppose that explains your youthful good looks." She says finally, leaning back. "Lord Percival was madly curious about your skincare routine, you know."

Nash raises an eyebrow at that. "Did he?"

"Well, too much riding in the sun won't help." He thinks, for a moment, about his sister's pale features, made more delicate by a lifetime in captivity. But he never lets his mind linger there very long. "Some people are just blessed."

The grin his features slide into is sharp, but not pointed. He did worry about growing older, of having no one to grow old with. Sierra could keep all that from happening. And Nash had even offered. But maybe that wasn't what she wanted.

"She told me she only turns people she likes." The way he says it makes it clear that didn't include Nash.

Chris takes that all in, glancing down at her hands, folded on the table in front of her. Though Nash is passing it off with his characteristic deflecting humour, she thinks she can understand Sierra's refusal; humans weren't meant to be eternal, to keep going on. Add to that what she knows, or what she's heard of vampirism on top of all that, well... "Or because Sierra cares about you, she wanted to spare you." She replies finally. "Immortality is not a gift."

Maybe love can make it tolerable, but at what point does it become a chain weighing you down, and affection is replaced by resentment?

There's a part of the story Nash isn't telling, because it isn't his story to tell. How the legend of Blue Moon Village ended, and how it broke Sierra's heart. He knows she has her reasons.

"It's a curse and a kindness. Just like the Moon Rune."

For his own part, Nash hasn't spent very many minutes wishing for a long life. Just a few scattered prayers, hoping not to die. He looks at Chris, her small stillness, instead of the view outside.

"You wonder if it's really possible to love someone forever."

Down to her Embers [CLOSED]

Rinea (near the middle of the month)

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Nash (Before the Rinea log)

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dusts the crust off again, apologies had a lot going on this month

np, it's a hiatus month for a reason.

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