one of those bells that now and then rings [closed]

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ivan and Ilde
What: romantic evening in
Where: Ivan's flat
When: Givdi evening
Notes: No one but them thinks this is remotely a good idea.
Warnings: TBA as necessary

It wasn't surprising, that Ilde was tense. Mothers-to-be, especially for the first time, often were with much less reason. But, while their eventually future was still something that was a bit murky (and that caused Daniil to sigh in despair whenever it was alluded to), Ivan felt he could help with the stress eating at her here and now.

He hadn't said much except to arrange her clearing her evening and letting her know what time to come to his flat. He'd bought the dinner; he could cook, but was out of the habit. He'd also bought some fae wine for her, and gone to the trouble of a tasteful flower arrangement and candles. It was, he thought, a bit of a cliche but he hoped she would like it all the same. He was, of course, impeccable, but that might or might not have been for the occasion - any earlier feeding showed only in his flush of health, not in any rogue spots on his collar. He'd set it all out on the floor, with cushions for them, and it had a bit of a bohemian air to keep it from being taken too extremely seriously.

Overall, he thought as he surveyed his work, it would do. And she needed an evening off.

Comments

[rhinemaid]

“Don't tempt me,” with something that's almost one of her watery laughs, too quiet. “I guess it is. You know; our mess.”

At least she knew enough here - at least she'd made connections - that she didn't feel completely helpless. She was relatively certain that she could find out something worth knowing, and that...that would be something, at least. A start.

It was just overwhelming, sometimes.

[deservesadaisy]

"And so we do as best we can, hm?" He eats a bit, lightly, more to taste the food than anything. "Did you bring it up with any particular point in mind before we wandered off in another direction?"

[rhinemaid]

“No, I just- I don't know, I was thinking about it. I feel like I've been in a cocoon or something for weeks.” And now she's emerging like an irritable butterfly who isn't sure where to aim her ire first, or- something like that. She's not sure what she wants to do, just that she wants to do something, and the limitations she knows she has to impose on herself are frustrating.

That's life - there's always a trade-off somewhere.

[deservesadaisy]

"It's easy to let time get away from one, I suppose." Time is a funny thing, when you have so much of it. Sometimes it slinks and drags; other times weeks just vanish.

"Frankly, I'd rather you out of the thick of things for the time being, considering." An abduction had been quite enough excitement.

[rhinemaid]

“I figured it wasn't the being put in a tower that bothered you so much as the fact it wasn't you doing it,” she says, with a dry look, picking at her plate to decide what to eat first. Her appetite has been here-and-there, but she's more or less managing to stick to doctor's recommendations, and thus far she hasn't actually skipped any meals she shouldn't have. So there's that. “You and Sonja both.”

[deservesadaisy]

"I think we'd both assumed the other had, or something close enough." Now she got check in texts from Ivan when he hadn't seen her in a day or so, rather than every five or six hours, but it was still a mistake he was unlikely to make a second time.

"I don't want anyone putting you anywhere without your permission. Even me." Though her self-preservation was sometimes questionable, it wasn't so bad that he wouldn't trust that, for example, she'd stay at Hasi's when she said she was staying at Hasi's and the city was full of monsters.

[rhinemaid]

There are worse things in the world, she thinks, than being checked in on now and then by someone she likes to hear from. She'd rather make a joke out of that than think about the fact that she lost a week, too, and that's probably most of all why she smiles, oddly.

“It's like I have a sign on my back that says 'abduct me', or something. It's absurd.”

[deservesadaisy]

"It wasn't only you, this time." She might be the only one who matters, but still. "I don't like that it was never properly resolved."

[rhinemaid]

“I call not being in a glass coffin pretty 'resolved',” even if she knows exactly what he means and it has, in fact, occurred to her. She doesn't like how much of that incident she doesn't understand- how much she just doesn't know about what happened. What happened to her, and why, and what it was a part of...

But here she is. And she's all right.

[deservesadaisy]

"I suppose it's not important, just now," he allows, and the topic can be dropped at that. It still bothers him, but he's not going to pick at it when she has so much else to worry her.

[rhinemaid]

She'd thought, early in her time here, that it's easier to adjust to Baedal when she'd already been trying to adjust to 'not being in captivity any more'. Instead of being taken from something- well, that had already happened, years ago, and Baedal is the new normal. She hadn't really imagined, though, exactly what it'd be like now that she is settling. Now that this is her life and feels that way.

She feels alien to herself; she'd clutched at community and now that it feels like she has it, it's...something off. Maybe it's just that there's something wrong with her. That wouldn't be a first.

“You fuss,” she says, because that's easier than getting into how strangely she feels lately.

[deservesadaisy]

"So you delight in pointing out," he says, mildly. "I don't like not knowing if you're alright, that's all. You feel very... fragile, sometimes." He's not used to caring about anyone mortal, even if she isn't human.

[rhinemaid]

“I'm not fragile,” she objects, immediately, balking at a notion that isn't really so unreasonable, all things considered. “And I'm right here, either way. You could just...see me more often.” Not a selfless suggestion, when she'd always rather see more of him than less.

[deservesadaisy]

He smiles a bit. "I'd like that. Fragile or not, I'd rather have you close by." He reaches out a hand to her.

[rhinemaid]

“Not fragile,” she says, with distinct emphasis, but she wriggles herself and her cushion over to the side of him anyway, slinking under his arm and resettling herself there, wine glass and plate arranged. Every now and again she thinks it wouldn't be the worst thing if he came to live with her, but it also seems like a conversation that they should have on firmer ground than they have been lately. If they have that conversation.

He probably wouldn't like being under the same roof as a small child, anyway.

“What are you doing with yourself besides worrying about me?”

[deservesadaisy]

He laughs, settling her close. "Still gambling, to keep you in fairy wines and romantic candlelight. Moving about. Watching things. I met an interesting woman in a bookshop, who said I looked like someone she knew from home."

Interesting by Ivan's definition is probably terrifying to most other people. He tends to think that Ilde agrees with him, generally, about what is of interest.

[rhinemaid]

“Did you ever meet Isobel?” Not as much of a non sequitur as it initially appears - she remembers when Katherine had briefly mistaken her, remembers meeting Isobel herself in person. How strangely surreal it had been; how Isobel had tried and failed to compel her, and how very polite she'd been about it afterwards. “It's a bit strange, isn't it, that phenomena.”

Like people can't even be sure that their faces are their own, here; she supposes fair enough, given that hers isn't, really. Not any more.

[deservesadaisy]

"No, I don't believe I did." Which is probably for the best. "It's bizarre, though. At first I wondered if it was me using a pseudonym, but I think she'd have commented on the change of species." And she'd have noticed. He'd liked Alice quickly, in part because she was so evidently sharp and so unconcerned with whether she made the other person uncomfortable.

[rhinemaid]

“You're sort of hard to mistake for anything else but what you are,” she observes, considering him for a moment- mistaking him at a distance, that's one thing, but it probably wouldn't take long up close to figure out that he's not human so much as human-shaped.

[deservesadaisy]

"If one knows what they're looking for. At home, humans don't expect anything but a human. I somehow doubt, though, she'd make the mistake." Even at home, she was probably too sharp to explain it away as something she must be imagining. "But yes. I don't bother trying to hide it here, and there I usually didn't have to."

[rhinemaid]

“You'd have trouble if you did,” she predicts, speculative as she tries to imagine how Ivan might try to disguise himself. There's no ready mental image; it's hard to imagine him selling any impression other than monstrous, even if it isn't immediately clear to an ignorant onlooker exactly what kind. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”

[deservesadaisy]

He laughs. "What would you do with a gentleman if you had one?"

[rhinemaid]

“I took Boromir to Anarchy 99,” she offers, after a moment's consideration. Boromir was inarguably a gentleman. He was probably the template on which other gentleman and/or ducklings were based. Beautiful blue birds probably combed his facial hair every morning.

[deservesadaisy]

"And how did he like it?" he asks, undeterred. It sometimes strikes him how few of her other friends and acquaintances he knows. He wonders if she perceives that as her choice or his, now and then.

He's not sure which he'd say, if asked, he thought it was.

[rhinemaid]

“He didn't,” with a laugh, “but I thought it was funny. Incongruous.” She'd told him to not be a baby and drink the beer, and he'd- tolerated the fact she'd taken him to listen to dwarven industrial metal played live. Boromir was an inarguably good person who'd probably not be Ivan's biggest fan, if they'd ever met when he was alive; to be fair, very few of her friends approve of her relationship, but Sonja hasn't objected, which is the only really, really important opinion.

Which is most of why she's not gone out of her way to introduce him to people. Minimizing the opportunity for people to threaten to kill him or argue with her about what a terrible idea it is- or, in the case of Jae, because vampires make him uncomfortable and she doesn't want him to be. Of course, it's never really occurred to her that Ivan would be interested in knowing many of them in the first place.