Wait for the First Verse

Log Info

• Title: Wait for the First Verse

• Emitter: Ravenstongue

• Characters: Ravenstongue, Telamon

• Place: Ravenstongue and Telamon's apartment

• Summary: Ravenstongue and Telamon recover from their ordeal in dreamland and debrief Grandfather on what happened. The fey lord is kind enough to make the two half-elves breakfast, allowing them some alone time. The tender moments are interrupted, however, by a letter containing surprising (and suspicious news): Ravenstongue's estranged father is legitimizing her as his child. Telamon and Ravenstongue decide not to get Grandfather involved for now as they decide to investigate... After a day off from adventuring, that is.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-    
Ravenstongue         5'0"     99 Lb      Half-Elf          Female    Short half-elf girl with violet eyes and black hair.                       
Telamon              5'6"     140 Lb     Half-Elf          Male      A platinum-blond half-sil man with dancing dark eyes 
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

Daeus's light climbs over the horizon...

And into the bedroom window where Telamon and Ravenstongue sleep. Grandfather pauses on the last syllable of his lullaby as he looks down to Pothy in his lap... who is fast asleep.

"The children will awaken soon," he murmurs to the white raven in his deep and calming tone. Pothy gives only a sleepy 'merp' in response, like a snoozy reply more than real wakefulness.

And Raven awakens, her violet eyes slowly fluttering open. She paws at the edge of the bed, only to realize at some point in her sleep, she's flipped over and turned her back to Telamon's form, neatly folding into him.

"Aaahh... That was something," she murmurs, raising a hand to rub at her eyes.

There is something to be said for cuddling. Of warmth and nearness and knowing someone is close. Telamon's arm is draped over Raven like the blanket, his face half-hidden by the pillow and her dark hair. When she stirs, though, he mutters, mumbling something about, '...five more minutes, dear...' His hand pawing at his face as well, before subsiding. Clearly, Telamon is not the sort to bounce out of bed.

Well, there are worse character traits. Though he's still holding onto Raven like she's a much-loved teddy bear.

Ravenstongue blinks rapidly at Telamon's hand paws at her nose and mouth, her violet eyes widening--and then she giggles, now firmly awake. "Tel, that's my face," she half-complains, half-laughs, putting her hand to his to make sure that he doesn't put it on her face again.

"Better your face than elsewhere," Grandfather says with a grin. "How was it?"

Ravenstongue's eyes go wide again--and then she sighs. "Oh gods. I forgot you were even here," she says.

Pothy, however, continues to snore away in Grandfather's lap. It's a tiring thing, to be a know-it-all about food, and so the raven snoozes in the Feathered One's lap--which seems to be the natural way the world should work, really.

Grandfather's voice helps stir Telamon to wakefulness; he's not so inured to the fey lord that he can ignore him. His eyelids creakily rise to half mast, then to full as he blinks blearily. "Oorgh. Sorry, love. Always a little sluggish in the mornings." He gently disentangles himself from Raven, and kisses her cheek, before sitting up to rub his eyes.

"Good morning, Grandfather. I hope your night was uneventful." Telamon really isn't a morning person, and he brushes his hair out of his eyes. "That... was a very, very, very strange experience. And we're no stranger to the bizarre."

"It was quiet, yes. I sang a little lullaby to help you along in your dreaming--but that was mostly to occupy myself more than anything else," Grandfather responds. "I have no real need for sleep, so I am usually busied with other matters--it was truly an odd experience to sit with nothing to do for so long."

Ravenstongue sits up in bed too, although she leans into Telamon a little, her head resting on his shoulder. Her black wavy hair is frizzled from being crushed and moved about in bed--although this is a common look that Telamon has seen before since they started sharing a bed for the comfort of persisting through nightmares. "I wish ours was quiet," she says. "Ours was... It was chaos, to put it bluntly."

Telamon dryly remarks, "I think you should've sung louder. It was..." He pauses, letting Raven speak. "I don't know if chaos is the best word for it. I guess dreams are always going to be fluid. But I was starting to worry when we found ourselves riding in a wagon with a madman and a bag full of drugs and liquors." His arm around Raven's shoulders again, as naturally as breathing.

"I think it helped that we knew what we were looking for, instead of fumbling around. Although," he gives Raven a grin, "you were making some amazing coquettish eyes at that madman."

"Oh gods, I knew you were going to bring that up," Ravenstongue says, already blushing. That's Telamon's new record. "I just wanted to make sure he wasn't going to have us pay something like, a part of our souls, our firstborn child--"

That sentence is said just as naturally could be, and Grandfather's face lights up a little as she mentions it. Ravenstongue notices and she sticks her tongue out at him. "Don't even say it," she warns him playfully.

"Oh, no, I wasn't going to say a word," Grandfather says. That's almost certainly a lie, but who's going to accuse a fey lord of lying? He gently transplants Pothy from his lap onto the nest of books that the raven usually occupies for a snooze, and then he claps his hands together softly. "So you used your charms to get your way, as is typical of our kind. What happened then?"

Telamon kisses Raven's blushing cheek, before he continues. "That was in the middle of the story." He marshals his thoughts a bit, raking a hand through his hair. "We were having the same nightmare initially -- fleeing from something hunting us. Then the ground opened up and we... well, we didn't fall, since your lovely granddaughter sprouted wings. She flies very well, sir." He grins impishly.

"Once our fall had been ... arrested, so to speak, we landed on a ship called the barque of sweet dreams, captained by a man... well, once a man, named Isaak."

"Sprouted wings," Grandfather says, his normally inscrutable eyes now lighting up in wonder. "That was an ability that my children once had, but it grew less and less potent over time until they had to learn magic to do it like everyone else. Very promising, Cor'lana... Very promising indeed," he says, leaning back in his chair.

"I kind of miss them," Ravenstongue says, looking over her shoulder to see that there are very much no wings for her to rustle. "But yes, we landed on the ship and asked for passage to meet the strange prince--and then we fell off the ship. Not into water, just into the strange prince's wagon--and that is when I had to start flirting with him."

She sighs a little. "Apparently, I am my mother's daughter... Because it worked. At the very least, he never asked us for payment like Isaak said he would."

Telamon looks rueful. "Considering the quantity and range of... how shall we say, 'medicinal substances' in his bag, he may have been too distracted to remember. Whatever that was he was smoking? It wasn't pipeweed."

He sits back, regarding Grandfather with a more serious mien. "The strange prince -- or Rafael Prince, as he prefers to be called -- patrols the deeper end of the dream realms. The dreams of things that are... not even close to people. He remarked that the dreams of dragons were downright tame compared to some of the things that slumber there." He shudders suddenly in memory. "Gods. That one place..."

"I don't even want to talk about the cloakers," Ravenstongue says, shuddering with him. She snuggles a little into Telamon, wrapping an arm around his waist and squeezing him a little. "Let's just say we had a... really unpleasant time for a little bit with a dream we had to pass through. Then we arrived at the Watcher's home."

Grandfather nods as he rubs his chin in thought. "I imagine the dragon dreams would have been more pleasant," he says. "I won't press for details, of course. The two of you look utterly worn out by the thought of that portion of your journey. But how was the meeting with the Watcher?"

Telamon opens his mouth, then closes it. Considering, for a few moments. "Sir, did you ever meet someone after a long time, where you didn't know them well but believed they were a good person? And then you finally meet them, and they're so different from what you had imagined and yet... they're still the same person you believed in?" He looks thoughtful, even contemplative. "The Watcher was... well, is... well, I don't know what he is. Or if he's even a he. He was like this giant jellyfish, as tall as a man, with two eyestalks."

"Why yes, I have," Grandfather says, smiling again. "You're sitting next to her."

"Aww, Grandfather," Ravenstongue says, returning the smile.

Grandfather looks back at Telamon and... he squints for a moment, his lips pressed into a line for a moment before he says, "A flumph? I have heard of these creatures before. One of your ancestors, Cor'lana, asked me to knit him a little flumph plush toy after I read a storybook that was sent with him by his parents. I still have it in the nursery--it could have been one of your childhood toys, in fact."

Telamon shakes his head. "I don't know that word, Grandfather. It... spoke strangely. It could communicate -- better than it did before -- but it was very..." He gropes for the words. "...I know there are creatures in the realms beyond that have difficulty grasping mortal concepts. The Watcher seems something like that."

He snuggles Raven close, "There were some... revelations. About myself, and Feadril. I... can't help but feel some debt to the Watcher. If nothing else, it wants me to try and preserve the world around me from the evils infesting it; I guess I can start there."

Grandfather nods resolutely, standing up from his chair. "It is a noble thing to do, to root out evil," he says. "Just be careful that you do not exhaust yourself doing so, lest Cor'lana be mourning over your grave while holding your children in her arms."

He dwells on that morbid note for just a moment before he claps his hands together and smiles. "Well, let me go and cook you breakfast. You two had a long night, so relax."

"Just remember, no Quelynos ingredients," Ravenstongue says as he strides out of the room. "We don't want Tel to lose his tastebuds."

She sighs a little and looks up at Tel with a smile. "Well, we're alone now," she says.

Telamon nods. "So we are." He brushes his nose against hers, playfully. "For the record, I am not going anywhere. I will not leave you, and definitely not our children -- when they come along." He gives her a squeeze. "Thoughts? Worries? That was... definitely one of the strangest experiences I've had, and we helped purify the Feypool not long ago. It's not like we've never encountered oddities."

"Honestly... I'm not that concerned, even if I should be," Ravenstongue says, her smile widening as their noses brush. "I think the Watcher is... Well, I can't say a good person, and I think a good thing just sounds rude... They're a good entity. I'm just worried that we'll have to endure more 'cloaker country' trips if we want to communicate with the Watcher."

She reaches up and pats his face affectionately, her hand lingering at his cheek. "Otherwise, I would dare to say it was... fun, in an odd way."

He smiles back, looking into her eyes. Very gently, he kisses her on the lips, long and slow, letting the contact draw out for a goodly time before he responds. "I prefer the reality to the dreams, to be fair. But I understand what you mean."

Stroking her hair, combing it with his fingers, he murmurs, "It's hard to be lonely. I'm glad I've got you." He quirks an eyebrow. "So... you had a flumph stuffed toy as a child? That's an unusual choice of cuddling toy."

Ravenstongue returns the kiss, her eyes closing as she just basks in that gentle moment. When he draws back, her violet eyes flutter open again and she smiles. Not a word needs to be said.

Then he poses the question of the flumph and Raven snickers. "Apparently it would have been mine if I'd ever gotten to live with Grandfather," she says. "I wonder if the storybook Grandfather mentioned he read to my ancestor was where my mother got the stories about the jellyfish creatures she used to tell me. It'd be an odd coincidence, but..."

She grins. "There have been odder ones."

Telamon shrugs and grins back. "Could be. But how many benign jellyfish-like creatures are there in the universe? Can't imagine your mother telling you a story about the deepstalker squids." He leans into her, as she's probably leaning into him, and he actually blushes a bit, tossing a quick glance at the still-slumbering Pothy. "How long do you think it'll take your Grandfather to cook breakfast?" he inquires.

"It might take him a bit," Ravenstongue replies, looking at the closed door. "He's used to cooking in Quelynos. One time, it took him an hour to figure out how to cook with mundane chicken eggs in my apartment kitchen."

Pothy is sound asleep. He makes tiny little whistles from time to time. One must assume it's Pothy's equivalent of snoring in deep, deep sleep.

Raven smiles at Telamon. "What are you thinking about?" she asks. It's an innocent enough question.

Telamon strokes her cheek with his hand. "You. Me. Us. When we were in the bad patch, I heard you calling to me, and I was trying to call to you as well." He's still blushing a bit. "That was what got me through it, was thinking of you, holding on with everything I had." His arms go around her, and he whispers, his voice a bit hoarse. "I love you. Sometimes I'm not good at saying it, but I love you."

Ravenstongue wraps her arms around him in turn, her violet eyes looking up at him in that sparkling admiration. "I think you're better at it than you think," she replies. "You don't have to say something to say it, you know?"

She squeezes him gently--bearhugs are a bit too much for this early in the morning. "Back there in that scary patch, you were all I could think of. Eventually, I just thought of the little thing as to why I was alive--and I remembered the first time we kissed. Then it all went back to normal."

She smiles warmly at Telamon. "So I love you too, Telamon," she says. "More than anything or anyone. And I think I always will."

Telamon smiles back, reaching up to rub his own cheek gently, knowing he's still blushing a bit. "I know, but... I always figure it's good to say it. And for me to not be shy about it." He cuddles her against him, and shifts a little. "I think your Grandfather leaves us alone sometimes on the off chance we'll wind up in bed, sans pajamas." Grinning crookedly, "I admit I'm a little taken with the notion, but what else is new?"

"I'm sure that's part of why he leaves us alone," Ravenstongue says, a little roll of her eyes. "I have to say, it's a little odd to be... 'encouraged' like that."

She squeezes Telamon a little, burying her head into the crook of his neck for a moment. "...Speaking of which," she says, after a moment's pause, "I'm not... not quite ready yet. I know I said I was days ago, but like you said, I was vulnerable. I think I was just desperate to be loved despite all the thoughts in my head that I would have accepted anything--"

Knock knock. Then the door opens. Grandfather's holding an envelope in his monstrous claws. "A letter's arrived for you, Cor'lana," he says.

Ravenstongue stares at him for a moment. Then she squints. "Are you wearing my apron?" she asks, before she takes the envelope.

It was, in fact, her cooking apron, complete with the embroidered 'kiss the cook' on the chest. Telamon had bought it for her after they moved in.

Telamon nuzzles her softly. "It's all right. I just... sometimes it IS a little strange to be nudged like that. You may need to talk to him for a bit. I'm a bit worried he might do something absurd."

Any other commentary has to be shelved as Grandfather opens the door. Telamon opens his eyes a bit wider, seeing the fey lord wearing the apron. But what comes out of his mouth is, "Well, 'Lana, you wouldn't want him to get any food on his feathers, you know..."

"Precisely. Wouldn't do to have egg on my feathers," Grandfather says with a huff. "It's a tad small, but it'll do. I will have to buy an apron for myself to leave here. Breakfast should be ready in half an hour."

He closes the door, leaving the two half-elves alone again. Raven looks down at the envelope and she flips it over to the seamed side. Her expression becomes confused as she sees a wax seal in purple: an strange bird that's half an owl, have a raven, its talons clutching sprigs of lavender. "I have a bad feeling," she says.

She persuades the envelope open and pulls out the paper inside:

"I, Glórenacil Lúpecyll, assert that Cor'lana Lúpecyll is my daughter born outside of formal wedlock. I decree that Cor'lana be recognized as my legal child with the same rights as a legitimate heir to the Lúpecyll family line. May we rejoice the reunion of long-lost family members--" Ravenstongue shakes her head as she reads it aloud. "I'm sorry, but what the fuck? Why is this happening now?"

Telamon sits up a bit more straight, as Raven opens the envelope. Noting the seal, his eyebrows rise as well. "Fancy. Wait, isn't that, uh..." He trails off as she begins reading, and his brow furrows. "He's... acknowledging you? Wait... hold on." He rolls out of the bed, and walks over to the table where a bowl and a pitcher of water sit. Pouring some water into the bowl, he splashes it onto his face. "Gah, that's cold."

Turning around, he rubs the water off his face with the arm of his pajamas. "Alright, so ... I suppose it might be too implausible to think he's had a change of heart and wants to mend fences?"

"I think I need that too," Ravenstongue remarks as she watches Tel splash himself with water. "Hold on, there's more--"

She reads the rest. "However, Cor'lana Lúpecyll will be second-in-line behind my expected child, Glórenacil Lúpecyll II, with Lady Ainasse Son'doriel. The clerics' prognosis shows the child is developing well, and consultation with diviners have revealed signs that it is to be a male child. As legal preference is given to fully legitimate children rather than legitimized bastards, Cor'lana Lúpecyll's place in inheritance will become further down the line as my family with Lady Ainasse grows."

Ravenstongue puts the letter down and groans. "He actually did it. He knocked that sow up. I honestly wouldn't care if this letter also didn't proclaim me as his legitimate daughter."

She looks at Telamon and says, "This has 'suspicious' all over it. Right? I'm not seeing things?"

Telamon reaches over to take the letter, as Raven washes her face as well. His eyes flick back and forth, studying it. "Looks legitimate... that's definitely the Lupecyll seal." He holds up the envelope. "I ... hm. If I didn't know the man, I would suggest he was trying to mend fences with you."

His dark eyes flick to Raven, and his lips curl in amusement. "I find it extremely unlikely, though. I mean, the whole bit about inheritance is standard boilerplate -- if you've ever read up on basic estate law, you probably know how it works. But inserting that into this letter strikes me as... crass. Offensive, even."

"He's just up to something, I know it," Ravenstongue says, her hands going to her cheeks and sliding down slowly in a gesture of exasperation. "This is to prepare him for some sort of big shot political move he's making, I bet. I was his last skeleton in the closet, so he decided I was more useful out in the light than in the darkness to haunt him."

Her violet eyes flicker over to the door. "As tempted as I am to tell Grandfather... I have a feeling that if I do, he might resort to violence. He indicated to me that he was not above that. And I really don't want to kick off an incident where he's banned from the city, too--plus, we don't even know what my 'father' is planning yet for me."

She sighs. "I know drinking in the morning is a major faux pas, but suddenly I think I need a glass of wine with whatever Grandfather's cooking."

Telamon walks over to place his hand on Raven's shoulder. "Sometimes we can't identify the song from the first note. We have to wait for the first verse." He rubs his chin. "You're right. Let's keep this to ourselves for the moment though. If Grandfather presses, don't lie -- but I agree, we don't need to kick off any kind of incident. I might poke around a bit, though -- see if father's name and a little coin will loosen some tongues."

He shakes his head. "The only thing I can think of is that he's trying something to subvert the pact with Grandfather in some way again, so he doesn't have to worry about the Feathered One calling on him once more. I can't see any other reason immediately."

"That's right, your father could help us," Ravenstongue says, her eyes lighting up with hope. "Maybe he could find out if there's anything my father's been up in terms of Llyranesi politics."

She flops back into bed and sighs, her arm dangling off the side of the bed. "I'm going to try and pretend that didn't happen so I can have a nice relaxing day off from adventuring and worrying about the state of the world with the one I love. Can't do anything about my father right now, but... We can be together, at least," she says, turning her face to smile at Telamon.