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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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 Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:05 pm
(1/10)
It was hard not to feel... a little bit anxious. Months had gone by, and just as predicted their house came together rather quickly with the aid of a carpenter. Of course... finding one to help them had been about as difficult as expected, because Ai had a reputation among earthlings, and many Aishans didn't really want to come out to help, and Lucijah might be a fool but she knew better than to flash their gold around even if it might have made things easier at first.
Ai could handle anyone breaking into their house to try to steal from them, as could Lucijah (probably), but considering the Kid talk Lucijah thought it best not to make any more enemies than they already had.
There were still finishing touches to do, but the bulk of the work was done. Lucijah did NOT have her brick oven, with the stonemason complaining that there just wasn't material here and it'd have to be imported from Matori, but their roof was in place.
The visit to Zinris had been spur of the moment, even if the decision itself to ask for kids had only solidified over time.
And now - they waited. Every week, Ai traveled back to check for a bloom, and Lucijah waited.
It was one thing to come to the tree to ask for a kid, it didn't mean Lucijah was suddenly just... allowed. So here she sat, trying to make herself busy as she could, and failing miserably.
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:11 pm
For a while it was easy enough to forget the grandiose proclamations Ai had made. There was plenty to do around the house - especially since finding help had proven just as difficult as she knew it would be - but eventually things started to fall in line which meant she had more time to think.
The same sisters who looked down on Ai for bringing home an earthling were the same ones that openly accosted her each time she came to visit Elzira. Few had approached her before the pair made their pilgrimage, but now they felt the need to interject their opinions into her lifestyle. Just as surprising were those that came round to tell her how 'proud' they were of how she'd found happiness and to 'congratulate' her on being a better person.
She could handle the scorn and accusations, but the attempted hugs and smiles...Goddess, if she could have just sent Lucijah instead...
Opening the door to their newly finished home (which lacked all of her previous decorations out of respect for her partner), Ai brushed off her feet and started the lengthy process of stripping off her weaponry. She was quiet - dauntingly so - but it only hid the absolute chaos inside of her.
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:31 pm
(2/10) Honestly, it had been easy to be distracted with their house. There was so much to get done, and bringing a stranger in to help had been both a blessing and a challenge. Ai was... as combative as ever with strangers, and that meant very few people wanted to work with them, especially without knowing just how much they had to spend.
Then, there were the people who had morals and, getting an idea just how much money they had, began to suspect just where it had come from.
They weren't wealthy by Oban standards, by any means, but Lucijah hadn't been lying - there was a lot in that chest to use.
The house had dipped sufficiently into those funds, but volunteering their own labor had helped cut the price - and, again, kept them busy.
At this point, Lucijah could almost pretend the trip to Zinris had just been a fancy vacation - there was no physical thing to prove they'd actually asked for kids. And... there wasn't even any guarantee that the tree would GIVE them one. As Ai explained, their goddess only blessed earthlings with children if she thought their birth would be a benefit to the world and... heck, Lucijah didn't even know if HER OWN existence mattered much.
When Ai came back, it was difficult to resist just jumping at her for answers - but Lucijah had traveled with her long enough to know her tells. She was agitated, as she often was... and every trip seemed to make it worse and worse.
"Getting those racks made was a good call." Lucijah commented, folding her arms, trying hard not to fidget.
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:41 pm
For a moment Ai stayed close by the racks, her dark eyes locked in an imaginary void that her mind could pull out of. She rifled through words she barely cared to use just to figure out how best to relay everything that had happened. It was just so much that Ai would have rather snatched Lucijah's arm and drug her to Elzira's side!
"There were blooms." Ai said at length, and when she finally turned to look at Lucijah there wasn't agitation in her features so much as a disbelief that stalled her brain. She'd been in a mental fog ever since the elder had shown them to her. "Not one, but two."
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:44 pm
(3/10) Lucijah's brows went up at first, just waiting for an answer. It was hard, sometimes, to gauge emotions on Ai's face because of her eyes, but when she was acting so... dazed it was even harder.
But then she answered, and Lucijah felt her heart jolt in her chest. "Blooms... our blooms?" She asked, perhaps a bit foolishly. Heaving in a breath, the earthling cast her hand around for a stool and sank onto it, letting the breath out again in a rush. "Two. Were you a twin? I wasn't a twin -- is that normal? Why didn't we expect two...?!"
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:55 pm
"Our blooms." She'd almost shirked the older aishan off as soon as she started to speak. Ai was so used to hearing feedback from others - both good and bad - that she'd been ready to snap at the older woman when all she wanted to do was point out Ai's own offspring. She'd felt...a little sheepish, honestly.
Ai leaned back against the door and sank down until she was sitting on the ground. Somehow the months of build up still hadn't prepared her for what it would feel like to see them.
"I...honestly don't know if my sister and I were twins. We could have been? We were always in the same training groups." Ai took a deep breath and found it short. Was she nervous? Why was she nervous?! It was just an extra kid! "They were smaller than any bloom I've ever seen, but the elder assured me they were healthy, just typical for their kind." For a hybrid. She'd seen enough now to know the signs of a growing bloom and had been able to assure Ai they were just fine.
"Goddess, and the petals..." Ai couldn't help a little laugh. "They were blue, like your crystals."
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:03 pm
(4/10) You'd think by now Lucijah was more used to seeing Ai almost... vulnerable. The alkidike had opened up to her a huge amount when they got together, but months after the fact she'd gotten used to her brashness again. Now, Lucijah shifted off her stool and instead sat, cross legged, a few paces away from her, just gently nudging her leg with her foot to let her know she was there.
It was a relief to hear that they were... healthy. Her eyes had flashed at first when hearing they were small, but- ...
"What, it works that way?" Lucijah asked with a breathless laugh. "... I knew you said they'd... tell us if we had blooms, but I never stopped to think what they'd look like-- and they're safe? No one'll ..." Break the blossoms, would they? Lucijah sighed out a breath, the gravity of the situation sinking in.
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:12 pm
"They're safe." She stopped herself from saying they're the safest they'll ever be, but even Ai didn't believe that. Her own zeal for fighting aside, Lucijah had proven just how far she was willing to go to protect others. She'd held her own on more than one occasion - which is what had drawn Ai to her - so the children would be safe. As much as they could be, anyway.
"The mystic will care for them while they're in their blooms, and help tend to them until they're ready to come home." At least, she would have for elarians. Other hybrid children walked the earth so surely the mystic wouldn't destroy what Elzira had so lovingly brought into creation?
Goddess, but they were still so vulnerable...
Ai leaned forward and gave one of Lucijah's toes a little wiggle. "They're going to be fine. Those are our daughters in those blooms; if we were blessed enough to get two don't you think they would be the strongest ones there?"
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:31 pm
(5/10) It... was infuriating that Lucijah couldn't stomp her way in there and plant herself next to them until they came out. It... also bothered her more than she'd ever considered that when their daughters bloomed, they wouldn't be the first people those little eyes landed on. That some other person would be caring for them until they came home.
Lucijah fell a bit too hard into her own thoughts, just as Ai had, only to stir form them at the little wiggle to her foot, cracking a smile. "Right. ... So they were ... blue? I guess we don't know how long they'll be cooking in there for -- Did they have markings at all? Goddess, what are we gonna name 'em?"
Lucijah groaned to herself, but shuffled closer, moving so she could sit hip to hip with Ai, twining their arms together, fingers trailing thoughtlessly over the Aishan's palm and pulse point. "You never know. My mom? Dumpling of a woman. I saw a baby once, all fat rolls - just one huge log of a leg--" And wasn't that a realization? She'd not thought about her mom, only a passing thought when they left Jauhar... and now? Now, she wondered if they'd ever have the opportunity to introduce her kids to her mom. She was exactly the kind of earthling Ai sneered at, but the thought still felt... off, a bit.
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:44 pm
"Can't tell; not yet." Right now they were just little blobs of color among the great boughs of Elzira. So many of her daughters carried hues of pink, but the hybrids stood out. Their numbers weren't so vast that they were able to blend and the colors...Honestly, how could she not have seen them?
In retrospect it was almost silly to be sitting like that by the door, crouched in the dirt of the day, when they had gone through so much trouble just to make and purchase furniture. Plush cushions with little embroidered radaku - wasted - and collecting dust. Regardless, Ai scooted a little closer to Lucijah and visibly grimaced when she described her mother.
"Are you sure it was a baby at all and not an overgrown worm?" The mention of Lucijah's family didn't go unnoticed, however. She so rarely talked about them that Ai never felt the need to press it, especially when her own family life was so tainted.
"...If you wanted to write to them you could. I'm not stopping you from it."
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:53 pm
(6/10) Lucijah tilted her head back and laughed, grinning absently. She hoped that having younglings around didn't rob Ai of her sharp tongue and ruthless comments. Her blunt grumpiness was one of the things Lucijah had come to love about her. "Y'know, coulda been a maglardilla larvae now that you mention it--" She joked, brightly.
Then, she sobered a bit, angling her head so she could look at Ai properly. "You're the literal monster my mom told stories about, growing up. When I was a kid, I eloped with this Oban noblewoman, and when I came back - she would say 'at least it wasn't an Alkidike.'" The nasally, annoying voice she used to quote her mother said enough about what she thought of that sentiment.
"... Sure, I could write to her. Wean her into it. But... she might not be like your 'sisters' who probably would wanna strangle these kids with their own antennae, but- she'd be just as... bad. For them."
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:06 pm
Ai snorted. "Could have been a baby too, now that I think on it. I've yet to see one that doesn't look like maglardilla larvae." She'd seen the little balls of flesh her sisters packed around Zinris. Squalling, flailing wads of meat who either smelled like something she could only classify as 'new baby' or limbara dung. It took a while for them to get cute, and everytime they cooed over a newborn as if it were a literal star she assumed their eyes were failing them.
"Oh, that so? My reputation spread that far?" Ai quirked her face into a grin. "I can't believe a woman like that could have ever had a daughter like you. Such a rebel." Goddess, they were a pair, weren't they? First an Oban noblewoman then an extremist and here Ai was, bringing an earthling to Elzira...was there a rule they hadn't pissed on?
"Don't write to her then. If you want to then do it, but she isn't owed anything just because she had you. You're going to be a mother now, Lucijah; you can set your own boundaries."
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:11 pm
(7/10) "Babies are so ugly, aren't they?" Lucijah agreed vehemently, only to cover her face with her hands, laughing helplessly as she sagged sideways into her lover. "Oh my goddess, we're having babies. You're terrible. We're terrible."
And yeah- clearly, Lucijah hadn't meant Ai specifically, but the quick rebuttal made her grin regardless. "Yeah, but you love me that way." She said, doubtlessly, not even pausing to think it was a any sort of profound statement.
"You're right - we'll see. Anyway, that's... years out. Today, I just wanna think about our kids. So - we need double of everything... another bassinet. More clothes, for sure... you think we need another room? Eh... maybe when they're older, right?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:19 pm
"Ooooh they're horrendous." Ai nodded vehemently and almost as soon as Lucijah started to laugh she did too. She couldn't help it; it was probably the most freeing thing she'd done in weeks! The alkidike shifted just enough so that she could pull her lover over her thigh and into her lap.
"I do." She admitted proudly and for the first time, Ai said, "I love you. I love that you're either the bravest person in the world to do this with me or the stupidest." How could she not add in the jab? "We need another bassinet for sure, more clothes, blankets...another room can wait."
So long as they were small they could share a space for years to come so Ai wasn't too worried about that. "So, those names...How about Dirge and Rock?"
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:30 pm
(8/10) There was no hesitation in Ai's words, and they could have just continued on like that, with Lucijah shifting a bit to be more comfortable in her lap, and Ai continuing on, talking about things they needed. "Aw... but I love spending your money." Lucijah shot back playfully, beaming.
But... just like every time Ai casually dropped such proud compliments on her, Lucijah felt flustered and more than a little pleased with herself and... that made her brain latch on to the fact that this was the First Time they'd said it.
Months planning to have kids together, and those words had never come into the equation. ... Then again, something about Ai confessing to her in the cave had felt a lot more intimately bonding than three little words, yet she found herself pleased with them nonetheless.
"I love you too. ... But no. Not Dirge and Rock." Lucijah leaned up to kiss the tip of Ai's nose, almost like a consolation prize for her 'names' being shot down - although she was sure (or, rather, KEENLY HOPED) that they were joke names anyway.
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