vatheon | (no subject)

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Who: The Dolorosa and the Sufferer
Where: Sufferer's hive
When: Shortly after returning to the bubble
What: Awkward conversation...
Style: I'll match!
Status: Closed

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This promised to be an interesting discussion, 'interesting' being one of several terms the jadeblood might think to apply to the situation. 'Disquieting' and 'awkward' certainly fell amongst them, and yet along with them a certain kind of irritation that she should be feeling them at all.

No matter what the description, in the end, it was probably not going to be easy.

She brushed one hand lightly over the front of her dress, smoothing invisible creases, then lifted the other to knock sharply on the door of her little one's hive. Perhaps, if she chose her words carefully, this wouldn't go as badly as she feared it might.

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Sufferer answers the door, his cloak absent and wearing a floofy apron over his pants. He has white powder on his face and arms, and appears to have been in the middle of something when she arrived. He smiles up at her. "Hi, Rosa! What are you up to today?"

Well, that.. hadn't been what she'd expected to see. It took her enough off-guard that she laughed, one hand lifting to cover her mouth. Only a small sound, though, and it quickly faded as she cleared her throat, moving her thoughts back to what she was here for.

"I came to speak with you, but you appear to be busy.."

"Oh, no, you can come in!" Sufferer takes her by the elbow and tries to guide her into the house. "I just put some cookies in the oven and I'm cleaning up, you're not interrupting anything!"

The Dolorosa chuckled softly and allowed herself to be drawn inside. Despite the gravity of what she had to say, his good mood was infectious. It was a pity that her news would likely sour it.

"Very good, then. I have something important that I need to discuss with you."

"Okay. Let me get a kettle going and clean up some of this mess..." Sufferer escorts her into the kitchen, where there's flour and bowls and sticky mess everywhere, and an appetizing aroma starting to float from the oven. He waves her towards the table, then puts the kettle on the stove. "Normally Psii would make tea, but he's out with his bees right now."

"I am sure that yours will do just as well." As much as she does wish she could see more of Psii, it's perhaps best he isn't here for this. She takes a seat, clasping her hands together on the table in front of her, and watches him as he moves around the kitchen.

"How have you fared, lately? You look very happy."

"I'm pretty good!" Sufferer gets the tea started, then attacks the dishes in the sink, scrubbing vigorously. "Psii is awake again, and the bubble isn't flooded anymore, so yeah, I'm doing well." He looks over his shoulder at her, smiling. "How about you? What have you been up to?"

"I have met several of the younger trolls, now. They have.. interesting views." Meenah had been a very curious one. Never in her life had she expected to find herself sitting on a beach with a tyrianblood discussing their relative realities.

"But there is something in particular that I have come to speak with you about," she said then, tapping her fingers gently against the table. "I have taken a matesprit."

Sufferer drops a metal spoon on the floor in shock as he whirls around. "You did? Who?"

Normally he'd be delighted with such news, but since this is his guardian, it needs time to sink in.

This was it. She let out a slow breath, fixed him with a steady look, and spoke softly. If the news of his guardian having this kind of relationship wasn't enough to take in already, exactly who she had chosen to pursue was bound to make things all the more difficult.

"... Dualscar."

"...what."

There wasn't really an easy way to say it. She knows he heard her, so she doesn't repeat the name.

"It was my decision, not one that he pressed upon me."

"Why him?" Sufferer's voice is betraying how upset he is.

"Little one, please.. I have not done this to upset you." She wanted to hold him and reassure him that it would be alright, and had it been any other situation she might have, but this was.. unique.

"I am not blind to the way that he operates, despite my feelings and how he has changed thanks to his association with you." The jadeblood paused, sighing quietly. "I understand that this must be an unpleasant shock."

"He made you a slave, Rosa!" Sufferer stares at her like this is a personal betrayal. "I know he's changed, but how can you ignore that?!"

"You think that I am ignoring that? That I could have forgotten it? How dare you." Her voice didn't rise in volume and perhaps that was worse. A fragment of the edge of her patience had worn off to be replaced with a sharpness that showed in the back of her gaze as she watched him.

"I was one slave, amongst dozens of others, and was not special in that regard, not to him, or to the Marquise." Rarely did she speak so openly of that time of her life, or at all, but this confrontation found it necessary. "But do not think for even a moment that I can ever ignore that, any more than you can."

Sufferer flinches a little at her change in tone, but he doesn't back down. Instead, he changes tactics. "So okay, you can look past that. Great, I guess you were listening to what I said, all those years ago. Answer my question, then... why him?"

"I have always listened to you. All your life, I listened to you. You know this, and this level of petulance does not suit you," she pointed out, her voice deceptively level. This wasn't something she enjoyed - she didn't want to argue with him like this - but an implication that there had been any doubt of her attention to every word he had said since his first was beyond her ability to pass over.

The jadeblood pressed her lips together, not taking her eyes off him for a moment. "We have been spending time together, and he has endeared himself to me in ways I could not have foreseen. Do not think that I planned for this to happen."

Sufferer will be as petulant as he wants, which turns out to be pretty darn petulant. He huffs angrily, crossing his arms over his chest in an unconscious imitation of Darkleer, and glowers. "Do you know how hard I had to work with him to get him where he is? Do you have any idea some of the awful things he said about us in the past?"

The Dolorosa drew in a soft hiss through her teeth, and pushed herself to her feet, her jaw set tense and a barely perceptible narrowing in her eyes.

"I imagine that I do, Signless. I can be as patient in this as I would ask you to be, I can understand your concerns and I can let them pass without judgement, but do not think to lecture me on the behaviours of seadwellers."

"Maybe you need to be lectured, because it seems like you've forgotten! What's next, a moirallegiance with the Grand Highblood?!"

"Ah." This hadn't been somewhere she wanted this to go, but if he was the one to begin it, then very well. Her voice was still level and quiet, but there was an odd cool quality to it now. "You will speak of moirallegiance, then? Very well, let us speak of that."

She moved away from the table, letting her hand drop from it as she took a step forwards. "Tell me, my dear little one, why it is permissible for you to maintain that quadrant with one you express such revulsion of, why it is permissible for you to cohabit with him when he will speak so poorly of us, when my time spent as his slave is so troubling to you. Tell me these things, Signless, or perhaps you will tell me instead what it is that you are truly afraid of in this."

"Because he needs a moirail!" And suddenly they have arrived at the root of the issue, although Sufferer is too fired up now to see that. "Because there's a good troll in there somewhere, but he needs someone to support him and call him on his shit and make sure he doesn't act like a highblood castist douchebag! He needs someone to listen to him and help him understand that lowbloods are people too and hold his hand, both figuratively and literally, as he figures out how to behave without the goddamn Empire backing up all his shitty behavior! He needs a moirail, not a matesprit!"

He needs me goes unsaid, but there's a brief flash of hurt--deep, lasting hurt--in Sufferer's red eyes before he whirls and stomps out of the kitchen. It might be his own home, but that doesn't mean he can't storm out of it in a fit.

She could see she was going to get nowhere here. As angry as she found herself becoming with his mounting hypocrisies and narrowmindedness over this, she let him leave.

A sigh left her, and she rubbed one hand over her face before she turned from the kitchen and walked out of the house, closing the door behind her.

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there is only one appropriate response here

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