Completed Drunk Kristen

[Thraah]

Thraah nodded enthusiastic approval and closed her eyes, when she opened them she felt as if she had fallen asleep for a moment.
"YUP!"
Was all she could manage at the time as encouragement for Ox.
Kris was making sense, she thought.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen grinned as Thraah backed the advice given to Carter. "Thraah, are we not—" Kristen's head swirled about on her head as some ale-laden disorientation swept over her, but she giggled it away and continued, "—the besht at thish, or what?"

"Alright...I think I've got it," Carter said, going over the steps in his head, mentally preparing himself, all the like.

"Hooray!" Kristen said, equally in the spirit of encouraging Carter as Thraah had been.

So, up the stairs they went to the hall with all the doors to the rooms. And, right at the top landing of the stairs, Carter froze with a last minute anxiety again. "I-I don't got it."

"Carter!" Kristen said, hugging him from the left side of his body. "Lishten to me, lishten...no one has got thish more than you, right now. You can do thish! I believe in you!"

And, maybe, could Kristen herself, in her own matter with Alistair, find some strength in Carter's ability to overcome his fright?

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah completed the binding by grabbing Ox's right arm.
"We're FUCKINK amashing at thish Krish!"
But then Ox stopped and was looking like he was loosing his nerve.
"Ox, OX. If you... if you don't, if you shtop naow then..."
She gestured to the room in general, the revelry and the laughter.
"Then what is all thish about? Why are we here? Why so we fight?"
She drew in close to his face, one eye still lazy and half shut.
"Huh?"

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Carter averted his eyes from Thraah's gaze. For a second. But then, perhaps with a fire lit anew, he lifted his gaze from the murky depths of nervousness and returned Thraah's gaze again.

"You're right." He said it again, more enthusiastically, "You're right! I don't just fight 'cause someone tells me to now; not the Proctors, not Flavien! I can do my own thinking!"

Kristen twirled a finger with a giddy vigor for Thraah to see, grinning excitedly all the while: keep going, keep going! He's getting it!


Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah gave Kris what she hoped was a conspiratorial wink.
"Yusssss you caan, pffffffffft, forget Dickfacecand forget the Proctoreeesssss whaat is your big thinky meat telling you toooo doooo?"
She grinned like a devil as she looked at him raising her eye brows repeatedly.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"I'm scared, but...but I want to go in there," Carter said, looking down the upstairs hall toward Penny's room. And then he laid out his thoughts verbatim as if he were filling out some sort of written test, yet it was all done with an earnestness not at all seen during his years under Flavien's wing. "I want to go in there, and I want to finally tell Penny, and I want to make sure she gets through Graduation no matter what."

The big man started marching confidently down the hallway, his stride replete with big hearty pumps of his arms.

Then Kristen caught up with him, "Carter, Carter, Carter!" and made sure to add a quick addendum, "Make shure to leave the door ajar."

Carter blinked. "Why does a door need a jar?"

"No, I mean, somewhat open."

"Oh...okay. I'll do that."

Kristen glanced over to Thraah—now or never for any last second suggestions or measures of support. Oh! This was so exciting! He was finally going to reach for his dream! It was inspiring!

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

"You gott dis big-man!"
Thraah believed Ox was ready, more importantly he thought he was ready and so she was taking it easy, leaning dangerously over the banister having followed them both up onto the landing that ran around the open barroom.
With a shove she threw her arms about Kristen from behind and popped her chin onto her companions shoulder.
"We're shoooo good at dish!"
Thraah whispered into Kristen's ear with a chuckle.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Carter took in a big breath. Said, "Here I go."

As Carter resumed his march down the hallway toward Penny's room, Thraah caught Kristen in a grapple of a hug from behind, and the compliments flowed freely. "Yesh! I think some of our compatriots could truly benefit from our help."

Kristen laughed, but it was inescapably a bit of a nervous and self-conscious laugh, despite her high spirits. For the advice doled out from the both of them...well, Kristen really ought follow it herself. Follow it at the next available opportunity with Alistair. The only way she'd get past her fear would be to face it, head-on.

For now, she said to Thraah, "Let'sh go have a listen by the door."

And, well, make sure Carter didn't get cold-feet halfway through.

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah took Kristen's lead and went to the door struggling giggles and silently laughing as they went.
She knelt sideways to the wall to listen in, not nearly as hidden as she hoped but Ox was wide and hard to see past.
The door opened and two of Pen-pen's friends came out. The speed at which Thraah began to pretent to rebuckle her boot was impressive and they passed not seeming to notice her.


@Kristen.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Goodness! That was close! Thraah set to re-buckling her boot, and Kristen, the wheels of her skill at improvisation perhaps miraculously greased by alcohol, pretended as though she had forgotten something, looking toward the hall's ceiling with a spacy gaze and counting on her fingers. Penny's Vel Yuna friends went by them without any ceremony. Phew!

Then Kristen took her position above Thraah, standing as the latter preferred to kneel, both of them peering in around the corner of the half-open door, one head higher and one head lower.

Penny was sitting cross-legged on the floor, thankfully at an angle which wouldn't give her natural sight of Kristen and Thraah's surveillance without turning her head. She seemed to be making something, her hands fiddling with a bunch of stuff in her lap that Kristen couldn't quite make out.

Carter opened with Kristen's suggested line. Smoothly enough. "I'm tired of drinking. I want to spend time with you instead, Penny."

"Oh. Okay," she said, this with a carefree and simple kind of bliss.

The big Initiate, fortunately, didn't need any prompting to take the next obvious step. "What have you got there?" he asked.

Penny looked up at him. Smiling. "I like to make headdresses. I collect feathers I find on the ground for them. I think they're pretty." She looked back down at the work in her lap. "Do you want to help?"

"Uhhhh..." And it was riiiiight here that the cold-feet Kristen had worried about made its assault upon Carter's resolve. This was the big hurdle he needed to get over, the one that mattered most. Timidly, he looked back toward the half-open door, as if contemplating escape from his bashfulness and nervousness. He saw Kristen and Thraah's peering eyes.

Kristen nodded vigorously for encouragement, and a thumbs-up from her slid into view from the side of the door frame. Carter's eyes drifted to Thraah then.

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah's head bobbed along with Kristen as she made soft pushy motions with her hands.
Goading Ox back towards Pen-pen.
It was working but he just needed a bit more persuasion.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Heartened by what he saw, Carter gave Thraah and Kristen both an affirming nod in return and refocused himself on Penny.

"Sure. I'll help," he said, sitting down beside her. A slight tremor rumbled through the floor as the big Initiate dropped his weight onto his rear as he sat.

"Did you have fun with Kristen and Thraah?" Penny asked as her hands worked, tying together each feather in the braided cord for the headdress.

"Y-Yeah. Yeah," Carter said. "We drank. We talked. Thraah watched that Anir-ball game. Kristen hugged everybody."

"It was too loud down there." Not really irritated by it, no, Penny was just happily stating a fact. "I don't like it when it's too loud. It reminds me of Proctors yelling."

"Yeah. That's why I came up here," Carter said, leaning on anything he could since being well-spoken and articulate wasn't exactly a strong point of his, let alone carrying a conversation. Then, with a painfully obvious tone of reciting something, he said, "Yo Pen-pen, I fink yur tootie is pretty cutie."

"Tootie," Penny said, giggling, oblivious to his tone. "You're funny. Can you hand me that raven feather?"

"Sure!" Nothing could have boosted Carter's confidence more than having made Penny laugh. He reached over into the pile of feathers and plucked out a black one and handed it to her.

"Thanks!"

A long silence followed. But not one of an awkward character. An amiable silence, as Penny worked and Carter watched how her small and delicate fingers, the direct opposite of his own, deftly crafted the headdress.

"Penny."

"Yes?"

He just came right out and said it: "I love you."

And without missing a beat, maybe without a precise understanding of what it actually meant to say such a thing (though a vague understanding did seem to be enough), Penny said right back to him, "I love you too."

Carter was astonished, as if shocked that it could have been so easy. "Really?"

"Yeah," Penny said, again just cheerfully stating a fact. She held up the finished headdress and inspected it and then she said, "Let's make one for you!"

"O-Okay! Let's!"

Completely satisfied, her heart warmed, Kristen pulled back from the open door to give Carter and Penny their time to themselves. In the hall, her smile unblemished even by the worry of what she would come to say, she spoke quietly to Thraah, "'Tis my turn, then, yesh? If Carter can mushter the courage to tell Penny, then I for Alishtair must..."

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

"Yeah, where ish he?"
Thraah looked about herself and the pub for traces of Alistair.
She didn't know him well, just to see.
"Is eee here?"
She was quick to capitalise on this lovey feeling but turned to Kris and gave a full shrug when she could not find him in the crowd.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"No. He's not here."

And because that exquisite Vel Yuna ale made Kristen think that most questions could be answered by a hug, Kristen did hug Thraah, yet again, smiling all the while.

"He's here," Kristen said, making an attempt to reference her heartbeat. "Can you feel him? He'sh cozy in there."

That general happiness, its contentedness, became a bit wistful. Her speech slurred a little more here as well.

"I dun wanna lose him."

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Well this was sudden and welcome and nice.
Kristen was good at hugs.
Thraah returned it gratefully and pressed her tight against herself.
The strange thing was, after a moment Thraah thought she COULD feel something, not just warmth and comforting pressure but her heartbeat. It was strong and thrumbed steadily but the rhythm was off, no it was just different it was... doubled.
"Wow... I fink... I can feels it!"
Thraah was amazed. Was this magic a part of Kristen or just what Alistair could do?
She had no idea but it was something of a revelation.
Her own heartbeat was doubled of course, since the gemstone beat along with it but she was so amazed to find it in another person.
"I can really feels him inside you!"

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen pulled back and sighed.

"I must admit..." she said reluctantly, "...that I am equal partsh ashamed and anxioush for not having told him sooner."

She frowned, and her eyes looked down and away.

"The pain of loss...nothing shtung so great as it did."



Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah, engaging as much of drunk, drunk mind that she could manage once more gripped Kristen right on the cheeks and pulled her eyes on her.
"Lishen! Loss ish..."
Thraah thought of Maseno then, perhaps it was the talk of love or maybe she just wanted someone to make a grand gesture towards, it seemed like fun but the thought brought her to a road where they found a dead girl not a month ago.
"Losh..."
Maseno was so quiet, so hurt by the sight of it, by the meaning behind it.
"Loss... I..."
Thraah had begun to cry. Thick messy tears welled and burst, cascading down the sides of her face like rivers.
"I... Kris..."
Thraah loosened her grip and her hands fell to Kristen's shoulders as her head fell.
"I'm sorry... I ... I'm sorry."
*I'm sorry that you died.
I'm sorry we were not there.
I'm sorry that Maseno carries your deaths with him even now.*

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Thraah's hands to Kristen's cheeks, it started as though sage (if ale-soaked) advice would follow. Thraah's hands retreated down to Kristen's shoulder in tandem with the burst of tears, and Kristen, alarmed and sympathetic and already given mightily to such what with the intoxication, simply took Thraah back into her embrace and hugged her again.

"But what is it!? What'sh the matter?"




Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah felt her knees go weak from the shaking.
She had returned from the mission hoping to have seen the better of it by now.
But it wouldn't go away.
The dead girl on the road wouldn't go away, none of them would go away.
"I... I don't know how you do it. Any of you. You all just deal with it and it's so fucking terrible."
She closed her eyes again and buried her face in Kristen's shoulder. Spit and tears staining her shirt.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Something was terribly the matter! Kristen didn't yet know what, and in this regard her tipsy state wasn't helping, but she knew enough: that it had to do with a loss from which Thraah had not yet recovered. But who? What? When? Was it something which could be so specific as to be answered by these questions or was it a kind of culmination of everything? Aionus knew that the Dreadlord Initiates who preceded her in the Academy, and who therefore lived through the old days, carried a great many sorrows, regrets, and torments.

"Thraah! Thraah! Let's—"

Kristen glanced around, as if suddenly remembering that they were just standing there in the upstairs hallway.

"—let'sh go to my room."

Fortunately, they had at least purchased their rooms for the night before the spirits started flowing. And Kristen's was but a hop, skip, and a jump away. She certainly didn't want to drag Thraah along, no, but instead gently coax her to walk in that direction.

Something like this needed privacy, and talking about it out in the hall, with all the loud Vel Yuna revelers and drunkards downstairs, just wouldn't do.

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah let herself be led, in that way the grief stricken walk in slow steps as if the weight of it would make them fall.
The room was modest and something about the sight of it made her realise what was happening. The door, when closed, kept out the worst of the revelry. It was not quiet but one could hear oneself think.
"Oh, no I..."
Her wrists made poor napkins but she wiped herself half dry.
"I don't mean to spoil nuthin... shit, I'm ruining your good time with my... crap!"
She felt like she was imposing. Kristen had a good reputation. High marks, good fighter, honest, kind.
Thraah was... Thraah, a mess of an initiate on a good day.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

There. That was better. Though the general commotion of the noisy tavern wasn't completely muted, the room and the closed door allowed for it to be demoted from prominence to the background.

But the source of Thraah's troubles remained a mystery. Maybe it would continue to be so, and that was okay; gods, did not Kristen herself know how hard it was to speak on something which haunted one with its dreadful torments? Harder still, in fact, for an Initiate who had been conditioned in the ways of old, in that Caeso-like fashion, never to show any sort of vulnerability, only ever to project unassailable strength. Was it any wonder why Carter, for instance, had such difficulty in simply speaking honestly with Penny?

Kristen put her hands on Thraah's shoulders, and, making all efforts to keep her tipsy slur under control and to pronounce everything clearly, she said, "Nonsense, Thraah! There is no ruining, no spoiling. There is merely a willing ear, ready to receive whatever you may wish to tell it. And if it is nothing more than what has already been said, then this will have to do."

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Kristen's proximity was a comfort. It helped anchor her thoughts.
They settled into the familiar form of words though Thraah did not yet know how it would sound when she spoke.
"It's just, you are so hyped to be in love with Alishtair an Ox got Pen-pen and that's all great so I started thinkin bout Maz-and-we-are-okay-but-like-also-not-THAT-okay-cause-we saw-some-SHIT-man-like-bad-shit-and-there-was-this-whole-scene-and-blood-everywhere-and-they-were-just-folk-yaknow-not-even-armed-but-this-fucker-just-killed-em-SPLAT-like-and-there-was-this-one-girl-and-she-was-like-my-brother's-age-and-it-was-just-so-fucking-WRONG-to-see her-like-that-and-Maz-just, he took it all on himself and he just DOES that? Like how is that even fair? How is any of this fucking crap we have to deal with, we have to DO, fair?"
She thumped her head back against the door with her eyes closed and rubbed her hands over her face and through the hair as if the action would cleanse or bring sense to any of it but the girl on the road was still there.
"And now I see her when I close my eyes and I can't STOP IT!"
She thumped her head back against the door a second time in utter frustration.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

It all came spilling out. And while Initiates were meant to be forged into something more than mere soldiers, indeed weapons of war, still they were human. Mission after mission marked the process of this forging, and while blood came in droves, tearing away at any semblance of innocence until there existed none, still despite what numbing might come of it could be the one which got to you. Not that there were none others which lacked effect, but more that there was the one which, empowered by whatever amplifying reason, cut deeper than those others.

For Kristen, it was Pullo in Vel Hetren. And for Thraah, it was the girl she saw with Maseno.

She gave Thraah a moment, and then said in a quiet and sympathetic tone, "I am sorry that you are tormented so. My heart hurts in tandem with yours."

Thraah

 

[Thraah]

Thraah looked at Kristen.
In many ways Kristen was her opposite, a mirror or some other poetic concept she had read about in her trashy novels. There was always a woman who was poor and always a woman who was proper.
And even though Kristen spoke all pretty like Thraah understood what she meant and in the seriousness of the moment she laughed in relief that she did not suffer alone.
"Is that why we get so blasted drunk and talk about boys?"
She smiled through her tears and huffed another short laugh.
"I don't know if I love him, but I respect him a lot and want to stay close to him. Is that enough you think?"

Kristen Pirian