The People We Need

Log Info

• Title: The People We Need

• Emitter: Ravenstongue

• Characters: Dolan, Ravenstongue

• Place: Ravenstongue and Telamon's home

• Summary: Dolan's in the neighborhood, so he drops by Ravenstongue and Telamon's house to chat. What he learns is that Ravenstongue and Pothy are embroiled in fey intrigue for a deal made--and the consequences thereof. The pair talk on it, and then the conversation turns to Dolan's relationship with his fiancée. Pothy offers words that linger.

Lupecyll-Atlon home, afternoon.

The earliest days of Eatonis bring with them several things for many in Alexandria: the slow ending of winter, a light rain, and a mild wind. Spring is on the horizon, and it seems everyone's spirits are all the more lifted for it.

But Cor'lana's finding herself staring out at the garden in the backyard, her hands clasped around a cup of lavender-mint tea. Her eyes catch sight of Mirabilis and Lily-of-the-Valley, the two pixies seeming to argue with each other over what to do with one of the bushes in the backyard, and a faint smile finds her face... and falls from it quickly after, sighing softly.

Pothy pauses mid-crunch from his snacking position on the table in the living room, looking up at Cor'lana with blue eyes. "That sounds like you need to take your mind off it," he says. "Come here and have a snuggle with me, Lana?"

Cor'lana pauses for a moment before she turns to look back at Pothy. "You're right," she says, "although I can't imagine how you are keeping your head off it." She walks over and scoops Pothy up into her arms, just wrapping her arms around Pothy as the white-feathered bird nuzzles into her cheek.

There's a sharp rap at the front door. Opening it will reveal Dolan, hooded and cloaked and warmly wrapped against the light rain that patters on the roofs and cobblestones outside. Instead of the greatsword over his back, he wears a longsword at his left hip, but seems hale and in good spirits.

Cor'lana hears the rap against the front door, and her expression confounds in surprise. "Here's hoping that's not Silas again," she murmurs, but she walks over with Pothy still in her arms and unlocks it, opening the door.

"Oh! Dolan! Hello!" Cor'lana exclaims happily, opening the door wider for the inquisitor to step in. "I heard you were up and about again. Come in and get out of the rain. I've got a fresh pot of tea."

"We have snacks, too," Pothy offers from the comfort of Cor'lana's arms, as sweetly as ever.

"Lana, brightest of days. I was in the area, thought I'd come be friendly." Still courteous, Dolan steps inside, leaving boots and twin cloaks at the door to reveal a sleeveless leather longcoat backed and lined with sheepskin, over a spring-green shirt with a high collar. His left shoulder is encased in more sheepskin-lined leather, held like a cuff around arm and shoulder with straps and buckles, one of which is visible across his chest beneath the jacket and over the shirt. "This ain't a bad time, is it?"

Before long, the boots are off, and he's reaching into a pouch to offer a handful of dried fruit to Pothy. "Hello, Pothy. I've got snacks, too."

"No, no, not a bad time at all," Cor'lana reassures Dolan as he steps inside. She takes the cloaks from him to hang on one of the cloak-hooks set up by the front door for just the occasion. Her own outfit today is a rather simple gray dress, with the hem of the skirt reaching down to the knees and the cuffed sleeves flowing down to her wrists.

Pothy's blue eyes practically sparkle with the offer of snacks, and the raven wiggles in Cor'lana's arms, his tail already flapping. "Oh! Snacks!? Please, can I share some with Dolan, Lana?" He looks up at her pleadingly.

Cor'lana laughs a little. "He can give them to you in the living room. I don't want you putting your weight on him," she says, walking into the living room to set Pothy back down on the table. She pours another cup of tea out. Yet there's a certain tension in the way she does so, followed by a look outside back at the garden and the pixies, that Dolan would have to be hard-pressed to miss.

"I'm fine, Lana. Pothy, stay off my left arm, the right's fine." Dolan's usual cheeky grin is very much in evidence as he follows the pair into the living room. "Though I'll thank you not to tell Tel that." He scatters the small handful of dried fruit on the table for Pothy, and picks up the poured cup of tea, sipping at it and watching the shorter woman.

"What's on your mind, Lana?" he asks after just a minute or two and a sip or two.

"Thank you, Dolan!" Pothy says in his chipper fashion before he goes and picks at the fruit, making happy noises as he tastes the dried snacks. His tail is wagging up and down all the while.

Cor'lana blinks a couple of times at the question that Dolan asks, and then she looks a little bashful. "Ah--I'm sorry, I'm being a bad hostess, aren't I," she says, taking a seat on the couch. She gestures to one of the other chairs surrounding the table for Dolan to take a seat. "Please, at your leisure."

She takes a long sip of tea before she finally responds with, "Dolan, you... You remember my wedding, right. Where my Grandfather was in attendance and conducted the ceremony?"

Uh-oh, this sounds ominous. Without hesitation, Dolan takes a seat across the table from Lana, teacup in hand, sipping carefully, and then appreciatively. "Not likely to forget. What's going on?"

There's another moment where Cor'lana seems almost reluctant to respond, carefully considering her words. Finally, she sighs and puts the teacup back down onto the table, next to Pothy's pile of dried fruit snacks.

"I trust you to tell you this, Dolan. Grandfather is a... former member of fae nobility," Cor'lana says, just choosing to rip the dressing off the wound. "Truthfully, he is not my grandfather, per se. He is a distant ancestor on my paternal line of the family, generations down the line. But he is not like others of his kind--he abhors the Courts, and he abhors other fae. He can barely tolerate the garden pixies we have."

Pothy just continues to eat calmly for the moment, even as Cor'lana continues to explain. "I've... found myself embroiled in fae intrigue, on account of the decisions I've made, and the pacts I have sworn," Cor'lana says, looking more and more stressed as she talks about it. "And just yesterday, I accepted a blessing from a fae queen. I fear Grandfather's reaction the moment he learns of it, and he will the instant he steps through my door again."

"I won't breathe a word to nobody," Dolan agrees, at once, but that is all he says, instead settling down to listen. At one point, he places the warm teacup up against the brace on his shoulder, but gradually as the explanation goes on, his demeanor shifts, from the easy farmboy to a more polished, sharper, and more calculating mien. "Yeah? What made you decide to do that? The question is neutral.

Cor'lana looks mildly relieved that Dolan isn't already making for the door upon being told things that would make quite a lot of people head for the door--and for good reason, really. She doesn't give him an odd glance for warming his shoulder with the teacup, either, although Pothy seems to be observing it keenly with a sense of fascination in his blue eyes. "I had to make a deal," she says. "With the Queen of Air and Darkness. I obtained a weapon of great powerful in order to kill a demon that has plagued an ally of mine and attempted to take Telamon's life before in this very house. The Queen wanted me to stay in her court for a century."

"But I took Lana's place," Pothy says. His voice takes on a much more sober quality than normal. "That's why I was gone for a while. And..."

He stops talking. Cor'lana reaches over and pats Pothy's feathers. "He fell in love with someone while he was there," Cor'lana explains. "She returned his feelings, but never confessed to them. Then she passed on--and people are blaming her death on Pothy. A Lord Folendel of the Queen of Air and Darkness's Court has issued a challenge to duel with Pothy, accompanied with a fairy wing he stole from a member of the Wee Queen's Court."

Cor'lana sighs deeply and looks at Dolan. "So. Now I'm going to meet with the Wee Queen, with her blessing of protection, to find out more information on Lord Folendel. Because I intend on fighting on Pothy's behalf, if I think I can win."

This is all a lot to take in, and Dolan's left eye blinks a few times. It is an eerie thing to watch, to see only one eye blink, and the uninitiated might mistake it for a wink. "By His holy light, that's a mess," he replies finally, after a minute to digest. "And you're afraid of what Grandfather's going to say when he finds out you've gotten mixed up in all this?" He puts both elbows carefully on the table, letting the teacup warm the joint of that shoulder.

"A mess is the best way to put it," Cor'lana says with a very small smile, clearly liking the rather succinct way Dolan summarized it. "Quite frankly--I fear Grandfather will become so angry that he'll insist on fighting Lord Folendel himself, even though he hasn't participated in Court politics and intrigue for centuries. Normally, he's a gentle soul who wants nothing more than my happiness--and now Auranar's happiness, as I've made her a part of the family--but he can be dangerously angry when he wants to be, and the only thing that makes him angry are other fae trying to move in and interrupt my life."

She sighs. "Anyway. I'm... sorry I just ranted at you like that. You didn't come here to find out how odd my family lineage is."

"I came here to talk to you, Lana." Dolan turns his head to watch Pothy eat snacks. It's funny how he turns his whole head towards the bird, even though he can see perfectly well out of the artificial right eye. "I'm doing that, and it sounds like you needed to talk. Why would this Wee Queen grant you a blessing like that? It sounds like she wants something from you."

Dolan's reassurance puts a genuine smile on Cor'lana's face. She looks down and watches Pothy eating, too, and that also makes her smile, because... It's Pothy, and he's happy when he's eating, and that clearly makes her happy, too. "I did need to talk about it," she says. "You're right."

She picks her teacup back up from the table. "The Wee Queen is fond of mortals. Her Court is aligned with both the Seelie and Unseelie, so she sees both things. I was the one who reached out to her, as I met her before and believed she would be amenable to meet with me to exchange information, and... I was right. She probably does want something from me, as she sent someone who appeared to be rather high-up in her Court to give me her blessing and arrange the meeting with her."

Cor'lana purses her lips in thought. "Could be a number of reasons she's interested in me. My Grandfather is likely one of them. By getting close to me, maybe she's hoping to entice my Grandfather back into courtly intrigue. Or maybe she just thinks I'm a curiosity as a fae-blooded mortal."

Dolan listens to the entire story, one fist going to his chin in a thoughtful pose. "She wants something from you. Find out what before you agree to anything. Don't promise anything. I don't know much about the fae, just enough to know you're treading in damned dangerous waters." The concern there is genuine. "I'd offer to help, but I can't leave the city right now. I might be able to get dispensation to be gone for a day, maybe two, but not much longer than that."

"I know I am," Cor'lana replies soberly with a nod. "I knew I was in dangerous waters the moment I met Grandfather, really--but... I cannot deny that meeting him, and being his grandchild, has been an incredibly wonderful boon in my life. Not only did he give me a sense of belonging in the world again, he put me together with Telamon--he recognized my feelings for what they were before I even realized what they were."

That puts a bashful, sweet smile on her face, and Pothy looks up long enough from his fruit snacks to look at Dolan. "She thought she was actually dying. I tried telling her that she's an idiot in love, but she didn't understand me back then."

"It's true," Cor'lana readily admits. "But--really, Dolan, after all you've been through? I wouldn't dare to demand your help. You don't need my mess on your plate."

Then she smiles a little. "So... I heard from Telamon you might be getting married soon?"

Laughter bursts from Dolan at that, the good-natured, understanding kind. "Sounds like me when I met Andie," he acknowledges, releasing his arms and taking a sip of his tea. "I'm not that badly off, Lana, and you're not demanding a damn thing. I'm not going to sit around and mope. Bad shit happens when I have too damn much time to think. Nothing wrong with my brains, and about the only thing I can't do yet is Guild work." He pauses a moment, and takes a slow sip of tea.

"As for me and Andie - yeah, although I think we'll wait until closer to summer. We've got things to do first that won't wait any longer, and I'd like to strengthen up a little more."

"It sounds like you're keeping busy with the Temple, though," Cor'lana remarks. "You'll be well enough for Guild work again soon. Maybe we'll finally be on an assignment or two together when that happens." Clearly the notion of that appeals to her, as that puts a twinkle in her violet eyes.

She takes a sip of her tea and nods. "We would have liked to have our wedding in the summer, but the issue with the wights and undead prevented that from happening," she explains. "Ultimately, a wedding's a wedding--it's about the love itself more than the locale. I told Telamon it didn't matter to me if we had to have the wedding in the dead of winter and I'd be freezing in my dress, so long as we had it."

"Not that they really had a need to be that urgent, other than impatience," Pothy comments, before he carefully gathers some fruit in his beak. He tap-tap-tap walks over to Dolan, and by the expectant look in Pothy's blue eyes... he wants to share snacks with the Redeemer.

Dolan lets out a long sigh, and turns his face fully towards Pothy, holding out a hand to accept the snacks. "Andie and I have waited near on a decade for ours, we can wait another few months," he adds, his smile soft and warm at the thought. "We'll see on the Guild work," he temporizes. There's something there he doesn't want to say, but instead, he picks up the other thread again. "We've decided to do the full ceremony. I hope it won't put all our friends to sleep."

Pothy very, very politely puts the fruit snacks into Dolan's hand, tail wagging up and down happily to share in his favorite pastime with Cor'lana's friend--no, make that his friend. "So long as the feast afterwards is good, I could withstand any length of ceremony," he offers Dolan.

That gets a small snicker from Cor'lana, but then she looks curiously at Dolan. "I didn't know you were seeing her for that long!" she says. "She must be a special lady indeed. I can tell that you love her. Don't worry about your friends--the ceremony's for you and her, you know? Choose what means the most to you two. That's why Telamon and I chose to have Grandfather officiate ours."

At that, Dolan laughs, the laughter brightening his whole face. "If I know Andie, most of the feast'll be liquid, but I'm sure something can be arranged." That cheeky grin is all for Pothy, but the look he turns on Lana is much more serious. "We've been dating since we were teenagers," he explains. "I was getting ready to marry her when the demon found me. I was trying to protect her." He sighs and drops his eyes, leaning back a little with his teacup, and taking a slow pull. He seems to be taking the tea fairly slowly. "I can't protect her anymore, and it kills me, Lana. I didn't want her to have to see all this shit. I know it's hard on her. I wish it could make it not be."

Cor'lana looks completely empathetic to Dolan's statement, nodding lightly over the edge of her teacup as she brings it up to sip from. "I... I feel sort of similarly with Telamon," she says. "He's made my life better. But there's parts from my past that he can't understand fully and never will. And I never want him to be in a position where he can."

She takes a sip and looks at Pothy just happily looking up at Dolan, being the friendly bird that he is. "But... life happens, you know? Both he and I are adventurers, and anything's bound to happen. I swore to be by him through everything in life, and he swore to be by my side. If I go through something, so does he, and vice versa."

Cor'lana smiles lightly at Dolan. "So... it might be hard on her, but she wants it. She wants you. And it's easier to go through life with someone who loves you and wants to be there for you than... to be alone." The weight of that final word suggests she knows far too much about being alone.

"Yeah. I think you're right. It's better if - I just don't tell him some stuff, yeah?" Dolan's eyes go to his teacup. "Yeah. There's some stuff he just doesn't need to know. But Andie - I know that. I can't really hide it. She's seen most of it. And - she still wants me anyway. I feel like that's the most glorious miracle of all."

That puts a brighter and wider smile on Cor'lana's face to hear. "Because we're both worthy of loving like that, despite everything--despite it all," she replies. "It's a miracle because we think, 'Surely no one would ever want us because we've been hurt and broken so badly.' But... then someone does, and that someone keeps insisting that they do. At some point... You have to accept it's the truth. I don't think it sank in for me until I was married."

Pothy looks up at Dolan. "Sometimes the gods give us the people we need," he says. "Sometimes, the gods give us to the people who need us. I've seen both of those happen."

But then he turns around and tap-tap-tap-tap walks back to the fruit snack pile on the table. Cor'lana raises a brow. "What do you mean, Pothy?"

Pothy refuses to elaborate. He's busy with snacks.

Cor'lana just snorts. Then she continues the merry afternoon tea with Dolan, discussing the idea of the wedding with him for a little while longer before Dolan departs. But not before Pothy offers him more snacks, of course.