Lola Hawkes
Since her adventures chasing old Fianna
Kinfolk that had gotten lost on their retirement exploits, Lola has
largely stayed around the Homestead. For all of the worrying and hand
wringing that had gone on about how the Kinswoman was bound to continue
throwing herself into peril's way despite the fact that she was carrying
a child, Lola has been laying low for the past month easily with no
incident.
In fact, for Tamsin to visit, she would have to come out
to The Homestead. On this mid-week afternoon, with the sun hanging to
the west and beginning its descent but still a good two or three hours
until it was gone, Lola Hawkes could be found working on the garden she
had built last fall in the back of the house. Spring was trying to
spring early, and soon it would be time to plant, so she was out back
tilling and arranging rows and making sure that the wire that made up
the fence was secure to its posts.
Though bright and sunny, the
day was still a little chilly, so Lola worked in long skirts and a
long-sleeved shirt that stretched tightly over her stomach and chest.
Though she didn't have any way to know this for certain herself, what
with her stubborn refusal to do so much as even employ a midwife, this
week Lola's pregnancy entered its third trimester. To look at her, it
would be easy to believe that fact.
Despite this, though, Lola
worked with sweat touching her brow and the sleeves of her shirt pushed
up to her elbows. Up on the back porch, a little portable boombox
played music that only did a halfway effective job of traveling to the
garden.
Tamsin
Tamsin doesn't mind coming out to
The Homestead. After all: Tamsin likely still crashes there
occasionally, a nomad. Musician. Easy to explain to those who haven't a
clue that way, not that anyone would ever wonder at the Hawkes-Ghosh
household. Pack: she wants to be near to Hector. Pack: she wants to be
near to Hector and Hector's child and Lola and Lola has something of
Maria in some of her gestures which Tamsin notices sometimes and never
remarks upon because there is no reason to remark upon it. Tamsin: when
Hector finished making (or when he finishes making she will) the fucking
crib finally went to jump in it and 'test' it out. Because that's how
you know. Today when Tamsin comes by it's after hitching a ride with
another Fianna - let's name this other-Fianna "Errantry" (even though
Tamsin's player rather wants to use that for a Fianna Ragabash now that
is not an NPC) - and Lola can hear the slam of a door and the sound of a
truck making-off.
Then: Tamsin. Tamsin, who'd chopped her hair
off to shoulder-length a month or so ago, make-upless and carrying her
guitar case plus a smaller case that also looks vaguely guitar-shaped
except it's a ukulele and it was a gift from a hipster guy who came to
see her play and she's not telling Hector about that because he's
annoying. Tamsin doesn't bother putting her instruments down before
circling the little house following that boombox and look it's Lola in
the garden:
"Hey Lola!" Tamsin interrupts, cheerfully. "You wanna try some fucking fantastic apple pumpkin bread?"
Lola:
she looks fat. Tamsin: will not be saying that aloud but her gaze can't
help getting pulled in by Lola's belly. Damn, how much longer? Maybe
there's a spirit who'll know.
Tamsin
[This is
going to be amusing. Tamsin totally tried to knit the baby some cute
wolf hat thing. Dex + Crafts. DIFF: 8, because fancy knitting is hard.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
When
Tamsin comes around to the back of the house she'll find Lola stooped
forward with one elbow braced on her thigh and knee to help support
balance and distribute weight (otherwise her back would suffer), working
a spade into the dirt with her free hand. The call that interrupted
the music -- something forgettable and largely difficult to make out due
to poor sound quality on the old boom box -- drew the Kinfolk's
attention, and she straightened up to greet the Galliard.
Hector
wasn't anywhere in sight, but he had his placed to be and duties to
maintain. He hasn't been around the Cold Crescent Sept nearly so much
these days, though. Rumor has it he may be pulling his efforts on that
place after his botched mission in the basement, and that he's putting
his full support behind Forgotten Questions instead. Most of the time
that rumor is quashed reminders that he probably just wants to be near
to home when his first child is born.
Initially, all Tamsin got
was an upward jerk of the chin in greeting. Then Lola tossed the spade
down in the dirt and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of
her bare forearm. Dirt was smudged on arms and face both, though not
excessively.
She didn't speak up until after she'd moved across
from the garden to the back porch so she could turn the music machine
off completely. Once that was done Lola scrubbed her hands on the
clothing over her hips and looked back over to Tamsin. She wasn't the
smiling sort, but Tamsin knew her well enough to figure that even if she
wasn't grinning from ear to ear, Lola was still in a good mood and
receptive to visitors.
"Who made it for you?" Came the answer to
the offer for apple pumpkin bread. "Or did you find a kitchen to use
and make it yourself?" Either way, she waved her hand to gesture Tamsin
over, invite her toward the house and the back porch. "Of course I
want to try it. Come on over."
Tamsin
"The
fucking manager at the fucking Larimer Lounge," Tamsin says, and there
is something pleased (shyly) beneath the cursing, because Tamsin is
beginning to be recognized -- just occasionally, just every now and
then, by People. Music Scene People. She sets the guitar case down on
the back porch and the ukulele case too, then unsnaps the guitar case,
because of course that is where she was keeping the bread and assorted
other items. The bread is very smooshed, very smooshed indeed, but it is
still pumpkin apple bread. Belatedly, Tamsin makes a face: "Make it
myself, ugh, bread is hard. Um well not like stale hard, not THIS bread
anyway, you know what I mean, um," and right. The bread gets put down on
that little table that Lola has out there and Tamsin begins to unwrap
it. "I brought a baby hat over too which I made myself and it looks,"
she pauses, frowns at her hands, pulling them back from the saran-wrap
and bread, flexing them and rubbing a thumb into the crease. The frown
was a momentary thing, though, because it's back to pride, yo:
"Made
myself and it looks pretty good. Um, I think. I think it should have a
name. Like, the hat, not the baby. The baby's gonna be named whatever
the baby's gonna be named, but you remember that Galadriel is
off-limits, right? You look, um, pretty today. How are you?"
Lola Hawkes
If
Lola were a more civilized person, she would have gone back inside for a
bread knife and some napkins. Instead she was accustomed to sharing
food and meals with packmates, what was supposed to be future packmates,
and friends without such amenities. Ripping chunks from a loaf of
bread has worked well enough before, and after a while you got pretty
good at tearing evenly without destroying the loaf.
Besides, from
the looks of the loaf, it had already taken some damage on the way over
in the guitar case. So Lola stood at the side of the wire patio table
with its matching wire chairs, watching patiently while Tamsin unwrapped
the plastic wrap and set the bread loaf up on the table. Lola would
wait to be provided with her portion-- she knew that garden dirt was
deep in her fingers and nails. She wouldn't dirty the gift from the
Larimer Lounge manager.
"The baby already has a name-- didn't
Hector tell you?" Lola set dark chocolate-earth brown eyes upon Tamsin
and raised her eyebrows, but seemed pleased (in her own way) to share
the information herself instead. "We chose Raksha."
Tamsin said
Lola looked pretty, and that was fair enough a compliment to give. Lola
seldom dressed up and didn't bother with make-up, and today was no
different. Her skirt was a burnt orange and her shirt was black, her
hair was piled up on top of her head. She was pretty in that she looked
strong and healthy and full of life. The compliment was taken with a
rolling shrug of one shoulder before being set aside for the inquiry
about her well being instead.
"I'm doing fine. Better than
Hector, he's been nervous enough to finally finish the damn crib.
Though I heard you figured that out already." Lola, apparently, heard
about Tamsin leaping around inside of the crib, and the tone in which
she mentioned this had just the smallest key of warning. She wasn't
mad, as the crib was still intact, but the way she looked at Tamsin in
that moment was a clear warning: Don't break our shit, in particular
don't break shit that we need.
But, moving on...
"Thanks for
the hat. Hector'll probably give it a better name than I could. Or
more interesting one anyways. You're doing alright? Your Kin all are
too?"
Tamsin
"Nope, he keeps telling me he's going to take Galadriel and Eowyn and that you said it's totally okay," Tamsin says, frowning,
and she seems actually worried. Perhaps that worry is why she hasn't
seen through Hector's ploy, so Lola revealing the real name causes the
moss-eyed Fianna thing to bite her lip and then grin hard enough to hurt
her cheeks. The grin becomes a smirk, remembering the incident with the
crib: Lola's look of warning passes by unnoticed in the dreamy haze of
heh heh.
The Fianna tears off a hunk of the bread (it's moist,
and Lola can see the chunks of apple inside, pumpkin seeds impressed on
the top) and hands it to Lola - or is going to before she realizes that
maybe something should be set down on the table so the bread doesn't
pick up dust. She winds up just pushing the saran wrap/bread over toward
the Uktena kin.
"Yeah," Tamsin says, and then frowns down at the table. "I... um... It's weird, Lola. Like... do I look strange to you?"
Tamsin lofts her chin, sits up straight.
"Like is there anything off? Or do... My hands look okay, right?"
She holds her hands out, palm and fingers up.
Lola Hawkes
[Intelligence 3 + Medicine 2: I don't know, Tamsin, are you okay?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 5) ( fail )
Lola Hawkes
The
discussion about what Hector was insisting he would use for names was
dismissed with a shake of her head. Lola was a practical woman, and
much to Hector's chagrin she still hadn't finished the trilogy (though
she was mostly done with the first book now, thank you very much, and
has listened to him read much of The Hobbit to her stomach at night so
she knew that story as well).
Lola watched the loaf of bread slide
her way and looked down at her dirty hands, then pressed her lips
together but excused herself simply with a: "I'll be right back, hang
on." Then she would disappear into the house just long enough to wash
her hands in the kitchen sink and re-secure her hair in a knot up at the
top of her head. When she came back out her hands were clean and the
stray hairs that had fallen at the top of her neck and to frame her face
were pulled back once more.
Once clean again, she tore herself a
piece of bread and ate it, happy for the food, while Tamsin sat and held
out her hands, fingers up, to ask Lola if everything looked okay.
Lola
blinked, and leaned forward to examine Tamsin's hands, apparently
missing it if Tamsin were trying to lead her into some kind of a build
up for a joke or a story or a hypothetical. She must have had dirt and
sweat in her eye still, or the fetus had sucked up too many nutrients
for her brain to give enough of a shit to actually process the Fianna's
hands, but whatever it was she saw it had Lola wrinkling her nose at the
bridge and straightening up. She kept looking at Tamsin's hands, then
reached for the loaf of bread and ripped off another small chunk for
herself to eat before announcing:
"Got one hell of a quiver happening. Did you just walk away from something I should know about?"
Tamsin
Tamsin
looks stricken and pulls her hands back, bending her head to examine
them herself for quivers. Puts them in her lap right after, head still
down. Head down enough that she rests her chin on the table, scootching
the chair she'd sat herself in while Lola went inside to wash her hands
back. She tucks her hands under her thighs.
"I had this," Tamsin
begins to say, and then: dreamily. "I keep thinking about ... doors and,
I don't know. I had a dream and all today and all yesterday every time
I've picked up the guitar or the ukulele that Heinrich gave me right it
feels like... I feel a handle cracking in my hand, like the neck of them
is cracking, like it's just breaking. Like a fairy curse, except it's really not that bad just... It's weird. Maybe I'm being sensitive and shit."
"How are your dreams lately? You been sleeping all right or is little Raksha kicking your bladder to pieces?"
Lola Hawkes
The
quivering hands were left aside. Tamsin wasn't worried for them so
Lola wouldn't be concerned either. They were tucked under thighs and
forgotten anyways. Lola finished eating her second slice of bread
before dusting her hands and folding her arms across the top of her
protruding stomach. She remained standing, apparently more comfortable
on the soles of her work boots than seated.
What Tamsin had to say
about her dreams had Lola creasing her brow and shaking her head. "I'm
not a dreamspeaker. Never learned the craft, or how to read 'em. Way I
figure, a dream is just a dream until someone or something is making it
anything but. To find out if it's the latter, you'd need a Theurge."
She paused, thoughtful, then added: "Or a really experienced Galliard.
I've heard of some that can walk through dreams and examine them from
within."
As for her own sleep, Tamsin earned another shrug and a
small, almost reluctant ghost of a grin. It was more of a relaxing
around the mouth and corners of the eyes really than a true smile, but
we knew what she meant.
"Dreams are here or there. They've been
strange, but they're supposed to be. And the baby--" Hector would say
'she' in this place. Lola still refused to assign a gender without
seeing hard evidence first. Like she was refusing to set an expectation
so she couldn't be thrown off if it turned out wrong.
"I'm up
'bout twice a night, but still sleeping okay besides that. Better now
that Hector's sister's gone back to her home." Lola looked stressed,
but in a relieved and maybe somewhat sympathetic way. It was the kind
of look that anyone had when the in-laws finally went home and left you
to live in peace.
Tamsin
"Yeah! I can't wait to
learn how to do that!" Tamsin says, perking up a little. There's
something still yet a bit dreamy or distant behind the enthusiasm for
Gifts she does not yet have and the old smoulder-simmer burn of Rage re:
Theurges fucking upstarts trying to fucking say they've got all the
godamned lore but oooh we're mystical oooh we know it all oooh fuck
Theurges.
She listens with attention to Lola's talk of dreams and
sleep, though, sitting up and putting her elbow on the table, cupping
her chin (don't you feel the splinter-crack, Tamsin? [she does, and
shivers]) in her hand and reaching for a chunk of pumpkin-apple bread.
"Aw,
you didn't like her?" she asks, all curiously: and ready to fucking
gossip. Tamsin is a galliard, and she is not the quiet kind.
Is there a quiet kind of galliard?
Academic question.
Lola Hawkes
"Oh, I like her alright. But she's human, see."
As
though that alone should say it all. Tamsin can imagine the stress
that would come from hiding all things Werewolf in a house that has
stood for and been inhabited exclusively by generations of them. Lola
moved her hand to press at the side of her stomach, in response to the
baby moving or stretching somehow, then reached for the loaf of bread to
rip herself another chunk.
"That just meant there's a lot we couldn't tell her, you know? And she had to visit on the fucking gibbous and full moons, so Hector was hardly helpful with easing the mood."
Munch.
"She's a doctor, so she had some strong opinions about my not going to a doctor or midwife or anything."
Tamsin
"Is
Hector ever helpful with 'easing the mood'?" Tamsin says, with another
smirk. Tamsin and Hector: they act like siblings, don't they, and part
of that is never letting up, huh? But they aren't siblings. They're
pack. Pack's different. The smirk's a little more absent than it could
otherwise be. "But yeah. I get it. Jesus, should've asked me to come up
with a reason for her to come some other time. I'm pretty fucking good
at that."
And Tamsin is: persuasive,
when she wants to be. A cheater, too, with Gifts up her sleeve and no
moral compunction about using them to give her that sweet-talking
Fianna-tongue an edge.
Blink. "But uh, are you really ... Like um, you were serious? You're really not gonna have a midwife or something?"
Lola Hawkes
The
question posed was one that Lola's heard more than once in the past few
months. She recognized the tone, the caution and uncertain social
steps around being so bold as to ask in the first place. So the Kinfolk
stared blandly at Tamsin for a few seconds, then she sighed and pulled
out a chair to sit, which she had to do a touch differently now to
accommodate for weight and size.
"It's nothing that I want anyone else around for. It's personal,
you know? I don't need some stranger to deal with, telling me what I
already know. Hector'll be there with healing talens if we need them."
She
was frowning inactively, a thoughtless crease between her eyebrows.
She took her time nibbling this piece of bread, picking a seed from the
top and nibbling it.
"Can't be that unheard of. Not among our people."
Tamsin
[Whoa wait what.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Tamsin
[Manipulation + Subterfuge. >.>]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Tamsin
The stag-girl, Fianna-darling-of-a-thing, she listens thoughtfully and
If
this were a true and accurate representation of her thoughts on the
matter, Lola would say Hector'll be there with healing talens if we
need--
And Tamsin would go, "WHOA. Wait. Shut the hell up,
Hector's gonna-- No way. You're fucking kidding me, that is the
stupidest thing I've ever heard this side of -- let's go -- fucking --
lick the Pit in Cold Crescent's basement."
And they would fight. And Lola would be mad. And Tamsin would regret her outburst but she would be mad too.
But
Tamsin has a modicum of restraint, too. And she loves Lola. And she is
also a sneaky trickster of a thing, a liar. The lyingest liar ever. So
what actually happens is:
The stag-girl,
Fianna-darling-of-a-thing, she listens thoughtfully and her eyebrows
draw together a bit and she taps her fingers against the table, but
offers: "I know some tales that mention a kinwoman giving birth,
unattended. But it's usually a footnote, obviously. And um, like, kind
of an illustration of how epicly bad the other shit is. And there are no
stories that aren't tragedies about Galliards or Ahroun trying to help
deliver a kid. Especially when those Galliards or Ahrouns, like, almost
frenzy just when some dude looks wrong at their girlfriend, well, 'mate', just saying."
That is much better Tamsin than what you were gonna say.
"I
mean um... Yeah, I get wanting to do it alone. That sounds cool to me.
Well, not to me, fuck that, I want drugs... although I guess I would
probably not get them? Good thing I'm barely getting laid right now
huh?" A grin. 'Barely,' eh?
"But I dunno. Healing talens are
sacred. Women are fucking awesome and way better at healing and shit
than men. Shouldn't have to have those on stand-by, but like... a
midwife in the other room in case the baby's gotta get... Turned around
or, eh, I don't know, I just know TV childbirth problems. Anyway you
should totally have some kin birth-mother chick waiting in the other
room just in case. That's not having a stranger around yammering at you,
you know?"
Lola Hawkes
[Perception + Empathy: Yeah, sure, it's all about statistics, is it?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lola Hawkes
To
give credit where credit is due, Tamsin raises very good points. Doing
her part, Lola listens and doesn't interrupt. She lets the Galliard
take the floor and speak, leans back in the wire chair and works on
rolling the sleeves of her shirt back down to her wrists once more.
Sitting still against the cool metal chairs reminded her of the true
temperature and had her wanting less skin bared to the chill springtime
air.
But, for how well she's listening and hearing and nodding
along where it's appropriate, Lola's still watching Tamsin with a look
to her that suggests she's noticed something. Like when you see
somebody hiding in an alleyway and don't know yet whether you should
blow their cover to the cop looking determinedly about on the corner
nearby.
When she's finished, Lola huffed and popped another pumpkin seed in her mouth.
Then she asks, pointedly: "Are you gonna
try and tell Hector to be anyplace but here when the baby comes?" A
pause, a beat, and then she furrows her brow and presses the matter just
one step further, as though reaching out and drawing a definitive line
in the dirt to mark her stance: "You gonna tell me that I shouldn't let him be around?"
Lola shook her head then and took another proper bite from the hunk of bread in her hand.
"I just ain't sold on what some midwife Kinswoman's gonna be doin' for me that I'm not gonna be able to do for myself."
Tamsin
Is
Tamsin going to tell Hector to be anyplace but here when the bay comes?
Is Tamsin going to tell Lola that she shouldn't let him be around?
"Yes," Tamsin says. Not angry, not agitated; just: Yes. Dear god, yes.
"And
um, I dunno. Probably nothing, really. I know lots of women who managed
to do it on their own -- well kind of their own. Well, you know Glen's
sister, yeah? Nora? Apparently when their mom had Nora, she was all on
her lonesome. Just excused herself from dinner, right? Because everybody
was at dinner. Then went upstairs and called a theurge to say: It's
time. By the time the theurge got there, she was soft-shoeing it down
the stairs, baby Nora in her arms. Nora told me this in contrast with
her own experience of course."
Tamsin smiles again, but it's a small little smile, like she's not yet to the point of grinning.
"I
guess what I'm saying is probably nothing, but it's good to have. Like
matches in case your electricity goes and it's an emergency or whatever.
You will probably just excuse yourself from dinner,
drop a cool note on the phone like b-dubs come on over but wait on the
porch and then you'd come out all cool as you please baby wrapped up in
its awesome hat that I made and a blanket."
"Speaking of dinner... You want me to cook something tonight? I kinda feel challenged on account of this bread."
Lola Hawkes
Two
years ago Lola would have fought Tamsin much harder on this, and any
other matter. She was confrontational in every circumstance, with a
chip on her shoulder and this idea that she had so much more to prove of
herself since she turned out to be a Kinfolk instead of True Born after
all. She would have gnashed teeth and gotten up in arms about how she
knew what she was doing and didn't need anyone telling her otherwise.
Now,
though, she did not bare teeth and go up in arms. Much had changed
over the course of two years. She'd lost her sister and watched her
Sept reel and twist under the assault of a Black Spiral pack for the
second time in recent history, as well as nearly lost her own life and
limb both in combat.
Maybe it was experience that tempered her.
Maybe she was just too tired to put up much of an argument. Whatever
the reason, Lola just eyeballed Tamsin from across the table for a few
long seconds before asking: "If I agree to at least consider the
option, can we lay the matter to rest? I've fought about this enough
last week already."
As for dinner: "If you want to cook tonight,
I'd be thankful to you for that. Hector shouldn't be gone for much
longer, so you can probably put him to work helping if you hold off on
starting for another hour or so."
Tamsin
Tamsin
nods. She flexes her hands again; can't help another look at them, like -
are you quivering? No; why do I feel that way? and that look bleeds
into the way she regards the garden for a moment, mossy eyes catching
here, and then there, and perhaps Tamsin is high. Her pupils are large
(she is not high).
"We don't need to discuss it any more tonight
or anything, yeah, totally," Tamsin says. "Um, I mean, I pretty much
said it all. I do support you wanting to do it on your own, you know?
Just like, blah blah, emergency back-up on the porch, blah blah blah."
"Um,"
cutting herself off from more blah blah blahs, more re-enacting of
their own conversation: "Awesome. I will cook the best thing I can um
think of to cook with what you've got and I think I might have like ...
beans. In my bag. Something. Fritos! I can make a frito casserole!" She
grins: it's a sharp, sizzle of a dark thing.
"Wanna hear a song
I've been working on? Or--like, well, if you need to work in the garden
some more I can play it from here, or ..."
As if Tamsin was suddenly conscious that she had indeed interrupted.
Lola Hawkes
"I'll think about it."
And
that's precisely where Lola lets the conversation end-- Tamsin wraps up
with summarizing what she's trying to say, and Lola simply expresses
once again that she will consider the option. She makes no promises,
but she didn't wind up gnashing teeth and spitting venom, so this could
be chalked up to a win.
"There's some deer steak and a few plucked
quail that I managed to catch in the fridge. You could cook them up
with your beans." Lola scuffed at her nose with the back of her wrist,
then rose from her chair. "The Fritos you and Hector can share after he
gets you to smoke a bowl with him." Her tone doesn't suggest that
she's mad at the idea-- she's simply assigning the Fritos a better place
to be than utilized in her kitchen.
The song, Lola would request
to hear while she worked on the garden. If Tamsin felt guilty enough
watching a pregnant woman do back-bending work alone, then Lola would
tell her exactly where she could find a second pair of gardening
gloves. It wouldn't be the first time Lola's talked her into working on
this project with her, after all.
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