dragonwarder | (no subject)

[Well, that is not entirely surprising. Catra could be a little...well.]

Over?

[She won't make excuses for the girl. She knows her sort, and wouldn't be surprised to find that Catra had, in fact, goaded her into attacking. It is what she is expecting to hear, so there is no judgement in her tone.]

A lot of things.

[ rey holds out her reusable tin tray for daenerys to try some of her food. an offering. a way to buy time while she puts 'a lot of things' to words. rey is getting better with them, but she still doesn't like to place it, and the catra fight comes too close to her soft insides. ]

Catra always wants a fight with me. And she ... she saw something in one of my dreams that she didn't understand, and I found out she was lying to Adora. [ it's so complex. too complex to explain in a linear fashion that really makes sense. ] She's fine. Catra is.

Catra often wants a fight.

[She can understand. She is not always innocent in this regard. Though not nearly so much as Catra. But Daenerys accepts the offering and mirrors the gesture.]

And you? Are you "fine"?

[ she plucks a piece of food out of daenerys' basket. she doesn't eat it right away, which is the first sign something is off. ]

... No.

[ she chews it over then. they find a place to sit, one of the long half-walls that double as benches, with intermittent sculpted bulges designed to look like crown molding or architecture styling, but really just to prevent them from functioning as benches. ]

But it's nothing we haven't talked about before. [ better not to retreat old ground that she already knows daenerys is not in a position to support her in. rey isn't looking to her for that. she's here to make up for where she had failed, not to ask for more from daenerys. rey gestures to her wounds. ] I probably had this coming.

I'm afraid I am not much of a healer, and you are long past the stage where cauterization would be helpful.

[A mild jest, if only to take away from the weight so obviously sitting on Rey's shoulders. There was no sense in making the girl feel worse, after all.

"Nothing we haven't talked about before" indicates a subject that neither of them was likely to budge on, and so she is happy to leave it there.]

Yeah, I'm not much good with looking after these things, either. Bellamy offered to stitch me up, but I waited too long on that too. He said it's probably too late. Bound to scar.

[ at least for a little while. she crinkles her nose a little. that's alright. she's never been regarded for her beauty, anyway, and it's not like she's looking to score any hot dates. ]

Could be worse, I guess.

Come now. No great warrior was ever without their scars.

[It's why she doesn't have any -- or rather, why she didn't have any, prior to the two she had earned as a dragon. She is not nor had she ever been a warrior queen.]

That's true.

[ rey thinks about it. ]

And Luke Skywalker, he was missing a hand, so I got off easy when you think about it. [ she wriggles her right hand's fingers meaningfully, then uses them to grab herself some more food and shovel it into her face. ] Anyway. It's over and done with. I doubt Catra's going to come back for more this time, and I'm not looking to finish anything.

[She has some doubts about that. If Catra was really 'fine', she did not strike her as the sort to take such insult and set it aside. But she's not going to say as much.

Better to let Rey move on.]

How very noble.

[She means that. It is good to see that Rey is, in fact, able to let go of some of her anger toward other people. And Daenerys herself is not at all calling the kettle black. Not one bit.]

Edited 2020-07-09 05:23 (UTC)

I must not be telling it right, then.

[ she says it like it's a joke, but it's not. she feels immense guilt around the realities of what she'd done. but the development of her powers doesn't seem to be daenerys' business when she knows the issues causing them are ones that daenerys doesn't fully empathize with. ]

What about you?

[ she gestures to the bandage. ]

Me?

[It takes her a moment to process and follow her gesture. She turns the bandage over, meaninglessly. The profile of some of the scales underneath are easier to see when she does.]

Ah. I sought to retrieve Cassius from Johann. The facility was full of his pets. Not nearly as exciting, I'm afraid.

[Only because they had all encountered it before -- those monsters. Only now she knew who was responsible for them.]

More productive.

[ better directed. rey's rage used to be well-directed, she thought. well-managed, she thought. but now it seems to fill her up until she can't breathe. now it seems like all she has.

she sucks sauce and spices off her thumb. ]

There's something else, actually. It's not why I asked you to come. [ she heads that off at the pass. ] Kylo Ren came to my work. He brought stuff I'd left behind at the apartment. [ she swallows uncomfortably. ] If you want to be rid of it, I'll take it. I figured you'd have thrown it out.

[ or that kylo ren had. she underestimated the likelihood that he was just cuddling it for her scent like a needy dog. ]

I did not ask him to do that.

[She immediately feels the need to defend herself, which is perhaps too rash on her part -- but Rey had gotten similarly defensive in the past, and so she allows it for herself.

The rest clarifies a bit more. She'd been expecting to come back, she realizes -- and truthfully, Daenerys had expected her to return at some point. Now, it seems, such things are impossible.

But she finds herself having difficulty saying what she wants to say, knowing that it would force her to show her belly.]

I-- [False start. She tries again.] Why would I ever entertain discarding that which does not belong to me?

You were angry.

[ she says it simply, with total understanding. ]

And you had every right to be.

[ this alone would excuse it, she thinks. rey had planned to come back for it, after she left. when she was ready to come back, when she had found a way to be around the people she loved again without being a danger to them. then daenerys had been so upset, and then rey had moved to riku's, and now —

now kylo had used it as an excuse to show up at her work. ]

There isn't a lot of space at Riku's. Err, that's where I'm staying. But I can get it out of your way, if it's still around. Put it in storage or pawn it. I never meant to take up space.

[ never meant to leave memories behind that would hurt. ]

[Daenerys is silent for longer than is strictly acceptable or comfortable. It is obvious that she has trouble following Rey's logic. After all, she was a material person, in her own way. She was a queen, but a queen who had needed to earn every scrap of what she had.

Throwing Rey's things away like they were garbage -- it would have been an insult she never would have forgiven herself for. And it would have felt like severing whatever ties she ever had to the other woman.

She'd never wanted that.]

I kept your plants alive. They are your's.

[She says this again, as if that is all she is able to come back to. The core of what she means -- just thinking it leaves her too vulnerable to speak.

Was she angry? Of course. But she doesn't know what to do with the acknowledgement of it, now that she has it.]

[ the light catches rey's eyes as, blinking, she glances away. they're wet. because the plants were the first thing that was hers, and she recognizes there's no way for all of them to fit in riku's place. ]

I'll talk to Wei Wuxian about how many we can fit on the roof.

[ flora crowds it already. the answer likely won't be many. but it'll be more than none, and plants wouldn't survive in storage.

you'd be able to fit them in a place in new beijing, an errant thought suggests. she has avoided further thought about this possibility, but it weighs heavy on her now. ]

If it troubles you that I haven't disposed of your things--

[Daenerys' face screws up for a moment and she goes quiet again, taking a moment to process why this might be a problem for Rey. To demand all evidence removed would imply that she wants Rey out of her life -- which she had never said, nor implied. Quite the opposite.

Yet Rey was here acting as if reminders of her were a burden. Being frustrated that Kylo Ren was using them as an excuse to visit her, sure...but if she already told him off, then--]

I suppose I do not understand why it would. Just because I have been angry with you does not mean I desire you to disappear. Or that I would -- banish any reminder.

[It's so farfetched in her mind that she cannot take the tone out of her voice. She thinks there are some she might treat this way, but not Rey. Not Kylo Ren. No anyone who ever took the time to get close to her and show her loyalty.

Not unless they conspired behind her back to depose her, as Jorah once had.]

It doesn't. I'm not troubled, I'm ... grateful.

[ rey's parents had thrown her away like garbage. daenerys's cold attitude and her willingness to hear kylo ren's voice over hers had made rey believe that was possible for her, too. and things were just things. unwelcome reminders. ]

After what happened, I thought you would want to be rid of any reminder of me. I wouldn't have blamed you.

[For a few moments, she nibbles on her food while she considers what Rey is saying to her. After she swallows a mouthful, she tries again.]

For some things, I may have reacted in such a manner.

[For some things, she had.]

But your most heinous crime was refusing to trust my intentions. Hurtful, frustrating, but not something I would seek to banish your memory for.

[ she frowns. it's a little thing, never reaching past the corners of her mouth, the cast of her eyes. something about daenerys' assessment sits wrong. maybe because rey, too, had been hurt, and daenerys had taken rey's wounds on as her own. or maybe because it misunderstands what rey has repeatedly insisted was an attempt to spare others her presence.

but there's no point to arguing it now, is there? sharing her hurt will not win an empathy from daenerys, who sees no fault in kylo ren, and rey has already resolved to do better, to assume better of daenerys' friendship than this. ]

I know better now.

[ that's what she settles on. now she knows that daenerys would not want to be rid of her, necessarily. ]

[Daenerys' smile comes back easily when Rey provides that response. Now comfortable closing the small gap between them, she leans over and places a hand on the other woman's knee.]

I am glad.

[The matter of her belongings could wait. So long as Rey understands that she has a place in Daenerys' life if she wants it -- that is what matters.]

[ rey's heart swells, crowding out her doubts. this is all it had taken to be forgiven? it hadn't been so hard, hadn't cost her so much. ]

Thanks for coming out with me today.

Of course. We should make time to do so more often.

[Since...she assumes Rey is still not coming back to the apartment. But at least she understands a little better than she first had as to why she's chosen not to return.

It is not her business. But Kylo Ren had paid rent now, helped keep the house in order. It would be wrong to remove him, when he'd been nothing to loyal to her needs.]

Yeah? [ a smile spreads. ] I'd like that a lot.

[ she has kept herself occupied, but it is hard to ignore the gap in her life left by kylo ren and daenerys. time that she'd allotted for them lingers like a wound. perhaps if she and daenerys made a habit of sharing meals, it could heal both scars. ]