2018-07-02: Let's Play House

• Log: Let's Play House
• Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Kalve
• Where: Castle Rabenstein, Zulan Massif, and a quiet home in Guild Galad
• Date: July 2, 2018
• Summary: After a truly horrible few weeks, Ida takes some time to relax with a loved one. Ida and Kalve Everstead-Rey spend some quality family time with their young son, and anticipate the birth of their second child. All will be well.

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==============================<* Zulan Massif *>==============================

The Zulan Massif is the name given to a large area of tundra bordering the northern edge of the Meribus continent. Extending from the northern edge of the Goddess Plains to the mountain ranges, the Massif is a mix of pine forest, permafrost and finally snowfields populated by an assortment of hunters, trappers, and loggers who sell their goods to the rest of the continent.

According to local legend, the Massif owes its name to the leader of the region's first colonists, Irritable Stephen, whose description of the region as 'massive' was misspelled as a result of a bout with frostbite. The spelling was formally recognized by the Chief Cartographer of the Magic Guild of Vane; the decade-and-a-half of increasingly acrimonious correspondence between the two remains on display in the Guild library.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_p5wdBrXw

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Things have not been peaceful at Castle Rabenstein.

It's been a little over a week since the Trial Knight made their grand entrance, tearing a furrow into the rock and earth of the castle's courtyard, and knocking down several adjacent walls. The furrow has turned into a scar, roiling with Malevolence--to look at it is to feel deep, profound self-loathing and failure. The castle's architecture warped under the impact, twisting Ida's bedroom so it overlooked the courtyard instead of the scenic desolation outside the castle grounds. Needless to say, Ida warped it back to its normal configuration the first chance she got, but the courtyard appears to be beyond salvaging. It's late evening, now, and she's tucked beneath her bedsheets, clutching a small, reflective object in one hand. Kalve's arrival was the one bright spot in this otherwise awful week, and somehow, Ida worked up the nerve to ask him to come to bed with her, to just lie there and be close together.

Still, she didn't press the issue. She's aware her presence is difficult for some to endure.

Ida dreams.

The parlor is peaceful, quiet. Coolant coils ward off the heat outside, and their hum provides the melody to the rhythm of a ticking grandfather clock. Ida sits on the divan, reading a manuscript one of her colleagues sent her for proofreading. A red ink pen rests in her hand, darting in to make little, purposeful marks here and there. She's perhaps seven years older, dignified and elegant and healthy-looking. She wears a simple, elegant housedress, and beneath it, her belly is round and full--she's somewhere in the third trimester of her second pregnancy. Even beyond that, her figure looks different, more hourglass-shaped, more idealized. A small child, perhaps three years old, lies on the rug, playing with a set of metal soldiers and an articulated dragon doll. He has his father's stern-looking features, though he's taking to the mock battle of knights-and-demons with a pure, childlike glee.

Ida smiles down at her son, simply enjoying the moment.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve's arrival was fortuitous, because he got the impression that tensions were high after the Trial Knight's appearance. He's begun to get the idea that when emotions run high here, they never actually cool down. Malevolence is a force of contradiction and extremes, and 'extreme calm' is not one of the sides he can remember ever observing -- at least, not without it also hiding something terrible just beneath the surface.

Comfort, though, he can do. Kalve has been wondering how effective it really is, though. Lately, he's been rethinking a lot of things about his situation here on (*deep sigh*) the moon. He's been making some assumptions about it all, and...

...well, there's going to be work to do. They'll need his help. Ida does, too.

He sleeps. He awakens. He... steps into the parlor. Kalve stands just beyond the door, observing the scene. The whole place feels peaceful -- idyllic, if he had to pick a word for it. The small human makes him feel a strange warmth in his belly, and the once more changed Ida a distressing, disconcerting fluttering in his chest. He puts one hand to it, and the other scratches at his neck idly, picking at an itch that he can recall having bothered him all day. He feels short nails scrape against flesh without the resistance and rigidity of a hidden layer of living metal. One catches a tiny imperfection, a bump of some sort, painfully opening it.

Kalve looks down at his hand. Tiny droplets of red adorn his fingertip. Kalve sees his clothes, clean and comfortable and covered by the sort of rugged apron worn in a proper ARMs Meister's workshop, but he hardly recognizes them. The coloration alone roots him to the spot. Something is...

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Something shifts in Ida's belly, thumping against her flesh from the inside. She sets pen, paper, and drafting-board on the floor, puts both hands on her stomach, and takes another moment to just feel the baby kicking inside her, strong and healthy. A blissful smile dawns on her face. She opens her eyes at the sound of footsteps--her husband's. She knows them well. "I think that the baby may be growing tired of confinement," she says to Kalve, turning to him. One hand rests on her abdomen. Something moves beneath it.

Ida blinks as she notices the drop of red--with Kalve staring at it, it's impossible to miss. "Did you cut yourself working again?" she says.

"Grahhh!" says the child on the floor, engrossed in his little military drama. "You're dead! No I'm not! You hit my armor! I have an ARM, Demon! What? No!" He grips a pair of soldiers, one in each hand, while smacking them against each other. One is a stylized tin soldier, clearly human, while the other is bigger, hulking, menacing. A legendary Metal Demon.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve looks up. He sees something... moving... under the skin. He shuts his mouth, jaw tensing, fighting down an uneasy feeling at the sight. It isn't the shifting of muscle or mass, a side-effect of changing shapes; that he's used to. 'The baby,' though. It's... another entity? Another human, inside of her?

Pride wells up in him, too. It drags the unpleasant sensation down, stamping it beneath it. The imposition of this... whatever it is... and the role he's 'meant' to play keep him more firmly grounded than he otherwise would be. He clears his throat. "No, no, just -- I found a scab the unpleasant way." He smiles, letting his hand fall, brushing his side absently with the finger. The color is normal, for a human.

(For a human, he seethes, which you are not.)

Kalve settles down. He looks down at the battle in miniature. He smiles, making a quiet 'huhn' sound. Those weird feelings of warmth come back.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"Oh," Ida says, seeming to relax a little. "I'll have Ivy fetch the berries, if you need them." The bizarre motion continues. Ida doesn't seem the slightest bit bothered by it, at least at the moment. This isn't her first pregnancy, after all, and if anything, it's easier than it was when she was pregnant with William. She leans in close to her husband as he sits beside her, and drapes an arm across the part of his back where the Manipule Array usually lies. This close, the movements in Ida's belly seem to become much less subtle. She even grimaces a little as the entity inside her kicks her in the ribs--but it gives way to a knowing sort of smile. "It won't be long, now," Ida says. "Do you think it's going to be a little boy, or a little girl?" She's asked him this question, each time hoping for a little girl.

"Ahhhh--" says William, as he drops one of the Demon figurines to the floor, to join its brethren. Most of the human figurines are there, too, and evidently, he's also figured out how to pop their limbs out to add verisimilitude. (Ida makes a note to glue them in more securely, because while he's probably out of the stage where he explores with his mouth, one cannot be too careful.) "Thank you," William says, as he holds up the Dragon doll and the remaining human figure. "They were mean. Can we be friends now? Of course!" He puts the human figure atop the dragon, and makes it take flight, flying all the way over to the edge of the divan where his parents sit.

"I have a Dragon, Papa!" William says. "The Dragon wants to see the baby, but he can't, because the baby's not here yet!"

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

"It's fine." Kalve is seated. He feels Ida's hand settle around his back, and touch a point normally covered, with his intricate ARM affixed. It's gone, though. He tenses his back, flexing muscles that should be there, and are not. He exhales, carefully laying a hand on Ida's swollen stomach and smiling at her. "Mm... it's hard to say." He dances around the subject a little, as is fitting. "But if I had to wager, I would put it on a little girl. Definitely." His smile widens.

He looks down at the child -- his child? He can see the resemblance. The boy is like a mixture of the two of them, a blending of features rendered with immaturity and then scaled down. "You do, do you? Well, it will have to wait patiently to see, won't it?"

Kalve feels like he's being fed lines. He doesn't like it. This whole thing, this strange little slice of someone else's life -- he doesn't mind that so much. He could stay there. But he knows what happens to people who embrace that kind of bliss when there are things yet to be done.

He momentarily shuts his eyes. "Ida... love..." Kalve exhales. He looks tense, suddenly. "Is this... okay?"

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

William takes off, running across the room with the Dragon toy held above his head. Ida turns to her husband, and 'the baby' moves beneath his hand, kicking. "Kalve," she says. "I've told you. I'm well. The baby is well. The University granted me leave, and a stipend. Everything will be well."

Unless--

Recognition flickers in Ida's eyes. A hint of the Ida that Kalve knows seeps through--the Ida who feels as though she's been beaten down. "It's a dream," Ida says, her voice barely a whisper--as if speaking louder would puncture the delicate soap-bubble of idealized fiction around them. "We can awaken at any time. Isn't it lovely, though...?"

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve's eyes track back to William as he charges off to go make a Dragon fly. Kalve appreciates his energy. He finds his inherent weakness troubling. He finds his small size charming, and frustrating, and cute, and distasteful. He finds this whole scenario... wrong.

He wishes it wasn't, though.

The Ida he knows comes to the fore. Kalve drapes one arm -- warm, soft as a human's embrace should be, strong -- around her. It isn't the Array. It's... different. It's not bad, though, is it? "It is." His voice lowers to match hers. "It's peaceful. It's..." He sighs. "...false. But... maybe..." He settles down, tension bleeding off gradually. "...it's restful, isn't it? Comforting?" He doesn't want to take that away from her. He seeks a balance, a way to know where the line is for when they must return to harsh reality.

Doesn't Ida deserve a reprieve? Doesn't she deserve this? Kalve certainly thinks so... But it's the one thing he can never make her, so maybe it's something he can hold onto for her instead.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"It is," Ida says. She glances at William, at the child that feels like he's hers, even though she knows he's just another part of the dream. She glances down at her own belly, at the life growing within. That, too, feels real, even though Ida knows she and Kalve could never, ever have children like that. "I love you. I brought you here because I wanted you to know what I wished for us, even though it can't be real. A world where we are loved, and where everything makes sense, and where there exists such a thing as peace."

Ida leans in closer, plants a soft, gentle kiss on Kalve's cheek. "I love you. You mean so much to me. I want us to be together, as equals."

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Everything feels just slightly off. The real dischordant part is that he can feel both parts trying to be the real whole. The dreamlike 'him', superimposed over his real self in a manner that feels just like he's read it a thousand thousand times in a favorite book. A story he holds so near and dear to his heart that the chance to live it is almost overwhelmingly joyous a thing. It's a dream come true in the most literal sense.

But it's not his dream, is it?

Kalve closes his eyes. He struggles to keep himself calm. He feels a tension in his face, behind his eyes. He feels his chest tighten uncomfortably. His extremities are moving, very slightly, out of his control. This body is...

"We will be," he whispers, eyes ahead and voice tight. "There are so many barriers we must pass -- but we can do it. We will." He takes a breath, exhaling a touch more sharply than he means to. "But this... we can have this for awhile."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"Shh," Ida whispers. She runs her hand up and down Kalve's back, feeling the tension there. It's so strange--so unlike him--and yet, this is exactly what she wanted. "We can," Ida says. "We can have this, for a little while, and no one can take it away from us." She looks back at William, who has sat down on the other end of the parlor, and is making the Dragon and knight talk to each other. "I did that, when I was younger." But William gets to have a home free of the troubles that showed up every so often in Ida's childhood. He has a mother who isn't haunted by inner demons, and a father who isn't so concerned with face--

Ida shakes her head, dismissing the thought. "Would you like to read to our son?" she says.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

It's unlike him because it isn't really him, is it? It's the mysterious drifter that wandered into Ida's life, many moons ago. It's that reserved ARMs Meister from a foreign land, strangely uncertain but terribly intense. It's that martial artist, that fighter, who does what Ida always wanted to do herself, pursuing his ideals and his passions with equal strength and equal vigor.

It's that person that she loves, laid across a figure she wants that isn't quite him.

But he's trying.

"That would be nice," he manages, swallowing thickly. "I'd like that."