RP:Delivery; Home Bound
This is the final chapter of The Delivery. See the rest of the story here!
Frostmaw Northern Outpost
Alvina woke the next morning with a minor headache. Her hair was a ratty mess, thanks to Aria’s restless sleep in the unfamiliar place. The woman stretched her arms skyward or maybe ground level-ward as she thought about the night before. Hudson had been really kind to walk her to her room, only now did she wonder if she did or said something wrong. Of course, she wasn’t the type of girl to meet gentleman in taverns or head home with them in hopes of engaging further but…she’d seen quite a few men who preferred those women over girls like her. The soft spoken but excitable kind. The kind that fell in love instead of flouncing about with whoever the moment presented. We have a bad habit of playing friend and mother to all, she thought, sighing. But it really wouldn’t do to attempt a romance from nothing. The war raged on in her mind until she remembered that he’d kissed her cheek. Awake for less than an hour’s time and already the bard’s face is alight with blushing fire. Aria shifted in her hair, her soft black paws resting warmly on the bard’s forehead, making her laugh and dismiss her thoughts to hold the kitten close. Sadness came in a short but powerful wave. She thought about Linken, about their beautiful courtship, their engagement, their immorality, and all the promises of forever…and then the five bitter years of decreasing messages until all at once every trace of him seemed to vanish. Her wedding gown had been abandoned in the house they shared, having never been worn. Falling in love again, really, did not have any appeal…she lied to herself, another stone to build up that wall in an attempt to keep whatever she was feeling for Hudson friendly and light. Thoughtlessly, she touched her cheek, as if the warmth of his lips still lingered through the night. She couldn’t wallow anymore. Throwing herself out of bed, with caution for Aria’s sake, she began to deal with her hair and smooth out the wrinkles in her clothes, eager to get down to the dining hall and have a glass or two of water alongside a hearty breakfast. Certainly one more free meal wouldn’t break them? And if it did, she fixed her ribbons in place, then she could pay. Once in the hall, she found herself idling a moment in front of Hudson’s door, wondering if he was still asleep, if she should get him anything. Quickly, she shook her head and started down the hall, scolding herself. It was in the bard’s nature to be caring and giving but she couldn’t become too attached. That was how people got hurt.
Hudson has a dreamless sleep, and he wakes up early, at dawn, feeling a wee bit lightheaded and in want of water. Shuffling about, he procures some and drinks it in the privacy of his room, wondering about the sounds of footfalls in the corridor and unwilling to leave the warm consolation of his bedding. He, like anyone else who has been in the position of a sleepover of sorts, wonders if Alvina is up, and debates conducting a private investigation/creeping over to her door and trying to listen in, toward suggesting breakfast, or something. Deciding that this is too awkward to seriously contemplate, he pulls on his clothes and wanders about until he finds the bathing area of the Eyrie. The bath is much needed, both in terms of staving off the chill and in tempering the effects of his hangover. He is on his way back from the bath, dressed but toweling off his hair, when he nearly bumps into Alvina, evidently out and about for food. "Hey!" he greets her with an accusing grin. He opens the door to his room and tosses the towel inside, leaving his hair mildly wet. Hopefully it would not freeze... "How are you feeling? You were certainly down for the count last night! Have you eaten?"
Alvina was so lost in thought when Hudson appears, she was easily startled and immediately turns more red than even the bard could imagine. Her face lights up like kindling as she does her best to keep her eyes anywhere else; the floor, the back of his head, the towel in his hands. “H-hey!” she says, a little over exaggerated, coughing from embarrassment and wanting to lower her voice in a smoother transition. She appears to be acting the part of the cat caught in the cream. “Yeah, I was just thinking maybe food and water would be in order, you know, to settle my stomach. It’s always nerve racking…sleeping in different place. Especially for Aria. You should have seen what she did to my hair this morning! Heh…heh…” Her hands fidget with one another, flicking this way and that as she talked before daring to look at him. Gods, he was adorable with that wet hair. She coughed again and pointed to his damp locks, “Won’t, um, won’t that freeze here? Can you…use your alchemy to remove the water? And replace it with air instead?” Her palms rubbed against her cheeks as they finally started to fade and things felt a little more normal. If the woman wasn’t a pane of glass, things would be a lot easier to manage in the emotional department.
Hudson's grin slowly fades at Alvina's stilted reply to him. He begins to wonder if perhaps she regretted having drinks, and her sleepy, endearing state of drunkenness, and if things were to take a sharp turn toward the very professional now. It's not as if anything even happened! But what is all this furtive behavior, anyway? Had she perhaps not really gone to sleep right after they'd parted ways? He casts a curious look at her room. It didn't look like the scene of a late-night tryst. What's all this about her hair being messed up? The cat, right, a likely story. Well, none of this was any of his business. He recoups his good humor and offers her a consoling smile, one hand ruffling his hair as she makes mention of it. He sprays a little water in so doing, a little like a dog shaking itself out. Can't be helped, and he is shamelessly apologetic about it. "Whoops." A beat. "I suppose it might, but I'm feeling reckless today. Do you ah..." His gaze moves to her door, and he tries to delicately put his question: "...well you can catch up with me later if you'd prefer? But I was thinking about heading down now. No worries at all."
Alvina bit her lower lip, cursing herself. He wore the look of a man confused, and she certainly must have had the warmth of Frostmaw’s tallest snow capped peak until droplets of water fell on her cheek and she laughed earnestly, wiping it away with a better humor. “I was on my way just now too, it only makes sense to walk together!” Cheerfully, and in a fashion that did not seem out of the ordinary for her, she tucked her arm around his elbow so the pair could head to the hall together. Normally, touching someone didn’t seem out of the question, but her fingers pricked with warm sensations where she actually did touch him. Nothing would ever be resolved this way. “Wait a moment…” she said, pink in the face, halting beside him. “I…I really must confess something to you…” The bard turned her emerald optics towards the male with brilliant clarity. Her nervous caught in her throat and all confidence vanished. Her mind was a scattered mess of chaos until she drew her serious face back into a smile and said, “I have not had a chance to bathe, are you sure you’re all right accompanying me to eat?” Her metallic arm tugged the cloth away from chest, pretending to smell it and wincing back in mock disgust before smiling back up at him in convincing comfort. I’m going to die, she told herself simply, I’m going to die and he will never know.
Hudson makes an indistinct noise of surprise as Alvina tucks her arm in his and declares that they'll go together. "Right then," he says, his momentary confusion banished, and them on their way - that is, until Alvina stops him in his tracks and begins to make her 'confession.' He has no idea what to do with this new information. His bewilderment is borne out in his expression, a question in his brow. He looks at her, then, a small silence spilling out. He waits for her to say, "just kidding!" or something, but she doesn't. He has to laugh, briefly averting his gaze as he struggles to quell his amusement. It's not exactly nice to laugh at her, even if it hilarious that this is her concern. "Are you for real?" he asks her, once he's managed. "We're just getting breakfast. This is not an exercise that requires the utmost degree of sanitation, unless you're feeling gross and want to shower. I mean honestly, it's ... all good. I literally wouldn't have even noticed. You want to shower, you can shower. I'll eat, or wait for you, really Alvina." He sniffs the air in her general direction, his eyes rolling with mischief. "Anyway, you smell like girl to me."
Alvina finally broke down and started laughing. She couldn't hold her face any more. Laughter bubbles out over her lips and washes across the walls of the corridor with ease. "I'm sorry...I Just...ahahaha..." Still she holds onto his arm and appears to nearly double over with amusement at her joke. The I'm kidding Hudson was hoping for did come, but not without a moment's hesitation. The bard was sure this awkwardness would pass with a little bit of time. The alchemist was too much fun to let herself mull over the worries or problems she was having. Something in his eyes made her smile, and wasn't that enough? This revelation seems to fix whatever was broken in her, and Alvina shifted back to her normal cadence. "How are the baths?" She inquired as they started walking towards the meal hall. "I was really thinking about taking one...seeing as I don't have warm water in the house...and cold showers are getting rather dreary." Beaming, she tucked a loose curl behind her ear to catch a better glimpse at Hudson at her side. She lifted her other fleshed hand to rest atop her metallic digits, laced in the groove of his elbow. "What do girls smell like?" She wondered aloud. "You just smell like shaving lotion..." she sniffed the air around him, that previous aroma washed away in the bath this morning. "well, today you smell more like warm water and lilac." Giggling, Alvina yawned and took slow easy strides beside him. "Sorry for being so weird...I'm just really fond of you. I guess. I mean, you know." Laughing, she kept the pace and stopped once they reached the entrance to underneath her arm. "I wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea about us..." She whispered, remembering how she'd cuddled them in front of these very eyes the evening before. "I'm no call girl, you know." Her left eye dipped in a quick wink, accompanied by a smirk before she set a strong stride to a clear table towards the outside wall. A waitress came and took her order after telling her the specials and once Hudson had joined her, the waitress buzzed away to fill their orders. "Since we are work partners now, we should set another project...or maybe, just...hang out. You know, since we are friends too." She stuck her tongue out at him across the table, taking the water glass another server set in front of her and drawing from it like a dying man from the desert.
Hudson begins to laugh opposite Alvina as the joke becomes apparent, his gaze dancing along the corridor as amusement floats between the two of them. "They're perfectly nice!" says Huds, as his gaze slips sidelong toward Alvina at last for all her playfulness. He falls in step beside her as they evidently move toward the meal hall, she having clearly decided to bathe later. "Nothing quite like a hot bath," he chimes in as she muses beside him, tucked against him in her manner. He's getting desensitized to it; it no longer surprises him that he threads her arm through his, curling up against him like a cat while they walk. "Well that makes sense," he tells, catching her eye and, with his free arm, reaching to touch his newly shaven cheek. The mention of lilac causes his mouth to stir into distantly pensive smirk. "Girls smell like flower-scented soap generally, so I guess I smell like a girl today. I guess I'm OK with that." His gaze darts toward her, light with humor, as she laughs beside him. The morning had a certain pleasant cadence to it now, he reflects, as they pull up to the hall and Alvina unfurls herself from him. Her comment takes him a little off guard, and he simply gazes at her, bewildered, as she strides into the cafeteria and seats herself. He shakes his head a little, as if dispelling the strangeness of her remark, before following suit. He orders himself some oatmeal and a coffee, and without fanfare sits back to watch Alvina do battle with her hangover. "Well obviously we can hang out," he tells her, reaching for the pitcher of water to refill her glass in an effort to be useful. "I have my party, remember? I mean no pressure if you don't want to go. It might be a little loud and crazy."
Alvina drank a few more draws of her water before exhaling and inhaling a bit dramatically, watching Hudson refill her glass with a thankful ease."I don't think of it as smelling like a girl...to me it just smells...clean." The food she ordered arrived a few minutes later; bacon and fried potatoes, golden with butter and laced in fatty juices. Nothing cured a hang over better than grease and indulgence. The bard did her best to keep her courtly manners before starting on the food. Hudson's arrived with hers but seemed a better choice than what sat in front of her currently. "I'm sorry, if I've been a bit out of sorts..." she says, plucking a sliver of potato and tossing it into her mouth. The crisp savory flavor of bacon grease and smoked vegetable melded together in the most holy of experiences. "My head is a little fuzzy and I had some strange dreams." Her eyes settled on Hudson warmly. "I beg your patience and all will be well, you have my word." Smiling, she continued to eat a bit until he mentioned not coming to his party. Her smile drooped a little at the suggestion. "Do you think I'm not the sort to fit in at that kind of thing? I understand, if you would rather I didn't come around and embarrass you. It's your first place after all...it should be fun and full of mischief." She smiled, earnestly, but a thick syrup-like feeling settled in the back of her throat. Insecurity just flooded her system, the reservoir of water overtaking her senses. It was most likely due to lack of sleep on top of recovering from the night before. It was not her usual end to the evening. "I would really like to be there, though." She adds, licking a stray droplet of grease from her fingertips before flushing with mild embarrassment. "It would be really...nice, to meet your friends and see your place." She nodded, as if to add the explanation point of excitement to her soft words.
Hudson has a telltale chuckle or two as they seem to articulate an amusing difference between men and women. He says nothing further on the subject, lest he sharply dig himself into a hole, and rather sits back on his side of the table to make room for the food as it's laid out for them. However healthy his choice might have seemed, that assumption is promptly rebutted by the addition of several spoonfuls of brown sugar. His gaze dances with private amusement as Alvina begins to make excuses for her hangover, as if this were something he'd never encountered or experienced himself. "I expect I'll survive your hungover presence," he comments dryly, shoveling cooked oats into his mouth and chewing opposite her. He waits until he's swallowed that mouthful before tackling her question, posed with such a vulnerable earnestness. "Oh, Alvina, it's not that you're embarrassing!" he's quick to assert, pausing to hold her gaze as he scrapes more oatmeal out of his bowl. "It's more so that I fear you might find it a little on the... uncivilized side? The house is not much to look at, and that's putting it mildly. We invited a lot of people, you see, and, well, supplying alcohol isn't so difficult for me, as you know? And in terms of entertainment, I expect that it might be a little low brow, with folks acting a little drunk and disreputable?" He eats a spoonful of oats in the pause. "You know, beer pong and other drinking games along the male continuum of idiocy. You're of course welcome to come, though, assuming that this lad behavior doesn't put you off. It's open invitation, so come and go as you please."
Alvina laughed at the mention of her finding something unsavory, thankfully having finished her food in a mad rush to feel normalcy return to her state of mind and state of stomach. She regarded Hudson with a warm smile, “Maybe you're right...but I find the gathering too much to handle, I will let you know and take my leave. I'm not afraid.” Her playful smile continued as the waitress swept by the gather the empty dishes on the surrounding tables. It seemed like the pair had missed most of the morning rush, thankfully. A full room of noise might have been enough to end her pleasant state of mind. A content sigh fell from her lips; Alvina looked fondly around the hall before her eyes fell on Hudson in the midst of another silence. The more they happened, the more they were less and less strange. More of a comfortable “existing” along side someone. It was strangely satisfying. “If you'll give me a bit to pack and bathe, we can head home from here.” She paused, wondering if Aria was awake and ready to travel. Laughter spilled out of her suddenly. “We certainly have made the best of our time here, haven't we?”
Hudson offers Alvina a subdued grin of sorts, hoping that she is not in fact overwhelmed by his house party. He allows a silence to sink in around them as the waitress moves in and clears their table. He finds himself - likely due to the light hangover he's still in the process of shaking off - gazing, unblinking, in Alvina's direction, and when she breaks their silence, he looks down in his lap, suddenly aware of his inadvertent rudeness. "Spaced out there," he murmurs, shaking his head at himself as he lifts his gaze again to meet hers. "I think that sounds like a plan. I'm going to pack and take a nap, I think, if you don't mind. It's been great, but I'm totally tired." He waves off the remark he anticipates in response. "I know, napping in the morning, I know." He grins and pushes himself up from their table, waiting for her to rise to join him so that they can retrace their steps through the corridors. It's a little brisk, of course, and he's about ready to curl up under a coverlet. Presumably they part ways then, with Huds touching her on the elbow before moving into his room.
Alvina would smile, wishing that she too had the time to nap before going about the rest of the chores she would have to go through to get ready. "I'm actually a little jealous. I should have woken up earlier to join you, then we could nap full and relaxed from the baths." She'd stand, and take his elbow again, and they would walk quietly back through the halls to their temporary rooms. "Oh! There are lovely bath houses in Cenril. My favorite by far. We should visit them sometime." The idea didn't sound strange, she owned a bathing suit after all. The bard would beam as he touched her elbow before moving into her room to gather clothes for her bath. Once she was clean, she'd come back, pack her bags and fold her long, wet hair into an intricate braid, hoping it would dry along the way back. The sun was high when she came to rap her knuckles on Hudson's door again, waiting for a voice or permission to enter.
Hudson has a hard time not thinking about this proposed bath house visit when he's trying to nap. He rather shamelessly wonders if Alvina has a cute bikini. Probably not. She doesn't seem that kind of girl. One pieces all day, he bets. Anyway, eventually he manages to nap in his clothes, though it's a shallow sort of nap, and he wakes easily when Alvina knocks on his door. He stirs upright in his bed, as if expecting to receive a sudden audience. "Come in," he calls out hoarsely, bringing his legs over the bed and holding that posture while he waits out the last touches of sleep. He looks to his bags - readily packed - before turning his attention to the door to greet Alvina with a sheepish grin. He rubs one side of his hair in an attempt to push it back down, back into its pre-sleep position. "Ready?" he asks.
Alvina steps into the room shyly, nodding at his question. "Bags packed, Zi's all ready to go in the court yard, and Aria is...situated for the flight." Softly, her left palm taps her satchel, where the kitten wiggles around in protest to being disturbed. A small black paw escapes the confides of the bag and swat at the woman playfully. "It's a good thing we don't have to depend on -her- sleep schedule." Looking around the room, Alvina notices all of his things are bagged and ready, just like he'd said. She takes a step forward to smooth down the same bit of hair he's trying to tame, blushing when their hands touch. "It's a good look for you, that...just rolled out of bed, wandering minstrel look." Stepping back, she folds her hands against her dress in front of her. "It'll drive all the ladies in your new home stead crazy." She nods, as if her jest needed affirmation before opening his bedroom door to user him out. "To the wyvern!" she cries spiritedly.