RP:Here To Stay

Summary: After quite a long time apart, the two redheaded bards are finally reunited once more.

Sandy Beach, Cenril

Alvina trailed the Cenril coastline. Wind whipped through her loose, crimson curls as she looked out on the inky sea. The temperate night was giving way to chill. The trees further west surrendering their autumn leaves for bare, frost bitten branches. The bard was late coming home but not so late yet to have missed dinner with her daughters. This was a rare occurrence. The beach was no longer littered with bodies but she could still see it, in her mind's eye, the sinking of the S.S. Turnt. It hadn’t been far off from this very spot where survivors crawled out of the blood stained waters to watch the bodies of their friends and neighbors was ashore beside them. Her emerald eyes are dull, focused ahead but on no particular point. Her expression was contemplative and bare.

Khitti had taken to wandering too, much like Alvina had. Dinner had already been made on her end and Brand was tending to his nightly captain duties with Onyx, the first mate. A pale peach lace dress, knee-length and sleeveless like all the dresses Khitti wore, hugged her body, especially a little in the middle; a long cardigan, pale but thick leggings, and boots completed the look. The two-month pregnant female had gained a decent amount of weight since her return, though she wouldn’t have needed this pregnancy for that to happen--not with all those sweets she eats. Wrapping the cardigan around herself carefully, booted feet brought Khitti to the shoreline, and found themselves soon planted in the surf as olive eyes stared out towards the sea. Her own stare was pensive as well, and her attention would occasionally drift towards where the Tranquility was docked. “What exactly am I supposed to do here? Did you bring me back for a reason…? Or just because you felt sorry for me?” The redhead spoke to no one it seemed, but still she did anyway. “I -need- help. -Your- help. -They’re- help. Brand and I can’t fight on our own.”

The Engineer was further up the beach still. Khitti was lost in darkness, the passing lantern light glancing off her peach dress. The brightest point on the beach. Alvina could neither hear her questions or see the facial features of the woman further ahead of her. She felt a strange guilt for being caught out here with a like minded soul. She’d have to pass the stranger to head home. Did she lose someone too? During that night or to a ship long gone to the sea? The quiet crunch of sand beneath her white boots would herald her advance. Red hair was glimpse through the curtain of her own. The night was cruel. For a moment, she thought...but that was impossible. Meri had told her. Lionel had told her. Pilar too. Still, she felt a tug towards her. As if they might be feeling the same thing. Some profound sense of directionless confusion or loss. If she was still speaking, she might catch her words or voice on the wind and pause. If the woman turned in Alvina’s direction, she’d offer a polite and distant thin lipped smile.

Just like every other night since she’d decided to ask Arkhen, Loda, and Cyris for help, Khitti’d gotten nothing in response. Maybe Brand was right. Maybe they weren’t paying attention. And even if they were, why would they listen to her? Arkhen was forgiving, but… she’d done so many bad things before her fall. Perhaps no amount of goodness could help her now. The surf ebbed back into the ocean and the sound of boots crunching in the sand gave way to Khitti’s ears. There was hesitance and the urge to return to the ship, but Khitti did not. Instead, she pulled the long red locks from her face, bringing it around to her shoulder to keep the wind from whipping it about, and looked towards the newcomer. Except, it wasn’t a newcomer--it was a face she hadn’t seen in some time. The hesitation remained, but it soon shifted into a faint smile, “Alvina.”

Alvina was offering the woman that polite smile she intended until the stranger turned to cast her face in the starlight and uttered her name. Her expression fell, boldly dropping all formal barriers and pleasantries. A ghost? “Khitti?” The corner of her eyes pinched in disbelief. She waited a moment, torn between believing what could be a trick. Hadn’t she just been thinking about her? Did she care? What if this was a trap? One of Kahran’s lures or lies? She’d heard of devious methods in the instance of all villains. The bard had fallen into a trap or two in her time. Her dull emerald eyes examined Khitti’s form; dress, boots, cardigan. There had to be a test she could offer, in case this was an illusion. Would it be able to answer her if it was spun from her memories? Her expression remains vulnerable, wanting to believe. Please, gods. Let it be real. “There’s this thing my sister and I do when we both had a secret we didn’t want to share, but knew it would come out eventually.” She offered, hoping Khitti might finish the sentiment that marked their first meeting. It takes all the strength and logic in her swirling mind not to throw her arms around the figure on the beach before her. Her hands twitched anxiously at her side.

Khitti watched the shifting expressions on the other redhead’s face after she’d uttered Alvina’s name. Her own smile fell too. Khitti knew that expression for she’d seen it on Brand the day he found her. Lionel and Meri had been good about hiding it, but they had been warned about it in advance. Alvina’s test was laid out for Khitti, one bard giving the other what might seem like a riddle to anyone else, but Khitti only smiled again, albeit a bit sadly. “On three, we said it at the exact same time.” Those out of control hormones of hers demanded tears, but she bit them back. The now-human woman didn’t move from her spot, as if worried that it might scare Alvina off, despite the fact that she knew she’d passed that test.

Alvina didn’t hesitate after Khitti said the words. She stepped forward, bridging the distance with the desperate emotion etched into her features. She uttered the woman’s name again, a sigh of relief before her arms fell around Khitti’s shoulders to draw her close. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait until three.” She chokes, squeezing her body carefully against her. She’s real. She can feel her. It’s not an illusion. Khitti’s real. Alive. Standing right here. Alvina would gladly pretend she wasn’t going to cry but this all came out of the blue. There was no preparation for her. For either of them. And while the anger would come in time, for all those who didn’t tell her Khitti was alive, now she was awash in relief. “This feels like a dream…” She cries, into Khitti’s shoulder. “I love you so much and I’m so sorry.” Sorry she couldn’t save her. Sorry she didn’t trust that Khitti was real and had to test her. “I’ve had this dream a hundred times...where it wasn’t true. Where…” You were still alive. “How is this possible…”

Khitti allowed Alvina to hug her, and she even hugged her back for a short while until that question was posed and Khitti took a step back in order to breath and collect her thoughts, “The spell worked. But, first I died--that much you know, of course. I was even human, before the end. I’ve been here… for a couple months now. I’m surprised this is the first time we’ve run into each other, but I imagine you’ve been as busy as I have.” The happiness at being reunited with Alvina was there, but it soon faded again, “I had amnesia when I came back. Only just got it back after--” she gestured vaguely to where the SS Turnt had sank. “I was me, but I wasn’t, and I was being kept safe because no one knew if I was ever coming back, even though I was alive. If… that makes sense.”

Alvina lets Khitti draw away from her. It’s a lot to take in, even without knowing the circumstances that brought her back to these shores. The night the Turnt sank… “I almost swore I saw you that night...or someone who looked like you, for a moment.” But then, hadn’t she caught Khitti’s face in crowded places before? Places she’d not been? “Hudson’s been insistent about staying together since...I don’t get many opportunities to wander anymore.” It sounded like Khitti was in the same predicament. There’s a bittersweet realization that Khitti had been granted her wish. To be human, before it was over. “And now?” She asks, examining the woman again. She appeared human but she couldn’t really tell the difference in how her skin might shine in the light. “I begged Lionel for some glimpse of hope, Meri too…heh…” Her chuckle is mirthless and heavy. It wasn’t really about her, after all. She was just an outlier to the circumstance. “It does -truly. Sorry to get so emotional.” Some things were set in stone; Alvina’s emotional reactions was just something she’d always dealt with. Her bardic heart beat and bled with ease. “How...do you feel?” Was it confusion she was reading in her features? Uncertainty? Pain?

“I was there. It was an illusion made by Brand’s first mate. The lies, they were Brand’s idea, but it wasn’t meant to be malicious. He only told Lionel and Meri. No one else, besides the Tranquility’s crew anyway, but that was unavoidable. He just wanted me safe and by his side always. It… it really hit him hard. Perhaps harder than it did you, or Lionel, or Meri. Things have changed, for the better, even though my stupid worries creep up every now and then.” Khitti nodded in understanding to the way Hudson had been with Alvina, “That’s what they do, when they really care. They want you close by, even though they know they can’t protect you always. It’s what they do when they really love us, like Brand and Hudson does.” Khitti smiled again, a hand coming to Alvina’s cheek so she can feel the warmth that came with her human form, “I feel amazing--well, I’ll feel better once the morning sickness passes entirely.” She smirked, letting Alvina figure out that for herself before she continued, “But, I’ve traded one curse for another and I don’t know if the gods are listening to me anymore. If they even did at all, despite Arkhen’s help.”

Alvina listens. This talk of Brand wanting to protect her, the memory of their shared secret and Khitti’s confession so long ago. It had yielded a future for her. In more ways than one. Her eyes light with an untamperable joy. “That scoundrel,” She says, lovingly. “Oh Khitti...I’m so glad that he...that he feels the same.” The woman’s hand upon her cheek is greeted by her own. To press her warm skin to hers, to feel it truly just in case this was the last time. Every meeting might feel like the last until things stabilize in the realm. Her eyes then close, trying to preserve this moment, this feeling, forever. “I have a herbal drink that might help with the sickness.” She offers a beat later, reopening her eyes and letting her own hand fall away from Khitti’s. “Some days are better than others, it shouldn’t last the whole time. Damn it, I’m so happy…” This mention of the gods catches her strangely. It only made sense that they had to be involved but Alvina hadn’t see much work of the so called powers that be. They hadn’t brought any good. Only appeared indifferent. “Perhaps they know more than we do...and are waiting for the right time.” The two women could likely go on for hours, exchanging theories and events since their last meeting in the Landon Estate. The song Alvina had scribbled down before Khitti had vanished, talking about how she was cursed and not allowed to have any happiness. Yet here she stood. Warm, human, pregnant. Protected by the man she loves, surrounded by friends who would do the same. “I’ll come visit you? At the Tranquility? Would that be all right? I...don’t want to leave.” For fear the spell would break. “But Hudson’ll send out a search party if I delay much longer. Khitti I...really mean it. You know I love you like a sister and I...felt like a part of my heart left with you. All you have to do is say the word, and I’ll be there. No second thought, no hesitation. No matter what.” The bard steps forward on her tip toes, to press her lips against Khitt’s forehead. “Please...please be careful. I swear, don’t you run off on me or I’ll be so livid.” But her tone was anything but.

Khitti grinned and nodded at the mention of an herbal drink; it’d be one in a long line of many that Khitti’d been drinking lately. “You can come there any time you want, so long as we’re docked there, obviously. Brand -does- have all those mouths to keep fed, aside from my own anyway. We have many things to talk about, like my bakery that’s being built.” She took that kiss and snickered, “I’m not going anywhere. ‘Cept maybe to Rynvale or whatever when the cargo calls for it, or Vailkrin soon. But yeah, I’m not leaving. Not like before. Don’t plan on it.” The kiss was returned to Alvina, this one on the cheek, “Go on. If Hudson’s anything like Brand, it’ll be more than just a search party. He’ll have the whole Cenrili army and likely ones from other regions coming to look for you. I’ll see you soon.” Khitti’d wait ‘til Alvina was off and headed for home before she turned and wandered back to the ship herself.