MOIRINE + IRA // 1+1=3
Who: Ira & Moirine
When: The night of October 27th.
Where: The Grounds.
Rating & Warnings: PG for language.
The Grounds after dark were full of shadows, of black and gold. Every lantern cast moving shadows, and Ira made sure he kept himself in the light of each as he walked down the narrow lane. The apothecary Cerys had specified was a small place, marked with a sign bearing three black cats. The real cats - of which there were seven, not three - hopped down from ledges and barrels to mew and weave between Ira's legs. He smiled, but only because he could see the shopkeeper waving at him through the window. Ira hated cats. If he hadn't been being watched, he would've kicked all seven away.
He drew three small wooden balls from his pocket; after rolling them in his palm for a few seconds, he started to juggle them. They were light, and he was practiced. He could see a little girl watching him out of the corner of his eye, and he looked at her, winked, and added a fourth. It was one way to pass time while Cerys dawdled...
She wasn't dawdling. It was difficult to slip the cancellari, especially when she was wearing a wig. If they caught her in it, they'd know what she was up to and that would be the last of these nightly excursions. But she had to make it out of the citadel tonight. Tonight wasn't a chance to have some drunken fun and forget about, forget about things. Tonight was when she learned whether or not the life she'd known was forfeit, or the last bit of Allen was...
Moirine had kept Ira waiting, but she didn't care. Would Cerys apologize, she wondered as she walked toward him, hands knitted in her apron. "Another talent," she murmured, then forced a smile.
He caught them one by one before he turned his head to look at her, eyebrows raising appraisingly. It really was strange... Why hadn't he ever seen her before? It wasn't as if he'd met everyone in Tyrol, no, but pretty girls were hard to hide. This was one of the prettiest he'd seen. Ira thumbed his nose and slipped the balls back into his pocket before he smirked and bowed.
"I'm full of 'em." He hopped to her side and held his elbow out for her to take. "You ready?"
Everything about him annoyed her. His cutesy attitude, his lack of feeling, even his, in her mind she struggled for a better adjective and failed, stupid face. Still, she needed Ira for the moment. Moirine glanced at his arm, then back to his eyes, something akin to disgust on her face. Why would she ever want to touch him? "Sure you are..."
Faltering, she fluttered her eyelashes and took a step back from Ira. "I'm ready. I'm also a lady with no honor left, so don't offer that arm to me." Moirine glanced from side to side nervously. "Which way?"
He grinned at the rejection. "A lady!" he repeated with mock awe. "Of what House? No-- don't answer. I'll guess."
The heels on his boots made walking over cobblestones an unstable adventure, but still Ira stepped around Cerys, over the legs of a drunk passed out against the wall, around a pile of crates being loaded onto a wagon, all as he spoke. He knew the way to the midwife's blindfolded; he'd helped girls get there before. "Sabreme, perhaps? For the way you attacked poor Gerry. Or Naevin? Prim, proper... Aronine, for your pretty face. Vaux, for the bastard in your belly?"
Moirine rolled her eyes as she followed after Ira, hoping that he would trip. The Grounds were a strange sight for her, despite having been born here. She'd started coming to the apothecary for her herbs instead of sending Sister Evie, sure that she wouldn't be recognized in an establishment where it was best for everyone to keep their heads down. But the rest of The Grounds, it was as foreign to her as France might haven been.
"I told you, I'm not prop-" She'd started out annoyed, but joking, then the word 'bastard' slipped out. It was a cold, hard fact that her child would be a bastard born of incest, born of celibate members of the Citadel, but she looked past that easily. The baby would be loved and would feel important, no matter where or how it was born. "Are you even taking me to a midwife? Because you obviously have no idea how to talk to a woman who might be pregnant."
"Sure have," Ira crooned, grin crooked. "Met plenty. And Mama Harren, we close enough to be mother and child." It was a gross exaggeration; he knew her well enough, but only because the woman was herself an informant and occasionally served the Whispers with news of who was carrying whose bastard. And Cerys, well... It was obvious she wasn't what she said she was. She'd be juicy information. That she might be pregnant looked to scare her, and she flinched whenever he said bastard. She was someone important or, at the very least, someone who wanted to be.
"So whose is it?" Ira asked as he hopped up onto low stone wall that ran outside a dark house marked only with a single red lantern. He held his arms out, wobbling dramatically with each step. "Said you were a... maid? Your boss stick it in you?"
Moirine tucked her hands into the pockets of her apron to hide the fact that they were making fists. Actually, she quite liked having pockets. This costume she'd thrown together was much more useful than anything she wore around the citadel. They passed a dog that must have been ill for all the mange it was covered in and, as hard as she was trying to not give anything away, she gasped and jumped back. The dog was too weak to attack her. It simply lifted its head and snuffled at her sudden reaction.
"No," she said too quickly. "My boss didn't do anything to me. And anyway," Moirine tried looking very cross, "It's none of your business."
Glancing up at the lantern, she quirked a brow. "Is this it?" Was that what a red lantern signified?
Ira stopped to half-turn, squinting with a smile at Moirine before he jerked a thumb at the building. "This?" Was she-- She was. She was absolutely serious. Poor performance, Ira thought as he bit at his lip, grinning. Even a prim maid would know what a building with a red lantern outside it meant. "That's a brothel," Ira laughed. "Do you know what a brothel is?"
He hopped off the ledge and began to walk backwards, gesturing widely as he spoke. "See, sometimes when a man gets reall lonely -- oh, well, you know this part. But sometimes he pays them. You should've gotten some insurance before you let him do it to you, girlie."
For a moment, she gaped at the building. Of course she'd passed by them before; she knew where Inanna's was. It was only the little red light she hadn't known about. Moirine tried to keep her face a mask, not show her embarrassment, her anger, her disgust. "I know what a brothel is, I just... don't have to go to them. Like some."
She walked faster now, trying to get away from Ira's condescending words. This was what her life would be like if the midwife told her she was pregnant. No one would treat her with any respect, they'd mock her for her naivety. Her jaw trembled as she clenched it, still marching forward in what she hoped was the right direction. In that moment, she really did hate Allen. He'd taken more from her than she had from him, and she'd been willing to stay with him forever.
Ira bit back a snicker and followed after her. Did she expect that was an insult? Every man in the city had visited a brothel at least once, whether or not he had to. If she really thought only the ugly, the desperate went there, she was more sheltered than he'd expected.
"Wrong way, girlie. Mama Harren be down here. That's the way to the pits - no place for you." He stood under a lamp near a narrow alley, one hand raised, finger crooking at her lazily. "She don't got all day."
Harren's house was marked by the twin lanterns, as Ira had said, but nothing else. He knocked on it twice and, when the door opened, was immediately engulfed by the tight embrace of a woman three times his size. Mama Harren was easily the width of the door, and when she released Ira she looked Cerys over clinically. "You're the one wants looking at?" Her voice lowered, and she said sidelong to Ira, almost sadly, "Pretty thing."
Her eye twitched when he told her she was going the wrong way. Moirine was tense beyond all belief and, it seemed, still an utter failure at everything she tried. Wringing her hands behind her back, she turned and followed after Ira.
When they reached the house, she felt as if she might be sick. Nerves, she told herself. Just nerves. "Just to be sure," she said to Mama, forcing her even tone. A smile was beyond Moirine at this point, but she didn't want to invite any criticism from this woman if she still had to deal with Ira.
As she crossed into the house, she turned to Ira and muttered, "You stay out there." The idea of him seeing her... indisposed made her want to retch harder. Through clenched teeth, she added, "Or I'll do to you what I did to Gerry."
"What about what you wanted to do to Gerry," Ira whispered back with a smirk, but Mama's thick hand shoved him off the doorstep and shut the door in his face. He rolled his eyes skyward and slouched back against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets.
Devout. Minor nobility. Carrying someone's bastard. Whoever Cerys was, if he was able to pinpoint it... Blackmail always brought a hefty profit. Ira watched the stars while he waited, red lips tilted up into a crooked smirk.
His parting shot didn't matter much as she walked out of Mama's house. She held her stomach, her head down. The midwife had been stern but sweet, something like Aribella. Moirine hadn't minded paying her more than what she'd asked for at all. "Thank you," she said quietly to the woman who'd sealed her fate.
A line on her belly and a few prods from an old woman's fingers was all it took. What was she going to do? Moirine's mind raced as she ran through all the other ways she'd tried to escape. Avith had returned to the Citadel. Allen was gone. Mari and her form-shifting potion... that would kill the baby, wouldn't it? Ira... no.
Moirine looked at him when she was like to cry if she kept trying to think of a solution. "If you walk me to the fountain in the town square, I can make it back to my lord's house on my own," she murmured.
He didn't need to ask what she'd been told. Her expression was enough. Ira ran his tongue over his teeth, considering, then shrugged. "Sure."
The walk back to the square was straightforward; near every street in the city led to the square if you walked long enough. No one bothered them. He met the curious stares of a few Whispers along the way, always responding with a smirk and a shrug. Who knew who she was? Not him - but he'd find out.
"Here we are, girlie," he said when they reached the fountain. He wheeled on his heel to face her, black eyes narrowed in a playful smile. "Didn't Ira tell you he'd treat you right?" He tapped a finger to his cheek. "Pay up. One, right here, and I'll tell you a little secret, too."
It was a relief to walk in silence. She didn't notice any of the people who noticed her, so preoccupied was she with the news. Her stomach didn't feel any bigger, Moirine thought as she kept holding it. What could a line prove? Perhaps the woman was wrong. She'd take precautions, of course, but she couldn't run before... before others started to notice.
At the fountain, she pursed her lips at Ira's little show. "A slap?" she asked, patting his cheek in the same spot. "You were paying me. And I don't care about your secrets."
He rolled his lower lip out in a mock pout. "Oh, girlie, I think you do." He leaned up to her ear, one hand held up between them as he whispered conspiratorially, grin glinting, "One, plus one, equals three."
A few hops over the cobblestones and he was away from her, waving and bowing with as much flourish as if he'd finished a full act. "Au revoir, Cerys!"
When: The night of October 27th.
Where: The Grounds.
Rating & Warnings: PG for language.
The Grounds after dark were full of shadows, of black and gold. Every lantern cast moving shadows, and Ira made sure he kept himself in the light of each as he walked down the narrow lane. The apothecary Cerys had specified was a small place, marked with a sign bearing three black cats. The real cats - of which there were seven, not three - hopped down from ledges and barrels to mew and weave between Ira's legs. He smiled, but only because he could see the shopkeeper waving at him through the window. Ira hated cats. If he hadn't been being watched, he would've kicked all seven away.
He drew three small wooden balls from his pocket; after rolling them in his palm for a few seconds, he started to juggle them. They were light, and he was practiced. He could see a little girl watching him out of the corner of his eye, and he looked at her, winked, and added a fourth. It was one way to pass time while Cerys dawdled...
She wasn't dawdling. It was difficult to slip the cancellari, especially when she was wearing a wig. If they caught her in it, they'd know what she was up to and that would be the last of these nightly excursions. But she had to make it out of the citadel tonight. Tonight wasn't a chance to have some drunken fun and forget about, forget about things. Tonight was when she learned whether or not the life she'd known was forfeit, or the last bit of Allen was...
Moirine had kept Ira waiting, but she didn't care. Would Cerys apologize, she wondered as she walked toward him, hands knitted in her apron. "Another talent," she murmured, then forced a smile.
He caught them one by one before he turned his head to look at her, eyebrows raising appraisingly. It really was strange... Why hadn't he ever seen her before? It wasn't as if he'd met everyone in Tyrol, no, but pretty girls were hard to hide. This was one of the prettiest he'd seen. Ira thumbed his nose and slipped the balls back into his pocket before he smirked and bowed.
"I'm full of 'em." He hopped to her side and held his elbow out for her to take. "You ready?"
Everything about him annoyed her. His cutesy attitude, his lack of feeling, even his, in her mind she struggled for a better adjective and failed, stupid face. Still, she needed Ira for the moment. Moirine glanced at his arm, then back to his eyes, something akin to disgust on her face. Why would she ever want to touch him? "Sure you are..."
Faltering, she fluttered her eyelashes and took a step back from Ira. "I'm ready. I'm also a lady with no honor left, so don't offer that arm to me." Moirine glanced from side to side nervously. "Which way?"
He grinned at the rejection. "A lady!" he repeated with mock awe. "Of what House? No-- don't answer. I'll guess."
The heels on his boots made walking over cobblestones an unstable adventure, but still Ira stepped around Cerys, over the legs of a drunk passed out against the wall, around a pile of crates being loaded onto a wagon, all as he spoke. He knew the way to the midwife's blindfolded; he'd helped girls get there before. "Sabreme, perhaps? For the way you attacked poor Gerry. Or Naevin? Prim, proper... Aronine, for your pretty face. Vaux, for the bastard in your belly?"
Moirine rolled her eyes as she followed after Ira, hoping that he would trip. The Grounds were a strange sight for her, despite having been born here. She'd started coming to the apothecary for her herbs instead of sending Sister Evie, sure that she wouldn't be recognized in an establishment where it was best for everyone to keep their heads down. But the rest of The Grounds, it was as foreign to her as France might haven been.
"I told you, I'm not prop-" She'd started out annoyed, but joking, then the word 'bastard' slipped out. It was a cold, hard fact that her child would be a bastard born of incest, born of celibate members of the Citadel, but she looked past that easily. The baby would be loved and would feel important, no matter where or how it was born. "Are you even taking me to a midwife? Because you obviously have no idea how to talk to a woman who might be pregnant."
"Sure have," Ira crooned, grin crooked. "Met plenty. And Mama Harren, we close enough to be mother and child." It was a gross exaggeration; he knew her well enough, but only because the woman was herself an informant and occasionally served the Whispers with news of who was carrying whose bastard. And Cerys, well... It was obvious she wasn't what she said she was. She'd be juicy information. That she might be pregnant looked to scare her, and she flinched whenever he said bastard. She was someone important or, at the very least, someone who wanted to be.
"So whose is it?" Ira asked as he hopped up onto low stone wall that ran outside a dark house marked only with a single red lantern. He held his arms out, wobbling dramatically with each step. "Said you were a... maid? Your boss stick it in you?"
Moirine tucked her hands into the pockets of her apron to hide the fact that they were making fists. Actually, she quite liked having pockets. This costume she'd thrown together was much more useful than anything she wore around the citadel. They passed a dog that must have been ill for all the mange it was covered in and, as hard as she was trying to not give anything away, she gasped and jumped back. The dog was too weak to attack her. It simply lifted its head and snuffled at her sudden reaction.
"No," she said too quickly. "My boss didn't do anything to me. And anyway," Moirine tried looking very cross, "It's none of your business."
Glancing up at the lantern, she quirked a brow. "Is this it?" Was that what a red lantern signified?
Ira stopped to half-turn, squinting with a smile at Moirine before he jerked a thumb at the building. "This?" Was she-- She was. She was absolutely serious. Poor performance, Ira thought as he bit at his lip, grinning. Even a prim maid would know what a building with a red lantern outside it meant. "That's a brothel," Ira laughed. "Do you know what a brothel is?"
He hopped off the ledge and began to walk backwards, gesturing widely as he spoke. "See, sometimes when a man gets reall lonely -- oh, well, you know this part. But sometimes he pays them. You should've gotten some insurance before you let him do it to you, girlie."
For a moment, she gaped at the building. Of course she'd passed by them before; she knew where Inanna's was. It was only the little red light she hadn't known about. Moirine tried to keep her face a mask, not show her embarrassment, her anger, her disgust. "I know what a brothel is, I just... don't have to go to them. Like some."
She walked faster now, trying to get away from Ira's condescending words. This was what her life would be like if the midwife told her she was pregnant. No one would treat her with any respect, they'd mock her for her naivety. Her jaw trembled as she clenched it, still marching forward in what she hoped was the right direction. In that moment, she really did hate Allen. He'd taken more from her than she had from him, and she'd been willing to stay with him forever.
Ira bit back a snicker and followed after her. Did she expect that was an insult? Every man in the city had visited a brothel at least once, whether or not he had to. If she really thought only the ugly, the desperate went there, she was more sheltered than he'd expected.
"Wrong way, girlie. Mama Harren be down here. That's the way to the pits - no place for you." He stood under a lamp near a narrow alley, one hand raised, finger crooking at her lazily. "She don't got all day."
Harren's house was marked by the twin lanterns, as Ira had said, but nothing else. He knocked on it twice and, when the door opened, was immediately engulfed by the tight embrace of a woman three times his size. Mama Harren was easily the width of the door, and when she released Ira she looked Cerys over clinically. "You're the one wants looking at?" Her voice lowered, and she said sidelong to Ira, almost sadly, "Pretty thing."
Her eye twitched when he told her she was going the wrong way. Moirine was tense beyond all belief and, it seemed, still an utter failure at everything she tried. Wringing her hands behind her back, she turned and followed after Ira.
When they reached the house, she felt as if she might be sick. Nerves, she told herself. Just nerves. "Just to be sure," she said to Mama, forcing her even tone. A smile was beyond Moirine at this point, but she didn't want to invite any criticism from this woman if she still had to deal with Ira.
As she crossed into the house, she turned to Ira and muttered, "You stay out there." The idea of him seeing her... indisposed made her want to retch harder. Through clenched teeth, she added, "Or I'll do to you what I did to Gerry."
"What about what you wanted to do to Gerry," Ira whispered back with a smirk, but Mama's thick hand shoved him off the doorstep and shut the door in his face. He rolled his eyes skyward and slouched back against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets.
Devout. Minor nobility. Carrying someone's bastard. Whoever Cerys was, if he was able to pinpoint it... Blackmail always brought a hefty profit. Ira watched the stars while he waited, red lips tilted up into a crooked smirk.
His parting shot didn't matter much as she walked out of Mama's house. She held her stomach, her head down. The midwife had been stern but sweet, something like Aribella. Moirine hadn't minded paying her more than what she'd asked for at all. "Thank you," she said quietly to the woman who'd sealed her fate.
A line on her belly and a few prods from an old woman's fingers was all it took. What was she going to do? Moirine's mind raced as she ran through all the other ways she'd tried to escape. Avith had returned to the Citadel. Allen was gone. Mari and her form-shifting potion... that would kill the baby, wouldn't it? Ira... no.
Moirine looked at him when she was like to cry if she kept trying to think of a solution. "If you walk me to the fountain in the town square, I can make it back to my lord's house on my own," she murmured.
He didn't need to ask what she'd been told. Her expression was enough. Ira ran his tongue over his teeth, considering, then shrugged. "Sure."
The walk back to the square was straightforward; near every street in the city led to the square if you walked long enough. No one bothered them. He met the curious stares of a few Whispers along the way, always responding with a smirk and a shrug. Who knew who she was? Not him - but he'd find out.
"Here we are, girlie," he said when they reached the fountain. He wheeled on his heel to face her, black eyes narrowed in a playful smile. "Didn't Ira tell you he'd treat you right?" He tapped a finger to his cheek. "Pay up. One, right here, and I'll tell you a little secret, too."
It was a relief to walk in silence. She didn't notice any of the people who noticed her, so preoccupied was she with the news. Her stomach didn't feel any bigger, Moirine thought as she kept holding it. What could a line prove? Perhaps the woman was wrong. She'd take precautions, of course, but she couldn't run before... before others started to notice.
At the fountain, she pursed her lips at Ira's little show. "A slap?" she asked, patting his cheek in the same spot. "You were paying me. And I don't care about your secrets."
He rolled his lower lip out in a mock pout. "Oh, girlie, I think you do." He leaned up to her ear, one hand held up between them as he whispered conspiratorially, grin glinting, "One, plus one, equals three."
A few hops over the cobblestones and he was away from her, waving and bowing with as much flourish as if he'd finished a full act. "Au revoir, Cerys!"