oo3 ∞ i'm on your side when nobody is, 'cause nobody is [ location: the forest ]
Near where Solomon dozed off a few hours earlier, dappled with light coming through the thin gaps that still exist in the frame of what will be his home here, Ambrose stirs.
It would be more accurate to say that he tries not to stir, finding himself in something like peace and clinging determinedly to the dissipating sleep as a balm over his ( Read more... )
So there she is, standing among confused trees with a sack waiting for whatever this is going to be today. Because if the chatter is anything to go by something is wrong.
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The man who emerges - shirtless, his hair damp from the shower that he's had about three of so far just for the sheer joy of being clean - from the greenhouse's attached living space isn't expecting to see River. She probably isn't expecting to see him, either, his lean frame emaciated and a host of scars that couldn't have come overnight; over his heart, a crucifix that must have been burned in with steel. At least he'll be thoroughly unpalatable to the vampires bothered by Christ.
He cocks his head at River; she looks like she's supposed to be here, and he can feel how the fussy foliage reacts, even if he doesn't entirely understand it.
"Do you know me, girl?"
He is what's wrong.
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Leila follows him out of the greenhouse, in ballet flats and what approximates casual for her (red sweater, skirt), pausing when she sees River. Not for the first time recently, she feels thoroughly out of the loop, but Ambrose seems equally confused, and so she assumes this has something to do with Solomon.
She feels comfortable blaming him, harmlessly, for all sorts of things, at least while he's not there to argue with her. (Sort of, anyway.)
So. She'll wait and see how this plays out, saying nothing for now.
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"Yes," is her only answer to him as she turns back. "You're early."
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Ambrose thinks and she's late, but he doesn't say it. Instead, he regards River with a measuring gaze and concedes, "I might be, at that," as he wonders just where she got that answer from and so openly that a telepath wouldn't need to read his mind to see it on his face. (He may not be as open as he'll one day become, but the same clear-eyed sincerity is already bone-deep.)
"But I don't know you. Yet?" he poses it, glancing at Leila to see if- but no, she doesn't know any more than he does. Right now. These bedamned people and their secrets... (He is being unfair, he doesn't need told it.) "Tell me about it," he invites, gentler than Solomon's been with River. "I for one am lost."
In so many ways, yes.
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"He doesn't tell me as much as he pretends to, I'm beginning to think," she murmurs to Ambrose in response to that querying look, shrugging; Leila looks back to River, leaning in the greenhouse doorway with her arms folded over her chest.
"I don't think we've met, either- I'm Leila."
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"River," she says by way of introduction to them both. "Digging was the second option."
And here, she sets her sack of vampire defense necessities down, keeping a close eye on it as it hits the ground so she'll know just where it is.
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...the second option. Digging. A little girl turns up with a sack and an obedient air- Ambrose laughs despite himself, genuine despite the uneven edge in it. He's done this before, with a smaller girl who called him Papa when they had no company to hear it but her mother and brother.
(Katerine grew like a weed, like wild roses, and damn how he misses them.)
"I see how it is, Miss River. So be it, then, we'll dig. Best keep my affairs in order for my return." He pauses, and briefly dares Leila to disagree with him about throwing himself immediately into hard physical labour, or perhaps the bleak humoured reference to his own death and rebirth, before adding, "It'd help me no end if you could tell me to what I owe your servitude."
And what's in the sack, too, in a moment.
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"Not too much," Leila tells Ambrose, calmly accepting that dare, sliding past the black little remark about his own mortality. He's got a right to be dark about it, but she doesn't quite think he's got the right to overextend himself, and she suspects he'll use physical labor as a way to not think and therefore be at risk for pushing it to far.
"Do either of you want something to drink before you get started?"
Because she is not going to be joining them. She might be in flats, but they're patent leather.
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"Unlawful removal and possession of illegally obtained property," she says with the tone of reluctant guilt and pacing that indicates that she has either practiced saying this or has heard it many, many times. There's also a significant glance over to the roses while her roots slip out from the stitches in her worn boots. "I apologized."
But! Leila is becoming a fast favorite in this little ensemble.
"Tea?"
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"Tea," he agrees, absently, as he translates that into 'she stole my roses' and it all makes a little more sense. He ignores Leila's mild application of limits as she might've predicted, scratching his beard and considering, among other things, his own nature. "And the sack, Miss River?"
At River's age, Sanchari'd already borne Ambrose the daughter he briefly compared her to in his mind - still, it's Katerine that she makes him think of and not her mother. He thinks of her as a girl even if he thought of Sanchari as a woman (young, but a woman); this is a different place and a different time, and he can see the child River hasn't yet shaken off.
In contrast to how easily he adapts to a perfect stranger, he pulls against the red strings binding him to Leila; there is something tenuous and breaking in the way he holds himself apart, hard to define but somehow almost tangible without a name needed.
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Leila smiles, inclining her head, and turns back toward the small apartment attached to the greenhouse to make tea--she's absolutely certain Sol will have some. She thinks they can all fit in there okay, small as it is, but she'll let River and Ambrose decide if they're also coming inside at their own leisure, saying nothing of it- she imagines they have gardening-related specifics to discuss.
Maybe the work will be good for Ambrose, she considers--he needs something to think about that isn't what happened to him, and her level of worry for him is presently reasonably low, but it is constant.
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Glancing at River curiously (and a little wary, given the examination of his scars), Ambrose opens the sack and- laughs, quietly, rueful.
"She mentioned the vampire," he says, jerking his head back towards Leila and the greenhouse's apartment, "though not with any sort of detail. You're a good girl, Miss River."
On which note he puts the sack down in front of the greenhouse and, well, that must be why the spade and the hoe are out, to break up the soil and dig out the garden beds in front of and behind the new house as it grows in place.
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Where Leila found a tea service is irrelevant--hell, maybe she brought it there--but soon enough she emerges with trays. She likes Turkish tea best, so that's what she brings, balancing it carefully.
"Kuşburnu çayı," she tells them, smiling slightly, "rosehip tea. If that suits?"
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