[Deaths] two De'Aths & the Morrigan
Title: good morrow
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan, Julian De'Ath, Eduard De'ath
Prompt: 37B "quote"
Word Count: 517 605
Notes: follows breakfast and hellos
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She didn't see either of them again until late the following morning; though she'd left a basket of meal gleanings twice in the hall outside the map room, she hadn't bothered sticking her head in to join the conversation or remind them to eat. They'd eat, or they wouldn't--they were both De'Aths, a skipped meal wouldn't do much more than keep the local mouse population down.
She quite deliberately wandered out of the house in the evening, dressed to the nines and armed to the teeth, and spent most of the night dancing with a delegation of the local young bloods.
Came back wearing someone else's overcoat to hide the blood stains, and slipped in the back way to clean up before she went for her late-morning tea and pastries, having bought a pasty with someone else's change before she headed home.
So it wasn't early, that she stepped foot in the kitchen and found Julian slouched half-bonelessly over the kitchen table in a beam of late-morning light. She'd taken off another layer sometime between the moment and when the Morrigan had last seen her, wearing just a white undershirt with her braces still shoved off her shoulders to tangle at her hips, and her braid was pulling out.
She was using the fingers of one hand to prop her head up--the Morrigan found herself mentally composing a sepia photograph in her head and reminded herself again that hanging around artists was bad for the brain--and obviously hadn't slept the previous night.
The Morrigan firmly repressed the urge to snicker, and started the kettle for her own tea and yet another pot of coffee for them, extracting the back-up carafe from the cupboard when it became obvious Eduard had wandered off with the usual one.
She paused, bent at the waist and feeling her hair trickle water down the side of her neck, when the carafe in question wandered past at eye height, attached to Eduard himself.
"Ah, that's where that went," she exclaimed cheerfully, and pounced at it, which earned her a bemused look but neither fighting nor startled dropping.
So either he'd slept last night, or he covered rather better than his niece did for the lack.
"Good morning to you, too," he told her as she rinsed out the carafe she'd claimed, still bemused.
She grinned up at him, because who needed sleep when you could get a fight and a charge out of it in the bargain?
Julian muttered something under her breath, and then let her head go and slumped forward more, propping her forehead against her forearms on the table.
Eduard paused, then leaned over the back of his niece's chair, one hand on the wooden cross-brace. "Are you quoting Thomas Malory?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said muffledly. "Now either give me a bed, a sword to fall on, or some more God-damned coffee."
He coughed a brief, startled laugh--one the Morrigan hadn't heard in a long, long time--then patted her shoulder a couple of times with the hand he wasn't leaning on. "The coffee's brewing, assuming the lady of the house hasn't decided to add to her tea still."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Morrigan repeated, though she just knew her tone was more caroling than resigned. "My tea is a quite simple process and requires no special parts. Unlike your coffee brewing process, which if I didn't have reason to know better I would assume was haunted."
Eduard De'Ath laughed again, this time longer, and the Morrigan preemptively declared it a good day in privacy of her head.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; the Morrigan, Julian De'Ath, Eduard De'ath
Prompt: 37B "quote"
Word Count: 517 605
Notes: follows breakfast and hellos
---------
She didn't see either of them again until late the following morning; though she'd left a basket of meal gleanings twice in the hall outside the map room, she hadn't bothered sticking her head in to join the conversation or remind them to eat. They'd eat, or they wouldn't--they were both De'Aths, a skipped meal wouldn't do much more than keep the local mouse population down.
She quite deliberately wandered out of the house in the evening, dressed to the nines and armed to the teeth, and spent most of the night dancing with a delegation of the local young bloods.
Came back wearing someone else's overcoat to hide the blood stains, and slipped in the back way to clean up before she went for her late-morning tea and pastries, having bought a pasty with someone else's change before she headed home.
So it wasn't early, that she stepped foot in the kitchen and found Julian slouched half-bonelessly over the kitchen table in a beam of late-morning light. She'd taken off another layer sometime between the moment and when the Morrigan had last seen her, wearing just a white undershirt with her braces still shoved off her shoulders to tangle at her hips, and her braid was pulling out.
She was using the fingers of one hand to prop her head up--the Morrigan found herself mentally composing a sepia photograph in her head and reminded herself again that hanging around artists was bad for the brain--and obviously hadn't slept the previous night.
The Morrigan firmly repressed the urge to snicker, and started the kettle for her own tea and yet another pot of coffee for them, extracting the back-up carafe from the cupboard when it became obvious Eduard had wandered off with the usual one.
She paused, bent at the waist and feeling her hair trickle water down the side of her neck, when the carafe in question wandered past at eye height, attached to Eduard himself.
"Ah, that's where that went," she exclaimed cheerfully, and pounced at it, which earned her a bemused look but neither fighting nor startled dropping.
So either he'd slept last night, or he covered rather better than his niece did for the lack.
"Good morning to you, too," he told her as she rinsed out the carafe she'd claimed, still bemused.
She grinned up at him, because who needed sleep when you could get a fight and a charge out of it in the bargain?
Julian muttered something under her breath, and then let her head go and slumped forward more, propping her forehead against her forearms on the table.
Eduard paused, then leaned over the back of his niece's chair, one hand on the wooden cross-brace. "Are you quoting Thomas Malory?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said muffledly. "Now either give me a bed, a sword to fall on, or some more God-damned coffee."
He coughed a brief, startled laugh--one the Morrigan hadn't heard in a long, long time--then patted her shoulder a couple of times with the hand he wasn't leaning on. "The coffee's brewing, assuming the lady of the house hasn't decided to add to her tea still."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Morrigan repeated, though she just knew her tone was more caroling than resigned. "My tea is a quite simple process and requires no special parts. Unlike your coffee brewing process, which if I didn't have reason to know better I would assume was haunted."
Eduard De'Ath laughed again, this time longer, and the Morrigan preemptively declared it a good day in privacy of her head.