Ways To Grow
Location: An Infirmary in Tillek
Time: Turn 191
Players: Ashwin and Aramia
Scene: Mother and son have a talk after Ashwin's hazing (which can be found here).
The infirmary is quiet, although busy enough. Healers make their way from bed to bed, checking patients and charts, small first aid jobs are completed in corners, and talk is kept to a low murmur. Ashwin has earned himself a bed with a curtain, and he's paler than ever, treading that line between sleeping and a more unnatural unconsciousness, just now. It's the afternoon after he was admitted, and he hasn't moved since he was settled in his bed, although there was a certain amount of groaning when the healers initially treated him, if nothing coherent. Suddenly, though, there's a catch in his breath, and a soft hiss as he tries to open his eyes. It hurts, apparently.
Behind the curtain, beside the bed, is a chair. In it sits Aramia, arms resting on the armrests, fingers tapping out a silent cadence that has been going on for hours. Since she heard. Since she came. Her eyes are, and have been, on the boy in the bed. Her face, usually so keen on letting others know what she's feeling is, for the moment, impassive. When her son shows signs of waking life, the only indication that Aramia notices such is the stilling of her fingers.
His lashes flutter, and with the quiet determination that's already his at fifteen, he has a go at easing his eyes open once more. He's more careful this time, squinting until he adjusts to that little light, then easing them open a little more, and a little more again. This effort takes nearly a minute, but eventually he's examining his surroundings, movements very careful indeed. It's a little longer before he turns his head - rolling his gaze sideways is out of the question - to observe his mother. He does so, and stills.
She waits. Ashwin is given the time he needs to settle into the waking world and get his bearings. When his gaze finds Aramia, there is another long silence. Green eyes meet blue, slip away to scan the length of his body, marking each injury present. Not as if their presence are new discoveries, but as if they are old and familiar things. Well known. She could map out his bruises with her eyes closed, but she's pointing them each out. Until her gaze moves up to the bandage around his forehead and then, again, down to his eyes. "Thirsty?"
He's silent throughout the wordless tour she makes of his injuries, breathing in carefully through his nose, his features twitching slightly as bruised ribs register as a new hurt. His breathing thereafter is shallow. He begins to nod a response to her question, and cuts the movement short. Instead, he settles for a croak of a reply. "Yes."
She's moving now. Standing and slipping out from behind the curtain to return moments later with a glass and a pitcher. The pitcher is set down and Aramia stands by Ashwin's bed, near his head, considering how best to do this. Two thirds of the full glass are poured back into the pitcher and the cup is now tipable enough that it can be lowered to his lips, and the water offered at a careful trickle.
He's not delighted with this, but he's also too wise to try and move on his own, so he simply closes his eyes and swallows, nudging the glass with his split lip to earn himself a quicker trickle. He takes the lot of it, although perhaps this isn't an inspired idea, for he grimaces as he settles back into his pillows. His eyes open more easily, this time, and fix on her. "So say it." The words are quiet, even. He's more possessed than a boy his age should be. He hasn't played the part of a boy for a long time.
"I'm working up to it. Don't sass." That Aramia says it, instead of just boxing one of his ears, suggests more than anything else, how truly injured she thinks him to be. The glass, now empty, is drawn away from his lips and lifted into his line of sight. "Any more?"
"No, thank you." He still remembers his manners around his mother. There's nothing in Ashwin's expression to give away his feelings on the situation, not even a twitch for a mother to read. He's still and silent, watching her, as though his silence will draw out her words quicker.
The cup is set down besides the pitcher and Aramia returns to her seat. Her hands, this time, stay in her lap. "Twelve stitches. The healer wasn't entirely sure you'd wake up at all," she informs her son as calmly as if she was stating what was for dinner. "Said if you did wake up, you might be addled." One eyebrow arches upwards delicately. "You addled?"
The silence draws out, presumably while Ashwin conducts an internal mental audit. After a time, his brows twitch, as a substitute for a headshake. "No more than before," he replies, voice still hoarse. He clears his throat, carefully.
There is no nod back. Only a careful study of her son's face, Aramia's expression still matching his own. He's giving her nothing. She gives it right back. "Wexton...fellow who heads up the lumber work. He's looking for a hand."
"He's got two of his own." Ashwin's reply comes quietly, but promptly. "Not having an argument about it." His eyes begin to close briefly, but they snap open again, as though shutting them might weaken his argument.
"Still a spot open at the shipyard," Aramia offers next. Ashwin hasn't been a guard for very long yet, after all.
Ashwin sniffs, eyes level on her face. "No." There's a whole world of stubborn right there in that answer.
"You're going back, then." It's not so much a question. More a confirmation of something Aramia's been suspecting.
Another sniff, and a squaring of his jaw. It'll be more impressive in turns to come, but he's been doing it since he was five or so. "Yes."
Still nothing, Aramia's gaze holding level despite that squaring of his jaw. She's been watching him do it ever since he was five, after all. "Those are the sorts of men you want teaching you how to grow up? The sort that'll do this to a fifteen-year-old boy? That the sort of man my son plans on becoming?"
"Do this to everyone who joins," Ashwin points out. "Rite of passage. They want to see what I'm made of." And now they know. Red stuff, and squishy bits. "They don't all do it. Don't try saying I will." There's something just a little distant in his eyes there, something shutting down.
"Get back here," There it is. The snap. The order. And when Aramia speaks, there's a bit more under her words. Something smoldering. "They don't do this to everyone. I see recruits come into the bar with bruises sometimes. Cuts or sore ribs. I don't see *this*, and I'm not keen on ever seeing it again."
She catches him by surprise, and it works. Ashwin's gaze snaps back to her, and he's engaged once more. "So I screwed it up." Stronger language than he usually uses around her, for all he grew up in a bar full of much, much worse. "You won't see it again."
"*You* didn't screw up anything. *You* didn't fling yourself against a weapons rack." Oh. Aramia has details. "I know you're not keen to walk away from a challenge, Ash, but this isn't a shelf you're fixing for Seyra, or one of your experiments at the bar. This is your life we're discussing. Why do you want it so bad?" It, presumably, being the guards, and not life in general.
"You don't know what I did," Ashwin returns steadily, eyes narrowing slightly. "Not going to walk away from something because it's hard. That's not what we do." He's echoing words spoken during the move from High Reaches to Tillek, just over two turns earlier. "Got to grow up somehow."
Aramia isn't a big fan of her own words being used against her. They're harder to rebut. Her lips twist down into a bit of a scowl. "There are plenty of other ways to grow up. What is it you did?"
Ashwin scowls, and he's already as good at it now as he will be as an adult. "I stayed too quiet, didn't fight it." And that, he is now patently aware, was a mistake. And then, quite uncharacteristically, a barb for the woman he's usually so protective of. "Haven't got anyone around to show me another way to grow up, so I'll take this one."
It's Aramia's turn to register surprise, although on her it's a quieter thing. You can't be a woman and run a bar without occasionally getting shocked by something. But, you can't let them see that either, so all Ashwin will get is the slight widening of her eyes and the quick closing of her mouth. Aramia leans back into her chair, hands coming up to rest on the armrests again. "Stayed too quiet," is all she repeats. Her tone is neutral.
"Like I said, screwed it up. There's a way to do it, and that wasn't it." Ashwin's not going back for seconds, leaving that little spear lodged in her without displaying any urge to twist it. "This isn't a discussion." Finally, a hint of grace enters his tone. "Thank you for staying. I'm fine."
"You milk that bandage for all it's worth, with that backtalk of yours," Aramia notes dryly. "I'm keeping track." But, interestingly enough, the dismissal is accepted, and she pushes up into a stand after bending down to collect the pitcher and the water cup. She's halfway to turning from him, so Ashwin would be regarding her profile, when she speaks again. More softly this time. "Your father was a sailor long before I took up with him. It's nobody's fault things are as they are. We make do best we know how."
"Yes, Ma." Ashwin has backed off a notch, and he summons a tired, battered smile for her - one that's abruptly halted as his split lip stings. He manages a small nod in response to her words, his own voice soft, too. "I don't know how, but this is where I'm learning."
"Then that's going to be a thing between us." Also spoken softly, Aramia gives Ashwin the only warning she ever will about it. The rest will just be subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to get him out and on another path. "There's things to see to. You mind the healers and do as they say." She pushes the curtain aside with an elbow and slips away. Aramia won't see Ashwin again until he's on his feet and out of the infirmary, but in a couple days, when he can sit upright, one of the girls will be by daily with a packed dinner, still piping hot. It will be left to the guards, once he's back with them, to inform Ashwin of what his mother did about them and Captain Harley while her son was in the infirmary.
Time: Turn 191
Players: Ashwin and Aramia
Scene: Mother and son have a talk after Ashwin's hazing (which can be found here).
The infirmary is quiet, although busy enough. Healers make their way from bed to bed, checking patients and charts, small first aid jobs are completed in corners, and talk is kept to a low murmur. Ashwin has earned himself a bed with a curtain, and he's paler than ever, treading that line between sleeping and a more unnatural unconsciousness, just now. It's the afternoon after he was admitted, and he hasn't moved since he was settled in his bed, although there was a certain amount of groaning when the healers initially treated him, if nothing coherent. Suddenly, though, there's a catch in his breath, and a soft hiss as he tries to open his eyes. It hurts, apparently.
Behind the curtain, beside the bed, is a chair. In it sits Aramia, arms resting on the armrests, fingers tapping out a silent cadence that has been going on for hours. Since she heard. Since she came. Her eyes are, and have been, on the boy in the bed. Her face, usually so keen on letting others know what she's feeling is, for the moment, impassive. When her son shows signs of waking life, the only indication that Aramia notices such is the stilling of her fingers.
His lashes flutter, and with the quiet determination that's already his at fifteen, he has a go at easing his eyes open once more. He's more careful this time, squinting until he adjusts to that little light, then easing them open a little more, and a little more again. This effort takes nearly a minute, but eventually he's examining his surroundings, movements very careful indeed. It's a little longer before he turns his head - rolling his gaze sideways is out of the question - to observe his mother. He does so, and stills.
She waits. Ashwin is given the time he needs to settle into the waking world and get his bearings. When his gaze finds Aramia, there is another long silence. Green eyes meet blue, slip away to scan the length of his body, marking each injury present. Not as if their presence are new discoveries, but as if they are old and familiar things. Well known. She could map out his bruises with her eyes closed, but she's pointing them each out. Until her gaze moves up to the bandage around his forehead and then, again, down to his eyes. "Thirsty?"
He's silent throughout the wordless tour she makes of his injuries, breathing in carefully through his nose, his features twitching slightly as bruised ribs register as a new hurt. His breathing thereafter is shallow. He begins to nod a response to her question, and cuts the movement short. Instead, he settles for a croak of a reply. "Yes."
She's moving now. Standing and slipping out from behind the curtain to return moments later with a glass and a pitcher. The pitcher is set down and Aramia stands by Ashwin's bed, near his head, considering how best to do this. Two thirds of the full glass are poured back into the pitcher and the cup is now tipable enough that it can be lowered to his lips, and the water offered at a careful trickle.
He's not delighted with this, but he's also too wise to try and move on his own, so he simply closes his eyes and swallows, nudging the glass with his split lip to earn himself a quicker trickle. He takes the lot of it, although perhaps this isn't an inspired idea, for he grimaces as he settles back into his pillows. His eyes open more easily, this time, and fix on her. "So say it." The words are quiet, even. He's more possessed than a boy his age should be. He hasn't played the part of a boy for a long time.
"I'm working up to it. Don't sass." That Aramia says it, instead of just boxing one of his ears, suggests more than anything else, how truly injured she thinks him to be. The glass, now empty, is drawn away from his lips and lifted into his line of sight. "Any more?"
"No, thank you." He still remembers his manners around his mother. There's nothing in Ashwin's expression to give away his feelings on the situation, not even a twitch for a mother to read. He's still and silent, watching her, as though his silence will draw out her words quicker.
The cup is set down besides the pitcher and Aramia returns to her seat. Her hands, this time, stay in her lap. "Twelve stitches. The healer wasn't entirely sure you'd wake up at all," she informs her son as calmly as if she was stating what was for dinner. "Said if you did wake up, you might be addled." One eyebrow arches upwards delicately. "You addled?"
The silence draws out, presumably while Ashwin conducts an internal mental audit. After a time, his brows twitch, as a substitute for a headshake. "No more than before," he replies, voice still hoarse. He clears his throat, carefully.
There is no nod back. Only a careful study of her son's face, Aramia's expression still matching his own. He's giving her nothing. She gives it right back. "Wexton...fellow who heads up the lumber work. He's looking for a hand."
"He's got two of his own." Ashwin's reply comes quietly, but promptly. "Not having an argument about it." His eyes begin to close briefly, but they snap open again, as though shutting them might weaken his argument.
"Still a spot open at the shipyard," Aramia offers next. Ashwin hasn't been a guard for very long yet, after all.
Ashwin sniffs, eyes level on her face. "No." There's a whole world of stubborn right there in that answer.
"You're going back, then." It's not so much a question. More a confirmation of something Aramia's been suspecting.
Another sniff, and a squaring of his jaw. It'll be more impressive in turns to come, but he's been doing it since he was five or so. "Yes."
Still nothing, Aramia's gaze holding level despite that squaring of his jaw. She's been watching him do it ever since he was five, after all. "Those are the sorts of men you want teaching you how to grow up? The sort that'll do this to a fifteen-year-old boy? That the sort of man my son plans on becoming?"
"Do this to everyone who joins," Ashwin points out. "Rite of passage. They want to see what I'm made of." And now they know. Red stuff, and squishy bits. "They don't all do it. Don't try saying I will." There's something just a little distant in his eyes there, something shutting down.
"Get back here," There it is. The snap. The order. And when Aramia speaks, there's a bit more under her words. Something smoldering. "They don't do this to everyone. I see recruits come into the bar with bruises sometimes. Cuts or sore ribs. I don't see *this*, and I'm not keen on ever seeing it again."
She catches him by surprise, and it works. Ashwin's gaze snaps back to her, and he's engaged once more. "So I screwed it up." Stronger language than he usually uses around her, for all he grew up in a bar full of much, much worse. "You won't see it again."
"*You* didn't screw up anything. *You* didn't fling yourself against a weapons rack." Oh. Aramia has details. "I know you're not keen to walk away from a challenge, Ash, but this isn't a shelf you're fixing for Seyra, or one of your experiments at the bar. This is your life we're discussing. Why do you want it so bad?" It, presumably, being the guards, and not life in general.
"You don't know what I did," Ashwin returns steadily, eyes narrowing slightly. "Not going to walk away from something because it's hard. That's not what we do." He's echoing words spoken during the move from High Reaches to Tillek, just over two turns earlier. "Got to grow up somehow."
Aramia isn't a big fan of her own words being used against her. They're harder to rebut. Her lips twist down into a bit of a scowl. "There are plenty of other ways to grow up. What is it you did?"
Ashwin scowls, and he's already as good at it now as he will be as an adult. "I stayed too quiet, didn't fight it." And that, he is now patently aware, was a mistake. And then, quite uncharacteristically, a barb for the woman he's usually so protective of. "Haven't got anyone around to show me another way to grow up, so I'll take this one."
It's Aramia's turn to register surprise, although on her it's a quieter thing. You can't be a woman and run a bar without occasionally getting shocked by something. But, you can't let them see that either, so all Ashwin will get is the slight widening of her eyes and the quick closing of her mouth. Aramia leans back into her chair, hands coming up to rest on the armrests again. "Stayed too quiet," is all she repeats. Her tone is neutral.
"Like I said, screwed it up. There's a way to do it, and that wasn't it." Ashwin's not going back for seconds, leaving that little spear lodged in her without displaying any urge to twist it. "This isn't a discussion." Finally, a hint of grace enters his tone. "Thank you for staying. I'm fine."
"You milk that bandage for all it's worth, with that backtalk of yours," Aramia notes dryly. "I'm keeping track." But, interestingly enough, the dismissal is accepted, and she pushes up into a stand after bending down to collect the pitcher and the water cup. She's halfway to turning from him, so Ashwin would be regarding her profile, when she speaks again. More softly this time. "Your father was a sailor long before I took up with him. It's nobody's fault things are as they are. We make do best we know how."
"Yes, Ma." Ashwin has backed off a notch, and he summons a tired, battered smile for her - one that's abruptly halted as his split lip stings. He manages a small nod in response to her words, his own voice soft, too. "I don't know how, but this is where I'm learning."
"Then that's going to be a thing between us." Also spoken softly, Aramia gives Ashwin the only warning she ever will about it. The rest will just be subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to get him out and on another path. "There's things to see to. You mind the healers and do as they say." She pushes the curtain aside with an elbow and slips away. Aramia won't see Ashwin again until he's on his feet and out of the infirmary, but in a couple days, when he can sit upright, one of the girls will be by daily with a packed dinner, still piping hot. It will be left to the guards, once he's back with them, to inform Ashwin of what his mother did about them and Captain Harley while her son was in the infirmary.