Rowan on the Wing (rowanonthwing) wrote in downfallrpg, @ 2010-03-01 22:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2015-08-27, liah, liah and rowan, rowan |
Nightmares (At Last)
Who: Rowan, Liah, and Juniper (NPC)
Where: Their suite
When: Early morning, a few hours before dawn
Rowan had the bed to himself, but the door was open. The night before Juniper had started off with Liah, and snuck in with him at some point during the night, and he wanted to leave that option open for her. So far, she hadn't taken it. Rowan certainly hadn't woken up for it. Twelve stories high, and behind thickly-paned, sound-reducing windows, the night-noises hardly bothered him at all. Since coming here, he'd gotten the best sleep since... well, since it all happened. So at least the place had been good for something.
There was no way he wouldn't wake up when his little sister screamed, though. He woke with a start and sat up in bed, bringing blankets with him, since they were all tangled up with his wings. "Juny?" he asked into the dark room, but Juniper wasn't there.
In Liah's room, Juniper clung to the older girl's pajamas with all four arms, and her tail coiled around Liah's leg. She wasn't awake, but she was still screaming.
Liah had been sleeping very well herself before Juniper had started screaming. The bed was comfortable, the appalling outside noises could barely be heard from up here, and she'd found that sleeping with a cuddly little girl was much warmer than sleeping by herself. She felt safe here, with Rowan in this suite with her and Verity next door, and when all this had started, she'd never thought she'd feel safe again. As long as she didn't think about certain things too much, she was fine.
She was startled awake in the pre-dawn hours by shrill screams and four hands grabbing onto the huge t-shirt she wore to sleep in. The feeling of Juny's furry tail twined around her bare leg was odd, but she didn't have time to dwell on that under the circumstances. Liah blinked away sleep, her heart pounding faster as her sleep-fogged brain tried to tell her that maybe something horrible was wrong and that was why Juniper was screaming. "Juny?" she said, trying to push hair out of the child's eyes to see if they were open or shut. "What is it?"
She quickly realized that she wasn't going to get anywhere with that, because Juniper either didn't hear her or was ignoring her, and she raised her voice to call for Rowan, unsure if he'd hear her. Well, surely he'd notice the screaming coming from their room, right?
Rowan fell more than climbed out of bed, tripping on feathers and twisted sheets and some unholy amalgam of them both. "I'm coming! I'm coming." He was sure glad both doors, one their side and on Verity's side, were closed between the suites. He just hoped they had bedroom doors shut, too, because he really didn't want the whole damn hotel waking up from this, or something.
"Juny?" He pushed open Liah's door, staggering in and nearly tripping on a pinion again so that he staggered into the bed, instead of approaching it. The jolt seemed to do something, because Juniper went from screaming to a hiccough and then a sob.
Liah squinted at Rowan, trying to see him in the dimness. "She just started screaming," she told him, relieved that said screaming had stopped, although the child was still clinging to her. "I don't think she's even awake." It was occurring to her that it had to be a bad dream. It was possible that Liah wasn't too swift mentally when she was awakened unexpectedly at arse o'clock. Go figure. She used her wrist to muffle a yawn and then murmured to Juniper, "Rowan's here now." She didn't know if the girl could hear her or not, but it was worth a shot.
Sadly, Rowan wasn't really at his best right now, either. He crawled onto the bed, flaring his wings back up and out of the way, and came over to get his arms around Juniper, carefully detaching her from Liah, working mostly by feel. He didn't bother trying to unwind the tail, just the fists. "It's okay, it's okay.... It's me. S'Rowan. It's just a dream, Juny...."
She made another hiccoughing noise, then blinked her eyes open in the darkness, sniffling but no longer sobbing. "Rowan?"
Liah was quite relieved that Rowan was in here now, because she hadn't been entirely sure how to handle this. Just a child having a nightmare, yes... but then Liah hadn't had any practical experience with children at all before the past few days. She stretched her legs out-- carefully, so as not to yank at Juny's tail, which was still wrapped around one of them-- and pushed wild, disheveled blonde hair out of her face. Propping herself up on one elbow, she remained quiet as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She felt sure that Rowan would know what to say to comfort his sister a lot more than she would, and she'd just wait until he'd calmed the girl down to say anything.
"Yeah, yeah, it's me," Rowan said soothingly, gathering her up onto his lap. He tried to fold his wings around her, too, but Liah was kind of in the way, so Liah got the wings around her, instead, curled back around behind her head and shoulders. "It was just a dream, kiddo."
Juniper shuddered and curled up in his lap, though she kept her tail around Liah's leg, too, resting her head on his chest and clutching his hair-- since he was shirtless-- with three of the four hands. The fourth groped around for her stuffed rabbit. She wasn't crying anymore, it didn't seem like, but she was still shaking.
Liah shifted around a little to get more comfortable; she'd wondered at first if she should move, but she really didn't want to. She'd been sound asleep and she still felt groggy, and it was warm here beneath the covers, especially with the added warmth of Rowan's wings. She thought about how nice it had felt to have them around her when she'd hugged Rowan the other day. He'd felt pretty nice in general, actually. What the hell, Rainey? Get a grip. He's in here for the kid. Sometimes random musings surprised her, and this was one of those times. "You think she's okay?" she asked softly, not wanting to disturb Juny, who seemed to be getting more comfortable too, although she still looked upset.
"Yeah," Rowan answered, just as quietly, stroking his sister's hair and trying not to wince as her clinging pulled at his hair. "This's probably good... she ain't really cried or had nightmares or even talked about it." Juniper didn't seem to even notice they were talking, shuddering in his arms and still half-trapped by whatever she'd been dreaming. Rowan wasn't going to bug her about talking about it, though. Not in the middle of the night when he probably couldn't deal with it.
Liah could see that Juniper wasn't really listening to them, but she kept her voice as quiet as she could, anyway. "I don't blame her. For not wanting to talk about it." How much harder must it be for a child that age to try to make sense of things the adults couldn't even really process? Liah had always been a staunch realist, not one to try to avoid problems or situations, but all of this went way beyond what she could deal with. "Maybe this'll help a little. Kind of... get some of it out." She'd always heard that children were resilient, able to adjust their realities more quickly than adults could. She hoped so. She carefully fluffed the pillow that was beneath Rowan's wing, that was beneath her head, and curled up a little, now off of her elbow and lying on her side.
"Sure hope so," Rowan answered, looking down at Juniper, whose shaking was slowly starting to ease. Her eyes were shut, but her hands still clung tightly to his hair. At least she wasn't trying to hold onto his feathers. That might've been problematic. "Gotta get the dealing over with somehow, right?" He'd take nightmares over a lot of other methods of dealing. Like stopping talking, the way Jasper had, or turning into a little brat of a child.
"Yeah, I guess," Liah said, trying not to sound doubtful. What did she really know about kids? She'd always viewed them as almost another species, because the things they did could seem so alien, but being with Juniper and Jasper these past few days hadn't been bad at all. Well, of course, it wasn't like Jasper, especially, was any trouble since he never said a word; despite her lack of knowledge, she knew that couldn't be healthy. What would it be like to be completely responsible for another person like that? she wondered. If Jensen wasn't a monster, would he have felt responsible for her? That was a thought that made her start to feel sad, so she did her best not to think about it.
After a moment of silence, where Rowan stroked his sister's back and hair and didn't bother to say anymore, she actually relaxed into sleep without another word, her hands falling lose and her body getting that extra dead weight of a sleeping person. "She's out," he murmured to Liah with some relief. Though now he had to make the difficult decision of what to do with her, now. He couldn't stay up awake all night, sitting up with his wings kind of awkwardly propped open as they were... but he didn't want Liah to think he was intruding or trying to get away. He kind of wanted to just lay down right there, but he wasn't sure that'd go over well. Despite the fact that they'd done it before, that had been necessary, not convenience.
Liah, of course, had no idea of Rowan's mental dilemma. She was comfortable and beginning to ease her way back toward sleepiness after the shock of being jolted awake by screaming. For now, everything was all right, and hopefully Juny wouldn't have any more nightmares tonight. After a few moments of silence after Rowan told her that Juny was out, she asked, "You moving her to your bed, or staying here?" She thought there was more of a chance that Juniper would be disturbed by being carried to the next room, but if Rowan didn't want to sleep crammed in a bed with the two of them, she couldn't blame him for that, either. His wings took up a reasonable amount of room, as cool as they were.
"We'd all have to move, if I switched rooms," Rowan told her dryly, but before he could explain hee was caught in a yawn. "Ugh. Sorry. I mean, you're kinda laying on my wing." Of course, she'd have to move if he stayeed, too, since the wing would need to resituate. But even half-asleep in the middle of the night, he couldn't pass up the joke, so he grinned at her in the darkness and asked, "Trying to trap me here?"
"Your wing's comfortable," Liah said, completely unperturbed. "You're the one who put it under my head." Of course, there hadn't really been anywhere else for them to go, but that was beside the point. She gave him a sleepy little smirky-face when he asked if she was trying to trap him. "Yes, okay, you totally busted me. I gave Juny some drugs that'd make her have nightmares, just so you'd come in here and get in bed with us. Because I wanted to trap you in the sticky web of my obsession." Her lips twitched a little, but she didn't laugh as she gave him her best femme fatale look. "So why don't we see if we can manage a quickie before the kid wakes up?" Her tone was dry, but her eyes gleamed with merriment, and it was all she could do to keep from just cracking up.
Snorting a sleepy sort of laugh, Rowan put on a false whine, "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache." He did, however, start scooting over, bumping her head a little with his wing so she'd sit up and let him get situated. He was staying here tonight. He'd decided. Since she didn't seem adverse, and he didn't really want to move, it seemed like the thing to do.
"You always have an excuse, too," Liah complained, deliberately letting her lower lip form a pout. "I'm gonna find someone else to be obsessed with." She swatted at his feathers when he bumped her head, but the brush of her fingers was very light, and she shifted herself up so he could adjust himself however necessary. She never would have admitted it out loud, but she hadn't wanted him to leave. It wasn't that she necessarily felt unsafe here, particularly when they were in this suite... but it was just nice. "Hurry up," she said, "so I can cover back up."
"Bug me later, when I'm actually awake, and I'll get you plenty to ob--" Again the yawn interrupted him. "Obsess about," he finished once it'd finished, and he slid his wing more fully under her, scooting further up onto the bed and settling his sister between them. "And when there isn't a little monkey to worry 'bout waking up." He was joking, of course. Mostly. That little sliver of "not joking" was rather unexpected and a little disquieting, and not going to be acted on at all, thanks. He couldn't risk losing his best friend-- his remaining family, practically-- because he wouldn't mind hitting that. Bad, bad idea.
"You never had sex in your sleep? It's fun, you should try it." Liah had totally been joking, too. Mostly. So what if she might've had certain thoughts a time or two. Thinking about things wasn't against the law, right? She stuck her tongue out at him and settled back down, pulling the blankets up around her neck as she curled up on her side. A yawn emerged from her, too, and she muffled it with one hand, then shifted around until she was comfortable, rubbing at her eyes and then burrowing her face into the pillow. Her blonde bangs mostly obscured her eyes. Juny's body snuggled next to hers was warm, and she didn't think she'd have any trouble at all falling asleep again. She was, in fact, about halfway there already.
"Can't see how you could even know you had it to enjoy it," Rowan commented sleepily, hardly really paying attention to what he was saying anymore. "You'd be asleep." He got the covers over his lower half, and his wing over his upper half and Juniper, and he dropped his head down onto what had been Juniper's pillow. Now she was using his arm, so it was free. He had Juniper safe, and Liah within arm's reach, both under his wing and all behind locked doors, far removed from the last of the night-monsters. Everything was good. "Night, Liah."
"Mm-hmm," Liah agreed drowsily, not that cognizant of what she was saying, either. It didn't seem to matter. For just a little while, she could sleep and feel safe and forget that the world had gone to shit all around them. For a little while, she could pretend that nothing major had changed. "'Night," she whispered, her eyes closing all the way as she exhaled a soft sigh and then drifted off.