Kiernan Manley (wingsofwyverns) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-08-24 11:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, kiernan manley, lavitz fon amell |
Who: Kiernan Manley and Lavitz fon Amell
What: Making sure Lav didn’t die at the ball
Where: A restaurant, Commoner’s District
When: Late afternoon
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Kiernan did not at all regret having missed the ball. Sure, the promise of beautiful women and free, delicious food was an impossible lure, but spending an entire evening with a bunch of people who had golden sticks up their asses negated all of that. Not that he hated nobles, mind, he just preferred to see them on equal footing wherever possible, and at such a “hoity-toity” event as Euphie would call it, even if he was masked, would not have been possible.
Besides, he liked plenty of nobles as individuals, and he was meeting one of them for dinner now, mostly to be sure that the man was still alive.
They’d agreed to meet before the dinner rush at a relatively cheap restaurant in the Commoners. Upon taking a glance around the room, Kiernan saw that he’d arrived first and asked for a table for two. The hostess showed him to a booth near a window and placed the menus on the table before sauntering off. Kiernan kept his eyes peeled for his friend, and he shot an arm in the air to wave him over as soon as he caught sight of him.
The ball. Or, as Lavitz considered all balls, a veritable hellhole looking to consume him and make him burn with even more dislike for those of noble blood. He supposed, in another life, if his family had been different, his view on nobles might have been less spiteful. But this was his reality, and outside of having himself killed or jumping ship to Ordalia, there was no escaping it. No matter how high Amarant took him in the sky, his problems would follow him to the ends of Ivalice.
His day had been eventful, moreso than Saturdays tended to be, but he still found the restaurant with ease. As he stepped into the establishment, he could literally envision his family shuddering over his decision to not only fraternize with those of lesser status (regardless of his twenty plus years friendship with Kiernan), but also go anywhere near such a restaurant in the Commoners District of all places.
Lavitz, frankly, could care less.
He slid into the booth with just a touch of difficulty (he wasn’t young anymore, after all, though he was far from elderly) and pressed his back into the cushion behind, sighing. “So I’m alive,” was all he could think to greet the other dragoon with.
Kiernan couldn’t help but to laugh at that greeting. “So you are!” he said. “Glad to see that your sister didn’t eat you for dinner after all! Guess it didn’t turn out to be all that bad?”
He picked up the menu and scanned his eyes over the selections when the waitress came for their drink orders. “Just water is fine, thanks,” he told her.
“Whatever you have on tap,” Lavitz informed the busty woman who’d come for their order, not bothering to make demands, of which he made few, in general. He knew their selection of alcohol wouldn’t be spectacular -- nothing against Kiernan’s taste or choices; this was his noble side speaking -- so no use in alarming the waitress with a complex drink order.
After she’d slipped away, he dropped his elbow onto the table, looking very much not like the noble he was. “Bad, no. But being required to dance with Eris? It was like dancing with a Hyena in a dress,” he revealed, wondering what sort of mental picture that would paint. She wasn’t an awful dancer, his sister-- it had just been astoundingly uncomfortable, as any prolonged physical contact with her made him want to crawl under the nearest table.
He sighed again.
Kiernan would have been lying if he said that he felt bad for laughing at his friend’s expense. The mental image of Lavitz dancing with a hyena wearing a dress was too much for him, and he was only relieved that he hadn’t been drinking anything at that moment.
“Yeah,” he said between chortles, “that sounds about right. Oh man, but I hope that was the worst part of your evening?”
That gave the other dragoon pause as he considered it. “Probably. Unless, for some reason, I mysteriously suffered more trauma and blocked it from my memory,” he suggested, and really, it was a viable option at this point. But no, dancing with Eris had truly been awful, the worst part of his night. Never again. As the waitress approached with the water and mug of ale, Lavitz raised his brows at the man across from him.
“And you wouldn’t be laughing if she was your sister, who I’m still convinced is a Coeurl in disguise.”
Kiernan shrugged and waved the waitress off; they still needed a couple more minutes to actually look at the menu. "Probably not. Fortunately for me, though, that's not my burden to bear." He winked with a chuckle as he unfolded the menu, his eyes immediately catching sight of something that sounded absolutely delicious. Of course, he'd never been too terribly picky when it came to food.
"But hey, think of it this way," he continued, "at least she didn't devour you mid-dance! Or suck out your soul! That's something, right?"
A sigh, as Lavitz took up his own menu. “I’m counting the minutes until she tries,” he muttered, ignoring his friend for a meager five seconds to decide on what he needed in his stomach. Food in any other place but the nobles district never took long to skim through, even though the menus were longer, and even though he knew, he knew the quality of eating was always considerably lower than the nobles district. But if he gave much of a shit, it didn’t show.
He pressed the menu down, already decided on something meaty and filling. No doubt his family would drag him to dinner at home, but the courses were often small, and if he had any chance of pissing them off, he’d need to eat more than necessary to spite them. Petulant child at heart? Nonsense.
“What happened with the scholar babysitting last week? Did you earn that hundred gil, and have you already spent it?”
"It didn't go too bad," said Kiernan with a shrug. "Got bit because the wolves were offended that I was toying with them, and one of the scholars hit me with a spell. It was just the tail end of it though, so it didn't hurt that bad. Lucy's fire is still worse." He chuckled. "As for that gil, well, some of it is getting spent now. Good thing prices are coming back down again. Maybe I can get at least three or four more meals out of it before I have to face the music of Dad's medical bills."
The waitress came back, and, ready to place their orders, Kiernan made his.
After firing off his own order, and the woman made her departure, Lavitz fell into a thoughtful silence. An offer for monetary aid was lingering at the back of his throat, waiting to be spoken, but he hesitated, uncertain. Kiernan wasn’t an excessively proud man, but like most (he assumed) accepting charity from anyone, even a friend, was difficult. Weakness of any sort was hard to confess, so rather than throwing a sum of gil in the other man’s lap as an act of kindness, he opted instead for:
“Next time we’re out, it’s coming out of my pocket--” He pointed at the other dragoon’s face. “And if you refuse, you’ll offend my overly delicate sensibilities, so we’re going to leave it at that.” Some other time, if Kiernan expressed additional difficulty with money, he’d think to offer again. Any anonymous donation from him would be obvious, probably, but he’d deal with that if and when it happened.
His inquiry came without pause. “How is he?”
"Well, I guess I can't say no to free food ever," said Kiernan. "Just so long as you don't make a habit of it."
Then, on the subject of his father, Kiernan took a sip of his water as he considered how to best answer the question. "He's not any worse, but he's not any better, either. When the bills are down, he's having a good week, but last week..." Kiernan shook his head. "No major scares yet, at least. I’m sure he'll be okay through the Harvest Festival."
I hope.
And then the hesitation slammed into Lavitz all over again, that need to offer something, anything to this friend of, Faram above, over twenty years. Fergus Manley had never been unkind to him, and there had been a time when he’d wished he’d been born a Manley himself, rather than an Amell. (Once in awhile, he still wished it.) His own father had never given him the time of day, and still refused to unless it was necessary, but the head of the Manley family had been kind and accepting, and above all, a good father to his children.
Now as the man lay dying, draining money from his last son through medical bills he could barely afford, Lavitz couldn’t help the guilt that swam inside. A part of him understood the issue of taking money from friends, particularly well-off ones, it did. But the other half had forever been lost in the incredulity. If he had the money, why couldn’t he give it away? Why wasn’t it socially acceptable, from both sides of the equation, to give money to those who needed it?
Because people were stubborn. Because people hated being pitied and looked down upon, and hated accepting help if they could help themselves. And because he was a noble, which meant his actions were always being scrutinized and judged and held against him.
Kiernan didn’t need to lose another loved one, not after his brothers and mother, and from the sound of it, Fergus would slip away in a matter of weeks-- maybe even less. Who would that leave Kiernan? The thought sent a pang of regret through the older Rider’s heart, and as expected, his appetite disappeared, along with all desire to speak just yet.
He traced a slow, invisible circle onto the table. I’m sorry wasn’t a suitable response. Neither was It’ll be alright, because it wasn’t going to be, and although they’d joked not ten minutes ago about him being devoured by his sister, the prospect of someone else he cared about being within death’s reach again--
Lavitz sucked in a deep breath, but his lungs felt two sizes too small. “He’s a tough man,” he admitted once he’d found the words.
Kiernan watched as Lavitz’s demeanor transformed. He frowned; he hadn’t meant to make the conversation melancholy. Truth be told, and he hated to say it, he was used to his father’s condition by now. He had his ups and his downs, and the bills often reflected it, but true to the nature of any Dragon Rider who made it to retirement, he always bounced back. The fear that he might die -- and soon -- nagged at Kiernan, but that was why he was more than happy to live in strangers’ beds or on friends’ couches to pay for his medical care.
Still, Lavitz knew Kiernan’s father, and after his fiancee and then Nowe and the handful of their comrades who had fallen in battle, death was as much a familiar face to Lavitz as it was to Kiernan, and the face was still and never would be a welcome one.
“Yeah,” he said, an easy grin coming back to his face, “he is. He really is. And stubborn, too. He’ll be fine.” A reassuring lie; the man was old and he’d been fighting this ailment for nearly two years now. “I’m going back home to see him tomorrow if you want me to pass along a message. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”
The lie was easy to pick up on, and Lavitz knew his friend’s intentions, but the smile still bothered him. So much death and he still wasn’t used to it, was still expecting those he cared for to drop dead at any given moment. Kiernan, who he’d considered his closest friend for a long time, before and after Nowe’s demise, was among the few he couldn’t, just could not see die, but it had always been his fault, his relationships with people that caused them to die without warning.
He didn’t know how to let people in anymore because of it, and frankly, it was better that way.
Passing over the forced optimism, he reached for the drink the waitress had dropped off. “Give him a hello and tell him the Riders are still working us like trained dogs.” Before a sip was taken, there was a brief pause. “Are you going alone?”
“Will do,” Kiernan promised, taking a sip from his own water. “And nah, Lucy’ll be with me. She’s the fastest way for me to get there.” There were no docks for airships and if he had to travel by chocobo like he used to, he’d only make the trip once or twice a year instead of once every couple of weeks; or, given his father’s illness, he’d have moved away from Emillion altogether to take care of him himself. “Though Dad is never opposed to more company. I think he’d rather I come home with a woman someday. You know, a woman who isn’t Lucy.”
Lavitz allowed his lips to pull into only a slight smile, his good mood not yet returned, as he set his drink down. “You mean he doesn’t want you with a scaly, winged woman who can breathe fire?” He couldn’t say his father wanted to same for him, especially not if he came home with her. It would need to be a noble match, something approved by them and everyone who mattered. Love didn’t matter when it came to nobility; it was only about power, procreation and sustaining the familial line.
But he’d given up looking for anyone his family would approve of decades ago.
The waitress returned with their food, and Kiernan thanked her before she left. His stomach grumbled as the scent wafted through his nose. “Oh, yes, I’ve been wanting this all day,” he said before digging his fork into the food.
After swallowing the first bite, he addressed Lavitz’s comment. “Honestly, Lucy is probably the only one who’d ever put up with me, and that’s saying something! And Dad knows it, too.” He shook his head. “Nah, he knows just as well as we do how our bonds with our dragons go. I just think he’s aching for grandkids or something.” It wasn’t something Kiernan liked thinking about himself. Not because he didn’t want kids, mind, and he did love them, but that he was the last one to carry on the family name in Valendia, well, it was a lot of pressure for a man bumping forty. If Torin was still alive…
“Or he just wants to make sure I’m ‘taken care of,’” he added with a chuckle. His father had no idea that he was homeless, and Kiernan was intent on keeping it that way. Even when he had an apartment though, his cooking had been simple and tasteless as was the style of most Rangers’ cooking in the Outlands, and the one time he tried to cook for his father, Fergus Manley had all but tossed the entire plate out the window.
Grandkids. The word left a sour taste in Lavitz’ throat, and he gratefully took up his fork to scoop up something that would take it away. What was ironic about his own situation was that his parents weren’t even aware they already had a grandchild walking around the city, nearly in her twenties. But no one, not even Kiernan, knew that, and it would stay that way until he was stupid enough to accidentally spill the news.
Before taking a bite, he spoke. “Alright, then how is this for being ‘taken care of’-- eat that, and then I might buy you a drink after.”
Kiernan’s grin turned into a smirk. “Don’t need to tell me twice, dear,” he joked as he continued digging into his dinner, happy to carry on the conversation into the rest of their meal and then, later, a nearby bar for a drink or two before parting for the night.