lieutenant seivarden vendaai (vendaai) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-09-09 20:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, kell maresh, seivarden vendaai |
WHO: Seivarden Vendaai & Kell Maresh
WHAT: Seivarden's sad bc Oswin is gone and they get to talking about relationships.
WHEN: September 3rd, after this
WHERE: Athoek Station refectory
WARNINGS: I don't think there are any?
Seivarden knew full well that she didn’t have the best luck in the world. But no one from their world had turned up since she had gotten here, and the people she’d gotten closest to -- first Meetra and T3, and now Oswin -- had both disappeared.
She wasn’t blaming herself for it, but she still wasn’t happy about it. She had been missing Ekalu and Mercy of Kalr already, as well as her Amaats, and now she was missing Meetra, T3, and Oswin too. The list of people to miss was growing, and Seivarden’s emotional state was a tenuous thing. She needed to figure out how to deal with it before it became too much for her to handle. Medic wasn’t here to help if she fell too far.
Of course, what helped the most was that Breq was still here. But Seivarden was trying her hardest to lessen her dependence on Breq. It had helped to have other people around that she could talk to, especially Oswin. She had felt a real and genuine affection for Oswin, and had talked to her regularly, almost as much as she talked to Station.
As if on cue with her thoughts, Station spoke in her ear, asking if she was alright. She wasn’t surprised; her sadness would be quite evident even to someone who looked at her, because she was sitting at the table in the refectory, slumped over the table with her arms crossed on the table and her forehead resting on them. Her tea, next to her, was going cold.
“I’m alright, Station,” she murmured aloud, because at the moment that felt easier than twitching her fingers to send a silent reply. “Just sad. It’ll pass.”
After a moment, though, she added, “Thank you for checking on me.”
She hoped Station wasn’t going to bother Breq about it. But she didn’t ask Station not to tell, either.
--
Kell had also been heading into the refectory to get a cup of tea (amazing that with all the other glaring differences between his culture and Breq and Seivarden’s that somehow tea was universal).
He paused for a moment when he heard Seivarden speak though. He wasn’t sure, precisely, what to do, and strongly considered just walking away. It wasn’t any of his business and if someone else had found him saying something like that, he would have been livid if they had intruded.
But he was brought back to Rhy telling him that if he was sad, even if he didn’t know why, that allowed Rhy to comfort him. And the actuality of Breq helping him his first night here. So, he decided to take a risk. He figured, at the least, Seivarden would tell him to go away if she didn’t want to talk.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Kell asked, hovering in the doorway.
…
Station hadn’t warned her that anyone was coming, so Seivarden’s head jerked up in surprise. She relaxed slightly when it sank in that it was just Kell. She had heard his voice, but still wasn’t entirely used to having another person on the Station.
“No, it’s okay,” she said, waving him in and mustering a smile. “Did Station send you? She’s worrying about me.”
--
“Not that I’m aware of,” Kell said, returning the small smile. “I just came for a cup of tea.” He headed into the area, becoming aware that the reason he didn’t tend to do this was because he wasn’t good at it like Rhy. His brother usually was good at comforting other people -- or at the very least, a fight between Rhy and Kell did little damage to their relationship when Rhy failed. Kell didn’t know Seivarden that well.
“Do you want a fresh cup?” Kell asked, seeing the nearly cold bowl beside Seivarden.
…
“Well, there’s plenty of tea,” Seivarden said with a smile. “But we only have bowls and flasks.”
She still thought it was a little strange that in this world, tea was drunk from cups. The bowls were not enormously bigger than the cups, but she could still tell the difference in volume. She liked her full bowl of tea -- liked to have multiple, in fact. “Help yourself.”
--
“Figure of speech,” Kell answered amicably with a shrug. He knew full well that Seivarden and Breq took their tea in bowls, but that just didn’t roll off the tongue. Kell also still felt exceedingly clumsy trying to use a bowl, but he was learning.
He poured himself some and, in lieu of a real answer from Seivarden, just gave her a little more hot water to bring her bowl to the top. It didn’t seem like it would dilute the flavor enough to be noticable.
Once he was done he took a seat across from Seivarden.
…
“Oh,” Seivarden said, surprised. “Thank you.” She smiled at Kell. “That’s right, you asked. Sorry. I’m a little...” She made a vague gesture with one gloved hand, waving it near her head to indicate she wasn’t quite mentally there.
She picked up her bowl of tea and sipped from it; it was a little better with the extra warmth. Her palate was refined enough to notice it was slightly diluted, but she didn’t say anything. She’d had much worse, and she really did appreciate the gesture. “One of my friends disappeared. One of the first people I got close to here.”
--
“It’s fine,” Kell answered, because her lack of an answer wasn’t something to get upset about. Kell understood.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kell said quietly. It was definitely one of the worst parts of being here. It was hard enough to be without your own people, but it was even more difficult when there was no guarantee that you would ever see a friend from a different world again.
…
“Yeah,” Seivarden answered. She leaned her head on one hand, elbow propped on the table. “Oswin Oswald. She had comms that connected to mine, so I was talking to her a lot after she arrived.” She sighed. “And I miss people from home, but that’s… just how it is.”
She felt bad for being so morose in Kell’s company, but she had already apologized for it. “What do you think of this place?” she asked, curious to hear Kell’s view on it.
--
Kell didn’t know the person Seivarden spoke of, so it left him additional room for commentary. One of the benefits of having been a general recluse here was that he didn’t tend to lose many people. He suspected that would change now.
“I generally like it,” Kell answered, running his thumb along the rim of the bowl of tea. “I like learning about all the new worlds, whether it’s second hand or getting to see them up close. I like that nobody cares who I am.” He looked back up at Seivarden. “But the constant sense of … trickery gets old. And there are people back home that I miss.” Really, person.
…
It was a curious answer, one that made Seivarden want to ask more questions. Especially about why people cared about who Kell was at home. But as she’d said to Kell when they’d first met, she cared more about the person Kell was in the here and now than whatever background she had. No -- he. He had. So that didn’t seem a proper line of questioning; better for Kell to share whatever he wanted on his own terms.
“Have you seen multiple worlds since you got here?” she asked instead, curiously. “I’ve only seen the one. I’ve changed planets and systems plenty of times, but this is different.” She paused. “Especially in terms of missing people.”
--
“When I arrived, we were on a cruise ship, so we saw several different destinations even though I think they were all technically part of the same world,” Kell said. “So not many, not yet. I’d like to see more, but the change often seems to come with a fair amount of danger or drama, so a lack of that would be nice for once.” He smiled a little crookedly at the sentiment.
“Would you rather be back home?” Kell asked, uncertain about whether it was an okay question to ask, but it was one that was commonly thrown about here. Kell himself had begged to be returned home when he had first come.
…
“Interesting,” Seivarden said. She couldn’t picture, at all, what a cruise ship would look like -- ships, to her, were military ships. She was working on a follow-up question, perhaps about the danger or drama, but Kell beat her to it.
She considered it carefully. “As long as Breq and Station are here, I want to be here, too,” she said. “But if we could all go home -- well, there’s important stuff to be done back there. Although I’m told we’re somehow there as well.” She shrugged. “I’d just like it if the portal sent through our ship and its crew. They’re good people. I hope they’re not missing us.”
--
Kell understood that well enough -- or rather, he understood it because he knew that was how Rhy felt. Back home, Rhy had a kingdom to rule and a country to heal. Kell knew he would be involved in some of it, but it would become the entirety of Rhy’s life.
“I think it’s true that they don’t know we’re gone,” Kell commented with a nod. If it wasn’t, Rhy would have died after all.
…
Seivarden looked at him, wondering if he was going to be more forthcoming about why he thought that. When he wasn’t, she considered it. “Well, that’s something, at least. Ekalu probably wouldn’t be too happy with me if she knew I disappeared. Although if Breq and Station are gone too, she’d probably feel a little less… jilted.”
She smiled slightly. “She’s my fellow lieutenant, and also… lover. And the portal doesn’t seem to be keen on sending her through anytime soon, which is why I’ve been considering…” She made another vague gesture, this one directed more towards the world outside of Station. “Dating? Is that the word people use here? As you already noticed, I find this world… confusing, in that regard.”
--
Kell wanted to share that the portal also wasn’t keen on sending Lila through, but they weren’t lovers, and Kell rather imagined that she would kick his ass if she ever found out that he had referred to her out loud as a “potential lover.” With that complication in mind, he kept news, or the lack thereof, about Lila Bard to himself.
“I thought dating was confusing in every world,” Kell said lightly. “Is there someone particular you have in mind here?”
…
“Well, I knew how it worked at home,” Seivarden said, wryly. “This world uses some of the same words we had in Radchaai -- or at least, the translations of them, I don’t actually know English, somehow I just speak it and understand it anyway -- to mean entirely different things. ‘Client’ being the most drastically different.” She shrugged. “Clientage is a very sacred relationship at home. It essentially… brings someone into your family, offers them all the status and money and connections to job positions that the family has to offer. Here, apparently, it just means paying money for sex.”
She smiled. “That pretty much sums up how well my attempts at dating are going, I think.” She picked up her bowl, took a sip of her tea. “No, no one in particular. Not to say that I don’t find anyone attractive, but the person who offered to make me a client is the only one that’s flirted with me so far.” She sighed. “Maybe I should take her up on it.”
--
Kell made a quietly amused sound in the back of his throat at Seivarden’s announcement that she knew how it all worked at home. That didn’t particularly surprise Kell.
“It means paying for sex,” Kell affirmed, and then, because the subject had been breached and Kell was curious: “Does sex come with little commitment in Radchaai?” It was perhaps one of the stranger conversations he’d had, but with this conversation, he was aware that he hadn’t slept with anyone since his arrival in Tumbleweed, which had turned into a thrumming in his skin because Rhy and Alucard, apparently, were always having sex.
…
“Yes, and no,” Seivarden said, shrugging. “Depends how you go about it. People generally take as many lovers as they like, as long as everyone’s interested. Or sometimes, when there’s power or prestige at play, even when they aren’t really.” She was felt a slight flash of shame that was hopefully not visible to Kell, but would certainly be visible to Station and Breq. “But there are plenty of different ways to make commitments if you want them. My house is gone, so I wasn’t really in a position to offer anyone clientage, but I did intend to keep seeing Ekalu. It helped, of course, that we were on the same ship, and she was -- is -- loyal to Breq.”
“Even then, though,” she added, considering Kell curiously, “The Radchaai are not nearly as obsessed with monogamy as this culture seemed to be. Plenty of people had multiple clients and multiple lovers. Anything I do here wouldn’t be… moving on or leaving Ekalu behind, if that’s what you meant.”
--
The power and prestige plays, Kell was vaguely aware of. At home, of course, there were moves between the circles in courts, but he’d had a sense that the Radchaai hierarchy was a big more rigid than Arnes. And, of course, marriage was still the surest connection in Arnes. He’d a sense that all that was even looser in Tumbleweed.
“No,” Kell said. “I didn’t mean to pry, or make any judgement, on your relationship at home. I just had the sense that Radchaai are not as concerned with monogamy, and I wasn’t sure if I was entirely right.”
…
“Oh, I could tell you weren’t judging me,” Seivarden assured him. “I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting your question the right way. This language.”
She sighed and shook her head. Sometimes she suspected that she managed to be inadvertently insulting to everyone she met, but didn’t know it, because she hadn’t actually mastered the language. If it was just directly translating everything that she wanted to say, and everything that was said to her, there might be a million subtleties that she was completely missing.
“In any case, you’re right. Some Radchaai do choose to stay with just one partner, but there’s no… idealization of such a thing. Or expectation, usually.”
She eyed Kell, curious about his curiosity. “What about you, Kell? Is your culture monogamous? Have you a lover waiting for you at home, or someone you’ve met since you’ve been here?”
--
“Yes,” Kell answered. It was moments like these that he enjoyed the most about hearing about other worlds -- the thing he hadn’t even considered could really be different.
Despite himself, he flushed at the latter questions, which he so wished he could hide. If only he had Rhy’s coloring.
“There’s someone I’m becoming close, but we aren’t…” Kell paused, fumbling words and finally, with a smile, came to, “she wouldn’t wait for me. But here? No.”
…
Seivarden liked that blush; she hadn’t made anyone blush in a while. It was flattering, and also, a little adorable. She smiled.
“She must be quite something,” she said, because she had already gathered that Kell didn’t let many people get close to him. And of all the people he’d chosen to associate with here, he’d chosen Breq. Which meant he had good taste in people. “But as you said, she probably doesn’t know you’re missing. So - are you waiting for her?”
--
She was, Kell thought. Many of those “somethings” were stubborn and irritating and frustrating. But Kell wouldn’t change any of it.
“No,” Kell said, because he wasn’t and he knew that Lila wouldn’t expect it of him either. “I just, uh-- I tend not to be terribly good at connecting with people like that.” His “like that” implied sex rather than the close connection he had forged with Lila, which, now that he was in Tumbleweed, he was realizing was increasingly true. He’d always refrained from sex far more than Rhy; to Kell, it seemed like Rhy had slept with half of Arnes. Kell had always been more wary about anyone being too close. But, as Rhy had once pointed out, there had always been opportunity, someone to “swoon over his pretty black eye.” But, in truth, Rhy had always been the one who done more of the filtering, able to deftly pick out someone who would push Kell but not overwhelm here.
In Tumbleweed so far, there had been neither the interest nor the help, which was proving trying for Kell who was experiencing Rhy’s robust sex life.
…
“You know,” Seivarden said, thoughtfully, “We could probably help each other out. I could help you make a connection. You could translate for me.” She shrugged. “The other thing is, I don’t drink. But we could still go to a bar, I’m told that’s where many people go to meet other people.”
She wasn’t sure if Kell would take her up on it, if he was as interested in meeting someone as she was. It had, of course, occurred to her that they could hook up themselves, but if that went wrong, Kell would probably move out. Then Breq and Station would be disappointed, and it would be Seivarden’s fault.