{log} for idleness is chief mistress of vices all

[cailisairgid]

The inn where the twins have been staying since their reunion is, in some ways, almost idyllic. It's a charming place, at least, and on a warm afternoon Nuala and her brother are down from their room in the courtyard. Her sewing and her books are abandoned in the grass next to her while Nuala sets lazily about weaving crowns out of the garden's flowers. Without looking too closely at the tableau, it could easily be taken for perfectly peaceful.

(Only, even with her skirts pooled around her and a comfortable air of something like relaxation, Nuala looks too often to see what her brother's doing, too closely, too alert. Unwary in a way that carries an edge like defiance.)

It wouldn't take someone long to find them here, if they knew who they were looking for.

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[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

While his sister rests there on the grass, looking very much like the living embodiment of classic fairy tale illustrations, the prince has claimed a flat stone bench for himself. Next to him sits a wooden utility box, which he has begun to fill with all manner of small, useful things. The box contains shallow trays that lift out like a little collapsible staircase—each tray is separated into little felted compartments, most of which are still empty, but that won't last for long. In the bottom is a place for hand tools, such as the pair of narrow jewellers' pliers he now draws from the box.

On his face is a frown a of concentration, his dark lips faintly pursed, his eyes focused keenly upon the tiny piece of something he holds in his hand, at which he picks carefully with the pliers. He appears to be completely unaware of the world beyond this fiddly, minuscule business of his, but that is most certainly not the case.

[moonriding.livejournal.com]

Lilia is wearing purple again today- a purple t-shirt that could almost function as a clinging minidress and an Alice band of the same shade in her hair to match, purse hanging from her side. She'd tried their door several times, but once she'd determined they weren't there she decided to explore the inn itself, just in case.

So she sees them from the shadows of a doorway and pauses there, evaluating the man who must be Nuala's brother quickly and with a fair degree of accuracy before she steps out into the garden.

"Nuala," she says, smiling, "You're always so hard to find. Is this your brother?"

[cailisairgid]

Nuala tilts her head, peonies and pansies in her hair, and shakes them out with a smile (a smile with tension to it you could almost entirely miss), putting aside her craft to lay her hand on the stone bench that Nuada's sitting on, straightening. "You did come again," she says, pleased, staying near Nuada like she fancies herself some sort of ward against his aggression, "Yes, he is - Nuada, my brother, this is Lilia, who helped me to find you."

Let's just casually stress all of Lilia's fabulous good points! (Even if that there is a minor stretch of the truth.)

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

Nuada, in the meantime, has ceased his work and lowered his hands in favour of watching Lilia. Even before Nuala greets her, a glance passed between them reveals that they know one another, so he feels no strong need to stand, nor to interrupt her approach—still, he seems only patient, not welcoming, and this endures in the coolness of his expression.

"Lilia. My sister speaks very highly of you." And none of her compliments have really affected his attitude, apparently. "What brings you here?"

[moonriding.livejournal.com]

"I came to see how your sister was doing," she says, answering both of them at once with that and a bright, friendly smile. She doubts already that she's going to win any respect from Nuada by being nice to him, but she's going to hold out hope that if he sees she likes Nuala he'll continue to tolerate her. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Nuada."

"I didn't know you were saying nice things about me, either." She focuses on Nuala, briefly, shaking her head. "I'm embarrassed now, what if I can't live up to them?"

[cailisairgid]

Briefly touching Nuada's arm, Nuala settles back in the grass where she was resting before and gestures for Lilia to join her - here on the other side, where it'll put Nuala between Lilia and her brother. "Nonsense, of course you shall - will you sit with us a while?"

Nuada would have been king, would have been a leader; Nuala draws people to her in a subtler way, with gentle hands and artless smiles. There are those, observing the fae, who might say it's only a different kind of danger.

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

Nuada consents to the presence of his sister's guest by being silent, perhaps by virtue of Nuala's subtlety in communicating. Unless someone addresses him directly, he will only watch them from the corner of his eye, at least for the time being, as he returns to whatever it was he'd been doing when Lilia entered the courtyard.

The object in his hand is pebble-sized and dark, and there's a glint of something brassy, like a fine wire, but it has no immediately recognizable form overall. He picks something tiny from the box, places and adjusts, tweaks carefully with the pliers.

[moonriding.livejournal.com]

"I'd love to." Lilia makes her way to Nuala's side, obligingly sitting where she's directed to. She nods at Nuada again on her way, but she doesn't know if he notices her or not. The thing in his hand is interesting, but not immediately relevant, so that, too, she passes over.

"How have you been?" She asks, settling in and picking up one of the flowers Nuala shook out of her hair.

[cailisairgid]

Taking up her flower crown again - unfinished, like the sewing set aside nearby, and the book with its place marked - Nuala's tempered smile is more like the troubled distance she marked out around herself when Lilia first met her. "I've been well," she says, twisting petals and stems together with the sort of mindless occupation that comes out of many years practise.

The hands are busy and the mind is free. She enjoys needlepoint for this reason, too. "We've been looking for somewhere to live, and - reached a compromise regarding my plans for a store." What delicate phrasing! "Wherever we go, I'd very much like our own library."

She's very good at this casual, light conversation, with all its layers existing purely in implication.

[moonriding.livejournal.com]

"That's good," Lilia says, not quite so skilled at the art of conversation- but she's learning, and she picks up on what Nuala says by not saying it, "When you open I'll make sure I'm the first one to buy anything."

She glances at Nuada again, thoughtfully, but goes back to Nuala quickly. She wonders where their quiet, almost open mood from the last time went- she'd liked it, that distance beginning to close, and she determines that she's going to try to spend more time with Nuala away from her brother until they settle into each other.

[cailisairgid]

"I will be looking, first, for such a place already existing that I might negotiate to sell my own things from," Nuala explains, holding a bloom between thumb and forefinger, comparing colours and discarding it. (She reconsiders after a moment and sets it on her lap, where it'll stay until she makes good on her idea.)

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

Quite aware of Lilia's glances, the prince looks to her likewise, but holds his gaze steady on her for considerably longer. His strange eyes study her keenly, and as they do he continues to work, with nimble and intuitive hands, rather like his sister. The movement of the flowers distracts him soon enough, though, or at least seems to—then he looks back to his craft, clips away a piece of filament and sets it aside.

"We will be looking," he adds quietly.

[moonriding.livejournal.com]

Lilia is only a girl- not properly a woman, really, despite standing right on the cusp of it. A girl, small and unassuming, playing with flowers and sitting in the grass next to her newest friend. She looks artless so effortlessly that she's sure if anyone cared about the things she does in that respect they'd be proud of her.

"Ohh," she says, nodding - at Nuala, primarily, "That might be a good idea, to get a feel for how to run something like that."

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

By the time Nuada enters their room at the inn, though he hardly lags behind his sister, the sharp edge of his mood has lessened. Still, when he turns from the closed door, his look is dark and hard, and his keen eyes seek Nuala, wherever she may have settled.

Whether or not she is immediately visible (there is a washroom, after all), he moves after a pause to set the wooden craft box somewhere safe.

[cailisairgid]

Nuala is sitting, waiting, by the window; she'd thought of going to the washroom to make sure she hadn't done herself worse than jarring a little, but it doesn't feel necessary and she doesn't think she'd have had time. Simmering frustration - there are too many emotions and she's allowed herself so little expression, she's angry and afraid and hurt and grieving - keeps her silent when he enters. Too many things unsaid to start anywhere.

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

So it's silence for the pair of them, heavy in the air, settling all about the room like a solemn fog. It's Nuada who disappears from sight, then—but only into the adjacent room, to put a little water in the sink, and to rest his hands in the water, just to feel it there. It has been a long time since he's slept in a place that does not lie beneath the earth; now he finds himself missing small things like the damp air, and the cool moisture in the walls, though he sometimes loathed them when he dwelled there.

He reenters the room proper after not too long—or appears in the doorway, at least, and leans there lightly. From there he watches his sister—waiting, perhaps, for her to speak first, or for the most fitting words to occur to him.

[cailisairgid]

After a time, Nuala raises her eyes from the window to look at him. Her hands are folded in her lap; he can likely feel where her nails dig into her own skin, tense. {I was wrong,} she says, first; she looks away but not down. {I'm not going to apologize to you.}

That's a promising start.

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

«No?» Something touches his lips, briefly, and his eyes, like he'd considered smiling just then. «I thought not. You are still fighting me, sister, though the time of war has passed. Why is that?»

Possibly, Nuada, because you refuse to let her speak to anyone without raising your hackles at everyone involved. Just a thought. She must see that her brother is still at war in his heart, if not in his conduct.

[cailisairgid]

Her gaze sharpens, for all she's still not looking at him. {You must ask?} Nuada can presume that's rhetorical, she doesn't seem to expect an actual answer to the question. {I will fight you if you will persist in treating me as a prisoner of war, my brother. I think sometimes I should have gone with you when you left, that we might never have come to this-}

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

«Perhaps you should have, at that.» In the pause that occurs here, many thoughts rush to the forefront of his mind—things Nuada has considered many times before, recently and in times past. What if she had gone with him? If she had decided to join him in exile, would he have renounced his decision to leave? Had he not turned away from his people, his home and his family, and carried such bitterness for so long, how would time have shaped him instead? He does not regret any of these decisions, as such is not in his nature, but can't help wondering at them.
Before long, Nuada realises that his fingers have curled into the fabric over his heart—over the healing scar his sister made. He lets them linger there a while before his hand finally drops away.

«No, we each chose our own path. It is useless to dwell on what might have been... and now it seems time has changed us both in ways we cannot fully know at a glance. Not anymore.» Another brief silence; he leaves the doorway, slowly. «The sister I once knew would not have favoured the company of mortals over mine.»

His words are calm, but in that final sentence lies a certain weighty undertone, a snake writhing in the grass.

[cailisairgid]

{Why would you say such a thing?} Nuala is on her feet - not in an instant, but a flowing motion that ends in front of him. {There is no one higher in my heart.} It's almost a statement of grief in and of itself; pull and pull and pull and she will always have to go back to him, these two halves and their jagged-edged whole.

Quieter, less sharp, {How can you expect me to trust you when I know - when I can see - that you won't return it?}

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

«It is not you I doubt, my sister, but those who would have dealings with you.» The detached phrasing is chosen on purpose—after all, what human is even capable of knowing her true friendship? None, he thinks. «They are consumed by want, their hunger, their greed...you have witnessed it yourself. We have seen it together, we have struggled against it. I only wish to protect you from such emptiness.» This is not a lie, per se, but the phrasing could possibly be more honest. «Do you not see how their influence affects you? How it affects the both of us? Was there such turmoil between us before they came?»

[cailisairgid]

{Your pain and your hatred blinds you,} Nuala counters, quiet and fierce with it. She fixes her gaze on him, her hands balled at her sides. {To some - to some there is more and I would learn of this.}

A pause, and then, soft but not gentle, {You speak of protection when you have held the knife to me yourself, Nuada, we are neither of us guiltless.}

[sleaairgid.livejournal.com]

«One scratch is hardly a price to pay for the freedom of our people!» He's become a bit more animated, gesturing with his hands and all, but no more threatening—this is simply a passion he cannot contain. «I would have endured that and more... and I have, many times, and I regret only that you are bound to pay equally. But you must know, sister, that I would not have committed any greater harm against you. I could not.» He means it, at this very moment; he's certain of it. But at the time...who knows what he might have done?

[cailisairgid]

Nuala presses her fingertips to her temples, turning away from him in frustration. {I ask only that you allow me to make my own decisions, Nuada,} she says, tiredly, unwilling to draw herself into an argument about what he did and what he's capable of. {I see things worth learning about, I won't discard them out of hand. ...we were apart a long time, brother, I am not helpless.}