milliways_bar | (no subject)

April glances up and smiles, her eyes a little glazed from hours of typing. "Oh, yeah, no problem!" she says, moving the notebooks she's not using at the moment onto the floor under her chair.

"Thank you, Lady" she replied graciously, sliding into a seat and tucking her skirt around her legs.

"I do not mean to intrude, but it is perhaps best I am in the common room today" this of course spoken as she unpacket her herbs carefully and fshed out the mortar and pestle from the very bottom of the basket.

"Oh, you're not intruding." April grinned. "I'm just... well. Trying to transfer my manuscript onto the computer, so I can edit it and give it to my friend..." she shakes her head. "Anyway, I've been at it for hours, I could use a break." She closes the laptop as she says this.

"Oh, and I'm April, by the way. Um. Instead of 'Lady'."

"Lady April" she ammended gently, flashing a smile as she glanced up from a handful of nettles and another odd shaped leaf.

"You are a loremistress then?"

April blushed a little at the 'Lady' bit, but decided not to argue it.

"Am I a wha-- oh! Um... yeah, I guess." she shrugged. "I mean, I'm a writer. I scribble out whatever strikes my fancy." she grinned and patted her notebook fondly. "This is my baby, though. First novel-length story I've finished. I want to try to get it published... we'll see how it goes." she made a face. "I mean, because I have to get my friend Mark to publish it for me. I can't leave."

Although she did glance over at the door that had appeared recently in the wall... she wasn't sure what to do with it.

"I knew many Dames who were fair proud of their written works at the Abbey. I wish you well in that, as all tales should be told to someone..."

She reached out a slim, pale hand to pat April's gently "I to will not leave here...but I think for different raesons Lady April. I am fair sorry"

April shrugged a little but smiled wryly. "Well, it was my own fault, so... I guess this is better than hell?"

She glanced at the herbs and things. "So, what do you do with all those plants?"

"Is hell an afterlife or a place akin to this one?" she asked curiously. There were many gods and practices where she was from...

Then she smiled softly, grinding the first handful of leaves "This will be a tea for a dear friend. It will keep her strong through her childbearing...I will be making many such for her I believe" it was why she was down in the common room, to catch Svava.

"It's an afterlife. The bad one, with eternal torment and flames and such. Where people who commit suicide are said to go, actually." April gives a grim smile and shrugs. "Whatever. This is better."

The she brightens up. "Your friend's having a baby?" she asks curiously.

It isn't totally obvious that she wants to be a mother someday, what?

...and ignore the tense change, dammit.

"It seems a fair terrible place, Lady April. It seems strange that any would choose to go there..." she shook her head softly, long hair sliding like silk across her archaic blouse.

"But yes, she is. She has yet to come to me for advice, but I believe it is something of a suprise for her" she chuckled easily "Thank Gunnora I can smell it on her"

April's eyebrows shot up. "You can... smell it?" she asks, confused.

This was a new concept to her... smelling pregnancy.

She chuckled and reached up to tap her own nose "It was a supris eto me as well, Lady...but yes. I had thought my nose was only sensitive upon the full moons...but it seems even so it is sensitive enough"

She's...not as afraid as she once was, that people know her for a shifter. It comes of not being hunted since her arrival.

"A full moon, huh?" April didn't quite grasp the significance, but she wouldn't have minded if she had. She smiles a little, to herself, and starts doodling on the back of her notebook.

Basic outline drawings of mothers with children. And, scrawled arcoss one of them, the word "someday".

Khemrys did glance at the drawings curiously once or twice, a small smile on her lips that soon turned sad "Lady April?" she offered hesitantly at last.

"Do you seek to foster children?"

"Huh?" April looks up, down at the notebook, and back up, flushing. "Oh, um... well, no, not really... I mean, I want to have kids someday, but, y'know, I'm not exactly involved or anything, so..."

At that remark the sadness in her gaze increased. She carefully set down her tools and folded her hands in her lap "Lady...do you not know that the dead cannot bear?"

It is said gently. Kindly even...

April's face drained of color. No. No, this was not what she wanted to hear, she couldn't be hearing this, she...

But in reality, she'd expected that. Talking to Kevin had given her a little hope, as he couldn't think of a reason why she shouldn't be able to, but... really. She had died. Worse, she had taken her own life. Why would she be allowed to have children?

Still, she couldn't stop the tears from welling up in her eyes as she stared down at her doodlings - expecting and knowing something were two very different things.

And Khemry's eyes swam, the green drowning in liquid gold now but not all together gone as she stood and swept around the table to wrap her arms arounf April "I am sorry, Lady, it is a harsh blow..."

She smelled of good, clean earth and water. Moonlight and herbs...and faintly of cat.

[ooc: and the typist will now curse her computer for losing her reply. Thank you.]

April had been trying very hard not to cry, and succeeding nominally. But then Khemry hugged her.

And it all fell apart. She was sobbing, crying harder than she could remember crying since Roger left a year ago, crying for herself and for her lost opportunities, clinging to Khemry like a lifeline and not even caring that she'd never met this woman before in her life.

A harsh blow indeed...

Khemrys was a healer, and not all healing took place in the body...so she let the woman cling, gently stroking her hair.

"There are many powers here, Lady, perhaps there is yet hope...I know that my dear friend is with child, and yet her husband is dead..not quite your case, but...hope..."

Hope. That's all April had, really. Hope that she could maybe have a family someday. Her own family. Because as much as she would love a fostered child as her own, it wouldn't be the same.

Eventually, she calms down enough to wipe her eyes and let go of Khemry's arm. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, trying to get her composure.

"It is well, Lady April, I did not mean to bring you such pain" Khemrys admitted, slipping back to her chair gracefully and starting to gather her herbs.

[Have to be up for work in four hours O_o night!]

[Night! I'll talk to you later. love! ]

"It's... it's not your fault." April said softly. "I needed to find out sooner or later."

And it was better not to find out when she was actively trying to have children.