birthright_rpg | The World is Tiny

Entry tags:

cian,
rhiannon

The World is Tiny

With a wadded up hand towel, Rhiannon wiped fog from the mirror in Cian’s bathroom and looked at herself. Her hair was wet from the shower, and there were raccoon circles under her eyes, remnants of yesterday’s makeup. She spun some toilet paper from the roll and used it to wipe away the mascara. As she tipped her face left and right, she saw the mark that Cian’s mouth left on her neck; it was somewhere between a bite and a bruise, but it was faint and wouldn’t last the day. There was a comb near the sink. She parted her hair and brushed the tangles out of the lengths.

It was after noon. Early in the morning, Cian had left the cabin to take a boat of passengers on a day cruise. Rhiannon just rolled over and went back to sleep, tucked safely in covers that smelled like the two of them and their lovemaking. When she woke up again, she was surprised to have been out so long, and she sat on the edge of the bed feeling disoriented by heavy slumber and a bad dream she couldn’t quite remember.

Rhiannon pulled on her sweater, jeans, and boots and rummaged through Cian’s cabinets until she found what she needed to brew a pot of coffee. She took a mug of it onto the front steps and sat down, blowing across the steaming surface.

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The cruise had finished a lot earlier than expected. Cian suspected it was the 'tea-totaller' organiser who had refused to allow the staff to partake of the bar that had been the main problem, and he had had to turn his head a few times when he saw Sylvia being begged to slip a little something into the tea of a few of the department heads he knew were always a good time on a trip like this. Normally they would have all been swimming and exploring the cove by this time, or simply sunning themselves on the top deck, after knocking back a few wines and rounding out the afternoon with cocktails on the return journey, making it into dock right on dusk.

But instead he was walking back up to his cabin by two o'clock, carrying a basket full of fresh baked bread, danishes, and muffins that were left over from the cruise. He was whistling lightly, and happily so. Especially as he'd spied that in the distance, Rhiannon's car was still out the front of the cabin, when he'd brought the boat back to the dock. He couldn't help but grin, his pace quickening a little. When he rounded the slight bend in the path that lead around the cabin he saw her sitting out on the front steps and his smile widened.

"Hey sleepyhead," he said, taking the steps to where she was sitting in a single stride and turning to sit down next to her. He leaned in, a finger under her chin and kissed her, the taste of coffee strong on her lips.

She kissed him a second time. “Hey,” she said, part pleased that he had arrived in time to see her before she took off for the city, and part embarrassed for having slept so long. Though she had a nocturnal lifestyle, it was rare for Rhiannon to sleep past 10 a.m., and she didn’t sleep well in unfamiliar settings. Really, she couldn't recall the last time she slept in a house she wasn't paying half the rent on. “I must’ve been exhausted. Can’t imagine why.” She stretched her legs out and looked at the hiking boots, the laces of which weren’t done up. “How was it?” Vaguely she remembered him telling her about the cruise, some kind of corporate or other business-related retreat.

He grinned at her words, then his head rocked from side to side a little as he answered. "It was interesting," he told her, explaining how it was a regular social club outing for the staff at the university, and how for some reason, the department that had organised this one, had made it alcohol-free. "Which is why I'm back so early, and have plenty of food!" he laughed, putting the basket on the deck behind them and lifting up the lid for her to take something. "The danish are pretty good," he added, helping himself to one with apple filling.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Cian she didn't eat breakfast, but Rhiannon remembered that it was actually after lunch, and she hadn't eaten in about twenty hours. Besides, he would have scoffed at the idea that she didn't eat in the a.m. hours. There didn't seem to be an hour of the day when Cian didn't eat, not that anybody could tell.

She took a crescent from the mound of food and tore a piece from the end. Rhiannon chewed it slowly. "A bunch of faculty members on a boat. Sounds like torture," she said. She offered Cian a sip of her coffee. "Do you have to talk to them or can you just insert ear plugs and pretend to be hearing impaired?"

He laughed after taking a sip of her coffee, passing her back the mug, and shook his head. "All part o' th' service having a 'wet charter', Sylvia 'nd I have to courteous to the clients!" he grinned, taking a large bite of the pastry and chewing before swallowing.

"But there was this one woman, a Brit, who I've seen before, at the Skylight that night, and she realised it, but w' pretty embarrassed, which isn' surprising. I didn' let on. Her name's Juliana..."

Mid-sip at that pronouncement, Rhiannon dribbled coffee down her chin. “Oh, fucking hell,” she muttered and wiped the rivulet of coffee on her sweater sleeve. ‘Fucking hell’ was a thing Duncan used to say all the time, particularly when she’d done something that perturbed the watcher. Just the mention of Julianna and that part of her brain kicked into high gear. Rhiannon set her mug on the step between her shoes with her danish balanced precariously on the rim. “Please tell me you pushed her overboard and told people it was a tragic accident.”

Cian's glance darted to Rhiannon when he sensed her reaction to the name, surprised both at the reaction, and the fact he sensed it so strongly.

"So you do know her?" he asked, rhetorically, as clearly the answer was yes. He felt the hairs at the back of his neck lift a little in reaction, as if he wished he had known earlier. Not that he would have done it, but he may have paid the woman more attention.

"And no, I didn't, sorry. They frown on that sort o' thing," he continued with an apologetic grin. "Did I tell y' abou' th' three o' them on the roof? At the Skylark?" he asked.

Edited 2013-10-28 03:26 (UTC)

"The three of who?" God, she hoped he wasn't about to say Julianna was accompanied by two equally British men in brown suits. The scary part was, Rhiannon had been on that roof with Cian, and she had been too wrapped up in the Were to notice Julianna.

It gave her a stinging, tingly feeling in her chest to know that. She couldn't afford to be caught so badly off guard, even if Julianna had promised to tell the Council she left Nevada. The thought of eating another bite turned Rhiannon's stomach and she touched it lightly.

It was impatient, but she itched to drill him with more questions. He hadn't spoken to anyone else on that roof, had he? Did Julianna know about the two of them?

He frowned a little, his right hand moving behind her and rubbing her back when he sensed her discomfort, his other hand quickly putting the rest of the danish in his mouth, his fingers flicking the crumbs away as he chewed and swallowed.

"There were two others talkin' with her tha' night. Didn' go too well," he said, not in the habit of evesdropping, but having heard Rhiannon's name mentioned had tuned in to the conversation. "A young woman and... " Cian stopped for a moment, thinking back. He clicked his fingers as he realised something. "Brian! That's where I'd seen him before," he said, almost to himself as he put two and two together. He gave her a rather sheepish look.

"Sorry, something 'd been bugging me f' a while, just figured it out," he told her reassuringly. "Guy by the name of Brian, and a young woman, Helen I think i' was, were havin' a disagreement w' Julianna," he said, telling Rhiannon what he could remember of the conversation, including the mention of her name. "Oh, an' there were a fourth now I remember, another guy, seemed to be there with her. Bit outta his depth I think."

It didn't seem like the roof conversation related to Council matters -- just an awkward social exchange -- and Rhiannon didn't know anyone named Helen or Brian, so she targeted her thinking at the day's water excursion.

"When you saw her today... she didn't-- she didn't ask anything weird, did she?" Rhiannon hedged. "Or make the connection between us?"

She shook her head. "Not-- okay, that sounded like I'm afraid of people knowing about us, and I'm not. I just don't want her knowing about me, period. Anything. Or you, really."

She took a breath.

"Not sure, but the whole conversation was a little weird," he said, frowning as he thought back. "Like she was trying to remember something, but..." He shrugged, and picked up her coffee, taking another sip before demolishing the pastry she'd left on top of it. "She doesn't know me as anything but a skipper of a boat," he added, licking the crumbs from his fingers as he handed back her cup.

"She someone I should be concerned about?"

“I’m not sure,” said Rhiannon. She rubbed her knees and looked across the road where they had taken off running the night before. “She’s a watcher, and I don’t work with the Council anymore. We made a deal that she wouldn’t tell them I’m still here, but honestly, I don’t know how long it’ll last, not with all the activity around here. They're bound to snoop around.” The brunette pushed to her feet and kicked at the loose gravel and dirt in Cian’s yard, and the parched sprigs of desert grass. “And watchers tend to be interested in people like you, either because they think you should be locked up, or think you should be used.”

‘And in that way, you’re not so different from a slayer.’

“Of course,” Rhiannon tipped her head, “They wouldn’t say ‘used’. They’d say ‘wielded’ behind closed doors, and ‘collaborated with’ to your face.”

Cian's frown deepened for a moment, really wishing he'd known this before he'd met the woman, but realising just as quickly that that was impossible. None of them would have known to expect this.

And he was more interested in finding out more about the Council. While he'd know of Slayers, he'd not been told anything much about the Council. His eyes fixed on Rhiannon's.

"Would they now?" He paused for a moment then added, "tell me more."

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