ostro_goth | RP post: In Gotland with Kate Barlow

RP post: In Gotland with Kate Barlow

The door opens as if out of a hillside; and below the hill, a farm nestles.

In it centre, there's a large long-house built from field-stones and large beams, thatched in reed and low-eaved; around it, there are outbuildings: baking oven, smithy, chicken coop, storage and the like. Cows, sheep and goats are grazing on the hills around; there are chickens and geese in the yard, and horses in a meadow.

Children are playing hide-and-seek among the buildings, and two tall burly men, one older and one younger, are hard at work at the smithy, mending sickles and scythes.

It is the early evening.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"They have taken you over already," Teja says. He picks up Myrtia and Valeria, and follows Kate and the children towards the farmstead.

"Adalgoth and Wachis, Gotho and Liuta, were the ones that were always with me during my last months when I was king: they stood beside me in my last battle. When the time came to settle here, they chose to all stay together, and raise their children in one place, by the foot of the barrow-hill where I lie buried, still not deserting me."

"I don't mind a bit."

She sure looks happy. It's been some time since she's been surrounded by children like this.

"Will I get t'meet them as well? These comrades of yours?"

She doesn't comment on the strangeness of his grave. She'll ask him about it during a quiet moment; now doesn't seem like the time. It sends a chill down her spine just thinking about it.

"Of course you will," Teja says. "They would not let a guest of mine come and go without greeting her, and offering her their hospitality."

"It means we get an extra nice dinner!" Athalwin declares happily. "With dessert!"

She laughs.

"I'm always in favor of facilitatin' dessert."

"But first you'll have to meet my pa, and Adalgoth, and our mas," Athalwin says.

The kids say 'pa' and 'ma' the way William does: - they picked it up from him, and it makes their little double family even more unique.

It makes her warm from head to toe. She's fond of William, always wishing she could do more for him if he were the kind to let her.

"I'd like t'meet everybody. An' I charge you all with the responsibility of showin' me all your very favorite things here."

"Then we go meet the horses first," Athalwin declares, and the other children follow along to where he drags Kate.

He'll find no resistance, neither hear no fussing from Kate. It's the first place she goes in every world.

The Musée Vivant du Cheval in France, with Jasper and Alice.

The great Fae stables, even as she'd been kidnapped, with Weyland.

The barn in Colorado.

It's her joy, and as such it's hard to tell among them which are the children and which is the adult.

The horses come as called, and Athalwin tells her their names and where they're from, and then there's one of the men from the smithy, the younger one with the broad shoulders and the brown hair, and he proudly talks about the horses' ancestry, and which of them came from the south-lands, and who their sires and grand-sires belonged to.

"This is Adalgoth," Teja says, when he finally gets a word in edgeways. "And that is Kate Barlow, whose horse you gave shelter, when my world was ending."

She listens with rapt attention, both to Athalwin and Adalgoth in equal measure.

She is very clearly in her element.

"It's a pleasure t'meet you."

She bows her head, dropping into a shallow curtsy.

"Y'have a very fine boy, an' many fine horses. I see now why Beaut seemed so contented when she came home."

"She was a pleasant horse to have around," Adalgoth answers. "She gave no problems in the herd. Among your people, horses are as important as among ours, I take it?"

In the meanwhile, little Hilde has climbed onto the fence and calls the horses with clicks of her tongue, to pat their lovely big faces. They all know her well, of course.

To be honest, Kate's relieved. Beaut can be an awful brat when she feels like it.

"Yes, we rely on 'em. 'Least, where I am. Y'can't live without a good horse. An' Beauty, she's — well, she's been my friend for half my life now. I couldn't do without her."

Her smile grows gentle and distant as she watches Hilde. It makes her think of when she was young, wild blonde hair and matching curiosity.

Hugging a shaggy horse-face, little Hilde turns to give Kate a quizzical look.

She glances Teja's way, and tilts her head curiously in answer to the girl's expression.

"Somethin' the matter, sweetheart?"

"The king is dead and not really a king of anything any more, isn't he?" Hilde asks, earnestly, as if it was the most logical thing to ask at this very moment, and not out of the apparent blue.

Edited 2012-06-20 22:04 (UTC)

Her eyes widen slightly.

She brings her expression in, a gentle smile replacing a slack jaw.

"Well, sugar. He may not have the responsibilities he did in life, but the qualities that made him a good king are still there, ain't they?"

"But you can't become his queen any more when you marry him?" Hilde asks, all matter-of-factly.

Apparently, Kate not becoming queen is something she considers something of a loss, but it's not clear for whom.

"Oh."

The slack jaw is back, along with a dusting of pink across her cheeks.

"Well. Sugar, I — I don't think he'll be askin' me t'be his queen."

Teja is blushing a deep crimson. Adalgoth is making a little strangled noise, at the incredibly awkward forwardness of a child of his household, and perhaps at other things as well.

Hilde ignores the grown-ups being awkward, and just asks, "Why not? Because he's dead? Can you still marry him?"

Adalgoth give a choking sound that might be an involuntary snort.

It isn't until Adalgoth gurgles that Kate looks up, catches the blush on Teja's face, and loses her breath.

Someone's finally struck a match in her brain.

It seems like many long minutes before she breathes in again, her face impossibly warm. Shaking out the cobwebs, she returns her attention to Hilde.

"That's a very good question, sweetheart. One I don't know the answer to. It's best y'don't worry yourself on such grownup thoughts."

"But you'd be a good queen!" Hilde says. "You're kind and honourable and lovely!"

"Hilde!" Adalgoth groans, almost expiring with embarrassment.

"Shouldn't we go in and have dinner?" Athalwin asks, as he finds all that girl talk about queens and marriages less than interesting.

Teja lets out his breath; he is still deeply reddened, and does not dare to even look at Kate.

Kate grins at Hilde, coming to the fence line and crouching to her level.

"Y'know somethin'? I bet someday you'd make a fine queen yourself."

Honorable.

Kate straightens, tapping the young girl's nose. Teja isn't looking her way when she glances at him, so she switches her smile on Athalwin instead.

"That sounds lovely. Ah, Mr. Adalgoth, is there anythin' I might help with?"

Adalgoth chuckles, almost relieved. This is getting back to normal. "What is a mister?" he says. "And if I allowed a guest to lift a finger, Gotho would likely slay me. Just come inside with us."

Teja picks up the little twin girls, and now dares to look at Kate, as that embarrassing moment is past.

"Beggin' your pardon — it's an honorific. I'm not sure what else t'call you. Sir?"

She offers Hilde a hand in case she needs it to clamber back to the ground, and smooths out her chlamys. She can feel Teja's eyes on her.

As they follow after Adalgoth, her face a deep pink, she reaches out and tenderly touches his elbow.

Teja looks at her, his eyes full of deep feeling; then, he blushes again, and lowers his head and his gaze.

Hilde does take Kate's hand, and doesn't let go as they walk towards the longhouse.

Edited 2012-06-21 21:28 (UTC)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject