Alison and Nathan, Saturday afternoon

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Nathan keeps a recuperating Alison company. They talk about the Askani and their music, and Nathan makes a couple of odd slips that give Alison some cause for concern.



Reclining on the sofa had to be the most blissful sensation ever, regardless of the dull throbbing from the wound on her leg. Hank had muttered something involving many long words more than once, but Alison had mainly concentrated on the 'You'll be right as rain' aspects of things where her healing process was concerned, the memory of a hole going through her own leg entirely far too disturbing to linger upon. He'd managed to find a pain medication medley that seemed to not turn her into a silly lush at least this time, although the drawback of it was that it wasn't quite as effective as one might wish.

She slid a sidelong look of reproach at the man in the chair beside her, not quite sulking but still not entirely pleased, although she couldn't complain about the far less painful way of going up the steps from the first to the second floor he had chosen. The walk up from the basement had been long and arduous enough.

Nathan glanced up from the pad where he was scrawling in Askani glyphs and smiled faintly at her. "~Admit it,~" he teased very gently in the battle language. "~After the initial 'Put me down, you crazy man!' reaction, you liked floating upstairs.~"

He was, without a doubt, insufferable. She scowled at him out of general principles, not for a second considering moving from the couch. "~Did not~," she pouted half-heartedly, settling in a bit deeper into the cushions, sighing in relief. It was nice to be out of the medlab, despite Hank dropping in now and then to keep her company since Sarah had woken up. And despite the gloom lurking about the edges, the sun was brilliant outside and the breeze coming through the window bore the fragrance of Ororo's flowers with it.

Nathan, soothed by the flickers of happier thoughts she was emanating, kept scrawling down the lyrics of the song, or poem, he was trying to get in written form. It had been stuck in his head all morning, clear as crystal despite the continuing haziness of the Askani in general the last few days. "~Did too,~" he said, relieved that he could stick to the battle language with Alison and not get any awkward questions about it. At least then he wasn't making embarassing slips from one language ot another. "~And this is a very odd little song. I think it's a teaching song.~"

"~Song?~" A few days ago she might not have shown interest. But life went on and she had already spoken at length with Hank, and Nathan the previous day. She was far from back to her cheery self but other considerations than doom and gloom were slowly resurfacing. Music being the first in line, after Miles. It took only a few moments for memories to well up, settling things into place. "~Oh! Yes, there must have been hundreds of those if not more, what with the learning patterns that were established.~" There was a comfort still in speaking Askani, once she sought out eagerly.

"~What plants are good to eat, which aren't,~" Nathan said, smiling again at the flicker of enthusiasm. "~I gather a lot of flora was quite poisonous, two thousand years from now. It's expanding my vocabulary. Wish I had mental images of what these plants all looked like, though...~" He should have been able to pluck them out of some of the Askani's memories, but, well...

She blinked a bit at those words, something sounding off about them - but the sun streaming through the window was warming her up far too comfortably and instead she sighed a bit, drifting for a moment. "~Sun songs~," she murmured, remembering the one he'd sung to her not so long ago, before she ever knew Askani herself, having now a new appreciation for the lyrics.

"~Light is an image in a lot of their music,~" Nathan said quietly. "~Their poetry. It's because of the condition of the atmosphere in their time, I think...~" For a moment, he was dizzied by a strong flash of gray-green clouds, choking the sky.

For the first time since the mission, Alison allowed light to dance on her fingertips, playing with the sunlight, creating patterns that wavered and faded then came back to life again in the air, trailing after her fingertips. "~Maybe that's why I took to this so quickly~," she murmured, more than ever aware of the warrior side of Askani culture but soothed by the other aspect, the one that drew her in and kept her entranced. "~Music, poetry, a celebration of life.~" She trailed off at the last word, eyes darkening, looking down at the arm she hadn't moved since she'd arrived in the common room, at her leg.

"~There's a word, a specific word for the light breaking through the clouds,~" Nathan murmured, laying his pencil down and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "~Can't think of it. It's joy, something related to the word for joy...~"

"Ethlessa," she murmured, smiling a bit to herself, tilting her head into the sunlight and just enjoying it for a moment, that and nothing else. "~Mother's love, friends and family being safe, that one moment in time where nothing can touch you or do you harm, in any way.~" She turned to look at him, ignoring the tightness of her throat at the notion and instead looking him over pensively. She didn't say a word however, merely taking in the details.

"~Mother's love,~" Nathan mumured a bit bitterly, but shook it off and mustered a smile at Alison. "~My mind goes strange places today. This sevenday, actually.~

She nodded simply, smiling back a bit, thinking of Miles and letting the thought soothe her own spirits and perhaps bring a similar relief to Nathan as well. "~Sometimes you have to go to the strange places to appreciate the familiar ones~," she offered, feeling that one a bit too keenly in light of recent events.

Nathan's smile lingered, even grew a little. "~Do you know there are three different forms of their script?~" he asked, raising his pad to show her. "~Everyday, military, and formal. It's really very interesting.~" And it was coming far more easily than it had before, which was a little odd.

"~I didn't know~," she smiled a bit at his enthusiasm, carefully leaning over to peer at the paper. "I haven't had time to really look at that. I've been going over the music more than anything else," she said, not at all shy about admitting her obsession.

Nathan blinked at her as she shifted back into English. It took him a minute to put the words together in his head, and he smiled a bit uncertainly at her, glad she was focused on the script rather than on him. "The music... it keeps echoing. Even with the... static."

Something was going on. It was as though Nathan was now where she'd been when Askani had done the psychic download, it looked like. But it was something more too, from the sound of things. She switched back to Askani, as though nothing had happened, mind still calm. "~Music is a good focus.~"

"~Order,~" Nathan said, gratefully going back to the battle language. "~Order out of chaos... I think that's part of why they were so musical, too.~"

Safe ground. Taking refuge. Was that what he was doing? "~Music is safe~," Alison murmured, wistfully. "~It's a haven like no other. I don't think my parents ever understood why I took to it so much.~" She smiled a bit, wistful. "~Lullabies are my favorite. They always have been.~"

"~Ours aren't scary,~" Nathan said, tilting his head, wishing the Askani would stop buzzing at him. What had happened to talking, like normal people... psionic beings? "~We don't threaten the children with Canaanites coming to steal them out of their cradles.~"

A blink greeted that comment, but Alison coasted along, letting him talk. For now. "~No. And none of the lullabies have darker roots, like many of the ones knows here,~" she formulated the sentence carefully, luring slowly.

Nathan stopped, blinking at her again. "~Here..? Oh... no,~" he said a bit uncertainly, not sure why she was looking at him like that. "~They're very different, the Askani lullabies. No 'when the bough breaks'.~"

Curiouser and curiouser. "~Or like the~," she paused, not finding a name equivalent and just went for the other half of the title, "~the Quite Contrary one. Rather grim.~" She shook her head and smiled a bit, to dispel the gloom. "~It will be nice, to sing Askani lullabies to my son.~" And the blinked a bit, the first time she'd said it that way, put it that way and allowed herself to think of him as her own flesh and blood as well.

"~He should come to the group,~" Nathan said, fastening on the opening she had given. "~Learn with the others. I think they would enjoy having him.~"

"~Yes.~" That was it. Simple agreement to something that made a lot of sense, and not only that, signaled the first time Nathan indicated a willingness to see the small boy so bluntly. "~He's improving on his distance. Four feet now, sometimes three. The room is big enough that he won't have to be near and possibly affect you until he has better control.~" A hint of pride showing, at Miles' stubborn work on controlling his power.

"~He's doing so well,~" Nathan said softly, and smiled, one of the first real, warm smiles he'd managed all week. "~I fully expect to be able to hug him while he's still small enough not to kick me in the shins and glare.~"

She chuckled, smiling at him with equal warmth, something easing within her slowly - not entirely yet, but continuing the progress already started. And it was Miles they were talking about, after all. "~I think he's making up on lost time, anyway. You've time yet.~"