xp_logs | Nathan and Rahne, Friday morning (Reply)

Rahne feeds a wandering Nathan breakfast, then winds up telling him about her experiences in Asgard and Hrimhari.

After the directed chaos of moving the day before, Rahne had made a point of actually sleeping in her own new room the first night. She was now up and in the kitchen bright and early, filling the air with the smells of bacon, oatmeal, cinnamon, and baked apples and peaches. She might have been physically suited to thriving on raw meat for a few months (and the thought still made her mouth water in a fashion that would once have disturbed her), but most of her tastes had been developed as a human -- and Asgard had been a little short on fruit, even if she'd found a few crabapples that made nice chew toys.

Nathan had woken up absurdly early - the new rooms, he suspected - and been unable to settle back down beside Moira. So he'd gotten dressed, left a note, and wandered out, without much idea of what he was doing. The restlessness seemed to wax and wane lately, and it was definitely at a high ebb this morning.

Eventually, though, his roaming through the halls brought him in the vicinity of the kitchen, and he couldn't help but notice the smells emanating from within. "I smell oatmeal," he said, managing to sound cheerful as he came in and saw Rahne - no surprise there - busily at work.

Rahne looked up and grinned at him. "Aye, I was hungry, and still getting used to having fruit about again. Want some?"

"I'd love some. Don't think I ate nearly enough yesterday," he said, going over to get himself a bowl. "Moira and I are all moved into the new suite, though. How about you?"

She nodded and went on cutting up peaches. "Everything's moved. I'm in a suite with Marie-Ange and Amanda, Jane and Monet --" Rahne hesitated there, feeling rather guilty, then went on, "And I'm keeping half a room clear for the next new girl."

"That's a very good idea," Nathan said firmly. "You're the perfect sort of roommate for someone new to have."

She blinked, half disconcerted and half pleased, and then smiled at him again. "Aye, well, I'll try for sure."

"And I think you could probably use a little privacy," Nathan said wisely as she filled his bowl with oatmeal. "To think some things through?"

Rahne hesitated. "...Well, I can always go and think outside if I need it. And I'm hardly the only one with extra thinking to do lately."

"Consider it luck of the draw, then?" Nathan said more whimsically. "And at the rate we're going, you won't be roommate-less long."

"*That's* true! I suppose 'tis the time for new students, after all." She filled a bowl for herself and left the rest of the oatmeal to simmer. "And I canna say I mind it for now."

"Moira and I decided to buy some new furniture," Nathan said with a chuckle, thinking about their impromptu online shopping 'trip' last night. "Means we have to repaint, but I wasn't really keen on the beige anyway."

"What color are you going to change it to?"

"Dusty green," Nathan said, smiling. "It'll go well with the new furniture - it's all ash, kind of exotic-looking."

"It sounds nice. ....Muted forest-y."

"Soothing is the idea," Nathan said firmly. "To make it somewhere we can both go to get centered again." He smiled again at Rahne. "Privacy's a bit of an odd proposition when you've got a psi-link."

"I canna even imagine. How *do* ye get any? -- Does shielding work the same?"

Nathan sat down at the table, taking his oatmeal with him. "It's not really invasive," he said quietly. "The link can be there and we don't necessarily have to reach across it... we can, but a lot of the times it's just... knowing that she's there," he said with a soft smile.

"Ah. ....So how's it an odd proposition? Or is that it?"

Nathan nodded. "She's never not there." A pained note entered his voice as he went on. "Except for last week, of course... but that's fixed now."

Rahne winced a bit. "Aye." She looked over at him. "I did tell ye how glad I am yui're back, right?"

Nathan smiled. "You did," he said quietly. "I remember you visiting me..."

"I wasna sure if ye would."

"I'd have to be loopier than that to forget you being there," Nathan said with a soft laugh, still smiling warmly at her.

"Ye still agree to stay away from spindles, then?" Rahne asked with a warm smile in return.

Nathan raised a hand solemnly. "Cross my heart and all. Spindles and I are no longer on speaking terms."

"I suppose they're no really likely to be a problem," Rahne observed consideringly, "seeing as the people who turn up here doing magic seem to like ye pretty well. But then imagining ye at a spinning wheel is a wee bit strange in itself."

Nathan chuckled, then turned his appreciative attention to the oatmeal. "I should take some of this up to Moira," he said thoughtfully, then smiled happily. "She slept much better last night."

"That's good," Rahne said approvingly. "Maybe a big glass of milk, too." That would be good for her stomach. And in general. "Milk's another nice thing for me about being back..." she added thoughtfully.

"It's the little things you miss when you're someplace unusual," Nathan said. "And Asgard was more unusual than most..."

"Here's more unusual than most, and then Asgard makes here look normal." Rahne licked her spoon. "....I'd say I had a better time there than half the others though. Maybe more."

"You haven't talked about it much," Nathan said after a moment, watching her. "Hard to?"

She didn't quite meet his eyes. "I'm no really sure what to say about most of it." It seemed... ungrateful, or unfriendly, to say she missed things about it, too.

"Have you tried writing about it?" he suggested gently, applying himself to the oatmeal again. "A journal, something like that... it might be easier to sort it out on paper."

"That might work." She studied her oatmeal for a moment, then said softly, "I suppose I ought to at least try before the party, since there's talk of us or maybe Doug telling all our stories. ...Mine started out with being picked up by a giant, and then Hrimhari turned up and I got adopted into a pack led by the prince of the wolves."

Ahhhh. Things were starting to make sense. "It was good to be with them?" he prodded just as gently.

"Aye." Rahne smiled a little at her oatmeal. "I didna know what I was doing at all at first, of course, but they taught me. Hrimhari was verra patient." She looked up. "I'd meant to get Logan to teach me to track properly, once, but I didna before he left. Now I can. And sneak, though not as well as the rest of them did, and I learned to hunt more than just rabbits and frogs and on my own."

"It sounds like there were things about your time in Asgard that were wonderful," Nathan said quietly, his eyes locked on her face. "You shouldn't worry about sharing that, just because everyone else can't say the same thing."

"Well... I doona ken how many people really want to hear that I liked the taste and feel of breaking a deer's leg in my teeth while 'twas still trying to run." Her voice was flat. "Saying it out now, it sounds cruel, even to me... but I did like it, and the quicker we pulled it down the less time it did hurt, and I do like having fruit and oatmeal again but would ye believe I miss raw venison that's still warm?"

"I would," Nathan said calmly, without so much as blinking at her words. "Rahne, it's part of who you are. You explored that side of your nature in a way you never have before - maybe the rest of us can't understand it in the same way you do, but that doesn't mean we won't try. Or that you shouldn't talk about it."

"Maybe part of why it's hard to put into words is I didna use them for a lot of the time. Sometimes I did, mostly with Hrimhari...." They'd talked about some things she didn't generally talk about here, and wasn't really planning to start. "But not all the pack could change shape, see. That was one of the things I had to learn, was how to communicate the way they did."

"It must be very different," Nathan said thoughtfully. "I'm guessing it wasn't speech, per se?"

"No. More motion than anything else."

"You could talk to Doug about that," Nathan said with a smile. "Given how he reads body languge - I'm sure he'd understand, even if the rest of us wound up at a loss."

"Good point." Rahne laughed a little. "I think this is one he couldna quite 'speak' perfectly himself, though. Too much depends on ears and tail."

Nathan shook his head, unable to help a certain amount of fascination. "Rahne, this sounds like it was such an experience for you..." He paused, smiling. "I'm glad you had that."

"...So am I, really," she admitted. Even if it might be easier not to have had it. "I do miss... the pack." And its leader. Without quite thinking, she added, "It took me the longest time to figure out why they were treating me like an alpha... or even that they were... well, I had to have it explained to me in the end, really, I didna exactly learn what everything meant all that fast."

"What does it mean?" Nathan asked curiously. "I mean, I can guess, but I'd rather hear what you figured out..."

Rahne looked up, startled, and realized what she'd said and where it was inexorably going to lead. She bit her lip briefly. "Well... I had to be told, really. Which is one of the reasons 'twas odd. I got to be pretty good eventually, for how I started, and I think I could plan and direct a hunt better than most by the end, though most don't try. But I'd... not have been in charge of anything or, or deferred to for *me*, which is part of why I didna realize 'twas happening at first even when I should have recognized...." She swallowed and felt her face go hot. "They were treating me so because Hrimhari... liked me."

Oh, yes. Definitely, things were starting to make sense. "Is that why you've been a little... disconnected since you got back?" Nathan inquired, his voice very soft. "Part of you isn't sure about having left all of that behind?"

The thought crossed her mind that Nathan was probably not exactly supposed to get stuck with counseling duties for silly girls considering everything that had just happened to *him*. But it was rather too late to avoid the subject, so she nodded. "Er... has it been that obvious?"

Nathan considered it for a moment. "I wouldn't say so," he said, his smile a little wry. "But I am a telepath, after all."

"Ah. ...Right."

"Are you going to be all right with having left it behind?" Nathan asked more seriously, not breaking eye contact. "I know the choice is made, but that doesn't matter when it comes to how we feel, sometimes..."

"I -- I'll be all right, aye." She didn't quite manage to smile, though. "'Twas... the right thing to do, to come back, I think. But I do miss it. And miss him." Rahne had to shut her eyes then.

Nathan set his spoon down then, and got up, coming around the table and crouching down beside her chair, so that he could do precisely what he'd done in the hall that first morning after the kids had returned home. "Then remember him, and them," he said, firmly but gently, as he hugged her. "Let both sides of your nature out - don't lock the wolf away because you're afraid of how we'll react."

Rahne buried her face against his shoulder and bit her lip hard as the tears started. "Spend quite a lot of time here as a wolf, actually," she managed shakily when her throat relaxed a little. "I think that made adjusting easier. I'd got past things like -- eating something raw for the first time, already. I'm... not likely to forget. I was useful there and I l-loved him too."

"I'm sorry," Nathan murmured, holding her more tightly. "I'm so sorry you had to choose one or the other..." Rahne wasn't supposed to cry, he thought wistfully, part of him glad she still had her face hidden against his shoulder. He suspected the look in her eyes would probably break his heart.

"I told him I had -- people I shouldna leave behind and things I ought to do back here. He said -- said once that he'd maybe find a way to c-come when I'm dying and -- ask God if he could borrow me, just until all the worlds ended."

Part of him was trying to cope with the fact that yes, his heart had just audibly broken into several different pieces here. Another part of him was too caught up in horrified sadness that Rahne had been trying to keep this all inside, when so many of the others had been so vocal about their experiences in Asgard.

The majority of him, however, was more concerned with shifting forward and gathering as much of the weeping girl as he could manage into his arms. "He sounds like he's very strong," he murmured. "Strong and loving. Just like you. No wonder the two of you feel the way you do about each other."

"Nobody... more honorable... in all of Asgard. And 'tis not just the wolves who'll say it." Rahne sniffed and swallowed hard. "But I'm not... I doona think -- I mean, he'd have to be strong. He's led them... years...." She did smile then, a tiny, slightly self-mocking one against his shoulder. "Er. Quite a bit older than me, I suppose I hadna said that...."

Nathan couldn't help a smile. "That doesn't surprise me. I'm firmly convinced you're sixteen going on... well, too wise for your age, let's go wth that." He drew back a little, but only so that he could look her in the eyes without letting go. "Don't even doubt that you're strong, Rahne," he said more seriously. "You're one of the strongest people I've ever known. Everything you've said here... it just makes me believe that even more. Makes me even prouder of you." He sighed a bit shakily, raising a hand to touch the side of her face. "Proud of you, but sad for you..."

She still wasn't sure what he was talking about, in terms of strength; she'd never been tested the way it seemed so many of the people here had been. But arguing the point seemed a little nonsensical; instead she said slowly, "'Twas hard to remember there, sometimes, that there were things I wanted to... accomplish here, and people to miss... or who'd be missing me. I doona think I spent quite so much time thinking about home as... say, as Jamie did." A pause. "Well. I suppose there's more time for thinking of other things when yui're stuck having applesauce spooned into yuir leg than when yui're learning not to scare deer until ye want to."

A helpless laugh slipped out before Nathan could help himself, and he shook his head. "Rahne, only you..." She looked a bit perplexed, and he just smiled at her. "It's selfish of me," he said more quietly, "but I'm glad you decided to come back. The question is, are you? And if you're not right now, can you be?" He sighed a bit heavily, shifting back but taking both her hands in his.

She squeezed his hands back, just a little. "I think I am. I think... 'tis better. I... wish it werena so separate, that having both at once canna really work, but... maybe it *will* happen to have them in turn, and maybe 'twill be better -- I'll be better -- for having grown up and learned more here first. It just... doesna quite feel that way, sometimes." She thought of laying her head on his shoulder again, but just sighed instead. "'Tis probably selfish of me now, but... it does help that people did say they missed me."

"How could we not?" Nathan stared up at her for a few moments longer, and then grinned wryly. "What say we take some of this wonderful breakfast up to Moira, so she can tell you the same thing?"

Rahne squeaked and nearly knocked her chair over on her way back to the stove to make sure the forgotten oatmeal hadn't burnt, then came back sheepishly on discovering it hadn't. "We can do that," she said. "I'll get the milk." After a moment's hesitation, she reached out to hug him again. "And thanks," she whispered.

"Anytime," Nathan murmured and laughed again. "Anytime, anywhere, whatever you might want to talk about. Take that as a standing offer."

"...Thank you again." She stood there for a moment -- it was very restful -- and then gently disengaged and went to dish out another bowl of oatmeal and pour one of the colorful giant tumblers full of milk.