A Room at the Arms Hotel, Sunday Evening

[wwiii]

Today had been a completely nonfunctional day. There was Warren, with his hotel room paid up for an extra day and his portal arrival rearranged to let him stay with Karla a little longer. And there was a warm bed, that hadn't been vacated all day.

And there was Karla, wrapped in his arms and buried under one wing, with her face nuzzled into the curve of his neck. He could take another day off from school. One more day couldn't hurt.

"We should probably eat something," he murmured into Karla's hair. "Room service, we don't even have to go anywhere."

[For the lady!]

Comments

[glacial_queen]

"'M not hungry," Karla mumbled into Warren's neck. Eating sounded like it might require moving out from under his wing and out from his arms.

Oh, but Warren might be hungry. Darn it.

"Are you?"

[wwiii]

"Starving," he murmured. "But I can put it off a little longer, if you'd rather wait."

He'd liked her parents, but he'd barely known them. And, while he ended on good terms with them both, he wasn't going to mourn their passing all that much, either- they'd been dead since well before he met them, after all. He was sorry to see them go, once they'd stopped being horrible to everyone around them who wasn't Blood... But he was more sorry that their leaving was tearing Karla up all over again.

And he was hungry. He imagined Karla might be, too, if there was food in front of her.

But he could wait.

[glacial_queen]

"No," she said quietly. "We should eat. It's one of those things I'm supposed to do, remember?"

It was late in the day. She was supposed to be starving. She just...wasn't.

"...It didn't make it all okay." She hadn't realized what she was going to say until it was out of it. "Their good-bye, I mean."

[wwiii]

"I know," Warren murmured, sitting up and pulling her up into his lap. They really did need to eat. It was one of those things she was supposed to do, and he was quietly proud of her for being the one to point that out. "But they tried."

That was... all he really had.

[glacial_queen]

Well, he was going to have to order it, because if she to put actual effort into this, nothing was going to happen.

"I don't know what to do." Mother Night, she sounded pathetic. She knew she did. But she couldn't seem to help it. "Or what to think or what to feel. I'm just all..."

Words. She didn't have them.

[wwiii]

"They really are proud of you, Karla," Warren whispered, running his fingers through her hair. "Everything they were upset about... it was who we were. We non-Blood. And they were wrong about that."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"They're afraid for you, you know. What we're doing is so much bigger than they can fathom. They weren't disappointed, they were just scared."

He'd worry about ordering food in a minute.

[glacial_queen]

"But I still felt like I didn't measure up," she said. She was probably going to have to let go of him soon. Hrmm. She wasn't very fond of that idea. "She was just always...picking."

Had her mother always been like that?

[wwiii]

"I don't think she really understood that the world she was trying to raise you for doesn't exist anymore," Warren offered. "Maybe the things she was picking at would make sense, if Glacia was at peace, but..."

If that was the case, Karla's mother would still be alive and well and Queen of the Territory, which is something Warren was pretty sure the woman wasn't quite able to grasp.

And also she was kind of... horrible. He... wasn't going to say that part to Karla, though.

[glacial_queen]

"I don't think I ever measured up to the ideal daughter she had in her head," Karla whispered. "I wish I had. I wish I could."

She wanted to ask what was wrong with her that she couldn't, but she already knew the answer Warren would give. It was the same one she'd offer if their positions were reversed--in fact, they had been and she had--but knowing it didn't make it easier to bear.

[wwiii]

"She held an impossible ideal, Karla," Warren murmured, cradling her there in his arms and swaying a little, brushing his fingers through her hair. Preening. It was comforting, even if only to him, having something to do with his hands. "You're as close to it, though, as anybody could possibly be. So much closer than you should be able to be, in your position. You put so much of yourself into trying to be that person..."

So much that it scared him, sometimes.

"The only person you really need to be is you."

[glacial_queen]

"I don't think I know how," Karla said, closing her eyes and just letting the feel of his claws on his scalp help soothe some of the tension away. "I don't think I've ever just been Karla. I've always been Karla-trying-to-be-someone-else."

[wwiii]

"I can name a lot of times that you've been Karla," Warren murmured, pressing another kiss to her forehead. "You're Karla when you fly. You're Karla when we kiss. You're Karla right now and you're hurting, but you're still the most beautiful person I've ever known. You let glimpses through sometimes, you know. And what I see... she's the woman I love. She's breathtaking."

[glacial_queen]

"She's got tangles in her hair and a bright red nose and puffy eyes," Karla retorted, a feeble attempt at a joke but a joke nonetheless. "I'm glad you can name times, though. Because I feel like I'm only Karla when I make a mistake."

She closed her eyes again, concentrating on the feel of his love and drawing it around her like a blanket made of the softest fleece ever. Warm and comforting, it gave her strength even as it protected her.

"I love that you can see me, even when I can't."

[wwiii]

"I think a person would have to be blind or deliberately not trying, in order to not see you," Warren murmured, fingers still carefully working their way through her hair. "That you care enough to try so hard to be what people want you to be... That's you, too. You care."

Not enough people really cared, if you asked Warren.

[glacial_queen]

"I've tried so many years trying to live up to who they were. The kind of parents I thought they were, the kind of people, the kind of Queen. And now to discover that the people I thought they were don't actually exist."

The admonition at the end had been nice, but this realization had formed over the weekend, watching her parents act and react to everyone. They hadn't been paragons. They hadn't been perfect. Everything she'd been trying to live up to was a lie.

She wasn't sure if she were more hurt to have been so wrong, relieved that she didn't have to try to live up to an impossible ideal, or embarrassed that it had taken her this long to have figured it out.

[wwiii]

"I know it's hardly the same thing... but my father was right there while I grew up, and it took me until I was almost twenty to figure out what kind of person he really was," Warren pointed out, his voice still gentle. "You lost your parents when you were little, Karla... And most children see the ideal when they look at their mother and father. When would you ever have had a chance to get to know them for who they really were, otherwise?"

[glacial_queen]

Damn Warren and all of his logical logics that were logic-ing at her. She was still feeling pretty miserable over the weekend and it just somehow made more sense to blame herself for it.

"I don't know," she mumbled into his shoulder. "But it's just got me questioning everything. All of my memories. All of my ambitions. I've spent so long trying to live up to who they were that now I feel adrift. It was impossible for me to measure up, but at least it was something to strive for."

[wwiii]

"You've still got plenty to strive for," Warren replied, still softly. "Glacia still needs saving. And it'll need a Queen who cares enough to be what her people need. Your parents might have been something concrete to strive to become, but you still have that. And Glacia's need is still real."

He ran his fingers through her hair again.

"And you don't have to figure out what you need to strive for alone, you know."

[glacial_queen]

"I know I don't," she said, hugging him close to her. "And for that, I am forever grateful. You make me stronger just by being nearby."

Warren had somehow mastered the art of giving her strength without fostering dependence. She could lean on him when she needed, but he made her stand tall.

"Any thoughts on that? What I need to strive for, I mean?"

[wwiii]

"The same thing you always have, Karla," Warren murmured. "Compassion. Strength. You won over the support of Arceria with that passion of yours, Karla. You did that because you had to, because your people were being hunted and hurt. You did that as you."

[glacial_queen]

"I still feel--"

Her stomach took that moment to growl, surprising a chuckle out of her.

"Hungry, I guess. I still feel hungry."

And loved. So very loved, sitting in his arms while he reminded her of the good she had done.

[wwiii]

Warren ducked his head a little and laughed, giving her a squeeze and pressing another kiss to her forehead.

"What would you like me to order, my love?"

[glacial_queen]

"Surprise me," Karla decided, glowing a bit at that endearment. Because it was nice to hear, that's why. "I don't think I'm up to making a decision right now. Not without a lot of second-guessing."

[wwiii]

"A little bit of everything it is," he replied, making an executive decision. "I'll have them send someone out for Fina's crepes for us, while they're at it. How does that sound?"

[glacial_queen]

"That's just cheating," Karla informed him--not that she was objecting. "That's hardly a decision."

[wwiii]

"I decided on everything, with extra crepes," Warren pointed out. "That's totally a decision. And it means we don't have to leave the room tomorrow morning, either."

He thought it was a good choice, anyhow.

[glacial_queen]

"You'll stay through tomorrow morning?" Karla asked, sounding pathetically eager to her own ears. "You mean it? Promise?"

[wwiii]

"I mean it, I promise," Warren replied as he reached for the hotel room phone. "I don't have anything in Sunnydale that I can't catch up on later. Being with you is way more important right now."

[glacial_queen]

"Because you're worried I might fall apart?"

[wwiii]

"Because it kills me a little every time I have to leave you behind."