| O Brother Where Art Thou |
| Summary: | Roslyn comes calling on Kitt, they talk of Nicodemus. |
| Date: | 21/June/2012 |
| Related Logs: | Nico/Roslyn when he was still Benedict. |
| Players: |
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| Groves Encampment |
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| It is a tent with a cot. Other things. |
| Thu Jun 21, 289 |
The warmth of the day has faded away as twilight falls in a blanket over the tournament, leeching color from the world. It is only then that Roslyn slips through the quiet Groves camp, Senna's cloak pulled around her to guard at least her identity if not the visit. She scratches at the tent in warning, waiting for permission to enter.
"You sound like an unusually tall cat," Kittridge says from within, "With that scratching. Couldn't you just whisper or something?"
Roslyn laughs, a quiet sound that she bites back with a quick dig of her teeth into her lower lip. It is still caught between them where she enters the tent, fastening the door behind her before turning back to Kittridge. "What if you had someone with you, like Rosanna?" she questions teasingly.
"Then she'd want to know who was scratching at the tent flap," Kittridge replies, "Or when Barristan had acquired stilts. Not speaking would hardly save you. Don't you listen as you walk up?" He lounges on a chair, feet kicked up on a stool. Flaps at the back of the tent are ajar let air in but minimal light out, and a pitcher sweats on his small table. "Wine?" he offers, "It's…not quite cold, but not warm yet."
"Next time I will whisper, if only to make you happy," Roslyn says with warm humor, the amusement dancing in her gaze as it drags over Kittridge. She leaves her hood up as she closes the distance between them, leaning forward to brush a kiss to his lips in a quick gesture. "Though, I have faith that you would make the appropriate answers to save me, if need be."
"Deal," Kittridge replies, "I'd never argue with you doing something to make me happy, after all." He grins, and tips his chin up for the kiss, reaching out to unfasten her cloak. "I'm sure I'd come up with something," he agrees. "I don't know what, exactly. That you'd come to pick up a book or something, maybe? That you were looking for Rosanna? I suppose that's probably the best way to go," he nods thoughtfully, "Looking for her and thought I might know where she was."
"Dressed in my maid's cloak?" Roslyn questions dubiously, though her fingers slide into soft hair and she leans all the closer to allow him to take said cloak off. "A book, maybe. Coming to pay you coin, for how well your brother placed in the melee?"
Kittridge shrugs, "It's dark, maybe she wouldn't notice. Or someone spilled something on your cloak, so you borrowed it." He waves a hand vaguely, and pulls the cloak off her shoulders, holding it out and letting it drop to pool behind her. "A book, or some winnings, that could be. Orrr…Hmmm." He tries to think up another excuse, and trails off, reaching out for a hand and a hip to draw her down into his lap. "Maybe to warn her about cloak thieves," he suggests, "Rampaging about the camps."
There is no attempt to stifle her laughter this time as Roslyn sinks into his lap, the sound escaping against his jaw as she presses a kiss there lightly. She replies, "Yes, cloak thiefs. Or! Oh! Cloak gnomes, who steal proper lady's cloaks for profit." She pauses, a small smile on her lips as she draws back. "Were you at the melee? I did not see you."
"Cloak gnomes?" Kittridge laughs, "That's ridiculous. They'd clearly be cloak wights, snatching up cloaks so that they can prowl around appearing corporeal instead of all misty and ghostlike." He kisses her, and then settles arms around her and leans back comfortably, nodding. "I was. I'm sorry I didn't come sit with you and Rosanna, I ran into some people I hadn't seen in a while and ended up watching with them."
Curling into his warmth, Roslyn tucks under his chin with a comfortable familiarity. Her fingers settle lightly against his chest, twiddling carelessly with the fabric of his shirt as she nods slightly. "It is likely better, as I sat for some of it with Justin. You would not have wished to join, I'd imagine," she answers lowly, before adding in a much easier tone, "Though, your brother did wonderfully. I hadn't imagined—Of course, he spent a lot of time in the Stepstones."
Kittridge props his feet up again, and settles, nodding, "Ah. No, probably not. Did you have a nice chat?" he asks, tone faintly mocking, as if the idea of it amuses him. When she mentions his brother, he tenses instinctively beneath her fingers. "He did," he says simply, after a momentary silence.
"I am sorry," Roslyn murmurs immediately, the silence and tension not going unnoticed with her pressed so close against him. "I did not mean to upset you. He only made mention of it to me."
"It's fine," Kittridge replies just as quickly. He's silent for another beat or two and then asks, "When did you speak with him? Or do you mean at the market that day when he was a handsome hedge knight you wanted to find a job for and marry?"
Roslyn's features wince at that, though she only answers, "It was not so silly of a plan at the time, Kit, when he was only a hedge knight and I had no possibility of a match." She pauses before correcting firmly, rewriting her memory, "I never called him handsome, however."
"You did," Kittridge replies, not willing to let her get away with that rewrite, it seems, "You definitely called him handsome. Well, now you know why I told you not to get set on that idea," he says a shade dryly. He reaches for his wine, and takes a swig.
"I did not. There is no way I could call another handsome if I were speaking, and looking, at you," Roslyn insists, a smile catching at the corners of her lips as she draws back and attempts to catch at the wine to sip at it next. "Well, it may have been a silly idea."
"Flatterer," Kittridge accuses, rolling his eyes at her but smirking faintly. He allows his wine-hand to be caught and tipped so she can drink, nodding. It's a very nice white wine, chilled once but beginning to near room-temperature again. "It was," he says, and when she's done takes the cup back for another sip. "He did fight well," he says afterwards, "I guess there's that."
Roslyn's smile only curves all the wider at that accusation, savoring the taste of the wine on her tongue as she watches Kittridge. "It was a good showing for Groves, and for your brother in his first tourney since—," she begins quietly, trailing off and instead only shifting closer.
"Yeah, Tommas did pretty well also," Kittridge nods. He sets the wine back down, and slips chilled fingertips up the back of her sleeve playfully. He strokes the inside of her wrist and, after a hesitation, says, "If you want to ask about him, you can ask about him. Or say something, or… whichever. I'm not going to get upset at you."
The allowance only seems to sober Roslyn further, shivering softly at the caress as she considers thoughtfully her words still before she questions, "Are you glad to have him back, Kit?"
Kittridge laughs lightly, wryly. "Haven't you got any easier questions?" he says, before draining the rest of his wine. "I don't know," he replies finally, "That's the only honest answer I have. I haven't decided yet."
"That seems to be all that matters. I want to know how you feel, not him," Roslyn replies apologetically, though humor makes a soft whisper along her words as she brushes a kiss against his jaw in an absent gesture. She adds, simply, "He is family."
"He gave up his family," Kittridge replies, a little bit stiffly, even as she brushes lips to his jaw, "He abandoned us and ran away. He doesn't just get to come back and say 'oh hello, I'd like to be part of the family again now, six years later' and get forgiven just like that," he snaps his fingers, "That's not how it works."
Roslyn nods softly, a quiet gesture even as she lingers close to him. She murmurs, "I know, Kit. Believe me, I do, but—." She pauses, a thoughtful thing as if to carefully consider her next words. "He is your brother, and at some point, it may hurt more to hold a grudge than to forgive."
"Have you forgiven your sister?" Kittridge asks, turning the question around, "For what she did? Running off to play squire, disgracing you all to follow some stupid whim? Or your other brother, the real Rowan who ran off?"
"I am trying to," Roslyn answers, hesitating over the response as she shifts away to study Kittridge. "It takes time, of course. I know that it does."
It was a challenging sort of question, but Kittridge just nods at the answer. "Yeah," he says, "I guess it does."
Roslyn falls silent at that, her lips pressing into a tight line even as she curls closer against his hard lines, her head pillowing against his chest. Quietly, finally, she requests, "Tell me of him?"
Kittridge tips his head back, eyeing the pitcher of wine on the table behind him, and finding the distance too far to reach without getting up. So he settles again, and, after a while, shrugs. "He's my twin," he replies, "It's not like just being brothers, I don't know how to describe it to someone who isn't one. We were always together, from the moment we were born, except for eight months between him being knighted and coming home and me being knighted. And then he just… left."
"Why did he leave you?" Roslyn murmurs lowly, her fingers tracing light patterns against his chest as she listens.
"He wouldn't swear to King Robert," Kittridge says, derisively, "He 'couldn't do it'. And he found he liked war too much or something, I guess. Decided he'd rather go be an exile in the Stepstones bashing heads in for a living than come home."
Roslyn's lips thin all the more, her fingers splaying and pressing against Kit's chest, over his heart, as she says, "It must have hurt."
Kittridge just sort of grunts a response, a wordless noise out of his chest that rumbles briefly beneath her hand. "Would you like more wine?" he asks, picking her up as he stands and carefully displacing her onto (her feet on) the floor.
"Yes, please," Roslyn agrees quietly, concern touching at the corners of her lips as her gaze tracks after Kittridge. She does not move, yet, from where she was placed.
Kittridge crosses those few steps across the tent and pours her a cup of wine and refills his own, bringing it back to her. Instead of retaking his seat in the chair he paces over towards his cot and sprawls there.
Accepting the glass with a murmured word of thanks, Roslyn trails Kittridge back to his cot, lowering herself delicately to the edge as her fingers curl securely around her glass. "I am sorry, Kit," she says.
"Let's talk about something else," Kittridge suggests. He leans his head against the taut canvas wall, chin almost on his chest, and somehow gets his cup to an angle to drink.
A soft sound catches on Roslyn's lips, her glass raised for a large sip before she sets it carefully on the floor before shifting closer. A tight smile touches the corners of her lips, humor slightly strained as she suggests, "Or we could just have sex."
Kittridge snorts a laugh, amused by that response, and gulps his wine before setting the cup aside. "Sounds like a better topic to me, he says, hauling her closer and not saying much of anything else for a while.
