It's your what?! (Kavala)

[Mizuriel]

OOCSorry for the wait, I kept getting interrupted. This is like the sixth version of this post and they all sound either too good to be true or not like Mizu at all. One thing is for sure, playing him as any sort of an antagonist is much harder than one would think. Hope you like it. As he left for the Veranda, Mizuriel felt strange tingling at the back of his head. It was more of a feeling than anything real. Yet, something still told him he needed to apologize to Kavala and make amends. Regardless, his stubborn nature couldn’t give in to reason. Personal experience had thought him that trusting a woman was hard enough, even more so when the one in question was beautiful. Beautiful … Mizuriel smirked at finally admitting the Konti was so; she had always been that way. Her appearance had never bothered him before, but then again they were never really close. He trusted her and got a feeling of being given trust in return, but that was as far as their relationship ever went. Was he really one of those people who could no longer see beyond their eyes? The thought picked at him, as if it were a sharp needle. The man had been stirring for quite a while when he finally gave in to his musings. Wrong or not, he needed to say he was sorry for being so distant and cold. But how could he do it? Would she even want to listen to him? If there was one thing Mizuriel hated about himself, it was how long it took him to take any significant decision into action. This was no different. The Konti needed to hear those words and he needed to say them, and they could all hope for more of an ending than the unspoken tension he could now sense when looking at the woman. Her voice reached him, and he turned around after he picked out just what it was that she had said. “The filling is coming along nicely. She will indeed.” All he could do was be to the point and distant again, not even able to look straight at her. Just as he was about to get that apology over his lips, the mixture got too hard to spoon through and Mizuriel shrugged, taking it off the fire and resting it on the table. Whoever had the man in view up there surely disliked him… he couldn’t blame them though. He gazed into the distance for a while longer, unsure if he should apologize yet. His hands had been shaking for a while before he actually noticed it, was it really bothering him that much? Or was he just that scared? One thing was for sure though, he needed to be better with people (which wasn’t hard at his current level) in order for both Samantha’s and his own life to function properly. “I’m sorry” he finally got it into words. It was uneven and awkward, and he still felt ashamed and unsure, but it was a start, right? “I’m not really… good with people. And you’re beautiful, and I’m just not… and… you are a good mother. Tasifal is far more fortunate than you might imagine. If you are doing all this for Samantha and… I can only imagine how highly he will think of you once he grows up” he had lost it, every grain of confidence he thought he had was now gone. Mizuriel wasn’t even sure if it was an apology anymore or just an excuse, maybe even a pointless ramble. If only he knew what to say and when to say it, how simple life would be. How simple indeed.

[Kavala]

Kavala smiled. "Of course she'll love it. Her father made it for her. Regardless of blood or not, that's a title no one can ever take away from you Mizuriel. And it smells delicious." Kavala said softly, putting the finishing touches on Samantha's basket of gifts that would go a long way to support the puppy that was going to be picked out of the kennels. Birthdays were odd things. Kavala rarely celebrated hers at Sanctuary. She mostly took herself off alone, usually to Endrykas, and quietly celebrated her survival and then returned home with a new horse or some new tack or some little gift of a thing that she really wanted.

Samantha didn't have that option. She had the option to be stuck here with the grown ups who were always buried in their work and busy with their lives. A puppy would give Samantha something she had that was just her own, something that would look to her for guidance and give her a sense of importance as well because she'd need to feed it, play with it, and train it. "You'll need to tell Samantha when she picks out a puppy that they need to be talked too, loved, held, and told that they are safe. When they are good, they need to be told so, and when they are bad they need to be scolded." Kavala added still thinking about the puppy and hte silent little girl.

When Mizuriel stammered out his apology, Kavala glanced up and met his eyes, laying aside the ribbon she was fussing with.

She wasn't actually so good with people herself, but what he said made her angry. He was talking about looks, superficial things, and trying to compare himself to her. She flushed red, not in embarrassment, but in anger. Standing up, she marched over to where he was and yanked up a sleeve. He could clearly see the scars running up and down her body, all over her limb as she exposed the length of her arm. "All I see is ugly when I look in the mirror, Mizuriel. Ugly, used, and desired only for what I can give others, not for who I am. You should shut your gods cursed mouth about what people look like because in the end it never matters unless they are whole and new and fresh into the world like our children. What matters is who they actually are inside. You know that. And Tasival is no luckier than Samantha. Both of them won't even see us when they get older and won't even care that they have one parent that loves them. Their pain will come from the missing parents, the empty spots that aren't here to be filled." Kavala said, still flushed red which made her scales flash in deep colors of indigo and gold.

She turned from him then, staring at the basket of presents, and knowing she should put something on to eat for their dinner. But she couldn't think straight so all she ended up doing is marching back into The Sanctuary for the decorations she knew were stored in the storage and returning with a stool to begin hanging the dangling paper lanterns and stringing the colored banners around the pillars that held the roof onto the veranda. It wasn't much in the way of decorations, but as the long evening went dark, they'd make the veranda look nice at least.

[Mizuriel]

Mizuriel listened to Kavala rage. His mind slipping on the words that came out of her mouth. Not one of his words had been taken lightly, and much to his surprise there were scars he couldn’t recollect all over Kavala’s arm. Some form of abuse, he assumed. Not wanting to push that subject any further, the man covered his head in shame. He had still thought of her as beautiful, maybe even more so after seeing that her perfection was no lesser than it had been once, and captivating nonetheless. Would she like hearing that though? After all the misdoings of his tongue, the man just eyed the floor warily until she went inside. Kavala leaving brought him some momentarily relief, but things couldn’t stay like that. He needed to say something nice, like normal people would, something that she would like to hear. Regardless, all that got through his mind were rotten thoughts he would never dare voice in front of anyone. Yes, blood wasn’t everything, but it bore a lot of meaning. Couldn’t the Konti understand why Mizuriel had thought of her child as the fortunate one? Tasifal had a mother, and that was the one parent that no child should ever be without. Maybe he should tell her just what his words were supposed to mean, but even in another light he doubted they would lighten the tension between the two. After a long time, Mizuriel had started to doubt his own reason, were all women so difficult to explain to, or was it him who was constantly at fault. If the latter was true, could it even be mended? The cake was finished almost completely mechanically, or at least he thought of it as finished. Mizuriel couldn’t really focus on anything he was doing, so he looked back at Kavala, wondering if he was allowed to come closer. Getting over his very irrational fear of proximity, he walked over to about a few steps away from Kavala and stopped there. Whatever it was that she was stringing up, he picked it up, his mind still too hazy to notice just what it was. Reaching out his hand towards her, he held it in hopes that she would take what he was holding. “Forgive me, but trust comes hard for me… even more so when it comes to someone beautiful, and that you are. You might not understand it, but while both our children are far from perfectly happy; Tasifal will never have to worry about the world as long as you are there. No child should be without a mother… everything else is a poor substitute” his words were sour and felt like they were overly chewed on. Gulping, he wondered had it been better to use what time he had for a joke suggesting she should find another mirror. Shrugging the thought completely, the man wondered if he would ever find the words to express how sorry he was things were this complicated.

[Kavala]

She let her rage cool by setting aside her decorating and taking the cakes out of the oven and setting them up to cool. Swallowing, she covertly glanced at Mizuriel. His thoughts illustrated that she didn’t really know her employees that well. He was a virtual stranger to her. Samantha wandered around a lot underfoot, but she was a good girl and one Kavala enjoyed having around. But Mizuriel was quiet… and she knew nothing about his history. She should have asked him when she hired him, but his eyes had been kind. Very kind. And she liked the way he treated the child with him. Men treated children the same way they treated animals often, so she knew he’d be good for the Sanctuary denizens.

Kavala avoided responding to him by simply saying… “When it cools we need to frost it. If we frost it and put the filling in before the cake cools, it will melt all over it in a mess.” She added. But she made the frosting up anyhow. It was just a simple sugary confection of sugar, a bit of butter, milk, a tad of vanilla, and a whole lot of beating with a wooden spoon. She mixed it until it was white fluffy and would show off the red of Mizuriel’s crimson filling and topping. Yes, Samantha would like it, Kavala thought.

She went back to decorating as soon as the frosting was put together. It wouldn’t hurt it to let the frosting and cakes sit unguarded while they cooled. The only thing that might harm them was the herd of pups roaming around, but Raiha and Riki mostly kept them in check along with K’Sabe and Rath. Kav loved the dogs, but was so busy she didn’t have much time to devote to them like some of the others did. Horses were her first passion.

Finally though, as she hung another colorful streamer after wrapping a pilar with the same material, Kavala turned to Mizuriel. “Tasi is a baby. He doesn’t know what he needs or wants. And his pain will only come when he asks about his father and I have no idea what to tell him, Mizuriel. Yes, he left me. No I haven’t heard from him since I was too big to see my feet. No, I don’t think hes dead. Yes, he doesn’t want to see us… if he did his family would have come to Tasi’s naming. Yes, I loved him. No, it doesn’t hurt anymore… I can’t let it hurt. That part of me is dead forever. And the more I know of the Akalaks the more I hate them. Yes, I’m sorry his skin’s blue and hes part Akalak, but I’ll never love that part of him. A good mother should. I’m not a good mother. No one is rock steady in this life. No one is forever. You can’t depend on a lover to be there for more than the sex. They get fickle. They leave. They decide you aren’t what they need… maybe your looks matter too much. Maybe its your personality. Maybe its your body. Maybe it’s the way you pleasure them or the way you can’t when you are heavy with their children. Maybe its just nothing like that, but you can’t shut down your mind and keep from thinking all those things anyhow. I don’t know Mizuriel.” Kavala said, looking at him suddenly.

The streamer in her hand twisted around her a moment, and she looked away to fix it.

“You are right. You shouldn’t trust me. I gave you a job. I gave you a home for as long as you want it. I care for your daughter even though you say she’s not that to you. I have no reason to hurt you. I just want whats best for people here… for animals here. And I know for a fact if you keep judging people by how they look – even if its to say they are too lovely – then its going to rob you of something precious. But in the end, you can’t tell with people, ever. I might be the something you can’t understand.. a monster. Do you understand that?” A more cynical person would have told him he was right to not trust