7KPP Week 2019 - Day 1
Introductions || Favorites
I wasn’t planning to do day 1, but I realized last-minute that a long-standing headcanon of mine fit well with the day 1 prompt, so...have some last-minute Shahira meeting her father-in-law.
Fairly rough around the edges, sorry!
Conway scans the horizon, looking for the ship the spotters at the docks had reported. The Blackwater, they’d thought.
The ship returning with his son. And, if nothing had gotten mucked up on the trip, his future daughter-in-law.
The jewel of the Corvali delegation, to hear everyone tell it. Trust Hamin to manage to do the one thing he wasn’t expecting.
It probably would have been more efficient for Corval to send her on a boat themselves, but Hamin had volunteered. He’s always had a fancy for the idea of properly kidnapping one’s spouse. (At least he, unlike some of Hise’s youth, realizes that the phrase “kidnapping” is mostly a joke these days. Once or twice every year, Conway has to deal with some wayward upstart who took it bit too literally, and their disgruntled would-be spouse.)
Based on Hamin’s behavior shortly before he left, there’s also a very real possibility he would have gone stir-crazy if he’d had to wait that extra week or two before seeing her again. The pacing, the early morning walks to the shore, the smiling off into space when he thinks no one’s looking. It’s good to see him—it’s good to see.
As the Blackwater draws closer, Conway puts the looking glass up to his eye and scans the deck.
It’s pretty easy to pick her out. There’s only one person on deck in a skirt, and she’s got her hands on the railing, leaning forward eagerly, like her new life will start sooner if she can spot it. He knows that look.
The dockmaster catches him then, with a long list of annoyances he’s been meaning to bring to the council. Some of it really does need to be looked into, but a lot of it…
By the time he finally gets free, the Blackwater’s docked and they’re dropping the gangplank. He spots his son directing from the deck, making sure it’s firmly settled before heading over to the woman he’d spotted through the looking glass.
She’s stepped back from the railing, gathering up her skirts as she looks over her shoulder and smiles at him.
Hamin scoops her up and lifts her off her feet, carrying her down the gangplank like a prize.
(It’s pretty much exactly what Conway was expecting, but from the woman’s surprised look, she wasn’t.)
She thumps his chest playfully, laughing. “Hamin, put me down!” If Conway hadn’t already known she was Corvali, the lilting edge to her words would make it clear.
“Mm…no, I think I like you like this.” He looks over and grins. “Hi Dad.”
“I—Hamin!” she breaks off into breathless laughter. “I can’t—introduce myself—to your father like this!”
“Sure you can,” he says. “Dad, this is Shahira. Shahira, Dad.”
She inhales deeply between bouts of silent giggles, clearly struggling to compose herself, and twists around to face him, her cheeks flushed with laughter. “I’m—pleased to meet you, sir.” She tugs at the dangling fall of her skirt in something that might be aspiring to become a curtsy.
He holds out a hand for her to shake, and she takes it, still laughing.
They look good together. Young, happy, ready to start a life side-by-side.
It reminds him of—
He firmly drags his mind away from that well-trodden path. She’s not coming back. He hopes she’s happy, wherever she is. Hopes she’d be proud of their son.
But he’ll just have to be proud enough for both of them.
(Shahira meeting her father-in-law while being carried and laughing hysterically has been a headcanon of mine for literal years. Not sure I captured the moment quite like I wanted to, so might try it again someday!)
