An Awkward Breakfast
rudras-and-asuras expressed some curiosity. telurin and I decided to clean it up a little and just post our googledoc RP for anyone interested to take a peek. This is the breakfast in which Telrii reveals to her father, Telurin, that she is dating my kaldorei hunter, Kalshen. The two men did not meet on the friendliest of terms (which we may also clean up and post). gher-bear, buran, Rhavaan, and Alkrenon all get at least a brief mention. Just click "keep reading” if you’re interested!
An Awkward Breakfast
“Thank you.” Kalshen nodded his gratitude at the innkeeper, who opened the door for the room he purchased Rii. Possibly not their usual amount of hospitality, but with the kaldorei’s arms full from carrying a very exhausted Telrii, definitely appreciated. “Sleep well.” The innkeeper closed the door behind the couple. Though Kalshen bought only one room, he didn’t plan on staying. He knew her family, or at least those she knows frequented the area, he wasn’t sure if she was ready for them to be seen sharing a room. However, when he tried setting Rii in the bed and leaving, she wrapped her arms more tightly about him, mumbling something about staying. He chuckled and tried peeling her arms off. “Are you sure? We’re still in Embaari.”
She only clung tighter with a muffled, “Don’t care.” Leaning more into her on the edge of the bed he smiled and ran his fingers through her hair. “Alright, but we’ll both regret it if I don’t take off my armor first.” He wasn’t entirely sure she knew what was going on, but then again, they’d never exactly been discreet before. After hiding his entire relationship with Adriala until her death, he found himself relieved Rii didn’t seem to care who knew about him. Either way, she let him go, and he removed his armor, climbing in with her, still wearing the simple mageweave shirt and cloth pants underneath. With her moving back into his arms, he slept easily and deep. When he wakes in the morning she is sprawled out over most of the bed with the blankets tangled away from him around her hooves. He chuckles and sits up on one elbow, smoothing her hair off her temple and kissing it. “Gonna have to start keeping spare blankets with you around.”
Rii frowns and makes a sad whimper as he sits up, reaching out to the space he so recently vacated. She curls up onto her side, slow to wake, and when he speaks she makes a muffled noise that could be agreement, though it’s not certain if she’s responding to his words or his tone.
After a few minutes of hair and horn petting, however, she cracks her eyes open to look at him, blinking sleepily. When she notices they’re in an unfamiliar room, she sits up suddenly, looking at him with wide eyes as she asks, “Where are we? Are we still in Embaari?”
The soft, affectionate smile falters at her reaction and he tenses a bit. “The inn, yes.” He sits up all the way with her, hand at her back and ears low.
Rii loops an arm around his waist and buries her head in his side. “My dad stays here” is the muffled reply. She twists her head and presses it against his hip. “Maybe we can just stay in.” He shakes his head with a smile before he lays back down, pulling her with him. “We could…” He caresses up and down her arm before trying to look at her face. “And then sneak out one at a time, if you’re not ready for him to know.” He manages to say this last while sounding as if he doesn’t mind. In truth, he is willing to wait until she’s ready to introduce him, and realizes straight out of an inn room together is not the best way to go about it.
“Much as it pains me to admit…” His caress up her arm continues along her neck to her ear. “We may want to hold off on making certain noises from this room and just skip straight to sneaking out. If you’re that worried.”
“You’re right,” She sighs, sitting up and running a hand through her hair and over her horns. “Probably not the best idea to do anything….but we’re here, I might as well rip the bandage off and get it over with.”
She stretches, her arms above her head and arching her back in a way that she knows will catch his attention. “There’s only so much he can do in public, and I’d rather him find out from me than from Buran.”
He closes his eyes as she teases him and shakes his head. “Tease me, refer to me as though I am a wound, and make me think there’d be trouble if we met him in private? I suppose it’s a good thing I’d already endure much worse for you.” He remembers the brief conversation with Rahvaan about Telurin and Rii and realizes he feels no different now. “I would...die for you, Rii...hopefully not at the hands of your father,” he chuckles here, “but...I hope you are not still worried he, or any of your family will scare me off...or that you aren’t...ashamed...are you?” His brow furrows at those thoughts and he continues running his hand up and down along her arm.
“No!” She looks up at him with brows that are sharply pulled together at his tone. “I’m not ashamed of you, and I won't let father scare you off, either. It’s just… It’s just not going to pleasant, is all.” She leans up against him and rests her head on his shoulder. “I’d never be ashamed of you.”
He pulls her tighter for a moment. “Good. So...are we sneaking out one at a time? Do you want me to crawl out through the window there? Or are we going to go downstairs for breakfast and wait around for him on purpose?”
Telrii’s stomach grumbles at just the right moment. She looks at him sheepishly. “Breakfast it is…” she reaches up and touches her sleep mussed hair. “Right after I tend to this.” She looks about for a brush, and frowns when nothing immediately presents itself. She ends up using her fingers to redo her ponytail, then looks down at her slightly rumpled clothes with a sigh.
While she combs at her hair with fingers, Kalshen digs in the pack near the door and pulls out a brush. He offers it to her first and begins picking up pieces of his discarded armor and donning them. Despite carrying a brush in his pack, he doesn’t really seem to notice the frumpled state of her clothes. After she’s finished with the brush he runs it through his own hair. “Ready?”
Her eyes light up when he presents her with a brush, and with it manages to wrangle her hair into something decent. She hands it back to him and nervously straightens the bed as she waits for him. She nods when he asks her if she’s ready, and takes a deep breath. “As I’ll ever be.”
“On to food and the glowering, then.” He reaches for her hand, and if she accepts it, gives it a reassuring squeeze before stooping to shove the brush back in his pack and sling it up over his shoulder. He opens the door for her and waits for her to take the lead, following her down the hall to the stairs that lead into the inn’s dining area.
There’s a draenei in familiar armor with an even more familiar crest and hair color, seated faced away from them a bit to the side of the room. Telrii sags as soon as she spots him, and gives Kalshen a long suffering look before straightening her back and dropping his hand to trot up to her father, draping her arms carefully over his shoulders, mindful of the spikes, to kiss him on the temple and say “Goodmorning!” with all the cheer she can muster.
Telurin doesn’t even twitch at the contact, betraying the fact that he knew who it was by some other means. He tilts his head away from her to look at her, and actually smiles. “Good morning, Telrii.” His tone is pleasant enough- he hasn’t seen Kalshen behind him yet.
Unsure of how Telrii wishes to proceed, Kalshen stops on the bottom step where she dropped his hand and watches the exchange. With Telurin actually in front of him, he realizes he’s not entirely sure how to act around him now. Only sure enough the dynamic in their last encounter probably will not work so well in this one. He opts for formal respect and waits for some indication Telrii is ready for him to join them.
Telrii smiles widely and lets go of her father to look up at Kalshen and beckon him over. “I hope you don’t mind company.” She says. Telurin turns to follow her gaze and frowns as he recognizes the Kaldorei, before turning that glare back toward his daughter, who gives him a look that manages to be both sheepish and determined at the same time.
“Kal said you already know each other, so…” When Kalshen comes up to the table, she doesn’t hesitate to put her arm in his before taking a spot at the table. “He’s Lesara’s bro-”
“I know who he is.” Telurin cuts her off. Telrii goes silent as Telurin looks at her with disappointment.
Here we go. Kalshen thinks as Telurin’s mood immediately sours. He takes the look with a sober expression, but not flinching, absolutely no trace of the challenging smile he gave Telurin when ignoring his threats in Feralas. He sits quietly when Rii leads him to a seat with her, settling in a pattern of speaking only when spoken to.
Telurin studies Kalshen as he takes a spot at the table, and then turns back to Rii. He picks up his coffee and takes a sip with a grimace. He snorts as she continues to look at him with trepidation.
“I believe all the points I brought up the first time we had this conversation are still valid.” He says, tone curt but not angry. When he turns to Kalshen, however, there’s a bit more vehemence in his words. “Hurt her in any way, and I will make good on those threats I gave last we spoke.”
The renewed threat has about as little effect now as when he first issued them, albeit for different reasons. Kalshen takes it with a serious expression rather than a smirk this time. He merely nods. “I would die first.” He keeps his tone even and frank. Honest.
“Good. See to it it you keep that mindset.” Telurin says gruffly
Telrii sighs, and gives Kalshen an apologetic look. Catching the end of her expression, Kalshen shakes his head just a bit, expressing, he hopes, that she has no need for apologizing. Knowing Telurin is quite serious about anyone who should threaten Telrii leaves him feeling, and probably looking, more comforted than nervous. “Be glad you have them, dalah’surfal. I am.” He gives her an encouraging smile.
Telrii practically beams at him, while Telurin merely narrows his eyes at the Darnassian.
“So we’re all in agreement then!” She says, snapping back to the conversation at hand. It seems she’d been drifting at Kalshen’s term of endearment, which doesn’t help his cause any with her father. She catches the eye of one of the innworkers who double as servers, Aeldri, who recognizes her with a wave and heads into the Kitchens to get her usual order. Telurin and Telrii frequent the inn often enough that Telrii, at least, knows the staff.
Watching the exchange, Kalshen begins realizing, that while breakfast sounds good, Telurin probably does not at all want this to last any longer than it has to. The thought calls his attention back to the death knight to see him still scowling. “Should I...give you time alone with your father?” His uncertainty at the cultural norms in these circumstances carries through in his voice.
“No!”
“Yes.”
“No.” Telrii looks at Telurin with what Kalshen may recognize as her ‘determined’ face. “It’s just breakfast. It’s not that long, you will both survive.”
Telurin makes a show of looking into his cup to see how much is left, and sighs at the amount left.
Unsure just how inappropriate it would be, Kalshen fights the urge to chuckle at the exchange and Telurin’s too-full cup. When the server comes back, she apologizes for not getting Kalshen’s order with Rii’s, going on about how well she knows them and exchanging smiles. He shakes his head and smiles politely back, unbothered by it. After ordering some sort of fruit bowl, he takes to sitting quietly, if not a bit awkward.
Rii, for her part, chatters happily at the both of them, congratulating her dad on winning the tournament - with some choice words to say about the rangari who was kicked out. “You stay away from that one, Rii. I’m serious.” Telurin even looks at Kalshen after he says this, and if he prefers the elf to this draenei, well, it only shows how serious he is.
The warning has Kalshen’s brow knitting with concern as he looks from Telurin to Rii. He almost asks if there’s more to worry about regarding this Alkrenon but Rii glances back and forth between them and quickly changes the subject first, chattering idly about other topics.
She fritters away her muffin as she keeps up the new, mostly one sided conversation with minimal help from either male, most of it going onto her plate turned to crumbs. She steals grapes from Kalshen’s bowl when she thinks he’s not looking, and manages to ask her father questions at precisely the right time to get him to set down his coffee that he was raising to his lips, preventing him from leaving as quickly as he’d like. The open concern fades as Rii talks a windstorm over them both and when she begins stealing his grapes every time he looks away, he can’t help but feel amused. At one point, he even looks away and holds up a grape for her, a smile quirking up on his lips. After she takes it, he picks up his hot tea and focuses on it. When she begins interrupting her father at every sip he tries taking, he’s fully smiling about the whole thing. She is entirely too loveable.
Eventually though, Telurin drains his cup, and sets it down as he stands. “Stop in with Gheron today, he’s been worried about you and I tire of listening to him berate me about your whereabouts. Keep him apprised, will you?”
Rii swallows her bite of muffin, nodding instead to show she’s heard. He pats her head as he passes, and heads out of the inn without so much as a glance in Kalshen’s direction.
“Could have sworn I had twice the amount of grapes I’ve eaten,” he muses, not at all bothered by Telurin ignoring him.
Rii tries for an innocent expression, and when that fails, helpless giggles, and shamelessly steals the last grape.
“You must be mistaken.” She says after swallowing. “I can ask Aeldri for more though if you like…”
“Saves me feeding you the last one directly.” He boops her nose and now that Telurin has vacated the inn, kisses her cheek and reaches for her hand. “I’ve eaten enough, but I will order another bowl of grapes for you to steal if you like?”
“No, they’re tastier when they’re poached.” She grins at him and leans against him. “So it seems I have to check in with Uncle Gheron, but that shouldn’t take long. Did you have anything in town you needed to do, or did you want to come meet the other Papa Bear? Or is two in one day too much for you? You’d think having Vera around would give him something to focus on, but no….”
“I already took care of my business in Embaari last night. As for today and the rest of your family, I will do as you wish.” He squeezes her hand. “I really did not mind breakfast with your father.”
“Good, because Gheron’s likely to be worse.” She smiles at him, kissing his cheek and standing, tugging on his arm. “Come on, let’s catch him before he starts his rounds, then he’ll have a limited amount of time to grouse.”