bedroom, gemma + timothee in vikingsverse
G E M M A
how does this character sleep? (position, sleeping habits, bedtime routines.)
gemma has always been a light sleeper. even before the ice, before the nights rocked on the waves of a sea storm between denmark and the mouth of the volga, before sean tried to take her life in her sleep, gemma would wake at the slightest sound. premonitory perhaps. when she woke as a child, as a teen, while still young but after the ice, she would go and check on her brothers; as an adult, before the boys, she would find the moon and watch it in the sky until she grew tired, and after the boys were born, she would take one of them with her to sit and see the moon and stars. it's rare she sleeps a whole not unless she is ill or wounded.
each night before bed, she washed her hands. she's careful around the nails and knuckles, making sure they're spotless. sometimes the water is so cold her hands remain pink for long minutes afterwards but she survived the ice, cold hands are nothing.
for sleeping she is a flat on her back sleeper. when her sons get old enough to climb into her bed, they curl into her sides with ease because of this. for them, she always pretends she is asleep, letting them fall to sleep themselves next to her. and she watches the moon thru the window until her eyes fall closed on their own once more.
what are their pyjamas like?
gemma can and has slept in everything. she has slept on everything from the cold, frost bitten ground to the softest of beds.
but once she settles, wife and queen-consort of the prince of novgorod, and a comfortable safety that comes with those two titles settles into her spine, she develops a better sleeping habit including proper nightwear.
her nightgowns are always long. and range in colours from the deepest blues to the richest reds. with their trade route to greece and constantinople, dyes are easily found for her, as gemma doesn't like pale nightgowns. especially white. no white.
blood shows too easily on white.
what do they dream about usually?
young gemma's dreams were haunted by drowning.
unlike her brothers, whose nightmares often involved ice and the terrible, glowing eyes of their father, gemma remembers so clearly their mother's last breath before she sank beneath the river and never reemerged. weighted down as her husband commanded.
when they were first taken in by the raiders and their captain, gemma didn't sleep for almost a month on the ship, fearing the water flipping it under its waves and ran dragging them all down to the depths.
but after nolan- after the ice cracks under nolan and the current pulls him away and gemma, unthinking, dived after him to pull him back to the riverbank, drowning no longer scares her.
from time to time, she sees her mother's face. the begging lilt of her mouth barely above the surface. her wide, horror struck eyes. but the water doesn't scare her.
how neat/tidy is this character?
if you grow up an abandoned scrawny kid amid a crew of raiders, you will quickly learn that if your things aren't put away safely and clearly noted as yours, you will lose them to someone else. so gemma is neat.
she doesn't accumulate a lot of things. at least, not a lot that she attaches sentimentality to. (until the boys are born and then one of the gold plates she took on a raid in her youth becomes a display dish upon her dressing table with all manner of trinkets and objects, stones and pinecones and pieces of cloth they bring her because they saw it and thought she needed it.) everything has its place and if it can't be found in its place, it's missing.
how affectionate is this character?
honestly, gemma is affectionate. but not in ways other would see as affection -- until the boys are born and how gemma suits motherhood so well confounds so many, except it's so obvious she would be good at it as she has always protected and cared for others. but anyway -- because they don't equate gemma's actions with affection.
with tom first, then nolan, the most obvious signs of affection within gemma are seen. her caring runs deep and just because she doesn't say "i love you" as easily as others doesn't mean it isn't there. in how she listens or opens up herself to someone.
and with her sons, it is so viscerally there. undeniable. they each took their first steps from learning to walk by stepping on her feet, their chubby baby hands held in hers. their first word was "mama". they all have her smile because it was the smile the saw always, given so easily and freely to them.
but don't be fooled. the lupine ferocity that raised an army against her father and slaughtered him in his throne room remains, simmering underneath, ready to rage war should anyone attempt to hurt her sons.
T I M O T H E E
how does this character sleep? (position, sleeping habits, bedtime routines.)
timothee, unlike his mother and two brothers either side of him, is a heavy sleeper. it's the one thing he inherited from his birth father. as a baby he was commonly found lying on his stomach, dead to the world. (cos of this, he was often the one gemma picked up to sit with her as she watched the moon. because he remained asleep unlike his brother who took sometimes hours to get back to sleep.) he snores too, loud rattling things from his core, that keep his younger brother finn awake (so finn is always the first to join gemma in bed, unable to stand timmy's snoring and retreating to the quiet of his mother's room).
on warmer nights he moves more in his sleep, regularly kicks covers off. he tends to dream more on warmer nights as well, faces and voices he's never met coming to him in his sleep.
what are their pyjamas like?
like his mother, timmy favours darker colours for his nightwear. it's intrinsic to him, even if he doesn't fully remember why. he was only small when finn was born so he doesn't remember how traumatic it was, doesn't fully retain the image of his mother's blood stained white nightgown and her frantic panic that she was losing her child. he just remembers being lifted by jack and carried from the room, crying and trying to reach for her as nolan shielded her from timmy's view, and then, hours later, being told he had a baby brother.
what do they dream about usually?
despite having never met him, after timmy learns he has his grandfather's eyes, the idea hangs over him like a terrible omen. for all he knows of his grandfather is his abandonment of his mother and uncles. so when he overhears his uncle tom saying to gemma, "he has father's eyes-" ["and lee's." "is that better?"] it becomes a weight he can't shake.
he doesn't want to be like his grandfather. but he has his eyes. green, hazel, like his uncle lee's, golden maybe in the light but not quite the dark brown of gemma, finn, tom, or his grandmother who drowned.
(his birth father's eyes are brown as well. but timmy wouldn't want them if they were his.)
timmy dreams, when it's warm and he's restless and moving in his sleep, of going further east. of seeing what's there. of spreading the kingdom that way. novgorod is beautiful, it's home, but timmy wants to see beyond it. when his mother was his age she lived as a pirate, then as a jarl. she took a kingdom for her own. timmy wants to do the same. make something of himself.
how neat/tidy is this character?
a mess™.
emotionally, mentally, physically. unkempt, unfettered, unapologetic in his messiness.
how affectionate is this character?
timmy grows up with the bright, warm beacon of his mother's affection always shining on him and his brothers but also watching the reserved, almost secretive way she exists around her husband. and somewhere in the middle of that forms timmy's expression of affection.
gemma is "mama" -- he and his brothers bring her things they find, thing to make her smile. she has a smile just for them. she's theirs above everyone else's. she is easy to love so timmy does, so openly.
but with others, he's more careful. his stepfather adores him; they aren't spoiled or coddled growing up but they want for nothing. timmy appreciates his caring and attention. appreciates how he loves his mother, love each other her sons, but timmy does not allow himself to love his stepfather back. there is genuine affection, care, and trust, but he holds back from love because he isn't his father and altho gemma has made it clear their birth father will never be allowed in her presence again or near them ever, timmy has a wall. purely out of love for his mother.
with his brothers he is- they are brothers until age and rank become more important than fraternity but still finn is his favourite. perhaps he shouldn't have one when there's only two but his older brother becomes distant. wants to leave. dies. maybe timmy should have been closer to him as they grew beyond boyhood. but he can't change it now.