The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Haliel Lightsong]

Lightsong blushes, looking a bit ashamed. ''No, I haven't. I... They stopped assigning me to kitchen duties decades ago. I... It was decided my abilities are better suited elsewhere.''

[Marian Hawke]

"Oh? What duties are you skilled in?" 

[Haliel Lightsong]

''Ummm. Well. I am being trained as a paladin? So that takes up a great deal of my time. I... do sermons sometimes. And...'' And at least twice a month I spend an entire day awkwardly smiling at important pilgrims while senor priests talk with them. ''I guess I'm good at.... fighting and talking to people? I like it when they assign me to talk to the worshippers after service the best,'' she finishes, looking down at her hands.

[Marian Hawke]

"Oh, that's cool," says Marian, measuring the flour. "I'm uh. Supremely bad at all those things. But I can make bread I guess," she adds. "And eventually my Master will come home and I'll be useful again." I hope. 

[Haliel Lightsong]

''You seem to be talking to me just fine,'' the aasimar offers softly, then glances down at her hands again. ''I mean... I've... liked listening to you?'' I hope that isn't too forward of me to admit...

[Marian Hawke]

"What, really? After I hit on your mom and made you listen to me talk about elves, of all the dumb things?" 

[Haliel Lightsong]

Lightsong's eyes widen and she stares. ''You hit my Mother?'' A beat. ''Did she notice? I mean- why did you hit her?''

[Marian Hawke]

"N-no-no-no-no-no! I-- hit on! Not hit! That's different!"

[Haliel Lightsong]

Lightsong looks even more confused. ''I- it is? What does the other one mean?'' That would explain more than a few things I've overheard... It was strange that people I thought liked each other were being said to be hitting each other. I had assumed sparring but many were non-combatants.

[Marian Hawke]

"Ah. Flirting. Sexual interest? The initial steps of the hu-humanoid mating dance, you see, ah, consist of flirtation, which is like the social phenomenon of compliments but with an added statement of intent, as well as appreciation of the other's physical secondary sex characteristics, and, and-- that." Marian, beet red now, busies herself with the dough for the griddle cakes, as if to say, she can't possibly be embarrassed, see, she's cooking.

[Haliel Lightsong]

Lightsong makes a garbled noise at 'sexual interest.' Then again at ''sex characteristics' before going silent for a bit. "Umm. But- you- my Mother- you- she doesn't- what?"

[Marian Hawke]

Marian bows her head, working the dough in silence for a moment. When she speaks, the bravado and cheer is gone from her voice -- she's subdued, quiet. "I know. She's beautiful and amazing and heroic and I'm... nothing." A bastard, alone and friendless. Worthless. "But it's... fun to pretend, sometimes." That I'd have a chance. That she'd see me, really see me, and want to be with me.

[Haliel Lightsong]

Moving slowly as her nature and life experience conflict, Lightsong reaches out to rest a hand on Marian's upper arm. "You are not nothing. Far from it. You are a living soul. You are Seeker Helene's apprentice. You are a kind woman that offered to share her meal and her evening to a very lonely aasimar."

[Marian Hawke]

She shrugs a shoulder, unable to meet Haliel's eyes. "Yeah," she says, awkwardly. "I suppose. A-anyway, uh, so the next step here is to fry up the, um, the breads," she stammers, trying to change the subject once more.

[Haliel Lightsong]

"Of course," she says softly, pleased yet also disappointed by Marian's reaction. I think it helped but... Well, at least she didn't snap or fawn or go stiff. "Umm. Do you... Do this often?" Do what often? Eat? So awkward... Bastion's Mercy, is it any wonder no-one will really talk to you?