One Happy Blacksmith
Log Info
- Title: One Happy Blacksmith
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment
It's evening at the Donnelly apartment, and Andelena has no idea what's waiting for her at home. It could be anything, really--sleeping Dolan, shirtless Dolan, naked Dolan, Dolan with one or more cats snoozing on top of him--but whatever's waiting for her can't bring down her mood. The Sunguard has some grime on her, but she wears a satisfied smile that says that the grime was worth whatever she just came back from at the forge, even if she smells like metal, ash, and sweat.
She opens up the door as she unlocks it and calls out, "Hey babe, I'm home!" Halfway expecting him and/or certain calico children to be waiting on the other side.
What greets Andelena on the other side is - a cleaned flat, and the smell of a savory beef concoction of some sort wafting from the hearth. A small cask of wine and two new ceramic mugs wait on the small table. Everything is put away, and the absence of the massive greatsword has seemed to make this task easier for the Corona. It really is carefully prepared and quite inviting.
As for Dolan himself, the man is shirtless, curled up in one of the soft chairs reading some sort of set of scrolls absently, a stack of leather-bound books propping his his feet. He seems freshly bathed, so it looks like he did some arms work today in addition to the cleaning. Both girls are sacked out on top of him, Spot on his chest and Patches in his lap, and he holds Spot up by the butt while he reads.
When the door opens, both girls look up, and so does Dolan, but he merely grins up at her. "Hi baby," he answers. "I can't move right now."
Andelena gets a good look at that sight and she finds herself falling in love all over again with her man. It's a thing that's easy to do, really. He's shirtless, covered in cats, and has clearly cleaned up the place in addition to getting food and drink for them to share over dinner. So it's with that in mind that she looks right at Dolan and says, "Baby, if you didn't have dinner waiting for us, I'd close this door, pull my clothes off, and go to town." In other words, Andie likes.
But she closes the door behinds her, grinning wickedly at Dolan as she approaches. "Look at you, covered in girls. They got you pinned good, don't they?"
"Not as good as you will later," Dolan counters with an evil grin, sitting up and setting aside the scroll as both girls stand, one by one, stretch, and jump off of him to pad over to Andelena, sniffing vigorously - and cautiously at first. One sniff, a head jerks back, and then the Sunguard is the subject of a most thorough two-cat catspection. He stands, then, and makes his own way over to her, leaning in for a kiss on the lips hopefully achieved without disrupting the catspection going on at their feet. "Smells like you had a long day, baby. How's it coming?"
The kiss is eagerly returned, helped a little by the fact that neither of the cats appear to be fans of the forge smells that come off Andelena. She smiles brightly at Dolan as she draws back from it. "It's going great. Sword itself is done. The blade's brilliant, Bry. Easily will be half the weight of what you've got now. The enchantment's the next part. I'm gonna make this thing bite, babe, and you're gonna make every son of a bitch who comes in your way wish they'd thought long and hard about the Knight's justice before they decided to fuck around in the dark. And I don't mean the fun way."
She looks down at the cats and laughs. "Guess they don't like the smell of mama being at the forge, huh."
"I don't have it anymore, baby, remember?" Dolan doesn't seem to mind, speaking once he has drawn away from the kiss. "I sold it to get the mithral ingots. I think I've got enough left over to get the enchantment materials, too." He looks down at the cats at their feet. "Guess not. I do, though. Can't wait to see what you do with it. If it helps, it'll all be worth it, because I feel a day and a half better when I'm not picking up the old one, yeah?"
His warm, affectionate regard fades into pensiveness. "Can't wait to have all this done with. You know, I don't think we've ever set a formal date and published the banns."
The subject of the wedding puts Andelena into a thoughtful expression. "You know what. Let's put a firm fuckin' date on it. Ask Zeke if he can do it in a month from today," she says. "Maybe it'll be too soon and he can tell us that, but let's get it done. I wanna be your wife, babe. Have wanted that for a long fuckin' time."
She reaches out with her hand to gently embrace his cheek. "Hence why I'm forging my husband a blade that's gonna keep him safe until it's time to hang it up. Maybe it'll become a family heirloom if the kids get into the business of rolling around in demon guts and blood for the pursuit of the Knight's Justice." She smirks just a little.
The answering smile that Dolan wears as he turns his face up towards her in turn holds a wealth of warmth and affection. "I'll find him tomorrow," he promises. "It's time and long past to get this done, because I want you to be my wife, and I want to be your husband." There's still a touch of amazement in the lone brown eye, that she would want him.
"I've been keeping dinner warm for us." He breaks away, then, to move over to the hearth, where he's been keeping a beef-and-gravy pie warm at the side of the hearth. This, he picks up with a towel in each hand, and carries over to the table with the wine. "I'm sure you're starving, baby."
"Get that settled so we can really fucking rub it in my Mother's face later that yeah, we really did get married," Andelena says with a grin. "And so I can clear out the whole fucking Fernwood for the party after our ceremony. I'll drop a fortune on the whole thing for booze if I gotta."
She walks over to the table and sits down, her eyes as wide as can be as she beholds what is very clearly an immensely appreciated meal after a day at the forge. "And you keep acting surprised that I want to marry you when you do shit like this for me, babe," she exclaims with a grin on her face. "Look at this. Not only do you have a big dick but you've got a big heart. Half the fuckin' men who walk this plane wouldn't think of this. I adore you."
By now, Dolan is grinning from ear to ear as he dishes up dinner for the both of them and shoves a tap into the cask with the pommel of the knife, then pours a mug of wine for each of them. "I'm hungry too, baby, but you're worth all of it." He seats himself and gestures that she should do the same. "How's Seb?" he asks, his tone changing.
Andelena holds out the mug of wine that's been poured out for their customary cheer over drinks when they do get to eat together. "I'm not sure," she responds, frowning. "They haven't been letting me in to see him. Something about needing his rest. Honestly, I could have pushed the matter, but when they don't want a relative in to see someone who's fucked up, they really don't want a relative to come in and go nosing around."
She shakes her head. "My guess is that shit that he was in back there might have been worse than we thought. But he's here now, and not back there. That's the important thing."
That isn't good. Dolan frowns, even as he digs into drink and meal. "Let's hope so. If any permanent harm's come to him -" He trails off, then shakes his head quickly. "No. She'll still face the Knight's justice. Her and Derwes both. We should rescue Gale, too. She's fucking with him, too. I can feel it." Another bite of dinner, and a deep breath exhaled. "We need to talk to him as soon as we can. I need to find out what she's up to. Yes, it's important that he's out of her clutches, but - I need to know. If he can't talk, I'll need to track down that maid who was killed and try to find out what happened to her."
He pauses suddenly, and snaps his fingers. "I'll dream it tonight. Ask the totem. What happened to the maid Ndidi spoke about?"
Andelena pauses in the middle of her famished eating--yes, this meal is exactly what she needed--and nods appreciatively of Dolan's idea. "That's a good idea," she says, once she's swallowed her bite of meat. "I have ideas about what happened to that maid, but suffice to say, nothing fucking good, that's for certain."
She sips her wine. "As much as my older brother was always the pompous asshole of us all--and would bully Seb if he thought he could get away with it--he doesn't deserve whatever bullshit's happening with him. Sounds to me like he wasn't in his right mind when Telamon saw him."
"I'd put a whole pouch of gold on that fiend dominating or charming him," Dolan answers, between bites of his meal, frowning. "I'd like to just break it and then tell him what the rules will be if he doesn't want his mind sucked into the Hells," he goes on, crisply. "The biggest problem I've got is that I've got to fucking prove it. I can know the truth all day, but for a noble, I've got to fucking prove it beyond a doubt. My case has got to be iron-clad or it won't stick."
He takes a pull of the wine. "And then I've got to figure out how that's going to get me to Jal'goroth, and the totem he holds. I might need to ask Magpie. I fucking hate to do it. Summoning's a damned terrible idea and I'm bound not to do it."
"That's been my biggest fucking fear with this shit," Andelena admits, looking down at her food. "That she'll wriggle out of this like the fucking worm she is. That everything we've done won't mean a damn thing. But... if there's one thing I've learned in all of this, it's that I've got to keep faith. Otherwise I don't have much."
She looks at Dolan with a small smile. "Aside from a husband with a big dick," she adds, before grinning wickedly. "As fun as that's to say, though, I agree. I'm not about to endorse summoning a fucking fiend just to get the totem. What's to say the totem won't interfere somehow anyway?"
"I'm planning on seeing to it she doesn't, baby. I've got to, so I can get the family books out of her hands. She's the one funding that brewery. If I can cut the funds, we can slow down Zinskas and Marsward long enough to find that portal key." Dinner is being consumed at a respectable rate, seeming to answer a real need.
He grins back at the dirty talk, lone brown eye sparkling wickedly. "Can't get enough, can you." It's not a question, but he drops it before long. "Don't know that it will or it won't. I know I can't scry on it, but maybe the totem can tell me what your mother's up to."
"Of course I can't get enough," Andelena replies with a small snort and a grin. "There's a million and one reasons I love you, Bry, but getting to be the one who tells you how handsome and sexy you are is one of my life's little pleasures."
But she turns back to the more thoughtful expression as she finishes her meal. That got eaten quick. "And that dream you had, too," she adds. "That little figure of the wolf. We gotta look into that or pass it along to someone."
"I've got a few things to ask the totems about," Dolan agrees, polishing off his own dinner and gesturing to the pie plate. "There's more if you want it, baby." He pushes it on its towel invitingly towards her. "We just need to not lose our focus in the draw of every day life. Verna tells me Auranar's back from wherever it was she went." he picks up his wine glass with a laugh. "She interrupted a conversation to toss me out into the rain so she could go back to bed. Verna's not the kind of person you'd think of as being so - "
Okay. That gets a deep laugh from Andelena, leaning back in her chair. "Holy shit. Verna? Being so horny? That's fucking hilarious. I mean, I don't fucking blame her--I'd probably jump your bones the moment you came back from a month-long vacation and I don't know if I'd care that anyone else happened to be in the room--but--"
She shakes her head and laughs hard. "Verna, of all people. Damn! Didn't think she had it in her, to be honest. Good for her. I mean, kind of rude to send you out like that just so she could go tumble with Auranar, but good for her."
Dolan's laughter joins Andelena's, and he appears to be quite relaxed about it. "I don't blame her either. Honestly, if it were me people would probably have to get out of the way of the blast." An exaggeration, to be sure. "I thought that would amuse you. Are you done, baby?"
"Done? Nah, I want you for dessert," Andelena says. She hardly cares that she's sweaty and has the grime of the forge on her, it seems. "Let me help you clean up in here--I know, fucking rich coming from me--and then let's see about getting down to doing just that, yeah?"