A Dorm Room at Voorhees Hall, Columbia University, New York, Sunday

[sampippy]

Xanthippe was officially Stressed Out.

It was all over an essay, which wasn't even due until next Friday, but it was important and she had to get it perfect, because what if she didn't? What if she didn't, and she flunked out of the class, and she flunked right out of college, and her father would disown her and her mother would disown her and then she would have to move in with Kimmy and deal with that whole freak show and she would lose all status and purpose in life and probably, like, end up becoming BFFs with Kimmy's extra-weirdo landlady and getting matching tattoos in a crack den and --

Anyway, yeah, she was currently doing what any self-respecting college student would do in her situation: screaming into a pillow.

Thank Christ her roommates weren't home right now.

[ooc: NFB but open for texts/calls/surprise visits!]

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[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe gave another uncomfortable laugh and ran his hand through his hair. What seemed so natural to share with Ada in her trailer with her family's carnival seemed ridiculous here, in a dorm room bigger than the apartment he grew up in, with Xanthippe's family name on the building.

"I want to own my own tavern and livery service," he said quietly. "And an apartment building nearby that I could rent to other Tsingani as they travel through the City of Elua. My mother and I would live on the top floor and she'd never have to wash another rich man's laundry or tell the dromonde for gold again."

A humble dream. So small. And, until he'd come to Fandom, it had been everything.

[sampippy]

You know, for all that it annoyed Xanthippe that it had taken until her very last day of high school for them to actually meet in any significant kind of way... Maybe it was for the best. Because maybe if they'd met much earlier, he would've written her off as a a spoiled rich girl.

And he would've been right to, because that was about the extent of what she'd been.

But Xanthippe at 19 kind of marvelled at him seeming so uncomfortable sharing a dream that... just seemed to make sense? It wasn't even that small, really: it involved owning a business and buildings, which was the language of her people, really.

She frowned a little, as she brushed some of the hair away from her face. "That's not nothing."

[vrajna_kralis]

"Oh but 'tis," Hyacinthe said with another laugh, this one slightly bitter. "It won't make me rich, it has no import, it does not shake the world, nor interfere in the lives of kings and cabinet. 'Tis not even the life of the Night Court, who only service the highest and wealthiest of the land. It's a small, humble dream, but 'tis mine. I wish to provide for me and mine, not change the world."

[sampippy]

Well, Xanthippe could counter at least one those things.

"I'm rich," she said, dryly.

So that didn't really mean much in terms of happiness, at least.

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe looked at her a long moment and then said, "Please understand, where I come from this is no insult - it's actually rather an honor - but you remind me of nothing so much as a Night Court Servant of Naamah, struggling to make her marque."

[sampippy]

Xanthippe spent a long moment looking right back at him, her face still half obscured by her hair, but not enough for it not to be obvious that she was struggling to parse that.

She knew most of those words separately!

Then she gave up. "Yeah, no, I'm really good at like, feeling insulted, but like I have no idea what you just said to me."

[vrajna_kralis]

NOW SHE KNEW HOW IT FELT, HUH.

Hyacinthe rubbed the back of his neck. "I suppose the most relevant information is that a Servant of Naamah is one who has sworn themself to the worship of Naamah, by doing as she once did and lying with strangers for coin. 'Tis a sacred calling and the Night Court serves only the most wealthy and powerful in the land. I am led to believe that those who are not from Terre D'Ange do not see it so, however, which is why I bade you not to take it amiss."

[sampippy]

"So I remind you of a hooker."

At least they'd translated that much for her! And she didn't look offended, so, win.

She did continue to look confused, though. "Now explain how that's a good thing." A beat. "Like, not for your world 'cause I think I get that now. But, like, for what you said. Before."

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe's mouth twisted; he didn't like most of the words they used for Naamah's Servants in this world. Even if they did it for coin, not for the glory of one of Elua's Companions, he was still conditioned to see the calling as something sacred.

"Servants who belong to Houses have a marque; 'tis the amount they are indebted to their House. All funds from their assignations goes to their House, but gifts they are given from their patrons, those may go to their marques, which are limned on their backs an inch at a time." His fingers trailed up her spine. "Once they have earned their marques, they are free. They may leave their House, or they may continue to stay, trading a percentage of their assignations to the House and keeping the rest. You, cherie, seem to feel you have a marque that you owe your family. I just don't know when you will be able to pay it off and finally be free."

[sampippy]

Okay, that made... honestly a depressing amount of sense. It resonated. She sighed, and it wasn't to mask the shiver his fingers against her spine caused.

"Maybe once I've graduated and am making enough money that it won't matter if I'm cut off or not," she offered. Her tone was on the somber side, and her voice was quiet.

[vrajna_kralis]

"What will you be doing after you graduate?" Hya asked. "Something you want to do? Or the job they expect you to get, whatever it is. You said you had no dreams of your own, Xan, so where will you go, besides where your familial expectations guide you?"

[sampippy]

"Probably something in media?"

That shouldn't have been a question, probably. But she hadn't really spent much time thinking about it.

[vrajna_kralis]

Yeah. That was maybe the problem.

"It would be one thing if you were working this hard on your way to something, love," Hya said. "Here, though, it seems as if you're miserable and unhappy and the only thing you will show for it is the chance to do it again somewhere else."

[sampippy]

Finally, Xanthippe picked her head back up. Even if it was only to shake it.

"It really shows that you haven't ever met my parents."

[vrajna_kralis]

"I have not." Hyacinthe frowned. "Were they at graduation?"

[sampippy]

"... No."

Said with the tone of someone who didn't necessarily mind that they hadn't been, but who knew that it looked bad.

(Also, she minded.)

"Dad was... I think in Switzerland. And like three fifths of the quintuplets were sick, so Mom didn't come either."

[vrajna_kralis]

...Hyacinthe's mother had come from another world through technology she couldn't understand, to listen to a ceremony in a language she didn't speak, just to be there.

Hya would never say that aloud, but, yeah, he was definitely judging Xan's father. (Not that he had stones to throw as far as fathers went).

"I am sorry they missed it," he said, and then clarified, "for them. Because they did not see how you glowed when you accepted your diploma and the way the light caught your hair and limned you all in gold."

[sampippy]

His mother was a better person than any of her parental figures, and she'd probably admit that willingly if asked.

"Thanks," she said, a little muted, somehow. "I doubt it really looked like that, though."

[vrajna_kralis]

"It was enough that I noticed," he said softly. No flattery, no smile, just words.

[sampippy]

Did he know how glaringly obvious just the manner he said that made how little anyone else seemed to care about her?

She leaned over, leaned in, to kiss him.

[vrajna_kralis]

No? But then, that was not his intent. Never would be. He simply wanted her to know that he cared.

He poured caring into the kiss, in the way his hands cupped her cheeks, the fingers in her hair.

[sampippy]

Xanthippe reached out and got her fingers in his hair, too, tangling them up in the curls.

Maybe there was something grateful about the kiss, on her part. Something soft and a little needy.

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe was happy to respond in kind. He hadn't meant to hurt her or make her feel bad; he just couldn't help but notice how unhappy she was.

"Whatever it is that you do or wish to do, I'll be in your corner, always," he murmured.

[sampippy]

"Thank you."

Okay, so she had to say it out loud, after he'd said that. But she mumbled it against his lips, unwilling to pull back.

In part because that would've meant opening her eyes, and revealing their sudden sheen.

[vrajna_kralis]

His heart broken a little anyway at her fervor. Where was her family, her people, who should be offering her this support as a matter of course?

Ah right. In Switzerland and consumed by other concerns.

So he just kissed her again, slow and sweet. If he could offer nothing else, he could at least be here, with her, utterly present in the moment.