Don't insult me, signorina, I'd never serve bad wine.
[stop]
[On the plus side, he does pick up on her cue. He doesn't understand it, hailing from a household where everyone more or less grabs what they want; it seems very official to him, the sort of thing that would be more appropriate in a meeting with his subordinates, which Hayame most certainly is not. Still, he takes her glass back and fills it, a little fuller than true wine connoisseurs would approve of, but: fuck them.]
[He hands it back to her, then fills his own and raises it slightly. To Prince Ninurrta, one of the strongest and most respectable men I've ever known. That's what he thinks. But what he says is:]
Uncharacteristically, Hayame lets it go without comment, simply watching as he fills her glass with the red liquid, sharp sense of smell picking up on the fermented fruit it was made of, along with the hints of other flavors with a skill that a human sommelier might be jealous of, if she knew it was considered classy to comment on such.
Instead, she watches him raise his glass, and almost repeats the motion before she instead... looks to the side. The empty spot she still expected to be filled by a presence grown familiar, a voice she'd gotten used to hearing, a smile she had become accustomed to.
[For a moment, Giorno just looks at her, stunned into silence. Another glass, he thinks. Why would I--]
[And then he understands, the precise second of comprehension painfully clear on his face: his eyes go wide, mouth tight, pale and appalled. Ashamed, honestly. It's caught him by surprise, his own faux pas. There's no way he could have known that Hayame wanted it, that it would feel normal to her, that she would want to honor Ninurrta in that way. But he should have anyway, somehow.]
[Ninurrta would have, somehow, effortlessly.]
[Giorno bows his head for a moment, hiding his face with its too-honest expression. He wishes he'd hidden it better, his horror at his own thoughtlessness. If he wants to help Hayame in even the slightest way, he knows he can't show weakness. She doesn't accept weakness.]
I apologize.
[He lifts his head, meeting her eyes, expression smoothed out into something more neutral.]
I wasn't thinking. If it's acceptable, I'll give mine. Or go get another from the castle. Or . . .
[He hesitates. Should he just go? He wants to be here, wants to pay tribute to a lost friend and drown his sorrows at that loss. But Hayame needs it more, and she deserves to have it done in the way that's most correct to her.]
Hayame's gaze stays averted at first, staring at that space beside her. When had she become used to that place being occupied? When had she allowed herself to accept it, to take it for granted that there would be someone there for her, when she had lived her entire life not relying on anyone for fear of weakness?
His leaving was to her much like a death. She could not go to his world any more than he could travel to hers, in the end... and it does not occur to her that she could ever see him again. A parting with no corpse to burn, no head to chant sutras over, no grave to lay offerings in front of.
He was just gone.
And now she sits here with this man, holding this "wine", and he looks at her like that. But of course he couldn't have known, like it seems none of them could.]
... it would not reach him anyway.
[Again, perhaps uncharacteristically, she simply lets it go, lacking the fire in her to even demand he return to the castle and bring back a glass for Ninurrta. Lacking in many ways, since he left.]
[Well. It wouldn't, of course. Logically, it wouldn't. The thing is, though, this isn't about logic. It's about feeling. Giorno would like to help this feel normal to Hayame, as normal as grief gets.]
[But. If she doesn't push, he won't push either. Finding the balance of communicating with her is difficult and mostly infuriating, but he thinks he's learned this much, at least.]
[. . . The gravity of the situation is, admittedly, somewhat dulled by the face she makes. He hides his smile by taking a sip of his own. It obviously doesn't bother him. What the fuck's a drinking age?]
You could have told me you didn't like wine. I'd've brought something else.
[Hayame is tempted just to bolt for a moment in shame for how rude such a thing was, swallowing again for good measure to prevent the urge to open her mouth and smack her lips. But she doesn't, even though her knees locked up.
The aftertaste was...]
How am I to know such a thing as what foreign liquors I like?
[But she keeps... drinking it... just with much, much smaller sips, determined not to make it clear how weird a taste she finds it to have when it was something offered to her.]
[He could have gotten you a drink you know you do like, you horse dork . . . Which he doesn't say, obviously, but. Okay. It's a Hayame Thing. That's fine.]
[Pursing his lips, he watches her drink for a moment, trying to figure out if she's even going to keep it down, before nodding and taking another sip himself.]
It's about remembering?
[Not quite a question, not quite a statement. After all, it could just as easily be forgetting.]
[Keep it down she does. It isn't so terrible in smaller quantities, and really the taste wasn't the problem so much as the unfamiliarity- that and it just not tasting like she had imagined it was having been a bit shocking. As is, she doesn't reply at first, staring off vaguely to the side again without quite realizing she was doing it.
Just like aboard the Asterion prison... a certain sharpness was beginning to show on her withers and shoulders, evidence of her kind's quick tendency to drop weight after even just a few days of less than ideal eating. She hasn't really left her stall much. Hadn't found much reason to... until Giorno had extended his invitation.]
It is about hospitality.
[Is what she says. But her happiest, most at ease time since joining ALASTAIR had been near here, beneath the trees, pleasantly drunk on Asgardian mead to the point that she could let herself forget, let herself feel simple joys in company and pride in her newfound status as a warrior pledged to a Prince such as she had found.
But this time... she worries even with similar conditions... that things have changed too much to recreate that one, beautiful day.]
[Sometimes it seems like nothing Hayame says is anything like what she means. Not in the way Giorno deflects, it's nothing like that. He isn't even sure she means to, but--]
[His eyes catch of the edge of her cup; he remembers how she insisted on a certain order of pouring, wanted a certain way of doing things before she so uncharacteristically let it go. She's so much the opposite of him, isn't she? Clinging to rules as fiercely as he clings to lawlessness, because to forget them would mean nothing made sense anymore.]
[Maybe he's projecting. He does that. But maybe that's why they struggle so much: because he hates and fears order as much as she craves it.]
[For a heartbeat, he bites his lip, then chooses his words carefully.]
. . . I wish I knew more of that. The rules of hospitality as you know them, I mean. I don't like making mistakes more than once; it's a waste of time.
[For half a second, Hayame almost smiles. Not a true expression of contentment or joy, but a bitter, twisted thing. A mockery of her pitiful situation and what had led to it. Already that day is not this one, and she feels a fool for even hoping it would be, could be. Though she had reluctantly acknowledged Giorno only because Ninurrta had, he still had not earned her vulnerability, and still she remains standing. He had seen her vulnerable, stumbling like a newborn filly in the hay, but that-]
It seems I am the only one who prescribes to them.
[But that was the root of it all, wasn't it? Even her lord's manners were different... but they'd been similar enough. Now... she has wine, and only awkward, unsuited words. Not because she necessarily was trying to intentionally be vague, but because in her own world.., she had never had a voice able to do anything but serve.
And now she is expected to use words for herself.]
[Little point to learning. He cocks his head at her, curious and confused. It doesn't make sense, but it does at the same time, obliquely. It's futile to pursue, that's how he interprets it; Hayame thinks it's useless to share, or even to expect anything from anyone here, because they are all so alien. Because they don't respect her customs. Because this is so different from her world.]
[Before Fugo got here, he felt alone. Afloat on a vast and incomprehensible sea. And even then, he had Kaz. How much more alone is Hayame right now?]
[Abruptly, he drains the rest of his glass and tips his chin up at her.]
Would it help you if you weren't the only one? Or do you prefer it this way?
She wants to laugh, but for now, the stiff mask of politeness, seriousness, stays on her face. But Hayame had been raised by humans, not her own kind, and while they had beat into her the lessons of human etiquette and made her school her human half to their expectation... her equine half slightly betrays her, one back hoof stamping in the grass.
Who wanted to be alone? Who relished in being an oddity, as the only one representing everything "Normal" in a world of the insane? Who wanted to be alone?]
Who says I require help?
[And who would answer a question like that, when to do so would so blatantly admit to weakness? To how much she longs to see another of her kind, to see the few she had grown to trust before it had all been ripped away?]
[The obvious answer. Her body language aside, the hostility's clear. He looks up at her and focuses on the lingering taste of wine on his tongue instead of the sudden spike of irritation.]
I asked because I don't want to put you off anymore. I hate it when I do. It would be nice to justify it as doing you a favor, because it's a hell of a lot easier than admitting I give a damn and want to do better.
We can just drop it if you want. We can talk about something else. Or nothing. Probably safest.
[No one, he says, but she heard what she expected to hear in his last question, and for a moment, it seems like she might dig her hooves in and make something of it.
Until she forces herself to drink more of the strange tasting wine.
She doesn't reply until she's sip-drank half of it, struggling to find the words to reply, to even decide what she thought of the words that had come out of his mouth. What was he saying? That he wished to... get along with her?]
Ninurrta is gone.
[Is what she says over the rim of her glass, waiting for his response to that reminder.
Wanting to know why he would wish to still have anything to do with her, now that that single tie that had connected them was gone.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hayame ★ 11/11
from start ★
Don't insult me, signorina, I'd never serve bad wine.
[stop]
[On the plus side, he does pick up on her cue. He doesn't understand it, hailing from a household where everyone more or less grabs what they want; it seems very official to him, the sort of thing that would be more appropriate in a meeting with his subordinates, which Hayame most certainly is not. Still, he takes her glass back and fills it, a little fuller than true wine connoisseurs would approve of, but: fuck them.]
[He hands it back to her, then fills his own and raises it slightly. To Prince Ninurrta, one of the strongest and most respectable men I've ever known. That's what he thinks. But what he says is:]
Bottoms up.
no subject
Uncharacteristically, Hayame lets it go without comment, simply watching as he fills her glass with the red liquid, sharp sense of smell picking up on the fermented fruit it was made of, along with the hints of other flavors with a skill that a human sommelier might be jealous of, if she knew it was considered classy to comment on such.
Instead, she watches him raise his glass, and almost repeats the motion before she instead... looks to the side. The empty spot she still expected to be filled by a presence grown familiar, a voice she'd gotten used to hearing, a smile she had become accustomed to.
And there's nothing there.]
Is there not another glass... ?
[For him.]
no subject
[And then he understands, the precise second of comprehension painfully clear on his face: his eyes go wide, mouth tight, pale and appalled. Ashamed, honestly. It's caught him by surprise, his own faux pas. There's no way he could have known that Hayame wanted it, that it would feel normal to her, that she would want to honor Ninurrta in that way. But he should have anyway, somehow.]
[Ninurrta would have, somehow, effortlessly.]
[Giorno bows his head for a moment, hiding his face with its too-honest expression. He wishes he'd hidden it better, his horror at his own thoughtlessness. If he wants to help Hayame in even the slightest way, he knows he can't show weakness. She doesn't accept weakness.]
I apologize.
[He lifts his head, meeting her eyes, expression smoothed out into something more neutral.]
I wasn't thinking. If it's acceptable, I'll give mine. Or go get another from the castle. Or . . .
[He hesitates. Should he just go? He wants to be here, wants to pay tribute to a lost friend and drown his sorrows at that loss. But Hayame needs it more, and she deserves to have it done in the way that's most correct to her.]
1/2
Hayame's gaze stays averted at first, staring at that space beside her. When had she become used to that place being occupied? When had she allowed herself to accept it, to take it for granted that there would be someone there for her, when she had lived her entire life not relying on anyone for fear of weakness?
His leaving was to her much like a death. She could not go to his world any more than he could travel to hers, in the end... and it does not occur to her that she could ever see him again. A parting with no corpse to burn, no head to chant sutras over, no grave to lay offerings in front of.
He was just gone.
And now she sits here with this man, holding this "wine", and he looks at her like that. But of course he couldn't have known, like it seems none of them could.]
... it would not reach him anyway.
[Again, perhaps uncharacteristically, she simply lets it go, lacking the fire in her to even demand he return to the castle and bring back a glass for Ninurrta. Lacking in many ways, since he left.]
I accept your libation.
[And she raises the glass, takes a sip-]
no subject
no subject
[But. If she doesn't push, he won't push either. Finding the balance of communicating with her is difficult and mostly infuriating, but he thinks he's learned this much, at least.]
[. . . The gravity of the situation is, admittedly, somewhat dulled by the face she makes. He hides his smile by taking a sip of his own. It obviously doesn't bother him. What the fuck's a drinking age?]
You could have told me you didn't like wine. I'd've brought something else.
no subject
The aftertaste was...]
How am I to know such a thing as what foreign liquors I like?
[But she keeps... drinking it... just with much, much smaller sips, determined not to make it clear how weird a taste she finds it to have when it was something offered to her.]
It isn't about "liking" anyway.
no subject
[Pursing his lips, he watches her drink for a moment, trying to figure out if she's even going to keep it down, before nodding and taking another sip himself.]
It's about remembering?
[Not quite a question, not quite a statement. After all, it could just as easily be forgetting.]
no subject
Just like aboard the Asterion prison... a certain sharpness was beginning to show on her withers and shoulders, evidence of her kind's quick tendency to drop weight after even just a few days of less than ideal eating. She hasn't really left her stall much. Hadn't found much reason to... until Giorno had extended his invitation.]
It is about hospitality.
[Is what she says. But her happiest, most at ease time since joining ALASTAIR had been near here, beneath the trees, pleasantly drunk on Asgardian mead to the point that she could let herself forget, let herself feel simple joys in company and pride in her newfound status as a warrior pledged to a Prince such as she had found.
But this time... she worries even with similar conditions... that things have changed too much to recreate that one, beautiful day.]
no subject
[His eyes catch of the edge of her cup; he remembers how she insisted on a certain order of pouring, wanted a certain way of doing things before she so uncharacteristically let it go. She's so much the opposite of him, isn't she? Clinging to rules as fiercely as he clings to lawlessness, because to forget them would mean nothing made sense anymore.]
[Maybe he's projecting. He does that. But maybe that's why they struggle so much: because he hates and fears order as much as she craves it.]
[For a heartbeat, he bites his lip, then chooses his words carefully.]
. . . I wish I knew more of that. The rules of hospitality as you know them, I mean. I don't like making mistakes more than once; it's a waste of time.
no subject
[For half a second, Hayame almost smiles. Not a true expression of contentment or joy, but a bitter, twisted thing. A mockery of her pitiful situation and what had led to it. Already that day is not this one, and she feels a fool for even hoping it would be, could be. Though she had reluctantly acknowledged Giorno only because Ninurrta had, he still had not earned her vulnerability, and still she remains standing. He had seen her vulnerable, stumbling like a newborn filly in the hay, but that-]
It seems I am the only one who prescribes to them.
[But that was the root of it all, wasn't it? Even her lord's manners were different... but they'd been similar enough. Now... she has wine, and only awkward, unsuited words. Not because she necessarily was trying to intentionally be vague, but because in her own world.., she had never had a voice able to do anything but serve.
And now she is expected to use words for herself.]
no subject
[Before Fugo got here, he felt alone. Afloat on a vast and incomprehensible sea. And even then, he had Kaz. How much more alone is Hayame right now?]
[Abruptly, he drains the rest of his glass and tips his chin up at her.]
Would it help you if you weren't the only one? Or do you prefer it this way?
no subject
She wants to laugh, but for now, the stiff mask of politeness, seriousness, stays on her face. But Hayame had been raised by humans, not her own kind, and while they had beat into her the lessons of human etiquette and made her school her human half to their expectation... her equine half slightly betrays her, one back hoof stamping in the grass.
Who wanted to be alone? Who relished in being an oddity, as the only one representing everything "Normal" in a world of the insane? Who wanted to be alone?]
Who says I require help?
[And who would answer a question like that, when to do so would so blatantly admit to weakness? To how much she longs to see another of her kind, to see the few she had grown to trust before it had all been ripped away?]
no subject
[The obvious answer. Her body language aside, the hostility's clear. He looks up at her and focuses on the lingering taste of wine on his tongue instead of the sudden spike of irritation.]
I asked because I don't want to put you off anymore. I hate it when I do. It would be nice to justify it as doing you a favor, because it's a hell of a lot easier than admitting I give a damn and want to do better.
We can just drop it if you want. We can talk about something else. Or nothing. Probably safest.
no subject
Until she forces herself to drink more of the strange tasting wine.
She doesn't reply until she's sip-drank half of it, struggling to find the words to reply, to even decide what she thought of the words that had come out of his mouth. What was he saying? That he wished to... get along with her?]
Ninurrta is gone.
[Is what she says over the rim of her glass, waiting for his response to that reminder.
Wanting to know why he would wish to still have anything to do with her, now that that single tie that had connected them was gone.]