Logs:Tiny Lights

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Tiny Lights

How do you care for tiny pixie babies?

Dramatis Personae

Rick, Sylvi, The Pixies

11 July, 2008


A talk about how to handle new fatherhood

Location

Kailua Beach, Windward Coast

Plot(s)

Plot:Pixie Season


Darkness, real darkness, is such a rarity on Oahu. With the stars and moon so often out to reflect on the sea, things just never seem to quite go on without the brightness of illumination. So, when there's an opportunity to see the beach in a dark, almost lightless moment, there are sometimes people out there to see it.

It would seem that tonight, of all nights, Sylvi was out there, on the beach and not far from the edge of the water. Instead of looking like she was attempting to hold the rain at bay, she sat comfortably, leaned back onto her hands with her long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle ahead of her while the water softly lapped at her heels and up her ankles.

Even without the benefit of light her bright, blonde hair was fairly obvious, despite its somewhat darker color as it was plastered along her back and soaked to her. She wore a simple, blue tank top that looked more black than blue and had ended up slicked over her like a second skin as it was soaked through. While her legs were mostly bare, there was a set of black boy shorts that likely were the bottoms of some swimsuit covering her rear somewhat against the sticking, wet sand she sat on. There weren't any shoes nearby, no umbrella, no case filled with beer or any refreshments at all. It most certainly looked like she was out just to enjoy the darkness of the night without the benefit of extra lights. And she seemed purely, completely comfortable looking out over that black sea.


It's not exactly surprising for Rick to be on a beach, but tonight he has come for a specific purpose. Or hopefully. He doesn't actually know if his purpose will be completed, because, well...it's a big island. But he lives in hope. He does not have a surfboard with him, since it's night, but instead is holding what looks like a thermos. His voice can be heard over the surf, though the words may be difficult to make out. "Just wait a second, sweetheart," he's saying. Perhaps to a ghost? There's certainly no one else there. He does spot Sylvi, though, and his steps turn in that direction. Purpose achieved. "Hey," he calls. "There you are." There you are indeed.


Turning her head curiously, Sylvi's brows went up as she spotted Rick. "Here I am, and there you are. Though why you'd be searching for me is really more the question, ja?" She chuckled and pointed up to the sky with a sandy hand, grinning. "Have you not noticed the rain? Most of the locals I know aren't out during this weather, they like to go inside to all of the bars and all of the houses to avoid getting soaked." She rested her hand behind her again and tilted her face up to the sky, accepting all the warm rain to her skin without a flinch or any indication of displeasure. "It's like a shower, from everywhere. We don't have rain that would feel this gentle at home. I can't imagine anyone not just staying out here enjoying it and enjoying the darkness and the strange question-ability of the edge of the ocean versus the edge of the beach." She chuckled softly and looked back out over the sea, rain water running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.


Rick grins, shrugging and glancing out at the water, then back to her. "Well, I figure I spend, like, half my life being soaked, so why should it matter if it's coming from the sky or the ocean?" It probably makes at least a modicum of sense. "I like the rain." He sits down near enough to her for conversation, but not directly next to her. "Well..." He reaches up to scratch his head, and then starts to open the thermos. "I had a question for you. I guess. Thought you might be the one to know the answer somehow. Or point me in the right direction."


Sylvi looked back over at Rick and grinned, leaning a little closer. "42. I hear the answer is always 42." She winked and shifted how she was sitting, pulling her legs up and crossing them akimbo as she rested her elbows on them and began idly playing with the wet sand ahead of her. "I'll admit that you're right. If you're always wet, why should it matter when the sky opens up to get you that way versus the ocean swallowing you? Especially when the sky gives you water you can open your mouth and drink from, and feels gentle?" Sylvi continued playing with the sand, clumping a bunch of it up to shape it into.. something. Heaven only knew what the woman was doing at this point with that large lump of damp earth. "So what's the question, Rick of the Waves?"


The answer to life, the universe, and everything seems to make no impression on Rick except confusion. Nope, he does not get it. He tips his head a little bit to the side, squinting at her, and though he's still smiling, he says, "Huh? 42 what?" But he's got something else on his mind. Dare one say, deep thoughts. So, he shrugs again, and then moves on. "I was wondering if you knew anything about fairies." And he just comes straight out with it. But they've already established the whole ghost thing, and the death thing. Why not fairies, too? he gets the thermos open, and tips the lid up, pouring something into it. It looks like...milk? It's white, anyway.


There was a few moments as Sylvi looked at Rick and grinned, finally snickering. "Not a fan of the Douglas Adams? I quite enjoy his work. But then, I very much enjoy reading lots of different books, they make very good stories to tell people. And I'm very much a collector of stories." She clicked her tongue against her teeth when he asked about faeries, though, shaking her head and causing her wet hair to kind of slink up her back a little. "Faeries can be very dangerous. You can't make bargains with them unless you fully understand their intentions. And even then, you have to be sure to understand the meaning of each word used and all its variations. They are very, very varied, though. There are faeries of almost anything. Many help with death and have a tight connection to it. There are even times that we'll find them in the same place as ourselves when it comes to clearing a battlefield of the dead." Sylvi smiled softly at Rick. "Do you have something more specific on the line of questioning other than what I know about faeries? It's a big subject. I've got scores of stories."


Rick's smile shifts a little apologetically when Sylvi says this, though he does also let out a chuckle. "I'm not a big reader," he admits. No, really? "I kind of, like, missed some school stuff when I was a kid." He falls quiet, though, when she answers, since he actually does want to know what she's saying. His eyes widen a little when she says that they can be dangerous, and there's a definite look there -- like he hadn't known that, or thought anything of the sort. Oops. Oh well. "Well..." He has the thermos lid filled about a quarter inch, just enough to cover the bottom, and, inexplicably, he holds it up to his ear.

Inexplicably, that is, until a little point of light seems to fall gently from his ear into the cup. It's easier to see in the dark, but it's just a tiny speck that glows golden. "So...this is, uh...my kid? I guess?" He obviously hasn't really wrapped his head around it yet. If it's even true. It sounds sort of crazy.


Sylvi nodded as Rick mentioned missing some school stuff. "I was always a fan of stories, the bigger the better. And as I got to know my heritage more, I fell in love with further tales that had inexplicable situations explained away with the supernatural. I found them comforting, and realized there's far more out there than any one of us can imagine alone." She watched, raising a brow as he went through setting up a thermos lid with very little liquid and proceeded to... listen to it. Looking directly at the speck didn't really help much, something smaller than a mote of dust doesn't exactly come jumping out at the eyes. When she glanced to the side, however, she caught it, just a flicker, something shimmering that wasn't there when she stared forward. Frowning harder, she looked back at the cup and tilted her head to the side, then looked up at Rick's face and arched one brow very high in a perfect half bow. "Uh... I think I may be confused?"


"Yeah, me too," Rick says with a little laugh. "I dunno. I was taking a walk, and then there was this...like, all these colored lights in the air? And they were flying around and touching everyone." He laughs again, sounding slightly embarrassed, and looks away toward the ocean again. "I caught one. Or...not really. I think she just went because she wanted to, I don't think I really, like, caught her. But then..." He gestures vaguely, and skips over a large part. It's really not the best explanation. "And then I get this jar on my door, and there's this little thing in it, and a note. And it says that it's my daughter and I gotta raise her, and she likes otter milk. But where the hell do you get otter milk? You can't just go to the aquarium and ask for it." Yes, he tried.


There was a brief moment or two as Sylvi attempted to stop the grin from spreading across her face. She likely looked absurd, her lips quivering as she pressed them into a flat line... but no one can really fight that all that long. When she finally threw her head back to give a full, well rounded laugh with the husky delight of a woman highly amused, it certainly didn't end immediately. Laying back onto the wet sand, she shook, the movement and completely soaked clothing doing good things in the name of science. "Oh my goodness. Did you father a child with a... well what? A Pixie? A fleck of dancing light?" She rolled her head to the side and stared at Rick, gray-blue eyes wide and fixed as she slowly stopped laughing and caught a breath. "Oh Rick... you've managed to get yourself a child. A small one, that likes the milk of something only the Fae could easily gather. Or perhaps someone that works at the otter enclosure of a zoo." Merriment still danced in her eyes as she reached over and touched his leg. "I have to know, now, though. Was it good? Was it worth having a child you'll be raising.. forever?"


Now Rick definitely does look a little embarrassed, but like many of his emotions, it's more muted than most people's, and he laughs a second after. "Yeah. That. A pixie I guess." As for whether it was good, he shrugs again, pulling a knee up and wrapping the arm that's not holding the cup around it. "I was in a dry spell, okay?" he replies, shaking his head a little, but he seems sort of amused too, at least. "I don't even know what it was. It was like a dream, kinda." He looks into the cup, peering down and then holding a finger up to that infinitesimal speck, getting her out of the milk and putting her back where she was. He may not be able to see her very well, but in his ear, at least he can hear her. After a fashion. "Maybe it was worth it. Depends on what I really have to do. There weren't that many instructions."

The tide is high and slack.

Since Rick hadn't jerked away from her, Sylvi shifted her upper body a little closer and gripped his leg, squeezing just near his knee in a companionable gesture before she took her hand away and rested it along with the other on her abdomen. "Hmmm. Well, there's something to be said for a new experience, especially in a dry spell of a normal experience." She watched him, noting the embarrassment, and the way he was treating something smaller than a mote of dust. "You'll have to do everything a parent does, while also attempting to teach it right from wrong. Faerie children are somewhat notorious for being torn between two worlds, so there's that. And there's feeding and keeping it alive as best as you can, just like all other parents. And you have to do it alone, since it's not like the mother can stay in our realm and help with any assurance. They're storied terrible parents, the Fae. They abandon their children with humans every chance they get."


Rick tips the rest of the milk into the thermos again, and closes it, looking back at Sylvi. Though not directly. Not that he knows what that would do anyway, but still. His smile fades when she continues to explain -- well, what did he think would happen? "Yeah, I guess I didn't figure she was gonna, like...come back and check up," he admits. His expression has gotten a little more solemn, and his fingers drum out a little beat on the sand. "So there's no fairy adoption agency or something, huh?" he jokes, but it's really only partly a joke. "I don't think I'm really the best person for that job."


Sylvi snorted softly and shook her head. "Fae adoption agencies would likely be overrun with the little babies waiting for humans to take them. Though they might get all sorts of people willing, I think it would be hard. It's easier that they do it the way they do, and sometimes? They even go so far as to replace a human baby with one of their own, then take the human baby to raise in Faerie." Syl shivered slightly at the thought, then looked back up at the sky. Her lack of tension was palpable, especially as she closed her eyes and let the rain fall onto her without moving to avoid it in the slightest. "Hmmm. I think it's hard to imagine ourselves good enough to do anything for anyone. Why is it you aren't the best person for the job?"


Rick's eyebrows raise at that, and he murmurs, "Yikes." He reaches up to rub his head, though it doesn't really dislodge any of the rain that's coming down onto them. Or if it does, it's just replaced a second later. "Well...you know. Just been by myself for a long time and I wasn't looking to change that. I don't know anything about raising a kid. Even less about a fairy kid. And...forever? I'm not gonna live forever." He wipes a hand over his face, "I can barely see her. How'm I supposed to keep track of her?"


Sylvi smiled softly and shrugged her shoulders. "Are you sure that you need to worry about her wandering off? Maybe she's part of you, and is going to stay with you because she feels attached. You share something biologically, and has she gone missing on you while you slept? While you showered?" She turned her head and wiped at her wet eyes with the back of her hand, avoiding wiping sand into them. When she opened her eyes and looked at him through black, spiky, wet lashes. "No one lives forever. Nothing in the human realm of things, at least. Perhaps it's about finding a way to ensure that things are good for her even after you're gone? Or perhaps it's about finding a way to bring her into adulthood and leading her out into the world to be strong enough to survive without you in the end of your short life and at the beginning of her very long one?" Licking her lips free of cloud water, she smiled again. "Maybe it was time you weren't alone any longer?"


"Don't kids wander off?" Rick asks with a little laugh, but who really knows what a fairy child would do? He looks back at her, though the rain does make it a little bit harder to see. "Well I'm never gonna be rich to leave her anything," he points out. "But I guess she isn't gonna have to go to school." He shrugs, a little bit resignedly. He obviously isn't actually going to try and get rid of her. "Maybe," he admits. "Guess I just don't really have that much to give her. But maybe she won't know any better, huh?" He grins at this. "

The tide is high and ebbing.

There was a soft chuckle as Sylvi closed her eyes and shook her head, her smile wide enough that a couple droplets of rain splashed as they struck her white teeth. "She's small enough that you likely can provide everything she needs simply by dropping an extra crumb during a meal, sharing your own milk, provided you like whole milk or whatever babies need. She'll probably enjoy your place as her whole world, it's so much bigger to a small creature that size than it is to you or me. Like a whole country in one room to explore. There are people that live their whole lives in one country and never leave." She didn't open her eyes again til she turned her head back Rick's way and offered him that wide, dazzlingly warm smile. "What you consider not much can be enough to fill her world with abundance. And you will take her outside with you, show her the rest of the world. It would be like a child globe trotting with their parents." She shrugged a little. "Is that something so bad that you wouldn't wish it on a child?"


Well, when she puts it like that, it does actually sound kind of okay. "I guess that makes sense," Rick concedes. "Just so long as she doesn't get lost in the closet or something. Hopefully she gets a little bigger. Then at least I'll be able to see her." He does catch the smile, though, and it's clear it does indeed dazzle him, at least a little bit. A pixie is all very well, but...well. However, he doesn't move closer or anything like that, just lets it wash over him for the moment that it's there. "Yeah. It's probably not that bad." There's a little pause, before he adds, "Thanks."


"They get bigger as they get stronger, right? I think that's the way it goes with the little ones. If they're powerful they're larger. Maybe you'll be in her life long enough to see her grow to something quite evident to the naked eye, instead of being some glimmer you can only catch if you imagined the frills of your lashes glinting with light." Sylvi reached out a and nudged Rick's leg softly with her hand, balled into a loose fist so she pressed the back of her fingers and the ridge of her knuckles to him. "It's not a terrible thing to support a friend, Rick. I think it's one of the reasons we're all here together. And I'm only telling you things that you'd tell yourself if you were looking at it from the outside, instead of trying to figure out the walls without seeing the house." She gave him a wink as she drew her hand back to her abdomen and laid it loosely across her tummy over the other one. "On the field of battle there are soldiers that have trained together for nothing but that moment. Men and women that learned to know the sensation of one another through nothing but their backs pressed to each other for support. It's those soldiers that know bravery, know the reality of what it is to fight for someone that while they weren't raised together, they were taught together. People don't realize how often that applies in their lives. The ones we learn with, the ones we share with, they're the ones that we get to know as the imprint on our backs. They're the ones that make us strong enough to be worthy of a place like Valhalla when the souls are taken to toil or rest."


"Yeah," Rick replies, reaching up to touch his ear gently, as though to make sure the little thing is still there. Maybe the movement makes her babble or coo or something so that he can tell. But from the little glint that Sylvi caught, it does seem like she would be warm, too. He grins at Sylvi at the touch, though it fades when she goes on. It seems like a more solemn thing to hear about all of that. "That's a good way to put it," he says when she's through, and the smile does return, even if it's just a little softer. "And you're right. Maybe it'll be nice to have something around. Something besides ghosts."


Sylvi nodded, though the movement was a bit subdued due to her laying out on her back in the wet sand. "Having someone around that's not a ghost that may or may not be helped, well, I can imagine it would be good for someone that's used to dealing with life alone." She looked at him a long moment and slowly sat up, turning to face him as she drew her legs underneath her and rested on knees, ass to her heels. "Even when you feel alone, you aren't. You know this, ja? You have friends, allies. People that would help. I would help if you ever asked." She looked around the dark beach without all its pretty starlight to make it shine, and sighed softly. "I came here tonight to remember what alone felt like. And to remember darkness. It's harder to find it here, and it doesn't come with all the cold that you find when you creep away to solace back home. Or in many of the other places I've been. The isolation when you find a dark place alone in Russia was something that chilled me to the bone, but here? Here I don't feel it, it's more like I'm still with the island, with the life that thrums through it, and it's not something that can be really escaped. Even in a lonely dark stretch of the beach." Sylvi reached forward with her hand then, and if Rick didn't flinch or bat her away, she touched his cheek gently with the back of her fingertips, palms out, leaving only a few bits of sand to wash down his cheek in the rivulets of rainwater that continued flowing from above. "No one in the touch of this place is as alone as they believe. No one has to be, not really."


Rick's smile turns a little wry, but he does nod. "Yeah," he says. "I know. I mean, you know. I know. But it's just easier." He gives another slightly vague gesture, a small wave of his hand in the air, and while it's not a very clear one, it is probably clear to her what it means. He does nod, though, at her assessment of the island. "Yeah. Most places I've been are warm too, but you're right. It doesn't feel real dark here, even in the winter. Just something about it." He may not be as eloquent as her, but the idea's the same. And he doesn't pull away -- in fact he tips his head a fraction of an inch toward her hand, though it might just be incidental. "Well, it's all fun and games until you end up with a kid," he quips, but he shifts slightly toward her on the sand, not quite like he's trying to kiss her, but he might not be that far away. The rain is still running into his face, obscuring his vision a little bit, but he doesn't know enough to look away anyway.

The stars in the east begin to look washed out as the sapphire night sky pales.

It was obviously Sylvi's turn to smile wryly, and she did so, eyes glinting enough to make the gray-blue of them almost flash. "It's just a new adventure, Rick. One you get to take and watch with the wonder of newness along side the person growing into it. That's an entirely different kind of fun, ja?" As he hadn't turned away, and in fact moved closer, Sylvi seemed to feel perfectly comfortable in her next movements. Rising up to her knees, she came in toward Rick and instead of bringing her mouth to his, she leaned in from her somewhat taller position and pressed her cheek to Rick's, slick, warm and silken. Her arms moved around him as the rest of her rather sodden self pressed in to him tightly, leaving little room for questions as to whether there was anything under the soaked layer of her shirt. But it was a hug, a real one, when her arms wrapped around Rick solidly and pulled him as close as Sylvi could without taking his breath. Staying in her slightly taller position on her knees, she essentially tucked him in closely to her body and cradled him before she kissed him ever so gently on the curve of his ear. "Sometimes, it's not fun and games. But that's when you need someone to remind you that you have another back to lean against." Her words were soft, the decibel level barely above a sighed breath, but that close to Rick's ear if Sylvi's voice had been normally pitched it would have sounded like a scream.


What she does then seems to be unexpected. At least, judging from the reaction. The kiss, he could have done easily. This? Not so much. For a moment he sags into her, letting her pull him against her as much as she will, and there's even a little sigh that escapes him, too, that feels almost like relief. His eyes close for just a moment, and he's very still.

Until the words at the end. For whatever reason, he tenses up then, and it's only another second before he's disengaging from her. Gently, but unmistakably, and about as quickly as he can without actually pushing her away. "Yeah," he says, "okay." But now he's looking anywhere but at her, and he pushes himself to his feet. "Thanks. Thank you. I gotta..." He jerks a thumb behind him, and then he's turning away, starting to walk back the way he'd come. After a few seconds he breaks into a jog, and he's gone so quickly that he's even left the thermos sitting there on the sand, next to the little hollow in the sand where he'd been sitting, already halfway washed away by the rain.


Pink-gold light gilds the land as the sun creeps over the eastern horizon into a cloudless blue sky.


Sylvi stilled slightly as Rick seemed to become agitated. She leaned back and let him move away from her without attempting to hold him, her eyes slightly wide. "Oh, alright." She blinked, some slight confusion on her face, but she settled back to rest her rear onto her heels as he got to his feet, making herself as nonthreatening as possible. "Go safely." Sylvi offered with a gentle voice as Rick started to jog away. When her eyes caught sight of the thermos he left behind, she let out a little sound of "oh!" Plucking it up off the sand, she lifted the thermos over her head and called out after the retreating Rick, "RICK! You left your... milk..." Her voice fading toward the end so she was really just speaking to herself in the dark as the man disappeared over the mounded sand and away to the rest of the Windward coast. Letting out a sigh, she looked at the thermos and raised her brows at it. "You know, I should probably just start keeping a tally of all the men that are freaked out by tall blondes on this island and be sure to give them a little more space." Her voice was filled with wry humor as she shook her head and stood, carrying the thermos with her. The walk back to the shared house of Valkyrie was a slow amble, done along the shore line, without the slightest bit of hurry to her steps.