The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Wednesday... Morning?

[okteiviakom]

In the end, it had been a very long, very happy night of drinking and laughing and dancing until there'd been no strength or energy left for any more of it, and only just barely enough for the trek through town to the port and the Rouge sometime in the... honestly, pretty late hours of the morning. Maybe? Octavia, at least, had lost track of time sometime very soon after midnight.

Regardless, after all that effort, being unconscious was a wonderful thing.

So of course it wouldn't last much longer anymore. The discomfort of just about everything was starting to seep in, clearing away sleep from its path. Octavia had apparently given up on getting out of her party clothes - such as they were - after undoing her belt, which meant the buckle was now digging into her hip because she'd rolled over onto it, and her cheek was smushed up against something that had to be Duke, judging by the warmth which by itself was actually nice, but the position of her head was wonky and straining her neck, now.

Slowly, Octavia rolled onto her back. Or, she tried for slow but ended up just limply flopping onto it. Which her head did not like, by the way, judging by the nasty throb of pain at her temple. She groaned quietly, and tried to shut her eyes even tighter.

Maybe sleep would still come back to her and save her from this nightmare that was clearly just getting started on tormenting her.

[ooc: For that gently modded guy whose boat this is.]

Comments

[betterthanaplan]

"Go make sure those trees remember who's boss, huh?" Duke asked. "Hope you don't disappear completely, though. I might need some help figuring out this 'bird haberdashery' thing."

[okteiviakom]

Too bad she still couldn't chance rolling her eyes, because that first thing kind of called for it.

Oh well.

Had to just get by with the soft snort for the second thing. "Because I know so much about, what? Making suits for birds?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Is it suits? See, you're one step ahead of me already."

He was pretty sure it wasn't suits.

"Guess this means I have to hit the welcome picnic this weekend, huh."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shrugged one shoulder, and was pleasantly surprised when her body didn't immediately make her regret it. "It's what my mom called working on all the menswear when she wanted to be funny," she said, mildly. Or subdued, really, but that just went with the quiet of this morning, right?

She was pretty sure she hadn't mentioned the seamstress thing before, either.

"Anyway. I guess I might drop by the picnic for the food."

[betterthanaplan]

"Ah yes, the food," Duke said, rather than ask her about her mom. (Moms were tough subjects, he got that.) "You know, that's why I went when I got here this summer. Limped into port with nothing but fish jerky left on board, asked the harbor master where to eat, and she pointed me up the hill to the school."

[okteiviakom]

"I was there too," Octavia said, still a little distant, but getting better. "Because I'm always there, because they have free food."

She said, while waiting for her free breakfast.

She wasn't as food-motivated as Lucy, sure, but food was food.

[betterthanaplan]

"Hey, that sounds like a good reason to me. I assume that's why they have it there in the first place. Lure everyone in and pick out the new teachers."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia snorted, despite herself. "Must mean I'm safe. Since they haven't picked me yet."

They hadn't even tried to make her a student, those first couple of times.

[betterthanaplan]

"I'm a little surprised," Duke said. "I bet there's kids up there who'd be all over a warrior class."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia gave him a wry look. "I'm not fit to teach anyone anything."

The idea of it felt somehow a little too close to leading a group of people, and that wasn't a role she ever saw herself in.

Not voluntarily, anyway.

[betterthanaplan]

"You taught me to throw a sword," Duke said. "Well, you started to, anyway. And you've been teaching me Trig."

If throwing Trig at him in conversation and waiting for him to catch up could be called 'teaching'.

[okteiviakom]

"I showed you how to throw a sword," Octavia retorted, "and I keep speaking Trig to you and letting you figure it out for yourself."

She didn't think that counted for 'teaching' the way the school would've wanted her to do, no.

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah, but that's kind of how language acquisition works, right?" Duke wouldn't say he'd ever really studied any of his other languages, either. Anyone could just go to another country and end up semi-fluent in their language by the end of the month, right? "And what do you think teaching is, exactly? It's not like I gave my students a bunch of books on pirates to read or anything."

Shit. Was that why the moose had given him a nonsense class? Because he didn't teach properly?

[okteiviakom]

"No, but I know you planned ahead with like, topics, and how to make it challenging enough but not too much." She remembered him distracting her with the desert island class planning at the tattoo place. "I don't think I have it in me to do all that."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke gave her a knowing look. "And what do you think I would have said four months ago?"

[okteiviakom]

"That you couldn't wait to start calling the students your pirates, because you're just so good with people?"

Okay, Octavia had to be feeling better when the snarky streak was bubbling up like that.

(Didn't mean she didn't feel like that last part was crucial.)

[betterthanaplan]

Duke snorted. "I actually started class one with a rant about how real life pirates are terrible and will kill you. I believe there was also a lot of wondering why the hell anyone thought I should be in charge of children."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shrugged.

Barely.

"Well, that first part sounds like important info. Clearly the moose knew better than you."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke gave her an exaggeratedly appalled look. "What a horrible thing to say. I should have known you'd take the moose's side."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia nodded solemnly. Ish. There was a quiet snort involved, after all. "I might be swayed back to yours when this breakfast is done."

[betterthanaplan]

"So I should probably shut up and get cooking, huh." Duke shook his head with a rueful smile. "Yes ma'am. I know what I'm good for."

He said it with irony, but -- yeah. There was definitely a not insignificant part of Duke that believed he was only worth anything when he was taking care of someone else. No matter how hard he'd fought that mindset since leaving Haven.

[okteiviakom]

"Mmhmm," Octavia hummed lightly, glancing down at her bare feet - and her bare legs (well, knee-down, anyway). She wondered idly if she'd been dressed like anything resembling this since she'd been like... seven or something. "Being meizen, amazing, and good at cooking."

One of those was a much bigger thing than the other two.

[betterthanaplan]

It was the cooking thing, right? Everyone loved a cook.

"We can do some laundry before you head out too," Duke offered, seeing her look as he set about prepping for omelets. "No dryer, but it looks like there's enough sun that it shouldn't take too long for your clothes to dry."

[okteiviakom]

It was not the cooking thing.

"Sure," Octavia replied, fidgeting a little with the sleeve of the shirt she was wearing, now that she'd drawn her own attention to it. "I'm not in a rush. And everything smells like last night."

Washing her clothes meant less to her than the convenient excuse to stick around, though.

[betterthanaplan]

"And a walk of shame's gotta be pretty extra shameful in a small town full of gossipy squirrels," Duke said, cracking and whipping a handful of eggs with the ease of plenty of practice. His mouth started to water, which was how he knew the painkillers were really kicking in. "Not that you don't look cute in my shirt and all."

She looked extremely cute in his shirt. But with her hair up in just a ponytail, she hardly looked like herself. "Maybe, uh. I can give a shot at braiding your hair while they dry? You know, return that favor from awhile back."

He wasn't asking just to return a favor. It'd been a very sweet, intimate thing she'd done, and he wanted to see what that felt like from the other direction.