Bad Ideas!

Lola Hawkes
Since her adventures chasing old Fianna Kinfolk that had gotten lost on their retirement exploits, Lola has largely stayed around the Homestead.  For all of the worrying and hand wringing that had gone on about how the Kinswoman was bound to continue throwing herself into peril's way despite the fact that she was carrying a child, Lola has been laying low for the past month easily with no incident.
In fact, for Tamsin to visit, she would have to come out to The Homestead.  On this mid-week afternoon, with the sun hanging to the west and beginning its descent but still a good two or three hours until it was gone, Lola Hawkes could be found working on the garden she had built last fall in the back of the house.  Spring was trying to spring early, and soon it would be time to plant, so she was out back tilling and arranging rows and making sure that the wire that made up the fence was secure to its posts.
Though bright and sunny, the day was still a little chilly, so Lola worked in long skirts and a long-sleeved shirt that stretched tightly over her stomach and chest.  Though she didn't have any way to know this for certain herself, what with her stubborn refusal to do so much as even employ a midwife, this week Lola's pregnancy entered its third trimester.  To look at her, it would be easy to believe that fact.
Despite this, though, Lola worked with sweat touching her brow and the sleeves of her shirt pushed up to her elbows.  Up on the back porch, a little portable boombox played music that only did a halfway effective job of traveling to the garden.
Tamsin
Tamsin doesn't mind coming out to The Homestead. After all: Tamsin likely still crashes there occasionally, a nomad. Musician. Easy to explain to those who haven't a clue that way, not that anyone would ever wonder at the Hawkes-Ghosh household. Pack: she wants to be near to Hector. Pack: she wants to be near to Hector and Hector's child and Lola and Lola has something of Maria in some of her gestures which Tamsin notices sometimes and never remarks upon because there is no reason to remark upon it. Tamsin: when Hector finished making (or when he finishes making she will) the fucking crib finally went to jump in it and 'test' it out. Because that's how you know. Today when Tamsin comes by it's after hitching a ride with another Fianna - let's name this other-Fianna "Errantry" (even though Tamsin's player rather wants to use that for a Fianna Ragabash now that is not an NPC) - and Lola can hear the slam of a door and the sound of a truck making-off.
Then: Tamsin. Tamsin, who'd chopped her hair off to shoulder-length a month or so ago, make-upless and carrying her guitar case plus a smaller case that also looks vaguely guitar-shaped except it's a ukulele and it was a gift from a hipster guy who came to see her play and she's not telling Hector about that because he's annoying. Tamsin doesn't bother putting her instruments down before circling the little house following that boombox and look it's Lola in the garden:
"Hey Lola!" Tamsin interrupts, cheerfully. "You wanna try some fucking fantastic apple pumpkin bread?"
Lola: she looks fat. Tamsin: will not be saying that aloud but her gaze can't help getting pulled in by Lola's belly. Damn, how much longer? Maybe there's a spirit who'll know.
Tamsin
[This is going to be amusing. Tamsin totally tried to knit the baby some cute wolf hat thing. Dex + Crafts. DIFF: 8, because fancy knitting is hard.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
When Tamsin comes around to the back of the house she'll find Lola stooped forward with one elbow braced on her thigh and knee to help support balance and distribute weight (otherwise her back would suffer), working a spade into the dirt with her free hand.  The call that interrupted the music -- something forgettable and largely difficult to make out due to poor sound quality on the old boom box -- drew the Kinfolk's attention, and she straightened up to greet the Galliard.
Hector wasn't anywhere in sight, but he had his placed to be and duties to maintain.  He hasn't been around the Cold Crescent Sept nearly so much these days, though.  Rumor has it he may be pulling his efforts on that place after his botched mission in the basement, and that he's putting his full support behind Forgotten Questions instead.  Most of the time that rumor is quashed reminders that he probably just wants to be near to home when his first child is born.
Initially, all Tamsin got was an upward jerk of the chin in greeting.  Then Lola tossed the spade down in the dirt and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her bare forearm.  Dirt was smudged on arms and face both, though not excessively.
She didn't speak up until after she'd moved across from the garden to the back porch so she could turn the music machine off completely.  Once that was done Lola scrubbed her hands on the clothing over her hips and looked back over to Tamsin.  She wasn't the smiling sort, but Tamsin knew her well enough to figure that even if she wasn't grinning from ear to ear, Lola was still in a good mood and receptive to visitors.
"Who made it for you?"  Came the answer to the offer for apple pumpkin bread.  "Or did you find a kitchen to use and make it yourself?"  Either way, she waved her hand to gesture Tamsin over, invite her toward the house and the back porch.  "Of course I want to try it.  Come on over."
Tamsin
"The fucking manager at the fucking Meadowlark Bar," Tamsin says, and there is something pleased (shyly) beneath the cursing, because Tamsin is beginning to be recognized -- just occasionally, just every now and then, by People. Music Scene People. She sets the guitar case down on the back porch and the ukulele case too, then unsnaps the guitar case, because of course that is where she was keeping the bread and assorted other items. The bread is very smooshed, very smooshed indeed, but it is still pumpkin apple bread. Belatedly, Tamsin makes a face: "Make it myself, ugh, bread is hard. Um well not like stale hard, not THIS bread anyway, you know what I mean, um," and right. The bread gets put down on that little table that Lola has out there and Tamsin begins to unwrap it. "I brought a baby hat over too which I made myself and it looks," she pauses, frowns at her hands, pulling them back from the saran-wrap and bread, flexing them and rubbing a thumb into the crease. The frown was a momentary thing, though, because it's back to pride, yo:
"Made myself and it looks pretty good. Um, I think. I think it should have a name. Like, the hat, not the baby. The baby's gonna be named whatever the baby's gonna be named, but you remember that Galadriel is off-limits, right? You look, um, pretty today. How are you?"
Tamsin
ooc: man, scratch that, let's say The Larimer Lounge instead. *grin*
Lola Hawkes
If Lola were a more civilized person, she would have gone back inside for a bread knife and some napkins.  Instead she was accustomed to sharing food and meals with packmates, what was supposed to be future packmates, and friends without such amenities.  Ripping chunks from a loaf of bread has worked well enough before, and after a while you got pretty good at tearing evenly without destroying the loaf.
Besides, from the looks of the loaf, it had already taken some damage on the way over in the guitar case.  So Lola stood at the side of the wire patio table with its matching wire chairs, watching patiently while Tamsin unwrapped the plastic wrap and set the bread loaf up on the table.  Lola would wait to be provided with her portion-- she knew that garden dirt was deep in her fingers and nails.  She wouldn't dirty the gift from the Larimer Lounge manager.
"The baby already has a name-- didn't Hector tell you?"  Lola set dark chocolate-earth brown eyes upon Tamsin and raised her eyebrows, but seemed pleased (in her own way) to share the information herself instead.  "We chose Raksha."
Tamsin said Lola looked pretty, and that was fair enough a compliment to give.  Lola seldom dressed up and didn't bother with make-up, and today was no different.  Her skirt was a burnt orange and her shirt was black, her hair was piled up on top of her head.  She was pretty in that she looked strong and healthy and full of life.  The compliment was taken with a rolling shrug of one shoulder before being set aside for the inquiry about her well being instead.
"I'm doing fine.  Better than Hector, he's been nervous enough to finally finish the damn crib.  Though I heard you figured that out already."  Lola, apparently, heard about Tamsin leaping around inside of the crib, and the tone in which she mentioned this had just the smallest key of warning.  She wasn't mad, as the crib was still intact, but the way she looked at Tamsin in that moment was a clear warning:  Don't break our shit, in particular don't break shit that we need.
But, moving on...
"Thanks for the hat.  Hector'll probably give it a better name than I could.  Or more interesting one anyways.  You're doing alright?  Your Kin all are too?"
Tamsin
"Nope, he keeps telling me he's going to take Galadriel and Eowyn and that you said it's totally okay," Tamsin says, frowning, and she seems actually worried. Perhaps that worry is why she hasn't seen through Hector's ploy, so Lola revealing the real name causes the moss-eyed Fianna thing to bite her lip and then grin hard enough to hurt her cheeks. The grin becomes a smirk, remembering the incident with the crib: Lola's look of warning passes by unnoticed in the dreamy haze of heh heh.
The Fianna tears off a hunk of the bread (it's moist, and Lola can see the chunks of apple inside, pumpkin seeds impressed on the top) and hands it to Lola - or is going to before she realizes that maybe something should be set down on the table so the bread doesn't pick up dust. She winds up just pushing the saran wrap/bread over toward the Uktena kin.
"Yeah," Tamsin says, and then frowns down at the table. "I... um... It's weird, Lola. Like... do I look strange to you?"
Tamsin lofts her chin, sits up straight.
"Like is there anything off? Or do... My hands look okay, right?"
She holds her hands out, palm and fingers up.
Lola Hawkes
[Intelligence 3 + Medicine 2: I don't know, Tamsin, are you okay?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 5) ( fail )
Lola Hawkes
The discussion about what Hector was insisting he would use for names was dismissed with a shake of her head.  Lola was a practical woman, and much to Hector's chagrin she still hadn't finished the trilogy (though she was mostly done with the first book now, thank you very much, and has listened to him read much of The Hobbit to her stomach at night so she knew that story as well).
Lola watched the loaf of bread slide her way and looked down at her dirty hands, then pressed her lips together but excused herself simply with a: "I'll be right back, hang on."  Then she would disappear into the house just long enough to wash her hands in the kitchen sink and re-secure her hair in a knot up at the top of her head.  When she came back out her hands were clean and the stray hairs that had fallen at the top of her neck and to frame her face were pulled back once more.
Once clean again, she tore herself a piece of bread and ate it, happy for the food, while Tamsin sat and held out her hands, fingers up, to ask Lola if everything looked okay.
Lola blinked, and leaned forward to examine Tamsin's hands, apparently missing it if Tamsin were trying to lead her into some kind of a build up for a joke or a story or a hypothetical.  She must have had dirt and sweat in her eye still, or the fetus had sucked up too many nutrients for her brain to give enough of a shit to actually process the Fianna's hands, but whatever it was she saw it had Lola wrinkling her nose at the bridge and straightening up.  She kept looking at Tamsin's hands, then reached for the loaf of bread and ripped off another small chunk for herself to eat before announcing:
"Got one hell of a quiver happening.  Did you just walk away from something I should know about?"
Tamsin
Tamsin looks stricken and pulls her hands back, bending her head to examine them herself for quivers. Puts them in her lap right after, head still down. Head down enough that she rests her chin on the table, scootching the chair she'd sat herself in while Lola went inside to wash her hands back. She tucks her hands under her thighs.
"I had this," Tamsin begins to say, and then: dreamily. "I keep thinking about ... doors and, I don't know. I had a dream and all today and all yesterday every time I've picked up the guitar or the ukulele that Heinrich gave me right it feels like... I feel a handle cracking in my hand, like the neck of them is cracking, like it's just breaking. Like a fairy curse, except it's really not that bad just... It's weird. Maybe I'm being sensitive and shit."
"How are your dreams lately? You been sleeping all right or is little Raksha kicking your bladder to pieces?"
Lola Hawkes
The quivering hands were left aside.  Tamsin wasn't worried for them so Lola wouldn't be concerned either.  They were tucked under thighs and forgotten anyways.  Lola finished eating her second slice of bread before dusting her hands and folding her arms across the top of her protruding stomach.  She remained standing, apparently more comfortable on the soles of her work boots than seated.
What Tamsin had to say about her dreams had Lola creasing her brow and shaking her head.  "I'm not a dreamspeaker.  Never learned the craft, or how to read 'em.  Way I figure, a dream is just a dream until someone or something is making it anything but.  To find out if it's the latter, you'd need a Theurge."  She paused, thoughtful, then added:  "Or a really experienced Galliard.  I've heard of some that can walk through dreams and examine them from within."
As for her own sleep, Tamsin earned another shrug and a small, almost reluctant ghost of a grin.  It was more of a relaxing around the mouth and corners of the eyes really than a true smile, but we knew what she meant.
"Dreams are here or there.  They've been strange, but they're supposed to be.  And the baby--"  Hector would say 'she' in this place.  Lola still refused to assign a gender without seeing hard evidence first.  Like she was refusing to set an expectation so she couldn't be thrown off if it turned out wrong.
"I'm up 'bout twice a night, but still sleeping okay besides that.  Better now that Hector's sister's gone back to her home."  Lola looked stressed, but in a relieved and maybe somewhat sympathetic way.  It was the kind of look that anyone had when the in-laws finally went home and left you to live in peace.
Tamsin
"Yeah! I can't wait to learn how to do that!" Tamsin says, perking up a little. There's something still yet a bit dreamy or distant behind the enthusiasm for Gifts she does not yet have and the old smoulder-simmer burn of Rage re: Theurges fucking upstarts trying to fucking say they've got all the godamned lore but oooh we're mystical oooh we know it all oooh fuck Theurges.
She listens with attention to Lola's talk of dreams and sleep, though, sitting up and putting her elbow on the table, cupping her chin (don't you feel the splinter-crack, Tamsin? [she does, and shivers]) in her hand and reaching for a chunk of pumpkin-apple bread.
"Aw, you didn't like her?" she asks, all curiously: and ready to fucking gossip. Tamsin is a galliard, and she is not the quiet kind.
Is there a quiet kind of galliard?
Academic question.
Lola Hawkes
"Oh, I like her alright.  But she's human, see."
As though that alone should say it all.  Tamsin can imagine the stress that would come from hiding all things Werewolf in a house that has stood for and been inhabited exclusively by generations of them.  Lola moved her hand to press at the side of her stomach, in response to the baby moving or stretching somehow, then reached for the loaf of bread to rip herself another chunk.
"That just meant there's a lot we couldn't tell her, you know?  And she had to visit on the fucking gibbous and full moons, so Hector was hardly helpful with easing the mood."
Munch.
"She's a doctor, so she had some strong opinions about my not going to a doctor or midwife or anything."
Tamsin
"Is Hector ever helpful with 'easing the mood'?" Tamsin says, with another smirk. Tamsin and Hector: they act like siblings, don't they, and part of that is never letting up, huh? But they aren't siblings. They're pack. Pack's different. The smirk's a little more absent than it could otherwise be. "But yeah. I get it. Jesus, should've asked me to come up with a reason for her to come some other time. I'm pretty fucking good at that."
And Tamsin is: persuasive, when she wants to be. A cheater, too, with Gifts up her sleeve and no moral compunction about using them to give her that sweet-talking Fianna-tongue an edge.
Blink. "But uh, are you really ... Like um, you were serious? You're really not gonna have a midwife or something?"
Lola Hawkes
The question posed was one that Lola's heard more than once in the past few months.  She recognized the tone, the caution and uncertain social steps around being so bold as to ask in the first place.  So the Kinfolk stared blandly at Tamsin for a few seconds, then she sighed and pulled out a chair to sit, which she had to do a touch differently now to accommodate for weight and size.
"It's nothing that I want anyone else around for.  It's personal, you know?  I don't need some stranger to deal with, telling me what I already know.  Hector'll be there with healing talens if we need them."
She was frowning inactively, a thoughtless crease between her eyebrows.  She took her time nibbling this piece of bread, picking a seed from the top and nibbling it.
"Can't be that unheard of.  Not among our people."
Tamsin
[Whoa wait what.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Tamsin
[Manipulation + Subterfuge. >.>]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Tamsin
The stag-girl, Fianna-darling-of-a-thing, she listens thoughtfully and
If this were a true and accurate representation of her thoughts on the matter, Lola would say Hector'll be there with healing talens if we need--
And Tamsin would go, "WHOA. Wait. Shut the hell up, Hector's gonna-- No way. You're fucking kidding me, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard this side of -- let's go -- fucking -- lick the Pit in Cold Crescent's basement."
And they would fight. And Lola would be mad. And Tamsin would regret her outburst but she would be mad too.
But Tamsin has a modicum of restraint, too. And she loves Lola. And she is also a sneaky trickster of a thing, a liar. The lyingest liar ever. So what actually happens is:
The stag-girl, Fianna-darling-of-a-thing, she listens thoughtfully and her eyebrows draw together a bit and she taps her fingers against the table, but offers: "I know some tales that mention a kinwoman giving birth, unattended. But it's usually a footnote, obviously. And um, like, kind of an illustration of how epicly bad the other shit is. And there are no stories that aren't tragedies about Galliards or Ahroun trying to help deliver a kid. Especially when those Galliards or Ahrouns, like, almost frenzy just when some dude looks wrong at their mate, just saying."
That is much better Tamsin than what you were gonna say.
"I mean um... Yeah, I get wanting to do it alone. That sounds cool to me. Well, not to me, fuck that, I want drugs... although I guess I would probably not get them? Good thing I'm barely getting laid right now huh?" A grin. 'Barely,' eh?
"But I dunno. Healing talens are sacred. Women are fucking awesome and way better at healing and shit than men. Shouldn't have to have those on stand-by, but like... a midwife in the other room in case the baby's gotta get... Turned around or, eh, I don't know, I just know TV childbirth problems. Anyway you should totally have some kin birth-mother chick waiting in the other room just in case. That's not having a stranger around yammering at you, you know?"
Tamsin
ooc: make that "their girlfriend, well, 'mate,' just saying." Because Tamsin hates using the 'mate' word in real life not in story. *grin* Because it is stupid.
Lola Hawkes
[Perception + Empathy:  Yeah, sure, it's all about statistics, is it?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lola Hawkes
To give credit where credit is due, Tamsin raises very good points.  Doing her part, Lola listens and doesn't interrupt.  She lets the Galliard take the floor and speak, leans back in the wire chair and works on rolling the sleeves of her shirt back down to her wrists once more.  Sitting still against the cool metal chairs reminded her of the true temperature and had her wanting less skin bared to the chill springtime air.
But, for how well she's listening and hearing and nodding along where it's appropriate, Lola's still watching Tamsin with a look to her that suggests she's noticed something.  Like when you see somebody hiding in an alleyway and don't know yet whether you should blow their cover to the cop looking determinedly about on the corner nearby.
When she's finished, Lola huffed and popped another pumpkin seed in her mouth.
Then she asks, pointedly:  "Are you gonna try and tell Hector to be anyplace but here when the baby comes?"  A pause, a beat, and then she furrows her brow and presses the matter just one step further, as though reaching out and drawing a definitive line in the dirt to mark her stance:  "You gonna tell me that I shouldn't let him be around?"
Lola shook her head then and took another proper bite from the hunk of bread in her hand.
"I just ain't sold on what some midwife Kinswoman's gonna be doin' for me that I'm not gonna be able to do for myself."
Tamsin
Is Tamsin going to tell Hector to be anyplace but here when the bay comes? Is Tamsin going to tell Lola that she shouldn't let him be around?
"Yes," Tamsin says. Not angry, not agitated; just: Yes. Dear god, yes.
"And um, I dunno. Probably nothing, really. I know lots of women who managed to do it on their own -- well kind of their own. Well, you know Glen's sister, yeah? Nora? Apparently when their mom had Nora, she was all on her lonesome. Just excused herself from dinner, right? Because everybody was at dinner. Then went upstairs and called a theurge to say: It's time. By the time the theurge got there, she was soft-shoeing it down the stairs, baby Nora in her arms. Nora told me this in contrast with her own experience of course."
Tamsin smiles again, but it's a small little smile, like she's not yet to the point of grinning.
"I guess what I'm saying is probably nothing, but it's good to have. Like matches in case your electricity goes and it's an emergency or whatever. You will probably just excuse yourself from dinner, drop a cool note on the phone like b-dubs come on over but wait on the porch and then you'd come out all cool as you please baby wrapped up in its awesome hat that I made and a blanket."
"Speaking of dinner... You want me to cook something tonight? I kinda feel challenged on account of this bread."
Lola Hawkes
Two years ago Lola would have fought Tamsin much harder on this, and any other matter.  She was confrontational in every circumstance, with a chip on her shoulder and this idea that she had so much more to prove of herself since she turned out to be a Kinfolk instead of True Born after all.  She would have gnashed teeth and gotten up in arms about how she knew what she was doing and didn't need anyone telling her otherwise.
Now, though, she did not bare teeth and go up in arms.  Much had changed over the course of two years.  She'd lost her sister and watched her Sept reel and twist under the assault of a Black Spiral pack for the second time in recent history, as well as nearly lost her own life and limb both in combat.
Maybe it was experience that tempered her.  Maybe she was just too tired to put up much of an argument.  Whatever the reason, Lola just eyeballed Tamsin from across the table for a few long seconds before asking:  "If I agree to at least consider the option, can we lay the matter to rest?  I've fought about this enough last week already."
As for dinner:  "If you want to cook tonight, I'd be thankful to you for that.  Hector shouldn't be gone for much longer, so you can probably put him to work helping if you hold off on starting for another hour or so."
Tamsin
Tamsin nods. She flexes her hands again; can't help another look at them, like - are you quivering? No; why do I feel that way? and that look bleeds into the way she regards the garden for a moment, mossy eyes catching here, and then there, and perhaps Tamsin is high. Her pupils are large (she is not high).
"We don't need to discuss it any more tonight or anything, yeah, totally," Tamsin says. "Um, I mean, I pretty much said it all. I do support you wanting to do it on your own, you know? Just like, blah blah, emergency back-up on the porch, blah blah blah."
"Um," cutting herself off from more blah blah blahs, more re-enacting of their own conversation: "Awesome. I will cook the best thing I can um think of to cook with what you've got and I think I might have like ... beans. In my bag. Something. Fritos! I can make a frito casserole!" She grins: it's a sharp, sizzle of a dark thing.
"Wanna hear a song I've been working on? Or--like, well, if you need to work in the garden some more I can play it from here, or ..."
As if Tamsin was suddenly conscious that she had indeed interrupted.
Lola Hawkes
"I'll think about it."
And that's precisely where Lola lets the conversation end-- Tamsin wraps up with summarizing what she's trying to say, and Lola simply expresses once again that she will consider the option.  She makes no promises, but she didn't wind up gnashing teeth and spitting venom, so this could be chalked up to a win.
"There's some deer steak and a few plucked quail that I managed to catch in the fridge.  You could cook them up with your beans."  Lola scuffed at her nose with the back of her wrist, then rose from her chair.  "The Fritos you and Hector can share after he gets you to smoke a bowl with him."  Her tone doesn't suggest that she's mad at the idea-- she's simply assigning the Fritos a better place to be than utilized in her kitchen.
The song, Lola would request to hear while she worked on the garden.  If Tamsin felt guilty enough watching a pregnant woman do back-bending work alone, then Lola would tell her exactly where she could find a second pair of gardening gloves.  It wouldn't be the first time Lola's talked her into working on this project with her, after all.