Sleep, and I Shall Soothe You
Phoebe Steadman
the Nightingale
Midwife

Age: 26 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Greatwood
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#15
phoebe
Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and annoint you
Phoebe was keeping it together through most of his retort, standing there quietly, holding his gaze. As he repeated a summary of her words back to her, she supposed it did sound rather cowardly in a way. But to her, it was simply the truth. Neither of them had the ability to change any of this. Period. End of story. It would be like a rabbit trying to fight back against a mountain lion. It was pointless.

But then he said he didn’t feel comfortable leaving the children with her, and her whole demeanor changed. It was as if he had stabbed her in the gut and twisted, the look of shock on her face akin to betrayal, jaw slack and lips parted. She was a midwife for Frey’s sake – there could be no greater insult than to say she couldn’t be trusted with the care of children! Tears anew welled in her eyes and she covered her mouth with one hand, the other arm wrapping around her torso to cover the imaginary stab wound. For a few moments she just stood there, staring at him in utter shock, having been brought to a complete standstill. Eventually she turned away from him, pressing her hands against the counter to support herself. Phoebe closed her eyes and focused on pulling herself together, though a few errant tears fell to the wooden surface as she hung her head.

What would Frey tell her in this moment? That what she felt was what mattered. That sadness was pointless. That her anger was pointless. What she felt was right, where her heart led – that was what mattered.

With shoulders still shaking, she turned back to face him, face reddened from holding back tears. But she no longer looked sad – no instead the young midwife looked more determined than ever before. ”You’re wrong, Emmett. People who make a fuss, people who raise hell in the face of a stronger power – those are the people who have their children taken away. I don’t want to fall out with you either, Emmett. I love you, desperately. But for once, I just wish you would listen to me. Zariah is from the same place I am. I know how leadership there worked and if she is anything like them the only reason Chris or Milly would ever be taken from me is after they were torn from my dead hands because you couldn’t set aside your pride for their benefit.” she said, firmly, calmly, with only the slightest waver of emotion.

Once again she turned away from him, cutting a slice of pie and plating it. She walked across the room and set it on the table near him, with a soft muttering of, ”Here’s your pie.” before walking out to the sitting room to sit on a chair near her little shrine to Frey.
Emmett Palmer


Age: 28 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 20 - Dext: 11 - Endr: 12 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#16

Emmett
When Phoebe said I wish you would just listen to me, Emmett nearly screamed for the irony he felt there was in that sentence. Had either of them ever actually listened to the other? He rarely felt understood in their arguments, and here they were again.

He let Phoebe speak, then stood silently for a while, staring off out of the kitchen window and ignoring the pie placed by him. He could hear her tears, but he could not regret his words. Of course he didn't want to make her upset, but...he had honestly toned down his opinions of those accepting of this new leader for her. There was not a compromise here. You either resisted or you were as bad as the monster who took over.

After a long moment he sighed and turned, looked over to her. He wanted desperately to point out to her that being from the same place as Zariah put her in a fantastic position to help a resistance movement, but he knew she wouldn't like the suggestion. He wanted to put it behind them and forget it too, hug her and pretend it didn't matter, like a spill or a misunderstanding. But he couldn't, so he stood there quietly and still.

Eventually, he spoke. "...I don' regret what I said. But. I am sorry it hurt ya. That isn'...I'm not tryina do that. But I gotta stand up for what I believe in. I can' just drop alla that because you don' agree with me. This is...how I gotta do this. I can' just bow down." He shook his head. "Look. If y'need me, don' hesitate to come to the barn and ask. But til then, maybe we should stay outta each others way til this blows over. Cos I think it will. Blow over...one way or another."

All you broken boys and girls,
With your tattered flags unfurled:
Fix yourselves then fix the fisher king.
Won't you fix yourselves to fix the fisher king?
Phoebe Steadman
the Nightingale
Midwife

Age: 26 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 32 - Dext: 46 - Endr: 41 - Luck: 41 - Int:
PIM - Mythical - Dragon (Electricity) BRANBAST - Mythical - Sear Cat (Speech)
Played by: Grant Offline
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Posts: 3,062 | Total: 5,479
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#17
phoebe
Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and annoint you
Phoebe’s shoulders shuddered as Emmett spoke. She brought her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She closed her eyes, a few errant tears falling pushing between her lashes to roll down her cheeks. There were no sobs of sadness, she remained silent, still as she let the sorrow of reality wash over her. She had tried to bend for him. She had tried to mold herself to be what he wanted. But there were some realities should couldn’t bend on – and it hurt to know that when she drew her line in the sand that he could not find the same flexibility in himself for her.

She eventually opened her eyes, bloodshot as they were, and looked at him, almost expressionless, airing on the side of sadness. ”If the solution to every argument and disagreement we have is to simply walk away for a few days, this is never going to work long term.” she said simply, knowing it to be true. ”And I don’t want to be with someone just went it is convenient and happy. I want to be with someone who is willing to walk through the hard times with me, who will bend for me as much as I bend for them, and who won’t walk away every time there is a bit of trouble…someone who wants to be in it for the long haul with me. So are you going to stay, and work this out, and find a common ground with me, Emmett, or are you going to walk away? I am willing to sit here as long as it takes for use to argue to a consensus.” she asked bluntly. She didn’t want to sit with the anxiousness of uncertainty. He was either in, or he was out. She wouldn’t let him hold that over her head, but it was his decision to make.
Emmett Palmer


Age: 28 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#18

Emmett
As Phoebe spoke Emmett sighed and looked down at the floor of the kitchen, listening but wrapped up too in his own conusing and exhausting feelings. When she delivered her...well, it wasn't quite an ultimatum, but it was close...he hugged himself. She was right. If they wanted this to work, they had to talk through their issues.

But for a moment he hesitated, because he didn't know if he did want it to work. They had been together roughly two seasons and already had had two major arguments, had things they didn't talk about for fear of further fights...it felt like fighting a losing battle. That perhaps he had been so desperate for love he'd ignored their incompatibilities.

He looked at the door. Imagined opening it, just walking away. Not seeing Phoebe for a while until they inevitably awkwardly passed on the street and didn't look at each other, missing her but going his own way.

Then he looked back to her, and decided to try again. It was hard to deny himself, the pulling in his chest when he saw her profile across the room, the way she sat with Pim, her gentle intelligent speech (that made his feel so crude, so common). If it didn't work, the door wasn't going anywhere, anyway. Emmett steadied himself and walked over, sat in a chair by Phoebe and clasped his hands together, elbows on his knees, while he tried to formulate what he wanted to say.

"...Alright, yeah. Let's talk it out." He agreed, though he wasn't sure what a compromise here would look like. "I know...I know you come from a different place n you're gonna have different opinions on this stuff. But I haven', and I don' like it. And a lotta us have very legitimate reasons to not like it. I just feel like I gotta stand up for what's right. It's...what my family always did, especially Pa...and I'm the man of the family now. I gotta carry on his example. And not just that, I believe in it." His voice was low, non-confrontational, but steady. Words considered and planned. "You're askin' me t'do a lot by signing up to this army."

All you broken boys and girls,
With your tattered flags unfurled:
Fix yourselves then fix the fisher king.
Won't you fix yourselves to fix the fisher king?
Phoebe Steadman
the Nightingale
Midwife

Age: 26 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 32 - Dext: 46 - Endr: 41 - Luck: 41 - Int:
PIM - Mythical - Dragon (Electricity) BRANBAST - Mythical - Sear Cat (Speech)
Played by: Grant Offline
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Posts: 3,062 | Total: 5,479
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#19
phoebe
Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and annoint you
Phoebe watched him quietly, feeling her heart sink as he looked at the door. He was going to walk away. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he? She was clingy and needy and naggy. She didn’t do enough to accommodate him. The weight of guilt – deserved or not – for the failure of this relationship weighed heavy on her shoulders. In response, Pim crawled up on to her lap, woken from his nap by the shrine, trilling up at her softly. She smiled at the little dragon sadly, running her hand over his head, careful of the little horns that had begun to grow in there.

But the sound of Emmett’s shoes against the ground grew louder, not softer, and she glanced up with surprise to see him approaching, then sitting in the chair at her side. Pim whirled around to face him, a low growl of warning coming from his little dragon chest. Clearly when it came to an argument, Pim had a definite, albeit unsurprising, side to take. Phoebe shushed the little dragon quietly, hugging him close her chest to quiet him. Emmett’s words made her hopeful, if hesitantly, that perhaps not all was lost.

”I know I am.” she said to his point about the army. ”But this also isn’t the same world that your father lived in. It’s much bigger, there is so much out there that no Natural born person from the Hollowed Grounds knows about…we have to grow and evolve as the world around us changes. If we just keep doing what worked before under new conditions, it is only a matter of time before we fail…and in this case it could have deadly consequences.” she said, squeezing the dragon a little bit tighter.

”Is it just because she announced herself Queen and you don’t know her that you are angry?” she asked.
Emmett Palmer


Age: 28 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#20

Emmett
What Phoebe said wasn't necessarily wrong - the Hollowed Grounds would have to adapt in the upcoming years, already had had to to accomodate everything new that had happened; his life now resembled nothing of the life he'd had only a year before. But it took a lot of restraint for Emmett not to immediately comment that didn't mean the change had to look like this. He knew that interrupting her would scupper the idea of talking it out, though, so he just nodded.

Though the question made him really raise his eyebrows, surprised that was her interpretation of what he had said. "I...no, Bee, that ain' it at all. I wouldn' care if I'd never heard of her, if we'd all gotten some choice in the matter. I don' care who y'are and what you do, if you're just gonna say 'I'm in charge now' of a buncha people without even askin' first...I don't like it. What gives her the right?" He shook his head and laced his fingers together.

"This ain' about knowin' or not knowin'. It ain' about Naturals, or Outlanders, or none a that, not really. It's about her taking this position then immediately puttin' out a whole loada laws, like she has any right to tell us what t'do. Why do I gotta ask permission to get a buncha people together? Like a goddamn kid having a party? I saw a guy get arrested for a dumb prank at the sign up sheet. It's a lot real fast." Sitting back, he crossed his arms. "I just think this kinda thing gets dangerous real fast, and I don' wanna be a part of it."

All you broken boys and girls,
With your tattered flags unfurled:
Fix yourselves then fix the fisher king.
Won't you fix yourselves to fix the fisher king?
Phoebe Steadman
the Nightingale
Midwife

Age: 26 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 32 - Dext: 46 - Endr: 41 - Luck: 41 - Int:
PIM - Mythical - Dragon (Electricity) BRANBAST - Mythical - Sear Cat (Speech)
Played by: Grant Offline
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Posts: 3,062 | Total: 5,479
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#21
phoebe
Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and annoint you
Phoebe stared at him, not entirely sure she understood. "So...that is it. She declared herself Queen without asking and you're mad about it." she said, feeling like he was just repeating what she said in a different way. "But that is how all leaders come to be. They just start leading. They take control and make order. No one ever gets to choose who leads, that's just..." she sighed and shook her head, looking up at the ceiling. "It's inherently flawed. People who have leadership qualities become leaders. People who are popular get chosen. And a lot of times, to be a good leader, you can't be popular. You have to do things that people don't like because it needs doing. It's just like parenting. You can't be a good parent and have your children like you all the time. You can't be a good leader and have people like you all the time." she said, looking at him again with a slight frown. Was she implying he was being childish? Perhaps.

"She has the right because she has the power and gall to claim it." she said. "I don't know of anyone else who stepped up to the plate. I don't know anyone else who was trying to bring a sense of unity to all of us. Everyone was just running off, doing what they wanted when the wanted where they wanted regardless of the repercussions on the whole. Not a single person has tried to bring us all together until her." she said, hugging Pim close in an effort to comfort herself. She glanced down towards the shrine to Frey, still frowning a bit. "But I guess it is easy for you to forget, being a Natural. But people like be haven't had a place to belong since we arrived here and now someone is trying to make this place that somewhere. Somewhere we can all be happy. Somewhere we can all fit in and be accepted."
Emmett Palmer


Age: 28 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#22

Emmett
Emmett was silent as she spoke, but it was clear he wasn't happy. It felt like she was deliberately boiling his argument down to nothing, making it sound as stupid as she could, so she could sound superior and condescending to make herself look right. "I feel like y'aren' even tryin' to understand, Bee." His voice was steady, quiet. He shook his head and stood up.

"I don' think we're gonna get to a middle ground here. Clearly you're okay with alla this, and I really ain'. There are ways t'do things, and this is not the right one. Y'can' just let whoever wants to walk all over you and tell you want t'do. I'm not doin' that. I'm sorry." He took a few steps back towards the kitchen, then sighed and looked back. "I love ya, but I think it really is best we jus'...it's makin' me not like you right now hearin' you say this stuff. ...Like I said, if you need anythin', you know where I am."

With that, he turned to leave.

All you broken boys and girls,
With your tattered flags unfurled:
Fix yourselves then fix the fisher king.
Won't you fix yourselves to fix the fisher king?
Phoebe Steadman
the Nightingale
Midwife

Age: 26 | Height: 5'9" | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 32 - Dext: 46 - Endr: 41 - Luck: 41 - Int:
PIM - Mythical - Dragon (Electricity) BRANBAST - Mythical - Sear Cat (Speech)
Played by: Grant Offline
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Posts: 3,062 | Total: 5,479
MP: 1825
#23
phoebe
Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and annoint you
As soon as he stood, she could feel a snap in her chest, audible to her ears, her heart breaking under the weight of the impending crash before it even fell.

She didn't hear his words. Not really. Nor did she need to. The sound of her blood rushing through her ears was too loud to make sense of what he said, and yet her heart knew what it was, what he meant, what it meant. They had survived Long Night together. They had almost had a child together. And now this - this was all it took to bring it crashing down. A disagreement. An argument. Her refusing to bend to his will, to quietly nod yes and agree, to follow along like the perfect little wife-material she had desperately wanted to be in his eyes. Somewhere, amongst all the chaos, she had changed and grown, and desired to have her thoughts and opinions respected and given equal weight - for her knowledge of what was to come to be considered worthy - to be an equal partner alongside him. But that was clearly not what he wanted. He wanted to be the man, and if she would not quietly sit in subservience to his ideals, he had no use for her.

But Phoebe stayed still, watching him in silence. Head still held high. Shoulders straight. She stayed firm, where she was. She would not let him see her cry. She would not let him see how quickly he shattered her heart and soul, her hopes and dreams, what she had thought would be her future.

Only once the door closed did she crumble.

The sound of the latch clicking closed broke through the haze keeping her in her seat - a resounding whip-like crack that reverberated, breaking what little steel in her spine there was. She slide from her chair to her knees, collapsing to her side, caught only on the hearth of the fireplace. A sob broke through her lips, tears burning her skin as they rolled down her cheeks like liquid fire, ignited by her sorrow and heartbreak. It was over. Over. Her first love, that had burned so brightly, so quickly, extinguished with such suddenness the recoil broke every fiber of her being. Pim became equally distraught as her pain and sorrow rushed through their bond, and the young little dragonling had no natural instinct for how to deal with such an emotion. He flapped his wings, wimpering as he crawled up next to her, nuzzling in by her neck and face, rough cat-like tongue licking at her cheeks to remove the wet stuff falling from her eyes.

Phoebe leaned into Pim's attempts at comfort, curling one arm around him as the other wrapped around the base of her shrine to Frey, her face pressed against the soft fabrics there. And for a time, that was all she did, sit there, hugging her dragon and the shrine to her friend, crying uncontrollably. Only the loss of her child topped this pain, and to have it in such close succession to that loss left her defenseless to it's onslaught, leaving her nothing more than aching ribs, gasping breathes, and bloodshot eyes. "Why." she whimpered after a time, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "Why does it hurt so much, Frey? I knew it was coming and still it hurts." Of course, she did not expect them to come. This was no glorious shrine infused with divine power like the others, merely a humble little reminder of her love and respect for her god-friend. But still she asked, if only to comfort herself that Frey might hear and know, for her own selfish reasons.

It was over. And as Emmett walked home, so staunch in his belief that he could walk away from his love, Phoebe spiralled wildly out of control, feeling as though the world itself ceased to spin in the wake of her crash.


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