5 [@necromantica: video]

[burntbridges]

Roy Greenhilt has found his way back through the portal, I think. My only hope is that he didn't find his way through death.

[She hadn't been quite on speaking terms yet with him when he left, but she seems very upset about it. Letha is making her video from the local hospital, waiting outside of one of the recovery rooms. She's dressed up pretty with braids woven through her otherwise loose hair, so anyone who knows her won't have to guess at all who she's visiting. And at this angle, it's obvious that her pregnancy is now well over the halfway mark.]

I hadn't realized how hard a job it was to be a nurse until I came here... that sounds silly, doesn't it? I haven't gotten many injuries in my life, and I never concerned myself with medicine, but - more than that, I think anyone who comes into Ivar's room should be carrying a shield...

[She sighs. She's starting to think that taking a break from dumb adventures was a mistake, all she has to occupy herself with is worrying.]

Does anyone want to go... do something? I've spent entirely too long in this chair.

Comments

[burntbridges]

A bit, yes. [Letha tells herself it doesn't matter much to her, but if it didn't she wouldn't point it out so often.] The Regis family are naturally talented at necromancy - thus the Elders marry us off to our cousins to keep our bloodline stronger. Those who are born from two cousins are purebloods... and those who find love outside the family are halfbreeds.

[Had she been a new arrival, she probably would be more disdainful toward the romance that leads to halfbreeds. But seeing as she's currently dating outside of her family, she really has no ground to stand on for that.]

[threatenwithcuteness]

So he's your... cousin?

*Does Lola sound judgy and grossed out, cause she sounds judging and grossed out.*

[burntbridges]

Both of my grandfathers were brothers of his grandparents.

[Her family tree is shaped like a pretzel, so that's as simply as she can put it.]

I don't pretend to understand or really care why the Elders enforce it, but it's much easier to follow their rules than spend an eternity outcasted by everyone you know.

[threatenwithcuteness]

That, um, where I'm from that's the sort of thing people would whisper about and make fun of you for.

*Well it is!*

[burntbridges]

So I've heard... I think it's odd for my world as well, but in Thornwell one would be made fun of constantly if they weren't the product of cousins.

[Shrug?]

My friend, Mary, her mother was french. We're friends because I was the only person who would speak to her for a very long time, until she started hanging around Severin... but he was a halfbreed too, so I suppose they made a smart match.

[Despite being raised to see halfbreeds as lesser, she doesn't mind them too much. They make things interesting, just like foreigners do. Although... she'll never be aware enough to understand their struggles.]

[threatenwithcuteness]

They aren't a smart match because they're both halfbreeds, they did it because everyone treats them like they're different. If two people end up alone together, they get all... attached.

*That is in no way a comment based entirely on how Lola and Miles ended up together. Not at all. She pulled this line of thought out of thin air.*

[burntbridges]

Well that's silly... they are different, so people treat them accordingly. [She hesitates.] If I were to bring Ivar back to my world, I would expect them to treat me like a blood traitor, that's how things are.

[If it were Mary talking, she'd have much more issue with it... but it's Letha, so she's very removed from the issue.]

[threatenwithcuteness]

Treating people as different isn't the same as treating them lesser. I'm different from my friends, but they don't act better than me.

...except when it comes to schoolwork.

*Okay so sometimes someone is better than someone else.*

[burntbridges]

[Lola gets a light-hearted little huff from her.]

You make a fuss about the oddest things. Just because they aren't rude about it doesn't mean they aren't better or worse than you. They've simply learned to treat the subject politely.

[No, Letha. No.]