All the things my hands have held {Meredith}

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

Meredith Emrys-Pendragon would hear thudding against her door. It was mostly muffled thudding, less like someone attempting to batter the door down and more like someone simply bumping into it. Said thudding also wouldn't likely come as much of a surprise: Lorelei had been texting her friend for a while now, and likely would've kept right on texting were it not for balancing the bulging bag of books and carrying another armful of notebooks in one hand.

"Meredith!" Lorelei sang out, thudding against the door again. "It's meeeee~" she thudded another few times, only to stop after about the third or so and let out an "ow," wincing as she did. Turned out that thudding against a door while carrying a heavy load and having all but dashed across the school was not the best move for someone who still had a broken wrist and was recovering from getting stabbed in the gut. Lorelei leaned against the door, fighting against the almost reflexive urge to mumble healing spells again.

So Lorelei would all but tumble into Meredith's room when the door finally opened. This would mean books flying everywhere, particularly since Lorelei's hold on them wasn't exactly the best. It also meant a sprawled Lorelei, wincing and grinning up at her friend. "Hey," she managed. As per usual, Lorelei had mugged a homeless child for clothing. In this case, it meant a pair of mismatched tennis shoes, a pair of bright yellow overalls that could not be summer approved, and a shirt with only one sleeve (right). Her hair had been twisted up into a bun, but whether because of the fall or just gravity, it had started to fall into her face. "I brought the books," offered Lorelei, waving to indicate the various material she was all but swimming in at the moment.

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

The muffled thudding was weird, but Meredith figured out fairly quickly what, or rather who, it was. She had been expecting something ever since Lorelei had texted that she was on her way, though she couldn't help but wonder why Lorelei couldn't knock normally, broken wrist and all, so it was with some caution that she went to open the door.
She wasn't cautious enough, it seemed, and Lorelei came tumbling through the door, books spilling with her.

"Are you okay?" she asked worriedly, conscious that Lorelei had been injured pretty badly not that long ago and was still recovering. She reached out a hand to grab Lorelei, intending to haul her out of the small sea of books spilled around her. "I can see that," she added, her gaze skimming the pile of notebooks. That was.. a lot of stories. She was clearly a very prolific writer, and Meredith was equal parts excited and terrified to find out what sort of things she would find inside.

Once Lorelei was up, she nudged the books out of the way of the door so she could close it, before gathering up the pile and stacking them onto the desk (after shoving aside some of her own books, that was).

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

"Pretty sure the jury's still out on that one," quipped Lorelei, adding a little giggle. The giggle made her flinch, as did reaching up to grab the hand, and pulling herself upright. There was essentially a lot of flinching involved in each step of the process. It didn't help that Lorelei was making sure not to accidentally step on a book or anything. She managed to get upright, though it took some balancing.

"now I know how turtles feel," she said, waddling over to start working her back pack off. IT was awkward, given that one arm was still in a sling and Lorelei was fine with wiggling. The bag hit, and looked about ready to explode.

"I think they're all labeled" Lorelei looked at the pile, walking over to the desk. "There's about one per family member and some cross-overs, and I think I've got some what-ifs. Oh,' she flushed," and there's the detective series and the ponies and i think one where a lot of us were these teenagers with totally rad magical powers? There might have been transformations involved?"

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

Meredith frowned with concern at all the flinching going on, and as soon as Lorelei had shed herself of the last of the books, she ushered the younger girl over to sit on the bed.
"Why don't you just rest there and we'll take a look, do you want a cup of tea?" she was pretty sure she had a kettle and some tea cups somewhere, you just didn't grow up in the vague proximity of Gwen without picking up on the necessity of tea, and Merlin was sometimes just as bad.

While she waited for Lorelei's response regarding the drink, she reached out for one of the books, starting to flick through the pages, giving the stories inside a cursory scan. They were very much in the vein of the other writing of Lorelei's that she had seen, very interesting and somewhat surreal. She seemed to have picked up a book about Jesse, though, so the surreal part was probably intentional.

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

"Everyone has a thing about tea here," mumbled Lorelei. Then again, she was a child of the Summer Country, where tea had become pretty much a standard part of life and living. Didn't stop Lorelei from commenting on it while she settled in. "I'm definitely up for some, I guess. You know me: lots of honey," she looked around again, realizing that this was technically the first time she'd ever been in Meredith's room. It looked... about like she expected really.

Lorelei's gaze resettled on her friend, and she tilted her head to get a better look at the book. "Oh, yeah, the Jesse stories. He's super fun to write about, since he's so," she waved her free hand, "out there." She probably would've shrugged, but just seemed to remember her injuries in time to stop the motion. "I still can't believe he actually showed up for the duel. I thought they were going to force me to take him as a second."

Which did make Lorelei pause, actually. Jesse probably knew swordsmanship, after all. Maybe he could've been a valid second. Well, that was another timeline, and when you started thinking about those, you got evil twins with beards, and that just didn't work out well for anyone involved.

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

"Well you know what your mum says," Meredith replied as she hunted for the kettle "tea fixes everything."
Finally locating the kettle on the bookshelf and her other tea things in the bottom drawer of the desk, Meredith set about making them both a cup.

"I can kind of imagine," she agreed, stories about Jesse probably wrote themselves after spending five minutes with him, he was certainly an interesting person. A little unsettling at times, but ultimately he was a sweet kid, he just saw things a little differently, that was all.

When Lorelei mentioned the duel, Meredith's hands stilled for a moment before she caught herself and hurried on, just a little more forcefully than before.

"Well...I'm just... glad that nobody else got hurt. And that you're healing okay." it was an awkward response, but she felt like she should say something.

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

"Mom's far too into tea," agreed Lorelei, wrinkling her nose. She liked it well enough, she guessed. Well, she liked it when you added enough stuff to it that it stopped tasting like tea and mostly just gave you a little perk up. She went back to sorting through her stories, considering, listening, waiting for that bit to hover there.

Lorelei could feel the awkwardness. It almost felt tangible, like they could literally reach out and poke it. She shifted, fingering some of the books. "I'm doing alright," she managed, her voice much quieter. One look would say that she wasn't doing quite as well as she acted. They'd had to bind her left arm to her so she'd stop moving, and she kept pulling the stitches in the gut wound, which didn't help. Moving hurt. Technically existing hurt.

Lorelei could feel some tears coming up. She quickly looked away, brushing them off. They were surrounded by her stories. "There are some fun ones here. I think there's one where we all get superpowers from a meteor that lands in Camelot..."

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

Meredith is pretty sure she's supposed to do something more, prompt Lorelei to talk about it, or reassure her, or... something. She can't bring herself to do any of those things, she isn't ready to talk about it yet, and she's pretty sure Lorelei isn't either, so instead of challenging Lorelei's attempt to change the subject, she goes along with it happily.

"That sounds pretty cool, do we form a superhero team?" she asked with a grin, turning around with two cups of tea and passing one to Lorelei, taking a seat at her desk with the other "And have costumes? What superpower did you give me?"

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

Some part of Lorelei did notice the not too subtle acceptance of her sort of clumsy change of conversation. It also occurred to her that at some point, some point very soon, they really should talk about things. not least of all the thing that was Mordred, since Lorelei had never really gotten to do the whole boy talk thing before, and it would be kind of weird doing it regarding a guy who'd stabbed you a few times, but that you still didn't think was a complete waste of skin.

"Uh, yeah," said Lorelei, taking the tea. She took a sip, managing to use proper hand position; some things were just embedded in the Summer consciousness. "I don't think we really had costumes, though we did sort of have disguises? Lots of us wore hoods and stuff. I think you could read minds..." Lorelei squinted, looking around at the pile. She slid off the bed, moving to grab it. She held it in her hand, looking down at it, remembering the story if by touch. Of course, there were others in this book, but it was the one mostly involving her friends.

"The meteor fell when we were all visiting at Camelot, and it hit everyone involved," Lorelei said, almost as if recounting a reality instead of her own fiction. "You, me, most of the rest of the Summer brood...' she shifted, turning to look at Meredith. "Mordred." She met her friend's gaze, holding the story up, sort of waving it a few times before letting her arm, and the book, fall to her side.

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

Meredith listened with interest as she described the story, she was a little bit disappointed they didn't get cool costumes, but hoods were cool, and so was mind reading, so she was quite pleased with that. And then Mordred showed up again, because apparently they couldn't have a conversation without him, and it was just like him to be so in the way all the time wasn't it? Arrogant little... she took a calming drink of her tea and pretended she hadn't heard Lorelei's last words.

"That does sound fun," she said airily, reaching for another book to look through "Which is your favourite story?"

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

"All my stories are fun," insisted Lorelei, sniffing. Though she might have qualified that they were different variations on the theme of fun. The ones where people were, say, dying miserably were decidedly more grisly style of fun than, say, the ones where everyone happened to be a magical creature. That wasn't even considering the huge amount of stories Lorelei had written about Tintagel before she'd ever arrived here.

Though part of Lorelei did wonder if Meredith was ignoring the topic of Mordred on purpose. She was doing it by introducing and discussing what was literally Lorelei's favorite thing in the world though: "I dunno," she said, chewing her lip, "I kind of feel like Mom would if she's told she has to pick a favorite child and can't pick Tristian," she gave Meredith a little wink at that. After all, Guinevere's love for the oldest Summer was pretty much a running gag by this point.

Lorelei considered the stories again. "I actually do really like the superhero one. There's some good stuff in there," Lorelei held out her good arm, flicking fingers, "superpowers. Hoods. Romance. Redemption arcs...' Lorelei chewed her lip, looking around. "I'm also really liking the stuff I've been putting out. Like the one with Costin and Aiden. I kind of hope I can maybe help people with this stuff? Though I guess just entertaining them is kinda help enough, right? we all sometimes want something to just help us forget the more painful parts of our days, after all."

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

Meredith snorted with laughter, nearly choking on her tea. She was pretty sure you weren't supposed to laugh at someone so matter-of-factly stating that their parent had a favourite, but, well, Gwen did. She showered love on all her children, but there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Tristian came first.
She wondered if that was why Eddie Locksley was so worried about Richard showing up, as if the first born would just automatically be a mother's favourite, and suddenly he'd be second in his mother's eyes as well as everybody else's (and she was really sad he felt that way, Eddie was a great, sweet guy, it was just a pity he'd been so different to what his father had hoped for).

"The stuff you've had out lately has been really good," Meredith agreed. She'd even really liked the pony story, though that would be another case of bringing up Mordred, so she avoided saying it specifically "Maybe you are helping people, and even if you are just entertaining them, that's definitely help, it's nice to just be able to smile at something and not think about whatever's worrying you."

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

"Well, I try," said Lorelei, flushing slightly, trying to act like she wasn't nearly squirming in response to the praise. That she actually happened to be literally squirming probably didn't help matters much: girl could not hold still. "People have been super positive about them and they are a lot of fun to write, so I'm kinda excited," she nearly bobbed then, and she certainly grinned as wide as possible as Meredith said that she probably was helping them.

"Yeah, people around here, there's just... a lot of stuff," Lorelei waved her hand. "It's like, we don't have some sort of war or something so we just gotta make it up or something." Lorelei paused, looking over the stories, considering them. "you know what I really like? All the relationships and love. Like, people being saved through love, even when they're going through dark times. Those are just awesome moments, aren't they? Love. Loving moments. People in love."

Lorelei: master of subtlety.

[Meredith Emrys-Pendragon]

"I am NOT in love with him!" Meredith snapped, far too quickly and far too defensively to be anything but a lie. She froze for a second, and then it felt like everything that had happened was just welling up inside her and it was all about to come pouring out whether she wanted it to or not.

"I mean, I can't be! Not after everything he did to me, right? He was so cruel... and then he nearly killed you! How am I supposed to forgive him for doing something like that? But he just looked so... he was so broken, and I could see that he regretted everything but he still did it all and I know he apologised to you but he hasn't really, properly apologised to me about any of it and is that really self centred of me to expect him to? To want him to just make the effort to show me that maybe I'm not a complete idiot for being so desperately... NOT in love with him, because I'm not."

[Lorelei Summer-Lac]

Lorelei jumped at the snap, which made her wince, and nearly made her spill her tea. She froze as Meredith started pouring out words at a rate which actually impressed Lorelei, who was an admitted master at vomiting words as they came to thought. Right about now, Lorelei was mostly doing an internal dance at finally getting her best friend to actually talk about this stuff and get it out there, but she wanted to keep her serious friend face on while Meredith worked through it all.

There was a beat afterward, while Lorelei sat there. "You know..." she began, talking slowly, "I didn't actually say Mordred's name, but you kinda just immediately thought about him..." she trailed off, looking at the books. "Also, I don't think you're a complete idiot, and I'm kinda your best friend. or, well, you're my best friend. I guess I really shouldn't be all 'I am your best friend.' Since you've probably got other friends. But this isn't about me."

She took a breath, shifting to look to Meredith. "How does Mordred make you feel, really?"