♥ ♥ ♥
Lurielle
They’re going to throwa party in your honor, the whole clan will be there
Now don’t get yourself all worked up, it’ll be great, I promise
We’ll talk more about it this week
Call me when you get home
Love you
The lines of text replayed behind her eyelids on a continuous loop, despite the fact that her phone now rested face down on the table before her. Across the sea of empty glasses, Dynah was relaying the latest tale of woe from her relationship with a ne’er-do-well kitsune she’d been seeing, as Ris snorted into her drink. Lurielle was only listening with half an ear, the text message from her boyfriend obliterating her concentration on anything else.
A party in your honor.Happy hour with her friends was supposed to be a way to destress after work; to replace her worries with fruity, two-dollar house cocktails, and trade away her insecurities for handfuls of the addictive crisps in the basket at the center of the table.The whole clan will be there.Happy hour wasnotmeant to be an exercise in controlling her face or bottling her emotions, but right then it felt like a mighty effort to keep from crawling beneath the table to cry.The whole clan. It’ll be great.There were few things in this world of which she was certain —and that being forced to endure the hospitality of Khash’s entire Orcish clan for a long weekend out of town wouldnotbe great was one of them.
"Andthenhe said he wanted to stay friends! Can you believe it? I drive halfway across the state to bring you to visityourbrother in prison and you break up with me over BOGO appetizers in a Bartleby's off the highway?!Andthink I’ll want to stay friends with you?!"
"And just think, you could have been with me having an actual good time. Sunrise yoga, champagne brunch . . . maybe it’s time to give the app a break, Dy," Ris offered, draining the last of her glass before flashing their server a beaming smile from halfway across the dining room floor. The pub was a press of bodies, popular with the nine-to-five crowd to rub elbows and network over drinks before going home to families and obligations. Beside their table, two trolls and a wide-set minotaur crowded around a two-top, belly-laughing over a video on one of the troll’s phones, and the slender satyr taking care of their wedge of the pub’s floor had to flatten himself sideways to press around their hulking bodies.
". . . It’s not like you’re meeting any winners from it. You should come back to yoga with me, get yourself centered. We doing one more round, ladies?"
Yoga. Maybe that’s what I need.Ris had been a picture of serenity since she’d returned from her solo trip to the orc resort, after all . . . although Lurielle didn’t completely believe her friend’s assertion that she’d spent the weekend reading and working on her advanced poses in the sunlight.
"Not me. I need to get going."The whole clan. It’ll be great.Happy hour with her friends was meant to be fun, but she couldn’t focus on anything other than the message waiting on her overturned phone, and the sooner she left, the sooner she could have her breakdown in private.
"That’s easy for the two of you to say," Dynah moaned, as the satyr gathered up the collection of glasses littered across their table. "Youget to go home to Mr. Perfect," she directed at Lurielle, before turning to jut her chin out in Ris’s direction, "and you don’twanta relationship!"
A red mist seemed to settle over the room as heat climbed up the back of her neck. She loved her boyfriend, loved the life they were building together, even if their differing cultures sometimes made things difficult. She wouldn’t do anything to trade away the previous seven months and she was excited over what their future together held . . . but the assumption that her being in a relationship had somehow magically transformed her life into one of stress-free ease set her teeth on edge. The same person with the same insecurities still stared back at her in the mirror every morning, with the same fucked up family and hair she didn’t actually know how to style.
Having a boyfriend didn’t suddenly make her less self-conscious over her weight, especially when he had a fondness for pricey takeout and rich desserts; being in love didn’t magically negate the hard gazes they occasionally received when out together. It didn’t mean she was suddenly a different person, and the sometimes less than subtle implications that itshouldwas frying her very last nerve.You get to go home to Mr. Perfect, who cares if you’re stressed. You don't need to worry about your weight now that you have a boyfriend. Your problems don’t matter anymore now that you’re off the market,youdon’t matter because you’re in a relationship. Lurielle’s lips pressed together in a hard line, a sharp retort forming, before Dynah’s next words softened her tongue.
"You don’t understand what my mom is putting me through. Every day. Everysingleday. ‘Have you met anyone yet? You’re not getting any younger, mele. Did you hear that so-and-so just had a baby? I’m sureherparents are over the moon.’
It was an impossible situation they were put in by their families and communities, one Lurielle knew by heart. Marry well, carry on the family bloodline, halt the population decline — lessons drummed into their heads starting in primary school. She had vivid memories of burning in mortification alongside her fidgeting classmates every year during thefamily educationsection of their school year, as the girls were sequestered in their own room, away from their male classmates, to be given The Talk. A yearly classroom lecture on the fertility issues they would encounter in adulthood, the fortitude they must display in the face of such challenges, the importance of doing their part to contribute to the dwindling Elvish population.
