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[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

N
ot more than ten or so! Cerise looked proud, her chin up, like Sish had looked snapping up the salmon. He tried to picture her hurling herself at some green-skirted Brunnhold lass, all bony fists and swinging elbows, and found that he could. He wondered if it was self-defense; he didn’t particularly think so.

He was glad, at least, that the miraan had stopped her grasping and balancing and had got some modicum of comfortable; he only felt the pinprick of claws a few more times before the thing settled herself around his shoulders. He’d half expected her to jump down, or whinge and claw until Cerise took her back. As it was, he wasn’t sure how long he’d manage, with his back aching like this.

Burbridge had stared openly at the lass for a moment or two, and then had looked away, toward the canapés. The elderly incumbent didn’t seem wont to look at him, either, with the tiny drake perched dangerously close to eye contact.

He shrugged delicately – as much as he could; it produced an agitated noise from Sish – thinking a Brunnhold ladies’ dorm wasn’t the sort of place for bruised knuckles and makeshift riffs, unless it wasn’t quite as he’d thought it was. “I suppose it is,” he said.

Burbridge cleared his throat. Cerise was looking at him; he wasn’t looking at either of them, and he wasn’t looking at the canapés anymore, either. He was looking up at the vaulted ceiling, and then down at his shoes.

He caught glances, off and on: painted lips twisted in discomfort, twitching mustaches. The party flowed on around them, easy-like. Sometimes a murmur more intelligible swam from the babbling brook; “Unseemly,” softer even than the string quartet, or a stage whisper, “What a spectacle.” There were still droplets clinging to the heaviest of Cerise’s dark hair, though the wild curls at the edges had dried frizzy and wispy.

He had a strange feeling suddenly, one he couldn’t’ve begun to put his finger on. It wasn’t, he thought, embarrassment or shame – not for his reputation, at least.

A cursory glance and he’d lost the museum director and his wife, and dzehúh Owo’dziziq was nowhere to be seen.

“My father used to say, young lady,” said Burbridge, “that if a fight cannot be won like a gentleman, then it is not worth the winning.” He cleared his throat, took another sip of champagne. “A pleasure to meet you, madam. Anatole.”

If the little table of canapés was the eye of the storm, he supposed Burbridge felt that getting out the other side was preferable to staying in the middle, with the whispers whirling all around. He supposed he didn’t much mind; the whispers would follow them wherever they went, this afternoon.

Smiling mildly, Burbridge produced a kerchief from his waistcoat and dabbed at his forehead. Then, with a more cursory bow, not looking at either of them, he wove away. A couple – the wife in glittering red – moved out of his way, an unpleasant smile playing on the wife’s lips.

“Sometimes you just want to use your fists,” he said, frowning. “I suppose you’re right; it’s a matter of situation. I don’t know that I’d think to cast, if I wanted to break someone’s nose.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying it; he wasn’t sure what in hells he was doing. He didn’t look half as triumphant as she had; he didn’t look particularly triumphant at all.

With a snort and a bitter-dark sort of laugh, he shifted his weight, reaching up for Sish as if she were a scarf. “Help me, will you? She’s giving my back hell, and I think she’d rather be on her mistress’ shoulders, anyway.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

They were attracting a fair amount of attention. Something about it in a setting with which Cerise felt less familiar was making it strike her more than it normally did. Not, she carefully reminded herself, like she minded in particular what a bunch of academics and politicians thought of her. And she had meant to attract attention, after all, hadn't she? It was just that she felt unbalanced already. That was all.

She didn't even really know why she'd come with her proverbial fists swinging like this--Incumbent Burbridge had just seemed like an easy target, she supposed. Easy to scandalize. Also, she had kind of expected her father to stop her before now and make her leave. Cerise had never been very good at stopping herself from doing something that seemed both easy and entertaining. Even if--no, especially if it would prove to not be particularly wise, in the end.

Why should it bother her, though? It didn't. She heard the "unseemly", and all the rest of it, and it didn't matter to her a whit. To prove it, she reached for some sort of soft cheese on toast and crammed it into her mouth in one bite. That her mouth was full of cheese and toast was the only thing that saved her from opening it again as Incumbent Burbridge--a man she had decided she disliked thoroughly, always standing behind the words of someone else--chastised her. As if he had any right! Her father was standing right here, thank you very much; Cerise had no need of a second, even less effectual one.

"Good thing I'm not a gentleman," Cerise muttered under her breath at his retreating back. Cerise's face shouldn't have had room to look any more sullen than it had; somehow, she managed. That whole conversation, she thought, had probably been designed to distract her. Possibly irritate her into going away--as if she could be chased off so easily.

Cerise turned back to her father, unable to stop her eyes from widening and her eyebrows from raising at the mention of broken noses. She didn't think she'd ever actually broken anyone's nose before--not with her fist, anyway. There was one time at practice--but that had been an accident. The wall wasn't supposed to have appeared so... suddenly. Or so close to Roderick's face. She had actually apologized for that one, for all the good it did her in the end. He still wouldn't quite look at her, and that had been two years ago.

"When have you ever--nevermind." The little light of interest on her face didn't quite fade, but got mixed in with her general confusion. Now that the other incumbent had left, Cerise could take stock of everything that had just happened. Not a bit of it made any sense. Was this, then, what she was being kept from? Slightly erratic behavior? Was that worth not contacting her at all, not even once, for a whole year, making her think-- making her feel--

She refused to think that was all of it. There had to be something else, something more than a few stray comments. They were standing close now at the canape table; Cerise hadn't quite been able to ignore the soft weakness of the clairvoyant field that surrounded him now. It was like seeing someone in a new suit that looked entirely different from anything they usually wore, and you found yourself suddenly doubting that you weren't just forgetting the last time it had been worn. Or something like that. Although she knew this suit was new, so maybe--maybe more like... Cerise struggled to come up with a better metaphor. Just weird was what it was, in the end.

Her contemplation of appropriate suit-based metaphors came to an end when her father laughed and asked for help removing the drakelet from her perch on his shoulders. Concern flashed across her face--she had been worried that the weight of Sish would get to be too much after a time; her father was not a young man--but she tried to cover it as quickly as it came.

"Oh, er--yes. She is heavy. Aren't you, darling? Too many snacks, hmm?" Cerise stepped closer and held out her arm next to her father's shoulders. When she whistled, Sish swiveled her feathered head to look at Cerise, although she didn't move. Cerise whistled again, a little louder this time. That seemed sufficiently motivating--Sish ignored the arm and opted instead to make an ungainly leap that bridged the distance between the two sets of shoulders. Cerise let her breath out in surprise, but held herself steady while Sish arranged herself back to her customary perch. Even under the onslaught of tiny claws, and the occasional battering of feathered golden tail to her face.

"Brat," she muttered, but there was warmth in her voice and a smile at the corner of her mouth that was forgiving and soft. Once the miraan had settled, making even more of a mess of Cerise's hair in the process, she turned back to her father. There were holes in the shoulder of the suit from where Sish had gotten stuck--and a few more, she thought when mentally comparing it to her own wardrobe, that were just the natural result of having had her there.

"I'm--I should have warned you about the... the holes." Cerise frowned again and looked away, letting her fingers run along the length of Sish's tail as it twined around her neck. She had come close to an apology, but stopped short. He hadn't complained, after all.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e let out a small oof when Sish made her leap. The last kick of the miraan’s legs knocked it out of him, though he reckoned he might’ve known; he hadn’t seen her face, but he knew such things as this, and he knew a proffered arm was nothing if not a challenge to do things the tough way. He didn’t dare laugh as Sish settled herself on Cerise’s shoulder, though that feathery tail was waving in front of her face.

There’d been a grain of time – maybe it’d been the light, a play of shadows flickering across her face – he thought, as she came closer, he’d seen something like worry furrow those sharp familiar brows. For Sish, of course.

“A belly full of salmon and a set of shoulders to sleep on,” he snorted, rolling his own and listening to a few unpleasant little pops. “She could have it worse.” She’d draped herself out proper, now, nestling herself into the lass’ curly dark hair; it was even frizzier now, but the pointy face that emerged from a tangle of locks on one side looked satisfied indeed.

He was half-glad she’d left the question in the lurch. He glanced about them, at the table with the canapes, at the party that swirled on around them, though at a conspicuous distance. He wasn’t sure why he’d let slip what he had.

Brat, Cerise muttered affectionately. He found a crooked smile on his face he couldn’t scrub; he looked down at the floor, at his polished shoes and hers still dotted with rainslick patches.

He blinked, glancing up. “Hells,” he blurted out, “I don’t mind…”

He looked at his own jacket first, at the speckling pinpricks and dots of cashmere that’d been pulled free. He thought of Ava seeing them, first; he wrinkled his nose, winced. He looked back at Cerise. A handful of holes spilled down the upper part of one arm of her jacket, where a miraan’s rump and outstretched leg now rested.

We match, now, he got the funny urge to say. It would’ve been mung; he could imagine her shaking her head, rolling her eyes, curling her lip. It was the sort of thing he might’ve said if Crabapple had climbed up his sweater, the sort of thing he might’ve said to…

She was looking down and away, a frown on her face. His lips pressed thin; he frowned, himself, and got the funny impression of looking into a glass.

There were other ghosts hanging about her face, ghosts he didn’t know. The dark hair, the dark eyebrows, the pale, unfreckled skin. But there was, too, a familiar line working its way into the space between her eyebrows; when her lips twisted, there was the hint of a shadow on one cheek, one he felt oddly certain would deepen into a strong line. Something in his chest tightened. All of them, he had the strange urge to say, you’ll see, one day, you’ll see them in the mirror, too.

He’d been a damned fool. He should’ve – what should he have done? Sneered and told her to get lost? Would she have gone? And now, what? He needed to know what she knew, he told himself; he needed to do something – anything – to patch the gash he’d already made, to cover for what he’d already let spill out of him like a damned boch. And for what?

For what?

“I rather like cats,” he said instead, nonchalant-like, shrugging his shoulders and wincing at another twinge. “It’s been a while since I’ve had pinpricks in my suits.” He almost smiled.

He thought of the way she’d shoved the whole cheesy pastry in her mouth when she’d caught Burbridge staring at her; it was hard not to laugh again. But he felt – he didn’t know. He looked again at Anatole’s daughter, with her wild hair and grey eyes.

“How do you destroy an hour?” he asked. He’d meant to say – he didn’t know – that was Incumbent Burbridge, and good riddance; something funny, or maybe something – or maybe, let’s talk, maybe some explanation – “You never said,” he said, swallowing dryly.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

He didn't mind, he'd said. Sish had put holes in his jacket at this party she'd barged in on, and he said he didn't mind. Cerise kept staring at the floor; she didn't quite trust herself to look up.

The strangest part, the hardest part, was that he kept acting like she was a stranger that he had never met, but didn't dislike. It had been a year--but only a year. Was it fine, then, to see her by accident--but not on purpose? She didn't know, and she couldn't help but be angry at her ignorance.

"Cats can retract their claws, at least." She took a breath, as discretely as she could, and straightened her posture. The weight of Sish on her shoulders was an anchor. She was grateful, suddenly, that she hadn't left the miraan behind, and not just because she liked having pillowcases.

"Sish has a hound called Time," she began, slowly and without looking away from the floor. Little droplets of water ran off her shoes and formed a puddle at her feet on the marble floor. "And Sish always walks forward, never turning back and... And Time devours all things. Sish commands his hound to devour everything, except... Except for one, the garden where he was young." Cerise paused in her explanation. The part that came next was the part where Time would one day turn on the gods and destroy them, too. She had always liked that bit, but it seemed dour in the moment.

"I actually think it's supposed to mean not that Sish destroys the hours, but that the hours are... are like his weapons. 'Thence Sish went forth into the world to destroy its cities, and to provoke his hours to assail all things, and to batter against them with the rust and with the dust.' Er."

Now, at last, Cerise felt embarrassed. Not by any of her scandalous claims of fistfights with important men's daughters, or for the state of her appearance, or the oddness of having Sish with her at all. What was finally too much was this, talking about a book she loved to a person who looked at her like he was seeing a stranger. Her face flushed slightly; she still hadn't looked up.

"It's from Tales of Near and Far. I found a copy of it in Mama's things." Had he read it? She wasn't sure she should admit to having gone through them. They hadn't been the kinds of things you usually keep from someone; not particularly sentimental, really. A box of books, and odds and ends that she had found in the attic when she had retreated up there to hide. They could have belonged to anyone, but there were a few things inside that told her the box had been Mama's. She didn't even know if Mama had read it herself. Maybe she just had it, and had never read it at all. It was a battered and flimsy copy when she had dug it out of the box--not fit, really, for any sort of library.

She wouldn't cry, thinking about Mama--it had been a long time ago. She wasn't a child anymore. This afternoon was just proving to be more than she had expected, and not the way she had thought.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

T
he garden where he was young,” he repeated, swallowing a sudden lump.

She was looking down at the floor, and he could see it now, as plain on her pale cheeks as if it’d been painted there by some overzealous, giggling hand. It made him think of many things that time hadn’t devoured at all, many hours that were still vivid-colored, if blurred at the edges.

The drake was still perched on her shoulders, tail wrapped almost protectively round her neck. He supposed a drake couldn’t retract its claws, but a cat chose not to anyway.

There had been no drake, before, no field, no curls in her hair, no jacket full of pinprick holes except where his own cats had put them. He hadn’t meant to think of her the first time all night; he had meant to forget her altogether, to put her in a drawer three drawers separate from this one and shut it tight until he could bear to open it up. Sometimes, the moths ate such old things, tucked away long enough. Sometimes you were grateful for it.

He felt sure there was no man in memory who lit incense for Cerise; there was no broad Tek or cats or mint tea, but he didn’t know what there was. The furrow of her brow only deepened that familiar line on her face. Suddenly he thought – it was almost nanabo, the resemblance. Or it might’ve been, if he’d been her father.

He couldn’t imagine what on Vita Anatole would’ve done in a situation like this.

And he couldn’t imagine what he’d do, either. He hadn’t realized it, but there was a prickle in his eyes, and it was hard to breathe through the ache in his chest. Mama, she said, and he resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut tight, even though there were no tears or trembles – just her downcast, sullen face and steadily reddening cheeks.

Not Diana’s things; Mama’s. What house was this? Had Anatole even kept any of Maria’s things? Had he even loved her?

“Weapons that burn themselves up,” he said, frowning now, quieter. “Maybe. Just from using them.” He wasn’t sure why he went on, only it had always been the way – when she had blushed – you never drew attention to it, because she was a tough lass, but if…

He had picked up the glass of champagne he’d left on a small side table; now, he put it down again, still quite full. He half wanted to ask if Sish was the villain, but he didn’t want to embarrass her worse.

He scratched his brow. “I haven’t read it, Tales of Near and Far,” he offered carefully. “Or – if I have, I don’t remember.” He met Sish’s eyes in lieu of Cerise’s; he didn’t disrespect either of them with a pale, watery attempt at a smile. “The hound has swallowed up a lot of my hours.”

Of Mama he did not think he needed to speak; he didn’t think he had a right to. All of it sat ill with him.

Where was right here? He had to know what she knew, he told himself – fine – he tried to shake the heavy feeling that came with owing somebody a debt.

“As much as I’m happy to introduce you to every incumbent at this party,” he said, and paused. “I don’t suppose you’ve had lunch?” It was a casual question, but he put a weight behind it, frowning intently.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

The tight line of her posture relaxed, just a fraction, when her father kept talking as normal. But something else felt heavy, when she could mention Mama and he didn't even bat an eyelash. That hadn't always been true--sometimes it made him angry, sometimes it made him sad. Rarely, it made him smile, and she smiled too, and felt a little like she was small again. But nothing? Nothing was new. Nothing made her feel very alone.

"Maybe they do," she agreed. There was a slight edge in her voice that she didn't like. She could feel her face was still warm, and it was hard not to bring her palms up to smack her cheeks until it went away. Until all of it went away--this wasn't the place for it. Nowhere was the place for it, except alone in the dark with Sish, but a museum party surrounded by disapproving elder statesmen and academics was even less the place than usual.

If I have, I don't remember. That shifted her frown from sullen to considering. A subtle difference, to most, but there if you knew what you were looking at. Cerise didn't know if he had either. And, she supposed, it was perfectly reasonable to not remember the book even if he had. Just because Cerise had read it cover to cover, over and over, enough to have passages memorized and to be concerned that her copy might fall apart, didn't mean that it would have struck her father in quite the same way if he'd even read it at all.

"That's okay," she allowed. She didn't shrug, because Sish was on her shoulders again and kept them in place. But she did finally look up from the floor. "Very few people have."

Maybe it was for the best that he hadn't mentioned Mama, anyway. Cerise wasn't sure she could have handled it, or what her reaction might have been if he'd even tried. She didn't want to talk about Mama here; that wasn't why she'd come. That she didn't know what, really, she'd come for was beside the point. It definitely, absolutely had not been to talk about Mama. It hadn't been to talk about fistfights either, but she would rather talk about that.

Cerise couldn't help but snort at the idea that her father would be happy to introduce her to any more incumbents at this party, let alone all of them. Was that mess with Incumbent Burbridge not enough? Or had that changed, too, and suddenly he was keen on wrecking both of their reputations? Hers, she thought, was already poor. It wouldn't matter when she was graduated and on a League team--or at least, she didn't think so. All that would matter then would be if she won. Right?

"Just the toast with cheese on it," Cerise admitted. There was a weight to the question she chose not to respond to, because she didn't understand quite what it meant and she felt too heavy already. "Hardly lunch at all. Do you..." She trailed off, hesitating. "Sish would have to come, if..."

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

T
here was a funny edge to Cerise’s voice; he couldn’t place it, and it sent another shiver through him – one he suppressed – and made him want to shut his eyes again, to look away, to look at anything but the deep blotchy red of her face.

The last hour had not been fed to the hounds. The last hour was very much alive, and the edge of its blade was sharp and jagged as any tallyboy’s favorite riff. He felt his own cheeks prickling, and he resisted the urge to reach up and touch them, to see if they were hot. Still, he didn’t look away from Cerise; he wouldn’t.

No, he almost said, I wouldn’t’ve thought so. What kind of a name was Sish, anyway? Whatever this book was, it was steeped in metaphor; it was like no history or ladies’ novel he’d ever read. Was Sish another name for Alioe? That didn’t make sense. The Lady had always been a lady, so far as he knew, but nobody destroyed an hour except Her. Nobody in proper Circlism, anyway, and other than Vita, that was all he knew about.

Whatever it was, it meant a great deal more to Cerise than he’d bargained for. Lasses and their books. He wasn’t sure what else to say; there was more he could – wanted to – ask, but he felt as if he’d already been damned cruel. He felt the prickling in his cheeks again.

“Wouldn’t think of going anyplace all three of us weren’t welcome,” he said, finally, when she trailed off. He still couldn’t bring the muscles of his face to a smile; instead, tentative, he took a step away from the canapé table.

He was glad to leave it behind, the full glass of champagne and the platters of finger-food with gilt toothpicks and ruffled napkins. There were a few polite, cursory caprises; he caught a glance here, or there, managing at last to fit the thin politician’s smile to his face, to push the warmth all the way into his eyes. He walked heel-to-toe; his back was straight, his jaw set. He inclined his head and shoulders politely, once or twice, and caught himself murmuring brief pleasantries.

Standing by the glass double-doors was the hardest, he thought, with the party dying down enough – not enough to hear a pin drop, but enough. The string quartet paused once to glide into another piece, and he thought, though perhaps he imagined, he heard some snickers.

When the porter got him Anatole’s long dark coat, he pulled it on around his shoulders and breathed deep with relief. Outside, the rain was still slanting down in sheaves; it was battering the glass, sliding down in glistening trails.

Cab wheels and moa feet slithered and scratched by over the wet stones. He propped the door open with a foot and opened his umbrella at arm’s length, not wanting to bring either of them any worse an Ever than the one they were living. As he stepped out, settling his hat on his head, he still got hit in the face with a gob of rain, and found himself wiping water out of his eyes.

The streets of Two Falls weren’t exactly teeming mid-class; one or two dark shapes passed on one side or the other, and coaches coursed by. If she followed him out, he’d offer the umbrella’s shade.

“I was hoping you’d honor me with a recommendation,” he said, breathing in the crisp wet breeze, shoving one hand deep in his coat pocket. “I don’t mind walking, or taking a cab to the Stacks.” He sucked at a tooth. “That was abominable of me,” he said, and – I’m sorry – he couldn’t quite bring himself to it; his jaw seemed to tighten. He swallowed thickly. “I owe you explanations.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2790 - Afternoon

Her father hadn't smiled when he stepped away from the table, so neither did Cerise. Just nodded, clipped and sharp. Lunch it was, then. Cerise tried not to let her relief show on her face. She had been so angry when she'd walked through the museum door an hour ago; that anger had fizzled away, and without it she felt brittle and delicate. Cerise caught a derisively pitying look cast their way by a man in a velvet waistcoat--Cerise leveled the full force of her curling sneer at him as they passed.

Let them look, she thought to herself fiercely. Look all they want. They were nothing. Less than nothing! An empty room full of old pots, that's all this was. Old pots and ham tartlets. She crossed the room with her father and her sharp chin was held high the whole way. It didn't falter at the snickers, and it didn't drop when the porter raised his eyebrows at her again.

"My cloak please," she said in as high-handed a manner as she could manage. It hadn't had time yet to dry from the rain; it was sodden and heavier than when she'd taken it off. There was a high chance that any it had been next to were damp now as well. Good. She hoped it was so. She hoped it was Burbridge's, or the man in the waistcoat. The dark green uniform cape, longer than the standard issue for the upper-form girls' uniform as it skimmed somewhere near her knees, had a deep hood--it did her little good in windy weather, like there had been on her way over. She was forever pulling it forward.

The rain hadn't let up at all, she was dismayed to find. It still looked fit to drown beyond the safety of the glass doors of the museum. Sish complained as well, looking out to the street. Cerise gently unwound her from her perch on her shoulders to cradle her in her arms. She draped part of her cloak over Sish, to protect her from the damp.

Cerise bit her lip to keep in a laugh at the water that hit her father in the face, despite his best efforts. She had gotten plenty of it on the way over, as her hair could attest. At least there was nobody else about at this hour. It would save them from having to play that complicated game of trying to fit two umbrellas on the street without any party being shoved out into the rain, should they have to pass someone else.

"I don't really have any," she confessed in her surprise. "I usually eat at school, or in my room." This wasn't, strictly speaking, true--there were a few places she did like to go. They just weren't the sort of establishments one brought their father, no matter how scandalous a daughter you were trying to be. And her very favorites she was avoiding anyway, in case she ran into people she shouldn't know. People who pretended not to know her, too.

She wasn't sure which part he was referring to, with the comment about being abominable. Making her talk to Burbridge? The last hour? The last year? The last ten? They all seemed like adequate candidates. "You do," she said simply, accompanied by a shrug partially obscured in the folds of her heavy cape. She couldn't read his expression; it seemed like someone else's face, suddenly.

"There's a tea shop I like, and it isn't too far. A decent walk, but... It's quiet," she added. "And their lunch is good." Cerise didn't visit it often, but it was a nice break from reading in her room. Sometimes she liked just hearing the quiet murmurs of other people, people who didn't know her at all and had no ideas about who she was or should be. When she felt lonely--but she would never say that. She looked at him more closely and her brow creased in concern.

"Maybe we should take a cab, though." She had heard his back when Sish had jumped off of his shoulders. It wasn't a bad walk for her, not really, but... Maybe it was too far, for him. She didn't know.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e grunted sharply. “I can handle a walk,” he snapped, lip curling.

It wasn’t much of a step he took, more like a clack and shuffle of one heel. He didn’t have a damned clue where they were going. He frowned, tight, and looked away.

It was impossible to stomp off or keep a curt distance without leaving Cerise in the downpour, and in the lurch besides. It’d flared up in him like the preamble to a thrown fist; he didn’t know why it’d hurt so much, that simple, calm suggestion. His face was hot – he could tell it had gone blotchy-red, just like hers had – and he ran a hand along his jaw, scratched one closely-shaven cheek.

Like hell she didn’t have any haunts. A rumor he’d heard, or maybe something Diana had said, tickled at the back of his mind; he swallowed another tightness in his throat.

“I’d be grateful,” he added in a lower voice, not quite abashed. “I can handle a walk, I think.” Softer. “We can always hail a cab if – well.”

A tea shop. Quiet. Someplace, at least, she wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring her da; well, he couldn’t as blame her for that. He’d popped in and out of half the bars on the crescent in his brief stays at the red-brick fortress, and he found himself hoping he never chanced to meet her in one of them.

Who knew? Maybe this would be easier drunk. Something about the thought of Cerise seeing her da drunk caught in his throat, like a fly in a web; it hung in his head, an ugly phantom, a stain he could not scrub free.

There was no dodging about, at least, no awkward umbrella-dance. The streets were near empty, and the rain was a great muffle. He felt none of the madness and whirl he’d felt inside, at the prickling press of all those eyes and lips and voices, the whine of the violins like an itch he could not claw out. The chill stung and reddened the tip of his nose, numbed his fingers, and the wind tugged at the hems of his coat and of her great, heavy green cloak, stirring it about her shins.

He looked over; he saw, silhouetted against a red-brick wall, a horribly familiar silhouette, sharp upturned nose and sharp narrow jaw. He glanced down, and saw a glitter of gold cradled in her arms, half-swaddled in a length of green wool. He couldn’t find the eyes; he thought Sish’s head must have been nestled somewhere against the chill.

Wind skimmed the puddles, whipped up fog on the streets like a froth. A carriage rattled by, drawn by two tawny-feathered moas. “Diana,” he started, then paused, feeling some part of him curl with guilt. “We,” he began again, “thought – it was best – if you and Eleanor didn’t see me for a while. After.”

It felt like his heart was halfway up to his throat. He took a deep breath, but the air was damp and bone-chilling, and it didn’t much help.

“I don’t know that that was the best way of doing it,” he said, “but then, I didn’t know much of anything, back then. I'm still not myself.” He pushed the thought of it out of his head, of those early days like hell-Evers. He looked over again; the wind had tugged a few dark curls in front of her face. “I’ve been – presentable – for a while; I should’ve been in touch. I am sorry.”

It wasn’t a lie, he thought wistfully; whatever he should've done, it wasn't this. Another deep breath; he kept walking, straight-backed, chin up.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

En Route to the Tea Shop, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2790 - Afternoon

She had only said it because she was concerned, and he snapped at her. She found her lips pulling back from her teeth in response, an instinctive reaction to feeling hurt. He didn't storm off at least, taking the umbrella with him. For that, she supposed, she was grateful. More because of Sish than herself. She could handle being cold and wet, but the miraan? She would be well and truly miserable, her feathers all weighed down with water. What Sish would have done as a wild thing, she did not know. A pampered little princess, her Sish.

"Okay," was all she said. She didn't understand why he'd snapped at her, and she wasn't likely to let it go any time soon. She could nurse a hurt when she really wanted to--keep it warm and hold it inside of her. A fist curled around a razor blade. But she tried to uncurl those fingers a little. "We can walk."

They started walking then, and for a while there was just the sound of the rain and the click of their heels striking the street, punctuated by the occasional splash as a cab or moa hit a puddle nearby. She felt a little better, even though she was cold and Sish had crammed her feathered head awkwardly underneath of her arm to hide from the damp. She led the way and she tried not to look at her father very much.

After a time he spoke, and she looked over then. They thought it was best if her and Eleanor didn't see him for "a while". How long was "a while"? she wanted to ask. If she hadn't come today, would he ever have spoken to her again? Would Diana have told her? Her teeth ground together, her jaw tightening against a thickness in her throat. "A while."

"It was not." Cerise's voice was clipped and hard; she didn't know what it had been like, that she needed to be protected from. Eleanor, maybe. Eleanor was a child, though. Cerise would be graduating this year. Wasn't she old enough to handle--whatever it had been? Or at least to have known? It still didn't make sense to her; it felt like he had been avoiding her.

She didn't know how to accept the apology he offered. There was a fierce longing in her to take it and forgive him. That unexpected apology--had he truly thought it had been for the best? Cerise didn't understand, she just didn't clocking understand. How could he stand here--he looked at her like he didn't know her, and then apologized for...

Was it her? The fear reached up and grabbed her heart. They fought, it was true, as often as they did anything else. And it wasn't like she... but he was her father, and all she had in so many ways, and-- Cerise frowned and blinked rapidly; it was the wind making her eyes water. She would still have thought, that despite it all, somewhere under there, he still...

Was she so hard a daughter to love as that? That a year was so easy to spend without a word from her?

"It's fine," she muttered, sounding more sullen than she meant. That habitual frown had found her face again, pulled it down into something sharp. Her eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance; it was all storm clouds and rain, inside and out. Sish made a muffled squeaking noise; she had been pressing the miraan too close to her body. She loosened her grip with a guilty throb.

"I don't understand. You've been at work, why was that--" Cerise bit her lip; there was too much rawness in her voice. The wind changed direction and tugged at her hood, pulling it back from her face. She let it fall away, and it picked up her hair too, whipping it into greater disarray than even Sish managed.