[Closed] Just a Game [Memory]

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Beetle, The Stacks
Yaris 79, 2720 - Evening

That smirk was a crime, she thought. Or at least how much she liked it, the challenge and the shape of it both. Plenty of nicely-featured young men in Brunnhold who had smirked at her, and she wasn't quite sure what part of it made this one stand out so much. The hair, maybe. Had to be that.

"No," she agreed, a little too breathless, "not something I'm used to." The drink, of course. She meant the stout. Not the way the purple-haired wick shifted to increase the contact between the two of them under the table. Not the invisible contact of the mona that hung around them both, either, for all that was true. Instead of thinking about contact of any kind, she focused on the cigarette case he fished from his vest. Unexpectedly ornate, but not, at least by her estimation, unsuited. The etched flowers were a flamboyant flourish, and they seemed to fit the image of Emiel in front of her quite well indeed. She studied that instead of Emiel's handsome freckled face for a moment, taking in the narrow whippet shapes of miraan before she looked back up.

It was his fault she asked such a dumberse question. His fault entirely. How was she supposed to ask a sensible, normal, decent question when he was doing that? Humming and lingering in rolling his cigarette. Which she was trying not to pay too much attention to, but it must have been a futile effort because why else would she have asked that of all things?

Still. The question had been foolish, but she laughed at that "old enough". Followed by a real answer, but it still made her smile. Old enough--for what? To know better, she wanted to say, but she was plenty old enough to know better too. And anyway, she had been right. Twenty, approaching twenty-one--if he'd been a student, a galdor, he'd have graduated by now. But only just. Was that too much? For what? Book club didn't have an age limit, but that was clearly not what this was about anymore. Unless book club meetings were far different from her imaginings. So what was it, precisely, that she was wondering if that four year gap was too much for? Cerise didn't have the answer.

(Did she put away that little slide of "Dentis" somewhere in her mind? Maybe. She didn't think this--book club, anything else--would carry on to Dentis. So the information was useless, just taking up space in her mind where something more important could go. She slotted it in anyway.)

Smoke obscured his face, but not his voice. She caught every bit of that drawn-out answer, given to her like some kind of dare. She wondered if he would ask her the same. She wondered if that would be the end of the night, and if that would be disappointing or a relief. That would be one way to stop her from being this foolish--he could certainly put an end to it himself if he wanted to.

"That is the deal," she agreed with an incline of her dark head. She paused, watching him as intently as he'd looked at her when he asked the question. Watched him smoke, thinking of the alley. A terrible habit, smoking. She liked seeing him do it. Cerise was surprised when he held the cigarette out to her, surprised and pleased by the action. Her pale fingers reached to take it from him, and they lingered in the touch between the two of them. Brazen and shameless.

She brought it to her mouth and took a slow drag with the imitation of practiced ease. She had seen other girls on the team do it often enough, and it wasn't like she had never tried. Just--not that often. The exhale was slow, just as deliberate as he had been earlier; Cerise smiled.

"Seventh," she answered slowly. Her hand stretched back out between them to give it back. "And my birthday is in Vortas. If you were curious." Let him do the math, if he wanted to. Cerise let her eyes catch and hold his--gold, bright as the rings in his ears and his face--as she waited for a reaction.

Not too long, though. Just in case it would have been the waiting that decided, and not the math of it. "Another question, then. What else do you like to do with your time--other than pick fights with young women in bookstores?" Cerise grinned sharply, fully aware it had been her who had picked the fight. Details, she thought. She was still curious.

[Emiel Emmerson]

the golden beetle

evening of the 79th of yaris, 2717

Cerise didn't shy away from more scandalous contact, and Emiel had to admit he enjoyed the way she tried her best not to stare at him while he purposefully taunted her with the slow, expressive rollin' of one clockin' simple smoke. Her grey eyes slipped from his face to the silver case he'd set on the table, looking up again when the purple-haired wick answered her, slow and coy.

He liked her laugh, he decided, more than he knew he should've. Idly, he wondered how often anyone else 'd managed to draw the sound of amusement from her—she'd admitted to not having too many golly friends. It felt more genuine here over a drink, defiantly enjoying each other's company when they both knew they shouldn't, even with books as an excuse. He shouldn't 've liked the way her smile made him feel, neither, an' he knew that, too.

Like any other pub, half the folks in here were in their own heads an' not even payin' attention. Which was good, considerin', because even at a distance, Em was quite aware how different he and Miss Vauquelin were. His bright hair and inexpensive clothes gave his life as a tsat away just as much as his rough-hewn imitation of sharp galdor features called him out as a lessor, better muscled and carved by a heavier hand that any jent would claim proved his bastard, half-blooded heritage somewhere back in history. Sittin' across from an aquiline, delicate young woman didn't help, especially not with her well-tailored clothes an' her comfortable ease with decent posture.

Those things were only the surface of their differences, but if anyone in the Golden Beetle really cared, Em didn't want to know. He wouldn't 've given a fuck anyway—bein' wrong was worthwhile right 'bout now.

When the dark-haired student didn't balk at his answer, truthful as he was about his age, he almost made the assumption she was close to graduating. Almost. He'd seen enough of their delicate faces, heard enough of their form-based banter at the bar to give into his hopes, however, quite aware of how galdori aged. Even though his opinions on the matter—what matter was that, Em? gods, like that was a thought he should be having—were far less conservative than any jent. Brunnhold's unique youth culture was a comfortable bubble to be in, supposedly, though it wasn't as though Emiel existed anywhere but far outside of its boundaries anyway.

Still, his grin only settled more comfortably on his face when Cerise took the cigarette he offered, when her fingers brushed over his hand with all the purposefulness of their legs beneath the table. While the purple-haired wick's amber eyes flashed back down to the book between them for a moment—he knew it wasn't forgotten, but it was definitely more of an excuse than a reason.

Seventh, she said, and when she mentioned her birthday, he didn't need to do the math. The young—younger—galdor challenged him with the statement, reaching back across to test his interest now that he knew the truth while returning the smoke that had now touched her lips and his. Em chuckled, not shying away from meeting her steely gaze, steadily, and deviously made sure to nearly press their hands together when retrieving the cigarette,

"Birthdays at th' Badger get free drinks, ye chen." He riposted, wicked and undaunted, taking another drag only to laugh and hiss instead of exhale with any grace when Cerise asked her next question,

"Clockin' hell, I didn't—" Rolled paper bobbed on his lips and his eyes narrowed briefly, "—I ent got much time to myself, growin' up in that pub. There's food to prep and stuff to clean all the godsbedamned time. Ro an' I go fetch beer an' shit sometimes—we've gone to the Harbor an' to Vienda for some special stuff. I like th' travel, but I ent been outta Anaxas, ne like my daoa. I got a few friends, of course. All our hobbies prob'ly sound like trouble: drinkin', watchin' boxin', kickin' a ball around down by the aqueduct. Other than that, I got a bicycle an' a mant manna books—"

Emiel recovered, however, flicking ashes into the leftover foam at the bottom of his empty stout glass, tilting his head for a moment to see if he could catch a glimpse of Huck. He'd said one drink, but, this wasn't even his fist and it really wasn't going to be his last. The younger wick spotted him and smirked, but he was busy with another table. Rolling his attention back to the grinning young woman across from him, willingly so close to the blade's edge of her very existence, he taunted coolly,

"—I bet you ent got any more spare time than me, neither, what with those studies an' exams an' assaultin' strangers an' students alike, right?"

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Beetle, The Stacks
Yaris 79, 2717 - Evening

Only long practice in ignoring the glances and opinions of other people kept Cerise from glancing around the Beetle to determine if anyone was paying them much mind. No doubt some were; they painted a very strange picture, even without getting too close. Both of them looked every inch what they were, and none of those inches were at all where they should be in relation to the other.

But what did that matter? Cerise couldn't think of a single reason to care. She was laughing, comfortable and uncomfortable at once. Much more than she should be, she knew, she had reminded herself over and over. It didn't seem to do any good, so she resolved to stop. Wash her hands of any such concerns, and that was that. She could try, anyway.

Emiel hadn't lost his smile when she reached for the offered smoke; if anything, it seemed to shift over his face more comfortably. Settled, like that oddly significant-seeming touch of limbs out of sight. She had let her hand make purposeful contact, again, just to see what would happen. Unfair, maybe, to do it before she answered his question. But, well, she wanted to. A little bit like a dare, a little bit not.

Cerise did answer, in the end, and waited. She wasn't sure if--she didn't know what she wasn't sure of, or what she expected. Too much for what? she asked herself again, and she did know the answer even if she ignored it. It was, after all, rather obvious in the way she kept making the excuse to brush her fingers against his hand, the way she kept looking at him, the way she lingered over the thought of where that cigarette had been before giving it to her.

And he laughed, touching her hand again. Something warm arched back up her arm at both; Cerise knew then that she would have been disappointed and not relieved if it was a problem. It made asking the follow-up question easier, and she was rewarded with another laugh that turned into a choked exhale. Cerise's grin broadened, thrilled.

"I will endeavor to remember that, about the free drinks." A taunt and a promise. More of her silly fantasy that by Vortas there would be anything left of whatever this was that was happening now. Cerise didn't really think it would be true; she wasn't even sure if she'd see him again after today. But she didn't like to think about the endings of things that had just barely begun, preferring to wait and see.

Her smile twitched to a smirk for a moment when Emiel's amber eyes narrowed at her--for the "picking fights" part, she assumed. Cerise was fully aware that he had done nothing; it had stuck with her for all the weeks after that nobody else had even considered it at the time. She held her tongue, though, more interested in the answer to her question than assurance that she had been joking.

"They do sound like trouble," she agreed easily. The smile didn't leave her face. There was something funny about that list of hobbies--one might have expected them to be more different from galdori of about their age, but they really... weren't. Boxing, maybe; bloodsport was not, precisely, the done thing. Not even as a spectator, at least not for students. Otherwise? She could have heard that answer from any number of her peers, she thought.

Somewhere in there, Emiel had finished his drink. Cerise glanced down at her own to realize that she had almost done so as well; she hadn't even noticed. She must have been drinking it rather more quickly than she thought, in her nervousness. Emiel looked away; she wasn't sure where to. Cerise was reluctant to see the bottom of her own glass. They had only said one, after all. She took another sip anyway, not wanting to seem conspicuous in her desire to linger, only to almost choke on it when Emiel continued and Cerise couldn't stop herself from laughing again.

"I keep myself busy," she said when she could breathe properly again. That had not been her most graceful moment, she had to admit. "With all of that, and more besides. I'm on the... I'm in Varsity, for the school dueling team. Practice--it takes up a good amount of what would be free time. It's what I was doing before this, in fact."

Cerise had hesitated, bringing it up. Of course professional matches were public, and anyone could follow them if they chose in the papers and so on. But seeing it? Uneasily, she thought that the events were likely closed to him. She wasn't sure--she'd never thought about the issue, really. It had never been an issue until this moment. It was so natural a subject for her to discuss with anyone else; besides reading or getting into trouble, really, it was the closest to a hobby that she had. And "hobby" felt dismissive, when she put so much of herself into it.

"I have yet to learn to ride a bicycle. It's always seemed--fun, though, I suppose." Cerise turned away from the subject of dueling, slightly, just in case. Making conversation, and providing an alternative to what she didn't know how to discuss with someone outside of her usual circles. She would, of course, and happily. But it was strange, and she didn't want to put the obligation there.

[Emiel Emmerson]

the golden beetle

evening of the 79th of yaris, 2717

"So long 's your birthday ent on a nine, I'd be workin', too." Em added without hesitation, sliding in those syllables right there as Cerise promised to remember. This game was easy to play, really, especially once he reminded himself again that there was no winning here and almost no losing. It wasn't as though there would be another evening of drinks and books, let alone any reason for the galdori student to show up on precisely her birthday at the Singing Badger simply because he'd more or less invited her. While she said she only had a few friends—a few were plenty to judge the situation right here and to judge whatever situation would bring her to his bar for a free round.

The purple-haired wick shrugged, hatcher-may-care style, cigarette just so in his lips at the confirmation that his spare time was mostly spent up to socially unacceptable good times. He didn't mind; if anything, he was more than just a little relieved that galdori standards of behavior didn't apply to him at all unless in their company. And even then, barely just for appearances alone.

That was, honestly, part of the curious charisma of the moment: the more Emiel felt like himself in Cerise's company, the less she seemed concerned. It was deceptively pleasant and as much as the tsat didn't want to let his guard down and enjoy it all without any sense of caution, that was, in the end, exactly what he found himself doing—especially when the dark-haired young woman across from him laughed again. This time, he couldn't help the creep of something charmed and distracted in his grin, that fluster of a different kind of amusement warming his freckled features the way a second strong drink had warmed his veins.

Busy, she said. Em knew enough 'bout golly dueling by association—he worked a bar in Brunnhold and it weren't as though Dueling League wasn't talk of the town in its seasons an' even discussion with anticipation in the off seasons. He knew names and Kingdoms, specialties and scandals—he liked the scandals, 'cause, ye chen it kept the game feelin' real instead of made up magical chroveshit. Barred from watching in person, the wick could read the papers an' listen to his customers' competitive banter, but he knew the image of it all in his mind was most likely vastly different from experiencing the ward-edged reality,

"Varsity, eh? An' the travel team—that's on your list 'f goals, I bet." He preened over his knowledge, exhaling smoke while his bright, honeyed gaze studied her face with interest he didn't bother hiding anymore, "I've heard quite a bit of poutin' an' complainin' over your Bastian rivals since spring. I should ask your opinion on that Hessean's win last year, though—uh—what's'is'name—Hu'nae Somethin'. All I heard from blubberin' drunk jent for weeks was somethin' about cheatin'."

Just as easy as another drag on his smoke, Emiel wasn't offended by the subject matter—he'd had to listen to so much galdori drama and life wiping tables and serving drinks that it was hardly an effort to play spectator to Cerise's hobbies, too. Chuckling when she said she'd never learned to ride a bike, he finally caught Huck's attention with a second sideways glance,

"It ent hard to learn. I guess I've always figured everyone learned as a boch, but I did a bit 'f courier work over summer an' winter break to earn extra money since it gets slow 'round here without you scholarly jent. I ent ever won anything in the bike races in the fall, but it's nice that anyone can participate." Em didn't mean anything particular or socially obvious by his comment, shifting from dueling to other sports, but the mixed-race bike races were old-standing and strangely tolerated Brunnhold traditions that he couldn't complain about, either.

He didn't offer to teach her, not out loud, but there might've been a hint of the thought in his expression, some wistful trail of opportunity he chose not to chase,

"Did you want somethin' else—to drink? I know I said a drink, but you also said a book, an' if one's turned into two, why not, right?"

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Beetle, The Stacks
Yaris 79, 2717 - Evening

So long as it wasn't on a nine, was it? Cerise tucked that information away. She didn't tell him when her birthday was beyond Vortas; it didn't matter. Come the thirteenth of Vortas, she doubted very highly this not-quite-an-invitation would stand. Even if they saw each other again, she couldn't imagine that it would be the sort of context that led to her spending her birthday with him. Not even just at his bar.

This conversation was easy, Cerise thought. Too easy. Normally, by now she would have had said something shocking or untoward, either deliberately or simply by accident. While she thought she had said (and done) a great many shocking things, actually, it didn't seem to deter Emiel in the slightest. Or maybe it was just that they were unlikely to see each other again outside of this one time, so it was easier to ignore. Whatever the reason, Cerise was content to go along with it and just enjoy herself and his company.

The expression of pleased surprise was impossible to hide as it spread over her face. So he knew something of dueling after all. Not from having seen it--of course not--but he knew, too, about the travel team and what it meant. Cerise had grinned, dagger-sharp, at both the mention and the look of interest.

"Eventually, yes. It's almost a requirement, if you want to be a professional after graduation." This, also, she let trip off her tongue easily enough, hiding the tenative question in it. Not many women at the professional level, for reasons that had nothing to do with their skill at the sport. It was a brutal kind of business, especially in her chosen area of focus. But then, he already knew she was a brutal kind of girl, didn't he? "That is a few years away though; it isn't often you make it before at least ninth year."

Cerise felt something warm somewhere in her veins at his casual mention of the travel team as a goal for her. He had no idea of her skill or likely much of the difficulty of the selection, of course, so it meant very little that he would say so. He had no way of knowing if that was too absurd to try for, but she was flattered anyway that he should say it with such certainty. She snorted at the mention of cheating.

"No cheating needed--we were trounced, and solidly. Haversham was overly confident; only an idiot thinks to win like that." Cerise waved her hand dismissively. "Disrespectful, to the opponent and the mona both. Although I'm sure he thinks Hu'nae cheated; I have met him, and he is a fool who deserved the defeat." They shouldn't have put him on the team, in her opinion, but nobody had asked her before making the selection.

The turn of topics to cycling was not so much a reprieve then as she had worried it might need to be, but just a natural curve in the path. Even if she had paused a little over the mention of "anyone" being able to participate in the fall races. It had never been put to her in quite that way, and it lingered. That, too, Cerise filed away, to a different place than the mention of her birthday. Easy to learn--she thought, for a moment, that she could... But no, he certainly hadn't offered, and she didn't think it would go over well if she were to ask. That seemed brazen, even for them, even for the moment.

Cerise finally saw Huck's approach, and realized that Emiel must have been trying to get his attention when he looked out over the Beetle. Not, maybe, checking to see if anyone was watching them. Or both--both was entirely possible. She preferred to think the former.

"I would like that," she said as a smile bloomed across her face, crooked and pleased. Had some of her reluctance to finish her drink, singular, shown on her face? "If you would, that is. I'm not convinced that first selection wasn't just a lucky hit." A taunt, to hide how much she would be happy to stay and talk for as many drinks as he wanted. Or none at all.

"Do you always compete? In the races, that is. I feel like I would remember seeing-- Ah, whose turn is it, to ask a question?" Her recovery from what she had almost said was far from graceful. Cerise didn't acknowledge it, but she didn't look away either.

[Emiel Emmerson]

the golden beetle

evening of the 79th of yaris, 2717

At the word professional, Emiel might've quirked a brow again, free hand reaching up to run fingers through his violet hair as if he was mulling over the thought, as if he was attempting to imagine the young woman across from him pursuing the magical sport as a career, "You wanna duel for a livin'? An' you gotta finish school for that—ye chen I hear there's less hittin' in those duels than you seem to like. I'm guessin' ent anyone let you in for a boxing match, neither. Seems more your pace."

He might 've offered to take her sometime, had it been his place to do so, had there been a chance 'f her sayin' yes. Gollies came and spectated, bet more money than half the other folks together had in their pockets, and gawked at the blood and gore jus' like everyone else. In fact, there'd even been a couple of jent who got in the ring on occasion, much to the amusement of the lower races and the shock of their peers.

A few years away, indeed—that realization settled in Emiel's gut like so much Hessean Drake's Milk Stout. She was a pina manna younger than him, oes, but what difference did it make? It wasn't like they could see each other. It wasn't like he could be seen with her on the street, not even walkin' and talkin', let alone holdin' hands or kissin' those sharp lips—

Dze. Don't be chrove's erse, Mister Emmerson.

His smirk didn't falter, lazy cloud of smoke drifting from pierced lips, "I don't s'pose they let jus' anyone go and travel t'all those far off places unless they've got somethin' worth showin' off. Seems like you've probably got the guts for it, hmm? Have you, uh, have y'been anywhere outside of Anaxas otherwise? Da keeps promisin' we'll go to Bastia or Mugroba or even Hesse and shop for new imported beers, but it's hard for that ol' bastard t' take that much time off from the Badger, ye chen. He'd miss it."

With a shrug, he offered to pass what was left of the quickly-dwindling cigarette back toward her, unconcerned about whose turn it was for questions or anything else for that matter, just content to enjoy this moment, "Well, ent I special to get th'inside truth. Mujo ma. I promise ne to leverage that—too much."

The purple-haired wick laughed, wicked but warm, tilting his sharp chin just in time to look a very flustered Huck in the eyes. The young wick wasn't stupid—he worked a pub and knew how to read people just the same as Em did—and he probably could feel the lil' space 'round them jus' as well as he could see how they shared the table jus'so.

"I wasn't gonna order anythin' different, brunno, but she seems to doubt my gift." Emiel purred to the other wick, totally ignoring the brief look of surprise on his flushed, young face. Huck, to his credit, quickly recovered,

"Oh gods, issat so?" He rolled his eyes with theatrical precision, huffing a stray blond lock of hair from his face before he glanced to Cerise, almost offering her an out, concerned. He smiled, though, warily, "Well, Miss, you're in for a treat."

"Damn right." The purple-haired wick preened, rubbing a calloused hand over the well-defined angles of his smoothly shaven chin and jaw in thought, "Boemo. One more round for each 'f us, then. Let's go for somethin' a lil' lighter than that stout, though, 'cause we both gotta walk home." His amber gaze, bright and determined, flicked from the dark-haired woman's face to the carefully scrawled board above the bar, skimming brew names quickly,

"A bit of citrus 'll do. Two bottles 'f Two Hearts—that's the real stuff from Caroult, right?"

"Sure is."

"Benny." Emiel turned to flash the galdor across from him a wink before nodding at Huck, dismissing him and the youth's awkward staring instead of making excuses. If he felt a trickle of self-awareness over how this looked, over how this felt, well, he weren't about to burst the bubble. Once the boy was off again, mumbling to himself into the crowd (for the Golden Beetle was quite crowded now), the tsat barkeep turned his full attention back to Cerise, elbows on the table,

"Bikin'? Ne. Some years, I gotta work an' get tired-out racers drunk after th' race instead, but I've gotten to join in a couple. Mostly with my actual brother, Rohan, who I thoroughly trounce every clockin' time. I come from a decent-sized family, so I'm always competin' for somethin', though." He huffed, thumbing his nose and settling into his seat, legs resettling against hers gently, perhaps suddenly flustered by her interest and even more flustered by the realization that he'd stopped caring about taking turns, "Doesn't matter. You got somethin'?"

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Beetle, The Stacks
Yaris 79, 2717 - Evening

The dagger of a grin she'd had as she mentioned her aspirations sharpened at the idea that she'd be more suited to boxing than to dueling. She didn't laugh again at that, not quite, but it hung there in the angles of her face and light in her eyes. Eyes that had, briefly, watched his fingers thread through the brightness of his hair, before turning back. She had always liked violet; she had never considered the application of it in just this way would be so distracting.

"That's the idea, yes. Graduation is usually preferred for most arcane pursuits." Possibly post-graduate studies, but that was a path she didn't like thinking about. That meant she hadn't gotten a place on a team after Brunnhold, and felt too near to failure. "And the Physical conversation is--well. Not as dissimilar as you might think." Cerise ghosted a hand over her cheekbone, where just last week there had been a rather ugly bruise from a practice match against a sixth-year who had lost control of a spell. He had not brailed, at least, and it hadn't been too serious.

"I doubt very much my father would want me anywhere near a boxing match." There her smile did falter, curling around to a sneer at the words "my father". This wasn't the time to think about him, though, was it? Incumbent Vauquelin's shadow already touched too much of her life. He could not, she thought to herself fiercely, intrude here. She wouldn't allow it. "Whatever would the neighbors think?"

Cerise watched smoke drift between them and it was easy to let it drive out the ghost of Incumbent Vauquelin's disapproval. They had, so it seemed, long since ceased disguising any genuine interest. Her smile returned, almost shy, at that assessment. And it stayed, picturing the man she had seen only briefly being so reluctant to leave his bar. It was a strange picture, but what did she know? Nothing at all, it seemed.

"Not recently," she said with a shrug at the question about travel. "But we lived in Florne, when I was very young. Before Mama..." Cerise trailed off, clearing her throat. She didn't need to talk about that either. "That was a long time ago. I haven't really been since. Father's work keeps him occupied, and Diana--well. It's been a while, at least." Another shrug, and her eyes drifted away to the book without focusing on it in the least.

Better to take the nearly-finished cigarette and turn to easier topics. Cerise didn't like the way something soft-edged and sad seemed to sink through her field, or the way she was suddenly reminded that she had not pulled it away. Not that any of this was readable to Emiel--at least she didn't think so. She hoped not; she had always heard this was so. But Cerise was finding she had heard and assumed lots of things that didn't seem to apply. This time she didn't take the excuse to touch him again, but she did let something wicked cross her face as she brought it to her mouth.

She looked at Huck when Emiel did, her face easy and nonchalant. The cigarette was still in her hand, she realized; Cerise didn't know if she wanted to hand it back while Huck watched so she kept it. The blond looked--well, he looked rather like he knew what was going on and like he didn't know what to do with it. Cerise sympathized, almost. It wasn't like she knew either, and she was the one doing it. He didn't say anything, at least, or make much of it. Cerise found herself strangely grateful.

"I simply require proof before belief." She didn't smile at Huck, but she didn't frown any more than her face settled into naturally. She did raise an eyebrow at the younger wick's assurance that Emiel was, indeed, as gifted in the arena of drink selection as promised. That not-quite-a-smile turned into a small one as Emiel thought, looking extremely pleased with himself.

The dark-haired student almost protested that one drink hardly put her in danger of not being able to walk home, but she wasn't sure that was true. Normally, yes, but--she had been acting rather erratically, hadn't she? So maybe there was something to it after all. Just in case, better not to test the theory.

She rolled her eyes as he winked at her, but her smile deepened and her face warmed just slightly. Cerise did not let her attention drift to follow Huck's back as he left their table, nor did she consider what it was he thought of this scene. She had decided to wash her hands of those concerns, hadn't she? Yes, she had, and she would, and it didn't matter, anyway. There was a moment's pause as the blond retreated outside of the range of her awareness, and then she turned back to their conversation. Not much left of the cigarette, but she felt strange finishing it when it wasn't hers and so she held it back out.

"Nothing in particular," she admitted, her attention drawn back under the table as Emiel resettled. "I just, ah. Well, I'd said--it doesn't matter. Just making conversation now, I suppose. What is 'decent-sized'?" Family seemed a safe enough topic, certainly more so than anywhere else her thoughts kept going.

[Emiel Emmerson]

the golden beetle

evening of the 79th of yaris, 2717

Iwouldn't know, he could've countered, quick and sarcastic, had he wanted to comment further on such lofty-soundin' things as golly arcane pursuits. They'd turned their magic into some kind've mantle of holiness, wrapped in its heavy weight like the force of their organized, powerful fields, an' in all honesty, like most religion at all, it was clockin' beyond Em's willingness to comprehend. His magic worked just fine—the same mona listened to him when he wanted to an' he treated the unseen, sentient stuff that apparently made up jus' 'bout everythin' with the kind of awe and respect anyone who could set whatever the hells they wanted on fire at while should've. Better than a friend, in a way, but not anythin' like he saw gollies treat 'em like some kind of academic god, born out of dusty ol' tomes instead of at the dawn of time.

He smirked at Cerise's description of Physical conversation, mulling over her words for a moment as if imagining every time she cast a spell, some pina mana fist the size of hers would materialize and smash her opponents in the face. It was quite the vision, of course, inaccurate and strange, for even he knew by listenin' from the swaths of students and professors he'd poured drinks for that Physical conversation dealt with the physical laws of the universe itself—spitch he didn't even want to study too hard, even if some of it was at least a lil' interestin'. Scary, too, though.

"Blunt force, eh. Sounds 'bout right—style-wise, anyway—from what I've seen so far of you, Cerise." Emiel offered his response like a purr, watching the way she took another drag on that dying cigarette like it was more promise than he'd ever heard out loud, amber gaze no longer ashamed about lingering now, "An', while I'm clearly makin' guesses 'bout your character right now, I'm gonna have to say you don't strike me as someone who usually cares what the neighbors think—most of the time, ye chen."

The young woman across from him was still a golly—she still had to care, one way or another—and she was, indeed a woman. He understood that galdori in this Kingdom were quite concerned with the so-called fairer sex, a strange phrase he'd heard a professor once slur over his Gioran whiskey that 'd turned over an' over in his purple-haired head for days while he tried to work out where in all of Vita such an assumption came from. He was too tsat, too wick, to really make much sense of it, watchin' his daoa sweat and toil right alongside his da in the Singing Badger, watchin' his sisters work just as hard as Ro and Em, scrapin' by and getting their hands dirty with whatever work they could find in the slow months of winter and Roalis.

His daoa kept their family runnin' anyway, and he couldn't imagine anyone except some jent tellin' her what she could and couldn't do. Eriyenna Emmerson took absolutely no one's chroveshit, which was, had Em dared to think deeply on things, what might've made Cerise Vauquelin's sharp existence all the more interestin', but not in the weird sorta way such a thought might've implied. He wasn't used to demure, weak examples of the opposite sex, and while he'd certainly seen

He heard the dark-haired student stumble a little over his question of travel, his teeth toying with the ring through his lip as if he thought to say something of an apology for the sour memory that seemed to fizzle out against the back of her teeth and flicker across her face even as it faded in her voice. Emiel 'd always fancied himself a decent listener, given his profession, but he supposed he was simply easy enough on the eyes that he was easy to talk to. It were better to settle his legs more comfortably against hers than it were to say anythin' anyway.

Em didn't flinch when he felt that first brush of Huck's ripple of a glamour, comfortable about where this 'd all gone so far, confident in his scandalous rebellion of moving away from mere talk of books to more blatantly flirting—flirting with danger, really. The boy saw it, and the barkeep saw it reflected back at him in the wide eyes of the fair-haired youth who mostly swallowed and nodded, lanky and unsure.

"Proof—hava—a'ight—" The purple-haired creature snorted, waiting for Huck to turn and flee back into the Beetle's crowd with their drink orders before adding, reaching for the last of the cigarette as it was offered back to him, "—all this book talk, I see how it is. Can't escape that academic stuff."

He teased, tongue between his teeth for just a moment, leaning just so while his bright flash of a gaze wandered from her slightly flushed face downward, following the expensive cut of her clothes all the way to her hand before he pulled his away and took that last inhale, feeling the heat of it so close to the end of the paper. Snuffing the end of it on the tabletop alongside plenty of other nicks and burns, he let it all burn his lungs as if it could at all drown out the heat that filled the rest of his chest, as if he could exhale the totally unsafe kind of curiosity that warmed his veins. He reached down to thumb through the book that was open between them, flipping pages, skimming titles, fingers tracing over a few paragraphs while he idled away the time waiting for their fresh drinks, smoke curling languidly from is lips as he spoke,

"Probably diff'rent for gollies, but I've got a brother an' two sisters—survivn' anyway. I had another sister, but she were jus' a year or two with us. I was suppos'd to be the last one after that, ye chen, but my youngest sister came along anyway. So, we Emmerson's make quite a crowd." He grinned, no longer sad to speak of missing a sibling he could hardly remember and unsure if Cerise was even able to comprehend the kind of infant mortality that was far too common among the lower races, even well-off tsats in the Stacks. Still, she'd clearly meant some kind of loss when she spoke of her mama—not mother, not as formal as he was used to hearing from her kind when speaking of their parents at the bar—and so he gave his own details with a gentler tone, offering something he didn't usually share with strangers in not-so-subtle empathy.

"Do you have siblings? You spoke of your dao—mother, an' well. I don't gotta pry, ye chen. Even though Rohan deserved a good punch, we're still fami—I ent sure what it'd be like to be alone with my folks. Ent always easy, though, I'll give you that."

Huck arrived, faster this time but no less flustered, casting Emiel a wide-eyed look before the older wick reached for both bottles, opening them in sequence with all the flair he had the first two,

"This, uh, this all one tab, Em?" The boy ventured, even though he'd heard clearly the first time. It was maybe a warning, but the blond was too young to be entirely subtle.

"Oes. Ye chen I'm good on it."

"A-alright." He glanced at Cerise as if he expected her to object, hovering for a moment in that strange space of doubt and fear and good business sense.

"Go on. We're fine, Huck." Em grunted, setting an opened clear glass bottle full of a deep red-stained beer just as thick-headed but much more citrusy smelling than the first, "Don't worry 'bout either of our wallets."

Or anything else for that matter, he licked his lips instead of saying, looking away from the boy back toward the galdor's daughter across from him, settling in for one more drink with all the bravado someone shrugging off any hint of responsibility required.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Golden Beetle, The Stacks
Yaris 79, 2717 - Evening

Cerise looked across the table, eyes searching Emiel's face. She weighed her response carefully, more carefully than she often bothered. A balancing act, between honesty and lightness; what she should say and what was true. "It doesn't matter," she said in clipped and precise syllables, "whether I care or not. I can only be what I am, and that, I have found, is usually the issue." She smiled after that, a hatcher-may-care kind of smile, as if that would take all the weight out of it.

She cared. Of course she cared. No matter what it looked like, Cerise Vauquelin was not entirely without concern for what the neighbors might think. What other option did she have but to care, when everyone seemed so intent to remind her of her every misstep? Her father and Diana, of course, but her teachers and classmates too. There was always, it seemed, too much or too little of her, jagged where she should be soft, serious where she should be flippant. Things like that used to bother her more; they bothered her still, if she were honest, when she was alone with herself. The problem was that she couldn't seem to learn the knack of pouring herself into the shape of someone else's mold. The truth of her came seeping out of the edges anyway. Easier to be whatever she might be, and if that wasn't what other people wanted--well, they were free to leave her alone. The arrangement seemed to work at least passably well for all parties involved.

Maybe that careful honesty was what made her mention Mama, when all he'd asked about was travel. Or it was his profession, or his face. Or just that she had been comfortable in odd places with the conversation so far. That much was easy enough to say, without getting in to the why and the when of it. Had he said anything, Cerise didn't know that she would have allowed it. But he didn't and she was glad, more comforted by the lack of questions than she would have been for any kind of direct sympathy.

Cerise had almost forgotten the book open still between the two of them, even though she'd just been looking at it. Well, she'd had her eyes turned in the general direction--"looking at it" struck her as a stretch, as it implied that her mind had processed the data her eyes had provided. Which it had not. Cerise looked at that instead of at Emiel while they waited. The printed words were strange from this angle, like it was a different book entirely.

"If they're all anything like you, then that's quite the crowd indeed." Cerise hadn't missed the gentleness there, or the empathy. She simply didn't know what to do with it. Such things happened, she knew--less for galdori families, but not never. But it wasn't her tragedy to feel sorrow for, and he'd smiled anyway. A corner of her mouth twisted in a smile; her words had been a joke, but her tone as soft as she could allow. Taking what almost felt like a gift. The strangest moment yet, in a series of them.

"I have a little sister, actually. Father, he--remarried. So a half-sister, I suppose, is more accurate. My sister is not very much like me at all, which I'm sure is of great relief to everyone." Cerise's smile deepened and stuck, thinking of Ellie. That, too, she had never quite gotten the knack of--being an older sister to Ellie. Cerise wondered if that was her, or if it was just how these things went. She'd never been anyone else's sister, so lacked points of comparison.

Also a relief was Huck's rather rapid re-arrival, carrying two more bottles. It wasn't until Emiel opened them in that flashy way again that she considered her current state. She was a little light, maybe. Fine, though. At least she thought so, sitting here. Acting a little outrageously (a lot outrageously), but that was absolutely unrelated. Unfortunately. Or fortunately. She had merely raised her eyebrows when Huck looked at her; she wasn't going to argue on the point again.

"Thank you," was all she said on it, and all she would say. She waited until he left again to try the second drink put in front of her.

This time, she didn't bother to hold her opinion; she had asked for proof, and she'd gotten it. Not, she soothed herself with thinking, the best she had ever had. The first she'd liked more, honestly. But not a bad choice, either. "I suppose I have to admit I was wrong, again. I wouldn't expect a habit of it, mind you. But, well. You are good at this." Cerise tapped the glass for emphasis, smiling.

Her head tilted to the side again as she opened her mouth to ask another question, and this time she felt a pin slide out of place. Followed by another, as if they were all merely waiting for the first one to give in to follow suit. With an aggravated sigh, Cerise reached up to retrieve it. She paused, and then kept with the others, taking her hair down entirely. More chaotic than it might have been, from having pins dragged through it. Those she set down on the table with an exasperated flourish.

"Clocking--I give up," she sighed, running her hand through the unruly mass of her dark hair. It did nothing to put any of it into order, and everything to make her look wilder than she already had.

[Emiel Emmerson]

the golden beetle

evening of the 79th of yaris, 2717

It were true 'f course, an' Emiel couldn't deny it. His bright gaze didn't dampen, flickering warm amber glow intense like the center of a flame when Cerise looked across the table, when she admitted just how inescapable it was to play some part in the superior social structure she'd been born into. There was something about the angle of her chin and the delicate way she sliced just so between the tendon and the bone—unwilling, so admirably unwilling to deny who she was in order to fit into whatever was expected of her. Truth be told, the purple-haired wick couldn't imagine much beyond what he'd picked up from observin' and conversation, an' truth be told, most 'f the time? He didn't like what he saw of jent society anyway, especially their expectations for women like the dark-haired student across from him.

"I ent got an issue. Ne that it matters." He couldn't help it, some awkward fumbling for words. Em glanced away, down to the table, out into the pub, sniffing and shoving a thumb between a pair of fingers to twist one of the rings he wore. It was a revealing sentiment and he couldn't bring himself to regret saying it. Though he wasn't one to blush, he felt the heat of chagrin whisper across the back of his neck and tickle beneath his freckled cheeks—then again, could've just been the alcohol.

It was, perhaps, easier to just continue to be revealing, the cultural veil between them already totally ignored in the strangely intimate space they'd created in some very public corner of a drinking establishment mostly filled with galdori and serviced by wicks and humans. He spoke of his sister as if they could ever really have anything in common, smirking and laughing at her smile, at how she took it in stride as if he was worth the trouble.

"You make 't sound like you're a real pain in th' erse, Cerise. Your folks don't like you, neither? I jus'—" It was confusing to the tsat but he knew it wasn't uncommon for galdorkind. They gave up their children at ten whether they were magical or not, right? So why bother being attached to them, anyway? He couldn't imagine. His fami meant too much to him and his parents 'd put up with his chroveshit this long; he couldn't imagine them giving up.

Huck interrupted Emiel's thoughts and it were probably for the better. He felt the unease in the other wick's glamour and saw it written plain as the Yaris heat outside on his sweaty face. Resisting the urge to scowl at him for his assumptions, the purple-haired wick couldn't deny them either. They were touching, after all, had anyone bothered to clockin' look, an' they'd stopped talking about the book. He'd kissed more than a few macha witches without even askin' their name first, after all, an' here they were, sharing personal details like he didn't want to get up and make breakfast some foggy mornin' after.

Thank gods the boch knew when to take his clockin' queue this time.

The movement required to open two more bottles of beer without spilling any foam and pass one across the table was enough to snap him from those thoughts, though he couldn't help but watch the young woman across from him take her first sip, amber eyes drifting from the condensation on the glass to her slim fingers and finally to her lips before he blinked at her answer, reminding himself to come into focus,

"Been tendin' bar since I were sixteen—ne—fifteen. I ent gotta share my tips when I do, so, I've tried to make a livin'." Emiel grinned, preening like a violet-hued bird of prey. He took his own drink, hardly dainty from the bottle itself, only to not at all realize he'd forgotten to lower the neck of it from his lips while he watched in unexpectedly rapt quietness the cascade of dark curls that quickly tumbled out of Cerise's control.

He might've smiled. It might've been a little stupid, some brief, totally unaware moment of distraction taking over his freckled, well-hewn face. He blinked, remembering to exhale, recovering by setting his bottle back on the table a little more roughly than necessary, stretching his palms over the sticky surface out of a need to look away from the too-pleasing vision across from him but unwilling to move his legs away from hers,

"It, uh, it ent a bad thing—" Dumberse. He didn't wince, shrugging and hiding behind another, longer, swig. If there'd been lines, he'd already crossed too many of them. If this was going to be what it was—even for just this evening, even if never again—why bother pretending it was anything else?

"—to give up on, that is. It's macha either way. Your hair. An'—"

He'd not had enough to drink for this, too sober to say these sorts of things to some galdor's least favorite daughter. He looked accusingly at the label of the bottle cold against his calloused palm as if he could find all the faults in it, as if he could place the blame. His chest felt tight, loose curls making it hard to breathe even this far away.

"—I mean. Shit."

Emiel looked back up, steady and even, curling both hands around the beer back on the table between them, calling things what they were because he wasn't going to stop staring anytime soon,

"We were jus' gonna talk 'bout the book, but we ent. I don't—this ent a habit I make. It's a good book an'—I like this conversation we're havin'." Even if surely he was just enjoying getting played.