[Closed] Someone Reaching Back for Me

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Retiring Room

S
he was in the process of staining her lips again when Cerise spoke.

It helped to have something to do with her hands. She might have once tried to get Cerise to join her; she had, plenty of times, while attempting to fix her hair. Once, she had thought – hoped – that the silly girl might come to her for guidance.

She hadn’t, but Eleanor had, finally. It had been a few years; she hadn’t really taken to it after that, even then. It had been nice, still, standing elbow-to-elbow in the mirror. It had been the first time in Eleanor’s memory she had seen Diana bare-faced, and they had spent the whole time giggling. Here, she’d said, with Eleanor tittering at the cool cream and the brush of the rabbit hair on her cheeks. You and I look very much alike, Ellie, and I know just what would look…

Cerise stood behind her in the mirror, her narrow face pale against her wild dark hair. She had often thought Cerise should take more of an interest in cosmetics; now, the thought seemed strangely sad.

She looked down, putting the lip color back. “He seemed surprised to discover that he had a wife, as well,” she said, even more quietly.

She shut her eyes. The beginnings of her headache had not receded.

She opened them. “I’m sorry, my dear. I shouldn’t have said that.” She stood straight, smoothing her skirt and smiling at her reflection again.

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she felt there was something subtly uneven about it. The stain was heavier on one eyelid than the other, perhaps. She never looked quite right after crying.

The moment she turned, she thought she caught something flitting across Cerise’s face. It was gone, or perhaps it had never been there. He isn’t going to get better. Diana’s face was a pleasant sort of blank, but she smiled a sad sort of smile when Cerise spoke again.

“No,” she said. “He isn’t.” Anatole’s sharp, lively caprise was only one of the many things she missed. “The clairvoyant conversation, as I understand, has given him a great deal of balance in the last year. I should think that balance is all any of us can seek; I think that he has worked – hard – at getting better in his own time, in his own way, even if he isn’t…”

She shouldn’t have said that, either. Don’t be ridiculous, my dear, she should have said. He’s already recovered so much; why, you should’ve seen him in Yaris the year before last, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t even speak –

Her lips were pressed thinly. She relaxed as best she could, then took a step closer, brushing Cerise’s strong field with her own. “He tells me he plans to see you in Mugroba this rainy season,” she said instead.

She had meant it as a lightening of the mood. With how Cerise had spoken of it, though that seemed a surprise to him, as if her father hadn’t remembered her at all – but she couldn’t say how her voice had come out, in the end. There was a deeply private ache in her chest; for Cerise to be privy to a tenth of it was horribly unsettling. She thought, He speaks of you, now, at least, and couldn’t say it. She thought, too, Will you come and stay the weekend at least once before you go, my dear?

Instead, she held still; she smiled.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin House, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

There had been a time, when Cerise was very small, when she thought she had liked the idea of cosmetics. She had the very dimmest memory of other, different hands and dark hair, and the smell of powder. Even as she got a little older, she had been fascinated by the delicate jars and soft brushes they came with.

But she had hated it too, for those same qualities, and the careful patience needed to apply them with skill. Cerise hadn't the lightness of touch required, hands always too quick, too brutal. When Diana had tried to arouse her interest in the subject, Cerise could only see it as an attempt to try to spackle over everything that was wrong with her. She would never be beautiful in that way, not like Diana; not like the portraits of Mama either for all that they shared a coloring. Something in her was always a little too wild, a little too sharp. So that admiration had turned to resentment, in the end.

"Why not? It's true." Shouldn't have said that--shouldn't have told her that something was wrong. Should have just smiled and smiled and smiled, until Cerise screamed instead. Like she wanted to scream now, something wretched clawing at her. Screaming wasn't right; she wasn't a child. So she lashed out and bit instead--He isn't going to get better.

She thought her stepmother's smile seemed sad after that. The failure of what should have been an apology and had only turned, as usual, into something else twisted a thorn around her. Cerise brought her hand up to run her fingers over the tail Sish had curled around her neck. Soft and cool, those golden scales. Sish beat the end of her tail against Cerise's chest, thump-thump-thump. A little heartbeat.

"Good for him," she snorted at the idea of balance. She meant it, too; still she hated it. Balance. Was that what that was, all that strangeness? Balance? Cerise wondered if she had thrown it off, appearing like she had. If so, she wasn't sorry. If not... She didn't know how she felt about that. She hated it and she hated him and she hated herself most of all for pushing and being surprised when it hurt.

Diana turned to her, and she looked as if nothing had ever happened. Gone was the bare face, softer around the edges and so much like Ellie's. This was the face she was used to, even if the step closer and the touch of her field wasn't. Cerise didn't reach back or pull away, either.

"He does? He told you he--" The surprise was plain on her face, vulnerable and honest as she could ever manage. As soon as she felt it there she tried to scrub it away, but there was no chance she was fast enough for it not to have been seen. She put a scowl on it instead, easily enough. It hid more than she thought cosmetics ever could. "I said maybe--if... when I make the travel team."

That was a strange thought. This new unfamiliar version of her father, speaking to Diana about her. About planning on seeing her, in the rainy season. Wanting to? She had half expected him to forget the second he was in the air. Cerise didn't know what to feel about how Diana said it, so she chose to feel nothing. Diana smiled, anyway, and there was very little Cerise could say to that.

Would you come to a match, if I asked? Cerise looked at her golden stepmother and she wondered and she wondered. She had never asked, not in so many words. She had always just thought that if they'd wanted to come, either of them, they would have done so and their not asking was the same as saying they had no interest.

"I think they're waiting for us," Cerise said instead. It was cowardly; she was just too afraid to be proven correct. Still, she shifted her weight and looked down at the floor. When she lifted her eyes back up again, there was something softer in them. Not the apology she couldn't say, but close to it. "Are you--I'll wait. For you. If you want me to."

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Retiring Room

D
iana’s first instinct was to chide Cerise. The snort seemed terribly disrespectful, and it woke some of the anger she thought that she had lost. It was the petulant scowl on Cerise’s face. It was so much like the one he wore now, or had worn, after she had cornered him drunk midday and exhausted him of his excuses – and of his empathy for her, perhaps.

It was as if Cerise simply couldn’t understand the toll it took on her. This – standing straightly, smiling, explaining Anatole as best she could, where he refused to explain himself. It was as if Cerise was determined to take out every brick she laid, to pluck the petals off the arrangement as soon as she had set it on the mantle; as if she had watched her rise to her feet in heels that pinched and ached, only to put out her leg and trip her.

Sish’s gold tail was beating softly at Cerise’s chest. Two glittery, beady little eyes peeked out from the sharp face amid Cerise’s curls.

There was no return to her caprise, but nor did Anatole’s daughter pull away. She wasn’t, Diana knew, deep down, thinking. You’ll understand someday, my dear, she had the urge to say, but it would’ve been as biting and sharp as Cerise had been, and it would’ve done neither of them any favors.

And perhaps Cerise never would, after all. Diana’s smile did not change at her mention of the travel team, but she did tilt her head. “Well,” she said carefully, “he certainly thinks you’ll make it.”

If it was meant to be encouragement, she thought it rang rather hollowly. Cerise hung still, and the silence was pregnant with something Diana could not have guessed for the life of her. It seemed to her that Cerise wanted her to say something, or to ask something, or perhaps that she wanted to say something. She realized then that Cerise probably thought she would protest it, the travel team.

She was still raw and tender; she was still wondering why Anatole had suddenly taken an interest in his daughter, and was still cold toward her. Standing across from Cerise with her hair all out of place, with that silly drake on her shoulders and that scowl still on her face, she couldn’t seem to muster up any words of encouragement.

Worst of all, everything she wanted to say was horribly unfair. She wanted to say that she hoped Cerise and her father enjoyed themselves in Thul Ka; she wanted to say that she would be staying put, right here, out of their hair. To say that she would be leaving Anatole to his family, as perhaps she should have done a very long time ago.

There was time to find other words, she thought. Hoped. She didn’t truly feel so bitter – not now, when Cerise looked down at the tile and spoke again.

“You’re quite right, Cerise. Best not to keep them waiting.” She took a few more steps toward the door, drawing even with Cerise; she gestured, then paused. There was something soft in the girl’s grey eyes. He had always been so stubborn, when he was in the wrong; he had never liked to apologize. She knew those eyes very well. “Perhaps before you go,” she said as she opened the door and began down the hall, “you will stay the weekend with me at least once more?”

She hadn’t looked backwards at the mirror before she left the retiring room, not to check herself or Anatole’s daughter. She would have found an infinity of imperfections; there was nothing, now, but to stand tall and trust that she had done her best. They both had, she supposed, whatever best meant for each.

It was a short walk past the atrium doors, glowing with the crisp afternoon light. When they emerged into the parlor again, there was a smile on Diana’s face, just as crisp as the light. It warmed a little to see her cousins and her daughter.

“... I can’t believe you haven’t seen one,” Eleanor was saying with enthusiasm, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Though I suppose they’re more common to Giorite than Qrieth, or at least, that is what Professor Duchamp says…”

“My deepest apologies.” Diana smiled at Amaryllis, and then at Mrs. Ibutatu and Mrs. Rochambeaux, whom she was relieved to find had not yet left. “I should hope the tea hasn’t grown cold,” she said, lingering by the bells. “Shall I ring for more, or are we quite filled to the brim?” There was a humorous glitter in her eyes.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin House, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

Cerise had lost. Not just in her failure to make the apology trapped somewhere in her throat; the defeat was total. She could feel it already, although she didn't know where she had made the error that had made it so. The way she had talked about Father? When she didn't return Diana's caprise? Or maybe before that--days, weeks. Years. It didn't matter now.

Her stepmother's careful assurance that her father thought she would make the team didn't bring so much as a flicker of a smile to her face. Easy for him to say--he had no idea. He'd never seen her duel; if he had seen her before, years ago, that was gone now. Another person might have found her newly-changed father's blind faith in her abilities touching. Cerise felt mostly a kind of hollow ache. That careful statement had included only him; Diana, clearly, did not have the same assessment. Well, how could she? She had never seen anything to the contrary, either. And she, at least, remembered who Cerise was.

She didn't need them to think well of her. They could see whatever they wanted when they looked at her--one day, they would have no choice. It didn't matter what they thought of her now, she insisted very firmly to herself, and it never would. She would be whatever she was, with or without them. At the end of that silence, Cerise was glad she hadn't asked after all.

The other women waiting in the parlor was an excuse, an easy exit. Mercy or cowardice? Cerise tried to tell herself it was the former, but felt somewhere that it was the latter. Diana agreed to go back and drew even with her. There was a moment in there, an opportunity for her to say what should be--but the moment passed, and Cerise said nothing. Diana kept towards the hall.

And perhaps the loss had not been so total after all. "Oh--yes, I can... I will try." Diana didn't look back and Cerise waited to follow. With Diana in the hall, she permitted herself a small moment. All the sharp lines of her face and shoulders collapsed. One breath followed another; Cerise turned her face toward's Sish's cool golden side and felt her small heartbeat there. The miraan trilled a little noise at her, butting the top of her feathered head to the line of Cerise's cheekbone. It hurt; Cerise smiled and straightened.

"Let's go back into it, shall we? Battle faces, Destroyer of Hours." Cerise did not glance at herself in the mirror as she followed the steps Diana had taken back towards the parlor.

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown

Amaryllis laughed. “Oh, I do remember,” she said, lightly, her face crinkled in an easy smile. “Wasn’t he the boy from the - er - lipstick incident...?”

Niccolette’s smile sharpened.

Francoise giggled; there wasn’t any other word for it really. Suddenly Amaryllis could see the shape of her, beneath the lovely make up and the delicate dress and the soft waves of hair. She could see the young uncertain girl she had been at Brunnhold, outgoing and good humored and not yet careful.

“Yes,” Francoise said; this laugh was more appropriate. “Exactly. If you can believe it, he wrote me a love letter two years ago! Confessed that he had been pining away for want of me ever since.” She raised her eyebrows; she shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh dear!” Amaryllis covered her laugh with her hand.

Niccolette did not cover hers; she was grinning, rather widely, leaning back in her chair. “The most sentimental drivel,” she said, waving a delicate hand.

“All emerald of my heart this, ruby hair that,” Francoise agreed, lips curling up at the edges. “I shall waste away for the thought of your smile... etcetera.”

“Oh dear!” Amaryllis said again, her eyes wide now. “That sounds rather serious.”

“Hard to tell,” Francoise murmured. “That sort of flowery language was the fashion then, really.“

Chrysanthe glanced over from her conversation with Eleanor; Amaryllis couldn’t read the look on her face. She turned away.

Amaryllis hadn’t met her gaze. Someday, she thought, my dear; someday. Surely you do want...? She didn’t know what to make of the swish of Chrysanthe’s hair as she grinned over the space between at Eleanor; they were deeply engaged in another discussion of bugs. Surely, she thought with a prickling of unease, you would have told me if...

It was not uncommon, was it? To change one’s hair after a heartbreak. Surely Chrysanthe would have told her. She had been so private as a girl and even in school; Amaryllis remembered that well. She held her heartbreaks and her fears and her joys too, close, too close even sometimes for her sister.

You know you can tell me anything, she wanted to say, sometimes, as she had said when Chrysanthe was very small and, too, as she had said when Chrysanthe was not so small in height, anymore. As, too, she remembered Diana had once said to her.

“Naturally I couldn’t send a note back,” Francoise was saying, thoughtful. There was a brightness in her cheeks which owed less to artifice now; if Amaryllis hadn’t known her so well she doubted she should have been able to tell.

“What did you do?” Amaryllis asked, leaning forward.

“Nothing, in the end,” Francoise said, thoughtful.

“We talked of finding him at a ball,” Niccolette said, smiling.

“Yes,” Francoise raised her eyebrows, although only just. “I did think of it,” she settled her hands together in her lap. “If a suitable opportunity presented itself.”

“Of course,” Amaryllis said, smiling too. “And what would you have done then...?”

Francoise’s smile was truly wicked then. “I had not gotten so far,” she said, idly, smoothing the tiniest of wrinkles from her skirt.

Amaryllis did not glance at the door; she had not, steadily, ever since Cerise walked through it with her chin raised and Sish glittering on her shoulders.

It opened, then; she glanced up.

“Mama!” Phileander came in, one hand through Mrs. Pike’s. He came the remaining distance at a run, Mrs. Pike gently letting him go, and climbed squirming into her lap.

Amaryllis laughed, sitting back to make space for him, and wrapping her arms around her son. “Did you have a good nap, my love?” She asked, stroking his hair off his forehead, gently combing it with her fingers.

“I swept,” Phileander told her. He looked over at Niccolette and Francoise, wide-eyed. He looked back up at her.

“He took a brief but sound nap, madam,” Mrs. Pike said, with a deep curtsy, “and ate a sandwich and some apple slices. Shall I stay?”

“Yes, please,” Amaryllis said, smiling. "In case of any further excitement."

“Swish takes nap too?” Phileander asked.

“Swish might be napping, yes,” Amaryllis said, smiling. She did not look at the door.

“What a dear boy,” Francoise said, lightly. There was something on her face, Amaryllis thought; she felt a sharp pinch in her chest.

Niccolette looked at him, and then up at Amaryllis once more. She smiled, settling back against the couch, a slight ease in her posture.

Mrs. Pike settled in the maid’s chair by the door, sitting straight and easy.

“How much does he understand?” Francoise asked curiously. “He’s - two now?”

“I’m thwee,” Phileander put in proudly.

“He just turned three,” Amaryllis said smiling. “Nearly everything, I’m afraid; he simply soaks it up like a sponge.”

“Goodness,” Francoise said, her smile easing into something softer, friendlier. “That must make conversation difficult.”

Niccolette laughed; Amaryllis smiled too. Phileander, still sleepy she thought, was leaning comfortably against her.

The door opened again; Amaryllis looked up once more. Diana came back in, as neat and lovely as ever. Amaryllis could not but smile; it broadened over her whole face.

“Swish!” Phileander crowed in excitement as Cerise entered.

“And Cousins Di and Cerise,” Amaryllis corrected lightly.

Phileander nodded, but his gaze was rapt on the miraan.

“I should like more tea,” Niccolette said from the couch; she was looking squarely at Diana across the room, and she was smiling.

“Yes,” Amaryllis agreed, although she didn’t dare drink a drop of the strong, smoky stuff Diana had been serving; her stomach rather roiled at the thought. “That sounds lovely.”

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
wish!

Amaryllis corrected little Phil, and Diana only barely managed to stifle her laugh. It came out anyway, a sort of melting at the edges of her smile and in her eyes. It had already warmed at Amaryllis’ look; she hadn’t been sure to what to expect, not really, stepping back in. She’d half expected judgment in her cousins’ eyes, or perhaps pity, and all the more after her poor stepdaughter had been forced to follow her.

There was no such thing. Perhaps the presence of Phileander had softened her and lifted the mood. She supposed, looking at his precious curly head, she should be grateful to him. A graceful young man already.

The thought tickled her so that she almost laughed again. Her shoulders lifted slightly and she covered her mouth with her hand, glancing around the room as if to apologize for the slip. He really was very cute, and she had missed the warmth of Amaryllis’ presence so much.

“My,” said Diana lightly, “he really has taken to the little miraan, hasn’t he?” She cast a smile at Cerise behind her. If the thought of having the miraan back in her parlor tested her nerves, she let none of it show.

There had been the slightest pause; she had almost – almost – said it, rather playfully, the destroyer of hours, but it was such a silly name that she wasn’t sure she would have gotten away with it. It might have embarrassed Cerise to hear her stepmother speak it, in any case, which was quite the opposite of the point.

When Mrs. Ibutatu spoke, she paused. The parlor wasn’t quite all in the range of that ramscott, but she could feel the edges of it from here, just as sharp as the woman’s smile. Diana inclined her head and rang the bell after Amaryllis agreed, though she knew the strong Hoxian stuff had unsettled her stomach before.

Still, she met the smile with a quirk of one sculpted eyebrow. “Do you like it, Mrs. Ibutatu? Mrs. Rochambeaux?” she asked, casual and friendly, weaving back into the seating area. “I believe the Hoxians call it dzhkar,” she went on, “because it is smoke-dried with pinewood that grows in the Spondolas. It’s quite strong and distinctive, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Wheelwright came back in rather quickly and, at Diana’s direction, began to take the tea things. The human woman that had come in with Phileander was sitting by the door, she noticed; she seemed a kindly and warm creature, for all she had been impeccably professional, though she supposed any in Amaryllis’ employ would be.

When Mrs. Wheelwright left, she reclaimed her seat on the sofa, but only just; she would rise to pour the tea again when Mrs. Wheelwright brought it.

The parlor’s environs were no less mild than when she left, and perhaps milder for the cooling-off of the afternoon’s earlier events. It seemed that conversation had proceeded apace, and quite cheerfully; Chrysanthe and Eleanor, for one, were still deep in the discussion of some glow-bug or another from Gior, though she hoped Ellie would not test Chrysanthe’s patience all too much. Chrysanthe had a great deal of it, at least; she must have, in her profession.

Nor did she think walking back into the parlor had been easy for Cerise, whose skirt still bore the dull remains of the tea she had splashed on it. The smile she turned on the girl was no less polite than it had been before; every trace of tension was gone from it, and she tried to look as welcoming as she could. She had hoped that Mrs. Ibutatu’s presence, at least, would help Cerise feel more at ease, but perhaps she had ruined even that; she still could not think what had caused Cerise to grow so sullen at the mention of Mr. Ibutatu.

“What have we missed, ladies?” she asked, just as Mrs. Wheelwright came back in with another steaming tray. She got to her feet, but she continued looking about, a glitter in her eyes as she went to help.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - (Still) Afternoon Teatime

By the time Cerise had walked past the atrium and returned to the parlor, her face had mostly composed itself. She wasn't too far behind Diana, only a moment or so. Long enough that if the balance of the room had been strange, if someone had slipped away in their absence... Well, there was no way Diana would have let that show on her face, would she have? So not a particularly useful canary for this specific coalmine, her stepmother.

The baby had returned at some point, and remained just as pleased to see Sish as he had been before. Amaryllis had corrected him, but Cerise couldn't help but think his priorities were rather in order. Much more exciting to see Sish than to see adult cousins, she imagined. Cerise couldn't say she disagreed. To her utter surprise, Diana looked back at her and smiled. Because it had been about Sish, Cerise was startled into smiling back. The expression turned rather quickly to Phileander, as if that had been the intended target all along. She didn't think--well, Cerise couldn't be sure how Sish would take to Phileander's attention if she allowed him to... Maybe.

Ellie, at least, seemed happy enough, and was still talking to Chrysanthe about worms in Gior. That was good--at least there was that. Cerise couldn't think what she would have done if she had ended up ruining Eleanor's day (as usual) between the spider and making her mother cry. Almost she turned to listen, to ask Ellie if she had seen the spider again while they were gone. The thought carried only so far as trying to picture what her reaction would be to such a question from Cerise before it died in her mind. For the best, really.

Cerise moved to take the seat she had only just vacated once more, not bothering to spread her skirt over the upholstery. She had not thought to try and address the splotches on her skirt, in all that time. She had been preoccupied, somewhat. And they had all seen the whole thing already, anyway. There was no point in trying to hide it now. She looked quite pointedly neither to the statue on the mantle nor to the shelf where the plate had once been.

There was a strange sort of feeling when Diana smiled at her, all polite and welcoming. The retiring room seemed far away, though it was just down the hall; Cerise wondered how one learned to let things like that go, and turn so quickly back to tea and smiles and asking after everyone else. The first surely enabled the rest. Letting go of anything had never been something she was good at. A smile found its way to her face despite herself, anyway. If she kept a hand on Sish while she did it, she didn't think anyone would notice.

No more of that; it had been what it had been. She could think about it later, the strange ache between that careful phrasing of her father's newfound confidence in her (and his alone) and the request to stay the weekend. Mrs. Wheelwright had returned with another tray of that smokey, strong tea; Cerise almost thought to mention that she had it before, at the Golden Rose, but she didn't think that was of interest to anyone else. Besides, the Rose was her place--almost like a secret, though not quite.

"Not all the excitement, I hope?" Cerise ventured, doing her best to smile politely. It fell short of the mark, she thought, but the effort surely counted for something. Sweet Lady she hoped it did, because otherwise she might as well give up now. Her eyes lingered in particular on Mrs. Ibutatu when she said "excitement", although she tried not to let it. She turned her attention to Sish as quickly as she could, as the miraan was doing her best to climb the chair. Somehow she didn't think the argument that the upholstery was already ruined would put either of them further in Diana's good graces if Sish shredded the arm of it with delicate golden claws.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown

Eleanor had relaxed a bit; Chrysanthe was smiling. She had never in her life imagined discussing Gioran glow worms so intently, but Eleanor was, frankly, glowing, and her intense and genuine interest in the subject made it rather easy.

Chrysanthe remembered herself at a similar age somewhat embarrassingly well; she has never had a passion for bugs, but she could have - did - talk for hours about static conversation or her latest novel, when suitably prompted. It had taken her longer, generally, to warm up, but she was not sure Eleanor was always so voluble. It had been Amaryllis she opened up to, by and large. She had, Chrysanthe thought, often been the only one interested.

She had wondered later on if Amaryllis had only ever tolerated her. She understood now that it was love; she understood it quite well. Smiling as Eleanor went rapt onto a description of hatching cycles, Chrysanthe found she understood it even better than before. She had not remotely expected such a connection with her young cousin; she was surprised and delighted by it.

“I shall write Lajukka to inquire,” Chrysanthe said. “As I understand it her family is rather deep in the glow worm silk trade, and I am sure she shall be able to answer or at least to tell us where to make suitable inquiries. If you like, I could see about a specimen of the silk?”

From the glowing look on Eleanor’s face, Chrysanthe surmised even before she answered that she would, in fact, like.

It would take a little while, for the letters to go back and forth. Chrysanthe thought Eleanor understood that; she seemed patient, and happy to wait the requisite time. She remembered, too, feelings of being forgotten - of being left behind - particularly after Amaryllis had left Brunnhold, in that strange uncertain year before she had turned around and married Horace, after all. Chrysanthe was willing to admit she had been wrong - she had, rather - and she could not have asked for a better brother in law.

Cerise and Diana came back - Diana looking so elegant it was hard to remember how abruptly she had left - and even Cerise was smiling. Chrysanthe felt a distinct pang of sympathy.

“Just our reminiscing,” Francoise said with an easy smile. “Nothing too exciting.”

“I am sure I could think of something,” Niccolette said; Chrysanthe didn’t look over, but she was aware of the warm amused sound of the Bastian’s voice, rather painfully aware. “If we are in need of enlivening.”

“I want pet miwaan?” Phileander was saying, rather hopefully, gazing wide-eyed up at Amaryllis.

“Why don’t we ask Cousin Cerise if that would be all right?” Amaryllis suggested.

Phileander wriggled from her lap, standing, and put out a small, likely sticky hand. Amaryllis stood, taking it, and guided him the few steps across the room to Cerise.

“Hewwo Cousin Cewise,” Phileander said, carefully and dutifully. He let go of Amaryllis’s hand and extended it towards Cerise; it hovered for a moment, and then rested with a not-too-sticky sound on her leg. “May I pwease pet Swish?” He asked, gazing up at her. “Destwower of Houws,” he said, as carefully as he had pronounced her name. He glanced up at Amaryllis, who smiled down at him; she had sat, closer by than before, and she smiled at Cerise as well.

“Very good manners, my darling,” Amaryllis said warmly. “Perhaps if Sish is too tired for petting just now, Cousin Cerise would be willing to tell us a bit about her?” She lifted a warm, hopeful smile to Cerise.

“I do know,” Chrysanthe said, thoughtful, “that they breed them for the sturdiness and clarity of the thread. I do not, I’m afraid, know much more about it than that,” she smiled at Eleanor.

“It is quite distinctive,” Niccolette was accepting another cup of tea from Diana. Chrysanthe, glancing over, could have sworn her fingers just brushed Diana’s, but there was nothing to it, after all.

“Perhaps I shall order some,” Niccolette took another sip of the tea, as unadorned as before.

“It’s a very unexpected sort of taste,” Francoise said, smiling at Diana. She added milk and sugar both once more, stirring lightly. “But quite interesting. I don’t know that it would replace a good Hessean blend, for me, but one does weary so of the familiar.”

[Graf]

Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
he laughed when Cerise spoke. It wasn’t that she was surprised; it was just that it was terribly… civil of her, to make help make light of it all. She had caught Cerise’s strange smile, though she hadn’t a clue what it was for; she had, too, caught the girl’s look at Mrs. Ibutatu, and felt as if perhaps the decision to bring the seven of them together had been a good one after all.

Ellie was positively glowing. “Professor Coudray quite – quite put me off,” she was telling Chrysanthe, a little pout on her face, her voice the sort of conspiratorial quiet that nearly anyone could hear. “I wanted to write my last essay on the insect life of Gior” – however quiet she tried to make herself, her voice would begin to rise the more invested she became; biased though she was, Diana had always found it terribly endearing – “and I was trying to research them, but the Brunnhold library was absolutely no help to me, and I was quite prepared to write to the embassy myself…”

Chrysanthe had that lovely intent look in her blue eyes, smiling but always a little serious. She thought again how fine she looked with the neat-trimmed tips of her hair shivering above the shoulders of her dress. Not quite as short as the ladies in Tiv, but somewhere in between; it seemed to Diana that it suited her and no one else.

Some little part of her was sad, she reflected, to see those long braids go, but it was the same part of her that had been a little sad every year Ellie had come home from Brunnhold a half-inch taller. They all grew up, of course, and one could only be – grateful, she supposed, for what one had not missed.

It was good, at least, to relax, knowing Ellie was in kind and patient hands; smiling over at Amaryllis, she remembered another little blond-haired girl, but she hadn’t been much like Ellie at all.

She laughed again, polite but warm, when Mrs. Ibutatu spoke. “We have already had quite the exciting afternoon, Mrs. Ibutatu,” she said, looking up at the two ladies with a twinkle in her eye. Thinking, somehow, meeting those sharp green eyes edged with kohl, that she had not a single clue what an exciting afternoon really looked like.

She took up the teapot and poured the first cup, and steam billowed upward, smelling rich and dark. She thought of how terribly pale young Francoise had looked underneath her rouge earlier, and resolved to bring hers first; she remembered to bring the milk and sugar.

She still smiled over at Mrs. Ibutatu when she brought it over. “Still,” she said lightly, glancing back at Cerise with the same twinkle in her eye, “I daresay one is always in need of enlivening.”

As if on cue, little Phil started on the miwaan. She blinked, absentmindedly making another cup, watching Amaryllis stand and walk Phil across to Cerise out of the corner of her eye. She was still smiling, of course, but if there was a pinch of concern about her eyes, she didn’t think she could be blamed for it. Sish was at present attempting to climb the back of the already-stained chair, not unlike a cat.

Still, she couldn’t help her little laugh at Phil’s attempted destwower, and she found herself mechanically walking a saucer and cup of black tea to Mrs. Ibutatu on the couch. She was half-turning, watching Amaryllis sit – to her relief – close by when she felt the brush of a hand against hers.

She turned and realized who it was, as if she’d had no idea when she was pouring it and foregoing the milk and sugar. She felt the strange urge to apologize; then, briefly – a cursory glance, with nothing in it – she met Mrs. Ibutatu’s eye, and felt a strange emptiness in her head, followed by a little prickle at the back of her neck.

She offered the Bastian a smile, tilting her head only very slightly, then went back to the tea. “I shall get the details for you, from Rosmilda,” she replied. “Lièvremont and Sons tea company, I believe, but I could be wrong.” She smiled at Francoise. “Anatole would agree with you, Mrs. Rochambeaux; it is Hessean everything,” she said reflexively, before she could stop herself – like signing her name, like putting on her make up, like smiling a polite, pleasant smile.

He had, after all, liked Hessean tea. He had liked enough milk to turn the tea a sort of lovely taupe, and the smallest pinch of sugar. Now –

She smiled as she served the rest of them; there was something a little knowing in it, a little grateful, as she served Amaryllis.

She had started taking her tea like him – she had loved that color – but she wondered now if that was the best for this blend; she had always heard the Hoxians took their tea black. This time, she herself took it black, and as she settled herself back on the couch, she breathed in the strong darkness of it and wondered.

“I am rather partial to the unexpected, of late,” she said. “And it’s starting to grow on me; I think I may prefer it.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Vauquelin Parlor, Uptown
Bethas 29, 2720 - Afternoon Teatime

Sish was not particularly pleased to be pulled from the arm of the chair before she could really get a foothold on it. There was a wave of little chitters from the golden creature that quieted only when Cerise had deposited her firmly back across her lap and started running her finger carefully along the ridge of her scaled spine. As soon as Sish was settled, she heard the end of a hopeful small voice. Cerise looked up to see Phileander and Amaryllis approach, his chubby hand held in his mother's.

Children, she thought, were a funny sort of person. Cerise had been thinking this all afternoon, not really sure how to deal with this young not-cousin of hers. Luckily she had been largely spared from the decision, with his interest being rather quickly diverted by other, more experienced attentions. Or by talking to Eleanor; Ellie didn't have as many reservations as Cerise about talking to babies, evidently. Her face didn't know what to do when he greeted her carefully and put his hand on her leg.

A smile found its way to her without her intending it to at the careful pronunciation of "Destroyer of Hours". She was even willing to forgive how his hand was almost assuredly sticky in some way, as the hands of small children seemed to be perpetually. Cerise looked down at his hopeful golden head and felt very strange. Amaryllis was a good mother, she thought. A lucky, well-mannered child, her not-cousin.

"Hello, Cousin Phileander," Cerise greeted him very seriously. She could not bring herself to pitch or soften her voice as so many did when talking to children; it seemed insulting to them both. Her eyes lifted uncertainly to Amaryllis, who gently suggested that perhaps Cerise tell him about Sish instead of the petting.

"Well Sish is--that is to say, miraan are..." She trailed off, looking into that sweet small face. What was interesting about miraan to small boys? Cerise doubted very much he wanted to hear about how she was bred in Bastia, and had only the dimmest memories of the miraan in Florne to share. "They are related to drakes," she began, and then stopped again. "Sish is very clever, which is how she gets herself into so much trouble." Her mouth softened, looking at the miraan, before she considered Phileander once more.

Had she ever been so small? Cerise remembered vaguely that Ellie had been, of course, but she hadn't been much bigger herself then. She must have been, logically she knew she had been. She had not, she thought, been much older than Phileander (if any older at all--it was hard to tell) when Mama... Then. This was a strange, sentimental sort of day--Cerise didn't know where the mood had come from. Too much time by herself, she thought. She'd had an awful lot of that of late. She redirected the stream of her thoughts back to Phileander and Sish.

"Petting... might be alright..." Cerise looked at Sish. She wasn't the happiest she ever was, but that might be good, in the end. Sometimes Sish got over-stimulated when she was happy, and bit Cerise on the finger. It didn't much bother her, but the baby was rather a different story. "Gently," she warned. "Shall I, er... show you?"

Cerise's hand hovered, not sure if she could take Phileander's or if that was an inappropriate thing to do. Her mouth pulled into a frown and she looked first at Sish, then to Amaryllis. She resolutely did not look at anyone else in the room, unwilling to find out that she was making a fool of herself here.