[PM to Join] The Duckling's Tale

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, Loshis 20, 2720
Beningbrough Park, Uptown, Vienda

Amaryllis hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had been sitting, a needlework sampler in her hands, pulling a few stiches slowly through as she watched Phileander play. He was running his toy train along the floor, crawling alongside it and bumping it carefully over obstacles, in a pale shaft of afternoon sunlight through the drapes.

They had had lunch – a thick split pea soup with chunks of ham and crusty bread, which Phileander had delighted in letting dribble down from his mouth to his chin. Amaryllis, who had had a toddler long enough to know his ways, had covered him rather thoroughly with a bib and a napkin, and in the end his trousers seemed to have escaped the green-gray ooze.

It had seemed like only a moment that her hands lowered, and her eyes fluttered shut.

When Amaryllis opened them, however, there was a sense of stillness about the room; something had shifted in the light, and the toy train was toppled on its side at the edge of the carpet.

Amaryllis rose, hastily, bundling her needlepoint and leaving it on the side table; she didn’t bother trying to straighten her skirts or check the set of her braids, but went straight out into the hallway, looking up and down. She swept to the kitchen first, but there was no sign of Phileander there.

Amaryllis went back down along the hallway, stopping to check that the back door was still shut and locked. Surely, she thought, her heart pounding in her chest, he couldn’t have gotten it open and gone outside? She went further down the hall, opening each door as she passed, seeing no sign of a little boy in the dining room, nor in the receiving room.

At the end of the hallway, Amaryllis heard Horace’s voice in a low and steady murmur; she went to his study door, just slightly ajar, and listened.

“That’s right, old chap,” Horace was saying; Amaryllis could hear the smile in his voice. “This is Florne, which is all the way in Bastia; the train will run from there like this… yes, this… and there… and there… very good, follow the tracks! Here, this is the border between Anaxas and Bastia.”

Amaryllis smiled, then, standing in the hallway for a long moment. One hand went to her stomach, flattening against it for a moment. She turned and went back away, a bit more slowly than she’d come.

When Amaryllis came to fetch Phileander again, it was with her braids neatened, and the lace-edged violet skirts of her walking dress smoothed out. She knocked lightly on the door, and opened it, smiling.

Phileander was sitting on Horace’s lap, looking down at the table; he looked up when the door, opened, and beamed. “Mama!” He wriggled, and climbed off his father’s lap, and toddled rather rapidly to her, crashing forcefully into her skirts.

Amaryllis laughed. “Ooof!” She settled her hand on his head. “Were you having a nice time with papa, my love?” She asked, smiling down at him.

“Vewy nice,” Phileander said cheerfully.

Horace was smiling at them both when she looked up; Amaryllis had to swallow through a lump in her throat.

“I thought I’d take him to the park,” Amaryllis said, after a moment, glancing at the windows. “It’s practically the first sun we’ve had all week.”

Horace nodded, glancing down at the papers on his desk. “Let me finish this up,” he said, smiling at them both, “and I’ll come and join you.”

“We go pwark!” Phileander said, cheerfully.

Amaryllis smiled a little wider. “Yes, sweetheart, we’ll go to the park! We’ll feed the ducks, and then your papa will come and join us,” she ruffled his hair again, smiling.

Phileander’s small, sturdy boots were rather well-tested by the time they reached the duck pond; Amaryllis, wearing a large brimmed hat, held his hand in one of hers, and held a bag of bread crumbs in the other. Phileander seemed to delight exclusively in squirming out of her hold, running through the muddiest puddles available, then coming back looking as delighted with himself as if he’d cast the most difficult spell in existence. His stockings were splattered with mud, though the smart little yellow coat he wore remained (mostly) clean – for now, Amaryllis thought, fondly.

The lake curved through the middle of Beningbrough Park, the edges speckled with thin, waving reeds; a few willow trees dipped down over benches at the edge of the mud. Amaryllis and Phileander followed the path – or at least Amaryllis did – to one of the benches at the edge.

“Dwucks!” Phileander cried, joyously, grabbing hold of Amaryllis’s hand once more and pointing. “Mama, thewe awe dwucks!”

“Look at them all!” Amaryllis laughed; there were a few mallards, with their bright green heads, bobbing on the surface of the water, and next to them the sleeker brown female ducks. “Let’s see,” Amaryllis opened the bag, and extended it to Phileander; he reached in, and took a big handful of crumbs, and Amaryllis did as well.

“One at a time, my love,” Amaryllis said, smiling. “There’s no need to rush.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Beningbrough Park, Uptown
Loshis 20, 2720 - Afternoon

Cerise had slept in her own bed for the second time in a year, and her dreams had been troubled, dark things that only partially dissolved on waking. It would have been easier Em's—the thought made her smile, and then made her cry for a moment before she got out of bed.

Despite the late hour, Cerise thought she might have remained in bed longer if she could have. Sish was the one who dragged her out with an insistent pull of glittering golden talons on the sleeve of her nightdress. (And, when that didn't work, on the skin of her hand.) The miraan had no time for teenaged sorrows; which, Cerise supposed, meant she didn't either. She dressed with great haste and little care in a walking skirt of dark red with a row of shining jet buttons on one side—fashionably asymmetrical, she noted with a funny kind of twist to her thin mouth. She was home now; she could have had someone do her hair for her, of course, but by now she was so used to just scraping it all back away from her face in a moderately effective tail that anything else seemed like too much fuss. It was just breakfast, anyway.

Cerise didn't slink down the stairs—she wouldn't cower, not in her own home. If her footsteps were a little lighter than they might have been, it was just that she was tired. She wasn't avoiding Diana, not precisely. The idea of eating breakfast with her stepmother was not something she was looking forward to, but it was... Well, did she ever?

All the same, relief washed over her when she realized she had slept late enough that breakfast had been cleared away for the rest of the household. Following closely on its heels was shame, and anger shortly after that. Cerise caught one of the maids—a tall young blonde that she realized with a start had to have been hired on since... since—and had her fetch both a cold breakfast for herself, and a tin and a shallow dish for the golden creature draped over her neck.

"You might be the most spoiled miraan in Vita," she murmured, watching Sish eat her tinned whale with noisy enthusiasm. Gracious Lady, the smell did still knock her sideways. But how could she argue with those contented chirps and chitters? Worth it in the end, she thought fondly, her face soft as Sish knocked sloppy wet pieces on the lace table-runner that adorned the dining table. It would stain; she could find nothing in her to be too terribly sorry, even as gloom settled over her.

By the time both drake and miraan had eaten their breakfast, it was edging on afternoon. Cerise knew she needed to speak with Diana more; failing that, she had some homework to finish that she'd drug with her. (She wasn't about to get kicked off the team now that she'd made it—made the travel team! the reality of it was still thrilling.) She also knew that she deeply didn't want to. At least not right now.

First, she thought firmly to herself, she and Sish both needed a bit of exercise. She'd missed her morning run the day before. That was what made her feel so restless and unsettled—too much energy. Running was out of the question, both in this location and at this hour. However, she realized, there was something she could do. More for Sish than herself, but it would be good for both of them in the end.

"Should we go to the park? Practice your tricks?" Sish paused in her crawl up Cerise's arm to tilt her reptilian head as if in consideration. She chittered once, then continued to settle herself in her customary place on Cerise's shoulders. She would take that as agreement. If it wasn't, well, the lizard didn't really get much of a vote, did she? Life was unfair that way.

So it was that Cerise Vauquelin and Sish, Destroyer of Hours found themselves at Beningbrough Park for the afternoon. She had brought a little lead for the miraan, but it was mostly for show—she had no intention of using it. Certainly, she didn't need to for the first half hour they were there. There was a fine mist over everything, but Sish was undeterred and so was her mistress. Sish ran rather prettily through a series of complicated aerial loops and came to land neatly and flashily on Cerise's outstretched arm when whistled for. Her sharp talons bit heavily into the leather brace on her forearm, well-knicked from just that.

For the first half hour, only. They had drawn nearer to the duck pond as they went along. That was fine; they'd been there before. Quite suddenly, Sish perked up her head at a sound Cerise couldn't hear; it swiveled towards the pond, and the miraan launched herself off of Cerise's arm in pursuit.

"Sish!" Her heart seized in panic; stupid! She hadn't considered that Sish would go after the ducks, or whatever it was she was after. If she got hurt...! Cerise tore after her, skirts in hand, heedless of any attention she was drawing. Luckily, it seemed Sish hadn't gone too terribly far. Just to a bench somewhat near the pond, where she had settled by—

"Cousin Amaryllis! Er." Cerise pulled up short, a little out of breath. Sish had settled on the edge of the bench, her eyes glittering and fixed on a brown paper bag. Cerise looked down automatically; sure enough, there was the baby as well. In a little yellow coat that made him look like nothing so much as a duckling himself. It was, Cerise admitted privately, rather sweet.

This was not quite as relaxing as she'd hoped her time in the park to be, although she couldn't quite have said why. Perhaps it was that she couldn't look at her stepmother's cousin without remembering the last time she'd seen her. Smashed plates, tear-stained faces and all.

"Good morning," she added as an afterthought, voice sharper than she meant from the panic over Sish. She bowed hastily, and attempted something like a smile.

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, Loshis 20, 2720
Beningbrough Park, Uptown, Vienda

Phileander’s handful of crumbs was a little too ambitious for his hand. A few bits escaped out of the side, tumbling into the weeds, and he closed his fingers tightly, making a fist around them. When he opened it, peeking down at the crumbs, it was to a squished mass of almost bread.

Phileander looked down at it, wide eyed, and then back up at Amaryllis; his lip wobbled.

“Bread,” Amaryllis said, smiling at him, “is secretly very sticky. Isn’t it interesting? Look,” she took two chunks from her palm, and pressed them squarely between her fingers. They squished together and clung, the damp sheen of the rainy season in the air enough.

“It’s like mixing flour into wet ingredients,” Amaryllis went on. Phileander had dropped his sticky bread handful, and he reached for the bits she had squished instead, squishing them between his fingers. “Flour by itself is all fluffy and white! Dough is very solid and stretchy.”

“Now,” Amaryllis cupped her hands together, and offered the pieces of bread in them to Phileander. “Don’t you want to feed the ducks, my love?”

“I fweed the dwucks,” Phileander said, cheerfully. He looked down at Amaryllis’s hands. “Dwucks wike bwead,” he announced, and carefully selected a piece. He threw it at the water; unlike the first time, Amaryllis thought fondly, when his throws had landed mostly at his feet and she’d had to scatter a handful in the pond herself, this one went quite far, bobbing on the surface of the water.

One of the nearby ducks bobbed, and the bit of bread was gone.

Phileander giggled and clapped his hands delightedly.

They passed a little time that way, Phileander tossing crumbs into the water.

There was a sudden burst of noise; Amaryllis and Phileander both looked up, and saw a miraan, first, soaring through the sky. It came to stop on the back of the bench, head cocked lightly.

Phileander gasped, and Amaryllis grabbed smartly hold of his hand, the last few breadcrumbs scattered at her feet. “Mama, swish!”

Cerise, of all people, appeared a moment later; her lovely dark curly hair was pulled back in a simple tail, and bits were flying out all around her face. She had been running, her skirts held up just a little, and was breathing a bit heavily.

“Cousin Cerise!” Amaryllis said, delightedly. She had seen Cerise only a month ago, during a lovely tea at Diana’s house; she hadn’t even known her dear cousin’s eldest was back in Vienda. Family, Amaryllis thought, was family: broken plates, tears and all.

“It’s lovely to see you again,” Amaryllis said, smiling through the somewhat awkward look on the younger girl’s face. She bowed, Phileander’s hand in hers, and released him. “My love, will you greet your cousin?” Amaryllis asked.

Phileander took a solemn step forward; his gaze had been fixed rather solidly on the miraan, but he turned it attentively to Cerise. “Hewwo Cwosin Cewise,” Phileander said, and bowed rather precisely. He turned to Sish. “Hello Swish,” he said, and bowed to the miraan as well.

Amaryllis’s lips twitched at more of a smile than was, perhaps, wise. Phileander was looking back up at her for approval, and she nodded, serious and intent. “Very good manners, my darling.”

Phileander beamed, and turned his brilliant smile on Cerise and Sish. “We fweed dwucks,” he told Cerise happily, toddling forward; Amaryllis followed after him, careful in her delicate shoes on the uneven ground.

“Dwucks wike bwead,” Philenader went on, solemnly. He paused; his gaze went from Cerise to Sish and back. “Swish wike bwead?”

Amaryllis caught him before he could reach the bench or Cerise’s skirts, taking his small hand in hers. She smiled at Cerise, friendly, and a little encouragingly; her soft static field caprised the younger (and stronger) student’s, as warm as she was.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Beningbrough Park, Uptown
Loshis 20, 2720 - Afternoon

Amaryllis, of course, seemed rather more pleased to see her than Cerise might have expected. Or perhaps she should have; there was something about Diana's cousin that spoke of someone who would have been delighted to see most people under most circumstances.

Certainly this wasn't the worst one imaginable—Sish was perched rather happily on the bench, and that was all she was doing so far. At least Cerise thought so, because there were no tears from the baby (Phileander, she remembered) or his mother. Of course, she had no real reason to assume otherwise. Sish was well-mannered, mostly. Just spoiled. But that was the sort of weekend this was proving to be, and Cerise wouldn't have been surprised to find that things had gone sour, either.

She hadn't known, quite, that they lived in Vienda. She supposed she had just assumed they didn't, with how infrequently she had seen them. Not, she thought, that they saw much of family at all. Cousins or otherwise. Not that she, in particular, saw any of her family at all, until very recently. It struck her as healthier for everyone this way, given how this had gone thus far. Cerise only thought to release her skirts from her balled-up fists when Amaryllis smiled at her again. Lovely to see her—that was news. She wasn't too far gone to know better than to say so, at least.

Cerise took the welcome distraction of blinking down at Phileander in his cheerful yellow coat as he stepped rather seriously forward to greet her with a neat little bow. She still didn't quite understand how one was meant to act around children his age, and it made her uneasy. The letter R seemed to be giving him some trouble. That, combined with his equally serious greeting to Sish, was rather sweet. Cerise could admit that, even if only in the privacy of her mind.

"Oh?" she tried, looking down at Phileander as he approached the bench. Cerise drew closer as well—just in case. Sish beat her bright tail against the back of the bench, perched neatly on it still. He informed her in small, serious tones about the dietary habits of ducks. Cerise smiled just a little, and shook her head.

"I'm sure she would eat it, but I don't think Sish should have any bread." Possibly; truthfully, Cerise had no idea. She had never heard one way or the other, when it came to miraan. However, she had the strongest suspicion it wasn't good for her. He didn't make it to the bench, or her person—Cerise took one look at his hands and was somewhat glad of this—because Amaryllis caught him before he got that far.

Cerise had never been particularly good at reigning herself in, when it came to a caprise—she returned the warm brush of her semi-cousin's soft static field with her own, heavy and firm. "We're practicing tricks," she offered with a smile a little strained around the edges. She raised up the arm with the leather brace as if in explanation, and left it there, held out somewhat in the golden drakelet's direction. Sish scrabbled along the back of the bench in Cerise's direction, but seemed rather content not to leave it. For now.

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, Loshis 20, 2720
Beningbrough Park, Uptown, Vienda

Sish was, Amaryllis thought, rather an elegant creature. She herself had never had a pet; she remembered wanting a hingle rather desperately as a girl. She was still very fond of the sweet things, with their silky soft fur and lovely little faces.

Sish, on the other hand, could not quite have been described as adorable or sweet. There was an elegance to her, though, and a grace, with her long feathered tail draped just so over the bench, even with the hint of sharp teeth showing at the edges of her small mouth. She thought she could see why Cerise liked her so.

Cerise herself looked every bit as Amaryllis might have expected. Her memories of the girl as a girl were rather limited; she could picture a small girl with a stormy expression and a great cloud of dark hair. It felt infantilizing to think so with Cerise standing before her, perhaps no less stormy but just taller than Amaryllis now, and every inch a young woman.

Phileander took the news that Sish should not have bread with more grace than Amaryllis had expected, and fewer tears than she might have feared.

“Swish like fwish?” Phileander asked in his high little voice, looking at the pretty miraan again. His small, slightly grubby hand was warm in Amaryllis’s still.

Cerise’s caprise was heavy in the air around them. She felt, Amaryllis thought fondly, every bit a duelist. “Tricks?” Amaryllis asked, curiously. “What sort of tricks does Sish do?” Her gaze lingered on the well-nicked leather brace on Cerise’s arm, then went back to the sharp claws of the miraan on the bench.

Amaryllis paused, then, and smiled. “Congratulations on making the travel team.” Diana had sent the news through in a recent note; Amaryllis still couldn’t quite put her finger on what had changed, but she found herself grateful, and glad to feel close with her cousin once more. Just the thought threatened to make her eyes well up; she had passed the worst of the morning sickness, though her waist has thickened only a little, but she was still very much prone to weeping, particularly happy weeping, if she was not careful. That, Amaryllis thought, feeling a faint flush of remembered embarrassment, and naps! It was all to the good; it was all in support of the little life growing inside her, but she certainly could not cry here.

“You should be very proud,” Amaryllis said, warmly, “and exited for Mugroba, I hope.” She had never herself much cared for dueling, certainly not for participation - she had scarcely liked to cast on others in class; it was one of the reasons static conversation had appealed to her - and not quite for spectating either. One watched duels, as was required by the dictates of polite society, both in Brunnhold and afterwards.

But Amaryllis did not need to want herself to be a duelist to feel Cerise should be proud. Cerise wanted it, and that to her seemed sufficient; and though Amaryllis understood very well how the world was and what challenges the young lady might face, she thought courage and conviction in the face of those challenges no less an achievement than whatever victories had won her the spot.

“I want see Swish twicks, pwease” Phileander announced. For all it was tacked on at the end, the please was politely delivered.

“Sish might not want to do any tricks, just now,” Amaryllis said gently, looking down at her son. His hand was still tucked in to hers, the ducks temporarily forgotten with the excitement of the miraan. His small face crinkled a little in a faint frown, though he did not shout or burst into tears. Disappointment was a terribly strong emotion, but - however she wished otherwise, it was one every person had to learn to manage.

Phileander looked up at her a moment longer, then back at Cerise. “Swish want do twicks?” He asked, and then added, in a hopeful sort of tone. “Pwease?”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Beningbrough Park, Uptown
Loshis 20, 2720 - Afternoon

He really did look like a duckling, baby Phileander. Not just his bright yellow coat—which had somehow escaped most of the mud that was all over his boots and Cerise was just now noticing as he came closer to her—but also his soft blonde hair, whispy in the way of children his age. Whatever his age was. Cerise could never quite tell, beyond "quite young". It was like the downy feathers of a baby bird. Ellie, Cerise remembered, had hair just as fluffy when she was quite young. The memory was dim, of course; Cerise hadn't been particularly old herself. It must run in Diana's family.

"She loves fish, the greedy goose," Cerise answered without thinking, looking at her miraan in open admiration. The goose in question was still sitting on the back of the bench, staunchly refusing to come to her arm. Cerise might have lowered it back to her side, but she had the strongest suspicion that the moment she did, Sish would take advantage to do some kind of as-yet unforseeable mischief. What that might be, she didn't know—that was what made it unforseeable.

Cerise kept half her eye on Sish, but she did try to look at her stepmother's cousin when she went through the trouble of asking a question. "Ah, well, there's quite a few we're learning. A sort of routine—it's supposed to teach her obedience," Cerise added dubiously. "But she's far too clever to listen to me. It's good exercise for her though, for her flight muscles..."

There was something terribly uncomfortable about being alone with Amaryllis—with Amaryllis and Phileander, she supposed. It wasn't her doing, of course; her stepmother's cousin was perfectly pleasant. Cerise just wasn't used to trying to keep up conversation with her, especially not without someone more... related present.

"Oh, thank you." There had been a pause after her trailing off on her explanation about Sish and her so-called tricks. That wasn't what she would have expected might fill it—she was surprised Amaryllis had heard. Diana must have told her; for some reason, the thought stung and pleased her at once. The other woman looked as if she might cry for a moment, although only for the moment. She didn't, to Cerise's great relief; she had no idea what she might have done to inspire tears this time, but she knew without a stitch of uncertainty she had no remedy for them.

"I don't know if—if I'm excited for Mugroba, really. I'm told it's flood season presently." Told by her father, in one of these damn letters. Cerise frowned, but it was overwhelmed quickly by the swell of pride she did indeed feel, thinking about making the team. She had earned it—her father was paying for the travel, but she, Cerise, had earned her place on the team. The Vauquelin name had not and could not have put her there, and it didn't matter what anyone else thought of it—they couldn't take it away, either.

It was nice to be congratulated, all the same. Cerise even smiled, a fierce and feral sort of joy bursting out of her as if it simply refused to be contained. Maybe it couldn't. The glow of it spilled out in the air around her, as undampened and messy as ever. Cerise supposed she ought to be more demure, or at least feign it. That was the more ladylike option. She thought, in a flash, of Mrs. Ibutatu and even Chrysanthe, and thought it might be all right after all.

Thoughts of her own pride were derailed; her young cousin's small voice piped up again, polite and small, asking to see Sish do her tricks. Amaryllis, ever the mother, interceded gently before Cerise could respond. All at once, his small face crumpled, though he didn't cry either. Which was good, because if Cerise didn't know what to do in the face of a crying adult woman, she surely didn't know what to do in the face of a crying child. Also, he needn't be so crushed.

Cerise took her eyes off the miraan entirely. A dangerous proposition, but it would only be for a moment. She glanced first at Cousin Amaryllis, and then down at her young son. Her grey eyes flashed, and her smile tilted. "I think that can be arranged." Never let it be said that they didn't know how to put on a show, the both of them.

Now she turned back to the miraan; Sish had stayed in place, sharp little claws digging into the wood of the bench. Time to shine, lovely. She held her leather-clad arm up once more, firmly and decisively this time, and whistled a sharp, short note. Sish did come to her now, leaving off her happy shredding of the damp wood, swollen with rain. Cerise ran a finger down the feathered crest of her head, rewarded with a happy little chirp.

The series they'd been working on, Cerise thought, with all the loops—Sish was warmed up enough from earlier for it, surely. And she did look brilliant when she did it properly, all sleek and shining even in the Loshis drizzle. She took a few long strides away from her stepmother's cousin and her son, then launched Sish into the air with a swift toss of her forearm and yet another whistle.

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, Loshis 20, 2720
Beningbrough Park, Uptown, Vienda

Phileander beamed at Cerise’s answer, and repeated, quietly, “gweedy goose,” and giggled to himself. Amaryllis’s face twitched at a little smile, and she didn’t tell him not to repeat it; she supposed it might come up at an inopportune moment, but there was something pleasant and close to alliterative about the phrase, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to censure him, as she should have if it were something more severe.

Cerise had looked more uncomfortable, at first, at the congratulations. Most likely, Amaryllis supposed, she hadn’t expected her to know about it; she could hardly find that unreasonable. Cerise frowned, when she spoke of Mugroba, and Amaryllis thought to make some comment about the weather – as she might have at a soiree or a garden party – and held silent, instead. She had not, yet, spent much time with Cerise as an adult, but one did not need to spend much time with her to guess conversation about the weather wouldn’t interest her.

Whatever thoughts went on in her head, she seemed to put them to rest; she grinned, suddenly, and Phileander giggled at the sudden buoyancy of her field. Amaryllis smiled down at him; a little bastly warmth echoed back in her own.

Cerise let out a rather loud whistle; Amaryllis’s eyes widened, and she watched the miraan launch herself off the back of the bench, settling onto Cerise’s leather arm guard.

Phileander watched, wide-eyed, having gasped aloud and leaned into Amaryllis when Sish took flight. He giggled, stepping forward towards Cerise, and shrieked with delight when Sish took off into the air. “Swish fly! Mama, wook!”

“Goodness,” Amaryllis said, smiling; Phileander’s hand was in hers, still, and they stood, both of them, looking up into the air as Sish looped, around and around; the sun gleamed off her gold feathers and scales, flashing with her, as the miraan made some complicated series of loops and twists and turns.

Phileander watched the entire thing, enraptured; his eyes were bright and shining, his small mouth just a little open, and he giggled and shrieked with delight after some particularly impressive moves – and after others that Amaryllis couldn’t quite make sense of, although she supposed he must have seen something in them.

When Sish landed on Cerise’s arm again, Phileander was giggling happily. He let go of Amaryllis’s hand and clapped; Amaryllis, suppressing a smile, applauded politely with him.

“That was lovely,” Amaryllis said, smiling at Cerise, and at Sish. “How did you teach her all that?”

“Swish wovewy!” Phileander agreed. “I fwy too!” He pulled away from Amaryllis, suddenly, and began running around in big circles of his own, arms spread so his little yellow coat flapped up behind him, feet stomping in the mud. Amaryllis laughed, behind her hand, watching him fondly, turning a little so she could keep an eye on him without fully ignoring Cerise.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

Beningbrough Park, Uptown
Loshis 20, 2720 - Afternoon

Sish's burst into flight from stillness on her arm was more difficult than it looked. Not just from Sish, who had to launch herself quite powerfully indeed in order to be able to gain altitude smoothly, but for Cerise, too. Holding her arm steady against the surprising strength of that lithe golden body had taken practice. Good then that it had such a dazzling effect on their young audience.

The benefit of spending so much of her time alone, she thought with a little twist of her mouth, was that she had plenty of it to devote to things like this. Worthy endeavors, not like classwork or gritting her teeth through tedious conversations with her peers.

The thought was easily abandoned, concentrating instead on making sure Sish went through all of it as they'd practiced. One whistle and she did a full turn one direction; a different whistle and a gesture from Cerise's hand and she did another maneuver entirely. She had to watch, of course, to make sure the miraan did it all properly and correct her if she did not. That didn't mean she didn't sneak a look or two in the direction of Diana's cousins—what was a performance without the delight of the audience, after all?

Smart boy, Cerise thought approvingly. There was a kind of pride in this, too. Different than her pride in the team; it wasn't really Cerise who was doing anything worth being proud of here. No, this was all Sish, Destroyer of Hours, lovely and flashing gold in the park. One supposedly felt pride in the accomplishments of one's children—Cerise swallowed over the jagged edges of the thought. That, perhaps, was something like this. Only something like. She was doting, not delusional. Still.

That was speculation anyway. Cerise supposed she'd never really know; training a miraan to do lovely tricks in the park was going to be as close as she'd ever get. Better that way. Cerise didn't think she was the type. And Sish was a very sweet flying lizard, when she chose to be.

There was a flurry of gold-feathered wings and applause as Sish settled once again on Cerise's outstretched arm, and then from there scrambled up to her usual place on the student's narrow shoulders. Hiding most of herself in the tangled cascade of her hair. "Good girl," she murmured, voice and field bright with praise. Cerise fished around in one of her pockets for a small drawstring bag. The bag, when she opened it, contained small strips of dried meat. Not the sort of thing she gave Sish too much of, but it did make a good reward.

Cerise inclined her head in acknowledgement, grinning. Sish was chomping rather noisily on her reward directly beneath her ear; it was rather a good thing she was disinclined to dangling jewelry. Sish might have chipped a tooth. "Petty bribery," she said brightly.

Little Phileander wasn't content to stay still for long. Of course. Children, in Cerise's limited observation, very rarely were. He was doing a rather admirable, if clumsy and terrestrial, imitation of some of the loops Sish had made in the air. It was almost a shame he was too young to care for a miraan himself. Putting too much weight in the delight of a child with something like a miraan was foolish, but she could have... Could have what, she asked herself.

"Sish is quite clever though, really," Cerise continued on, her smile giving way to a small, sharp sort of frown. The natural shape of her muscles at rest, she might have said. "That made it somewhat easier. Outside of practice, I had quite a lot of time over the term breaks, with... Hmm."

With, you know, the small thing of being forbidden to come home. Not a point she had pressed hard, mind. Would she come home, this summer? A strange question to think about, after all this time. Stranger still, all her reasons in both directions. But she didn't think that was the sort of thing one discussed in the park, or at all if she could manage. "Hello Cousin Amaryllis, how lovely to see you, and by the way did you know that this only the second time I've been home in over a year? No? Well, you see, Diana insisted..." That was just not the done thing. For once, Cerise could certainly see the wisdom in convention.

"Have you ever been?" she tried instead, abrupt and sharp. "To Thul Ka, I mean."

[moralhazard]

Afternoon, Loshis 20, 2720
Beningbrough Park, Uptown, Vienda

Amaryllis blinked, once, at Cerise’s answer to her question. Sish, looking rather pleased with herself, was curled around her shoulders and gnawing on something, all flashes of sharp teeth and slurping and crunching sounds, somewhere between wonderful and terrible. She smiled, then, as the comment sank in, looking at the miraan’s little golden head, and then over at Phileander, still running in wide circles with his arms spread, his little yellow coat flapping lightly behind him.

“Mama, wook!” Phileander called, undertaking a double spin. He wobbled as he came out of it, and Amaryllis’s breath caught in her chest for a moment, one hand coming up to hold the buttons of her dress. He recovered, and kept on, and Amaryllis lowered her hand, and smiled at Cerise and Sish once more.

“One hears that miraan are,” Amaryllis said with a smile. “I imagine it must be a combination of intelligence, temperament and the determination of the trainer,” she smiled a little wider at Cerise, warm and friendly.

With, Cerise said, and then: hmm.

Amaryllis didn’t press. There were any number of ways the sentence might have ended; she didn’t know near enough to try to fill it in. She supposed Diana could have guessed where Cerise meant to go with it, but – perhaps not, she thought, smiling at the girl. The wind had snatched a few more curls from her tail, and they were flitting wildly about her head.

Cerise changed the subject, rather abruptly, and Amaryllis gave no sign of having noticed. “No, I’m afraid not,” Amaryllis said, smiling. “I should very much like to go some day – perhaps, with the Symvoulio there for the next ten years, I’ll have the chance.” She paused, looking at Cerise, and went on.

Amaryllis knew, of course, that parties would be full of discussion of Thul Ka – they already were, in fact, and had been for some months, before a good deal of the political set had left for Mugroba; those who remained were happy to talk of it. Once the rest returned, Amaryllis supposed, she would hear more than a little at garden parties and soirees for the next few months: strange tales of sandstorms and flooding and improperly bare arms, she imagined.

“Perhaps when you return,” Amaryllis suggested, gently, “you can come for tea and tell me what to expect,” she smiled, warm and somewhat hopeful, as if it wasn’t so strange a request as perhaps it seemed, to someone she had seen only once in nearly a decade. It didn’t feel strange, not to Amaryllis; Cerise was Diana’s daughter and therefore her cousin, and besides, Amaryllis felt quite sure Cerise’s take on it would be different from the rest.

Phileander was still running, quite happily. It happened – perhaps it was bound to, eventually. His boot caught on the edge of a rock at the path, and he landed, hard, in a small cloud of dust and gravel, on the ground. Amaryllis’s whole body jerked; a faint rush of alarm washed through her field.

She exhaled out the fear, and stood, watching from a distance; her hands, hidden behind the folds of her skirt, held tightly to one another. “All right, my love?” Amaryllis called, her voice bright.

Phileander came back up, wobbling a little, looking at her. When she spoke, he beamed at her and nodded, and set off again, undaunted and just a little more dusty.

Amaryllis shuddered out a little exhale, and turned back to Cerise. She smiled, watching Phileander from the corner of her eye still. “I shouldn’t like my fear to hold him back,” she said, quietly, still smiling, and shifted a little to wave and laugh as he attempted another double spin.