[OTA] Space dementia in your eyes.

[semper-serviam.livejournal.com]

New Year's Day was the same every year, really. For one night everyone seemed to have forgotten their limits when it came to drinking the night before and the Castle stirred late in the morning, groggy and hung over.

Where the Spades' butler might have busied himself cleaning up after some of last night's drunken debauchery, Iollan ventured out of the confines of the Spades' kitchen to replenish empty jugs of water and bring more alka seltzer to some of the Castle's residents.

He'd no doubt be in the kitchen as well should those hangover-induced pangs of hunger bring some people down there before lunch.

Comments

[eucre.livejournal.com]

She jumps when he speaks, turns to face him abruptly. A full range of emotions passes over her face - shock, fear, hesitance - before settling on a mildly affronted look. A stubbornness that she doesn't know she possesses rises up in her throat, comes out in a sharp word: "Felicia."

Her name. One of her names. The first name that comes to mind, anyway. "Not Miss."

[semper-serviam.livejournal.com]

Iollan raised one eyebrow. He was Not Amused. He looked her in the eyes, and he might be even more cold and distant towards her as he was to some unacquainted Spade he knew neither the name nor rank of.

She was not a Chives and she was not a Spade. Therefore she fell outside the boundaries of what and whom he ought to care for.

"I stand corrected, Felicia." Now would she answer his question?

[eucre.livejournal.com]

She averts her eyes, doesn't look at him as she speaks. "M'lookin' for Chiv-- Declán. Why does he care if he calls me Miss, she wonders?"

[semper-serviam.livejournal.com]

He found her manner of speech to be... Mildly Irritating. But the same could be said for all the Jokers. He found them irksome. Thankfully the others didn't think to frequent the Spades' Castle. As for this one...

"Declán is not here." There wasn't any nicer way Iollan could tell her to make herself scarce.

[eucre.livejournal.com]

"Then Piper will wait." She shies away from him slightly. "He can't say no. Declán said so. Declán said no one can say no to Piper or Felicia."

[semper-serviam.livejournal.com]

Actually, he can. He can and he would have, were the Spades' head butler not involved. Who was a Two to deny and defy a Five?

"You will wait here then, Miss Felicia." And if she didn't get in anyone's way, maybe - just maybe - Iollan would be able to Tolerate her presence until the younger Chives came and picked up his Speech-Impaired Flotsam.

[eucre.livejournal.com]

"She wasn't going to move, not an inch." She twists her lips obstinately, then stamps one foot on the ground for emphasis.

[semper-serviam.livejournal.com]

Iollan's gaze lingered in a way that cut through her before he turned away and immersed himself back into the flow of the kitchen.

Another Two who had just finished plating up a meal was sent to fetch the butler to get the girl out of the kitchen and entertain her.