[OTA] a Few Threads Hold Us Together

[cipherspeak]

There was little he, personally, could do about the latest discovery just beyond the Outposts - maybe if the script had been in Aramaic, he might have been of some use - so he'd ordered rubbings and lured Fin into productivity with chocolate and coffee. Then he'd slipped past Hadyn to go talk to the engineers about how the constant quakes were effecting the structural integrity of the castle. That was, he thought, something he knew at little more about; if your job in the military had been in explosives, it usually helped to know how much C4 it would take to bring a building down.

Not that he explained to the chief engineer the provenance of this particular knowledge.

After he'd done all that, he supposed that the general consensus was that he should have some tea and get back in bed. He was in his office instead, but at least the papers stacked next to him weren't reports to sign off on. They were completed watercolors, on a particular theme. Sketches from a few parties this year - Victor and Zoe at the Berthier wedding, Hadyn and Zoe dancing at the Spade ball - and more private moments as well, of the four close friends and Ben Mackinnon. Sophie Berthier, too, and some of the bride's other close friends; there was every a painting from memory of Lasandra Adare. She and Zoe had been friends, as Elisha remembered. She might have been the other bridesmaid if she hadn't left.

He was sewing the watercolors into a book with heavy silk thread, and the last picture to be in the little book of memories was less an actual event and more something he imagines would happen. Zoe in the dress he'd asked to see the week before and Victor in the formal kilt that matched the one waiting in Elisha's closet. He'd finished it the day before, before Hadyn got home.

It had seemed like a good thing to paint on Valentine's Day.

Comments

[belowcastle]

He peeks at the king's latest artwork out of habit more than anything else expecting to see something abstract and (to him) incomprehensible. Therefore, he's pleasantly surprised to see a pleasant little vignette of a wedding scene.

"Master Fox and his lady, milord?" He ventures as he places strong, black coffee before Elisha.

[cipherspeak]

"That's the idea," Elisha says, and pauses to look critically at the picture. The pose is from a stolen moment at the cultural festival, but instead of the cultural costume she'd worn there, Zoe is leaning against Victor in a froth of cream lace. It's a pretty scene, he thinks, though there's no telling if its one that will actually happen come April.

"What do you think of it?"

[belowcastle]

"Lovely. You've caught their expressions quite well. Not your usual style." The happy couple must be pleased not to be depicted as splashes of color or with noses on top of their toes.

[cipherspeak]

Victor would likely be unamused. Or rather, Zoe would likely be unamused and Victor would just raise an eyebrow, as Victor does.

"I've spent enough time with them to guess what they might be," he says. "And her expressions aren't entirely different from her brothers." In ways, they were so alike you'd think they were twins.