[ota] beware, be canny and careful

[lowtohigh]

She doesn't regret it in the slightest. What's to regret?

Eileen is fully capable of making her own decisions. She's allowed to decide to leave Kevin behind and go visit the Spade dungeon. And someone--she's not certain who--is also fully capable of infinitely childishly telling Kevin exactly where he or she saw his theoretical charge slipping off to while he was turned around. And Kevin is not just capable but essentially required to tell her mother things like where her daughter was this past weekend.

Which means Eileen Eicheln has, for the first time in her life, seen her mother actually angry. It also means, for the first time in her life and very likely one of the first times in history, the Ace of Clubs is grounded.

Mr Kahl is allowed to bring work and keep her up to date with her studies. A student from Mr DeWitt's class is allowed to spend a bit of time letting her know what's she's missed. The King and Jack are certainly permitted to speak to their Ace at their convenience.

But everyone else? Is getting Kevin's most sympathetic smile and a firm shake of his head. "Seems house arrest is catching."


[ooc; Except probably anyone with half a reason can talk to the moodiest tween about how she done wrong. Kevin is secretly easy. Or just come shoot the shit with Kevin, I guess? o/]

Comments

I am not. But. The point stands.

[lowtohigh]

There's a flash, but it's brief, directed more at the window than the older girl. Still, there's no chance Zoë won't see the tensing of her jaw, the roll back of her shoulders.

"Aces oughtn't have personal feelings. I'm learning."

[headfollowheart]

"Somehow I doubt Blythe or Avery would agree with that." Julien, actually, probably would - just not in this particular context. And frankly, she'd say that most of his problem was refusing to accept that he did, actually, have real live personal feelings.

"So you're going to punish Elisha by turning into a robot? That's a good one." She should have tried it on her father; Charlotte would have just been incredibly pleased.

[lowtohigh]

"'s got nothing to do with Elisha."

Except it does. They both know it does. And they both know that her lack of acknowledging it is the last bastion of trying to get away from what's really got her tied up tight inside about the entire incident.

[headfollowheart]

Of course it does. It always has things to do with their fathers - or it has things to do with their mothers, but Zoe hadn't figured out how to punish Charlotte until she was much older. Georgios had been something else.

And Elisha was something else, too.

"If you want to talk about it, I'll listen," she says. "If you don't, you can throw my pie at Kevin."

Poor Kevin. Really. At least it's not knives?

[lowtohigh]

It has been knives. It's also been books and a glass and angry young fists that had pounded at his shoulders until she dissolved into tears. Pie might be a step up.

It feels silly, now. Childish and immature. Then again, being grounded makes a person feel rather on the immature side.

"...I'm not mad at Kevin." Anymore. At the moment.

[headfollowheart]

"He'll probably be happy to hear it. He looked kind of stressed when I gave him his bribe to let me in." Her tone's a little dry as she perches on Eileen's desk.

"Are you still mad at your mother?" It might be easier to start with the - theoretically - less complicated relationship, though relationships with mothers were never uncomplicated.

[lowtohigh]

At least he's being fed by the kindness of strangers. Or the ulterior motives of strangers. Whichever.

"...I don't know if... 'mad' is the right word."

She was, after all, more worried after seeing the anger--and the condition it left Argine in afterwards.

[headfollowheart]

He's being fed by sweetly smiling Spades, which, really - should have him wary right there. But Zoe has no reason to slip a sedative into Kevin's pastries, so everyone's safe.

Eileen's upset with her mother. And upset about her mother. And it might not be something she wants to talk about. "The last time my father grounded me," she says. "I was your age, I think. I'd discovered boys, to his horror, and there was this one who liked riding as much me.

"We, ah, snuck off-Deck to go riding in a different place. I thought Papa was going to kill him."

[lowtohigh]

It helps. It helps to be pulled in a different direction, to talk about the issue from a less direct angle. To work through the hurt and the confusion and the tangled up emotions a little more easily.

"...what'll Elisha and Mother do when I do that, then?"

She's a very mature young lady. She also hasn't been socialized in the most completely successful way for entire developmental awareness.

She might not have actively realized that this is about a boy.

[headfollowheart]

It's not really about a boy so much as it's about a man, and that, really, is probably what scares her mother the most. It might be what scares Elisha the most.

Zoe gives Eileen a little half-smile and leans on her hands. "You mean, what will they do when you sneak off to see a boy they don't approve of? That they think is a bad influence and could get you into dangerous things?

"Probably what they're doing now."

[lowtohigh]

It's good. It's removed, at least in Eileen's mind, from the issue at hand. Her brow starts to relax a touch, her shoulders to settle back into a natural setting again.

"You think?"

And, well. Did she think they'd ever approve of anyone?

[headfollowheart]

"Maybe for a longer time, for the second offense. Probably some good long lectures and swearing in foreign languages, too." She'd learned most of her cursing in Greek during that year.

And then Papa had gotten too sick, of course, and any thoughts of being a teenage girl were quickly put away in favor of being a perfect mini-adult.

Her next rebellion over a boy had waited until she was nineteen.

"Have you ever asked why they don't approve of Julien?" Ever asked for more than the fact that he's dangerous? Because of course he is. He's that and more. But so's Elisha, really, or he wouldn't be such good friends with Zoe's own rebellion.

[lowtohigh]

"...not Elisha."

But then, he'd barely been her 'father' for a year at this point, right? Argine had had far more time to flesh out her opinions on Eileen's life.

"Mother... thinks there's not enough utility in what I can learn from him."

[headfollowheart]

"I'm not sure that's true. I...wish there had been someone to teach me some of the things Julien is good at." Or rather, that Charlotte had allowed it; Zoe had entered the Spades and immediately felt at a disadvantage. She'd applied herself so completely to training with Victor, in part, because she needed to gain that confidence.

And in part because she hadn't wanted to disappoint him, which is probably something Eileen keenly understands.

"But I suppose that she might wish that the things Julien teaches you aren't really things you need to know." And also that Eileen might pick up lessons she shouldn't know - lessons in cruelty. Lessons in coldness.

[lowtohigh]

"She didn't object to Uncle David." His name is just a little hitched, but it's easy to push on once it's out. "She doesn't object to Ethan or Victor."

But then, Eileen didn't at all have the relationship with any of those men she did with Julien. Not even close.

[headfollowheart]

"David...well, he was an uncle, wasn't he?" Dangerous, yes, of course; Zoe had been terrified of him. But paternal towards Eileen. "And Ethan, I'd imagine, is more like a brother. Victor is more like a friend." A friend of Eileen's father, specifically.

She brushes her hair back, and finally decides to stop circling the subject. "But you're very close to Julien, and he's not a parent, and he's not a brother, and he's not a more casual friend. He's a very close friend, and you're thirteen.

"And...that's about the age when close friendships with men can become something more than that, you know? That's when admiring a man can turn into something romantic."

And truthfully, she can't blame Argine and Elisha for being worried about that.

brb blaming Zoe for this whole ridiculousness forever

[lowtohigh]

David was an uncle. Ethan most closely resembled a cousin or a brother. Victor was really more like a shadow that flitted in and out, circled around Elani and Zoë and Elisha toward the edge of her life.

Julien... was certainly nothing like any of them. Certainly was nothing like family.

Her lips press briefly together, eyes flicking toward the window. There wasn't a good word to put to what made him so special, after all; wasn't a good way to sum up what made him so completely important to her existence.

"...I can't imagine they've particular fears of Julien having romantic intentions."

Toward a thirteen-year-old.

Mothers across the deck are headdesking because she's not a good cautionary tale.

[headfollowheart]

"No."

Probably not, at least. For all the bad she could say of Julien - and there was certainly plenty of that - he wasn't one to develop a romantic interest in a thirteen year old. But in five years, Eileen would be seventeen, and Zoe, at least, could imagine the crush lingering long enough that it would still last through then.

Seventeen year old Eileen Eicheln was probably someone Julien could develop a sexual interest in. Zoe wasn't sure he was capable of love.

"But they probably have particular fears of you developing romantic intentions towards him. And..." She hesitates. "Fears of them deepening into love for him when you're old enough to do something about them, and giving up your family and Suit for a man who could possibly hurt you, even if he didn't intend to."

That was what her story was supposed to be, after all. The high-ranked young Heart who was meant to become Ace and the dangerous Spade who should have broken her heart and ruined her. Well, some people would say Victor had done the latter.

[lowtohigh]

"...that's-- completely ridiculous."

Love is still ridiculous. Deep, romantic love is still strange. Attraction is still uncomfortable and not quite able to be acknowledged without intellectualizing aesthetics and biological maturity.

But her lower lip goes briefly between her teeth. Her attention stays out the window absently.

Completely ridiculous.

"I would never leave the Clubs. Not-- for anyone."

[headfollowheart]

She wonders if she ever felt this kind of allegience to the Hearts. She doesn't think she must have, or it wouldn't have been so easy to slip into being a Spade instead.

"They're still going to worry about you getting hurt," she says, quietly. "That's what parents do." That's what they should do, anyway.

[lowtohigh]

There's a much better, completely appropriately adolescent sigh as she shakes her head, finally looks back at the older girl.

"It's ridiculous. Trading one hurt for another."

Because being here? Knowing they were upset with her? Hurt more badly than she could imagine heartbreak ever would.

[headfollowheart]

"I know that." She smiles a little as she leans forward and tucks back Eileen's hair. "But if it helps, I don't think they want to hurt you. Sometimes, they just can't help it."

[lowtohigh]

It's good to feel understood. Good to feel acknowledged. Good to know that this is something the bulk of teenage girls have to deal with.

Not perfect, of course, but good.

"...Julien doesn't either."

[headfollowheart]

"No, he probably doesn't."

She can't say, really, that Julien has any desire to deliberately hurt Eileen - now, at least. Who knows what will happen in the future, though; he and Victor had been something like friends once. So had he and Lancelot.

"But he's hurt other people before, so you can understand, I think, why your mother would be worried he might do the same to you."

[lowtohigh]

It's a weakness, really. It's a blind spot, and it's something Lancelot would have helped her with far more admirably than anyone else in the world can ever hope to.

Her nod isn't entirely convinced.

"...I suppose."