[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

[lowtohigh]

It's a good shift. A genuine shift. Something properly removed from the earlier part of the conversation, enough that she even reaches to tug the piece of pie a little closer.

"No. That's not the sort of thing you necessarily need... guidance to read, I shouldn't think."

[headfollowheart]

She hands Eileen a fork as she shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't really remember having time to read anything like that, on my own time." There'd been lesson after lesson, after all, languages to learn and music to perfect and philosophy to know almost by heart.

And sometimes it seems like the importance of having that time to read and think for yourself gets minimized by teachers who want to make sure their students have a firm basis in all they need to know to be Ace.

[lowtohigh]

"There's time." Like, for example, right now, while grounded and unable to do half the things that usually kept her from having the freedom to read what she wanted.

And she'd chosen Laas. So.

"Perhaps it's just I generally prefer denser stuff."

[headfollowheart]

"Maybe so. It's probably just as well. I have enough trouble hiding my romance novels as it is without getting in trouble for lending them to teenagers."

She didn't have to hide them - and Lowry didn't really count as romance in the least - but the point was the same.

"I suppose you'd like me to leave you to Laas, then."

[lowtohigh]

The point is enough to make a calm bit of a smile flit across the Club's lips. That surely is what counts in this regard.

"I suppose." But first, well. She's got to sit up a little more properly. "Thank you, though."

[headfollowheart]

It's what matters today, and Zoe smiles back as she stands up again.

"You're welcome," she says and moves for the door. "This won't last forever, you know."

The grounding or the hurting or both, she means. But there's no real answer Eileen can give to that, so she just slips through the door.

[lowtohigh]

It won't last forever. What might last forever is the new need to stop and examine her relationships.

Elisha is important. Her mother is important. Zoë is important. Julien is important. They all love her, and she loves all of them.

Just some of them bring her pie, and some of them make her heart flutter. She'd never noticed that before.

Certainly food for thought as she nibbles.