[OTA] One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

[karatofquality]

Within the last several weeks, a lot had happened. People who were careful to keep their King in the loop were reporting the return of the last King of Spades, and monitoring his activities so that the Diamond Face Cards could be prepared for further upset.

Silas was less concerned with that than with the failings within his own Suit. He'd started to notice the strain between Säde and Avery even more, recently, and things weren't too much better between her and Cadogan. It was absolutely unacceptable.

But before he could talk to his Queen about it, he needed full information from his Ace and his Jack. There was enough unrest already as a direct result of Säde's uncontrolled actions, for which she had not yet truly answered.

All in due time.

He needed to talk to others, first.

Comments

[denythyfather]

"... why did you call me here, your Majesty?" Adrien shifts from one foot to the other, glancing around his office. It had... been a while since he visited, yes. But he had been occupied with other things recently. Lots of other things.

[karatofquality]

Looking up, Silas gestured to the chair across from him. "I've heard you plan to challenge, Adrien. I'm curious about your motivations -- not that I'm complaining, of course. I'm proud of you for it. But why? Why now?" His tone was curious, not insulting or aggressive.

[denythyfather]

He leans forward, hand resting on the back of the chair instead of taking a seat. What had he initially told Sade again? Right. "So that I can contribute more to the Suit during a time of need," he says, "and because Sitara deserves to be proud of her father."

[karatofquality]

He noddded, folding his hands under his chin, and looked up at the younger man with a pleased expression. "Those are good reasons, Adrien." They didn't sound like him, but he'd accept it. "Fabtastic reasons, actually. What motivated you to take the steps forward?"

The timing wasn't lost on him, after all, but he was curious.

[thecutdiamond]

But surely he could take time from business to have a cup of tea with a friend, right? Or at least relax a little while discussing business and having a cup of tea with a friend.

Especially since said friend is standing at his doorway using only a cane to stay up and a somewhat sheepish looking Two is already holding the tray.

"Do you have a little time, Your Majesty?"

Clearly the answer is yes, yes?

[karatofquality]

With a warm smile, he nodded, rising to move over to the couch rather than his desk. "Of course, I do, but please call me Silas. We've been over this more than once, you know." And yet she always did it.

Oh well.

"You look good, Rachel. When did you lose the crutches?"

[thecutdiamond]

She's a stickler for formality. He knows this about her. But at least she complies once he asks-- for the length of the conversation, at least.

"Just yesterday," she replies with a smile as she settles across from him on the couch, the Two setting the tray down carefully on the sidetable before making their way out, "It was rather pleasant news."

Especially considering her falls during the tremors had made for her worrying she may not be able to achieve this milestone at this time.

[karatofquality]

He put their respective teas together before handing one off, tilting his head.

"I'm glad to see it. We've been concerned for you for a while now, darling, and I'm happy to see that you're doing well. Better than well, even." With a grin, he sipped from his cup and shifted for comfort.

"What drove you to come visit me tonight, then? It's been a while."

[holdsmyheart]

"You look like a man deep in thought," Theo drawled from the Diamond King's office door, where he leaned nonchalantly against the jamb. "Too busy for a bit of chitchat?" Read: outside thoughts and hopefully a bit of advice.

[karatofquality]

"I'm never too busy for a few minutes with you, dear friend. Come in, make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea? I can have some brought up, if you'd like." Because he needed to break from thought for a while, if truth were to be told. There was too much going on, and his head was starting to hurt.

[holdsmyheart]

Theo nodded acceptance as he stepped in the office, pulling up his customary chair and slumping into it, rubbing a hand over his grizzled cheek in resignation.

"Tea'd be nice, thanks." He eyed Silas in turn. "Looks like you could use a dollop of something stronger in yours, too."

[karatofquality]

He placed the call to have tea delivered for himself and the King of Hearts before shaking his head. "I can only wish that were an option, my friend. I've got a long night ahead of me, but you're a welcome distraction."

Theo's scratching reminded him of his own five o'-clock shadow, reminded him that it was starting to itch and would need to be shaved before bed -- but he had no idea when bed would be, so he couldn't do anything about it. Absently, he scratched at his jaw before running his hand through his hair.

"How have things been over in Heart Castle? Better, I hope."

[diemwnt]

There are a lot of things Cadogan is more than happy to talk about. There's updates from the Outposts--his project from time immemorial. There's updates on the less than savoury nature of the Twos he'd been asked to keep a pulse on. There's updates on the cross-Suit translations that have been beginning to fit more properly into place.

He's not particularly excited about the idea of talking about Säde. The tense peace between them is surely enough. The fact she went off with Julien and not Avery is surely progress.

But, you know. It's Silas' office. Silas' meeting. And he's got a hip flask more than ready if the conversation needs to go where he's afraid it will go.

[karatofquality]

It's going to go there. There just wasn't a way around it, as much as he wished there was. Fortunately, there are enough alternate conversation topics that he could probably delay it for a while.

For now, he's leaning back in his chair, running a hand through his hair, and pushing down the exhaustion. It wasn't even close to being the end of the night for them, after all.

"All right. Start with the Outposts, Cadogan. Are things starting to look more normal, or still getting worse?"

Easiest to discuss were the things furthest from home, after all.

[diemwnt]

There, good. That's something he's happy to leap to attention about. The full report is tugged from the files on his knees first, passed over before his hands flick into energetic expression.

/Stabilizing. No more requests to come inland. Progress on adaptable systems in preparation for more seismic disruptions. We have a strong guard there, now. It's just a matter of continuing to support them; bolster the numbers if we can./

[karatofquality]

Taking the file, he opened it and centered it in front of himself, but paid it no mind while he watched his Jack's hands move. Without hesitation or even considering the fact that he so smoothly flowed from spoken language to sign when interacting with Cadogan, Silas answered calmly, although he did pick up some of that energy and convey it through his own hands.

/Send as many as are able to go without compromising our own security. I know precautions to protect our more invaluable pieces of art, literature, and architecture are being made, as much as is possible, but I'd like to see further progress on the other side of things: ensuring that no lives are lost due to the earthquakes. It's our responsibility to protect them, so we need to do our best to continue to do that.

Anything further on that note? If not, next subject: translations of what's been found in that tower. Is any headway being made?/

[uncutclarity]

She hadn't spoken to Silas about Säde; she generally made a policy of not doing so, because it didn't do much good as a rule. The facts were that the Queen didn't like the Ace and the Ace didn't much like the Queen, either, and as much as it had bewildered and confused her when she'd been Jack, by now?

Status quo.

She has a smile for Silas, though, as she lightly knocks on his office door. "Pip said you wanted to see me?"

[karatofquality]

"I do," he said after a moment, gesturing her to the chair across from him. "Can I get you something to drink? Tea, coffee, water, wine...anything?" May as well put her at ease before delving into somewhat difficult topics. It wasn't exactly simplistic for him, either, after all.

Encouraging as he was able, Silas poured coffee for himself. The night was early yet, and he had quite a long evening ahead of him. He couldn't afford to be tired right now, or at all for the next few hours.

"How have things been for you, birthday and all?"

[uncutclarity]

It was a little early in the day for wine, she thought, and his expression didn't exactly say that this was play time with Narcissus. "Tea's fine," she said as she slid into one of his chairs, leaning back.

"My birthday was fine. Katya and I went out dancing." She paused. "David's arrival in my office with flowers and a wax hand just made things interesting."

[onlytolerable]

Sophie had a million and one things to do, forty-six people to ride herd on and twenty-seven documents that wanted to crumble into bits. In short, she had ninety-nine problems and a king was one, at least if he took her away from the library at this time.

In fairness to Silas, anyone who took her away from her work just now would be counted as one more impediment.

But he's the king and she's Diamond through-and-through, so she stops what she's doing to report to his office, though in her distraction she forgets to remove her white cotton gloves.

"You wanted to see me, Your Majesty?"

[karatofquality]

He won't hold the gloves, her annoyance, or anything else of it against her; she's just as stressed as the rest of those involved with this fiasco, if not slightly more so because of her direct involvement with the translations and the pressure to decipher them as quickly as possible. So he'll forgive it, not that there's much to forgive, and instead focus on her presence.

"I did. I won't take much of your time, but there are a couple of things I'd like to ask you about. The first, being the most important, is the progress with the documents being worked on right now. If there has been progress, how much?"

He had to ask so that the information could be relayed to those who needed to know, or he wouldn't have bothered her. He'll make it up with something relevant to knitting later.

[onlytolerable]

"I...you haven't received the reports?" Sophie's face falls as she thinks of the young Two she'd entrusted one job and one job only to: Delivery of the daily progress reports. "Oh my goodness. Oh, dear. Have any of them been delivered? To any of you? Wha--?" She stops, goes to shove her hair from her face, notices the gloves and makes an exasperated noise.

"I'm so sorry," she says ripping them off and tucking them into a pocket. "All of you should have been receiving daily updates. Rest assured you will from now on."

No wonder he'd wanted to see her. She's only surprised he hadn't asked sooner. She takes a moment to marshal her thoughts.

"We're working in three shifts trying to get everything copied and shared out in a timely fashion. The collection appears to be a series of journals, histories and letters mixed in with miscellaneous herbals and philosophies that have no bearing on our interests. So we began by doing a quick sort of items relative to our interests and those that aren't."

That had required a quick scan. It's possible some documents contained more, but time is of the essence.

"The most likely prospects have been scanned or photographed, copied and distributed to researchers. I also copied all our lexicons so they can be shared out. We're hindered since everything is handwritten and not typeset. Natural inks fade just as parchment degrades and darkens. And then you have the handwriting. You can imagine." She's satisfied a good portion of the original authors could have found work writing doctors prescriptions.

"But we've made enough progress to give us hope. Several of the items appear to be from the time when the Deck moved from the Arcana to our lands. I've read several mentions of them doing so, but nothing spelling it out. However, one in particular talks about putting more distance between us and the Arcana. It mentions anchors and a well in the center."

She pauses. "I thought that might refer to the artifacts and maybe...maybe the green? That's where the tower appeared. Anyway, more than one researcher is hard at work transcribing that particular journal."

[ishineon]

She comes by late in the day when she's summoned, being certain to have tea sent just ahead of her. There's been a lot of time spent thinking over the past couple of weeks. She's fairly certain she can guess what a large part of this discussion will be about.

"Silas."

[karatofquality]

"Säde," he answered simply, folding one leg over the other.

Surely, she knew this was coming. Surely, she knew that her behavior was intolerable and needed to be censured, corrected, and potentially atoned for. This wasn't a new policy, although he was almost certain that it had been decades or perhaps even centuries since it came to blows between the offices of the Queen of Diamonds and the Ace of Spades.

It was no secret that Julien had lost his rank over the debacle. It would be, perhaps, cruel to use the same method of reprimand, but then, he didn't quite have that power. He could make the request, but because their ranks matched, he couldn't force her to step down.

He sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"I trust you're doing well this evening.

[ishineon]

"Well enough, I suppose." Well enough considering the Diamonds still in the castle, the fragile diplomacy between them and the Spades, the discoveries still being made by Sophie and the others investigating. Leigh causing more trouble for the Clubs by sneaking their Ace out of her confinement.

And the fracas with the other black Ace, of course. Can't forget that one.

"Which of our several issues did you want to start with? We've enough to keep us here at least until dinner, I think."