[OTA] Hi-ho, Silver! (Watch out for the small dog)

[headfollowheart]

This is not the sight she expected to greet her when she headed to Town with Sirona to settle her back in at the repaired Town stables, and somehow she hadn't been surprised to see her cousin (or last bastion of testosterone, as he liked to refer to himself) sitting on a fence post and laughing and snapping pictures. Probably she should have told him to get Collin out of the ring and stop harassing poor Christabel, who's supposed to be living a quiet retired life.

She decides instead to whack him lightly on the back of the head and take Sirona out on the trails, riding between the Castles and out towards the new oceanic addition before finally heading back into Town.

Comments

[headfollowheart]

She did not say a word. Whatever do you mean.

"Oh, a thousand pardons, of course," she says, and waits for Cynric to finish greeting the Queen of the World before she speaks again.

"One of these days she's going to abandon me and you'll have to learn to emulate Juliette."

[hamelinic]

Just a few moments are required for cooing, for fussing and tsking and--if he's allowed--the most awkward nose-bumping in the universe. As you do, when greeting Queens.

Well, maybe not Säde. But, you know. The other ones. The horse ones in particular.

"Emulate Juliette?"

[headfollowheart]

Possibly not Katya, either. Or Rowan. But who knows who the Clubs might eventually name?

It could be a horse.

"With her horse shadow," she explains. "I don't see her anywhere without Dutch. You might find yourself with a slave for life, you know."

[hamelinic]

Judith and Argine let him get away with it. He's got big hopes.

He's also absolutely going to vote for Incitatus as the next Queen of Clubs. Incitata? Whatever.

"A slave, or a supreme ruler?" He clicks his tongue happily, fingers trailing briefly along Sirona's neck with obvious affection. "I've a feeling her Ladyship wouldn't settle for being a shadow or a slave."

But, you know.

"And how's she settling, these days?"

She being Zoë. He suspects she can keep up.

[headfollowheart]

"As long as she thinks she's the supreme ruler, I don't think you'll have any problems." She pats Sirona's muzzle affectionately, though. She'd likely have some objection to her darling following some other human around suddenly.

"Oh, she's doing well enough, considering all the random sorts of things happening." Like oceans and suddenly appearing buildings that people seemed to be excavating. She wasn't involved in that; her languages were all modern, of no use when it came to the Arcana.

[hamelinic]

"And has she found herself amidst the ruins? Or has she given in to the sinking and been lost in the sea?"

She's an interesting enough little Spade, after all.

And she's got such a pretty horse.

[headfollowheart]

"Found myself?" That has her tilting her head to one side, but after she gets past the slightly new-ageiness of finding herself, she shrugs. "I suppose I must have since I don't have any intention of sinking and being lost in any sea."

It's one of those moments - more common than they used to be - when the steel in Zoe Kattalakis is clear as the day and shining like a sword in the sun for the instant before she sheaths it in sweetness once again.

[hamelinic]

"Good."

Or something like that. At least as good as a dog and a horse and all those good things.

"We'd be sorry to see you go. Wait at least until you've some progeny for us to mourn over."

Feeling less headachey?

[headfollowheart]

Jokers. They somehow managed to say exactly the thing to make your brain stutter, and even if she's spent months now planning the wedding she never knew she'd been dreaming of, Zoe still couldn't quite fathom herself as a mother. She was only twenty-one.

"So I've got a while to go yet then," she says finally. "I'll have to see if I can further endear myself before I provide the Deck with little Foxes." She doesn't even go pale when she says that. Surely a good a sign, all told.

100%. Lots of tea + chinese medicine + voiding my guts = totally healthy Qi. o/

[hamelinic]

Success.

"Kits, is the technical term." Just so she knows. "Better gird yourself now, aye, before the real demand starts coming in."

See? Still being a helpful panda, despite also being horrible. That's not not fairly good advice.

\o/ And after this I sleep.

[headfollowheart]

"Kits," she repeated, and for a moment was transported to some strange future world in which she was chasing after a pair of...kits who get spoiled by their daddy.

It's sort of a nice future world.

"Are you telling me I need to guard my birth control, Cynric?"

I hope you have had the sweetest of dreams!

[hamelinic]

"Saints preserve us, Lady Fennec, we pray none of that." But, well.

He's also nodding. Vigorously. Because yes. She should.

"Lord knows what the Spades Fates will twist-turn next if you don't hold our own tight."

I keep waking up five minutes before the alarm goes off

[headfollowheart]

You can always depend upon a conversation with a Joker to send you straight into bemusement, Zoe thinks. And also you can depend on a conversation with a Joker to get you to carry your pills with you everywhere.

Just in case.

"Lord knows," she echoes. "Kings might become Jokers. And Jokers might apply to become Aces." And really. What kind of world would that be?

Oh, right.

Is it a productive five minutes or a 'damn it, body o9' five minutes?

[hamelinic]

"Who in the world would do such a thing."

It's not a question. She can probably hear the period rather than the question mark. Because really, how dare anyone do such a horrible thing.

More kisses for Sirona. "You've found your clinging post, then?"

More of a dammit body. If it was ten minutes I could talk myself into getting up so that I can tag

[headfollowheart]

It's harrowing, Cynric, really it is. Except...the months David's been away - and maybe some of his behavior before he went away - destroyed some of the mystique he'd once had, for Zoe. She's not afraid of him anymore, no matter what his place in the Deck.

So, perhaps it isn't so harrowing.

"I suppose you could say my fiance makes a good post for clinging to," she says, "but I'm finding that I'm managing to tread water without having to hold on that much."

/shakes fist with

[hamelinic]

Well, for all he's still... a Joker, here's an actually fairly pleased flit of a smile.

"That's good. That smacks of something really rather happy, doesn't it."

And how often did relationships in the Deck seem happy?

Sorry, he meant 'healthy.' It's just that would seem so crass.

Here's hoping tomorrow is different.

[headfollowheart]

"We are happy." He'll have to excuse the smile that edges right up to besotted. She's an engaged woman. She's lost most of the dreaminess, but she likes to indulge every once in a while.

It's healthy, too, and who would have expected that from an Old Family Heart and the sharpest Spade in the bunch?

Not her, that's for sure.

[hamelinic]

"We look to you in hope, Lady."

One more kiss for the true Lady here, a brief reach to not quite catch the human woman's hand, and so onward again to the bowing.

"Mind the pills."

[headfollowheart]

"I'll do my best to live up to it," she tells him with a bit of a grin, more playful than her last smile.

And she'd do her best with the pills, too, though she wasn't particularly thinking of that as she cantered away.