houseofcards_rp | Hot as a hare, blind as a bat

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Hot as a hare, blind as a bat

Maggie sets her trowel on the ground and sits back on her heels. The Datura didn't need deadheading, yet the evidence lay before her eyes: small, precise cuts separating flowers and leaves from stem. The Heart rises to her feet in a smooth motion that belies her age and makes her way down the neat cutting beds. No mistake. Someone's come in with small sheers and pruned some of her more interesting plants. Foxglove, morning glory, monkshood, castor oil plant, someone's disturbed them all. Lovely.

"How very unwise of my uninvited guest," she murmurs to herself before turning back to the gate and inspecting the lock. An enterprising soul could hop the wall, but in this case, a close look reveals scratch marks around the mechanism. A short walk brings her to her Cannabis plot. Unmolested. She claims to grow the weed for medicinal reasons--indeed, she has a prescription for it. But truth be told, she enjoys the relaxation it brings her and never begrudges a few leaves here and there should anyone ask her. Yet the plants escaped this latest harvest. Clearly, her prowler hadn't cared about medicine.

"I suppose I'll need to reinstall the surveillance cameras. And let one of the Faces know so they can pass the word along. Bloody nuisance."

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"It was Sieben you caught before, wasn't it?" She can't remember if Maggie told her or if Sieben did in that sort of teasing, joking manner he could have at times - she just remembered something about Sieben and the foxglove.

Well, it couldn't be him this time, and she tilted her head to one side.

"I wonder who it is this time." Stealing seems to be a theme in the Deck this week.

Here stands an old face she has not seen in a while. She's known him when he was still ~~capable of laughing before Abracham beat the Chives into him~~ very young, but that was many lifetimes ago. Despite the fact that they were meeting outside the Spades' Castle, it seemed as if he hasn't lost the ability to be able to Materialise At Will.

"Trespassers?"

"It was indeed. He's lucky he didn't end up as rose food. They must have come by when I went off Deck for my doctor's visit. I'm sure I'd have heard them otherwise."

She pulls off her gardening gloves. "I don't know whether to hope they're teens doing it for a lark or someone intent on killing someone. Some of the plants have hallucinogen properties." They're also deadly. "I don't grow them simply because I have eclectic tastes, you know."

They might have been better off if he had, Zoe thinks. She's still not happy about the way he chose to end his life - who he called upon to help him with it, and the letters that he'd sent. But that was nearly a year ago now, and it's useless to be angry now.

"It's really...too precise," she says as she kneels down. "For it not to be someone who knew what they were doing." But Briony Williams is the only other poison expert she can think of, and Briony has her own poison garden.

Spades still make her shoulders twitch and probably always will. Guilty conscience or pragmatism, it didn't matter. She'd never shake the reaction.

That doesn't stop her having a smile for her fellow ~~Spade~~ Card, even if it is rather harried. "Iollan! Off the beaten path a bit, aren't you?" She frowns at her garden. "Opportunists, I should think. My hobby does present something of an attractive nuisance. I was about to put the kettle on. Join me?"

Edited 2013-06-17 20:59 (UTC)

Maggie hadn't been surprised by Sieben's chosen method. He'd always been a narcissist. Of course he'd go out causing as much pain and attention as possible. Look at me! till the end. Still, he had been charming. She'd give him that.

"Subtle. I might have missed it if I wasn't an organic gardener. At least the Japanese beetles are happy. I should call Briony to see if she was hit, too."

He'd been a very charming man, really; enough that if her head hadn't already been turned by her now-husband, Sieben almost certainly would have turned it. All told, she's rather certain she's better off with Victor Fox.

Zoe looks a little pensive as she nods. Maybe living in Spade Castle has made her paranoid. "Her garden's almost as extensive as yours, isn't it?" She asks. "Though, with her dog, I imagine it would be tougher to get past her."

Well, her dog and those latent paranoid instincts.

"Victor and I are leaving tomorrow for a few days. I wanted to let you know."

"Surveillance camera?"

She's been here a while now, yes. She's gotten used to most of what's incredibly odd about the arrangement of life in the Deck compared to the life she had known in Wales. As much as she can't help missing the country of her birth, she's got to admit that this place, by and large, is far better for her--and, more importantly, for her son--than life back up Cardiff was.

That doesn't mean Roisin isn't absolutely tutting at the idea of cameras in a garden. "An' that'll be escalating things like a cat on the way to hell, won't it, dove? 'd ye na guess it's just a bit of kids having fun?"

He Most Likely has the ability to be in Twelve Places At Once, so the Spades aren't missing his absence so terribly back in their Castle.

The hesitation before the reply had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the Foreign, Uneasy Feeling of Being Served. He felt he rather Stood Out out here, and the fact that he couldn't help but tower over her didn't seem to help matters.

"...yes."

She'd been under the impression Briony's dog would kiss a burglar as soon as bite it, though no doubt it would bark. "I've been resting on my laurels. Used to be my reputation alone kept intruders at bay. I suppose I'll need to take steps." She turns toward the house. "Tea, dearest? Do tell me it's not business. You two never seem to have time for yourselves."

He does seem to be as much a golden retriver in temperment as Evan's new actual golden retriever. "Tea would be lovely," she says, and then grimaces. "I have to go audit the Outpost accounts for work. I think Victor is going to check on the border guards while we're there."

She leads him inside and into her sunny kitchen. "It'll just be a mo," she says as she sets the kettle on the stove. "Or there's lemonade if you'd like. Not too hot, yet, but the air feels like a damp washcloth today." She sets a platter of homemade scones and muffins. "I'm afraid I haven't any sandwiches done up. You haven't visited in ages."

It's not that she's asking why is he here, but, why is he here?

Spreading his hands, just to show there's nothing in them. "Wasn't me."

Just passing by, honest.

Really, he wouldn't be able to tell rosemary from nightshade.

Outsiders. They're so adorable at times. Maggie considers explaining the missing poisons to Roison then discards the idea. "Normally I'd agree with you, but I, ah, grow medicinal marijuana. Personally I don't believe it would do much harm, but I don't particularly want irate parents descending on me waiving pitchforks and torches."

She'll leave the explanations to her son. And shame on him for not doing so already.

"I could say something about all work and no play," Maggie teases, "but I expect you two manage despite your schedules." She places a platter of homemade scones and muffins on the table, followed soon by butter and jam. "No sandwiches, I'm afraid.

"Perhaps I should get myself a dog, only imagine all the training to teach it to keep out of the garden."

"No, I expect you'd have been at the cannabis." Something glints on the ground and she stoops down to pick it up. An earring--garnet if she's not mistaken. Interesting. "or are you going to claim to be a teetotaller?"

"Chives is trying to pinpoint a, um, conception schedule," Zoe says dryly as she takes a raspberry muffin and splits it. "I told him these things take time. I didn't tell him that we try pretty frequently."

She takes time pouring both of them tea to let the blush fade.

"Maybe you need a motion sensor. It would take less training, at least."

It's not even worth doing the 'shocked shocked' routine for so he just leans on the fence, a bit. "More or less gave it up." More or less when he moved on to harder stuff. Even more really when Julien found him and decided he might be useful and put a quite forcible stop to Justin's habits.

"Just fancy a spot of booze now and then now." And yes, he did just put on his mockery of a hoity-toity upper crust Deckian. Sounds rather like quite a few Diamonds, actually.

Dinner would clearly be exciting tonight. Hopefully the Jack wouldn't actually choke on his dinner while his mother chirruped along in lilting Welsh about a lovely friend and mariwana.

"They'll let their bitty ones play with knives but get up in arms over a little bit of smoking?" This tutting, at least, is aimed in the direction of others. "What a strange way t' live." And marijuana even easier on the lungs than tobacco--or coal. "Not taken much, have they?"

It was Incredibly Awkward, standing in someone else's kitchen, being served tea and plied with food. He had no qualms about doing it as it was his duty, but he'd served her for the years she had spent with the Spades and to have their roles reversed has left him standing in the kitchen, lingering between the counter and a seat, feeling much more dumbfounded than he looked.

"I am fine, m'lady, thank you." Please Don't Make A Fuss over him. He's not sure he can handle it. He'd offer to help if that hadn't resulted in Accidental Hand Contact the last time he Materialised At Her Doorstep.

"I won't take up much of your time." Or he'll try not to, at least.

"Oh, I like that. Something with flashing lights and loud klaxons." She imagines her burglar caught mid-act and his--or her--resulting panic. "I suppose I could go for a silent alarm," she adds and gets up to see to the kettle. "But," she comes back with the tea service and sets it down between them. "That would ruin all the fun, wouldn't it?"

"I do hope for Annie's sake that he won't be as...focused on his own offspring as he is on yours. The boy needs to wed, and soon."

"You wouldn't deny me my chance to play hostess, would you? It wouldn't be proper not to offer you refreshment. Besides, I'm having tea, and it would be rude to not offer any to my guest."

Maggie would regret not being at the table if she knew Roisin's nefarious plan.

"A bit silly of them, isn't it? Still, ours is not to reason why. As for the culprits, just enough to cause trouble. I was about to put the kettle on." She winks. "Or perhaps a finger of whiskey. I could do with one after the day I've had."

"Of course not, Madam Eight." He may no longer directly serve this once Ten of Spades, but he would deny her nothing. And even after all this time, she still seemed to know which of his buttons to push.

"I would... stay for tea, if it please you."

"Papa would have said there's no point in going to all the effort of installing it if it's not going to set every dog in the Deck to howling," Zoe says with a slight smile as she picks up the sugar bowl. "I don't hold up much hope for Annie, though; the Chiveses are very...keen on schedules."

She adds a lump of brown sugar and a dash of milk before she speaks again.

"Papa left Hadyn a trust fund."

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Hot as a hare, blind as a bat

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Because why not.

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Why not indeed?

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There can also be a real tag if you want, but. This needed to happen, I believe.

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It does. it does indeed

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\o/ ♥

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