houseofcards_rp | [ota] time to go another round

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[ota] time to go another round

When one got right down to it, there were very few things Julien excelled in. It was just that he managed to employ them in many different ways. Violence, for instance. And cards.

And needling people until they erupt but that wasn't a particularly good choice for a Challenge.

Certainly, he'd cut his way up the ranks before though he had at least not left the servants with a body to clean up afterward. Cards had always seemed too cliché to him for use in Challenges.

There were, of course, other things he could do with weaponry than draw blood. Archery and targets, for instance.

But some part of him wanted to be a little more unexpected. To leave people wondering if there was more to the former Ace than the niche he'd carved for himself. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite decided what that would be, yet. Which meant he could hardly decide on who he'd extend the Challenge to and certainly he couldn't bring it up to either Royal, yet.

So that leaves him sitting with tea at hand and brooding over a piece of paper in front of him, covered in scribbled and scratched out ideas.

Really this was almost more trouble than it was worth.

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Italy is wonderful. It's got her mind completely off most of the worry that clings to her at home. Which doesn't mean she isn't thinking of home. There are phone calls all day, after all; it being the actual proper Day to be celebrated. She sneaks off from the sight-seeing now and then to pick up the phone, curls up on benches warmed by the Mediterranean sun and listens to tinny voices she loves on the other end of the line.

It's after one such conversation that she doesn't quite wander back. There's someone she's fairly certain isn't going to call, after all--and she wouldn't hold it against him. It's not his way. But... that doesn't mean she doesn't want to hear his voice today.

The butler might have to bring Julien the phone, but hopefully being told it's the youngest Ace will get him to take the call.

Julien doesn't typically think of phones as things to just use for the sake of the thing. He doesn't even carry a cell unless he's off Deck and someone might need to get in touch with him. So his eyebrows raise a little at the sight of the butler bringing him a phone but at the mention of who is on the other end well...of course he accepts it.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, dearling?" He doesn't use the pet name as often, anymore, but perhaps she won't, even if she is one year older.

Of course pet names--from everyone--were starting to get rolled eyes. It was the way of the tween and teen years. Today, even though he couldn't have seen it if she had, it only got a smile.

"I thought I'd give you the chance not to forget an important day and make me terribly disappointed."

"I'm quite certain I haven't forgotten any days of importance."

He hasn't, actually. He was just waiting until she got back. "Was there one in particular you wished to remind me of?"

The worst. He's the absolute worst. And that's absolutely why she's grinning at the phone.

Or something.

"Just generally, I suppose."

"If something specific comes to mind, you'll have to be certain to tell me."

He pauses a moment, before adding. "And you'll have to be certain to come by when you return, mm?"

Not for any specific reason or anything.

"I will." Not for any specific reason.

Or, well. For ridiculously specific reasons she felt no need to go into, even with herself.

"D'you want me to pick you up a souvenir from Rome?"

"I wouldn't say no, though I'm afraid I'll have no souvenir to give you in return."

The key word there is souvenir. He has gifts.

"Are you enjoying the trip, then?"

It's always a question of key words. She keys into the right one, she's fairly certain.

"Very much. Have you spent much time in Italy? It's even lovely when it's chilly."

"I've been there a few times," on business, "I'm afraid I didn't see too many of the sights. Have you been visiting your philosophers?"

So to speak. Presumably there's tombs or statues or something, after all.

There's the tiniest bit of a snort for that.

"The Basilica di Santa Croce is in Florence, you know. Not Rome." So no Dante and Galileo here. No Gentile and Barsanti and Alberti. No Machiavelli. "Besides, we're seeing museums."

This is Elisha taking her, remember.

"So you're saying you want to go to Florence," yes, Eileen, a note is being made.

"How are you enjoying Elisha's lectures, then?"

Yes, that wording was intentional.

"Before I die, at any rate." And there's a properly contented sort of sigh, the rush of static which comes with nodding at a phone. "It's lovely. He's quite brilliant about art, you know."

And really, who wouldn't want to learn more about the brush technique of the masters for their fourteenth birthday? Or, well, who wouldn't want that but would also be Eileen?

"So I've heard," Julien says dryly. "Though I haven't had the pleasure, directly, of being exposed to his brilliance."

He doesn't mean to be openly snarky about Eileen's new father figure....it's just hard not to be. But then, it's not a secret that Julien and Elisha aren't the best of friends.

The press of her lips is only brief. Not everyone in her life has to get along, after all--she'd loved David and Julien for years, after all.

"I'll dissect if for you when I get back. All right?"

"I'll be expecting you, then."

And that, at least, injects a thread of warmth into his tone.

"There's always equestrian." It was, perhaps, a little unwise to walk up behind Julien and peek over his shoulder, but she's always been a curious sort of person. It's one of the reasons Katya sometimes sends her out to...listen.

That and hardly anyone expects Zoe Fox to be a spy.

"If you want to get away from blades for Ten." She was thinking of equestrian for Seven, herself. It had a nice symmetry, considering that's what she challenged in for Seven of Hearts.

At least her heels give her away so she's not subjected to any real startle reflex. Just a raised eyebrow over his shoulder at her. "And you think that suitable for a Ten of Spades?"

He'll also gesture for her to sit down across from him, should she like. There's no point in acting like of course he wasn't thinking about challenging that's just silly, after all.

Zoe shrugs as she slides into her seat. "It takes just as much skill and training to ride competitively as it does to excel in a martial art," she points out. Certainly she trained with horses for as many years as most Spades trained with knives. "You have to watch yourself, your opponent, and the two horses instead of just your opponent and the weapons you're both carrying. And it's at least as worthy as Scrabble for a challenge to Nine."

Davin Bernard's challenge to Nicholas Rhodes had been the first...non-violent one she'd seen in the Spades. It had probably been the reason she'd challenged Edison in advanced mathematics when the time came.

"That's true," he agrees. "It would certainly be a bit different." Certainly there were enough people around who rode extensively, particularly in the older families, to make it a true Challenge. No one could say he was choosing something easy to come back up the ranks with.

That's the other problem, really.

It's almost tempting to just go with something bloody, though, to make a statement.

And yet...he's rather sure the Queen would prefer he didn't do that, on more than one level.

Hence the dilemma. "I'm not particularly interested in board games."

"Most people would expect you to choose something with knives, I imagine," Zoe says mildly as she sets a pair of folders on the table between them. Final projections for the first quarter, to go to Michael, when she finds him. "Or hand-to-hand. Something like mixed martial arts." That was, after all, the typical Spade challenge, and Julien was, in many ways, the prototypical Spade.

"But you know that. There wouldn't be so many alternatives on that list if you wanted to go that way. " She pauses. "Do you have a Ten in mind?"

Her husband, perhaps. Though she doubts it; even if Julien surprised Victor with a nontraditional challenge to Ten, she doubted Victor would follow suit in the counter - and so one of the two of them would die. Zoe didn't relish the thought of being a widow before she'd been married for a year.

"Don't worry," he says, wry, "I was not planning on your spouse." Just to clear the air there.

He and Victor had had their differences, but Julien still respected the man. And he couldn't say he was absolutely certain it would be he himself who walked away from that fight.

Besides, if Julien were going to challenge someone, he would choose someone who deserved it. He shrugs slightly and folds the paper up, putting it away in a coat pocket. "I suppose it's just as easy to choose who one would like to Challenge and tailor he Challenge to that person as it would be to choose what one wishes to Challenge in and then finding someone who fit it."

Zoe lifts her shoulders in a shrug. There's nothing wrong with checking, after all. It wasn't as if Julien and Victor liked each other, even if they had a grudging respect for each other. And there were plenty of people who thought of challenging as a challenge instead of a punishment. "I don't know if Victor will be disappointed or relieved," she says dryly.

"I'd say it would be easier," she adds. "To choose who you want to challenge and then decide what to challenge them in. Isn't part of it exploiting their weaknesses, after all?" Zoe Fox is a sweet, relatively kind young woman. Popular, considered to be a soft Spade in a lot of ways. But most of her challenges have been about exploiting her opponent's weaknesses, even when she was a Heart.

Maybe especially then, really.

"You'll have to ask him for me." The reaction might be interesting, anyway.

As for the other, he smiles slightly, "I've been told that, yes."

Julien would be better able to gauge it if he asked Victor himself, instead of asking his wife to be the messenger, but Zoe merely inclines her head. "Of course," she says blandly. In all likelihood, the subject will never come up between the Foxes.

"It's up to you, naturally," she adds. "I'm sure you don't really need advice."

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[ota] time to go another round

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i don't have a good icon for this :|

It's because he doesn't know how to make faces about happy things.

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