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[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e wondered what she’d been about to say, still. Probably not an answer to the question; probably another stinging tongue-lashing. Maybe she’d been opening her mouth to say whatever she’d come to say in the first place, whatever it was she still wasn’t saying, whatever question she still wasn’t asking. Countless evenings – evenings that smelled like cigar smoke and hair oil, lit by the soft phosphor lights of Pendulum House – had him listening to this councilman or that judge whinging about his fop son drinking up all his ging. He wasn’t a fool.

So why was he thinking about it? He didn’t want to think about it. He’d had only a few sips of champagne, and he wanted to drain his glass – he thought he might – he couldn’t even bring it to his lips, not with those eyes on him. He couldn’t drink a drop. He felt tsuter for having it in his hand.

He should’ve been bristling with anger; that wasn’t what he felt. He drifted, a knot in his belly, turning that splitsecond over in his mind, over and over: he tried to get a hold on what he’d seen in her face, before her mouth had snapped shut and twisted itself into a sneer. What had she seen in his?

She gets lonely, Cerise was explaining now. That’s why she tears up the drapes, then, he thought. He didn’t laugh, but he smiled faintly, looking back down at the thing.

“You’re a little fighter, eh?” He didn’t dare bend his head any closer; he still wasn’t sure, not really, if the things breathed fire. “Make a,” he started, and blinked, and felt terribly sad.

Make a kov bleed.

He couldn’t see if the little drake’d drawn blood; her fingers were balled up in her fist, knuckles white with it. You should at least tend to it, he half wanted to say, soon, so it doesn’t get infected. He’d had plenty of scars from untended cuts, when he’d been too much of a clocking man to worry about things like bandages. He felt suddenly irritable; he wasn’t sure why.

She was frowning down at him now, the ghost of one familiar line between her sharp brows. She was frowning so deep it made funny lines in her face; some he recognized, some he didn’t.

He brought himself back round. He had to do something – something had to be done – what did she want? What did she know?

What could be done to shape that knowing?

There was still a pit in his stomach that ached and clawed like the hatchers; he shook his head as if shaking away a dream. “Listen, I – wait – shouldn’t you be in class?” He clicked his teeth, waved a hand. “Never mind. You want to talk; I want to talk.” He paused. “I’d suggest a change of scenery, unless you want me to introduce you to Incumbent Burbridge and have him talk your ear off, but it’s up to you.”

There. Gods, but it’d be the talk of the convention, or at least the giggle of the convention, Vauquelin’s boch marching into a party and dragging her da out by the ear. He looked at Sish, hiding in Cerise’s curls. You and me both, kov, he thought.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

A little fighter. Sish certainly was that--Cerise had raised her, after all. She didn't know how to be anything else, so neither did her constant companion. Snapping and snarling at anyone outside of their little world.

Well, if that's all she was good for, it was only because that's the way they made her. And she was good at it. Her and Sish, both of them. That's why it didn't hurt at all that her father seemed to smile more at Sish than her; she hadn't expected him to smile at either one. The drake was very charming; the girl not so much so.

Cerise's scowl focused on that comment about her class schedule. So kind of him to notice; it had only taken the whole conversation up until that point. Should she be grateful he even remembered she was in school at all? Well, there were enough letters sent to House Vauquelin from that most venerable of institutions. Perhaps that kept it in the mind, even if the content of the letters faded.

"I decided not to go," she said loftily. Her chin was held high, like it had been a choice she was able to make. Like she hadn't had to sneak around her floor mother to do it. Cerise took a strange pride in her sneaking around. Nobody, and she meant nobody, could keep her from where she wanted to be. She would like to see them try.

Talk--he wanted to talk? Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin wanted to talk? How humbling. How entirely grateful she was, that he would deign to want to speak to his own eldest daughter. Her field bristled with indignation, and Sish chittered in protest.

"Are you sure your reputation wouldn't be damaged by letting me talk to Incumbent Burbridge, Incumbent Vauquelin? After all, who knows what sorts of terrible things I would say?" Both of her eyebrows flew up to be lost in the damp curls of her hair; her expression turned mocking. The identity of the intended target was left open to interpretation. Something complicated flickered across her face. Cerise took a step back, then turned to her father with a bow of exacting politeness, careful of the little creature on her shoulder. One of Sish's wings still flapped out to steady her; she made an angry sound into the shell of Cerise's ear.

"Wherever you think is most suitable, Father." Cerise smiled, brittle and thin. She would follow wherever he wanted to go, stiff-backed and sharp-eyed. As much as she wanted to fight him on it, she didn't want to get in her own way. If he wouldn't talk to her here, if he would only talk to Sish where they were now, then a change in location was just fine.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

I
ncumbent Vauquelin.

His hand tightened on the flute glass; a muscle jumped in his jaw. He watched her take her bow, as well as if she’d learned to do it in an etiquette class. For all he knew, she had. Sish’s wing flicked out, spread glittering gold, and he swore he heard a fussy, high-pitched noise from somewhere in her messy damp curls. When she rose, she called him Father again, and he swallowed a thick lump in his throat.

Strange enough to say, he found himself smiling, brittle and thin. “Fuck my reputation,” he enunciated carefully. His own chin was raised, his back ramrod-straight; she was still a half-inch taller than him.

It would’ve been chroveshit to think he’d meant to say something else. He was sober enough that the littlest voice made itself heard – don’t do this, he thought; don’t do this, it wanted him to say, don’t put me in this position, don’t put yourself in this position. For godssakes, just think for half a second. And down deeper, even smaller and softer: it isn’t her, and you know it.

Instead, he bowed deeply himself, careful with his champagne glass. “Very well.” When he raised up, he lifted both eyebrows; then he half-turned, searching the crowd.

It was a small event; he could name most of them that drifted from table to table, glass display case to glass display case, mostly Viendan politicians and functionaries and their wives, university professors and administrators scattered through. His eyes flicked carefully from gown to gown, tux to tux. He gestured, and if Cerise made to follow, he’d guide them a short ways across the floor, through the drift of music. As they passed, one or two pairs of eyes widened at the sight of the miraan floating through their midst.

The old man was by himself; he stood over a table peopled with canapés, tiny silver picks glinting. He was just taking one, carefully maneuvering the flaky puff pastry and smoked salmon onto his small plate.

“Alexander,” he said, smiling.

Burbridge was taking a bite. He didn’t jolt, but he paused; he turned to face them very slowly.

“Anatole,” he returned. “Why, I…”

“I was just telling Cerise,” he said, half-turning and gesturing, “I was worried we’d missed you.” He let his smile warm and brighten. “Alexander, I don’t believe you’ve met my daughter; may I introduce Cerise? Cerise, Incumbent Alexander Burbridge.”

Burbridge glanced over at Cerise, blinking his small gold eyes. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose, squinting through them and smiling a nervous smile. “A pleasure, young madam,” he said, bowing deeply, wincing a little at his back as he rose. His slippery-soft, rather weak perceptive field crept out to caprise hers tentatively.

Anatole beamed.

“Ah,” Burbridge said, after a moment. His eyes still flicked about, as if he weren’t quite sure where he was supposed to look, but they did, finally, settle on her face, and they did not once look at the miraan. “In fact, I believe Professor Jos’kyett was telling me, earlier – well – not the same Cerise Vauquelin that has had such success in the dueling league these last years?”

He blinked; he glanced over at Cerise, and he couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his expression. His smile tilted, a little crooked. He raised an eyebrow.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Now that—that, she absolutely knew she had never once heard her father say before. Not in front of her, nor could she quite imagine that exact arrangement of words ever having come out of his mouth no matter the company. Carefully enunciated, posture a mirror of her own; nobody could have denied the resemblence, if the sharp face didn't give it away before that. She certainly hadn't gotten it from her mother.

It felt like a dare, or like the taking of one. She wasn't sure which of them had done it. She had started it, it could be argued, with her mockery. Part of her felt stubborn, balking even at this—wasn’t he the adult? Her father, no less?

In the end it didn’t matter who had done the daring, because her father bowed back to her with enough politeness to feel like an insult. For a moment Cerise was confused; she had expected to leave, as he had suggested, and she hadn’t thought that he meant just a different corner of what was a rather small party. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a former professor, who frowned first at her bedraggled, unlikely-to-be-authorized appearance, and then again at Sish and her unhappy chittering from the nest of Cerise’s hair. Cerise looked away and paid as little attention as she could to any other eyes that might have turned her way.

When they approached the old man and his canapes, Cerise understood where they were going. This, she thought sourly, was Incumbent Burbridge. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of frowning outwardly—not yet. Disgust was difficult to keep out of her expression; not at Incumbent Burbridge, though she had absolutely no desire to speak to the man, but at the false warmth of her father’s smile.

”Lovely to meet you,” Cerise said as she bowed and returned the rather weak caprise. She was not, she decided, overly fond of the way his soft, weak field felt against hers. Still, she kept a smile on her face. If this was a challenge, she had no intention of losing.

Incumbent Burbridge would not look at Sish, which was not a strong point in his favor by her estimation. Her father had looked at her uneasily, more unease than she would have expected, but he had looked at her in the end. That, at least, was something. Cerise beamed at the older incumbent; she didn’t give her father a glance.

”Why yes, I have enjoyed my time in the league. We’ve had a strong season this year—ah!” Now she did turn to her father, her face bright. ”You wouldn’t know, but I’ve set my sights on the inter-kingdom team. I rather think I stand a strong chance. Of course there aren’t many women on the team, but if I want to be a professional after graduation—well!” Cerise shrugged, a small motion that Sish bore with uncomplaining patience. ”It was very kind of you to agree to sponsor my position on the team, should I make it. I know it must have been a somewhat controversial move.” She smiled, feeling triumphant.

Cerise let a hand dart out and plucked up a salmon canape—she pulled off and ate the pastry, and held the salmon out for Sish to take. The miraan’s narrow jaws delicately pulled the fish from her fingertips. Sish was something of a theatrical eater, letting her jaws snap loudly and with full display of a mouth of tiny sharp teeth.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

N
ot a thing changed about his smile at not that you’d know; if Burbridge was soaking up a milliliter of what was happening in front of him, he didn’t dare breathe a word about it. Sponsor her — he could’ve snorted — it was more and more of an effort not to, to keep his face still and composed. Tsuter toft. He watched her feed the salmon from the canapé to Sish. Now, his smile did twitch, broaden. He almost laughed, and held himself back from it by a hair.

If Burbridge hadn’t been looking at the miraan before, he couldn’t seem to stop himself, now. In the pause, the elderly incumbent cleared his throat and glanced away, taking a sip of his champagne and suppressing a tiny hiccup. Nearby, in the corner of his eye, he caught a woman’s alarmed expression.

He, on the other hand, was looking at Cerise. “Controversial, perhaps,” he said. “But these are trying times – are they not, Alexander?”

Burbridge was glancing between him and Cerise, blinking his small gold eyes. “Trying times indeed,” he repeated, a little frown of confusion puckering his mouth.

He let more warmth leach into his smile. “I’ve always felt that competitions of a – shall we say – martial nature,” he went on, “are good for the spirit.” He paused; the sound of Sish gnawing at the last of the salmon in her teeth, the hsssk and snap of her jaw and other, wetter noises, filled up the silence.

“Martial competitions,” hmphed Burbridge, “yes, indeed. Why, my father, Cycle carry him, was on the inter-kingdom youth team back in the… oh, it would’ve been – the thirties… The Brunnhold boys haven’t bagged the coronet since the seventies.”

“I didn’t know you had an interest in dueling, Alexander,” he said brightly, not taking his eyes away from Cerise’s.

Burbridge humphed again. “Hardly, hardly.” He turned to nab another canape, then glanced at Sish, who was licking sharp teeth with bits of pink in them. He settled for a ham tartlet, taking a bite before he spoke again. “Well, I try to keep up with the news. Family tradition, and all that.”

He raised one eyebrow at Cerise, then turned and sidled to get himself a canapé. “And do you plan on going professional?” He looked at her again, and some of his smile faded; there was a little pulse of curiosity – of interest – in his field.

Had Diana ever mentioned this? Floods, like he could remember. He sure as hells couldn’t remember paying any membership fees or getting any letters. Was this what all this vodundun, all this talking-around, was about? To twist his arm into sponsoring her in some varsity dueling team? It was the strangest thing he could’ve imagined; if you’d asked him that morning what he thought he’d be doing that afternoon, it wasn’t this. He remembered the duel he’d arbited on Clock’s Eve with the oddest flutter of excitement.

Handling the canapé delicately, he glanced at Sish, then at Cerise. His eyebrow still raised, he took a pinch of the salmon off the top and offered it to the tiny drake, hoping the decision wouldn’t lose him a finger.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Cerise couldn't stop the smile on her face when Incumbent Burbridge looked away. She would have preferred to have unwound Sish from her shoulders before she had given her the salmon; much as she loved her golden little thing, Cerise was less fond of the wet sound of gnashing in her ear. But it was rather worth it for the effect. This was a trick she had tried out on her peers at the lunch hour, and it had worked rather well there. There was always something of a wide berth around her when she had Sish with her during mealtimes. Cerise was pleased to say that she had not had to sit near a professor even once at the formal dinner since she'd started to bring the miraan with her towards the end of the school year.

She had thought her father might have balked at being informed he was to sponsor her position on the team--Diana had frowned at the idea when she'd mentioned it to her. Although she supposed nobody had told her they wouldn't, the same way nobody had told her that she shouldn't set her aspirations too high when it came to her dueling career after Brunnhold. They didn't really have to. The costs were trivial, at least--just the travel costs, and some other associated fees to be paid to the school for her participation.

A muscle in Cerise's smiled jumped at "the Brunnhold boys". There were at least three other girls she knew of, besides herself, who were going to try for the travel team this year. Tryouts for the year had not yet begun, and wouldn't until later. There were, of course, plenty more who were part of the Varsity League itself. Not to mention the increased number of them in the Junior Varsity division--a far cry from even when Cerise had been part of it, and she hadn't been the only girl then either.

"Rosamilda Crowley made a rather good show of it just last year," she interjected with a mildness she didn't feel. Rosamilda, she remembered sourly, had been disqualified from continuing because of a broken arm. Though she would have kept going--Cerise hadn't been there, of course, but she'd heard from Rosamilda later when she had come home and told the rest of the Varsity girls. Being sent home in the middle of the season had been crushing. Cerise had almost invited the other girl out with her for a night in the Stacks to cheer her up, but had thought better of it in the end. At the time, she'd still been with... The thought still stung.

Sish, little traitor that she was, had no reservations about taking the salmon held out to her. Her golden jaws came perilously close to the ends of her father's fingers, but she didn't nip at him in the end. Cerise couldn't decide if she was more proud of the miraan's restraint--she had drawn blood more than once when she was a hatchling, being trained to hand-feeding--or annoyed that she was seeming to take rather a shine to Anatole Vauquelin, despite initial trepidation. You little traitor, we're supposed to be a team.

"Of course," she snorted, secretly pleased to be asked. The little glow she felt at the interest was something she did her best to snuff out. It felt too perilously close to letting her father win her over. She wasn't so easily bought as Sish--it would take more than a salmon canape. "I'm quite good at it. Professor Siordanti seems to think I stand a strong chance, too." As long as she didn't get pulled from Varsity for poor class attendance.

Cerise hesitated, trying to decide how much of the interest was genuine. It could be a trick, she thought, or a diversion. All Cerise had wanted since joining Junior Varsity was to eventually join the ranks of one of the professional Leagues. It had all felt--it had been thrilling, her first match, though she'd lost by a wide margin. As if everything had finally snapped into focus, and she had at last found what she had been waiting for all along. Dueling had changed her, had shaped her, guided her relationship with the mona she wouldn't have predicted. One of the few uncomplicated relationships she had in her young life.

All that was too soft to say out loud, so she never had. Certainly she wasn't going to do it now, in front of her father or this doughy old man and his ham tartlet.

"Would you like to hold her, Father? Sish, that is? Mrs. Vauquelin gave her to me, but I don't think you've yet spent much time with her. With your health having been what it is." Cerise beamed. "She's quite safe, most of the time."

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

B
urbridge harrumphed some more at the mention of Crowley. “I dare say,” he began, “that is, I am simply not convinced that I…” He trailed off, not looking at miraan or the drake. He shot a glance at Anatole, as if expecting support, but whatever he was going to say, it disappeared into a last bite of ham tartlet.

He was absorbed. He knew better than to hesitate with sharp teeth and shaky hands; he didn’t.

He heard the snap of Sish’s jaws; one long pointy tooth whistled by his fingertips, but the miraan didn’t spill sap. He didn’t jerk his hand away, though his back was stiff, and his smile’d gone somewhat pinched. The tsuter nanabo was busy at her eating, then, filling the air between them with a panoply of laoso noises and a strong, fishy smell not unlike a cat’s breath.

His face broke out into a grin. He thought Burbridge had asked him something; he was halfway through an exultant bite of pastry when he finally looked up at the old man.

“Professor Siordanti, eh?”

The puff pastry was flaky and topped with some sort of herbed cream. He frowned slightly, finishing it off. Siordanti was a name he knew. “Hadrian Siordanti’s son?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hadrian was a Progressive party man, across the board; Burbridge’d had plenty to say about him at the office in Stainthorpe. “Indeed.” Burbridge smiled at Cerise. “He was quite the duelist in his Brunnhold days, wasn’t he? And now an accomplished Physical scholar.”

He looked at Cerise. He faintly remembered the conversation between Diana and Niccolette on the balcony, at Clock’s Eve, though he hadn’t known what to make of it. The sight of the perceptivist running the poor towhead into the ground flickered through his mind; he frowned.

The offer was wholly unexpected. “Of course, Cerise,” he said immediately, smoothly, despite the muscle that twitched around his eye.

He finished off his canapé a bit too quickly, clearing his throat and coughing.

He kept his smile steady even as she began to detach the thing from her shoulders, sharp claws vainly grabbing for a few dark curls. He kept smiling, feeling oddly dazed, as she held Sish out, legs pedaling, every sharp scale on her long tail glinting the gold of concords.

He was there to take her, careful as a man who’s been handed a newborn. He’d sidled in close to Cerise – as close as he’d dared to be tonight – and now dutifully and gratefully received an armful of squirming, wiry, scaly drake.

“I don’t know much,” he grunted, nonchalantly enough, “about dueling with the physical – with the physical conversation.” One wing flicked out, setting the whole load off-balance; he felt a sharp little foot dig into his stomach.

Burbridge was very quiet for a few moments.

“One must be careful,” he said finally, clearing his throat. “G-Generally – perceptive conversation is the preferred – in tiers where injury is frowned upon, that is. It is quite difficult to disable an opponent with the physical without…”

It wasn’t unlike holding a cat. He got a good glimpse of a pointy face with irritable little eyes and a fringe of feathers. He shifted and lifted Sish up closer, wondering if the thing would take to his shoulder or if he’d just lose an ear. “Hey, hey, dove,” he murmured, “there you are, there you are…”

What the fuck, he thought, not for the first time this evening, is happening?

“Those physical duelists who do become champions are – quite formidable,” Burbridge added, smiling.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2719 - Afternoon

Burbridge had begun to say something after she mentioned Rosamilda--Cerise was prepared to ignore it, whatever it was. She was spared from having to concern herself with it; the man was rendered speechless by the sight of Sish's toothed jaws taking the fish offered her.

She had no more comment than a sharp nod about Hadrian Siordanti. She was aware, it just didn't matter. Quite the duelist in his Brunnhold days; she thought of the backlash that had put rather an end to that. That was Siordanti's business, not hers--she wasn't about to bring it up here. She wondered if they even knew. Instead of saying anything else, she offered to hand over Sish.

Her father's acceptance was fast--faster than she would have thought, given everything. Was he afraid of Sish? Or just that eager? She would find out, she thought, when she passed the miraan over. Sish didn't like being wound from Cerise's shoulders; she never did. Little claws tangled in her hair and pulled rather sharply on their way out. Cerise winced only a little. Sish squirmed and kicked, as Cerise had thought she might. She was always so indignant at being denied her rightful place.

There was a tender sort of care in the way her father accepted her wriggling golden companion--like the way she had seen some people be handed a child. The care didn't matter much to the miraan, who lashed out with a clawed foot as she got settled. A chorus of unhappy screeches accompanied all the squirming. Cerise couldn't stop smiling, watching.

"It is quite difficult," Cerise agreed cheerfully. She might have been put off her mission, and it may have lanced at something she held close to her chest to watch her father be happier to see Sish than he was to see her, but this was bolstering her spirits admirably. She let her sharp grey eyes turn from her father for a moment, looking instead to Burbridge. "I've never minded. They do tend to prefer to pair us off against each other; that's probably why."

Cerise thought of Antoinette, all those years ago. And the others since--no, avoiding injury had not been one of her chief concerns in a long time. She had learned to do so, because the rules demanded it, and because there was a certain satisfaction in having the control to know that she could. She didn't regret it, hitting Antoinette. If she caused injury now, she didn't regret that either. No matter how many letters the school sent home.

There was a sharp chitter from Sish that drew Cerise's attention back. In time to see her father try to settle Sish with surprising gentleness. Cooing at her like--Cerise didn't know what. She likes to be at a height, if she can--Cerise wanted to say it, but found she didn't have to. Once again she couldn't help but feel slightly betrayed. The miraan had started to clamber up her father to perch awkwardly halfway on his shoulders. The chittering had been, Cerise guessed, from her unbalancing herself and doing something that only made her more unhappy. Tiny claws tangled in the fabric of her father's suit.

"Oh Sish," she cried, exasperated and forgetting where she was for just a moment, "you've gone and got yourself stuck. You silly little thing." Cerise reached out her hands, to move closer and untangle Sish herself. Something held her back; she remained where she was. "You'll need to unhook her."

"Less injury in those duels than in any of the proper fights I've been in," she added breezily, not quite meeting either man's eyes. "Formidable"--yes, she liked that idea very much. Cerise smiled again, pleased at the thought.

[Tom Cooke]

The Museum of Antiquities • Two Falls

Afternoon on the 4th of Bethas, 2720

H
e’d never considered all the ways a golly could duel, being honest. Were the conversations always mixed? It was a mystery to him; some colleague of Anatole’s – a younger man down the hall, one of Burbridge’s staff – was talking about it all the time in the fall of last year, when, he supposed, there’d been some great tournament or other going on. Most of Burbridge’s staff and his own were sick and tired of hearing about it by the end of Vortas, and for all the kov had rattled on, he couldn’t make sense of a thing.

With tentative catlegs and claws out, the little drake had taken the hint and was climbing up onto his shoulder. He heard a couple of delicate pops and felt the fabric of his dinner jacket bunching up. Some of the shrieking had quieted down, he noted, but there weren’t exactly fewer stares; and now that he could see past Sish, he noticed that Burbridge was studiously avoiding his gaze (and the one at his shoulder).

“My father used to say that pairing off belike duelists honed the skills remarkably well,” the old man was musing instead, stroking his chin. “The opportunity to – well, I have never myself dueled, of course, but – the opportunity, I would imagine, to observe the vibrant diversity of technique within one’s own conversation.”

His lower back ached like hell from all the standing, and the miraan wasn’t helping. He winced as he felt a needling in the skin of his shoulder, and then a burning, lingering prick.

Burbridge cleared his throat; he was still wheedling on. “Why, who was it that said” – he took another ham tartlet with a delicate motion – “the great Beausoleil, I suspect, indeed it was him…that the greatest challenge would be to duel oneself – or one’s shadow, perhaps, to be poetic. I should think –”

“Tocks,” he muttered, though he was still smiling crookedly, shifting his shoulder about. Sish had opened one wing for balance, but he could still feel the claw embedded in his skin.

He’d thought it would be worse, but funny enough, it wasn’t much more painful than a cat’s claw. Circle knew he had plenty of experience with cats’ claws.

Cerise stepped up, and he thought for a moment she was going to help Sish get her claw free; he wasn’t sure what stopped her, other than maybe spite. Well, so be it. He snorted softly. “All right,” he said softly, reaching up to steady Sish as the miraan nearly lost her balance and took a hunk of him with her.

He forced himself to ungrit his teeth; smiling easily, he began to unhook the claw, though the thing fidgeting and drawing its scaly little grasper back wasn’t helping. There was a small pop as the thing came loose, and he raised his eyebrows at Cerise, who was saying something nonchalant.

Whatever it was, it caused Burbridge to start. “Proper fights, young lady? You mean, perhaps, your more satisfactory dueling experiences.”

Proper fights. He’d been busy fidgeting with the drake on his shoulders, but now, he paused, looking at Anatole’s daughter with a slight widening of his eyes. He blinked; another little twitch shuddered in his left eye. He and Burbridge were both silent for a moment.

“And how many fights have you been in?” he asked, as if Burbridge had never spoken. Despite himself, he was smiling; it wasn’t a grin, and it wasn’t a thin, polite smile, either. It was in every line of his face. “Does Cerise Vauquelin prefer to fight with her fists?”

He felt utterly bizarre, half-stooped like a villain from a storybook, trying to balance a miraan awkwardly on one shoulder. The shoulder of his jacket, too, would be full of pinprick holes; well, to hell with it. This afternoon had already gone to hell – or it had gone somewhere – and the Cerise Problem wasn’t going to solve itself anytime soon. One might as well make the best of it.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Museum of Antiquities, Two Falls
Bethas 4, 2720 - Afternoon

Cerise did, actually, agree with the assessment of Burbridge Senior--more senior. She enjoyed pairing off against other physical conversationalists in practice, and not just because both of them understood on a fairly strong level the high chance of injury that such a duel could carry. So alike and yet so similar--it was more clear to her, when facing an opponent with a set of skills so similar to her own, where their thoughts differed, and their wills. It was more thrilling than any classroom theory, though she paid more attention to that than most of her professors assumed.

This was why--so many of them sounded like Burbridge. Cerise was starting to lose her patience with his droning way of speaking. The entertainment she found in needling the both of them was slipping away, too. It was all she could do not to yawn.

At least Sish seemed to be keeping herself entertained, climbing up to her father's shoulders. Cerise didn't think as she'd leave her there for too long; Sish was startlingly heavy, and had she not had the weight of her grow gradually, as did the miraan, over time, she didn't think she could bear it as well as she did. She still wasn't sure, entirely, what it was about his health that she was to be kept from. Having a full-grown miraan on his shoulders likely wouldn't help whatever it was.

He unhooked Sish's claw, in the end. Sish clambered up rather happily to twine herself about. She did not, Cerise noted with some satisfaction, bring her feathered tail to wrap around his neck. She didn't know why but she felt that might have been one betrayal too many to bear.

"Why no, Incumbent Burbridge, although those have been quite satisfying in their way."

Cerise raised her dark eyebrows and looked to the ceiling as if considering. Secretly she was pleased; the look on both of the venerable faces had been quite worth it. Shock, on Burbridge's. And surprise that had given way to something Cerise couldn't put her finger on from her father. Smiling, in a way she hadn't ever seen, and at such a statement--in front of a colleague, at a museum party. Did she prefer to fight with her fists? She had never considered a question of preference. Sometimes there just was no thought in her to cast. Sometimes all she wanted was to let her rage find a target, to feel that turmoil quiet for a moment in the clean and unthinking explosion of motion. It was not a feeling she thought she could bring to the mona, and expect to get away with it.

"I don't know how many," she said slowly, looking away from the ceiling with a smile that wasn't one at all, "though not more than ten or so, I don't think. I supposed it depends on how you define a fight." She turned to Incumbent Burbridge as she went on, who by then looked more than faintly scandalized. "I don't know that I have a preference, Father--it's a matter of situation, isn't it? Brunnhold girls are not often expecting something so... concrete."

She didn't look sorry; she didn't feel sorry. If anything, Cerise Vauquelin looked positively smug. She didn't make a habit of picking fights. She did make a habit of finishing them, and by the Lady, she made sure she won, too. Cerise's expression was not far off from the one Sish had on her triangular face when being given the salmon.