Helios has begun his descent from the apex of the sky, descending from the most on high of the heavens, finally transiting down toward his watery demise. It is warm in Denver, bordering on hot, and the threat of a coming storm keeps the humidity somewhere around tolerably sticky. Arianna's hair is piled up into some artfully messy spiral, with one loose and unruly curl left uncaptured at the nape of her neck.
This is, undoubtedly, the aftermath of another friendly act of insistence. Nicholas we simply must... something about picnics and sunny days and the whisper of leaves rustling on the wind and the park. There is a picnic blanket, a basket, and a variety of things to nibble or sip, but also a stash of a couple books and even a Frisbee. (She is terrible at Frisbee, but takes delight in the shape of the word if nothing else.)
"It's a shame that there isn't a lake or or sea nearby," she has said, at least once. There are rivers and streams, sure, but not the seemingly endless expanse of a bigger body of water.
She is sitting now, with her bare feet just extended off the blanket and into the grass, and the length of her skirt just covering her knees, and her shoulders mostly bare, soaking in the summer sun. Surely she will burn; undoubtedly she will tan. The faint threads of red in her hair have gone coppery bronze in their summer fade. She is picking blackberries out of the small blue pressed paper box that sits between them. There is purple on her fingertips from their juice.
"Have you spoken to Kestrel lately?" she asks him, innocent of any ulterior motive. Except, perhaps, to distract him from his half of the berry horde long enough that she might pick an extra one or two up without his notice. Without Pen around, it is safer to ask after their old cabalmate.
Nick HydeThe days of late summer are usually the hottest in spite of the days growing shorter: hot and hazy and golden, with grasses and plants drying out after having baked in the summer sun for months. You can smell it hanging in the air, the same way you can smell fresh rain and wet earth in spring.
Nick is lying on his side on their blanket, raised on one elbow with his other hand extended toward the box that contains their blackberries. His skin, normally a pale brown, has grown a little darker over the summer months; it makes the blackberry stains on his fingers and thumb all the more stark. He is wearing light grey shorts and a plain white T-shirt, which as of yet has remained unblemished by berry juice. His shoes lie discarded at the edge of the blanket.
"I do miss the ocean, a little," says Nick, who grew up without it. The home of his heart is far away, though, the place that they all left not so long ago.
Ari's question draws his eyes up to her as he pops another blackberry into his mouth. He eats them slowly, worrying a little at the seeds and crushing them in his molars when he can. "I just talked to him last month. Have you heard from him at all?"
Arianna GiamettiShe is not careful with the blackberries; she does not chew their seeds. Her fingers are stained with juice and were she Persephone then there would be no question as to whether she had eaten of the fruit at their table; she would be condemned to so many more than six months of the year. There is consequence like this brewing, in fact, for some other transgression of hers but it has little to do with blackberry juices.
"I haven't," she says. She isn't looking at Nick just now. Her chin is tipped up enough that the sun catches all the planes of her face. Her eyes are mostly closed; she can make the shape of him out from between the frame of her lashes and over the sweep of her cheeks. He is blurred from this vantage point, and the sunlight casting off the dark richness of his hair gives him a sense of illumination; he is not entirely shadow.
"I just, sometimes, think of him in the summer. And I wonder how he is, but not enough to surrender to him evidence that I think of him when we are parted." She waves this idea away with a half-hearted gesture, even as the corner of her mouth tucks into the curl of a well-familiar smirk. It was in the summer, hot and humid and almost sweltering summer, that Kestrel had convinced her to join the multi-Traditional cabal. It was in the summer, and by the sea.
Nick HydeNick rolls onto his stomach so that he can face Ari now, still half-raised on his elbows. He brings his hands together into a fist, which he rests his chin on; it gives him a rapt look, as though he were a child listening to a story just before bedtime. There is a hint of a smile playing about one corner of his mouth though, some devilry.
Whatever it is, he does not speak of it just yet. Instead he reaches for another blackberry, then crushes it against the inside of his cheek.
"I think he's doing well. He was ornery when I called, but it's hard to tell with him these days whether it's something I've done or whether that's just how Robin is, you know?"
His eyes wander off to the side, somewhere past Ari's shoulder as he chews on the berry and reaches for another. "Neither him or Pen have ever really told me what their fight was about. That probably means it was about me."
Arianna GiamettiWhether that's just how Robin is, you know?
A small commiserating sound acknowledges this query. It is, in fact, just how Robin is. And oh, how well does she know it. Yes. But her chin lowers a little, lashes parting, grey green gaze falling squarely on him when he suggests himself as the source of the division between Pen and Kestrel. The roll of her shoulder is lazily dismissive, but her attention him is not so gentle or removed.
"I doubt it." A pause. "They are each immovable in their own ways and never did I believe they were intended to always agree. It could be about you in shape, but I doubt it is about you in substance. His love for boundaries stops only at his own."
She thinks about reaching for a blackberry again, but waits instead. She is curious about some undertone in how Nick has said what Nick isn't saying. "Does it bother you, that their quarrel may be over you?" she asks.
Nick Hyde"A little," Nick admits, though by the way his gaze shifts sidelong perhaps he had not meant to imply this, nor to lead into it. In truth, in spite of his frequent insights into the hearts of other people Nicholas has never been certain how much Robin likes him, though many other people could likely say the same.
"Just that they were always such close friends and now Pen doesn't even like the mention of him. I don't like thinking it might have been about me. But I think you're right, that it's probably some deeper issue, even if that's true."
Nick reaches for another berry, seemingly with no intent of stopping even if Ari has. More berries for Nicholas. "I tried to talk him into visiting, when I talked with him. You should help me get him out here."
Arianna Giametti"I like that you are so gentle hearted."
This is all Arianna says to acknowledge or smooth over the unexpected honesty. It is, perhaps, too abrupt to offer any sort of solace. It is not expounded upon, and she picks up another berry from the box and uses it to stop up her mouth from saying anything more on the matter. It is not her place to gentle Kestrel in any way, as fond as she is of their prickly Tytalan.
"Oh? Do tell! How might I offer assistance? Last time I suggested a visit, he reminded me that it was I who left him, and then found the next opportunity to hang up on me." She offers this with a smirk, and leaves out even the broadest context of that call. Arianna leaves out a lot; her stories are like lacework: the pattern lies as much in what is not there as what is.
The next blackberry she selects is too soft, and it smooshes between her thumb and forefinger. The pad of her thumb has gone red-pink and she must suck the juice from her fingers. She wonders, idly, at the privilege of a life where this is allowable folly, this idleness and friendship and not worrying about what Nicholas might say and to whom and what disgrace may befall her name or house. She is unguarded, comparatively, here in the Western summer sun of Denver. It catches her by surprise sometimes; it reminds her how easily he could wound her. She has spent too much of the summer away and among her own if these thoughts encroach on their picnic.
Nick Hyde"That sounds like Rob," Nick says, and there is a smile here that has lingered since Ari commented on his gentle-heartedness, his inherent kindness. It's a quiet, reflective thing, that expression; perhaps he is only glad to have fallen among friends who do not view this quality of his as a liability, as evidence of immaturity, a thing to be squashed.
Nick squashes another berry between his teeth and his inner cheek, and when his eyes meet hers there is a spark in their depths. She might suspect that she will regret offering her assistance so soon, once she has seen it.
"Well, Rob challenged me to a bet when we last spoke. He thinks you couldn't work a job at some retail store among Sleepers, and I think you could. Somewhere like Michael's, was what he said. Anyway, I called him on that bet and he agreed that if he lost he would come out here and visit."
Nick drops his chin back onto his fist. "So what do you say we make him eat his words and get him out here at the same time?"
Arianna Giametti[Doo de doo.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Arianna Giametti"He is probably right," she concedes, though she is turning the thought over against her teeth. Nick can feel it; he has the sense of it. Arianna has not worried this thought into the ground just yet. It may rise up and into something more. "And Michael's is a terrible place. What passes for Art in some places, or even for Craft -- augh."
Her expression is distorted into such displeasure that he can feel the scorn and disapproval even within his own breast. And with reason; it is unlikely Ari would find anything befitting her arts there, beyond rudimentary and lesser quality supplies. Nick has seen her fashion and adjust her own nibs, grind and mix her own dyes. She is an Artisan.
Oh, gods, and Halloween is coming. Arianna will not have thought of this, but likely Nick has.
"Do you not have better things to bet upon than whether I might work a retail job?" Eyebrow raised, attention pinned momentarily to the shape of the bridge of his nose, and then to the corner of his mouth, and then to the dark of his eyes. As if she might suss out the shape of his mischief from the lines of his face. Giving up on this quickly, she draws a glass bottle of ginger beer from the basket and uses her skirt to protect her hand and she twists the top free.
Nick Hyde"Michael's is a terrible place," Nick concedes, and though it has occurred to him that Halloween is coming (they have already started to see candy appearing in stores, three months early) he knows better than to mention it. "It would be very difficult for you to sell anything there, knowing how much work you put into your craft."
Because he has seen her adjust her own nibs, grind and mix her own dyes. His voice is knowing, and it is of course a touch sympathetic.
"You could think of it like...a study, kind of. Or an opportunity to encourage the Sleepers to pursue their own art, or their own craft. Think of all the young minds you could reach," and Nick is smiling and the glimmer of mischief is back, and the dark of his eyes is beckoning - it's the sort of trickery that craves company.
"I asked Rob what would get him out here, and he named his terms. I thought it better not to debate them, if I thought we could get him out here."
Arianna Giametti"What exactly in our long friendship has led you to believe that I concern myself with the artistic pursuits of Sleepers, or with the education of their young minds?" she asks, archly, with a dark and knowing sort of wryness tucked into every syllable. She is teasing him, truly, but also in earnest: has he known her to be altruistic on this scale, to suffer any sort of indignity at all for the sake of unaware and unknowing others? Especially those outside of her precious Order?
He could simply suggest she volunteer as a camp counselor for the Disparates if he wished to pick nonsensical arguments. So this mustn't be an argument and instead must be something different. Still curious, she sips offer her ginger beer. The sunlight is all tangled up in her hair and her lashes and while she is not as picturesque as his Penelope she is still a brilliant sort of danger.
"Rob's terms are rarely so plain-spoken. What game is playing you for, I wonder..."
Another sip, and still such scrutiny and remove.
Nick Hyde"I don't think he thinks we'll win," Nick says, "and I think he intends to make his visit an unpleasant one even if we should succeed. You know Rob," he says, and of course she does: he does not lose gracefully. "But we'll just have to work again and make him have fun in spite of himself."
Nick's tone is dry, but beneath that she could detect: a hopeful note, or maybe two. He perhaps believes that the friendship between his wife and their former cabalmate could be repaired, and genuinely does want to see Rob and have him enjoy himself. Nick can be inscrutable, but there are also times when his motivation is plain, is written in the cant of his head and the crinkling of his eyes.
"I believe that you know that an Art improves when people believe in it and pursue it," he says. "Your Art would grow too, by having other people learn and practice with you. One person can't advance an art all on their own."
Arianna Giametti[Empathy: ... Do you really think this is all that's going on here, Nick? Does Kestrel have you snowed?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nick Hyde[Nicholas really does think that's all that's going on. He misses Rob. Also he is a little less innocent in how this was set up than he is letting on.]
Arianna GiamettiThere is a game afoot, Arianna can feel as much in her bones. She has a nose for mischief and it is undoubtedly present, but she cannot shake the feeling that not the whole of the story is being shared. It is probably not being shared with Nick, either, given his earnest eyes and the plainness of his motivation.
Still, it is this plainness and uncomplicated cant of his head that gives her pause.
"It would be simpler, I think, for the two of us to visit him," she hazards, with the full knowledge that this is not the same as winning a hand against the Robin. It is not the same as having Kestrel come to them and, against all odds, enjoy himself.
"Tell me the shape of this wager," she, at last, demands. "A solid one is specific and time-bound and measurable. It is Michael's definitively, or will any 'Art' supplies store do? How long must I spend educating the minds of sleepwalking Denverites? Do I actually have to sell anything or merely attend to the premises?
"And, most importantly, what is my reward amongst the winnings? You say we, yet this is your wager with the Tytalan." She gestures toward him with the neck of her bottle. Arianna, though often indifferent, is far too shrewd to give her time and her embarrassment away for nothing.
Nick Hyde"Michael's, definitively, for at least a week," he says. "But you won't have to sell anything there. I figure they would probably just have you stock or work as a cashier." There is another hint of a smile, though this one is less voluntary - Ari's supposition that she must sell or 'attend to the premises' tells him all that he needs to know, that she has never worked a job of this kind.
She of course does not recall teenage summers spent in drudgery and humiliating uniforms; Nick does all too well.
"Me visiting him for a task was part of his wager, if we were to lose," Nick says, though Ari was shrewd enough to catch his use of 'we,' and so he smiles again. They're shifting things, his smiles, and full of nuance, and it's no wonder at times that one of Denver's apprentices once chose to characterize him as "shadowy."
At her last question, Nick cants his head, and the way his eyes wander skyward betrays some of his reluctance. "Well, you get to see Rob too," he offers. "And I, uh...I suppose you can have something of me as well."
Arianna GiamettiAri suffered her own forms of drudgery and humiliation in adolescence. More humiliation, admittedly, than drudgery, but the balance stands.
"If I am to help you best Kestrel, and win a prize that might quite irritate your wife, and also subject myself to the masses, then I, too, will set my price for my part..." The words trail idly, as if she is considering something; the words are neither idle nor considerate.
"Kestrel wants a task of you, you say? That bodes. That fore-bodes. Hmmm." Thoughtful, she taps a finger against her pursed lips, then wagers: "I want favours of you. The old sort of favour, of which I am certain you are acquainted, and I should welcome three. One for the indignity on my own part, one for the hazard of offending our dearest Penelope, and one for my complicity when Kestrel challenges on how you bested me. So three seems fair," she suggests.
And then she sips at her beer again. It is a simple request. Three favors between friends, to be named at her convenience, an outstanding balance to be kept until the debt is settled.
Nick HydeNick nods as Ari considers her price; he knows better than to think that Ari will ever give idle thought to anything, much less a bargain (even one among friends.) He pops a few more blackberries into his mouth while she considers her terms, and then reaches into their basket for a ginger beer of his own. He uses the blanket rather than his shirt to twist away the cap.
Ari's first two terms draw from him only nods, and slow things they are: concessions to what she has said, to her indignity as well as the very real possibility that his wife will be irritated. At the third, he shrugs. "Robin can challenge me on how I convinced you all he likes. The terms were only that you should be convinced. So there's no complicity on your part."
He takes a swallow of his own beer, glances up toward her and adds, "But the first two, I'll agree to, even if owing you three favors is more poetic and significant."
Arianna Giametti"Ah, but Nicholas, threes are the capital of Kings. And there is complicity, if I am not thoroughly convinced and must choose to throw myself into this knowingly. Do I seem convinced of Michael's and the good will unto men that I might do there?"
She is not. She is not convinced of Michael's, and neither is she convinced that this bet of Kestrel's is on the level. It is more likely that he is playing Nick toward some purpose and so, unspoken and unannounced, there is a far more convincing reason to best Robin at play: sparing Nick whatever the Tytalan has in mind. And they are masters of Mind. It might not be pretty.
Nick HydeThere is another frown as he considers: perhaps Pen's words that he should bargain more carefully are fresh in his mind. In the end, though, he nods as Ari puts her logic forth. "I suppose you aren't complicit, then," he agrees.
Whatever motive Ari may have, Nick for once does not seem thoughtful of whatever secret motivations Robin may have. He trusts Robin, and he is unused to the cutthroat machinations within the Order of Hermes, save what he has experienced while visiting the Hermetics with Pen. (Whatever Robin's master may have done to him: this he cannot recall, and mercifully, shall not.)
There is a sidelong look now, something sly. "So do you want me to help you fill out your job application, or do you feel up to it on your own?"
Arianna Giametti"First you shall swear to me: three favours, of my desiring and at my leisure, on which you may not refuse me. Non-transferable, save to my issuance --" there is a little pause given for levity here in the standard Hermetic language. Arianna punctuates the quiet with a sip from her ginger beer.
There is something sidelong and sly to Nicholas; Arianna is resolute in her nonchalance, in the ho hum of this moment, as if it were the sort of pact entered into easily and often.
"This seems courtly, does it not, for an agreement between friends?" Her bearing and lack of apparent concern indicate that she assumes he knows how the remainder of such things go. And then, with a broader flash of teeth and mischief, something far more conspiratorial and familiar, she addresses the question of applications. "Do you feel an overwhelming need to proofread it for me? I have applied for positions before," she assures him.
Undoubtedly she is lying. She is so very confidant and self-assured.
Nick HydeNicholas is, of course, wary to swear such a vow even to a friend: such things are binding, and he knows this as assuredly as he knows that the sun sets in the west, that there are worlds beyond this one which can be found in streams and mirrors and behind waterfalls. He would not dream of breaking his word to Ari, is the point.
"I will give you three favors that you name, in your own time, and I will not refuse. So do I swear," Nick says, and he is solemn but this is broken only by how he lifts a hand at the end to place over his heart. There are few vows save his marriage vows which he has not made with some levity, some hint at capriciousness.
Rest assured he will work those terms however he can.
Another smile here, a rare flash of teeth. "Which positions? Where?"
Arianna GiamettiHe is right to be wary and Ari is not always a benevolent soul, but she would go to great lengths to protect Nicholas or Penelope from harm; she will not ask of him the things that another Hermetic might, given the same latitude and leeway in such an open-ended oath. She is not like Kestrel's mentor.
"Academy appointments and lecturer selection, applications for study rooms or privileges within the libraries, and lastly whatever ridiculous mockery of reasonable documentation that was required for purchase the house here. I know they have very little overlap with retail salesmanship, but I also doubt that Michael's will ask me to recite my pedigree to the seventh generation or outline the entirety of my financial situation."
She is, apparently, wholly unfamiliar with the requirements of job applications.
Though she has only finished a portion of her ginger beer, she sets it aside so that she can plant her hands behind her and lean back lazily. This is almost the same stance she had adopted on the beach with Kestrel the night he had talked her into leaving Eve. The thought echoes, faintly, but doesn't rise to recognition.
"Maybe I will end up liking Michael's," she says, silently swallowing down the bile that rises at the thought of having said those words aloud. "Perhaps they will have an employee discount and I can stock up on ugly Christmas decorations to hide around your house." The bridge of her nose wrinkles in amusement as she watches him; she is unable to keep herself wholly from answering the levity in his eyes.
Nick Hyde[Oh Ari.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Arianna Giametti[Empathy: I'm paying attention. Really.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Nick Hyde[Contesting!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Arianna Giametti[No ties!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7) ( success x 1 )
Nick HydeAcademy appointments. Lecturer selection. Study rooms, privileges.
Nick's face is a mask. A very earnest, sincere mask (eyes wide and very thoughtful, without an ounce of mirth) as he listens to Ari say these things, and then he nods very slowly. He is imagining: Ari asking her interviewers at Michael's whether she ought to recite her pedigree, or putting one of her Hermetic references on her job application.
None of this shows itself on his face. "They probably won't ask you any of that," he agrees.
"I think you might like it," he says, as he takes a swallow of his ginger beer. "The same way you like going to dive bars with Andrés and drinking tequila." A beat. "Just no light up reindeer or blow up Santas, please. Pen is going to be annoyed with me enough over this as it is."
Arianna GiamettiShe might like Michael's the way she likes going to dive bars and drinking with the Etherite. Try as she might, Arianna cannot see the connection between the two idiosyncratic uses of her time and energy but she cannot argue that she does enjoy drinking with Andres. Maybe it's an act of rebellion on some level, or an attempt at cross-Traditional bonding. Ari has never really had a good reason for the appeal there.
"I haven't seen Andres in awhile, now that you mention it..." she muses, shifting her weight from one palm to another in consideration. "How is he doing?"
This has the added benefit of being not targeted toward whatever thin and inexperienced Sleeper alias she has for interacting more completely with the mundane world. Perhaps it was time to segue from graduate student in an esoteric arts course to some variant of bored housewife.
Nick Hyde"Neither have I," Nick says, and now he lifts himself up off of his elbows and pushes himself upward so that he can sit crosslegged across from Ari on the blanket instead. He leans forward a moment to stretch whatever muscles tightened in his lower back from the position he was in.
The beer he rests atop his knee, after he has taken another swallow from the bottle. "I hope he's doing all right. I haven't really seen him or Margot at all. Just Ned."
Though he has heard of Margot, and there is a flicker of something across his face, some spasm that might be shame: he should perhaps have been more proactive about following up with both of them. Life happens to get in the way, sometimes. "Hopefully he's starting to make some recovery. I don't know if he's still working through his Quiet or not."
Nick Hyde[Empathy?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
Arianna GiamettiThis happens when one goes away. One misses pertinent information about the community at large. Pen has only filled Ari in on so much -- which is fair, as Ari has only filled Pen in on so much of what had happened while she was away, too. Things fall through the cracks, especially details about the peripheral lives that adorn their circle.
"Hmmmmmm, Quiet?" Arianna's head is cocked to one side; there is a sort of pointedness to her eyes that might bespeak concern but was more directly quizzical. This bit of information is new; it has a place amongst the other Andres information rattling around in her head and, given this new thing, some of the rest of it was falling into place.
"I saw him in June," she says. "Before I left for Midsummer conclave." There is a poignant hesitation between each sentence, once she cannot play off into her usual nonchalance. "He seemed... okay... ish."
Ari does not usually equivocate, but she is admitted thin on details about that encounter. And the details she does have regard hunting for a radioactive spider which, probably, doesn't speak to the good doctor's sanity. Or her own. Definitely not to her own. (So Michael's would be a lot like blackout drinking with an Etherite? No wonder the store was named after an Archangel.)
Nick HydeThe way Nick's eyebrows loft imply that he had not realized he had neglected to provide Ari with this update, or that Pen did not provide Ari with this update. He is quick to lift the bottle to his mouth to take another drink.
"He and I ran into a wolfman, of some kind, a little while ago," Nick says. "I don't think it was a true werewolf, from what I understand from the spirits, but Andrés went pretty deeply into Quiet when he tried to Work something to put it to sleep. I managed to trap it and call a spirit to get the wolfman away, but there wasn't much I could do for Andrés other than bring him to Kiara."
Here, a frown, the appearance of a little point between his brows. Then he reaches for another blackberry.
"How was your Midsummer?"
Arianna GiamettiPerhaps it is that she has been away more than they have been together lately, but Nick is acutely attuned to the difference in his friend. There is this of note: she seems to care more overtly than she normally would, beneath the everpresent veneer of indifference there is concern for him and also for Andres. It is a sort of softness she would not allow if he called it out.
She is also mildly fatigued. This is easily explained by the travel and her increased studies, but there is a physical element to it as well.
Arianna GiamettiHer brows knit at the discussion of the wolfman. She considers, but ultimately decides against, mentioning the radioactive spider. Ari does not wish to be an unreliable narrator and there is so much about that outing that is unreliable in her memory, but nevertheless the crease between her eyebrows deepens before it relents.
"He seemed himself when I saw him. For whatever that is worth." It is not the most glowing of recommendations, but neither is it terrible.
On Midsummer: She exhales before answering, and lets her attention focus on some point over his shoulder. The words are careful, but the caution is not because of Nick. "Strenuous. On many fronts. I am attempting to make nice with the elder Maga Fioretta and... she is every bit as trying as I remembered. And then Silas came, when he had been resolutely against attending. It is awkward to lecture on my Art without the requisite rank, or to spend the entire gathering as my mother's daughter. I do not wish to always borrow on her renown; it is not a debt I can repay."
This, then, elicits the same sort of uneasy shift from one hand to another before she pushes upright fully so she can drink her ginger beer again. "I only had to dodge two blind dinner dates, so there is that. And I don't think my mother found out about Silas and me, so that is another thing." She raises the bottle a little in salutation or gratefulness.
Nick HydeNick notices all kinds of things, with regular frequency. Here's a thing about the perceptive: they notice much more than they actually know what to do with, and perception alone does not mean one will draw accurate conclusions. There are many things that Ari's tiredness, even of the physical sort, could mean to him; a lot of things that could be attributed to how deeply she cares, at just this moment.
It is easy for him to listen then without distraction to what she says, because it lends what he sees a sort of explanation and the human mind looks for these things. "You won't always have to borrow on your mother's renown," he says, with a quiet sort of assurance.
"Are you planning to tell your mother about you and Silas, at some point? She knows you're old friends, so she wouldn't disapprove of him, I would think," and this little furrowing of his brows. Nick's sense of what is proper in older families like Ari's, one of a higher social class and social standing, is a little thin at times.
Arianna Giametti"If there's cause," she says, and it is only half of an answer. That Arianna keeps broad sections of her life at arm's distance from one another is no secret. That Silas, who is part and parcel of that oft-distant and wholly Hermetic sector, might be held apart from her parents and their titles and the social situation is curious. Right now, with as clearly as he sees her, it reads as deliberately deceptive of someone.
Perhaps of herself.
"And, to the contrary, if my mother knew that Silas and I were -- how would she say this? -- carrying on like Initiates in Academy, I think she would ring the inestimable Maga Robinson right up and start planning for the education of their one day future heir. He is of the right sort of family, neverminding his father's Xoasian ways; mine is not deplorable to Silas's mother either. Then the screw turning would begin regarding marriage and children and attaining a respectable rank."
Ari rolls her eyes and shakes her head a little. Hermetic mothers are not much different from mothers everywhere, it seems. Save that they have a terrifying amount of Will to help bring about their desired outcomes for their children. She takes another sip, and then smirks wryly.
"It is, after all, what I owe my family for the great privilege of being born: an heir to their names."
Nick HydeNick listens, and his eyes fall forward onto the blanket as he turns over whatever it is he is turning over in his mind. One of his hands lies folded in his lap, the other loosely wrapped around his ginger beer, which he has not touched for the past several moments.
"Well, it sounds kind of like a win-win, to me, if they'd be satisfied with something you're already doing. Even if the root of that rankles a little."
Nick bites the inside of his cheek, now. Whatever her words may have struck in him, something regarding his own father or mother, is anyone's guess. Nicholas has never said very much about his parents, at least not to Ari. They are Sleepers, and his struggles with them have been mundane struggles: perhaps it is difficult to figure out how they fit into his world, when even both of his sisters are Awake.
"Do you think you don't want children then, or would your parents just want that to happen sooner than you do?"
Arianna Giametti"I have always imagined that I would have a child," she says. The way she says it is altogether disconnected from whether or not she would want one. It is the way that an an adult skeptically regards the long-held wantings of their inner child, knowing that they were all along conditioned to the expectations of their elders, and that they have formed their dreams in the hollows and shapes left by those allowances. She has said this same thing to Silas: she always imagined there would be a child, and if there was to be a child that it might well and reasonably be his. Whose else?
It is anything but romantic.
"These thoughts are heavy, Nicholas. They remind me how much I envy you and Pen. Not that your love is unfettered or easy, but that it is well and truly your own. I don't think I will ever have that. Even with Silas."
She leaves that thought there, awkward and unfinished as it is. He is not the only one sifting through the fine silt of memory. She does not delve into this often, and even as Nick has a way of pulling the most earnest and guarded places out of her, this one has been well enough disturbed for one day.
"I brought us crudites, but now I have want of something more substantial. Let's pack up and find a tacqueria, shall we? Or your wings place?"
