[Arianna]
The Institute of White Flame
Isle of Skye, Scotland, United Kingdom
Beltaine, 2002
The sky is covered with clouds and has been threatening to storm all morning. Only in the last half hour has the sun begun to break through, in broad and glancing beams of dappled light, pushing through the ancient windows of the Institute of White Flame, warped by the glass which is likewise warped by time. One of these great beams touches the rosetta window above the grand staircase, spilling riotous colors down its steep and worn stone steps, throw like confetti over students and structure alike, as if the heavens, too, were celebrating the advent of his birth. This brightness comes in a passing period, between one lecture series and another, when the collection of young Hermetics in the hallowed hall is densest.
Silas, of course, is decorated by this sweep of color and light. His face is cast in green and gold; the girl beside him is awash in blues; the one beside her red-touched and rosy. The student body, as a whole, churns and whorls and moves through the restriction of the ancient passages like a river coursing its banks. Laughter and conversation babbles, breaks against the stone walls and echoes; footsteps thunder; if the floor and walls were not made of solid, time-worn stone surely they would tremble under the pounding of so many willful feet.
This is the most congested of the crossing times, as the Consors, in their separate studies, are also passing between lectures. Positioned as Silas and his coterie are, on one of the landings of the great stair, against its intricate balustrade, he can see how Arianna's classroom disgorges into the greater river. She is there, easily identified to him, with her hair tucked behind one ear and her arms wrapped around an ambitious stack of tomes. A boy, a few years her junior, is doggedly attempting to dominate her attentions. Even young as this, Arianna is deft at redirecting, enduring or otherwise refusing uninvited attention. She glances up to the landing, in hopes of catching Silas's eye with some sort of intimation of mischief and missed adventure, and nearly misses the boy reaching out to touch her arm -- nearly, because no. She shifts, fluidly, and puts the next clump of students in the hallway between herself and the younger boy. He is left to awkwardly recover his graces. The smile she offers him through the intervening cluster of classmates is warm enough, but warning, and then the Giametti girl is off to weave her way through the river of bodies toward her next classroom, with a little lilt to her step (always mischief, and always merriment).
They see each other like this, mostly in passing, surrounded by their supposed peers. He among the Apprentices and Initiates, she among the Consors and outside Apprentices with much catching up to do. Their days of sitting together at the back of a common classroom, plotting their next treasure hunt or adventure, have passed. He has his newfound connection with his Avatar to explore, and mystical magical things to learn. She is excelling in her Arts, and has been tapped to teach these younger fellows; her hand has been recognized as gifted, and her calligraphy is beginning to grace documents of significance -- he may have marked it in examples and diagrams in his studies of Ars Potentiae or Ars Conjunctus. It is less appropriate for him to dally with her now that they are not peers; surely Elizabeth has cautioned him, in one of her misguided moments of motherly advice, about relations below his station.
The Fioretta-Giametti household does not seemed to have issued any such cautions about him, or at least Arianna has paid it no heed if they have. When she has time to steal away from her studies, a rare thing these days but still a sport upon occasion, she finds him first -- and if she does not find him engrossed in some other pursuit (or some other, which has happened, as they grow older each year), then Silas is still her favorite adventuring partner. And Ari is quick, and clever, and cunning -- she knows a great many secrets; they have a great deal of fun.
[Silas]
It's passing time, one of the more crowded ones, and though Silas moves with the same confident, prowling sort of way that has only been accentuated since the last Arianna saw him before holiday - though every look and movement speaks of the arrogance not only of his family or the Order but also of being Awakened in general - this is the time in which he is the least comfortable. There are too many people pressed too near, too many conflicting sounds and scents distracting, leaving the Hunter on high alert even as the boy attempts to appear bored. Every few seconds, though, there will be a twitch of his shoulders, or his head will turn too quickly to some stimulus or another, and he'll have to play off the slip with a slow, sly smile, with leaning in to whisper to one of his attending group (because even then, there was an attending group - the Robinson name is a big thing in some circcles, and this Hermetic school so near to its ancestral homelands in Enland is one) of people currying favor. Until this year, Arianna was often one of the people closest to him in these groups, and also probably the one best for him; she helped to keep his head from growing too large with compliments and attention, among other things. Perhaps he did the same for her, when she was unable to dodge those who were so keen on gaining hers. But things have been strange this year as Elizabeth has been doing her best to redirect Silas' friendships and he's been rebelling by growing lazier and more indolent by the day, by putting his affections where he may for a week, a day, an hour, to hell with the name(s) of the other(s), or their level of skill, or whether or not they're Awake. There has been mischief of a darker sort than what he and Arianna most often devise, and often his name has been attached to it in whispers. Were the Institute the sort of school that expelled easily, or perhaps were Silas' parents less well known in the community from which it pulls its students, Silas would have been gone not long into the year, as would those with whom he most often spends his leisure.
Needless to say, his mother is not pleased.
Needless to say, this was part of his aims.
Of course Silas is decorated by a sweeping beam of color and light (and as ever, he is barely in uniform - tie hanging loose, blazer undone, hat only goodness knows where) when Arianna sees him in this passing time, and of course she sees a girl (brunette, freckled, short and cute but not holding the same sort of beauty that Arianna always has) tug his sleeve the better to whisper in his ear, and of course she sees Silas wrap an arm around this other girl (Katja Smythe, whose father is of House Quaesitor and whose mother is only a consor, but who is an Awakened apprentice and who is rumored to be looking for a good match by hook or by crook - but he looks so bored, so barely tolerant of this even in the action) as she looks excited by whatever his answer was to the point of jumping and squeeling (the Hunter frowns his displeasure, unseen by Katja), wrapping her arms around Silas' neck and kissing him boldly on the lips. Which is apparently the last straw, and he pushes her away - gently but abruptly, with no room to question his intent - as that light and color moves just enough to rest on Arianna as well. This is when Silas sees her there, just a floor below. Katja is making a bit of a scene, but Silas ignores her and instead appreciates the scene before him, but for the younger boy bothering his friend.
"Arianna," comes, as if he's next to her - it's a simple matter to throw one's voice when one has the right skills and is in a school full of Awakened and near enough. And it's unmistakable as anyone but him to her ear. "It's Beltaine, time for sea and sky and fire - time for anything but these damned walls. Adventure with me again?"
She can feel his eyes on her, heavy and brooding-studious, but cannot read his thoughts. It is, perhaps, the most he's spoken to her since he came back from the winter holiday, Awake. There is not long to make a decision, as the hall is already clearing.
[Arianna]
She is but one body in the river that runs the lower concourse, and, for a moment, she becomes a rock, an impediment to its progress, as his voice catches her ear and she turns to look up at him, tomes clutched with both arms and held close to chest. From this distance, he can see that her eyes catch his, and the curl of something at the corner of her mouth. Her chin lifts -- but even now, the progress of the river of Awakened souls compels her onward, and she takes a few steps backward as she yields to it. He can see the collision before and as it happens: Initiate Exemptus Xavier Haellewyn, bani Flambeau, student of her father--here as a member of the Collegium and also as some sort of watchtower for the elder Giametti over his daughter--is a slow-moving scull on the river, and Arianna, fleet-of-foot in even her retreating posture, moves more quickly. She is glancing up at Silas when her shoulder clips Haellewyn's arm in passing, when the precious tower of ancient tomes in her arms becomes precarious, becomes endangered and then comes back under her control.
"Miss Giametti? Are you quite alright --" Throwing his voice has not given him ears to the situation, but perhaps he knows it well. She turns to face the Initiate, to assure him she is fine, to dissuade his assistance. All readily and easily despite the obvious gap in years and ability between them. But she throws another look up to Silas, and Xavi, being quick and also the beneficiary of that gap in years and ability, follows her attention right to the barely in uniform, infamous for his exploits, Initiate Robinson. Then, out of a sense of duty and not attraction, comes a hand on her shoulder, and some engaging question about her stack of books as he moves to guide her toward her next classroom, or, perhaps toward the stacks to return the precarious, precious, endangered stack of tomes she carries to their rightful resting places.
Chaperone mode, engaged.
So another period passes without the requested adventure, and Silas is again beset by his coterie of hangers on, who seem, to a man -- or, perhaps more aptly, to a woman -- completely unaware that it is Beltaine, and also that it is his birthday, and also that it is time for sky, and fire, and sea and celebration. He is so engaged, or simply playing at it, when Ari ascends the stone steps and slips his guarding harpies to step in beside him. There is a little flush to her cheeks -- the stairs are unforgiving, uncompromising, as stair in a Hermetic Keep must always be -- and she is perfectly in uniform. The gray of her skirt hits precisely at the top of her knee. The white of her dress shirt is impeccable; the vest fits in exactly as required -- which gives the benefit of accenting the beginning shapes of her femininity. The angular nature of her face has moved through awkward to pretty, but is still so young as to be often transparent. As if she owns him, and as if it were her right, Arianna slips an arm through one of Silas's and tugs, ever so gently. At these ages they are of a height; he has not yet gained such an advantage on her, so that when she looks over, the smirk is dancing in her eyes as mischief and adventure promised, as asked but also somewhat slightly delayed.
"Initiate Robinson," she says, as if her voice now is what will garner his attention. "I am so dreadfully sorry to pull you away from your ... friends. But I have need of your assistance." Her voice is clear, but ripples with some half-held amusement. Of course, as a Consor, she must make up excuses for her bid for his time. This familiarity, though, will not go unmarked by the girls in attendance -- perhaps that is also what she wants, today. Then her voice is pitched a little lower, and it is possible that Silas and only his closest admirers might catch: "Might I borrow your attention for a moment, in the southern courtyard, by the kitchen steps?"
So, it is a matter of the lower house, then. Perhaps some creature needs his attention, or his particular knowledge of herbs and growing gardens is required. Silas, of course, knows the better of Arianna but what do the others know -- she wears the plain grey and white of an unAwakened consor, no colors of house or primary Art. He knows also that there is no pressing kitchen emergency which demands his attention. Silas is keenly aware that it is Beltaine; he has pleaded for the sea and sky and fire. Arianna is of the few who knows it is his birthday; she has leveraged and wheedled and traded for the means to mark it specially.
[Silas]
Silas watches as the Initiate Exemptus draws Arianna away and for a moment a more potentially violent sort of darkness comes to his brooding; Arianna is not watching to see how he snaps at one of the coterie, how he pushes abruptly away from the railing to make his way to class as alone as he ever gets in these halls. Class is class - some treatise on Ars Vitae that is far and away dryer than what he experiences when he spends time in South Carolina or Kentucky or wherever it is that he goes when he visits his Aunt. So he broods sullenly through class, and yes, he's one of those - a James Potter type, who finds things come easily to him, and thus torments those who are less fortunate. Not quite to the extent as the character, perhaps, but there's a certain similarity for those who know the stories. The muggleborn and mudbloods, as it were.
But the class, however interminable it seems, ends eventually, and he is back in the halls among the others who jockey and vie for position - not just in his attention, but among each other - while he simply doesn't care. He is, of course, playing at interest when Arianna arrives, and though the others don't necessarily recognize his attitude and behavior, she does well enough. It's this Silas into whose arm she slips hers, and this Silas whose expression changes completely when he turns to see her there.
"Hullo then, Arianna." Because formalities be damned, and he is ever pleased to see her. And then the request, and the mischief in her eyes meets mischief in his. The answer is, perhaps, obvious. "Of course. I'll see you later, ladies and gents," he says to the others with fingers to forehead in a mock salute - and so he's drawn away on the arm of a consor, and no doubt the Awakened girls he's left behind are not best pleased. Of course, Silas doesn't care about this any more than he cares about the political currying of favor.
So off to the southern courtyard they go, and with Silas not at all aware of any plans Arianna might have. He is pleased simply to be with her on his birthday, which should be spent with family and friends, not in school halls.
[Arianna]
The answer is, of course, obvious to them both. When has Silas ever willingly denied his childhood friend and fellow adventurer his attentions. Whether it be here, where the land is a wind-swept and skyward-reaching outcrop of stone gentled by greenery, or closer to her ancestral home with its low berms of sage and scrub bush and waving walls of olive trees. Today she leads him down the staircase, around the passages of the lower keep and to the southern coutyard with its kitchen stairs -- which may be the first of surprises; that she was not already knee deep in deception when she pulled him away. But here she raps upon the door, clean and close-together, three knocks, just so. Arianna is better than he is at currying favor; she is beloved by the stations of the lower keep, so that the thick woolen blanket handed out and over to him comes as less surprise than if she were Katja Smythe or some other smug Awakened girl, though the basket, laden as it is, with the neck of a wine bottle visible at one corner but the rest hidden behind some tartan square, is perhaps a welcome mystery to him.
That she will not hand it over is another, it is kept on the far side of her from him, eyes atwinkle and merriment a must.
She chimes her thank yous, kisses her fingers and says something sweet and pleasing in Italian, then waves them as she steps away from the door and back toward him. "C'mon," she says, and they make for the break in the courtyard wall that opens out into the surrounding moors. She casts barely a glance up at the watch towers. There are few there that would stop their going, even if they were observed. The sky is not bright, and it is full of clouds, but here and there the broad beams of light reach down from the heavens. There is hope of sunshine; there is equal hope of storm. "I have a place in mind to celebrate your birthday. I think you'll approve: there is sea and sky aplenty."
There is a wide open ring of land around the Institute, and then a stand of some taller wood to obscure their escape. If they make it as far as the tree line without being caught for truancy, they will be free to spend their afternoon together. She is first into the open space, and she swings the basket around as she turns to watch him, taking a few steps back without missing a beat, always carrying her onward. There is laughter shining in her green eyes, and the barest dare of catch me if you can to it. Of course he can catch her; of course he will push her to run faster and more true-footed. She may start their adventuring, but he carries them onward. But Arianna knows a place -- and these first steps of boots on stone, on moss, on mud, do not fully give away its orientation -- so Silas must follow her. For now.
[Silas]
The blanket is laid just so over his shoulder (but with little care - Silas is always casual, at least in appearance) with his blazer, his sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up nearly to the elbow as Arianna collects the basket. Of course he offers to carry it, and is surprised (pleasantly, to be sure) when she keeps it from him. This leads to a teasing, bantering attempt - easily deflected, as he likes surprises. Especially when they come from his fellow adventurer and childhood friend.
He watches her run ahead of him and there's a sun-cloud-sun smile that comes to his face; of course he follows, and of course he lets her stay just ahead of him, almost in reach but not quite. It's more fun that way, more interesting, and gives him time to notice the pull of her vest over budding femininity, of her skirt over rounding hips.
"Stella," he laughs, and the nickname he chose when they were young sounds different spoken now, in this way. "When did you start growing up?" And never mind that he's a year and a half her junior; his 'awkward' phase was one blessed with little to mark it but for the brooding that still hovers over and around him now, and will for quite some time to come. There's mention of sea and sky aplenty and his smile grows; Arianna has always known how to please him, how to brighten his mood when it ran towards the dark, and now is no different.
It's not so terribly long before they're passing through the the wide swath of land around the school and past the tree line, and of course they make it through the tree line. Silas' curiosity is well and truly piqued, and through the trees he catches her - to sling an arm over her shoulder in easy cameraderie if she'll allow it, or to simply walk beside her if she doesn't.
"What have you found, Ari?"
[Arianna]
"A fair sight sooner than you will Silas Owen Arthur," she teases, and turns around, basket's momentum carrying her through the turn, describing its arch and purpose. Her eyes are full of mischief-merriment, and her teeth show in a flash of impish smiling. She wheedle-needles him, still smirking, "When were you planning to get on that?" Oho, so lightly teasing, so delicately up-tipped chin, looking down through lashes -- it is a haughtiness she can only pretend for a moment, before her attention returns to minding the surety of her foot steps as they move through the glen.
He catches her, slinging an arm around her shoulder and Ari is quick to keep the basket out of his reach. Her hip checks him, slightly, keeping his other arm from wrapping around to capture the prize. She makes his wait for it when all the other schoolgirls seem to be giving things away so freely. "Hmmmm," she rolls the thoughtful sound against her teeth as she considers the wisdom of acquiescing to his request.
"I have found that Marjorie in the kitchen likes steamy novels with all together too little plot," she says this, and her voice teases up the adjectives just to get them under his skin. "And that she will look the other way if I borrow a bottle of sweet wine for us, so long as I leave a few stories out for her in one part of the stacks." Hah, then, Ari is using her bookish librarian wiles to secure contraband for the two of them. Surely this pleases him; perhaps also the note about Marjorie's predilections pleases him too.
"She wishes you a very happy birthday, Silas," and these words sound a little breathless, the way the wanting lower kitchens consor sometimes does, when she is caught reading something that she oughtn't. But there is laughter to the other words, to lighten the sting of Ari's on-point mimicry. The two of them, though, have fallen into lock-step, save for when they must part to navigate some sort of obstacle, as now, when their trajectory has brought them to the creek, which is swollen from recent rains and threatens to run over its bounds if the storm that looms comes crashing down. For now there are black stone outcroppings, slippery and uncertain footings, but sure enough that they might cross here rather than backtracking north to where the footbridge is.
The stones are unforgiving things, granite forced up when the earth was in some sort of tumult, scraped into their shapes by glacier transits, worn down only slightly by water and age. Falling here would put a serious damper on their outing, but Ari insists on manhandling the basket herself, even as it shifts her center of gravity as she moves from stone to stone. She is stubborn, and she is proud, and more than a little bent on showing him how different she is from his sycophantic hangers-on. She does not dump their picnic in the river, but it comes close a couple of times. Enough so that her pride is a little dampened when she reaches the far bank, but then again not all that dampened, as she had reached the far back after all. And it was unlikely that Katja Smythe would have gotten as far as the second rock before feigning the need for some sort of assistance.
Feigning need is a foreign thought to Ari at this age. Watching other girls traffic in such nonsense irritates her to no end. Clearly this is the problem she has with Katja, not that the other girl is pretty, and that she is just as often as not found on Silas's arm, whispering into his ear, kissing him at her leisure.
[Silas]
He does, indeed, very much appreciate the intrigue (and new intel); perhaps it will make his own, later escapades easier. And of course he attempted to get the basket when he had the opportunity, but not over hard. They are of a height now, Silas and Arianna, though he is more muscular and outmasses her by quite a bit. And when they are crossing the river, requested or not, Silas helps his friend where and when he can.
If someone were to intimate that it was so he could put his hands on her waist or hips, such intimations might become fighting words.
"There will be a storm somewhere near - can you feel it? Perhaps right here, later tonight." So much is under his skin right now. There is anticipation for whatever surprise Arianna has in store, and the electricity in the air heralding the impending, aforementioned storm, pleasure at the company and their grand escape. "Have a care. It would hardly do to have to carry you back to the keep."
This is amused, and taunting-teasing; they both know full well he's never had to do such a thing, that Arianna has always pushed herself to be the best she can, and at least as good as anyone around her in every possible way.
"I've crossed this stream, but not here - not in this direction."
[Arianna]
"There might be a storm," she says, and it carries the same tease-taunt to it. "Or there mightn't. The weather witches were undecided, so I decided to chance it." This she says with such bravado. It answers the assertion that he might have to carry her back to the keep. Ari doubts that Silas would ever have to carry her anywhere. Or that she would ever stand for such a disgrace. His senses are cast wide to catch the coming front; hers are divided wide and far, keeping track of the markers that will tell her she is headed in the right way. It will not do to get them lost, not her friend who is also a hunter. It will not do to make a poor showing on his birthday.
Her feet alight on the far bank; she is safely across and the pride in her swells and she beams back at him in her self-satisfaction. "Carry me back to the Keep?" she asks, though it sounds vaugely taunt-tease like crowing. "I see Awakening has called forth your manners," she needles, elbow gently tucked against his ribs. They are close enough here for him to feel the thrill of adventure as it moves within her; to sense the echo of other excitement and anticipation, as of yet unnamed and unknown, dancing in the slick of quicksilver to her eyes.
"There's a watcher's keep through that way," she tells him, chin lifted and eyes cast over to where the woods thicken and obscure the pathway toward a small structure. It is invisible to them from where they stand, but the location is well marked now in each of their memories. "It's empty, just now. They are cast wide since the War. This is part of your birthday, this knowing of things, a sharing of secrets."
What Silas might do with a secret house in the woods, with a hearth all its own and tight, tight quarters, Arianna pretends not to know. And she carries the basket off in another direction, through a less-traveled piece of wildwoods, feet stepping high to keep her tights from catching on brambles, less fleet-footed and more creep-pressing onward. Through here, awhile more, with the sound of hidden animals scurrying away from them, and then the thicket lessens, and then it opens out to grassland that runs from the stand of trees out to the edge of high cliffs. The wind is sharper here, and when it comes it pushes around her hair and the pleats of her skirt. When it recedes, it is a gentle breeze that carries in the smell of salt. Ari leads him to a place where there is a small rise, which affords a view of the cliffs, and the sea, and the birds that soar and dive against the sea-wind. Out to see they can see the threatening storm, which might come to shore, or it mightn't. This rise is a pile of softer earth on the granite uprising. All around them is the green grass of late spring and early summer. There is no place for fire, and a natural one would be tormented by the sea breeze.
[Silas]
"And this sharing of secrets is perhaps the best present there is," Silas answers with a grin as he lands with ease beside her, barely even a splash of water on his foot, and that only from where the stream's flow was particularly vigorous. In his place behind Arianna, there hadn't been as much need for showing off? But still, there had been some that he'd deny were he told he'd done it. Showing off is for other people, not for his best friend. There's no need for those shenanigans here, right? "And see? We both made it just fine. No carrying of anyone."
Still teasing, still amused, as so much of their time together is spent. And of course the indicated location of the Watcher's keep is marked, a bit of information retained for later, and then Silas is again moving forward with Arianna. Their adventures together are, of course, the best kind of adventure.
It is well - though a bit disappointing for the boy who follows older, more wild ways than most Hermetics deem proper - that there is no space for a fire, as the wet wood created by the recent rains would cause a prohibitive amount of smoke which could lead to their discovery. Even for Silas, golden boy that he is, another call home could be disasterous. So he spreads the thick woolen blanket for their picnic, and offers Arianna his blazer as greater protection against the breeze that can be cutting as often as it's gentle.
"It's beautiful," he says, and if he's looking at her with appreciation when he says that it can only be because she's the one who brought him here. "Thank you for remembering my birthday, Stella."
[Arianna]
When they are out of doors, the difference in their ages does not seem as broad as all of a year and a half. That he has Awakened and moved forward in responsibility and prominence muddies that further and divides them more clearly than birthdates and days. Still, she refuses his blazer with the same adept and demure practice that she always deployed -- Arianna strives ever to be his equal or better, not to need from him the simpering things that other girls desire. If the wind kicks up and pushes her hair and the pleats of her skirt around? She has stockings that are warmer than they seem, and a vest over a shirt over undergarments over skin -- which is burgeoning on too many layers for comfort, but uniformity is not about comfort. She watches him, though, the line of him as spreads the blanket, and notes how he, too, is much older than the boy who brought her toads and wildflowers at conclaves in their past.
Which is a strange thought, but not an unfamiliar one. Silas has made no secret of his press into adolescence. Arianna's sudden budding womanhood might surprise him, but the inverse would not be true. She is not watching him when he straightens up and looks to her with appreciation. Her attention is for the far boundary of the cove, just visible through the mist kicked up by the mightn't storm; sheer cliffs plunging down into a blue-grey churning sea, which is barely white-capped now but will become ever more so the longer they dally here. Her eyes are more grey than green from this angle; she is proud and shining, still holding the basket in one arm, which cants her posture off to the other side for balance.
That lasts hardly a minute after her thanks her, and she turns to him with a smile. "Of course! I couldn't leave you to that Katja Smythe, could I?" Ari rolls her eyes as she swings the basket out in front of her and catches up the handle with her other hand as well. She lowers it to rest before her, elbows locked and hands together, this presses her arms in, which compresses her breasts and pushes them together and forward against her shirt and vest -- it is a posture that Katja often adopts around him, this more prominent rounding of sparse-not-ample things. He may not have recognized it in the Smythe girl before, but Ari's mimicry is horribly on point. "Oh, Silas, why didn't you tell us it was your birthday?"
Mock.Mock. Bat eyelashes. Fawn --- she can't. She can't even hold the mimicry that far. It breaks up into a smirk, and laughter in her eyes as she plunks the basket down between at one corner of the blanket. Without much decorum, she toes off her shoes, wet and muddy as they are from tromping in the woods, and then all but flops down to one side of the blanket, laid out on her stomach with her arms folded before her and her chin resting on them, knees bent and feet lofted behind her. She could sit demurely, knees canted to one side, hands in lap -- and in years to come, he'll see that in her more and more, the remoteness and the finishing school, and this effortless sense of grace. For now, she is a teenager enjoyed stolen adventure and borrowed time with her best of friends, around whom there is no need for such self-consciousness and control.
"At least she's pretty, Si. But really. You could do so much better." And this is what she says about them all. Something nice, but somewhat petty. His nickname. Some thing for emphasis. You could do so much better. She is watching him and the view, which may be redundant, from where her head rests on her folded hands. And for all her bookishness and assumed allegiance to House Bonisagus, there is still something in her that unfurls when they are out of doors. It is not something she understands, or something she would readily admit to, but Silas can see it in how, despite the occasional press of the wind, the tension in her frame recants, retreats, and she becomes lazy in her mischief-making. Once, she flicks a look back at the basket, and then over to him. It has the languid echo of an invitation, or something dared to it. Permission granted to unpack the rest of his present, if he wills.
[Silas]
As Arianna takes off her shoes and lowers to the blanket, so does Silas - he sits, though, the better to open the basket and divest it of its wine and glasses (stemless tumblers, more like, but they are teenagers on an illicit excursion, so of course they're not getting the fine stemware), first opening the bottle and pouring them each some. The mocking of Katja gets a brief darkening of expression, but nothing so stern as a frown.
"Do you speak of me so, Stella, with your other friends?"
This is curious more than anything else, and the darkening is gone; for the most part, Silas doesn't (seem to) much care about what others say or think. And the mockery of Katja is amusing, truly! It just creates a wondering. But there's wine poured, and sipped, before he reaches into the basket for a nice crudite tray, covered over to keep it pretty in their travels. Cheeses, olives, meats, crackers, and other, similar finger foods are best for this kind of excursion, are they not? So it's uncovered and laid out between them with the bottle loosely corked simply to prevent spillage, should a sudden gust come.
The wrapped bundle still there, with the knife and plates, is eyed but left for until they've filled themselves with actual food.
"And she's better than Xavier Haellewyn, anyway. More fun."
In one way or another - and so many of the people with whom Silas keeps company these days are simply for his amusement. There's so little substance there, but quite a bit of style.
"Strawberry, or olive?"
He has one in the fingers of each hand, offered out for Arianna's choice.
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