[OTA] Up and Down and Up Again

[headfollowheart]

It can be said, at least, that for as strange as the last few weeks have been - snowstorms, friends leaving, upper Spades leaving and sending accounting into a frenzy - it's unlikely that Zoe's going to wake up tomorrow morning hungover, with Elisha on the couch, a broken coffee table, and Victor with a separated shoulder

Comments

[piquedbutler]

Just so long as she doesn't concentrate so hard she forgets when the Tea's going to be brought. She's not excused from having it just because Everything's Ruined Again.

Because she has a Responsibility, after all. To her Butler. To give him a Reason to keep his gloves and get out of the Kitchen when the Panic starts to set in again because Everything's Changing and he Can't Control It.

She's playing something New today. It has his head tilting in only the faintest angle as he sets tea quietly.

[headfollowheart]

If anything has been Drilled into her head in the last nine months, it was that you should never be concentrating so hard that you don't hear a door opening, even quietly - especially quietly, really - and Zoe glances up, still playing the second movement of a piece she'd found interminably long when she'd been learning it.

"Good morning, Chives." He can't be handling the departures well, she thinks, but she hasn't caught him at the sink washing his hands yet. So she finishes the movement before scooting the piano bench back and closing the key lid. "What kind of scones today?"

[piquedbutler]

Such a good little Spade they've trained. Quite a Pleasure to share the rank of Five with.

"Miss Zoë. New recipe today." And the lemon-ginger scone will be settled neatly onto its own plate to hand her along with the cup of tea. "If you're quite ready."

And not going to play more. But, hopefully, going to talk to him about Scones and Piano Music and not the fact that More People are Leaving.

[headfollowheart]

It's one of those small changes, a quiet sharpening happening over the last several months that makes her so markedly different from who she was a year ago. She doesn't think about it, but if she did, she'd never think of it as a bad thing.

"I am. I just finished practicing the allegro movement," she explains with a slight smile as she sits down at the music room's small table. "It's time for a break."

She starts with the scone rather than the tea. "I like the candied ginger in it," she says. "And the lemon glaze."

[elani_songbird]

Elani didn't really have an excuse to be here, unless being here to visit a friend counts.

It totally does.

Still, she pauses in the doorway and waits for Zoe to finish before she begins applauding.

[headfollowheart]

Visiting a friend definitely does count, no matter what some of the guards might think.

Zoe blinks, though, at the applause, even if she did hear the door open.

"Oh..." she says, leaning away from the piano. "Hi, Elani."

[elani_songbird]

"Hi Zoe," she smiles and moves all the way in. "That was really lovely."

[headfollowheart]

"I learned it when I was sixteen," Zoe says, wrinkling her nose slightly. "Liszt's Sonata in B Minor. It's hard enough that I have to concentrate on it."

[maskofhearts]

[Her phone buzzes- Text with an image attached:

[headfollowheart]

That was a dischordant note that Franz Liszt really had never intended. But probably worth it, really, considering what's on the screen of her iPhone.

They look like snowsuits.

Actually, I think Sandy had the pink one.

[maskofhearts]

Maybe.

If a bought one, maybe we could make it a trend.

[headfollowheart]

You could make anything a trend.

But if you bring me one of those, I will scour Prague for something appropriately hideous. Like a babushka's headscarf.