[Wild Roses] the Six
Title: all in favour?
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Jared, Madeleine, Jasmine, Giovanni, James, the second Ian
Prompt: 06D "break away"
Word Count: 868
Notes: Trickwood Unification mid to late stages. Arianhrod's left; the second Ian, Joshua and James are all around but under a century old.
"Okay, let me get this straight in my head," Madeleine said, draping herself along the top of a chaise, nearly tipping backwards into the nearest bookshelf before she found a point of equilibrium. "In the last fifty years--and please do feel free to jump in with the things I'm skipping--my mother told the Crown to go play with itself, Hilaire had Ian--does anyone know who his father is, yet?--nevermind" she interrupted herself "aunt Joveta had James, Uncle Fin' tripped some pretty girl and Joshua's the result. Hernén set fire to some chunk of the woods, managed to talk both your dad and uncle Dón into helping him with it--"
"Actually, odds are good Hernén's been up to this since he left his post in the Navy, and that uncle Ruadhan and uncle Donel have been helping since uncle Ulysse tracked him down." Jasmine tucked her hands into her sleeves, looked faintly smug when Madeleine glared. "You did tell us to jump in."
"My point is that it's been a winter-kissed long time since we had this many options for the sixth, and this much going on."
Jared let her tap out a cigarette, fit it into her holder, before he spoke. "We don't actually have all that many options. Above and beyond the question of any of them actually accepting, if we asked, there's problems with each of 'em. Ian's Joceline's grandson, and named for great-granddad. Joshua's bad at steel, and people would accuse us of going too heavily to the Sun Queen's children."
Madeleine exhaled a long plume of smoke in a snort. "And it would remind people of Mamán."
"And it would remind people of aunt Arianhrod, true. James . . ." he trailed off, sighed. "Aunt Joveta might oppose the choice."
"She's not a stupid woman," Giovanni put in from the array Madeleine had carved in the wall last summer, when it had become obvious he wouldn't be home more than a month in any given four. "I can't imagine her seeing Cia in James."
"I used to see Cia in her mother," Jasmine said softly, looking at her hands. "But then, I used to see Cia in a lot of places."
Madeleine rolled off the chaise, faded out before she hit the shelves, reappeared sitting on the back of Jasmine's chair, her legs on either side of Jasmine, cigarette holder carefully held far enough away to see that she wouldn't be dropping ash in Jasmine's hair.
"I spent the longest time wanting to finish an argument with Kenneth," she bit the end of the holder, the next time she inhaled, but her tone was purely conversational. "We still need to make a decision, even if it's just to wait and se--" she broke off, head lifting and her free hand beginning to claw.
Jared heard voices at nearly the same time his own webbed warning spells went off, paused while he figured out who it was, then threw a pen at Madeleine. "Ian and James."
She propped her elbow on Jasmine's head.
"James, will you just tell me what--" Ian was saying when they got into the room, half-flailing rude gestures at his cousin's back.
"I figured out a really neat trick," James announced to the room, flopped down at the big low table Jasmine put tea on and Madeleine tended to use for sand-based spell mapping, and grinned up at the Six.
Jared could feel his eyebrows rising. "Oh, so?"
"Yes. What's the most common trade good?"
"Dyes," Jasmine said. Tilted her head back to direct a level stare at Madeleine, who removed her elbow and used that arm to prop her cigarette hand instead.
"So, assuming you wanted to know what kind of trade routes there were through the 'wood, what would you want to track?"
"You didn't," Giovanni said, incredulous. 'What did you use?"
"The chemical composition of the dye bricks as combined with the concentration--" James started setting something up at one corner of the table, then, lifting his hands up out of the way "--with an element to record time of dispersion."
The table bloomed, then, bright yellow-gold at the corner it had started in, sprawling out to barely-there threads in the far corners, massive branches showing the major routes, followed by thinner tributaries.
" . . Wow," Madeleine was leaning well forward, her head past Jasmine's in the chair, staring at the table with her eyes slightly unfocused. "Nice work."
"Thank you!" James grinned. "I couldn't figure out a good way to differentiate between the over-land and water routes, though, and without maps of the area--"
"Here, let me try--" Ian plopped down opposite James, reached into a mass of the threads, shook something briskly. "How about we add 'elevation' to the shown results?"
Everyone stared, as the bloom rippled, stretched itself into the air over the table, tangling up like a demented wire sculpture supported mostly by air.
A note dropped onto Jared's desk with a rustle. James? it inquired in Giovanni's handwriting.
James, he wrote back, leaning back in his chair to watch as Madeleine and the boys got into a technical argument, trying to figure out how to colour code shifting points in the web, show in-wood trading points and docks. Nobody else thought of it.
Jasmine raised her head, looked over at him. Waited until their eyes met, jerked her head infinitesimally towards James, nodded.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Jared, Madeleine, Jasmine, Giovanni, James, the second Ian
Prompt: 06D "break away"
Word Count: 868
Notes: Trickwood Unification mid to late stages. Arianhrod's left; the second Ian, Joshua and James are all around but under a century old.
"Okay, let me get this straight in my head," Madeleine said, draping herself along the top of a chaise, nearly tipping backwards into the nearest bookshelf before she found a point of equilibrium. "In the last fifty years--and please do feel free to jump in with the things I'm skipping--my mother told the Crown to go play with itself, Hilaire had Ian--does anyone know who his father is, yet?--nevermind" she interrupted herself "aunt Joveta had James, Uncle Fin' tripped some pretty girl and Joshua's the result. Hernén set fire to some chunk of the woods, managed to talk both your dad and uncle Dón into helping him with it--"
"Actually, odds are good Hernén's been up to this since he left his post in the Navy, and that uncle Ruadhan and uncle Donel have been helping since uncle Ulysse tracked him down." Jasmine tucked her hands into her sleeves, looked faintly smug when Madeleine glared. "You did tell us to jump in."
"My point is that it's been a winter-kissed long time since we had this many options for the sixth, and this much going on."
Jared let her tap out a cigarette, fit it into her holder, before he spoke. "We don't actually have all that many options. Above and beyond the question of any of them actually accepting, if we asked, there's problems with each of 'em. Ian's Joceline's grandson, and named for great-granddad. Joshua's bad at steel, and people would accuse us of going too heavily to the Sun Queen's children."
Madeleine exhaled a long plume of smoke in a snort. "And it would remind people of Mamán."
"And it would remind people of aunt Arianhrod, true. James . . ." he trailed off, sighed. "Aunt Joveta might oppose the choice."
"She's not a stupid woman," Giovanni put in from the array Madeleine had carved in the wall last summer, when it had become obvious he wouldn't be home more than a month in any given four. "I can't imagine her seeing Cia in James."
"I used to see Cia in her mother," Jasmine said softly, looking at her hands. "But then, I used to see Cia in a lot of places."
Madeleine rolled off the chaise, faded out before she hit the shelves, reappeared sitting on the back of Jasmine's chair, her legs on either side of Jasmine, cigarette holder carefully held far enough away to see that she wouldn't be dropping ash in Jasmine's hair.
"I spent the longest time wanting to finish an argument with Kenneth," she bit the end of the holder, the next time she inhaled, but her tone was purely conversational. "We still need to make a decision, even if it's just to wait and se--" she broke off, head lifting and her free hand beginning to claw.
Jared heard voices at nearly the same time his own webbed warning spells went off, paused while he figured out who it was, then threw a pen at Madeleine. "Ian and James."
She propped her elbow on Jasmine's head.
"James, will you just tell me what--" Ian was saying when they got into the room, half-flailing rude gestures at his cousin's back.
"I figured out a really neat trick," James announced to the room, flopped down at the big low table Jasmine put tea on and Madeleine tended to use for sand-based spell mapping, and grinned up at the Six.
Jared could feel his eyebrows rising. "Oh, so?"
"Yes. What's the most common trade good?"
"Dyes," Jasmine said. Tilted her head back to direct a level stare at Madeleine, who removed her elbow and used that arm to prop her cigarette hand instead.
"So, assuming you wanted to know what kind of trade routes there were through the 'wood, what would you want to track?"
"You didn't," Giovanni said, incredulous. 'What did you use?"
"The chemical composition of the dye bricks as combined with the concentration--" James started setting something up at one corner of the table, then, lifting his hands up out of the way "--with an element to record time of dispersion."
The table bloomed, then, bright yellow-gold at the corner it had started in, sprawling out to barely-there threads in the far corners, massive branches showing the major routes, followed by thinner tributaries.
" . . Wow," Madeleine was leaning well forward, her head past Jasmine's in the chair, staring at the table with her eyes slightly unfocused. "Nice work."
"Thank you!" James grinned. "I couldn't figure out a good way to differentiate between the over-land and water routes, though, and without maps of the area--"
"Here, let me try--" Ian plopped down opposite James, reached into a mass of the threads, shook something briskly. "How about we add 'elevation' to the shown results?"
Everyone stared, as the bloom rippled, stretched itself into the air over the table, tangling up like a demented wire sculpture supported mostly by air.
A note dropped onto Jared's desk with a rustle. James? it inquired in Giovanni's handwriting.
James, he wrote back, leaning back in his chair to watch as Madeleine and the boys got into a technical argument, trying to figure out how to colour code shifting points in the web, show in-wood trading points and docks. Nobody else thought of it.
Jasmine raised her head, looked over at him. Waited until their eyes met, jerked her head infinitesimally towards James, nodded.