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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Priscilla and Bertrand invite Natalyah to the Aspenwood Vineyard to catch up with the lepidopterist and see a long-planned gift from one friend to another finally delivered. 5800~ words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
A guest is expected, that much is certain. This guest in specific, in fact. What might be less expected is the means of her arrival, which is not by horse or carriage — it's by worgen, running along on three limbs, at the speed of a cantering horse, in a formal wear dress, a bag with her canes strapped to her back. It certainly makes for a unique experience, as she approaches the Aspenwood house, pausing by a tree to remove her bag, and get her canes under her as she shifts to human.
There is a low whistle from the direction of the stables as the worgen passes by.
The dress is long, sleeveless, and belted, with a slit along her right leg. There's no dust sticking to the fabric, an expensive mageweave, and the colors of the Purple Emperor are still clear, the deep blue that shimmers iridescent purple as she moves, the bright white spots, and the noticeable orange at the hem, with the inside showing the soft dusky tan of the other side of the butterfly wings. It's a possibly amusing choice, as the most popular and well known instance of the butterfly is a plot point in a popular pulp fiction murder mystery involving an artist who is befriended by a woman obsessed with butterflies who is part of a secret society, and actually embroiled in a dangerous game of politics and power.
Or maybe it's just one of her few dresses that was enchanted against dirt enough to run in. Who can say.
Natalyah makes her way up to the front door of the house one step at a time, to knock firmly in announcement of her arrival. She's definitely late. This is not unexpected.
Instead of a member of the household staff opening the door, it is Birdie himself, dressed much more mundanely in casual but nice clothes that are not reminiscent of any particular animal. His hair is currently up in a messy man-bun. "Hey," he says, and grins as he holds the front door open for her, giving her dress an evaluating look. "Welcome, Purple Emperor. Don't tell Scilla, your majesty, give her a chance to guess too."
"I never tell," Natalyah counters, but she swishes the dress in a pleased sway. She pushes along inside, looking around with an idle appreciatory glance. It's her first time really in the house, but the expression on her face suggests it's exactly as she expected from the Aspenwoods. She's flushed from her running, a sweat gathered along her hairline that calms the wild cut of her hair, and she breathes out a sigh of relief at the cooler interior.
Birdie closes the front door behind her. There are no other doors for him to hold: the choices are hallway (center), open entryway to the parlor (right), and open entryway to the library (left). He leads Natalyah into the parlor, calling, "Scilla! She's here!"
Refreshments have already been brought to the coffee table that is in equally easy reach of two couches, and a small side-table has been moved to stand at the side of one of the couches, currently cleared of all contents.
There is a door that leads to a small guest restroom that currently has Priscilla's sunflower-shaped purse hanging off of the handle. This is probably where she is at the moment. There's the sound of running water in the sink. "I'll be right out," Priscilla's voice calls.
Birdie waits for Natalyah to choose her seat first.
Natalyah moves to the closer of the two couches, sitting centered in it, and removing her canes off her wrists to set both of them to her right, resting against the couch. It's an obvious statement that she knows Bertrand and Priscilla will sit together on the other; she's alone on this one.
As soon as she's settled, Natalyah says, "Ahralalala." It's not an adult murloc. It's a baby murloc.
Birdie laughs and takes a seat. "A tadpole?"
"Scilla's more likely to crash through a wall to see a tadpole muloc," Natalyah tells Bertrand.
Priscilla enters the parlor, grabbing her purse from the door handle. "Talyah!" She is dressed in a very summery yellow sundress, and is wearing earrings that look like tiny little bumblebees. She goes directly to Natalyah's couch for a welcome hug. "Oh, don't tell me! Don't tell me, I think I know this one! Purple Empress?"
There's even less of a hesitation in returning Priscilla's hug, and less of a desperate holding on to extend it as there was at the wedding. Whatever emotions gripped her then have settled. She gives a delighted chuff at the name — it's her, Natalyah is the Purple Empress — and swishes the skirt of the dress with a hand. "You do know it. It's a repeat, of course, but these days my new clothes are sturdy jeans and borrowed shirts."
Priscilla beams proudly and moves around the coffee table to take her seat next to Bertrand.
"Would you like anything to drink?" Birdie offers. The options available seem to be water, several different fruit juices, and iced tea, all presented in pitchers on the table where Natalyah can easily serve herself if she wants.
And she does, leaning over to pour herself some iced tea, in flagrant violation of the hostess rules, but no one here expected differently. "Thank you, yes. I'm parched. I don't know why I expected more shade on the way here, but I really did."
"It's a long walk between here and Goldshire," Priscilla says. "I've done it a few times now, but never in weather like this without a parasol. I've been considering applying for a flight master's license, but I don't know that I'm qualified. That's a very recent change, legalized flight for individuals in the Eastern Kingdoms."
"That explains so much about the state of the roads and the completely chaotic yelling I've heard in the trees over Elwynn. I thought maybe I had just never noticed how many people were screaming 'where are the brakes?! Where are the brakes??' on commercial flights," Natalyah says as she sits back with her iced tea. "I didn't come from Goldshire, though. I'm living in Stormwind now, in Old Town, seven blocks into the shadier side of it from Lucy's house." Her voice gets scratchy on Lucy's name and she takes a long sip of tea to cover it.
Birdie laughs and leans forward to pour himself a glass of water.
Priscilla giggles, but is quickly distracted from the joke: "You've moved to Stormwind, oh! That's right! I was wondering. No one's given you any trouble for it, have they?" Because Priscilla would fight them.
Natalyah lowers her glass to her lap, idly smoothing the side. "You mean from the Stormwind Kensington-Whits? No, and I don't expect I will. I'm a 'Kensington-Whit' only in literal name now. I've been quite disowned by the House, completely replaced by Cecilyah and her brood." The attempt at flippancy is undermined by the lingering hurt and anger, but it might be less outrage than either would have expected from her. "Besides, no one would likely dare do anything about it even out of principle. I'm living with a paladin of the Stormwind City Guard. Birdie's met him, my suitor, Lathrik Dinnsfield." It's delivered oddly casually like it isn't a bombshell after a bombshell.
Priscilla gasps, pressing her hands to her cheeks. "Talyah! Tell me all about him!"
Natalyah's brow raises in a high arch. "Has Birdie not told you about the investigation into that missing Cobalt Company member?" She sounds equal parts surprised and skeptical.
"Oh, I have," Birdie says. "I told her you were assisting the investigation, and that you were involved with a man in the Stormwind Guard."
"He didn't say you were living together!" Scilla squeaks. "What is he like!"
Natalyah's wicked smile curves up, like she has a secret that she's letting them in on. That is just what her smile usually looks like, but in this case, it's semi-accurate. "Well, he's the sort of man who met me at what really can only be described as my worst, living in a place that he barely had the ability to keep up himself, and when he found out that I was homeless, he immediately offered the better part of his house anyway, to take up living on a couch so that I would be comfortable. That tells you a lot about him already." She drops her gaze into her iced tea not out of shame or shyness, but as if she can see Lathrik in the water of it.
"He's serious, and strong, and sometimes irritatingly stubborn about being the one to take all the risk. He's stupidly good looking, and he can be snappish and moody, but also so sweet, and patient with me. He never looks at me like I'm a monster, even when I sort of am, and he calls me his 'heart,' and he's been studying butterflies so that he knows what I'm talking about when I mention them. He makes me feel like if I went missing, he'd chase down any lead for the rest of time to get back to me again." The last part comes out in a bit of an emotional squeak, a creaky hinge, and so she clears her throat and drinks more tea to cover up the emotions starting to leak from her eyes. She's fine. It's dust from the roads.
"You were homeless?" Birdie winces. "I had no idea, I'm sorry. I suppose you might not have wanted people to know in the first place, but I'm usually good at picking things up."
"You were distracted," Priscilla points out, patting her husband's knee. "It was our wedding day. Light, I didn't realize either. I should have thought - what with your family. But I'm so glad you have somewhere now, Talyah. And he sounds lovely."
"I like him," Birdie says. He has met Lathrik two whole times. "He's clever. And he's educating himself about your interests. Scilla did that for me, you know."
"I try," Priscilla says. "There are so many birds and only so much space in my head."
Natalyah's expression is of oddly uncomplicated joy. Hehe, Lathrik Thoughts. "There are so many birds," Natalyah agrees fervently, leaning forward. "What's worse is that they also come with making noise, which is a whole other subsection for the brain. Lathrik knows his birds as well, not as well as Birdie, obviously, but we can't count outliers like him. Lathrik actually designed a scouting language for his team of guards using bird calls, specific ones that aren't likely to be local but correspond to different meanings and directional coordinates. It's something of a secret language, but I'm telling you now mostly because there's simply no possible way that you would ever hear it, and not immediately figure it out," she says. "Unlike Scilla and I, who would hear Background Bird Noise and move on with our day while we watch a guard start off east for no reason."
"Oh, I love that." Birdie grins.
Priscilla claps her hands. "Oh! Talyah, I have something for you. It's… well, it's essentially from Lucy, because I can't imagine she didn't take these for you - have you seen a gnomish Snapper camera before? I've had to go through her things," and Priscilla swallows hard, "because she left an awful lot of unfinished projects around her workshop, and I can't just leave them there forever…" The longer she speaks, the more she wilts.
Birdie puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Natalyah squeezes her glass, staring down into it as the war of emotions wages across her face: chagrin and anger and guilt and grief vie for supremacy. No victor emerges, only tears forming for multiple reasons.
"Knowing Lucy, if you did, they would probably evolve and start finishing themselves into arcane entanglements and magical impossibilities that completely reset the game old crusty men defined magic as and they'd show up with so much paperwork," Natalyah says, and her voice is unsteady. She nods, brushing a hand up by her cheek. "I know what a Snapper is. I'm friends with the reporter Peril Farrens of the Azerothian Interest. He has one, too."
"Well, she left you one," Priscilla says. "She had at least three that I've found that weren't with her when she…"
"I'll go get it," Birdie says quietly, and gives Priscilla a quick side-hug before rising. He leaves the room.
Priscilla swallows. "She never was very organized," she says, tears welling up in her eyes.
Natalyah's tears spill over, and as they roll down her cheek, black fur rolls out over her skin with them, the transformation quiet and quick, leaving the worgen with her head bowed over her glass. "No, but that was what made her brilliant. She never let anything contain her, not magical precedent, not social strife, and not reasonable expectations of what constitutes a 'pencil holder.'"
Priscilla sniffs. "It's true. I don't know what happened to everything she kept in her arcane pocket. That was her real stash. It was such a mess." Through her tears, she gets her first proper look at a worgen in worgen form, not obscured by a carriage, and she does not seem any more upset than she already was for obvious reasons: her little sister is dead. "She had a butterfly camera," she says. "I'm spoiling the whole surprise, I'm sorry, but I know it has to have been for you."
Natalyah does not do pretty crying. It's ugly sobbing hour now. It might take her actual effort to not howl, given that she tips her head back like she might do exactly that and all that emerges is earnest wailing.
Priscilla gets up off her couch, circles around the coffee table, and sits down next to Natalyah, wedging herself in on the side that does not block Natalyah's access to her canes. "I miss her so much," Priscilla says, and offers Natalyah a hug.
Natalyah throws herself onto Priscilla for a hug in that way of hers. It's likely a very strange experience, to be suddenly enfolded by the now much larger worgen with Natalyah’s exact body language. She's warm still from the sun, and incredibly soft, the same silk of her hair covering her body. She's less thin than she was over a month ago, but it's still hard packed muscles under the layer of fat.
"I don't understand it," Natalyah sobs. "She was supposed to be here. I had so many things to tell her, and we were supposed to laugh about it all, and I was supposed to see how she made the pocket, and I don't understand how she's gone."
"It's not fair." Priscilla is also an ugly crier, and the snot is already arriving. She left her purse with her tissues on the other couch. "The Lich King killed everyone at the end, everyone, and almost all of them were brought back by King Menethil's ghost. Hundreds of people. So why not my sister too?!"
In the hallway, Birdie approaches. Natalyah can probably hear and smell him drawing nearer. He could disguise his approach if he wanted to, could linger in the hallway and listen, he could come back in, or he could make an excuse to take longer and move away so as not to eavesdrop. Instead, he asks, "Scilla, Talyah, would the two of you like some time alone? I can leave this here."
Natalyah, unhelpfully, cries harder, holding onto Priscilla. No, she doesn't want to be alone anymore. Not that she's going to say that.
"If you come in, you have to be sad about Lucy with us," Priscilla manages to say.
"I can do that." Birdie gives it a moment to see if Natalyah will express her opinion and then enters carrying a small drawstring bag. It might be large enough to fit a tiny camera, but more likely than not there's an extradimensional space in there. The bag is made of a blue-gray frostweave - Cressidha's work, not Lucy's. He leaves the bag on the side table.
Natalyah attempts to get herself under control, both emotionally and physically, her head turning to look at the bag. She's still a worgen, but she sniffles loudly and creaks out, "Is that the butterfly camera?"
"It's for you, whenever you're ready for it." Birdie passes Scilla her purse and then offers Natalyah a handkerchief. Priscilla seems to have her own handkerchief inside the purse. "It has a case, but there's also… well, the whole bag's for you."
Natalyah takes the handkerchief without looking at it, like if she doesn't see it directly, it doesn't count. She breathes in shuddering sighs, and then one of them is accompanied by an iridescent shimmer, a ripple in the fabric of magic, and she is abruptly once more Priscilla size, human and wiping at her face aggressively with the handkerchief. It's tucked into one hand as she reaches out to snag the frostweave bag, her eyes red rimmed and still filled with tears, but also determination to open the bag. She does so in jerky movements, her hands trembling, and faint shadows of black fur on the edge of sight.
Priscilla blows her nose with a loud honk, folds the handkerchief up, and leans her shoulder against Natalyah's.
Inside the bag are two things. One is a camera bag made of soft tooled leather with a butterfly motif. The butterfly depicted is either imaginary or of a type that Natalyah has never encountered before, but it is detailed enough that it doesn't look generic.
The other thing is a photo album, and this seems to be Priscilla's work putting them into the album (because it is a very nice album) but Lucy's photographs. Lucy has taken over thirty photographs of butterflies of varying quality, some from the Loch Modan region but most from Outland. The plants and architecture in the background of those might also look unfamiliar to Natalyah. One of these butterflies matches the design on the bag.
Natalyah shudders violently at the sight, holding onto her human form with some stubborn determination, maybe for her soft, unclawed fingers. She runs her hand down along the leather butterfly, petting it, as she looks through the photos, tears and snot both streaming down her face.
When she arrives at the photo of the unidentified butterfly, she gasps, and hunches over, pulling the album into herself. "She found me a butterfly," she wails down into the album, her voice warbled gravel.
Birdie leans against the arm of the couch and puts a hand on Priscilla's shoulder. "Oh, Lucy," he says.
"She went to another world," Priscilla says, choked-up. "She went to Draenor, the broken world of the orcs, with Cobalt Company. And she brought the butterfly camera."
Natalyah makes a strange, high pitched canine whine, holding the album to her like it's keeping her insides from falling out, as she brushes roughly at her face, attacking her tears with Bertrand's handkerchief. "I'm going to find it. This one, I'm going to find it, and identify it, and it's going to be the Lucille Butterfly. The Lepidopterist Society can fight me." It's accompanied by a deep growl. It's very much a threat. Come at her, butterfly bros.
"She'll like that," Priscilla says, and sniffles. "If she had any notes on them, I couldn't find them. I just put the pictures in order. They're probably not even in a good order, I did them by color, but you can take them out of the slots and move them if you want."
Natalyah shakes her head, her hair brushing along her shoulders. "No, it's good." She holds onto the album as she throws another arm around Priscilla. "Thank you." There's a few other words that seem trapped in her throat for a moment before she can let them go. "I'm so, so sorry."
Priscilla holds on tight. "Me too."
Birdie sits down on his couch to give the women a bit of space and drinks some water.
"Her workshop, is it still intact, at her house?" Natalyah asks, and brushes roughly at her face again. The flush on her face makes her freckles stand out in darker spots along her cheeks. "What's going to happen to the house? Does it belong to Gavin now?" Natalyah has missed some news.
Priscilla's nostrils flare at the mention of Gavin's name. "That wretched man has nothing," she says.
"It's been slow going having her workshop disassembled," Birdie says. "Her engineering mentor has been helping a lot. Nothing's been thrown out, but some of the machinery has been taken to Tinker Town in Ironforge. The house… belongs to Scilla now, and she's been slowly getting it ready for sale."
"Gavin and Lucy divorced two years ago," Priscilla says. "He was stealing from her, he was unfaithful to her, he actually went to prison for fraud. No, he has no right to anything she owned. I'm not sure what else to do with the house other than sell it. I don't think I could bear to live there again, without her. Light, if I'd known you were homeless I'd have offered it immediately, but I don't know whether or not you would feel as haunted there as I would."
Natalyah blinks. Once. Twice. She lurches back from Priscilla in time for the rage to roll over her in dark fur, biting down hard to contain a howl. "He what? He what?" She's panting, as if it's taking real willpower to not leap off the couch, run to Stormwind, and demand an execution. She knows people in the guard. "I'll —"
One clawed hand grabs at her bag, for some strange reason, pressing it to herself, and she breathes in deeply, closing her eyes. It takes three breaths for her to speak again, and it seems to be deliberate that she's dodging away from Gavin and death threats, trying to control the worgen form. "How much would you sell it for?"
Priscilla is unbothered by the worgen form this time, and she looks like she very might be inclined to go on a rant alongside her, but when Natalyah tries to calm down, Priscilla swallows whatever she was about to say and does the same. She pets Natalyah's arm, because wow that fur is soft. "Birdie, what was the asking price?"
Birdie lists a number, which is more than fair in Stormwind's housing market. "Scilla's been picky about who she sells it to," he tells Natalyah. "Are you and Lathrik looking for a larger place?"
Natalyah manages to force the shift again, but it leaves her sweating and panting worse for a moment. She doesn't seem inclined to move out of Priscilla's touch though, something she very well likely would have done Before.
She bites down on her bottom lip. "It's not a bad place," Natalyah says defensively. "He came up from essentially nothing, neither parent around since he was four years old, and he's clawed out a place for himself. It's what he can afford on his salary." The but hangs heavily in the air, and she pushes on.
"But, it's only two small rooms, and it has no kitchen at all, and he really deserves so much better," she says, in a differently defensive way. Her paladin should have nice things. This is a threat, Lathrik. "It's just that I can't think that we'd be able to afford it at any price. Even if I can finally find an actual job — I've been trying, but my skill set is limited. I've been doing odd jobs so far, and I've even started being able to use the Light, that's how determined I've been. I have no idea how long it would take to actually save up for something like that. I can't imagine that it would be soon. But I also hate the idea of the house going to a stranger."
From across the couch, Birdie and Scilla look at each other.
"Does he own his place?" Birdie asks. "Or does he rent?"
"Would you be happy there?" Priscilla asks. "Would you be able to live there and make it your own without feeling her absence all the time?"
"He owns it," Natalyah says proudly in answer to Bertrand.
The other questions give her pause. Natalyah is, as Priscilla well knows, a headstrong, wilful woman. When she decides to do something, she can be impulsive. So the silence of her thinking about it all means she really is soul searching. "I think that it would make me happy to know that I could keep something of her, something I could show people, talk about her." Her eyes are teary again but she keeps her human form.
"I think it would hurt at first, but I don't think that's so terrible. Of course it hurts. She's gone, that's what really hurts. It wouldn't be the place doing it. But I think it hurts worse to imagine walking by and I can't even go inside, or watching someone do something entirely different to the place. It shouldn't be a memorial or anything. That's maudlin and Lucy would hate that. It wouldn't be a sad place. I've been meeting so many new people, and I've been learning how to be happy again, and how to make Lathrik happy." She holds on tightly to her bag, looking down into it. "It sounds really stupid when I say it out loud, but it's like with the house it's the closest she's even going to get to seeing who I am now, and meeting Lathrik." She closes her eyes tight. "But I would have to get rid of all the pink things with extreme prejudice. I love her, but my eyes are positively allergic to the color."
"I don't think that sounds stupid at all," Birdie says. "That's incredibly sweet."
Priscilla sniffles. "Oh," she says. "Oh, I would love it if you would live there. I'd like to meet your Lathrik, and maybe I can show you two around and see what you think and if there's any of the furniture you'd like to keep. I think that's what Lucy would want. We can make it happen."
There's a moment of pride that rears its head, a reflex to reject an offer of help, but it's not anything of Natalyah that settles it back down: it's the way she's looking at the bag she brought with her, and the bag she's been given, clinging to them both with the photo album, and something about the combination of the two there in her lap overrides whatever protests she was going to make.
She tosses her head, shifting her hair over her shoulders. "I would like that. Lathrik works through most of the days from early morning to night, but we can arrange something on a partial day, if not trying to wait for a day off. As long you don't mind waiting on the sale," Natalyah says.
"There's no rush." Priscilla smiles at her.
"If the two of you see the house and are both interested, I don't see why we couldn't set up a plan for you to pay in installments over time while still living there," Birdie says. "Scilla and I aren't in urgent need of the funds."
Natalyah relaxes slightly, and she nods. "Whereas Lathrik and I are," she says tartly, but there's a curling up of her smile. "As long as we take turns on the couple's immediacy funds seesaw, I think we should be able to work something out."
Priscilla says proudly, "Her kitchen is very modernized now, she renovated it herself. All sorts of gnomish appliances in there."
Natalyah's expression wobbles again, and she clutches the album to her chest. "Lucy learned how to cook?"
Priscilla laughs and shakes her head. "Well… not really? But there's a coffee maker, some sort of automatic… bread slicer?"
Grief and amusement and some strange relief flutter across Natalyah's face. "Of course. That's the Lucy I know. Start at the last, most exciting inventive step of the process, work her way backwards eventually, possibly, until she has a better idea about an automated corer or super stew pot." She pauses. "Is there a super stew pot?"
Priscilla dabs at her eyes with the handkerchief. "I don't think so. But I honestly don't know what everything is."
"I'll have to look through," Natalyah says, moving her hand over Lucy gifts, and then starting to set them back into the frostweave bag, slowly and reluctantly, like she wants to keep them out as much as she wants them safely tucked away. "I have been learning how to cook. It's going exactly as you might expect, where I've gone from 'dear Light I didn't even know you could make charcoal out of that vegetable' to 'oh it's charred meat' to my latest culinary masterpiece offering, 'I think this is just a little burned.'"
Birdie laughs. "I had that progression too, when I learned."
"I've been getting more lessons. Someday I might even achieve 'that is the color I expect carrots to be,'" she groans. "At least Lathrik never complains, but I'm worried it's because he's eaten worse at times, and I haven't actually managed to cook something to rank in the top ten worst things he's eaten." There's a crossing of concern and exasperation over her face, and she pets a hand along the bag she brought.
"I wouldn't complain as long as whatever I'm eating isn't so raw that it'll make me sick," Birdie says. "And it sounds like you're working your way along the opposite side of the scale. Cooking takes time to learn. He doesn't seem the type to kick somebody back down while they're trying to climb up, I don't think."
"I served Birdie pasta so undercooked it was still crunchy once," Priscilla chimes in.
Natalyah's giggle is a bubbling up from somewhere. "Oh, I did the opposite side of that as well. I left a pasta so long in the pot over the fireplace that it went from mush all the way back to crunchy again," Natalyah admits. "Not edible crunchy, but at least it wasn't the main component." She picks at the seam along the bag. "I'm not certain I can get sick from raw food, at least not in the beast form. I ate a lot like that, obviously, for four years as a feral creature who wouldn't have known how to use fire properly, and again out in Elwynn when I returned and had even less for a kitchen. Mostly I just try not to think about it too hard."
"My goodness," Priscilla says. "And here we just gave you a basket's worth. I had no idea."
"It's not like I couldn't fend for myself in the woods. I can take down an entire buck, and a boar," Natalyah says defensively. "It only becomes a problem with living in the city, storage and cooking it properly. One of Lathrik's team, Joelle, when he isn't busy breaking down doors, is an engineer, and he set up a cooler so now there's not a problem. I've even hunted a few animals large enough to sell the excess to various taverns for some extra immediate money."
"Very nice," Birdie says with clear approval. Priscilla also looks suitably impressed.
Natalyah's smile flashes, a wicked curl, but it doesn't last. "Yes, well, turns out that learning entirely new skills is less about the age you teach a dog so much as when one becomes something like one."
Birdie looks at her curiously. "It's a good skill to have. Is hunting something you enjoy now that you have a choice about it and it isn't essential for survival?"
"Ugh, no," Natalyah answers immediately. "I would rather be studying my butterflies rather than traipsing by their habitats sniffing for recent deer pee. But I can't do that if I'm starving and out of money, and that's part of the deal with Lathrik, that I won't go hungry while I work out how to become solvent now that I'm no longer 'Lady Natalyah,' and getting money for the week isn't as simple as opening my checking book. But every skill I do have by virtue of the curse, like you saw at that house, if it helps me get there, then I will use it. I'm not incapable of learning new things or adjusting."
Birdie nods. "I get it. Good on you, then, and if there are any relevant research grants I hear of, I'll point you their way."
Priscilla sits up straighter on the couch. "Sintha Fallon," she says. "If anyone will fund an expedition to Outland for the Lucille Butterfly, it's Sintha Fallon. She adored Lucy, her family is wealthy as sin, and she would be all for it."
Natalyah's instinct is to recoil slightly, as if stung — her, Nat K.W. need to ask for funds for an expedition — but the tension goes slack as reality rears its head; she would need to ask for funds. She doesn't have money anymore. It's not the only thought that occurs to her of what she doesn't have anymore, and guilt and grief snap their jaws over her expression as she pulls her bags into her stomach. "I'll have to look at the logistics," she says weakly. "There are things that are different now than they were. I don't have — I will need another assistant, and it would be possibly a long endeavor. If I can plan it out, and it is doable with a research fund, I'll talk to Sintha about it." It's as good as an admission that she'll ask for help as it's going to get.
"Of course," Priscilla says. She rises to her feet. "Would you like a tour of the grounds now that they're not flooded with wedding guests?" she offers, a clear topic change but also probably something she had planned on doing in the first place.
"If by that you mean see if I can spot if those aspen trees are hosting some of the Red-spotted Purple Butterfly during its flight season, or if the Viceroy Butterfly has managed to take over the territory, then yes, absolutely," Natalyah says, setting the frostweave bag into her other bag, and reaching for her canes. "You know I can't possibly pass up that opportunity, especially because if the Red-spotted Purple Butterflies are holding in this territory as I have postulated they can and will for the moderate foresting in this climate, I will be proving an overconfident man wrong, and that will make everyone's day better. Well, not his, but he deserves it."
Birdie rises to his feet as well. He drains the rest of his water glass and sets it down. "I love seeing an overconfident man proved wrong."
Natalyah's smile curves up wickedly.