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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Finley has been given a task: find the guardsman Joelle Ebek, and befriend him to invite him to a casual dance party of friends and family of Fallon House that is also a political statement. It turns out that Joelle's not difficult for even a hermit crab like Finley to genuinely befriend. 6800~ words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
The city sun has turned the afternoon near excessively bright in the winter chill, so clear and cold that it makes everything feel crisp, and the bare branches of the trees stretch their bony fingers up to a perfectly blue sky. It's a good day for an artist, looking for a place to work on his landscapes of buildings, everything brought into high focus of lines and perspective. So it's not especially unusual for a particular young man to be outside, with an easel, set up on this corner of Old Town, working with a ruler, and sketching lightly on a large canvas with a fine graphite pencil. He's dressed in a well-tailored dark brown suit, a gold cravat at his throat, and no hat over his wavy hair that brushes the edges of his collar — a gentleman of some means, at the least.
He's an especially tall man, nearly 6'3", but very slim with it, all tight and lean lines of a bean pole, and might be memorable for those reasons. The cold has kissed his cheeks hard enough to make them reddened, and his nose — crooked, where it was broken and not set correctly — has a touch of the same on the tip. He's clean shaven, but a tiny hint of a shadow has already appeared along his jawline, a small emphasis of the cleft of his chin. He wears a faint smile as he works, an amiable expression that might give an appearance of openness.
Finley Boutille, ward of the joint Houses of Esprit and Fallon, seems absorbed in his work. He hasn't paid any attention to the current guard of Stormwind that stands not too far from the artist, but that guard has been standing there for hours and hours.
In fact, that guard is due for a shift change.
Her replacement, a man known by his District as the ‘gentle giant,’ Joelle Ebek, soon arrives to relieve her. His gaze catches on Finley, and anyone looking directly into his eyes can see a hint of recognition, but as Joelle takes up his position, he opts not to disturb the artist, keeping quietly to himself. He is, after all, on duty.
Finley, for his part, does it so well that there's nothing that suggests it's anything other than genuine: he glances over his shoulder at the movement, and seems about to look back away when he double takes Joelle, eyes widening in a brief, natural seeming surprise.
Finley grins, a quiet exhale of a laugh, and turns to hold up a friendly hand in greeting.
"I know you, don't I?" He's close enough for a conversational tone, just a few steps away from handshake range. He wipes his hands from their graphite smudges on a rag before he takes those steps closer, and offers out that hand now to shake. "Finley Boutille, from the Briarwitch play and Fallon House, you might remember."
Joelle does not smile, but he does return the handshake. "I remember," he says. "Sorry I broke into your house."
Finley waves it off with a shrug. "You were worried about your friend. Nothing terrible happened of it, and that's what matters." He peers at Joelle, his eyes a little sharper, looking a bit deeper. "You're not worried about a grudge are you? You shouldn't be. Her Grace won't hold it against you. She's a rational lady. In fact, one of her business associates is a man who once tried to rob us on the road. Ambushed our carriage, held an actual knife to her throat," he says, exposing his own and pointing at a place on it, "And she talked him into a better business arrangement. Still one of her best suppliers. You didn't mean any harm at all, and you did none in the end. Best way to make amends is doing better with the future, right?"
"I will," Joelle says earnestly. "Do better. I will." His gaze still holds the aftershocks of guilt, from a consequence that never happened.
Finley gives him an encouraging grin. "I believe it." He sticks his left hand into his pocket, glancing over his shoulder at his art before he looks back at Joelle. "You were great in the play. You keeping up with it, or was it just a one off? I'll tell you that I don't see myself doing it more, but Isla, you might remember her, villager dressed in yellow, tripped four times on the stage? She's mad for it."
Joelle starts to ask something, but stops himself. "I practice, sometimes," he answers instead. "But the friend who was helping me left for a battlefield."
"Ah," Finley says. "That's rough, buddy. All too common a story, too, with all the things happening. There's a reason Lord Ference didn't start back up another theater company, and went into mercenary work. He used to have a theater company back in Lordaeron. Her Grace went to see his plays, time to time. Isla still holds out hope Ference'll pick it back up as a hobby in between mercenary work and politics, but she's also enough of a head in the clouds dreamer to hope he'll write an entire play inspired by her and also starring her, and that's probably just as likely to happen, which is to say it never will." It's related with an easy going friendliness, a teasing of his sibling, and open sharing. And then he moves a finger in a little circle over his face. "You looked like you were gonna say something else just a bit ago." It's an observation more than a question.
Surprise lights Joelle's gaze, and he hesitates. "I… was going to ask a question," he says. He still doesn't, but at least he addressed the observation.
Finley gives it a second or two, before he shrugs and says, "Well, I'll not force you to ask it, but if you've a mind to ask something of me, you can. We're not strangers, after all."
Permission granted! Almost shyly, Joelle asks, "Does Isla… fall often? Could she use padding for her knees?"
Finley laughs, shaking his head ruefully. "Could use it? The girl could use being wrapped in padding. The problem is she won't, not for her knees or anything. She's been that way since she was little. She runs into things, doesn't seem to know where her limbs are even at most of the time. It's not that she's not careful," Finley adds, in grudging defense. "She'll work fine with little things. She can sew the tiniest stitches you've ever seen. But ask her to get up and quickly fetch a handkerchief from the other room, and you'd think the floor rose up and bit her the way she trips. Her Grace has hopes Isla'll outgrow it."
"If she could hover…" Joelle disappears into his own thoughts, a world of numbers, schematics and plans. There is a problem. He wants to fix it.
"If she could hover, she'd probably find a way to trip over the ceiling," Finley says pessimistically and also possibly prophetically. "And she would use it to haunt the house. She's obsessed with the idea that the house might be haunted. It's not, by the by. Just another fancy of hers." He smiles at Joelle, his body language carefully relaxed, a smoothed out gentleman comfortable with his height.
"You look like you're trying to solve the problem of Isla and her clumsiness," he observes.
"I want to help," Joelle says, surprise pulling him back from his thoughts. "You can tell?"
Finley raises his brows. "Sure. I've spent most of life around people who don't make much in the way of expressions. You've seen Her Grace. Her father was even worse, and my family's job was to know what they wanted and were thinking. You're not an easy read, but I've read more difficult." He's careful to keep his own expression open, although there's something about his eyes that still seems guarded, a man with his own perpetual desire to hide his thoughts. "I don't mean to put you on the spot. I know what it's like to want to keep some thoughts to yourself. But you seem more to me a man who just wants the go ahead to speak plainly."
"I don't want to upset anyone," Joelle says. His gaze is calm, and warm, and genuine. "Sometimes, when I say that, people find that upsetting. So I don't say anything. Not until I'm asked. People don't usually ask. Does… Her Grace wait to be asked?"
"Ah, no. Her Grace is a Duchess. She's a whole different breed of person than people like you and I. Different rules, different expectations, and different stakes," Finley answers. "I'm used to that myself though, the hiding the thoughts and feelings, not making any waves. I was trained and worked as a butler before. Like a guard in some ways. You're meant to blend in, not say or look like anything at all, keep your thoughts to yourself, among the upper classes. No one wants to know if the butler's having a bad day, or what he thinks of their dress.
"So, I don't find it upsetting to hear why you're used to keeping mum. It's familiar, if I'm being honest. If you don't find the questions annoying, I'm happy to ask. Or give you a carte blanche on speaking your mind. Years of Isla's mad notions has inured me to even the stranger ones a man might think to say."
"A different breed of person," Joelle repeats softly. "Does that not get lonely for her? And for you? If you're having a bad day, you can tell me."
There's a moment of a certain sort of look in Finley's eyes that grows a little more guarded, a shift of his expression that grows a little more suggestive, a graze of his attention that starts to drop down Joelle's body in a reflex of the start of flirtation — and it's halted before he gets very far, as he turns his head to glance back at his art. When he looks back at Joelle, it's friendly, without pushing on a boundary of flirtation.
"That's kind of you," Finley says smoothly. "Truthfully, I don't have many bad days, not since Her Grace married the Admiral. Mostly have the same sort of bad days everyone else did. Didn't much enjoy the day of the Cataclysm, as they call it. But on the matter of loneliness, if you spend a bit more time around the House, you'd see for yourself, there's too many people around to even get much time alone, to say nothing of getting lonely. There's some 22 people at the base of things in that house, to say nothing of when we've got guests, which is all the time." He opens his mouth to say something more it would seem, and then changes his mind with a bit of a wry smile.
"You can be lonely, even with lots of people around," Joelle says. "I was, until Ren. When people don't see you, it gets like that. But you are 'yourself' with Isla, aren't you? Is Her Grace 'herself' with the Admiral? Does he see her?"
Finley's smile stays steady on his face, but there's a long enough pause before he answers, a hitch in the smoothness. It might be physically painful to give out information on Avrenne that suggests in any way she is not a perfect ice queen. But he has his orders.
"I'm sure she is, and he does," Finley says, managing to get it out naturally and not sounding like he's being strangled. "Isla's like my little sister." He lets that just stand as is. Draw conclusions as you will. "Ren, that's Reniya Hartrim, right? He seems a decent man. He stayed at the house for a bit, but was more occupied by the Admiral."
Without any real thought, Joelle reaches out to pat Finley's hair, a soothing sort of gesture. A smile comes to his eyes at the mention of Reniya.
"They are compatible," he says. "The Admiral is the ocean, deep and restless, and sometimes angry. Ren is the sea breeze, wild, and free, and unimpeded. I can't read Her Grace. I only see what she shows to everyone. But I hurt her. I don't have the right to see her, so I'm happy she has you and the Admiral."
It's been a while for Finley since someone he wasn't related to in some way, or a barber, touched his hair, and he sticks his other hand in his pocket, a movement as he rocks back onto his heels that mostly conceals the way his hands bunch into fist and flex out again.
"You didn't hurt her," Finley tells Joelle. If his voice is a little deeper, his Lordaeron accent a little more pronounced, well, maybe it's just the cold. "If you had, I'd probably not be talking with you like this. I can tolerate some things well enough, but she's the head of my House. I'm not friendly with those who hurt her, purposely or accidentally." He gives Joelle another look, more searching this time. "You read people pretty well. If you don't mind me saying, you've got something of the way of a poet to you. Do you write at all?"
"Oh," Joelle says, and shakes his head. "I don't write. Should I?"
"Do you want to?" Finley counters. "Just because you might be good at something doesn't mean you're obligated to do it. Some things you should do just because you like doing it, especially if you aren't getting paid for it."
"Do I want to?" Joelle's gaze becomes uncertain, and a pause just long enough to start getting awkward follows, before he draws the conclusion: more information needed. He glances at Finley's art. "Do you draw because you want to?"
Finley's shoulders hunch briefly, the start of a reflexive bristle, but he relaxes them back down, keeps his genial smile. "Yeah. I'm new to it. Started just about a year and a half ago. Wanted to before, but it wasn't appropriate use of my time, or resources, back then." He hesitates, and then pulls his hands out of his pocket to take a few steps back to his easel, picking it up, and walking back now closer to Joelle, his eyes on the buildings in front of him, so the guard doesn't have to leave his position.
Finley dusts his hands off in a brisk series of light slaps, and gestures to the soft sketched lines, and then to the street. In front of them is a line of sight to where several buildings appear closer together from the way the street bends around the corner. "Been working on the start of a series for a little exhibition in two months from now. Had the idea that I might do something with tight landscapes of the cities of the Alliance, where buildings seem set together from certain angles." He runs his right forefinger down the center of the canvas where there's some empty space, visible between two buildings. "Showing that space as something close together, like hands almost touching. Reminder that we're all closer to each other than we think."
He's also a lot closer to Joelle now, bridging a gap purposefully with physical proximity.
A tiny smile finally reaches Joelle's face as he gazes at the lines and listens to the explanation. "That's a nice message," he says. "My mother thought the play was a waste of my time and resources, but I think… I wanted to try. I'm happy you get to draw now."
It's hard to tell if Finley blushes at the praise; his cheeks are already red from the cold. He sticks both hands back in his pockets. "Some plays might be frivolous and just for entertaining the masses, distracting from real problems. But that one had a message. Those plays that Her Grace used to attend that Ference wrote? She was there because they had messages. The Briarwitch was the same. Just because something's made up doesn't mean it doesn't speak to something real.
"The man who tried to rob us that time, held a knife to Her Grace? He was Alteraci. He'd been a wealthy merchant, an honest businessman who had supported the Alliance. But he lost everything in the punishment to the whole. Her Grace recognized his signet ring, got him back into his business proper, and now he's back in the fold, as loyal a man as ever could be. He just needed the chance. Her Grace and the Admiral have pushed for Gilnean and the worgen to be treated well for the same reason. 'No creature can choose what they are.' They can't choose where they come from, and can't choose what they born as, can't choose what curses come their way. We need the reminder from time to time in the Alliance. Sometimes it takes being told in another way, roundabout instead of direct, like a play about something else, like art of buildings, like poetry about people, for the words to sink in."
"You're a hermit crab," Joelle says after a pause. "There are things that you hide from, but you're always watching. Observing. Adrien, the woman who played the witch was Alteraci. A noble. And all kinds of people participated. Some people only see what's in front of them, I think, but you and Her Grace see the bigger picture. That's good, in a person."
Finley looks like if he was a hermit crab, he would be retreating back fully into his shell but for his eyes. Oh no, he has been seen. Perceived. It probably emotionally if not physically dislocates something for him to not cross his arms over his chest, to not hunch his shoulders. Instead, he gives a laugh. "Thanks, I think. Hermit crab, huh? Well, at least they've got nice looking shells, and they live on the beach, so we've got a few things in common. What about you? What do you see yourself as in the metaphors?"
"A corroded coil spring," Joelle replies. An explanation does not immediately follow, but there doesn't seem to be any sadness in his eyes, only resignation. The acceptance of a truth.
Finley frowns, not in disapproval, but in some amount of surprise and confusion. "Coil spring? That's something like that's in machines, right? Her Grace has talked of them before. I don't know much about them, not the way Her Grace could probably tell me by metal and type, but they're for shock absorption, right? A lot of things wouldn't function without it. But corrosion… like rust, that'd make it harder on the spring, I gather. Still, it's not the spring's fault is it? It's a coil spring. Corrosion's an outside thing, when someone hasn't been taking good care of their machinery. All it needs is someone to pay attention, and clean off the corrosion, and do better with it. Then the coil can do what it's meant to do, but better." He offers Joelle another smile, warmer, if his eyes remain on guard still. "Is it what you want to be? A coil spring without the corrosion."
"It's what I have to be," Joelle replies. "To do my job, and be like my father. To help people. Sometimes…" He stops, because now sadness has entered his eyes.
Finley's eyes soften, and he exhales a huff of something bitter, not a laugh. He doesn't look at Joelle, he looks out at the buildings, as the afternoon's light moves towards the first tendrils of the early winter evening.
There's a long enough silence that it stretches, pulls a metaphorical coiled spring out to tension, as the hermit crab waves its claws before it finally emerges a little more from its shell. "I've got no claim or right to tell you what to do with yourself. But I guess I know something of that. My fate was decided for me before I was ever born, how I'd be, and what I'd do, and how I'd do it. I was meant to follow in certain footsteps of my family, and it was a point of pride that I did it, and did it well. And then things changed. I didn't have a place I thought I would, couldn't serve the way I had trained to do, but it didn't mean I couldn't still do what I wanted — to serve. Turned out there was more than one road, more than one way to be like my family. Just hadn't realized I could take the other route."
Finley turns his head to look at Joelle. "So. Sometimes?" he prompts.
"Sometimes… I wish I could be free like Ren," Joelle finishes, but he shakes his head. "I'm not like him. There is no path that can turn a spring into the wind. It's okay, though. I only wish it sometimes. For you, it sounds like you found your place." His gaze warms again, a gentle sunrise to contrast the lengthening shadows around them.
"I always had it. I just didn't always know who to be to be in it," Finley says. He glances up at the sky. "I'm losing daylight, but I've got what I need for today at least." He gestures with a toss of his head at his canvas, brown hair moving over his forehead in the motion. "The sketch of things. It always takes longer to fill it in properly, study the colors and light, but I need light for both. Should probably pack up and get back to the house." He steps to the side to open a satchel, of expensive leather and inlaid with enchanted fabric, setting the canvas into it, and clicking the easel into a tight gathering, to fit into the same bag that doesn't look like it should be able to hold either.
This done in economical movements, he turns to look back at Joelle. "Maybe I'll see you around. I'm in the city often enough, I just gotta take a closer look at the guards when I'm about, pay a little more attention."
Joelle nods. "If you see Lathrik or Ren, you can say hello to them, too."
"'Course," Finley agrees. He gives Joelle the friendly up-nod. "Take care of yourself." It's a common enough phrase, but it might have some other double meaning in this particular instance. He slings the satchel up over his shoulder, before he turns to make his way out of this part of the city to where his horse waits to carry him back to the Elwynn coast, where he can retreat back into his nice safe little shell.
Two Evenings Later
It's not especially late, all things considered; the eleventh hour bell hasn't even yet rung out from the Cathedral. There are still dots of light spilling out of uncurtained windows, and inn doors. Through the streets lamps shed out skirts of flickering lights, and guards carry halos of lanterns. It's growing quieter, the hush of winter night replacing the hum of the city's bustle, even this close to the Pig and Whistle Tavern of Old Town.
A man, very tall and slim, slips out of the tavern's door and strides out into the street. He's still buttoning up his jacket, and a shiver runs through him where the chilled fingers of the air snuck their way into the open edges. He curses under his breath, his words puffing out in a white cloud around him in evidence. He shrugs his shoulders up and down, both settling the garment and generating some movement for heat, and starts down the alleyway to the south, rubbing his hands briskly together, blowing on them before shoving them deep into his pockets.
He passes first one guard, and it's clear from the way his head turns, that Finley Boutille is really looking. The guard, not familiar to him, takes only a passing interest in the man. If there's a hopeful light in her eyes that maybe Finley will stop and ask her for directions, it's difficult to see in the lantern lit dark. But she's not what he's looking for, and he does nothing more than offer a slanted smile at her and turns his attention back to the street ahead of him.
He keeps going, and is it luck or fate or something else that sets him on this path? Because the next guard he takes a closer look at is one he is looking for. "Joelle Ebek," he greets, taking his hand out of his pocket to raise it in greeting. "Well, look at that."
Joelle, his eyes covered by some complex-looking goggles, smiles a little when he sees Finley, and he slides the goggles up to rest on his head. "Finley," he says. "You look cold."
Finley laughs, the little puffs forming up around his face, as he sticks his hand back into his coat. "That'd be because I am." There's no slur to his words, but they're warmer toned, his Lordaeron accent stronger, from alcohol most likely. He comes to a stop, companionably close to Joelle, off the main stretch of the street. "How long have you been out here? You must be fucking freezing."
"Two hours, twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds," Joelle reports. "It is cold. But bad weather means it's quieter out, with less people on the streets. That can be good."
Finley looks startled at the exact specification of the time, and then chuckles. "Pros and cons, I guess. That boring though, that you've been counting down the seconds out here?"
"Not counting," Joelle says, trying to find the words to explain. "Time is… there are beats. So many beats per hour. Like music. A song. I just recognize where in the song we are, at any given time."
Finley stands with that for a few seconds. "Huh," he eventually says. "That sounds like magic to me, honestly. It's kind of like when Her Grace tries to talk about numbers and angles, where she talks about them like they're as obvious to her as anything else someone sees. All I hear is that apparently it's possible to think in geometry. Not my area of natural talent. But that kind of awareness of a beat, time as music — bet it makes you a hell of a dancer."
Joelle tilts his head, considering. "Dancing," he says. "I learned basic footwork. My mother thought it would help me ease into combat drills and sparring. She stopped teaching me when she saw how well I could keep rhythm. But there is more to dancing, isn't there?"
"So I'm told," Finley says, bouncing a little to warm up as he stands there. "I learned the dances from Her Grace of Lordaeron, more to keep them than anything, picked up a few other Stormwind ones here and there from when she had to learn them and practice them. Not really ever used them. Butlers don't get invites to balls to dance, but I'm not a butler anymore." He seems to consider something, and then maybe discards it for something else.
"You allowed to drink anything out here on duty?" He takes a hand out of his pocket to hold it up as if to forestall something. "Not alcohol, I don't mean. But something warm. Hot cider, that sort of thing?"
Joelle removes both his padded gauntlets, dropping them to the ground at his feet, then wraps Finley's hand up in his own, to warm it. "Yes," he says. "But I usually don't." His gaze gives no indication that he's done anything strange, much like the hair patting of several days ago.
Finley's gaze gives several indications that he is very much unsure what, exactly, is happening or how he set off this sequence of events. He expresses this eloquently with, "Uh."
But this is a man who has grown up with Isla Lenaire, whose sense of social boundaries is clumsy at best, and is known for grabbing hold of people with little to no warning in enthusiasm, and a younger sort-of-brother who likes to hold hands. "Right," he says. He removes his other hand from his pocket to give Joelle's hand clasp a manly pat. "Well, give me a few minutes, and I'll get you some, if you've a mind for it. Just, ah…" He pulls gently on his hand to free it. "It's just up the street at the Pig and Whistle."
The way Joelle looks at Finley's other hand suggests he is considering grabbing that one, too, but when the other man expresses a desire to leave, he lets go. "Oh," he says. "Okay. That's nice of you."
Finley gives him a smile, and ducks his head a little before he turns to jog back up the way he came, back into the tavern.
He's gone for exactly 8 minutes and 22 seconds before he emerges back out onto the street. He doesn't seem like he's carrying anything, but he walks with long legged strides back to Joelle, hunched against the cold. As he gets closer, he pulls out two relatively decently sized bar hip silver flasks from his pockets — why was he carrying two? Who knows — and he offers one out to Joelle.
It's hot cider, as promised, and nothing added to it beyond that. The insulation of the flask isn't the best. It's simple, meant for keeping pocket alcohol close at hand, not keeping a drink warm for hours.
Joelle takes the offered flask, glancing between it and Finley in surprise. "You came back," he says. "People don't, sometimes. Ren says it's because I surprise them. I know they're not trying to be mean, so I don't get upset."
Finley's brows raise, little dark wings in the dark light of the night. "'Course I came back, said I would. I'm a gentleman, and man of my word." He takes a drink of his hot cider — it has been spiced with rum, the slight difference an aroma in air when he talks. "As it happens, I tend to find surprises interesting, not upsetting, in a general way. There's another ward — I don't think you met him, he's painfully shy — Otto. He likes holding hands, grown as he is. He doesn't mean anything by it, not romantic. Just a comfort." He glances down at the ground, where Joelle's gauntlets still are, and it's half reflex and half intent as he bends to pick them up, holding both in one hand. "Seems like we're both just trying to do the same thing. Keep a friendly face warm on a cold night."
Joelle smiles, and while it only appears faintly on his face, his eyes practically glow with it, and the knowledge that his intentions were understood. He takes a drink of his own. "Thank you," he says.
"You're welcome." Finley takes another drink of his spiked hot cider. The night presses in with its quiet stillness of the dark. Finley sniffles, the cold starting his nose running. "Never much liked winter, to be honest. But I'm used to it, standing in the cold like this. Small household the way we used to be, I was the footman as well the butler. Done my time standing out by a carriage into the coldest parts of the night, waiting for Her Grace, making conversation with the other footmen and servants of the house popping in and out. Couple places there'd be a maid or footman who'd run us out drinks like this. Don't miss those days for the waiting, though sometimes I miss the conversations." He takes note of how far away the other guard is. "Spaced out like this, you can't really hold a conversation. But, must give you a lot of time to think."
There is a hint of concern in Joelle's eyes, and it looks like he wants to move closer, but his armor would not help with the cold. "I prefer to observe, rather than to think. Thinking… turns your focus inward. If your mind drifts, you may miss something important. So even when there's nothing, I observe that there is nothing. Lordaeron was colder, wasn't it? We moved back here when I was still young, so I may not remember correctly."
Finley nods. He gets you, Joelle. Thinking going inward and feelings? Hard pass. "Yeah, it's further north. And where the Esprit ancestral lands were, it was even colder than the city, up in the mountains. It'd get colder than the Banshee's fucking tits in winter." He inhales a breath to exhale heavily out into the night. "You were there after the Fall of Stormwind, then?"
Joelle nods, taking another drink. "We were there for five years, four months, thirteen days —" he stops himself, ducking his head apologetically. "Most people… would have stopped after saying five years."
Finley gives a softer laugh. "So? I'm not talking to most people. I'm talking to you. You don't have to talk like anything other than Joelle Ebek, and I'll take him as I find him." He takes another drink. "Do I remember right though, someone calling you 'Elle'? Is that an exclusive nickname or do you go by it generally?"
"Everyone calls me Elle," Joelle says. "Except the Admiral. He called me Elle once or twice, until he learned my last name. Now he calls me Ebek. And Her Grace calls me Mr. Ebek. But Elle is okay. My father's name is Johann, but he usually goes by Hann."
"Then I'll call you 'Elle,' unless you got a preference otherwise?" Finley asks. He shifts his grip on Joelle's gauntlets. "I don't want to assume. You might hear Isla call me 'Lee,' if you meet us together. It's an old nickname from another time. I don't go by it anymore, but she's an exception to keep the use of it. 'Finley' or 'Boutille' as you like."
"Finley," Joelle repeats, just because. "I like Elle. It's shorter, so it's easier for people to say. People like that, I think. But Finley is a nice name, too."
Finley shrugs, but he's still smiling. "It's the one I've got, and I've decided to keep it," he says, somewhat enigmatically. "The House doesn't have many long names on their own, it's the quantity you have to watch out for, per person. There's some thirty names between just Her Grace, the Admiral, and the new babies."
Actually, it is exactly 28, but we will make allowances that math is not Finley's strong suit. He may be permitted this rounding up estimation.
"Titles make it easy enough though," Finley continues. "I know you were there at the play, so you probably heard why Her Grace and the Admiral missed the opening night. That's when the babies came. They're healthy and well. So is Her Grace."
The babies are well. They survived. The relief is so plain in Joelle's eyes that it might as well have come tumbling out verbally. But it doesn't. The words that do come are controlled, but carry a grateful warmth. "I'm happy to hear that everyone is well. I didn't ask. Maybe I should have? I could send a card."
"Or you could come in person," Finley suggests. He tips his flask back and forth, as if maybe debating something internally. "There's a thought. We've a guest staying with us who likes dancing, used to be a dancer actually, before she became a soldier. And we've having a bit of an afternoon of it, friends and family. Sharing some dances around. No one will know all of them, so it doesn't matter much if you know everything yourself. I don't have a starting partner for it yet that isn't Isla, and if I found someone she might get to invite her own friend. You could come to it as my invite, as a friend, if you'd like."
Joelle is silent, taking another drink as he computes. Dancing. Isla. Friend. "I would be… helping?" he asks at length.
Finley hesitates. "You'd hopefully be enjoying yourself," he says. "It's not a job or anything. And you'd be among some familiar faces. Ralaea, Lady Sintha — you might remember her as the moustached knight from the play — the Admiral, Isla, and myself. I can't just invite anyone, because Isla's not out, socially yet, and it's going to be a bit of… well." He takes another sip. "It's a bit like the play. There's two people who'll be at it who are the sorts that some wouldn't stand to be in the same room with, an Illidari, a demon hunter that is, and a death knight. Anyone who's coming to this has to be willing to be around some people that others call 'monsters,' and the like."
"The death knight will be… Ralaea's fiancé?" Joelle asks. "Lathrik likes him." A pause. "I will enjoy helping. It makes me happy."
"That's the one. Harvey Morningdew. The Illidari is Azsera Sunstrike, though I don't expect you'd know her. She defected, to be clear. She was out working to help the Alliance in Vashj'ir not long ago. And if it'd make you happy to help, then I suppose you could look at it as helping me out, to have a friend at it. You won't only have to dance with me or anything. It's a partner swapping sort of dance party, hence the need for everyone to be on at least neutral terms." He swishes the hot cider around and adds casually, "Her Grace won't be dancing. She's got business to see to, and it's a little afternoon of fun, nothing serious as a ball."
"A ball is above my station," Joelle reports dutifully. "Tabby Cat won't be dancing either? Is she too… delicate?"
"Who?" Finley asks, looking over at Joelle, one brow raised. "What?"
"Tabby —" Joelle starts to repeat, before entering a contemplative silence to compute. Oh. That's Ren's name for her. "Tabiana," he amends.
"Oh, ah, no. Miss Lynds isn't on the list. It's not a situation of being delicate, more preference I gather," Finley says. "She's in fine health as well, and you'd be welcome to stay after the dancing to tea, and talk to her yourself."
"Oh," Joelle says. A soft smile is visible only in his eyes. "I don't have anything to say. Seeing her well is enough."
"So then you'll come to it?" Finley asks in confirmation. "It's the 21st, 1:30pm to 3:30pm, but tea will be served at 4pm, and you can stay for it if you'd like. Dress is a decent suit, nothing fancier than that though, so not your dress uniform most likely. If you don't have one though, a good button up shirt and trousers'll probably do you fine. And I'll say that if you decided to come in dress uniform in the end anyway, the formality will be forgiven in light of it being a military household."
"Okay," Joelle says, taking a final drink. His gaze goes distant, as if he is trying to hear the song of the future. The date and times are probably already committed to memory.
Finley sets his own flask back into his coat pocket, sniffling again with the cold. He tucks one of Joelle's gauntlets under his arm, and holds the other out in way for Joelle to set his hand into it. "I should probably get going. The road back isn't going to get any lighter or warmer any time soon. Let's get you back in your armor."
Joelle complies, sliding his hand back into his gauntlet, but the look he gives Finley is one of regret. "Pennings would be mad if I let you keep them," he says. Pennings's anger is very clearly the only thing stopping him from giving them away. "They're warm."
Finley is a deft hand with them; he's had considerable experience helping someone put their gauntlets on. He grins at Joelle. "Pennings… that's your superior officer?"
Joelle nods. "For Ren, and Lathrik, and myself. Tabiana too, when she was with us."
"Well, let's not piss her off then, so you can get the day free for the dancing." Finley holds up the other. "I'll be fine. I've got a pair of gloves somewhere in my pack with my horse. Should have kept them with me, but I wasn't thinking of it when I got into town. My own fault."
Joelle switches the flask to his other hand so he can slide the second one into his gauntlet, then offers the flask back to Finley. "Okay," he says softly.
Finley shakes his head. "Keep it. I've got plenty of them." Why? Who can say. He straps the last bit of the gauntlet on, and rubs his own hands briskly. "It was good seeing y'again." The slight blurring of his words is the only indication that he's been drinking. He reaches out to fluff Joelle's hair; it's a bit of a brotherly gesture rather than flirtatious, and easy for him with his own height. Then he steps away as he starts towards his destination of his horse and home. "You take care of yourself. I'll be keeping an eye out for you when I pass through the city."
The responding smile is so bright that it faintly touches Joelle's lips. "Me, too," he says. "Bye, Finley."