Closed Post: Practice

[sorrowandsorrow]

Thank Christ that wedding dance is over. Janet had felt it looming, like exam season at Brakebills but way, way worse, and it had made her feel like she was being stalked. It's over, and Susan came to keep her company, and she still has a bottle of wine stashed in her closet about it. Spoils of war.

In a better mood all around, Janet's in a sitting room not too far off from the main drag of the mansion. She's cross-legged on a couch, in stocking feet but with her boots tucked up against the side of said couch, and she's essentially playing with dolls.

Okay, it's a little more grownup than that. She has a couple of those ubiquitous green toy soldiers, the ones every kid ends up with whether they want them or not, and she's practicing a Cavaleri Animation, making them march around and aim their tiny plastic guns at each other.

Comments

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Uh, neither?" She raises her own eyebrows right back at Laertes. "They're just adventure stories for kids. Most of the fucked up stuff about Fillory got taken out, but there's still a villain."

[timebethine]

"I think that thy time has different thoughts than mine about what's best for children," Laertes laughs. "Tales of travel in distant lands have no fixed audience, in my time, and almost every story has a villain."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"The villain's not even that scary," Janet says conspiratorially. "I've met her. Honestly, I thought she'd be hotter."

[timebethine]

"My lady," says Laertes, "thou wouldst be a towering villain, shouldst thou choose to be. I would tremble. I'm trembling now."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"You are not." Janet gives him another nudge with her foot. "Everyone's pretty lucky I'm just a bitch, not evil."

[timebethine]

"The queen bitch."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Ha! He can be taught."

[timebethine]

And as he laughs, something that's been tense in him since the last time they'd spoken finally releases.

Their friendship is not a stay of execution, benevolently handed down to an undeserving a criminal. It's something they're making together. Something, he thinks, that they both badly need.

He slides his foot along the floor to give her a fond, companionable nudge.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet kicks him in the shin. Not hard, not enough to hurt. She's not smiling, because she has the feeling that if she does smile, it'll be too revealing. For months, she's been missing Eliot like someone hacked off one of her limbs. Yeah, it pisses her off when men are right -- but she can't deny that Laertes is right. "Thanks for asking me to your feast," she says, on the begrudging side but meaning it.

[timebethine]

"It will be good to see thee there," he answers, all low and warm sincerity. Then mirth twitches up the corners of his lips, and he adds, "I'll greatly enjoy watching thee charm Susan to thy side."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet smirks and mimes tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I'll bring my cherry Chapstick." She pauses. "If you were from 2009, I promise that would've been a good joke."