( closed ) how could you become new if you haven’t first become ashes?

[rhinemaid]

Who: Ilde Decima & Penelope Lane
What: Ladies Who Lunch
Where: Umibōzu
When: Veerdi, noonish
Notes: The obligatory polyvore.
Warnings: See 'Who'.

It's convenient that Ilde largely works from home, if only because this most recent kidnapping has led to a heightened state of concern for her safety; if she ends up with a tracking spell on her, she will bear it with exceptionally good grace, probably. All things considered, it may not actually be a terrible idea- but she does have some time to herself, and Raven's Gate is easily the part of the city in which she's most comfortable, where she's arguably most powerful. It's the closest thing to somewhere safe, and she's almost not worrying about it when she leaves the house. It's been a while since she's seen Penelope, and she's read about the law suit, and there are other things she'd like to talk to her about, too- interestingly, it doesn't really occur to her to worry about how Penelope is going to react to her pregnancy. She presumes it'll be more or less how she reacts to literally everything else (e.g. to swear at it), and it's hard to take offense to something that's just the way Penelope is about things.

There's a reason that they're friends. It's an alarming reason, but it exists.

Comments

[meanwhileback]

Penelope's on time for this, rather than the fashionably late people expect her to be nowadays. Fashionable, yes, always, but when it's lunch with a friend (and very important client, let's not forget), never late.

It's not a restaurant she'd been to before, but let's be real-- anybody who's anybody has eaten at Umibōzu at least once, and Penelope's aiming to be someone who's someone, so the opportunity is seized. It'd make a nice change from the street vendor food she usually pounds down as quickly as possible, since she's so busy since the cathedral debacle both with her line and the lawsuit, she doesn't generally have time for a nice meal.

For Ilde, exceptions are made.

Penelope slides into her seat across from Ilde and sighs, as if the mere act of doing things other than sitting at that table and eating lunch with Ilde is enormously taxing on her, spiritually. "I so needed this."

Hi!

[rhinemaid]

Ilde rests her chin in her hands as Penelope sits down, with a dutiful expression of great sympathy, and it turns out that there is something sort of comforting about this particular flavor of admittedly bizarre normalcy. The world is still turning, and Penelope is still a small cigarette-smoke tornado person. Everything in its right place, etcetera.

“Me, too,” she says, a moment later, because it's true. “It's been one of those weeks for you, too?” It's always a bit surreal, she finds, just getting used to the fact that after things change, mostly...they stay the same, for a while. The world is not drastically altered because of the shitty and less shitty things that happen to her. It is what it is.

[meanwhileback]

A pout on her face, Penelope peers at Ilde through her eyelashes, batting them a bit. If a facial expression could be facetious, this is it.

"It's been one of those months, my dearest, most favorite ever client." She stows her (fashionable, black leather, enormous) bag under the table and unfolds her napkin, stuffing it into her lap. You know, ladylike. "How've you been since I last saw you? Horrors?"

She just assumes.

[rhinemaid]

A beat-

“That, too, but I've decided to worry about it tomorrow.” As opposed to today, when she could be doing more interesting things, like talking to Penelope about good news; and it doesn't really work like that, not really, but by god she will pretend it does so hard until it's almost real, this easy manner. It is slightly unfair, she thinks, that once out of the hospital (where she felt fine, in comparison to the previous week) she's now dealing with the lingering malaise of early pregnancy (which is the opposite of that, Jesus Christ). “I was going to talk to you about a...different sort of order, actually.”

[meanwhileback]

Well that was ominous in its non-specificity.

"Ilde, if you're about to tell me you got a dog and it needs little matching doggy coats for every one of your outfits I'm gonna have to stop you right there. Not that that isn't a great idea, but I'm just too busy right now to branch out into a new line of petwear when I'm sure there's already something along those lines being sold in this fucking city somewhere."

A waitress comes around, deposits glasses of water in front of them, and is gone just as quickly as she game. Penelope takes a nice long, refreshing sip. She will probably need it.

[rhinemaid]

“I have a dog,” she reminds Penelope, and she remembers the five minutes where she briefly imagined that might slow Angus down even in the slightest. (It did not.) “No, um- all the maternity lines that I've looked at so far look like someone wants very badly to punish me for being pregnant, and I was- wondering, if you could...? I can't go into seclusion for six months and I'm not wearing any of that.”

-that is one way to make the announcement, Ilde, yes.

[meanwhileback]

Penelope was going to say something about how she knows about that dog and had meant that maybe Ilde had gotten some sort of hideous alien purse-dog type creature since she seems to be all settling down in Baedal now and all, and then her mouth snaps shut and she just stares at her friend for a moment as if she'd just given her reason to be highly suspicious. You'd think Ilde had just admitted to being a spy for the Russians.

"Except aren't you dating a dead guy, though." The mechanics of this are escaping her, apparently.

[rhinemaid]

"It's not his," she clarifies, and then because she's not entirely sure she approves of how that sounds once it's out, she adds, "I mean, I found a donor through the clinic, it's all very above-board." Inasmuch as she's pretty sure anything in Baedal can actually be described that way; the Glory Shada is a reputable hospital for a reason, and their fertility and maternity care is second to none. It was a good place to go, just- difficult, for reasons she's probably not going to get into over lunch. "He's-"

Other things she rethinks getting into: the state of their relationship as a result of this. ('Not great', but...not as bad as she thought it might be. Complicated, messy. Probably the kind of conversation that's better served by the alcohol she can't actually drink right now.)

"Anyway," she says, instead, "I'll probably start showing in a while."