multiversallogs | 100 problems.

(No that's basically how it happened.)

Unaware of his own ultimate destination for the evening, Lucius is at least distracted enough to glance down at the pieces of glass he's standing in the midst of, and obliges her with laying down some more distance with further backpedaling. A swish of his own wand summons the cane piece, finally, the length of wood scuttling across the road and smacking into his palm upon landing, but again, there isn't much in the way of laying down his arms or letting down his guard.

"You needn't," he states, clipped and prideful.

"I'm quite aware." Note, after all, how she has absolutely no intention of apologizing for it. Lucius started it, Lucius deals with the consequences of his daft actions, and Narcissa...understands her husband's predicament with her own younger self a little better, all of a sudden.

It takes more than one spell to put the jar back in one piece, but the moonlight is soaking into the ground; she'll have to go back and get another sample before she returns home, because she's damned if she's coming out and picking around in the dark twice this week regardless. Having made up her mind at least for now, she makes a point of her own unconcern - it galls her that it's necessary and all the more that it is, momentarily, difficult to force the tension out of her shoulders and look away from him to what she's doing, with every appearance of being unguarded.

(Not that he's likely to make the same mistake twice in the space of an hour, but with any luck he'll get the point.)

Edited 2011-09-03 06:34 (UTC)

While she is distracted on the task of fixing the thing she broke on his shoulder, Lucius steals that time to study her as opposed to figure out how best to hex away the illusion that she must be -- but isn't, he doesn't think, as ridiculous the notion of her being anything but that happens to be. There are Feelings to be had, but tonight they are dull and disconnected and don't show in anything but his hesitation.

By the time she is finishing magicing glass pieces, he is putting his walking stick back together with customary slide and click. There is a sense of kicked dog balefulness in his silence, studying the rings on his hand he hadn't suffered to sell before robbing someone. Or trying to.

"You're going to come back to the townhouse with me," she informs him, evenly, as though this is an inarguable fact. (It is, as far as she's concerned; he probably knows that tone.) "You look dreadful and you must be exhausted to have thought this was a good idea. It's not far- I need to refill this jar, first. Will you let me look at you?"

His shoulder, she means; she's not quite gentle, because it isn't really her nature, but she is determined and she does care, however bewildering it is right now. More and more he disconcerts her, the longer they stand here at this odd impasse, and some part of her simply wants to establish a bit of control over the situation and make it into something she understands. Make him into something she understands.

Bellatrix has context. Narcissa has always known, privately, that she'd go that way. It's always been if not Azkaban, something. When Lucius had told her what had happened to her sister, she'd felt bereft but unsurprised, a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach telling her that it was confirmation of something she'd already begun to mourn. This- he was so confident during the first war that she'd hated him for it by the end. She'd been more cautious, albeit not stupid enough to let anyone else see that, but they'd lost and she'd been surprised and for a moment it had been all his fucking fault. She looks at this man, now, who is not but might be her husband, and it's all wrong.

Only, it's not, really. She can see where he cracked along the edges of his tattered dignity, sullen with hurt pride, and this, this man standing in front of her is precisely the reason why she listened so closely to Alastor in France, why she's holding in calculated reserve the knowledge that LeMat will do as she asks, if she asks.

This will not happen twice.

Edited 2011-09-03 07:21 (UTC)

Lucius is used to taking orders.

Whether it was his father, as demanding a tyrant as Lucius only affected himself to be when Draco grew into a boy, or the Dark Lord himself, and then finally in marriage for all that that was a different dynamic to the point where it wasn't-- and did not feel like-- order taking. There's a recent bit of friction, naturally, when her latest requests had been to face the music and he'd only wanted to go to Hungary instead, or some other corner of deepest darkest Europe, but it's expected. Married people making decisions at one another.

But Narcissa, here, isn't his wife, against all rational logic, and so there is a twitch of a frown on the principle of the thing, a dull glance upwards that only sharpens when he wonders what she must be thinking. If his brain hadn't promptly deleted mention of another one of him swaggering around, he might linger on this contemplation even more.

Likely very different to what he is thinking. He rolls heavy snake head handle against his open palm. He's going to give in any way.

"If you insist," he finally says, lifting his chin and moving as if to invite her to lead the way. There is a trace of dry humour when he adds, "It's the least I can do, after forestalling you so." Let her give him accommodation and attention, that is.

Let her, yes, the implication comes as no surprise; she's been navigating Lucius Malfoy's ego for years, now. Admittedly, 'navigating' has sometimes been a little more like 'stomping on', but she's always thought he wants for a bit of conquering. Just- not quite this much. Not quite this way. Certainly not by anyone not named 'Narcissa'.

...the jar can wait, she decides, finally. The moonpools aren't going anywhere, and it'll be easier to pick at him and patch him up at home, where she'll have more elbow room and, not insignificantly, doors she can shut on him so he can't wander off unattended while she's still trying to figure him out. He isn't a stray that's following her home, but she does plan around him in a way that's not entirely dissimilar; she means well, she's just herself about everything.

"We've a townhouse," she says, as she falls in step beside him, just barely a step ahead. "Bella and Rodolphus are in and out, but there's...another of me, younger, she has a place of her own. I mean to teach her to cook, if you can imagine anything more surreal." She doesn't mention LeMat, deliberately. "I suppose this is perfectly surreal, too."

She is, of course, already mentally editing how she intends to tell the others about this incident. The nearly-hexed-her part won't get told to Bellatrix, and probably not the hit-him-with-a-jar part, either. (She has a sneaking suspicion she knows precisely what look she's going to get from her own husband when he finds out, and she's preemptively irritated with him about it.)

Lucius follows, because that's what he is doing -- no pretense at maybe they had decided to go for a nice evening stroll, what with the direct opposite being the truth, and besides, it is easier to sneak looks when she is ahead of him, her eyes forward on their journey. Surreal is a good word for it. There are other choice words to apply here, ones of vehemence and harder consonants and more senselessly expressive, but-- Lucius had gotten some of that out of his system when he'd first arrived.

He's probably fairly burned his bridges at the Valhalla Inn, although one dare not suggest they aren't a little used to it by now.

His stare narrows at word of Bellatrix and Rodolphus, opening his mouth to say something and then immediately unsure of what to say when mention of a second Narcissa is repeated. Not his Narcissa, then, although that hadn't been his assumption -- an afterthought only, dully noted, and he isn't sure if he is supposed to feel something about that. Like longing or relief or. Whatever it might be, it's pulled back from before it can come to fruition.

Rather than ask what era they are all from, Lucius decides he's probably going to find out anyway. "And the other," he says, and the next word comes out with the emphasis of effort to force it out of his mouth, "me." His cane is held to walk with, putting zero weight on it but allowing it to swing and click against the ground in time with his tread. "What of him?"

On the subject of her husband, she hasn't quite worked out what to say to this version thereof; it is inevitable she'll have to say something, though it's like as not he'll be out when they get home. (Working, or whatever other errand he can contrive to not be where Bellatrix might turn up - she doesn't hold it against him, really, as shown by the fact she has yet to call him on it. She knows what their relationship is like, such as it is.)

Of course he asks, before she's decided.

"He's mine." It's both descriptive (of her world) and possessive (belonging to her), and she says it so much more simply than anything else because as far as she's concerned it is precisely that simple. As interesting as LeMat's world had been (and as educational-), reuniting with her husband here is something she's terribly grateful for. After all, she'd always prefer to have him where she can see him. He doesn't get into so much trouble that way.

"We've been to a city like this before, he and I- Evan was there, and Regulus." Dead men, smiling at her and laughing with her and whole and real and heartbreaking. There's a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thinks of that, now, wishing for them and telling herself not to. She had that much, and she can be satisfied with that. She simply has to be. "He keeps arriving before me, it's dreadfully irritating."

It makes her feel as if she's running a bit late, but she always catches up.

Her simple choice of descriptor answers everything Lucius need know. He was, after all, that age once, and knows exactly what he was like, or thinks he does. But then again, he would have remembered inter-dimensional travels had he experienced them as this other one had, and there is nothing familiar about Baedal.

"I've never," he states, flatly, turning his attention back on their walk back to the townhouse. "As far as I am aware, my journeying has been voluntary, largely uneventful and within a single reality." Without breaking stride, he switches cane from one hand to other with the purposes of delving a hand into a pocket, a papery crumple sound following as he extracts the pamphlet he'd been given and wound up keeping. It's been well resented, by the tattered looks of it -- but well-read. He turns it over in his hand now, looking down on it.

"Do you remain here willingly?"

She does, after all, have a townhouse here. And a husband. There's also a hint of edged hunger in his voice, encroaching on the question about whether one can leave.

"Hardly." Her son isn't here, and that's not an insignificant fact- if they could leave, they would have. The presence of certain family members and the increasing awareness of the second war complicates matters, but the simplest answer is no, no one can leave yet, and Narcissa wants to.

Despite the bitter taste of the word in her mouth, she does make an effort to gentle it slightly - not to snap it at him. She'd want to know much the same thing, she supposes, in his place. (She hopes, fleetingly, that he's not of LeMat's world. Knowing their fates there is hard enough without being forced to face them as inevitabilities.)

"My husband works with the Hellsing guild, for the time being, that's why we're here in Sobek Croix." It's the village equivalent of a supernatural cop bar, this place; Lucius is lucky he caught his own wife's alternate and not one of the agents. Magical threats are sort of why they exist. "I'm sure Moody would find it some terrible irony."

He's been here just long enough to have a little bit of context as to what on earth that means, casting a sidelong look of cynicism. "As do I," he comments, returning his attention to crumpled pages in his hand, that had both been a help and an irritation. Dialogue about settling in and shedding ones burdens. Lucius has some of those, but apparently couldn't help pick up some new ones. Rather than address its contents after all, it's put back where it was with a thin exhale of a sigh.

"One must adapt, I suppose. I don't think I'd be caught dead, personally."

As far as these Malfoys are concerned, it's essentially an extension of what they were already doing in the '80s; hiding in plain sight, clawing their way back to respectability, making themselves invaluable assets as they establish that they are, of course, upstanding citizens. Hellsing gives them a connection to the magical community here and a clear position within it, and remaining in Sobek Croix makes the whole thing ideal.

Narcissa doesn't need this Lucius at her side to tell her how the self-same philosophy ultimately went for him, not when she already knows how the second war would've caught them unaware. It was a strategy that presumed Voldemort's true death, and while it might work better for them here, she can easily contextualize his bitterness and she only gives him a sidelong glance, choosing not to take offense. "I'd rather you weren't caught dead at all, Lucius. You'll stay with us at least a while, won't you? This won't do at all." Mugging people in the woods, she means. Honestly. 'Won't you' is a courtesy, naturally, she speaks as though she expects him to go along.

(He can't be surprised.)

"Your concern is appreciated."

Spoken frostily enough, the resentment that edges it is probably more directed at the situation in which he finds himself in, one that brooks concern at all, than her specifically. Perhaps when he's eaten, managed to sleep through an evening somewhere more comfortable than the transient rooms he's experienced thus far and had a glass of something with a little more strength to it than weak teas and necessary water, he'll ask more about what it means for them to be a part of Hellsing.

Gripping the social structure of this place has not been something Lucius has had the time or the privilege to do since his arrival -- or, indeed, the inclination, as indicated by his current status as attempted criminal.

He knows that tone, too, and is not surprised by it. Easy assurance is usually what comes next, or snippy argument -- here, there is tense and thoughtful silence, leash-pull hesitation as he instead studies the edge of the road they travel rather than the woman leading the way. "Ask me again tomorrow."

A pause follows that, and then her hand on his arm (not the one she slammed a jar into), briefly, lightly, more establishing than anything else. "Tomorrow, then," she concedes, quieter. There's so much to deal with, she understands, and- that will be something she and her own Lucius have to contend with as well, at least some. She doesn't bother to even consider the notion that that resentment might be toward her - on some other occasion she might be inclined to pick a fight, but not today - and she makes a conscious effort to be patient. It's sometimes not her best skill; she tries.

Allergic to pity but not all of the physical acts that can come of it, Lucius does not dissuade or bristle at brief touch to his arm, a fleeting glancing to it before his attention is once again set forward.

If allowed, he is more content to lapse into silence that Lucius can pretend is companionable rather than sulky. Distracted is probably the better descriptor, as he has been given food for thought beyond simply getting through the hours, his stay in Baedal so far deviating between stressful, alarming, and boring. He is only as conscious of his wife's alternate beside him as he is of the ache in his shoulder -- it is there and niggling at him, but otherwise he removes his mind from it until it becomes necessary to pay attention to it once more.

Such as, when the townhouse comes into view, Lucius lifting his head to study it. It is nice. It is also smaller than the giant grey castle in Wiltshire that Lucius has called home all his life, but then, entirely portions of that building had gone unused in its excess.

He's also looking for something to complain about -- and finding nothing. Which somehow doesn't improve his mood anyway. The most he manages is a guttural 'mm' from the back of his throat.

As if by some wifely radar - or just the familiarity of having known one another since childhood (he has, she realizes, known her yet longer, and that's a very odd thought to have) - Narcissa's well aware of what he's doing over there and while she refrains (just) from rolling her eyes at him, there's a self-satisfied edge to her smile at his silence. Damned right there's nothing to complain about.

(Her Lucius had been living in some little flat alone, before she arrived, but as ever - Narcissa's presence merited more effort.)

She pauses, briefly, as they enter; no, she doesn't hear anyone else, and the house feels empty. That's...probably for the best, she decides. They'll have a bit of time to get him situated before he's obliged to deal with everyone else, and she'll have time to decide exactly how she's playing this.

"Come and sit," she says, letting the door swing shut behind them, tugging her gloves from her hands, "and let me see what I did to your shoulder." That verbal concession is as nice as she's going to be about hitting him with a jar, for the record; he did start it. "Then you can bathe, and I'll make you something to eat."

No servants, alas, but she's an excellent cook.

He did. Start it. But she finished it.

It's nice to be somewhere private and enclosed and nice, in any case, ever-present tension loosening just a little as Lucius moves on inside at invitation. Also nice that they are alone -- he could do with more time before running into anyone he knows, or thinks he knows, or resembles himself from the best part of two decades ago. His coat is shed, placed down upon a convenient flat surface along with his cane, his clothing antiquated by modern or Muggle standards and could probably do with repairs, or laundering, or-- getting thrown away, by now.

Fingers searching over the slightly damp spot at his shoulder, darker from the drab grey cotton of his shirt, he reports, dryly, "I think I'll live." But he does sit down, if only to get off his feet.

For her own peace of mind (the jar had broken, after all), Narcissa is determined to look for herself; it wouldn't be the first time Lucius downplayed something to her, after all, just the first time she'd been the one who inflicted it on him in the first place. (Their marital tug of war, mercifully, is not that way inclined.) Her fingers follow his, pressing and testing with brisk efficiency, and when she's satisfied she-

-laughs, quietly, as her hand comes away with a faint glow. It stains, she'd forgotten.

"Oh, dear."

What?

'What' is written in Lucius' expression as he twists to take a look himself, then. He'd have bitched more if he'd expected injury beyond a bruise, maybe a nick from a stray piece of glass. Grey eyes, then, seek out the strange stuff illuminated on her fingertips, and for all that he'd ignored it in the same way he's ignored the mud on his shoes and the roughness of stubble from angrily not shaving on his face, he now peers at the glowing moon water that stains his clothing and his skin.

An accusing look is flicked back up at her. "What is it?"

"Moonlight," she says, still smiling - more to herself than to him, watching the play of it on her fingertips under the light in here. Now is not really the time, but...oh, it is beautiful, and she's been so pleased ever since she discovered the pools. "I was collecting a sample to see if I couldn't divine some sort of magical application, or even to simply understand how it is..."

She'd rather like to fill her fountains at home with moonlight. Wouldn't that be something? -the truth is that she's restless here, and an intellectual challenge that appeals equally to her vanity has been an ideal distraction. Still, she draws her attention back to him a moment later, ushering him upstairs. "It's only light. The credulous outside Sobek Croix mistake the light in the trees for ghosts and fancy the place haunted. Now, if I haven't done you a terrible injury- a bath? A shower? I'll lay out clean clothes."

Being something of a dab hand at potions back in his day, Lucius is more distracted that he's been doused in moonlight than he is at the prospect of running water and clean clothing, momentarily distracted by her distraction, the smallest line of familiar exasperation once again printing between his eyebrows, before focusing on the matter at hand.

"And you're certain it's harmless?" he asks over the top of being ushered, a hand up like he's about to feel at the stuff himself before hesitating, not wishing to do so without knowing any better. Or without a decent pair of gloves. Slughorn taught him better than that.

Back on his feet, at least, and moving then to pick up coat and cane, desiring to leave none of his effects very far away from him, and certainly not his wand. But should he desire to leave swiftly, then the wool of an extra layer and the contents of his pockets are of the few items in the world he has, even if its just the dregs of his money and a tattered pamphlet.

"Positive," she assures him. "You'll glow a little where it touched you, a day or two, but it'll do you no ill. People swim in it, Merlin knows why." Perhaps the most reassuring part of this will be how unconcerned she is at having stained her own hands with it, if he's inclined to be reassured by anything.

Upstairs, then; she points out the spare bedroom where she'll lay out clothes (her husband's, she's decided on his behalf that he won't mind) and shows him the guest bath. This, as the rest of the house, still has the pristine crisp air of newness and it's evident enough in subtleties that they haven't been long settled in.

He has his doubts. Just on principle.

But tonight, he submits to being shepherded along, giving up on the simple things, like being overly neurotic about glowing in places for a few days, or dissecting the unnerving ease in which he listens to her and adapts to this environment. She was right when she'd noted Lucius' exhaustion, and on the later end of his 40s, this counts for something when it comes to token resistances. Maybe later, he will be more sharply aware-- according to himself-- that he doesn't belong here. Probably when he realises he's been given his younger double's clothing.

For now, he lays his cane against the guest bed, allows once-elegant boots to thud dropped against the ground, and glance at himself in the mirror, both at moon stains and the state of himself. And not linger there for any length of time. He'll take that bath, yes, he decides, mouth pulling in minute grimace.

"You don't ask about the future," he observes, quite suddenly, as he sets his coat down across the back of a chair. "You have your reasons, I imagine."

At that, she's still a moment - it is a small betrayal of her own anxieties tonight, but if he needs more than that to see that she isn't so blasé as she plays at...

Narcissa busies herself, promptly, with seeing that there's a towel in the guest bath and preparing to take and clean his things. "I do." A beat. "I do have my reasons, yes. You aren't the first." To have a future to tell her about.

The way she gazes at him for a long moment is somehow both distant and unnervingly present- it seems as though she'll say something, affected and important, but she breaks it off and steps away toward the door.

"Do you want something to drink, when you come down?" She does.

There is probably, at least, time enough for important affectations.

His own hesitation manifests as brief unfocus and internal thought, wondering what exactly she is supposed to know, and maybe also what she doesn't. Regardless, he isn't going to fill her in for as long as she isn't looking for him to do so, and even if she did-- it'd take more than a single drink to make him want to do any such thing.

Not that he's objecting when he swiftly asserts, "Please."

Not much further ado is necessary, then, as he moves from the guest bedroom to adjacent bathroom, which is substantially more than he counted on getting when he imagined what it would be like to mug another person for their possessions.

Once safely downstairs, Narcissa opens a bottle of wine to keep her company while she puts something together in the kitchen; something simple seems best, both for the sake of being quick and because she's not sure if he's up to anything too rich or heavy. There's fish, and it'll only take a half hour or so for parcels she can put tomato and capers over, light enough that she can eat a bit too (it'd be so awkward to make him eat alone) without being overfull.

She allows the details to distract her, and by the time he's done, there'll be food (she prepares it, serves it, and then casts a charm over it to keep until he's properly done - she doesn't anticipate him being in a hurry), wine, a pitcher of water on the table in an unsubtle hint to drink it, since he could probably use that too, and the lady of the house standing at the door out into the back garden, smoking.

It's not one of her better habits- but Merlin take it all, this night.

Naturally, he takes his time.

There is a degree of wear and tear that warm water and soap isn't going to do much to remove, seen in the shadows around his eyes, lines engraved into his face and the pickling bitterness reflected from the inside, but he can at least be clean. He can even shave, which he does, in a sudden fit of vanity as well as avoidance of its neglect being pointed out to him. By the time he is emerging from above, there is improvement, although his hair still seems to fall in rat's tail fragments despite the comb put through it. He's traded his previous garments for these new ones, which at least fits him in with his surroundings in more ways than one.

She can take note of his presence from the scrape of the water pitcher dragged across the table a few inches, Lucius still standing as he pours himself a glass, cane lent against the table. It's a show of restraint, anyway -- the food and the booze both far more tempting, for different reasons.

Exhaling and setting what's left of her cigarette in the ashtray, Narcissa shuts out the evening air, drawing the door closed behind her before she joins him, one hand still bearing that faint glow despite a good scrub before she went in the kitchen.

"Bellatrix thinks-" not Bellatrix says or Bellatrix knows, "-that there'll be victory." Hers. Theirs. She doesn't know what to call it any more, knows better than to think her sister would be inviting Lucius along with any victory of hers, real or imagined.

She goes on, as she sits down with her own plate and her own glass (of wine, not water), "We arrived in the midst of a plague- I caught up to her in the streets. She told me, then. Alastor Moody - he isn't here, you needn't worry - told me how I died."

These two realities are, she presumes he can conclude, somewhat at odds.

Lucius remains standing for the time it takes for him to drain at least half his glass, long, measured sips, before settling when she does. Food over wine, then, taking up utensils and letting them hover tentative over his plate of food before dividing out a rather large mouthful. Politely and unhurried, but he is hungry, and there's little doing to pretend otherwise. And the food is good.

He is also listening, and glances up at the mention of her death. Doesn't make sense. Moody died in the battle that took his first wand. A sips his wine-- generously-- and then rolls it in its glass in absent, thoughtful gesture. "That is what she would think," sounds curdled. It isn't like Lucius and Bellatrix have ever gotten along famously, but his voice is even sharper, now. "Where I am from, you are not the one who dies." If he can say anything good of his reality, it would be that, of the bad things that did not happen but could have.

He divides out a morsel of food with his fork, without bothering to set down his wine to do it. "But this sort of thing happens often, does it?"

"More often than I expect any of us would care to have it." A pause. "I have Evan's wand, from the last city." Her expression softens, minutely, at the mention of her favourite cousin; theirs was always the mostly-platonic mutual adoration of two borderline sociopaths, based on largely on Evan's willingness to go along with Narcissa's notion that the entire world revolves around her.

But he's dead (but Moody killed him), and in the present, she attends her meal more delicately.

"The other Narcissa-" there has to be a less unwieldy way of putting that, somehow, she'll think of it, "-is living a life I don't remember, too. It's strange. I feel as if I'm my own older sister." And this situation somehow makes that less frightening than it ordinarily would be.

(She won't talk about that fear, not ever, but it's evident so very briefly in the rueful expression that crosses her face as she considers how unusual it is that she can say those words here, in this context, without feeling it.)

It may be an amazing feat of divination that Lucius doesn't expect to feel like a long lost older brother to the one who has his name, here, but probably not -- and this thought is transparent in the twist at his mouth in customary sneer before his next sip of wine. But he is busy, also, chasing the subtle nuances of her expression, mostly to-- maybe-- can some context on how to handle it. Being a doppelganger.

The results are neutral, really. None of this is usual, even by wizarding standards. But wizarding standards does allow for some adjustment to the unusual.

"And yet, you are not. Stands to reason that none of us owe each other anything."

The situation with the Narcissas is different in many ways, not least of which being how much easier it is to separate their realities - to step apart just enough to relate to each other that way. She'll teach her to cook and try to manage her a bit, without interfering too much, and she supposes that's sort of sisterly, isn't it? Bossiness and all...

...but these Malfoy men, that's another story entirely.

"I don't believe there's a Lucius Malfoy in existence I'd consider myself obligated to," she says, lifting her wine glass. "Surely you don't imagine I do anything it doesn't please me to do."

She'd said something very similar to her younger self, quite recently.

Well. Touche.

If someone is going to put Lucius in his place, it may as well be done efficiently and bloodlessly, and there is a most subtle glimmer of wry half-smile at the corner of his mouth before it's dimmed again. "Perish the thought," he agrees, dryly. "But then again, I did have a mind to rob you and suffered minimal retribution. I think I still am, actually."

Just amicably, and at her behest, and never mind the jar to the shoulder. His fork scrapes up more food as if to add punctuation to his point.

...Narcissa finds herself momentarily stymied.

"You are a hateful man," she informs him, but she's trying, very hard, not to smile at him.

"I know."

Subtle hint of mock pity in this reply, poor you to marry one, my dear, before Lucius rather catches himself. Not that there is anything morally wrong in engaging in banter with the younger alternate version of one's wife and even if there was, morals are a relatively fluid kind of concept for any Malfoy worth his salt-- but he returns to his food and wine regardless, grey gaze flicking off in some other direction. It's like he'd said, about what they owed.

He is mostly done eating, as well, or at least satisfied himself to a point where a few more slower, smaller bites will have him near done. He finishes his glass of wine neatly, emptied container set down.

"I think I might retire for the evening."

Retiring from the field while you're still the victor, she doesn't say, realizing a moment later that it's actually easier to navigate this conversation when they're slightly at odds. At least then the boundaries are clearer, when she isn't searching for the safe middle ground between standoffish and too familiar. She doesn't owe him anything, no, but he's Lucius and he's hurt and her instinct-

-well, all right, her instinct has always been to burn down whatever hurt him. But after that, to help. To soothe. Only he isn't hers, precisely, and she doesn't know what's allowed, and she isn't used to having to think in terms of needing permission. It's unfamiliar and disconcerting, which automatically makes it annoying.

That isn't his fault, but that's annoying, too.

"I'll see you in the morning, then," she says, setting her own glass down beside her plate. At least this'll give her an opportunity to speak with her husband before the two of them meet. That- she thinks that would be best. "Do you need anything?"

Well he could take the bottle of wine with him, but refrains, getting to his feet instead and collecting up his cane in the process. Maybe if Lucius had more practice in living in a servant-less house, he'd go and take the dishes to the kitchen, or praise her on her cooking -- as it stands, he still isn't used to having no silver platter, despite recent shenanigans. Stealing is just another form of unrepentant taking, anyway.

"No. Just rest, thank you."

At least he doesn't have to be the only one unsure about how this works, or if he's meant to give her a 'thank you' that is less off the cuff and has more meaning, but affected sentiment was never needed before, so why start now?

"In the morning it is," he agrees, before moving back for the staircase in dignified retreat, the tap of his cane underscoring heavier footsteps.

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