[For Vax] An Informal Engagement

[st_illunsmeared]

The phone line went dead without so much as a goodbye, and Phryne laughed smokily. She already liked the young man, but to find he dispensed with stuffy proprieties was simply delightful. Almost certainly, he had no idea he'd done so, but the lack of pretension was refreshing. She planned to enjoy his company immensely.

A quick call to Dot added pastry to the fruit and cheese she'd already been nibbling on, and a coffee and tea service to the champagne she had chilling, but beyond that, Phryne left the room as it was--not quite the whirlwind that Dot had first encountered with stockings on the chandeliers and Mary Janes on the bureau, but certainly not especially tidy.

Her person required a bit more straightening than the room. Telephone flirtation aside, Phryne had very little thought to entertain Vax'ildan in a room Jack frequented. Best then not to encourage it by receiving him in deshabille. Without Mr. Butler to hold him off, she chose a simple outfit of white on white with red accents and red lipstick that left her enough time to make up her eyes, unlock and prop open the door, and then flop back onto the couch with a book to await her guest.

Comments

[st_abby]

Circles come easier when you're flying.

"Similarly, I think," Vax told her in a similarly puckish tone, around bites of nosh. "But less orderly. It's when you half-ass the edges."

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"Half-ass?" Phryne inquired on a wave of sparkling laughter. "I don't believe I've ever heard that expression. Of course, it begs the question of what happens when you full-ass the edges, doesn't it?"

Honestly, she mostly asked to see what he would come up with for an answer.

[st_abby]

"You'd get squares," Vax explained easily, picking up another bit of what turned out to be a little scone. He didn't hesitate to take up a butter knife provided with the service to smush a bit of jam on his.

"And I'm not a big one for sweets, but these really are very good," he admitted. He'd never put a dessert past Ignis, but they looked different to the meticulous precision of what he'd seen him make, and even the more rustic pies Constance had served before. Definitely not the work of the spirited chicken chef.

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Phryne offered a small quirk of a smile, more for the ease than for the response. It pleased her that he'd decided he need not stand on ceremony in her presence already, and he did rather remind her of dear Bert and Cec in that regard.

"Dot made them. She's a lovely girl and bakes to beat all." Her eyes sparkled with mirth when she added, "Why, she once convinced a priest to back down on a point of doctrine by threatening not to bake for the church bake sale."

[st_abby]

"You called her Dot? I'll remember that." The description reminded him of Pike - sweet and adorable, yes, but Mama Pike could gently rebuke with the best of them so hard it'd make someone's head reel.

"Tell me, how did an Honorable Miss clearly used to finer things get in the habit of being clever and observant?" Maybe Percy would have been quite like Phryne, without the tragedy and falling in with the wrong sorts. "A lot of well-off people don't bother, in my experience."

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"I wasn't always." Phryne settled back with her champagne in raised hand and the other resting on her thigh. "An Honorable Miss, used to finer things, or clever and observant."

She had never expected to the money or position, nor wanted it, but she'd not deny she had no intention of going back to poverty now. But that, she suspected was of no particular interest to Vax'ildan.

"I lost someone."

[st_abby]

Vax'ildan finished his mouthful, watching her thoughtfully, and he reminded himself he'd have to get out of that habit of comparing everyone he met to everyone he'd left behind. His expression turned sympathetic.

"Loss has a way of changing us more than we're prepared for," he noted softly, giving her a chance to decide what else if anything to say of it. He didn't need to ask if it had been the loss of someone dear.

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"My sister," Phryne replied to the unspoken question. "We were just children, but I should have been watching her. I looked away for just a minute and she was gone."

It was easier now that they'd found her for Phryne to say it, but easier wasn't easy and as soon as the words were out, she tossed her head lightly and smiled the pain away. "I taught myself to see what people didn't want seen and now I'm a detective."

[st_abby]

He felt an involuntary pang of empathy. Hard enough to lose a sister - but what a scar for a child to take with them through the whole rest of their life.

"Did you...ever find her again?" Maybe it wasn't fair, when she'd been willing to move the subject along to the more amiable present, but he couldn't help but ask.

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"Not while she lived." The statement didn't invite further inquiry, as Phryne had not the emotional wherewithal to speak of it. But she did feel compelled to add, "Her killer has been properly hung now, at least," with enough satisfaction that Vax'ildan might easily discern she'd had a hand in it.

[st_abby]

Who was he to judge her satisfaction in it? Would he feel any less if it were someone that had taken Vex? (She had been taken when she was a child, as a matter of fact. Though she'd managed in her own remarkable way, he certainly remembered.) Wouldn't he need to feel the life bleed out of them under his very own blades, his own hands, to feel as if he'd made any difference at all?

Hadn't he done so much worse, for so much less?

"That's worth something," he agreed quietly. "...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to open an old wound."

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Phryne gave a mild toss of her head and small, wistful smile flickered on her lips and in her eyes. "You didn't, darling. That wound never closes."

And she didn't expect it ever would.

With Jack's help, she'd put Janey to rest finally, but she'd never stop feeling responsible for it. She'd never stop missing her.

"So, now. Tell me--" She offered a bright, playful smile. "Am I what you expected from the phone?"

[st_abby]

"Yes and no," he suggested, taking a moment to look her over - not a leer, so much as an accounting. The trim of her short hair, the flashes of red about her person, starkly contrasted with the white, the keen cut of her gaze and the slightly untidy order to the place. He'd noticed that clever people had a tendency to ignore things that didn't keep their interest, and Vax didn't expect that housekeeping interested Phryne much.

"You don't strike me as someone easy to predict," he answered her smile with his own.

[st_illunsmeared]

"I certainly hope not. A woman likes to have a little mystery about her," Phryne teased, pleased by his response.

More soberly, after another sip from her drink and press of her brightly painted lips, she suggested, "You hide a great deal beneath an ordinary traveler's cloak, I think."

[st_abby]

Ordinary?

"Is that so?" His smile didn't fade, still amusement in his features, but it did change slightly. His eyes became a touch keener, the line of his lips a touch firmer, and he leaned in conspiratorially. "What is it you think I'd be hiding under all this dark fluff? Make a guess of it."

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"I can hardly guess when I nothing of your world," Phryne countered without missing a twitch of his facial muscles. Either he appreciated the keenness of the question, or he felt threatened. Given that she was in deshabille and he had no way of knowing she bore a pistol in her handbag, she guessed it would be something nearer the former. "You eyes tell me you have known darkness and loss, but that's less than insightful."

[st_abby]

"Probably most people have, by my age," Vax suggested in turn. It was the world they lived in - or it had been the sort of world each of them seemed to have come from, for as different as they were.

"I'm dressed for it anyway," he made a light joke of it and spread his hands to gesture at his armor, without actually telling her anything more. It didn't do much to change the look in his eyes.

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne cocked her head, briefly puzzled, before she realized he meant the black of widower's weeds, and she nodded. "Perhaps, but black is terribly becoming. It makes a powerful statement. Not quite as powerful as red or white, but powerful nonetheless."

Turning aside the fashion commentary with an amused smile, she swept her gaze over him again. "I've dressed in feathers myself, but they were pink and covered decidedly less of me. Is it significant, the raven feathers?" For thus they seemed to be.

[st_abby]

"They are, yes," Vax'ildan agreed to her last. He still seemed agreeable enough, the thought of strategically placed pink feathers on a woman of substance too amusing too sober him entirely, but there was something decidedly more serious in his answer this time. "Ravens are a sign of my patron."

[st_illunsmeared]

Patron. Alcuin. Prostitution. Offers. Healing on arrival. Vax'ildan. Vax'ildan. Click, click, click... Jack would have seen the gears turning and the revelation dawning. Vax'ildan might note the light in her eyes, but discretion forbid her saying anything about the pieces that had fallen into place.

Instead, she asked delicately, "Are you an artist, then? Or some lucky woman's Champion?"

[st_abby]

"Closer to the latter," he called it, seeing something had caught her interest, but having no concept of what that might be about. "And the women I love rarely need a champion. I rather meant my patron deity, the Raven Queen."

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Under different circumstances, Phryne felt she might have been inclined to pontificate on the subject of champions and Queens, but she'd save that for conversation with Jack, later. She had theories about everything and he generally enjoyed listening to them. Instead, she smiled, delighted to discover his patron was a woman. "How egalitarian of you," she said and was entirely genuine. "What is she like, your Raven Queen?"

[st_abby]

His own look had become something more somber, expressive face cinching a bit of tension around his eyes and across his brow. "Powerful. Terrifying. Mysterious. But... She's also merciful, in her way."

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"And is she a shaman or something more removed from your sphere?" Although sensitive to Vax'ildan's apparent tension, her curiosity would lead, unless or until he asked her to stop. "Do forgive me if it's rude to speak of her so. I'm fascinated by cultures that give women their due."

[st_abby]

"She's not mortal, if that's what you mean. Though the stories say she was, once." He didn't find her rude, but it was strange for him to be in the position of having to explain such things. It was exceedingly rare, that a mortal should have any direct relationship with a god - but in Exandria, their powers were very much in evidence, and the chosen amongst the most devout could call upon such deities to aid them. "She was a powerful sorceress-queen in life, and when her mortal self died, she became the consort of the evil death god. She stole his power, then overthrew him, creating her own kingdom."

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"How fascinating." Phryne did, in fact, look absolutely rapt. "There were such stories once, in my world, a very long time ago." The Titans and the gods, among them. "However, it was nearly always male powers overthrowing female."

It had never properly made sense to her to venerate the ability to plant a seed over the ability to gestate it, but men were forever desirous of the female ability to create life.

"What does one do as a Champion for a goddess of... well, death one supposes?"

[st_abby]

"You're a clever one," Vax confirmed, sincere in his admiration.

"Well, if one is me, you end up fighting on behalf of your goddess as she plucks at the strings of fate." He made a bit of a face. "She generally seems to approve of what my party and I have done to try and keep the people of Exandria from being dominated by a group of power-hungry dragons, but I... To tell you the truth, this is all rather new to me. I'm not sure of what I'm doing or what she'll want of me yet, not really."

It only haunted him when he stopped to think about it.

[st_illunsmeared]

So she'd been right in assuming that being a goddess of death didn't mean she or her Champion need be devoted to murder, or otherwise causing death. "It sounds as though she means you to safeguard the lives of the people you encounter...mmm, perhaps until she means for them to die?"

Phryne's expression relaxed into an amused, self-effacing smile. "Forgive me speculating. It's a habit born of solving crimes."

[st_abby]

"I don't imagine you'd be so good at it if you didn't," Vax allowed.

He stopped to consider how Phryne had phrased things. "I don't know that She means anyone to die at a set place, a set time, though maybe She foresees it," he supposed honestly. All he could do was speculate, and he wished not for the first time that he'd had an opportunity to stop and learn from the priests of Her temple. "I think She's more... Like a guide, assuring that those come to the end of their journey pass from this world to their rest as intended. There's such things as the undead, necromancy, corruption and desecration."

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"A psychopomp then," she replied softly, overwhelmed abruptly by thoughts of her poor Jane and how she'd died in Phryne's own place to accompany Foyle to his afterlife. She knew better than to associate the two because her own memories pained her, but it did dampen her enthusiasm for the topic for the moment.

[st_abby]

Vax had never heard the word before, so he really couldn't say. But he understood well enough the sudden quiet to her mood. "Your sister," he supposed softly.

He didn't know what to say for that, and there may not be anything. If there was one thing he understood - as well as any mortal could, short of actually dying themselves - it was death. The making of it, fending against it, the recognizing all that came after. So he just leaned forward, a bit, reaching to fold his gloved hand over hers for a soft squeeze.

"I think," he said finally, only after the moment had passed, "that you are a very remarkable woman, Miss Fisher. Thank you for having me over." It might have sounded forced or insincere, awkward, from someone else. But he meant it, truly.

[st_illunsmeared]

Had he asked, Phryne would have told him about Foyle. He was a sweet young man, undoubtedly one she might have taken to her bed if not for Jack. But the moment passed and Phryne merely nodded when he mentioned Jane.

She turned her hand to give his an appreciative squeeze. "And you are an extraordinary and unusual young man, Vax'ildan. I look forward to our next conversation with delight." There could be no mistaking the warmth of the implicit invitation, even for a young man who didn't know her particularly well. "I do hope it won't take an accidental connection next time."