[b]Pieter:[/b]

I'd just returned from a meeting with a sculptor friend- we had talked about commissioning a statue of Leon for his posterity. In reality, I had been trying to find out if the sculptor had heard stirrings in the Venaran underworld from her more seedy clients. Alas, I had either been too vague in my probing or he had been too unwilling to share, so I had to return with nothing but some paltry gossip and a slight high from the cheap Jocasta nuts I had chewed at the damp studio.

I strode through the hallway of the house. Despite the valiant efforts put out by the burnished sconces, shadows lingered through the richly furbished mansion, an unsettling silence held throughout, instead of a peaceful quiet, this was a fearful cessation of noise. 

I pause before entering the dining hall, adjusting the somber colored cravat I wore. I glance at the ashen faced guard standing before the door, his grasp on the polished musket slack, his eyes focused on a midpoint in the air.

Studying the guard closer, I notice he is unshaved and his fingers are tinged orange- a sign that he had been peeling and chewing Jocasta nuts earlier. I had been doing the same thing, of course, but Leon had despised the practice, and had never tolerated servants taking it, calling it a 'dirty dockhand habit.' 

And then I remember when Lucien, during his sailor obsession, got his hands on an entire bag of Jocasta nuts, and how we had chewed our way through the entire bag, and we stayed up all night in a haze of excitement, and how Leon laughed the next morning when Lucien  and I were vomiting in the hedges after Leon had forced us to go run around the garden. 

My mouth starts to twitch into a smile at the memory, as I decide to see if I can find the limerick I had written about it at the time and show it to Leon, but then I remember that I can't show it to him, and I'll never get the chance to, and it takes all of my control to not sit down in the hall and curl up into a little ball.

[i]How is Lucien going to make it through this? How is Nalia? How am I?[/i]

Taking a deep breath, I focus my eyes again on the guard, who's still fixed on nothing.

"Stefano." 

He jerks, clutching his musket and dropping into a crouch, ready to shoot me. 

I flinch back, and when he realizes who it is, he lowers his musket, smiling sheepishly- front teeth visibly stained.

"Sorry, Pieter. I, uhh.. I don't know what came over me."

Composing myself from the earlier fright, I reply, 

"Really? Because I could make a guess. Your hands are stained like a cage fighter. You disrespect the House. I understand using a little to perk you up throughout the day, but Talos' fucking tits man, you've had enough to kill a horse."

I reach into my cloak pocket, withdrawing a bundled pair of tan riding gloves. Tossing them at Stefano, I say,

"Here. Put these on. Don't smile and try to keep your head out of the clouds. I'll expect the gloves back, they were a gift. Be glad that I caught you instead of Meldyr. He would have had your balls for breakfast. Sisters blast it, man. You have to keep it together. We have to keep it together. And that means you can't chew half a bag of Jocasta nuts before showing up on duty. We're the House fucking Delorano. You should be ashamed. What would have the old Master said?"

I brush past the cowed guard as he fumbles with the gloves, hunched over as his face warms in embarrassment. 

Pushing open the doors to the dining hall, I enter.

I see Otto staring at the painting of our late Lord and Lady Delorano. My throat catches again, I had recommended the artist to Leon. That was the last painting she finished- she had died early in the plague. 

Coughing slightly to clear my throat, I walk to the table, waving off an overeager servant, pouring myself a flute of a nice sparkling rosé. Taking a sip, I hesitate.

"Any idea of what we should do next?" I say, forcing a lightness into my voice.