Dutchess gummibunns @gwwar
I am so sorry for injuring you at croque. Sometimes my powerful lizard limbs just get the better of me and I don’t know my own strength. Please tell me how I can make it up to you.
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Like, it’s just badminton and gravity, Lady Elizabeth @Hadley. No cause for alarm. I knew the risks of playing with, like, genital sentients with varying strength. After all, I accidentally beaned poor Sir Reginald @ghoti as well! Now excuse, me while I read the papers. I appear to be quite behind after taking ill.
[ Duchess Gummibuns reads, and begins to cough more and more violently as she absorbs the news. She remains silent, and appears to be in a conflicting mood. Her lumps seem to undulate more often than normal. ]
[ cough cough cough ] Perhaps, we all need a good stiff drink, right?
[ She orders something that burns too strongly, and tosses a few pounds to @Rumpthwaite instead of beans. ]
Now, a drink for everyone, who’s feeling a bit under the weather! Too bad we don’t have real doctors and medicine, but we make do.
[ Duchess Gummibuns slides a 100£ note across the bar. ]
@Rumpthwaite This should cover it, shouldn’t it?
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[ Rounder enters the club, coughing and holding a handkerchief over his mouth ]
Ah! Duchess Gummibuns @gwwar ! Lovely to see you again. Quite a rousing badminton game we had! My eye is on the mend, thanks, just a few more days with the eyepatch according to my physician, but I just can’t seem to shake this cough. Sorry to see you’ve come down with it as well. A stiff drink should help ease the pain!
[ He brings the handkerchief up to his mouth in time for another series of hacking coughs ]
Speaking of which, Rumpthwaite, perhaps you could see your way to pouring me a large whatever might dull the pain and calm the noise. Thank you for the drink, Duchess!
Ah, and there is Miss Ponsonby-Britt @Nightflyer. I really must extend my apologies once again for my poor aim during our badminton match.
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The Leviathan wasn’t as quiet as he had hoped it would be. A combination of the mid-day time, the miasma sweeping the colony and the general letdown on the colony ship delay should have had everyone going about their business.
Hieron avoided the main hall as he made his way to the library. This last season had not left him in the mood for company. The loss of the farm’s income went right against his bottom line. The fishery too was in danger now that there was blood in the water, so to speak. His shoulder still ached where that fool Cmdr Damerl Capstanturnbuckle had come down with his racket as if he was wielding his sabre. And while scoring the services of the valet was a nice bit of affirmation of his status, that additional 50£ may be more costly in the long run that it was worth.
@Rumpthwaite appeared with his tea. He was smart enough to not bring the whipweed tea that I had been drinking -that was to be expected - but to bring a cup of Mossy Oak with the little maple sugar trees was the sign of Moose who knew what he was doing. Hieron nodded his antlers politely and accepted the cup.
Opening up the ledger on historical sandfishing rights and property, Hieron dug into the work before him…
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Like, for sure! It was quite a good match, my feline friend. So sorry about that last hit. Cheers! To your health and our speedy recovery.
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The door opens, and Mr. Aaaakzeee St-Patrick-Hartbrooke IIII steps heavily into the doorway, his heels clicking loudly on the jamb; he doesn’t often wear shoes with metal taps, but this particular visit needs to have a sense of drama. His very honour is at stake, and it needs to be shown that this is not a matter he takes lightly.
From a distance, he looks little different than he had the season before, but the feathers that have come in recently have an opalescence about them that the dyed ones from the height of his illness lack, and his posture has subtly improved; the handkerchief in his pocket is painstakingly styled, not having to be pulled out so often anymore.
What is visibly different is his manner; while before, even in his illness, he had an easygoing, almost nonchalant manner about him, his fingers are now clenching and unclenching as his eyes search the room, as an eagle’s might for prey. Not finding who he is looking for immediately in sight, he departs the threshold and enters the room.
The doorbot announces him, pronouncing his name superbly as always, but St-Patrick-Hartbrooke waves the robot’s offer to take his coat away. He will not be here long on this day. He clears his throat, and is gratified to hear a bit of a growl in the undertone – the modifications that had been necessary to allow a Taaa’keee to speak His Majesty’s English had had some unintended consequences, and the tendency to growl when angry was one of them that he occasionally appreciated the effect of.
“I do not know if you are here, you barely-sentient out-of-tune chord from a ballad opera (@manwich), but it hardly matters; if you are here, if you are not, you will hear of this soon enough.”
His eyes still scanning the room, he unfastens his left glove, and begins pulling it off.
“I spoke for you, I toasted you, and lauded your generosity. And then, you deceitful pile of discordant notes from a poorly-made pipe organ, you turned your back on your fellow sentients, on this club, on your mayor, on your planet, and on the very people of your nation. How many will die because of your rapacious greed and careless disregard is an unknown quantity, but it is one that will stain your very soul, and I hope that you feel that stain until the day you are dragged screaming into Hell.”
The glove removed, St-Patrick-Hartbrooke brandishes it.
“Not only have you tarnished your own soul and honour by your deeds, you have tarnished mine, for instead of encouraging people to give more, I took your contribution for granted, and thus some of the blood that will spill from your foul and treasonous duplicity lies on my hands as well. That blood, that stain on my honour, demands satisfaction, and I will have it.”
His eyes narrowed and his teeth bared, he casts the glove onto the floor.
“I, Aaaakzeee St-Patrick-Hartbrooke III, hereby challenge the loathsome sentient who promised, and then secretly withdrew for private investment, more than half the funds requested by the Mayor for the medical shipment to provide relief from the plague to a duel, to the death, on the field of honour. Per convention, the choice of weapons is yours. If you do not answer, I will assume that you are the pusillanimous wretch that I believe you to be, and I will spread word throughout the Empire of your amoral nature, your sociopathic deeds, and your outright cowardice in refusing to settle a debt of honour, through every publication I can find.”
The Space Griffin’s eyes scan the room once more, looking for someone else but not immediately seeing him.
“If Mr. Karekin (@David_Falkayn) stops by, please tell him that if he wishes to clear the stain from his own endorsement of the backstabbing cloud of noise pollution, I am happy to put our own differences aside and would be honoured to have him act as second in this duel. He, or the cloud’s second — should he be able to find any sentient in this Empire that approves of his deeds and wishes to stand for him — can contact me at my apartment.”
His piece said and his point made, St-Patrick-Hartbrooke sweeps out of the club, leaving his glove — and the mortal challenge it implies — on the floor behind him.
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I am as shocked as you are at < pleasing hum > 's perfidy. We readily had the capacity to meet the Mayor’s call without a penny from it. Indeed, several did see through it’s ruse and contributed anyway.
In response to your exemplary Leadership, I made the largest single contribution to the Fund. I, too, feel this betrayal deeply.
Thus, I am deeply honored by your offer to be your second.
I accept.
Working together we will right this wrong.
At Your Service,
Mr. Jules Rothschild Karen.
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Oblivious to the scene unfolding at that moment, Tom enters the club quietly and scans the room. His eyes light for a moment and his next few steps suspiciously resemble stumbles before he manages to compose himself. With hands grasping something behind his back he makes across the room with an air of false bravado before losing his nerve half-way through. His retreat in force before even spinning on one heel he heads towards the corner booth he knows is favorited by the Duchess Gummibuns @gwwar He slips something onto the table before sliding along the side of the room towards the door, nervous and avoiding whatever the disturbance between Mr. Aaaakzeee St-Patrick-Hartbrooke IIII and that fellow always bossing Eighth around, Mr. Karekin, is. A look back across the room and Tom disappears back into the street.
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Beans? Common beans!? I simply must have a talk with that boy.
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Thank you, my dear Mr. Rounder. Please think nothing of it, it’s a minor bruise–
~she breaks off, coughing delicately into a hankerchief~
–I’m sure it will be gone in no time. I wish I could say the same for this dratted cough. If only we’d managed to raise the needed funds, we might have better medicine for it now. There’s still some hope for next season, I suppose.
~She leans closer to speak more quietly to the felinoid gentlesentient and the Duchess Gummibuns @gwwar ~
Pardon me for my impertinence in asking, but what do you two make of all this skullduggery over the medical funding? What possible reason could that blackguard < pleasing hum > have to secretly sabotage the mission of mercy? Do you think it’s in league with New Prussia?
And is there anything we might do to improve matters?
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[ Duchess Gummibuns responds in a hushed whisper, between sips of strong drink ] What a lumping thought! I have not heard of any sort of treason, but have no doubt his actions were quite malicious. That <pleasing hum> is by far now the leader in terms net wealth, a dangerous outcome. Maybe, it is not quite right in head, and takes enjoys seeing Weatherby in such dire straits. We must be careful, surely.
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Oh beans! I lumping love these! Make sure your lad, gets a nice proper drink. Just use my tab.
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“There you are!”
“Hmm? Oh, good morning Couthin Carthy. How do you fare–”
[SLAP!!]
[Heads turn discreetly. Well, somewhat discreetly.]
“How dare you?”
“Why… why, I’m thure I have no idea what you mean by that, Carthy…”
[Hushed, infuriated whispering ensues]
“You know damned well what I mean by that, sir. You have gone too far this time, too far!”
“Why, Couthin Carthinogennifer… I do believe you thound a trifle… hung over.”
“I do indeed, and we both know that that is entirely your fault! You knew! You knew what I planned, you saw it in my eyes, perhaps, or perhaps in the steely set of my jaw, the determined squint of my labial pits…”
“I’ve known you thinthe you hatched, Lieutenant, and you’re ath predictable ath the thunrithe. It’th not all that difficult to get the drop on you.”
“You drugged me!! You knew I was determined to override your cruel, selfish, unlizardly set of orders with a private message to the Bartlebot, overturning it all and sending every farthing we had available to the Wellness Contribution Fund, you knew as well as I did that musical geometry is never to be trusted, no matter how harmonious, and you even defied the social order of Weatherby by preventing the express wishes of a True Citizen through circumventing my own circumvention… if the mayor were to discover that I, Carcinogennifer Honeyvenom, the highest-ranking member of polite society by a rather sizable margin, were fed a biscuit laced with tincture of aspsbane by her very own ward, the scandal would rock the colony, and I dare not contemplate the repercussions among the Citizen-Pretender class!”
“And who’th going to tell her? You may be the highetht-ranking member of thothiety now, 'tith true, but only by my hand! Can you imagine where we’d be had I allowed you to carry out your thilly thchoolgirlish thtratagem? We’d be nearly broke, lotht in the midfield of thothiety, bereft of influenthe… we’d be of no uthe to anyone whatthoever!”
“We’re nearly broke as it is! Woefully overextended!”
“But flush with influenthe, my dear! Look around you! We’ve got the motht private booth with the motht luxuriouth upholthtery. We get waited on firtht! Have you notithed that while everyone grumbleth about the duplithitous hexahedron, and that pompouth thpathe griffin thwaggerth in here and maketh a huge thene about calling out the cube for a duel, not one word hath been uttered in any thort of negative way about you, the foremotht and primary benefactor of the theathon! Can you not thee, dear couthin, that thith ith how one winth friendth and influentheth people?”
“By taking advantage of every privilege? By exploiting our resistance to the plague and leaving others to suffer?”
“Perhapth there alwayth wath thomething to the divine right of nobility…”
“This cannot stand, Ssskidwish.There will be consequences and repercussions, I feel it to the very depths of my cloaca…”
“Take it from an old lizard, kid… that’th jutht conthtipation. Take a crap, have a nap, everything will look fine in the morning. Trutht me.”
[a chair is violently shoved aside]
“Trust you? Never again, Ssskidwish. Never.”
jinglejingleslam!
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[MESSAGE FROM TRANSLATORIUM: INCOMING MESSAGE EXTREMELY UNORTHODOX IN COMPOSITION. TRANSLATION INCLUDES MANY LINGUAL BEST-FITS. FOR CLARITY, BEST-FITS ARE DENOTED BY ASTERISK PAIRS. OVERALL ACCURACY OF TRANSLATION: UNKNOWN.]
This is my *house.* Did you come to *play*?.
Do not be sad if you are *other*. We can still have a *party*.
There are never enough *campers*.
Oh, we are so excited for expecting *duel parties*!
[KaraokeBot’s leatherbound ledger ominously floats out the door towards Aaaakzeee St-Patrick-Hartbrooke II’s small apartment]
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[Rumpthwaite nods and harumphs, quietly causing the note to vanish in a subtle flourish as an unusual shaker is presented. Seemingly silver, it glows with an odd color as an olde recipe is mixed, prepared, and decanted. The well-tempered Alces pours several small glasses full of a spiced specialty and sees to it that those bearing either the misgivings of miasma or bruises of badminton are served equally.]
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My good Lady Elizabeth @Hadley, I can assure you I had no foreknowledge of its actions, nor have I any special knowledge of its origins. Rather, the quite striking particulars of its form have lodged themselves in my mind, such that in idle moments of fant’sy I’m reminded of certain treatises concerning the Philosophical Nature of our worlds as well as others less readily apprehensible. The Maths are quite esoteric, but they suggest, by way of metaphor, that it might be possible for beings to exist simultaneously in any number of Celestial Spheres, and by doing so, gain special insights – or even influence – over events that seem fixed in the past or nebulous in the future from our own more limited frame of reference.
Or perhaps it has found a more prosaic method of subverting the Public Ledger. Rather the more likely option, now that I think on it…
And if one gives credence to the on-dits, one could hardly help notice that solitary sentient being scorned by all of the most prestigious Events of the last season (with good reason, it now appears), in which case its perfidious tack towards vindictiveness seems somewhat less surprising, although scarcely less shocking in its boorishness.
There’s precious little difference between a <pleasing hum> and a damned hum, it would seem.
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Ssskidwish, deep into a fourth mug of Ol’ Herpetonian, barely registers the significance of the omission of service tendered to those lacking both contusions and congestion, when it comes to this particular round. “Our time. For once it is our time,” the old lizard mutters to himself.
Er, herself.
Ssskidwish is unused to being mistaken.
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I confess to some confusion regarding the… condition of the lady Carcinogennifer. Is she surely but a stack of Space Lizards in the proverbial trench coat?
I find her face con-founding, yet fancy she is friendly.
Madam - may I make this seat mine?
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Mr Karekin enters, wearing his best (afternoon) suit.
He clear his throat, and says,
Excuse me, I apologize for being so forward, but I have a request.
I would like to engage the sole Barrister to make a careful review of < pleasing hum > 's numerous sketchy land titles. I will of course defer if someone else has a greater need for the Barrister, but I hope the Club will let me press forward.
Thank You.
Karekin makes a small bow, and moves to a private room.
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Jean-Rhys @MrMonkey you are so wise. Do you want to write the advise column for my newspaper?
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