December 10th, 1892 — Flint Institute Soiree

In years previous Ford may have given this event a miss — aspiring scholars were not necessarily the types of people who might be well-disposed to become suitors for his sisters — but one of Clem’s close friends was a student here, so Clementine had been invited, and of course that meant she needed a chaperone. He could have shuffled it off to Noble or Mama and stayed home, but it wasn’t as though there were many social engagement vying for his calendar space in the middle of winter, anyway. This was the first event he’d attended in the last week — the first since Noble had found his old letters. Ford was very aware of it. He didn’t know whether Noble was actually watching him or if he was just so paranoid about Noble watching him that he felt watched regardless, but it didn’t much matter; the end state was the same. He’d felt a little manic all night, hyper aware of every interaction he had with another person and how they might be perceived. Every conversational turn, every facial expression, every gesture and obviously every touch, however brief or respectable, was dropped into a category in his brain immediately after it happened: interactions with men that were probably safe; interactions with men which might be seen as damning; interactions with women that seemed too superficial; interactions with women that might provide a counterpoint to whatever narrative Noble had built up in his head.

He didn’t even know what he was trying to convince his brother of, at the end of the day. He’d admitted to having had a relationship with a man. There hadn’t been any room to equivocate on that point, given that Noble had already seen the letters. Was he trying to convince Noble that he could pass as normal, so to speak? That he wasn’t a liability? Was he trying to convince him that he was attracted to women as well? Was the end goal here that Noble would become less suspicious of Ford’s interactions with other men, to convince him it wasn’t much of a problem even if he couldn’t deny the past? He didn’t know, but he was still convinced that the attention to every action was necessary. Treating this like any other night at any other party would have been a mistake.

(At least Tycho wasn’t here tonight. Thank Merlin for small mercies).

“Oh, sorry, I think we’ve already been introduced, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name,” Ford said to a young woman who he’d found himself in the vicinity of during a conversational break between dances. It was the sort of situation where he might just as easily have moved past her with a quick smile as saying anything, but tonight he thought the latter would score him more points in the invisible tally he was keeping. “You know my sister Clementine, don’t you? I saw you talking with her earlier.”

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Ida Chang

  

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Set by Lady!

This wasn’t really like any type of soiree Ida had ever been to before. Decidedly academic, so tame like the Coming Out Ball at Hogwarts – but also with more pomp and circumstance that she found at some of the big society parties she was invited to over the summer, so higher stakes. There was a much smaller dance floor and more dance breaks too, seeing as the men present vastly outnumbered the women. Not that Ida thought twice about it; she’d grown up with just her dad and brothers, and this trend only continued with her advanced classes. Ida had enough high-praise recommendations and teeth to her work that she progressed further than your typical newly-minted Hogwarts graduate, to the point that most lady-peers were knocked out by way of husbands and babies. Anyway – point is that this party was fine.  She even had a minute to catch up with Clem, one of just three girls from her graduation year present. Even if their quick catch-up relayed unnerving news about their classmate that just married. (“Already? But why?” Ida keened with incredulity. It was a dumb question, and the girl’s expression might have said so. They all knew why.)

Eventually Ida made her rounds, trying to shake off the residual shock with bland greetings and vaguely fonder “how do you do’s” to the handful of peers she knew. Thanked the stars for another dance break too, because she did not think she would be taken seriously if she was seen galloping around like a bleating goat. And there were too many insightful conversations happening around to miss, like the small group of men discussing what sounded like a peculiar book. They struck her as members of an exclusive Order she didn’t know much about, though what made her ears perk in the first place was when she heard the name of someone her friend Juniper knew. Mister Blackwood.

A voice to Ida’s left cut off her eavesdropping, and she likely didn’t do a good enough job at wiping the irritation off her face before she turned towards its source. Though instantly she felt bad, finding a face she recognized and kind brown eyes matched with a polite question. “Oh, Mister Greengrass. You surprised me,” she tried to make up an apology with a small, bracing smile. “Yes, Clementine and I were in the same year at school. I’m Ida Chang.” She debated shaking his hand; it was a rather unusual custom she’d started to pick up with her peers, but deciding at the last minute it felt too abrasive for an acquaintance, she merely inclined her head in a polite bow.

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ooc. Had to look up etiquette of handshaking because of course there were entire guides on when do this

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

The look she gave him made Ford think twice about the wisdom of greeting her, but luckily for him it quickly softened. He didn't quite believe that it was just because she was surprised, but he certainly wasn't going to press for a more honest explanation. Tonight was not about honesty; tonight was about appearances. If she was willing to pretend they were having an enjoyable conversation, that was enough for him. He just needed the tally mark down in the right bucket to balance out the evening, to sell whatever story he'd decided he wanted to sell.

"Miss Chang," he repeated, with a smile that was a little too willing to pretend the one she'd offered him wasn't small and uncertain. The fact that she was one of Clementine's peers almost gave him pause on continuing, because Clem still seemed half a child to him, for all that they were technically adults now. It occurred to him distantly that if he had been the sort who would have married this was about the right age gap to be considered standard; Clem's school friends were more or less his prime market for a socially acceptable wife. He felt vaguely nauseous at this idea, though whether it had more to do with the connection to his sister or how young they seemed or just the idea of marriage at all, he couldn't have said. It wasn't as though it would ever be a real consideration, anyway — whatever Noble thought about him, Ford was never going to have had enough money to marry. That had always been the case, so it couldn't come back to damn him in light of what Noble knew now.

"Are you here supporting Miss Bonaccord also, or do you have some other connection to the Institute?" he asked politely. He wished he had a drink.

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Set by Lady!

Ida and Clementine weren’t close enough to be much more than cordial, which motivated Ida’s determination to not come off as foolish in front of her older brother. If Clem heard how inept Ida was at ‘society things,’ this meant Hermia would hear how inept Ida was at ‘society things.’ An issue because Ida never really liked Hermia – something about how perfect she was, how French she was, how rich she was, thus how easy she (probably) had things. (That wasn’t all, of course. But the rest had to do with inklings – no proof– that Hermia not only had feelings about Foxwood, but observations about Ida’s mentorship with him.)

Yes, the man’s innocent question rankled her. But once she assessed the feeling, from every angle Ida looked at it she knew the correct choice was to entertain Mister Greengrass for a few minutes.  For the optics.

The witch suppressed her disdain with a small sniff. “Oh, no. I am studying at the Institute as well. I’m focused on advanced Transfiguration, specifically all matters of human to animal transformation.” Not that he asked. Drat– now was she coming off as pretentious?

“Not to bore you with my… hobbies,” added hastily. “Erm– how are you enjoying the party? I’ve been impressed by the turnout from the Ministry, myself.” Hopefully, she remembered correctly that he was a Ministry man, and it might land like a vague compliment. This would all be much easier if she had a drink to sip and stall with, though. Where were those servants with the trays when you needed them?

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

There seemed to be a touch of genuine enthusiasm buried under her words when she talked about transfiguration, and Ford didn't miss the slight hesitation before she dismissed them as hobbies. He'd been on the other side of this often enough to know what was happening. Half his conversations at Hogwarts and most of the ones after he'd graduated had taken the same turn. When you were passionate about something that wasn't popular or socially acceptable, you learned not to take up any air time with it unless someone had expressly invited you to do so. Transfiguration wasn't exactly a niche subject, but a young woman engaging in any sort of scholarship went enough against the grain that many might be uncomfortable hearing her talk openly about what she was doing. Ford felt a pang of sympathy for her and momentarily forgot about the mental scoreboard he was keeping for the night.

But only momentarily. She'd steered the conversation back to blander, safer waters with her question about the party. Was there a correct way to move forwards? Ford had never considered this before, but now he wondered if emphasizing with a young woman and responding out of that empathy would be giving too much away. Did normal people (for all Ford did not feel abnormal, he had no more descriptive term for it) default to the same well-trodden conversations because they had been socialized to fall back on those, as he'd always thought, or was there another reason? Were normal men driven to talk about themselves ceaselessly any time a woman asked? Was there actually some difference in the way Ford's brain worked, relative to other men? Was that why Noble had found the revelation so entirely incomprehensible?

Ford chewed his lower lip for half a second. He had no desire to talk about himself, or the party, or the Ministry, but he also didn't want to give himself away. But on the other hand, it wasn't as though his brother was sitting at his elbow, judging every word out of his mouth.

"I imagine that's normal for these sorts of events," he said. "The Ministry is where people work when they wanted to be scholars but didn't have the guts to try and make a real career of academia. So of course they'd flock to a party like this, to rub elbows with everyone and feel involved. Not that we're all like that," he added with a quick smile. "I've no foiled dreams of academia. Don't have the vision for it."

Ford spotted a waiter with drinks and nearly dove at him in his haste not to let him walk away too soon. He appropriated two glasses of champagne. Slightly emboldened by his victory with the drinks, he asked as he handed her one, "Can you tell me more about your research?"

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Set by Lady!

The way Mister Greengrass responded fell far outside Ida’s realm of expectation. When one serves a bland statement one does not anticipate to be served back something even remotely interesting, and it was said with such passing fancy that she could have easily missed it if her mind was elsewhere. A slow blink as she processed his statement, punctuated by a short laugh at his smiling self-deprecation.

“Ah, I see,” said with a sage nod, as though he described a very well-documented condition, non-visionaryness. “At least you’re honest with yourself,” she added thoughtfully. Ida appreciated his perspective more than her simmering smile let on. He implied that making a career in academia required guts. “The irony here is that academics vastly prefer the company of an honest man over anyone else. So you stand to become much more involved than your elbow-rubbing peers.” Her eyes widened briefly in playful warning, and then her eye caught the waiter the same moment he did.

Both of them made a move towards the man, but rather constrained in her formalwear, Ida’s leap was much less noticeable (thank goodness– leaping for a drink was probably a bit offensive, wasn’t it?). She offered a polite incline of her head in thanks, before taking a delicate sip from the glass to ruminate on his question. Sure, she could always talk about her work. But it was hard, finding that fine line where she ought to edit herself.

“Well… my research focuses on Animagi, including the relationship between applied transformative practices and magical pedagogy.” Er– but that probably made no sense to someone outside the academic sphere, now that she considered it. The witch frowned, and tried one more time, “I learned that in one region of Africa, most children learn how to transform themselves by the age of thirteen. This phenomenon has also been discovered in regions of North America, where entire villages transform into packs of wolves and flocks of birds as a means of safety. Though that example is most unusual, given our assumptions that a unique animal picks us for our distinguishing characteristics. It’s not just in America, however, where populations transform themselves into the same sorts of creatures… Similar threads have been discovered in some of remote populations of north-western China. In all cases, people are predisposed to animals they are most familiar with, of course… Er, anyway…” she gestured as though balling up the entire premise and sending it out an imaginary window behind her.

“My research explores how this sort of transformation is considered an exclusive privilege in our society… While in other corners of the world, it is considered a right of passage into adulthood – a birthright, even – and how those social factors may influence magical outcomes. My hunch is that this has more to do with the way we teach our children, rather than the inherent ability of the child.”

Ida cut herself short then, immediately jarred by the sentence she so easily quipped without a care in the world about its implied meaning. In company like this? Mister Greengrass could be one of those purists in the Knights group, for all she knew, the sort to make a proper fuss over this to Flint. The woman did her best to disguise her wince into her wine glass, hoping he'd keep the ‘nice’ act and not mention it.

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

She seemed surprised, and Ford's stomach sank slightly — there was a correct response here, and this apparently wasn't it — but then she laughed, and he relaxed. It was clear that she was at least amused by the turn of the discussion. Maybe his diversion from the well-trod path would play out in his favor; if she was smiling at him, that earned him another internal tally mark, didn't it?

Anything involving advanced transfiguration was bound to go straight over his head. Ford had hardly thought about the subject in years, having dropped the class immediately after failing to achieve an OWL in it. He hadn't been overtly terrible at Transfiguration, but he'd gotten flustered during the practical examination and performed quite poorly, and in all honesty he hadn't been disappointed to see it drop from his course list as he approached sixth year. Animagi in particular he had slightly more recent exposure to, since he'd done some reading into the subject once he'd realized Tycho was serious about trying to do it, but he hadn't been reading the actual magical theory behind it. His scope had been limited to how many ways could this go wrong and is there anything I could do to prevent it from going wrong. The answers, as far as he could tell, were many and no, which had been demoralizing enough that he'd stopped looking into it. Fortunately, in the end Ty had been perfectly up to the task without Ford standing by to apparate him to the hospital.

Thinking about Ty while trying to bluff his way through an engaging conversation with a girl was complicated. He focused his attention back on Miss Chang, and since there was no chance at all that he would understand the academic drive behind what she was saying, he instead found himself noticing her body language and her expressions while she spoke. She was more animated now than she had been a moment ago, clearly enjoying the opportunity to talk about something she was passionate about. Ford smiled at that, though wondered if he was genuinely pleased by her reaction or instead considering how this would look from across the room. Was Noble even watching? It would be a shame if he went through this whole performative song and dance and his brother happened to be out on the patio for the duration.

Miss Chang's mood changed abruptly; Ford guessed she had said something she didn't mean to, but he was oblivious to the subtleties of the argument and wasn't sure what her misstep had been. He did not want anyone who might have been watching to think that he had said something amiss, though, so he was quick to jump in to distract her. "So you'll create a new magical curriculum, oust the Transfiguration professor, and have every student turning into animals by the end of third year," he joked. "What a difficulty you'll create for the etiquette instructor."

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Set by Lady!

Ida was still kicking herself over the conversational misstep to notice how Greengrass even perceived it, at least not until he drew her back into their engagement with a succinct conclusion about her trajectory from here.

And at that, Ida’s face cracked into a big smile. It was like a warm blanket of relief wrapped around her, reassurance that at least she hadn’t said the wrong thing to the wrong person. It seems she’d seriously misread Mister Greengrass– he wasn’t a pompous Ministry ass at all. But he was still her peer’s older brother, which should put him firmly in the same category as Long, which meant “there are barriers which must be observed.” As a result, she tried to not look too amused at the thought of her etiquette professor’s big bouffant getting ripped out by a capuchin monkey while rats and birds set her tea sets into complete disarray.

“Perhaps there are a few steps in between now and that outcome,” she indulged in the scenario cheekily. “But yes, to culminate my academic vision, I will ascend to world domination through armies of children I’ve taught to turn into mammals and reptiles. Perhaps you should let me know if you have any special requests on things that I should and shouldn’t fix with our society, for when that day arrives.” She laughed with a wave of her hand that hopefully indicated she meant this in jest, and took a thoughtful sip of her drink.

“In all honesty Professor Foxwood is an excellent Transfiguration professor,” she added, realizing she ought to say something to not sound deranged. “I’d feel quite bad ousting him, considering he’s the reason I’m at the Institute now at all.”

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

The scenario she described was so amusing that Ford almost forgot about the mental scorekeeping he'd been doing all night — almost. In any case, his smile and chuckle in response were genuine. The mental image of a young woman commanding a hoard of small woodland creatures was quite amusing, though he couldn't help but poke fun at the wild inaccuracy of it: giving people the ability to turn into animals at will hardly meant they would be any more likely to command than they otherwise would be, and so far no one had persuaded the diverse population of Hogwarts to turn into one militant swarm.

"I assume, then, that a second arm of your research is finding spells to persuade animagi to do your bidding?" he teased. "If you've already mastered that, you'll have to share your secrets with me."

He had added this last remark without thinking it through; it was only supposed to be something funny to say, and on one level it seemed to work in that context. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, though, Ford couldn't help overthinking them. Did it sound too much like he had a vested reason to care about persuading animagi to do things? Would she guess that he knew someone who had undertaken the process in real life? Merlin, if she asked him about it he was going to have to tell her about Ty, and he had been very pointedly avoiding even the vaguest allusions to Tycho in literally every conversation since he'd been confronted by Noble.

"I never met Professor Foxwood," he said, jumping in quickly enough that she wouldn't have time to respond to what he'd just said. "He must have been after I graduated. I was — pretty mediocre at Transfiguration, and that's probably being too generous," he said with a self-deprecating smile — distract, distract, distract and hope that she didn't want to linger on his earlier comment. "Maybe I can blame a poor teacher, if the one who came next was excellent."

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Set by Lady!

Ida tittered with laughter at the thought of persuading animagi; she’d been thinking about it all more in terms of them following her domination simply due to her natural charisma and leadership ability (none of which she actually possessed but– then– neither did she possess the desire for actual world domination), though it was an interesting question.

Before she could speak to her thought he’d latched on to mention of Professor, however, and her laughing sombered long enough to appreciate his honesty about the subject. Ida might be a bit biased, but she considered Transfiguration to be one of the more serious magical disciplines, given its requirement to account for multiple factors simultaneously.

“Oh, well if you do meet Professor Foxwood one day don’t mention that about your old professor,” she teased, “That was his mentor. He’s a bit obsessed with him really.” Her nose wrinkled playfully, but then she realized what she’d said – and that it sounded a bit weird – and wait a minute. Did that mean she would be considered a bit obsessed with Foxwood, then? The girl frowned slightly, and decided to take a big step over the topic. Back to safer waters–

“Do you often work with Animagi, Mister Greengrass?” She was very interested in that, primarily because she was teeing up a phase in her research that may involve speaking to as many Animagi as possible. “If they can be problematic for you, there are a few methods of recourse. Not controlling someone, of course. That would be illegal.” The Imperius Curse was something she’d only very recently learned about, in the Flint library where there existed no restricted section – it gave her a little shiver to think about.

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

It took everything Ford had in him not to visibly flinch when she directed the conversation back towards animagi, or more specifically his potential interactions with them. The best he could hope for now was that the potential connection had been too interesting for her to move past, not that she had seen through his hasty attempt to change the subject and was now suspicious of what he didn't want to talk about. He hadn't gotten the impression so far that she was the sort to be overly suspicious or to pry, but that didn't mean anything. First impressions could be deceiving, especially at society events when no one was inclined to be too honest about themselves. Here he was as a case in point this evening.

"Well, perhaps we'll have to put it down to my poor academics, then," he joked weakly, about the professor. He really had no opinions on Transfiguration teachers whatsoever; he'd only been seeking a distraction, and it apparently hadn't landed.

"No, not really," he said in response to her question. He bounced on the balls of his feet once, wondering what to say about Tycho. "Just one. A — friend. I wouldn't want to do anything to him. It was just a joke." This was not a subject Ford wanted to linger on, but it took half a second to work out how he could change the topic once again. Then he struck on it: "I'm not bad at convincing hard-to-control beings to cooperate, though. I work in Spirit Division. That's more or less our most essential job skill."

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Set by Lady!

There was something about his intonation that struck Ida as odd, not that she could pin down why. But it was enough to make the young woman subconsciously tilt her head to the side, the way it always did when she encountered a bit of conflicting information. Politely of course, she did not comment on his poor academics. But he also seemed a bit… energetically awkward? The witch took another thoughtful sip of her drink, considering his friend and the fact that it was a joke. Ach, right. As usual, here she was reading into everything far too literally and too much completely, and he was simply being nice about it.

“Oh, well I might be reaching out to your friend,” she demured, now back to a bit more serious. This was a professional party occasion, after all, so she shouldn't be laughing so much anyway. It wouldn't serve her well to come off as too emotional around her peers. “I am interested in interviewing an even distribution of Animagi who are formally and self-taught in their transformation… If your friend happens to mention receiving a letter from a researcher about it, please let them know I’m not—” drat. There were truly limited options for turn of phrase here that sounded ladylike enough. Picking the least of evils, “—deranged, or anything like that,” she finished with a sniff and self-deprecating smile. The prospect of reaching out to strangers did not appeal to Ida, but this was an essential part of her work.

At what he said next, however, she was interested. If only on the basis that she didn’t realize there would be an entire spirit division. But it made sense, didn’t it, that it would take quite a pleasant person to deal with lost and restless souls bound to the mortal plane. “How on earth do you get a spirit to cooperate? It’s not as though you could threaten them with many consequences, can you?” It was genuine curiosity that furrowed her eyebrows rather than disturbance over the subject matter. Ida didn’t mind morbid, if it was also novel and interesting.

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

Ford tilted his head slightly at her request. "If you want me to do that, I'll need some proof you're not deranged," he replied. It was said as a joke, and his tone and body language made that clear, but there was a kernel of truth in it. Not that he'd seen anything objectionable from her so far, but one tolerable conversation with someone was hardly enough for him to put his seal of approval on her for Tycho. He was protective of Ty, in a way. It wasn't that he thought Tycho wasn't capable of handling inquiries from strangers — even in the worst case scenario, what could one young woman actually do that might hurt him? Rather, he was protective of Ty's opinions. Recommending someone or something to him carried weight, coming from Ford, and if he applied it too liberally it ran the risk of making Ty think differently of him as a result. So this is the sort of person Ford finds intriguing, he might think. Given that lens — that anyone he mentioned to Ty in any context might reflect back on him — the bar for earning his approval was much higher than it might have been had she been trying to talk to anyone else.

But the conversation was moving on. This was good for two reasons: first, that talking about Ty was not ideal; second, that she seemed to be genuinely intrigued by what he did for a living, which was not always the case. Ford grinned. "Well, if you start off by thinking of what you can threaten them with, you'll never get anywhere," he pointed out. Not that it was an unusual line of thought; half the complaints they received were from living people who had done just that, and already realized how little they could legitimately wield as a threat. "When someone's been dead a hundred years everyone seems to lose sight of the fact that they're people, and they want things just the same as people. And if you can give them something they want, they're willing to compromise on quite a lot."

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Set by Lady!

Difficult as these types of social cues were to follow, Ida interpreted what he said as “just a joke of course”. But the sentiment instantly made her regret her imprecise word choice, and she blushed slightly that now the onus of proof of her sanity sat firmly in her court. Now how does one prove they’re not deranged? What’s the definition Mister Greengrass uses for deranged, anyhow?

“Well, I will have to send you my references then. I promise that they are impeccable,” she offered with a shy grin that she vehemently hoped made her embarrassed flush look… vaguely… whatever the hell men look for. Sheeplike and charming, she guesses? Ida was decidedly not flirting in this context, but she had no idea what Greengrass was getting at with these jokes, and it frankly threw her for a loop.

Fortunately the topic had moved forward in the realm of something that Ida could easily tell animated Mister Greengrass; she noticed his grin, the widest one he’d offered so far. It was a quality she could even bring herself to admire in a man– passion for his work, interest in his projects. If she had to guess, he was probably quite good at what he did. “I suppose there is very little one can threaten a ghost with, seeing as most have already brutally died and all,” she ventured thoughtfully, thinking back to those she knew at Hogwarts. After centuries of seeing so much of life, most terrified antics from the students usually just made the specters laugh. “And what sorts of things do all people want?” she went on curiously; despite the morbid subject, this seemed… important, in general, to know. Taking an educated guess, “Is it just to have someone know them?”

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3

Ford could have furnished stories of specific spirits and the relatively simple desires he'd been able to help them fulfill all night, but she didn't ask for specifics. She asked what all people wanted, which was the sort of grand philosophical point that Ford was in no condition to make. He liked these sorts of conversations, normally — he read poetry in his free time, so it wasn't as though he shied away from thinking about emotions or the purpose of life or the intricacies of human nature. But he didn't think he could say anything intelligent when he was this keyed-up. So much of his mental energy had been preoccupied with avoiding all the possible fallout of his conversation with Noble, and he suspected that if he dug down below all of that he would only have something cynical to offer, which would give too much away. So he intended to brush past the question and say something self-deprecating about how he wasn't really qualified to answer, until she continued with another question.

To have someone know them. The words resonated with him immediately, and the more he turned them over the better they seemed to fit. That was what most spirits were after, wasn't it? Perhaps the desire manifested in different ways, like Barnaby Wye wanting someone to read to him or provide feedback on his latest ballads or Mrs. Hutches insisting that she be allowed to remain in the home she had died in, despite the quarrels with the new owners, but at the root it was the same: they wanted others to acknowledge that they existed, to validate their personhood, to know and respect who they were. And maybe that was what all people wanted, even before they'd died. The sentiment had its echoes in what Ford had said when he tried to explain why to Noble, or when he'd complained to Cash a year ago that none of this was fair. He had been drawn in because he was noticed, and he wanted to be wanted and loved; he deserved to have someone care about him. And maybe this was part of what had made the conversation with Noble so difficult, at the end of the day, because although his brother now knew more things about him Ford couldn't help but feel Noble recognized him less.

Ford had been looking at Miss Chang, his expression thoughtful, perhaps a beat longer than he should have. He realized it and pulled himself back to the present, shifted his weight to the other foot and lightly swirled his champagne glass. "You're very perceptive," he told her.

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   Ida Chang

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Set by Lady!

Frankly, Ida was surprised. Based on evidence to this point, she expected he would have an animated reply— endless anecdotes about the ghouls he’d encountered, she guessed, things to keep their conversation swimming at a pleasant temperature at surface level. But his grinning expression seemed to somber, and he decidedly did not return her question with banter. It made her worry that she’d taken a misstep in their conversation somewhere, but try as she might to repeat the latest exchange in her head, she could not understand where.

So when he stared at her, Ida returned his thoughtful expression with a few slow blinks. Wondered if maybe she’d jarred a screw loose somehow, with her line of questioning. She shifted her weight restlessly from one foot to the other— ever since she broke her ankle this summer, the right one always felt more uncomfortable in these dratted ladylike shoes.

When Mister Greengrass finally did deem respond, the sentiment drew out a small frown. Though nothing about what he said intimated displeasure over what she asked, it left Ida unsettled anyway. She’s heard this line before, but in this context, it was clearly to the wrong effect.

“Hm, people have told me that before,” she informed him grimly, right before she proceeded to take a deep swig of her glass. The move polished her drink off, and Ida’s frown grew a smidge deeper, because ladies are supposed to drink slower than gentlemen, and Mister Greengrass still had his glass. Furtively, she tried to hide the fact with the palm of her hand as she continued. “It seems to unnerve some people, though I mean nothing by it. My apologies...” The gracious thing was to always say sorry, wasn’t it? Even though she could not begin to imagine where she went wrong, she did not wish him to think her deranged.

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stefanie made this beautiful set <3