March 28th, 1891 - Fort Lestrange

There was a sense in Cash's ribcage that he was trapped, exacerbated by his family and by the letter he'd received from Lucius nearly two weeks ago. He didn't tend to do well when cooped up in Fort Lestrange, and he'd run out of cigarettes last night, which meant now he had - nothing to distract him, unless he wanted to leave to get cigarettes, which he didn't, and couldn't, because it was Easter Sunday, and apparently that meant something. He felt, in a word, twitchy.

They at least had a lull between breakfast and the real meal, which meant that Cash could loiter in the back garden and get sunlight. He stepped into the garden only to find himself faced with Gretchen, which - was probably good, because he was supposed to talk to her anyways, because of Lucius' whole thing. The trouble was that he did not know how to talk to teenage girls who were not Seneca, and none of his other attempts had adequately prepared him.

"What did you think of the Santa Antonina thing?" he asked. That was where he'd talked to Miss Scrimgeour, so maybe they could relate.

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Gretchen Lestrange Elladora Black

  

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MJ made this!

Lingering alone in the garden at Fort Lestrange was probably the best case scenario when the family were gathered en masse. Mostly the family ignored her anyway, which was as frustrating as it was liberating, and she had no desire to sit silently while they conversed.

Tatiana was being smug about something or other - she'd probably worked out how to crawl inside aunt Mariana so the woman could actually give birth to her - and none of the men had even looked in her direction so much as to say hello. Purity ran in their veins, but basic manners did not apparently. Of her own peers Seneca seemed poised to snipe about Frida at any given moment and Gretchen was not in the mood.

Perhaps it would have been nicer to go to far off places with Mr Prewett? At least there she wouldn't have to pretend that they weren't all thinking about what method aunt Olivia would have used to dispose of Ellory's disgraced corpse.

And now she had company in the form of another cousin who had probably only learnt her name that morning and still wasn't sure whether she was Frida, Gretchen or Meta.

"It was like most things. Showy but hollow and like shoving a bird's face up against the bars of its cage so it can see what a marvellous time all the other birds are having."

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Cash hadn't expected Kristoffer's sister to say anything he actually found interesting, but her simile startled him into a quick, genuine laugh.

"And are we the birds?" he said, quirking an eyebrow at her. He tapped the tip of his index finger against his thumb, again wishing that he had a cigarette. "I have always felt bad for people's pet finches. With the chains tying their ankles down."

Did she feel trapped like he did? He wanted to ask, but they truly did not know one another like that.

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MJ made this!

“At least they only have to suffer it for a few years. I don’t imagine they live as long as us, do they?” She enquired, folding her arms across her chest and finally glancing at her cousin. Cassius – she knew him even if he didn’t know her – because he was the Quidditch star, wasn’t he? Not quite the heir to all like Claudius, or the golden ward Tiberius, but certainly in the top tier and not half-forgotten add-ons like her and her siblings.

It wasn’t fair. Uncle Tybalt had actually been a mass murderer and yet his children barely had a scratch on them as far as society was concerned because the family had actually bothered to intervene. Orestes’ murder of his wife was only a hypothesis on her part and an unknown one at that and they were still second class.

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

"No, they get out of it early," Cash said, with a wry smile. This small talk was less awkward than what he'd experienced with the other two, but it was also weirder. "I would offer you a cigarette but I ran out yesterday." He didn't know if she smoked — the smoking seemed like something Seneca did to be contrary and he was not sure if Gretchen was the same way for all her talk of bird metaphors — but he really would have offered one if he had it.

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MJ made this!

Seneca smoked cigarettes and for a brief moment Gretchen felt her irritation spike again at her immediate assumption that she had again been mistaken for her cousin but she quickly calmed herself. Cash certainly knew who his own sister was, or at least she would hope he did.

He was probably just trying to be nice.

“I think I’d prefer to try gin anyway,” Gretchen said with a small smile. “Find a vice of my very own to see me through the season next year.”

  

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Cash grinned at her. "Oh, gin will certainly help with that," he said, "And if you ever want to avoid people at parties, acting like you're very busily trying to get another drink is a good method. In my experience, at least."

In truth, Cash was also allowed to be a little more publicly aloof than most unmarried women were — which he knew, but it wasn't the sort of thing you could say. Gretchen would need other strategies.

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MJ made this!

“I might not have been finished yet but even I know young ladies are considered far too delicate to do anything as exciting as fetching our own drinks,” she replied with faux indignation. Gretchen leaned against the garden wall with a sigh, arms folding themselves defensively as she considered the bleak seasons ahead of her.

“Do you like it? Going to all the parties, I mean.”

Gretchen couldn’t imagine how anyone could. She didn’t mind the company, or even the dressing up – and she had certainly enjoyed herself at Christmas – but the thought of being assessed like cattle was awful. Much worse was the fear that she would be found wanting.

  

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Cash couldn't help but laugh at her question; it escaped his mouth before he even thought about it. "Oh, Merlin, no," he said, with a grin, "I mean sometimes they're alright, but most of the balls? No." He always felt on display at those things, like people were watching him — but it did allow him to shut down and disconnect from his own head at least a little, so it could have been worse.

"Do you think you will?" he asked, a little curious.

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MJ made this!

“I doubt it,” she replied, momentarily marvelling that this might in fact mark the first time she had heard any member of her family actually laugh. Even Kris was too busy being an ass to show honest mirth.

“But I hope I don’t have to wait as long as Tatiana did to find someone to marry me,” she said with a glance over her shoulder to make sure her most terrifying cousin wasn’t somehow behind her. “If Mr Macmillan survives the scrutiny of the family long enough to actually propose that is.”

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Cash glanced over his own shoulder as if Tatiana might have appeared between his back and the wall — or, more likely, Tiberius. Seeing neither, he returned his attention to Gretchen and grinned at her. "He survived Aunt Katherina once," Cash said, although he had never put much stock in Noelle Selwyn as a cousin or a person, so perhaps that was not a good measure of success. "But I suppose whether or not Tiberius is convinced remains to be seen."

Truth be told, Cash didn't know much about Macmillan — Ministry, had married one of his cousins, was courting another. That did not tell him much, except that perhaps Macmillan was a glutton for punishment — or for proximity to power.

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   Elladora Black

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MJ made this!

Gretchen pulled a face at the mention of their other aunt; Katherina was a pussycat compared to most of the family. By far the least terrifying at any rate and Mr Macmillan would have to try harder with aunt Mariana – who truly was disconcerting – and Tiberius – who Gretchen was positive had never so much as nodded in her direction despite being her cousin.

A bigger pair of monsters she couldn’t imagine and what was the rewards? Glacial Tatiana who had probably never been kissed by a handsome Prewett boy and felt the excitement of misbehaving in such a wonderful way.

“I suppose my advantage is that no one will have to try too hard for my hand in marriage. Nephele the Nutter and Priam would probably swap me for frankincense and myrrh if God told them to do it.”

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Cash laughed again, and was startled by it — why had no one told him Gretchen was actually funny? Seneca had been holding out. "I've always wondered," he said in an undertone, like he was sharing a secret with her, "Do they actually believe that shite?" He'd heard them talk about it, and it sounded like they believed it — but Cash just couldn't buy it. Priam had always been weird but to actually believe the Irvingly church nonsense was particularly unhinged.

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MJ made this!

Growing up with Kristoffer had made her impervious to the sort of shock that a proper young lady should have felt at the crude language and Gretchen, nonplussed, leaned her arms on the wall and rested her weight.

“If they don’t then I can’t imagine why they’d put themselves through the services. They’re some of the dullest mornings I’ve ever spent though occasionally it gets surprisingly grisly.”

Gretchen let out a small laugh.

“In truth I spend most of my time imagining some of the horrors in the stories as our relatives.”

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?

Fair enough; Cash wasn't much of a morning person, so if they were spending that much time awake in the morning they had to have a good reason. Still — he didn't get it. He grinned at her comment about horrors. "Well, now you have to give me an example," he said, a little bit conspiratorial.

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MJ made this!

"There's one woman who trades her daughter's dignity for a man's head and in my mind she looks just like aunt Olivia," she replied with a smirk. "Though she let her daughter keep the prize and I doubt Ellory would have been allowed."

Her eyes flickered up to Cash as she continued. "And the lord himself is omnipotent and omnipresent just like, well, a bit like your father."

And the wrath he exhibited had unnerved even Gretchen - not least because she could very well imagine her uncle inflicting it upon them all if displeased.

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Bee is tremendous, isn't she?