2019-11-18 - In Vino Veritas

It is a quiet evening at the Washburn residence. Anne's little Bayside bungalow was not high up on the hill and didn't have any of the great bay views that some of the other houses have - but it was modest, a quaint little cottage-esque place with some green shrubbery out front and the garden (with a pergola!) in the back. Inside was neat, clean and orderly; everything had a place in Anne's house, her organization game was pretty on point. Anyway, this little 'date' was set for this drizzly evening, which meant sitting out in the garden was probably out of the question. But the wine cups were already pulled down and the Corgis were excited for visitors, currently frantically wiggling their butts as Anne opens the door for Isabella.

"Hey, sorry. They'll settle," she says of the dogs with a light laugh. "They just love visitors. That's Smeagol," she points to the reddish-white one, "And Gollum," that's the black and white. "They're brothers."

The cottage-like location has its own charms and Isabella looks around appreciatively on the way up to the front step, carrying the promised bottle of 2015 Brunello di Montalcino with her, cradled against the crook of her arm. In this gray, drizzling evening, she is dressed in that casual way she prefers, albeit certainly more waterproofed in a way - a black jacket looks like it's seen quite a bit of action is pulled over a loose, feminine top and fitted blue jeans tucked within knee-high boots. She's busily, courteously, scraping off the dregs of the walk on the doormat located outside of Anne's threshold when the blue-eyed archivist opens the door for her. Green eyes flecked with gold lift, and her contemplative expression is seared away in favor of a bright smile of greeting as she holds out the bottle for Anne.

"As promised, I try to be a woman of my word," she teases, taking a step inside and her attention gravitating immediately to the wiggling fur-brothers waiting for her through the door. That smile fades into a look that's infinitely more embarrassing, practically collapsing on her knees and opening her arms wide for Smeagol and Gollum for immediate cuddles. The cooing sounds she makes are so high, they can probably reach a frequency well past the detection of human hearing. "Oh, Anne, they're so adorable, I love them. How old are they?"

The bottle of wine is graciously accepted, a quick look to the label given before she hugs it to her chest with a light laugh. "You would not believe how much I've been looking forward to this," she mentions to the woman with a quirk of a grin. "Not just the wine. The company too. But goodness, do I need the wine." The giggles continue as Isabella sinks to her knees for the pups, Anne nudging the door shut so the rain doesn't come through. The pups seem to enjoy the attention; they give kisses and wiggle around, soaking it up. Anne bends into a crouch, keeping the wine bottle in one hand while she scritches the black-and-white behind the ears. "They're five. I've had them since they were itty bitty puppies," there's a quiet coo to her voice, her fondness for the puppies obvious. "I wish I could've taken the whole litter, but there were so many!"

"I wasn't much of a drinker up until I ended up in Oxford where my mentor told me that I wouldn't be able to get anywhere if I didn't learn how to drink socially. Now, bars and pubs all over will be lucky if they could get rid of me before last call," Isabella tells Anne with a laugh and that unfettered, incandescent grin that ends up interrupted when Smeagol attacks her face with licks. Mirthsome sounds escape her then, and after one last ruffling and cuddling, she reluctantly, slowly, rises in a standing position again, though with the archivist crouched, she extends a hand to help her up also. "I have this tradition with the owner of Two If By Sea these days where I stop by just before he closes and kicks people out, because that's basically the best hour to witness some hilarious bad decisions in media res. You should come with me, sometime."

The brief anecdote about the corgi litter and the missed opportunity to own one draws another laugh from her. "You're named for queens," she teases the blue-eyed historian. "Why shouldn't you have a fleet of corgis?"

"At least you drink socially," remarks Anne with a broader smile, accepting the offered hand to hop back up to her feet. The corgis will follow, butts wiggling as Anne leads the way down the very short hall and into the open living room/kitchen area, the bottle of wine set down on the counter. "I tend to do most of my drinking in the bathtub. There's honestly nothing I look forward to more some days than a bubble bath and a big glass of wine," she laughs, moving about to fetch the corkscrew. "I haven't been down to Two if By Sea, which is surprising considering it's not that far of a walk from here. But yes, I'd love to go with you one of these days."

As for the fleet of corgis? There's a glimmer to Anne's eyes as she looks from her friend down to the puppies, another laugh escaping her. "Two is about all I can handle right now. But give me time," she winks, grabbing the bottle again to start uncorking it. "They say old maids have a bundle of cats. But maybe I'll be the crazy Corgi lady of Gray Harbor instead," she jokes.

"Between you and me, I'm definitely catching up on months without," Isabella tells her as she tugs Anne upwards gently, shameless as always with eyes filled with mischief. "I've been jumping between my doctoral thesis and the consultation job that sent me back here for months and now that I'm at the tail-end of the former, I figured a few nights out won't hurt my progress too much. And I've been disciplined, Anne. Or at least I try to be. I only really actually see Alexander over the weekends the last month or so, unless we run into each other in town." Which happens on occasion, as the archivist has witnessed.

She follows, a curious eye cast at the interior of the charming abode and when they get to the open concept living area, she takes up a space across from Anne on the counter, leaning against it. "Easton Marshall, the guy who owns TIBS, is really nice, and he's funny - you'd think ex-marines wouldn't be total goofballs, but that's what he is. I think you'll like him."

A helpful hand nudges the wine cups closer as Anne proceeds uncorking the bottle. "I don't know, Corgis are a hit everywhere they go, so if nothing else, if you do get a fleet of them, the possibility of you being the most popular woman in the city is up there, too. Anyway, you're hardly an old maid!" She laughs. "Not even close, plus with those eyes of yours and your apple cheeks, I'm almost certain that's definitely not going to be your fate."

"I'm surprised you have time to see Alexander at all. Gosh, I thought I was busy," Anne laughs as she fishes the cork out and gives the end an appreciative sniff. Then there's that helpful nudge of the glasses, and away Anne pours. "What is your consultation job? I've got the archives, and then I volunteer at the library when I have a free weekend. But between all that, and my personal research, I've got enough to keep me going into the far future."

There's no careful measuring of wine here; both the glasses are filled up to the top before she sets the bottle away. "I met Mister Marshall, when we were over at the historical society, remember? It was very brief, and he seemed a little off, but I'll trust your judgement," she picks up her glass, admiring the liquid within for a moment, before she grins back over to her friend. "You're very sweet. But honestly, I think the last time I went on a date was six months ago, and it was awful. Never go on a date with a man in accounting, Isabella, they are incredibly boring people. Cheers?" she holds out her glass. "To good friends and many more wine nights."

"The feeling's mutual, trust me," Isabella replies with a hint of a sheepish grin. "He's been accumulating more and more paying work, so while I'm holed up at my houseboat staving off the temptation to brain myself with my own laptop, he's out chasing leads and..." Breaking into casinos with a guy who owns a fake Mystery Machine. "...getting late night taco deliveries." A euphemism that she has used on more than one occasion talking about the investigator's not quite legal activities in hopes that those texts wouldn't look so incriminating just in case. There's a fleeting look of exasperation, but largely the kind that's affectionate, on her face there. "As for the consultation job, I can't go too much into detail about it because of an NDA from the private outfit in Delaware that contracted my mentor and I, but it involves the sighting of a ship that was docked here in Gray Harbor around 1895 or so that might be carrying something valuable before it vanished to parts unknown, though if you're interested in a side-project, I could definitely rope you in and we can possibly go treasure hunting together." She wiggles her brows at her suggestively. "I can't quite promise Spanish gold or anything like that, but if we actually manage to track down where it went, or get some idea, the find might just be incredible and you'll be credited in all the papers."

She lifts her glass and taps it gently against her friend's own. "To good friends and many more wine nights," she echoes warmly as she toasts her hostess, that sheepish expression growing as she groans. "That's right. None of the coffee I consumed that day helped, Anne," she says amidst a laugh. "And yeah that was...the most un-Eastony I've ever seen him. But I saw him recently too and he said he's just run ragged with work and a few stressful Dreams." There's a slight emphasis there at the last word, confident that Anne would know what she means. She takes a sip of her wine.

"I will never date an accountant in my life, by the way," she says with a laugh. "He must've been cute, though, if you were willing to give him a chance." Searching the other woman's features for a moment, she ventures, "So tell me how you've been. Everything going okay?"

"There's a place that delivers late-night tacos?" Anne's brows hike, but she doesn't press. At least her expression suggests that she at least believes Isabella really means late night taco delivery and not that Alexander's off doing anything criminal. Besides, she's far more interested in the vanished ship, her head cocking to one side as she considers this. "Sounds very intriguing. If it docked in Gray Harbor, I might be able to pull up some records of it. It would at least give us someplace to start." Already the wheels are turning, a few fingers tapping against the glass before she clinks her wine cup with Isabella's own. Cheers, indeed.

"Mm, I'm sorry to hear that, but I know how bad it can get here. I've found that it gets easier, you know, if you don't .. do what we can do.. that often," she advises carefully, skirting around the counter to lead to the living room. There's a couch and some recliners; Anne chooses the latter to relax in, tucking her legs up underneath her. "It's hard not to, though. It becomes second nature. I remember when it first happened for me, and it was terrifying but thrilling and I thought I'd stumbled into some kind of magic, like straight out of a storybook," she laughs a little, dry humor, her eyes dropping down into her wine as she swirls it in her cup. "It still fascinates me to this day, especially what's over there. But I've a healthy dose of fear for it all. It doesn't seem much like magic. Seems far too much like a curse, you know?" There's a dull shrug, before she takes a mouthful of wine.

As for how she is, that question earns a mild wrinkling of her nose. "I'm fine. I had a terrible time the other night," she admits with a sigh. "I invited Patrick over, I thought maybe we could .. talk. But it went exactly like I expected, which is to say, it went exactly opposite to how I wanted it to go."

"I knew I liked you for a reason." Historical research, digging in archives, looking for lost things. Isabella's eyes light up at the thought of it, a dreamy cast on her features as her friend rifles through her own expansive mental database for a method with which to start.

She follows also, taking up a seat close to Anne, though there is nothing relaxed about her when she settles down, radiating that restless energy no matter what she does; potential energy liable to shift to kinetic at the drop of a hat, always on the verge of sudden movement. She cradles her wine cup with one hand, turning her body so she could face her friend more directly. Her following words on use puts a faint ripple across her expressive mien, sympathy and knowledge there. "When I left Gray Harbor for over a decade and change, I tried to forget I even had it," she confesses. "My skills in that regard have atrophied considerably when I returned, so if anything it's even more of an incentive not to use it, but being unable to control it the way I want can be a liability, also. I know what you mean, though - Mom had it, and my twin had it, so I knew about it all my life and growing up that way, I did think it was magic." She glances down at her wine. "I'm older now, and I understand the fear, also."

After a hefty swallow of it, her brows furrow when she's informed of Patrick's visit. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asks. "I'm pretty new at the entire..." She gestures vaguely. "Alexander's my first in many ways, but if you need to vent, I'm here." She wiggles her cup at her with a grin. "Plus we have this to lubricate what's difficult."

In contrast to Isabella, Anne seems far too relaxed - maybe it's the wine, the kinship, or just being in her own home, but there's just a quiet calmness to her as she relaxes in the chair and takes sips from her glass. Her lips bow into a frown when Isabella mentions her brother - she's been in Gray Harbor all her life, she knows most of the rumors - but she doesn't offer any apologies. Maybe because she knows they'd just be that - apologies for tragedy, nothing more, just sorry for sorry's sake. "My brothers have it. I was the late bloomer, they were both gone by the time it came to me. Back east, with my mom. We don't talk," she rolls her shoulders into a shrug, takes another healthy sip of her wine. "I guess that's what makes me so interested in the why. I saw what it did to Tommy, even if I didn't understand it at the time. He was only thirteen. If my mom hadn't taken him away from here?" There's a twitch, a tap of fingers onto the glass. She doesn't finish the thought.

As for Patrick, there's a huff through her nose. "That's just it. I don't think there's anything to talk about. To vent about. It was.. so long ago, it wasn't even a whole thing. I wasn't his girlfriend, I was just.. we were just.. whatever we were," there's a miserable look to the wine, another gulp of it. "And he moved away. People do that, they come and they go, he didn't want to stay and I did. We were on two completely separate pages, totally and completely incompatible." Though, the way she says that suggests she doesn't actually think that. "And I put him in the past. But now he's here, again," the frown deepens. "It's a mess. But I don't expect him to stay, so maybe I just have to wait him out. Patrick wasn't built for Gray Harbor."

These bits of Anne's life are one that she invests her attention in wholly; whether she is conscious of it, Isabella tends to do this - seek connections in a way that enables her to relate to the other. In many ways, her field deals with how people live their lives, parsing it through the fragments that they've left behind and these principles color much of her interactions with others. Mention of her brothers taken away to live elsewhere has her expression palpably softening. "You don't see them at all?" Families are what they are, save for Alexander, she's surrounded by people with complicated family lives - it's the recognition of the prevailing pattern that has her touching the subject in a very tentative fashion, leaving Anne to guide that conversation however she likes.

With Patrick, she listens with that same, unwavering attention - not just to learn about Anne, but to learn about Patrick as well, and the lenses through which her friend views him. "Why'd he come back?" she asks. "If he's not built for Gray Harbor." That, too, is a curiosity, remembering the words Erin Addington spoke about her cousin and how his return was so convenient. Still, she watches Anne frown down on her wine glass, and the hints of something deeper and more complicated underneath when she speaks of their incompatibility.

"It sucks that it's so difficult," she remarks. "Despite it being so long ago. Humans are messy and how they deal with one another is even moreso." She takes another draw of her wine. "The heart wants what the heart wants, though. It's a pesky, insistent engine, complicated by the fact that we die when it's torn out, so we're constantly mired in that U2 song as far as that's concerned. Can't live with it, can't live without it. Still, I don't think he'd be coming over if he was completely uninterested. He's an Addington, he can probably think of a thousand different ways not to meet with someone, or not even have to use any of them, because he'd just say no, or say something like 'who are you again?'"

"No," Anne says of her brothers with a quick shake of her head, a quiet sigh filling in the momentary silence that follows. "But I think, maybe, it's for the best. They don't remember what happened here, none of them do. Not really. And Tommy was.." There's a wince that crinkles the corners of her eyes, she doesn't like this turn of phrase even as she says it: "Very messed up. But where they are, it's .. it's normal, it's nothing like Gray Harbor," she takes a moment to take a sip of her wine. "It just makes me wonder why. Why here? Why not like.. somewhere in Kansas, you know? What's so special about Gray Harbor?" Mm, those were thoughts that she'd prefer to have, rather than the other conversation.

But, she takes another swallow of wine and sets it aside. "I don't know," why Patrick came back. "We haven't had an actual conversation about it. I suspect that Margaret told him to come back, and when Margaret Addington tells you to do something.. You do it. Or you face the consequences," it's just that simple. But there's more, and it makes her frown, looking briefly down at her hands while she fusses with the hem of her skirt. "And his siblings, they.. Were murdered, you know. Recently." She doesn't outright say the Ghoul was the culprit, but the timeline should be easy for Isabella to follow. As for why he came over, she just shakes her head, squirming to make herself more comfortable in the seat. "I don't know what he wanted, why he came over. I know what I wanted. I know what I got. It is what it is."

"I don't mean to pry," she tells Anne as quietly and gently as she can. "But I'm glad that they're able to lead relatively normal lives now that they're out of here. The city doesn't let go of its children very easily."

Why here?

A contemplative grouse escapes her there. "It's tricky to figure it out when there are no actual records of this area before the Baxters settled here," Isabella muses, giving her a glance over the rim of her cup; this is information that Anne had passed onto her during their first meeting, recalling it with a pursing on her lips. "And it isn't as if I haven't tried to find out more. That was how I met the Archivist, actually, since the earliest big historical thing I could think of was the supposed land deal between the Baxters and the Addingtons and I thought maybe the Registry of Deeds at City Hall would have that recorded somewhere, and before we knew it, we were being summoned during July the Fourth weekend to meet with it. But we haven't hit on much of it after that, though I haven't exactly given up on my efforts there, either. I reached out to a distant cousin since his family is an old one also - the Webers? See what he could find there, but I haven't heard much from him on that end, either. I might have to turn my attention on other avenues for now, or take it up myself. If I find out anything, I'll definitely pass it onto you and maybe we can all figure it out together."

Mention of the city's grande dame has her hiding a face behind her cup of wine, feeling the painful twist on her stomach at the memory of the summer; the bathroom at home that she has yet to clean in preparation for her father's return. "I honestly know very little about Patrick, so I had no idea where in the family tree he was until you mentioned his brother and sister. They rule the town, so I can't help but wonder which branch."

Another swallow of her wine. "Well, if a few days have passed and if you can't stop thinking about last night and how things ended, if you wanted to, you could ask," she suggests delicately. "If only to exorcise whatever demons are there. I'm a confrontational person, though, and I know for a fact that doesn't always help. Either way, it sucks that it was difficult."

"I don't know if the records will tell you much at all, even if something was written down," Anne says honestly, plainly about the City. "This place has shaped its own history, history that's different from the truth. You can see it in the people that leave, that forget. But you can tell in the records, too. Like over time, something's changed the narrative. If there's any truth to this place, it isn't in Gray Harbor," she tells Isabella. "It's over there." It's a grave reality.

As for Patrick's place on the family tree, that's an easier mystery for Anne to solve for Isabella: "He is Margaret's nephew. She practically raised him," she explains. "His sister was Susan, his brother Michael. You know, for all the ill will that the Addingtons have... they didn't deserve that. What happened. Nobody did," she shakes her head, reaching for her wine glass again, and snorts as she takes another sip. "I'm not reaching out to him," Anne is an incredibly stubborn person, this much was clear. "If he wants to reach out to me, and speak plainly? Then he knows my phone number. But I'm not holding my breath."

It's over there.

There is silence from Isabella when the historian puts that burning coal of truth on her lap, unable to help the tremors that ripple over her fingers as she clutches the glass. If nothing else, in that moment, she doesn't just marvel at Anne's very salient point, but also at the spirited determination to pry into that mystery. Perhaps she has always known, that she would have to cross over in order to obtain the answers she needs, if not just to help Alexander put their first case together - the reason why they met in the first place - to bed, but her residual terror over the Veil's vast open spaces keep its hooks deep within her. She would have to overcome it, eventually, but she doesn't know how. Not yet.

Except a psychiatrist's prescription, anyway.

It enables her to swallow half her wine, though she stops herself from draining all of it. It's a Brunello, it's meant to be savored. "No," she agrees quietly. "Nobody does, and it can't have been easy for Patrick to have gotten the call." She knows that also, but with Anne sitting across from her, wine in her hand, a girl's night just the two of them, she doesn't have the heart to extrapolate as to how she sympathizes. Instead, she focuses on her (adorable) stubbornness and the dainty snort. A hand lifts, palm forward. "Just a suggestion, like I said, I tend to be confrontational," she says with a grin. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, and honestly, if you're the one who invited him to talk this time around? The ball's in his court, now."

She taps her finger lightly on her cup. "Speaking of courts, and halls, and all of that, Alexander came through for me - though I mean, I asked him to ask Alistair Carver about the artifact. He basically said the same thing you did, about things changing when they cross over. But he dropped some interesting things about the Collector, too. About how he gets obsessed with items in our world, and brings them over to the other side to add to his Collection. If all of that's true, then this thing was probably just ordinary to start and staying in the Collector's domain twisted it up. You were right, Anne."

Brunello may be meant to be savored, but Anne's just about done her glass. It's been a stressful week, don't judge! There's a bit of a stretch and a look back over to the kitchen where the bottle is, but she just takes the final sip and sets the empty glass aside. She might have not savored the wine, but she'll savor the sensations that the wine provides, the little tingles that warm and cast a rosy glow to the apples of her cheeks. "Yes, exactly. I told him what I wanted, I was very clear. He was the one who said he didn't care, and then told me I wasn't listening," and watch those blue eyes roll, the irritation briefly settling in the bunch of her shoulders, before she forces the tension to smooth back out with a sigh.

At least Isabella dangles a hook that gets her off that train of thought. She blinks a few times, perking at the suggestion that she was right, a smile stretching and revealing the dimples in her cheeks. "I had a feeling," that this was the case. "Of course, it doesn't bode well for your friends. But hopefully our little excursion will provide a safe route to wherever this artifact is hiding. We'll just need to be careful, of course. Oh! That reminds me."

Anne sits up a little straighter, sweeping her fingers through her hair as she does. "I wasn't entirely sure about your question, from your voicemail. The one about sending mail between Departments? But I do know there is a mailroom," she informs Isabella. "I suspect if you found your way over there, you could put the communication in the right box. Of course, you could always write it on a Post-it, assuming you could catch one. That seems like their primary method of sending messages to one another. Is there a specific person, or department, you are trying to get in touch with?"

There's a smile, setting her glass aside after she follows those big blue eyes turning to the kitchen. "I'll get it," Isabella offers, rising from her seat - and really, it helps bleed off all that restless energy, to hop over to the counter to retrieve the entire bottle and move over to where the two of them have camped in her living room. She lifts it in silent offerance for Anne to extend her glass to her, and she will pour that glorious, deep red into it once she does.

There's a wince at Anne's brief summary of her conversation with her ex-something, before she opines with, "Those are definitely not the words a person ought to say in a conversation like that. Don't care, or not caring. Apathy is the death of Love, and all that." She tops off her own glass before she tucks herself back in the seat she just vacated. "I had one serious tiff with Alexander, before we even became what we were, and in a way that was the root of it. I didn't understand where he was coming from, and worse, he wouldn't just tell me to get out of his life, if that was what he wanted, or if I was being too much, or..." She shakes her head. "Talking is definitely a Thing, I've come to realize over the last few months, but nothing kills it faster than telling someone you don't care."

It certainly doesn't bode well, and she groans. "Honestly? If it weren't for the fact that the Collector tasked them to do it or else, I'd be leaving the damn thing where it was spotted, but I don't want to see any more people get hurt or disappeared if I can help it, so I'm definitely in the preemption camp as far as that's concerned, so I agree with the hope that we'll find a safe route to it without having to do something insane like cave diving on the other side. That's dangerous here, I can only imagine what that's like in the Veil." Trust her, she's a professional!

She cuts herself off from drinking more wine, for the moment, as Anne straightens. "A mailroom?" Of course it would have one, any office did, and the Veil City Hall seems to relish its crazy bureaucracy. "I'll try it, if I can't snag a Post-It." Though the idea of catching one puts a comical look on the archaeologist's face as she attempts to parse a methodology with imagination alone; Rube Goldberg machines and Looney Tunes hijinks. "It - did you receive....soup? As in packets of chicken soup in the mail lately? I think you mentioned that you caught that ridiculous flu, didn't you? I got curious about the sender, so I was going to send her, or him, or it, a note." She sounded female in the Dream, but she's definitely not ruling anything out. "Said in the box that the sender was the Vivisectionist."

"Thank you. We should've brought the bottle over here to begin with!" Anne takes the moment to resettle languidly, holding out her empty glass when Isabella returns, watching the deep red liquid with eager interest. There's a happy smile for Isabella once the glass is full, and she savors the next sip while trying not to think overly hard about the conversation in regards to Patrick. "It certainly was the death of the conversation," she says of apathy. "But it doesn't matter," it really did matter. "If he doesn't care, I can't make him care, and I certainly don't know what that has to do with my ability to listen. I heard him loud and clear!" Narrator: No, she did not. There's a frustrated noise through her nose before she swallows another mouthful of wine, shaking her head. "Anyway, I don't want to spend the whole night talking about ancient history. How long have you and Alexander been seeing each other?" Yes, push the conversation onto Isabella, that's a much better solution.

As for everything else, Anne considers the Veil talk with a quiet purse to her lips. "I did get soup. It's still in the pantry. I'm curious about it, but more than a bit wary of eating something that just randomly shows up in my cabinets. You said the Vivisectionist?" Her brows go up, but it's not like the name seems to ring any bells. "Hmm, I haven't heard of that Department. But if they are in City Hall, then that's the direction I would go. Though, with a name like that..." There's a faint shudder that runs through her. "I"m not certian if I'd want to get in touch. I can ask around for you, too, if you'd like."

There's definitely another side of the story here, and Anne can plainly see that on Isabella's face as she listens, and while there's no sense pushing the blue-eyed woman into speaking with who is clearly the object of her (frustrated) affections, she ventures: "I had one session with Dr. Vivian Glass - she's a psychiatrist, though she didn't come from here - after a very difficult summer and when my tiff with Alexander came up, the first thing she told me was not to come from a place of anger and that I should approach him." She leans back against her seat. "So I asked her why I should be making the first move when he was the one who was being an ass, and whether this just means that I'd be absolving him of his treatment of me if I did. She told me that a person can open discussions without doing that, and that you can speak to someone and not take the responsibility for actions not your own, or consequences you didn't cause. Not to say that sometimes, a person can interpret that as meaning that he can be as horrible as he wants and that you'll still be there, but..." She lifts her shoulders. "It worked for me. Definitely not pushing you to do any of that at all, though, just passing on what a professional in the field has said, in case it's still eating at you after a week."

She moves on from there, though, when Anne insists on it. "Um. Honestly, I don't know whether I can pinpoint an exact date," she says with a laugh. "Which is at the very least a misdemeanor in my profession and yours, but how it ended up that way was definitely not typical, which is one of the reasons why I can't tell you when exactly. Sometime over the summer, so a few months. Do you remember that scene in Speed where Sandra Bullock tells Keanu Reeves that relationships based on intense experiences never work? That was us. Not to say it came out of a hostage situation or a bomb on a bus or anything, but...definitely Gray Harbor's version of it."

Anne's professed curiosity about the soup? She grins sheepishly. "I drank it," she tells her. "I was curious, too, and it said it would cure what ails me, and I was injured at the time - and this was after telling all my other friends that we shouldn't be eating anything in the Veil, or even from the Veil in a foolhardy do as I say, not as I do moment, but..." She chews on her bottom lip. "I was testing a theory, also. About how effects from that side into this one don't seem to last, and I've accumulated a bit with this body alone." There's a resigned expression there - what with the Lover's Jewel, and the Veil-flu, that moment of horrifying illiteracy and now the soup. "It did cure me, though, but I'm being monitored to see if anything else happens. And yeah, with a name like that. I can't say I'm not actually afraid..." She's terrified. "If I do get an answer, but I'm an explorer. Still, that would be great, if you asked around." A grateful look flashed to Anne there.

"It's a good thing I'm not coming from a place of anger," stubborn Anne replies stubbornly. Though, her next words are a bit more quiet, a bit more honest. "I'm really not angry. What happened was years and years ago. I didn't like the way things ended then, but.." This is where she wavers, drinks another sip of her wine. ".. But they ended. And I didn't reach back out, and he didn't reach back out either. And now here we are, again," there's a sigh that follows, before she sets her wine down and leans forward towards her knees.

Isabella's talk of Alexander and the soup take the focus of her interest now. There's a bit of laughter for the 'Speed' reference that turns into shocked giggles at the talk of trying the soup. "You are braver than me, in more ways than one! I think I'll wait a few weeks before I try mine, not that I intend to have any ails in the near future." She eyes Isabella closely. "And I want to make sure that you don't turn into a giant chicken or anything." It's mostly a joke, she quirks a grin. "But I will do what I can for you, Isabella, of course. After we get back from our pond expedition, I'll go over to that City Hall and poke my nose around." It's a promise.

She's unable to help herself for what follows. As Anne tilts forward on her knees, the green-eyed woman extends a hand to rest gently on the archivist's nearest shoulder if she allows, giving it a squeeze. "Everything ends," Isabella reminds, if naught else but to say out loud a truth that a historian and an archaeologist would be intimately familiar with. " 'Look upon my works, ye mighty.' " Probably the only poem she knows by heart because it has direct references to Ramsses II. "Sometimes, they repeat, too, but I like to think that's just history's way of reminding us that we could do better if we wanted the second time around, but only if we try."

Braver than her, she says. "You mean stupider than you, in more ways than one," she says with a laugh. "I really shouldn't have, but I couldn't help myself. And you better not, by the way. Have any ails in the future for you to use it, though we are going over there soon and anything can happen." She nudges Anne gently. "But we won't be alone, and I'll do my best to watch your six. Though if I do turn into a giant chicken? Don't tell anyone. I'm trusting you! And..." Her expression softens considerably. "Thanks, Anne. For the help and the save." She winks, and clinks her glass against her friend's yet again.

"Now let's do our best to finish this bottle, yeah?"