2021-10-13 - After the Storm

The lunch rush, such as it is, has faded to a couple groups, and the other tables promptly tidied and sanitized, because Vyv won't stand for anything in the shop remaining less than pristine a moment longer than it has to. He's not standing at all, right now -- he's claimed one of the tables for himself, and is elegantly draped in one of the velvet chairs, sipping tea. Time for his lunch, now. He is, of course, in white, though the hat stays back in the kitchen. Makes a good contrast to the deeply-coloured chairs and black tables, which is coincidental, but he's certainly not going to complain.

Technically, he's claimed one of the tables for himself and friends, but said additions are yet to be added.

Here's to hoping one is included in friends, and that if one is not, there is another empty table. Ravn Abildgaard has his eye on one of those delightful little bread thing plus cheese thing plus pear thing things that he still hasn't managed to figure out what are actually called, and he rather trusts that if anyone can deliver -- and, if the Pātisserie should in fact not be offering this delightful lunch today, then he can always fall back on the quite excellent coffee cake without too much disappointment.

It must be a special day in Denmark, though; the Dane turns up in his usual black jeans and leather jacket, but the t-shirt is red. A nice, plain red with no print, clearly stolen from someone else's wardrobe (because he'd never own something like that, anyone who knows him can testify to this).

"Hello," he calls and without further ado, claims a chair. "I'm told there's a middling to fair risk of food happening in this place. And also, that it might even happen to me."

Hyacinth knows her place and when she comes in behind Ravn she sees, seizes and sits. She's really a whisk of her green coat flaring out as she descends upon joins Vyv's table. Her hand flaps to the poor kid behind the counterwho lives in healthy fear of the woman that specifically knows what she wants (without the actual knowing part) and is used to Vyv so when her hand flaps and she says "The thig. From lunch...that you did that." they're used to her and can figure out her usual fare which somehow makes her happy that she doesn't have to waste words It also helps when there are no bad choices. Leaning over there's cheek smoochies vaguely one side then the other for Vyv. Her hand squeezes his wrist, then forearm. She scrutinizes a moment. There's a nod. Yes, good. looking to Ravn she announced proudly, "He's fine." As if Ravn did not know but really the statement more specifically means: I can see he's fine and I can stop being a neurotic bint now. "How are you, Vyvvy?" It's a quiz. answer honestly, but also correctly!

Fft. Of course Ravn's included in friends. Surely this is made entirely clear by the way Vyv's initial scan of assessment pauses on the red t-shirt, a brow arching, before it completes the journey back to the Dane's face. "Has hell frozen over or are you in the midst of bleeding to death?" he inquires, "I could have Daniel call 911." Or in English: hello. He makes a vague wave toward the other seats at the table, which can be considered invitation.

This can of course be considered to include Hyacinth, too, as she comes up behind the folklorist, and of course la bise is met with like -- in fact, he rises from sitting to do it, and there's a light touch to her shoulder in response to the squeezes of wrist and arm. "Of course I am, but it's always nice to have it acknowledged," he says airily as he lowers himself back into the chair, "And you look quite lovely yourself." It's only then that there's the tiniest twitch at the corner of his lips, visible only if one's looking for it.

"Well. Nothing's exploding, I'm not bleeding out, and I haven't had to mull the ideal way to dispose of a body in days, so I'm doing well enough, I suppose. You?" A glance from one of them to the other indicates this is a shared question. "Did you rip his shirt too enthusiastically and have to loan him one of yours?" That one, of course, is ostensibly to Hyacinth. "Incidentally, I'm having the pear and goat cheese galette today. That would be my recommendation." And it might make poor Daniel look less like a particularly handsome deer in the headlights up at the counter. No, he hasn't guessed something she didn't like yet. But what if today is the day?!

"I seem to recall promising to wear an item of colour," Ravn murmurs, amused. "I stole this from Kinney's shelf. It's by far the least colourful item I could have nicked from there, and I'm quite sure he won't even miss it because that's how boring and nondescript it is."

He watches the exchange between the two with the same amusement as always. Vyv and himself, brought up to the same standards of behaviour, in the same part of the world, in the same social strata. One man sticking by it, the other adamantly rejecting it. It's not that Ravn doesn't know to get up or offer a chair to a lady; it's that he bloody well won't.

"The pear gallette actually sounds like what I'm the mood for," the Dane adds and produces an envelope from one pocket. He slides it across the table towards Vyv much like a Wall Street shark delivering a valuable piece of inside information. "And as I recall, somebody promised somebody else a picture of me wearing her tiara, so there you go. I will personally burn this place to the ground if it ever turns up somewhere else, but you knew that." Beam, smile, all the friendly. Nothing like death threats between amigos.

Hyacinth meets the glib answer of being acknowledges casually informing Ravn, "Alright he's damn fine." She sits and looks back to Daniel, smiles and nods once. This is not helping indicate anything! Her attention back to the table she glances to Ravn and then agrees only, "Don't bleed." A simple request is it not?

"Well contrary to popular belief I don't travel with my tiaras on me. Probably for the best. Idon't trust this town to leave nice things nice." It's happening Ravn, worry not. There's a pause and she squints back to Vyv "You're having entirely too much fun at my expense here. After our spa day I don't fault you though." She lets Vyv tell that story. Her eyes, though, are concerned with the building. She's still inspecting her little town to still be sufficiently in tact.

"Everything looks... in place. How was it? Particularly terrible? A good number of buildings were flattened."

Vyv inclines his head to Hyacinth in gracious acknowledgement of her amendment, a hint of a smile half-hidden behind his cup as he reclaims it and has a sip of his tea. Yes, thank you. He is damn fine. He also does a rather better job of indicating things to Daniel with a brief lift of one hand -- index finger raised alone to catch the young man's attention, then joined by two others to make the order... well, clear may be overstating it, but the odds of imminent galettes for all have just increased considerably.

"A man of his word," the chef notes as he claims the envelope slid his way, and begins opening to peek inside. "Just the tiara, as I recall..." Whether this is wholly true and whether he'd like it to be are both irrelevant at this point in time. He slips the picture inside upward just an inch or so, enough to take a decent look himself but not so much that a theoretical person behind him -- of which there are precisely zero at this time in any case -- could see as well. "If you were to burn this place to the ground, I'd see you burnt to the ground," he replies just as conversationally, "But you knew that, too." Slipping the picture fully back into its sheath of safety, he glances up to add, "Just as well I've no particular interest in showing it to more than one person. Although if you still intend to give one to Itzhak as well, and it does appear somewhere, please do make sure to track down the proper culprit before declaring war. Save us all some trouble."

As far as things he's willing to declare right now go, however, "That red's not bad on you. Though if you steal your roommate's least distressing items of clothing you're only pushing him toward disaster, you know. ...Further disaster." And he probably hasn't even seen Aidan's more interesting ensembles!

Hyacinth gets a look that does a decent job of innocence as long as one doesn't note the glint in the eye. "I don't know what you could be referring to. But we ought to have another of those, soon. And it was..." He trails off, brow furrowing a bit. "Well. Going off what I've been told, the barriers held against any flooding, but that window," he glances toward one of the huge sheets of glass, the one that would have been more to the storm side of things, "had a postbox thrown into it and shattered. The glass did, the box was fine. I think they've reinstalled it. So the floor needed some repair, window needed replacement, but thankfully we'd moved all the furniture for protection, and everything else survived. But I of course wasn't-- mn. I want to say 'here at the time' but things get a bit complicated. I wasn't here, at the least." The firmer emphasis is joined by a small, vague hand movement that seems to indicate 'the shop' rather than anywhere broader. "Anything interesting flattened?"

"The high school needs a new roof," the Dane murmurs, quite content to not pursue the road of mutual threats any further; he knows full well that between him and Vyvyan Vydal, he's not going to win a contest on being snarky and acerbic; it's still amusing, and that's what he was after (along with making it clear that some things should not be shared to a general audience, even if his chest is as far down as the picture shows). "But I suppose that's only to expected after a sixteen tons dragon tried to flatten it."

He smiles brightly. "Fortunately, HOPE received a couple of fairly large donations shortly before the storm. We have been able to help out here and there. A number of homes were washed into the Chehalis by floods, too. On a more personal level -- no, my boat was safe where I put her up before the storm, and my cat apparently went romping around the Veil for three months and came home fatter and meaner."

Then he leans in over the table and looks at Hyacinth. "And then I found myself at a Veil prom, and after that, I got a little distracted reassuring somebody that I am in fact not dead, and at this point? I think I'm getting to -- why did you think I was dead? What happened to you while the rest of us were sleeping, so to speak?"

Hyacinth watches drinking her coffee curious, concerned and in the end her eyes go not to the photo(she has her own mental images she's quite happy with thank you) but the floor where the damages 'are' . There's a small frown. "That was my favourite spot." It wasn't but it is now that it is gone and no longer uniform. Her nail worries at the rim of her coffee cup before she drinks it.

There is silence and carefully she says "I was in Toronto for their annual pre-fall fabric reveal. The fashion industry loses-" Manicure tap her temple before flicking outward, "their goddamn mind over it. You want fabric though you go to Toronto, New Orleans, Singabpore, Hyderabad, or Milan. EVERYONE knows this so to Toronto I go. And I tried to text you both and at first there was no answer. I thought well maybe you are busy. Day two it was all very rude." Palm flat to the table she gets frank, "Third day I gave Bonnie McCaffery a piece of my mind because there's no way in hell I'm letting the office authorize that ugly ass fountain she wants to put in that's going to wreck what could be used productively. The town needs not two giant fountains and I told her as much!" There's a pause and she looks up with some regret, "It wasn't Bonnie." There's a pause and she follows up with, "I'm not retracting that text though."

The threats are appropriately established. An understanding has been formed. One can safely move on, even if one (at least) could probably have found some fun in continuing in that vein for a bit. Still, most likely all for the best, really. Vyv arches a brow at the reason given for the roof issues; the storm should be plenty of reason for that problem, anywhere else, but this is, of course, Gray Harbor. "Did you actually weigh the dragon?" Slightly dubious, but given how things go, not entirely. And perhaps just the tiniest bit impressed with whatever he might be imagining as how such a weighing might be accomplished.

The floor at least looks unharmed and unchanged; even if Vyv apparently wasn't here to oversee it himself, whoever did have that responsibility appears to have taken it just as seriously as he would have. Possibly for their own safety. But even if it's not visible, they know. "Ought to have invited me along," he notes to Hyacinth regarding her trip. Never mind that he would likely have ended up declining for the same reasons he wasn't anywhere else at the time. "If it wasn't Bonnie, who was it?" There's coffee been brought for both the others, in their preferred mode; he sticks with his tea at present.

"I wasn't sleeping. I'm-- not quite sure what precisely happened," he admits, brow furrowing a bit. He's had some time to get used to this now, yes, but it's still unsettling at best. "I'm quite sure I was awake, in fact. And that Bax was, too. The storm was raging, as one does; we found some ways to entertain ourselves for an hour or four, and afterward it was quiet and, apparently, twelve weeks later. Either we somehow skipped directly from one point in time to another, or I'm fairly sure we now hold some sort of world record. Not bad as bragging rights go, I suppose." A small tilt of his head. "Why did you think Ravn was dead?"

Who the hell is Bonnie McCaffery? Ravn has no idea. Whoever she is, though, he feels a twinge of sympathy for someone brave enough to suggest a less than perfect solution to Hyacinth Addington where city planning, design or style is concerned. Some brave enough, and dumb enough. Here's to hoping Bonnie McCaffery will make a full recovery from her encounter with the fury he is dating. And to Gray Harbor not getting another fountain it doesn't need while half a dozen families are still homeless because their homes were washed out to sea when the Chehalis flooded. Somehow, the idea of Hyacinth giving a, well, Hyacinth-style dressing down to some suburban Karen is oddly exciting.

The folklorist blinks and refocuses on his coffee and Vyv's very reasonable, if slightly snarky question. "I don't own a dragon-sized pair of scales, sorry. But given that the creature was the size of an iguana-shaped steam locomotive and a few other circumstantial things -- it's a long story. Involves a group of faerie ladies protecting us from it, turning up right after Rosencrantz went around singing Sixteen Tons and heaven only knows what that dragon actually weighed, but in my head canon, it's going to be on record as the sixteen tons embarrassed puppy."

He finds himself thinking about the expression on the face of this hypothetical Bonnie McCaffery and shakes his head to dismiss the image. "I don't think I was technically sleeping either, since my life went on pretty much on schedule. But since I didn't experience it doing so, it kind of feels that way -- like I somehow had a twelve hour nap. Why did you think I was dead?"

Who the hell is Bonnie McCaffery is quite the question. More on this hedging hedger that hedges onto other people's property later. For now there is tea and a tale, and one the Corporate Conquistadora is not looking forward to. For the boys some time had passed, foggily, uneventfully, and fruitlessly (unless you merit the acquisition of a house.) Part of Hya is really glad it's not Vyv that went on a real estate foray. She has plans for this. Plaaaaaaaaans.

The mug shifts in her fingers, "At first I got... no response back from you, Ravn. Then not from my secretary who seems really remiss to not take my calls, but...while I thought that was weird when Justin and Vyv who like...always take my calls at risk of hearing about it forever and ever or missing details-" She looks to Vyv where in ..yeah that checks out. Vyv wouldn't be Vyv were he not at least 46% gossip queen. "So I thought reception towers might be down or.. something very off." Sensible at least.

Her fingers rest on her temple to maintain that stately composure, but her hand trembles and her demeanor threatens to crack entirely; unshed emotion in her eyes building behind a damn of practiced defiance. "So I tried to telepathically connect across continent which has not been easy since...we'd changed things." Her jaw tightens and she looks up with quiet wet streaks on her face, but her mood still and even as ever. "Something answered and told me it's gone. Everyone. Everything here. Just... gone. The star had collapsed into night. The path is closed. What was is no more."

There's a pause and instead of falling apart there's a sharp deep breath and the flat statement declaring, "So...I had to veto that, caaaause, no one touches my shit." She sips her coffee to hide any betrayal in her expression rallying to the calm that is now. "I tried to book every flight I could. Nothing would go through so I got to Seattle. Seattle for whatever reason is fine. Too many hipsters, maybe even the void didn't want it, I dunno." The cup is set gently down. "the headlines I saw all started to say 'Small Harbor town burns in explosion. No one really seemed to know or care. I saw them though, the headlines. So I thought it's real or someone like the Journalist is fucking with me deliberately to keep me out. I don't... I don't know. So I went into the Veil to cut across and go where the roads were maybe not closed."

Ravn falls quiet as he listens. It's not too difficult to imagine; a bit as if he'd been going about his usual business only to hear some newscast on the radio -- Denmark has been wiped off the map in a random disaster scenario involving stray Russian nukes and a broken missile radar. There are persistent urban legends it's come close once or twice during the Cold War. Losing your whole background, everyone you know, everywhere you grew up, all of it just gone? He can't quite put himself into Hyacinth's place, imagine what that scare must have felt like, but close enough to wince, hard. Sure, he left Denmark and most of his background behind but it's still there, he could go back if he wanted to.

"They always do manage to find a crack in our armour, don't they." Who 'they' are goes unspecified, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out: The they, the dolorphages, the pain eaters, the enemy.

The Dane makes a mental note of the term, though: The Journalist. When you can hear the capital J spoken aloud like that, it's not just some gossip writer from the Gazette Hyacinth is talking about. And of course there'd be someone on the Other Side with the power to control the media. Sometimes, living in Gray Harbor is like being part of a live re-enactment of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

He wonders momentarily if there's any correlation to the Revisionist and that other presence, the one that sometimes feels so present it's almost like someone is rewriting reality in real-time just to see what will happen. He hasn't got a word for them yet. The notion that there are multiple creatures on the Other Side all casually editing reality as they please never fails to give him the creeps, though, and Ravn reaches over to quickly brush his fingers across Hyacinth's; it's the closest thing he'll come to a PDA, and more so with his touch issues. "I don't think we were actually gone at any point. But you're not alone in wondering what the hell was going on. I think we're all wondering what happened that it was so important none of us remember."

"Through Portland?" Vyv asks, brow subtly furrowed with what might be either confusion or concern but either way qualifies as proof he considers himself among friends. Trying to make it from there to here on the Other Side seems a particularly desperate thing to attempt, but he's fairly sure Hya doesn't have the knack for trying to open her own door in. Still -- an assessing look over her, as though cataloguing -- she does appear to have made it in one, still-fabulous piece. Somehow. "You seem to have made it here all right, though. This I am going to need to hear about." She's quite right that even had something prevented him taking the call immediately, he would have gotten back to her quite soon. And that's without even taking telepathy into account. Where there's interesting information, he would like to have it, please and thank you.

He makes a note of 'the Journalist' as well, that being one he hasn't heard as yet, but it does seem to slot in well enough with the ones he has. Physical reassurance is left to Ravn, but Hya does get a glance that she, at the very least, can probably translate into a certain sort of sympathy. He still has his own things to deal with, however (which are at least as bad, because they're his).

"I'm not sure there was a me to respond, at the time," he says, tapping a fingertip lightly against the cup as he turns this all over in his mind for the thousandth time since finding the unexpected date change. "I may have been gone. Or the time was." A glance at Ravn, "As far as can tell, I don't just not remember. It didn't happen. There's no evidence I was anywhere or doing anything; everyone here," another tiny gesture to suggest the shop, "seems to think I just happened to be in LA for the duration. No one there thinks I was. My accounts say I've not spent a single penny that wasn't automatically scheduled. The milk in the refrigerator has an expiration date of eleven weeks ago and is wholly unspoilt. The plants didn't appear to need watering. The fish weren't starving. The level of food in the canister seems no lower. What little evidence I can discover for my own situation suggests the last twelve weeks simply didn't exist. Like moving an hour forward for daylight savings time. Except for three months." A glance to the window. "And taking the weather along with it." Okay, so it's not a perfect analogy.

A glance to Hyacinth, tilting his head slightly. "So you thought I was dead too, then?" Hm.

Hya pulls her own chair, she does not open her own doors, not in the veil, not in a restaurant. The general public touches those. Eew. The fingers brush over hers and there's a tension that drops from her muscles, palms resting flat on the table once more at ease. Small things add up greatly especially when they are on ration.

It's Vyv's assessment she's piling onto what she knows. It's the last statement getting her to exclaim, "Well I didn't think you approved, Vyvyan!" She listens, though her hand slides slowly to park next to Ravn's, there is a moment and the sparks dance on her fingers to travel the correct paths to quiet the static so it can park there without penalty. "Just...gone... that's so messed up."

Her manicure curls into a ball and her eyes water mascara is threatened. "yes I went to Portland and I walked from Portland back fighting in a battle not unlike a chess match with that woodland king standing at the other end just...watching like he's catching up on Real Housewives of the Veil or something. jsut... couldn't lose my family again." She swallows and stops herself from getting openly sentimental and breaking up further and authorizes the decree, "You're not...allowed to just leave, and I'll play ever damn game of chess I have to with live ammunition to ensure so." There's a pause and she sniffs, though adding, "My ass has never been in better shape from all the walking so...there is that."

Ravn shoots Vyv a somewhat disturbed glance. He's heard a lot of stories -- including his own -- of lives that apparently just went on without anything dramatic happening at all, following the script, things progressing naturally, until you wake up finding yourself with a new house and a roommate. He's heard Conner's version -- where time progressed and he woke up to a fridge full of rotten milk and a kitchen full of empty take-out containers. Now he's heard Hyacinth's version -- where Hyacinth was lost outside while Gray Harbor apparently dropped off the map, quite literally. And now he's heard Vyv's -- where Vyv apparently dropped out of existence, quite literally.

Apparently there is no such thing as consistency. Unsurprisingly, this bugs the hell out of the folklorist who likes his tropes strange or bizarre, sure, but consistent.

In a somewhat uncharacteristic display he takes advantage of Hyacinth's subtle manipulations to rest his hand over hers. "We'll probably never know what happened. I have somewhat come to terms with that, as much as anyone's able to. A lot of people I have talked to worry that something terrible went down -- and maybe something did, but whatever it was, the Veil didn't want us involved. I am inclined to -- let it go. Not because I don't want to know what happened but because I don't think we'll ever find out. And I do think that trying too hard to work it out may actually be counterproductive; might end up staring so hard at the individual bits of the puzzle that we don't see the picture. Until something else happens that correlates to all of this, I think it's better to look ahead. Something inexplicable happened. Yes, well, it's another day ending in -y in Gray Harbor."

"I don't particularly approve of any of this," Vyv confirms, though annoyingly his disapproval clearly makes not an iota of difference to the reality, whatever it actually is. Most irritating. Maybe there's a manager somewhere they can speak to?

Meanwhile, he watches the danger to shippingmascara, and listens. A glance and small lift of fingers is perhaps a signal to Daniel to hurry things up and assuage some of Hyacinth's remaining dismay with delicious pastry, which remains his most dependable (and least uncomfortable) form of dealing with other people's emotions. That and noting, once she's finished, "It does look fantastic." Some might look askance at saying so right in front of her boyfriend, but look, he's just stating a nigh-objective fact, okay? Chocolate is delicious, sunsets are lovely, and Hyacinth's ass looks great. It's not like he has designs on molesting any of the three. Well -- maybe the chocolate, some days.

"Woodland king?" he asks, and takes another sip of his tea as Daniel hurries over with the plates. The pear galettes as discussed, each accompanied by a serving of fresh salad. And silverware and napkins, for we are a civilized bunch. "Ta," Vyv murmurs as the dishes are set down, but that and an appraising glance to see how the plating has been executed (not ideal, but passable) is really it. Okay, and maybe a glance after Daniel as the young man hurries back to the counter; there's more than one nigh-objectively superb rear view in the shop today. "I have no intention of leaving without at least giving you warning, and currently no intention of leaving permanently at all, so should that happen, please do bring all available chess ammunition to bear, thank you."

A small pause, filled but not caused by setting his cup down and claiming his knife and fork instead. "There are anaesthetics, as I understand it, which work not by blocking pain but by making one forget it ever occurred." How this applies is left as an exercise for the student. "It is... unsettling, to consider that one might have ceased to exist. It isn't much less so to imagine the universe skipped a beat and filled things in retroactively, mind." But apparently, at least slightly. "Regardless. You may be right. I do want to know what happened, of course. But I'm not sure what more we can currently do to try to determine it that won't require a time machine, a committee of philosophy professors and science-fiction authors, or possibly a new branch of physics."

Hya shifts her fork to the edge of the plate. She's done eating for now. The hand on hers is warm and for that there's appreciation that she has that will not be voiced but for welcomed continuation and lack of protest. High praise. She looks up to Ravn as he shares his part of the insight and takes a deep breath, "I don't think I care for the days ending in -y so much. Can't we just change them to -ie? or -ae?" Looking to Vyv there's a terse look defending before first volley is thrown, "I know you have your little feud with Mr. Tall-Dark-and Brooding, but Sundaes are better than Sundays and you have to give that some credit."

There is some relaxing a bit when Vyv pontificates, mandates, decrees, assures them both that he's going nowhere without major announcement, and possibly a gala... and ample forewarning. "I'm wondering if the best idea isn't to contact family or friends outside of here to get a exact estimation of what they think the day is and compare. I'm wondering how skewed time was this whole while." She pauses and her eyes go wide, in a slightly haunted tone admits, "I do noooot want to think about how to do my taxes on that." This may haunt her for the rest of the day or until coffee #2.

"I'm not certain we can do much more than move forward and keep an eye out for this Woodland King. I think...we're at a truce. I'm really tired of having splinters in my hair let me tell you. If I have to sleep on the ground one more time there will be a spa day like no other, I assure you."

"Are you telling me you need an excuse for a spa day?" Ravn offers a small, lopsided smile. Then he nods, considering the words of both. "I think our best bet is to move on. All three of us like to be in control. To understand what we are doing, and to be in charge of our own situation. I don't think we're getting our way this time. We may never know what happened -- and maybe, just maybe we should in fact not try to pick up the pieces. The Veil did this. Well, let the Veil sort out how it wants to rationalise away the gap when it comes to doing taxes, then. Your accountant who does not shine -- let him sort out taxes, the Veil will fill in the blanks."

He sips his coffee; the mainstay of his diet. "My entire gut tells me to just look ahead. A number of us got an important life lesson handed to us by Baba Yaga during the storm. And now the storm is gone, and we still have those life lessons. I intend to stop running, stop pretending I'm someone I'm not, and start making allies. That's what I was told to do, and it seems like solid advice."

Done? She hasn't even started! And neither has Ravn, for that matter. Vyv glances rather pointedly at their plates -- the plating may not be perfect, but that is still his galette there and it just about is, thank you very much -- and back up to them, with a small and meaningful arch of a brow as he cuts an initial bite of the one on his own plate.

"I don't have a feud," he contradicts, though some might dispute that claim, "It isn't as though he's any actual competition. And sundaes are fine. Simple things have their place." A bite of the galette, chewed, swallowed, and followed by a sip of tea. "In any case. I've checked in with people outside of here already -- L.A., London, Paris, Tokyo -- and from as much as I can gather without having to attempt to tell people not like us why I want to know, there really hasn't been anything out of the ordinary anywhere but here. They're all on the same page. It's only our page that's been torn out, one way or another."

A small, irritated sigh. "We're all in agreement, I suppose. Unless something changes, or we've missed some decent lead, there doesn't look to be much we can do but move on, for the moment. Though I don't know about the life lessons portion." Too many reversed cards. "I think a spa day sans further excuse seems like solid advice. Day after tomorrow?"