Home Again, Begin Again

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
- Joseph Campbell


Part I

Janice deBrabant

Janice came home - or to the point - the places that home equated to. She had not despite all seen or heard in Spain really wished to embark on the boat. Now, having been back enough to get in the old tell-tale rhythm of the Scottish world still left her aching for the last traces of summer which were all but swallowed here. She'd stood out like a splash of color in a pale world when she returned to the white-washed inhabitants with her sun kissed skin. Even now her features were slow to relinquish the splash of bronze, the constant touch of rose flush on her cheeks. Did Spain leave her perpetually warm blooded? Bend around corners, gaze with a weathered eye and it was said she brought about a soft smile to those who only did so in warm seasons (or the warm afterglow of cold circumstances). With other duties to the elder done she looked at the one waiting duty. "This house," muttered petite mistress a half past four. So sad! Sunlight was beginning to slacken already. Such was the shame of the fall. Beautiful colors meant that the brightest light of all was dying. At least it was enough to bring fingers over the books in her study, look across the living space. What would be done with it all? "This house.." The store had already benefited from a thorough scrubbing, dusting, and ascertation. Was it evident she'd been living in her rooms at the Hall? Yes. What a comical sight she persented in the fading afternoon light as she took a stool across the room to stand on it with a rag attached to a stick in order to dust the rafters (d)


Julian Monroe

It was the dying embers that made September that of one to question. Why was it the days grew shorter as the world turned away from the sun. His heart raced as the day was done, and the old skeleton key turned to lock the Shop d'Ange where the chandelier still glittered in the dying light resurrected from the battle. Jean-Claude had put so much effort and time into this labor of love, but it was not until the return from Spain had Julian worked so hard upon it. The late season had kept him busy with the change in fabrics, and the cooler weather to come. Orders were placed until his mind was numb from measurements, and coins passing from one hand to the next. He did not sew, nor did he have much to do in way of design, but he kept the place upon its feet; grounded like the great roots of an old oak. In the passing week he had not been able to call upon Janice, or even see her at dinners with the court. Even in the market there had not been much time to even wave, and often he would miss her even being there. It was on this eve his mind was made up. Passing through the streets the rather tall thin man didn't much stand out by way of looks, but simply upon the manner of how he presented himself. He did not have Jean-Claude's elaborate style, nor the careless nature of so many other Scotsman, but somewhere in between Monroe remained in tones the color of earth and old pages. A brown tweed vest over a tucked in ivory, with a deep chestnut brown slack made him look the part of any English gentleman of times far too distant from now. Julian stood there upon her door, listening for any sign of life before he smiled hearing that careful sound of her every working fingers, and he would knock softly. (d


Janice deBrabant

"These rafters are a sin, but they will be remedied. Ah-ha! Oh goodness what is this? Hmm.." The banter within was a play of comedic errors as one foul swoop of cloth uncovered what seemed too many weeks of neglect! All of the furniture was uncovered from beneath the sheets, the pile of linen folded on a side table. A merry fire was going to a roar just as the door was knocked upon. "Hmm, coming, one moment please!" Everyone had a place in the world and the world relied on them to keep it. When the doors of the bookstore opened patrons who had long not understood its dark countenance poured in like rain on a parched land. "Are you well lady? How goes things, where have you been? I have asked every scholar yet none seems as adept as you, my Virgil? the Illiad?" She sold many and took commisions for many more, promising to open the stacked crates in the back room to take out what was more than likely already finished. Others sought for opinion, and some just to read. If not here than the tasks of the Order were waiting. She'd taken more than necessary time to oversee the affairs of the Master Laurence until the woman actually smiled, smiled at her, paying her thanks but dismissing her worried the girl's eyes would cross. So what did she do with the time? Arrange something else. Before answering the door she dipped her hands in a washbowl, smoothed her sleeve cuffs, brushed the dirt away before floating to the door. As she opened it her smile was already increasing in magnification. Gray was not an unorthodox color on Janice, yet it'd been some time since people had seen her in long sleeves or the higher neck. It was one of her older dresses. "Julian! Oh, come in, please come in! " (d)

Julian Monroe

It was hard for him not to smile, to laugh with her--looking at her. "Is it a bad time?" He asked in his soft spoken manner looking about the room for the first time. He had not known her life inside these walls, nor had he had any desire to know until as of late. When the door shut behind him he smiled, a smile only for her. He did not know what to help her with first, and laughed lightly. "Perhaps I should send for dinner here. I was going to ask you out." Turning to face her he could not help but want to reach out to her, and brush his fingers over her face. It was dark inside the house now was it not? No one would see if he tasted of her lips, yet he refrained.What was he still so nervous about? It was sin to touch a woman's hair was it not, but he couldn't help by brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Your Master would be ashamed to hear you call me by my Christian name, Mistress Monroe." His eyes met hers as his hand fell away, cherishing the way she looked at him, but shook quickly from the feeling as he turned away from her as if startled from his stance, "Where do I start?" (d


Janice deBrabant

If she had no manners, she would have pulled him in. A week was seven days - seven days that told of innumerable hours her concentration would lapse back to the boat where in quarters closed he held her. Now the comic awkwardness of a courtship gone backward was Scotland where Lerida had been confidence abounding. God, they were terribly strange. She giggled softly as he tucked a piece of hair away, one of two loose strands from the bun held in place by a bright yellow ribbon. "You are so sweet..whatever your pleasure. I would have to make ready if we went out..I am not suited." She turned her face to look at her gray hem with a chortle. "I think the Master would actually change her expression in broad daylight to hear you call me Mistress Monroe." Touche. "Well you can draw that shutter..then look at it for me I think it needs fixing? I was dusting the rafters." Dusting what? It was amazing she could reach the shelves of any library with the assistance of steps or ladders. Rafters? "Master Laurence needed help, the store needed catching up, so I have not yet been back here until now. I am so sorry it is so disgraceful." The sheets had kept the dust off of many things. Disgraceful. Poor thing. That is what happened when you cleaned for nuns. "I wanted to have it immaculate for your first visit." She turned to go to said rafter but not before she went over to pay a gentle kiss to his cheek. "I've missed you, Master Monroe." (d)


Julian Monroe

"Mmm perhaps she would." His hands came to find his pockets as he looked about the room, feeling the hit of jealousy..or was it simply disappointment to know he had not been the only husband she had brought home, but was it really necessary? Julian let his attention fall upon the task she had given him, as it was always a comfort to know she needed him for something. "I'm sorry I have not been around. It has been a busy week. I have started my days with Master Laurence." He spoke with a raise of his brows and a small smile. "It..has been enlightening." He laughed lightly, a small little half snort as he turned to face her once more. "Must I remind you I grew up in a one room home, with a thatch roof and dirt floor? You are aware this is a palace compared." Spoken in his dry manner though to Janice, by now she should know it was simply how he was. In all the well meaning habits, Julian could have made anyone else feel as cold as the winter breeze. "Will you give me a grand tour? And not flush so much at how horridly dirty it is." Sarcasm there and nothing more. (d


Janice deBrabant

"You're forgiven, it has been going here and there, doing this and that. Master Laurence looked quite forward to it!" So much so she'd glued him to his seat. Janice turned from over her shoulder as she pushed the rag-stick back and forth over the area to be cleaned. "I hope you aren't baiting her." She grinned with an air of a challenge, a light in her eyes. Of course he was. It was his nature. She brought the thing down to change the cloth, putting the used one in a collection of soiled ones in a whicker basket to later be cleaned. "You needn't remind me. A tour you shall get, and if itsa palace than I'm a picky palace person. I still wanted it to be perfect." Tit for tat. If the Masters could see this they would need to sit down, have wine, a discourse over the actual civility the girl brought out in him and how he seemed to stomach her company. "Well, this is the inner parlor," She opened her arms twirling about, "It hasn't the window brightness the front does but that is well in good. Up that door yon is one of the side ways up the steps. There is a front way and the way Mistress Lynch insisted oncalling the servants way but." She used either with interchange. " The door you came in, here settles the little foyer, with this wide open front space for meals, and adjacent that is the kitchen. I have never encountered a cottage with more than one hearth space, the kitchen warms it very well..but the Master told me originally it was a simple place until the addition of the back areas and upper level.." She smiled, gently rugging on his arm so he could come out and see it..." It is..far more than I can imagine. The family cottage in France seems humble by comparison to me.." She edged one of the sheet piles to perfect with the side of her slipper before edging him to see the table with bench seats on all four sides, the kitchen just beside it. It was rather large for one person, it was no wonder she felt lonely in it. Even if her rooms in the hall could fit this house with interest..that seemed smaller for all the people there. It wasn't badly decorated at all! In fact he could see where she was just starting to have some of the walls covered in a damask patterned lighter fabric, or art that had to be re-hung as it was to be cleaned. The still unlit candle places on the wall had glass to cover them, and they could go upstairs by the man staircase just between the front of the house and the back parlor. Once on the stairs she'd pointed to the one room downstairs she'd missed, "My study. Every where I go there is one, I swear. Letters indeed. I keep owl hours sometimes.." (d)

Julian Monroe

There was something magical about it, and for him to think of such it was amazing to even realize how far that thought was for him. "Janice.." Spoken in a soft manner, quiet as he had little to think of on such times as this but how wonderful it felt to be near all the things that were her. Marius had lived here, that was known, or at least he had slept here. He had made love to her here, but there was something Alpha in him that pushed that thought with..And so will I. Eventually. If he could keep from blushing everytime she touched him. "Jean-Claude had ordered you carpets for your wedding present. They are still rolled in the attic, but I'm not so certain they are your style." He laughed at how she pulled him, moving from room to room. "It is lovely, but..it seems to be missing something." He looked over her study while his heart turned wildly in his chest thinking of all the nights to spend here with her. He loved it because it was her own, and even before her life with her ex she had been here. He knew this much. "It is a lot nicer then the outside lets on." He admitted freely, pressing his shoulder against the door frame to look in upon her study realizing what it was missing was the time for her to be in it without serving another. Did she spend her lazy Sundays here after church? He hardly every saw her in their growing days. "You are missing Lady's maids." He turned into the door to look down the hall to appear for the world as if he had admitted she was in fact a Queen. Though he moved from his words with a race of his fingers to brush back his hair, "You are hungry?" No that wasn't how that went , "Would you like me to stay?" Idiot! With a heavy push of air he forced himself to pull together, "I've missed you Janice Olivia, and I don't want to be parted tonight." (d

Janice deBrabant

The life that was led here lurked in the shadows thrown out on the floor to live under tables and chairs. It was in the frozen art scenes or the sound of the one creaking floorboard on the stairs. Time made such a blur here. He was right, there was so much business to attend her pleasures fell last in line but if he noticed in the study, a little book with ribbon by a candle lay in wait. Or the colored ink of a particular translation she died to do. A hope with fabric and waiting needle. She did needlepoint? Fascinating. A very lady like task in an otherwise twisted world were logic was loved above all else. Well, that wasn't true. It wasn't loved above a person. It couldn't be loved above him."Master Jean's style is very..umm.." she was at a lack of a word other than, "flamboyant. Gorgeous but very flamboyant." Chimes rang out when she opened her mouth before she hid them behind upturned polite hand, her shoulders shivering with the expression. "I have a fondness for the oriental woven ones over furs sometimes. They are so pretty" Would he try to pattern her house in a huge, red, gilded thing? As they walked along she showed him the upper hallway, opening one of the four rooms up there. Three bed spaces, one a store room of sorts. "What do you think it is missing -....lady's maids? Mm true. I haven't found any such yet..in truth I haven't looked. I refuse to let the Masters be bothered over the matter..no matter how much they move they must still be recovering from England. My God, who heals that quickly? It is no wonder the noviates have this silly belief they are immortal." Subject turning to personal. Personal making cheeks pink as she leaned in the wall, twirling finger around loose piece of golden tresses. "I am famished, and I don't want you to go either Julian Monroe. A week is a long time for a wife not to dote on her husband. I kept hoping for a sight of you.." She stepped over, once..twice. (d)


Julian Monroe

"They are oriental. He only ever does business it seems with them. He adores the silk..like the sheets I sleep on..Red..silk..flamboyant." He laughed agreeing with her, and the sort of sound fell from him that caused his eyes to water a bit it was so merry. Did hell freeze? "But these are blue with small gold designs really they are not so bad. You simply wounded his pride when you did not include him. I have a feeling if he ever finds out about us, we'll never see him again." Though he weighed his hands back and forth, "Perhaps once to pressure you into giving birth so that he could smother the child in lace. I was far too old to let him." Look at that..was that an open admittance spoken without thought, but of the natural order a mind would go in? Julian occupied Jean-Claude's old apartments, the third floor of the shop had she ever been? As they walked down the hall he slowly took her hand, fingers first to lace them as if it were a sin to do so, but it felt so right. However, it was by the end did he speak of perhaps ordering in, Rose was getting a great business this way, but as his words got quieter Julian bent to kiss her lips gently at first. He kissed her like it was some secret that couldn't be told, or one he simply wasn't willing to admit to anyone else just yet for he wished to keep her just as she was. (d

Janice deBrabant

"Blue doesn't sound bad at all, In fact I'm amazed he got blue. He still thinks my sense of color horribly plain. He wanted to give me red curtains once, yet he had such a horrible time imagining me in a red dress. I'm relieved. I was really afraid they'd be red or..or royal purple." Watching him laugh was like watching any beautiful sight in the world; a secret thing rare, few priveleged ever saw. She was his wife, thus the privelege. She squeezed at his hand before touching his jawline with a few straying fingers. "Mm, we'll have to tell them eventually, won't we? Master Laurence might be driven to drink two glasses infront of us. Then they will probably insist we get married in the church, just for the benefit, no matter what. That is after they try to understand it.." She whispered an impression of claramae, "Can you fathom, de Aqutaine? They loathe one another, it..is against the law of the universe. Fiddle." For the master never swore. (Or didn't that any admitted) The natural order of things was a fine thing to think on. "The baby would be drowned in lace, we'd never see it again. They'd end up baptizing just the collar it was wearing." She recieved his kiss with a soft sigh. Aye, Rose would get good business from these too, who'd know doubt blush playing with one another's feet at supper. She embraced him as they kissed, "I missed you so much." It was the world's greatest secret; the two apprentices of the two masters in wedded matrimony. They would have rejoiced if they'd planned it themselves but to be denied of two weddings by viscreed and one by monroe, let alone monroe's lack of virgnity...or him..merely...desiring her that way. Good heavens. The axis was going to tip. "Look, come here.." She pulled him along, stopping only to kiss him again like an impuslive, silly girl who wondered if they would be seen behind the hedge. She opened the door to the room that had the wide wooden ceiling, bed, and such . "This has the largest expanse...for..for your glass." (d)

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Part II


Julian Monroe

"For a man who wears so much black he lives his life in deep vibrant color." It was something Julian admired about Jean-Claude, but no matter how many times Jean-Claude explained he could not get his apprentice to cover much without his muted earthy tones. Julian did not wear stark colors, or ones that were a huge contrast. He felt himself comfortable in browns, maybe even a muted red from time to time, but rarely black. "For all the hope in this world, Claramae" He started in his best French accent, "My prayerz have been answered, he is not a sodomite." Julian knew of the rumors turned over about him, and found them funny. Of course he found women desirable, he simply could not stand how empty and broken they all seemed to be, and he had other more important things to do. Jean-Claude often thought him cold and closed off which was not far from the truth, but even Julian felt lonely sometimes. "So we should make it a habit." He started as she pulled him down the hall again, kissing him once more he smiled, "To spend more nights together. They are all we have." His thumb brushed over the knuckles of her thumb, but when she spoke of his glass his heart stopped. "Why would I want it here, when it is there?" Came the quick cold almost confused reply, "If I wished to sleep under glass, I would go home. Unless you would simply like it installed?" She would enjoy it, especially when it rained. He grew very nervous, pulling away from her a bit and placing his hands in his pockets as he slipped in the room giving it a once over before turning back to face her, "Unless..you..simply want me here?"


Janice deBrabant


Janice didn't disagree - Jean-Claude was a banal spectrum of color on his clothes but his life was with the intensity of a lightning storm. Was this why him and her master got on so well? The Lady wore colors, but often could be found in their muted shades. Even if she elected to wear lighter variants, her face sombered them. Life within the Halls was anything but the shades of gray. After returning from Spain, she thought she might be in the slightest bit happy to live without the danger. It surprised her that the elements that gripped at the heart had made her eyes take notice of every percious thing, every nuance, every difference in where there should be none. In Spain, she'd lived better than she had here. Now it would be trying to take the vigor of that life and apply it to the things not so vigorous.


"I can not believe they thought you a sodomite." She shook her head as they walked along,"that's extremism, even for them. For years she had turned off the desire to notice or be noticed. What happened was she was noticed by a great many but turned down many more. Claramae had once told her she was afraid the convent would never let go of Janice's inner heart. When it had, she hadn't approved, struggling to accept deBrabant only because he was her choice and gave her happiness. The Masters themselves kept strange spouses, people who didn't seem to match them in any aspect unless you looked harder. Moving with no lack of oddity in to this, her second match, she understood what it was. Different enough to be fascinating with a vein of unity to bind you to each be one side of the other's coin, one half of a greater whole. If you asked she'd say she did Marius an injustice because she did not have the chance to experience that with him. She was always pleading for his patience of scolding him for his poor manners, his poor treatment of everything around them. "Yes, we should. The nights together. In due time we will figure the day. Somewhere between the masters, fabric, and books." It was a light way of saying that even in the day once together the oddity was they would still have their differences. Oh, they might peer in on the other she suspected, or occasionally work together, but her fabric ability did not go beyond making simple attire or things with needle point. No one could ever be to the dress shop and business what Julian was to it. For all his formulas beyond it, no one could ever be to books what Janice was to them. Two sides of one coin. Two halves of a whole. "We shall be very well dressed, well read, and full of projects."

Then he started to stammer on about the glass but instead of shirking away in his confusion with cold, terse replies she merely followed in after him. Gently she put her hands on his shoulders, letting her forehead fall between the shoulder blades. She stayed that way for awhile until she said "When we spent the night together in Lerida, talking over little things for the house..you had mentioned your love of seeing the sky through the glass, what a comfort it was. I had said it would be one of many things to do..so I sat here on coming home, looking up in to these high rafters and wondered what it would be like to see the sky, too. In fact I feel asleep on the guest bed just staring at it,so I started sketching measurements...and wondering what sort of glazier could make wide enough panes and secure them in joints." Glass of the caliber it was produced was expensive, clear sheets instead of hazed colors. Perfect crystal instead of stained glass. Even stained glass was a painstaking process. The glass was one of the things that gave Bryant Row its shimmer. "It would be so pretty when it rained or when it snowed. It would have to be done quickly, I thought, or it'd have to wait till spring or we'd freeze upstairs. Then I thought Turas Lan is full of exceptional glaziers, just as it is full of exceptional everything for being on an island in cold, dreary Scotland." She nuzzled the place her head had been resting before kissing the back of his neck,"I love you. Of course I want you here. I know our sense of timing is strange. We argued, then married, and we're courting as we're married. That's us. But one day, when we both decide to tell them..to tell everyone, I want you here always. I..I would have you here always now if you'd like too. Everything is ordered so funny." She scrunched up her nose before breathing. "Yes, Julian, I want you here. If you wish you may begin to bring whatever things you wish or purchase what you wish for the house and for this place. Every man needs a study. Especially men of great calculation. I..I want this to be our home. Your home too." It was sounding so well but the more she thought on it the more she blushed, the more she just grinned. "What is missing from here, Julian is being remedied. Personality, soul, even eecentricity, but it won't ever be complete without you."



Julian Monroe


He lived in how warm her hands were, how for certain he could feel the Spanish sun shining through the tips of her fingers. His wife, the angel was enough to break the heart of hundreds for the simply way she let down her hair only for one, or gave that smile. Janice smiled a lot, it had been something that had often bothered him, disturbed him, for how could someone not feel pain? Yet, the more he realized her heart was not so constant, he learned of her defense. She had been there for him through open smiles, and laughter when he had closed away to her with deep frowns and shameless manners. This was her defense and all along it was not as nothing bothered her, but it was she simply did not let it show. There was hardly any course reprieve to their wayward actions, but all seemed fluid in their motions no matter how out of place they were. "You have been without a man for such a little time. Do you not wish that freedom?" His eyes closed as he wanted to press his head back against her own, but turned to face her instead. Having never been a very affectionate person, Julian wasn't sure where to go next, but the desire to simply be near her was overwhelming. "This was hardly your home before you were married first. I want you to be certain, but the thought of waking up to you each morning.." He shook his head, "I couldn't explain to you how much that makes my chest hurt with the ache of want." Oh, Julian your way of words. He held her gaze for as long as he could until they fell with a blush, and a small smile. She would never know how hard it was for him to admit his feelings, for he had never been shown how.

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

"It was my home long before it was home to anyone else, I was still eighteen when I came here to being preparing it, and was not yet nineteen when I came to reside. More of my nights were still spent in my apartments at the hall because I did not count on how deafening the silence was at first after so much bustling around me, but in time.." she looked up to the lofty ceilings with one of those whistful smiles he always complained about. So full of life and wonder. How was it so? After all she had been through in this world, after all she subjected herself to, how could she? "it grew on me. As for my freedom without a man, it is not as if my life would change so greatly as to confine me to any hearth or stool. You'd never forgive me, and I would go stark raving mad. I am yours and you are mine. It matters little if I am buried under a stack of books, in any archive within the city, or if you were neck deep in equations or potions. Let alone for that matter the world over."


Challenging her in one way while being so reserved in another. People would have never believed that the young, unsure man in this room was the same ice king that chilled the streets of Turas Lan day by day. Here he was asking for her certainty while smiling in shy reserve. He was asking for her truth while wanting to throw himself out on the a kite's tail. Perpetual smile remained in place as she sat on the edge of the night table in the room. She perched on those often, tables and desks. "I want us to be the first thing each sees in the morning, and the last in the evening. Deep thoughts I've had of you and us. Stay with me, Julian?" Now in the last she was the one who hoped that he would still decide to stay. She looked down at the top of her feet as she brought them up under her body to sit criss-cross on top of the whole table.

He didn't know how much worry accompanied the spiraling heights of what she was coming to know of her love for him. She had a nightmare the other evening that he had changed his mind, renounced it all, and went on to marry in arrangement because the paper from Spain was nothing but secret, nothing but business. Perspiration had nearly soaked through her night gown on wakening. It was frightening to know that she could dream of another, for better or worse. In the lacking company of the Austrian she would merely cry until the river ran its course. She was empty, thus able to proceed, to heal. This? It was crawling in her mind, anchoring in her spirit and skin. It was teaching, challenging, frightening, and comforting her. It wasn't all bard poems -- it was the bittersweet commentaries. Jilted arguments. Offense. Yet what was it to have come through on the other side of so much of that already?

Sixteen was the kingdom age of majority unless one was in a trade, and then it was the eighteenth year with full privlege granted based on one's length of study, 2-7 years. How far beyond any plain social contract were they sheltered? She stumbled to the keeping of Sorschal and St. Laurence at seventeen, and she couldn't even say that she was truly woman until twenty and one, fury, Spain, and now this. Some age quickly, some slow. Some learn things after having professed to understood them once before: Julian who knew nothing save what he knew in this experience did so with a woman who realized only now what it was to to belong to an entity made with a partner mind, body, and soul in such a way that it truly reshaped and reformed. Renquest moved her on the land, deBrabant a mere stepping stone, Monroe? Well she was in the entire ocean now having plunged off a cliff edge. Living in the moment and considering every one there after in true seriousness. He was her husband, but more than that too.

She realized that he was also her best friend.

She looked at his eyes and waited patiently, though it felt like she waited a hundred years for him to answer.

[Julian Luke Monroe]

He would never force her under, in a life that was of the normal, or even to the hearth. If she could cook he was thankful, if she could sew for this he was thankful, and if she wished to make their home he too would be thankful. However, he was not of average mind, and the thought of a normal life bored him. His desire for children wasn't there, nor for the sounds of friends and family in their home. Julian was not a social person, and in turn he equaled out her desire to be so open. Someday perhaps they would have a child, it was bound to happen, but he wondered if he would ever love it.

"I feel at home here already. Is that strange?" He was strange, but he would watch the world devour in its pain someday..why stop now? "I even like the smell." He admitted with that awkward half smile of his looking up with her gaze to follow the rafters around pretend what it would be like without the ceiling. He was a creature of comfort as was the entire world was it not? Yet, how could he not feel so welcome here? "If any get suspicious of us well then we will have to tell them the truth. Soon." As soon as he could figure a way for it to not be such a blow. The Masters would be happy right? He worried very much.

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Janice was an unusual little being. She was indeed able to cook, sew, and function without the need of another because her mother expected nothing less. If Danielle had to become capable without a single servant in view, than so would her daughter. She had grown up with a nurse and a few spare hands in the house, work was minimal. Janice beyond a certain age had no more the luxury of additional hands around her. She became her mother's assistant housekeep and her father's shop assistant. In the abbey, she scrubbed floors, swept, sewed altar cloths, maintained a garden, cooked, and performed works of charity between reading copious amounts of books. If anyone was suited to function on behalf of others it was she. If they never sent out he wouldn't go hungry. If she noticed his shirts with holes or rips from practices she'd sew them quite well. Sometimes she wondered why Jean-Claude never let her sew for him, perhaps some belief that anything beyond book-keeping was contradictory to education and just menial labor. In fact, she'd sewn the pretty cloth lining the table serving as her vanity. At the same time? Places of servitude were akin to familial friendship. Carlotta was little lower than the Virgin Mary, and Dora had come in to be just below that, as to one of her handmaidens. How could she dream to replace that? Her one concession would be the bookstore, but her house? She adored company but hated unfamiliar beings at the table. She loved life but to this day had few friends for few understood her. It wasn't a bad life because of it though.


"No, it isn't strange." It was the best answer he could give her, she didn't have to ramble anymore. Grinning, "It's just..wonderful. Just wait for the rain, oh it smells glorious. The gardens smell like fresh woods. " There was easily enough room for them, servants, and a child. Janice for all her love of small beings was not keen to rear her own. Some cycles shouldn't be repeated. If one did come, God pray later. Far later. She had little care of when other young ladies had their own. They had no sense of intelligence, adventure, or being. Let alone privelege. They were the eccentric priveleged. "We'll tell them in our own way soon enough. Right now we have much to decide on." She pushed herself off the desk and put her arms around him, nuzzling his nose, laughing, "Like a color for the fall and winter quilts, and what plants new for the garden. I am going to try a little hot house." Her love of science was plants, Claramae had instilled horticulture in her hard. "And just how, Master Monroe, this room is going to be fashioned to your liking so that you can do great projects here in, and I can come to the door so," she ran out, only to appear by the door, "Monroe, it is 12 says the clock tower! Will you cease with the gears, sorschal did not figure it out in a day! Or you say.." she jumped in the room, "Only when you take your nose out of that book or scroll Mistress Monroe, whom do you think will appreciate a scroll in a language no one speaks anymore! And stop taking my candles to light the lamps in your hothouse."


She was like a sprite as she took his hand again. "We have all the time in the world to tell them, right now we're going to be giddy, and content. We will send away for a supper and I will show you the bedroom as we wait."

End Scene