✦ 1x1 - [ fxnty & peppersdots ]

[quit...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Lucas Rogers ]
[ Colonel Rogers, Mr. Rogers ]
Tagged [ Joe ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucas looked around to see a massacre before him. He heard the screams of a maid with a bite on her arm, closing his eyes he rode up to her and sliced his katana around her neck. He quickly turned away to ride up to Joseph murmuring to himself, the only word recognizable being sorry. He turned to see a brunette shooting an icy glare at him, he chuckled. "Well, I wouldn't be so hateful if I were you," he remarked moving forward following her 'command'.

As they rode up to the castle he was one of the first to get off. He put his katana back in his scabbard while he leaded his horse elsewhere. Lucas walked back quickly to the group brushing off his coat waiting for Joseph to finish. "I'm Colonel Rogers, one of the kingdom's warriors," he greeted bowing formally. Colonel Rogers, he thought to himself, he had hated being called that.

He shook it off, leading them into the castle to be seated in the room before them. He walked off looking out the window into the gate to see if one of the infected had gathered their way here. We must check for bites immediately, he thought.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Elizabeth Abney ]
[ Lizzie, Ms. Abney ]
Tagged [ Peggy, Louise ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lizzie looked back and grabbed her gun to soon shoot off one of the undead. As they rode up she soon focused on the others that had come, trying to pick out which was which. She had found herself noticing the different weapons around her. Being mid-class she had been raised off of average materials yet these soldiers had much stronger materials.

She rode back to remember that she was with Louise. Her horse being taken by Margaret, a more cold Margaret as she saw her glaring at two men. Lizzie was surprised to see blood across her cheek, disgusted really. She looked back to see a mess of the undead. I guess it really doesn't matter...

She jumped down from the horse to be introduced by the prince and a warrior, who had taken the life of a maid bitten by an undead. She almost wanted to laugh, two men having to introduce themselves right after a battle. They were both rather messy than respectable castle folk. "Hello, I'm Elizabeth Abney. This is my sister Margaret and one of our beloved mistresses Louise," she said still smiling at her thought.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Nathaniel Bryant ]
[ Nathan, 'the Flirt' ]
Tagged [ No one ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nathan sighed, hunting all day finding no such thing. The weather was humid and all he knew was that the infected wanted the prey more than him. He grabbed his bow and laid it across his back, walking to the direction of the castle.

He walked through the back door to see that most of everyone was gone. He soon heard the news that the ladies were in trouble which gave him time to wash up.

[ just quick summary ]

[peppersdots]

❃ nora louise thornton
43 years ⋗ worried ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; all
"mistress nora thornton, but the girls call me lou," she said, dropping into a little curtsey at joseph and lucas' introductions. it was a habit, but she noticed that neither of her girls followed her example. there would be a tongue lashing for that later on. these young men seem decent enough, she thought to herself, looking them over quickly, then back to her girls. elizabeth was ever the perfect lady, dainty and demure, offering a kind introduction, while still bloodied margaret simply corrected her sister in a cutting tone. nora cast a glare at the older girl to reign in her temper, and the brunette ducked her head a little.

"your hospitality is greatly appreciated," she said to the more meek of the two men, joseph. she ignored margaret's comment about killing the maid on the road, feeling a shudder run up and down her spine as she tried to imagine the horrified girl's last few moments. "my two ladies here have had a hard time since their parents were infected, as margaret so poignantly brought out. it is uplifting to meet kindness in the world the way it is now."

the thoughts of the maid invaded her mind again. they hadn't done such things at the abney castle. the infected had been brought inside and when they had died naturally, surrounded by their loved ones, then they were dispatched. not on the road like some half dead, bled out animal, she thought with horror, looking between her girls. but perhaps that is why their parents are gone now. perhaps we were not brutal enough.

☄ margaret barbara abney
26 years ⋗ angry ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; all
she handed the servant the horses reluctantly. "treat them well or you'll not hear the end of it," she said icily, allowing the servant a moment to gulp and nod before turning and following the rest back towards the castle. it's high walls loomed overhead, casting a shadow down on margaret. she hated shadows. the sun was wonderful and warm and inviting. warm summers days like this were made for riding out. but now it was too dangerous.

her attention was brought back by her sister introducing them. "lady margaret abney," she corrected her sister, giving lucas another rather cold glare. "i won't have any aspersions cast upon mine or my sister's true parentage. we know the effects a bite from one of the infected has, all too well. but i must ask, was it necessary to kill our maid Anna then?" she made no move to wipe the blood from her cheek, and earned a disgusted look from elizabeth. she rolled her eyes at it. someday her little sister would have to learn what the world was now.

she could already tell that her and this colonel rogers would be having issues later. this man was clearly detached from the issue at hand, focused only on keeping the uninfected away from the infected. she was afraid, she thought her mind clouding again. so afraid and alone. the image of the girl screaming in the back of the wagon was etched into margaret's memory, just like the sight of her father tied to the bedposts of his bed for fear he might die in his sleep and infect others. she gave a small nod to something said by the other man, joseph, but offered no real response.

♞ joseph james stuart
25 years ⋗ nervous ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; all
"it's a pleasure to meet you ladies," joseph replied, bowing respectfully, making sure to use the correct titles as lady margaret had indicated her want of her family's origins to be known. "i commend you, lady margaret, for holding onto your family's origins. losses tend to make us hold onto whatever we can from our previous lives, don't you agree?" she offered only a curt nod in response and he gave a little sigh, instead turned to their nurse, who had introduced herself as nora.

"if kindness is uplifting, then i should think the whole world ought to be kind right now," he said with a sad little laugh. "but unfortunately, such commodities were rare before so much death and destruction. still we have tried our best here. the courtyard is secure, but i ask that you not go outside without either a guard, miss nora, myself or mister rogers" he followed lucas up the steps into a room with chairs and tables. it was where they would all eat when the guests were settled.

"you'll be shown to your room and checked over, just in case," he said as kindly as he could. he was certain that at least margaret would object. he knew that these ladies were sent here to offer two potential wives, but already he found nothing attractive about a cold killer like her. "then there will be a dinner down here in the dining hall. it won't be a feast, but the best we can offer."

[quit...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Lucas Rogers ]
[ Colonel Rogers, Mr. Rogers ]
Tagged [ All ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucas sighed, he was truthfully mad at himself yet killing her was the only safe thing to do. He looked at Margaret replying with a calm voice, "it's the only thing I could do. She was infected." He looked at her, I'm sorry. Is what he thought, what he thought he should of said. Being as hot-headed as he was he wasn't going to make any attempt.

"You're not the only one who has suffered," he stated. Lucas heard footsteps. Great. He grabbed his katana and placed it in a holder. He wasn't listening to the words said by the mistress or his friend. He was confused yet fascinated by Margaret, he has never seen a female warrior with such attitude. Yet everybody needs to learn elegance and grace and she certainly does not focus on that.

He turned back to see that Nathan was already talking, and talking. Lucas holding a glare walked up to talk to Joseph, slowly pulling him back from the crowd. "Found any interest?" he asked almost chuckling. Joe's father wished for him to marry yet this didn't seem to hold a good start.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Elizabeth Abney ]
[ Lizzie, Ms. Abney ]
Tagged [ All ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lizzie was infuriated, her sister so un-appreciative and just plain rude. She looked down, not making a sound. She felt sorry for the poor maid yet she knew Colonel Rogers did make the right choice. I guess. She soon heard a new voice. "U- Uhm. I'm sorry but I must excuse myself. I will be in my room washing up," she stated, walking away.

She slowly walked up the stairs. Such a great beginning, she rolled her eyes. Lizzie looked around to see the new castle she was brought upon. A maid opened the door showing her new room. Lizzie walked in soon washing her face off.

She quickly got on a new dress and doing her hair, looking in the mirror every once in awhile to fix blemishes. She never had a sister to help with such lady things, Louise helped every so often but it wasn't the same to her. Peggie was never their to Lizzie's point.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Nathaniel Bryant ]
[ Nathan, 'the Flirt' ]
Tagged [ All ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nathan looked to see that the guests had arrived. He walked in soon bowing to the two ladies and their mistress. "Sorry for the trouble, I was out for the evening and couldn't come to help. I'm Nathaniel Bryant," he stated with a small smirk on his face.

The ladies were rather different from each other, speaking of the blood smeared on one of their faces. "Well, I guess it's time for everyone to wash up," he stated. Not the best time to make his jokes.

He turned to one of the maid's asking her to fix-up his horse soon receiving an eye roll. Nathan was careless for his horse yet it's stench wasn't even tolerable for riding. He ignored her lash and walked to the crowd once again. Everyone was rather upset, for unknown reasons. The infected attacking, what's new? They were simply over-reacting to Nathan. He soon began to talk to everyone about his hunting trip and finding no such prey.

[peppersdots]

❃ nora louise thornton
43 years ⋗ worried ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; margaret, lizzie
nora watched elizabeth move off to her room, and margaret exchange a few words with the colonel and this newcomer nathaniel. she didn't like his attitude, and was quite pleased when margaret showed little interest in him. but she wasn't too keen on her talking so closely with lucas either. the man was rough, and she wasn't about to have her margaret marrying anyone that was below her birth. she deserves a man that will understand her, she thought to herself as she watched the brunette leave the room, blood still smeared on her pale cheeks.

she followed after margaret, thinking that the harder girl would need a little more attention than the younger for now. then she would go visit elizabeth. "it's a fine room, he's given you," she said, walking in on the older girl taking off her jacket and over skirts. "wash your face, and don't complain. joseph is practically the last of the royal family, so he's going to be quite the man to know when this all blows over." margaret made a snide remark that nora simply ignored, and moved on to elizabeth's room. she hadn't been to her own yet, but imagined it would be less opulent than the girls'.

"lizzie? are you decent darling?" she inquired softly as she opened the door to see the younger girl already all dressed. nora gave a bitter smile and a nod of the head. "oh i can always count on you to be a proper lady. your sister not so much..." she let her train of thought wander off for a few moments, not wanting to foster ill thoughts of margaret in her sister's head. "but she tries so hard to keep us all safe," she added, moving over to give the girl a warm embrace. "she feels like she's the one that has to answer if you get hurt, now that your parents are gone."

☄ margaret barbara abney
26 years ⋗ put out ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; lucas, nora
margaret listened to the colonel's excuse, nodding her head at it once. "i suppose things are done differently here than at home," she said her head still held high and her tone still level. she was not conceding defeat, but rather viewing things from a different perspective. "perhaps your lack of casualties in this castle states that you have been doing something better. or have simply been lucky. " she turned, watching a new comer introduce himself pompously, joking about the blood smeared on her face. she scowled at him and snorted at his remark dismissively, watching him go.

she turned and began to walk away, stopping when she was at shoulder length from lucas. "i never said that you hadn't suffered," she said quietly, almost apologetically. "to live now, is to suffer. and perhaps i am thankful that you ridded poor anna of her suffering. perhaps not." she continued on to her room, not looking back, although curious as to what his reaction might be. he was a different type of man than joseph. the stuart man, while education and kind and well-mannered, was meek and shy.

margaret thought all these things while walking to her room. it was rather opulently furnished still, and she gave a sigh at the sight of her chests in a corner. hardly a quarter of her entire belongings were in those. but that was what she would live with now. things were different. nora came in to offer what she thought was reassurance. "if this all blows over," she replied, sitting at a vanity table and pulling a bowl of warm water towards herself. she washed the blood off of her cheek and suddenly she looked like her old self again. i will never be that girl again, she told herself, a secret resolution with herself.

♞ joseph james stuart
25 years ⋗ nervous ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; lucas
joseph could hear part of what margaret had said to lucas. he was growing more and more curious of these two young women by the minute. one was a vengeful warrior who was clearly holding something back, the other was a lady, kind and personable. lucas' mood changed with the sound of footfalls, and joseph tried not to appear outwardly disappointed in the arrival of his other guest, nathaniel. "good of you to join us finally," he said in passing, as he blew past lucas and joseph.

with a pull, joseph was over in a corner, speaking with lucas. "interest? which way?" he said with a little forced laugh. "i doubt margaret is interested in anything. besides, she's not exactly my speed. i'm not going to be able to keep up with a girl that can out fight me when it comes to the dead." he glanced up the hallway that both girls and their mistress had walked down, wondering just what those women thought of them after this first meeting.

"you sound like my father anyways," he said, creasing his brows together and smiling at his friend. "but if you have to know, elizabeth is a much more favorable candidate. even though we've only just met one another. you can put the bow down cupid." he knew his friend was only looking out for his best interests, but joseph still couldn't help but feel the pressure to make a good impression and woo one of the sisters. definitely elizabeth, he thought to himself.

[quit...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Lucas Rogers ]
[ Colonel Rogers, Mr. Rogers ]
Tagged [ Joe ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucas looked back at Margaret, he never expected to see a kind, more wise lady in the warrior that stood before him. He didn't know what to say so he shrugged it off and turned to Joseph. He laughed at every few comments, "well.. Your father has been pushy with marriage." He stated plainly feeling sorrow for Joe as if he was forced to love someone.

"I feel like dinner will have a drastic turn," he said changing the subject. He continued with his proposal, "I can't even imagine on what would happen." Lucas almost chuckled at the thought. Either Nathan or Margaret at this point can make things even more worse, of course the whole day hasn't been a good start.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Elizabeth Abney ]
[ Lizzie, Ms. Abney ]
Tagged [ Louise ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elizabeth grabbed a knife and hid it in her dress, it was the only thing her father had taught her, to always carry a weapon. She looked in the mirror smiling to herself. She almost was trying to calm herself to just think properly and act the way she was suppose to act.

She turned around to see Louise. "Well, we're opposites. We've always been opposites," she replied. Lizzie grabbed a brush and started to brush her hair, leaving it down for dinner. "She's not the only one who knows how to protect herself," she stated plainly. Soon stammering on to her point, "we all know how to fight. She just decides to evolve her life around it."

Lizzie shook her head continuing to brush her hair. She soon parted it and fluffed it up, she's not the only one who misses our parents either. She had dearly loved her parents even if she never had equal time with them. She never wanted to openly talk about them ever again, she felt it was unneeded.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Nathaniel Bryant ]
[ Nathan, 'the Flirt' ]
Tagged [ No one ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

getting ready

[peppersdots]

❃ nora louise thornton
43 years ⋗ worried ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; margaret, lizzie
nora felt a little sting at the younger girl's words, as if she thought that nora didn't believe in her. she walked over to the younger girl and placed one hand on either shoulder, giving them a light squeeze. "i know you can dear, but you have to try and understand where your sister is coming from here," she said in a soothing tone. she turned and walked to the door, looking back at the blonde for another moment. "the three of us, we've always been a little family. but now that's all the family we have. and we all want it to stay together."

she walked out of the room, headed for her own. it was close enough that she could be there in time for just about any emergency either girl could get herself into. her room was not as large or handsomely furnished as the girls', but it was enough for nora. there was a sizable window that let in sunlight and a good comfortable bed. her chest was in one corner, and she stripped herself of her travelling clothes slowly. she was getting older. a ride like that would have hardly fazed her when she was young and just married. but she was older now, and after the death of a son, a husband and two masters, not to mention friends and other relatives, nora louise was growing weary.

her gown of choice was a simple dark blue affair, with her husband's coat stitched into the edges of the sleeves. she made her way downstairs, but chose not to go in until one or both of the abney girls showed up. she was not the focus of attention tonight, but rather her girls and making sure that at least one of them was smart enough to create the beginnings of a marriage alliance.

☄ margaret barbara abney
26 years ⋗ calm ⋗ dressing ⋗ tagged; lucas, nora
margaret stared at her reflection for some time. sitting in her nightgown, she watched the sky change colours quickly as it did when the sun set. but it wasn't until she could see a shade of blueish purple that she picked up her brush and ran it over her hair listlessly. a shiver kept coursing over her spine and she told herself that it was only because of the chill from the stone building and the dropping temperature. after a while she sighed and went to pull a dark green gown from her travelling chests.

it was much simpler than the ones they had worn to court. she ran her fingers over the embroidery of one of the bodice hems, thinking of the time she and elizabeth and nora and her mother had stitched them for a festival performance that the two girls were involved in. she managed to lace up the back herself, then tied a tight sash around her waist, hiding the flat belt and holster for her pistols. her father had warned her against being unguarded in this new, harsh world, and she wasn't about to forget lightly. her mother's pearl drops were hung from her ears, forced through the holes that had closed up a bit in the absence of earrings.

she opened the door, letting her hair fall down her back naturally, and walked quietly down to the dining hall. joseph and lucas were talking in a corner and nora had appeared but stood silently in the shadows. the older woman did that quite a bit, and by now the brunette was able to pick her out quite well. instead of interrupt the two men, she made her way over to a window, and watched the courtyard's movements.

♞ joseph james stuart
25 years ⋗ nervous ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; lucas
"the world as we knew has ended and he still thinks of my being married," he said shaking his head. he looked over his shoulder at the sight of some little movement, catching a glimpse of margaret in a much simpler gown than he expected. "look i've got to get changed, so why don't you keep her company for a few minutes?" he said slapping his hand on lucas' shoulder, earning a little grimace from the man. "ah she won't kill you. i think. just a few minutes and i'll be back."

without waiting for an answer to his offer, he turned on the heel of his boot and walked quickly up to the room she had occupied since he was a boy. his clothes were where they had always been, and he changed from dirty riding clothes into something a little more suited to dinner, clean pants and a shirt and a jacket. the two sisters were on his mind. he had read about the concept of yin and yang in china, but he had never thought to see it more clearly evidenced in two people in his entire life.

once he thought he was ready, he headed back down, hesitating just before entering the dining hall. he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to calm the hammering of his heart. he was so nervous. why always so nervous? he thought to himself, half cursing his luck. if william were here i wouldn't be in this fiasco. the memory of his older brother brought a little pang of sadness to his nervousness, but he shook his head and took another deep breath.

[quit...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Lucas Rogers ]
[ Colonel Rogers, Mr. Rogers ]
Tagged [ Joe, Margaret ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucas laughed at Joe's comment, like any lady could scare me. He replied with a small whisper, "wish me luck!" He was still rather messy himself, not cleaning up after the battle. He never really needed to only at the end of everyday. Since his job was only to protect the castle he never really knew when the next surprise would happen.

Soon making his way to Margaret and saying a steady 'hello'. "Are you enjoying the castle?" he asked. Lucas soon spoke again, "we have training yards in the back quarter. I suppose you would enjoy it in some of your spare time." He didn't want to be rude, it was the only thing he knew about her. She would rather spend time training than be cramped up in the huge castle. At least that's what he would do.

Now that he thought about it, from all he knew she could get offended by his words. Yet he already said it and there was no way of taking it back. Margaret had already made it clear that she wasn't the biggest fan of Lucas and even yet Joseph. She's not that bad, he thought reassuring himself.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Elizabeth Abney ]
[ Lizzie, Ms. Abney ]
Tagged [ Louise ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lizzie walked down into the main room gracefully, she was wearing a white lace dress that was quite casual than what she was usually expected to wear. She walked in to see that everyone was talking in their own little groups. She saw Louise standing on her own and decided to walk up to her, feeling slightly sorry for what she said earlier.

"Sorry for the words I said, I've never been in good ties with my sister," she said smoothly. Elizabeth sighed, "I was just upset about the rough beginning." She wanted to talk about her sister's actions but it would be rude and not needful.

She had a small smile on her face, it was more of sympathy than happiness. Louise has always been there for the girls yet sometimes Lizzie thought that she was tired, tired of all the fights and differences. She looked at the corner of her eye to see Nathan. A prince, I guess, she thought. Lizzie didn't really like his boasting from what she heard but he seemed to be charming and nice. She guessed it was the time to learn who he really was.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Nathaniel Bryant ]
[ Nathan, 'the Flirt' ]
Tagged [ No one ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nathan skimmed down to the bottom of the stairs. He was finally ready and was making his way to the main room. He looked in to see that most of the people were here, except for Joseph which didn't bother him at all.

He wondered who to talk to, but honestly Margaret scared him so Elizabeth would be the best choice for now. Nathan put on his 'irresistible' smile and headed toward Lizzie and her mistress.

[peppersdots]

❃ nora louise thornton
43 years ⋗ worried ⋗ watching ⋗ tagged; lizzie
giving a little smile to the younger girl, nora felt a wave of affection for her wash over herself. it was warm and she welcomed it. "i know you and peggy find it hard to get along, you're so different after all," she said in a quiet, soothing voice. lizzie was the more reasonable of the two, and took advice to heart almost always the first time it was given. margaret felt the need to try it her way first, then the way that was less painful. "but either way, you are sisters, and though sisters may fight, they still love one another and protect one another. i had four sisters, believe me."

she gave a little smile that faded quickly at the memory of her family. she constantly thanked whatever powers it was that still watched over them that neither of her parents had to endure this world now. every now and again she had received word from her siblings. her oldest brother had died early in the outbreak, leaving his family in the care of his master. two of her sisters had left for the mainland, hoping that france and spain weren't as affected. she hadn't heard from the rest in a long time, and often wondered what fate had befallen her brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. the drawback of a big family, she thought to herself, watching margaret talk with and nathan head over their way.

"perhaps you ought to go and talk with one of those young men," she suggested, knowing that if it was margaret that she was talking to, the suggestion would be shot down and ridiculed. elizabeth was more reasonable, and more willing to comply to her father's wishes. she would be the one to create the marriage alliance, nora just knew it.

☄ margaret barbara abney
26 years ⋗ calm ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; lucas
at the sound of a voice behind her margaret turned her head to see who it was. lucas stood before her and she gave a little bow of the head in deference as he offered the idea of training in the back quarter. "i suppose that would be a constructive use of my time now," she said with a nod, her gaze still trained on the courtyard below. servants were walking back and forth as if nothing had changed. that was a good sign that the walls were secure. if people can go on as they did before, with no fear of what lurks outside, then things here must be better than they were at home, she thought to herself, holding her hands together in her lap.

"considering all things, i doubt that embroidery and reading of books is any longer a profitable use of time, although my mother seemed to disagree," she stated, still watching the window, but casting a sideways glance at the man beside her as she spoke. she was watching his reactions, curious as to his opinions. these were critical moments, where she might decide what she felt of him. "that's a very interesting weapon, by the way," she added, turning to face him head on now. "that's not from england or the mainland, is it?" she wondered for a moment how visible her pistol's holsters were under the tied sash.

she looked up, having head joseph's voice mention that dinner was ready. she gave a little sigh and bowed her head to lucas, waiting for him to leave first. it was something that nora had taught her. besides she wasn't sure where she was sitting and surely nora and elizabeth would point out her seat to her as they arrived.

♞ joseph james stuart
25 years ⋗ nervous ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; nathan, all
walking into the room, he spotted nathan making a beeline for elizabeth and nora. he creased his brows together and walked towards the other man, grabbing him lightly by the arm as he did so. "i hope i don't have to remind you that our guests deserve the utmost respect," he said in a low tone that he was hopeful only he and nathan could hear. there was something of a grunt in reply from the other man and he let go, casting a glance over his shoulder as he watched him continue towards his quarry.

joseph took a moment to survey the room. the older sister margaret was talking with lucas once again. i'll have to bother him about her later, he thought with a mischievous smile. again his thoughts went to his brother. perhaps the reason why he was so close with lucas already was that he was reminded of william. both men were bolder, braver and sharper of wit than joseph, who preferred to be a simple observer in most things.

a kitchen servant appeared beside him, to let him know that dinner was ready to be served. he thanked her, and turned to the room. "dinner is ready, why don't we take our seats?" he said in a loud enough voice that all could hear. he gave a little smile and strode into the dining room, taking his seat at the head of the table. all the great men of his family had sat in that chair at the head of that long table, which tonight had only six places set. he felt the pressures of being the stuart heir pushing him down once again, making it hard to breath.

[quit...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Lucas Rogers ]
[ Colonel Rogers, Mr. Rogers ]
Tagged [ All ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lucas nodded his head, she was calm and inviting this way. Either way she appealed to Lucas. After having four younger sisters he had never seen a personality like hers. "Well, embroidery I cannot speak of from my point of view," he said with a slight chuckle beneath it. Lucas continued, "reading teaches us something. I suppose learning fighting techniques and languages from a simple book is not what your speaking of, but a storyline can give you a slight act of character."

He certainly did not read any books other than the ones he was required to. He remembers stories as a kid at least, it gave him different characters to choose from. Lucas looked down to see that his katana was held in his belt. "It's from Japan. I got it at the end of my training," he replied.

He looked back up at Margaret, "it's called a katana, I'm guessing you've never really heard of it?" Lucas said almost questioning the end but was soon interrupted by Joseph. He shared a smile with her and walked off to the dining room. He sat next to Joe soon regretting his decision, he thought it would be better for a lady to share a word with him. One seat left, he thought hoping that Nathan wouldn't be stealing the chance.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Elizabeth Abney ]
[ Lizzie, Ms. Abney ]
Tagged [ All ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lizzie nodded to Louise's statement. "I suppose it's just what siblings do," she replied. She walked up to dinner table and kindly taking a sit next to Joseph, happy to see that her sister would be sitting next to her.

She greeted both Lucas and Joseph. "I'd just wanted to thank you for what you have given us already," she said politely. Lizzie was happy she had finally been taken somewhere safe to somehow forget about the past. Yet her family will hold on to her forever, she at least still had her sister left and even Louise is like a mother to her.

She skimmed around the table, observing the maids around her. They were probably nervous about what we would think of the food or the arrival of the special guests. She didn't like all the attention but she would have to get used to it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Nathaniel Bryant ]
[ Nathan, 'the Flirt' ]
Tagged [ All, Louise ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nathan sighed, his chance gone. He could at least sit by her at dinner. Before he could finish his thought he was interrupted. "Of course," he replied in a low tone. He walked towards the dinner table being kicked to the end which Nathan didn't mind. He could talk, he knew that.

He saw that the ladies mistress would be sitting in front of him. He greeted her with a nice smile. Nathan was always known for his jokes and flirting but he still had his manners being raised in a castle. "Have you had a look around the castle?" he asked her trying to make small talk.

[peppersdots]

❃ nora louise thornton
43 years ⋗ worried ⋗ watching ⋗ tagged; nathan
nora took a seat at the end of the set places, not wanting to interfere with any conversation. she was beside her girls and across from nathan, and was slightly shocked when he asked her if she had yet seen the castle and it's grounds. "not as of yet," she said politely, pulling the napkin that had been laid on her plates, unfolding it and placing it on her lap over her dress. "there was an... incident on the road. we lost one of the maids. we're all still trying to get over it."

there was a little snort from margaret, and nora could tell that her word choice had not been to the brunette's liking. when will she learn that getting over people and things that happened to them doesn't mean forgetting them? she wondered with a little resigned sigh, before turning her attention away from margaret and back to nathan.

"i'm sure we'll all be quite curious about the grounds after a good night's rest," she said with a smile as servants brought out two large serving bowls of soups. nora filled her bowl with the one closest to her, not wanting to make the servants shuffle around the options just for her. besides, she was used to eating whatever she was given. it had potatoes and what she thought was beef, but it was good enough for the day they had, and better than what they had at the abney castle.

☄ margaret barbara abney
26 years ⋗ calm ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; lucas
"heard of," she replied, looking down at the weapon briefly, before turning to follow him into the dining hall. "i'd read descriptions of them. but i've never gotten to see one in real life, let alone in battle. my father insisted on a well rounded library, with books on many strange countries i've only ever dreamt of seeing. i have grown disillusioned of hearing of wonderful places i can't see." the last few words were directed at her previous remark about the usefulness of reading. she no longer saw it's application as a positive influence in her life.

she strode into the dining hall behind lucas, sitting between elizabeth and nora, opposite lucas. she followed nora's example and began to place her napkin on her lap. hearing nora's description of anna's death as something to be gotten over, the girl let out a derisive snort, knowing that she might get a scolding for it afterwards, but it was clear enough to everyone but nathan that sh ehad been close to the maid.

soups were placed in front of them, and margaret found herself surprised that they were still able to serve courses here. "you must be doing well if you can still allow a dinner with courses," she mused aloud, ladling the hot liquid into her bowl, letting the steam wash over her face. joseph offered some response that she nodded at, mostly enthralled at the idea of eating hot food again. on the road it had been poorly cooked game over a fire that they all huddled around. if nora did not expect her to make a good impression, margaret would have been drinking right from the bowl.

♞ joseph james stuart
25 years ⋗ nervous ⋗ talking ⋗ tagged; all
joseph watched, a little uncomfortably, as nathaniel engaged nora in conversation. she was a matron, old enough to be his mother, and he hoped that he would remember that. when he spoke of seeing the castle grounds, the older woman replied that she hadn't had a chance, telling him of the attack on the road. maybe that will cool him off a tad, he thought to himself, getting a bowl of the nearest soup after the ladies had each taken their fill.

"if you would like, tomorrow, we three could take you all on a little tour of the grounds," he offered blowing lightly on a spoonful of soup before putting it in his mouth and swallowing before speaking again. "you really ought to become familiar with them if you're to spend any matter of time here." he knew that the castle's layout wasn't exactly the most forgiving, and the girls and their mistress would benefit from the little tour.

he turned to address margaret's calculatedly polite inquiry. "we have hunting parties that go out to catch game, plus cows, chickens and pigs that live within the walls," he replied putting down his spoon as he did so. "the back quarter by the archery targets and stables have been harrowed and crops grow there. the walls are quite secure we've found." he could tell he had lost her interest, but the others would want to know he was sure.