Miss Celerity Warrington (celerity) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2009-04-10 13:44:00 |
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Current mood: | angry |
Thursday evening, 17 September 1942, in the Great Hall of the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Celerity Warrington watched Alma Greengrass and Miranda Haskell walking off, together, toward the chaplain and the gathering of people who were praying with St Hilda’s, and she shook her head. She didn’t believe in a God who saved you from terrible things just because you asked Him to. It hadn’t worked for her, and she supposed the enemy were praying, too, and if it all came down to who prayed the hardest, who flattered the Lord the most, well, then that made God just like her grandfather, or worse, like her father, and she might be able to fear such a God, but she couldn’t ever respect him.
Celerity was surprised to see that Cassilda Campion was not with her friends at prayer; Emelia Peachtree and Sylvia Beecham were there in the midst of it, and Cassie was sitting alone. Celerity felt alone, sitting with girls like Dimity Ducas and Colette Saint-Germain. She got up, ignoring their stares, and strode across the hall toward Cassie. “Cassie,” she said, “Cassie, are you..?”
Cassie looked at Celerity, pale but resolute. “I only wish I were out there, defending,” she said firmly, and her voice shook a little but the tone was still steady.
“Of course you do,” said Celerity, sitting down beside her and smoothing her skirts, “but that’s a battle for artificers and arithmancers. I heard that foreign professor and his girlfriend, talking to Colette and Dylan at tea, and they’re doing something, so’s Addie Kyteler...that’s why he’s not in here lecturing us. Which would be better than doing nothing, I suppose.”
Cassie smiled thinly, and moved to make room for Celerity. “I’m told praying is the thing,” she said. But she hadn’t done so.
“I’ve never been able to stop any horrible thing from happening yet by praying about it,” said Celerity with a shrug. “Let’s just hope the Armoricans’ work is better than their morals are said to be.”
“I’ve never been able to stop any horrible thing from happening by having good morals,” Cassie said. “Maybe it is time for the bad.”
Celerity smiled at her wryly. “We’re in very good hands then, according to Colette Saint-Germain. And I suppose if anyone would know bad morals it would be Colette.” She smiled. “She’s quite the connoisseur. Or is it connoiseuse? My French is terrible.”
Cassie was about to tell her, but then shrugged. “I hate not being able to do anything,” she said again.
“It’s dreadful,” Celerity agreed. “Last year I’d have been sitting around leading prayers and the like, but they made Thea prefect, not me, and she’s walking around with her flintlocks on. As if that will stop lightning, but it probably does make her feel better.”
“You do have to be a Flint to be a prefect in Avalon these days, don’t you?” Cassie mused. “I don’t have my swords, but I suppose it might help.”
“I suppose you do,” said Celerity, “unless you’re a Leffoy.” She sighed. “I doubt they’d let you get them, more’s the pity.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Cassie said. She took a breath to steady herself. “You’re not thinking of taking up fencing?”
“No,” said Celerity, “do you think I should? I never thought I would be good at it. But I suppose there’s no reason I couldn’t be. James is, and he’s my brother.”
“Well, it gives you something to do with your hands,” Cassie said. “In times of emergency, and if your friends have remembered to bring their swords down, rather than their Bibles.” She tapped the unopened book in front of her.
“Are Sylvia and Emelia praying? I suppose they would be,” said Celerity, glancing at Cassie’s other friends. “Alma and Miranda are. I didn’t want to bother them with all my doubts.”
“Mmm,” Cassie said. “Well, you never do know. But saving us here tonight isn’t even what I would ask of God, so.”
“You’d ask for Robbie back,” said Celerity softly. “Can’t say as I blame you. I used to wish James could be more like him.”
“I’d ask that he’d never been gone,” Cassie said slowly.
“Even better,” said Celerity. “If he’d never been gone then they’d all still be here I suppose.”
Cassie made an abrupt movement. “It’s not worth thinking about,” she said. “Sorry. I know I was the one who brought it up. Anyway, I’m not going to pray when the one thing everyone wants is the one damned thing we’re never supposed to ask for.” She leant on the ‘damned’, the type of word she would never have been heard to say the previous year.
“What do you mean?” Celerity asked softly. “We’re not supposed to ask to survive?”
“We’re not supposed to ask for anyone back, who doesn’t,” Cassie said grimly.
Celerity shrugged. “I’ve never understood why you can’t ask for any damned thing you want. It’s not like He’s got to deliver. It’s not like He does.”
“Indeed,” Cassie said. “So, we’re not praying, and I can’t imagine that Miss Flint will let us learn pistol duelling tonight, so, what are we doing?”
Celerity shrugged. “Did you ever learn to play whist? People are drinking, in Avalon, but I wish they wouldn’t, it will be hell if we all have to pack up and move to some other part of the castle or they get the trains here tonight after all.”
“I don’t know it, no,” Cassie said. “But since it isn’t a night for drinking, and if all the duellists are drinking it’s not a night for duels, I am happy to learn.”
“That’s right, you didn’t play cards before either,” Celerity said with a grin. “We’ll need two more, when I’ve taught you the rules. I’m sure we can manage that though.”
“I was going to say Addie,” Cassie said, “But she’s outside. God help her, if He’s going to help anyone, I suppose. Hadrian? Or is he leading the drinking?”
“Hadrian and Endymion are with Popescu and the Transylvanians trying to find the people who haven’t shown up,” Celerity said with a shrug. “But there’s James. And Cordelia, if we can pry her out of the Talmud. I doubt she’ll find more answers there than we have in King James.”
“Better than drinking,” Cassie said with a surprised nod. “All right.”
“All right then. Perhaps my brother’s light-o’ love will have got tired of praying by the time I’ve got you taught the rules.” Celerity grinned. “Thea is so horrified that I’ve decided to make friends with Cordelia. But she’s not going away, I don’t think, and my mother loathes her. I’m just surprised she went and got religion, and even more surprised that it was that one. Who knew they’d recruit?”
“Not I,” Cassie said. “If you need more friends who your mother disapproves of, I could always see if her religion is better than mine.”
“It’s not Cordelia’s religion that Mother disapproves of, it’s her bloodlines,” Celerity said with a grin. “But we could see if Rachel Zeller wants to convert you too. They’re trying to get the Armorican girl, but I think it’s obvious why her, and they always have gone after Dylan Vieira, I used to wonder if Daniel liked him or something.”
“Isn’t he Miss Hawkwood’s cousin?” Cassie asked.
“He is,” said Celerity after a moment. “On the Iberian side. No, Lusitanian: he’s rather adamant about that, because of course you know the Iberians hate us, and I guess the Lusitanians don’t, although I don’t know why.”
Cassie shrugged. “So what do I need to know, to risk my morals or my soul to win at whist?” she asked.
Celerity took a deck of cards out of her bag. “This is why I’m awful at Tarot, you know; I can’t take cards seriously as the voice of the divine. But you know all the suits and the numbers. Aces are high, we draw for partners, and you don’t comment about your cards or signal your partner, unless of course you’re Dashwood and I’d really quite like to know how he does it because that’s cheating. The final card determines trumps...” Celerity smiled as she continued explaining, because Cassie always had caught on to things quickly.
Cassie pulled out a few cards and talked her way through a hand. “Correct?” she asked Celerity.
“Very good,” said Celerity. “Better than Cordelia, her first time. Which was sometime this week I understand; I might insist that you and I are partners, and let her play with James if she’s playing. Or we could play with Vieira and Mablin, but Vieira is almost as bad as Dashwood for picking up on things you don’t say.”
“Let’s see who is around,” Cassie said. “And able.” She stood up, and left her Bible sitting at the table.
ladyduellist and celerity