Who: Maggie Swinton & Bedelia “Biddie” Linden What: Explanations When: 20 January 1889 (backdated waaaay back during this) Where: The Black Park London Home Rating: Low
Perhaps it was easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission - for some. In her own affairs, Biddie had always found it preferable to offer explanation before accusation. Sometimes she was even sincere about it.
She tried to feel sincere now. Eden was a bother, but Maggie was a friend; Biddie had no desire to sacrifice their camaraderie for the sake of the Black pack's newest pet.
(And double damn the skinny stray for attracting the patronage he did. What was it about the runty watchman that attracted people so - and why did it have to such damnably well-appointed people to boot?)
"I'm perfect willing to apologize about poking Eden," Biddie said once she and Maggie were alone (and hopefully out of hearing range). "...on the condition you don't ask me to do it to anyone outside of this room. The little man is a menace.”
Maggie stared cooly at her friend with no little annoyance. Biddie had caused a scene (albeit minor) and completely changed the otherwise festive mood at the demonstration party. “That wasn’t just poking Biddie, that was a veiled threat if I ever heard one. Bertie has been a loyal ally of the Black Pack for longer than I’ve been a wolf.” It was stretching things just a bit but from her conversations with Lucien the inspector had always tried to do right by the pack, even when it was difficult for him personally. That demanded a little loyalty in return.
“I’d appreciate an explanation. You call him a menace, he seems harmless enough to me.” Bumbling even.
How very Lady of the Manor, Biddie reflected dryly. But it was to be expected, of course; Maggie’s marriage was always going to be a game changer.
“It’s not like I tried to eviscerate him with the sugar tongs,” Biddie said. She took a seat on one of the room’s obligingly chubby armchairs. Elbow on chair arm and chin on fist, she gave her friend a look of frank consideration.
“Do you know what Eden does?” Biddie asked. “And I don’t mean any of that puppish business with the Night Watch. Are you familiar with his special talent?”
“I am, yes.” Maggie responded, still hurt that her friend would threaten someone in her home, threaten another guest right in front of her. She knew the other woman had her own agenda and was running a major airship company, but she would have thought Biddie had more self control than that. “His talent is how he proved himself to the pack. What does that have to do his being a-” she raised her hands and actually made air quotes “‘Menace’?”
How, oh how, to field this...Much as she wanted to, Biddie couldn't simply say he talks to people he shouldn't. Even if that was accurate. Nor she could switch over to the professional side by moaning that if worrying about arson and her cotton supplier being blackmailed by Parisians wasn't enough, now there was someone eavesdropping on the dead. Her dead. Maggie was railroad stock; she'd understand that Eden's "parlor trick" posed security risks MPC (or anyone else) wasn't equipped to deal with. But on the other hand, she could counter by vouching for Eden’s - agh - moral standing. Or whatever it was that had landed the buck into the Black pack's protection.
So, corporate reasoning was out.
Might as well try the truth then...or a passable version of such.
"He doesn't know what he's doing," Biddie said. "I've had front row seating to Eden's performance a couple times now and, God note it, that fella is green. Talented, special even, but ultimately he seems to understand the nature of his gift about as well as cats do geology."
The blond shook her head, looking thoughtful and a touch exasperated. "What he's got, Maggie, it's kin to the dead. That's necromancy, cold and plain. And a raw, untrained necromancer is the last thing I need around myself or my people right now. It’s the last thing London needs. Eden may have good intentions - hell, he may have the lovin’ heart of the risen lamb, but mark my words, Maggie; the boy is trouble. Talent only goes so far."
“That still doesn’t explain you threatening him in my home.” Maggie rebutted, her own exasperation clear. Biddie was a friend and she thought she understood what made the woman tick, but her reaction to Bertie was making her reconsider. “Or why you didn’t simply ban him from MPC property. Trouble or not, I don’t understand why you’re acting this way.”
Biddie was momentarily tempted to quip what way but that’d be woefully petty even by her standards. (At least around Maggie.)
"It's not as if I tried stabbing him with the dessert spoon," Biddie said. Especially while there was still dessert to be eaten. "He...discomforts me. I was discomforted. But." She held up both gloved hands in open surrender. "It was discourteous to tease the boy in your home, and I apologize for the disturbance. Truly, Maggie, I do."
“Apology accepted.” Maggie replied promptly at Biddie’s apology, letting the matter of teasing drop. It had seemed a good deal more than teasing, but her friend had apologized and offered at least a partial explanation and that was good enough. She let herself relax and smiled in relief, being cross with Biddie wasn’t something she’d wanted.
"What in the world are you planning to do with him anyway?" Biddie said after a moment. Curiosity lightened her expression. “He’s not - are you considering having him...altered?”
Upon reflection the idea was actually very appealing. As a werewolf Eden would be even further beyond Biddie’s reach, but that didn’t matter because he’d be a ruddy werewolf. Werewolves, in Biddie’s magical experience, didn’t find their way into necromancy spells uninvited. And inborn talents seldom survived the carrier changing species. (Just as well, too: who needed vampire witches littering the countryside with their wards?)
Suddenly the idea of Eden in the Black Pack was positively uplifting.
“I’m honestly not sure.” Maggie shook her head. She knew it had been discussed theoretically at least once, but beyond that? “He’s proven himself to be a loyal ally to the pack, and to Lucien personally. Whether the Pack would accept him as one of us? That I can’t say. I’m still new at this myself.”
"All the more reason to appreciate how well you've handled the transition. Especially considering the...nature of the impedius behind the change," Biddie said delicately. "Some people spend years in pieces after a change. You, on the other hand, not only recovered but have thrived. You've a partner of rank and worth - who you seem to genuinely love - one of the premier organizations in England to grant protection and purpose, and an enviably irreprochable position in Society. Love, purpose, and security."
"As my cousin would say," Biddie smiled. "Green is the most promising color in the world."
Maggie's smile faltered for a moment but came back, remembering both the trauma and the healing that came after it. “I did go to pieces that first few weeks after the attack, my entire world had been shattered. I had every intention of just...drifting off,” she replied quietly. “but there was someone who refused to let me do that, who helped me to heal and adjust.”
“Fortunately Lucien can be a very stubborn man when he puts his mind to something.” Her smile was more natural now. “It was right under our noses the entire time and we didn’t even realize it until last year.” She couldn’t really explain what it was like being mated as opposed to simply married, the closest she could put into words was as if each completed the other with the missing piece of their soul they hadn’t realized was absent until it was found.
“I’m quite lucky, and I realize it.”
Biddie's face was perfectly still while Maggie spoke. At the lucky, her expression came awake again; she flinched.
"I think," she said slowly, rising and stepping forward to take one of Maggie's hands into both of hers, "that your fortune is very much the result of your nature. And I think Lucien is most lucky himself to have found his way to you."
We are none so well made as to do without each other. The thought felt second-hand, but Biddie couldn't quite bring up the face that went with the words. The piteous Dr. Treillefer perhaps. God knew, the man had an unhealthy appetite for aphorisms.
"Well, then." Biddie gave Maggie's hand a small - and very careful - squeeze, and let go. "Having confessed to the dire error of my ways regarding poor, skinny Mr. Eden, am I allowed back in gracious company? By which, of course, I mean somewhere near the ices. And honey cake. I harbor strong hopes for honey cake."