Not Quite At Home [Closed]

[Travesty]

Darcy chuckled. It seemed like his new friend was finally ready to sheath her fangs and begin a more benign string of questions. “Not particularly,” he replied honestly, nudging one of the fallen lemons with a paw. “They’re too sour for me, but what about you? Feel free to take a few, if you’d like.” His heavy tail twitched with bemusement. “I’m more fond of the apples; some of them can get as big as your two fists together,” he said proudly, addressing Haret. “Everything we plant thrives in this climate.”

He observed the Torque and Kami through slanted eyes, intrigued. “I hate to be presumptuous, but what brings you to Villa? It’s so rare to meet Cards not of this realm here, and it gets frighteningly dull to see the same people over and over again.” He gave an exasperated sigh, thinking of the parties his parents threw every month, always full of the same faces. “That’s why I travel so often myself.” To escape this assimilation, beautiful though the inhabitants were.

[seraaches]

Kami gave a small shrug in answer to the question of her like of lemons. "They're fine in somethings," the girl answered in a still off-hand manner. "Obviously like lemonade. And some pies. But apples are better." This last was said in agreement to Darcy's statement. "The stuff you make with them are so much better than with lemons. Maybe you should replace your lemon trees with apple trees." Again, these opinions were announced without a real interest in them other than the obvious fact that she was correct in everything she said.

Haret glanced down at the boy in surprise at his statement-- though not his question-- and wondered at how such a young child could be allowed to travel alone. Of course, he probably wasn't nearly as young as she thought, then. "I'm here on a familial visit." She rather wanted to ask where all he had gone, but, as usual, felt too constrained to do so.

[Travesty]

“Lemon trees grow easier on the rocky cliffs. We used to grown mainly apples but they toppled over easily down into Corvistowne,” he explained. One of his distinct memories from infanthood was watching an apple tree collapse in on itself. He never would admit it, but for some reason it had been incredibly frightening to witness.

He turned to face Haret, finding relief in the fact she would babble like her companion. “Oh, of course." It was the most plausible reason. "Are you two related?” He asked, motioning towards Kami. They didn’t look it, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Mattea was after all a weasel like their mother, while Antoinette was pure canine. He, naturally, fell somewhere in the middle. “Do you normally live in Torquehelm? I’ve heard that it’s depressing there, is that true?” He questioned, for once his childlike insensitivity shining through. He had deduced long ago that it wasn’t a place worth visiting; the Cards were too peculiar and the environment too ugly.

[seraaches]

Kami stared at Darcy in surprise for a moment then-- perhaps shockingly-- burst out laughing. The idea of trees falling off of cliffs was just too funny for words! Her feet stopped briefly she was laughing so hard. Haret stared at her granddaughter and the disapproval was back again. The two-tailed fox was laughing too hard, however, to take note.

The Torque sighed as she gave up on trying to make Kamaria behave and instead tried to focus on the boy and answer his questions. She was hardly surprised by the questions, actually; she ran into quite a bit of bias against her home region. "Kamaria is my granddaughter. We live in the Capital City now." She paused to think about the last question; she knew the answer to the question through the eyes of residents from other regions, but she didn't agree with it. The woman finally settled on a compromise. "Many people find it depressing, but residents from there do not."

[Travesty]

ooc: Thank you for putting up with my absence. ^^;

Darcy found himself smiling at her peculiar outburst; laughter, unless it belonged to one of his sisters, wasn’t commonly heard around the estate. He liked the sound, even though he had no idea what was so hilarious. “My sisters and I would watch them tumble, it was rather frightening when I was little.” Mostly because the loss had made his parents so angry – but he was well beyond those old feelings of fear.

“Yes, that’s probably better isn’t it…” he stated bluntly. The mixed breed's visits to the Capital City had never been anything but boring, but Darcy couldn’t imagine living there was any worse than living in Torquehelm. “I see.” Not really. In his opinion, the Cards who inhabited that dull place probably just didn’t know any better. “But what about Torques who get free from their bindings? Don’t they want to move away?” He was in a curious mood.

Even so, as a Villa he should know better than to forget his manners. "Forgive me, that was rude," he apologized swiftly. "Have you been traveling long? I could fetch refreshments for you." That was better, wasn't it? He didn't really care if he offended them, especially the bound-up Torque, but if they went away he'd be left with only his family and the servants for company, like always. Better to keep them around for a while.

[seraaches]

Kami was still trying to recover from her chortles and finally had to take some very deep breaths to get herself back under control. She finally picked up on Darcy's tone towards her grandmother and now her saucy side was coming back out.

"Torquehelm is a fine place!" She put in stridently. "Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't still a great place!" She flicked her two tails imperiously as Haret looked down at them with a slightly distraught expression.

As an unfreed Torque, perhaps she didn't have the best explanation for the freed ones. Despite this, she was willing to try to explain, but Kamaria had the figurative bit between her teeth.

"And, in any case, the Capital can be a plenty dangerous place to live if you don't know what you're doing there!" She nodded knowingly. "And yes, we certainly want something to eat and drink. We've been travelling for days."

[Travesty]

Well, she was starting to get irritating.

“I don’t think you really understand either,” he said, mocking her tone lightly. “No offense, but feel that’s a place you need to be born into to understand.” He paused thoughtfully before turning to Haret. “That sounded bad, didn’t it? It’s just different when you’re bound – at least I figured it would be.” He didn’t particularly wish to be spoken down to by a little girl with two tails, Villa or not.

“…Okay,” Darcy replied. He had no idea what she was talking about or where that came from. He assumed that the Capital City could be dangerous, but not in the areas that he would frequent, and not in the daytime. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind next time I visit.”

“Of course,” he purred, flicking his gaze towards the manor. “If you’d just follow me, it’s not very far.” Now he was nothing if not the courteous gentleman, more than happy to oblige.

[seraaches]

Kamaria bristled when he spoke condescendingly towards her and her tails began to lash in further agitation but Haret quickly stepped in.

"Kamaria is not completely unaware of the truths of Torquehelm," the woman said kindly, trying to ease the tension between the two young Cards. "She may not be bound, but she has long shown an interest in helping us lift our curse." She reached out a hand to touch her eldest granddaughter's face fondly.

Kami tossed her mostly white head, but seemed willing to be appeased by the flattery. Haret hesitated before continuing in her explanation; she didn't really like to talk a great deal, but this seemed important. "Living in the Capital isn't easier than in Torquehelm; many people are biased against us. It's difficult to explain our bindings, but they are the only way we can lift the curse from our region."

"It's not as gloomy as people say," Kami put in, a bit more subdued now. "And, besides, you're a lot more likely to get killed in the Capital."

The two Cards would follow Darcy as he lead the way, hopefully with the relationship patched, new as it was.

[Travesty]

Darcy was bored with this vein of conversation. Bindings and Torquehelm curses were all very curious for a moment; not only was he a child but he also possessed a capricious nature that could never hold interest in any subject for long. The only true exception to this was music, a passion he knew he’d never outgrow.

Many people are biased against us. That included his family, without a doubt. Villas valued beauty and creativity, something most Torques generally seemed to lack. Haret, and Kamaria by association, would not be welcomed to the house with opened arms, which was naturally why was leading them there. Anything to stir up trouble with his lovely relations.

“Of course,” he replied to Kamaria breezily as they made their way through the lemon trees. Once they were over the hill the estate would be in plain sight, hopefully his sisters were still around. "My experiences in the Capital haven't been nearly as exciting," he added as an afterthought.

[seraaches]

"That's a good thing for you," the Torquehelm woman said quietly as they followed the boy. She didn't like the idea of this-- or any, really-- young man wandering around the Capital alone. She couldn't imagine why his family would allow such a thing, though she also wouldn't feel she had any right to point this out to anyone. Surely his family was aware of his activities, after all and surely they would provide him with some type of protection.

"It's not too terribly bad," Kamaria put in instead of supporting her grandmother's estimation of the Capital. "'Tra and I saw this one guy get mugged and he would have been stabbed, but these guard-types came swarming out of nowhere and arrested him before he could kill him."

"Kamaria!" Haret was shocked out of her lassitude, staring at her granddaughter in shock.

The fox dropped her head, tails twitching. "We weren't in any danger! I swear!"