vor | Luceti Appointments

Please tag each post appropriately with the date, time of day, and action/voice/video.

She, too, had something of an impressed colouring. As she deposited the newer bag against the wall, Buffy turned and took in the space.

"Man. Sometimes I wish I had the room to do something like this at my place..."

He shrugs. "Advantage of living alone."

Oh, she wasn't certain she could ever manage living alone. Far too solitary. And she had no concept of how Jack might have been able to do it for so long...

"Meanwhile, I live with three other people. Four if you count a current refugee. Used to be five of us in the house but..."

A shrug. He knew what Luceti was like by now, certainly.

He nods. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged. Hollom had always kept to herself; she couldn't be sure what he'd gone back to. She hoped it was something good, though.

"Mostly? We don't eat as well as we used to. But, uh, you're actually still living solo here?"

Curious. Her investigative nature was not well hidden.

"Yes." He hesitates. "Well, mostly. Ivan moved in two doors down."

He knows she met Ivan.

"So...you two -- you know each other?"

"Grew up together."

He's not sure he feels safe mentioning, in a Malnosso-built building, that Ivan is pretty much his heir.

"...Oh. Fancy that. I kinda went out of my way to not go name-dropping you, what with your whole alias fiasco. But it sounds like it's totally okay for me to own up to knowing you? 'Cause that'd really be great.

I generally suck at undercover."

"He already knows you know. I told him."

"...Huh. Fancy that."

She bought herself some time to chew over this fact by dipping into some teasing: "You told him good things, I hope."

"I told him you're from the twenty-first century. He's having an interesting time with that."

"You know, it's rare that I find myself on the ancient history side of the time divide. So it's fair to say that I'm having an interesting time with it, too."

Sometimes, it made her miss Bones.

"How is he settling?"

"Considering he tried to pick you up within hours of arriving? Pretty well."

Said like she still didn't believe Ivan had been genuinely trying to pickh her up: "Okay. Either he's very talkative or you're very...observant."

It wast the polite way to say nosy, really. After all, she was fairly nosy herself.

"That, or I just know him."

She began picking at the less-than-decent punching bag. Critically examining its seams, eyeing its hook.

"Kind of a Casanova, huh?"

"He'd like to be. I think his method tends more toward 'ask enough women and one is bound to say yes,' though."

She glanced across the room at him -- eyebrows up.

"Gee, suddenly I feel a whole lot less flattered by his attentions." Which was probably a good thing, in the end.

"I didn't mean he doesn't have taste. You're a beautiful girl."

"And now I think I feel a little too flattered."

Wow. Flushed in the face, she sought out a distraction in dismantling the old punching bag.

"Why don't you, uhm -- why don't you tell me about those classes you apparently take every year? So I know how hard I shouldn't hit you."

"I'm the Emperor of Barrayar. They teach me to survive."

Survival. She found her smile and lowered the punching bag to the floor, knocking it back against the wall with a well-forced heel.

"If I asked you to hit me with your best shot, would you?"

"Probably not." She's still a woman. And tiny. Drou is taller than he is.

"...Even if I told you that I'm fairly certain -- barring any surprises -- you can't hurt me? Not with your fists, at least. But we can stick to the bag for now, I suppose."

She crossed back over to the new one.