#callum001

[It’s not often that Cambie gets to bake, with supplies being unreliable and low, but when she does it feels like therapy. The dough rolls out beneath her palms, sticky and soft, and she can picture in the dough all of her worldly worries, kneading them away. It feels a bit cheeky making doughnuts, with all of the oil they required, but oil is always reusable for other fried foods, or cooking, or anything, really. So she pops them in the pan, rolls them in sugar, and pipes them full of vanilla custard - of which there had been several tins gathering dust for some time now.

And she knows just what to do with her doughnuts. She’s not sure if she’d call Wes a friend, or a confidante, but she’s long been swinging by his office for chats, and often eating the doughnuts he always manages to keep in stock. It feels right to replenish his supplies when she can. Something in his cheeky manner made him easy to talk to; he lacked the clinical strictures of most doctors, but kept all of the education and people skills.

Well, the ‘people skills’ part was debatable. Wes isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but he is Cambie’s - she always preferred her tea dark and bitter, anyway. Nudging his door open with her hip, Cambie lays the plate of doughnuts on his desk.] Delivery from Santa’s workshop. What do you think - is it unhealthy that we’re still doing Christmas in desperate times, or is it good to pretend like everything’s normal sometimes, for morale’s sake? I tend to err on the side of morale, but... nothing’s black and white, is it?

[She has to wonder sometimes. Christmas often brings out the best in people, and she does love the way it brings everyone together if only for a day, but is it really fair? When you pretend everything is candycanes and pinecones for a day, the return to reality afterwards tastes so bitter. Cambie may be a relentless optimist, but she’s also a realist. In the long term, she sometimes feels like clinging to old traditions might be hurting them more than helping them. She wants to see people smile, but she’s also seen the weight of their frowns as the magic melts away as snow come Boxing Day, when reality sets back in.]

Diana Blair was of the opinion that a ship at sea was a perfectly terrible place to have a party, and that an elopement was a perfectly ridiculous way to marry, but she was here anyway, celebrating an elopement on a ship at sea. It was a necessary sacrifice to be a member of the ton, to take full advantage of the opportunity that Josephine had given her. Although it was hard to take advantage of anything for the first half hour as she familiarized herself with the sway and swell of the deck. She spent the time watching a handful of over eager couples stumble their way through dance sets, with varying levels of success. The sight inspired Diana and, once she trusted her legs to keep her steady, she set off in search of Callum Sinclair.

They had first become acquainted in the final years of the war, when they were both helping to rehabilitate injured war horses for her majesty’s army. It had been the best way either of them could contribute. Now, Callum was making his debut despite being too old for such a thing, much like Diana, but, unlike her, he seemed ill equipped to do so. She’d offered her assistance in a number of areas, but most relevant at this moment was dancing. 

Callum was exactly where Diana expected him to be, at the edge of things, as if he were trying to hide. She curtsied when she reached him, ever the demure debutant. “My lord, I believe you promised me a dance.” Of course he’d done no such thing, but it was the best way to convey that it was time for him to practice what she’d been teaching him without saying it outright.