I couldn’t decide which one so unfortunately you must suffer the four women currently taking turns piloting my brain.

Typical of Vissenta to propose him a challenge when he's in the middle of something important. Work, reading, music practice, studying, the bliss of solitude, you name it. When they were children, it almost felt as if she enjoyed trying to make him lose track of what he was doing, keeping count of how many tangents or things he picked up and left forgotten in his wake.

She had stopped doing the latter, but not the former. All siblings were like that, Anatole supposed.

This time, she was interrupting the very serious task of eating his birthday cake directly from the stand it was mounted on.

He shot her a look, eyebrows raised to show how little she impressed him. A show, of course, just to make her tick. Vissenta could distract him all she wanted, but Anatole knew exactly how much his pervasive, will-he-won't-he, practices lack of interest annoyed her.

"Don't give me that look, Nana, you don't fool me."

"And you are interrupting me."

"No, I'm not."

Anatole hummed in feigned disinterest and took another bite of his cake. Ten, then twenty seconds passed between them in absolute silence. He made sure not to look at Vissenta during the whole twenty seconds it took her to speak again.

"What? Afraid I'll kick your ass at it?"

After another long, unnecessary pause he looked at her again, swinging his (cake-less) fork around as he spoke. "Not really, no."

"Then? I know you have a smart-ass answer somewhere in your short-ass self."

Anatole raised another unimpressed eyebrow at her, ruse dropping. "You're as fucking short as I am."

"Irrelevant."

"Height is a choice, Vissenta. You may be the eldest but I'm the tallest."

"In what fucking world."

"Mine, fuck off."

"You're stalling because you know you'll lose."

"No, I just think I'm doing you a merciful favour not to kick your ass fifteen-null."

Vissenta took great offence in that, gasping so indignantly it made Anatole laugh. With the fiery determination he both loved and sometimes hated in her, she grabbed her sword before throwing Anatole his rapier. He had to stand up and scramble to grab it before it fell.

"Hey!"

"En garde, Aelius," she said, pointing at him first and then, at his birthday cake.

"Do not point your rapier at my birthday cake."

"Come stop me then."

He unsheathed his rapier and saluted her before standing en garde, looking at her with the same stubborn determination she had: children from their parents, cut of the same cloth. Before they began, they both recited the same words they used to promise each other things with since they were children: No rules but our own. Vissenta counted, skipping from 'en garde' to 'allez', skipping the 'pret' indication, which made Anatole called her bastard before having back at her.

They would fight, they would laugh, and they would keep fencing each other through the several calls from their family members to stop doing that in the halls.

"Why should we?" They both said in unison. Anatole lounged, Vissenta parried. Anatole blocked.

For Vis and Heron? As I don’t think they’ve met properly yet.

@vissentasenadz Thank you for sending in a prompt. I'm an RPer, so it feels weird to write other people's characters. 💖

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Once again forced from the shop on a break, Heron walks along the canals of The Heart District. Cicero peering over into the water, from Heron's shoulders, as they go. Even here, in the most affluent of the city's districts, there was a good chance to see something fun for the mink to chase.

The image of a nutria in the water, accompanied by a chirp, flashes through Heron's mind as the mink flings himself from his shoulder. Cicero is on the hunt, leaving Heron on his own, shouting after his familiar, "Be careful of eels!" It's just as well, the little cafe around the corner doesn't particularly enjoy when he brings Cicero.

Coming to the cafe, it's incredibly busy. Heron gazes around and is about to leave and perhaps go to the marketplace instead, when one of the cafe employees comes up to him and quickly ushers him hurriedly into a seat at an, already occupied, outdoor table. With a raised brow Heron watches the server bustle away without care to his input.

Vissenta Senadz

Hey @vissenta-senadz look what I found!