Admiral Vida Serrano and Lady Cecelia, sitting in one of the booths facing Universes wide starfield windows, are almost finished with their exchange of family news.\u00a0\u00a0 Cecelia would very much like to show the Admiral her images of her latest crop of performance foals, but is aware that the Admiral knows little and cares less about horses.\u00a0 The Admiral, she feels, still thinks horses are a ridiculous occupation for a woman of Cecelia’s age.\u00a0 There’s a little bustle at the entrance and both look over.<\/p>\n
“Who is that<\/em>?”\u00a0 Cecelia’s brows have risen.<\/p>\n Vida queries the table.\u00a0 “Ah.\u00a0 She’s back again.”<\/p>\n “Who?”<\/p>\n “That Vatta woman.”\u00a0 Vida does not think much of admirals who were, less than ten years ago, Academy rejects.<\/p>\n “She’d sit a horse well,” Cecelia says.<\/p>\n Vida sighs heavily.\u00a0 “Do you ever<\/em> see someone and not think of how they’d look on a horse?”<\/p>\n “Not usually.\u00a0\u00a0 But she would–oh, my goodness.”\u00a0 Cecelia has caught sight of the tall blonde in the perfectly tailored suit following Ky Vatta into the area.\u00a0 “That must be the cousin.\u00a0 She is gorgeous.”<\/p>\n Vida cranes her neck to see.\u00a0 “Quite nice.”\u00a0 She starts to say something else, but a small rough-coated dog charges in, barking and trailing a leash. Out in the corridor, someone’s running.\u00a0 Maybe two someones.<\/p>\n The maitre d’\u00a0 tries to intercept the dog, but misses, and it leaps up and down on the blonde, yapping away.\u00a0 “Madam!\u00a0 No pets allowed here!”<\/p>\n “He’s not a pet.\u00a0 He’s a character.”\u00a0 That from an out-of-breath young man, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, with tousled brown hair.\u00a0\u00a0 “I have his contract here.”\u00a0 And to the dog, “DOWN, Rascal!”<\/p>\n “He WAS a character; now he’s just an unnecessary intrusion.”\u00a0 Ky shakes her head as the dog bounces off her legs, ignoring Toby’s command.<\/p>\n “I have the contract.”\u00a0 Toby pulls out a crumpled piece of paper.\u00a0 “Right here.\u00a0 Signed by the author.”<\/p>\n “Oh, the author<\/em>!” says everyone in the room, including those who simply appear out of the air for their line and then disappear again.<\/p>\n “Not in this book,” Stella says.\u00a0 “For goodness sake, Toby, hang on to his leash and make him behave.\u00a0 Is the author really bringing him back?\u00a0 And why?”<\/p>\n “I don’t know, but she asked me how he was doing, and listened to me telling her all about things he’s done.\u00a0 He’s been to a farm; he hunts rats; they still send someone to collect from him–”<\/p>\n Stella and Ky look at each other.\u00a0 “Oh, well.\u00a0 The author.”\u00a0 They look around, notice Vida and Cecelia, who raise a glass to them.<\/p>\n “She’s a little crazy, you know,”\u00a0 Vida calls out.\u00a0 “Almost as nuts about horses as Cecelia here.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Admiral Vida Serrano and Lady Cecelia, sitting in one of the booths facing Universes wide starfield windows, are almost finished with their exchange of family news.\u00a0\u00a0 Cecelia would very much like to show the Admiral her images of her latest crop of performance foals, but is aware that the Admiral knows little and cares less Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-life","tag-waystation-huygens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}