hello? mr babygirl?

"So I asked her if she'd had breakfast yet today - usually she remembers, you know, and even if she doesn't she'll end up using the same word for lunch. You'd think I'd be the one with the pedantry about it! Breaking fasts and all."

"What, not me?" Ignoring the playful shove at his shoulder, Minoth gestured for Flora to continue. "Anyway. And? What'd she say?"

"She said-" Flora got out, already starting to giggle "-she said, oh, dear-- She said she'd missed it, because there'd been a cat outside the garrison she was too excited to pet."

Minoth made a show of faux-crossing himself and rolling his eyes up in their sockets towards the sky. His grin returned soon enough, however, belying his apparent disinterest in the recount of such idiosyncratic, quasi-idiotic behavior. "So what'd you do, pack up your toast and head home? Sorry - scones."

The indulgent self-correction went unacknowledged. "I think I just made a face at him, wrinkled my nose until they'd forgotten the question. About the cat, you know."

(About the cat, because it was silly, the lot of them were silly.)

"And that was it? No cues, no clues? You really think they haven't caught on?"

"Well, she might have, but what's there to do about it? You and I both know she'd be too nervous to pretend to be sly and use one for you. And of course there's no telling whether any especial goofy smiles were or are due to us or the cat. If I weren't so bemused, I might have time to be adoring."

"I always thought you were a multitasker, Lady Origo. Can't have your people catching you slipping, now. What would the, ah, lord think?"

"I'd think I must either have better ears than I'd ever bargained for, or sneakier suitors than the same."

Though Flora jumped at the sound of a third voice, she didn't manage to escape Minoth's sidewise embrace. That in itself was cue and clue enough that he'd be providing exactly a net zero of elucidation out of their current predicament; it was up to her to explain away their fruitless loitering.

Addam's arms were crossed, their expression crafty and their hair sharp.

"I must admit, while I couldn't imagine what you two had possibly been up to, I never thought it'd be quite this simple, either."

"Simple?" Flora ventured.

"Positively," mused Addam. "You didn't think I was blushing every time you made one of your trademark cheeky comments for nothing, did you?"

"Not nothing, no," conceded Flora. "I just thought you were doing it because you were a little - that is to say, slightly - babygirl after all, and any amount of admiring attention would make you embarrassed."

"Me?" Her grin only grew broader. "No, no, I think that's Minoth."

He'd scrambled up and was ambling away, pretending casual airs, as Flora laid a hand to her glib husband's chest and concluded, "I think you'll have to keep on being sly. Otherwise we'll never catch him."