THE SKY'S THE LIMIt

no hill is too steep

We're playin' for fun, but we're playin' for keeps

Life was interesting. It had a way of surprising you. They were all finding ways along through the new terrain. There was hope for the future in him that had not really existed before, even in the years prior to his first incarceration. These days were still hard sometimes. Particularly when Rodolphus had the boys... It was difficult to adjust to not being around them all the time.  Rabastan still spent Wednesday afternoons with them.  Andromeda had been warded out of the Lestrange Estate, but he still had the ability to come and go from his ancestral home as he pleased. So, when things needed to be taken over there, he was the one to do it. Sure, they could send the elves, but he preferred to do it himself. 

He cared and he wanted the boys receiving the best care they could, despite the circumstances. It wasn't just he and Andromeda that were adjusting. The boys were--and so was their new nanny. The squib did not seem to mind Rabastan checking in every now and again. He had spoken to her a good bit about preferences when she first started watching the children. Sophia had written down some information, too, to relay to the other woman. Lilith's illiteracy was not something that either Rabastan or Sophia had been aware of or even knew now. Someone must have read the list to the Malvolia, because Rabastan had seen her make use of tips from it.

Eri and Ori were spending time at the Castle still when the boys were there. At least one was there overnight to make sure all was well. There were elves in Rodolphus' possession capable of care for the children during the night, but the boys knew Eri and Ori. Not as well as they knew Faye, but well. And Rab needed to know the children would have a familiar presence if they awoke frightened or confused.

He'd popped off by the castle on his way into the Foundation dropping off some bananas, since like their mother, the boys had really been enjoying them lately. Lilith had seemed to be doing fine. The boys pouted and whined when he had been about to leave, but he took care not to overstay or overstep when he was at his brother's estate. He did not want to offend Rodolphus and disrupt the reasonable level of amicability they had managed despite everything that had happened. 

Now that he was at work, visits to the labs were necessary. The wizard made the rounds, checking on details of this experiment and confirming delivery of necessary equipment for another. He saved Emmaline's lab for last. Jakub was outside the door. The pair of men chatted for a moment in the guard's native tongue. Relatively pleased with the man's report, Rabastan left his own entourage in the hallway with Jay and let himself into the Avery's lab. The mischievous grin that materialized on his face immediately promised that it wasn't just work that he was here to discuss. "Em," he drawled, announcing himself and wanting to draw her attention to him for what he had next. "I've had an idea. It's bloody brilliant really. You are going to love it. I'm sure of it." He didn't think she was going to love it at all, but he thought what he was about to ask her was going to be hilarious- His pale eyes were sparkling as he addressed Andromeda's best friend. "I heard that you just love camping--and now that it is summer. I think we should all go. We'll take the boys. Zoë, too." He tried to look excited and not just like he was poking fun at her. The man thought he pulled it off well. And really, it wasn't actually a terrible idea. 

@emmaline • 629 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT

NO HILL IS TOO STEEP

WE'RE PLAYIN' FOR FUN, BUT WE'RE PLAYIN' FOR KEEPS

It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy, because she was. Emmaline thought that she was actually surprisingly happy, but it was how she had gotten there that surprised her. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not this. This was exactly – well, not exactly – this was very close to what she had walked away from this world because of. If Tennyson could see this, she thought her father would be rolling over in his grave. Mum was surely not going to be impressed either, but the first test was going to be G. He had gotten the same invitation that she had,

Truly, the very same one. Andromeda had let her see the one that had come to her, and she knew what the one that had been sent to Rab said, and theirs obviously went together. They were a pair, but hers had been the exact same as G’s. They were a pair. Whatever it was that their hostess was up to, she clearly didn’t see any problem inviting a pair that were clearly a couple, and a pair that were twins. She thought that G had said something about Rhodes getting one too. But she didn’t know who his partner was. Romantically, she didn’t think that he had a steady one right now. And they didn’t have another sibling. Wherever his clue had led him, it was a pair of some sort.

Talking to G would come first. And then she would see where she went from there. Avery, most likely. He was going to protest the most if she had to guess. Her son had become increasingly protective of her the older he got, and the longer that went by since their father’s death. She knew that he hadn’t given an opinion one way or the other on Ian, but this was not that. This was not an American magizoologist that was going to leave as soon as something migrated. This was something different. And Avery was going to be a tough sell.

Zoë too. She knew that Zoë’s attachment to her father, and trauma that she had endured throughout all of that had left its mark. Emmaline had taken her to a psychologist as soon as she had been able to think straight herself. And they both still went to therapy when Zoë was home from school. Mal and Hallie were likely to think that she had lost her mind, but her oldest daughters had been on their own for several years now. They weren’t going to be quite as affected by all of this as Zo was going to be. But Emmaline thought that change was good.

Or at least she was trying to tell herself that change was good. It would be. All of this was going to be fine. If Andromeda could make it through everything that was happening, so could she. She hadn’t had nearly the time that her best friend had, and she was trying to just accept that there would always be things that were outside of her control. Not that that was always possible. But it was better than nothing at all. Moving on, moving forward, it was healthy. And it was time. Ian had been fun, while it had lasted, but she was not upset at the loss of it.

She had needed that step back into the world. That step out of her shell, but she was going to be fine now. And she thought that she was rather confident in that. When the door opened, she expected that it was going to be Jakub. Or Samira. But it was neither. It was Rabastan. And her glance lingered on him a moment before she finished what she was doing and turned to look at him fully. He was up to something. The way that he was grinning was a testament to that. And that was before he had even started to speak. If he was going to read her, she was going to learn to read him right back. And Rabastan Lestrange was most certainly up to something.

“This is going to be good…” Her sass was ever present in her tone, but something told her that the wizard didn’t mind. If anything, her sass seemed to only encourage him at times. Which was both frustrating, and amusing. “It sounds as though I’m not going to love it at all.” The witch felt her eyes widen at his words, and then narrow in the next moment. “Whatever she told you, she lies.” Camping was not her favorite activity. She was not an outdoorsy person, as much as she tried to be. “You cannot be serious about this?”

@ you're not funny • 779 • emmaline's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

THE SKY'S THE LIMIt

no hill is too steep

We're playin' for fun, but we're playin' for keeps

The wizard was in a fine mood as he sauntered into Emmaline's lab. He had been chuckling to himself on the way up the corridor. He had joked with Jakub about when he had planned. The Czech soldier he had assigned to guard duty on the beauty had thought he was messing with fire. Rabastan did not think it was that serious. Em had a good sense of humor--and this was a funny joke. She'd had a lot of pain in her life. He was trying to lighten that up. It didn't always work. Every time that something about his time in Azkaban came up, he could see that being with him was complicated and could be really bloody heavy. He saw the way guilt could twist up that pretty face and he just tried to make it worth it. Making the decision to be with him was definitely a complicated one-- because it was not just with him. It was with him and Andromeda. 

It wasn't the traditional relationship. There would be looks--there would be questions. He was more than happy to deal with all that. He cared about the woman and knew that Andromeda did, too. They all had their damage. They had their cracks. But maybe those jagged edges could fit together in a cohesive sort of way. He had never thought that something was missing with him and Andromeda until they had started talking about Emmaline. It had been a joke a first: him being ridiculous the way he got some times. It had just sort shifted somewhere along the way from a joke to something serious--to a plan--to a choice--to them being something more than anyone could have thought of. He was a very lucky man. It was nice to have goodness in his life after so many dark years. He was trying to bring only good things into the world now. It was not some reparation. Rabastan did not feel like he had done wrong--he'd been a soldier for justice, dedicated to preserving and protecting the purist way of life. He had taken things too far sometimes, usually due to Bella's influence...but his heart had always been dedicated to the cause. Now he cared less about the abstract cause. He was dedicated to himself and the family that he wanted to build. The cause had cost him too much. He wasn't giving any more years to that. He deserved a life. He was going to have one. And the life that he wanted to have included ruffling the feathers of Emmaline Avery every chance he got.

He looked all the more pleased with himself as Em expressed her doubt of his assertion that she was going to be delighted with his surprise plans for them. He made the smooth delivery of the camping idea--and by Merlin and Circe, her face was perfect. He should have had his cell phone out. That would have been an amazing picture to save forever. He'd have to pull the memory out for Andromeda sometime after he had his magic back. It would be a hilarious moment to revisit in the pensieve. "Now, why would Meda lie?" He cooed. "You don't have to deny it. Outdoor activities totally fit my mental image of you." He tried to keep a straight face, but the man failed completely. He could not even get the words out without laughing,

When she asked if he was serious, he raised and dropped his shoulders. "I mean, obviously it was joke--but I do think it could be fun. At least for me and the kids. We can make smores. The boys will love sleeping outside." He did not know her daughter well enough to know how that Zoë would feel about it. He probably could not get Andromeda to actually sleep outside--and he really would not take the boys out to the woods yet. It would just be some tents in the backyard, honestly, with a little campfire. It would be fun.

you are so cute when you get worked up • 667 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT

NO HILL IS TOO STEEP

WE'RE PLAYIN' FOR FUN, BUT WE'RE PLAYIN' FOR KEEPS

It wasn’t like she had gone looking for this. She hadn’t gone looking for them at all. But here they were. They were a part of her life now. And Emmaline didn’t know how you explained to your mother that the woman that you had said was your best friend, was now going to be more than that. That you had entered into a relationship, not only with her, but with the man that she loved. The man that was the father of her unborn child… It was a complicated relationship for someone like her mother. But from the inside of it, Emmaline didn’t really think that it was going to be.

Untraditional, clearly, but looking at the three of them, she didn’t think that there was much traditional about them at all. Andromeda had never been traditional. Traditions had nearly swallowed her for the couple of months that she had tried to abide by them. Emmaline herself had never done anything traditional. She had walked away from a traditional marriage. She had fallen in love with a halfblood. Nothing about their lives was traditional. Even Rabastan… Though she knew that Andromeda’s choices had changed the course of his life, he had never made that traditional match either.

Still, she was happy here. She was happy in this place. In this moment. That was all that she really wanted. She just wanted to be happy. And Ian had made her happy. She wasn’t going to deny that. That she had let herself be happy with him. But there were differences there that would have been hard to overcome. He wasn’t English. He was a magizoologist. And while she wasn’t holding that against him, there hadn’t been all that much that they had had in common. Her outdoor knowledge extended about as far as the horses. And after that she was lost.

Horses were not a magical animal either. She didn’t know a thing about what he was talking about a good majority of the time. She could stitch a wound. And she could perform emergency trauma surgeries to keep human beings alive. But when it came to the difference in billywigs and bowtruckles, she had no idea. One was green, and one was blue? That was about all she had on that front. She had never claimed to be the outdoorsy type, and she had tried. She had let him take her camping. But she had not been the biggest fan.

There was something just… Odd, about sleeping on the ground when there was a perfectly good bed at home. Maybe she was just spoiled, but Emmaline much preferred the comforts of her home. Or even of Andromeda and Rabastan’s new home. She much preferred to be indoors, and away from the elements when she was sleeping. They lived in the United Kingdom, after all, there was no telling just how often it was going to decide to rain. Nearly half of the year, in fact.

“I can think of a number of reasons…” There was a lit to her voice that was not the one she would have used with anyone else in her laboratory. There was something far more flirtatious about the way that he was cooing at her, and the sass that escaped her own lips back at him. “But you know me, I’m a regular Girl Scout. Camping is my favorite outdoor activity.” Emmaline didn’t think that it would have even taken the sarcasm dripping off of her every word for him to know that that was about as far from the truth as she could get. Emmaline didn’t like to think that she was that much of a girly girl. But she certainly wasn’t a camper.

“Did you just shrug at me, Lestrange?” Her perfectly arched eyebrows raised in a little bit of a challenge at the fact that he had so blatantly just shrugged at her. “If you convince Andromeda to eat a s’more, I’ll have to figure out some way to reward you.” If there was one thing that she thought that they would always agree on, it was that Andromeda needed to eat more. And getting her to eat something sweet was probably so far out of the realm of possibility, that she would have liked to see him try.

Pushing her stool out from where she had been working, she stood up and took a step towards him around the end of her workstation. “Zoë probably would too. She loves the stars.” Emmaline knew that he didn’t know her daughter well, but she hoped to change that. She wanted them to have a relationship. A good one. Zoë had lost Travis so traumatically; she knew that they had issues there that were still unresolved. Things that they were headed into their fourth summer of counseling about. But she wanted her to have someone that she could count on to be there. She wanted him to know her, and her to know him too.

@ you push buttons i didn't know i had • 832 • emmaline's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0