The Sound in Your Dreams
Outfit | @gerald

Sloane could hardly even recall the last time that she had been in Helier. Well, she thought she could, actually. She thought that the last time she had been here, she’d been with Gerald—and that felt like another lifetime now. Everything that had happened before she had left for Ålesund… it was just difficult to think about everything that she had left behind, everything that she had let her father convince her to leave behind. It wasn’t really about that, about the choice that she had made, because it hadn’t been one. Her father hadn’t had to talk her into anything, because the decision had been made for her. She had been told that she was marrying someone, and that was all there was to it. Sloane hadn’t wanted to leave everyone behind, to leave her family behind, not when she knew what was going to happen. Not when she had seen how bad it was going to get. She was just relieved that she hadn’t lost anyone. Even if she hadn’t been here, even though she’d been out of the country, knowing that everyone had survived had helped. A little, at least, since nothing was the way that it was meant to be. Her cousin wasn’t supposed to be in a coma, her father wasn’t supposed to be in Azkaban. They were supposed to have won, but they hadn’t. They hadn’t, and she had not been around to pick up the pieces.

In some ways, she was still very much like the girl she had been back then, but in other ways she knew she was different. Most of the changes were for the better, she would say. She’d had the initiative to concoct Østberg Distillery’s most popular spirits… she got her foot in the door, convinced her husband to let her get involved, and the rest was history. She had gotten him to change his will, to leave the company for her, and then she had waited. It wasn’t a card she had been entirely sure that she was going to play. Until the first time he raised a hand to her, and then he had sealed his own fate. She’d brewed Angel's Trumpet Draught, and she had poisoned him. He’d never seen it coming, and then she’d had the company for herself. That was a change—pulling that off had been proof of how far she had come, in her opinion. Now she was back home and there was no denying that… it was never dull in London. Especially not as of late. The news that had broken this weekend had been a surprise—the Minister’s wife had been killed. Seemingly it was completely unrelated to… anything, but it did show the absolute stupidity of Muggles that they didn’t even know how to keep control of their bloody machines.

She knew that the Minister was far too busy planning a funeral, and grieving, and all that, so it left her to wonder to herself why she hadn’t seen this coming. There had been no vision of this, she hadn’t seen it coming. Of course, Sloane couldn’t control what she saw and when, and seeing something like a Muggle bus hitting someone wasn’t exactly… vision material, but she still hoped that it didn’t fall on her that she hadn’t been able to prevent this. She didn’t think that it would, she didn’t think there was really a chance of the Minister’s mind going there, but with those sort of thoughts on her mind, she thought that it was a good night to get out of the country. Sloane hadn’t known where she wanted to go, until she’d thought about Helier, and then she had decided that it had been far too long since she’d been to the city. The pub that had been there the last time she was here was surprisingly still in business, and so she thought that would be a good enough place to spend a few hours. It was nearly the same as she remembered, which had her shaking her head in amusement as she approached the bar and sat down. Setting her clutch down on the bar top, she waited for the bartender to head her way.

Helier. Well it wasn't his immediate choice for a few days away- Belgium was rather far away from most places in general- but somehow he had been drawn back here for a mini holiday. As usual, as was customary for him, he had found what was arguably one of the best pubs he had ever been into and had also made a few friends. "Sailors" was a very loose term for the lads who he found his company in that night, and for the nights he'd already been there. They were brutes, thieves, smugglers and worse, but whether by being weathered by the tides or their voyages they were hilarious to be around. And they were generous if you knew which vein of conversation to tap, and which mask to wear. Which naturally Gerald did. People could be so difficult to read sometimes, but at the very basics terms a man was a man whichever way you dress him up or cut him. And he'd found his niche early on so now he could just relax at the table surrounded by his new questionable mates and accept the drinks sent his way. And if the tap ever seemed to be drying up he'd either offer to buy a round or make on that he was going to leave. And it worked like clockwork.

It was almost amusing to imagine the witch he'd last been here with to be with him here now. Sloane was by no means a delicate flower, though she had the beauty of one. So his amusement wasn't at thinking her at a loss of what to do in the run down establishment... it was remembering the last time he'd been here with her. Back before her family had gotten involved... before he had spitefully married a cousin to piss off his family and ruined his own betrothal. Back when they were younger and could have gotten away with a lot more questionable things. Sometimes he still wondered where the Witch had gotten to. Up until last year he'd been at a complete loss, it had been as if she'd dropped off the face of the Earth. Then after their little...
meeting... she had seemingly disappeared once more. Or perhaps he just hadn't been looking for her. Both could very well have been the case considering he was now having to deal with his unhinged sibling on top of everything else. Finding out how the Minister had lost his wife had been both entertaining and sobering for very different reasons, and he knew firsthand that Raymond had had a connection to the wife. An ally of sorts. And somehow, in some twisted humour of fate, Aurora had been creamed by a bus and so had her twin. Utterly creamed. By a muggle mode of transport. How the irony would never cease.

Settling his glass back down on the now glass-filled table, Gerald shifted in his seat so he was lounging more than sitting and tuned back into the topic of conversation. Louis and Ruben had apparently had a small spat over who exactly they'd murdered for the cargo now in their ships hold and Quentin had a lass sitting in his lap. He smirked, shaking his hair out of his face as he nodded at Robbe. "Is it not your turn- everyone's running on fumes." He said nonchalantly, pushing his glass forward with his forefinger and raising his eyes back to the man built like the side end of a house as the younger bloke started to run his mouth off. A second later the glasses were gone and so was he... leaving his previously obstructed view of the door now blissfully clear. And suddenly he could have laughed out louder than the girl sitting on Quentin as a very familiar raven haired witch sauntered up the the bar beside their "buddy" Robbe and casually set down her little bag. He saw the other lads heads begin to turn and he dropped his head so his half chuckle was hidden in his shirt.

"As fun as drinking with you lot is- don't look at me like that Quentin, your hands are full already- I believe duty calls." He said after a moment, nudging Hugo? out of the way and standing up. He grinned at them then turned on his heel to also casually walk up to the bar, gesturing with his head for Robbe to forget a drink for him. The bartender eventually looked up- which again made him nearly laugh as no one in their right mind kept Sloane waiting- and he signaled behind her head that he would pay for her drink silently. Then he leaned in to her ear and sighed in a bored way. "I just can't go anywhere without you turning up like a lucky sickle, can I?"


Outfit

There were few places these days that brought back such... pleasant and uncomplicated memories, but Helier was one such city. She had come here with Gerald, ages ago now, and everything had been simple for a few days. Granted, there was still a war brewing around them, she had still newly found out that she was a seer, and she was trying to adjust to that knowledge when she knew that it could change everything. But she had been able to come here, and not think about that for a little while. For a change, she could not worry, and she had needed that back then. She had been a girl that had wanted involved in a war that girls had no business being involved in. They were meant to stay home. They were meant to get married after graduation, to have kids and keep up the household, while the men went to war. That was how it was supposed to work, but she had wanted more than that. Sloane had been lucky enough to have a father that wasn't fully against teaching her some of the... arts of war. Other witches weren't nearly as lucky. Others were just told to keep heads down and to stop asking questions, and she hadn't had to do that. Not really. There had been times when her father hadn't wanted her involved -- times when he had gone out with Conall to teach him something and had sent her off to lessons, or told her to go over to her aunt and uncle's. Those were the times that she hung out with Kate, and wondered just what her father and brother were out doing.

She had liked being around Kate, but she would have much preferred being a part of whatever it was she wasn’t allowed to do. She might have been a girl, but she was still a part of the war, whether her father liked it or not. Sloane had been a seer, and the Dark Lord had known it, and that had made her useful. It had also been a lot of pressure, which was why she had needed the trip back then. She had come here with Gerald, and she had needed to just have fun for a little while. It was everything that she could have asked for – not in any kind of sappy way, because she wasn’t a sappy person by nature. But she had needed to get away for a while, and it had helped. Sloane hadn’t been here since then. She’d had no reason to. Soon after, she had been sent off to Norway, she had married Ralf, and she hadn’t been back to England or anywhere else ever since. She hadn’t thought that she would ever be able to, for a time. Until she had decided that it wouldn’t be her husband that was deciding that for her. As much as she had been raised to listen to orders, as much as she knew that she was supposed to do what she was told, she thought that there was a time in place to screw the rules, and that had been one of those times. She wasn’t going to let a man like Ralf drag her around for the rest of her life.

So she had done what she’d needed to in order to finish it, and now if she wanted to come to Helier, she came to Helier. Granted, she still needed to ask her father or her brother if she wanted to do something that they might disapprove of. But for the most part, they were preoccupied by their jobs, and Conall with his own family, which meant that she was allowed to mostly do as she pleased. As long as she didn’t embarrass the family name which, of course, she wouldn’t. She had a business to run as well, after all. It was hardly as if she was slagging around London, or doing anything that would be unbecoming for a Yaxley to do. Today, she had wanted out of England, though, and so she had come here. She didn’t know what really had made her decide that, what had led her here of all places, but she had really enjoyed it once upon a time. She figured there was no harm in going and seeing if anything had changed. Just for old time’s sake, at the very least. She thought that she’d have a few drinks, maybe take a walk around and see how much looked the same, and take in the sights, and then she would head back to London. Nothing too ambitious, nothing that would take too long. Just something that got her out of London for a little while, that was all.

She thought to check out the bar first, and hadn’t really taken much of a look around before she’d headed up to get a drink. This was hardly a place where she thought that she would know someone after all. She hadn’t been here in decades, and the person that she had gone with wasn’t exactly from around the area either. She was far more likely to see Gerald in London than Helier of all places. She waited for the bartender to look up, which took far too long in her personal opinion, but eventually he did. For a moment, it looked like someone else had gotten his attention, but his gaze moved to hers after only a fraction of a second. ”I’ll have a whiskey, neat, please. A double.” The words had barely left her lips before she heard a familiar voice in her ear. A small smile formed on her lips. ”And just how lucky are you feeling?” She asked, with her eyebrows raised. Her tone was teasing, and mischievous, as was normal for her, but truthfully, she was surprised that the man that had just been on her mind happened to be in the very city she was. It made her wonder if he too hadn’t been here in years, or if he had reasons to come here over the past decade and a half.

The war that had seen him looking to escape for a while from the dreary planning had occupied his early twenties to the point Sloane had been an even more welcome distraction that usual. Raymond had been in his element, dropping bodies faster than his mail and their parents had been there every step of the way encouraging both of them to make the Dark Lord proud. His elder brother had more than risen to that enough that Gerald had almost respected him for it, and he had followed suit in gearing up for fighting on their side. But he never swore allegiance so while he had played both sides he was no turncoat. He had never gotten close to anyone in particular except from the aforementioned Witch and the final battle had had him recalling thsir time in Helier almost wistfully. Because it had been so easy... no expectations or limitations. Frankly that was mostly what England held for anyone of their reputation. And after his parents oh so tragically died somehow he had been free to do what he wanted. Which was to marry his ex and gave some kids because it would annoy Raymond. Everything he had done back then had mostly been fuelled by the twisted glee and spite.

Lance and Dominic had been surprised he hadn't known about until the year previous when the bitch he thought on as a friend finally told him the two kids she had passed off to him as Nephews were his sons. It had almost made him laugh... only missing out on their growing up was a thorn in his side that he just simply wasn't forgiving her for. In some ways it was like Esther Garnet... Raymond's bastard daughter, only his ex hadn't cheated and his boys were fully human. He wondered if Esther really knew what had become of her late Mother or if Ray had neglected to tell her. One day if he pissed him off maybe he would just let it slip on the offchance of karma. He was a big believer in karma, and while he loved his psychotic and murderous brother he was getting sick of looking out for him. Azkaban hadn't been so bad- a new set of clothes snuck in every few months had been easy enough and more of a favour than a requirement as Raymond was using short, small bursts of magic to keep himself clean. More often than not the Dementors occupied the space outside his cell and he had had to find a way to get rid of them for a little while till he was done.

Esther didn't know much about her father, that much was for certain. And her little games of purposefully ignoring the older wizard and the curse in her side would have been endearing if she weren't also endangering his nephew Damion. He had worked hard to keeo the boy safe for most of his life, with a few years intermission of no contact due to Raymond threatening his ex and to actually murder the boy if he came close again. Now Esther was walking a dangerous line and soon she would slip up and someone would have to step in to fix everything. Unfortunately that someone was him. He'd have to step in and patch up the mess she was leaving in her wake borne out of fear and rebellion. Which he could admire- not many had a backbone strong enough to openly defy his sibling so he had to hand it to her as far as that was concerned. But she also needed to buck up her ideas before Ray really got annoyed and showed her the thing in her ribs had barely marked the surface of what he could do to her. There was a reason Raymond had kept his job all those years ago, and he had been involved with many of the disappearances who had never been recovered. Gerald had no attachment to the lassie but as she was getting to know Damion it made it his business. Merlin knew he had been more of a father to the young wizard more than his brother had. And with that level of involvement came certain responsibilities, and now he had his own kids the total now came to three. Three young men he had to protect and look out for and unless she ran into him soon and made him like her he was going to level the playing field before Raymond got a chance to.

The lads from the boat had all but crowded him when he'd first walked in, sneering down at him and trying to play the hard case in face of his bored and unimpressed expression. They had still been very suspciious of him for the first day or so, but now here on day three he fit in like a glove and hadn't had to reach into his pocket even once to buy a round of drinks. They all imagined he had, naturally, but that was the charm of a little magic and a lot of charisma. Even still the idea of Sloane sweeping in here had been the last thing he had expected and he didn't like being so off guard. "A hard drink for such a slight lass." He commented dryly, resting a hand on the bar beside them. Leaning in towards her hair, he grinned, and his breath stirred a few whisps of her hair gently. "As lucky as I always do when my favourite charm turns up." He replied smoothly.

It was odd to think back to the last time she’d been here, because it made her think about the way her life was supposed to be, and the way that it had actually turned out. When she’d been here last, she’d had no idea that the Dark Lord was going to fall. She’d had no idea that her father was going to force her to move countries away in order to keep herself out of trouble. She hadn’t a clue that she would be married to a man that she hated for eighteen years, and she wouldn’t have thought that she’d ever be out of the United Kingdom for that long. It was home. Sloane had never thought that the person she’d marry would be out of the country. There had never been any reason for her to think that her father would send her that far away. But he had. She had told him about her vision, and she had been out of the country as fast as her father could figure out a plan. It hadn’t been what she wanted, but that hadn’t mattered, and it was just odd to be back in this place, when she’d had no idea all of what was coming. It was odd to think about being there with Gerald as well. She’d spent plenty of time with him back then, and they’d always had a good time. It had never been any more complicated than it needed to be, and she’d appreciated that.

After all, back then, she’d been occasionally… rather stressed out. Sloane thought that she had hidden it rather well, particularly since no one really knew her well enough to know the signs, but being a seer came with its consequences. It came with its fair share of problems, ones that left her losing some sleep back then. Visions, in and of themselves, had consequences. But there were more problems than just that as well. Bad visions were worse, particularly when people had a tendency of wanting to shoot the messenger. It was why she had been so worried when she had seen the Dark Lord fall. Sloane had known that she couldn’t go to the Dark Lord and tell him that news—tell him that she had seen him fail. There was no chance in hell that would end well for her, and so it was the only thing that she could think to do when she had told her father. Most of the time, she liked dealing with things on her own. She liked thinking that she didn’t need help, or a man to tell her what to do. But at the end of the day, that was how their society worked. There was a reason why women were married off and meant to stay at home and listen to their husbands.

When she didn’t know how to do something on her own, when it was something that important, there was never any doubt in her mind that she’d have to tell her father. She didn’t know what she’d expected him to do, it just hadn’t been what had happened. It hadn’t been to do nothing, and to send her off, to make her the only one safe from what was going to happen. She didn’t think that did anyone any good at all, because it just put them all at risk. It just meant that any one of the few people that she cared about could be hurt during that battle and she hadn’t warned them, she hadn’t stopped it when she could have. No, she hadn’t thought her father would do nothing, but there was nothing that she could do about that. So she’d done what she was told, and she’d had a completely different life than the one she’d thought she would have. It made being here odd. It made her think about the girl she’d been when she’d come here with Gerald, and the woman that she was now. They were the same in some ways, but in others they were worlds apart. For some reason, she thought that she needed that reminder today. Merlin knew why. But she had found herself here nonetheless, and she thought that there was no harm in staying for a little while.

Particularly when she heard a very familiar voice in her ear. She had felt someone approach, and she had known that they were standing far too close for comfort—in a way that she found rather offensive, actually, and she’d wondered how hard it would be to slip the poison around her neck into their drink simply because they had irritated her. But then she had heard the voice, she had realized that it was Gerald, and she had smiled. And not turned toward him just yet, obviously, because there was no fun in that. Instead, she’d kept her gaze forward, and her amused expression never left her face as he spoke again. “I can handle it.” Her tone was always more mischievous when she was around people that knew her, and what she liked about Gerald was that he always played along. He was never boring. He was close enough that his breath moved her hair as he spoke, and so she finally turned to look up at him, her lips only inches from him. Unless he pulled away. But she knew that she wasn’t going to pull away first—she never did. When it came to this, she was used to winning. “Your favourite, am I?”

What these places had that Britain didn't was simply thus; personality. These places had their regulations but there were no where near as strict or steadfast and because of those very facts he had made the friends he had in the past 48 hours of being back in Helier. Nowhere else could he had met a gang of such street smart but academically dense men who would have been threatening and intimidating were it not for the fact that Gerald had experience with their type and had both types of intelligence to hold over them. And magic, to boot. So long as the drink kept flowing, the laughs kept coming and he gave as good as he got he fit in and there were no problems. So far there hadn't even been a lick of trouble from either of them since he'd arrived and he was that comfortable with them it was almost hard to believe he hadn't known them for years. Quentin and his string of ladies across the continent, Hugo's love for collecting stories and sharing them in a bawdy manner... Louis and Ruben with their increasingly hard to believe counts of homicide. They all fit like a jigsaw and he fit in like an extra piece no one had realised fit and had made itself a place.

His unplanned trip was only supposed to be a couple of days but he was now considering extending it until the other lads departed for Cape Town to get the most out of this frankly ridiculously enjoyable experience as he could. Free drinks and good company weren't exactly the easiest thing to come by at the best of times let alone in a foreign country he'd been to just once in the past and already he had found better friends than he had in the UK. Well... excluding his Team. If not for three family members and his Team he might even have joined them on their expedition and their adventures across the globe for a time simply for the knowledge and so he could say he had done it... but he was a Pureblood to his heart and he knew he would never allow himself to live a muggle life for any period of time. Still... being on a giant ship with no specific quotas or responsibilities held its allure. Maybe he'd do it one time for a week as a form of work experience. A form of productive holiday away.

Seeing Sloane in here had almost broken that train of thought just from sheer surprise, but he couldn't lie about being fairly pleased to see her. Or at least, he wouldn't admit to feeling anymore positive about it; Sloane was the kind of person to never let that kind of information go. As Robbe picked up the next round of drinks and hovered for a moment as if a last chance to join, Gerald subtly tapped his watch and motioned with his head that he'd be a while yet. The witch practically cupped by his arm where he rested his hand against the bar wasn't someone to be enjoyed in a rush and forgotten about. Much like a fine whisky she deserved to be enjoyed with plenty of time and the handler had to know about the fire that burned within her. "You always have." He replied playfully, glancing at the rest of the stock behind the bar as they entered into their usual bout of verbal fencing. It was what he liked about her- she always gave back what she got and kept him on his toes. His smirk grew as she finally turned to face him and he dropped his gaze back to her's with a pleasant expression, determined that he wasn't going to be the first to give in to the temptation sitting barely a hairsbreadth away from him. "I'd have thought you'd have known that by now. I do keep coming back for more don't I lass?"

Growing up, she had always known that her father was eventually going to arrange a marriage for her. Not all pure families did that still. Some of them had done away with the tradition, and let people find just who they wanted to marry on their own, and most had been raised with the right ideals to make sure they found the right kind of match. But she had known that her father was going to pick someone for her, because he liked to hold with those old ways. He would want to handpick who his children married to make sure that they were up to standards, and so he had picked who her brother would marry from a young age. But she hadn’t known for quite some time. There were plenty of pureblood women who knew who they were going to marry from birth, or from a young age, but she hadn’t. Sloane had known it was going to happen eventually, she just hadn’t been sure with whom. It had never crossed her mind that she would be sent away, that it would be some pureblood countries away, and honestly, she didn’t think that had been the plan originally. If the war had gone their way, it probably would have been one of the Twenty-Eight, and not someone she’d never heard of from Norway.

But the war hadn’t gone the way that they’d planned, and so she figured that her father had to make other arrangements. He’d had to talk to his contacts out of the country, because he had wanted her as far away from the inevitable conclusion as she could be. Sloane had wanted to stay—if her family was staying, she wanted to be there. If they were all leaving, that would have been fine—self-preservation. She was a Slytherin, after all, and she would have gladly avoided going down with the ship if her family had been safe with her. But she hadn’t wanted to be safe alone. She just hadn’t had a say in the matter. She’d had to leave, and leave them behind, for a man she’d never met and didn’t want to be with. Sloane hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye to anyone, which meant that coming back here had been the first time that she had seen, and really talked to, many people that she had been close to back in 1998. It wasn’t as if she had kept in contact with Gerald over the years, but she was glad that they were able to pick up where they left off. She had missed him—sort of. As much as she’d missed anyone, at least. They’d had fun back in the day. He was always able to keep up with her, and the same couldn’t be said for many of the boys she had known back then.

A part of her did wonder why he wasn’t married and with kids running around at this point. Sloane supposed she didn’t actually know his family well enough to know how much they decided for their children. Her father liked to plan it all out, it was why her brother had a wife and a family, and why she was meant to—even if she had figured out her own way out of that. Sloane did know there was a chance that, even given her age now, her father would find her someone else to marry. She would do what she was told if it came to that, and she at least could be glad that they would certainly be in England, or at least somewhere in this area. She very much doubted he was going to ship her off again, with everything going as well as it had been .Granted, it wasn’t perfect… it had taken time, but she thought that they were eventually going to get there. They were going to get everything that they had been promised, and there was no reason for her father to take her away from all of that, particularly not with their Minister knowing that she was a seer. Seers were difficult to come by, after all. Her smile never faded at his words, because he was well aware of how much she could handle… drinking-wise, at least, though there were innuendos to that joke that would have been rather amusing. But she would be proper and avoid saying anything like that. He didn’t move away from her as she turned to face him, and their lips were still temptingly close—but she wasn’t going to break first. “You always do…” She answered, her smile still playful.

The stickler to any Pureblood life would normally ensure the marriage of their children, though somehow Gerald had escaped alongside Raymond. Then again, the situation surrounding his older brother's marriage was laughable and he had enjoyed himself with Kattarina far more often than Raymond had. To the point of terror when she had fallen pregnant a few months onwards, only to find out it definitely couldn't have been him. His brother had finally succumbed to his duties and Gerald was able to take a backseat to watch the family unfold, all the while knowing his parents would be turning in their crypt if they knew what had come about. But after a point of witnessing the abuse of Damion firsthand, he couldn't stand by anymore doing nothing, and took his leave of what remained of his family to go out into the world to explore. Making sure that he kept a tab on Damion's location should anything arise. And when it finally had upon everything coming to a head he had been a little distant though overzealous in helping his nephew. Locking up his brother was almost a no-brainer considering he knew-
they all knew - the state of the older wizard's mind. Giving his son a place to stay was fairly obvious too considering his mother was then rotting in a meagre grave in Montrose. But to be there for him in person had been senseless and implausible.

Mostly because no one had needed him as such before, nor did he need anyone else. All the fun of his life ended around the same time Sloane took off for Norway as her father bid and everyone else split to 'find themselves' as well. The Ministry had offered him a fair share of careers in the years since but he had never stuck to one in particular; stagnating wasn't on his list of enjoyable things to do. If it became to comfortable then it was time to change and somehow he always managed to find something to occupy himself with. He had a few years in Mungo's under his belt, a few years as an unspeakable, a few months in publication, he'd worked retail and law... hell, he'd even graced the halls of Lufkin University. Now though... now all he had was the team- that wasn't entirely his- and Gerald was finding his feet rather quickly there as well. Soon it would be time to either move on again to something else or he would have to add another job or similar to his daily life. Gathering information on people was only fun when you had to make time for it. And as it was... he had a fair amount of time on his hands.

"I aim to please... when and if the mood takes me to do so." Gerald drawled slowly, eyes roaming her face as he mapped out the differences fully from the last time he had seen her. It had been months. Before that it had been years. Sloane still held a slight tantalising air about her as always, the edge that stopped her from being too soft or mundane in the river of other Pureblood witches of her kind. But then to attempt to compare her to anyone in particular would be a slight on her character, which he wasn't in the business of doing. Without moving away, he took the glass that was pressed into his hand by the bartender and raised it to his mouth as he continued to watch her in an interested manner. "What brings you back out here, Sloane? Britain failing to keep you amused?" He finally asked, placing the glass back down with a contented sigh. He could feel at least 4 pairs of eyes boring into his back from the table he hadn't long vacated and a slight smile came to his face as he looked away. Oh the tales he would have to spin about this come later on.

She knew what was expected of her as far as her family was concerned, and she always had. So while she flirted with Gerald—now and back then, she knew that it wasn’t going to go any further than that. It wasn’t worth it. Back then, back in school, she had known that she was expected to be pure when she was married, and that meant that she had to be careful with boys and what she did, to make sure that she didn’t make any regrettable decisions. Now, even though she clearly wasn’t a girl anymore, and everyone knew what they were getting if they were marrying a widow, she knew that her father expected her not to sleep around, but to be appropriate, so that if he ever wanted to marry her off, that would still be a possibility. He did love his alliances, and that meant that going against what he wanted would be a good way of getting herself killed. Sloane knew that, as much as her father cared about her—in the sort of way that he could at least, he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of her if she was going to cause irreparable damage to the Yaxley family name. It was too important to him, and he wouldn’t stand for any mistakes. So she couldn’t make any. Even when she came this far, even when she was countries away and happened to run into someone like Gerald, she knew that she still had to be careful.

But a little flirting never hurt anybody, as long as it didn’t go any further than that, and she didn’t think that it would. After all, although this was a trip for pleasure, it might also turn into a bit of work. Sloane had been working on expanding the reach of Østberg Distilleries, out of Scandinavian countries, and this could end up as a business trip if she found the right people to talk to. Sloane didn’t think that she was going to be here long, but in light of everything that was going on in the United Kingdom, a few days out of the country would probably do her some good. The Minister’s wife had been killed, and as his seer, she didn’t want to be around in case he decided that it was unacceptable that she hadn’t seen it coming. As if it worked that way. Sloane thought that he was a smarter man that than, but she still didn’t think there was any harm of being out of the way for a few days. There was work that could be done here, as well as some fun since she hadn’t been here in a while. Running into Gerald was just an… amusing surprise, and he was as good of a person as any to spend a little bit of time with. It didn’t appear like he was here alone, but that was fine. Sloane didn’t expect or require his attention the entire time he was here. Just for as long as it was amusing for her.

Sloane watched him as he looked her over—her face at least, and she couldn’t decide if she was surprised or not that his gaze didn’t wander lower. She probably would have called him on it if it had, obviously, but many men were easy to predict. Where their gazes would go and when, what kind of remark would leave their lips when trying to flirt, and what men thought that they didn’t have to put in a bit of effort just because of who they were, because those were the ones that were always surprised when witches didn’t just get on their back for them. Most men in their circles were predictably the same, or maybe she had just gotten good at knowing what they were going to do, just by observation. She had been married to a man just like most purebloods, with only a few differences given where Ralf was from. She had plenty of practice in predicting what they were going to do and say next, for the most part at least. Admittedly, they weren’t all the same. There were some men in their circles that were maybe a bit different from the rest, not that she would ever admit that out loud. “Something like that… I needed a change of scenery.” Sloane lifted her shoulder in a shrug at that, before taking another sip of her drink. “You?” She didn’t pretend to know what Gerald did in his spare time or why he’d be here, because it really wasn’t any of her concern, but she supposed her curiosity was a little piqued.