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| No Escape From My Snowbrigade; TAG: Thomas Grey | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 2 2010, 11:37 PM (229 Views) | |
| Caterina Sforza | Dec 2 2010, 11:37 PM Post #1 |
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Winter was here.. and boy, was it here! It snowed in Italy. Snow was not a rarity there, as some might think. Alas, it all depended on where you would find yourself during the winter. Caterina, a woman of Forli and Imola, rarely saw snow these past many winters. She was one of the few unlucky people in Italy that lived near the west coast, where snow was much less prevalent than on the east coast. She remembered spending winters in Milan and Rome, where it would snow endlessly, were she lucky.. and she missed it. Caterina had always suffered from some form of being homesick, even since she left Milan.. did she not miss Milan, she missed Forli, did she not miss Forli, she missed Rome.. and on went the list. There was no pleasing her. In the snow of England she found herself as homesick as ever. She, of course, was constantly dragged into wine-remedied depression by the constant reminder of the joyous holidays she would normally be spending in the company of her children. The snow did not help this mood of hers. She remembered one fortunate winter she had spent at Forli, in which they had actually gotten snow. Her oldest children had been young, and she had been pregnant with another child. They had spent a whole day out in the cold, their noses turning red and their feet near falling off, building armies of miniature snow men, which they then had warring against each other. Caterina's troops had won the battle for the snow fort against Bianca and Ottaviano's forces. She was clad, on this day, in the warmest of her garb as she found herself meandering to the grounds, ankle-deep in snow. She did not mind the cold.. in fact, she wasn't so certain she even felt it. though that was most likely due to her insistence that she could not show weakness to anything, let alone the elements. And so, she wandered through the gardens, completely devoid of life as far as she could tell. She smiled and decided that since no one was around, she could build herself a little makeshift bench of a mound of snow, and begin building little snow men, throwing propriety out the window. Surely Caterina was never truly appropriate, but she was certainly dignified and being seen playing like a child in the snow might well be bruising to her dignity. Of course, should she be caught, she would not be able to care less... it was just better if she didn't, she decided. "o non sono la creazione di un intero battaglione! le mie dita cadrà!" she mumbled to herself in perfect Italian. She was not of a habit of speaking to herself, but as she was attempting to relive her experience those many years ago, she simply did it without thinking about it.. until, of course, she heard a noise and her eyes darted up to find the source. [[Italian is written in Italics.. and what she said was "I'm not creating an entire battalion! my fingers will fall off!" but since I translated it on google it's probably not correct. But whatever ]]
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| Thomas Grey | Dec 2 2010, 11:59 PM Post #2 |
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Snow fell softly as he breathed into his cupped hands, rubbing them together to stave off the chill. How he cursed himself for not thinking to don his leather riding gloves, soft and warm as they were. The snow beneath his boots crunched pleasantly enough, and he was glad to be out of the tower. Henry had pardoned him-- and though Thomas was certain his little sister had indeed had a hand it in, he was grateful that the King had proven to be a merciful king instead of a tyrant. While Hampton Court Palace was a splendour in the summer, leafy and green, in the winter, it had its own beauty to the man who had spent time in the Tower. Yet he was grateful, even amidst the snow, to be free to freeze his limbs off in such conditions. Anything was better than going back to the tower, or to Aquitane to reclaim lands. He would make his way back to Dorset soon--- he longed for the beauty of his lands and the sheer white cliffs that overlooked the sea. Gathering his cloak about him, the second marquess of Dorset stamped through the snow, his boots leaving marks behind him that were soon filled in again. It may have been freezing, but he was glad to be free to freeze outside than in the tower. He cocked his head to the side as he saw an unusual spectacle taking place-- but said nothing as he watched this woman mutter to herself in Italian, making snowmen as she did so. Thomas suddenly had the urge to chuckle, for it was something he, too, did when there was nobody watching. Kneeling down into the wet snow, Thomas started to gather snow into his hands, mumbling to himself. He wished he had a son to share with him the joys of creating a snowman army-- but Eleanor was still young, and had time ahead for sons to be born. Instead, Thomas merely began creating a catapult out of snow, using his sword to sculpt it. "My lady, I see you too enjoy the joy of snowmen... Come, let us both join forces in this." Thomas called to the other woman, polite as always-- some would argue to a fault-- but it was merely who he was. Battle would sometimes be preferable to court, but it had been Henry's wish that he remain at court for a time. |
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| Caterina Sforza | Dec 3 2010, 12:39 AM Post #3 |
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The line her eyes led from her little snowmen to another man sitting in the snow was a straight and fast one.. and it stayed unfaltering and seemingly unsurprised, despite her utter incomprehension at seeing a man sitting in the snow not far from her. What was he doing there? in the snow? with no gloves? why was he not harassing her, telling her to be a proper lady and go back inside? Caterina was on occasion taken easily by surprise, but would never, in a million years, let it show. So her smile was that of a forced one as she eyed him, attempting to figure out what he was doing. Spotting the catapult he was making in the snow, however, it became genuine. She couldn't help but like a man who not only enjoyed making snow armies, but sculpting it with his sword? Caterina might have screamed at the mistreatment of his sword, for surely it would rust if he used it so carelessly on snow.. but she found that it was a brilliant idea, and water damage could be easily remedied and fixed before ever having an effect. "Join forces?" she asked, with a mischievous now gracing the features that were darkened in comparison to the bleach snow. "I think not, Signore. I fear my troops are in search of battle, not allies." With that, she crushed a tiny snowball in her hands, so that it was hard as rock, placed it in her hand and then flicked it in the direction of the man whose name she had yet to catch. "I am Caterina Sforza," she introduced herself, then pointed in the direction where her snowball landed, "that was my canon," she said before gesturing toward her snowman army. "And this is my army." Caterina saw that all sense of propriety had flown out the window in this case. She did not attempt to stand and be cordial. The man did not seem to care, as he had interrupted her at her most improper moment and was only encouraging her. So she slipped a hand under her skirts and pulled out the dagger she had strapped somewhere under there, and mimicked him in shaping a siege tower with the help of it. |
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| Thomas Grey | Dec 4 2010, 11:24 PM Post #4 |
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A snowball lobbed at him struck him on the ear, and Thomas laughed. It had been a long time since someone had thrown a snowball at him, yet he smiled. The woman was tall and attractive, and he smiled as she introduced herself. "Lady Sforza, it's a pleasure. I'm Thomas-- but please, call me Tom." For now, he would keep his surname out of the equation-- he wished to leave his identity a mystery due to the embarrassment of his failed military campaign. If she were smart, she'd undoubtedly figure out who he was eventually. He picked up a small mound of snow and began shaping it with his hands to form a ball, then he lobbed it over at Caterina. Tom then resumed the business of sculpting his catapult out of snow, wishing there was a way to make the catapult work properly. Yet such things did not bother him for long, for he had soon sculpted a decent looking ballistae. Even if it would not actually work, there was something about shaping the snow into something that looked rather realistic. He had been around enough ballistae to know what they looked like. He lobbed a snowball in the direction of Lady Sforza. He wasn't sure what was going on in his head, but he found that Lady Sforza's ballista to be rather amusing. She was carving it out with a dagger! That would take forever to complete. "Are you sure you don't want to borrow my sword? It'll make the job easier, my lady." |
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| Caterina Sforza | Dec 5 2010, 06:45 AM Post #5 |
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Caterina, still sitting on her skirts in the wet snow, slowly making its way through the fabrics, she twisted in an odd way to avoid the snowball aimed at her by Thomas. It grazed her side and she gave a laugh. Either they were both terrible throwers, or they were both quite good at avoiding snowballs. She was pleased, either way. "You may call me Cate--" she stopped herself in mid-sentence, thinking that Caterina was what she always asked people to call her, anyway.. Thomas, Tom, was allowing her to use for him a nickname.. Caterina was not nickname. So she smiled and decided she would only do the same "Cat," she finally finished. It was what Isabella Howard called her, and she had always thought it quite endearing.. of course, that was coming from Isabella, who in general was rather endearing.. she thought that hearing someone else call her that might be an interesting change of pace. She was testing it out.. seeing if it fit, coming from the lips of anyone else. Finally, she wondered why she was given no last name. She had found that last names told more about a person than anything else.. and Englishmen, especially men of higher standing, loooooved saying their own full name. She thought, amusingly, that it was like a verbal cock enlargement. English men and their ego boosting amused Caterina to no end. But where was Tom's? why was he not boasting his name? Was he a simple servant? Caterina did not think he looked it. But she had been wrong about these things before. She decided not to worry. Why should she? It wasn't as though this was the most formal of meetings. She raised an amused eyebrow at him instead and answered his question: "offering help to the enemy, Tom? Shame on you." She eyed his sword. Gods, how she missed her own. She used to have it strapped to her hip at all times, and had only recently stopped the habit, for fear of intimidating the English and seeming hostile, not to mention strange.. women did not wear swords here. They didn't, so much, in Italy either.. but they all knew Caterina there, and understood her strange sense of paranoia. "I enjoy the detail using a dagger lends to my siege tower," she explained stubbornly before his second snowball grazed the side of her face. Her eyes narrowed dangerously (yet it was obvious that it was all in jest). "You want a war? I will give you a war." She picked up a large snowball in her hand and crushed it, smoothed it out, before finally lobbing it in his direction. She was meticulous, even in her snowfare. [[yes. I made up a word. Snowfare. Like warfare, only cooler!]] |
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6:35 AM Jul 11