Lá Bealtaine [open thread, come one come all]

[mnemosyne]

Emmett will bet good money that Ellie's feeling pretty grown up. The comment draws a flashing expression from Éva, a sketched suggestion of a laugh she subsumes beneath her skin. "She is," the Shadow Lord confirms, dark eyes lingering on the group of children now, streaking through the dusk after the flower crowns. They practically ambush Étaín and crowd around her in an anxious group, asking her a million questions, chattering in an engaging flow as they claim the best crowns for themselves. "Though, to be fair, I think Ellie's been feeling pretty grown up since the day she was born.

"She has always been a solemn child." Takes after her father that way.

The affection lingers soft in the seams of her eyes, well after the brief sketch of a smile has settled back into her usual wry expression. Emmett tells her that she looks well, and so does Ellie, and Éva flashes him a glance, sidelong and quicksilver, her face cheated into a three-quarter profile. She is dressed casually. Dark jeans, fitted to her frame, a crisp white oxford shirt, menswear-style, over a tank top and under a leather blazer. Hiking boots instead of cowboy boots or thoroughly inappropriate professional heels, all fine and quiet and unremarkable. The blazer is likely thick enough to hide the bulk of her shoulder holster, if she's wearing one.

Even here, she probably is.

"Flatterer," she chides, mock-serious. "I expect it from the Celts, but not you salt-of-the-earth types. Is there something in that ale," a lift of her chin toward the mug of homebrew drawn for him by Nora, "that makes you Irish-for-the-night?"

He's just hoping the weather holds. That line might have done it anyway, but listen: Emmett's laughter draws out her own, brief but bright, and momentarily uninhibited. Éva flashes teeth, her mouth open, eyes shining with humor as he recovers. Her head is tipped upward, face toward the sky. Somewhere above the curling pall of smoke from the fire, early stars are beginning to gleam in the firmament.

"Don't worry, Emmett," the irreverent note lingers in her voice. "Since moving out here, I've become an expert on the weather. I don't mind discussing it at all," then, sobering, "I'm glad to hear it, though. You should come over for dinner, sometime. Or if you ever get in to the city, give me a call. I'll take you to lunch. Technically, you're a client of the firm," another flash of her teeth, " - so I can expense it."

There's a beat, a brief silence before she moves again, her humor dissipating into the quiet energy of her presence. then, a lift of her chin over the gathering, encompassing it all with one neatly sketched gesture. "You staying long, tonight?"