Lá Bealtaine [open thread, come one come all]

[mnemosyne]

[I know Reina's character was by a nice keg of homebrew earlier. Aaand, Eva and Emmett are standing near the coolers with child-appropriate drinks within view of the bonfire. I can use Eva's daughter to give a reason to head over there.]

[mnemosyne]

By the time Calden reaches his cousins, though, there is no longer any need to rescue the girl from their attentions. Instead, he finds them a big beleagured, under a certain degree of siege from a small knot of group of kids varying in age from seven to eleven or so. A handful of boys and girls wearing the rowan-and-hawthrone flower-crowns Étain contributed to the celebration.

Their attack was stealthy. They studied the pair of cowboys, in their crisp new boots and fine, well-brushed Stetsons and giant belt-buckles from a half-dozen yards away, whispering then invaded, aswarm, swamping and then drowning them with cowboy-related questions.

Which included questions about horses, cattle rustling, and the size of their belt buckles. But most particularly included one very pointed question from one rather serious little girl.

"Are you sure you're real cowboys?" This is the third time Ellie's asked Calden's cousins the rather pointed question. She needs a real cowboy, one who is preferably not already allies somehow with her mother, but she doubts the authenticity of these two, nevermind their protestations to the contrary, because their boots are so very new and so very clean, "because," the girl continues, quite seriously, her nose wrinkled with a rather skeptical consideration, her dark brows drawn close over dark eyes. "what I need is a real cowboy. With authority."

[Damon]

"I'm a real cowboy."

This new voice comes from behind and a fairly long ways above Ellie's head. It is male, because of course it is -- otherwise it would be a real cowgirl, silly -- and it is low and warm and threaded through with good humor. Turn around, and she'll get to look up up up at the Real Cowboy™ standing there. He is, perhaps disappointingly, not spinning a lariat over his head. Nor wearing a Stetston. Or a bandanna. Or a rawhide vest, or a shearling jacket, or chaps, or even spurs.

He is, however, wearing blue jeans. And boots. And those boots, unlike those fancy tooled-leather party boots that Ian and Jimmy have on, look creased and smudged and dull-tipped from kicking around in the dirt. Well-worn. Used. Worked in. Real.

"These guys are real cowboys too," he adds, crouching down on one knee to get on the kids' eye level. "They're just fancied up because it's a party and they want to impress the pretty cowgirls. Now," the grin quirks a little wider as he affects a Texas drawl, "what c'n I do ya fer, pardner?"

[HOLY SHIT IT AUTOMATICALLY PUTS A TM THERE IF YOU TYPE ( TM ) WITH NO SPACES. ™™™]

[mnemosyne]

Kids are such strange creatures. Ellie's cohorts are two Carey relatives, one tow-headed, the other ginger as a Weasley. Though they had no particular qualms about talking to strangers when they initiated such a conversation by invading Calden's cousins' attempts at impressing girls, they turn as one with a startled and guilty look when Calden walks up behind them and answers Ellie's persistent question.

(We're not supposed to talk to strangers. Whispers the blond girl into the ginger boy's ear. That's not a stranger, returns the boy, with a nevertheless doubtful look up at Calden, I think it's a relative. I heard Auntie Sarah say - )

The dark-haired girl has no such qualms. Her features are so severe and so solemn, her mouth set, her round cheeks uncreased by anything like a smile. Listen, Calden announces that he is a Real Cowboy™ and Ellie does not take him at his word. Oh, no. The girl examines the evidence: dark gaze dropping to his feet and ticking up a his frame, eventually meeting and gauging and looking him right in the eyes, holding the look as he sinks down to her level. Then the look flicks back down to his feet, weighing the worn-in (worked-in) boots against the utter ordinariness of his attire.

She cuts a glance back up at the cousins as Calden assures her that they are also real cowboys, just the dressed-up sort, and twists her mouth consideringly, still thoughtful, still processing the evidence, taking nothing on his say-so. Briefly, she glances back at her friends (who are still whispering about whether or not a strange relative constitutes a genuine stranger, and then speculating philosophically about whether there could be any real strangers at the Carey house on Beltane).

"Okay. Well, that girl's not a cowgirl," Ellie corrects, conscientiously, in case his cousins were somehow mistakenly waylaid in their quest for pretty cowgirls by something flashier and less authentic, like - " - she's a park ranger at Roxborough." Then she looks back at Calden, flashing him the first smile he's earned tonight, which all at once illuminates her knowing little face. It shears a bit back into the rather doubtful twist as Calden affects his Texas drawl. All that accent earns him is a scrunched nose and another nanosecond of close scrutiny before she unbends again.

"I want cowboy boots but my mom says I don't need them. So you can tell her why I need them. Come on."

With that, she holds out a small hand. If Calden takes it, she begins to tug him along. "Oh, I don't want pink ones like Colleen. I want real ones."

[Damon]

"Sounds like a good cause," Calden remarks, thankfully dropping that awful Texas drawl. He gets to his feet. It's not like he wasn't dwarfing the girl before, his shoulders roughly four times as broad as hers, but now he really dwarfs her. Her hand almost disappears into his palm. "Jimmy, lemme borrow your hat. For the Cause."

It gets handed over. And the not-a-cowgirl, who has had a few mugs of homebrew and is rather willing to be charmed at the moment, giggles and runs her hair lightly over Jimmy's newly-revealed fair hair. Calden smirks at Jimmy as he sets the brand-new white Stetson down on his head, very much a you can thank me later sort of look. With the brim set low over his eyes, Calden suddenly looks quite a bit more Cowboy™: all rugged jaw and strong nose under that clean white hat. A tug on the brim toward the parkrangergirl, perhaps just a touch of irony in the gesture, and a "Miss," -- and he allows himself to be pulled along behind Ellie.

"So let me get this straight," he says, ambling along with the little girl. "Real cowboy boots, and not pink ones. You want nice tooling on the sides too? Or just plain like mine?"

A tough choice to be sure. Calden's plain boots don't even really have the sharply tapered toes of stereotypical cowboy boots, though they do have the solid stirrup-catching heel as well as the well-worn spot on that heel where those boots have, in fact, caught the stirrup on countless occasions. And though he wears them under his jeans today, if he were to pull his cuffs up she'd see that they do also have the convex upper edge and the proverbial bootstraps by which they could be tugged on. These are obviously the real deal, authentic. But tooling was just so fancy.

[mnemosyne]

"Hmmm." That considering look once more, the corner of her mouth pulled toward the center, her left cheek distended from the odd little expression. She has the edge of her lower lip pulled between her teeth and glances down at Calden's boots as he asks her whether she wants them just plain like mine. It is a Very Difficult decision, so says everything about the girl. Particularly when she admits, in quite the same tone of voice she used to point out that thee not-a-cowgirl object of Jimmy's evening's affections was actually a park ranger. "I don't know what tooling is.

"Plain is ok, but maybe I want a little decoration. Just not too fancy." A small, barely perceptible eyeroll for things like too fancy boots. From a girl wearing a crown of flowers and dragging a cowboy to tell her mother she should have boots. "I bet they're good for keeping rattlesnakes from biting you, too." Oh, she's been plotting this campaign for a while. She's been Looking Things Up (quite possibly on Wikipedia). "Did that ever happen to you?"

Ellie leads Calden through the crowd, threading her way to the spot where her mother and Emmett are chatting. Emmett has a mug of the homebrew Nora's been tending all evening in one hand, his cane in the other. Éva has no more than a bottle of water, held loosely in her left hand. They're chatting quietly, comfortably, watching the crowd more than they watch each other. As soon as Calden and Ellie come into view, Éva's eyes are fixed on the pair, her expression alert but still except for the hint of inquiry sketched into the arch of her elegant brows.

"That's my mom," Ellie confides to Calden as the pair draw close. "And that's uhm - " a deep breath that pulls up her small shoulders, "Mister Metzger. Mom, this is - " there's a pause, then. A considered glance up at Calden's face. She doesn't know his name. But she does know what he is. " - a cowboy. He has something to tell you that I oughtta have cowboy boots and why."

"Does he." Returns Éva, with a rather bland expression meant to smother her quirk of bemusement at Ellie's declaration. The leading edge of her alertness, her awareness that Ellie was bringing leading over a stranger has eased itself out of her shoulders and spine. There's room at the corners of her mouth for the quirk of an incipient smile that she does not allow to be fully born.

"Éva Illésházy." She holds out her right hand hand, fingers and palm still damp from her water bottle A glance toward Emmett, " - this is Emmett Metzger."

[Damon]

"I've never been bit," Calden replies, "but I've had to scare a rattler out of my way once in a blue moon."

They close in on Ellie's mother. Who is lovely. And also: truthfully, quite a bit fairer than her daughter. A lot more ... north european, where Calden would have pegged the little girl as Latina. The surprise is there in his eyes, there and then gone, a quick flicker that Eva has surely had to deal with for the past decade, give or take. Sometimes that look comes loaded with significantly more judgment. Sometimes with disgust. Sometimes with pity.

For what it's worth, there's neither judgment nor disgust nor pity in Calden's eyes. Just a quick beat of surprise; a fact observed and acknowledged. It fades; replaced by a thread of amusement hiding under a Very Serious face. As he comes up to Ellie's mother and her friend, he gives that small tug of his hatbrim again, playing it to the hilt.

"Ma'am," he says, Very Serious Indeed, "I'm a real cowboy and I'm here to advise you that your daughter needs proper cowboy boots. And not pink ones either. Good sturdy ones, with just a bit of tooling on the side. Just a little bit of decoration, see, but nothing too fancy. Because otherwise, her toes might get bit by a rattlesnake."

He takes her hand, then. And the grin makes its way to the surface, curling up the edge of his mouth. Her palm is damp. His is dry and warm, calloused. "Calden White," he says. And then extending that same hand to Emmett, "Éva, Emmett. A pleasure."

[mnemosyne]

Éva absorbs that moment of surprise, that tick of shifting expectations with a perfectly level equanimity. Some strangers have assumed that Ellie was adopted, except - they look so very much alike, except for their coloring. Perhaps she has seen it so often that it no longer registers, precisely.

Then she listens to his testimony regarding cowboy boots with equal seriousness. Or rather, equal Seriousness, her dark head tipped forward, some keen thread of living amusement gleaming in her eyes, just detectable in the curve of her mouth. "Thank you, I will take all that under advisement, Mr. White." Her gaze slants downward to Ellie, watching all this, judging the Real Cowboy's ™ performance, assessing its impact on her mother's expression, all quite seriously beneath her flower-crown.

A pleasure, says Calden.

"Likewise," returns Éva, when the handshakes are finished. "and you've already met my daughter Ellie."

A beat. "Though perhaps not formally, I think." The faintest widening of her wry half-smile. "Ellie, say hello to Mr. White."

And so Ellie formally introduces herself to Mr. White, the Real Cowboy ™, once again offering a small hand, this time for him to shake. After some prompting from her mother, the girl also thanks Mr. White for his able assistance and is then questioned by her mother about the origins of her flower crown.

Where did you find those? Some girl brought them.
That was very nice of her. Yes.
Did you thank her? Uh - no?
Do you think you should? Uh - yes?

Ellie then sets off on an unexpected quest, to find and thank Étain for the gift of flower-crowns. Éva traces her daughter's snaking path through the crowd of revelers with little more than the shift of her dark eyes, then returns her attention to the adults.

"Was that your first time acting as expert witness for the prosecution, Calden?"

[Damon]

Ellie's hand is shaken with the same warmth and dignity afforded to her elders. Then, as the girl scampers off, Calden returns his attention to her mother. He laughs -- "Yeah. I thought I did pretty well for my first time. Though I will admit the prosecution coached me beforehand.

"She's a great kid," he adds. "Are you a lawyer, then?"

[mnemosyne]

"I'm not surprised. We always prepare our witnesses beforehand," Éva returns, briefly giving full expression to her heretofore incipient smile. The faintest tip of her head - concession to his laugh, or acknowledgment of witnessing-skills. " - you don't want to be surprised by what they are going to say, after all.

"Thanks, she's - " and her smile changes, goes, by turn, reflective, gentle, and fierce. Éva just nods then, wordless agreement with his assessment of Ellie. It may be the only time all night that Éva finds words failing her. Nothing ever seems entirely adequate. " - she's - yeah."

"And yes, I'm a lawyer. With Baranski & Greer?" Brows lifted in faint query to see if he recognizes the name. People sometimes do, but usually only if they are somehow involved with the firm or otherwise in the practice, " - our Denver offices are in the 1999 Broadway building.

"What about you? I haven't seen you around Roxborough before. Are you a recent transplant? Or one of the Careys' far-flung relatives?"