1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.
2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.
3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."
4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.
i do not “delete sentences” when they start “hindering the plot” i COPY PASTE THEM into a SEPARATE DOC made just for keeping all my USELESS LINES that i will also NEVER USE so therefore i should JUST DELETE THEM but i DONT because id FEEL BAD if i did
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.
still caring about internet friends you lost touch with years ago is so embarrassing. yeah i had a deam we met up irl recently. the last time we spoke was maybe 7-8 years ago. i still wear the laces we randomly decided was a sign of our friendship. i dont know what any of your socials are or if youre even active on any. sometimes i see someones art resemble yours and i wonder for hours. do you still go by that name you chose? whenever i see it i wonder if its you. we couldve passed each other in this vastness a thousand times and not have a clue.
i like when fiction treats love as a more complicated force and not something that is inherently pure, redemptive, or salvific. portray it as flawed and complex as any other human impulse. give me love as prejudice, love as possessive stasis, love as addiction, love as blindness, etc.
The answer to "How did these Ancient People do this????" is basically always
1. A lot of dudes. Just a ton of fucking people from beginning to end of the process.
2. Ancient people weren't stupid, they just figured shit out the same way we do: fuck around until you find out.
3. We're gonna plan this out and it's gonna take ten fucking years, and you will cope.
4. Sticks and string are surprisingly versatile and can be used for a variety of purposes, like moving stuff and making sure things are even and go in the spot you wanted to put them in!
5. I want to make this easier and more efficient to move. If I put this on the round thing and push, it will move. If I put this in water, it will move. If I get some animals and rope and have a whole bunch of them drag it, it will move. All of these things are a better option than one guy trying to pick the whole fucking thing up.
Also levers. Levers are so fucking good at moving heavy things to the point where one person can actually move a 20 ton concrete block easily. There's actually a guy on youtube who got a company to make him a giant concrete block and then he just played around with it in his back yard.
She lay there, drifting in and out of sleep. She didn’t know what time she’d finally left the drawing room and crawled back into the warmth of Dougal’s bed, but her mind and body were aching and exhausted. His anchoring arm finally left her as he rose, tucking the blankets firmly at her back, and she half-heard him murmuring something at the door before she slipped back into sleep.
She woke again, and for good, at a knock that she thought must be Annie come to dress her. She made a plaintive noise, burrowing her face into the pillow beneath her, then sat up and pulled back the bedcurtains on her side in time to see the back of Beitrice leaving again, and a breakfast tray sitting on the table by the window. Dougal glanced up as Leah rose, pulling on her dressing robe and cautiously moving toward the table.
“Are we not going down to breakfast?” she asked, voice rough with sleep.
“No,” he said, pouring a cup of water and pushing it toward her place before he stabbed a piece of meat and put it on his own plate.
That’s it? Just ‘no’ and kiss my ass? “The MacDonnells are still here,” Leah said, trying not to sound irritable. “Isn’t it protocol or something to see them off?” Or does Malie MacDonnell offend you soooo much?
Dougal shrugged. “I sent word down that you were ailing.”
“Good god, I can be in company without shaming you,” she muttered, and saw the lines of his face harden as his eyes flashed. Something in her wanted to freeze like a rabbit, but she forced herself to lift her cup and take a sip, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
“Christ, woman, ye came back after the midnight bell,” Dougal growled, pouring himself a cup of ale and setting it down harder than necessary. “And ye’re crabbit as an auld broc wi’out sleep. I can make your excuses and let ye rest the morning.”
Crabbit, am I? Leah thought, bristling like a – yeah, ok, point. She thumped down into the chair and lifted the towel that covered most of the breakfast tray to find a big bowl of steaming broth and barley, and a pile of fresh, soft bannocks. Her stomach gave an intrigued rumble.
“Mrs. Fitz sent up her best restorative broth,” Dougal said in response. “Swears it’ll mend everything from headache to a churning stomach.”
It was too dark to be chicken broth; possibly mutton, but it didn’t have that gross fatty sheepy smell that coated the back of her throat, so she sampled a bit of it. Her nose wrinkled, then smoothed – it was mutton, but either the barley mitigated the worst of it, or Mrs. Fitz had managed to strain the sheepiest bits out. It was tolerable, anyway. She broke off part of a bannock and dipped it in, then snagged a bit of the cold chicken that lay on the platter next to the bannocks, responding to Dougal’s raised eyebrow with a “I’m not sick, remember? I’m just crabbit.” But her head did hurt, she realized as he snorted, and her back was killing her, probably from hours cramped up on the settee.
His fault. Mostly his fault.
“I meant what I said last night,” she said quietly, feeling her stomach start to tighten again. “I’m tired of everyone thinking I know what to do, like I’m not just trailing after Letitia and hoping for the best. Do you know it took nearly a week of being rousted out of the library every morning before Annie finally just told me where I was supposed to be?” She glared at the noise he made, like a laugh he’d tried to choke off. “Yes, hilarious. Until it’s not. Really, what if it had been me speaking up last night, instead of her, not even knowing I shouldn’t? Would you paddle my ass in front of everyone?”
He did laugh, then. “I wouldnae make such a spectacle of it, mo nighean. Your feet are steady,” he added gruffly, when she puffed up and looked ready to snap, “it’s your mind that’s runnin’.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It never stops.” Only in our bed. Or on the table. Or . . .
He watched her for a long moment, picking at her bannock, then dropped another piece of chicken onto her plate as if it would solve everything. “It’s not led ye very wrong yet,” he said, “and I’ll set ye right if it does. Now have a rest and stop talking yerself into a fankle.”
He’s exhausting. So fucking solid he can’t imagine that everyone isn’t. But she couldn’t see any angle that he might be able to grasp, so she finished her breakfast in silence and let him smooth a hand over her hair as he stood.
“I’ll have your maid come up before midday,” he said, “and see if ye feel sociable then.”
Leah nodded tiredly, feeling every little twinge in her weary muscles. “I don’t suppose you’d rest that rock up against my back, when I lay down again?” she asked, mostly-joking as she rose. But he pulled the granite from the hearth and wrapped it, tucking it right above her hips instead of at her feet, and shut the door quietly as he left.
“What do you think of this one?” Leah asked, peering over her glasses to check the edge of a linen sheet. “The hem could be reinforced, but it’s not fraying yet.”
Margaret leaned over and nodded, and Leah envied her young eyes. “It may be worn by spring, but it should do for now with just a bit of care.” She narrowed her eyes appraisingly at the sheet in her own lap. “This one ought to be sent down, though,” she said, noting the slightly-shabby hem, and held it out to Eleanor.
It was Letitia’s suggestion-slash-gentle-order? to go through the linens for the upper household and decide which needed a bit of mending and which ought to be sent down to the servants, to turn and makeover, or cut up into rags, or take home if Mrs. Fitz thought it suitable. Light enough work for Leah to do after her morning convalescence (a lovely few hours of sleep only slightly disturbed by the lack of Dougal’s warmth at her back. The stone almost made up for it, though), especially when Margaret volunteered to help. Leah wasn’t certain if Eleanor’s presence was by her own will, or another steel-and-silk suggestion, or if Margaret had dragged her by her ear (Margaret hardly seemed like an ear-dragger, but you never knew what older sisters were capable of), but they were all packed into the little drawing room. Leah and Margaret shared the settee, going through one basket at a time, tucking the still-good sheets into another basket at their feet and giving the older ones to Eleanor to lay on the table by the window. It let her burn some energy and kept her from grousing.
Mostly.
“I’m glad you’re helping,” Leah said, folding her sheet carefully before adding it to the ‘good’ basket. “I would have worried over every one, whether to keep or not.”
“Did ye no’ do this at home?” Margaret asked, picking up a new specimen and running a finger along the hem.
“Oh, sure,” Leah answered, happy to be truthful. Depression-era grandparents meant almost everything got made-over or repurposed at least once. “But every house has its own standards.”
She heard a scornful sniff, there by the window. “And does Leoch meet yer colonial standards?” Eleanor half-muttered.
Ok, ha’penny Nellie Oleson. “More than,” Leah said, forcing a little smile to her face. “I like an old sheet; they just get softer every time they’re washed.”
Eleanor made a not-disagreeable noise, and Leah mentally added another mark to the “win” column.
Ok, it was barely a win, but still. She didn’t disagree. There’d been more tallies in that column lately, slowly gained with every genuine question and tiny commonality; if they kept it up, pretty soon Leah wouldn’t be able to tell if Eleanor really still disliked her or was just, like, a teenager.
I’m not even going to think “good grade in stepmothering;” look how highlandering turned out. Just keep reaching out and let her reach back in her own time.
“My grandmother said that when she was little, they’d turn worn sheets sides to middle,” Leah offered, testing the seam on the next piece.
“Is it hard to get linen there?” Margaret asked. “And tea, and other things?”
Uh . . . ok, consumer revolution, port city, didn’t you have to read like a decade of Pennsylvania Gazettes for that one class?
Yeah, in 2003.
“It’s not so hard anymore,” Leah ventured, relying on vagueness. “Not as hard as when the old folks were settling, anyway. The port is always active.”
“Do ye have bears there?” Eleanor spoke up, suddenly attentive. “And wolves? Our cousin Jamie said there were cats big as ponies and –”
“He only said that to scare us,” Margaret broke in. “He stayed at Beannachd when we were small,” she told Leah, “and if we pestered him he’d say we’d get packed off to America with the other clarty bairns, and the tigers would get us.”
Leah laughed with genuine amusement. Three hundred years or no, children weren’t so very different. “Well, you don’t have to worry about tigers,” she assured Eleanor, “not in the wild, anyway – someone might keep one, I guess – and bobcats don’t get that big.” When Eleanor’s face threatened to fall back into disinterest, she hurried to add, “Lots of bears, though.”
“Have ye seen them?” the girl asked, leaning forward. “Father said there used to be bears in Scotland, ‘til they were all hunted.”
“Yes, lots,” Leah answered, then kicked herself. “I mean, in menageries. Not wild. I wouldn’t like to meet one in the woods. Maybe if it was just a black bear,” she mused.
“Why?” Margaret asked, interested herself. “Are they tamer?”
Leah shook her head, linens forgotten. “I don’t imagine so, but they’re supposed to scare easier. You know: ‘if it’s black, fight back; if it’s brown, lay down; if it’s white, uh –” No no, please continue. Give them nightmares. “. . . I forget the end of that rhyme. It’s about polar bears, anyway, and we’re not likely to see any of those anywhere. What do you think about this one?” she asked, grabbing another sheet and hurriedly shoving it under Margaret’s nose.
“There’s a hole in the seam,” Margaret said, eyes half-crossing to look at it, and Leah took it back with a mumble about sending it down for mending.
“If it’s white, stand and fight?” Eleanor mused, mostly to herself.
Good god, definitely not. “If it’s white, take flight, perhaps,” Leah offered. Is that better or worse than ‘say goodnight?’
“If it’s white, ye’re aright?” Margaret murmured, eyes shining when her sister giggled.
“If it’s white . . .” Eleanor thought for a moment, “be polite?”
The laugh burbled up from Leah’s chest. Oh my god, are we joking together? “That’s one way to handle it, I suppose.”
She expected Annie had come to check on her when the door began to swing open, and was still mid-laugh when she saw Margaret’s eyes widen and her mouth snap shut.
“You’re up and about, then?” Dougal asked, shoulders filling the doorway. He glanced at the baskets of linens, at his daughters, before his eyes lit upon his wife.
“Yes, thank you,” Leah said. “Well enough to sort the linens.”
“And the bears,” she thought she heard Eleanor say, too quietly to reach Dougal’s ears. Leah’s mouth twitched. If it’s white, giant bite, she thought. She’d trot that out once Dougal left.
“Aye,” he said, noting at Margaret’s industrious work and raising an eye at Eleanor, standing by the growing pile of sheets on the table. “Eleanor, help yer mother finish. It’s supper soon.”
If Leah felt her stomach drop, she could only imagine what the girls felt. If Dougal felt anything at all – like the temperature dropping a good twenty degrees – he made no sign of it, only nodding at Leah and shutting the door behind him as he left his landmine sitting in the room.
Leah’s throat worked, and her mind raced – Speak up? Ignore him? Stand on her head? – and she winced as Eleanor’s voice dropped to a hiss.
“You’re not our mother,” she snarled. “I don’t care what he says, you won’t take her place!”
“I’m not –” Leah half-started out of her seat, but Margaret made a little, painful noise, and Leah’s head turned in time to see the girl’s face crumble.
“He shouldnae have said that,” Margaret muttered, looking away and busying herself with the sheet still on her lap. “It’s no’ right. Ye’re no’ –“ she cleared her throat and stood, handing the sheet off to Eleanor to add to the pile.
That one’s not a discard, is it? Leah shook the thought away and stood slowly, smoothing her skirt as she took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m not. You’re right, I’m not, and I never will be, and it wasn’t fair of him to say it. I’ll . . . I’ll talk to him about it.”
Eleanor scoffed, looking out the darkening window; Leah’s could see her face going tight in the reflection. “D’ye think he’ll listen?” she asked bitterly.
I think elephants could fly easier than he’d listen to me, unless I’m walking out the door. Leah’s lips pressed together briefly before she replied. “He’s thoughtless, but I don’t think he meant to hurt you. I’ll make sure he sees that he did. I’ll kick him till he does,” she offered, mouth twisting into a wry smile.
Eleanor snorted, so much like Dougal it made Leah’s chest hurt, and stared hard at the glass. Margaret nodded once, her face slowly falling back into its placid lines as she put a hand on Eleanor’s arm.
On your side, Leah thought, if you’ll let me be, and slipped out of the room.
Ugh.
If this were my world, I could just be like “dude, what the hell?” and he’d be annoyed but he’d listen. Probably. Eventually.
But nooo, I have to calibrate my approach. “Good sir, kindly think upon the gentle feelings of your daughters . . .” “Dearest husband, you are most generous to bestow upon me the title of mother, but your daughters think it’s fucked up . . .” “Oh great and powerful Oz, please let me click my little red shoes . . .”
She waited until after supper, gauging his mood to be a solid B+. He seemed reasonably pleased to have gotten rid of the MacDonnells, and equally so to see Leah already sitting by the fire in her dressing-gown, a book in her lap.
“Thank you for letting me rest this morning,” she said, because it seemed like a solid way to begin. “I did need that, it turns out.”
He made a nose like a jovial scoff. “The keep willnae fall without you,” he said, shrugging off his coat to leave it draped over his chair. He cast his glance toward her. “And I’ve an interest in keeping ye well-rested, mo bhean.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “You have the constitution of a twenty-year old,” she sniffed, then let out a little shriek when he scooped her up from the chair, waistcoat half-undone, and set her up on the table to steal her breath with a kiss.
“Aye,” he growled when at last they broke apart, “and I’ve need of it, with a wife so bold as you.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” she laughed, pushing him away and hopping down as he growled. “That poor table has taken enough abuse lately.” She reclaimed her chair defiantly. “And you need a wash; I can tell you’ve been out riding.”
He muttered something unintelligible and finished stripping while she tried to think herself back on track.
“It’s less than six weeks till Christmas; did you realize that?” she asked. “Do you give the girls gifts?” The gift of not traumatizing them, for instance?
“Gifts are for Hogmanay,” he grunted, splashing himself with cold water from the ewer, “and christening days.”
“That’s an extra week, then,” Leah mused. “What are you planning to give them?” Let me guess: you haven’t thought about it. Their mother always handled it. You’ll stop at Ye Olde MacSeven-Eleven an hour before.
Dougal shrugged, reaching for a linen towel to dry himself. “Get them what ye like, lass. See if Letitia is making a jaunt to Dingwall; I’ll give ye coin for it.”
Leah’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I think they’d much prefer a gift their father actually chose, instead of his wife.”
He snorted. “I’ve no time to look at ribbons and fripperies.”
“Uh, yes you do,” Leah argued. “They’re your daughters. What did you do last year; did their mother have something ready for them, or was she still – um. Had she passed yet?” She looked down, fidgeting with her ring. Treading a little hard, aren’t you?
“She passed in autumn,” he said shortly, and no longer seemed interested in acting half his age. He poured a finger of whisky and downed it quickly, looking out the window. “And she might have had something set by, or Tibby might have done aught for them; I dinnae ken. I was tending to business just then.”
Leah waited for some kind of surprise to take her, but strangely she felt no real shock, only a deep ache. “Colum sent you on clan business around a holy day?” she asked, not really believing it. “Or was this more of your . . .” she tamped down the first words that sprang to mind, “your politics?”
“Could ha’ been,” he shrugged.
Was, she thought with a sigh, turning her face toward the hearth. Dude, I might be struggling with the highlandering and stepmothering, but you suck at fathering. Did you really leave those kids alone at the holidays after they just lost their mom? Were they all together, at least, or scattered to the four winds? She hoped they’d been all together at Beannachd, at least; it would have been murder for Tabitha to be there alone, with her mom only just gone. No wonder she was such a – no, we’re putting her in the ‘grieving kid’ category too now, no name-calling.
“Ok,” she said briskly, standing and pulling back the bedsheets. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to Cranesmuir sometime soon, aren’t you?” She watched him half-turn his head toward her, not listening-listening, but still. “You’re going to ride down an hour earlier than you planned, and you’re going to buy them each a gift. It doesn’t even have to be, like, meaningful and heartfelt; it just has to be from you. From you,” she added, climbing into bed and pulling the covers up to her neck. “Don’t send someone else. It can be ribbons and fripperies, if you can’t think of anything else.”
She flopped onto her side, facing the wall. “Eleanor’s new dress is blue, if you want to find something to go with it. Margaret’s ordered her first silk gown; it’s a peachy kind of pink. Something cream-colored would look nice with it, I think. A lace handkerchief, maybe.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know about Tabitha and Molly.”
She heard another dismissive noise from the region around the window. “But not the same thing for all of them. And put my stone by my feet before you draw the bedcurtains.”
Silence.
Leah poked her nose over the covers and found him watching her, his half-shadowed face looking more sardonic than angry. He raised the whisky glass. “More orders for me, have ye?” he asked.
If I thought you’d take them . . .
“You shouldn’t call me their mother,” she said quietly. “They have a mother, and they miss her.”
“Ach, Christ,” he muttered, turning away again. “They ken what I meant.”
She stared into the dark, at the candlelight flickering against his shoulders. “Dougal MacKenzie,” she sighed, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t even think you know what you meant. I don’t think you thought about it at all. But you have got to start thinking, because those girls have one parent left, and you’re it. God help them,” she added, mostly under her breath, then covered herself again and vowed not to come out again until dawn.
Chapter Three: These Are the Days begins on Sunday, June 21, with Part One: Queens
i have been fortunate enough to live a life in the arts, creating things and following hallowed footsteps. its something many buckaroos dream of, and as someone who has done it, THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS i received are the moments in between. if you generate with AI, THAT is what you rob yourself of
anyone who has done theater will know this, because it lives in the energy backstage. anyone who has played in a band will know this, because it lives in the late night diner afterwards. anyone who has written a book will know this, because it lives the coffee shop where your plot point locked in
in other words IT IS NOT THE PRODUCT. yes, it is cool to see your name on a marquee or your book in a store or your face on a poster, but the REASON this is cool is because it tethers you to the BETWEEN TIMES. the between times are everything. the PROCESS of creation is a gift to yourself
i think this is REALLY difficult for these ai goofballs to understand, and why the things they make dont resonate. anything you create without the in between is just a hollow shell, a movie poster without small talk at crafty or an album without eating burritos on the studio rooftop
we have ALWAYS had the ability to NOT make something and pretend that we did. the difference now is theres an algorithm built for convincing people whove never stepped outside the theater door for a smoke break on opening night that they actually have. they have not. there is no ai for that.
because the only way to conjure the unfathomable magic of those in between moments is to live them, and when you get a hit of excitement from a prompted movie or book or song without a journey of creation, you rob yourself. you curse yourself to exist as a cardboard cutout who thinks they are whole
(I'm so sorry; I posted this to AO3 on time and then completely spaced on the Tumblr post)
Book Three; Chapter 2.5: Keep Order
Content Note: ableist language
It took her too long to catch on. Like, embarrassingly too long. But she’d gotten comfortable with Letitia being a lady, gracious and charitable and, yes, organizing a large household under a myriad of disadvantages, but not, like – well, not political, not like a laird. And Mrs. MacVinish always chattered too much, and didn’t always think before she spoke, and Mrs. MacBeolain always called it like it was, even if no one wanted to hear it, and Eleanor always wanted to be included with the grown ladies with an almost puppyish enthusiasm (she’d even tolerate Leah, if it meant she got to sit at the card table and have a sip of claret).
She knew that. She knew them.
She hadn’t known that Letitia could deploy them all so cleverly, even the war chief’s foreign wife.
Clan MacDonnell of Glengarry (part of the unbelievably sprawling MacDonalds) bordered MacKenzie lands, down in Lochaber – they’d passed nearby during the rent collection – and they’d allied and squabbled and treated and slaughtered for centuries, then they started marrying each other (the Glengarry laird was married to Colin MacKenzie of Hilton’s oldest daughter, and Glengarry’s sister had married Letitia’s eldest brother, so they were X²-cousins-once-removed-in-law or something), and were currently getting along well enough for the Glengarry laird to send a nephew or a cousin of some sort to Leoch.
His name was Roderick. Leah wasn’t even surprised.
Ostensibly, it was just a little visit. Just a little catch-up between 18th cousins before travel became difficult.
Which Leah found a little shady to begin with – it might only be November, and highlanders might have skin of steel, but it was cold. She slept with the stone by her feet and the bedcurtains drawn, stockings on and wrapped in her MacKenzie plaid more than once, and still burrowed under Dougal. And it became more obviously pretense when Ned asked her to sit down with him and the chamberlain and go through the ledgers. Some business was afoot.
But Dougal only gave her a bland look when she’d asked about it, and made some noise about cattle that probably wasn’t meant to make sense. She’d tried to triangulate the most likely issues:
Border security – and maybe not just with the MacDonnells of Glengarry. The southernmost bit of MacKenzie land squidged down between Glengarry and Chisholm and Fraser, with Grants nearby; Leah hadn’t forgotten how tense Dougal’s men had gotten on that leg of the journey, and it hadn’t all been her fault (it was probably mostly her fault). And the Fraser rivalry was real; maybe Colum and/or the Glengarry laird were having nerves.
Winter supplies. That was a rocky part of the country, not great for farming, but if she read the maps right – and Dougal didn’t bother to put them away; his overconfidence was astounding – Glengarry had a nice bit of coastline for shipping and smuggling.
Jacobite nonsense, and that set her on edge. She didn’t remember the exact date, but Bonnie Prince Charlie would raise his standard sometime in late August. Or maybe early September? Probably August. So, nine and a half months from now, maybe? She’d wracked her brain trying to remember if she’d ever heard about where clan MacKenzie stood; she knew even less about the various Clans MacDonald (well, no, she didn’t; she knew exactly the same nothing about them all). She’d seen the clan markers at Culloden battlefield, but she could only remember a large one with several clans listed – Atholl highlanders, MacLean, some others – and then a small rounded one for Clan MacIntosh. So they were fucked, but that didn’t tell her how worried to be about her husband and his family.
Actually cattle.
But Roderick MacDonnell brought his wife, and that’s where Leah started missing things. She’d been so focused on acting right, rehearsing her cover story for this newcomer who had to be entertained, she hadn’t noticed Letitia’s maneuvering.
Of course Letitia asked her to sit in at the cards; with an important guest around, it was probably a protocol thing. And of course the girls were sitting in, too. Mrs. MacVinish was a bit of a choice, but she was cheerfully opinionated and probably amusing to anyone who’d never been under her spotlight (which meant, of course, that three of that players at the table were a little stiff-shouldered around her. Well, two – Margaret was better at hiding literally everything).
She’d run on a bit – Leah’d looked to Letitia once or twice, when Mrs. MacVinish was bemoaning the oat issue they’d had at the start of the harvest, to see if she’d step in – but it seemed to put Malie MacDonnell at her ease.
“I’m already weary of oatcakes,” Malie offered, laying down a pair of cards, “and it’s no’ yet Advent.”
“We’ve all been fortunate, aside from that bit spoiled,” Mrs. MacVinish said airily. “If winter comes hard, it won’t be for lack of grain.”
There was only one moment, something so tiny Leah was surprised that Letitia reacted at all. “We’ve moved the cattle twice now,” Mrs. MacVinish was saying, “my husband’s only just returned from –”
“More claret, I think, Bridget,” Letita cut in, signaling the maid, and that had stopped that line of conversation.
And then Mrs. MacVinish got to talk all about Leah’s wedding. Goody.
And then Dougal was weird, too, when Leah retired for the evening. He asked about the solar, about their conversation, and god knew he’d hardly ever shown an interest before.
“Apparently the roads are muddy?” she said, trying to remember, as Annie unpinned and untied the pieces of her new plum gown – too complicated for Leah to manage getting into and out of alone, and too nice to leave to Dougal’s hands.
“The roads are always muddy, come November,” he answered, and she heard the rustle of paper, some letter that Roderick must have brought to him. “She say anything else?”
“I mean . . . not really. Not like –” she let out a breath as her stays dropped, “– not like ‘we’ll trade seventeen goats for a cow’ or anything like that. God forbid the womenfolk talk about business,” she muttered. “Although Letitia acted a little bit . . . hmm. Mrs. MacVinish mentioned moving some cattle, and Letitia jumped in and changed the subject before she could finish the sentence.”
“Did she now?” He sounded pleased. And amused.
Leah poked her head around the screen as Annie poured out some warm-ish water for a wash. “What is up with the cattle?”
Dougal smirked, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve had some of the tacksmen make a show of moving cattle about. It’ll coax out the fools,” he added, when Leah only raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Looks like we’re hurting to feed them, moving them this late.”
“You’re trying to bait the other clans?” Leah stepped back and began washing as quickly as she could. Maybe one day she’d feel comfortable enough to just stand by the fire and do it, but for now she’d stay behind her little screen, and order Dougal to find something else to do for a while on days when she wanted a real bath.
“They’ll no’ snap at it, if they’ve any sense,” he answered, then she heard him snort, “Grant will, though. The man’s as big a fool as he was when we were lads.”
So we don’t like the Frasers and we don’t like the Grants. Also nobody likes the Campbells unless they have to, we get along with Munro and Chisholm because they don’t cause us trouble, and we circle around MacLeod and all the MacDonald branches because we’re not sure who’d win if anyone got stompy.
But why hadn’t Letitia stepped in when talk had turned to the oat shortage? Surely that was sensitive knowledge, enough to make the Grants or whoever else wonder if the MacKenzies were vulnerable.
Although, really, anyone who did business in Dingwall would already know it. And anyone they might care to pass it along to. No point in hiding it, then.
“Wait. Was –” She struggled into her nightshift and came out. “Was Letitia helping you bait them, drawing attention to the cattle? Do you think the MacDonnells are in league with the whoevers?”
Dougal waited until Annie had left to pull off his boots and finish undressing. “Glengarry is too busy fechtin’ with Keppoch to cause us much trouble. Still, it’s good to see who they spread it to.”
I thought they were all MacDonalds. I’m never going to get this right. Leah shook her head and crawled into bed, waiting for Dougal to put the letter away and join her before she pulled his arm up over her and tucked herself into his warmth.
So she paid more attention the next day, to whose eyes went where and at what piece of information. Well, to the girls’ eyes; Letitia gave away nothing that Leah could see – maybe a more experienced player could read her tells, but Leah sucked at poker.
Actually, she mostly watched Eleanor’s eyes. Margaret only glanced toward her aunt once or twice; she was not the weakest link at the table. She’s gonna be so damn good at ladyshipping; we should send her to the CIA. MI-6, whatever. At least to a university – Bologna teaches women, and I think Padua too.
She’d need Latin, but I could start her on that; it’s not hard. And Hamish has a tutor, maybe we could borrow him.
And if Margaret wanted to come home and be Letitia: The Next Generation, any laird who saw what an asset she could be would want her. Surely some of them would see it.
Eleanor needed more training-up, but she was only sixteen, and at least she had more of a clue than Leah did (this time. Not in general). Bless her heart, she ought to have been getting ready for the homecoming dance and trying out for the school orchestra, not prepping to be a clan wife.
Like you did? LOL, and look where you ended up.
Oh sure. And if I’d studied eighteenth-century clan politics, the stones would have shot me back to the Neolithic or something, and Og MacGrunt would have dragged me back to his cave anyway.
Letitia made no more obvious subject-changes, and Leah filed it away to ask about later: did she not want to draw attention to so-and-so going to Inverness, or was it not sensitive at all, or was she making the cattle thing stand out by letting everything else pass, or –? Surely she could ask about that kind of thing, if they expected her to MacKenzie it up right alongside Letitia. She’d ask after the MacDonnells left, and be prepared for the next clan visit (hopefully after the Spring thaw; she’d take the cold if it meant she didn’t have recite every half-remembered fact about Philadelphia for a few months).
“. . . and the redcoats couldnae ken the difference!” A chuckle rippled around the table at Roderick MacDonnell’s tale, and Leah smiled as she cut into her salmon. It seemed the visit was coming along well; Dougal was in good spirits, and Colum, reserved as usual, could at least spare a laugh. The MacKenzies had shown themselves worthy allies – look how strong we are; don’t you want to be friends? – and if Malie’s conversations in the solar were anything to judge by, it was well-received.
Even the menus were calculated to demonstrate abundance but not extravagance. Three kinds of meat tonight – the salmon showed control of rivers, the venison of forests, the chicken of . . . nothing, everybody had chickens, but they were good fat hens – then the almond cakes and Rhenish spoke to MacKenzie wealth, and the turnips and carrots, the barley broth, said the MacKenzies of Leoch were solid highlanders, proud and true. Trust us.
Leah was quite pleased with it, actually; Letitia had only changed a couple of her suggestions (she’d tried to leave mutton off entirely, but Letitia had added it into the first night’s supper).
I’m getting such a good grade in highlandering, Leah thought, adding a sprinkle of vinegar to her fish.
“My husband says that the road through the glen should be passable for some weeks yet,” Malie was saying, “’tis only a bit muddy.”
“Aye,” Roderick MacDonnell agreed, “and the rains should die down until Advent, so says the almanack.”
“That will be a blessing,” Letitia said. “The rains do make ye feel the cold more. Have ye been able to take your turns about the garden this week?” she asked, turning to Margaret, who shook her head.
“No need to rush,” Dougal said, looking at Colum. “We’ll want the men ready first.”
Malie glanced at her husband. “It’s a hard road in poor weather,” she said mildly. “And folk remember who pressed them hard when it turns foul. Better handled soon, d’ye no’ think?”
Colum’s already-thin lips narrowed faintly, and he exchanged a look with Dougal before taking a sip of his Rhenish.
Hm. Do the MacDonnells sound too eager? Is that why they’ve got the eyebrows working? But it was time for the almond cakes and preserved cherries, which the girls loved, and Leah was too busy being smug about that to catch the next few exchanges. Look at me go. Good grade in stepmothering, too.
She felt Dougal stiffen just the slightest little bit, and looked up in time to see his head turn toward Roderick. Colum was saying something to him, and Malie spoke up again.
“Good-will’s dearer than coin, once it’s spent,” she said calmly, adding a bit of cherry to her almond cake. “And delay spends it quick. But it needn’t be settled tonight.”
The table went still for just a moment, then Leah heard Dougal’s quiet snort and saw him share another glance with Colum, as Roderick placed his hand briefly upon his wife’s. Then Letitia said something about Gwyllyn the bard that got Hamish piping up cheerfully, and whatever had caused that strange quiet dissipated. Poor kid, what a boring-ass conversation to sit through. And he doesn’t even get to bring a book to the table like I used to, Leah thought, as she spooned up a helping of cherries.
Malie was quiet in the solar that evening, and when Letitia turned in early it seemed calculated more for their guest’s benefit than her own. Leah was already washed and in her dressing gown before Dougal returned to their chamber, combing her fingers through her curls in the looking-glass while Annie neatly folded her discarded clothing (the rich brown that Letitia gave her months ago, with a new ribbon from Dougal).
She was mostly in her own head, idly chatting to Annie about the fast-approaching Christmas season, when Dougal entered and Annie clammed up immediately (she’d asked Annie about that once – if she were afraid of him, or if it was just protocol – and Annie said she’d been schooled by Letitia’s maid. “Ye can talk to yer mistress if she talks first, but if the master’s in ye go deaf and dumb,” she’d said, which made Leah grind her teeth).
“Did you have a good talk after supper?” Leah asked, as Dougal wandered to the table and grabbed her cup of water. He’d started doing that, and she’d decided to be glad about it instead of grossed out. She did ask Beitrice to make sure to bring extra cups each day, and tried not to feel weird about that. “Does Colum break out the good whisky for meetings like these?”
Dougal scoffed. “No need to,” he said, sitting down by the fire with his stolen treasure. “The poor bastard was too shamed to fight ower much.” He took a sip and glanced at her, as if to check that she noticed he was doing it.
Leah arched a brow, watching him in the reflection. “Shamed? What did he do? I thought supper went well enough.”
Annie paused ever so slightly in her folding, her eyes fixed on her work.
Dougal let out a sharp, derisive laugh, shaking his head. “Let that wife of his take the reins, didn’t he? Why Glengarry sent that whey-faced wee –”
Malie? Leah blinked and turned toward him. “What are you talking about?” She saw Annie’s shoulders tense ever so slightly, and her hackles rose. What in the hell.
“Ye ken fine what I mean, lass; ye saw how she carried on talkin’ over him to Colum.” He drained the cup of water and stood, looking for his ale now. “Ye’d think she’s the one sent to negotiate. And he let her, the fool. By the time we’d got to Colum’s study, every man knew MacDonnell couldnae control a flea, let alone drive a bargain.”
“Colum was kinder to him than I’d ha’ been,” Dougal mused, pouring himself a cup and leaning against the table. “Ye could roll a man like that for every thin drop of blood in his veins, but Colum’d keep Glengarry close.”
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, Leah thought. What the fuck –
“Wait.” She held up a hand as Dougal’s brows drew down. “No, for real. I don’t understand what’s going on, and I’m tired of it. Why does Malie MacDonnell talking at supper make her husband weak? Letitia talked at supper. I talked at supper. Hamish talked at supper.”
“Aye, about the household, the music. Not arguing with Colum about whether we move barley now or later.” He gestured vaguely with his cup, as though it should be obvious.
“Where do you think Colum got the numbers on the barley?” Leah asked. “And don’t say James – you know he uses the kitchen inventory, and I’ve handled that for months. Besides,” she added, half-smiling, just a little olive branch, “I was distracted by the food, or I might have spoken up about it myself.” A lie – she wasn’t firm enough on her highland feet to get involved with another clan like that; she barely spoke in the solar with just the women, but it was the principle of the thing.
Dougal snorted. “Ye wouldnae. You ken your place.”
Leah froze. So did Annie – by the look of it, she’d decided to pretend she didn’t exist.
“Know my place?” Leah asked, her voice dropping much too soft. “Know my place. Where is my place, Chief MacKenzie?”
That, finally, got his full attention. He looked at her, straight and steady. “You can go now, Annie,” he said. The poor girl didn’t hesitate; she gave the quickest curtsy before hurrying to the door, Leah’s frock still hanging over her arm. The door clicked shut behind her, leaving the room thick with silence.
Leah took a breath, then turned back to Dougal with narrowed eyes. “I think you need to explain to me, right now, what you mean by that.” She shook her head. “By all of it. I’ve argued with you. I’ve corrected you – I did it in Dingwall, don’t you remember? – And now you’re standing here snorting like a bull and talking about how a man ought to be shamed by it. Do I shame you, Chief MacKenzie?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from rising.
“Don’t be daft, woman,” he said shortly. “You’re no’ a fool.” Dougal quaffed his damned ale and poured another cup, as if that should settle it.
God, I might be a fool. I really might be. “What are we talking about here, then?”
Dougal looked at her for a long moment. “A man who cannae handle his own wife is no’ a man to respect,” he said shortly.
“What does that even mean?” Leah muttered, pulling off her glasses and rubbing at her temples. If the ground could stop shifting under me for two fucking seconds . . . I really thought I was getting a handle on this.
A good grade in highlandering. I’m such a dumbass.
“Ye ken fine what it –”
“Oh, for god’s sake, shut up.” Leah’s eyes squeezed tight – a blessing or she’d have seen the red in her husband’s – and she pushed harder at her temples. “You have the emotional resilience of a fainting goat.”
Dougal stopped, then barked a short, sharp laugh.
“You don’t even see, do you? No –” She held up a hand to stop another laugh, words spilling out faster than she could think them. “You don’t – you have no idea. You say I wouldn’t, but I would, I could act just like Malie MacDonnell, Dougal. One hundred percent, and you know it – and the only reason I didn’t tonight is that I don’t – I thought we were having a good night, and you – I just barely had a grip on what was allowed and what I was supposed to do, before all this. And as soon as we got married, all the rules changed and no one will just tell me what they are. I have to be here, and I have to be there, and I can’t visit my husband if another man walks next to me, and I can talk about inventories with a man, but not at supper and – Jesus H. Christ. I’m drowning, Dougal. I don’t know where the currents are and I am drowning. And you don’t even –”
She made a noise as the pressure behind her eyes threatened to burst and stood up, tugging the dressing gown tighter around herself, holding herself together. “I don’t – I can’t – I can’t be here right now.”
Dougal stood rooted to the spot, reeling, hands clenching as the door shut behind her. I gave ye that dressing gown, woman; you can’t use it to walk away from me.
The paralysis broke and he pushed away from the table, his boots striking hard against the stone floor as he paced to the hearth and back again. Drowning, was she? Drowning, in the life he gave her, in the gowns he gave her? In the security he’d made for her?
Drowning, she said. And looked at him like he was the one dragging her beneath the waves.
He’d seen her in temper, Christ’s blood, he had. He’d seen her in grief. He’d seen her in fear, once or twice – he’d seen it the day he found her skulking around those damned stones, the fear in her eyes when she looked at him, at the stranger yanking her up onto his horse. He’d seen her fight it down until those eyes snapped green fire at him, until they warmed him with their heat.
Tonight, they’d looked at him like he was a stranger again, and turned his blood cold.
My feet are freezing.
She’d drifted down the corridor in a fog, head heavy and heart aching, until the chill in the stones began to seep through her stockings and made her look up.
She wasn’t very far from – not home, not her place. Dougal’s chambers were still his, really; if they took out the extra clothespress and other chair, there’d be no sign she’d ever been there.
There’s that stone he puts in the bed to keep my feet warm, but aside from that I’m a ghost.
There is no there, there. There is no me there, or here either. There is –
She stopped, leaning against the wall to put one foot on top of the other, to get it off the cold stones.
I’m drowning. I’m freezing. I am thirty-two flavors and then some.
God damn him.
She switched feet.
Come on, come on, get angry, at least it’s warmer than whatever you are now. You can’t mope here in the hallway getting frostbite.
I could go back to my old room . . .
Except we put the MacDonnells up in it.
There are other rooms.
Gonna wander around Leoch in a robe, are you? Brilliant, Leah. Really well thought-out.
I’m just so tired of trying to think my way through every damn day. I thought I had it right, or at least close, and I’m just so far off about everything, including my husband, and I don’t know how to handle him. I don’t know what’s going to get his temper up, and I can’t walk a tightrope around him; it’ll grind me down to nothing. There really will be no there, there.
At least the drawing room hearth was still a little warm, when she remembered it existed, and if she curled up tightly enough she could just about lay down on the settee with only moderate discomfort. And Dougal never entered the drawing room, she was pretty sure, so he probably wouldn’t come in and bother her.
About what? It wasn’t an argument to him; I just word-vomited all over him and left. He’s sleeping the sleep of the righteous, and I don’t even have a lap-blanket.
She lay for a long while, thinking about stoking the fire back up, thinking about sneaking into the bedchamber to get her plaid (his plaid, with his brooch. It’s all his), thinking about slipping back into the bed, where at least she could stretch out with a blanket and a warming stone and a furnace of a man.
Girl.
You go looking for comfort, you’re gonna find a cage that doesn’t even know it’s a cage, and the doors snap shut quick on those.
I’m already in the cage. I might as well have the comfort.
There was a rustling by the hearth, and Dougal stirred enough to hear Beitrice tending the fire. She’d have brought his ale and Leah’s drinking water along, and his mouth could use a washing.
Leah made a soft noise in her sleep, and he held himself still. No need to wake her yet. Stubborn woman, he thought. She’d made him wait, left him there for hours and then swanned back in after she thought he was sleeping. Put her damned cold little feet on him, too.
Her sigh cut off into some unhappy sound, and Dougal’s arm tightened around her, pulling her back against his chest, steady and sure. Stubborn she might be, and maddening, too, comparing herself to Malie MacDonnell as if she had no more sense than that, but he’d taken her to wife and he wouldn’t see her suffer for it, even if only in her mind.
Nothing that was his would drown, and she was his, no matter how she still fought against him.
She could feel him behind her, feel his arm around her waist. He’d still been awake when she came back the night before, she was pretty sure; he’d jerked when she put her feet on him and dared him to object, as if it weren’t his fault they were blocks of ice. He’d lain still with his eyes closed, the stubborn lump, but he rolled over in the night and curled around her as usual, radiating heat like he did certainty.
He must have known when she began to wake; his arm tightened and he made a rough noise in his chest. She turned her head to see his eyes slitting open, watching her.
“Came back to the ship, did ye?” he rumbled, and she would have flung herself off the bed, cold floors be damned, but he pulled her closer, his breath ruffling her curls. “You’re learning the water, mo nighean gheur. That’s no’ drowning.”
“It is if I slip,” she muttered, but let him hold her close and still, and warm, and let it pull her under.
the pitt x reader fic but instead of dating one of the doctors or nurses y/n is dating the anthropomorphic personification of the emergency department, chuck tingle-style
vaporwave
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
titsay
origamiaround
