Very excited to finally share some pictures of my Dread Pirate Frogerts build! I've been thinking about making this outfit for my Kermit for a while now, but the proper motivation to actually get this done was hearing that Cary Elwes was announced as a guest for my local comic convention! So with any luck Dread Pirate Frogerts will be getting to meet the real Westley very soon.
A shocking amount of work went into making this little outfit... I completely underestimated the amount of time I would need to put all this together. Though a good chunk of that was me getting way too wrapped up in perfectionism... ask me how many times I re-did the smocking on the sleeves (On second thought, don't, it's embarrassing). Here I thought I had been con-crunching with Piggy last year... technically, I only just finished Kermit today, and the convention starts Thursday. Lots of internal (and external) screaming was had with this build. I did film the majority of it, with plans to turn it into a full video and reel in the future... maybe once I've had a chance to recoup from aforementioned con-crunch.
I’ve seen a lot of curious people wanting to dive into classical music but don’t know where to start, so I have written out a list of pieces to listen to depending on mood. I’ve only put out a few, but please add more if you want to. hope this helps y’all out. :)
stereotypical delightful classical music:
battalia a 10 in d major (biber)
brandenburg concerto no. 5
brandenburg concerto no. 3
symphony no. 45 - “farewell” (haydn)
if you need to chill:
rondo alla turca
fur elise
anitra’s dance
in the steppes of central asia (borodin) (added by viola-ology)
if you need to sleep:
moonlight sonata
swan lake
corral nocturne
sleep (eric whitacre) (added by thelonecomposer)
if you need to wake up:
morning mood
summer (from the four seasons)
buckaroo holiday (if you’ve played this in orch you might end up screaming instead of waking up joyfully)
if you are feeling very proud:
pomp and circumstance
symphony no. 9 (beethoven; this is where ode to joy came from)
1812 overture
symphony no. 5, finale (tchaikovsky) (added by viola-ology)
american (dvořák)
if you feel really excited:
hoedown (copland)
bacchanale
spring (from the four seasons) (be careful, if you listen to this too much you’ll start hating it)
la gazza ladra
death and the maiden (schubert)
if you are angry and you want to take a baseball bat and start hitting a bush:
dance of the knights (from the romeo and juliet suite by prokofiev)
winter, mvt. 1 (from the four seasons)
symphony no. 10 mvt. 2 (shostakovich)
symphony no. 5 (beethoven)
totentanz (liszt)
quartet no. 8, mvt. 2 (shostakovich) (added by viola-ology)
young person’s guide to the orchestra, fugue (britten) (added by iwillsavemyworld)
symphony no. 5 mvt. 4 (shostakovich) (added by eternal-cadenza)
marche slave (tchaikovsky) (added by eternal-cadenza)
if you want to cry for a really long time:
fantasia based on russian themes (rimsky-korsakov)
adagio for strings (barber)
violin concerto in e minor (mendelssohn)
aase’s death
andante festivo
vocalise (rachmaninoff) (added by tropicalmunchakoopas)
if you want to feel like you’re on an adventure:
an american in paris (gershwin)
if you want chills:
danse macabre
russian easter overture
egmont overture (added by shayshay526)
if you want to study:
eine kleine nachtmusik
bolero (ravel)
serenade for strings (elgar)
scheherazade (rimsky-korsakov) (added by viola-ology)
pines of rome, mvt. 4 (resphigi) (added by viola-ology)
if you really want to dance:
capriccio espagnol (rimsky-korsakov)
blue danube
le cid (massenet) (added by viola-ology)
radetzky march
if you want to start bouncing in your chair:
hopak (mussorgsky)
les toreadors (from carmen suite no.1)
if you’re about to pass out and you need energy:
hungarian dance no. 1
hungarian dance no. 5
if you want to hear suspense within music:
firebird
in the hall of the mountain king
ride of the valkyries
night on bald mountain (mussorgsky) (added by viola-ology)
if you want a jazzy/classical feel:
rhapsody in blue
jazz suite no. 2 (shostakovich) (added by eternal-cadenza)
if you want to feel emotional with no explanation:
introduction and rondo capriccioso
unfinished symphony (schubert)
symphony no. 7, allegretto (beethoven) (added by viola-ology)
canon in d (pachelbel)
if you want to sit back and have a nice cup of tea:
st. paul’s suite
concerto for two violins (vivaldi)
l’arlésienne suite
concierto de aranjuez (added by tropicalmunchakoopas)
pieces that don’t really have a valid explanation:
symphony no. 40 (mozart)
cello suite no. 1 (bach)
polovtsian dances
enigma variations (elgar) (added by viola-ology)
perpetuum mobile
moto perpetuo (paganini)
pieces that just sound really cool:
scherzo tarantelle
dance of the goblins
caprice no. 24 (paganini)
new world symphony, allegro con fuoco (dvorak) (added by viola-ology)
le tombeau de couperin (added by tropicalmunchakoopas)
carnival of the animals (added by shadowraven45662)
if you feel like listening to concertos all day (I do not recommend doing that):
concerto for two violins (bach)
concerto for two violins (vivaldi)
violin concerto in a minor (vivaldi)
violin concerto (tchaikovsky) (added by iwillsavemyworld)
violin concerto in d minor (sibelius) (added by eternal-cadenza)
cello concerto in c (haydn)
piano concerto, mvt. 1 (pierne) (added by iwillsavemyworld)
harp concerto in E-flat major, mvt. 1 (added by iwillsavemyworld)
and if you really just hate classical music in general:
4′33″ (cage)
a lot of these pieces apply in multiple categories, but I sorted them by which I think they match the most. have fun exploring classical music!
also, thank you to viola-ology, iwillsavemyworld, shayshay526, eternal-cadenza, tropicalmunchakoopas, shadowraven45662, and thelonecomposer for adding on! if you would like to add on your own suggestions, please reblog and add on or message me so I can give you credit for the suggestion!
Nobby Nobs doodle, my first email address and first online nickname was Nobby. N….. of all possible characters I loved, 12years old me identified as … this guy x-x
The most frustrating thing about The Tomb of Dragons is not even the romance bait-and-switch but the feeling that core themes of the trilogy were just completely dropped and even reversed in the final half of the third book.
We start book one with Thara still grieving the death of his lover Evru and only recently returned to his calling after that tragedy, starting his life anew in the city of Amalo. Throughout the trilogy, he is aloof, reserved, and unwilling to rely on others or accept companionship or camaraderie from anyone. Despite this, his earnest nature and devotion to using his role as a prelate to help others wins him the affection of many in his new home.
Yet he is, as Anora says in the third book, a hard man to be friends with. Although many around Thara genuinely like him and wish him well, he continues to hold himself at arms' length, in part by nature, in part due to past tragedy, and in part due to complex feelings around being gay in a homophobic society (and perhaps a feeling that he must hold himself apart, to be able to keep that part of himself private). He is repeatedly shocked when others express affection or well-wishes to him beyond simply politesse. Anora has to tell him that Azanharad feels warmly to him, as it simply never occurred to Thara.
In his relationship with Iana, he starts to come around to the idea of romance again, but in his relationships with many more, he starts to come around to the idea of community. In his dinners with Anora, in his training and partnership with Tomasaran, in his working relationship with Prince Orchenis, Thara begins to develop this community, a home in Amalo.
We know that he has no love for his previous city of office, Aveio, where Evru was executed, and that he never felt at home in the imperial court with his cousin Csoru, but in Amalo, he begins to feel comfortable. He feeds the local strays on his porch, he regularly attends the theater, he regularly dines with Anora and later with Tomasaran.
After great loss, both personal and directional, forced to start his life over essentially from scratch, Thara is beginning to resettle.
And The Tomb of Dragons just tosses all that and decides that actually what Thara wants is a life on the road with some guy he met a few months ago and barely knows. All of those relationships he spent nearly three full books painstakingly building are relegated to pen pals and that's meant to be an optimistic ending. Those friendships that were sold as so important turn out to mean less than this rando love interest introduced in the final third of the last book.
Thara is not a character who ever gave off the air of being an adventurer. He is not someone who has been looking for thrills or a life living out of a suitcase; he's always seemed far more domestic and practical. Few characters in the Chronicles of Osreth seem less suited to a life of constant travel and peril. All of the dangers Thara takes on in Amalo are only in pursuit of his calling, and he does not take any pleasure in it beyond being able to assist those who rely on him.
For two and a half books it felt like Thara was building a new home in Amalo, a place where he felt safe, and cared for, and known, and for that to all be chucked at the last minute for the life of a traveling prelate feels like a second tragedy in his life. It doesn't come off like a hopeful new start, it comes off like Thara having another home snatched away from him, like his once more being forced out of a place he had, with great difficulty, made connections.
Another Canon Divergence AU idea for "The Princess Bride" is that Westley ISN'T following Buttercup when she gets kidnapped. If he's not doing that, presumably intending on kidnapping and confronting her himself, then he really has no way of finding out about the kidnapping besides, again, spying on Humperdinck and Rugen (which is very difficult to do). And if he's not there to follow the kidnappers almost immediately, then he has no way to intervene in time.
So, Westley has been through a LOT of unpleasant shit to get back and has just found out that his true love has moved on to become engaged to their local prince. He's confused. He's really pissed off. He misses whatever opportunity allowed him to follow Buttercup on her daily ride (didn't see her ride out, didn't hear about it, whatever), because he's following another opportunity into the castle to investigate Humperdinck. Or else he sees Humperdinck and Rugen riding off towards the Pit of Despair together and decides to follow them instead. Either way, Westley overhears the two men very casually discussing Humperdinck's beautiful but forcibly gained fiancée and the kidnapping plot currently underway, and Westley realizes that Buttercup is about to DIE and he's very likely not going to be able to reach his true love in time. He still runs off, desperate and ready to die trying to save her.
And Westley is really much to late to cross the water and climb the Cliffs of Insanity and all that, because Buttercup and her kidnappers are already at the border with Guilder. It's fine though, because when Fezzik and Inigo are confronted with the murder part of the job, they object, and Fezzik ultimately decides that he's really not cool with it. Fezzik thumps Vizzini over the head while Vizzini is berating Inigo. Fezzik apologizes to Buttercup. Inigo looks at the unconscious (possibly dead, heavily concussed at least) Vizzini, shrugs, and then helps Fezzik untie Buttercup and apologizes as well.
It's more than a little awkward, because none of them really know what to do besides wander vaguely back towards Florin. Buttercup admits that she doesn't really want to marry the prince, and he'll find her if she goes back to the farm, which leads into her telling the story of her dead true love, which Inigo and Fezzik find very romantic. Which leads into Fezzik and Inigo both sharing their own tragic backstories in turn. Buttercup is personally very intrigued by Inigo's mention of being in the revenge business.
And then Buttercup goes, "Wait a moment, I know a nobleman like that. Count Rugen is Prince Humperdinck's closest friend and confidant, and he has six fingers on his right hand. I once had to sit next to them at a dinner table while they spent over an hour discussing all the troubles of finding a good glovemaker and skincare for their hands." (Rugen and his wife also once visited Buttercup and Westley's farm when they were younger, but Buttercup would more recently know Rugen from just... around the castle. Rugen is presumably going to be Humperdinck's best man.)
So, Westley is like, "Where the HELL is the love of my life???" presumably harrassing Vizzini about it if Vizzini is still alive. And Humperdinck has his theatric rescue party together to find Buttercup's body on the border, unknowingly following behind a rushing and frantic Westley, trying to keep his lies straight while he's internally like, "What the HELL happened to my kidnapping and murder plot to incite a war??? Rugen, I thought you hired the best??? It's so hard to find good help these days!"
Meanwhile, Buttercup, Fezzik, and Inigo are on a new friendship quest back to Count Rugen's house. Buttercup is the future princess, and so is presumably already acquainted with Rugen's young and beautiful wife, who has to let her in and be a good hostess. The Countess is warily like, "Buttercup... Who are these unkempt and intimidating men...?"
And Buttercup says, "Oh, they saved me from being kidnapped and killed! 😄 I'm sure that my fiancé will want to thank and reward them in person! 😄 This was the closest safe place I could think of! Thank you so much for your hospitality. By the way, when do you think your husband might be home? 😄"
I took this post and then. I got silly with it. Please be nice about the legal stuff; I tried.
___
“Ms. Woods? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Elle spins around fast, the door of her favourite coffee shop within walking distance of the courthouse jangling closed behind her, her caramel mocha frappuccino sloshing dangerously against the domed plastic lid that’s supposed to contain it. She double- and then triple-checks its spatter pattern, making sure there’s none on her crisp white cotton blouse or magenta pencil skirt. Getting coffee stains out of rayon is beyond annoying.
Under her arm, Bruiser leans forward out of her seashell-pink quilted leather Kate Spade bag, a growl rising behind his teeth. Elle strokes his head with the hand that’s not wrangling her frapp, cooing a reassurance before she looks up to see who’d startled them both.
Her first thought is that the guy is cute. Her second thought is that he’s gigantic. Her third thought is that she knows his face from somewhere. Not the coffeeshop, though. Elle can name all the regulars and staff here on sight, and he’s definitely not one of them.
“I’m sorry, I think your name’s slipped my mind?” Elle says, beaming up at the guy. Her sentence is punctuated by Bruiser’s growl breaking into a sharp flurry of barks, and Elle looks down in surprise. “Bruiser! I’m sorry, he usually has much better manners than this. Don’t you, boy?”
“He probably recognises me from court,” the tall cute guy says, holding out a hand for Elle to shake. “Sam Winchester. I’m with the prosecution.”
Elle puts her head to one side and gives his hand her frostiest look, and he slowly withdraws it, hopeful smile fading.
“My client’s already entered her plea,” Elle says, through the teeth of her brightest smile. “Not guilty. And we’re going to prove it in court.”
She punctuates that sentence by flipping her oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses down off the top of her head onto her face, and moving to walk around the guy.
The guy steps into Elle’s path. This time, when Bruiser snaps at him, she doesn’t scold her dog.
The guy gives Bruiser only the briefest glance. “Unless you have some explosive evidence that wasn’t included in discovery, I think we both know that’s going to be difficult. The prosecution has your client on video committing the murder.”
“That was so not Sophie. She got her nails done just that morning. Mediterranean Blue, to match her bridesmaid dress. We included the receipts in discovery.” Elle scootches her sunglasses back up onto her head just so she can bat her eyelashes innocently up at the prosecution guy. Guys hate it when she does that. “Tell me, did you see Mediterranean Blue anywhere in that footage?”
She pushes her way around the prosecution guy, hip-checking him as she passes when he moves like he’s going to get in her way again.
Elle hasn’t gotten more than about four or five steps before she hears dress shoes hurrying against the pavement behind her. She rolls her eyes at the perfect blue sky overhead. Not quite Mediterranean Blue. Maybe L. A. Lapis?
“What’re you going to try to argue?” prosecution guy says, falling into step beside Elle. “That the murderer was actually someone who looked identical to Sophie, but had different nail polish?”
“It introduces a reasonable doubt,” Elle snips back, without looking over. She’s not going to sink to this guy’s level. And she is not going to consider a plea deal. Especially not now.
Not after Emmett had specifically asked Elle, personally, to take his high school best friend’s fiancée’s maid of honour’s case. Not after the way Sophie had broken down during her first meeting with Elle and begged Elle to believe she hadn’t done it, even though no one else did. Even though every other lawyer Sophie’d spoken to had said she should plead out.
Not after Elle had overheard a couple of people talking in the bathroom during a recess yesterday about how an airhead like Elle Woods couldn’t possibly get so lucky twice.
“And who gets her nails done at ten, gruesomely murders a random stranger at eleven, and then meets the rest of the wedding party for dress fittings and sushi at eleven forty-five?” Elle tosses her hair over her shoulder. “You couldn’t get all the blood off in that time. At least, not to be sure you didn’t have any splashed somewhere you couldn’t see. And then it might rub off on the bridesmaid dress. It’s pure silk! You’d never get the blood out. And do you have any idea how hard it would be to get that gown replaced on such short notice?”
“So you’ve come to the conclusion that, since Sophie’s too fashion-conscious to commit this murder, she must have an evil twin?”
“Reasonable doubt,” Elle reminds the prosecution guy, sweetly. Bruiser’s growling again. Elle kind of feels like growling, too.
“You’re going to have a hard time convincing the jury of a theory that comes straight out of daytime TV.” Elle opens her mouth to offer a witty verbal rejoinder, but the prosecution guy cuts her off. “Which is why you should give this number a call.”
Elle’s aware that her mouth is flapping like an unfortunate fish. Luckily, the prosecution guy isn’t looking at her. He’s scanning the street all around them, frowning suspiciously at every passing face.
He passes over the folded piece of yellow notepaper deliberately nonchalantly, without looking at Elle. She takes it without thinking.
“Tell him Sam Winchester gave you that number,” the prosecution guy says, glaring after a passing dude in a shearling-lined denim jacket. Elle glares a little too, just on principle. So out of season, and in this weather? Well, she’s not the one sweating her brains out.
“I told you already. We’re not interested in pleading out. If you have something new and exonerating, introduce it into evidence. Like you’re supposed to.” Elle stops in her high-heeled tracks and plants a hand on her hip as she stares up at the prosecution guy. She’s tempted to rip his dumb phone number up right in front of him, but Bruiser beats her to it, snatching the little yellow paper from her hand with his tiny sharp teeth. “And I don’t appreciate being propositioned by people who just spent ten minutes telling me why my defense strategy is stupid.”
She has to give the prosecution guy this, he does look like he hadn’t even considered that Elle would assume he’d given her his number. “What? Wait, that’s not -”
Elle cocks an eyebrow. The prosecution guy huffs out an exasperated breath, running a hand through his floppy bangs before he meets her eyes. Bruiser gives Elle eyes like that sometimes when he wants a little of whatever she’s eating. Or belly rubs. Or a pedicure.
“You have a reputation for being brilliant, innovative, and unorthodox,” the prosecution guy says, his puppy-dog eyes all sincerity. Elle bites down on the urge to tell him that she knows when she’s being made fun of. “I’m hoping all of that’s true. For your client’s sake. And who knows how many others like her.”
Elle doesn’t really want to admit that she’s not sure what he’s talking about. If law school taught her anything, it was to never show weakness. Of course, life’s taught her a little differently. But there’s a time and a place, and in front of somebody she’s up against in court tomorrow – and whose taste in ties is so deeply questionable – is neither of those.
Still. If Elle didn’t know better –
“Do you think Sophie’s innocent?” she asks the prosecution guy.
The prosecution guy – Sam – makes a face, a kind of smile without any happiness in it, and looks away.
“Call that number,” he says, instead of answering Elle’s question. “From somewhere private. And – don’t tell anybody that we talked about anything other than your client’s possible openness to a plea deal? I just got this job. I’d like to keep it.”
Elle squints at him. It doesn’t really help her make up her mind.
He doesn’t give her a chance to. “I’ll look forward to seeing you and, uh -”
“Bruiser,” Elle says. Bruiser barks.
“You and Bruiser tomorrow in court, Ms. Woods.”
“Mr. Winchester,” Elle answers, automatically.
The prosecution guy – Sam – nods at her a little awkwardly, and then turns and starts walking back in the direction of the courthouse. Elle watches him go, and considers.
That basic-black suit fits him pretty well, but it’s also obviously not custom. And obviously not new. The carefully brushed and pressed wool gabardine is shiny at the elbows and worn at the slightly-too-short cuffs and slightly-too-tight collar. Same with those nice black leather dress shoes – polished to a high shine, but worn down at the heel. Elle hadn’t noticed a fancy Rolex or Bvlgari when he’d offered to shake her hand or passed her the phone number, either, just a cheap digital Timex. His hair’s obviously cut that way on purpose, but by the way he’d kept shaking it out of his eyes, he’s overdue for a trim. And then there’s that tie.
It all paints a picture of a careful, thoughtful man, conscious of the impression he makes on others, doing everything he can with what he’s got. Maybe with…questionable taste, in patterns especially. But what he said rings true. He probably needs the job. So for him to offer to stick his neck out to help the defense, in what Elle’s suspecting more and more is a not-entirely-aboveboard sort of way…
Either he really does believe in Sophie’s innocence, and he’s got something that proves it that he can’t enter into evidence for some reason, client confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement or who knows, as well as principles of steel. Or…
Or this is a trap.
Well, at least Elle knows one thing for sure. Sam’s definitely not one of Warner’s crowd. They’d rather be caught naked in public than looking so dangerously close to shabby.
“Hm,” Elle says, and takes a long drag of slightly-melted caramel mocha goodness. “What do you think, Bruiser?”
Bruiser yips, once.
Elle nods, and absentmindedly scratches behind his ears. “You know? I think so too.”
…
It’s past nine by the time Elle finally makes it home. She kicks off her seashell-pink kitten heels and peels off her pantyhose with a bone-deep sigh of relief. She’s given Bruiser his dinner, wrapped herself up in her marabou-trimmed blush satin robe, and is just pouring herself a glass of rosé when Bruiser pads into the kitchen with something yellow in his mouth.
“Are you sure?” Elle asks, and Bruiser barks, spitting the folded piece of notepaper to the tile. It flutters over to rest on the little pink nose of one of Elle’s baby-pink bunny slippers.
Elle bends (and snaps, a girl’s got to stay in practice even when there’s no audience around) to pick it up.
Ordinarily, she’d think twice about calling anyone after nine PM. But ordinarily, the prosecution wouldn’t be furtively handing her shady leads outside her favourite coffee shop, either. It occurs to Elle to wonder, as the phone rings in her ear, just how Sam had known to look for her there. Not that it’s exactly a secret, but – something about the thought of him observing her, asking around about her, learning her habits without her even noticing, sends a little chill shivering under her skin.
Before she can think too hard about that, though, there’s a click from the phone and then a gruff, Midwestern accent is saying, “Federal Bureau of Investigation. Supervisory Special Agent Clayton. Who are you and whaddaya want.”
“Um,” Elle says. Of course, a murder case could easily bump into the FBI’s jurisdiction, but. This is starting to scream ‘trap’.
Still, there’s one last card left up her marabou-trimmed bell sleeve, and she plays it. “This is Elle Woods. Sam Winchester gave me this number?”
The silence on the other end of the line is briefly broken by a distant, muffled burst of swearing. Elle waits patiently, gnawing a little at her bottom lip, as the swearing gives way to a heavy thumping sound and then silence again.
A moment later, the Midwestern-accented voice is back, sounding slightly less hostile and slightly more out of breath. “He did, did he. And just who the hell is Elle Woods?”
“I’m a defense attorney in the murder case he’s prosecuting?” Elle didn’t mean it to come out sounding like a question. She clears her throat, shakes her hair back, squares her shoulders, and summons her inner Vivian. “Mr. Winchester intimated that you might have access to vital evidence that could help decide the fate of my client.”
“He did, did he.” Elle thinks she catches a quiet, “Idjit,” muttered away from the phone’s handset. “And what kind of ‘vital evidence’ would that be?”
Elle turns in a slow circle on the kitchen floor, crumpling and uncrumpling the little yellow piece of paper in the hand that’s not pressing the cordless handset to her ear. She’s keenly aware that one wrong word here could easily cost her – and Sophie – the entire case. Fruit of the poisoned tree, and all that. But – if this could help Sophie, Elle has to know. “Are you aware that the murder trial of Sophie Dumont commenced this week?”
“Sophie Dumont?” the voice on the other end of the line says, and then there’s a creaking and a sound like paper flicking and then a knowing, “Oh, Sophie Dumont. Caught on camera skinning some poor bastard alive, wasn’t she?”
“Sophie has entered a plea of not guilty,” Elle says sharply.
“Yeah, I bet she has.” It strikes Elle as a strange thing to say, especially in that tone. She’d have expected sarcasm. But the man on the other end of the line sounds – resigned? Maybe? Definitely some flavour of totally bummed out. “Still. Not sure how I can help, Miss -”
“Ms. Ms. Elle Woods.” Elle takes a breath, and a chance. “We have evidence to support that the person captured in the camera footage is not, in fact, Sophie Dumont. Unfortunately, it’s…limited in scope. And Sophie was alone in her apartment during the hour in which the murder occurred. We’ve as yet been unable to locate anyone who can confirm her alibi, or an eyewitness to the murder who would be willing to come forward…”
She bounces up and down on her toes, crossing the fingers of her free hand hard and squinching her eyes shut as she holds her breath.
“Well, now,” the voice on the other end of the line says. “Let me see what I can dig up.”
Elle lets out her breath in one big gust. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I mean.” She clears her throat, puts on her best Vivian again. “Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.”
The chuckle that comes down the phone line reminds Elle, weirdly, of how her favourite uncle used to laugh when she showed off one of her tumbling tricks. “Don’t mention it. And I mean that – don’t you breathe a word to anyone that I was involved in this.”
Elle nods before remembering, right. Phone. “Of course, Mr. Clayton. Strict confidentiality is the name of the game.”
“Oh, and Ms. Woods?”
“Yes?”
“The next time you see Sam Winchester -” The voice breaks off, into a frustrated huff. “You tell that boy that next time, he can call me himself. And I ain’t the only one wouldn’t mind knowing he’s not dead every now and again.”
Not for the first time since the man calling himself Supervisory Special Agent Clayton picked up the phone, Elle wonders how he and Sam know each other. But that’s none of her business, of course. Just. Clayton sounds like he hasn’t heard from Sam in ages. Like he was really worried about Sam.
Elle might just have to see what she can find out about what happened there. Whether those are fences that could be mended. After all, one good turn deserves another, doesn’t it?
“I will certainly pass that along,” Elle promises into the phone. “Here, let me give you my cell number in case anything turns up.”
She waits for Clayton to be ready with a pen and paper, then rattles off her cell phone number twice. After she’s confirmed it’s correct, there’s a beat. A moment when Elle feels like there’s something she should be saying or asking, that she can’t quite seem to think of.
Before she can make her excuses and get off the line, though, Clayton clears his throat and asks, a little more gruff than he’d been so far, “Before you go. Who’d Sam tell you I was, when he gave you my number?”
“He…didn’t,” Elle admits. “Just said to call.”
“Oh.” There’s another awkward moment of silence. Elle’s just taking her breath to say her goodbyes when Clayton says, “You’ve seen the footage of the murder. Right?”
Unfortunately, Elle has. “It was included in discovery, yes.”
“And what do you think that is in the footage, if it’s not Sophie Dumont?”
Elle looks down at Bruiser, who’s lying beside her bunny slippers. Bruiser looks back up at her, no help at all.
Warner would probably say something about how that’s not what he’s paid to know or care about. Vivian or Emmett would say it was immaterial, which sounds a lot nicer but means pretty much the same thing. But Elle finds herself unintentionally parroting what Sam had said, back at the coffeeshop. “Her evil twin?”
There’s a snort of hastily-stifled laughter from the other end of the phone line. Elle starts to say, “Well, thank you again,” and moves to end the call, but Clayton interrupts her.
“Tell me, Ms. Elle Woods, defense attorney. Are you currently accepting new clients?”
“Not currently,” Elle says, because a murder trial is a lot for anyone to manage. “Why, do you know someone who needs a good lawyer?”
Another of those uncle-ish chuckles. “Who do I know who couldn't use a good lawyer.” He sounds a lot more serious when he adds, “In this line of work, we run into Sophie Dumonts more often than we’d like. Mind if I pass your name along?”
“I would appreciate it,” Elle says, honestly. Even if this whole setup is…a little strange. Even if she really does think that one more big win will really get her name out there – if she can pull it off, of course. In the meantime, she and Bruiser still have to eat. And if the clients are too scary…well, nothing says she has to take on every case.
“I’ll let you know what I turn up,” Clayton says, and Elle thinks she can hear the faintest hint of a smile in his voice. “Nice doing business with you, Ms. Elle Woods. And tell that idjit to call his brother!”
The phone goes dead in Elle’s hand before she can ask any more questions.
She puts the handset back into its charging dock and takes a long sip from her rosé, thinking. There’s something about the conversation she just had that’s sitting uneasy with her, but she can’t quite put her finger on what. Other than the general sense that she’s stumbled into some kind of mafia, which…could end up being a problem.
Elle looks down at Bruiser, who cocks his head to one side and looks back at her with his huge, liquid puppy-dog eyes.
“Oh, all right,” Elle says, and pulls open the cabinet over the stove to get down Bruiser’s treats.
She’s crouched on the floor, feeding Bruiser salmon tidbits, when it hits her like a blinding flash of the obvious. What was sitting so wrong with her about that conversation.
It was something the man calling himself Supervisory Special Agent Clayton had said, when he’d been talking about the murder footage. Something strange. Something really strange.
He hadn’t asked Elle who she thought could have been in that footage, if it hadn’t been Sophie.
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