Mazel tov!

After seven years as a couple (a few of them long-distance) and one near-breakup caused by a certain penguin's less-than-perfect performance as postmaster, Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday are officially engaged!

Unfortunately, I missed the proposal, because I was off playing a socially-challenged bishonen sorcerer in a game of Exalted.  But I'm told that it was incredibly romantic, and that Lady Faraday got down on three knees and everything.  Apparently they'd been talking about marriage for a while, but the proposal itself was a surprise for Sir Tristan.

There may or may not be pictures of this.  It's less than clear, because the engagement party was quite an event.  I got home while it was still going on; Magick was making cocktails and pretty much everyone was totally wasted except for him and, ironically, the happy couple (who do look really, really happy).  Lady Artemisia might have taken pictures, but she's looking like she might be out for a while.

Lady Faraday says that they haven't set a wedding date yet, but they're not intending to have a very long engagement, so probably it will be within the year.  They haven't decided whether to be married here or to go back home briefly so that their families can attend.

Poker Part III

When I left off the account of the poker game, Magick had just won big on a bluff, and nearly caused an International Incident in doing so when he refused to show his winning hand.  Rochester and Humphrey were  rather riled up.  Not only were their general appetites for winning whetted, but they now personally wanted to beat Magick.  As news of Magick's enigmatic victory spread around the north room, the audience for the poker match steadily grew.

The new players still had not worked out that victories are worth more if you keep the other players in the game for longer.  A few games after Magick's big victory, Rochester made the same mistake that Reggie had earlier.  He had two kings in his hand, and Reggie dealt another king on the turn.  Rochester prematurely went all in, causing all of the others to fold (except Humphrey, who had already folded).  He felt a bit vindicated, after that loss to Magick.

Remember how I said that the size of the peanut gallery was steadily increasing from the point of Magick's victory onward?  One of the newer arrivals was Gilly.  Gilly wasn't actually all that interested in the cards, but he'd worked out that the poker chips were worth something and decided to claim them all.  He's a rather mercenary little fellow, our Gilly.

It was growing pretty late now, and everyone could tell that the end of the game was drawing nearer.  Magick was dealt the queen and ten of spades, and decided to sit.  Reggie, with a pair of aces, decided to raise.  Humphrey and Rochester called; Humphrey had the ten and king of diamonds and Rochester the six and nine of diamonds.  Magick decided to go ahead and call too.

The turn produced the nine of spades, queen of hearts, and three of clubs.  This produced a holding pattern: Magick and Humphrey were looking at possible straights, but could still turn out to have dross, and Rochester now had a pair, but a low pair; Reggie's hand wasn't improved.  Then the flip yielded the eight of spades, which made things look better for Magick.  He bet six dollars; Reggie raised to ten.  The others stayed in.  Reggie's enthusiasm was significantly greater than his skill, and no one really believed Magick had anything.

Then the river prodcued the jack of spades.  Humphrey now had a straight - and Magick now had a straight flush.  He promptly went all in.

Had any of the others gone all in, everyone else probably would have folded, but no one trusted Magick.  Rochester in particular was grimly determined to stay in and force Magick out of the game. He had an even better hand this time, even though his hand wasn't particularly good.  Humphrey, with his straight, was seeing glory.  Reggie was just having fun.

So everyone went all in.

Here's a shot taken further out, so you can see just how much attention the poker game had attracted by this point in the evening.

Gilly, Barry, Desmond, Parsley, Seleucus... even Leprosy had come over by then, and Murchison was excited enough that he had moved in closer for a better view.

With everyone all in, of course, Magick had to show his hand.  He played it up for all it was worth, of course; he made a great show of trying not to seem reluctant while secretly being reluctant and managed to draw out the suspense for just long enough before revealing his straight flush.  The game was his.

Such excitement!  Rochester and Humphrey stared at each other in profound shock, while everyone else rushed to congratulate Magick, except for Desmond, who stayed to provide moral support to his fellow marine mammal.

It remains to be seen how many of them will ever again agree to play poker with Magick, of course.  Reggie probably would.  Humphrey and Rochester could go either way; they might want revenge, or they might be reluctant to try again.  As for the spectators, they all want to learn poker now, but possibly not against Magick, although they all want to know his secrets.  He, of course, says that these are things one learns for oneself.

I was pretty impressed, too.  There's just something about males who know how to play poker.

Poker Part II

When I left off my account of the poker game, Rochester, who had been on the verge of quitting, had decided that he liked poker after all, thanks to an exciting showdown victory over Sir Tristan.  All of the players were fully committed now: Magick and Sir Tristan are longtime poker aficionados, having played together since their kittenhood; Humphrey had won two early games and was convinced he was a natural; Reggie just likes games; and Rochester, the last holdout, was converted.

After another hour or so, Sir Tristan, who had recovered somewhat from his loss to Rochester, won a hand with a pair of aces over Rochester's nines and Humphrey's jacks.

Sir Tristan had now achieved a tidy profit.  Not a huge profit; he's too conservative a player to win dramatic splashy victories most of the time.  But he was coming out ahead, and that was what he'd been after, so he collected his winnings and politely withdrew from the match.  He doesn't always decide to leave poker games early like this, but he always does when he's playing with Magick.

The new players weren't sure why he'd quit when he had, but they didn't mind too much.  They were starting to get the hang of the game now, but they hadn't picked up on some of the subtleties yet.  So, for instance, two hands after Sir Tristan's departure, Reggie discovered that he had two pairs between his hand and the table: queens and sixes.  Delighted, he promptly went all in, causing everyone else to fold.  Reggie didn't realise that he'd have won more had he kept the others in the game for longer; he was too excited over his victory.  Here he is, showing everyone his cards.

There are different kinds of winners and losers.  There's the quiet and gracious type of winner, like Sir Tristan, for instance.  Other winners get very excited and exuberant.  Some of them make you want to slap them, and some of them don't.  Humphrey is the first kind of excited winner.  When Humphrey wins, he gloats and pats  himself on the back and generally makes a show of himself, so that the losers feel that much more annoyed that he won.  Reggie is an equally exuberant winner, but in a very different way.  He's utterly delighted when he wins, but he doesn't take his victory as a sign of superiority in any way.  There's something almost innocent in his display of enthusiasm, and it makes the other players happy for him.

By this point in the game, Magick had managed a few small victories, enough to keep him playing, but he was still behind the others in terms of chips.  A game or two after Reggie's victory, Magick was dealt a bad hand and decided it was time to have some fun.  Sir Tristan had left the game, after all.  For the sake of friendship, Magick refrains from having too much fun until Sir Tristan has left the table.  Not that he'd gone far.  He'd located Lady Faraday, who had now left the kittens to their fun, and the two of them had come back to watch.  Sir Tristan leaving the poker game is always Lady Faraday's cue to come watch.

Rochester, who had the first bet, had been dealt two queens, so he bet five dollars; everyone else called.  The turn produced the ace of spades, six of hearts, and four of diamonds.  Rochester again bet five dollars.  Magick, playing as though he held an ace, raised two dollars.  Humphrey folded - he only had the ten of hearts and nine of clubs - but the others called.

The flip produced the king of hearts.  Rochester again bet five dollars, with some trepidation.  Magick decided that he also had a king, and raised another five.  Reggie had the king of diamonds and junk; he went ahead and called, but he was rather nervous about it.  Rochester also called.

So it was down to the river, which turned up the nine of hearts.  Rochester prudently checked, upon which Magick went all in.  Reggie and Rochester were sufficiently dismayed by this show of confidence that they didn't want to go all in and folded.  And so Magick won - with the seven of clubs and two of hearts.

The others wanted to see his hand, of course.  Magick refused to tell.

By the point Rochester was getting rather hot under the collar.  He had had a genuinely good hand, and proceeded to show everyone.  But Magick, still keeping mum, quietly and rather enigmatically raked in his winnings.  Magick is very good at enigmatic.  He comes by it naturally, but he's not above making use of it.

Magick explained to Rochester that the rules of poker do not require any player to reveal his hand, even if he wins.  Rochester did not believe him and insisted he show his cards; met with Magick's continued refusal, he demanded to see the rule book.  Lady Faraday, who had been perched on the rule book, promptly opened the book to the correct page - without bothering to look it up - and pointed to the rule in question.  She has watched Magick play poker before.

Confronted with the official rule, Rochester had no choice but to lay off, but he kept grumbling about it under his breath.  Had this happened earlier in the game, when he was still unsure he liked it, he probably would have quit.  Lady Faraday has no patience with this attitude; she believes players should always be gracious.  Here she is regarding Rochester sternly while the others clean up after the last hand.  (Humphrey has the next deal.)  You can see Murchison watching carefully in the distance.  Magick's activities are of general professional interest to him.

I should mention here that Lady Faraday did not decline to join in the game because she doesn't know how to play poker, or even because she is too ladylike to play poker in mixed company.  Actually, she's a very good poker player. She is better than Sir Tristan, in fact, and Sir Tristan is pretty good.  But she refuses, on principle, to play poker with Magick.

The game wasn't over yet, mind.  Now Rochester wanted revenge, so to speak.  And so did Humphrey, because this particular victory of Magick's eclipsed his own so far.

Lady Faraday Teaches Yahtzee

After Angel Joe's investiture was over, and the reception was coming to a natural end, Magick asked whether anyone else wanted to play poker, and found a few takers.  Lady Faraday did not want the younger denizens of the Wild Republic getting too interesting in this poker game, as she could see that this would undoubtedly lead to some sort of disaster, so she decided to distract them by teaching them all how to play Yahtzee, and that is precisely what she did.

In the end, her pupils were just the kittens and Tibby; the polar bears and Beppe were already having a blast doing something else, and Beppe is still too young anyway.  This still left six players, and Lady Faraday thought that the game would be too long with six, especially since none of them had ever played before, so she decided that only four players would start, and then had them all roll dice to see who would be in the first game.  That's what they're doing in this first picture.

Flurry, Rusty, Cami, and Khamsin won, which left Navarre and Tibby to watch.  They were intrigued enough by the game that they only minded a little bit.  It took Lady Faraday a while to explain the rules, though, because Flurry is young enough that he found them tricky to understand.

I'm not sure quite what it was that Flurry had so much trouble understanding; I think it had something to do with the stuff on the bottom half.  Lady Faraday thought it would be best if he sat next to her so he could watch her keep score. 

Finally the game got underway.  Here, Rusty has rolled a large straight.  He was very pleased with himself.

A little bit later, the first Yahtzee of the game was rolled, by Flurry, which made everyone tremendously excited, although Rusty was a little sore about it because he'd wanted to get the first one.

Flurry was happy that it was fives rather than some lower number; he never did quite understand that a Yahtzee is a Yahtzee is a Yahtzee.  Tibby's keeping score now, as you can see, with Lady Faraday's help.

Almost immediately after Flurry's Yahtzee, Khamsin rolled one too.  It was sixes!  Flurry was so very impressed.  Rusty was getting kind of anxious about everyone else getting Yahtzees.

Sadly, Rusty never got his Yahtzee, and Cami never got one either.  But the rest of the game was not without excitement, albeit of a rather different kind.  Beppe, who had been hanging out with the polar bears, got bored of doing that and came to see what the kittens were up to.  He burst right into the thick of things and ran off with two of the dice.

Cheetahs are really useful to have around when these sorts of thing happen.  You can see in the picture above that Khamsin is already in hot pursuit; he was able to successfully overtake and pounce on Beppe before the puppy got too far.  I suspect he rather enjoyed it.  He didn't let Beppe up in a hurry, either; he held him down long enough for Lady Faraday to arrive and reclaim the dice.

After that episode, the rest of the game was almost anticlimactic; as I said, no one else got a Yahtzee.  Flurry won, which made him very happy.  It almost makes up for him causing his team to lose the Izit-Football match.  Here everyone is congratulating him, except Rusty, who was a bit sore about losing.

One might think that losing would make Rusty disinclined to play again, but in fact the opposite was true: losing whetted his appetite for a win, and he insisted that everyone keep playing.  The others had had a good time anyway - and Navarre and Tibby were eager for a chance to play - and so they kept playing Yahtzee quite happily until it was time for them to go to bed, and Lady Faraday was able to leave them to it with a clear conscience.

Speaking of clear consciences, Alfredo insisted that Beppe apologise to her for interrupting the game, muttering darkly about how he is being negligent in his duties as a parent and wishes his wife were alive because she would do so much better.  I'm not sure Beppe was exactly sorry, but he certainly was contrite.  You can tell by his subjugated posture.  She accepted his apology very graciously, of course.  Lady Faraday is always gracious.

The poker game was still going on, by the way.  It went on well into the night, long after the kittens had fallen asleep.  But I'll tell you about that later.

Another New Addition

I hereby present Stal, the newest member of the Wild Republic.

My brother ASD was visiting, as I mentioned earlier, and on Thursday we decided to go to the Academy of Natural Sciences.  Since museum gift shops are one of the best places to find new citizens, I insisted we check theirs on the way out.  They didn't have much, actually, which surprised me; Plouie and a couple of others came from there originally, and they'd had quite a selection at the time.  Most of what they had didn't interest me, either.  But they did have a lone smilodon who immediately stole my heart.  I've always liked saber-tooth cats, and there's something endearing about Stal's face.

"Stal" is not his real name, of course; it's short for "Stalactite", and it refers both to his dentition and to the era with which he is associated.  He's here because the Powers That Be apparently decided that not enough young felines are learning Archaic Feline these days, so they decided to make our chapter a sort of test case and have all the cats learn it.  Alfredo was kind of put out about this, because he feels like they're behind where they should be anyway, but there's not much he could do about it.  The cats from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy all learned Archaic Feline at school, of course, but they're ambassadors and not tutors.  So the Powers That Be decided to send our chapter a native speaker of Archaic Feline: Stal, naturally.  He's supposed to address the kittens only in Archaic Feline until his superiors give him permission to do otherwise.

Here he is talking to Mahler and Cami in Archaic Feline.

You'd think a saber-tooth tiger would be kind of brutish and scrappy, but actually Stal is the soulful poetic type.  I mean that he is actually a poet.  Here he is, looking pensive.  

He's written and published lots of odes and elegies and epics, all in Archaic Feline; he's in the rather unusual position of being one of the most renowed ancient feline poets despite writing in modern times.  The Ice Age are in kind of a weird niche anyway, what with their extinction and all.  One doesn't talk about the extinction, because they're very sensitive about it; for this reason, the Ice Age creatures really stick together.  Mimsy and Gus were delighted to have another Ice Age creature in their midst.

Gus insisted on demonstrating how effective his shell is against predators by having Stal attempt to bite him.  (Stal, being a lover rather than a fighter, required some convincing.)

Mimsy thought this was all pretty amusing.  He's a little odd that way; I think he's sort of hysterical. 

It's the Ice Age extinction complex, you see.  Takes them all differently.  Gus is probably the least affected of our three, and he's kind of erratic; Mimsy's a bit mad; Stal is melancholy.

Stal's presence increases the soap opera factor of our local chapter a bit, because he's a poet, so naturally he needs an object for his courtly affections, and the most obvious candidate is of course Lady Faraday.  Here Stal is, probably composing an ode to her in his head.

Lady Faraday is pretty used to this, though, so she doesn't really mind.  She gets this a lot.  And Stal isn't really serious, of course.  Look how impressive her posture is.  When she was a kitten, they made her practise pouncing for hours with a book on her head.

A Charming Tale of Friendship and Romance

Once upon a time, some years ago, a new class of students began their tenure at the most venerable and exclusive public boys' school in the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy.  Among the class were two young cats who could not possibly be more different.  One of them was the eldest son of an ocelot baronet; he was dutiful, responsible, and impeccably well-mannered for one so young.  The other was the eldest son of the eldest son of a panther marquess and clearly destined for a life of trouble, even at such a young age.  When their classmates started teasing the baronet's son for his overly proper mien, they fully expected the marquess's grandson to join in, but he surprised them by taking the baronet's side.  And so began the highly unlikely friendship of Tristan Rivers (Sir Tristan, upon the death of his father) and Ruthven Jet Shadewater, later Lord Ebonwood, known to his schoolmates as "Magick".

There are two key elements holding Sir Tristan and Magick together.  The first is that, despite their many differences in opinion and character, they have rather a lot more in common than one might at first suspect.  They were, for instance, easily the two most intelligent members of their class, which meant that they found each other much more interesting company than the rest of their classmates; they also had interests in many of the same areas, from the arts to politics and diplomacy.  The second important factor in their friendship was that they complemented each other very well in a number of ways.  Sir Tristan was responsible for ensuring that Magick did not slack off on his studies and performed at the level at which he was capable, while Magick ensured that Sir Tristan had a bit of fun.  In short, they balanced each other very nicely and were intelligent enough to appreciate it rather than fear it. 

 The greatest test of their friendship came about after they had left university and had begun their training for a career in diplomacy.  Among the other newbies was a formidably brilliant young serval named Lady Faraday Pebble-Stone, the daughter of an important earl.  She was clearly destined for greatness every bit as much as the boys were, and the three of them swiftly became the best of friends.

(Left to right: Sir Tristan, Lady Faraday, Lord Ebonwood.)

The next phase of this drama, of course, is entirely predictable, given knowledge of the general character of the particulars.  Females, especially intelligent females, were already one of Magick's great weaknesses, so he, predictably, began pursuing Lady Faraday.  Since females tend to have a corresponding weakness  for Magick, and Lady Faraday was quite definitely female, as well as already very fond of her two new friends, she was quite susceptible.  Sir Tristan was terribly in love with Lady Faraday himself, but elected not to compete with his best friend, not least because he had far less experience with females and suspected that, being quieter and less flamboyant than his friend, he was unlikely to be successful with any female Magick already had his eye on.

Nevertheless, the relationship between Magick and Lady Faraday did not last all long, as they swiftly discovered that they were not particularly compatible as romantic partners.  They decided to return to simply being friends and cheerfully explained to Sir Tristan (and others) that they were rather confused about the whole affair.  Everything went back to the way it had been before.

Sir Tristan, of course, was still desperately in love with Lady Faraday, but he was too conditioned by the expectations of behaviour for a gentleman of his class and station to actually tell her about it.  Eventually Magick realised what the score was and started trying to coax his friend into revealing his feelings for her.  Being a rake rather than a gentleman, Magick found the situation rather exasperating, especially as he was coming to suspect that Lady Faraday was in love with Sir Tristan herself, although she, of course, being a lady, was much too genteel to show it. 

After a number of conversations with Sir Tristan explaining that, as Lady Faraday was a lady, he really did need to make the first move (these conversations were tremendously frustrating for both parties), Magick accepted an assignment in India.  Since the other two were still posted locally, they started spending more and more time in each other's company.  Even then, they might well have gone on pining for each other oh-so-politely, except that Sir Tristan accidentally dropped one of his (highly embarrassing) sonnets praising the intelligence and wit and beauty and talent of Lady Faraday, and she found it.

Exactly what happened next has never been revealed by either party, both of them being immensely proper and private individuals, but they've been together ever since.

Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday are difficult to photograph together because of their characteristic poses, but we did our best.

After a while, Sir Tristan was posted to the Wild Republic, which forced him and Lady Faraday to carry on their romance long-distance.  They wrote each other letters every week, (rumour has it that Sir Tristan's letters often contain sonnets, while Lady Faraday prefers haiku).  Nevertheless, the situation was less than ideal, particularly given that the Wild Republic had made Plouie Postmaster General to keep him out of trouble.  Every now and then Plouie would happily present Sir Tristan with a bundle of six or so of his own letters to Lady Faraday.

But when their superiors decided that Sir Tristan's mission had been so successful that a full diplomatic delegation should be sent to the Wild Republic, the lovers finally found themselves reunited.  Lady Faraday requested to be included in the delegation; she now is sufficiently high-ranked that she has a measure of choice over her assignments, and this one is suited to her rank and talents as well as advantageous to her personal life.  Magick somehow found himself attached to the delegation as well.  Thus the trio of best friends has been reunited, to their considerable satisfaction.

And, of course, Sir Tristan and Magick are still the very best of friends.

Wild Parliamentary Onomastics

It took some doing, but we finally figured out the names of all seven members of the new Wild Parliamentary Monarchy delegation.  I am particularly proud of us given that three of said members are felines and two of them also have titles.  

Some of these names are old news, of course, i.e.,

• The capybara is named Pedro, which is a reference to The Twenty-fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
• The lynx is named Sir Theophilus Pearl, Bart., commonly called Sir Theo; the surname is a reference to the almost pearlescent quality of his fur.
• The ermine is, yes, named Angel Joe.  It came to me in a dream.  I don't know why.

 Others of them are not old news.

• The goat is named Nicodemus, probably because his nouveau riche parents were trying too hard.  My cousins had a black cat named Nicodemus, so it seemed like a good name for a white goat.  [This is not a complete reconstruction of my thought process, but it's kind of very close.]
• The owl is named Hrothgar Q. Hornbeam, Viscount Twilby.  Since he's a viscount, he'll typically be called Twilby, although Sir Theo addresses him as Hrothgar because they're old friends.  He has graciously given his permission to me to address him thus myself, which makes me very happy because I am uncommonly fond of the name Hrothgar, but I'll probably end up using both names.
• The serval is named Lady Faraday Pebble-Stone; the "lady" is due to her status as an earl's daughter.  Her surname is a reference to the markings on her coat, which look rather a lot like pebbles; we agreed that plain Pebble felt a bit too Flintstonian, and surely one of these guys would have a double-barrelled name.
• The panther is named Ruthven Jet Shadewater, Earl of Ebonwood, although his intimates (including Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday) call him Magick.  Coming up with a surname for him that was a) a reference to nature and b) a reference to black things and c) not a totally obvious reference to black things and d) vaguely plausible as English pseudo-aristocratic was remarkably hard.  I'm rather proud of both his title (by which most of the Wild Republic will be required to address him) and his nickname, which is a very indirect reference to blackness.

Everyone has a name now, which is a relief.  Tomorrow we're going to introduce the new delegation to the Wild Republic, who so far have met only Sir Theo, who has been in AJD's room to confer with Alfredo.  This promises to be memorable and we fully intend there to be photographic evidence.

Also at some point I really ought to tell everyone the story behind the Sir Tristan-Lady Faraday-Magick relationship, now that I've learned it.