The temptation to merely snuff out the old girl was a feeling that Ardal had to fight all night after meeting the giggly little witch. She was everything he loathed and the process to her destruction might prove to be entertaining at least. He could just see Pinpin drowning with a laugh, or going out with a tee hee as he strangled her.
Impatience was making the wait all the more painful, so he commited himself to small wars against Icarus, the first of which was presently making itself known to Pinpin this very moment, blooming forth from a delivery his trusty owl had made.
The small square had begun simply enough as a letter, but as it sat there under the sun light pouring in through the window, it began to change and finally became a sparkling bouquet of flowers, glittery petals decorating blue stems. A card attached detailed care and the note he had handwritten.
Dear Penelope,
I fear our introduction was so brief that I was unable to tell you how wonderful it was to meet you. Please accept these flowers as a small gestureof reconsiliation for the faux pas. I sincerely hope to see more of you and find today grayer because of your absence.
Regards,
Ardal
The letter had disgusted him to write, but hopefully, he would be invited back into her life very shortly because of it.
They had arrived suddenly, from an unfamiliar owl which Pin always held under suspicion. Receiving letters - and flowers of such sparkling beauty - from someone unknown was in these times usually a cause for concern.
The fact that they purported to be from Ardal, Icarus' "Old Friend" from the night of the party, and someone to whom Pin had taken an immediate disliking only made things that much more confusing.
The blue flowers that Icarus had bought her weeks before still stood by her bedside, in pride of place and charmed to remain fresh for longer.
But these new things, these glittering petals upon blue stems seemed a little too much, and the note so loaded with honey as to make one ill.
But Penelope had made an impression, and it would be her duty to uphold that impression. Besides, it was easy to play the simpering fool and be practically ignored than to be targeted for being too quick.
Re-reading the note, sitting cross-legged in the centre of her bed, Penelope tipped her head slightly.
I sincerely hope to see more of you and find today grayer because of your absence.
Nobody had ever said that to Pin before, sincere or not (And she did doubt his sincerity, for she felt for him as she had for her previous Beau, and the He before that; and they turned out to be such pillars of society...). It was nice to read it, to let her eyes act as ears, and her mind reinvent his voice.
On impulse, she scrawled a quick reply and hopped from her bed to pull out everything in her wardrobe considered even remotely attractive. Penelope had plans.
The letter was delivered via her own owl, sent off hastily with a dusting of sparkle and carefully placed ribbon. Really it looked quite childish.
Dear Ardal,
Thank you kindly for the flowers, they're very beautiful! I have them pride of place on my dresser, to catch the sun in the morning.
I cannot thank you enough. Perhaps if your day is so grey, I could brighten tomorrow?
Join me for Drinks in the Hogs Head?
Pin.
It had been awful, trying to think of bubbleheaded things to write, but hopefully Ardal would accept her as the idiot she appeared, and let her close.
She really was intensely curious as to why Icarus seemed so tense around the man.
Almost as an afterthought, the tiny, flighty little woman lifted Ardal's flowers, smelling them as she considered things before dropping them unceremoniously onto her dresser and settling herself onto the windowsill.
Ardal took her words for simply that, the scrawl of a woman he would have to turn slowly against Icarus. By no means had it been easy with Angie. She was particularly strong spirited, yet willing to please and be taught dark things no one should ever know. Ardal would attack subtlely, getting Penelope not only to like him, but to hate her new beau.
He sent back his own note, agreeing to meet her in the pub at the given time tomorrow. He felt that he could accomplish his goal within a few months and perhaps even another in a long line of willing victims to help guide his life back into the glittering path of his Lord once more.