hshmimi

[hshmimi]

giselledorleans​:

“ he REALLY had me convinced that he was above it. ” giselle wished she had written down some of the harshest things arnauld had spat at her during her divorce — and some of the comments he had had of roman in the beginning of her relationship. “ it can be the timing as well. it’s dawned on him that he needs someone next to him. but if it were that simple, he would have found a replacement already. i warned him about that, you know. i said he’d end up comparing. ” the people who surpassed fanni in many areas would stumble in another. either they were meeker but not accomplished enough, or they were more intelligent but too difficult. “ i think he likes that she’s good. ” it was the one quality that set her so starkly apart from the d’orléans and their inner circle. the tenseness of the conversation made giselle uncomfortable. they were thinking too hard, speaking about things that were far too delicate for a casino night. “ or he’s just as shallow as the rest of the men we know and likes her looks too much. ” 

“None of us are above it.” Mimi shrugged a thin shoulder, gaze already sliding back toward the door. “Except, maybe...” She shook her head. He wasn’t coming. Maybe none of them were above it, but clearly he was over it. “--Except maybe you,” she finished, turning to her cousin. “You still look beautiful. You’re still as sharp as ever. Still the most dazzling woman I know. --I don’t know how you do it.” How did Giselle do it? Truly. Please. Tell her. Just tell her, and she’d do it. Mimic it the way she does Giselle’s opinions and inflections and shoes. If she couldn’t be happy then she wanted to seem unaffected. “So how does one find someone worth the trouble of starting all over again? Prevent comparison? After a relationship like...” She nodded toward Arnauld and Fanni, but wasn’t really thinking of them. “She is pretty,” Mimi agreed, studying Fanni’s profile as she turned to Arnauld. “She’s so slim. How do you think she does it?”

[hshmimi]

fannicroy​:

“…Yes.” The best way to avoid having to lie was to avoid having to elaborate. That much she had learnt in her lifetime. “No, not about that, but I always jump at the chance to do so,” she assured Mimi. “Ah…” Damn. Part of her was chanting yes, yes, yes, and the slightly more sensible part of her was telling her to sleep on it and to do a cleanse the next morning. “Sure!” It couldn’t hurt too bad, right? “But I’m craving lemonade if you have some? I’m curious about your sudden interest.” In anything other than fashion, boys and diets. “A…” No… She didn’t like this at all. At all, at all, at all. “Now? I don’t know if I have the energy for a detour, Dominique.” She did not want to hear the word ‘drugs’ come from anyone’s mouth. Not in that moment.

“Yes! I do. --Or, well...It’s pink lemonade.” Mimi could have blushed as pink as the drink. Something about it felt silly. Childish. Like, of course even her lemonade was pink. Fanni probably expected her whole apartment to be pink and sparkly; full of fluffy furniture and mirrored surfaces so Mimi could preen at herself. --Or maybe Fanni didn’t imagine things like that at all! Didn’t even think to pass those kind of judgements! Mimi tried not to think of it, either, and focus of the task at hand, instead. “Well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t come to the idea all on my own,” she admitted. “It was suggested that I should devote myself to a cause. Fill some of that free time which keeps getting me into trouble, you know? I thought of the Danube, and of you, right away.” Mimi’s glaze turned down the corridor, nodding as she decided, “no. You’re right. It can wait.” The problem would keep until tomorrow. --And, if it didn’t, at least Mimi would already be in the process of image damage control! “It’s silly, anyway,” she reasoned. She made to link an arm with Fanni’s, almost on instinct, but turned it into a ‘shall we?’ gesture at the last moment. “Personal, I think, rather than political...I’d say it was a waste of my time but I’d only be flitting around alone, anyway.”

[hshmimi]

anamariaabolivar​:

tvkla​:

“ so if we win big by complete accident, we’re donating the proceeds… right ? that’s what’s supposed to be happening ? ”   [  @hshqstarters​ ]

“It would be very generous and always appreciated. But, as we all know, education begets many other societal goods. So, a personal charity of choice is also in the same spirit.”

“What do you mean ‘by accident?” Mimi tapped her overflowing pile of chips. “This is years of practice; decades of blood, sweat, and champagne. My mother started taking me to the casino before I could even count to twenty-one.  --But it seems tacky to win money from children...Though try telling that to my mother,” she grumbled. “Are you playing, Ana? Or are you too busy working the room?” @tvkla​

[hshmimi]

arayamahidol​:

“ truthfully,  i never really gamble at these events so i don’t know what the fuck i’m doing. ”  ( @hshqstarters​ )

“Why don’t you show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what to do?” Mimi quipped. “Or else...Hmmm. Are you bluffing? Trying to hustle me? --It’s difficult to tell with you, you know.” She was always so cool.

[hshmimi]

giselledorleans​:

“ and as we know, arnauld is EXCELLENT at sharing attention. ” the person needed to be beautiful and impressive enough to be a prize but modest enough to keep the spotlight on the king. “ i see… ” giselle’s friends weren’t great options either. either too old or too married. “ he mentioned a friend. in what context ? ” 

“I could ask around,” she offered. “See who’s on the market. --I hear New Year’s Eve was a bit of a disaster? There are bound to be some newly-single women flitting about? I’d suggest we snatch the Panamanian princess while she’s disoriented, but...” Mimi sighed. “He told me I wasn’t to say anything uncharitable about her while she’s still an object of pity. Lets just say I don’t think they’d make much of a match.” That was putting it lightly. Mimi shrugged off the idea and in response to Giselle’s next question. “He said that he was concerned about a friend making bad decisions...I’m not sure what he meant,” she lied. “But it must be a special friend, I thought, for him to be so upset about her walking the wrong path.” She sniffed, “since he’s never seemed half as worried about me taking a hike and setting up camp there.”

[hshmimi]

giselledorleans​:

“ i CAN’T tell if he’s stupid or just sad to look at, ” giselle mumbled as she filled the spot next to mimi. her eyes were on her brother and his blonde problem. [ &&. @hshmimi​ ]

“Hmm?” Mimi looked up to follow Giselle’s gaze, but couldn’t quite bring herself to roll her eyes when she shrugged, “love makes fools of us all, or whatever.” As much as she’d love to indulge her cousin, Mimi knew she’d no right to complain about Arnauld’s love-sickness when she’d spent all evening watching the door, instead of her hand. “What do you think he sees in her, after all this time? After everything she’s done?” She asked instead; genuinely curious, rather than exasperated. “What makes her worth it?”

[hshmimi]

“How’s your hand?” Mimi glanced over the top of her own. She had a decent poker face; she’d had lots of practice in Monaco. The fresh shot of baby botox between her brows and general sense of ennui she’d been full of lately helped, too. “Mine is awful. No Kings. No Queens...Which isn’t a problem here, hmm? The turnout’s been decent. People must really care about...What was this for, again?” @hshqstarters​

[hshmimi]

[hshmimi]

[hshmimi]

fannicroy​:​

Out of all the people she could have run into, Dominique was not the worst option but she was not, by any means, a preferable option. Fanni kept blinking her dry eyes and cursed the princess for one thing and one thing only: getting in the way of her and her cold glass of water that was waiting for her in her room. “Oh, Dominique. Lovely to see you.” The first notes of her speech were brittle. She tried to make up for it with a warm smile. “Oh no!” A loud note of laughter echoed down the hallway. “I’m heading to my room. I was just…” She pointed behind her into the corridor, not exactly offering any information. “I actually don’t know where these are from…” She planted her shaky hands on her thighs and gave the white fabric a good look. She really couldn’t recall. “Why did I think you lived on a higher level? At least a few stories up…” 

“Ah, late night meetings?” Mimi nodded. She’d had plenty of those, lately. Usually she’d be annoyed by it, but she supposed it was better than flitting around her empty apartment alone. “About the Danube? You’re really making some waves with that. --Pardon the pun.” It wasn’t much of one; rivers didn’t have tides, did they? Mimi cleared her throat. “I was actually hoping to speak with you about that. Or, rather, not the Danube specifically, actually, but the way you led the cause,” she explained. “I don’t suppose I could invite you back for a nightcap, and pick your brain a bit? --Though I understand if you’re tired, or just tired of talking about it,” she added quickly; in case Fanni thought the idea childish, and would prefer that everything go through assistants .Or not go at all. “But I do have some decent Merlot in.” Stolen from Arnauld, natch. “And I’ve been teaching myself how to mix cocktails. It’d be nice to have someone to show off to. --Someone who wouldn’t be just as happy sucking the alcohol out of a can of deodorant, like my friends.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “I’m upstairs. Just opposite...” She cleared her throat again. Fanni was going to think Mimi had a cough, at this rate. “But I’m out on something of a secret mission.” She lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorially to joke, “busting a drug ring.”

[hshmimi]

giselledorleans​:

“ OH, mimi ! stop ! ” giselle had to cover her mouth to hide her teeth as she burst into laughter. what a day it would be to witness the grünenbergs without pennies ! “ oh ? and you think his dark hair, his not-yet-mature frontal lobe and his masculine appendix will finally get arnauld to settle down ? oh i’ve had it so wrong ! ” she couldn’t think of a more incompatible pair than her brother and the young swiss prince. at least the prince wasn’t the first to have such impossible aspirations ! “ no, no he is not. not that i know of. are you thinking of setting him up ? ”

“Well blonde and feminine didn’t work out very well, did it? Maybe it’s time for a change. Klaus, at least, would never cancel a wedding; he wouldn’t give up the opportunity to make himself the centre of attention.” Mimi tried to imagine Arnauld and Klaus in matching outfits, but couldn’t. She had never seen Arnauld in jewellery; she couldn’t even recall him ever letting himself be coaxed and pouted into joining games of Pretty Pretty Princess when she was a child. “Me? Oh, no,” she balked at the idea. “No. My friends ask about it sometimes but he’d absolutely hate them. --And I still carry some trauma from the boarding school dormmate who hung a poster of him over her bed...I was only asking because he mentioned a friend.” 

[hshmimi]

There had always been a vague, unspoken awkwardness between them. --Even prior to New Year’s Eve in Monte Carlo...Arnauld would hate her saying so, but Mimi had always imagined that this must be the kind of tension which petulant teenagers shared with their fathers’ new young wives. You’re-not-my-real-mom��style. So, when they ran into one another in the corridor  - Mimi had been on her way to carry out Arnauld’s orders; Fanni, she imagined, was probably headed for the lake to transform into a swan...Or whatever it was that beloved fairy tale princesses did at night - Mimi’s first instinct was to offer a quick smile and keep moving...But her cousin’s advice repeating in her head slowed her steps to a stop in front of the Hungarian Princess. “Late night stroll? You should avoid the front courtyard, my dog walker is out there with the whole pack...Your trousers are too pretty to risk the pawprints.  --Georges Hobeika?” @fannicroy​

[hshmimi]

diannayi​:

“bring her your nice wine, for gods sake. maybe some whiskey to soften her up… or dull the pain — i guess.” she shrugged, it was an unthinkable enough for her to be in such a situation, there was no use in trying to empathise. dahye would never be foolish enough to put herself in a place where a man could treat her that way. “i’d rather be here and fly out places instead of being in new york where absolutely everyone could reach me…” princesses were supposed to be out of reach and mysterious, for gods sake, it would not bode well if the upper east side housewives decided that they could keep ‘bumping into her’ at bergdorfs. they might decide that they could just talk to her! “i’m thinking east 72nd to 76th? i’m love the view from my penthouse but i’m tired of fucking elevators.” at the mention of transdanubia, dahye couldn’t help but to freeze — just for a split moment — the word still leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

“i’m fine. i haven’t bumped into him yet.” an outright lie. anyone who was within earshot of them during the new years party could notice the tension, it wasn’t as if they were being subtle about it. “anyway—” with a decisive little flick of her ipad, she focused her attention back to the pictures. “remember my little apartment in monte carlo?” four bedrooms in monaco was certainly wasn’t little, by any means. “i’m thinking of letting that go, i’ll get an amazing price for it.” everyone is always clamouring over real estate in monaco — hardly anyone ever sells. “and i stay with you when i come over anyway.” 

“Me, too,” Mimi hummed her agreement. “Only because it’s so painfully awkward to be stuck in an elevator with, say, the Czar, for fifteen stories. Like, what am I supposed to talk to him about? I bet he doesn’t know a thing about the early seasons of America’s Next Top Model.” And Mimi almost wouldn’t even be able to point to Russia on a map, if it weren’t so fucking big. “I think about that a lot,” she hummed, “about how when this is all over I’m going to buy a terrace house in Paris and live there alone.” As alone as one ever could be with a full staff, of course. Mimi wanted an easy life, not a normal one; she certainly wasn’t about to learn how to make a bed or brew coffee for herself. --But the idea of running away and removing herself from public life...It had started as an inside joke, and become a sincere, secret wish. Recently the thought of it was the only thing sustaining her, some days. 

“Ah,” she nodded, and didn’t push any further. She understood. So she let Dahye change the subject, and pretended not to notice. “Well I was going to talk to you about that, actually. Real estate in Monaco, I mean. I wanted to see if there wasn’t a way we could get you resident status, so you’d have first dibs at property on the new reclaimed land...Would you be interested? Biel -- one of the Portuguese Princes; he was the race care driver?” That probably meant nothing to Dahye. She had no interest in sportsmen...Except footballers, of course. “Anyway, he’s doing the same thing. I’m hoping to get a few people interested, actually. It gives the place a certain cachet. --Besides, I don’t want the new quarters filling up entirely with divorced billionaires; we don’t have the infrastructure to support so many angsty children of first marriages flying in every summer.”

[hshmimi]

[hshmimi]

arturcii​:

he didn’t – couldn’t really – dodge this projectile fast enough; it nicked his shoulder, and he gasped, as if she had induced upon him a greater insult. “it’s not a – she did! she said she was fine with it! i could barely get out of the croy situation without the whole transparency thing. i had to give her something. just –,” he scoffed and picked up the fallen case – might as well get something from such a grievous injury – “i can’t –,” muffled by the cigarette between his lips. he closed the case shut and threw it by her lap. art took the liberty of looking through her bedside table for a lighter, amid the mess in there. he decided to shut his mouth about it the same, quick way he closed the drawer.

he took her place in bed, making himself right at home, shoes and all on her sheets. “look, maybe i’ll go back with  you, but only to pick up morgana. you think your father’s going to be here long? i don’t want to make things awkward, but if i become both their sugar babies, i might as well get myself adopted.”

“You’re not coming back with me,” Mimi protested. “You can fly commercial. I’m not having people see us arrive together, and getting the wrong idea.” For reasons personal, as much as PR. She was less worried about people than she was one in particular. “Or else ask mummy to lend you her private plane. --Though I think she might have offered it to Klaus, to go back and forth to Switzerland...In any case, you should get in and out as quickly as possible.” For his own sake, and hers. She needed time alone to think, and explore her financial options.

[hshmimi]

giselledorleans​:

“ i think it will keep its superlative. i don’t think there’s been an incident involving a runaway groom before ! ” with a stunt, arthur windsor jr had secured himself a spot in a history book ! it wasn’t the most remarkable mention but a mention all the same. “ AH ! mr boytoy… it’s QUITE astonishing that they let him out of the door like that. can’t the swiss afford stylists anymore ? ”

“Well, their little skirmish with the Germans has been going on a while. Perhaps they’re killing two birds with one stone? Saving money on clothes by sending him out shirtless, and advertising him as available for marriage to a rich woman?” Mimi had actually quite liked Klaus’ outfit as a camp costume - or at least been entertained by it - but would happily throw any one of her friends under the bus to impress Giselle. “Though you should be careful what you say about him,” she warned. “He may be your brother-in-law, one day. He keeps pestering me to put in a good word to Arnauld for him...Speaking of. He’s not seeing anyone, is he?” Mimi still wondered who the friend he was so concerned for might be.

[hshmimi]

vrnvuld​:

“ if you care about your future, you will keep it up. ” he was not looking forward to another conversation about drug abuse. with mimi it would sound like preaching. “ have you thought about doing a high profile project. something very proper. people are unwilling to take you seriously and they will remain so until you’ve given them a reason to reconsider their stance. turning your friends into business partners only works for so long. ” and such relationships had their own complications. keeping things strictly business had its perks. “ ah. ” for the duration of his sip, he considered the offer before shaking his head. “ no, i don’t want to get more involved… but– ” it was better for fanni to have a safe option. he was not sure what would happen if she was cut off cold. the safe option, however did not need to be… “ perhaps make sure arthur is keeping to himself. ” was there a possibility that she was using him instead of the norwegian ? he had the creator’s right to the problem, did he not ? it was better to be safe than sorry. arnauld couldn’t resist making sure the man was out of the equation.

“Proper...” Mimi repeated in a hum, as though she had to consider the meaning. “Something like the Danube project, you mean? That stupid river was all anyone could talk about, for a good long while. So much so that even I ended up learning a bit about it...I think you might be right,” she conceded. “I just need to find myself something. A hot topic that’s still uncontroversial. --You’re good at this, you know? I should come to you with my dilemmas more often...What’s your take on buccal fat removal?” She was kidding; shot him a quick, teasing grin. This was nice. It felt nice to be normal. “I can do that,” she nodded, “he owes me one.” Or, rather, he owed her mother, at least. Mimi leaned across to glance at Arnauld’s wristwatch, and sighed, “but I should go now. The good clubs will be opening, soon, and by then it’ll be too late...” She pushed herself up off the sofa, a little reluctant to leave, and grabbed the little bag from the armoire. “Thank you,” she glanced at him over her shoulder on her way out. “For your help, I mean. And for...” She made a vague gesture. She was just grateful to be allowed to spend time with him. --And pleased to have been trusted with a task! However ridiculous.