Alek looks down at the formal suit of clothes in mingled pride and dismay.
Pride, because he's grown since he was fitted for them last year; the seams are tight and the cuffs are just a bit short.
Dismay, because, unbeknownst to Alek, Count Volger brought the blasted things along, and now Alek will be expected to wear them.
"Is this really necessary?" Alek asks his tutor.
"You will not present yourself in public as the Archduke of Austria-Este while wearing a filthy pilot's uniform, or, God forbid, that of a British airman," Volger says firmly. "The dignity of your house must be maintained."
Drat. Alek tries a different approach: "Can't I simply order new clothes in Japan?"
Volger is unmoved. "Inferior workmanship. And how, pray tell, do you intend to pay for them? I seem to remember that all of your father's gold is either lost on a glacier or distributed amongst the spice merchants of Istanbul."
"Those sacrifices kept us both alive," Alek reminds him.
"Indeed. But all choices have consequences – most of them unintended. We shall have to have this altered," Volger says, returning to practical matters.
At Alek's feet, a small voice says, "Consequences."
"Hmm -? Guten tag, Bovril," he says, crouching down to scratch the loris' head. "What are you doing wandering about?"
"It's following me," Dylan says from the stateroom's doorway. "Are you… what are you doing?"
"Exercise your imagination," Volger says drily, making Dylan scowl. To Alek, the count says, "Leave that ungodly creature alone before you get its fur all over yourself."
In what is no double a deliberate show of contempt, Bovril waddles over to Volger's boots and proceeds to look adorable. Volger is plainly not amused, but refrains from kicking it across the cabin, a courtesy which Alek appreciates.
"The clothes are in case I have to be an archduke in Tokyo." Alek gestures at himself, standing about like a dressmaker's dummy. "Ridiculous, isn't it?"
Dylan, Alek notices, has a peculiar look on his face and has turned slightly red. "A-aye. Ridiculous."
Now it's Alek's turn to scowl. "I didn't laugh at your dress uniform."
"I'm not laughing!" Dylan says, turning redder.
"Imagination," Bovril says, then chuckles.
Dylan goes positively scarlet.
Volger harrumphs. "If you must insist on being here, Mr. Sharp, perhaps you could make yourself useful and do a bit of sewing."
The midshipman gives the count a furious glare, announces, "Do your own barking sewing!" and storms off.
Alek looks at Bovril and then at Volger. "What was that about?"
"I'm sure I have no idea," Volger says, perfectly inscrutable.
Bovril looks up at the count and says, "Ridiculous."
