milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

fakir,
mia ausa

(no subject)

Fakir's spent the last ... he's not exactly sure how long ... waiting for the other ballet slipper to drop. Whatever's going to happen hasn't happened yet, and while he waits he still has to do ordinary things like write his Swan Lake paper.

He's sitting at a table, lost in thought and chewing on the end of his quill pen, as he writes the third page of a paper about the many evils of Odile.

[ooc: To the people I have threads with, I heartily apologize for dropping them. Let's call a universal fade and start over, all right?]

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Another quill is places on his table, only it's not meant for writing upon closer inspection.

"You have the same assignment, huh?" Mia quietly asks, coming over after her conversation with Duck.

Judging by the bundle leaning on her shoulder, Mia's not pregnant anymore.

"As Duck?" Fakir's not even surprised. Everyone here talks to Duck, all the time.

He supposes Mia might have been talking to Rue, or even to Mytho, but the safe odds are on Duck.

"Yes. All the ballet classes take composition together. I'm not sure why." It means the students who are actually decent at writing papers have to sit with the ones who can barely form sentences.

That's when Fakir notices the baby. "Uh--" He hasn't the slightest idea what he's supposed to say about it.

Duck does her fair share of going out and talking to people as well. No matter what, his guess is right and Mia nods.

"It is the same with classes at the beginning of the year at the Magic Guild, though Mother spends time over the summer tutoring people who don't know how to read or write."

She smiles at the reaction. There's no denying that it's quite like him.

"His name is Cepheus," she supplies for him. "He was born early Monday morning."

She was going to try putting Cepheus in his pram, but once it's clear that he's not letting go of her robe anytime soon, she decides he's better on her shoulder.

"That's a sugar quill, by the way," she says in regards to the quill she's set down for him. "Used the same way you were using your poor quill moments before."

Fakir casts a bemused look at the baby. "That's good, right? Hello, Cepheus."

The sugar quill is simpler to deal with than the new infant; Fakir examines it. "It won't hold ink, will it?"

"It is good, yes. He's got all of his fingers and toes and everything."

Mia shakes her head.

"It's just a sweet, one designed to be snuck into class. I just thought it would be better if you were chewing on something edible."

"Oh." Fakir sniffs the sugar quill and licks it warily. It isn't bad, really.

"Well. Congratulations."

He got there eventually!

Edited 2010-03-03 06:01 (UTC)

We guarantee it tastes better than the real quill.

"Thank you."

Cepheus wriggles a bit and Mia puts him in his pram, prompting a bit of fussing that she tries to gently rock away.

"Your essay looks very substantial. Have you almost finished?"

"One more page. Two paragraphs and a conclusion. I hope."

It occurs to Fakir that he really ought to ask. He isn't sure he wants to hear the answer, though.

Flushing red in anticipatory embarrassment, Fakir manages, "How was it? The birth, I mean?"

He really didn't have to ask and, while Mia does volunteer a lot about these sorts of matters, she wasn't exactly going to go in great detail about this to Fakir.

So she answers, "Fine."

Beat.

Then she adds, "He looks like his father. One of the first things he did was grasp Draco's fingers."

Fakir pictures the infant gripping the finger of a large person very much like him.

The mental image is ... surprisingly charming. Fakir puts down the sugar quill and offers the child his own finger.

His tiny hand runs into Fakir's during his wriggling and he instinctively grasps, growing calmer at suddenly having a finger in his hold. He blinks his curious grey eyes up at him.

"He looked something like that, yes," Mia says with a smile.

Mia is watching, and Fakir can't quite relax in her presence. Even so, Fakir's face softens. There is a child's small warm hand wrapped around his forefinger, and the child is a trusting innocent creature who has never harmed anyone or learned that there could be harm in the world.

"Hello," says Fakir. "Hello, Cepheus."

Mia's not sure she's ever seen Fakir look like that before, the closest being when he thanked her for the sweater. To see him even like this is enough for a smile to light up her face.

Meanwhile, the trusting innocent creature in the pram is now trying to put Fakir's finger in his mouth.

Fakir reclaims his hand before it can get too drool-coated, and shakes his finger at the infant.

"You, sir, need to learn the difference between people and food."

Cepheus gurgles and reaches for the taken finger while Mia blushes and selfconsciously glances at herself.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, Fakir fails to understand the blush and glance. He's never actually considered the mechanics of feeding infants.

If he did understand, he'd probably say something like, "I didn't want to know that." Since he doesn't, but does detect a suddenly raised level of awkwardness in the atmosphere, what Fakir says is, "Well. I'll see you later, Mia, Cepheus."

Is it a discreet withdrawal or an ignominious escape? You decide!

It'll be an excellent stairwell moment of awkwardness once he does understand and looks back on this conversation.

And it could be worse. The subject of wet nurses actually came up in a different discussion.

But Mia is thoughtful enough to say, "Don't forget your essay. I'd hate for you to lose what you've already completed."

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