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It's not officially Hockey Night in Canada, that's Saturday, but it has defintely been hockey night for Meg. She's spent the last four hours at her boyfriend's brother's apartment watching -- and listening to -- Alain and Luc and their friends watching -- and commenting on -- the Montreal Canadiens beating the Quebec Nordiques, 8-0.

Luc's apartment is a tiny box of a place that looks like a twenty-three year old man lives in it; he has a giant television, a battered couch, and very little other furniture. Meg winds up spending half the evening in what is optimistically called the "kitchen," talking to Luc's girlfriend Nathalie about anything but hockey.

It's not a bad way to spend an evening, but she's kind of glad to return to her own quieter -- and furnished -- apartment when it's over.

So, naturally, she's just found the End of the Universe where her living room should be.

At least now she doesn't have to make her own tea.

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"Not all of us can read Italian," she says.

"And besides, sometimes translations are beautifully written in their own right."

So long as you remember you're reading one person's opinion of what someone else said in another language.

"Exactly." Edward said, in response to her thoughts rather than the other. "And if I wanted commentary, I would seek commentary out."

Beat. Perhaps just as teasing as recommending.

"You'd probably like the original cadences better. It has an order that's quite more succinct and to the point."

"I'll put it on the list of things to be read as soon as I learn the language in which they are written," she says.

But until then, as lovely as the cadences may be, they're still going to be fairly meaningless.

The smirk is faint but then.

"You do have a list, then. Good."

"After the horrified reaction I got from Alain when I admitted I had only seen Tartuffe in English translation, yes, I have a list."

That particular oversight has been remedied.

She's been working on the other French titles.

"I think I like him even more now," Edward said, calmly.

"Well, he's very likable," Meg says.

In her completely objective and unbiased opinion.

"Even when he's the reason I've spent an evening watching hockey."

And it wasn't even a good game.

"Hockey." Edward said the word like he was testing it. Like he's trying to place if he's ever heard it or knew what it was like. Golden eyes mischievous.

"Yes, hockey," Meg says.

"Of course, it's very important to watch it in the original Canadian.

"It loses something in tranlation to American."

"Ask Emmett. I believe you are currently speaking his language."

"I'll keep that in mind," she says.

"Speaking of keeping things in mind, I suspect I need to thank you for some Valentine flowers."

"Flowers?"

The word is said slow, but the emphasis is on the question of plural far more than the question of what flower she might be referring to. If without a complete admission either.

"Flower," she corrects.

"An iris?"

It's not like I really know anyone else who was going to send me a flower accompanied by a verse from an English mystical poet I had to get a librarian's help with tracking down, Edward.

There is an intriguing expression, still blank of confession but containing some interest at this point. "Did you stop there?"

"Well, I didn't read all of Benson, if that's what you're asking."

It's the middle of the semester.

"I did look the iris up in a book about the traditional language of flowers."

She's smart. She took both paths.

There's the curve of a very small, pleased smile.

"Faith and hope and valued friendship and wisdom and 'my compliments.'

"Also an emblem of both France and Quebec."

Thank you.

"Flowers used to mean so much more than most give them credit for in either of our presents." It's been many decades, on either side, since they counted.

"It's all very interesting, the language of flowers.

"Begonias mean beware," Meg says.

"Though I haven't been able to think of a situation in which I could see someone delivering a warning via a bouquet."

"Many times things were combines into bouquet to present a complex message. It could have been combined with another to beware a specific person or course of events or venture."

"So you could combine them with a flowers that meant falseness and beauty to warn a guy that his really pretty girlfriend was a waste of time?

"Assuming he knew the language and which means you intended, because some of those flowers seemed to cover a wildly divergent range of things."

"It was also far more common a thing then," Edward reminded, amused. "Certain combination made sense." Teasingly. "The way cold and snow mean winter."

"And the way pitchers and catchers mean it's almost spring."

Spring may begin in Florida in mid-February. Not so much where Meg's from.

Edward raised his eyebrows, just barely enough.

"Does that mean you're organizing again?"

It's not serious at all.

"Maybe," she says, drawing the word out in a not serious at all tone of her own.

But probably not.

Edited 2010-03-23 17:07 (UTC)