EP, under the cherry blossoms

[farouche_bravoure]

The cherry blossoms, and the sunny weather, draw Fantine out of her room, with a wide-brimmed hat, a light, flowered dress, a sketch-pad, and a large bird-cage containing a skylark.

She's been practicing drawing. Like many of the others who are dead in Milliways, she's found herself in need of ways to occupy herself--a dilemma she's thoroughly enjoyed. So much time, and all of it hers!

Learning how to read is her first priority, but she can't do that all the time. She has tried sewing, which she had done for a living while she was alive. She's done pretty lacework and embroidery she never had much time for in life, when she was occupied with sewing shirts and mending and other dull but useful tasks. But even the pretty, fanciful sewing isn't enjoyable enough for her to spend many hours with it. A new hobby, then: drawing, which allows her to make things without squinting at a needle or pricking her fingers.

She sits now underneath a tree, watching the blossoms over her head, her pencil and pad propped on her leg and the cage on the grass beside her. She looks like she's immersed in a pleasant daydream. But she wouldn't mind an interruption for conversation, if it comes her way.

Comments

[pierregringoire]

A goat probably isn't very good for conversation, but she's definitely an interruption! Djali is in a fine playful mood on this spring day, and skipping around like a goat half her age when she comes across the stranger.

Headpats, strange human?

[farouche_bravoure]

"Oh, you darling!" It's skipping so gracefully, like it's doing a little dance! And then--oh, it looks like it wants to be petted! François cheeps next to her, from within his ample cage. She doesn't want to let him out, now, for fear the goat will eat him. But oh, it looks so sweet!

Definitely headpats.

[pierregringoire]

Djali is a good goat! And not at all evidently inclined to eat a songbird. But very inclined to be petted! She leans into Fantine's hand enthusiastically.

And bounces away enthusiastically too, at the sound of a voice she knows.

"Djali! Djali, what have you found?" Gringoire has to kneel to brace himself against the leaping energy of an affectionate goat returning to her person, and so at first he doesn't see the young woman very picturesquely seated under the blooming trees. But then he does.

He straightens up proudly, smoothing out his threadbare doublet and straightening his cap in what he feels sure is a very suave manner. There is an attempt at a saunter as he approaches Fantine, with more confidence in it than experience. "Hello, mademoiselle! Has the beauty of the day inspired you to create more art than you already possess?"

...Djali at least seems pleased to hear him talking!

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine has to bite back a laugh. She hasn't heard that sort of silly line in--well, far too long. "Hello, monsieur," she says. He seems like a Parisian, though an odd-looking one. "It is a lovely day, isn't it? I was so tired of winter, but these blossoms are so beautiful."

But really, there's someone more interesting than the blossoms, here. "And so is your goat! What a charming, delightful little creature!"

[pierregringoire]

The air of a man being Very Impressive fades a bit before real pride and affection. "She is! This is Mademoiselle Djali, my friend and partner, and as pleasant and well-taught company as any artist could wish." But he can't stop putting on a show entirely, especially with Djali as the topic! "Indeed, I should introduce us both! I am Pierre Gringoire, poet to the King, and this is Mademoiselle Djali, a goat of letters and skill."

He bows, and the goat does too, one little leg going out in front of her bowed head.

[farouche_bravoure]

Oh, a girl goat! And she's bowing! The goat is bowing! Fantine gapes, and laughs, and pats Djali again. "Oh, how wonderful! I'm Fantine."

She doesn't really know how to introduce herself beyond that. She's never been anything, except Fantine, and she feels a little odd about that, for the first time in her life, so she moves on quickly: "What king? Are you from Paris?"

[pierregringoire]

"Indeed! The city of the world! And we are in the reign of King Louis the Prudent, who I have had the honor to serve in verse and in person." ...He got paid once! "And now the name of Pierre Gringoire grows in fame as our fair city grows in glories, in our age of peace and art!"

Catch him in another mood and he'll have a very different opinion of Paris, and much more to say about the state of the streets and the waterwheels on bridges than the city's marvels. But he is performing,in a way, for this very attractive woman, and who wants to hear all of that?

[ownerless]

Pearl compliments this landscape remarkably well (though she is not the type to realize that, or to take advantage of that fact). And even her aimless wandering-- which is what she is doing presently, taking in the trees-- has a studied, graceful look, like a dance.

She happens to glance at Fantine as she passes and smiles a touch absently.

[farouche_bravoure]

"Good day, madame."

...well, she thinks it's madame. Monsieur seems improper for someone who moves with such delicacy and grace. But in truth, this lady (?) is evidently not even human. She shines and glows like an angel, a figure from a stained glass window.

Fantine is staring, a bit. She's met non-humans at Milliways, now, but Pearl still stands out.

[ownerless]

"Oh-- yes, hello." Her voice is not quiiiite as mellifluous as her appearance might suggest.

Pearl is getting the hang of this, though! In this place, you wander around and... talk to people. Well, when you're not trying to create a device to secure your door, but no one else seems to be very interested in doing that.

Why this is what one does is... less clear.

[farouche_bravoure]

Neither is it always perfectly clear to Fantine, who is capable of spending hours wrapped in reverie.

But the shimmery lady has a very human-sounding voice, and this piques Fantine's curiosity. She would have expected a voice that sounded like bells.

So Fantine speaks. "I'm Fantine," she says. "Are you new here, madame?"

[ownerless]

Usually human and gem scales of "new" don't align, but at least in this case, the answer is straightforward!

"Yes. I'm Pearl, I'm from Earth, but not originally, but I'm not bound here, and I'm not dead, and I'm not human."

There, that covers all the topics that have tended to come up! Yes, yes, she's winning at human conversation, she knows.

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine blinks. But she responds well to directness, and so she says, "Then what are you, if not human?"

Pearl is a fitting name for someone who glimmers and shimmers like that.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

There's someone sitting under a blossoming tree several yards away, with a book on his knee and a walking stick resting among the roots. He, too, is blond, pale, with a classical profile and a look of distant, absorbed abstraction. He's bareheaded, in grey and pale blue, with his golden hair gleaming like a halo in the dappled sunshine under the tree. In other words, generally looking as if a delicate painting had come to life -- rather like Fantine, in fact.

Anyway, it takes him a while to come out of his reverie enough to notice that the person who's settled down at her own tree is someone he knows. But it's Mme Pontmercy's mother, Marius's mother-in-law. So if she looks his way, he'll rise long enough to bow in greeting.

[farouche_bravoure]

She looks his way, eventually. Her gaze travels from the blossoms overhead, to the trees farther off, and she sees a figure she recognizes. From the Christmas party, and from the fair before. Bahorel's friend, M. Enjolras.

She nods at him, smiling. The sun strikes her hair to give her a rather haloed effect herself, and the dipping boughs of the tree frame her so she looks as if she's emerging from clouds.

She wonders, rather awkwardly, if she should get up and speak to him, or at least call out.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras is pretty much immune to all such dramatically photogenic effects, only partly because he lives inside one. But Bahorel or Prouvaire is probably going to whiz by with a camera sooner or later, drawn by the amount of #aesthetic happening over here.

If she were closer, he'd feel obliged by politeness to greet her, to embark on some small talk (even though he was perfectly happy thinking silently about the effects of later communication technology on political organization, and is never enthusiastic about the prospect of small talk.) But their trees are far enough apart that to even say hello, he'd have to call out or walk over.

So: silent salutation accomplished, he leaves her to her thoughts by reseating himself and returning to his own.

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine turns her attention back to her sketch pad. She draws cherry blossoms, at first: a page of just three blossoms in detail, another page of a branch laden with blossoms against a blue sky, another of the whole scene before her eyes, trees and lawn and the odd bird or squirrel.

Then her thoughts turn to memories of a spring day in Paris, not long after she first arrived. Hesitantly she sketches a building. She's not happy with it, but keeps going, making it a bustling street, filled with a raucous crowd, the sort that would gather for a celebration or a riot.

She sits back, and puts her pencil down, and takes François out of his cage. Maybe next she will try drawing Cosette. She's not paying much attention to her half-finished sketches, so it's possible the gentle breeze may blow them away.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras is not the most social of his friends, especially when it comes to chatting with a woman of more or less his own era. But neither is he actually a rude person, and this is the kind of thing his internalized manners are quite clear on.

A paper comes fluttering along, away from Fantine. He rises, takes a few steps over, ducks efficiently to snag it.

A drawing of some sort. He doesn't look beyond that; it's not his business to go poking into someone else's things uninvited, and he's got no kind of eye for art anyway. But he does bring it over: "I think this may be yours, madame?"

[farouche_bravoure]

"Oh," says Fantine, startled. It's the one of the cherry blossoms up close. "Thank you. I was lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice the wind."

[clayforthedevil]

There's a sound like whut whut whut and something flying through the air several feet in front of her.

It's followed soon after by Bahorel running in the same direction as the noise.

And then Bahorel running back in the direction he came from, head tilted up and arms outstretched in an obvious attempt to catch something. Which he then instead has to duck, as it whizzes dangerously close to his head and buries itself in the ground.

He half-hops, half trips over the boomerang, recovers his balance with a spin, and gives it a deadpan look for a moment, before throwing his arms out in a showman's gesture and bowing to an invisible crowd, talking confidentially to it the whole time. "Excellent, excellent, you are a fine partner, only perhaps learn your steps a little more carefully next time."

He isn't apparently aware yet that there actually is anyone else out here right now.

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine is deep in reverie, deep enough that the boomerang sound isn't enough to pull her out.

Bahorel's hopping and bowing and talking to the boomerang does the trick, however.

Fantine's eyes widen. "Is that a creature?"

Hey, it's Milliways. It's a reasonable question.

[clayforthedevil]

"Hey!" No, he hadn't seen her, occupied as he'd been; his smile warms at once when he does. "--It never pays to be too sure about that either way here, does it? This is a boomerang; it is a moderate, it is made to go forward yet often returns to a position even further back than it held at first; but it may be made useful, or so legends say."

He plucks the boomerang out of the ground, brushes it off, walks over toward Fantine, and bows to present it to her. "Citoyenne Fantine, Monsieur Boomerang. Monsieur Boomerang, Citoyenne Fantine."

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine takes it, smiling broadly, and turns it over with curiosity. "It goes backwards from where you throw it to? That sounds like a vexing toy, unless the game is to chase it around?"

[clayforthedevil]

"It's meant for hunting--or combat. But here--" He shrugs. "I suppose it might get the little demons to chase me for a while, and that's good for an evening."

..There's too much of an obvious analogy to be had there to his own current situation. Ugh. Why is this place so ...this place.

"--Or I could use it to tease Joly's little flying machines; he's always saying he needs to test them!" That's a better idea, anyway, and cheering.

"Do you want to try it?" That would be even better! He nods at the loose papers next to her. "--If it's not interrupting the Muse." He's not being at all sarcastic. Sometimes you gotta draw!

[farouche_bravoure]

"Oh!" Fantine eyes the boomerang dubiously, then picks herself up with one decisive movement.

"All right, I'll try!" She stands, and flings it in the air. It goes off a fair distance, but does not come back. "A shame, it doesn't like me!"