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[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

Archangel? Check.

Poetry? Check.

Still-unnamed yo-yo? Check.

Smile? Check.

Have at.

Comments

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

The poetry would certainly catch Todd the poet's interest as he's getting some ginger snap cookies from the bar. He glanced at it curiously, and gave a polite, if shy nod of greeting.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

Remiel looks up at the nod, and repeats the gesture with a friendly smile. The book is a compilation, but the poem he's currently reading is by A.E. Houseman -- Wake Not for the World-Heard Thunder.

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

It was one unfamiliar to the young man since his class focused on the Romantics period, and they didn't go into many poets of the 20th century before Keating was fired.

He tentatively said, "Hello, sir. I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Evening. And not at all," he replies, smiling. "Any friend of poetry's a friend of mine."

He can be sharply observant, on occasion.

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

Todd smiled a little at that, and sat down.

"That I am. I write a little, too. And my name is Todd Anderson, nice to meet you, sir." The upper-class and private school upbringing coming through in his polite and respectful tone. Plus he is that nice.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Pleasure's all mine."

Remiel continues to smile, waving a hand slightly. Sir makes him feel like something he definitely isn't.

"No 'sir', just Remiel." He tilts his head, curious. "What sort of poetry do you write 'a little' of?"

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

Todd nodded at that, and replied, "It depends, usually whatever comes to mind. A lot was inspired by the Romantics. I'm just starting out with it though."

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Well, were I capable of jealousy, I would be. I rarely get time to do that sort of thing." Remiel grins.

"The Romantics are good reading. What time do you come from?"

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's 1960 there, or at least it was when I first came here." It could be months or years back there now for all he cared.

He shyly added, "I have some time here and there, even though my job working in the gardens for Suti keeps me busy during the day." And any remaining free time when he wasn't feeling inspired was usually spent with Neil.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Nineteen sixty..." Remiel squints a little, remembering, and then nods. "Good time. A little odd, though, I must say. Mortal culture was in a strange place. If I've got my memories in the right order."

It wouldn't have been the first time he'd remembered incorrectly.

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

"I've heard from others that it was a very conservative time. Things were strict and ordered, and at least places like our school insisted on tradition and conformity."

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

Remiel nods.

"That's true-- I'm probably thinking of the eighties. Now there was a strange decade." He grins. It's his favorite 1900 decade, for obvious reasons. "What school did you go to?"

All insatiable curiousity, this one.

[mumbling-truth.livejournal.com]

"I used to Balincrest, but I transferred to Welton Academy for Boys last fall, or it was fall in my world. When I left, it was wintertime there." Todd explained. He still had a problem with winter, and wasn't looking forward to the upcoming season here for many reasons still.

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

Antigone eyes the yo-yo.

At least he hasn't got any cookies.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

The yo-yo eyes her back, though it technically doesn't have eyes.

And wriggles a little.

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

It's watching her. She looks to the man holding it, a sort of hunted expression on her face.

"What are you reading?"

Hopefully, this will prove a segue into Make that yo-yo leave me alone.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Poetry," he replies promptly, brightly, not missing a beat. "A.E. Housman, at the moment."

The yo-yo squirms away towards the angel, uncomfortable.

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

And there, suddenly, soothing in its mundanity, is a perfectly ordinary topic of conversation.

"I haven't read very much that he's written," she tells him.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"Neither have I," Remiel admits. He grins. "Thought I'd better get up and do it."

A pause.

"Want to hear some?"

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

The girl smiles faintly, her too-sharp face momentarily lit and softened.

"I'd like to."

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

Remiel beams happily, gesturing to a seat, and looks through the poems that the compilation has on Housman-- before deciding on one, smiling.

He has the exact voice for poetry.

"Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.

There, in the windless night-time,
The wanderer, marvelling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sigh.

He hears: no more remembered
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There, by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs."

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

Antigone sits, watching him turn the pages to select the poem.

She frowns as he reads.

I don't want to cry. I haven't wanted to cry since before-- *before* before, even.

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

He glances up when he finishes, squinting, and seems to realize that he probably picked the wrong author.

"He doesn't really have any happy poems, I've noticed," Remiel says, apologetically.

[buriedmybrother.livejournal.com]

She nods, slowly.

"It rhymes well."

[hope-halo.livejournal.com]

"That it does."

He holds out a hand, head tilted.

"I'm Remiel, by the way."