tu_vas_triompher | (no subject)

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hotspur

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It turns out that you can't actually just lie around in the grass forever; for one thing, bugs start biting you, and other residents come strolling by or want to visit the stable, and the day wears on. So Feuilly had gone to his work--belatedly--and Harry had gone about whatever Harry does--presumably horse things? Knight things?

And Feuilly had set himself to start his painting and his translation work an hour earlier the next morning. He'd fit more hours into the day if he could, but until Joly or Combeferre discovers something along those lines, he'll just sleep less! It's a workable plan!

So Feuilly has circles under his eyes as well as bruises under his shirt when he wanders to the stable in the late afternoon. With his practice sword! With his practice sword held rather awkwardly, because he's not sure if he and Percy actually have a...scheduled...arrangement to meet...? But, you know, he's just. Wandering over to the stables. With a sword.

Like you do.

Well, also a basket of food. He'd been hungry after their training session.

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"I would not keep thee from thy--" A vague gesture. "--thy books, thy fans."

"I've done my work for the day," he says slowly, choosing to take it at face value. He's not sure whether he's looking for an excuse to stay or to go, and probably he should make up his mind. For now. "--But if I'm to get an early start tomorrow--"

"Oh, ay-- and thy shirt, thou shouldst--" He straightens, taking his weight back off Feuilly, letting their shoulders part.

"Yes--yes, my shirt. I--" (It's wet, his shirt. Probably soaking into Hotspur's. Feuilly gathers himself a bit, looking in the direction of the main building, and then thinks of Harry's admission that he has dreams.) "--I can find another blanket if we get cold."

A flash of surprise crossed Harry's face (but not bad surprise, not at all) before he can conceal it. "There's more to be found, I doubt it not."

"Probably horse-blankets. Well, and the stable's warm."

He leans against Harry's shoulder again, and stops trying to find excuses about things.

Harry slings his arm around Feuilly's shoulders, bringing his hand up behind to rest on the back of Feuilly's head. "'Tis warm-- wouldst go in?" (He means nothing by it, it sounds as guileless as he ever does.)

"Oh--this is just fine for now." He leans back, just enough that Harry's fingers dig in at the base of his hair, before stretching out an arm to retrieve the bit of bread and cheese. Mmmh. "--Should have brought more of this. Or are you going to point out that, that many a soldier has sat up with less--on watchful nights when no fire may be lit--"

He bursts out laughing and buries his face against Feuilly's shoulder. "Yet 'tis true! And then thou shalt tell me how the fan makers of Paris are so hale and proud, they can drink naught but spun sugar and then work three nights together--"

"Coffee," he corrects. "The workshop runs a week together on one pot of coffee. With a single candle for light and warmth. It keeps us in, in fighting condition."

At some point, he promises himself, he'll do his hardworking fellow fan makers the justice of pointing out that they're mostly women. But. Right now he just slings an arm around Harry's shoulder and pulls his hair.

"There is some magic in this coffee, sure." Well that merits a shove back, naturally. "A week together? I would like that very well. Why, could my poor, frail nobility be but as hardy as thee--"

He's pretty sure Combeferre or Joly has told him what's in coffee, but it escapes his mind. "We'll start you out on--on plenty of milk and sugar in the coffee so it doesn't overpower you--hey!" Hey, that shove made him lose his grip on his end of the blanket. Feuilly scrambles to retrieve it. "--and make you learn the Rights of Man by heart."

"The Rights of Man? Ist some catechism?" He holds tight to his end of the blanket, because God forbid the English ever willingly cede territory to the French.

Hey, England delivered this bit of territory to the French in person. Feuilly hugs it extra close when he gets his portion back under control.

"--Well. I wish it were." He scrubs his face with his free hand and tries to think. A document built on four hundred years of philosophy that came after Harry Percy's death? "It's--when people have tried to think of the best way to govern themselves. The best way to make laws. It's--well, what do you think of, of Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good?"

"What does it mean?" Yes, he seems to be beginning a match of blanket tug-of-war as he asks it, but the question seems sincere anyway.

He refrains from saying but I want to know what it means to you. Hasn't Harry met him halfway so far? There's letting someone make his own mistakes, and then there's swatting him down before he can start.

(While he is thinking, Feuilly is engaged in wrapping himself inexorably in the blanket. He may be a mild fighter, but he's excellent when it comes to curling up in a tiny tight defensive ball.)

"Well--the common good, that would be what's good for all the people. Social distinctions, I think you can tell what that is."

(Any resemblance to a hedgehog, with his hair sticking out of the blanket, is purely coincidental.)

Hotspur edges closer, which is absolutely not surrendering his share of the blanket, it is a cunning tactical decision.

"And so it is to say, those who are great must look to those beneath."

....right. All right. "Well--they should. But why are some people called great? And some said to be beneath? If you say that social distinctions should be founded on the common good..."

He hunches the blanket another quarter-turn around himself.

"Why, how else should it be? Some must rule, must they not?"

Well he'll just scoot closer, then.

"Sure, there needs to be government. But founded on the common good."

Soon Harry's going to have to either give up his grip or make some alternate tactical approach.

Edited 2015-07-02 22:42 (UTC)

"Why so-- a king can serve the common good, can he not? Or a lord? Indeed, he must, or he deserves not the title."

--yes, fine, he lets go. But then he gives Feuilly a nudge, just in case the whole hedgehog bundle is tightly wrapped enough to tip over.

"Can and should! You're right." (Eh, so he'd give a somewhat different answer to someone else; Harry's time has had no Robespierre and no Saint-Just to make things clear.). "But how does he come to be a king or a lord?"

He doesn't tip over, but he probably would with just a slightly harder push.

Edited 2015-07-02 22:54 (UTC)

Harry laughs. "Why, 'tis a catechism indeed. He is born to it-- or takes it, if he is called Henry Bolingbroke."

Is he giving up for good? Is it a tactical retreat? We just don't know. But he does seem to abandon the blanket effort, drawing his knees up to his chest and folding his arms on top of them.

"And where the hell does 'founded on the common good' come in then?"

Feuilly peers out from the blanket roll and relents, shrugging it down more loosely on his shoulders. He didn't mean to scare Harry off! (This is the approach of a person who apologized after disarming his foe.)

"Why, I know not," Hotspur replies, growing a bit frustrated with what seems to him a very circular conversation. "But someone must rule."