(no subject)

[tu_vas_triompher]

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.

Comments

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuily nod-nod-nods; he'd offer to help, but Percy can very likely do it faster and better alone. And Feuilly could use a few minutes to stretch and swing the practice sword around without anyone looking, to see if he can find the right grip again.

[harryhotspur]

Percy and Duncan make for the stables, then, and when Harry returns alone a few minutes later, he tosses a little jar of salve to Feuilly in lieu of a greeting.

[tu_vas_triompher]

He'd managed to hear Hotspur coming and put the sword down casually, and he catches the jar without dropping it. Feuilly is doing well!

He opens the jar and gives it a curious sniff. Herbs? That's not so bad. "From someone at the bar?"

[harryhotspur]

Good job, Feuilly!

"Ay, from Athelstan. Thou know'st him, I think. He said, oh sure, good Percy, thou know'st what such a salve is made of, and I did nod and say ay-- but in truth, I know not." He grins.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Sooner or later he's going to miss a throw or something like that and reveal that he really is just a useless indoorsy tradesman--

oh, right, back to denial and earnest hope!

He gives the salve anther sniff, and pronounces "Herbs," with a solemn face. "--Oh, of course, Athelstan is from your part of the country. Or he was. I know him." And because Feuilly is now feeling really quite guilty about his discomfort with the Viking raids (and really what's he doing any better, lurking around warlike English peers with swords), he makes sure to add, "He's a good man."

[harryhotspur]

"He is! My countryman, after a fashion," he agrees. "And a good man-- and passing patient, too. I spoke ill of his lord, I fear, and he bore it with greater patience than I would do."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly pushes a hand through his hair. "Yes--Athelstan is very loyal to him-- Have you met Ragnar Lothbrok? He's a very intelligent man--"

He should probably just stop talking. "Was it very busy at the bar?" he finishes, somewhat clumsily.

[harryhotspur]

"We had some brief talk," he says. Hotspur seems equally content to leave the topic-- and the troubling thoughts his conversation with Athelstan raised-- behind.

"'Twas fair busy," he says with a nod. "Some I had seen before, and others I had not. How passed you the morning?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Oh, I was up early working. Painting--translating." He's about to move away from the topic, which he doubts interests Hotspur in the slightest, but--no, you know what, that's a little too self-effacing. Feuilly sets his chin stubbornly and unconsciously. "I've started painting the leaf for the fan I want to enter in the fair. It's a painting of a, a world where some of the people who come here live--Fawkes, and Ellen Park. Everything in their world was destroyed but now they're building again."

[harryhotspur]

"Ellen Park! I have met her just today, she told me of this," he cries. "I can scarce imagine it-- war as I know it can waste a castle or a field, but a country?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

He straightens a little, still without quite being conscious of his momentary tension. "Yes! I've seen their world myself and even--even having seen it, I can hardly believe. Think of, of London, razed to the ground, just the bones of some buildings and bridges remaining. And then sitting untouched a hundred years. But--they are building a school now--they have little towns--they are trying to bring back some order and justice--"

[harryhotspur]

"And thou-- thou wilt--" He makes a vague gesture that is possibly meant to imitate a brush stroke. "Thou wilt paint what thou didst see there?"

Look, he's trying!

[tu_vas_triompher]

He is trying! He's trying, and Feuilly feels weirdly pleased about it, and he nods extra earnestly. "I want to show--um. The way that--there were little things starting to grow there, the, the world trying to fix what was wrong. And the people were doing the same. I thought after the fair maybe I'd--I don't know. Give it to them or something--"

So much blushing. He fidgets in the direction of the practice sword.

[harryhotspur]

Harry laughs and gives Feuilly's shoulder a Very Manly smack. "Thou'rt blushing like a maiden! 'Tis a goodly gift, methinks they will like it well."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly laughs ruefully and goes redder. He can't help it! His complexion just--does that.

"Well. I hope so. Anyway. Should we--" Swords? "Might as well get more bruised before I try that, that salve."

[harryhotspur]

He grins and nods. "A worthy plan. Come-- show me what thou dost remember."

[tu_vas_triompher]

He takes a breath and clears his head. It's not so different from his usual work, in some ways. Well. All right, it's entirely different, but there's something about letting his hands work that quiets some of the more intrusive thoughts around the edges of his mind.

Neither his grip nor his stance are close to good, but it's clear that he does remember some things from the day before; he looks a little more at ease in his joints and limbs.

Today probably has to be more practice and less play, doesn't it.

[harryhotspur]

"O, 'tis not so bad..." He circles around, nudging corrections and adjustments here and there. As he does so, he says, "Ah, I nearly forgot-- I met a friend of thine."

[tu_vas_triompher]

He lets himself be nudged and corrected like any dutiful trainee--and then lifts his head and looks around at the word friend. "Oh? Who--? There are a few of us here from, from Paris."

...he should probably...explain about some of them.

[harryhotspur]

"He was called Lesgle-- ay, hold thy head just so!" He tucks a hand under Feuilly's chin to hold it at the proper elevation. "Thou needst not look to thy feet, they are still there."

[tu_vas_triompher]

He definitely startles at that, wide-eyed for a very brief moment and forgetting to breathe. But! Right! Chin up! He fights the automatic urge to look down at his feet, having just been told not to, which results in a distinctly perplexed look.

"Oh. Um. Lesgle--yes--he's--what did you make of him?"

Because now that he thinks of it, he can't exactly imagine how that meeting could go.

[harryhotspur]

A smile twitches at the corner of Hotspur's mouth at the sight of Feuilly's expression, but he doesn't laugh-- indeed, his expression shifts instead to a faintly embarrassed one. "I think we-- I would have any friend of thine as mine, but I think we did not-- understand each other."

...yes, that's Hotspur for 'I nearly punched him.'

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Um," says Feuilly helpfully. It might be at the faintly embarrassed expression, or at his own startled reaction, or just at the question of Lesgle.

Let's go with that one! "Um. He's--he really is a good man. And very brave at the barricade--in our battle. --He really is a friend of mine, I'd trust him with my life. But he has a joke for everything." And yes, that can rub a person the wrong way, for sure.

...and Lesgle probably had no reason to rein in his sarcasms for the sake of one Harry Percy. Oh, dear.

[harryhotspur]

"I own I little knew what to make of it," he says. "I spoke sharply to him, I do confess it. I hope--"

But he doesn't seem to know what exactly he hopes, and stops. (Well, yes he does, he hopes Feuilly doesn't think less of him for it, but he's not about to say that.)

[tu_vas_triompher]

That, at least, Feuilly can laugh over. "He'll live." Or well, you know, okay, no he won't but anyway. "He probably earned it. And he likes an argument almost as much as Bahorel does, as long as there's a lot of words. --Hm, let me think--you've met Enjolras, and you've met Bahorel. And Lesgle, and--well, I don't think you spoke to Prouvaire." Prouvaire was around to witness the Bahorel fight, a moment of great pride for Hotspur for sure.

"--there are a lot of us."