(no subject)

[tu_vas_triompher]

They eat their breakfast--lunch?--by the lake, occasionally chucking rocks into the water, but not talking much. Letting some time pass after the conversation in Harry's room. Letting the morning warm up. After they split the last cup of hot chocolate, they leave the satchel by a large rock, to be retrieved--later. (They'll remember, honest! Feuilly will, anyway.) It seems like a good time to meander around the edges of the woods.

There is a path. Feuilly looks at it doubtfully, glances at Harry. "I think that one doesn't do anything--you know--magical."

Comments

[harryhotspur]

Harry shrugs, nods. "Very well. Hast been this way before?"

He hasn't spent too much time in the woods himself, but more than enough to know that a non-magical path is not necessarily a given. He's feeling-- well, calmer than before, at least. Uncharacteristically tentative, like the shaky-weak feeling of the first day on your feet after being very ill.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Once?" He smiles crookedly at Harry. That's enough certainty to go wandering, right?

Anyway, it looks very ordinary. No white hart bounds suddenly into view; no distant but entrancing music plays. The sunlight does not fall on the path in a suspiciously appealing way, just in a very reasonable way. A small cloud of gnats drifts into sight and then out again. Feuilly shrugs and starts walking.

[harryhotspur]

Good enough for Harry! He falls into step next to Feuilly, tilting his head back to look at the canopy of trees above.

"They are not like to English trees," he notes. "Though I know not why they should be."

Really? Breaking the silence by talking about plants?

He decides to try again. "I did not thank thee for thy great kindness these past days. For all thou didst whilst I was confined."

[tu_vas_triompher]

There's nothing wrong with plants. But...there isn't necessarily much to say about them, either.

Not that Feuilly's all that good at handling thanks, either. He nods and rubs the back of his neck. "Oh--well--you're welcome--" That's pretty weak, Feuilly. "I mean--you'd do the same for me. And anyway, I'd have missed your company. --Oh! Chuck Hansen brought some, some toys for the dogs."

Because dogs are supposed to have toys? Who knew?

[harryhotspur]

"I would indeed, but still it merits thanks, methinks."

Harry looks bemused by this idea. "Toys? For a dog? What, have they now wooden swords, dolls? No, better-- a wooden fox and hound to play at hunting."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"And I'm glad I could be some use." He reaches out to touch Harry's shoulder for a moment. Then he has to laugh, at the image of the dogs playing soldier or fox-and-hounds with dolls. "No--no, things to throw for them, a sort of flat disk, the size of a dinner-plate, that you throw and they chase after. And some tough ropes, the dog pulls on one end and you pull on the other. Lady seems to like it?"

[harryhotspur]

He lays his hand on top of Feuilly's-- only for a moment. He wants to linger longer in the contact, but it's a slightly awkward position to maintain while still walking.

"O, I doubt not she is glad of any chase. Be it colorful or otherwise."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Yes. Hector thought about it, but then he fell asleep again." Feuilly shakes his head. "Me, I can just about keep up with him. But I had no idea dogs needed anything but--sticks? Bones?"

What an exciting future, with toys for dogs.

This is still just small-talk, really, but small-talk has its uses. Such as when someone has just learned they're dead, apparently.

[harryhotspur]

"Nor I."

It is useful, to force the part of him that wants to demand why anything matters at this point, what is he if everything came to nothing to refocus, to anchor itself in concrete things, however small, that he feels some responsibility towards: the dogs. Feuilly. (Maybe especially Feuilly.)

"But now I shall look to her once more-- to both of them, if it troubles thee to do so."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Troubles? No, of course not. But Lady missed you. I'm too dull for her, too much sitting around inside. --Hector missed you too, of course, the old fellow. He's been sighing for you. Pining."

The path seems to go along the edge of the wood, a few yards in. Feuilly has been seeing the light glinting off the lake, through the trees; now they come to an opening where a slope leads back down to a rocky stretch of shoreline. Feuilly looks over to Harry, shrugs, and scrambles down.

[harryhotspur]

Harry skids down right after, nearly tripping at the bottom and catching himself just in time. While he's already crouched down, though, he pokes around until he finds a sufficiently flat rock. He moves down towards the edge of the water and tries to mimic the flicking motion Feuilly showed him last time. The rock cuts cleanly into the water without skipping once. He makes a face.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly is a terrible, cruel man: he snickers. At the face more than at the failed skipping. "Takes practice," he says. Heartlessly. (While starting to cast around for more such rocks. This seems to be a good shore for it. For rocks in general. Feuilly has a general notion that Scotland has rocky lakes like this?)

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, well-- then I shall stand aside for the master of such tricks." He steps back, gesturing to the lake with a flourishing it's all yours gesture.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Really?" He gives Harry a thoughtful look. Giving up already? Well.

He stands near enough for Harry to watch, if he likes, and does manage to send one skipping for a couple of hops, nothing terribly impressive. Then he offers a stone to Harry. "Come, you saw me trying to get on a horse, that was worse than skipping rocks."

[harryhotspur]

He was not-- well, yes, he was. But he takes the offered stone and face the lake with an expression of deep concentration. He lets the rock go, and it skids across the surface for two hops before sinking beneath.

"I will not let thee slander thyself, thou didst ride very well," Harry says, already kneeling in search of another rock. "--though I own the mounting was-- not so graceful, perhaps."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"There, see? You're as much a master as I am already--" He breaks off, laughing, at Harry's words. "Not so graceful. Not so graceful. Ah, see, there, that's kindness. --I hope we can do that again, though?"

It shouldn't be a question; haven't they said many times that they would? But the last few days have upset things, and Feuilly isn't quite sure how much.

[harryhotspur]

"I have said so-- I will keep my word," he says, perhaps a little more forcefully than such a trivial promise necessarily demands.

That's the way, maybe, he thinks-- leave the broader questions of what his honor means now, do what he knows how to. Keep promises. Remain loyal.

"I am sorry that I--" The words are out before he can really think through whether he actually wants to say them. But now he's started, so he has to finish: "--did not comport myself better."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly blinks. "With Javert? Eh. The man's a, a walking temptation to behave badly, just to make him react. I'm honestly surprised you're the first of my friends to hit him." (If Harry is apologizing for his comportment earlier, crying, Feuilly refuses to accept an apology.)

A moment later, Feuilly catches how easily he'd including Harry among his friends. He bites his lip on a smile.

[harryhotspur]

That is, in fact, precisely what Harry means.

"Not Javert," he says with a snort. "That I regret not. I will not do so again-- but nor would I undo it."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Dammit Harry.

"You can't undo it, anyway, so that's good. But Harry--" His smile fades. "If you're telling me you're sorry for--for being unhappy--" Feuilly pushes a hand through his hair, his usual gesture. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

[harryhotspur]

"Not for being, but for--" It's strange to have to explain what seems to him so self-evident: men control themselves, including their emotions, and to do otherwise is to fall short of that standing expectation. Maybe apologizing is strange, but he feels like he has to say something about it. "--showing it so."

[tu_vas_triompher]

He won't pretend not to understand; he nods, looking out at the lake. "I know. But I still don't think it's something to be sorry for. --Do you know something? Bahorel would probably hit someone if they said they were sorry about crying." (There's the word.) "His, his methods may be a little eccentric, but--he's not wrong."

[harryhotspur]

"Ay?" He laughs, clearly not believing this at all. "And why would he so?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Oh, you'd have to get the proper explanation from him. I've known Bahorel for years and I don't always quite follow. But--he might say that if something is worth some grief, it would be shameful to try to hide one's grief."

That may or may not be an accurate depiction of Bahorel's views: Feuilly really doesn't always understand the man. But it's an explanation that he can understand himself. And nothing makes Bahorel angrier than people trying to hide their feelings. (Well, all right, several things make him angrier. But it's up there!)

[harryhotspur]

"That may be."

He nudges up a nice-looking stone with the toe of his boot, then bends to pick it up.

"If thou think'st no less of me, then-- then I will say I am of his mind, and think no more of it."

One might be forgiven for assuming that this speech was intended for the stone, given that he never quite manages to lift his gaze from it as he speaks.