(no subject)

[tu_vas_triompher]

It's good to be starting a new project, Feuilly reminds himself. It is, it really is: he's had trouble finding things to do, now that his fan commission is complete and his translation for Fawkes is done. He's been feeling selfish, lazing about the way he has been. So it's...good, to be staring at an empty notepad, an open laptop, and a stack of books, with no idea how to begin.

It's good.

Feuilly looks down at Hector, who is snoring and has no advice about pedagogy.

He looks over at his door, and hopes it opens with an interruption.

Comments

[harryhotspur]

Feuilly's wish is Harry's command! --or, well, Harry's coincidence, but the effect is the same. A perfunctory knock before Harry opens the door. He's not wearing the ridiculous coat, though he only just put it away, as he looks red faced and windswept, still a flake or two of snow clinging to his hair.

"Ah!" he says when he sees Feuilly at the desk. "Thou'rt at work, I shall leave thee."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"No, no!" Harry can likely tell this is no polite demur. "No, I was just...failing to start."

[harryhotspur]

Harry, who had started to turn away, stops and comes closer. "And what wouldst thou begin?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Well, it's--it's a new thing, I--"

He watches the snowflakes melt in Harry's hair, which unfortunately offers no inspiration. "To tell you the truth I'm not sure how to start."

[harryhotspur]

"Well!" Harry leans against the desk. "What is't, and is't of thine own devising, or by entreaty?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"My own devising. That's the trouble." Feuilly gives him a laughing and almost helpless look. "Shall I tell you about it? Or--did you come here to--I don't want to interrupt you--" (...from interrupting me?)

[harryhotspur]

"I had no aim but to see thee," Harry says. "I was for the stables, to try if Złota would take to the snow-- but she liked it not, and I thought the effort enough until the morrow."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Ha, poor Złota. The dogs like it, though. Hector here is all worn out from his walk." A canine snore confirms; Feuilly bends down and rubs the old boy's belly. "--Um. But. It's--well--in the future people seem to figure out some, some very good ways of teaching literacy. There's--well, you know that's something I'm interested in--"

He tugs on his hair. "I was wanting to, to make something that, that uses those ideas in, in ways that could be used in. Um. Paris."

[harryhotspur]

"In thy Paris?" Harry asks, trying to be sure he's on the right track. "To-- teach people to read?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Well--yes." He looks embarrassed. "I know it's--ambitious--and of course getting it to Paris is--but I've spoken to someone who can do that--"

[harryhotspur]

"Ah!" He had sat up, surprised and eager, when Feuilly answered in the affirmative, but now he settles back with a self-conscious laugh. "I thought thou hadst found some means to return thence. But who is this courier?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"A young woman," Feuilly answers, somewhat slowly. "Mme. Pontmercy--she married someone I know, someone who was at the barricade but survived. I don't think she has any, any strong political ideas, but she's a generous person."

[harryhotspur]

"And she may be trusted, think'st thou. I mean to say--" He amends hastily, remembering how this line of inquiry led to danger once before. "She has the wit to device some source for these things? To conceal thee and this place?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"We're discussing it." He raises his eyebrows, just a little, at Harry's quick amendment. "There's someone she can give things to, he's a teacher--a priest, an old man, he's not likely to ask any hard questions. But yes, it's something we have to work out."

[harryhotspur]

Harry nods. "Well! It shall be by her a double kindness: to see Paris profit by thy work, and to give thee occupation."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Yes. But I have to actually make a start, somewhere in all this." Feuilly waves a hand at the piles of books. "It's harder than just translating. --And I told Athelstan I would work on more of his manuscript. I'll keep busy for the winter."

He gives Harry a rueful look. "I don't suppose you want to turn copyist yourself and help?"

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, I did speak to him of it, too. That he has lost his liking for the work." Harry can't suppress a grin. "I should have guessed thou wouldst put thyself forward for the task."

Harry gives him a level look back. "Dost wish to see every page blotted?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I could hardly say no, and--there's not much else I can do to help him. I'm not the best person for it but I can at least--oh, keep things going until he feels--"

Feuilly laughs at Harry's level look, and gives his shoulder a little prod. "It can't be that bad. --I've looked a little at, at the kind of things people were writing in your time--" His ears, predictably, color. "The mix of Latin, French, English--three languages to learn, and it's still that way in my time, more or less, if you go to school. It's--" Frustrating. "--You could teach children in Paris the best French, and without Latin they still couldn't go to any sort of higher school. But at least they could read the journals and know what's happening--"

Sorry, Harry, Feuilly is off on one of his dearest topics.

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, well, my father saw to it I could write a fair hand, but sure 'tis not fair enough for scripture." Setting his inevitable impatience with the task aside. "--but 'tis French, in the main, that is written? Little Latin?"