tu_vas_triompher | (no subject)

(no subject)

Feuilly is--surprise, surprise--working in his room. It's proving harder than he expected--no, well, it's proving just as hard as he expected--to break down the language of 21st-century pedagogy into pieces that he understands well enough to build from by himself. But the effort is rewarding in itself. Just reading the first pages of an article on "the challenges of adult student persistence in library literacy programs" is an exercise in the foreign and the familiar. Students expressed two types of learning goals: specific 'instrumental' goals that must be reached in order to realize longer-term aspirations and broader 'transformational' goals that entail major life changes, such as taking on a new social or work role. Just that one sentence holds struggles that he recognizes intimately--and a way of thinking and writing that would turn away much of his Paris. Aspirations, transformations, new social roles?

So...work is going slowly.

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Harry punches back, mock-offended. "Nay, a fine, quiet child I was."

"Mmhm." Punch. "That's what you're always telling me. What a, a quiet studious boy you were."

Harry grins. "But 'tis not all a lie! I made clamor enough, 'tis true, and yet spoke little. --as a child, I would say." Clearly that changed somewhere along the way.

"But thou--" A punch back. "Thou wast all study and sweetness, I am sure."

Well--yeah, all right, actually.

"I was terrible and wild. Remember? They called me Léon for my ferocity." He bites his lip; the next punch really just turns into resting a hand on Harry's chest.

"Ay." He traces his thumb down the back of Feuilly's hand. "I did forget. A very lion, Feuilly the fierce."

"Just so."

If it were someone else, he'd press to talk more about the father. But it's Harry. Hitting each other with practice swords is probably more effective at starting a conversation. So Feuilly rubs Harry's chest for a moment and then nods towards the door. "Practice?"

Edited 2016-01-11 01:04 (UTC)

Harry nods and claps Feuilly on the shoulder. "Ay, let us go. Thou canst display thy ferocity."

"Yes, beware."

They have to stop by Harry's room to get his sword anyway, so Feuilly takes Hector along to leave him with Lady for another strenuous round of napping. "I think he's getting even blinder," he says as they head down to the practice room. "Doesn't seem to bother him much, though."

"No, indeed," Harry agrees. "Think'st thou all the marvels of this place could not aid him?"

"I don't know. That is--I suppose there's probably someone who could do something, now that you mention it." He glances over his shoulder, back towards Harry's room. "I could ask Joly or Combeferre about it. I don't want--well--a Paris doctor wouldn't take it well, being consulted about a dog. But Joly's mad about his cats..."

"Is he indeed? All in all a kindly soul, he." Harry grins. "But as thou say'st, he minds it not."

"Ha, haven't you met his cats? His and Lesgle's, I should say." Feuilly likes cats quite a bit himself, but he's still going to laugh a little about Joly's cat situation. "--I'll ask him. I don't know anything about--oh, dogs and medicine. The answer might just be that he's old and there's not much to do about it."

Harry nods-- and here they are. It is, he has to concede, in many ways nicer than being outside: warmer, cleaner, the floor not quite as hard as the ground.

On the other hand, there's no promise that no one will show up. Which is something to keep in mind.

"Very well, then!"

When it's not January, Feuilly definitely prefers the field by the stable, even if there are better places for practice. But right now? Yeah, he'll take an indoor climate that isn't going to turn his hands into stiff, cracked, aching, useless lumps--all by itself, without any help from getting bashed over the knuckles.

Still, the room holds sound in a way the open air doesn't, and he warms up self-consciously.

It feels closer and quieter, and makes Harry particularly aware that they aren't saying anything, that he doesn't know what to say. After a few minutes-- fewer than he'd normally take-- he turns back to Feuilly. "Ready?"

Sure, he's ready. It's a little hard to get used to the footing, but after a few minutes he's getting a feel for it--and not feeling quite so shy of throwing a few words out into the quiet, even if it's just the usual sparring shouts. When he finally lands a hit (his first, having taken three so for) he laughs aloud. "See? Ferocious."

"Dreadful fierce," Harry agrees.

Different environment, a different rhythm it takes him time to settle into as well. His customary comments and corrections keep coming out more sharply than he means them to.

Feuilly's pretty tolerant of correction on any day--reasonable correction--and today in particular, with Harry's news, he's patient with shortness. But he's good enough now to recognize his own mistakes without each one being pointed out to him. After a series of unnecessarily obvious remarks from Harry he drops the reserve of friendly sparring for an attack that might leave a bruise or two if it lands.

Edited 2016-01-11 22:05 (UTC)

Harry knows Feuilly isn't as perennially patient as he may seem, but he still doesn't expect that form of retaliation. He starts back when the blow hits-- then surrenders at once to his instinctive response, attacking with a speed and strength that at least matches Feuilly's first blow.

No, well, he's a little bit ashamed of himself as soon as Harry responds--would be more ashamed, if he didn't suspect that Harry could use the outlet.

He keeps up as best he can, but after a few solid hits from Harry he steps back and raises a hand. "--I think you won that round."

"Ah--" Harry lowers his sword. "--I cry thy mercy."

He takes a step nearer, tentatively. "I did thee no hurt?"

"Oh, no! No." He's laughing a little, and touches Harry's arm in reassurance. "Nothing I didn't earn." It's true: when Harry stops holding back--or rather, holds back less than usual--it's a sharp reminder of the difference between learning a craft your entire life, your life depending on it, and having picked it up a few months ago. "I'm fine. You?"

"Yes." As ever!

He gives his sword an idle swing, feeling the weight of it. "When-- when I was born, my father was not young, and seldom would he spar with me-- but o! he had for any fault an eagle's eye. And when he thought me too sure and proud, enter he would to the lists and pay me just so. But one bout, one pass, and no more-- but in that could he ever best me."

Yes, that sounds about like he would have expected. "I've known some people like that." No judgment in his voice. It's not quite how Feuilly would teach a child--but you can't say that Harry didn't turn out a good swordsman. And Feuilly never had children of his own to teach, so who's he to talk? No children, no father, no place of experience from which to criticize.

"What about when you were older?" Because he has the feeling a Harry of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, might not be so easily put in his place as a little boy.

Edited 2016-01-12 00:03 (UTC)

"O, he ever knew me better than I did myself." It's hard to tell, from his expression, if this is a fond recollection. Possibly even he isn't sure. "Though I grew stronger, faster, he had the teaching of me, and ever knew some trick, some weakness I knew not of ere he did find it."