Feuilly

Labyrinth

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 00:11:05 GMT

One moment, the Labyrinth doorway. The next, a narrow bed in a cold room. A scuffling sound at the window pane, sparrows landing and then taking off again. An argument in some other room, muffled by walls but not very well: Go to hell, you're not my husband, you can't come here and talk like that to my kids.

It's all in French.

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Post-IMDB Flu

Sun, 26 Mar 2017 01:04:14 GMT

Once everyone has been warned about the hallucinatory flu situation, there's really not much a person can do but wait it out. At least, that's what Feuilly has been telling himself. So he's been bringing work down into the main room--books, sketchpad--and trying very hard to Make Sensible Use of the time...while mostly straining to keep half an eye at all times on Harry-who-thinks-he's-Ashley. And while ignoring a headache and a twinge in the back of his throat. And while managing the dogs.

Somewhere amongst all this Feuilly finds himself sitting on one of the couches by the fireplace. He's absolutely not going to lie down, because that way lies the danger of napping. But he might put his feet up. And he might rest his head on the cushion for a little while.

And his eyes might close in spite of all his best intentions; and he might begin to snore, just a little, the open book lying on his chest.

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Thu, 02 Mar 2017 22:33:58 GMT

In the mad world of Milliways, it's nice to have some constants. Like Harry leaving his shoes all over the floor--really, how can a single pair of shoes manage to be in so many places at once? And like arguing with the dogs that they don't sleep on the bed, and the dogs sneaking up onto the bed anyway a few minutes after the lights go out, and then arguing with the dogs that they're at least supposed to stay at the foot of the bed. And then adjusting to fit around Hector's very bulky bulk because dogs don't understand French or English.

In the mad world of Milliways, the bedtime rituals are constants. And waking up is generally much the same too these days. Dogs taking up too much space, Harry loudly still asleep, the still-delicious knowledge that Feuilly can wake up and lie abed as long as he likes, watching dawn light come in around the curtains.

Of course, in the mad world of Milliways there's also the constant awareness that anything might interrupt any of that at any moment.

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Sun, 14 Aug 2016 01:34:53 GMT

No matter what else may be happening in Milliways, some constants remain. Among them, the need to walk the dogs, or at least let them out, before going to bed. So Feuilly is out in the last light of the evening: just enough light to see the white tip of Lady's tail when she runs off to the edge of the mowed lawn and starts weaving in and out of the longer grass. Hector has no such flighty notions. He's a self-respecting lymer who likes his leash and likes to plod along at the length of it, nose to the ground, while he finds a suitable spot to do his business.

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Tue, 14 Jun 2016 23:08:00 GMT

Feuilly wakes up in the morning with a headache.

He's not much of a drinker, but he knows a hangover when he feels one, and this is a hangover. An especially bad hangover. How much...how much Greek brandy had been in those things?

He starts to drag himself out of bed: sheer force of habit. There's always something to get up and do, no matter how bad you feel. But wait, hang on, there isn't really, not here in this place. So he covers his face with his hands and groans pathetically. And hopes Harry isn't too annoyed with him.

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kids

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 18:34:19 GMT

Food is one of the best ambassadors. Having eaten ham and cheese with Harry Percy, Jeannot Feuilly feels more than confident enough to follow him out to the lake, even though--

"Do you know how to swim?"

Jeannot does not. Would he rather admit that, or admit that the water looks really quite cold?

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Thu, 31 Mar 2016 19:11:28 GMT

If he thinks too much more about this, Feuilly will think himself back into his room. Which explains at least some of the urgency with which Feuilly trots down the hall to Harry's door, and knocks.

Nothing except the history of their friendship explains why he's bringing his training sword. But it makes perfect sense to Feuilly. They might need to go hit things with swords! Possibly each other! A certain amount of judicious hitting-with-swords has always been an integral part of their friendship.

(...so, yes, to the outside observer, it might look like Feuilly is charging down the hallway with a look of determination, armed, and pounding on Harry Percy's door.)

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Sun, 28 Feb 2016 23:27:11 GMT

It's a mild day--for February, anyway--the sort of day that one feels needs to be used before it goes away. So Feuilly had proposed a return to the quintain they had found. "We can take apart the broken section, and maybe clear some of the saplings if Bar will let us borrow a hatchet," he'd said. And bar had obliged, and he and Harry had set forth, and he had given Harry the hatchet, and--honestly, glancing over at Harry's attack on some brambles, Feuilly is a little concerned about the decision. Did the brambles commit some unforgivable offense?

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Sat, 09 Jan 2016 22:29:04 GMT

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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Mon, 07 Dec 2015 21:27:37 GMT

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.

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Snow!

Sun, 29 Nov 2015 23:24:42 GMT

Snow! It came on suddenly, didn't it? But maybe that's normal here. It had been snowy when Feuilly first arrived; he remembers barreling around outside in it, in his June clothing, hugging himself with his hands tucked up under his arms to keep warm, too excited by the strangeness to go inside--

That same excitement simmers in him all morning while he goes about his self-imposed schedule of work, and only after he has finished his Latin lesson does he hurry over to Harry's room. No Harry there, but the dogs are in: Feuilly gets their leashes on and bundles along outdoors. It seems very likely that Harry's already there.

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After the body swap..

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 22:40:32 GMT

The switch from the desk in his room to a branch halfway up an oak is, naturally, a bit of a surprise. Feuilly's physical reflexes catch up to it before his thoughts do. It saves him a broken arm, maybe a broken neck. Thank you, Bahorel, for taking his body up into a tree without warning. A tree in the center of some strange landscape of--art?

It's art. It's certainly art. It's Bahorel art, but it's art. An art installation, that's what they'd probably call it in the future. Whatever Bahorel is in the middle of, up this tree, it involves knots--a rope web--cooking-pan noisemakers strung like beads--a bolt of Lyon jacquard silk--

Extracting himself from the situation is enough to keep Feuilly from thinking too much about the paint? all over his arms: he looks like he's been painted on fire, red and gold swirls on black. His hair feels as if it's full of--something sticky. He's wearing--oh, never mind

When he walks through one of the back doors of the bar building, his first thought is to go straight to his room, wash, and hide for a week. Instead he takes a deep, deep breath, and goes to knock on Harry's door.

How bad is it?

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Thu, 29 Oct 2015 20:51:43 GMT

This new Harry isn't going to be permanent, right? This is all one of those temporary Milliways things? It's Halloween, so Harry Hotspur of the 15th century is a Tottenham Hotspur of 2015 for the moment, and soon he'll be himself again. Right?

The alternative to optimism on this point being panic and despair, Feuilly is doing the only sensible thing, which is to take the amiable and vaguely...shiny...Harry Percy of the future out to hit things with practice swords.

--and hell, if it's his chance to win a playful skirmish or two, he's not above taking it.

"All right," he says cheerily, when they get to the yard near the stable. "Do you know how to hold it?"

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Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:44:13 GMT

One thing had led to another. The afternoon finds Feuilly deep into the history of the FIFA World Cup, with an entire channel of klezmer music to listen to. He's been trying to untangle the complaints about the decisions to host the competition in Russia and Qatar, and humming along to the music, when he suddenly becomes aware of two things.

First, the song he's half-singing without thinking about it isn't quite what he was expecting.

Second, he's supposed to be expecting John Segundus any moment now; they'd made a plan to meet at his room and then go to the library. Now--how do you turn the music off--?

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Mon, 21 Sep 2015 16:14:16 GMT

Feuilly had, of course, sworn to fight at Harry's side in the matter of the dishes. Or, if Harry prefers, to lend moral support from nearby. He...hadn't really sworn to get up before dawn to do this, if only because Harry had neglected to explain his cunning scheme.

So it's his usual breakfast time when Feuilly comes down to the common room, his laptop under his arm, and pokes his head into the kitchen. And blinks to see Harry already there. "--When did you start?"

Uh, and good morning and stuff, that too.

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Sat, 29 Aug 2015 14:35:06 GMT

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."

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Thu, 13 Aug 2015 23:11:09 GMT

Feuilly's new commission has rather shuffled around his usual schedule. The man wants it as soon as possible, so--as soon as possible Feuilly will have it. But it's an ambitious project for him. And ambitious means research. Lots of reference material. Reclining nudes. Reclining nudes with their faces turned away to show the curve of the neck. And boudoirs. Artistic lady's boudoirs.

Really, though, by the time you're sitting there trying to figure out how necks work, much of the eroticism has worn off. Or at least gotten pushed well out of the way. He fills some pages with sketches of naked ladies--and sketches of beds, painted screens, birdcages--then pats Hector on the head and calls it a reasonable day's work.

Off to grab a practice sword and fence a bit with Harry.

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Fri, 07 Aug 2015 14:01:33 GMT

The walk to Harry's room is made awkward by Feuilly having to carry a laptop computer, a practice sword, some books, a notebook, a tablet, pen and pencil, etc.

Also by the whole thing where Harry just appeared in the bar all bloody and cheerful after vanishing for a bit to go fight Viking raiders. That makes things a little awkward too. Not that Feuilly disapproves of going and rescuing villagers from violent murder! It's an excellent thing to do! But...he's never seen Harry so much in his professional capacity before.

Not knowing what else to do, he settles in to handle it the way he handles Bahorel adventures: stolid and pragmatic. They'll get Harry cleaned up and patched up and fed and watered and--sort out whatever else needs sorting out.

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Sun, 26 Jul 2015 19:34:08 GMT

Even the excuse of coming out of a very strange week of not being himself isn't enough to keep Feuilly from work--but he finds that in that week, barely remembered, he finished up his translation of the Pasteur volume, and made a great deal of progress reading it over! Or at least he thinks that's what he's done. The notebook with the translation is full of marks in green pencil, in his handwriting, making corrections that he certainly agrees with.

So for the morning he carries on correcting his work, now with a dog lying on his feet in a way that will be welcome in winter weather; and when his two hours are up he makes his way to the stables with an odd feeling of having gotten ahead of himself somehow.

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(AU week)

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:23:16 GMT

Feuilly has been telling himself that it's all right to be bound here, after the bitter defeat to their cause. Time isn't passing in Paris--however that works--he's using the time to rest, to study, to learn for the republicans' next attempt--

--he's resting with Harry, Prince of Wales, and studying the swordsmanship of four hundred years ago, and learning how to communicate a few faint ideas of 1830 to a long-gone English kingdom.

So now, spurred by Bahorel's restless energy, the news of Joly's illness, he's pulled out the work he's neglected lately, a sort of extract or paraphrase or adaptation--whatever you want to call it--of the Communist Manifesto. It's challenging work, pulling it together in terms for 1830 Paris, but it's not so very far past their time as all that. It's not a moment too soon for socialism!

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Get a room

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:01:27 GMT

Feuilly wakes early in the stable room, maybe because someone is a restless sleeper who roams unconsciously all around the bed kicking and not waking up, or maybe just because someone has a way of pulling the whole blanket all around himself. However it happens, Feuilly has time to put on his clothes and leaf through the paperbacks before deciding to sneak back to the main building.

He leaves a note, of course. Breakfast? Whatever literacy may or may not be shared between England of 1403 and France of 1832, Feuilly is pretty sure that will translate.

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Tue, 30 Jun 2015 23:20:37 GMT

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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And so it begins.

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 22:28:54 GMT

BAHOREL IS A LAWYER

It showed up a few days ago in the men's room, neat firm lettering in black pen. In English, just like that.

BAHOREL IS A LAWYER

(And Feuilly, through sheer coincidence, has been making a point of taking a seat with a good view of the restroom doors, the last few days, when he comes in for meals or a change of scenery. No reason, you know. Just. Watchfulness.)

---

They're good seats! They also have a view of the bar, and the doors to the kitchen behind it. And the rather over-aged busboy going in and out of the kitchen doors on the rounds he makes when he's not being swallowed by a temporal vortex,

Which is Bahorel's particular No Reason for sitting there across from Feuilly today, with a book and a flask that is definitely not from the Bar. The kitchen doors swing in and out. His face is completely blank, but he acknowledges Feuilly with a nod, and starts reading in between glancing up towards the kitchen doors. Swing. Swing. Swing--

and an unholy clatter--specifically unholy, with a great deal of blasphemy-- comes from the kitchen.

Bahorel lifts his flask in salute, and turns a page.

----

Feuilly acknowledges Bahorel with a nod, and goes back to his reading. He doesn't even look up at the clatter or the swearing, or the sopping-wet Laigle that comes stalking out to the table and jabs Bahorel pointedly on the shoulder.

"Did the bucket of water have to be dyed blue," Lesgle wants to know. "Did it really?"

---

Bahorel moves the book slightly out of the way of the dripping. "For libel? For an unerasable stain on my reputation? For the betrayal of confidences? Committed, I must suppose, though only suppose, as I can hardly be expected to understand a soul capable of such treachery, in a cowardly attempt to direct suspicion away from yourself, though we are both equally guilty of the vile sin I now alone stand accused of? Yes. Blue dye was the very least that was required."

Bahorel is also pointedly Not Looking at Lesgle Because of Reading, and so misses Feuilly's rather unusual display of concentration.

---

"I have enough weekly complaints from the laundry-rats without adding blue dye to the mix!" Lesgle flicks his hand angrily at Bahorel, and notes the blue spot on the man's shoulder with some satisfaction. "Also--also--I point out that I don't know what you're talking about. We're both guilty of quite a few vile sins; I don't mention your irregularities and you don't mention mine. I thought we had an understanding!"

Feuilly, humming to himself, looks up a word in one of his language dictionaries and writes it in the margin of his notes.

---

Bahorel's calm vanishes. he erupts from his chair in a single movement to loom over Bossuet, radiating fury.

(Perhaps not over, exactly. Lesgle is about as tall as he is himself. But Bahorel has both the bulk and the outrage to definitely loom at Bossuet nonetheless.)

"Understanding! Such deeds are beyond all understanding! Had you written what you know, I would not care, I for one do not fear my own truths-- but you spew lies that would corrupt a charnel house! And now you deny it? A crime that bears your mark--libel literally in your own hand-- and you would deny it? You--"

Pushed beyond rational speech, Bahorel grabs Lesgle by the shoulders and marches him in the direction of the men's stalls.

---

Lesgle may not have much bulk, but he has more than enough outrage of his own to face Bahorel's looming. He knocks Bahorel's hands off his shoulders as they go to the restroom; when they get there he simply crosses his arms and stares. "Well? If you're that offended by a little verse on Victor Hugo, you can write a better one."

There certainly isn't anything else here of his.

---

Bahorel growls and gestures at the insulting sentence in question. "Are you pretending such innocence you can't even see it?" His expression flickers to another shade of frown. "Can you not see it? Mind, before lying, I can find honest men here to ask as well."

---

Laigle spots the offending message just as Bahorel is gesturing to it. "Bahorel...is...a...oh! Oh-ho-ho! Oh, that's excellent, someone is feeling brave. But my dear fellow, you owe me a dry set of clothing; this isn't any of my work."

He pats Bahorel kindly (and damply and bluely) on the shoulder and makes to leave. "Find your culprit elsewhere. Perhaps one of the clever police-inspectors can help; we have quite a few on hand."

---

Bahorel stares at the two bits of graffiti; there *is* a slight difference between them, right next to each other like that. He stands back up away from the wall and starts to follow Lesgle out, anger completely gone, or at least completely redirected from the Legle- shaped part of the world. "Of course, if I'd known I could so easily convince you to accept a better choice of apparel, I'd have soaked your head years ago. --But you may laugh, it's not your names being disgraced. But you might consider that we have a forger among us, since whoever wrote that knew both my name and your writing, and has the skill to--"

He pauses almost mid-step, wide-eyed. "...that damned fan-panderer." He ducks back into the stall quickly, uncapping the writing-marker from his coat pocket, and scrawls POLAND IS A LAWYER in red ink.

He's almost impressed.

But mostly he's glowingly furious again. He straightarms the bathroom door open and charges back into the main bar, bellowing "TRAITOR!"

---

As soon as they had left for the men's room, Feuilly had taken the precaution of tucking the Megaton library book back in his satchel; by the time Lesgle and Bahorel emerge, he's working on a sketch. It's not what he'd call art, but he thinks he'll be able to paint it well enough to convey something of Fawkes' world: small green things fighting to live and to spread their hope.

He doesn't look up from his notebook.

---

The table's not very far from the stalls, really, especially at a furious stride. Bahorel stops himself just short of running into the table, with the air of a man very pointedly not using force.

"Well might you hide your eyes, you thrice-Judas! To slander a man is bad, to do so in secret is cowardice, to let another man take the blame for your villainy is beyond the pale! Has your crawling spirit taken such hold of your flesh that you cannot even look up?"

---

Feuilly appears to be deeply engrossed in his work.

---

Bahorel is the oldest among his friends by several years. As such, he considers it a solemn duty to provide a good example in certain matters, like how to communicate one's desires clearly and effectively.

He kicks Feuilly's chair away.

---

Feuilly is knocked back along with his chair.

Blinking up at Bahorel, he removes first one of the little listening-plugs that go with his MP3 player, and then the other. "Oh, Bahorel! These MP3 computers are wonderful. I was just listening to a recording of a polonaise by Chopin. My God, I don't pretend to know music, but I would have loved to hear him play. Did you ever?" He rolls up the little hearing-cords with the plugs, and tucks the whole business neatly away in his waistcoat pocket.

Feuilly has been watching prank offensives and practical jokes play out among his friends for years. And he believes he has the required sang-froid himself.

---

It's like that, then.

It would be an insult to them both to start laughing now. Bahorel takes the opposite of a calming breath, and starts in again.

"Indeed you might pretend ignorance, since you clearly have no claim to innocence! You infinite and endless liar--"

Bahorel can go on a while, and does. Villains of myth and history are invoked (Feuilly is of course worse than any of them) , multiple playwrights are quoted (especially Shakespeare, because when there's a chance to call a man a fustilarian, Bahorel takes it) and threats of various levels of plausibilty are issued (Bahorel is not entirely sure he can't turn Feuilly into sentient peach preserves at Milliways, which would only be justice).

He finishes by vowing revenge, stealing Feuilly's cap, and striding off upstairs, full of cheerful fury.

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Sat, 31 Jan 2015 20:04:28 GMT

[And now they're at the Labyrinth. Carrying on...]

Bahorel's already heading in. Hey, if the watches chime on either side of the door that's useful to know, probably!

And on the other side of the door is...rock, lots of it. Rock walls, rock floor, all very properly mythic. There's some sort of vaguely sparkling, purple-green mold growing along the walls. Bahorel runs his thumb through a patch of it; it puffs little glittering spores all over him in return. They don't seem to do anything besides make him somewhat sparkly, which is more than all right, if not particularly productive.

Feuilly shrugs and follows; God knows what Bahorel might do left on his own in a magical cave even for a moment. (Honestly, Bahorel would be fine. But it's the sort of thing one feels the need to say around him.) He raises his eyebrows briefly at the sparkles on the wall and on Bahorel. "Rococo. It's a new look for you."

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Wed, 31 Dec 2014 22:19:40 GMT

Sometimes, when endurance of suffering calls for imagination, Feuilly takes his mind to a workshop and paints. This is no painting he's ever made, any more than it's a journey he has ever made: start at the Cabo da Roca, Portugal. Curve south, south and east, because the Cabo da Roca is as far west as the continent will allow. Blue water lapping against a pale green line of land. To Lisbonne, Lisboa. Curve in, another pointed cape of land, curve in again, knowing that the line smooths out a thousand thousand natural irregularities of the land, south for the point of Gibraltar, then mountains that pull you east and north. Sierra Nevada: his mind's hand tints them with a delicate brown-grey. Up and along to Catalogne, Catalunya. (A fine line in his imagined map, to show both present political Spain and proposed Catalunya. Carlist support, a vexatious question: the men and women hoping for Catalan independence would get no true freedom from the absolutism of a Carlos de Borbón.) Then more familiar territory. A pause at Marseille. In his mind he writes the city's name with care. Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie l'étendard sanglant est levé. Entendez-vous dans la campagne mugir ces féroces soldats?

The roar of those ferocious soldiers. A boot comes down hard on his hand and the carefully-held mental map vanishes. Whoever it is kicks the (near-)corpse out from underfoot and Feuilly loses his light grasp on consciousness. When he wakes again to cold, the map comes more easily. Not the coast. A river journey. Start at a mountain. Barania Góra. Fall down its slope, float past Kraków, Sandomierz, turn north--

---

Cold again when he wakes. Gdansk, he thinks confusedly. Gdansk Bay, Baltic Sea. A wall at his back, with a door. He stands on shaky legs and leans on the door for strength before trying to open it.

Feuilly warms himself in a corner of the café, if café is the word for it. It's not the Corinth or any other Paris room. (Nor, clearly, Gdansk. Take the diligence for another planet, indeed?) It must be the middle of the night here, or the wee hours of the morning. There's no one in the room but a rat that comes and goes on its hind feet, like something from an allegorical cartoon.

Finally the rat brings him a folded piece of paper with a separate note. Welcome to Milliways, the Bar at the End of the Universe. Hang up your hat, leave your outside allegiances by the door, and please: tip your waitrats. --Rm. 637 and all its furnishings and accoutrements are at your disposal during your stay. Please take a moment to read the brochure.

Feuilly reads as he walks after the rat. You may also be dead, in which case we are still sorry, says the pamphlet.

That's...thoughtful?

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