faderift | [open]

"I don't care at all about fossilized goat feces," she says, because it's true and because it's the first thing which occurs to her. That it happens to be a fine opening crack at an argument is merely convenient, as the bulk of her attention has shifted to the contents of the side table.

With some effort, she makes to shift partly up and over from her heap of pillows so that she may paw with her unbandaged hand through the articles stacked there.

"But you should care!"

The page rattles with bristling offense in Val's hand as he drops it, sharply, so that he might fix Wysteria with a displeased look. He is forced then to confront the sight of her, colorless, which he does not like, and so he reaches over to pluck the stack of articles from the table, away from her scrabbling hand, and deposit them onto the bed within easier reach.

That taken care of, he picks up the Capello once more.

"The interest in the border ought to be examined more closely among scholars and thinkers of our Age. The presence of rubbish and waste and fossilized specimens evident in other pre-historic--recorded history, of course!--implies not only the impermanence of the border, which has always been accepted as quite permanent, but also the mingling of cultures which have been accepted as quite separate and indeed combative. It is a fascinating perspective. But of course you would not have interest in it, mademoiselle, I cannot blame you."

He settles back into the chair once more and raises the Capello still higher, apparently engaged in reading--this time only to himself.

Wysteria ignores the height of the Capello. She has turned her attention already to the papers Val has so unceremoniously dumped into her bed, shifting here and there through the contents and dividing them according to some ruthless internal credentials.

"You're right that I have no interest. It sounds perfectly dire."

A saddle stitch bound essay receives a sour look and is set to one side. A slim account of Thaig explorations, etchings and diagram reproductions included, is far more warmly met.

"—Unless someone has used it to discuss northern Antivan pattern making. That would be very interesting. When I was studying wallpaper samples for the upstairs corridor, I noticed a striking similarity between a few of them and some of Miss Derrica's favorite textiles. Here," she says, cutting the piece on the operetta from the pack after the briefest review. "I would prefer this. But you must promise to read the Orlesian passages slowly."

"Pattern making," is repeated with muttered venom, and still from behind the Capello. The venom is lacking in power, mild as well as muttered, because loathe as he would be to admit it aloud, that is somewhat of an interesting point, especially to one who has spent a particular amount of time leafing through wallpaper samples and wall stencils and patterns for mosaics, and going to ruins and historic sites to conduct rubbings and sketch replicas of faded details that adorn half tumble-down walls. Yet does its interest compare to Capello's theories?

And yet Val does deign to lower the article in order to consider Wysteria's selection. With a crispness that is belied by the glimmer in his eye, he leans forward to take it from her, and sets aside Capello (at least for the moment).

"I can promise only to try, and I will not be trying very hard. And for this, you should thank me, for the finest way to learn a language is to be fully immersed within it. Surely this is known even in the country of Kale-Vad."

Perhaps it's due to the fact that he doesn't protest over much with the change of material. Or maybe it has to do with the tinge of illness about her, or is a hold over from the feverish quality of her earlier correspondence. Or perhaps—though this can't possibly be the case—, she is merely pleased enough to by his company that she can't bear to be entirely contrary.

For it's considerably uncommon for her to admit to claim any fault or shortcoming, and yet:

"That's true even in Kalvad, yes. But be that as it may, I have never been very good at grasping them. New languages. And my eyes are much stronger than my ears are on the subject. So if you begin to race along, I may be forced to make you repeat yourself."

Edited 2021-11-16 21:16 (UTC)

"Kalvad," with exaggerated care, as he has so often said the name of the country after getting it wrong. Val swings his legs around to the front of the chair so that he is sitting in the usual way. This is the better position by which he can smooth the pages of the review over his thigh, clearing it of any wrinkles that might lend some difficulty to its recitation.

"I suppose in Kalvad they must be very thoughtful. It is wonderful to hold to such customs, even when no one is around to behold you doing so. For I hate nothing more than being asked to repeat what I have already read, and you have so kindly thought of that."

Very abruptly, then, he cuts a narrow and assessing glance in her direction. This is nothing at all to do with an assessment of her condition, but everything to do with what he next asks, which is, "Are you really so poor with languages? I have always found them very simple--some moreso than others, of course--and Trade most simple of all, nearly crudely so. Thus my speaking with you here and now, when I would much prefer Orlesian. A superior and comfortable tongue. If only Riftwatch were based in Orlais! Then you would have come to this world with a command of that language instead. Yet, strange are the Maker's ways."

"Oh yes. Exceedingly poor," she confirms, shifting the papers about her person to one side of the bed in slow, slightly laborious motions. She would not be surprised if his turning right ways around in his chair preceded him putting his shoes on the edge of her bed or something equally ill-mannered concerning his feet. The least she can do is save the papers the indignity.

"I drove two governesses away with my inability to learn Otranan. That's the country which lies west of Kalvad. Lots of people go on holidays there between the wars and it's very fashionable to learn to speak a little. —And a third governess on account of my refusal to learn how to play any music. You will be very surprised to hear it, I'm sure. That I have historically made a very poor student. I've never had any tutor at all who liked me."

If her tenor is anything to judge by, Wysteria considers this last thing something of a badge of honor.

"I won't tell you that you ought to be grateful that I've learned any Orlesian at all. I know how much you dislike being told your own feelings."

Well-noted, and he tips a finger in her direction, marking a point. For Val does, in fact, hate being told his own feelings. Of course, this is no secret, and even the dullest mind might remember this of him, but even so. And while one does not always like to be known--for to be known is to be too close to being kept--Val finds, upon brief and deeper thought, that there is something strangely pleasant about it.

For the moment, at least.

"Three governesses? You," and now he points at her, "have outstripped me, mademoiselle. And that is no small feat. I have driven away only two. And I have had tutors who did like me--who can dislike so brilliant a mind!--but of course there were those whose own small intellect drove them to acts of pettiness. Clearly out of jealousy. But you? An absolute career of driving away these people."

With solemnity, Val presses a hand to his heart and inclines his head.

"To you, I must offer commendation. A very excellent record."

From the mussed make of her sickbed, Wysteria tips her head in return as if to receive the compliment like a star for some invisible sash about her.

"Thank you, Monsieur. It's very good to have one's talents recognized while one might still hear it. In fact, I would ask you to remind everyone how dreadful I had been but I fancy I'm so accomplished in the subject that the memory will persist splendidly without any assistance."

She laughs—ha ha ha. All nonsense aside, there is something very cheerful about any willing admission that she might have bested him at something. Even if that something is so ludicrous as a skill for spurning childhood education.

Val's hand drops. So does his face.

"What a very stupid thing to say."

He picks up the article. By now it is quite smooth and quite ready to be read. He flourishes the parchment with a little rustle and snap, and lifts it up, in order to cut her off from his sight once more.

"I am revoking my commendation. Not for your lack of accomplishment, but for--that." A gesture, with the page. He cannot be reading it. If he were, the line of his attention and comprehension would have been snapped by said gesture. One would find it difficult to find one's place again upon the page.

"Oh nonsense," she snips primly back at him, in increasingly good spirits despite being so woefully bedraggled. It's a good thing he's meant to be her husband. Otherwise she might have to be mortified for waking up and finding herself being seen in such a state, and she hasn't the energy for it.

"It's entirely reasonable. And besides, it's too late. I've already committed the thing to my memory. You can't have it back now."

"Of course I can have it back. I can have anything that I want."

This would--and does--sound stupid, but Val says it with such absolute conviction that it must surely be difficult to argue with. This is how he gets away with a good many things, without anyone questioning him or second-guessing him.

"But I suppose it hardly matters to debate. If you are determined to foolish speculation, then I will hold onto whatever I might say in this moment, and wait to argue with you when you," with disdain, "might not hear it. Things will be much simpler this way, and what luck for me."

He pointedly lifts the parchment once more.

Even from the depths of a sickbed, Wysteria's scoff is formidable.

"It is not luck. It is terrible. And I don't believe you really think so."

She hastens to add, weakly vindictive and just a little vicious, "—And if you argue otherwise, it will all but act as confirmation of my theory. So if you wish to prove your indifference and would really insist that it hardly matters, then you must simply read on and say nothing at all else on the subject."

"I," Val starts, a word that inflates as he draws himself up and sucks in a breath and drops the page again so that he can better stare her down.

Her. A stupid silly Rifter whose arguments he has, regrettably, come to enjoy. Enjoy? Yes, enjoy. How many letters has he written to Freddie and to Jeannot--my fondest friend, you must plainly tell me what you think: what is a Rifter and what does it mean when one finds their company amusing-- My dear companion, I am slipping into a madness, I think, and I hope it is one that I will wake from, though I begin to fear that I will not--I desire your counsel on this matter, you must help me to examine this situation that I have found myself in, with every ounce of objectivity--all of these letters, crumpled and thrown into the little stove in his workroom before they might be discovered or, worse, sent.

And here she is now, this person with whom he enjoys to argue, skin turned the color of chalk, laid out with a particular weakness that Val recoils from, just as he might recoil from his own thoughts. It is this which he is particularly unused to. His thoughts are companions as dear to him as Freddie and Jeannot. No, he must stop thinking of them now. Back to the page that she has selected--that, at least, is safe, words fixed down that contain no personal feeling.

"I", repeated, then finished at last with, "am reading now," and raises the parchment yet again with the air of a orator too frequently interrupted.

" 'Long before its first performance on le théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique, the work of Monsieur Dupont was not totally ignored by the Orlesian public, so eager and so aware of the artistic events of our time. Dupont, who has a weakness for young composers, gave Les cloches de Arlesans to Monsieur Gaspard Planquette, a young man who made a certain reputation for himself by composing songs for Blaisot and Pacome. And by the opinion of this author, this choice will prove to be Dupont's undoing in the artistic world.' "

And so Val continues, reading aloud to his wife. It is all very normal.

It's all very normal and doesn't strike even the faintest cord of dissatisfaction or unhappiness or regret in her. For naturally she can sense when he is digging his heels in for the sake of being stubborn—she had but said as much just a moment ago—, and obviously it is very satisfying to be entirely correct in her assessment and of all people in the entire world, Val de Foncé would be the very last person she would ever wish to clutch her hand over her sickbed and reassure her that all would be well. How very dire a picture that would be for any number of reasons, the most significant being that she can think of no time where the man has chosen to be anything but relentlessly—

Well, not practical. But reasoned? Certainly. And how damning would any alteration in that temper be? No, it would be very dreadful, Wysteria decides as she listens to him reading, if he were to suddenly choose to be anything different simply on account of her being trapped in some bed with her arm about to be struck from her body. In fact, she would never forgive him if he expressed some point of anxiety that proved to be entirely unfounded. How dare he concern her unnecessarily? After all this time of snub-nosed confidence, the absolute highest crime he might commit would be to prove otherwise at some crucial moment. There is nothing at all worse than a partner proving themselves as somehow secretly unreliable.

Having so thoroughly convinced herself of this simple fact, Wysteria submits herself as an audience to his reading with a characteristic petulance which fades into sharpened interest only once fed by a few paragraphs. She knows almost nothing about Orlesian theater, to say nothing of opera, but has read a great deal of Orlesian chivalric tales and the allegorical movements of art through the Ages and somewhere in the middle of the reading begins to confidently interrupt him in an effort to demand some bit of context, or to interject incendiary suggestions along the lines of 'You know, this is very in the same vein as Connell McCann's 'Stories Without Pages: The Oral Narrative of Ferelden'. You ought to read that.'

And if at any point Val does attempt to put one of his boots up onto the edge of her bed, Wysteria will faithfully protest its presence. It would hardly do if only one of them were dependable.

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#rememberwhen

do i ever

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