[ Two voices now in the back of her head. One of them sounds very much like her parents, Lune chiding herself: We don't have time for this, we're still headed north, we have work to do. We can't let our guard down for one moment.
The other sounds very much like her older brother, Sol, warm and fond and reminding her: The brain is a muscle, Lune. You need to rest it, too.
So in the end: ]
Would you teach me? We could see if that'll tire us out enough.
[ They absolutely don't have time for fooling around, and Verso is pragmatic enough to think so, too—but it's not like they're getting anything productive done during his brooding time and her tossing-and-turning time, and it certainly wouldn't hurt to be on better terms with Lune. (For entirely practical reasons.)
And Lune doesn't go out of her way to give him any tips or clues to her exact whereabouts. Verso's used to navigating and finding his way, after all.
She's wandered out a little ways from the main camp: still within the perimeter, well within shouting or screaming distance in case she winds up in trouble, the distance exactly-calculated. But enough to gain a little space, some distance from the unsettling silent stare of the Curator, a small clearing where her restless pacing won't risk waking the others. Unknowingly, unconsciously, she's wound up near where the horizon falls away, the sort of view Gustave always favoured when he went to write in his journal.
And still never one to waste time or sit idle, Lune sets down their phonograph — she'd hauled it over — and starts paging through their small stack of records.
She hadn't wanted the Victrola on the Expedition; had been adamant that it was too bulky and clunky and cumbersome, that they needed the space for more food or climbing gear or even a microscope.
But Tristan, knowing her fondness for music, had packed it in his own personal allotment. Had cited some past psychological study about the therapeutic effects of music in high-stress environments.
Of course she doesn't tell him where to find her. Luckily, Verso is quite familiar with every inch of the Continent that might be considered out of the way or perhaps appropriate for brooding; he checks everywhere that he would go, and eventually he stumbles upon Lune, accompanied by the phonograph.
He laughs a little under his breath. She should have waited for him, and he would have dragged it out here instead, but never let it be said that Lune would ask for help. They have that in common, he thinks. Pathologically independent, afraid to lean on others, desperate to be the one leaned on instead.
"Mon étudiante," he says by way of greeting, tongue-in-cheek. With a cant of his head toward the records: "Find anything good?"
“Some. You’ve been hoarding these like a raccoon, haven’t you?”
The collection had grown since Lune last looked at it. The records are increasingly rare commodities: the group only came across them every so often, in the occasional still-standing house, or in some enterprising gestral’s wares, or that mysterious manor they tripped into sometimes. So of course they’d pick up any that weren’t weather-warped beyond recognition, even when their labels were peeling and impossible to read.
And though she isn’t always scavenging, she’s glad to have it: her heart still twinges on hearing this old music humming its way across the years and generations. Once, before her time, there had been full bands and symphonic orchestras. Nowadays, it’s harder and harder to get all the people with all the right instruments and expertise together; solo acts were easier.
Her fingers rest on a particular sleeve, hesitating, before finally making up her mind and plucking it out of the stack. She rises to her feet and holds it out to Verso with a challenging look, a stubborn tilt to her chin. Don’t read too much into the title, it was one of the few waltzes available to them —
Oh, he's aggressively reading into the title. How could he not? Either it's an obvious overture meant for him to read into, or it's such an obvious overture as to not be one at all, suggesting she couldn't possibly care if he read into it in the first place.
Or maybe it's just a waltz. Hard to say. He's been alone out here a long time.
"It'll do." With a faint, amused quirk of the mouth, Verso removes the record from its sleeve. "Do you have any dancing experience?" is an idle question as he fits the record onto the turntable of the victrola (a surprising thing to bring along to an Expedition, although he's certainly not complaining). "Or shall we start with the fundamentals?"
This admission, when it comes, has some uncustomary fidgeting self-consciousness to it: Lune practically stands at attention with her hands folded behind her back, fingers twining anxiously into each other. Not levitating for once, her bare feet rest on the grass and it brings her a little lower into Verso’s field of vision than he’s used to seeing. She has to tilt her chin up a little to meet his gaze tonight.
“Not much,” Lune says, a little stiffly. She’s simply not used to admitting to being bad at anything. “Our parents— they didn’t approve of dance lessons. Stella became very good at it, but I never had the chance to learn.”
And of course Lune, the dutiful youngest, obeyed when they thought something was simply too frivolous, too useless a skill to bother picking up. At least a guitar was something she could pick away at in her spare time, multi-tasking in those minutes when she was waiting for an experiment to finish running; she could muddle through sheet music and learn on her own. But dancing, for the most part, required music and accompaniment. She’d had a lab partner, but not a dance partner.
Ah, he'd expected as much, although perhaps more owing to Lune finding dancing to be a 'pointless waste of time' rather than parental disapproval. She might not have meant for it to be, but the admission is illuminating. So she'd wanted to learn—it's only because of their scolding looks that she chose not to.
Oof. Not like that's relatable or anything. Well, it makes him feel the urge to give her the dance lessons she never got to have, ones with a teacher who not only tolerates but encourages frivolity. The impending doom will still be there tomorrow. For tonight, they can waltz.
"You're in luck, then," he says as the record begins to spin. "You've just gotten yourself an exclusive lesson with the Continent's best waltzer sixty-seven years running."
A joke. The Gestrals dance, but in a far less elegant way. And Esquie— well, he's certainly a contender, but he's not much for partner dancing given his size. He was a shoe-in for the title.
Although, admittedly, Verso has not actually danced in decades. Not much impetus to. Surely, though, it'll come back without much difficulty. After all, he'd been a real delight at the Dessendre soirees once upon a time.
"To start, you'll put your left hand here"—indicating his shoulder—"and your right hand in mine." He's patient, letting her figure out the stance without moving her hands or putting his own anywhere near her yet. "I'll be the leader, and you'll be the follower."
There's a twinkle of amusement in his eyes at that. Pretty sure Lune has never been a follower in her life.
There’s the brief fleeting thought of have I made a huge mistake?, because there’s something so uniquely aggravating about handing control over to Verso in particular —
But he’s being polite, at least, and not rubbing it in too much (yet), and not maneuvering her like a human doll. Being somewhat demure, as much as a man like him can be. So Lune takes a breath and leans up on slight tiptoe and obligingly takes his shoulder, and his hand. Her palm is cool in his. Although her body language is stiff around him in a way that she very much isn’t around Sciel; there’s evidently another version of Lune which doesn’t mind casual unthinking affectionate touch, hands in hands, head tilted against a shoulder, and so it must be possible to find one’s way to that eventually.
Maybe it just takes time. And a bit less lying.
“Where did you rank as a waltzer before the Continent?” she asks. It’s an innocent enough question, prying into his pre-Fracture history without, she hopes, sinking her teeth too deep into the bone. Their time together on the Expedition has been such a delicate balancing act, seeing what details she can manage to subtly wring out of him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Thanks to musical notation, I suppose.
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That being said, yes, this one is thanks to music.
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[ ok she might just be taking the piss now ]
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[ He's, like, so good at it. ]
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I'm not half-bad at the waltz.
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But I guess I haven't had much opportunity to practice these days, either.
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The other sounds very much like her older brother, Sol, warm and fond and reminding her: The brain is a muscle, Lune. You need to rest it, too.
So in the end: ]
Would you teach me? We could see if that'll tire us out enough.
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So: ] You'll have to refer to me as maître.
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Where are you, anyway?
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Don't worry about it. The maître will come to you.
prose bc i tire of coding on mobile
And Lune doesn't go out of her way to give him any tips or clues to her exact whereabouts. Verso's used to navigating and finding his way, after all.
She's wandered out a little ways from the main camp: still within the perimeter, well within shouting or screaming distance in case she winds up in trouble, the distance exactly-calculated. But enough to gain a little space, some distance from the unsettling silent stare of the Curator, a small clearing where her restless pacing won't risk waking the others. Unknowingly, unconsciously, she's wound up near where the horizon falls away, the sort of view Gustave always favoured when he went to write in his journal.
And still never one to waste time or sit idle, Lune sets down their phonograph — she'd hauled it over — and starts paging through their small stack of records.
She hadn't wanted the Victrola on the Expedition; had been adamant that it was too bulky and clunky and cumbersome, that they needed the space for more food or climbing gear or even a microscope.
But Tristan, knowing her fondness for music, had packed it in his own personal allotment. Had cited some past psychological study about the therapeutic effects of music in high-stress environments.
(She's grateful for it, now.)
no brackets we die like men
He laughs a little under his breath. She should have waited for him, and he would have dragged it out here instead, but never let it be said that Lune would ask for help. They have that in common, he thinks. Pathologically independent, afraid to lean on others, desperate to be the one leaned on instead.
"Mon étudiante," he says by way of greeting, tongue-in-cheek. With a cant of his head toward the records: "Find anything good?"
no subject
The collection had grown since Lune last looked at it. The records are increasingly rare commodities: the group only came across them every so often, in the occasional still-standing house, or in some enterprising gestral’s wares, or that mysterious manor they tripped into sometimes. So of course they’d pick up any that weren’t weather-warped beyond recognition, even when their labels were peeling and impossible to read.
And though she isn’t always scavenging, she’s glad to have it: her heart still twinges on hearing this old music humming its way across the years and generations. Once, before her time, there had been full bands and symphonic orchestras. Nowadays, it’s harder and harder to get all the people with all the right instruments and expertise together; solo acts were easier.
Her fingers rest on a particular sleeve, hesitating, before finally making up her mind and plucking it out of the stack. She rises to her feet and holds it out to Verso with a challenging look, a stubborn tilt to her chin. Don’t read too much into the title, it was one of the few waltzes available to them —
“Will this do?”
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Or maybe it's just a waltz. Hard to say. He's been alone out here a long time.
"It'll do." With a faint, amused quirk of the mouth, Verso removes the record from its sleeve. "Do you have any dancing experience?" is an idle question as he fits the record onto the turntable of the victrola (a surprising thing to bring along to an Expedition, although he's certainly not complaining). "Or shall we start with the fundamentals?"
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“Not much,” Lune says, a little stiffly. She’s simply not used to admitting to being bad at anything. “Our parents— they didn’t approve of dance lessons. Stella became very good at it, but I never had the chance to learn.”
And of course Lune, the dutiful youngest, obeyed when they thought something was simply too frivolous, too useless a skill to bother picking up. At least a guitar was something she could pick away at in her spare time, multi-tasking in those minutes when she was waiting for an experiment to finish running; she could muddle through sheet music and learn on her own. But dancing, for the most part, required music and accompaniment. She’d had a lab partner, but not a dance partner.
“So I’ll need the fundamentals.”
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Oof. Not like that's relatable or anything. Well, it makes him feel the urge to give her the dance lessons she never got to have, ones with a teacher who not only tolerates but encourages frivolity. The impending doom will still be there tomorrow. For tonight, they can waltz.
"You're in luck, then," he says as the record begins to spin. "You've just gotten yourself an exclusive lesson with the Continent's best waltzer sixty-seven years running."
A joke. The Gestrals dance, but in a far less elegant way. And Esquie— well, he's certainly a contender, but he's not much for partner dancing given his size. He was a shoe-in for the title.
Although, admittedly, Verso has not actually danced in decades. Not much impetus to. Surely, though, it'll come back without much difficulty. After all, he'd been a real delight at the Dessendre soirees once upon a time.
"To start, you'll put your left hand here"—indicating his shoulder—"and your right hand in mine." He's patient, letting her figure out the stance without moving her hands or putting his own anywhere near her yet. "I'll be the leader, and you'll be the follower."
There's a twinkle of amusement in his eyes at that. Pretty sure Lune has never been a follower in her life.
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But he’s being polite, at least, and not rubbing it in too much (yet), and not maneuvering her like a human doll. Being somewhat demure, as much as a man like him can be. So Lune takes a breath and leans up on slight tiptoe and obligingly takes his shoulder, and his hand. Her palm is cool in his. Although her body language is stiff around him in a way that she very much isn’t around Sciel; there’s evidently another version of Lune which doesn’t mind casual unthinking affectionate touch, hands in hands, head tilted against a shoulder, and so it must be possible to find one’s way to that eventually.
Maybe it just takes time. And a bit less lying.
“Where did you rank as a waltzer before the Continent?” she asks. It’s an innocent enough question, prying into his pre-Fracture history without, she hopes, sinking her teeth too deep into the bone. Their time together on the Expedition has been such a delicate balancing act, seeing what details she can manage to subtly wring out of him.