[Closed] [Memory] A Life Expected

[Desiderio Morandi]

briarwood hall, vienda

afternoon on the 22nd of roalis, 2706

For a few moments, he was utterly absorbed.

He could not have felt self-conscious for long; he loved drawing too much for that. So he barely even thought to look at her, even in the corner of his eye, because he was looking at the arrangement.

He was following the ribbon on its winding path down the swell of the lamp. He was trying (and this was always the trickiest part, no matter what anyone said) to figure out exactly where along the ribbon each dragonfly was, because it was very, very important to record exactly what was in front of your eyes, otherwise you were making things up, and making things up was what children did, and Desiderio was not a child anymore, he was eleven and a very good drawer no matter what anyone said.

He had started drawing the first lines when he heard the noise, like the honking of some malevolent goose. Aurelie was scooting her chair closer. Much closer than he had expected. Their chairs were practically brushing arms.

He realized belatedly that he was hunched over his book – in fact, he was shielding it from her eyes with his arm. He cleared his throat and shifted, flushing a little. He was unaccustomed to having an audience, that was all. He shifted a little more, and it was like trying to budge a very heavy rock. He swallowed a heavy lump, then finally turned the book so that she could see it while he drew.

Her cheeks were very red. Why on Vita should they be? She was rather the one who had a front-row seat to his embarrassment, and it had always seemed to Desiderio that children, no matter the age, liked nothing more than to laugh at him. In particular.

She sat down again, and he heard her little voice. She was such a very shy little girl, but when she talked, she talked a great deal; there was something very sweet about it.

The effort of following her soon took his mind away from those things; it was strange, how quickly it went, and how quickly he found that he could start drawing again. He found himself furrowing his brow, listening and at the same time finding the edge of the ribbon, the shape of the lamp behind it. Marking the places where the dragonflies were very lightly, then frustratedly marking them again, because he had gotten it all wrong somehow.

Defective, Aurelie said, stumbling a little over the D. His mouth was pressed very thin. His flush deepened, and he looked down at the page, letting a sheaf of black hair fall in the way of his face.

“A confisalto dancer? Hmm.” He smudged a line with the side of his finger. “One of my aunts is a confisalto dancer,” he added absently. “Aunt Albertina.”

The worst of my aunts, he might have said, but he didn’t want to upset Aurelie. He supposed little girls like confisalto. The problem was when grown people liked confisalto, and suddenly they were very important because of it. She had elaborate hairpieces; once, when he was a baby, he had reached up and tugged her wig off to reveal the shiny scalp underneath, and she had never forgiven him.

He looked over when she trailed off, his dark eyebrows still furrowed together. “No,” he said softly, and shook his head. “It is no distraction. It helps. To listen.”

He tried what he thought might have been an encouraging smile; he had never been very good at those, but he tried anyway. She seemed terribly hopeful. It wasn’t that he was curious, because he wasn’t, because stories like this were for much younger children.

“Does the paper confisalto dancer love the one-legged soldier as well?” She had said one way, but not the other. He knew enough about girls – proper girls, Brunnhold girls – to know that one did not guarantee, and often negated, the other. “And what about the jack-in-the-box? I do not like those; they are horribly startling,” he pronounced, then turned his nose back to his book, even if he was facing her a little more now as he drew.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 22, 2706 - Afternoon
Briarwood Hall, Vienda

Aurelie couldn't see Desiderio's face at first, although he did turn the sketchbook so she could see that better. His hair was in the way. She supposed the didn't need to see it after all, but it made it awfully hard to tell if he was upset with the things she was saying. About the soldier, and the story.

A real confisalto dancer, though! Aurelie had never met one before. She wondered if she was pretty, his aunt; not only had she never met one before, she hadn't actually ever seen any dancing before either. Not that kind. Just the kind of dancing at parties Mother and Father held at the house, the kind Mother said she'd learn in school. Ana was a very good dancer, Aurelie thought, even if she made a very sour face at some of the young men when she thought nobody was looking. One time she had seen Aurelie looking, and she had winked at her; she had smiled when she turned back to the boy, and Aurelie didn't know why but she hadn't like it at all.

Anyway, all the dancers in paintings and such were pretty, so she was sure Desiderio's aunt was, too. Maybe she would meet her one day, this Albertina. Or not—Aurelie wasn't sure how that worked with aunts and marriage and all of that. It wouldn't matter if she annoyed him so much he never wanted to play with her again, not even when they were grown up.

When her own small voice trailed away, he turned to her and she could see his face at last. She wasn't entirely certain he wasn't annoyed, even though he said so. He smiled, and it was a funny kind of look—but smiles were good. And he asked her a question, which made Aurelie stop and think. Her tongue stuck out just a little bit as she hummed, thinking on the story.

"She does," she declared at last. They had never spoken, the paper dancer and the tin soldier, but they were in love. Aurelie didn't know how you could be in love if you never spoke, but maybe she would understand when she was grown up. It happened so often in stories, that must just be the way it worked. "B-because he is very honorable, and u-unyielding." That was a new word, 'unyielding'. It had been in one of her stories, and both she and Nurse had looked it up together in the dictionary. It was a nice word; she had also looked up "steadfast", because of the story.

"Oh, he's terrible!" Aurelie's voice was very serious, though her eyes were fixed on the drawing. It didn't look much like the things that had been set up—not yet—but it would. She knew it would, she'd seen the other drawings. "Cruel and n-nasty, with no niceness in him at all. T-the toys get up to play every night, and he tried to stop the soldier looking at the lady in her paper castle. She lives in a castle, by the way, a pretty one. With a mirror in it, and she has a very pretty ribbon, and a little spangle on it. I have a paper lady in a castle, but she doesn't have a ribbon or a spangle at all." Aurelie had been a little disappointed there, but since Mother and Father had given it to her she had tried not to let it show. It was very pretty, anyway, even if it was just for looking at and not for playing with.

Aurelie looked at Desiderio once more, trying to decide if she ought to continue. He didn't look too terribly tired of her story yet. And she hadn't gotten to the exciting parts, yet. "U-uhm, so the solider wants to marry the dancer, and, uhm. He stands on the windowsill one day—I'm not sure why, Nurse would be very cross with me if I left my toys on an open window, because it isn't safe—and then bam! He's knocked out!" Aurelie gestured with her arms; wrapped up in thinking about the solider and his paper lady, she forgot to be careful. One of her hands knocked against Desiderio, nudging him slightly.

"O-oh no! I'm sorry, uhm, I hope I d-didn't ruin... Oh no." Aurelie folded her hands very tightly on her lap and hunched her shoulders, afraid she'd ruined the drawing by knocking into him.

[Desiderio Morandi]

briarwood hall, vienda

afternoon on the 22nd of roalis, 2706

It should have been ridiculous. He did not like children, and nor did he like children’s stories. In fact, he had not liked children’s stories even as a child, which he wasn’t anymore in the least. But he hadn’t even then. He hadn’t liked the stories in Father’s books, which were all terribly brutal and martial, about soldiers and the slaying of drakes and all that nonsense he didn’t care about anyway. He hadn’t liked the other stories, either, about sleeping princesses and love and frogs, because they had made him uncomfortable and horribly sad, and so nobody had read any to him ever again.

Well, it was all childish, in any case. That was why.

Perhaps it was the way she stuck her tongue out when she went on. He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t want to laugh, because he didn’t want her to think he was laughing at her; that seemed a horrible violation of trust, and he would never laugh at anyone who was his friend.

Or his wife. He hadn’t had either of those yet, but he knew that you shouldn’t laugh at a friend, because you shouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t like done to you, and he hated being laughed at more than he hated anything else in the whole world.

So he listened instead, at first even putting aside his charcoal. The poor girl stumbled over the word unyielding. He had heard words like honorable and unyielding quite a bit, but mostly from Mother, about Father. And also words like strong, because he wasn’t any of those things, and it must have been a terrible disappointment.

He wondered if all little girls dreamt of strength and honor and – what was it Mother had said of Great Uncle Anastasio – martial prowess. (He remembered, but he didn’t know what prowess meant; it sounded terribly feminine. Like seamstress, or actress.)

Well, that was making him sad, too. He turned back to continue drawing, though he also listened. He could not seem to help listening.

“A ribbon,” he repeated, “and a spangle.” Desiderio did not know what a spangle was, either, but he was not about to show his ignorance. It all sounded very pretty, anyway. He thought he might impress her by telling her there were castles in Bastia, much larger and lovelier ones than in Anaxas, especially in the mountains, in Caroult; but he did not want to interrupt her now, either.

Why should anyone stand in their way, if they wanted to marry? Marriage was something you were supposed to do, not something you wanted to do, and especially not to someone nobody wanted you to marry. Marriage and love were obligations; Mother had told him this. They were important obligations, but they were obligations, like her obligation to Father, like her own Mother’s obligation to her own Father. Why should you ever fall in love with someone you weren’t supposed to fall in love with?

It was a children’s story, he reminded himself. And jacks-in-boxes were very mean. He didn’t like the idea of the soldier standing on the window, either; if you stood on windows, you could really fall and get hurt –

“Ouch!” he whined, looking at her with a betrayed widening of his eyes. “That will bruise!”

He wasn’t sure if it would or not, but he was certainly very startled and upset, and Mother said that being startled and upset could cause injury! Which was why it was important that he was never startled or upset.

But Aurelie looked very small just now, with her shoulders pulled up. Her little hands were nearly white in her lap, except for the freckles.

“Ruin?” he demanded, struggling to follow. “Oh – er.” His voice was terribly shrill; he quieted, frowning down at the page. His cheeks began to burn, and soon enough he felt as if his face had been rather set on fire. He was horribly embarrassed, which he shouldn’t have been, because she was the one who hit him, and…

The drawing was little more than a few lines by now; you could make out the shape of the vase and of the ribbon and the paperweight, but there was no shading. She had, of course, not disrupted anything; there were no smudges. It had been little more than a nudge.

He blinked, glancing back over and up. “Er – I am – I am sorry.” To say so felt even more like pushing a boulder. He lifted both his eyebrows. “You ruined nothing,” he pronounced. “Nor did you hurt me. I was – I was only startled. Much like the tin soldier,” he offered hopefully, trying another failure of a smile. “I want to know what happens next.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 22, 2706 - Afternoon
Briarwood Hall, Vienda

Everything was all ruined now, Aurelie was certain. Not just the drawing, but playing together too. Even if it had been an accident, hurting your friends wasn't very nice. She didn't have to have any to know that. And nobody wanted to play with someone who wasn't nice, who bruised them and messed up their drawings.

Aurelie didn't think she had hit him very hard, of course, but Desiderio had said it would bruise, and she didn't know why he would lie about that. It wouldn't have bruised her, of course, but she was different. Desiderio seemed delicate. Aurelie wasn't delicate at all; she didn't know if that was good or bad.

Oh this really was awful! She should have been more careful. Aurelie wanted to cry now even more than when she had fallen off of the chair. That had only hurt, and startled her; hurting someone else was much, much worse than falling and hurting herself. She tried to apologize, voice stuttering out through her teeth. She didn't cry, but she very much wanted to. Now they'd never be friends, and she'd have none at all, never ever.

Aurelie's eyes had been fixed on her hands, which were clenched together so tightly they hurt. Aurelie knew if she saw how angry he was with her then she really would cry. Even without looking, she sniffed a little, so she was sure that it would be worse if she looked. When Desiderio spoke again, she risked a little look up, just to make sure she was right.

His face was very red, almost as much as hers, which didn't make any sense. Aurelie sniffed again, her shoulders still tight and near her ears. Her hands were still balled in her lap, so she chewed on a corner of her lip instead. He didn't look—well, Aurelie wasn't sure, because he always looked a little unhappy, but he didn't look as angry as she thought when his eyes turned from the drawing back to her.

"N-n-no, I... Uhm!" Why was he apologizing? Aurelie lowered her shoulders a little, too confused now to keep them where they were. She hadn't ruined anything? Or hurt him? Truly? It was true, the drawing looked fine to her—very fine, she thought. But she didn't know if that was just because she didn't know how to draw anything, or... Desiderio smiled at her, and Aurelie couldn't help it: she smiled back, with another sniffle. One of her small fists released and she scrubbed at her eye with it.

"I'll be much more careful," she promised meekly. And she would! Much, much more careful. Aurelie sat up properly again, but had both of her hands folded on her lap so she couldn't wave them around. She didn't know why he wasn't angry, but she was glad.

"U-uhm. What h-happens next... Oh!" In all her misery, she had quite forgotten where she was in the story. But he had said he wanted to know, so Aurelie had to remember. "W-well, uhm, the soldier falls out of the window and onto the street. Only, uhm, it's okay because he's a tin soldier so he isn't very hurt. And he doesn't cry or anything." Aurelie would have cried, if she'd fallen all the way from the window. But she supposed that was what made the soldier so steadfast, and she wasn't made of tin, was she?

"A-and then some boys find him! Th-they make him a paper boat, and they put him in it, and that's all right for a little while." Aurelie liked boats. Models of them, anyway. She wasn't sure she would like a real one. But she had a toy one that one of her aunties had given her, and it was very smart-looking with bright blue and white paint and real cloth sails. She had always wanted to take it to one of the ponds to play with, but when she had tested it with Henrietta in the bath, Henrietta had been too heavy and almost sank to the bottom.

Maybe Desiderio liked boats, though. It would be nice to play with her boat. She really did have a lot of toys that were more fun with someone else, a real playmate—not Henrietta, who was only a toy herself after all. "D-do you like boats...?"

[Desiderio Morandi]

briarwood hall, vienda

afternoon on the 22nd of roalis, 2706

It was good, that she was going to be more careful. Insofar as she could; Desiderio did not doubt the ability of children her age to slip and hurt themselves or others. What were children but walking hazards?

But it was good. It was very good, he told himself, because she ought to be careful around him. Because everybody was careful around him, because he was fragile and not very strong. So it was good; that was all. It was good, and he should not have felt silly or ashamed or self-conscious about being so fragile. And – most of all – he should not have felt a sting of anxiety, as though he had been the one to hurt his friend.

He nodded solemnly, listening to her go on. Some of the warmth had drained from his cheeks. Slowly, he turned back to his drawing.

He thought that he would have cried, if he had been the soldier. That wasn’t the sort of thing you said out loud, though, and least of all to your future wife, who needed you to be strong, even if you were not. Besides, the last time he had cried was – well, not counting when Benoit Bellecourt had laughed at him, or when Benoit Bellecourt had put a spider on his tray at lunch – well, he supposed it had been when Mother told him they were to leave Bastia for good. It was all right for a boy to cry at something like that. To miss a place, or a person.

He supposed the one-legged tin soldier must have missed the paper confisalto dancer very much. He was not altogether sure that Aurelie had the right of it; perhaps he had cried. If he had loved her, he would have wept, like a widower or a mourner at a Bastian funeral. He wondered if she knew about Bastian funerals.

He shifted to look at her again, drawing his legs up into the seat with him to sit cross-legged. Mother often told him not to sit that way, but it was really the easiest to hold a book in your lap.

He very much hoped the one-legged soldier did not fall out of the boat. It seemed very hard to balance with one leg, and he was not sure if tin floated, and boys were horribly cruel.

“Boats?” Her wide green eyes looked very hopeful; he couldn’t fathom why. “Mother says I should not go on them,” he said, then added with a sullen frown, “but I like them very much.”

The airship that had taken them to and fro from Caroult was the closest he had been to being on a boat. It had been quite scary the first time, and it was quite scary when the weather in the mountains was bad; sometimes you had to come down to the villages in the foothills before you could fly. But they were quite new, and they really did not have the mystery that boats did.

“I have a lot of books about them,” he said. “History books. The Gen’darame Bund di Bastia once had the most powerful navy in the Six Kingdoms, I am told, but I do not like reading about wars.” All the other boys in his form did, so he had to talk about it sometimes, but he did not like to. “I do like reading about the kinds of boats that there are, and who has made them, and what causes some to float better or move faster than others. Sometimes I like to make paper boats, to see if I can get them to float.” He looked at her again. “Do you like boats?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 22, 2706 - Afternoon
Briarwood Hall, Vienda

Slowly, Desiderio turned back to his drawing while Aurelie kept talking about the soldier and what happened after he fell out of the window. Aurelie leaned over to watch, carefully, keeping her hands to herself and her posture as neat as she could.

Desiderio didn't—he sat on the chair with his legs crossed now and his sketchbook spread across his lap. Aurelie would have been scolded terribly if she had done that, even if he didn't put his shoes on the chair at all. She didn't think he should sit like, although she couldn't think of why it wasn't allowed either. Just that it wasn't, and that it wasn't good posture for sitting in chairs. Maybe boys didn't have to worry so much about good posture. No matter the reason, there was a brief moment of thought before Aurelie decided that he must be allowed to do it and she ought not tell him otherwise.

The question about boats wasn't really related to the story, and if she had stopped to think of it this way she might not have asked. But she did want to know, and she hadn't thought about it very much, so she had asked. And he did like boats! Not real ones—she wasn't so sure about the real thing, either—but boats all the same. She smiled very wide, wanting to clap her hands together. But they were folded still in her lap, and if she wanted to keep being allowed to watch Desiderio draw, she didn't think she ought to unfold them just yet.

"What's the—the, uhm, G-Gen'darame... Bund di B-Bastia..?" Aurelie frowned, stumbling over the rather long and very unfamiliar name. She regretted it as soon as she had asked—suppose this was something she would know if she weren't a baby, and he laughed at her? Much worse, if he decided he didn't want to play with a baby and hear her stories after all. Her cheeks were two bright spots of color, spreading to her ears now too.

Something about a navy, and wars. Aurelie didn't know much about wars, either, and she didn't really want to. She supposed it was all very fine and proper and honorable—at least, that's the way Mother and Father talked about it—but it sounded terrible to her, and like it hurt quite a lot of people.

But paper boats! She liked paper boats, and toy boats. A whole book on boats sounded like a good sort of book to have. She didn't know really what kind of boat hers was, the one she had tried to put Henrietta on. The sort with sails. It might not be any real kind of boat at all, but it did float which seemed to her the most important quality in a boat. Her paper boats didn't last very long.

"I do like boats." Her voice was a little quieter than it had been, still embarrassed to have asked the question before. "I, uhm, I've n-never been on a real boat. Oh, but, I have a very nice toy boat Father and Mother gave me! It's blue and white, and it has real sails and it won't hold Henrietta, but it does float! I, uhm. Would you, uhm, l-like to see it? L-later?"

Silly. She should have just kept on with her story! It probably only seemed to her a very nice boat because she hadn't ever had any others, and nobody to play with. Desiderio probably had more people to play with, and wasn't interested in playing with her toys at all.

[Desiderio Morandi]

briarwood hall, vienda

afternoon on the 22nd of roalis, 2706

She really did make a mess of the word. It did not bother him so terribly, though; perhaps it should have, since it was such an important one, but it did not. Not as much as his name or any of the Bastian places or things which he loved. The one thing he liked about girls was that they did not like to talk about wars or about soldiers, for the most part.

He did not want to talk about them now.

“It is very much like –” He swallowed, frowning. “I suppose it is like your A-A-F,” and even the letters, which he knew now were an acronym, managed to sound both terribly boring and terribly militant at once. “Mother says the word is derived from a word which means ‘men at arms’ in old Bastian Estuan.”

He was not looking at Aurelie’s face; he was looking instead at her hands, pressed together in her lap. They were very white, which made the scatterings of freckles on the backs of them stand out all the more. He felt rather badly for some reason he could not place. It had been very cute when she had gotten excited about the story, if he had found such things cute.

He supposed she knew what the AAF was. He could have left it there. “My grand uncle was in the Gen’darame Bund di Bastia, and my mother says he was very brave and honorable. I could not be.” It was almost harder than saying sorry, but it was almost, too, as if he felt he had to say it; no matter how young she was, he thought she should know that her husband one day was too weak to fight for either of their countries, should there be another war with Hesse or a revolt. “Even if I were not sick, I do not have the disposition.

“Nor do I – nor would I want to. I should not like to be any sort of a soldier, or anything similar. I should like to be an artist. I should like to – to have a gentle occupation.” His cheeks felt very red again, and he was gripping the edge of his book rather tightly. There was a small thumbprint of charcoal on the edge, though far away from his drawing.

He shifted, setting the tip of the charcoal back on the paper and beginning to sketch out the foot of the lamp. There was a repeating pattern of interlocking vines about the edge; it could be glimpsed between the ribbon and the paperweight. He began to add details very meticulously.

But Aurelie answered his question, and he was quite unexpectedly pleased to see her smiling so widely. He looked over and almost smiled too. Toy boats, Henrietta the hingle, oh, it was all quite babyish, but – well, he had never had a little cousin or sister or friend to play with, and she was so very quiet and well-mannered, despite hitting him.

He supposed he would have liked to hear the rest of the story, but he had asked, this time, and it did not seem so bad. Besides, he felt sad to think that any ill would befall the tin soldier, and for the moment this seemed more important to her.

“It floats?” Again, he set his charcoal down.

Desiderio liked drawing water. He also rather liked the way she had watched him draw, so very attentive. She had not laughed yet, not a single time. Not at him, at any rate, or at anything he had done.

He paused, biting his lip. He wondered if some of the adults, especially the Steerpikes, might be cross with them for playing together alone. But why should they not? With whom else close to his age was he supposed to play, this whole summer? It wasn’t fair, otherwise. “I should very much like to see it,” he offered, “and to draw it. There is no port in Caroult, and I have never been anywhere with ships to draw.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 22, 2706 - Afternoon
Briarwood Hall, Vienda

Men at arms. Aurelie didn't really know what that meant—arms were something you had, not a place you were. But she knew what the AAF was, and she understood then that she had been right. The boats were all right—ships, they'd be ships wouldn't they be? in a proper navy?—but she wasn't sure she liked much more than that. Not that it mattered what she thought of it, because girls weren't soldiers anyway, and even if they were, she didn't want to be.

For a moment she had wondered, had worried—but then she felt better. There wasn't a war, not anymore, not really, but she didn't like thinking about if there was one. The only soldier she had ever met had been quite old. Would he have fought too, if there was a war? Her own Grandfather had died just last winter; he needed help finding his spectacles, which Aurelie felt meant you couldn't go to war.

"Good," she said before she could stop herself, quietly. Being an artist sounded much, much better than being a soldier. She liked the tin ones, but they were only toys. They couldn't hurt anybody. Unless she threw them at someone, or Nurse stepped on them. She would never throw her toys, but Nurse had stepped on them when Aurelie had forgotten to put them away.

Was she supposed to think something else? She thought—well. If it was very good and brave and honorable, which she knew was important, she supposed she ought to. Oh, she didn't know. Surely there were other ways to be all of those things, or else why should girls bother at all? She didn't like thinking of her friend—her first and only real friend—in wars anyway. Better to talk about boats, which they both did like, and which didn't have to be about wars at all. She would hate to think of her pretty little boat in a war.

Aurelie nodded—it did float! Very nicely. It would even sail, if there were a breeze to catch the sails. There was no breeze in the bathtub, but she still was fairly certain. For a moment Desiderio paused, and Aurelie held her breath waiting. Please, she wanted to say, please—it really is a very nice toy. She had lots of nice toys, but nobody to...

"R-really? Oh, good! U-uhm, well we don't have any p-ports but..." Aurelie frowned, thinking. There were a lot of ponds, but not all of them were very nice. Then she remembered the one that Mother had just had fish put in for, fancy fish ordered all the way from... Oh, she couldn't remember. They were very pretty fish, though. Nurse didn't like them, on account of how nobody could eat them and they were just for looking at, but Nurse couldn't help it—she was only human. Aurelie kicked her feet, happy.

"T-There's a pond! Er, well, there's lots of them. Uhm, but one with, uhm, with fish and—and water lillies! And it's big! Uhm. Not as big as a port, but I think the boat would sail and. R-really? You want to see it?" What luck! Ana didn't care about her boat at all. Ana didn't care about most of her toys, on account of how Ana was practically grown up now. Aurelie understood, but it was terribly lonely, to have all of these toys and nobody to show them to. But now she did! For the summer, at least.

"...W-what is it like? In Carroult...?"

[Desiderio Morandi]

briarwood hall, vienda

afternoon on the 22nd of roalis, 2706

Oh, it was very quiet. He might even have missed it. But she herself was rather quiet, over all, and he had set himself to listening, because he thought that he should at least be able to listen to his future wife; and so he did not miss it, in the end. Good, she had said, her little hands still folded in her lap, her back still very straight.

A small smile tugged at his lips.

It was not that he was pleased at the prospect that he might finally have a confidant; she was, after all, a girl. And she would grow out of this soon, and then she would know what a terrible shame it was to be married to a sickly artist with no wealth or family name to bring to her, and they would be like Uncle Vicente and Aunt Arabella, who seldom ever spoke. But for now, it was very nice to think that…

Aurelie said that there were no ports in Briarwood Hall, and she frowned very seriously. Desiderio was not given to laughter; Mother said that Father had not been, and Mother always said that laughter did not suit him. But he smiled, because it was – horribly, terribly – it was very cute, really. (Ugh, was this what girls did? Wretched.)

He started slightly when she kicked her feet, worried that she might fall off the chair and hurt herself. Oh, bother! But she seemed so happy, quite suddenly, and he wasn’t sure what he had done; Desiderio never made anybody this happy. It was a magnificent feeling, in some ways.

“With fish?” he said, forgetting himself for a moment and nearly putting his sketchbook aside. “I found a pond yesterday! I was – I was trying to find it again today, which is why I found this room. But it had no fish. I was looking for a pond with fish, because I haven’t drawn a real fish, only the fish on the wallpapers. I – oh, yes, I do want to see it.”

Oh, worse, so much worse. He sounded positively shrill. And he sounded happy, which was awful. Desiderio Morandi was never happy. Dignified, yes, like what he could remember of Father; solemnly, grimly pleased, perhaps. But never babbling like a little girl, which was what Benoit Bellecourt said he sounded like.

It was only that it was so much. Any more and he might start feeling faint, which would be wretched. This must be why they weren’t supposed to play together; this must be why he wasn’t meant to play with other children.

But this big, empty place had seemed so wretched to spend the entire summer exploring by himself. To explore it together with someone else… To play with boats and imagine that the fish were whales or sea-monsters, and all together with someone else, not by himself.

That was a new idea. It was almost more exciting because some part of him told him he shouldn’t be doing it. But nobody had expressly forbid it, not really; nobody had cared enough. So it must be all right to be a little excited, mustn’t it? He hadn’t fainted yet.

He was smiling again by the time Aurelie asked about Caroult. There was an awful tightening in his chest; it should have stemmed the words as it usually did, but more came out instead.

“Caroult is high up in the mountains,” he said, lowering his voice. “I do not… I do not know very much about the city, because I am not allowed to go out. But my family has a great house, as big as Briarwood Hall, but… colder, and… there are places where nobody goes, not even the servants, where sometimes the rafters are full of birds.”

He swallowed tightly, hesitating. He knew it wasn’t as nice as Briarwood Hall, in that way; Mother did not like to talk about it. But he went on: “There is a chapel to Hurte just by the East Hall, and part of the wall is missing, and… you can see all down the mountain, and the river shines like your ribbon, from so far off. You can see the Cea di Vesta, too, and the needles on the trees are dusted with frost for most of the year. And –”

He blinked of the sudden, finding a stinging in his eyes. He sniffed, looking down. He was not crying; his eyes were only a little red.

“I shall live here with you,” he said quietly, “but perhaps you would like to come and see it? Someday. I am not good at describing it, but I have some drawings in my room. I could show you those, too.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 22, 2706 - Afternoon
Briarwood Hall, Vienda

There were fish! Aurelie nodded, even though she thought it wasn't really a question. She could understand why he wasn't sure, though. There were quite a lot of ponds around the house—or not ponds, but what Mother called "water features". Aurelie wasn't sure what the difference was between all of them—like a pond and a reflecting pool—but she knew they weren't the same.

The reflecting pool was very pretty, with a little gazebo in the middle of it that sometimes she liked to sit in with her toys and her tea set (and, of course, Nurse). Aurelie still liked the pond with the fish in it more.

"Yes! Uhm, they're special fish. Mother had them sent here from, uhm... I don't remember. S-somewhere very far away." Aurelie wondered now if the fish missed their home, the same way Desiderio did—he was far away, too. She wasn't sure fish could miss things like that; they didn't seem to be very smart. But maybe they did. The thought made her sad; she tried not to think about it too long. "They're very pretty," she offered shyly, her opinion shared with less fervor and enthusiasm than the rest had been.

After all, he might not agree that the fish were pretty. Aurelie thought they were, with all of their lovely colors and spots and long tails that dragged through the water like ribbons. But she wasn't an artist, or a boy, or even the same age, so maybe one or all of these things meant he would think she was silly to like them so much.

There were lillies in the pond too, and a statue in the center of it—Hurte, as a very beautiful lady wearing not much more than tiger stripes. Her grandmother had been the model for it, according to Mother. The statue was very pretty too, all gleaming white marble and the stripes done in gold. Her eyes were gold, too. Aurelie preferred the fish.

Oh, but it didn't matter if he liked the fish or not! It sounded like he really wanted to see them, and the boat, and to play with her. Ana would have played with her, but she was practically grown up and she didn't seem like she really wanted to anymore. Aurelie loved when Ana read to her, and they did all sorts of fun things together—she loved her sister very much, she thought to herself loyally. But she'd never had a proper playmate before, not another child who would be here the whole summer. Ana could bring home whatever mean friends she wanted now. Now Aurelie had a friend, too!

At least, until he got old enough to not want to play with her either.

She leaned in a little closer when Desiderio started to talk about Caroult. He'd gotten quieter, his voice lower—but he didn't seem like she had asked something mean. Aurelie didn't want to ever ask anything mean. It sounded very cold—the tops of mountains looked cold, in books. Aurelie had never been to a mountain before. She shivered, thinking about it. No wonder the birds wanted to be inside! Aurelie tried to imagine having birds inside the house, but she couldn't, not without proper cages.

She was thinking about trees, and frost, and wondering why none of the staff fixed the hole in the wall; when she opened her mouth to ask the question, Desiderio sniffed and looked down. Immediately, Aurelie felt her heart lurch. It had been a mean question, after all! She hadn't meant to make him so sad—she just wanted to know.

"I-It sounds v-very, uhm, it sounds cold but I. I do want to see it!" She reached out, hesitating only a moment before setting one of her hands on his arm. She swallowed, very sorry to have made him upset again. "Th-the drawings, too. Uhm. I've never been to a mountain before."

Aurelie smiled, too. Mother always said that you should smile as much as possible, because then everyone else would be happy too. Even if you didn't want to, or weren't happy yourself. And she did very much want Desiderio to be happy, especially since they were friends now.