[Closed] You are at my Service? (Fionn)

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks
The Afternoon of the 23rd Day of Yaris, 2719

T

he boy was not given to frivolities. The light dismissal of hardships as though they were airy nothings did not sit well with him. It had always been Umberto’s means of gaining the upper hand over his own obstacles. Dismiss and minimize, make the problem seem less than it was. It was a sound method to eat the elephant of obstruction; one bite at a time. The boy either did not know this or could not use the method. His lack of skill in writing, his poor practice, well, that could be amended. It would be amended. If the boy wanted.

He would make the boy want, make him learn. There was a latent fire in his eyes, a hunger. Best to feed that. It would need to be fed carefully, lest it consume them both. Small steps were required. One bite at a time.

“Yes,” he said, looking at the side of his own left hand, the side so often stained in ink or covered in chalk, “writing in Estuan in the normal fashion is difficult for those such as us. I learned some tricks when I was young, to prevent me from smearing all my work. I can pass those on, if you would like.” For his own work, his private notes, and even the equations and parses upon his blackboards, he wrote backward, right to left, forming each character in its own mirror image. It was easier than cramping his hand. On occasion it crept into his public writings, forming the odd inverted letter. Sometimes people even laughed. Mockery was common enough. He’d grown accustomed to it. That was not to say he enjoyed it.

And there was some mockery in the boy’s words and expressions. A certain degree of mockery was required in servants, necessary, but there was something bordering on contempt in the mood and words of Little Boy Blue. Umberto could hold the servant in contempt of course. Privilege of his status. Perfectly acceptable. He had not the slightest desire to do so. He’d never been sure how to go about it.

“Ah, yes, the segregation of sexes into their own rooms. Curious practice.” In his mother’s household, at home, in Florne, such things were not done. It would have been strange, impractical, unnatural. “Back home, In Florne, we did have several sitting rooms in the house, but they were for public or private affairs, and in quite different parts of the house. Having two up in front still strikes me as strange. No real way of having a private room.” Well, not on the first floor at any rate. “I suppose if I ever entertain formally, I will have to keep that in mind. I am not well versed in protocol. We had rather an unconventional household, I am led to understand. On holidays, for example, the staff dined with us. The cook, the maids, the steward, our wick factotum.” And where was Cannio now? He’d vanished on some mysterious errand several days ago, slipping down-river with the Citation Needed. Umberto had not asked where he was going, but he gone in the dark of the night with one of the sturdier strong boxes. He had gone armed.

“And speaking on the wick factotum, I assume he’ll be back at some point in the next few weeks.” He hoped so at any rate. Cannio was always a welcome, if taciturn, presence. “Big man, black hair, thick Flornese accent, answers to the name of Cannio. He has the run of the house, so no worries if he shows up in the middle of night pretending to be drunk and looking mysterious. That’s just his way.” Umberto cocked a smile at the boy. “We all have our eccentricities. We were raised to celebrate them.”

Up the stairs now, thirteen in total. They creaked under their feet. A most satisfying sound. A moment of pause, and then Umberto opened a door. The sanctum sanctorum. The work room, the heart of his research. The look on the boy’s face was priceless. If he could distill it and put it into a bottle, he could sell the wonder and confusion for a great price. The latest in euphoric. He coked his head at the boy, regarded him like a specimen under one his father’s magnifying lenses. There were too few limbs and a notable lack of an exoskeleton, so that was one difference. The other difference was that no beetle, moth, or hymenoptera of his acquaintance was quite so expressive. He had known a sarcastic wasp and a supercilious beetle, but they were nothing in comparison. If it were possible to measure the harmonic changes in field structure then an incantation could be created to . . . No, it was no good.The speculation was pointless. The boy was passive. No field. That was a bit of a pisser. It was a good expression though , proper. So, there is some life in you yet, some remembered passion for knowledge. Good. That was another thing to cultivate.

At least Fionn, had given him an opportunity.

“I am very much afraid that it would be against orthodox practice, established morality, and even good sense to teach you Monite.” The usual loopy sparkle that formed when he was defying convention sparked in his eyes. He gave the boy a conspiratorial wink, the flood of delight swept him along in the flow. “So I shall not in any circumstance teach you proper stroke order for the glyphs, like so.” On one of the boards he carefully drew the character sequence that was generally believed to mean ‘unfolding’. It was one of simpler base glyphs, a good place to begin. He tossed the chalk to the boy, and gestured to the board. “Nor shall I drill you daily on your vocabulary or instruct you in semantic annotation.” Damnit Umberto. The boy does not respond to inversion, to circumlocution. He was not used to having to be so direct. It seemed unnatural, unpleasant. “Well, that would be the orthodox approach. I don’t carry water for the soulless minions of orthodoxy.”

Carrying water. That reminded him. “Well Fionn, I have your first official task. Go put the kettle on. We have work to do.”

[Fionn]

Yaris 23, 2719 | Afternoon
941 G Lampwine Square, The Stacks

.

Perhaps his path had been altered, perhaps the Circle had felt some modicum of pity for him in the last year and chosen to introduce some relief to his situation in order to make it a little easier for him to manage. In recent months, he’d managed to encounter a number of gollies who didn’t treat him as he’d come to expect, including his sister. They’d all managed to make his life easier in many ways or at least, more bearable. In truth, it was something of a mixed blessing, as they’d also brought new challenges; they were all so clocking eccentric. Maybe he was being tested in new ways instead and Umberto was another step along his rather unorthodox new path. For better or worse, this seemed likely to be an experience. That was probably an accurate descriptor.

While passives had had education before their gating, it was widely believed that they would willingly forget it all once they were determined to be non-galdori. Mass ignorance was an illusion to which they were all supposed to adhere because of rules that were largely unspoken. It was technically illegal for them to read but he’d never seen that properly enforced, and yet it wasn’t disobeyed. Even Fionn had adhered to that — publicly anyway. Writing was something that passives shouldn’t do either and while the youth hadn’t spent much time doing that, he had been drawing and that had earned him some serious looks, mainly of alarm because the same implement could be used to shape letters as well as representations of the world around them. Needless to say, writing was absolutely not encouraged among the galdori’s non-magical brethren and yet here was Umberto talking about passing on writing tips!

It made sense of course if the man wanted him to make notes for him, a practical application but even so! What an odd little patch of passive sympathisers he’d stumbled upon and to think that none of it may have happened if Lars hadn’t saved Fionn’s life by snapping their former Patron’s neck! Well, he’d have to go through further hell to get to this point and he’d lost Lars, if he could be said to have had any part of the Hessean in the first place.

For now, he kept quiet on the matter, wondering if mentioning it would somehow have the offer withdrawn as if hearing it parroted back to him would cause the academic to hear the folly of his own words. But the man was an odd duck who might not view anything as folly, especially when it came out of his own mouth.

Unconventional household, unconventional man. It made sense really that an unusual environment had produced such an unusual specimen. He couldn’t imagine what would occur if the man did have reason to entertain because the youth certainly didn’t know enough about the appropriate protocol to help him.

“If you have reason to entertain formally, I don’t imagine that you’d have to adhere to protocol — not being Anaxi. I imagine that you could do whatever you liked. Besides, it’s your house,” Fionn pointed out, a one-sided shrug accompanying his words. Yes, he was beginning to relax here, wasn’t he? It was terrible really. If this man kept allowing him to get away with his impertinence then the servant simply wouldn’t be able to help himself. Gods help him, he’d end up with an adversary far more argumentative and responsive than an automatic coat rack and with plenty of complexity as well.

‘Factotum’ was a word with which the blond was wholly unfamiliar and he didn’t intend to interrupt the other to declare his ignorance. The youth could make an educated guess based on usage but no doubt the man had a dictionary around the place. Alioe preserve him, he hoped that the man had a dictionary about the place because otherwise any reading he did was liable to be rather arduous.

Steady now. You don’t know that you can go reading whatever books he has. He might not be that willing to flaunt the rules, he chided himself, even as he wondered about this Cannio fellow. At least thinking about reading, whether as something permitted or something he’d have to engage in secretively, helped to distract him from the hairs that prickled at the back of his neck at the mention of wicks. He should know better to believe the things that he’d been told about the magical half-breeds, especially as many of them were no doubt horror stories created to make the galdori feel justified in subjugating them. That being said, Ayden had been a wick— a parse— and if he was indicative of the race as a whole…

No, he wasn’t keen on the idea of some man who could appear unexpectedly and at odd hours. Fionn didn’t like that at all. But the situation could hardly be perfect and honestly what he was liable to get out of this arrangement was already too good to be true so he needed to count his blessings and realise that there had to be drawbacks somewhere. After all, he was still a slave in all but name. Besides, this Cannio fellow might not turn out to be too bad. Eccentrics weren’t necessarily bad, even when they happened to be wicks who showed up unexpectedly.

In all honesty, the teenager would have to give it a week or two to see what it was like here, as it would be a grave error to form a full opinion of his new employer and household — if that was the right term — too early. Things might not be all that they appeared after all. There was still a need to be cautious, to not let his guard down too soon as he investigated the boundaries of things.

In typical Fionn fashion, he threw all caution to the wind the moment that he stepped into Umberto’s workspace and in an equally usual manner, he decided to attempt to backpedal when the damage was already done. Well, backpedal and bury the incident as if by doing so, it would never have occurred; he couldn’t scrub the galdor’s memory though or force him to enter into his desperate little fallacy. Of course the academic couldn’t deny having heard such a thing, not when the scrap had crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.

So fucking typical of him! He had to breach boundaries with the most casual and thoughtless attitude! It was no wonder people had thought him stupid for many years because for such a seemingly intelligent young man, he really was a fucking ridiculous stopclocker!

He was for it now. If he had said such a thing to Harper Moore… Well, he highly doubted that Harper would have taken it well. Oh, he might have been sympathetic, especially as he knew Fionn but he could also envision him being disapproving. How would this strange man take it? Would he say that the teenager wasn’t the sort of passive that he wanted after all? That having him near his work while evidently lusting for the knowledge that Umberto possessed would be too hazardous? Eccentric as he was, no doubt the man would have some sense of self-preservation, especially as he had a professional career to consider.

The initial words were entirely correct, very proper for the situation and what he could have expected, albeit without the shock or anger that might have accompanied them. However, there was something mischievous there, a giddy flicker within his field as something energetic skimmed across the monic aura. The blond had made himself smaller where he stood, a hunch to his shoulders, a bend to his neck as his head bowed downwards. Ludicrous, of course, because he couldn’t truly be smaller and yet he tried it, at the very least, showing himself diminished and—hopefully—suitably remorseful. Except that the man said one thing and did another.

For all the accusations of idiocy that had been levelled against him, the youth did not lack intelligence. His intellect was sharp, his desire to learn quite keen and he could be quite quick to pick up on cues provided that he was paying proper attention. Additionally, the boy had a penchant for ironic humour, the tendency to invert things as strong as that which made him choose such inappropriate topics to find fun in. Of course he understood what he was seeing and hearing, could see the actions that were quite contrary to what his speech suggested but to actually believe what he was witnessing.

His posture changed, shoulders still hunched albeit pushed slightly back now, rigid as his head snapped up like a hunting dog that had caught wind of its quarry. His mouth hung open, the angle enough to make moisture gather within it and obviously it was the angle—it could only be the angle—that caused such a thing! After all, it wasn’t as if the youth was salivating! His expression might suggest a hunger, yes, but it was soul deep, something far higher and far less readily sated than the mere physical craving for nourishment. His was a longing that had slowly eroded his spirit although it had hardly diminished over the years, despite it going largely unfed in all that time.

And what cruel temptation he had endured! What monstrous hand the Circle had dealt him that he had led to him being dropped in an institution of learning with everything he wanted within his sight and yet kept tantalisingly beyond his reach!

Umberto couldn’t know what he’d unleashed, couldn’t have predicted what had been waiting eagerly to escape when he lifted the lid on the youth’s inquisitiveness and his lust for learning. He couldn’t have known that what lay beneath the surface was not dormant, certainly wasn’t something that had grown meek due to his gating, or atrophied on account of his lack of appropriate stimuli, but still very much alive. It was out, fully free before either of them could hope to contain it, slamming the lid now would be a vain attempt to reverse the damage that had been done on account of whatever impulse had prompted the galdor to dangle the forbidden before the passive — curiosity, rebellion, or perhaps even, a genuine desire to liberate and elevate his mind.

Someone starved might be inclined to gorge themselves, stuffing more food into themselves than their poor famished forms could tolerate and would be uproariously sick if they tried — provided that they didn’t choke, of course. What Fionn had suffered hadn’t been physical and yet it remained to be seen if the result would be the same; he certainly wanted to gorge himself.

With eyes jammed open wide and watering slightly from the intensity of his focus on the board, the thrown chalk came as a surprise. Wholly unprepared, the youth only registered the projectile because of something primitive and vital in his brain, the same segment that made his hands move to fend it off. It led to a rather comical fumbling as the young man warred with his instinct to dodge or bat it aside and a higher understanding that he should catch the damn thing.

It bounced off a palm, slipped through his fingers as they attempted to pluck it from the air. Another bounce and then he brought both of his hands together, the chalk seeming alive and attempting to make an upward break for freedom as he clapped his palms together and it slithered up between them. It was only a few seconds, the short white stick ending up pinned between his hands, albeit peeping up from between them, as his heart hammered wildly and his breath huffed out in a near pant.

“I-I-I- N-No, sir! We uh… we can’t have that. Not at all! It would be… terrible, truly. Certainly not something that either of us would want, I… I understand,” the blond gushed out nervously, fingers curling around the chalk even as the other hand went through his hair.

Gods, he felt hot, really hot. Was he blushing? His face certainly seemed to be on fire. Feverish, that was how he felt, and no doubt there was that mad glint in his gaze as well as a sly smile that he simply couldn’t shift from his lips.

The servant had made a clocking fool of himself but he didn’t care. Something had risen within him, something that made him feel as if he was more than capable of floating up to the ceiling. In spite of that lightness, that sense of being untethered and apt to fly off to Circle-knew-where, Fionn didn’t feel vulnerable; the passive felt untouchable. Nothing could slip beneath his skin now, not a thing. It didn’t matter if everything about this job turned out to be hell because if he could have this one thing…

Oh he’d take any amount of suffering just to have the sort of information that the man was offering!

The blond had to visibly shake himself at the mention of kettle, reminding himself that he was here to work rather than simply daydreaming. Daydreams didn’t come true though and this… Good Lady, this was very real!

“Yes, sir! Tea! Yes, I can do that!”

He went to move, stepping back in a manner that made his feet cross at the ankle, almost tripping over himself in his excitement. Regaining his equilibrium, he found himself still in the possession of the chalk and sought a suitable place to set it down.

“Yes, I can do that!” he repeated, softer this time, more to himself. He looked to the monic theorist, appraising him wonderingly, evidently not conscious that it wasn’t his place to do so before he went to do precisely what he had been told.