tushanshu | Aux armes, citoyens (Video)

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Aux armes, citoyens (Video)

[Enjolras has looked better, certainly, though he's about as polished and as formal as he usually is, clad in his new light grey linen coat and waistcoat, even a loose cravat despite the heat. He's certainly sweating for the effort, all the same, his hair showing definite curled frizz that escapes its braid. There's also something about him that looks tireder than usual, but still, his expression is friendly enough as the vid feed starts.]

A great number of things have lately come to my attention, but among the most important is the fact that I must, that it is imperative for me to find activities of a less solitary nature than I've had since our return from...our return from war.

For a long time, it occurred to me that putting aside all reminders of it were the better way but I think, instead, that something active, some way of keeping my most relevant skills fresh, perhaps bettering, them, will be of more benefit here in the long run, and could help me socially as well. If I might train with...

That is to say, I wish to improve my ability with a blade. I fence in the foil discipline, and trained a little in it here, before the war, and can pick up an epee as needed, provided you are not freakishly tall [There's a wink to show it's a joke]. Is there anyone here who might be willing to go a few rounds with me, either for simple exercise, or, perhaps, if we suit and you find that you have things to teach me, for lessons of a sort?

Do please let me know, it may be nice to find action that I might do something with and about again, action I can control I... [That's enough for now, he realizes, breaking off with a little abrupt wave of his hand.]

Anyway, please do let me know.

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[She tried not to laugh. It was hard when he made that face at her.]

There's nothing wrong with being out of practice.

I'm sure you'll still be better than I ever could be.

[All right and Enjolras was trying the exact same thing. It's hard to look at people when you know you'll laugh if you meet their gaze, isn't it?]

I'm certain my pride will recover in time, true.

And well, you've not tried, so that's a bit different isn't it?

[The worst.]

I'm not a fighter. I never was.

No, indeed.

You are best suited for other things.

[She averted her gaze.]

[He probably didn't mean it like that, but after their last conversation, in which she'd admitted to being a spy, it was difficult not to wonder.]

I don't know about best. It's more like...I know what I can do. And what I can't.

[Of course not only those things. Enjolras counted it among her skillset as it were now, but it was hard to think of Midii as simply a spy. When she glances away there, he's looking a bit confused and then.]

Oh... I did not mean... I have seen you working through languages and translations and all of the rest as well.

They are the skills of other than...your old line of work. Diplomacy comes to mind as one.

And I suppose you do know, by now.

[She shook her head.]

I don't...have those languages anymore. Not English. Not Kedanese. I mean, I've been trying to re-learn the latter, but I can only focus on one dialect. The most commonly spoken one over in Fire District.

[So, in a way, he was right. She was just downplaying it because of what she'd lost. A gift from "Asti" than hadn't been a gift after all. This time, she would do it on her own.]

And spying isn't about Diplomacy. It's about being noticed when you want, and not being noticed when you need.

The fact you've been focused at all in them... I think it important that your instinct points you there, are any rate. That you are willing to put in that work. It says quite a lot.

You...remind me a bit of a friend, actually. He was as determined to learn things as you seem now.

And perhaps it isn't offhand. However, the skills you use in one...can easily transfer to the other. I've heard it referred to as something of a game, a deadly one, but a game in which the object is to outwit your opponents and gain what you can from them, whenever you can. A similar skillset I think.

[It says that she's too stubborn to let go of the fact that she no longer knows something she used to know. And knows how useful that knowledge used to be.]

I never thought of it as a game.

[Games were supposed to be fun. There was nothing fun about what she did.]

[Stubborn works for Enjolras. He can admire it anyway, even if he doesn't quite see his own instances of it at play. He IS reminded of Feuilly, though, his fierce desire to gain and hold onto every scrap of knowledge he could find.]

Espionage...no, likely not. Court politics...I assume they think of it that way because it does rather resemble something like chess. Just acted out, long term.

[The corners of her lips twitched upward. He would have had a point, except for one thing: she did like chess. Chess was a game to her. Mostly because nobody got hurt.]

I...never made it to any of the courts.

But I think I understand what you mean.

[he did have to admit to feeling a little relieved at the lip twitching there. It was a step in the right direction, anyway.]

Nor did I, really. Not from THAT perspective anyway. I stood outside them screaming inm the streets like an idiot when I was in college, but...

But what?

[She accidentally forgot to mention the part where he wasn't an idiot. Whoops?]

But thankfully they never let me inside to...

[he's considering for a moment, trying to find a metaphor that will work here, to describe how young and stupid he used to be.]

to personally rampage Versailles and stuff my face with Marie Antoinette's cake.

[His tone is drifting to a bit drier there. And well, Enjolras KNOWS he was a bit of an idiot back then. The late 1820's and Bahorel, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were his first look at negotiating differences by not ranting about them, either in person or in print, and then there had been Le National and Armand Carrel, and the July Revolution and the riots and what followed to convince him further, and to change him. A lot of quiet talks, of witnessing the actions of those who didn't think, of being the man who didn't think and watching others suffer for that and, well. It added up.]

Politics are the sort of game I am glad I never had the chance to be a direct player in. Better to move things from the sidelines as I could. I think anyone who put me into office would have tried to poison me within a week, a month at most, at that.

[He talks a good game, and he knows THAT, and he can enforce things among his friends, but ask him to be neutral about anything?]

As much as I have learnt to compromise, it never WILL come naturally, so...

[The references...Versailles was a name that sounded vaguely familiar to her, though she couldn't recall why. Cake meant nothing. Nor did the name Marie Antoinette; it was too fast in the past by her time to be culturally relevant beyond the study of history, and she had never made it to that lesson in her studies.]

[As such, she could only wonder what a dessert had to do with anything, and why that woman in particular's was so note-worthy.]

...so maybe we both still have a lot to learn.

...Is that a bit too before your time? Sorry, I tend to... It's strange to think that things have changed so much from what I am used to in your timeline's France.

[Enjolras gives her a little smile there.]

I'd have probably run in and wrecked havoc anyway, if I'd been offered the chance at trying to be diplomatic. It...came later. Partially. We are still learning though, yes. Everyone is, or should be. Otherwise...I don't think we manage to grow much, and I hate to think I'm the same as I was three years ago entirely.

[She smiled back, shaking her head.]

A little, yes.

[It didn't bother her, though. Not any more than it usually did whenever she thought of not knowing things. She would learn. Eventually.]

I can't say for certain what you might have been like in those times....I'm not even sure how much you've changed since you've been here, because you've always seemed...better...at it than me. Always.

[From the eyes of a child. The memories of a twelve year old girl.]

Ah, well. Not so terribly important as all of that.

[At least in that reference point, anyway. The rest of the revolution, well, there'll be time to go over what matters there. And it's not necessarily the points that people might expect. Still, nothing too immediate there, anyway.]

Better? At being here?

[Enjolras is blinking at that because it's not what he'd have considered at all. And well, it's pretty untrue.]

I just got really lucky and had friends to show me how it was done here for the first several months. I don't know that I could do it myself. I'm not as brave as some people.

[She shook her head.]

No. I mean, not just that. Better...at everything.

You're a lot braver than you think.

And the same applies to you.

[She grinned.]

You're deflecting. [Says the mirror herself] Every time I compliment you, you always try to turn it back on me.

Ah, and you fail to see the courage and goodness inside yourself as well. But thank you, for your faith in me. Just know that I have it in you as well. [She's grown a lot, Enjolras thinks, since they first met at all.]

[And he did it again, further proving her point. She couldn't help grinning at the irony.]

I'll tell you what. We'll make a deal: you stop deflecting so often...and I'll try to look for those things you keep insisting I have.

[At this point, she had grown enough to understand they might actually be there. And she was willing to accept that.]

Does that sound fair to you?

[Enjolras has to laugh himself, catching it a bit late. It's less
deflection so much as...he's honestly not paying much attention to it most of the time.]

I believe that I can work with that. I will attempt to be more mindful of my attempts at doing it then. Rather fair.

You have yourself a bargain.

[Habit. One that might take time to kick. For the both of them.]

If I were actually standing in front of you instead of talking to you through monitors, this is the part where I would say we should shake on it.

Aux armes, citoyens (Video)

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