pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

Unsurprisingly, it's Feuilly! They don't have any language studies scheduled just now, but it's a rare day that they don't run into one another or stop by one another's room.

Stepping through the door, Feuilly first makes a hasty check that he's not about to trip over any of Combeferre's science, or release a study specimen into the hallway. No dinosaurs? Good.

"Hullo--am I interrupting anything?"

Edited 2015-06-18 16:35 (UTC)

Someone would have called out a warning if there was science on the loose! Probably. Unless they all forgot.

At any rate, Combeferre is nowhere to be seen, and his specimens and experiments and mysterious bits of glassware are all as tidily situated on the shelves as they ever are.

"Not at all."

He's looking freshly scrubbed and a little damp around the hairline, and has just finished buttoning his waistcoat, which for Enjolras in the middle of the day is a telltale for recent sparring or something similarly athletic. (Or possibly some minor but spattering explosion of scientific materials, but that would involve more mess, more friends, and some tolerant exasperation around the edges.)

"How are you, my friend?"

"I'm well, I'm well." Feuilly looks around and finds a seat that isn't host to anything too breakably experimental. "I've just met a new arrival, one I gather you met as well--an English earl's son, from Northumberland?"

Feuilly's expression is a mix of rueful and amused; but he holds off on any further comment, waiting to hear Enjolras's side of the encounter.

Combeferre is enthusiastic about the future's scientific safety precautions, even if distractably so. That means that the seats are mostly either clear or piled with only books and papers, which is the kind of hazard they're all thoroughly accustomed to. Enjolras finds his own seat nearby.

"Percy?"

"He didn't mention his father to me. Well, nobility, that was clear enough." Which isn't necessarily damning -- plenty of good men have been born to noble families, and equality applies to everyone -- but it does mean some background assumptions to work past, especially for someone coming from before the Revolution and the thinkers who laid its most immediate foundations. "He seemed to consider being a soldier more important to him. But he'd come straight from a battle."

"What did you think of him?"

Feuilly's expression is... interesting. And Feuilly's assessments are always worth hearing, of strangers or anything else.

Feuilly laughs. "Ah--I was wondering what you thought of him. Well, you asked first, fair enough. He seemed--honest. Candid. Definitely more fond of soldiers than scholars--or tradesmen. But we were able to talk some." He laughs again. "I left feeling like it was a bit of work not to get into a fight. But it might have been worth it, to be on good terms? He seemed like someone who cared that he was fighting in a good cause, even if--well--he might not be the best fellow at reasoning it out. Do you know if he's--if he's dead? I couldn't tell if he knew."

"I'm not sure," Enjolras admits. "I don't think so. You'd think he'd know -- we all did -- and he swore the Prince of Wales would rue the day when he returned, he looked about ready to punch through a wall. But besides that he never said anything on the subject, either way. He had a cut on his cheek that still bled. I told him of being dead, and of being Bound, both possibilities. When I said I'd been shot and died and found myself here, he decided I was a soldier, and warmed right up. Clasped my hand, returned my tu in a friendly manner instead of an insulted one, declared he'd call any soldier his equal gladly. He was so freshly come to Milliways it didn't seem worth clarifying the point just then."

"He asked after our battle, after he'd eaten and had a few moments to come down. He heard me out on a little of our principles, but I'm not sure how much he understood. He was trying to, though, I think."

Feuilly nods at Enjolras's answer--it may make a difference, if Harry Percy is a man who can go home again and live, with new ideas, but who knows?--and finds himself grinning a little by the end. "Yes--we ended up talking a little too. About--mmh, about whether God made kings. I think he was trying to understand. Even if patience might not--come naturally."

Feuilly rubs his face, still amused by the meeting. "I liked him, I think. I wouldn't put him and Bahorel in a room alone together. Or maybe I would, if Joly or Combeferre were on hand to patch things up after. --He liked you." Which is one reason Feuilly made sure he found patience to talk with the man through some awkward moments. "I'm not sure that book-reading fan-painters are his usual company."

"Then he ought to change that."

It's said with a small smile, but Enjolras means it utterly. Oh, not necessarily Feuilly -- that's up to Feuilly, and whether he continues to like the fellow -- but people who aren't like him, people who aren't nobility or soldiers, people who will broaden his horizons, people who will tell him about things he would never have thought to care about. Everyone needs that. A man of the nobility, a man quick to impatience and quick to certainty -- both of those men, doubly so.

"We spoke about equality, the rights of mankind, a little. The thesis of The Social Contract in the shortest summary form. He came from trying to overthrow a king, but in the old way, only for another. To dissolve the institution of kingship -- oh, did I mean to raise the nobility in the king's place? When I said no, all men, all equal, he was intrigued, I think, but confused too. Well, and exhausted, of course. He asked time to think it over."

"A funny fellow. As courteous as anyone could ask one moment, plunging his head in a basin or roaring at the skies the next. You're right, he and Bahorel would either be instant friends or punch each other bloody, or both. I liked him well enough too, from what I saw. But that's not so much yet."

Trust Enjolras to lead with the Social Contract, when Feuilly had decided on caution! This time he hides his smile behind his hand, nodding again. There are some things only Enjolras can do. "Yes--intrigued and confused and exhausted, that sounds about right. I suppose I should study more about the English parliament, its history. I think he noticed we were French."

Oh, lord. Feuilly leans back in the chair, wrapping his arms around one knee, casual here with Enjolras in a way he isn't with many people. "Well. If he turns out to be just--just a bloody-minded nobleman--then that's his loss. But we'll see. He seemed glad to hear about the stables. I expect he can be found outdoors."

Mmh. He's still working in the back of his mind on whether he wants to say anything to Enjolras about his recent--argument?--with Father Harman. It's Athelstan's business and Feuilly isn't much of a gossip; but Feuilly's feelings and worries are his own business as well.

For now he just gives Enjolras a generally questioning look. "And any other news?"

Edited 2015-06-18 22:34 (UTC)

Why wouldn't you lead with the Social Contract, when talking to a temperamental possibly-dead nobleman from the 1400s?

"I told him so," Enjolras contributes, to the question of being French. His expression, good as a shrug, says that it didn't go so badly.

He shakes his head at the last question. "Nothing in particular. Chuck Hansen -- do you know him? -- asked me to spar with him, to help him get in shape, but he didn't say for what. It was a note. He's dead, anyway. I told him I'd be happy to, but our path haven't crossed since. I don't know if the situation's anything of interest or not."

If it's Hansen's private business, as it may well be, then that's that. But one never knows.

Feuilly had been joking: now he grins and says, "Oh, yes, Percy spoke of French archery. But we're not at war. --Chuck Hansen? No, I've never met him or heard of him." A shrug, not dismissal, but complete lack of opinion. "Where is he from?"

Edited 2015-06-18 23:36 (UTC)

"England, I think?" This is in fact wrong, but Chuck's never said, and Enjolras can't tell an English accent from an Australian one. "He speaks English, anyway. He's from some future year with computers one controls just by touching the screen. We've only spoken a few times. Never about anything really substantial -- computers, English." A small shrug. The fellow was congenial, but to Enjolras it's a surface relationship so far; any relationship that hasn't gotten to the point of political debates is.

"We'll see what he says of why he wants the skill. I don't know why he thought to ask me. For all I know he's asking everyone he knows."

If it's to put down a rebellion of the people or something, Enjolras will of course rescind his willingness to help, but he hasn't gotten any such impression. Otherwise, why not, if it's only practice? Nothing Enjolras can teach in a sparring ring will make or break a cause or Hansen's ability to aid it.

"Mmh. So many people here with battles to fight. I'm not--when I got here I thought I was done with it. But you hear about some world--some where like Mr. Fawkes' world, where there are men taking slaves--" Feuilly looks down at his hands and then somewhat perplexedly at Enjolras. "Sometimes I think I ought to--ought to at least practice with a gun now and then."

Enjolras makes a grimace of understanding. "Yes. We fought for a world where that was unnecessary. And here -- a quiet afterlife, and out the door are worlds at peace, and also worlds of horrors and injustice. I don't know what's best, either."

"I've had the same kind of thoughts. And the guns of our day are pitiful things beside the advances of the future, but -- but to learn how to use them, to seek out that knowledge, that's a skill for a certain kind of purpose."

In life, he wouldn't have hesitated to take any such advantage. But in life, he had a battle worth fighting, that was his to fight as much as any other French citizen's, any other member of humanity's. To seek out someone else's battle is something else. And yet standing aside is its own choice, too.

"Yes," he says somewhat absently, and then again, "Yes. It's a skill for a certain kind of purpose, isn't it. Fighting--no, well, that's too easy to say, it's for killing. And when it isn't our world that's--you can't call it a necessity--"

He pushes both his hands through his hair, shaking his head, and comes up from the position with a truly apologetic smile for Enjolras. "I'm sorry. I'm--mmh. Enjolras--Enjolras, you don't think that Poland is a, an isolated interest? Do you?"

Enjolras looks genuinely taken aback.

"Isolated? No, of course not -- you taught me that. You taught us all of the importance of injustice beyond our own borders. Partition of any nation is committed against all humanity."

It's reassuring. It's selfishly reassuring, to see his own bafflement mirrored on Enjolras's face.

"That's what I--eh, I'm sorry, I know it sounds like I'm talking at random. Isolated interests, an interest in isolated subjects--it's something Father Harman said. But I think we just misunderstood one another. I think we misunderstood one another through the whole conversation. I--do you think it's strange that I'm--that I'm not quite comfortable with the Vikings here? Father Harman seemed to think it was strange. That I wasn't understanding enough. And--and you know, here we are in this place and finding there are so many things we didn't understand in our time--things we were wrong about, nations and races and--men and women--"

Yeah, he knows he's talking very much at random now. Half a dozen trains of thought have all tangled themselves up at once: nationalism, violence, religion, history, selfishness, feeling, choice, government, all sorts of things. Enjolras will surely have a clearer head.

"I don't think it's strange at all."

Feuilly's judgment is good, and always thoughtfully considered. Enjolras respects it enormously. Of course he's not infallible, any more than anyone else, but all the same, Feuilly's misgivings about something are always worth at least taking into account.

"You know them better than I. I haven't actually spoken with any of them. But from what I do know -- it would be stranger if you were entirely comfortable with what they do. Conquest, slaving, violence brought down on the citizens of other lands for terror and profit. They may live in a benighted society which has yet to progress beyond that, but you don't. They're here, they have a chance to learn too that they were wrong about things, but it's up to them to take it. If they don't, you can choose to take the patient approach if you think it'll do good, but that's a separate question. Is that what you're asking?"

He doesn't know Father Harman well either, and he wasn't there for whatever this conversation was. Perhaps he's misinterpreted.

No--he hasn't misinterpreted. That's the heart of it. A certain gratitude shows in Feuilly's face. "Oh, I think some of them are clever men--brilliant, even--and probably good people of their time. And--it's a hard time, and a hard place. I don't know if they could come here and--change. I can be patient, usually. It just--"

Hm. He rubs his face. "It took me by surprise that Athelstan has joined them so much. Going on raids. --I don't know if you've heard, but they've had one of those time--strangenesses. A week or two passed here, but four years for them. I haven't been sure how to talk to him."

"I hadn't heard."

It's a troubling thought, for all that of course it's happened many times throughout humanity's history: a man brought to the point of joining his oppressors, even turning his sympathies to them, whatever bonds of real affection might spur him. Enjolras reaches out to press Feuilly's shoulder.

"That's hard. To encompass such a change -- how could you be expected to take that without a qualm? I'm sure it's harder for him, but nonetheless, difficult for those who knew him a week before as a different man."

Edited 2015-06-21 16:01 (UTC)

The earnestness is so real, and so welcome, that Feuilly has to laugh softly at himself, tangling a hand in his hair and reaching up to press the hand on his shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you, Enjolras. I did need to hear that it's not absurd to--be taken aback a moment. The conversation with Father Harman had me doubting it myself--and, you know, here I am saying that I half liked that Harry Percy, who's come here from probably a bigger battle than any of the Vikings. I ought to be more consistent. I wish I were. --I'm sorry, I've come here with a dozen different conversations in my head at once."

"But of course you're consistent."

This earnestness, too, is very genuine, and accompanied by another light press to Feuilly's shoulder.

"You've always lived up to your ideals consistently. To like a man new-come, who begins with tentative listening, that's very different from someone who seeks out other lands to conquer. Even then, there would be no shame in finding common ground, enough for dialogue, a bridge to the beginning of education and views exchanged, if that were how you felt."

Enjolras has never been much good at the sort of social friendship that doesn't demand intellectual common ground, but plenty of their friends find satisfaction in it.

He laughs again, rueful and glad; he can feel himself blush. "Oh, no, I don't think I've ever managed anything like consistency. But thank you. --And you're right," Feuilly adds more seriously. "There's never any shame in finding common ground--I've never thought so. It startled me, when Athelstan said he was going on raids now, but there's still common ground to find."

He falls silent. One of the threads tangling up his thoughts just now is the scriptural work: but it pulls on his (very vague) thoughts about religion and (his much more complicated thoughts) about craftsmanship, and he knows these are foreign territory for Enjolras. Prouvaire, perhaps, might be a man to ask...

"Thank you," he says again to Enjolras.

"Always."

Feuilly knows that.

He does know that, and he smiles--but he still appreciates it. And he also knows that Enjolras would argue him out of any idea that seemed wrong to him. A loyal friend, the dearest friend, but an honest one, too.