pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

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Enjolras is not, on the whole, a man with a great deal of appreciation for the beautiful outdoors. He's a city boy, and a man whose interest is mostly occupied by people, and abstract concepts concerning people.

But Milliways is a very enclosed place, and a very boring place, and there's no city to go walking in here. And Enjolras is also a fairly athletic man, who would prefer a lot more exercise than one easily finds around this place.

All of which is to say: he's out for a walk. At the moment, he's just stopped by the stables.

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"Yes, you're right."

Very true. And related -- in some ways the heart of it.

Duncan, feeling neglected in the midst of all this philosophy, blows out a breath and lips at Harry's shoulder. Maybe there are carrots hidden there? A horse can hope.

"Beg your pardon, friend," Harry says with mock-indignation. "Thou dost interrupt."

He strokes Duncan's nose, then turns abruptly back to Enjolras as an idea occurs. "Wouldst please thee ride?"

Let us pretend that Enjolras said thou'rt right up there and the mun didn't mess up her archaic-in-English pronouns OKAY COOL

He didn't come with that in mind, and he could be in better boots for it -- but everything will serve, and why not, if there are two horses available? Enjolras smiles a little, as much at the abrupt and boyish offer as at the idea itself. "Sure. Why not?"

Harry grins. "Ay, indeed? I would not keep thee from thy business."

Enjolras makes a small gesture as if to encompass all of Milliways, rather wryly.

"I have nothing pressing."

It's not that he has nothing to do. It's not even that he has nothing that matters -- though it can't compare to the real work of home. But there's nothing that's on a schedule, not really.

Restlessness is easy to find here, and hard to set fully aside.

Harry claps him on the shoulder. "Come, then!"

He's not usually quite so enthusiastic just about riding-- but he likes Enjolras (and particularly after his recent encounters, it may also be that he likes Enjolras as proof that he can get on with Feuilly's friends).

(Enjolras has never found him difficult to get along with!

...Enjolras is aware that, by dint of his upbringing and personality, he has an unfair shortcut into a medieval English nobleman taking him seriously. He can hardly undo that, but he's conscious of it as a problem.)

Anyway. Obediently, he follows! To the tack room, and then to saddling and bridling the mare Harry indicates.

He's more used to a groom handling this, but he was certainly taught how to do it. He's not as briskly efficient as he could be, but competent.

Harry is in precisely the same case-- though he's gotten enough practice now, he's much better than he was, quicker and tidier.

He leads Duncan out to wait for Enjolras, where he may find them mid one-sided conversation, Harry bent low over Duncan's neck murmuring affectionate nonsense.

Enjolras has never picked up the habit of murmuring nothings to anyone and anything, including animals. But his mare, a fine-boned tall grey with the bemusing name of Rachat, seems to like him well enough anyway, after the first skeptical investigation.

He leads her out as well, and mounts with thoughtless ease. It's not the carelessness of a man who's spent days and years in the saddle -- he's neither cavalryman nor cowboy, just athletic, and the son of an officer and merchant with plenty of money to hire tutors.

Shall they?

They shall! Down along and around the lake; into the fringes of the forest, but not too deep; and Harry might even try to goad Enjolras into a race across the lawn before they return to the stables.

It's not particularly conducive to much more than small talk, and riding is one of the few times that Harry is even-- shocking, yes-- content to be silent.

Enjolras will, in fact, let himself be persuaded fairly easily into a race. Not into feeling competitive about it -- Harry, who knows Duncan's particular cues and moods much better than Enjolras knows Rachat's, and who besides that has spent a much greater proportion of his life on horseback, wins handily -- but into enjoying the speed and the exertion, yes.

(After the gallop, they have to circle around to retrieve Enjolras's hat. Oh well.)

He's looking ~~photogenically~~ windblown, but quietly content, when they amble back to the stable. So is Rachat.

Harry's contentment is rather less subdued, and he dismounts exuberantly when they arrive.

"What thinkest thou of her?" he asks, registering his own approval of Duncan's conduct with a carrot he fishes out of his pocket. Yes, Duncan, he was holding out on you all this time.

DUNCAN KNEW IT. But he doesn't seem too betrayed, as he happily crunches away at the carrot (and gets bits of orange all over his bit for Harry to clean off later.)

Rachat, for her part, noses at Enjolras's pocket in hope, and juuuust gently enough to not have her nose pushed away for bad manners. "No, I've nothing for you," he tells her, but he does scratch her neck in apology.

"A good horse, and willing," he says to Harry. "And good at her paces -- much better than I'd've thought for a horse who's available for all to ride unquestioned. I liked her fine."

This kind of sounds like damning with faint praise, but there's real approval in his voice and in the way he pats her arching neck. And they both could see her conformation and responsive speed perfectly well.

"It is strange," he agrees. "But for aught I know, the both of them may have some magic in 'em. Here, who can say?"

"...That's true."

He hadn't thought of it.

"Well, either way, they seem good horses."

And not, oh, sentient or mechanical or about to sprout wings or talk, or whatever.

It's still a strange thought. Milliways.

....yeah, sorry for planting that seed, Enjolras.

"When next thou hast a wish to ride, or need a companion in't, I would glad accompany thee."

"I'll look for thee, then."

And not worry about it if he doesn't find him or if one of his other friends wants to go riding with him or some such, of course, but a casual hey let's hang out again sometime agreement is just fine with him. This was fun.

(Enjolras, despite some occasional allegations of his friends, is capable of having fun! Just only mildly, occasionally, and in the background of more pragmatic activity.)

He presses a hand to Rachat's chest -- not too hot; good -- and glances at Harry with Duncan. "Does he need walking out, or shall we put them away?"

Or turn them out to pasture, or... whatever the habits of this barn are. He hasn't observed closely enough to be sure.

"Nay, he is well enough," Harry says-- though it's not his usual flippant assurances, he does check. He'll always be more careful with a horse than with himself. "The day is yet young, we may put them out-- dost not think?" This last is directed to Duncan, whose snuffling exhale Harry decides to interpret as a yes.

Works for Enjolras!

So there's a quietly, companionably busy while of taking off bridles and saddles and (for Enjolras) remembering which peg they came off, and brushing down horses, and checking hooves (again, something Enjolras is competent but not notably efficient at), and leading them out to the pasture Harry indicates as the correct one for them, and so on.

It's nostalgic -- far more powerfully so than Enjolras had expected. Of France and home all around, as the smell of a stable is, but especially for his boyhood in Auvergne, and lessons under his tutor's gimlet eye and his father's mild, keenly observant one. He feels a nagging sense of dislocation, of home just out of sight; not exactly unpleasant, and certainly not unfamiliar, but complicated.

Unsurprisingly, it's all much simpler for Harry: it feels like home, so he likes it. He's not someone who's ever really at ease, but he seems close to it here.

"Well then." He grins. "Have I made thee too long the truant?"

Enjolras gives him a wry look.

"From the pressing engagements of my busy schedule? Certainly."

Harry snorts.

"Why, Feuilly is ever running from place to place, ever has some business in hand-- I did think it the French way."

"Feuilly," Enjolras admits, "is better than I at filling his time here."

That's because Feuilly, despite being just as intensely justice-focused as Enjolras, is a man who had a day job most of his life, and is consequently much better at figuring out how to have hobbies.

(Most people are better at figuring out how to have hobbies than Enjolras. But Feuilly is also better than some of the rest of them at figuring out how to have hobbies that don't require a bustling city full of peers and shared pop culture.)

"He has some skill in it," Harry agrees. He'd never thought of the ability to fill time as a skill before-- but it seems that it is.

"Well! We idle men will find a way. Thou canst teach me-- what was it called? With the-- the walking-stick?"

"Canne de combat." Which the Milliways translation may or may not translate as singlestick, unless of course Harry is hearing this whole conversation in French anyway.

"Yes, whenever thou likest -- dost thou have one?"

Easily gotten from Bar, if not.

Also, you know, practice padding is an option, but they may not need it for the first lesson or two anyway, depending on how different it is from what Harry knows.