pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

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It's a fine autumn day: not too cold, with a light breeze and a clear sunny sky.

Also it's beautiful, or so Prouvaire has informed him with great certainty, although he sighed briefly over the lack of dramatically thunderous clouds. Enjolras is willing to take his word for it. He doesn't see the appeal of thunderous clouds, except that rain is necessary for crops, and so far as he can tell Prouvaire thinks nearly every day is beautiful in its own (sometimes dismal) way, but he has no particular opinions to the contrary.

They're walking arm in arm on the far side of the lake, not too far from the forest verge. It's a good day to walk with a friend. (They're both agreed that that, too, is true of nearly any day.)

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Enjolras is smiling again, very small but fond.

"Imagine a world where anyone can create a record of an event, just by pressing a button on a common device."

Of course he's read about such worlds, and the future of their own world: the benefits of such technology, and the pitfalls, and the ramifications. But still. To live surrounded by such wonders of human ingenuity, to think them unremarkable; just imagine. Even after months at Milliways, it still strikes him.

Jehan presses his arm. "We needn't imagine. We live in such a world, Enjolras. And I do believe we need to start thinking of it as a world, rather than as a...a way-station of sorts."

Enjolras glances at him, taken aback.

He -- hadn't thought about it like that. Not of Milliways as a world, a real world, true as any other.

(He's not sure that he agrees. But it's a startling phrasing; he hadn't thought about it like that.)

Jehan sees the expression on his face. Understandable. He smiles faintly.

"Doesn't concerning ourselves with its community imply it's a world? Doesn't the fact that we seem to be stuck here? Why should we care about the justice or the community of...of..." He searches for the right analogy and fails. "...oh, the stop of a diligence on a journey?"

"Justice ought to hold in an isolated inn, as much as anywhere else."

It's not exactly disagreement.

He's thinking still, turning it over in his mind; holding Prouvaire's logic up against his reflexive disagreement, and scrutinizing that disagreement for its source. He's quiet a moment.

"I see your reasoning. But on the other hand, compare this to our world, to any world people speak of here."

(To France.)

"Yes, of course," Jehan says, his faint smile broadening, "though most injustices would be less dire if all in the inn could and did easily leave, and spend no more time than they wished there. But when one can't leave...that drives home the necessity of justice, and of building a society to make justice a reality."

He sighs, as Enjolras talks of their own world. All other worlds are at their fingertips. But their own France, their own Paris, are as out of reach as shapes in mist. "I will not. It does not compare, I can't deny that."

Enjolras presses Prouvaire's arm with his free hand, briefly, and for a few moments silence falls between them.

"I do see your logic. And maybe you're right."

He means that. Prouvaire is wise, insightful, clear-eyed. It's entirely possible that his heart is wiser than Enjolras's on this subject.

"But... I find it difficult to think of Milliways as a living world, a place that could be a home to people."

Jehan nods. Enjolras has, as always, put his finger on the precise difficulty.

"I feel that, too," Jehan says, after a quiet moment. "As I see it, there are two things to be done about that, neither of which excludes the other. The first is, to try to break free of Milliways and return home. This, I believe, must require powerful science, or perhaps sorcery, if those are indeed different things. We're a long way from being able to do that." Jehan has been reading things on those subjects, even some accurate things.

"The second is, to make this a living place. To set ourselves to shaping it so it becomes a true world, capable of being a home. And that can only be done if we behave like it is, and give it all the attention we would give our own. We'll do what we can to alter events in our world and others, but..." Jehan waves a hand expressively. "There is no reason to be content with hovering outside of worlds, when we could be in one."

Jehan suddenly realizes he's been talking for some time, and his face grows warm. "A newspaper is only a small beginning, but it's a beginning nonetheless."

Returning home isn't even an option to Enjolras's mind. It's the dearest personal wish of his heart, in a way, and yet -- they're dead. How could they return, except as shades, powerlessly haunting and observing? And would that be better or worse than their current situation? It's pointless speculation, and so he doesn't speculate on it. If a real opportunity ever arose, he'd consider the details of it then.

But he listens, and at the end he presses Prouvaire's arm with his free hand again, this time not from sympathy but from the fervent impulse of idealism shared, like a spark jumping from cloth to iron.

"Jean Prouvaire, my friend. You're very wise."

Jehan blushes. It's a foolish reaction, he knows, especially to Enjolras, who is so freely and openly sincere and generous to all his friends. And yet, Jehan feels the telltale heat in his face.

"I--no," he manages. "But I'm glad you think the newspaper idea has some promise."

"I do."

Jehan smiles faintly. They walk on in peaceable silence. Jehan's gaze follows the curve of a gnarled, twisting tree some meters ahead of them, weighted with vines and bent as if with woe.

This path will lead them in a circuitous fashion to the lake, or back to the bar, depending on which way they take it. Jehan is contented either way.

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