Words and Music |
Summary: | A couple of cousins meet in the Roost Reading Room. |
Date: | 05 June 298 |
Related Logs: | None |
Players: |
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Reading Room |
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The room has a large glass window and seat that looks out partially over the cove, in daylight hours the sun provides illumination to the room. Other stools and chairs linger in small groups as shelves along the walls are littered with scrolls, books, letters and documents. The contents are a modest collection of local records, histories, and literature offered to both the family and guests of Four Eagles Tower. |
05 June 298 |
Sunlight streaming into past the window seat illumines the reading room, a glowing afternoon kind of brilliance that probably bespeaks a day better spent outside than in here amid the scent of ancient paper and the quiet rustle of fingertips against the page. Dressed in lightweight clothing of neat tailoring but unremarkable hue, Dmitry ignores the lush lure of the summer day beyond the window and the enticing cushioned window seat to perch on a hard, low stool before a small desk, apparently poring with an intentness of study over the small letters on the page of a book.
At least, Dmitry isn't alone in choosing to visit the reading room this afternoon. Perhaps any other time if might be a day better spent outdoors, but for Inigo, who spent a good deal of time outdoors of late tromping around in the woods…some time indoors might be preferable. His appearance is neater than the previous day, all well-kempt and in considerably nicer clothing, if the intricate embroidery on green-hued clothing is any indication. "I would think that would normally be the last seat chosen," he remarks on Dmitry's choice of butt-rest.
Dmitry blinks up from the page that currently holds his attention, and sits a little straighter in the stool as one hand falls lightly across the page, fingertips barely touching the paper as his dark eyes skip up the long length of the taller man towards his face. "Perhaps I meant it as a courtesy to the bottoms that would come after me," he says, blithe in ascribing himself charitable motives.
Inigo smiles as Dmitry looks over his way, talking a few more steps into the room proper. "How gracious of of you. I hope someone has had the benefit of such kindly foresight," he says, considering a rather more plush seat. "I have not found this place to be so over-run with traffic, myself, that it would be necessary."
"It never hurts to be prepared," Dmitry says with a tip of his hand in Inigo's direction. He shifts slightly on the stool, crossing his leg ankle-at-knee in a fluid motion, and lets a long-fingered hand rest over the length of his leg. His mouth lifts at one corner, the shadow of a smile that gleams in dark eyes before it fades again to a milder neutrality. "Are you a frequent visitor to the shelves, Ser?"
"Instruments with some use," Dmitry answers. It is difficult to give the impression of lounging while sitting on a stool with no back, but he seems to make a fair effect of it. "I can't say I'm sorry we had them." Rolling a look along the shelves in idle contemplation, he muses mildly, "When I was a boy, I used to hide in here. It seems to have shrunk a bit."
That's some impressive lounging. "That makes it sound like you do not consider a lot of, hm, more regular reading of use," Inigo comments, drawing a single finger down the length of his jaw thoughtful before he flashes another smile in humor. "Or perhaps you just do not think much of music." Nodding, he looks around and considers the room as a whole, perhaps imagining being a boy here. "I sympathize. The library at home seems to have done the same to me."
"What, does it?" Dmitry's smile flashs, quick and bright, across his expression. Fingertips tapping light against his leg, he goes on with brisk cheer: "I would never speak ill of music; it would make me an ill musician, and that would never do."
"A little." Inigo pinches and inch. "I suppose you could be a musician stubbornly forced to play. Technical skill with no heart…then you could speak ill of it anyway," he proposes as a scenario. "Probably better to enjoy it, however, the playing."
"I'd much rather enjoy it," Dmitry agrees. He lays a hand over his heart. "Music without heart, what a tragic thought." He lets his hand fall, and then shifts to his feet in a fluid unfolding, probably to escape the relative comfort level of his chosen stool.
"I have heard it before," Inigo assures with a low chuckle. "Though, it is still better than those who believe they are a great musician…and are anything but great. That is, sadly, far more common." He makes a show of wincing and holding his ears. "At least I know I lack skill and do not pretend otherwise."
"I aspire only to competence, I assure you," Dmitry says, eyebrows up over the glint of humor brightening his dark eyes. His smile is only a shadow at his lips, subtle and elusive. "So you don't play. But you do read. One assumes." His long fingers flick toward the shelves that surround them.
"A much easier goal, I would think. And far less likely to become the subject of mockery. Few bother to insult the competent." You know, unless they have an inferiority complex or are just dicks, maybe. "I wouldn't think to wrong an instrument by trying to play it, no," Inigo confirms, his own smile anything but elusive. "It is a fair assumption, given the location. Yes."
It is only Dmitry's eyes that laugh; he is otherwise composed. It is probably bratty of him somehow; many things are. "Even a great musician who only aspires to competence shall never offend, I'd think," he says. "His music is a pleasant surprise. I should endeavor to always be pleasantly surprising."
If it is bratty, Inigo shows no sign of ruffled feathers over it. "I would think a great musician would be unsatisfied with competence, since that should come with ease." So assumes the non-musician, anyway. "That is an endeavor beyond just competence. There are few enough pleasant surprises in life, though, so by all means make more."
"That depends entirely on the value of humility, I should think," Dmitry says. He goes on with great evidence of cheer: "Not that I have any of my own, of course, so I can't think how I'd value it."
Inigo laughs once, brushing a palm over his head to smooth down his hair and then rubs the back of his neck. "That is an ever-changing, subjective and therefore and ultimately a nearly immeasurable value, anyway," he remarks. "Except perhaps on persons such as yourself. 'None' is easy to measure."
"Simplicity is hard to find. I am happy to add some small maesure of it to the world." Dmitry is totally lying about this.
Pants on fire. "How noble of you," Inigo says with a perfectly straight face. Maybe a little too straight. "I'm sure everyone is appreciate of your efforts. Or…non-efforts, as the case may be."
"I hope so," Dmitry returns in kind, with a very slight tip of his head. Resting his fingertips across the open book he has left on the table, he says, "Anything to serve. So to speak."
"So to speak," Inigo murmurs with a twist of his lips. "Anything could mean, well, anything, after all." That includes terribly unpleasant things! He does go on to add, "Though, loyalty is a trait worth respecting in anyone."
"Well, if you aren't loyal to your own name, I can't imagine what you'd find worth serving," Dmitry says with a moment's rare frankness blent into his dry voice. He draws the book slowly, carefully shut, and smooths his fingers over its cover.
"Hmm," Inigo murmurs, a noise of thoughtful agreement, drawing his fingers along on of the bookshelves. "Being loyal to your own name is one thing that is not necessarily the same as loyalty to the family name. Houses tear themselves apart that way, everyone pulling in different directions."
"I suppose," Dmitry says with a kind of deliberate carelessness, stepping away from the table. "But my name is Terrick, so it will do for me, I think." His mouth twitches up at one corner as he glances up at Inigo. "And for that, I think I'll leave you the room; the other effect of saving the better seats, naturally, is that I do not overstay the afternoon."
Nodding his head with a slight smile on his face, Inigo leans against the bookshelf and regards the Terrick by name from under his brows with an introspective gaze that might belie his otherwise casual air. "And you will do well by it, I'm sure," he replies politely. "Naturally. One should never overstay in a place. Until later, then," he bids, inclining his head.