ic contact;

[originallutece]

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[originallutece]

I certainly wouldn't object if you wanted to celebrate it soon. Though I think if you put yourself in debt to him any further, I'll lose you once more. He's wracked up quite a bill for you in your absence.

[uncertainrelation]

...And just how much of a bill has he been charging, in my absent name?

[originallutece]

You're going to have to take it up with him, dearest. Be assured I tried as best I could to waive your fee.

That's how we ought to break our newfound home in. By celebrating Valentine's day. There's no music, but we can still dance.

[uncertainrelation]

Good lord, you've fallen for a debtor. That's no way to secure a future for yourself.

Ah! But speaking of music, good that you mentioned it — one of your ducklings oversees a music shop here, I'm told. Do you suppose you can coax him into letting us commandeer a piano?

[originallutece]

My what?

[uncertainrelation]

Ducklings.

[originallutece]

Absolutely not.

[uncertainrelation]

You don't want a piano?

[originallutece]

They are my students, and coaxing him will require seeing if there's more than one piano in this city, as he's quite a talented pianist himself. I should think him loath to give up something that brings him so much joy.

[uncertainrelation]

There can't possibly be only one piano in the entire city. What would be the point of having a music store at all?

[originallutece]

I told you: we're a city of scavengers. He might simply sell sheet music, for all I know.

[uncertainrelation]

Sells the sheet music, rents the piano?

[originallutece]

To me, possibly. Not to you, I think: is it true he simply calls you Robert?

[uncertainrelation]

Called it right across an open street at me, even. I took him as a rather impertinent young man up until I realized he was one of yours.

[originallutece]

He's really quite respectful. I suppose you might blame me; certainly I didn't refer to you as Dr. Lutece when I spoke of you.

[uncertainrelation]

Graduated summa cum laude with a doctorate in quantum physics and a lad half my age is calling me by given name like a classmate. What is the world coming to.

[originallutece]

Well, you called him a duckling. I should think you're even at this point.

Though truly: get into it with him as you like, although I can't imagine he'll be disrespectful in the slightest, but keep referring to him as his last name, please.

[uncertainrelation]

I didn't call him a duckling to his FACE.

Do you really think me so petty as to lower myself to calling him by his first name in return, tit for tat?

[originallutece]

Not ordinarily. But you might if provoked, just as I would.

[Mm. But her reasons for her protectiveness towards her student can wait. They aren't something she wants to tell him over text.]

Regardless: I'll ask him tonight. In the meantime, are you anywhere near home? Home being the mansion, not the apartment.

[uncertainrelation]

...Well, yes. But really, he's half our age.

Is that how we're designating home now? Nevertheless: I can be there in a blink, if need be. Shall I?

[originallutece]

Yes.

[Because fixing up a home is very tiring on your own, and a mansion is a great deal larger than an apartment, and also she very simply misses him. Her separation anxiety isn't half so bad as it was when he first got here, but that doesn't mean it's gone entirely.]

[uncertainrelation]

Very well. See you in a flash.

[And it quite literally is a flash, as one instant he's elsewhere in the city and the next he's simply stepping through the doorway of whatever room she's in, dapper and charming and armed with a bag of fruit and a whimsical bouquet of cherry blossoms.]

[originallutece]

[What a contrast he stands to her: covered in drops of paint and with her hair tied back, a little put out after the labor of the past few hours. Still, the front room is done to their liking, with a rather pleasing shade of red lighting it up.

He's a welcome sight, sweet gifts aside, and Rosalind smiles as he appears.]

I'm still quite put out that you retain our powers and I don't.

[She wipes her hands on her trousers (her trousers, though they clearly one belonged to a man, but they serve her well when she's forced to get dirty) and nods towards his gathered items.]

Dare I ask where you got those flowers?

[uncertainrelation]

I'm still frankly baffled how it is that I've kept them and you haven't. Perhaps our overseers were wise enough to realize that you'd be the far more dangerous to them, if left with them?

[It's sort of serious, but mostly an idle compliment. It's not as though he's any more docile than she is, really, and the fact of the matter is leaving either of the Luteces a set of capacities is effectively the same thing as giving both of them access to it anyway.]

I took them from the ever-blooming tree, of course. I thought they'd be better suited to ever blooming in your hair.

[originallutece]

I'll have to wear them for our Valentine's day.

[That's the third time she's brought that up. Odd, that, and yet Rosalind doesn't appear to notice.]

Come along.

[That, called over her shoulder as she heads towards the room they've designated as their bedroom. Most of her clothes are here. Most of their things are here, really; moving is marvelously easy when one of you can simply teleport. The only thing left to transfer is their scientific equipment, which Rosalind doesn't want to risk potentially contaminating. Who knows what teleportation might do to their experiments?

Well, they will, because that's an experiment she intends to conduct. But not right this second. Right this second, Madam Lutece wants nothing more than to look a bit more elegant than she currently does.]

How are you finding your exploration of the city?