originallutece | ic contact;

You don't want a piano?

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.

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

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

Sells the sheet music, rents the piano?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Edited 2017-03-30 21:03 (UTC)

...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?

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.]

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.]

[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?

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.

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?

Quite engaging, really. The rundown parts are less palatable to walk through, but I suppose it just makes the up-to-scratch parts hidden amongst them all the more of a delight to uncover.

[He follows along with her automatically, and takes up a place just inside the door, where he can have a view of the whole room but also discreetly angle himself to afford her a touch more privacy if and when she decides to start getting changed.]

I dropped in and saw the boutique run by your seamstress. It's a pretty little storefront, all told.

Yes, it rather is, isn't it?

[It's one of those dresses Rosalind is putting on now, actually, as she sheds her clothes briskly. Either he's looking or he isn't, but really, after so long, she's hardly shy.]

A good thing, too: the only other method before was scavenging, and frankly the less said about that, the better. Tell me, though, when you're wi--

[Wait. Rosalind blinks, then turns, glancing back at him.]

You can teleport us.

[Obviously. But she hadn't realized the implications up until now.]

You can teleport us distances. Oh, hell, I've put off my investigations of anywhere beyond a few days journey til now, but we've run of the place!

Do you need me to button you up? Come over here.

[He says, which completely ignores the important subject at hand, but you know what, there's this business of the dress right here in front of him, too.]

I should imagine so, yes — it doesn't feel any different than the usual getting-around that we used to do. Simply wanting to be somewhere, and then...being there.

Was there somewhere in particular you were hoping to go?

[She flaps an impatient hand. Dresses, who cares about dresses when there's science to talk about?

. . . bu-ut she also comes over and turns, presenting her back to him, so perhaps dresses can be granted a moment's thought. Still, she looks over her shoulder, trying to catch his eye.]

Of course. Everywhere-- it's hardly a bestiary if it ends at the woods. There's the mountains, and I haven't yet made the journey towards either of the coasts, never mind the beaches . . .

[And with Robert able to teleport them, there's no chance of danger. She won't be caught again, because the second something feels wrong, they'll simply spirit away.]

I've heard there's dragons, Robert.

Edited 2017-03-31 00:16 (UTC)

Dragons!

[Oh, boy, that did it. For all that the science is exciting and thrilling him, there's just something about the fantasy of the promise of dragons that drags the Young English Lad™ in him right out to the forefront.

Dragons! Knights and kings and tales of glory! Dragons! Fantastic, unthinkable, wondrous, magical —

Dragons!

Dragons!!

He rushes through fastening her up, fingers working easily over each separate button and hole, and when he's done he uses their positioning to his advantage and refuses to let her get away, catching her around the middle and pulling her back against his chest instead.]

Well, we've simply got to see those!

Oh--

[Oh, well, hello, that's her caught, isn't it? Rosalind smiles despite herself, more preoccupied with his hands than the prospect of any fantastical creatures. It's not the first time he's caught her like this, of course. It isn't even the first time he'd caught her like this here. But it's only been two weeks, and she's still reeling over the fact he's here at all.

She relaxes against him, her head tipping back.]

I'm not precisely certain where the proper ones live-- I've heard stories pinpointing them to the mountains, but I'd rather a bit more reconnaissance work before we simply leap there.

But I do know for a fact there's miniature ones to be found on the beaches.

A real beach, Rosie. Not just Battleship Bay —

[Ugh. It seems almost a crime to invoke Columbia and its sights by name somehow, as if voicing the name makes them that much more real in a place where he'd like nothing more than to let them fade into obscurity.

But still, the prospect is exciting. A real beach — a real ocean. Battleship Bay had been as much of a man-crafted farce as the rest of Columbia, and really that just makes the promise of the real thing all the more delicious.]

We could make a day of it — at least an afternoon, certainly...

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