fandomhighdorms | The Lawn; Late Monday Afternoon [06/05].

The Lawn; Late Monday Afternoon [06/05].

Realizing that most of her Fandom experience so far seemed to revolve around food, Summer came to a startling realization. All this eating and no extracurricular sports meant she would soon be facing her own Battle of the Bulge.

Thankfully, that was easily remedied. She found herself a soccer ball and headed oitside, setting to kicking the ball up and down the lawn after a few reps of sut-ups, push-ups, jumping Jacks and stetching. She wasn't great, but she wasn't bad, either, and she had one hell of a kick. She even managed to hit the tree she'd marked as a goal more often than not. Usually with resounding self-fanfare.

"She shoots, she scores! She's done it again, ladies and gents, Summer Smith, bringiNg home another World Cup for the US of A. The crowd is going wild! Whooooo! Yeaaah! Can't wait to see that face on the Wheaties box!"

A good hour of that, and she'd have lost the months worth of piggiNg out in sweat alone.

[[ open, of coirse! ]]

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At one point, after Summer's victory fanfare, she'd hear a polite smattering of applause coming from the lawn behind her.

Hey Summer. Hyacinthe had no idea what you were doing but he was fascinated. And sprawled out on the grass, his shirt on but open to expose a long expanse of golden brown chest.

Yeah, so Summer might have gotten really into it after a while, forgetting that this was a public place where people would totally see her acting like a spaz. So when her personal fanfare was met with applause, she was suddenly struck with the paralyzation of mortification, practically tripping over her previously graceful fee. And it didn't help once she turned her head to see where the applause had come from.

Oh, good lord, at least she was already red from exertion, which hid the blush nicely, but it was a small thing compared to the fact that she was pretty much drenched in sweat from the humid day.

But, uhhh....whatever, right? She could, uh, totally try to play it cool, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. She jogged up to where the soccer ball had landed after it bounced off the tree, managed to at least pull a pretty neat trick of getting it into her hands using a flick of her foot and her toes, and then sauntered over to where she had a water bottle. Hydration was important, after all. Drinking also gave her a moment to try to collect herself before greeting her open-shirted audience.

"Oh, uh, hi, there, Hyacinthe. How's it, uh, how's it going?"

Exercise. She was breathless from all the running, OBVIOUSLY.

"Quite well, in fact," Hyacinthe said, openly amused. "Though I hardly meant to interrupt you from your game. I thought I might sit and watch awhile--you seem quite skilled. And I appreciate skill in all its forms."

"Oh." And how the hell did she respond to that? It was hard to respond when you forgot how to make words. It was all Summer could do to keep from flailing, but she did let out a nervous little laugh. She went to rub the back of her neck, which was a bad choice, because it was sweaty and gross, and now she had to discretely wipe her hand on her shorts. "Oh, well, I could use a break anyway, and, no, no, I was just sort of messing around a little, that's all, no big deal."

And she took another swig of water to keep herself from babbling like an idiot, knowing she'd be completely useless at any more if he was just going to sit there watching her. Completely, completely useless.

"Do, uh, you play soccer? Or, uh, football, some people call it?"

He was, kinda European...ish...

Half the time if someone asked, he'd even remember to say he was from France!

"I do not!" Hyacinthe had few problems admitting when he didn't know something. "I sometimes played kickball with the other children in Night's Doorstep when I was a child, but rarely." Children in their neighborhoods worked, if only running messages or watching horses or the like. "'Tis that what your game is called, then? Soccer?"

Hadn't been invented yet, sorry Summer.

Summer's head bobbed maybe just a touch too much when she nodded. "That's right," she said. "Well, we call it soccer here in the United States. Everyone else calls it football, but, you know, us Americans, we have to be difficult, what with our soccer and our own version of football that's kind of different and our Imperial system of weights and measures."

She was going to run out of water soon, what with using it to stop from babbling as she was. The last one in particular seemed to help, though. That, and she could feel like less of a spaz if she was talking about something that she knew about and Hyacinthe didn't.

"I played a little bit at my old school. It's kind of like kickball, except not really. You kick a ball, anyway, that's pretty much the same. You have two teams, with goals on the opposite side of a field, and you just...try to kick the ball into your goal. It gets a little more complicated with positions and everything, but, really, that's pretty much it. You can get kind of fancy with it and use your head sometimes, but you never, ever use your hands. Which is why it makes sense to call it football, while, with American football, you almost never use your foot and almost always use your hands. But you can't call it handball, because that's something else, too."

Nice and helpful, right?

He was going to end up watching soccer and seeing a goalie and getting even more confused.

"That is a lot of sports," Hyacinthe said with a laugh. "I'll never get over how much leisure time everyone around here has. Back home, we haven't nearly so many--unless you're nobility and have people to cater to your every whim."

"And that's not even half of them," Summer said. "Don't even get me started on volleyball! Tennis, baseball, basketball, hockey, rugby, curling."

She laughed a little. "Yeah, there are a lot of sports, aren't there? Makes you kind of wonder if most of them just sort of came into fruition because people got more free time, as nobility stopped being a thing and the industrial age opened up a lot of what took up most people's time. I take it there's not much industry where you're from?"

With a picnic table nearby, Summer considered leaning against it in a casual way, maybe even a little provocatively, but then she remembered her food flying off the table in class and realized that maybe having a seat on the grass beside Hyacinthe might be better. She would have probably missed the edge of the table completely and made a glorious clumsy spectacle of herself.

Oh! Oh! He finally knew how to answer this, after a year or so in Fandom.

"I'm from about a thousand years ago in this timeline," he explained. "My home, Terre D'Ange, is what you know of as France. We have industry, yes, but not what I've come to understand as industrialization. There is much else to focus on, back home."

Like sex. Because fantasy France, that's why.

Summer nodded again, though she was thinking more, like, digging up turnips or something.

"What even brought you here, anyway? I mean, I don't know much about it except that one time and class and this right now, but what brings a person out of a place so different from here, a thousand years from here, to here?"

Bah! Hyacinthe was a city boy! Farming was strictly a country thing. He wouldn't know how to dig up turnips if you paid him.

"My patron--" his mouth gave an ironic twist to the word, though he was mostly thinking of how Phedre used the term "--wished me to attend school. He knew it was odd, though he didn't know the half of it, and wished to know more. He is called the Whoremaster of Spies back home, though I believe 'twas more curiosity that bade him send me. I was unconvinced, but my mother agreed and thus, here I am, far from my home and my friends and my very time."

Summer shifted a little bit, more from the sweat on her back than from anythiNg else. Man, she felt gross, but she also didn't want to squander an opportunity to talk with someone, especially not a cute, handsome someone.

"How do you like it?" she asked.

"Here? 'Tis interesting," Hyacinthe said after a moment of thought. "I have friends and 'tis nice not to have to work all the time, though I fear I'm becoming quite lazy. That being said..." He mulled over what he was feeling, trying to come up with the best way to say it. "'Tis very different than Terre D'Ange. We have few common cultural touchstones. No one here knows of Blessed Elua, or Naamah, or anything I grew up learning. It can be lonely here, even when I'm surrounded by people. And while no one looks down on me for being poor or Tsingani, I watch the tv and I do not think people's general nature have changed much and that saddens me."

Edited 2017-06-07 14:42 (UTC)

"Yeah," Summer said quietly after a moment, letting that all sink in because it was so well said and understandable and heavy. Her empathetic nature couldn't help kicking in full force, either, and she took a moment to look up thoughtfully toward the sky. "It's weird," she added. "I've been all across the universe, to different dimensions, different realities, and some of that stuff, no matter where you are, just...never changes. And sometimes? Even when you try to find the good in something, it still turns out that some people, the majority of people, and I mean people of all species and genders and whatever else makes us different from each other, really kind of suck..."

But she shrugged. "That's why I think it's so important to stand up with the ones who don't suck as much, I guess."

"You are far more well-traveled than I," Hyacinthe told her. "Until I came here, I'd never left the City of Elua. I'd barely left Night's Doorstep, in fact, which is just one small part of the City. Here, I travel to different places, but it doesn't feel real. We arrive, we stay for an hour, we depart again. Barely counts."

"If that doesn't count," Summer said with a snort, "then I'm not sure I can be considered very well-travelled, either. We tend to show up just long enough to cause trouble, maybe fix it, thrn back home for damage control."

"Ahh, see?" Hyacinthe said with a laugh, "I've barely even time to cause trouble with my visits!"

Don't ask whether Anakin had the same opinion as Hya in this instance.

And Summer had to smile at thay, because, man, that was a damn good laugh.

"Oh, I'm sure you could get in a lot of trouble, too, if given half the chance."

Just hopefully not the same kind of trouble they did, since that involved, you know, race riit's and spider wars and downfalls of entire civilizations....

If she liked his laugh, whatever would she think about the slow, deliberately sexy smirk he was turning on her. "I suppose it depends on your definition of trouble, does it not? What some people consider trouble, others might find to be a few hours of pleasurable entertainment."

She would think it was pretty much the most perfect thing in the world at that moment. Summer...may have forgotten how to speak for a brief moment.

"Uh...haha." Cue the nervous laughter, a step on the way to gaining her voice, and a nice red, sweaty face. "Yeah, that's pretty true. It's, uh, all about perspective."

She wanted to ask what kind of trouble he might have in mind, but she didn't think she could handle it. Not right now, all sweaty and gross and, oh god, why?

She was probably not prepared for his kind of trouble. Though if she were ever up for a little bit of mischief, he'd be happy to oblige.

"I like your perspective on things," Hya told her. "You make good points in class. I like that you speak up."

Oh, sure, Hyacinthe, hit her with your stupid sexy charm and then appeal to highly opinionated brain. Man, he was good.

"Really?" she asked, and now that blush was not going anywhere, just taking on different hues, this one slightly surprised. She wasn't exactly used to people actually appreciating her rants. "I mean, half the time, I don't even really mean to, it just sort of...happens. It's...kind of nice that people here seem to actually listen, too, instead of just brush me off...maybe that is why I'm so vocal. I'm used to having to be so loud just to be heard..."

Hyacinthe leaned forward, bringing up a hand to ghost over her cheek and tuck a loose tendril of hair back behind her ear if she'd let him. "'Ts a pity you are used to people not listening to you. I don't know that we would always agree on things, but that does not make your point less worthwhile to hear."

Hooooo-ly crap. Cute guy, hand close to her cheek, tucking back her hair and complimenting her. Don't freak out, Summer, you can totally hand this. Just keep cool...

"Ahh...hahaha." Because nervous, flustered laughter was totally keeping it cool. But she couldn't help it, because while it was a really nice gesture, she couldn't help thinking that he surely had to be thinking about the fact that that loose tendril of hair was pretty much soak in sweat. "Uh, thanks. I, uh, appreciate that."

Breathe, that's right, you could still do that, good. And any awareness to sweat became amped up to about eleven and she shifted a little uncomfortably.

"You know, I should really probably get going. It, uh, was nice talking to you, though. I always like listening to what you have to say, too, Hyacinthe."

She just preferred to be a lot less sweaty when it happened.

"Of course," Hyacinthe said, scrambling to his feet. Because a gentleman always stood when a lady did. He might not be nobleborn, but he had manners, dammit. "Anytime you wish to speak again, come find me," he invited. "I'm sure we'll find many other things to...speak of."

Or....maybe other things that didn't involve speaking at all?

Okay. So not helping with the sweating. Summer focused a little on her soccer ball, toeing it closer, and, with a little flick of her foot, popped it up in the air. Thank God she caught it, a nice smooth little maneuver that she was actually pretty proud of.

"So which room are you in, anyway? In case I did want to track you down to, ah, um...talk."

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The Lawn; Late Monday Afternoon [06/05].

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