Fifth Floor Common Room; Thusday Evening [ 10/07 ].

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Feeling a little inspired after Glee Club, Ariel had spent some time in her room, listening to music and dancing, but figured she still had a lot more she could do to develop ideas for actual choreography. She bounced on down to common room to flip on the television and see if she could find something with dancing to inspire her even more.

What she found, though, instead, was Project Runway.

And could only gawk and wonder why, with all the fashion she'd absorbed from her job, she hadn't discovered this until just now.

She so needed to learn how to sew....


[[ guess what I've been watching all day. Open common room is open! ]]

Comments

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

That was probably a wise move, Bruce.

Ariel's nose wrinkled. "My musical tutor showed up," she said. "I spent most of it having to practice scales, so I feel like I've missed everything."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry I missed him," Bruce said. "But at least you're in even better shape for your club, right?"

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"I look forward," Ariel stated, pulling herself up importantly, "to completely throwing everything he's taught me," she swiped her arm out a little, "right out the window. Hopefully, it was nicer for you to see your butler? I should have guessed you'd have a butler..."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"He's almost more of a father," Bruce said. "He raised me after my parents died. Or he kept watch over me as I raised myself. It depends on how you look at it, I suppose."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Then it's definitely a good thing he had a chance to visit," Ariel said with a faint smile. "I'm sorry I missed the chance to meet him."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"He was sorry about it, too," Bruce assumed. Alfred always did prefer the thought of Bruce being in a relationship with a nice girl than what Bruce tended to choose for himself. It stood to reason.... "But even I didn't get to spend too much time with him. The weekend was over too quickly."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Really?" asked Ariel, eyes lighting up. "He was? You mentioned me to him?"

That definitely spoke well for the sort-of boyfriend status, even if she wouldn't have mentioned Bruce unless she absolutely had to. Mostly because she liked for Bruce to remain unelectrified.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Bruce said. "But I do tell him about most of what happens here. That includes who I'm spending time with."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Oh." That didn't sound as promising.

For about two seconds, before Ariel decided to just be positive about it and smiled. "It must be nice, to be able to talk to someone like that. I can't really talk to my father about this place..."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Is he not understanding of the whole 'weird things happen' situation?" Bruce asked.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Nooooo," Ariel said, very, very carefully, and had to take a moment to think of the best way to explain. "He just...well, we'll just say that there was a good chance I wasn't going to get a chance to come back after the summer. He's not very...fond of this...world."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

So Ariel was, if you excused the expression, not part of this world. Yeah. I went there. Deal with it. It made sense. Princesses from places he couldn't quite determine did have a tendency to be from elsewhere. "What got him to let you come back?"

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"To show that, deep down, he truly does have a heart of gold?" Ariel offered hopefully, since that made her look much better than answering that she'd spent every second after returning doing nothing but moping and sneaking out of her room and then moping some more.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure he does," Bruce said. "You have a huge heart, and you had to get it from somewhere."

Yes, it could have been from her mother, but facts rarely sounded as good as a somewhat metaphorical compliment.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

In fact...

"I think I mostly got it from my mother, actually," said Ariel. "But my father's a good guy, too, despite his temper,tendency to really, really overreact, and maintain assumptions about things he knows nothing about..."

And she wasn't just saying that because, if she was going to keep these legs, she kind of had to.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I'm beginning to see why he wasn't here last weekend," Bruce said.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Plus, semantics...

"Yeah," Ariel muttered. "But how nice of him to send Sebastian in his place."

Mmm, sarcasm. But Ariel shook her head, never one to really dwell on negative feelings. Not when there was a cute sort-of boyfriend in front of her anyway.

"But enough about that. That was last week. What about next week! Have you heard about the trip?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I have. I was actually seeing if I could spend the week doing some more independent study back in my world, but that didn't work out," Bruce admitted. "But Vail doesn't sound like a bad backup plan."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Independent study?" asked Ariel, unable to avoid smirking. "That almost makes you sound like a nerd, Bruce."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"You've been in my room. You must have gotten at least a glance at the number of books I have in there," Bruce pointed out. Granted, he doing his best to distract her for much of the time she was in there....

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not even Ariel was paying much attention to things like that at that moment. Of course, realizing this fact only made a delicate blush spread across her face.

But not enough of one for her to point out, "So you admit you're a nerd."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I admit nothing," Bruce said. "After all, I didn't say what I would have been studying."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"'Independent study,'" yes, there were fingerquotes, as well as a grin, "usually denotes actual study, you know."

Usually.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Studying how to climb mountains is still studying," Bruce said. At least it was for his purposes.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"But deceptively awesome for studying," Ariel insisted, before pausing slightly to tilt her head. "Climbing mountains? Really?"

Color her intrigued. Mountains, after all, were not nearly impressive under the sea, when all you had to do was swim to get to the other side.