OOM: Letting Urquhart go

[ostro_goth]

The day before yesterday, Teja had found Urquhart lying on his cot, wild masses of blond hair covering back and shoulder, breathing quietly, but not answering to anything Teja said. Teja had left the coffee and gone.

Yesterday, Teja had found Urquhart still lying on his cot, hiding in his hair, with the coffee sitting untouched just inside the barrier in the place where things could be passed through. Teja had exchanged the cold coffee for nice fresh hot coffee, and left.

Today, Teja finds Urquhart still on his cot, unmoving, yesterday's coffee again cold and untouched. He takes away the cold coffee, then opens the barrier and walks inside with the hot coffee in his hands. He puts it down among the mess of books, finds a place to sit beside the cot, pushes his fingers deep into the wild blond hair, shoving it out of the way and taking hold, ungently, to lift up the man's head and force him to turn and face him. "So you are, indeed, still alive," he says, disdainfully.

Comments

[scots_wolf]

"You knew Plato?" Urquhart says, with actual interest.

He is medieval scholar enough to be impressed by the auctoritates. No matter how much he stopped believing in what he was taught as a child or a young man.

[ostro_goth]

"I told you, she is the goddess Demeter," Teja says, with both exasperation and dripping sarcasm. "She knew everybody."

[wheatencrown]

Demeter shifts to Greek, a very old dialect,

"Yes, child, I knew him. Socrates was nicer."

[scots_wolf]

"But we only know about him from Plato himself, and from Xenophon," Urquhart says, his own accent about 1,700 years younger. At least.

He had spoken it in Constantinople, and the north of Greece, on his way back from the orient. Urquhart takes to languages very easily.

[ostro_goth]

"Now we know of him through her, who knew him, in person," Teja says. His own accent is early Byzantine, and from the Greek islands -- which only the initiate will recognise.

"I would not put it beyond this place to bring Socrates himself, one day."

He smiles a little, imaging how much Urquhart would fanboy fawn upon the man.

[wheatencrown]

"I am Demeter and have known Hellas since she was young. I knew those dreamers though few of them understood me. They have always been Apollo's."

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart looks at her, wordless, and nods.

[ostro_goth]

Teja smiles a little.

"Let us leave," he says. "Enough of this sunless place. It is raining outside, Urquhart."

[wheatencrown]

Demeter nods and leans up to kiss Teja's cheek as they leave. He is hers.

[ostro_goth]

He is hers now; he smiles at her, then turns to Urquhart. "Come out, so I may close doors again."

[scots_wolf]

"He has a lover, you know," Urquhart says. "I saw them do it. No hope for you there."

With that parting shot to Demeter, he shoulder the sack at last, and walks out past them, thirsty for freedom and rain and daylight and a hot bath.

[wheatencrown]

"I know he does, but there are ways upon ways of belonging to me."

Urquhart will have to aim better if he hopes to strike Demeter.

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart looks over his shoulder, smiles, shrugs, and is gone.

[ostro_goth]

Teja scribbles a brief note at the Security desk; then, he will walk out with Demeter.

"I might have to post a note of warning to Guppy..." he muses.