Angus had barely been able to sleep or eat since the day before. He had not known just how unfamiliar he was with suffering. The sound of Lady Bruthgrave's voice, his admiration for her and the reality of her words; they stayed with him. He would smile at Nauleth and then remember it and have to excuse himself.

He wanted to do something, to be someone else, someone that knew what to do and how to feel. He could hardly tell Naul, that would be a violation of Lady Bruthgrave's trust. Angus wanted nothing less than to dishonour her. He'd rather face the noose.

He found himself glad of the rain. It seemed so fitting. He felt as though the day was mourning with him. Grieving his faded idealism. He was beginning to question just what else he'd been wrong about.

"I want to kill Athrym's dad." He thought to himself, surprised. He'd never felt homicidal before.

Angus knocked on Dawin's door and hoped that he was home.

Where else would he be? Dawin's vacations in Vienda were [like his vacations in Plugit -- and his time at Brunnhold, for that matter] dedicated to his alone time. This one, in the midst of his sixth year, now a bit harder to daydream his way through, was dedicated to relaxing from the constant game of catch-up it felt like he was doing in all of his classes.

Before he had stumbled into Angus, before the sudden surge of confidence and ambition, his plan had also included 'getting ahead in classes so that I don't feel so constantly choked for time.' Now, however, who needed that? He had four years left of schooling that wasn't really of much interest to him. Being able to manipulate the Mona was important, perhaps, but not as important as pursuing his writing.

It was a roundabout sort of logic. It was a lazy and a somewhat childish sort of logic. It didn't exactly mesh. However, it was enough for Dawin to convince himself that sleeping in during the week of vacation, with the rain thudding against his roof and against his window, was a perfectly acceptable thing for him to do. All his holiday goals could easily be filled in the afternoon.

In other words: he was still mostly asleep and curled down into his blanket in his bedclothes when Angus knocked on the door, and it took several taps to jar him awake, blinking and confused.

Poor Angus would probably have to spend two or three minutes out in the rain before hearing the thudding of bare feet against the stairs and seeing the sudden wide circle of a yellow-gold iris through the peephole in the door. Another moment, breath held, before Dawin spoke, voice muted and mumbly through the wood. "...just, uh. Just hold on a minute, alright Angus?"

No way he was going to answer the door still in his nightclothes.

"Yes?" Angus replied, trying to peer back through the peep hole and see just why Dawin wasn't answering.

He was struck by the sudden thought that Dawin might be hiding someone in there. His grumpiness increased. He then remembered that it was more likely that Dawin needed to put on a shirt to answer the door or something else equally innocuous. Not everything in life could revolve around scandal.

Angus had never been paranoid before. He didn't like it at all. It was yet another new experience he felt he could have done without.

The rain felt very wet today. He was annoyed at it too. Usually it didn't feel quite so cloying. By the time Dawin was back at the door, Angus had begun to resemble a wet puppy, possibly one that had just been kicked. It was not a usual look to see on a young man but he managed it with a fair amount of aplomb.

Poor Angus. At least Dawin rushed -- enough that his shirt was still untucked and the wild curls of his hair a tossed mess, tumbling into his face and around his ears. No shoes, either, just stockings with one of the toes most of the way worn through and threatening to tear. He opened the door and blinked out at Angus for about three seconds before he hopped out of the way, embarrassed and a little ashamed, maybe.

"...sorry." His voice was still a little low, rough from sleep, and Dawin had to clear his throat before finishing. "Sorry. You're here early, hey!"

Not that it was a bad thing. He hopped back another step so Angus could come all the way in and out of the rain. "I can get you a towel..."

And lo, a gentle reminder of why Angus was an optimist. Dawin's hair was reason enough to get up in the morning, he decided. He had a nice morning voice, like wind through a tree hollow or sand underfoot. Gosh, men were wonderful. Especially academic ones and disshevelled ones. Angus had once been afraid that he'd wake up one day and not be attracted to them anymore.

Clock no.

"Yeah, sorry about that, didn't sleep well last night, woke up early anyway." Angus had stared at the ceiling for hours. "Thought maybe I could come here and hang about with you."

Dawin was thoughtful. Angus wasn't. He was hoping it might rub off and ease his burden. Angus felt like paper, tearing.

"A towel would be nice." He said belatedly, smiling a little, in a pale imitation of his usual expression.

That was a very long look out of Angus; Dawin fidgeted, sliding toward embarrassment. As Angus spoke, he shifted immediately, self-consciously, to pull himself together. Several quick motions kind of tucked his shirt in, in a crooked way, and then fingers were on the mop of curls to smooth them out of his eyes and twist them back into some semblance of order. The end result wasn't much better than when he'd come down, but at least he seemed to feel better about it.

"Any time. I'll just...grab one, and you can take off your shoes..." His gesture to Angus's feet was quick and serious, he offered a twitch of a smile himself and halfway ran off to fetch a towel. Pink, probably, as preferred by his mother, but Angus could deal with a pink towel, he thought.

Angus was slightly saddened by Dawin tucking in his shirt. Part of him wanted to untuck it again, just because he liked it better that way. He decided not to. It would have been a damn weird thing to do.

He wondered why Dawin wanted him to take off his shoes but he obliged anyway, leaving them by the door. He took off his coat as well, hanging it on a hook. He was a bit damp underneath the coat, some water had made it down his collar and onto his shoulders. He rubbed his arms to warm up. He wasn't as neatly dressed as usual. His clothes were neither high fashion nor galdori finery. He just had on a thick shirt and black slacks. He hadn't felt bothered enough to put in the effort.

He sniffled.

Dawin came back with not one but three towels hugged in against his chest. Two were, as expected, a shade of pale baby pink. The third, soft lavender, probably wasn't much better. For a long moment, Dawin just stared at Angus, clutching the towels and trying to decide what to do with himself -- but then it broke and he eased in to awkwardly drape the lilac towel around his shoulders and offer the rest into his arms.

"...sorry I made you wait. I really am. Do you need fresh socks? I have some fresh socks..." His expression still held a generous dose of worry, flustered and apologetic. "Might be a bit big, but they'd be dry."

Angus couldn't help but smile, already feeling comforted by the gesture, the towel warm and comforting on his shoulders. He'd never really met someone who was so nervous and so well meaning. It was endearing.

"Well, you know what they say about big..." Angus chuckled a little, remembering to tone it down a moment too soon. "Never mind. Socks would be nice."

Angus took the towels, draping one over his arm and using the other to roughly dry his hair. He took to it with all the delicacy of a dive tackle. It was the least sophisticated movement he could make. It was a boyish thing to do.

"Would you mind if we sat by the fire for a while? I had a bit of a bad evening yesterday, I feel like I need to be warm." Normally Angus would have just faked being happy but he had the feeling that Dawin would see through him.

It was a relief.

"You seemed...ah, yes, I'll get one going." Some other comment was on the tip of Dawin's tongue, his mouth tipped at one corner as he considered Angus. There was a long moment, lingering just a little, before Dawin remembered what he was supposed to do and disappeared through a doorway. Not toward his own room, this time, but in search of the maid, likely in the midst of laundry or cleaning or some other task Ava had set her to.

He might have been able to light a fire himself, given twenty minutes and a stack of dry timber. That seemed unlikely, in the moment, especially with an audience. He'd leave that to Miriam, and retreat upstairs to grab a pair of socks and, perhaps, an over-sized sweater. It meant Angus had to spend another very-long handful of minutes alone in the entrance way, but when Dawin hopped back down it was with warm socks and a warm living room with a fire crackling in the fireplace.

"Are you hungry? There might be some leftover pastries from the teahouse, in the kitchen, I could dig about..."

Angus was almost shivering by the time Dawin came back. He near threw himself toward the fire, longing for warmth above any sense of youthful cool. He pulled his socks off and draped them at the stone edge of the fireplace, to dry. He didn't immediately reach for the warm ones, he wanted to be dry first. He rubbed his feet with the last towel.

"Food would be good." He was ravenous. He hadn't been until Dawin mentioned it. "I didn't eat breakfast."

The food had felt dry and dense in his mouth. Nothing had tasted good, so he'd given up trying shortly.

"You like sweeter pastries or sal -- oh, you know, I'll just bring them all." He was already backing up toward the door after all, one of the dampest towels stolen from Angus's side. Dawin would dump it into the laundry before he disappeared into the kitchen.

Not much of a housekeeper, there was no elegant platter with carefully-assorted delights. Dawin came out with a bowl full of pastries, five or six of them piled in together and all the food touching, mixing. He didn't care, and it probably never occurred to him that someone else might. No napkins, either, though he did have another towel in hand and offered it to Angus as he dropped down to sit beside him.

Luckily for Dawin, Angus was also a teenage boy. For him, quality took a bit of a backseat to quantity. Actually, quite a significant backseat since quantity took up all the room. He grabbed the nearest pastry and chowed down. His eating habits at school were quite civilised, in front of his friend, they were less so.

"Anks, Daw." Angus said, munching. "Comeon, sit wi' me."

Angus didn't want to be alone.

"What did you do yesterday?"

Angus didn't want to think about what he'd been doing, either.

Dawin sat with a boneless lack of grace, comfortably collapsing down to sit beside Angus in front of the fire. There was a smile dancing across his mouth, taking some quiet satisfaction in the way that Angus inhaled the pastry; he'd done right, then, no worries that he'd screwed up here...

"Read some. Went out to dinner." He shrugged, pulling just a little face at this. Dinner hadn't, then, been with friends. Family, perhaps. He shook his head, reaching for a pastry himself. Something not raspberry. "Nothing special...how did your appointment go?"

Angus reached for another pastry, then decided not to take one. He pulled his hands back into his lap, drawing in on himself.

"I met someone that I really admire." Angus said, his voice less sure than usual. "And she had lived through truly awful things. I'd never even considered that life could be like that. I don't know what to do."

Angus hands were balled into fists, his field sang with his frustration.

"I'm supposed to stand up and help, we're supposed to take care of the world, we're galdori." He continued, slow and fast and slow again. "I don't know what to do."

Angus looked pale and unsure, not his usual self at all. It seemed to him that maybe Dawn would know. Dawin was smart. Angus was just friendly. He didn't know much about this.

Dawin was supposed to know? Dawin who did up his buttons the wrong way, half the time, and who spent more time all wrapped up in a fantasy world than in the real world? He was still gripping what was now half a pastry, chewing in an uncomfortable way and blinking at Angus in a very wide sort of way.

"...uh. Dunno." But that was lame, and not particularly helpful. He swallowed carefully, and inched just a hair closer to Angus, eyes twitching back and forth as he went digging for something helpful. "People are mean. My da says it's to make themselves feel better and to, ahm. To not let it worry you too much. Though, he's more talking about just the teasing and whatnot..."

This was rambling, wasn't it. He rubbed at his eyes and considered for another moment. "Just, when you're smart, or different, or...I don't know. People like to squash it. And push you back into place."

Angus nodded, though it was clear he was still uncomfortable and unsure.

"I guess I never really realised. I thought that if you tried hard enough, things would just go well." He looked into the fire for a moment, then away. "I want to challenge her husband to a duel but I'd lose..."

It occured to him that he knew someone who was very good at duelling and who could probably teach him.

"I hate duelling... but I'm not bad with Static... I could practice." He said, musing to himself.

He picked up another pastry and munched into it. It tasted good.

"Would you resort to fighting, if it was something important? I'm not sure it's right." He asked.

"M-me personally?" Dawin looked rather aghast at the idea; he shifted, pulling apart his own pastry and shooting a look toward the fire as it crackled and popped. After a moment, he forced a lopsided smile, cleared his throat. "Well, I mean, no. I'd get squashed. Wouldn't do anyone any good for me to end up in the infirmary..."

But he thought about it, really, trying to pick through bits of his father's 'wisdom' to pull together a proper answer. "But, maybe I could fight with what I'm good at. I'm not sure that makes sense...like, my ma, say. Who probably wouldn't pick a real fight but she's definitely started some rumors, you know? But that's a bit underhanded."

He was rambling, certainly, a sign of his discomfort, but at least he was trying. "Or my da, he might 'accidentally' lose someone's information and have them locked out of the convention...or me, I sometimes just...make new characters, and...I'm sorry, this is stupid."

Angus shook his head, still eating, taking bigger bites than necessary because he felt like it. It was as though his stomach was more interested in stocking up for the winter than in actual enjoyment. He swallowed, looking for a moment like a snake trying to push down something small into its gullet.

"Tell me more about your characters. Any of them based of someone I know?" He asked, smiling encouragingly and glad of the distraction.

That was a dangerous sort of question; it wasn't exactly a secret that Angus was friends, or at least familiar with, a lot of the characters Dawin exacted small revenges on through his stories. Talking about the true identity of the giant-nosed wicked prince Launith probably wouldn't win him too many points with this new friend, nor would comments about the fire-and-ice princess Rathya with her army of pedantic handmaidens. There were others, of course. Friends of his mother, a singing girl with a voice likely to break glass, a calculating teacher with a tendency to whip unruly students. It all seemed a bit....well, petty, out of context.

He went for something that made him seem less childish and hateful. "Ah. Well, you...you know Professor Moore?" It seemed like a safe one; Dawin offered a twitch of an uncomfortable smile, shrugging at Angus and not waiting for a reply. Of course he did. Professor Moore was a bit mad, after all, but in a fun way. "I have this one character, goes by Ache, who's a mad scientist, and sometimes gives David these very useful toys and inventions..."

Angus laughed a little. He didn't quite mind the thought of Moore as a mad scientist. It would probably mean the man wouldn't do up all the buttons on his shirt.

"I think that would quite suit him, it would be interesting to see him with his hair down, so to speak." Angus laughed again and looked into the fire, then at Dawin. "Damned if he isn't attractive though, if I were a few years older he'd be just my type."

Sparks of his usual personality began blooming on his face. His smile was half smirk and his eyes were crunching up with mirth.

"One of them, anyway." He said, content and smug.

Angus had a general appreciation for a great many things, including scholars, scientists, muscled arms, runners, writers and mugrobi. And more than that, besides! It was like there was a whole world out there of things he could be happy about. He felt relieved. There was no reason to abandon his hope for the world, he just had to think of how to change it into someplace he liked. Someplace without stopclockers like Lord Bruthgrave.

"Thank you, Dawin." Angus said.

"...yes? Better?" Dawin was left a bit stunned by the comment on Professor Moore's attraction: in all honesty, it wasn't something he'd ever seen. Perhaps because the man was a bit too much like his father, in some ways, scattered and intense, but virtually unintelligible, unless you were on his level of genius. And Dawin was not.

He had to clear his throat and rub at one cheek, where a touch of color was spreading again. Thinking about it made him vaguely uncomfortable, it was strange, and he didn't want to fight with it right now. "I mean, that helps?"

Angus nodded, again the very picture of youthful confidence, even if it was now clear to Dawin that wasn't always truthful. His smile and the slant of his shoulders were his armour. It took effort to keep them in good condition.

"It helps indeed, old boy." He said, sounding like a young man that wanted to sound like a gentleman. "I say, do you have any plans once school starts again? I should like to catch up again once we return home."

It was clear that he was switching now towards his comfort zone, a place full of grins and innuendo and talking about nothing much at all. It was a fairly fun place to be in, all things considered.

(EoT?)

((Sure...see you back at school. ))