"What did you do on your birthday?" "Got older."

[hermia-sophia.livejournal.com]

Evening of Thursday, September 10, Day 102
Garden behind the Whitechapel Inn

My twenty-third birthday.

Dear Valmont, he is trying so very hard to make this a happy day for me! Waking with a kiss (even though I could hardly sleep last night), flowers on the breakfast table. And telling me that I should take the day off to luxuriate, which was wonderfully tempting, but I had to go back to the library. I did not want to feel that I was being kept away, for if I were, then Lysander would be winning. And I had to make sure that the library would still feel tranquil to me after yesterday - I don't want to lose that peaceful place I have found there.

When I walked in and saw the chaos that Lydia had made, I laughed until I cried. Or possibly the reverse - it was rather hard to tell at the time. And then we straightened the books up, and when I was done, I turned around to find a little book of poetry that had not been there before on the front desk, tied with a bow, and my smile came back.

And then Valmont came to walk me home, and we have kept happily busy and distracted with setting up the party. Through some unspoken pact, we have not mentioned Lysander all day. The thought of what happened yesterday still makes me feel as if I am falling...but I will not fall,and I will not let it ruin today, for today is about my new life and all of the people who belong to it. Valmont. My new friends. And...well, some of those coming are 'people' only in a rather loose sense of the term. But I would not want to risk bringing ill fortune down on myself by not inviting my people's gods! And there's Chester as well, who I suppose doesn't exactly count as a person either. Ah, Excolo guest lists. There's something comforting in that very oddness, though. People, creatures, gods - they are all part of Excolo and my new life. My new year.

The lanterns dance in the trees; the light of the setting sun glints off of the wine bottles and glasses, and I wait in the garden, feeling a little bit of peace. Let today be free of unhappiness, please! Let me be safe in the garden on my own day...

[Open to party guests]

Comments

[valmont-vicomte.livejournal.com]

I help Hermia cut the cake, and then Luke and Boku approach. Poor Luke, he seems to not know what to say. He tries hard, though, and that makes me like him more. And Boku seems very polite, as he did at Miao's party. He even brought a gift, which was kind. Hermia opens the book, graceful Japanese letters on one side and English on the other. Miao comes over to Hermia's other side. I read one of the poems softly.

"Though I go to you
ceaselessly along dream paths,
the sum of those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
granted in the waking world. "

I smile a little at the aching sweetness of that.

"What a lovely book, Boku," I say, as I sit down next to Hermia and put my arm across her shoulder.

[hermia-sophia.livejournal.com]

"How lovely that is! "

Quiet words, and a gentle light touch on my arm - it's Miao. I can give her something very close to a real smile now, grateful for her closeness and quiet presence. I should speak to her later - if anyone will understand about complicated situations with men, it would be her! But not now, please, let me not have to think about it all right now!

I move aside so that Miao can see, and so that there is a clearer path to the chairs on the other side of me, if she needs to sit down again.

"Do you read Japanese, Hermia?

"Not a bit." I shake my head apologetically, glancing back up at Boku. "I'm sorry. I hope it won't seem...ignorant, or naive, if I just look on this side as art, for now?" I run my finger down another column of the Japanese. "The words have beautiful shapes..."

My breath catches in my throat at the sound of Valmont reading out the poem from the English side. Dreaming and waking, a lover who can only see the beloved in dreams...I close my eyes for a moment, and lean into Valmont as his arm goes around my shoulder.

"What a lovely book, Boku."

"It is," I say, perhaps a little too quickly in my rush to get away from the poem's thoughts of separation. "Thank you. I - I've barely met you, and you've given me such a beautiful present. I'm very grateful. What is that poem in the original?"

[bakeneko-excolo.livejournal.com]

I smile at the courtesan as she joins us. The kitten seems a bit sleepy after all its play and I hand it back to Hermia with a slight bow of thanks. I am impressed with Valmont's reading of the translation of Ono no Komachi's poem, it could be helped by the caring I see as he looks at Hermia.

"I'm sorry. I hope it won't seem...ignorant, or naive, if I just look on this side as art, for now?" I shake my head quickly, "Oh no, it was not an attempt to tutor you, Hermia-san. Merely to share, Lydia mentioned you enjoyed poetry." Well, she presented the book out from a packed box with a note of strong suggestion.

"What is that poem in the original?" I bow slightly once more at her thanks, I am not going to tell her that the cat has enjoyed her kindness many times. I close my eyes as I try and remember the poem, opening them I find them drawn to Luke.

"yumeji ni wa
ashi mo yasumezu
kayoedomo
utsutsu ni hitome
mishigoto wa arazu"

[a-cheval.livejournal.com]

Shake my head when Miss Hermia apologises, cause she don't need to. Whatever else, it weren't her that turned up upsetting folks, and even if that bloke did just come to give her a present, ain't like he couldn't see he weren't welcome.

Boku gives Miss Hermia his present, which is real sweet of him cause I don't reckon they know each other well even with him working in the library. Valmont reads one too, and it ain't like none of the poetry I've heard, it's sorta short and simple and not simply all at once, and maybe sorta sad and happy at the same time, and I'm sorta thinking I'd like to hear it in Japanese. Only he looks at me, then, when he's saying it.

Just look back at him, and I don't blush or nothing even, but I'm thinking how maybe I give him a glimpse the other night when I kissed him, maybe that's what that was, like in the poem, and maybe it's made things sorta different, only I don't know how. But mostly I just like hearing him say it cause its sounds real nice and he says it real well. Just smile at him when he's done, cause hell, I dunno 'bout that stuff. Just smile at him till I feel sorta warm and I have to look down again. Leave the talking to them other folks.

[lei-miao-shan.livejournal.com]

"Not a bit." Hermia says in soft reply to my question, "I'm sorry. I hope it won't seem...ignorant, or naive, if I just look on this side as art, for now? The words have beautiful shapes..."

"I do so love calligraphy," I sigh. I still practice it when I can, on scraps of paper in my room. Hermia asks Boku to recite the poem in Japanese, and he does so, the soft words like music in the evening air. It makes me sigh...in some ways so similar to my native tongue, but softer, more musical, without the harsh tones that Mandarin sometimes has. I often wished that I had leaned Japanese...there was enough trade from Japan through Shanghai that I perhaps could have, but I never seemed to have the time. Perhaps Boku could teach me sometime? Perhaps he and Luke and I could all learn our respective tongues together.

Luke watches Boku as he recites, and he flushes, glancing away. Oh, sweet Luke. I cannot help touching his arm and smiling at him. But in the back of my mind there is a soft prickle of worry...where is Ares? Did Luke break off relations with him, and if so, was he angry? But surely Luke would be upset if that was the case, and I see no signs of that. Or am I mistaking innocent boyish affection for something more?

Tchah, that is possible. And I will say nothing to Luke. It is his business and Boku's, not mine. Instead I say, "You recite beautifully, Boku. Who was the author of that piece?"

[bakeneko-excolo.livejournal.com]

It is likely I should look down when I notice Luke gazing back at me. Instead we meet eyes during the poem and for a small time after I stop speaking. I am sure my feelings are all too present on my face. Yet it is he that the courtesan touches lightly.

"You recite beautifully, Boku. Who was the author of that piece?" I stand to join both of them and bow at the compliment. "Arigato gozaimasu, the author was Ono no Komachi. She is quite famous, a waka poet from the Heian period. She wrote many poems on love and solitude."

Returning my eyes to Luke's, I find myself asking, "What did you think of it, Luke-kun?"

[a-cheval.livejournal.com]

Miss Miao comes over to listen too, and when Boku's finished she touches my arm and smiles and for a moment I feel sorta proud, and I start to smile, but bloody hell I dunno where that came from, so I duck my head the next minute. Well. I mean, he did say it real nice. Swallow and nod in agreement. "Arigato gozaimasu, the author was Ono no Komachi. She is quite famous, a waka poet from the Heian period. She wrote many poems on love and solitude."

Ono no Komachi. Reckon I'll remember that, look her up in the library some time or something, maybe. I sorta like how all the names mean something in Japanese, or they sound like they do, anyway. Maybe I'll ask him. Only before I can he's looking at me again in that way of his and I only just noticed how he can do that. Ain't bloody fair, is what it is. "What did you think of it, Luke-kun?"

"I- I, um, I reckon-" Oh, hell. "Um. Reckon it makes a lot of sense." Nod again. "Seems sorta sad at first, but then it ain't, if you look at it from another way. I dunno, I don't know nothing about poems, really. But that's what I reckon. Like you can take it how you please, really. Only I took it- um, I took it as real nice."

[hermia-sophia.livejournal.com]

The words are beautiful, a pattern of sound just as the calligraphy forms a pattern of lines on the page.

I look up and...oh my, Boku and Luke are exchanging terribly shy smiles, and blushing and glancing away, and I cannot help smiling myself. I catch a bit of the same look on Miao's face as the one that must be on my own, but I look quickly down. Is that affection really in their eyes, or am I just seeing what I hope there to be? Or just looking for something that can be a happy beginning tonight?

"Arigato gozaimasu, the author was Ono no Komachi. She is quite famous, a waka poet from the Heian period. She wrote many poems on love and solitude."

"A woman poet?" And that brings a different sort of smile to my face. I've read dozens, if not hundreds, of poems by women, but somehow knowing that this one is in a woman's voice makes me happy.

"What did you think of it, Luke-kun?"

No, I do not think that I am imagining that tone in Boku's voice when he speaks to Luke...

"I- I, um, I reckon- Um. Reckon it makes a lot of sense. Seems sorta sad at first, but then it ain't, if you look at it from another way. I dunno, I don't know nothing about poems, really. But that's what I reckon. Like you can take it how you please, really. Only I took it- um, I took it as real nice."

"You don't need to have studied poetry to understand it," I say softly, "or to feel the impression that it's trying to make on you. And this one...no, it isn't entirely sad, for it doesn't say that those happier waking moments don't exist. There's hope in it, I think."

[valmont-vicomte.livejournal.com]

I listen with interest to Boku's description of the poet.

"Thank you, Boku," I say. "I'm afraid I know almost nothing about Japanese literature. Or Japan, as a matter of fact. If you are a lover of poetry, you should stop by some day for a coffee and a chat. Hermia and I both enjoy reading verse," I say, and I smile. "Perhaps we should even have a little Excolo reading group? I am sure there are other poetry fans. Perhaps you would be interested, Miao, Luke?" I smile. I have noticed how Boku looks at Luke, and I think Luke is looking at him with some affection. Interesting. I wonder what Ares makes of this friendship?

"And this one...no, it isn't entirely sad, for it doesn't say that those happier waking moments don't exist. There's hope in it, I think."

"There's always hope," I say, kissing Hermia's temple. I look across the garden and see Lucien and Wanda making ready to leave, and Mab and Chester heading to the refreshments table. The evening has begun to wind down, I think, but for now I am happy to sit with my darling and talk poetry and eat cake, and for the time being forget what awaits us. This is our waking world, after all, and I would more than glimpse it if I can.

[lei-miao-shan.livejournal.com]

Oh, look at Luke and Boku gazing at each other. I do not think that I am wrong about them, not at all. I am happy for them...but the thought of Ares does concern me. But for now I will be happy for them. "It is a beautiful poem. Some time I shall show you one of my books of Chinese poetry...we also have some wonderful poets..."

"You don't need to have studied poetry to understand it, or to feel the impression that it's trying to make on you. And this one...no, it isn't entirely sad, for it doesn't say that those happier waking moments don't exist. There's hope in it, I think." Hermia says, smiling.

"There's always hope," Valmont says, kissing her.

And I agree. The poem is sad, but that she can see her love in reality makes me also believe that there is hope, and that she knows it too. A beautiful piece.

Looking around, I see that people are beginning to depart. And with a smile, I rise to my feet and take up my cane. "I believe I shall take my leave for the evening....Hermia, Valmont, thank you so much for inviting me. It was a lovely party." Save for that one ugly interruption. "Thank you so much for inviting me."