"This is what I propose..."
     He has dressed the part of the Academician: gabardine trousers, button-down shirt and a vest to match. He has made tea, realizing of course that he is not English, and that it is a very English thing to do, but it goes with the discourse. There are treats from the market purchased on the sly yesterday evening on the way home from a meeting, those more perfectly French, and specifically Poitevin, with raspberry and other fruit pastry-cookies.
     Alire d'Avignon was up before the sun fully set, the sky still lightly golden, the gold blueing into sunset and the arrival of evening. A thrill, a very palpable thrill moves through him, it hovers on the air around him as that... feeling around him that never seems to go away, that ...for lack of a better term... princely bearing, being that it is what he is now, a prince. The term that fits him best is Philosopher King, and given a task of great philosophical and scientific significance, he is practically beaming.
     "I have a small villa in Provence, it is on the tip of Cavalaire-s-mer, private beach. It is a very old villa, it has not be lived in now in a few years, since I have had to spend so much time in Poitiers and not in my Provence," he is Provencal by way of Switzerland. Alire sits next to you upon the sofa in the living room-library-study, the sofa where you kissed for the first time (in this lifetime), and he looks to you, excitement in his eyes though his smile, his face, is always so much more reserved. He is glowing, practically and actually. "It would be, one, a nice place for you and I to get away, and... two, the perfect locale for experimentation. My gardens are there, my special roses that I developed, my figs, and space upon the beach, with the water there, quiet in the home, for you and I to begin the process of cataloging ..." He smiles and leans in, "...well...you..."

     "Cataloging me?" Giancarlo asks, never too sure when you move into conversations like these. He's never talked of his art, his ability. Not that he felt he shouldn't or couldn't, but because -- who cared? Granted, when he left his family home, he made some friends of the magical sort -- Paolo being one of the first. A strange thing, that day, to discover there was another magician in the world, that they weren't all dead, written about in old tomes and leaving their works for others to ponder. For him, those texts were a manual. A written hope to understand what he was. But that was ages ago. Paolo became two, then four. A handful who lived in the light and dark of Venice.
     And then Nathaniel showed up.
     But that is for another day. Suffice to say, there were no great magical salons for Giancarlo. No lengthy conversations on the nature of magic and his place in the world. There were just books, and a knowledge that he was perhaps not so unique. That's sufficed.
     "You are too delighted about this," Giancarlo says, frowning and smiling at the same time. "I do not think there will be so much to see, bello. I am nothing special or complex here."

     He looks at you as though he were peering over a professor's glasses, then smiles. "It appeals to the Scientist in me, however poor or mechanical, to be able to help you by sorting things out into groups, categorizing and being able to help you find a way that works for you, yes? Some better understanding. For I think that you think it is.... as they say... no big deal," sudden English there before the rest turns to Italian, as it always does with you, "...but we already know about the teleportation and the past life into the future and finding me again. I do not consider these parlor tricks of the local... how do you say it? Street performer? These are not tricks, tesoro, but abilities."
     Alire pauses to give the tea its due, a sip and he breathes it in for a moment more. He has always delighted in tea and coffee. Anything remotely herbal or aromatic. "I do not mean for it to sound like you are a lab rat," he teases a little, at himself mostly. "I suppose I am a little excited, but it has been a long time, tesoro, since I have been able to help someone and do... something... truly intellectual and worthy. I find my current position requires more of my fortitude than my brain some nights, but I should be fair to Poitiers. If I could not think, I would not be where I am. Still," an internal discourse now made audible by your presence in the world, "... to be able to help you, it is all I want to do. And," another sip of tea, "I will be able to show you what I did for all those centuries when I was waiting for you," he smiles. "The hidden gardens of the cavalier."

     The notion of waiting for him brings a smile unfettered by skepticism. "You were waiting for me?" Giancarlo asks, quirking a little. His chin lifts in a familiar aristocratic consideration as he thinks a moment. Can that be true? Is that what this has meant? But then, Giancarlo blushes, having to surmise that perhaps, yes, it is true.
     "I will put my faith in you," Giancarlo says, recalling another time. "As I...well...it is clear that I am not so good at...well, knowing what is going on around me," he laughs. Truth from two lives.

     "That is why we are mated across lifetimes, yes?" Alire smiles. "I am the bookish one paying attention to all of the details. You are the one who actually gets things done. It is a good partnership," he murmurs, and there is no teasing in that. Alire looks into his cup a moment, giving his own blush the quiet space to blossom and fade naturally (or seemingly naturally).
     "Yes," Alire says, lifting his attention from his tea (which isn't that interesting) and back to you where it belongs, "...and you will see how...I spent my time. That place... has more of me in it than any other place in the world, no matter how far I have traveled. Not even Switzerland, the land of my family, holds more knowledge of me than that unnamed villa in the Cavaliare-s'Mer. Anything you ... ever wanted to know about me, however simple a man I am," Alire smiles a little, "...you will see there. I am ... looking forward to showing you."
     He is quiet as emotion moves over him. He has never had a visitor to the unnamed villa. "You will be the first to see it," he notes softly, setting the cup aside. "It is a simple villa, not large, mostly open air but for the main rooms. It is... mostly gardens and libraries," Alire suddenly grins, and colors appropriately.

     "I like gardens and libraries," Giancarlo reassures, moving to sit beside you. "And I cannot wait to know how you have spent your life, bello Alire. A look inside...deeper than I have seen these last years with you. I could not have imagined that there would be more," and he exhales, looking down, "...but I know there is so much more that...I know. Well," he quirks, "...will know...about you."
     "If you have such a lovely villa, bello...why would we need the place in Switzerland?" The one that's been proposed.

     "We do not need to have it," Alire says, smiling a little, "... but the villa needs a lot of work done on it. I do not know, it may be cheaper to buy something else and let the villa go as it goes, a home to plants and books. Well, I would rescue the books. My private journals. You... are welcome to read though whatever you like. You...can go there any time you like," the smile grows. Literally, yes? "But it is not a place for cows and geese. For that, we will have to find something more like Lucerne," and now he grins. "If you like gardens and libraries, then you will like the villa. I will have to let you name it." Maybe I should save it.
     "We can do both. I have..." he clears his throat, "...I have never really spent money on myself," Alire softly admits. "I have... well, it is more than a sum enough to keep us both happy. We have nothing to worry for where that is needed. If you wish a place in Switzerland, I can make it happen." He does not think about it. He leans forward and kisses you. "We will see the villa... maybe you will like it and we can just... make it our first project together," he smiles again.

     A first project. "D'Avignon...it sounds almost as if..." Giancarlo says, "...there is...a future...for us?"

     "There is a future," Alire notes, "...because you are here to be in it with me." He does not say: of course there is a future. His insistence is deeper. "I will schedule my absence with my ... business partners. It is close to the time when I need to visit the Lady Beneath the Chain, so it is a time of year they can expect not to see me as much. They are used to my routines..." The time of year that coincides with the anniversaries of such misfortune and outrage, and his other duties to the Path of God.
     He takes your hands, he looks at them, his hands rubbing them for a moment, and then he lifts them to his mouth, closing his eyes for the kiss. "We will stay as long as it takes, as long as we need to." He exhales, "I am ... so thrilled, so... relieved," Alire counters softly, "...that you will be there with me, to see it...I have... wanted you there with me for so long..."
     Emotion again moves through him. You can feel it in the second kiss upon your hands, the grasp of his fingers. That intensity he gets. Intensely tender. "Oh, tesoro... we have a future," he leans back, his hands still holding your hands as he gives his body to the sofa to bear. "We do... indeed..."

     "We do," Giancarlo says softly, nodding as he leans back as well, looking at the joined hands. "I still cannot believe it, bello. I cannot understand, at some level."
     "All I focus on now...is what will happen for us. All the things we can do now." That weren't possible before. Giancarlo sighs and looks ahead, drifting as he sinks into the sofa as well.
     "We are getting comfortable," he smirks, turning his nose to yours. "You had a plan before I sidetracked us, si bello?"

     "I have to check my schedule. I should get a secretary," he smirks, "...but a few more minutes, tesoro," comes the conspiratorial whisper, "...a few more moments of peace and only you here to fill it with me." His hand comes to your face, his mouth brushes your mouth. It is simple. It is reeling. It is crammed with emotion and with longing. Who knew that beneath the bookish mantle of such a cleric as this that there was such a romantic heart?
     You did...
     Perhaps only you did...
     "We deserve a little comfort," the philosopher king intones, and he grins, parting from the kiss to look at you for a while. To sit with you, quietly, for a while. "We deserve our dreams and our villa. A place... for us. And we are going to have it. We will make it... a place for us. We will be able to wade in the ocean, naked on our own beach," he blushes pure crimson for that, but grins nonetheless. "No one around us. Just you and me and a few good books. It will be... paradise on earth..."

     The smile on Giancarlo's face grows. He sits back again, momentarily putting aside thoughts of cataloging. "Dreams," Giancarlo whispers, closing his eyes. A far sight better than thoughts of nothing...or nightmares.

Posted by rowan at August 14, 2004 03:23 PM