(no subject)

[tragic_mask]

Arriving at the Visitor's Center, Melpomene takes a look around.

"Well, this is it. In all its touristic glory. "

Comments

[tragic_mask]

"So I understand," she says.

[mechanicalswans]

"If you don't want to work in the forge after all, I would understand. But I hope you'll at least watch me work, sometime."

[tragic_mask]

"No, I do," she says. "Still, I doubt it will have the same rhythm."

While she won't admit it, it seems clear Melpomene is ashamed to do anything she can't do well.

[mechanicalswans]

"If you're worried about rhythm, it sometimes helps to sing while working," he says. "I do it, myself. Not always, but when the mood strikes."

[tragic_mask]

"Mm, could be worth a try," she says. "Mix things I know how to do with things I don't."

[mechanicalswans]

"You seem to be a very quick learner," he says, "and I'm a very good teacher. We'll do fine."

[tragic_mask]

"I think so, too." She smiles. "Can I bum a cigarette off you? All this talk of forges is making me crave fire."

[mechanicalswans]

"Oh, of course," he says, lighting one and offering it over. "Now you know why I smoke, and why I'll never be able to quit."

[tragic_mask]

"Of course," she says, inhaling, then exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Sadly, my reasons are not so poetic."

[mechanicalswans]

"No?" he asks. "Why do you do it, then?"

[tragic_mask]

"For something to do with my hands," she says, lightly.

[mechanicalswans]

"It's very good, for that," he agrees.

[tragic_mask]

"Admittedly, I also do it partially so that when people say 'that stuff is killing you, you know,' I can just sneer at them."

[mechanicalswans]

"I've tried explaining to them that even if I were able to be killed that way, this particular kind of cigarette would not do it, but they never believe," he says.

[tragic_mask]

"Really? What's so special about these?" She inspects hers.

[mechanicalswans]

"I have a... a friend, who makes them," he says. "Without all the chemicals that the companies put in, but with a few other ingredients that are secret."

[tragic_mask]

"Oooh," she says, intrigued. "Sounds like he should be drawing in the cash. Everyone loves a good cancer-free shot of nicotine."

[mechanicalswans]

"I pay him well," he nods. "Extremely well. I also smoke a lot, as you have seen."

[tragic_mask]

She takes a drag.

"Luckily for me."

[mechanicalswans]

"And for me."

He smiles. "I used to have a pipe. It's much less portable."

[tragic_mask]

"And turns you into a portly middle-aged man-- the sort you might be, if you were the vacationing lovebird you pretend to be, and not yourself.

"No," she says contemplatively, "It has to be the cigarettes."

[mechanicalswans]

"I thought I was angular and scholarly, myself," he says, amused. "With unruly hair, and... leather patches on the elbows of my jackets, you know."

[tragic_mask]

She pictures it.

"In college, no doubt. Being the intellectual giant you were, of course, quibbling over the translation of Faust. But... later, you clearly let yourself go, and sat by the fire every evening smoking a pipe and reading the news."

The image is a little dated, perhaps. But it's the one she has.

[mechanicalswans]

"I was a coffeehouse intellectual, of course," he says, "more fond of proclaiming and expounding than attending classes. It's certainly not my fault if metabolism at forty isn't what it was at twenty..."

[tragic_mask]

She stops in the middle of the street to look him up and down.

"Yeah, sure it isn't," she says-- with a straight face-- then marches onward.