Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

[stars_and_money]

There was the bonfire for everyone who thought Maryland in January was a little too cool for their taste, as well as the moddable warm food and drinks, and chairs and tables in the school colors of blue and gold. Some tables were also set a little further away from the crowds.

Because there were always people who preferred the fringes.

[OCD up! This is the FIRST post for general mingling. Please use this post first, if your browser can handle the comment load. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here and there's more room for mingling here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[holy-daughter.livejournal.com]

Lucrezia stilled at the sight of ... a face. A very familiar face. Heartbreakingly familiar. She had known that face. She had kissed that face ...

Images flashed through her mind, unbidden. Their Eden, under a tree; Narcissus, in the clear waters of the spring. Soft hands teaching her sweetness ...

His body, lying on the ground, cold and still and dead.

It couldn't be. But time was strange here. It could be. It wasn't. He was dressed so fancy, not like the stable boy he had once been. And yet --

"... Paolo?" she asked. Her voice was faint enough to be a whisper. Or a prayer.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[rings-of-grace.livejournal.com]

"Sorry?"

It was hard to miss that the girl was speaking to him, and that her tide of emotions was meant for him -- but Po had no idea what to do with it.

"...are you speaking to me?" Maybe she was mistaken.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[holy-daughter.livejournal.com]

She flinched. He couldn't be Paolo; Paolo was dead. Had she not seen Paolo laid to rest, on a dark night in Rome? And here she was, staring at a stranger who had borrowed his face. His eyes ... she would swear they were the same. Even his voice seemed to be Paolo's own.

"I ... I'm sorry," she managed, pulling herself together with some shred of dignity. "You -- you can't be. You aren't, then. But you --"

One hand had raised itself, slowly, hoping to press against his cheek; she caught herself and stilled it, inches away from touching him.

One couldn't caress the face of a stranger, she chided herself.

(Stranger? He had fathered her child. But that was Paolo. And this ...)

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[rings-of-grace.livejournal.com]

The name, Paolo, echoed around in his brain with her grief, and Po searched this girl's face for any sense of recognition that might help him with her identity. "I'm not your Paolo, my lady," he said, as gently as he could, as he reached up to take her hand. She seemed like one who might need a soft touch or two, at the moment. "I almost wish that I were, for your sake."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[holy-daughter.livejournal.com]

Lucrezia tried not to shiver as he said my lady. He didn't know, couldn't know, how she had cajoled Paolo into calling her Lucrezia, only for him to insist upon my lady.

She curled her fingers around his, as she drew a deep breath.

"Do not wish that," she said. "His life was hard, and it ended too soon. I pray you meet no such fate. It was only ... that you seem to have his face."

She was trying, with some difficulty, not to think of how his hands felt much the same, or to wonder about the skin under this boy's shirt.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2013]

[rings-of-grace.livejournal.com]

"Are you certain?" Po asked, mildly surprised. "I've never been mistaken for another before." He drew his hand back -- still gentle -- and adjusted his rings. "But I promise, I'm fully alive, and I'm terribly sorry about this Paolo of yours. My name is Po, which is a bit close, for me."