Of tea and books, des marmottes et des faucons Dorian blinked, coming to at the sound of his mother letting herself in and placing a teatray on the bedside table.
“Zǎoshang hǎo, wǒ de xiǎo Dodo,” his mother smiled, greeting him as she did every morning. Good morning, my little Dodo. She stooped over and kissed him on the top of the head. “Shuì dé hǎo ma?” Did you sleep well.
“Shìde. Xièxiè, Mama,” he mumbled his assent and his thanks sleepily, reaching an arm out from under the covers to give her a hug. Of his languages, Mandarin probably got the least exercise, but there were times when he was so used to speaking it that it didn’t even need thought. It was his mother who brought him tea every morning, and even though he still felt half asleep, he could happily mumble away to her. He realised he associated early mornings with the language for this reason, and that had probably been half the reason why waking up in a strange place had been so very strange all of last year… It had been in the wrong language. As she pulled open her son’s curtains, his mother was now chatting about Jehan, about how she’d forgotten to ask if he liked tea in the mornings, and whether she should take him some. Dorian decided that the simplest solution was she bring him an extra cup. He could go and wake Jehan. He was keen not to waste a second of his friend’s visit that he could be spending time with him. It also had the added benefit that Jehan could be woken up without being called a stick insect, or having his cheeks pinched, or answering whether he liked tea - did he really, was he sure, because it was ok if he didn’t, she had just thought that he might, but he didn’t have to drink it if he didn’t want to, and she could get him something else if he preferred - and all the other things his mother might subject him to.
Dorian pulled a lightweight blue silk dressing gown over his cream pyjamas and shuffled his feet into lightweight slippers, collecting the extra cup from his mother as she came back up the stairs, and making his way along to Jehan’s room. He knocked on the door, letting himself in when he thought he heard a mumble of speech from within. A year at boarding school had reduced the extent to which he regarded being in bed and waking up as something with any degree of real privacy attached to it, and it was Jehan, and he couldn’t see Jehan minding him being around under any circumstances.
“Good morning,” he smiled. “I bring tea. It is morning tea,” he explained, to differentiate it from the jasmine tea that had been offered the previous day. This one was black and slightly smoky. All of their guest rooms had double beds, with a nightstand on either side, which meant that there was one side free regardless of whatever personal possessions Jehan had out. Dorian slid the tray with its small ceramic teapot and straight sided, handleless teacups onto the free table. He took a seat on the free side of the bed, pulling the spare pillow onto its short end so that he could lean back comfortably. He poured two small cups of tea, leaving them to steam away on the bedside table.
“Do you sleep well, petit marmotte?” he asked. “Petit faucon,” he corrected, more to himself. He wasn’t necessarily expecting Jehan to follow given the rather specific vocabulary and the early hour. He’d called him a marmotte because it was what you called a drowsy person, and Jehan’s head with its messy morning curls was sticking out of the blankets just like a marmotte did from its burrow. But then, remembering its associations with his own Sonora house, he had corrected himself. But for the whims of the sorting potion, he thought they might have both been marmottes (Jehan was sweet enough) or both been faucons (he thought he was definitely curious enough). Thinking of which... He leant across Jehan, plucking his friend’s book from the nightstand on his side.