Cuthbert Allgood (cuthbertallgood) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2013-09-13 21:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, !open, ~~!35 points, ~~cuthbert allgood (cuthbertallgood), ~~valen (magnusvalentia) |
Who: Cuthbert and OPEN
What: To be decided! Talk, shopping, lunch - or open to plotting. :)
Where: In town, the shops by the library
When: Midday
Warnings: None
For Cuthbert, there was comfort in the familiarity of a routine. If a man knew what he was to do, he could concentrate on doing it well, wasn't that right? And if Cuthbert could concentrate on anything at all he could try to forget about everything that was wrong here, the strangeness and the witchcraft and the barrier keeping them in, which were all now linked in his mind, however nebulously. He could forget and stop wishing that he still had that little picture of his mother to look on.
You're not a little lad of six now, Bert, to be homesick, and besides that picture was all cut to pieces by enemies of a different sort. He was leaving the library now. It was his second stop, of a morning. First was always the clearing for Cesare's lesson. Not quite at Prime any longer, Cuthbert had rightly decided that daybreak was soon enough: shooting in the dark at this point would only complicate matters, and the days were shortening. But first was the lesson. Second was the library, where he looked at maps and tried to read on the topics for his own studies.
He was a slow reader. It was still alike to reading in code, although he was better at it now that he had been. The library did have a section with simpler books, but they were for small children and didn't suit his purposes. He struggled through sections of the heavier tomes, readings on history and textbooks on mathematics. And poetry. There was a teacher at the church who thought on poetry as Vannay did on riddles, that it enriched the mind. The first poetry he'd been set to read was dreadful, incomprehensible drivel that didn't even properly scan. He'd complained of it, and the second lot was better. Longer, to be sure, but understandable, as poetry ought to be. Some of it even worth reading, and the length didn't matter as he wasn't told to learn it for recitation as might have been the case at home.
It was done for the day now, though. He'd finished his readings and taken notes to ask the teachers at the church about later - note-taking he did in his own script, in the High Speech, and so it was no trouble. Cuthbert stood outside the library. There was something of a chill in the air, but the sun was bright. He leant against the railing a moment, watching as others went by, and then tugged a little at the hem of his waistcoat - he was convinced that none of the clothes he had bought here fit correctly. They hadn't taken his measurements in the stores, after all, just offered pre-made garments. Another curiosity. At least he'd managed to find clothing that didn't look outlandish, even if it made the modern folk compare him to a cowboy. It was fair confusing: gunslingers weren't cowboys and what did these folk know of either anyway?
The only way to get by was to ignore it, he reckoned. Cuthbert began to make his way down the steps from the library, towards the walkway by the road that led to the stores. What would he decide on for his midday meal this time?