Re: [jude & hannah: tea]
"It's not the same tale," she insisted, disagreeing without raising her voice or losing her smile. She was conviction in the upward tip of her lips, and there was certainty in the cornflower twinkle of her eyes. "Stories are all about getting there, Jude. They aren't about the destination at all, not really, because all stories end at the beginning of something new. In romances, it's always the same beginning at the end: Two people end up together, even after adversity and travails. The thing that's different is how they get to the end, so you're wrong." She smiled warmly. "I like you a lot, but you're wrong." She was certain, this girl who had never loved, and she poured herself a little more tea without splashing or sloshing. "But I'll let your friend off the hook. A book about a recluse that sells antiques in a mysterious shop is really very interesting on it's own, and I don't think it needs to be a romance at all."
She brightened when he said the bible would be buried beneath Jane Bennet, after talking of trees and jeans versus skirts. Her newly filled cup was tipped to her lips, and she drank down the tea with a relatively dainty smack of lips after. "I think Jane would bore the bible to bits, which is precisely what the bible deserves," she decided. "But I'm not very revolutionary. It's nice to think about revolutions, but I think they might be a little bit disappointing in practice. I have a feeling it takes years and years for anything to change even a little bit." She knew that firsthand, not that she said that here. It was better to talk about the very unlikable St. John Rivers. "I think St. John Rivers seemed very judgmental and 'better than thou,'" she continued. "I bet he locks women in attics when they don't obey him."
She was being deliberately inflammatory now, and her playful grin was trouble in fields of blue flowers. She pushed her once-again empty cup toward him. "I would like a little more, yes, please. But, more than that, I'd like it if you told a story this time. Something about time maybe. Tick-tock-tick," she reminded fondly.