ąųdįţǫŗę (mentori) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-01-23 19:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, clary fray, ezio auditore da firenze |
Who: Clary Fray and Ezio Auditore
What: Someone's the star pupil
When: Mid-January, after class
Where: UCI
Rating/Warnings: Low!
Status: Complete
Clary loved Professor Auditore’s class, she’d only been to two of them this semester and he was already her favourite teacher. She came out of his lessons feeling more confident about her work, like she could look back on past artists and not be afraid to try the same techniques, not be judged for experimenting. She smiled to herself as she quickly packed away her pens and notebooks then headed up to the front of the classroom. “Professor Auditore? I just wanted to say thank you for your lessons, they’re great and I’m so glad you decided to come teach at UCI,” she told him. Now, what was this? Dolce - the girl was sweet to say, and as Ezio was packing his belongings into his messenger bag to head back to his office (he did have some essays to grade, and as fluent in English as he was sometimes he got a headache trying to do too much reading at once, it was an odd language, wasn’t it?), he glanced up with a smile. “Grazie, Clary,” he told her, accent curling around the words. He knew the names of all of his students - it was a large school, much larger than the undergraduate university in Rome he had attended, but he thought personalized attention was important. “I try to not make it so boring.” Personally, he never understood how anyone could think Art History was dry, but he knew the subject could be considered as such to some - so he livened it up as best he could. It helped that he was passionate about the subject also. “And speak well enough - not to lapse into Italian, that is to say,” he added, chuckling. “You are an artist yourself?” “Well if you do it adds a bit more culture to the lesson in my opinion,” Clary smiled in reply, she’d never had a teacher who could switch between languages so swiftly before. The whole thing amazed her and it was a skill she wished she had sometimes, maybe she could invent a rune for it in the future. “I am. I like to experiment and use different types of mediums, but I almost always come back to sketching,” she shrugged when she finished. “Chalk’s fun too, but messy I find,” she grinned. “So are you enjoying it here? Settling in ok?” “Ah, yes, culture is important,” Ezio concurred, and he was glad that someone else seemed to agree. Everywhere, the environment, it was all filled with artifacts - paintings, sculptures, buildings - to help understand and learn from the past. It was vital that humanity do this, not only for the lessons learned but to be better at interpreting facts and information now. “The messier the better, when it comes to art,” he winked. As for him, he preferred just to study the works of others though sometimes he sketched too. Not very well. He considered a moment, thinking about how he was settling in. Overall, he liked it in Orange County. It had been a good decision to move. “I do enjoy it here,” he nodded. “My family is very far - is the first time we have been so separated, you see. My mother, sister, niece. But we talk often. So it is not too bad.” Technology was a wonderful thing, keeping them all connected. “That must hard though. I can’t imagine being so far from my mom. I think me moving out but in the same city was a big enough deal for her,” Clary laughed. “So why did you choose here then? What drew you to our...city of intrigue?” she asked, hitching her bag up on her shoulder as she smiled at him. “For mothers, it is always difficult to see the baby birds leave the nest,” Ezio grinned. Both him and Claudia had moved on by now - Claudia even married a high ranking officer in the Carabinieri, and had a daughter and a son with him. There was talk of Ezio settling down too, however he tried to divert that from his mother’s attention whenever it happened to be brought up. “But I have just earned my dottorato di ricerca, and this is my first teaching job. I could not resist the allure to see what life in the States is like.” This university happened to have a position open, and happened to make him an offer - maybe it was meant to be? He would not dispute that. “Intrigue is one way to describe where we are,” he shook his head. “Much to get used to.” “Especially when baby bird is leaving to live with her boyfriend bird,” Clary joked. She knew her mom had struggled with her moving out, they’d been together all their lives after all, but she also knew that Clary had to grow and be independant. “What is a...dottoro di…ricera...” she trailed off, trying to repeat the phrase he’d used but pretty much butchering it instead. “Sorry, hope I didn’t like massively insult you or anything,” she winced. “Yeah, did you hear about all the crazy stuff that was happening here before Christmas and stuff? Well it’s kind of common for...weird stuff like that to happen around here, so don’t be too concerned if your coffee pot suddenly starts talking to you or you randomly burst into song,” she told him as she laughed. Ezio laughed too, a sparkle in his eye. “To live with the ragazzo! No doubt she has a few of the grey hairs now,” he quipped. “But you must do what makes you happy. You only have this one life to live.” Apparently that meant YOLO, according to what he read on the internet, but he preferred to not say it like that. “Dottorato di ricerca,” he continued smoothly, not at all offended by Clary’s pronunciation. Attempting another language was difficult. Italians were not always the kindest to Americans who came overseas and tried to speak the language, though Ezio did not see why. It was rude. Bad hospitality, no? “It is...like the Doctor of Philosophy in this country? Highest research degree,” he explained. The students called him ‘Dr. Auditore,’ since they were used to that. Ezio did not mind just the use of his first name though, or even just ‘professor.’ “If my coffee pot begins talking to me, I might be little concerned. But perhaps it can be exciting to live in a place where so much happens.” For a newcomer, he had to admit that it all seemed a bit much. He was not particularly into attempting to explain the inexpiable, but Italians tended to be superstitious. Sometimes he fell into that too. “Oh it’s definitely exciting,” Clary laughed. “I mean, did you hear about the weird floating mistletoe that was going on around here at Christmas time? It um...definitely made for some awkward moments I can tell you that,” she shook her head and shrugged. “Still, it makes things around here very interesting, you never know quite what’s going to manifest from someone’s Dreams. We even had blood rain a few months ago, that was a little bit messed up” she told him. Weird floating mistletoe was unlike anything Ezio had seen, no. So that was a little bit strange - though admittedly not as much as the idea of blood rain. Que? “Is funny how mistletoe is a parasite, when you think of this,” he chuckled, leaning against the edge of his desk. “It gets no nourishment from the soil. Yet is associated with the kissing, for some reason.” Legends and stories that went back many hundreds of years, and originated in a completely different way, then evolving - that was why history of any kind was so interesting to him. “I am uncertain about blood rain, signorina, that sounds like from a horror story. At least if we stick together we can fight the excitement when it becomes too much.” Clary shrugged as she thought about the mistletoe quandary. “I suppose it could be because of the dependance on the host? It is inextricably entwined with the thing that keeps it alive. In some ways I guess that’s kind of romantic? Like, I couldn’t imagine living without Jace,” she smiled sappily as she thought about her boyfriend. “But the blood rain was definitely like a horror movie, I mean I thought my Dreams were messed up but whoever those belonged to must be in some kind of insane asylum or something, poor guy,” she shook her head. “And I agree, united we stand,” she nodded resolutely. “I’m sorry professor, I didn’t mean to keep you from your next lesson or anything. Or, y’know, weird you out with what must sound like crazy talk,” she apologised with a little wince. Aw, molto romantico! “That is a nice way to think of it, signorina,” Ezio had to smile a little. He found that sort of optimism about amore to be rather uplifting - it really was a pleasant thought, and everyone both needed and deserved something like that in their lives. It wasn’t always beautiful, but it could be considered intense. “And is no problem, Clary, I enjoyed the chat,” he assured her, though he did not want to hold her up either. She probably had other things to do, much of her studies to attend to. “I am just going to go to my office for some work - where are you headed next? I will walk you there.” At least that way it was safer too - he was a gentleman as his mother taught him to be, and would always be happy to escort someone so they were not by themselves. “Maybe it’s just because I’m still experiencing first love,” Clary shrugged, hugging her books to her chest. “Oh that’s ok, Professor, I’m just going to head to the library to get some study time in. God knows my art history teacher set us some really difficult assignments today,” she grinned at him “Ah, si, he is rather tough,” Ezio teased. In all truth, he felt he fell somewhere in the middle - he was not a hardass, because that would not make learning fun, but he was not about to sit back and let his students glide by so easily either. In any case, it was his hope that they all enjoyed his classes. He would do his best at teaching. This was his first job at it, and he wanted to do it well. He gathered his things, messenger bag with all of his work to be done slung across his waist. “The library is on the way, so I will see you get there.” And then once he made some headway on grading, he would head home. It had been a tiring day, but a good one - he imagined he had many more days like this, of teaching, to come in the future. “Oh, well in that case, lead on signor,” Clary grinned, sweeping her arm in the direction of the exit. |