Mr. Gold is Happy to be of Service (mister_gold) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-02-26 16:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, mr. gold (rumplestiltskin), samantha carter |
Who: Sam Carter and Mr. Gold
When: 2/21
Where: Outside -- in Wonderland.
What: Painting the Roses Red
Rating: Low
Status: Complete
Having suggested painting the roses red due to the current “theme” of the city had been more than a little whimsical, especially for someone like Mr. Gold.
Still, he supposed, even as he shouldered a bag full of red paints and brushes, how could one not be a bit off-kilter after literally waking up in Wonderland? If he was going to be silly, now seemed like a good a time as any. It wasn’t as if there was any reason to open his shop up for the day.
Gold moved branches and overgrowth out of his way with his cane as he wandered down the much-different streets of the city toward the spot he and Ms. Carter had agreed on. Funny how a vague friendship had blossomed out of a chat during a mid-morning stroll.
There was no way Sam was going to hold any classes that day, she doubted anybody would turn up anyway. With the mix of students in her class half of them would love goofing off and playing in ‘Wonderland’ while the other half would want to study it.
Sam would usually have joined the latter half but there was just something magical and fun about the whole thing that when Mr Gold had suggested painting the roses red she had figured why not embrace the madness.
Arriving at the pre-determined spot Sam smiled as she saw he was already there, “Hi, sorry if I’m late” she said, “Some of the paths are really overgrown”
The politician gave a half shrug and a smile. “Oh, no worries Ms. Carter,” he said and sounded like he meant it. It took a lot to bother Gold, and timeliness wasn’t one of the things that ever made it onto that list.
“I’ve just shown up myself.” He tilted his head thoughtfully, longish bangs falling into his eyes as he observed the scenery around them. Strange, yet wondrous. And oddly, in a way, familiar.
“Sam please” she told him, “After all we’re going to spend the afternoon together painting and singing” she grinned. “This is so incredible” she added looking around, “I’ve never seen anything like it, well that wasn’t on tv or in my imagination anyway.”
“Sam, then,” Gold agreed, savoring her name on the tip of his tongue for a moment. Gold had always liked names -- they always seemed terribly important, and he had to admit with a touch of pride, he’d never forgotten someone’s name after it had been given to him.
“Nor have I,” he agreed, poking the top of a mushroom with the end of his cane -- and he hadn’t that he was aware of. But still, it did seem familiar. Perhaps it was because of television, though. That was the only thing that made sense.
“I did happen to come across some paint,” he noted, amused.
She was pleased he accepted so readily, she wasn’t one to go with formality. Even her students called her Sam or mostly anyway, she was still working on some. Professor Carter sounded so stuffy, it really wasn’t her.
Sam grinned, “And I really do remember the words to the song” she told him smilingly.
While he wasn’t for or against formality in any way, really, Gold was … well. Just Gold. It was the only name that would do. “Good,” he said, digging through his bag with his free hand until he found two brushes and a tube of red paint. “Because I don’t know it at all.”
Sam laughed, “That will definitely be rectified by the time we’re done today” she assured him, “Now, where shall we start?” she added looking around.
Passing over a paint brush, Gold looked around silently for a moment. There were more mushrooms and odd looking vines than there were roses, that was for sure -- but the new terrain was not completely without them either. He gestured to a spiny looking bush of them, and gave a crooked sort of grin and a shrug. “Good a place as any.”
Sam nodded, “Gotta start somewhere” she agreed with a smile as they moved closer to the bush of white roses. The logistics of actually painting them looked to be more complicated than in the cartoon film but they didn’t have to be perfect after all.
It was really true. Painting flowers did not result with and sort of ease. Gold took to picking one from the bush, settling himself on a nearby mushroom (cane leaned settled against his knees) and working on just one.
“Let’s hear this song then?” He prompted, even as he frowned at his rose.
Sam, being the scientist she was, decided to attempt it in the most logical way she could whilst not removing the flower from the bush. It would probably end up taking a while.
“Okay, you asked so I make no apologies for my terrible singing” she warned teasingly before beginning, quietly at first but gaining strength slowly, “Painting the roses red, we’re painting the roses red, we dare not stop, or waste a drop, so let the paint be spread, we’re painting the roses red, we’re painting the roses red” she managed to recall all the verses with only a couple of minor hitches. Her memory was rather good it appeared.
Sam had warned him of her voice, but Gold decided after a verse or two, that she had been over-warning a bit. While she was no professional singer, it was clear she could at least carry a tune. Glancing up from his now-nearly red rose, he gave a laugh. “That’s quite good.”
She laughed too, “Honestly I’m surprised I could remember it” she told him, putting the finishing touches on her rose, “I must have been paying more attention than I thought at the time”
“Some things just stick with us,” Gold pointed out, setting his paint brush aside for the moment to watch her work on her own flower. Sam was being a really good sport about it, and it was pretty amusing.
“And anyway, assuming that that’s from the Disney version? Well. It’s been out longer than even I’ve been around, I do believe.”
“Definitely the Disney version” Sam told him as she glanced over her shoulder to grin at him, “They have to be the basis of any child’s introduction to fairy tales, after the books of course. And I think Alice in Wonderland came out in the early fifties well before either of us” she added as she stood back from her finished rose.
“Finally nice to find something older than me, though,” Gold said, settling his painted flower beside him to lean forward a little on his cane while still remaining seated.
Turning she held the paintbrush in one hand and rested the other on her hip, “You can’t be that old” she told him bemused, she guessed late forties.
And she wasn’t wrong in her guess, but still. Gold smiled, clearly a bit mirthful over it all. “Old enough to not understand more current pop-culture references.” He said. Because wasn’t that how you knew when you were getting old? When you didn’t know what the kids these days were talking about anymore?
She laughed, “Oh well in that case I’ll join you in the old enough category” she replied, “I have some of the brightest people I’ve met in my classes yet looking at the messages they text each other you’d think they couldn’t spell. Even reading it aloud it sounds like a garbled language”
Letting out a groan, the man bobbed his head in agreement -- even people in City Hall texted like that. It was beyond off-putting. “But that’s the evolution of language, isn’t it, Dearie? As much as I prefer the right way to do it all and my dusty antiques, there’s something to be said for watching everything change in front of our eyes.”
“I’m all for change, I’m a scientist it kind of goes with the territory” Sam said, “But, I don’t know, it seems more like a backward evolution watching our language be reduced to ‘text speak’”
He did not disagree with her there. “True. Like you say -- you have bright minds in your classes that reduce to it. I do wonder what will happen to the next generation that learns to function with it before they learn the proper rules to writing.”
There was something very weird about discussing the theories of english and language with Sam while sitting in the middle of Wonderland. Gold decided he rather liked it quite a lot.
“Writing is probably something else that will go too” Sam replied, “Everything is moving towards computers and technology, even I have to admit to being guilty of that one” Some was necessary, the equations she worked with were quickly and easily calculated using a computer programme though she did still keep a book for whatever she was working on, should inspiration strike her at any point.
Gold often wrote -- there was something familiar and good about marking in his ledgers and receipts without the help of a computer, but he knew what she meant. All communication was going in the way of technology. “Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “But it’s not writing that’s going so much...the pen and paper format.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully, “True, you have a good point there” she agreed, “So as long as everybody doesn’t start writing essays and letters the way they write a text we have hope”
“I should hope that no teacher would pass a student who did that,” Gold pointed out, eyeing her with amusement.
"Oh good lord no" Sam exclaimed, "Not now and not ever" she laughed.
“Then the future might have a chance, yet.” Gold said, and it was clear he was teasing a bit.
She grinned at him, “A small glimmer of one.”
“It’s all we can hope for,” Gold responded with a hint of humor. He stood, with the help of his cane, and picked up his now dry paint covered rose. He decided he would keep it.
“I suppose we should not dally too much -- no telling what comes out in the dark.”
Sam nodded, “As fun as this is I imagine there could be some interesting and somewhat dangerous things lurking in the dark” she agreed, “There usually tends to be bad with the good around here”
“And no one needs that. It’d ruin the whole excursion,” he said, brushing his hair out of his eyes before stowing away his paint brush.
“Exactly” Sam said, tidying up her paint and brush before taking a quick picture on her phone of the painted rose, “And I’d rather not have any bad memories of this afternoon” she smiled.
That tickled Gold in a funny, endearing sort of way. He couldn’t help but give her a smile over it. “Well, then,” he said, and offered her his free arm. “Shall we?”
Sam took his arm happily, “Absolutely” she replied with a bright smile. She couldn’t recall having this much of a nice afternoon in a long time and she had Gold to thank for it.