Raise some hell tonight, you deserve it.
Thursday, 8 March 2012 18:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flint_garouThe completion of the task.
8 March, 2012
The moon is in the waning Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (93% full).
Flint's made his way to the breakroom a good bit ago, and spent a good bit of time staring at the wall (and making yet another sketch), before he texted both Kavi and Mouse. The boy is currently in the kitchen area, though, a glass of juice in his hands as he waits. One of the computers is fired up, open to a few windows, including an excel spreadsheet, a database, and some notes on… woodcarving? Right then. The small sketchbook that he'd first taken out to the burial mounds for taking notes rests on the counter next to Flint, at least a third of the way filled since he first got it on Sunday. The cub glances every so often towards the door, then returns to considering the area with the computers, and the wall behind it while he waits.
It doesn't take long for Kavi to arrive, and as he steps through the door he runs his hand through still-damp hair, pulling it back from his face. "Hey," he says to the boy, and then looks around the room. "Do— Is there someplace specific you want us to sit?"
Mouse arrives shortly after Kavi, already halfway through a cigarette and smelling as though she's had quite a few before this one already. She looks a little less worn than she has of late, more alert.
Flint forces himself through deep breaths, before he puts down the juice, picks up the sketchbook, and walks over towards the computer, before turning to his Elder and his teacher. "Um. I'm going to be pointing at the wall a bit, I." Pause. "Wherever you want to sit considering that."
Kavi turns his gaze to Mouse as she enters, watching her for a moment before he takes a seat on one of the chairs.
Mouse pulls out another chair and sinks into it backwards, arms resting over the backrest. She gives Flint a faint, neutral nod.
The boy finally draws in another deep breath, opens up the sketchbook to the tenth, or maybe fifteenth page, and gives a small nod to both Kavi and Mouse before he looks back down immediately at his feet, and begins to speak. "So, the. I." Pause, another deep breath, and Flint shifts his gaze to the ceiling. "So, the basics of it is that. I have an idea, for the memorial." Or else he wouldn't have texted them both. The cub points, over his shoulder, at the wall behind the computers. "It's better if I. If show you? I have sketches in here."
Kavi's gaze ducks downward as he listens to the boy speak, but when he looks up again, there's a hint of a smile touching his lips.
Mouse gets a funny look on her face, for the barest fraction of a moment. Then she lifts her chin. "Flint," she says around the cigarette. "Eyes up, chin up, speak confidently."
Salem enters the breakroom from the hallway. One eyebrow goes up, and he glances questioningly at Kavi.
Flint pulls his lips into a thin line, and manages to get his gaze all the way to the table, picking up the sketchbook and then taking a step, when Salem enters. "Yes Mouse-rhya," the boy voices, although it's with anything but confidence.
"His task," Kavi says with a glance toward Salem, and then he returns his focus to the boy, and the remains of the smile become hidden.
"Ah," says the grizzled Philodox. He says nothing more, just joins the other adults to observe the would-be-cliath.
Mouse puffs at her cigarette, without speaking. Apart from a mild suggestion of expectation, there's nothing readable on the Walker Theurge's face. She gives Salem a brief glance, and a nod.
Flint pulls in another breath before opening the sketchbook, and then moves over to the table, placing the book open where all three can see it. "Like I said, it is better if I show you." The sketch that the boy presents is first a simpler one, a depiction of the wall with the computers, with an arrow to what would be, if they looked at it now, empty space. But it is not empty space in the sketch, and there is a rendering of what is obviously a piece—or many pieces—of sculpture attached to the wall, with a vaguely city scene sketched in behind them. "This is," Flint pauses, points at the individual pieces, and then turns the page to what is a more detailed sketch of the memorial itself, minus the background, before looking up at the three he is talking to. "It's made from wood and other materials, and, pieces, that attach to the wall. I. I did woodcarving in school, in shop class, and I like it and am." The words are a little more confident than the cub had been at the beginning, but there is still the hesitation, the longer pause, before Flint manages to continue, "Good at it." More pointing at the sketch, areas that hold the reminder of individuals clouded around to draw attention to them with a light blue pencil. The entire drawing holds decoration in even more carefully drawn claw glyphs, prominent ones for tribe and totem, glory and honour, but smaller ones around the individual areas as well. "And it. Would be somewhere that we could see it, and remember, because." Another half-pointing of finger at the wall behind him, without even looking, before Flint actually pauses, true silence that the boy is done speaking for the moment.
Salem studies the drawings, arms folded across his chest. His expression is decidedly neutral.
Mouse likewise studies Flint's drawings, and like Salem, her expression doesn't change. "How easy would it be to add new names, as needed?"
Flint turns the page a few times. "Easy enough, no matter what," Flint says, with a vague gesture that seems to indicate that pretty much anyone could in fact do it. "The. It's modular, the pieces that have names are actually all the same shape pretty much, and fit into different places, and they'd be made, and." A faint, grim expression, but the boy points out the curves and ways that the shapes of the pieces of the wooden city fit together, dashed lines in his drawing. "You make extra of something you're trying to make in woodshop, anyway. Once I've made one piece," he points, "I can make however many, and. Then a woodburner, to," he points at the names, the individual glyphs, "and they attach to the wall with either a nail, or a peg. It, that fits into the adjoining parts." Most of the nervousness, now that the boy's talking about something he knows and is confident about, has disappeared. "And the shapes aren't fully regular, so that it accounts for additions, or entire sections of additions."
Kavi studies the drawings without comment, without much change in his expression, and then looks from the sketchbook to the wall behind Flint. "How much of… Of who they were would you put in?"
Salem offers no comment, though his eyes are narrowed thoughtfully.
Mouse glances toward Kavi, and then looks back to Flint, eyebrows lifting faintly.
Flint holds up one finger at the question and nods, "Yes," finally deciding that if he's going to be flipping through the sketchbook for any length of time he needs to sit down. After he's sat, though, the boy flips through ten, fifteen pages before coming to a sketch in which one of the individual sections is sketched out in more detail. "The pieces," and the boy holds up his hands to indicate size, approximately nine inches in what isn't square but the shape the cub indicates fits and works with what he has shown them so far.
On the sketch in question is both lettering with human names, and dates, and claw glyphs, and between them they tell the story of the dead. The page that the boy shows first is the one for Password, but the boy then flips through the rest of them, pausing on each page as long as it takes for his elders to look at it before turning the page. What Flint has included is equally thorough, if a little more thorough for the people whom he was able to get additional stories of. But what is included honours the dead, in each and every case. "So, what I could, and they're set up, with space to do so."
Kavi watches closely, reading the words, studying the glyphs. When the boy finishes, the older galliard settles back onto his seat and nods.
"Interesting," Salem murmurs. He scratches idly at his beard.
Mouse gestures with a finger. "And most of this, it's all wood?"
Flint nods. "Some of it, most of the wood. Most of the wood I would. Some of it I'd like to see if we can find reclaimed, scrap wood stuff that can be found, and such. It's usually possible to… to find older oak, pine, woods that are good for this sort of stuff?" Flint nods, answering his own half tone of question. "There are bits and pieces, of scrap metal, other metals, other materials entirely." The boy pauses, turning the pages a few times and then staring down at notes, before managing to look up at his elders once more. "Ishmael-rhya also suggested, that I talk to the Groundskeeper, about possibly using some wood from the Bawn, too. And, he offered to help, with painting the wall behind it."
Kavi nods again at the mention of the groundskeeper, and his gaze shifts downward, and then slides across to the other adren.
Mouse stubs out her cigarette and sits up a little straighter. "And you have all of the names in a database?"
Flint points over at the computer, then nodes. "Yes, Mouse-rhya. Two, actually," the cub says, a little bit sheepish. "I have the excel spreadsheet and the actual database, and a list where I transcribed all my notes from my sketchbook."
Salem nods and shifts his weight. His arms unfold, hands vanishing into his pockets.
Kavi pushes up from his seat and reaches out with one hand. "May I?" he asks, looking to the cub.
Mouse nods at Kavi, and settles again.
Flint looks up at Kavi from where he sits, having stopped fidgeting and folded his hands over the sketchbook on the table. The boy offers Kavi the faintest tentative smile when the other galliard gets up.
Kavi puts one finger on the corner of the sketchbook, brows raised in question.
Flint raises his hands off of the sketchbook and then nods once. "Okay," he says.
Kavi picks up the sketchbook when Flint allows, and there's respect for the boy in the way he holds it; care taken in the turning of pages. After a few moments of study, he hands it back and turns to Mouse with a single nod.
Mouse lifts her chin and eyes Flint directly again. "Alright. So what do you think we should do with these plans of yours? Who should take responsibility for seeing that it gets done?"
Salem glances at the sketchbook from a position over Kavi's shoulder, but most of his attention is on the interaction between Mouse and the boy himself.
Flint meets his Elder's gaze for just a moment, and then the boy glances up towards the ceiling. Past the ceiling. "If I. Um." Pause, deep breath. "I'd like to do the project, if. If that." The boy finally manages to look between Mouse, Kavi, and Salem again, gaze settling on the table and folding his hands on the sketchbook again. "If I could. It'll get done." There is a faint set to the boy's jaw, too, though there's no suggestion of who should oversee it.
"Then I will take that," Mouse says slowly, and precisely, "as your word. Cliath." She lets the silence hang, lets that word sink in, and then, with utter casualness, "Email me your notes, the database, and the spreadsheet. Make sure all of the glyphs are in wood."
Kavi's smile returns, carefully controlled when he turns again to the boy. Pride is there in his gaze, and in that tight curve of his lips.
Salem's grin is thin and crooked, showing a few teeth. "Congratulations."
Mouse's smile is more shadow than substance, pricking lightly at the corners of her mouth for only a few moments. "Welcome to adulthood, Carves the Requiem for Cockroach's Children. Your first task is to figure out how to shorten that, because I'm sure not saying it every single time. Then," she nods toward the sketches. "Get to work. You've got until Memorial Day." She slants her gaze to the side, "Jack, can I have a word with you for a sec? Doesn't have to be private."
Flint purses his lips a long moment, grinning. "Requiem," the boy states, shortening it to the one part of it that seems to work by itself. Then he looks between Salem and Mouse. "Oh. Um. Devon wanted to speak to either of you, Mouse-rhya, Salem-rhya. He asked me to let you know, earlier today."
Kavi lets his smile settle into place, easing some now that the moment has passed. "Congratulations," he echoes as well, and then steps back to look between Mouse and Salem.
Salem's smile evaporates away into something more serious. He nods to Mouse, glances at Flint, then nods to the new Cliath as well. "What's up?" he asks, heading, finally, for a seat.
Mouse nods at Flint. "Alright." Then she looks at Salem. "I've got my name and destination. I'm thinking I'll be out of here by sometime next week, unless something insane comes up. Kaz has all the details of the agreement I've been working on with the Tiger, I'll email you the necessary passwords, and," She digs something out of her pocket. "My room key. Just in case. I'm not taking the pillow fetish with me, for probably obvious reasons. So there's that, and Ishmael's thing."
Kavi's brow furrows as Mouse speaks, and he glances briefly to Salem before speaking. "You're not… Are you… Who's going with you?"
Flint picks up the sketchbook and moves to sit down at the computer for the moment, going through what is for him a relatively tedious process of bookmarking all the open browser windows, though the boy's turned to be able to half-watch the conversation as well.
Salem stands up briefly to take Mouse's proffered room key, nodding solemnly as he does so.
Mouse settles back into her seat after handing it over, and looks toward Kavi. "Kakkerlak's coming with me, but that's it. Dunno if I'll have reception out there, but I'm taking my phone and my laptop, so I'll try to keep in touch. It's around Glacier National Park. Fianna Sept, so, that'll be fun." She looks back to Salem. "This'll probably take a while."
"Mouse-rhya?" Kavi draws in a breath and holds it. After a long pause, he nods. "Skokiaan— If something happens? If you need us? Skokiaan can open a Moon Bridge. We'll come."
Flint turns in his chair a bit for a moment, half looking at Mouse before he looks down at his lap and starts quietly paging through his sketchbook.
Salem exhales a slight breath and nods to Mouse. "In any case, keep in touch if you can, ne?"
Mouse nods at Salem. "I plan to. I'll see if I can't find a spot to check voicemail, anyway." Then she looks at Kavi again. It's a longer look, searching. She nods once. "Okay. I shouldn't though. This bit isn't necessarily the dangerous bit. Just the hard as fucking nails bit."
Kavi's breathing eases again and he repeats the nod for his elder. "Bring the one I made? It. It should have good reception."
Salem leans back, fishing out his cigarettes and lighter and stretching his legs out as he does so. He casts his gaze ceilingward, mouth set in a pensive frown.
Mouse abruptly snaps her fingers and fishes into an inside pocket. "Nearly forgot. Here you go, Flint." She leans over, offering the newly promoted Galliard a simple, somewhat thick white envelope. "It's the amount your grandparents paid to find you. Consider it a graduation present."
Flint blinks, accepting the envelope and glancing at it, a very mumbled and slightly astonished thanks as he looks at it, then looks at it again before looking up to Mouse and nodding once. This time, though, Flint doesn't speak, just carefully tucks the envelope into his sketchbook and his sketchbook into his sweatshirt pocket before he crosses over to the kitchen, reclaiming the previously abandoned glass of juice and moving to stare at the wall above the computers from a different vantage point. Then, Flint looks at Kavi. "Um, Kavi-rhya… at some point, the computers? So that we can paint?"
Kavi watches the passing of the envelope, a faint look of curiosity about his eyes. But when the boy speaks to him, he nods, and the small smile finally returns.
Salem, smoking, seems lost in thought for the moment.
Mouse pushes up from her seat. "That's it from me. Congratulations, Flint. Remember, Memorial Day."
"Yes Mouse-rhya," Flint says with a very faint grin.
Kavi turns where he stands, gaze following Mouse again. "Mouse-rhya? Is… Are you busy? Right now?"
Mouse pauses, and looks back. "Not right now, no. What's up?"
Kavi's brow furrows, and his gaze ducks down toward the floor. He looks up again, not to Mouse or any of the others, but rather down the hall. His teeth catch at his lip as he looks to the elder, and he gestures vaguely in the direction of her apartment.
Mouse shrugs one shoulder, and turns that way, though she flashes both Salem and Flint an abrupt, and very brief, grin. Then she heads toward the hallway.
Salem lifts his lit cigarette in a kind of goodbye gesture.
Kavi gives the others another glance as well, and then follows after Mouse.
Flint watches Mouse and Kavi leave, before stifling a yawn. "Hm. I should sleep. Or something." The tone and phrasing would suggest that Flint's not quite sure he'll be sleeping any time soon, but.
Salem turns his good eye to the new cliath and smiles faintly. "Or something." He pauses a beat and adds, "Well done."
For all of everything, Flint seems a lot more at ease now that it's just conversation and not Having To Talk, leaning against the counter. "Thanks," the boy says, pushing the hesitation out of his voice. "More. Something. I'm exhausted, but not. I'm not tired."
"Go for a walk," Salem suggests. "You're free to go where you want, now. Go explore the city a bit."
Flint considers this, and the part about being able to go outside seems to actually sink in. That, or the boy's focus of conversation has turned inward too, because the pause before he looks at Salem stretches on for minutes, complete with several changes of expression. "I. That could, yeah," Flint finishes with a grin.
Salem grins back, baring teeth in a rather piratical expression. "Yes, you could." He waves the boy toward the door. "Go. Raise some hell tonight. You deserve it."
Flint turns and spends a very quick moment rinsing the empty glass and then putting it into the dishwasher, before there is another grin offered to the Philodox and the boy's making for the door of the breakroom, quickly and with only the slightest hint of an excited bounce in his step.
8 March, 2012
The moon is in the waning Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (93% full).
Flint's made his way to the breakroom a good bit ago, and spent a good bit of time staring at the wall (and making yet another sketch), before he texted both Kavi and Mouse. The boy is currently in the kitchen area, though, a glass of juice in his hands as he waits. One of the computers is fired up, open to a few windows, including an excel spreadsheet, a database, and some notes on… woodcarving? Right then. The small sketchbook that he'd first taken out to the burial mounds for taking notes rests on the counter next to Flint, at least a third of the way filled since he first got it on Sunday. The cub glances every so often towards the door, then returns to considering the area with the computers, and the wall behind it while he waits.
It doesn't take long for Kavi to arrive, and as he steps through the door he runs his hand through still-damp hair, pulling it back from his face. "Hey," he says to the boy, and then looks around the room. "Do— Is there someplace specific you want us to sit?"
Mouse arrives shortly after Kavi, already halfway through a cigarette and smelling as though she's had quite a few before this one already. She looks a little less worn than she has of late, more alert.
Flint forces himself through deep breaths, before he puts down the juice, picks up the sketchbook, and walks over towards the computer, before turning to his Elder and his teacher. "Um. I'm going to be pointing at the wall a bit, I." Pause. "Wherever you want to sit considering that."
Kavi turns his gaze to Mouse as she enters, watching her for a moment before he takes a seat on one of the chairs.
Mouse pulls out another chair and sinks into it backwards, arms resting over the backrest. She gives Flint a faint, neutral nod.
The boy finally draws in another deep breath, opens up the sketchbook to the tenth, or maybe fifteenth page, and gives a small nod to both Kavi and Mouse before he looks back down immediately at his feet, and begins to speak. "So, the. I." Pause, another deep breath, and Flint shifts his gaze to the ceiling. "So, the basics of it is that. I have an idea, for the memorial." Or else he wouldn't have texted them both. The cub points, over his shoulder, at the wall behind the computers. "It's better if I. If show you? I have sketches in here."
Kavi's gaze ducks downward as he listens to the boy speak, but when he looks up again, there's a hint of a smile touching his lips.
Mouse gets a funny look on her face, for the barest fraction of a moment. Then she lifts her chin. "Flint," she says around the cigarette. "Eyes up, chin up, speak confidently."
Salem enters the breakroom from the hallway. One eyebrow goes up, and he glances questioningly at Kavi.
Flint pulls his lips into a thin line, and manages to get his gaze all the way to the table, picking up the sketchbook and then taking a step, when Salem enters. "Yes Mouse-rhya," the boy voices, although it's with anything but confidence.
"His task," Kavi says with a glance toward Salem, and then he returns his focus to the boy, and the remains of the smile become hidden.
"Ah," says the grizzled Philodox. He says nothing more, just joins the other adults to observe the would-be-cliath.
Mouse puffs at her cigarette, without speaking. Apart from a mild suggestion of expectation, there's nothing readable on the Walker Theurge's face. She gives Salem a brief glance, and a nod.
Flint pulls in another breath before opening the sketchbook, and then moves over to the table, placing the book open where all three can see it. "Like I said, it is better if I show you." The sketch that the boy presents is first a simpler one, a depiction of the wall with the computers, with an arrow to what would be, if they looked at it now, empty space. But it is not empty space in the sketch, and there is a rendering of what is obviously a piece—or many pieces—of sculpture attached to the wall, with a vaguely city scene sketched in behind them. "This is," Flint pauses, points at the individual pieces, and then turns the page to what is a more detailed sketch of the memorial itself, minus the background, before looking up at the three he is talking to. "It's made from wood and other materials, and, pieces, that attach to the wall. I. I did woodcarving in school, in shop class, and I like it and am." The words are a little more confident than the cub had been at the beginning, but there is still the hesitation, the longer pause, before Flint manages to continue, "Good at it." More pointing at the sketch, areas that hold the reminder of individuals clouded around to draw attention to them with a light blue pencil. The entire drawing holds decoration in even more carefully drawn claw glyphs, prominent ones for tribe and totem, glory and honour, but smaller ones around the individual areas as well. "And it. Would be somewhere that we could see it, and remember, because." Another half-pointing of finger at the wall behind him, without even looking, before Flint actually pauses, true silence that the boy is done speaking for the moment.
Salem studies the drawings, arms folded across his chest. His expression is decidedly neutral.
Mouse likewise studies Flint's drawings, and like Salem, her expression doesn't change. "How easy would it be to add new names, as needed?"
Flint turns the page a few times. "Easy enough, no matter what," Flint says, with a vague gesture that seems to indicate that pretty much anyone could in fact do it. "The. It's modular, the pieces that have names are actually all the same shape pretty much, and fit into different places, and they'd be made, and." A faint, grim expression, but the boy points out the curves and ways that the shapes of the pieces of the wooden city fit together, dashed lines in his drawing. "You make extra of something you're trying to make in woodshop, anyway. Once I've made one piece," he points, "I can make however many, and. Then a woodburner, to," he points at the names, the individual glyphs, "and they attach to the wall with either a nail, or a peg. It, that fits into the adjoining parts." Most of the nervousness, now that the boy's talking about something he knows and is confident about, has disappeared. "And the shapes aren't fully regular, so that it accounts for additions, or entire sections of additions."
Kavi studies the drawings without comment, without much change in his expression, and then looks from the sketchbook to the wall behind Flint. "How much of… Of who they were would you put in?"
Salem offers no comment, though his eyes are narrowed thoughtfully.
Mouse glances toward Kavi, and then looks back to Flint, eyebrows lifting faintly.
Flint holds up one finger at the question and nods, "Yes," finally deciding that if he's going to be flipping through the sketchbook for any length of time he needs to sit down. After he's sat, though, the boy flips through ten, fifteen pages before coming to a sketch in which one of the individual sections is sketched out in more detail. "The pieces," and the boy holds up his hands to indicate size, approximately nine inches in what isn't square but the shape the cub indicates fits and works with what he has shown them so far.
On the sketch in question is both lettering with human names, and dates, and claw glyphs, and between them they tell the story of the dead. The page that the boy shows first is the one for Password, but the boy then flips through the rest of them, pausing on each page as long as it takes for his elders to look at it before turning the page. What Flint has included is equally thorough, if a little more thorough for the people whom he was able to get additional stories of. But what is included honours the dead, in each and every case. "So, what I could, and they're set up, with space to do so."
Kavi watches closely, reading the words, studying the glyphs. When the boy finishes, the older galliard settles back onto his seat and nods.
"Interesting," Salem murmurs. He scratches idly at his beard.
Mouse gestures with a finger. "And most of this, it's all wood?"
Flint nods. "Some of it, most of the wood. Most of the wood I would. Some of it I'd like to see if we can find reclaimed, scrap wood stuff that can be found, and such. It's usually possible to… to find older oak, pine, woods that are good for this sort of stuff?" Flint nods, answering his own half tone of question. "There are bits and pieces, of scrap metal, other metals, other materials entirely." The boy pauses, turning the pages a few times and then staring down at notes, before managing to look up at his elders once more. "Ishmael-rhya also suggested, that I talk to the Groundskeeper, about possibly using some wood from the Bawn, too. And, he offered to help, with painting the wall behind it."
Kavi nods again at the mention of the groundskeeper, and his gaze shifts downward, and then slides across to the other adren.
Mouse stubs out her cigarette and sits up a little straighter. "And you have all of the names in a database?"
Flint points over at the computer, then nodes. "Yes, Mouse-rhya. Two, actually," the cub says, a little bit sheepish. "I have the excel spreadsheet and the actual database, and a list where I transcribed all my notes from my sketchbook."
Salem nods and shifts his weight. His arms unfold, hands vanishing into his pockets.
Kavi pushes up from his seat and reaches out with one hand. "May I?" he asks, looking to the cub.
Mouse nods at Kavi, and settles again.
Flint looks up at Kavi from where he sits, having stopped fidgeting and folded his hands over the sketchbook on the table. The boy offers Kavi the faintest tentative smile when the other galliard gets up.
Kavi puts one finger on the corner of the sketchbook, brows raised in question.
Flint raises his hands off of the sketchbook and then nods once. "Okay," he says.
Kavi picks up the sketchbook when Flint allows, and there's respect for the boy in the way he holds it; care taken in the turning of pages. After a few moments of study, he hands it back and turns to Mouse with a single nod.
Mouse lifts her chin and eyes Flint directly again. "Alright. So what do you think we should do with these plans of yours? Who should take responsibility for seeing that it gets done?"
Salem glances at the sketchbook from a position over Kavi's shoulder, but most of his attention is on the interaction between Mouse and the boy himself.
Flint meets his Elder's gaze for just a moment, and then the boy glances up towards the ceiling. Past the ceiling. "If I. Um." Pause, deep breath. "I'd like to do the project, if. If that." The boy finally manages to look between Mouse, Kavi, and Salem again, gaze settling on the table and folding his hands on the sketchbook again. "If I could. It'll get done." There is a faint set to the boy's jaw, too, though there's no suggestion of who should oversee it.
"Then I will take that," Mouse says slowly, and precisely, "as your word. Cliath." She lets the silence hang, lets that word sink in, and then, with utter casualness, "Email me your notes, the database, and the spreadsheet. Make sure all of the glyphs are in wood."
Kavi's smile returns, carefully controlled when he turns again to the boy. Pride is there in his gaze, and in that tight curve of his lips.
Salem's grin is thin and crooked, showing a few teeth. "Congratulations."
Mouse's smile is more shadow than substance, pricking lightly at the corners of her mouth for only a few moments. "Welcome to adulthood, Carves the Requiem for Cockroach's Children. Your first task is to figure out how to shorten that, because I'm sure not saying it every single time. Then," she nods toward the sketches. "Get to work. You've got until Memorial Day." She slants her gaze to the side, "Jack, can I have a word with you for a sec? Doesn't have to be private."
Flint purses his lips a long moment, grinning. "Requiem," the boy states, shortening it to the one part of it that seems to work by itself. Then he looks between Salem and Mouse. "Oh. Um. Devon wanted to speak to either of you, Mouse-rhya, Salem-rhya. He asked me to let you know, earlier today."
Kavi lets his smile settle into place, easing some now that the moment has passed. "Congratulations," he echoes as well, and then steps back to look between Mouse and Salem.
Salem's smile evaporates away into something more serious. He nods to Mouse, glances at Flint, then nods to the new Cliath as well. "What's up?" he asks, heading, finally, for a seat.
Mouse nods at Flint. "Alright." Then she looks at Salem. "I've got my name and destination. I'm thinking I'll be out of here by sometime next week, unless something insane comes up. Kaz has all the details of the agreement I've been working on with the Tiger, I'll email you the necessary passwords, and," She digs something out of her pocket. "My room key. Just in case. I'm not taking the pillow fetish with me, for probably obvious reasons. So there's that, and Ishmael's thing."
Kavi's brow furrows as Mouse speaks, and he glances briefly to Salem before speaking. "You're not… Are you… Who's going with you?"
Flint picks up the sketchbook and moves to sit down at the computer for the moment, going through what is for him a relatively tedious process of bookmarking all the open browser windows, though the boy's turned to be able to half-watch the conversation as well.
Salem stands up briefly to take Mouse's proffered room key, nodding solemnly as he does so.
Mouse settles back into her seat after handing it over, and looks toward Kavi. "Kakkerlak's coming with me, but that's it. Dunno if I'll have reception out there, but I'm taking my phone and my laptop, so I'll try to keep in touch. It's around Glacier National Park. Fianna Sept, so, that'll be fun." She looks back to Salem. "This'll probably take a while."
"Mouse-rhya?" Kavi draws in a breath and holds it. After a long pause, he nods. "Skokiaan— If something happens? If you need us? Skokiaan can open a Moon Bridge. We'll come."
Flint turns in his chair a bit for a moment, half looking at Mouse before he looks down at his lap and starts quietly paging through his sketchbook.
Salem exhales a slight breath and nods to Mouse. "In any case, keep in touch if you can, ne?"
Mouse nods at Salem. "I plan to. I'll see if I can't find a spot to check voicemail, anyway." Then she looks at Kavi again. It's a longer look, searching. She nods once. "Okay. I shouldn't though. This bit isn't necessarily the dangerous bit. Just the hard as fucking nails bit."
Kavi's breathing eases again and he repeats the nod for his elder. "Bring the one I made? It. It should have good reception."
Salem leans back, fishing out his cigarettes and lighter and stretching his legs out as he does so. He casts his gaze ceilingward, mouth set in a pensive frown.
Mouse abruptly snaps her fingers and fishes into an inside pocket. "Nearly forgot. Here you go, Flint." She leans over, offering the newly promoted Galliard a simple, somewhat thick white envelope. "It's the amount your grandparents paid to find you. Consider it a graduation present."
Flint blinks, accepting the envelope and glancing at it, a very mumbled and slightly astonished thanks as he looks at it, then looks at it again before looking up to Mouse and nodding once. This time, though, Flint doesn't speak, just carefully tucks the envelope into his sketchbook and his sketchbook into his sweatshirt pocket before he crosses over to the kitchen, reclaiming the previously abandoned glass of juice and moving to stare at the wall above the computers from a different vantage point. Then, Flint looks at Kavi. "Um, Kavi-rhya… at some point, the computers? So that we can paint?"
Kavi watches the passing of the envelope, a faint look of curiosity about his eyes. But when the boy speaks to him, he nods, and the small smile finally returns.
Salem, smoking, seems lost in thought for the moment.
Mouse pushes up from her seat. "That's it from me. Congratulations, Flint. Remember, Memorial Day."
"Yes Mouse-rhya," Flint says with a very faint grin.
Kavi turns where he stands, gaze following Mouse again. "Mouse-rhya? Is… Are you busy? Right now?"
Mouse pauses, and looks back. "Not right now, no. What's up?"
Kavi's brow furrows, and his gaze ducks down toward the floor. He looks up again, not to Mouse or any of the others, but rather down the hall. His teeth catch at his lip as he looks to the elder, and he gestures vaguely in the direction of her apartment.
Mouse shrugs one shoulder, and turns that way, though she flashes both Salem and Flint an abrupt, and very brief, grin. Then she heads toward the hallway.
Salem lifts his lit cigarette in a kind of goodbye gesture.
Kavi gives the others another glance as well, and then follows after Mouse.
Flint watches Mouse and Kavi leave, before stifling a yawn. "Hm. I should sleep. Or something." The tone and phrasing would suggest that Flint's not quite sure he'll be sleeping any time soon, but.
Salem turns his good eye to the new cliath and smiles faintly. "Or something." He pauses a beat and adds, "Well done."
For all of everything, Flint seems a lot more at ease now that it's just conversation and not Having To Talk, leaning against the counter. "Thanks," the boy says, pushing the hesitation out of his voice. "More. Something. I'm exhausted, but not. I'm not tired."
"Go for a walk," Salem suggests. "You're free to go where you want, now. Go explore the city a bit."
Flint considers this, and the part about being able to go outside seems to actually sink in. That, or the boy's focus of conversation has turned inward too, because the pause before he looks at Salem stretches on for minutes, complete with several changes of expression. "I. That could, yeah," Flint finishes with a grin.
Salem grins back, baring teeth in a rather piratical expression. "Yes, you could." He waves the boy toward the door. "Go. Raise some hell tonight. You deserve it."
Flint turns and spends a very quick moment rinsing the empty glass and then putting it into the dishwasher, before there is another grin offered to the Philodox and the boy's making for the door of the breakroom, quickly and with only the slightest hint of an excited bounce in his step.