Jerome
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|  | O Brother Where Art Thou? (Jerome, Daniel)
« Thread Started on May 26, 2008, 3:26am » | ![[Quote]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif) |
A prodigal son returns. Well, shows up unannounced, anyway. Calloo, callay.
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5/25/2008
Logfile from Jerome.
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In the closing hour, the museum is almost busier than it has been all day: families making tightly clumped rounds of the exhibits, students diligently copying a portrait's weathered lines in their sketchbooks, guards and guides keeping the traffic flowing, and now flowing dutifully toward the exits. It's quieter behind the scenes, where displays turn into hallways and objets d'art into offices. Well-tended lamps flicker helpful illumination every so often along the labyrinthine ramble of corridors; light shines as well behind the half-shut doors where a few staff members have stayed to work through and then past suppertime, into the falling evening.
This is a quieter, simpler time, and Daniel finds it fairly easy to walk with a purpose and escape suspicion. Even if it wasn't, he has had a certain practice at it. Daniel points a finger towards the back rooms, asks after Jerome, and the nearest guard nods and gives him correct directions to the office. He makes his way there quickly, and raps on the glass of the door with his knuckles, a rattling sound. He immediately says, "Hullo? Anyone home?"
There's rattling inside, too: a few things getting knocked together that probably shouldn't be. The answering voice, when it comes after a good long minute, is less surprised than vaguely annoyed: "Who is it?" Some shuffling, too, beyond the door, papery and quick.
"Ah, hm." Daniel looks to his daemon, who gives him a rather withering glance and then shrugs her shoulders. Short on advice, he answers the first thing that comes into his head: "Well, it's me, Daniel." He blinks and then realizes that may not mean anything to him, and so he leans back to look down the hallway. "Your brother? Come back from the continent to see you."
Silence, very definite and very complete silence on the other side of the door. Stillness. A few more rattles, some approaching rustles, and then the door opens onto the pale reserve and cold dark eyes of the office's occupant. Jerome stands a moment, holding the door open on his stiff arm, and looks at his visitor. Just looks, while the brightly banded little spider perched on his shoulder hunkers and stares in her own right. "I see," he finally says, heavily, and pushes the door open further in silent invitation before turning his back and returning to the complexly ordered clutter inside.
Circe sizes up the little daemon and sniffles. She's of a much higher order. Daniel is doing much the same, although he's blinkered by the lights and the cold hard stare of his brother for a moment. "Good to finally meet you. I'm afraid I have terrible news." He says, as he follows him indoors. "Well. I suppose it may not matter much to you, but I'd like to think you thought of him fondly, he was our father after all." Now inside, he looks for somewhere to sit in the office, although his attention gets quickly wandering around all the little bits and bobs laying out.
--
A sharp-dressed young man in his late-twenties, Daniel is clearly a man about town, the most fashionable dandy in the boulevard. His hair is an ordinary brown, styled with pomade in an attempt to keep from brushing onto his forehead, but the cut shows effort especially in the sideburns he keeps neatly trimmed. With wide brown eyes and spattering of freckles on pale skin, coupled with a thin roman nose his overall appearance is dashing.
Tall and skinny like a beanpole, he has the slim figure to fit all the latest cuts from Savile Row. Today he is wearing a white suit, with a cream-colored dress shirt and a silver tie with striking emerald swirls on it.
--
Circe, Daniel's daemon, is settled in the form of a Capuchin monkey. Notably, Circe's eyes are amber yellow. The delicate, exposed skin of her face and paws is pale cream, the color of tea after milk. The fur of her face and chest is that same cream color, contrasting with the solid, dependable brown of the rest of her, all the way down her long flexable tail.
--
The bits and bobs do seem to take up most of the space, leaving little enough left over for a pair of tall men and their reunion. Not to mention the silence that Jerome is carrying back to his desk, behind which he sinks, arms folded on the paper-strewn surface to support a stiff-backed lean. His eyes flick to the solitary guest chair in front of the desk, extending the invitation that much further, and then return to Daniel. His voice is still as heavy as his stare; the next words clatter in it like some of the looser bobs about. "Go on." Ignoring the monkey's sniff, Gisela picks her delicate way down his shirt sleeve for a new perch on the ink blotter; her tawny forelegs fold together, too.
--
Of towering height and lanky build, from long head to heavy feet, he holds himself closed and composed with a precise reserve. His face is an angular mask, austerely planed; his nose's narrow chisel wedges apart deep-set eyes of intense and watchful umber, couched in the fine lines of concentration and his near-forty years. His skin bears the flat pallor of too much time indoors, and grey threads thinly through his clipped dark hair, like the East End embroidery on his baritone's silken layers and folds.
He wears a simple dress shirt, trousers, and modestly good shoes. The outfit is a few years' slide down the curve of fashion, but sturdy and tidy in its unadorned sobriety.
--
This wasp spider is a creature of bright colors and nimble delicacy. Her body, the size of a man's fingernail, glows with bands of yellow, black, and white; her head is silver, set with the tiny onyxes of multiple, unreadable eyes. Her legs stretch thin and tawny to tent comfortably within a palm, when they aren't moving her with sudden and striking speed on black-clawed feet.
--
Daniel blurts out, "Well, he's dead!" Then he sits down in the seat, settling the briefcase he's been carrying down on the side. Circe moves from his shoulders to sit in between his legs. "I thought that part was obvious."
Jerome's eyebrows rake a little higher; a muscle twitches along the length of his set jaw. "Because you're here, not -- there?" He adds with scrupulous politeness, "Wherever that might be."
"Indeed," Daniel says, taking that line of reasoning and running with it. "I thought you might like to know, and I really though since you're my last remaining blood relative, well, I thought we should get to know each other." Daniel leans back in the chair and raises an eyebrow. "We are, literally, all we have left. Isn't that a cheerful thought?"
"Ah," says Jerome, and relaxes somewhat even as the spider upon the inkblot tightens into a yellow-black-and-white ball. Sarcasm begins scraping idle whimsy along the raspier edges of his consonants. "So this is where I rise up and hold out my arms to clasp my dear long-lost brother to my breast, crying, 'At last, at last, we have only each other at the last.'" A pause; a freshly narrowed stare. "I don't think so, sir."
Daniel's eyebrow immediately droops and his eyes take on a /bit/ of that glassy hardness. "Well. I didn't expect you to well up about it. We don't know each other one bit. Although I had braced myself for some level of schaudenfreud about father." He folds his arms, and Circe curls her tail tight around her body. "You don't even want to ask how, or why?" He looks directly at Jerome, waiting.
Jerome lets a shrug ease him back from the desk, from the visitor, from this sudden /brother/ of his. He returns to that precise politesse for, "If it would make you feel better, say on. He wasn't my father, after all, but I understand that you might have feelings for him, for whatever reason."
Even with his arms folded, it turns out that you /can/ be surprised beyond defenses by someone else's coldness. Circe edges back against his lap. "No, I don't think I will." Daniel says, voice a little rough. He takes a moment to compose himself and then says, "I'm thinking of making London my new base of operations. I'd like to stay with you until such a time as I can get a place of my own."
For her part, Gisela is tip-tap-tapping a tiny foreclaw against the inkblotter, in restless and random rhythm. Jerome just sits like a lump, a big, lanky lump, surrounded by his interrupted work. The mention of Daniel's own 'operations' gets a jolt out of him, and a frown that deepens as the other man goes on. "You want to stay with me," he sounds out slowly as if the words hadn't quite made it through the first time. "And the reason for my generosity would be . . . ?"
Daniel scratches his jaw a bit, and says, "Well, I /would/ like to get to know you, but I suppose that line of reasoning won't work on someone as cold-hearted as you." He thinks about it for a moment, looking at the ceiling and then shrugs. Might as well. He picks up his briefcase and scoots Circe off so he can open it on his lap. "I have a legitimate trade. You need'nt worry about the apple falling from the tree." From within the briefcase, he pulls out a smaller, leather box which he opens to reveal a silver alethiometer tucked neatly into a form-fitted blue velvet lining.
Jerome looks mildly baffled, and a bit distasteful, at this getting-to-know-you talk, but doesn't have time to dig into it before the shiny bit of business in the leather box catches his professionally fascinated eye. He leans forward; Gisela scrabbles down from the inkblot to the very edge of the desk, craning over. "And /what/ is /that/ supposed to be?"
Daniel gently scoops it out of the box, into his cradled hands, and inching forward with all that stuff on his lap, leans out so that the alethiometer is a little closer to Jerome. Circe hops from his shoulder to the corner of the desk, quite near to Gisela and keeps a wary eye out. Her soul mate doesn't seem to notice as he flips the lid open. "It's an alethiometer. It's only one of six left in the world, made by a fellow from Prague by the name of Pavel Khunrath, in service to the King there, at that time." He tips it slightly, letting the upper dial slip between his index fingers for an extra grip. "Surely you've heard of an alethiometer?" He casts a glance around the office and gives his brother a smirk.
Gisela creeps a breath or two closer to the object, one skinny, careful leg at a time. Jerome sharpens a look at her, encompassing Circe with it, and returns his frown, with interest added to the capital, to Daniel. "I know the word," he passes off, casual above the hands tightening around each other on the desktop. "And I know the reputation. Which makes the next question easy enough: what in the world are you /doing/ with it?"
"It's mine." Daniel says, sitting up straight and thereby drawing the alethiometer closer to him and further away from Jerome. Circe relaxes a bit as he pulls away, seeming content to sit and dangle her tail from the edge of the desk. "I read it, that's how I earn a living."
While his daemon takes her turn as immobile lump, tucked disdainfully away from that dangling tail and the monkey attached to it, Jerome snorts honest disbelief. "You," he says. "You read an alethiometer, one of the rarest treasures in the world, for a living. An honest trade, come by honestly." Bitterness drips off the last few words, acidic from long, long memory. "Why do I smell a father's hand somewhere in this?"
"He won it in a game of cards with the chamberlain to the Duke of Saxony." Daniel says. "It was very legitimate, in as much as winning anything at cards can be." He places the alethiometer back gently in the little case, snaps it shut and tucks it back into the briefcase. However, he doesn't shut the briefcase immediately, instead he pulls out two slim volumes in Italian: they are symbol guides to alethiometer reading, written by some Cardinal of the Inquisition. He puts them back as soon as brother gets a good look at them, and only then does he shut the briefcase and snap it closed.
Jerome's frown is muddled now, with reluctant curiosity swirled into the mix. He taps his thumb pensively atop his clasped hands, and his eyes linger in the briefcase's direction while he thinks and Gisela sits, quivering slightly inside her tent of legs. "So you've come here to ply your trade in the wake of his death," he sums up at length. "And you need a place to stay. Bloody . . ." A sigh swallows the rest of the invective, tips his head back and his eyes briefly closed. "I -- suppose we could work something out."
Daniel seems delighted by this turn of events, and Circe makes an elegant leap from the desk to the chair, to sit on the corner of the chair. "That's very kind of you. I appreciate it." He fairly grins. "We'll be excellent house guests."
That assurance is anything but, by Jerome's sour reception of it. "Yes, I suppose he would have had you housebroken at some point," but his sarcasm has lost its edge, dulled by the alethiometer show, and he shakes his head, shakes it away. More temperately, loosening his hands and tense shoulders, he asks, "Where did you come from, anyway? It's a large continent, after all."
"Most recently? Paris, then I boarded an airship. I only just arrived yesterday." Daniel says, shrugging off any joke about being housebroken, and any real interest in the how of getting here. Circe continues to flick her tail, this time in great broad sweeps against the arm of the chair. "You seem to have done well for yourself. Curator of ancient antiquities."
"Thank you. Hard work will get a person almost anywhere, apparently." Jerome's ironic smile flickers like lamplight. "How did you know? How did you find me?"
"I asked the alethiometer." Daniel says, giving him an incredulous look.
Jerome returns it in spades. "That specific, is it?"
"Oh yes." Daniel says, lifting his eyebrows.
Jerome makes a noncommittal noise and busies himself with gently scooping up his daemon and returning her to his shoulder. "This is Gisela, by the way," he gives for manners' sake. The spider just clings, and the man purses his lips, thinking again. "I won't trouble you for a demonstration; your presence here is proof enough, obviously. As your new host, though, I'd like to ask what exactly your work with it will involve -- specifically, callers at all hours at my door, say."
Circe is the one who speaks, "Charmed," she says, and then flicks her tail around Daniel's neck. He lifts a hand to uncurl it, and says, "I keep proper office hours. I assume you have a desk I could set up for readings? Most of my previous clientel have wanted to inquire about buisness matters, although the nature of the alethiometer is such that it is usually better for me to get the question in writing, do the reading in private and then return to their place of work with the answer."
Jerome's expression shuts down again with a nigh-audible click. "Actually, I had expected that you'd work outside my home." He gives the possessive pronoun a definite emphasis, then offers a conciliatory smile. "There's office space in the city; surely you can find a suitable spot. I have my own affairs to think of, and while I don't mind directing clients to the proper location . . ."
Daniel blinks at the suddenness of the shut down and tilts his head like so. Circe's amber eyes turn to Jerome, as if both of them together are collecting data. "Oh. Well, I suppose I can have an office, if it's important to you."
Jerome sighs and spreads his hands. Gisela slides further up his shoulder as if pushed by the monkey's scrutiny. "My privacy is important to me," he answers bluntly. "But suddenly I have a brother on my doorstep, or on my sofa, and his business moved right in with him. Give me a /little/ space here, Daniel. Please?"
Daniel plucks at a cufflink. "I shall go look for one tomorrow." He promises. "I think you'll find that I am an easy going, pleasant person who does not wish to cause you further annoyance, and if I can lessen my imposition by hiring out a space, then I shall do that." He looks back up at him. Circe lids her eyes and looks away, at a little statuette in the corner.
Jerome doesn't look exactly mollified -- still too prickled for that -- but does nod his acceptance. "With such a powerful tool in your hands, you're sure to be able to find the right location. And the right clients." A half-hooked smile, deliberately dangled for humor's bite. "And then the right flat of your own."
"It might take me a bloody week to figure out the directions, though." Daniel mutters, and Circe flips her tail. Still, it's remarkable his recovery time for all this and he takes a deep breath. "I am sure I will be able to manage my affairs as quickly as possible."
Magnanimous now, since he can afford it with the main point won, Jerome promises, "I can speak with a few people here and see if anyone knows of a good place. Or my building's manager; that might work." Gisela leans into his neck; absently, he runs a finger along one of her forelegs in a practiced, familiar gesture. "I still can't believe you're /here/," he confesses then. "In my office -- in my city."
Daniel pats his chest and then Circe's head. His daemon snuffs at his fingers and smooths down any ruffled fur. "We're here. It can be quite a shock. You just gotta roll with it. Find your sea legs. All that." Speaking of, he stands up, and says, "Did you have more work or shall we get going?"
Jerome visibly flattens /his/ ruffles. With a deep breath, he glances around the desk with sharp little pecks of attention. "It can wait for morning," he decides, but does make Daniel wait while he tidies this and that pile of paper. There: now he can stand and pull on his jacket. He's gone back into his shell, watchful, quiet, and the spider rides his shoulder with imperious ease. "I'll do my best rolling, brother, but it might take a while." He sighs again. "A long while."
"Oh! But see, you called me brother. You're off to a fine start," Daniel says, and picks up his briefcase. Circe settles herself into a sitting position on his shoulder for the journey. He doesn't exactly wait for Jerome's signal to leave the room, stepping ahead of his brother and out into the hall.
"Didn't see that I had much of a choice," Jerome mutters, but his eyes are on the briefcase, not his brother's back, as what he's following. He pauses to make sure that the lamp inside the door is out, then closes and locks up. He pushes out a determined breath. "Right. This way." And off he goes, eating up the scuffed floor in rangy strides.
The walk to Jerome's apartment is quick and unnotable, with the two not saying much of import and Daniel only noticing that the neighborhood and building are a bit swank . "This is a nice building. Doing well for yourself." He says, admiring it. They tromp up the stairs and Daniel waits patiently, leaning against the wall with the briefcase resting against his shins for big brother to open the door.
Jerome digs out his keys. "Hard work," he repeats as explanation and swings the door open with a jangle. Stuffy air rolls out, and he has the grace to look abashed. Mumbling about opening the windows, he plunges into the darkness. A lamp gets lit along the way, revealing a small main room made smaller by the heavy, old, dark furniture it contains. The wallpaper is contrastingly pale, somewhere in the vicinity of rose. There's no other decoration. No clutter, either, at least.
Rather unlike his office, then. Daniel takes it all in with a sweep of his head, while Circe hops from his shoulder to the nearest furniture to do a bit of exploring on her own. "Lovely. Perfection." He says, and sets the briefcase down on the coffee table before sinking into the nearest seat. He unbuttons his blazer and makes an effort to relax.
"Thanks," floats over, darkly amused, from the windows, which are indeed getting opened, albeit with cranky creaks and whines (from the jambs, not Jerome). He enjoys a second's look outside, a breath of fresh air, and then slides into hosting on the amble back to the center of the room. Gisela stays behind on a sill for now. "May I get you anything? Have you eaten already?"
"I had a coffee not too long ago," Daniel admits, and then runs a hand through his hair. Now that he's here, sitting, he looks quite wiped actually. "I suppose I'd love something. What do you have?" Circe ends her exploration of the room layout and returns, bounding up onto Daniel's lap.
Jerome bends a thoughtful eye to the other man. Consideration and calculation swift across his long face. "I can check the coldbox, just a moment. In the meantime, something to drink?" He nods to the sideboard taking up most of the wall between a pair of doors. "I've port and sherry and a pair of rather fine reds. Nothing like what you're used to, but it's something," he adds self-deprecatingly, a corner of his mouth turned up. The fine fashion on little brother didn't go unnoticed, either.
Circe yawns, exposing some big monkey teeth. Seems like she might go and fall asleep in a moment. "I suppose a glass of wine would be nice." Daniel pokes his daemon, and she looks at him dryly. Yes, yes. She sits up proper like, and then he gets up to go see the coldbox himself. The briefcase is left on the table.
Jerome, caught flat-footed by such initiative, stares after him. Then at the briefcase. Then at Circe. The quirk in his mouth deepens, broadens. He shakes his head in visible bemusement, and the quickly buried spark of something more shadowy, before retreating to the sideboard to prepare two glasses of wine like a proper host. "I wouldn't mind something to nibble on," he calls over his shoulder towards the kitchen, "if there's enough for two. I worked straight through the day, I'm afraid."
Daniel pulls open the coldbox with a tug and then says, "Cheese? I assume you have some crackers somewhere?" He very carefully looks through Jerome's food items, before deciding that even if he doesn't, Daniel will want some cheese.
Jerome agrees, "Cheese is fine. Crackers . . . Might be a package in the cabinet above the sink? To the left." He returns to the conversation area, places one glass finickily /just so/ on the table next to (but not too near) the briefcase, and settles into one of the winged armchairs on the table's other side. Legs stretch out long, creaking like the windows, and push him down into the napped, striped upholstery. He stares over the rim of his glass into the middle distance, looking tired, too, in the creases and cracks of his expression.
Cheese it is. Daniel places it on the counter, grabs the nearest sharp knife and cuts several slices off, making a proper pile on one of his brother's little plates. Then he reaches for the cracker package and brings it all over to the seating area. He puts the plate in the center, takes the briefcase off and puts it next to Circe, who jumps a little at the sudden motion. "There we are." He leans over to fix himself a cheese-cracker sandwich and picks up the glass of wine. "Cheers to your hospitality?"
Jerome sits up and lifts his glass in agreement. "To long-lost family," he can't resist adding. He glances towards the window; Gisela glides down to the floor, vanishing behind the sofa. Time to dig into the cheese plate, which he does only desultorily, never mind the missed meals. Distracted. "Where's the rest of your luggage?"
Daniel does a bit of a snot thing and sniffs his wine before he sips, leaning back in the chair. "In the locker, care of the Brytish Aircraft Fleet. I'll have to go get it, first thing tomorrow." The cracker sandwich is then bitten into, unfortunate little bits of crumbs getting on his blazer. Oh well. Hm. If he wasn't feeling unexpectedly tired, the awkwardness would probably have him blabbing all sorts of stories by now. "You should tell me more about you."
Right. Because that's exactly what Jerome F. Harper wants to do right now, and his sardonic look across the table tells his brother so. But . . . a host's duties. "What would you like to know?" he asks. Dutifully.
Daniel flips his free hand, and says, "Dunno, really. Got a girl? Do you like being a museum guy? Seen any good opera lately? Do you play cards?" He rattles off, and then looks over at Jerome. "Those things."
Jerome finally picks out a slice of cheese, levers it onto a cracker, and maneuvers the whole business up to and into his mouth, stolidly chewed and washed down with a slow swallow before he supplies answers in a meticulous list. "No; yes, very much; no, don't like opera; and yes, indifferently." He gives back a most solemn look: a schoolboy reciting lessons, yessir. "Or did you want to have a conversation? Since we did so well at it in my office."
Circe snorts, and far from polite behaviour, asks, "Is that all you do, bluster?" Daniel scowls at her. "Enough of that," and then scoops her up and hands her a cracker. She frowns but eats the thing anyway. "I was aiming for a conversation, yes. This is the part where we start to get to know each other." He explains. "Museums. Antiquities. Have you been to an unwrapping?"
At the breach, there's a spider's worth of irritated scrabbling under the sofa. Jerome just puffs out a breath and sinks into the chair. "I never claimed to be witty," he says, aggrieved. "Or charming. /Or/ flush with fraternal love." After another sip, he shakes his head and obliges on the new tack. "Unwrappings -- yes, a few, though not recently. I've been up to my ears in auction listings and budget requests. New exhibit planned for the turn of the season, and if I can't get all the pieces together in the next month . . . Well, so it goes." He pays out a tired smile. "And you -- you must have seen so much over there. In classics up to your ears."
"Sure. Just laying about over there. Farmers digging new trenches and hitting High Roman Sculpture and using bricks from the Great Fire to build a cow pasture. You can go out with a shovel and pry it out of the ground, and no one bats an eye." Daniel says, taking another sip from his wine. He keeps a hand on Circe's back, smoothing down her fur. She turns her face towards the wall, in a bit of a sulk. "I've not yet been to an unwrapping, though. I should put it on the list. What's the big exhibit all about?"
"And here I've been all these years, dealing with boxes of jewelry sworn to be Persian from the reign of Xerxes, that end up being someone's school project dug out of Aunt Ginnie's attic, sent in by a relative hoping to score a pretty penny for the 'find.'" Jerome looks mournfully envious of proper, ubiquitous ruins. Alas, alas. He has more wine. "--Oh, Etruscan funeral displays through the years. It's the bas reliefs that are proving so tricky. Delicate things to transport, you know, and governments and dealers just as delicate to handle. I never aspired to this position for the bureaucracy, but there it is."
"Indeed," Daniel says soothingly, tacking on a "Government work." He shakes his head and has another bit of cheese and crackers. Circe's eyes slip closed, even as her tail continues to flick back and forth at its tip. "The Etruscans, a fascinating mystery. Maybe you can convince them to send you over to finish off your work."
Jerome blinks his surprise. "That wouldn't be necessary. I can bluster, if you'll pardon my appropriation, just as well from my desk." He pauses, rolls around a thought or two, then finishes quietly, "I didn't inherit the travel bug."
Daniel looks at him and then shrugs. "I'm not sure how you'd know, you haven't tried it, but I'll leave it well alone." He looks down at his daemon, then drains the last of his wine. "I'd best get to bed sometime soon. Busy day tomorrow."
"Right." Jerome still has another few swallows in his glass, but it comes with him as is on his climb to his feet. He gestures with it toward the doors flanking the sideboard. "Bathroom there, and that's my room down the hall. I'll get pillows and blankets. . . . Anything else you need?"
"No, no, that'll be lovely." Daniel says, placing the discarded glass on the table. He rubs an eye and looks at what's left of the food with a shrug. Can't exactly put that back in the coldbox. So he bends down to untie his shoes and work them off, then shrugs off his blazer and hangs it on the back of the chair. Good enough.
Gisela appears nonchalantly from under the sofa and flows up to Jerome's hand holding the glass. They vanish down the hallway for a few minutes, returning without the wine and with an armful of bedding, which he piles carefully at one end of the sofa. Picking up Daniel's glass and the plate, he mentions with cautious solicitousness, "I'll be up early as well, but if you need an alarm set, we can do that."
Daniel shakes his head. "No, no need. I'm sure I'll get up once the sun rises." He yawns and points to the window, before scooping up Circe off the chair. She's a bit like a limp doll in that she isn't bothering to wake or otherwise help. With the other hand he picks up the briefcase. He places her on the couch and then begins to make a bed for himself before crawling in to it. It probably won't be too long at all before he falls asleep.
Leaving to Jerome the quiet duties of putting away dishes, closing the windows (with a thin gap left for circulation), and turning down the lights. He negotiates the resulting gloom with ease, on his way to his room and his wine and his bed, but he does stop, a shadow amid the other shadows, in the doorway to the hall. A moment. Then: "Good night," he offers, somewhere between helpless and resigned, but mostly just tired. A long day, and what a long day, indeed.
[Log ends.]
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