plasticasshole | Aefenglom IC Inbox

[Small talk is not difficult in theory, but it exhausts L quickly. He nods a little more emphatically in an effort to keep his interest levels more obviously piqued, trying to file away what can be useful later. Through Connor, he's probably learned the most about mers than from any other source in Aefenglom. He continues to work at the coin, which he's sort of starting to get the hang of now that he's trying to move his fingers in a slightly different way. It's not exactly a fluid or easy-looking motion, but it's growing more so with L's dedication and practice. He wants the method to be understood before he picks up the pace, tries for something flashier.

I heard it, but never enjoyed it for what it was.

He thinks of his poem, the one that he mentioned and quickly tried to forget that he had.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Worth mentioning again? No...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Ironically, L considers it a poem about how little he can contribute to a conversation about what are arguably the most important parts of being human. And he feels, almost, at times, the fool, for even letting it slip past his lips.]

Circumstances change; if we change with them, it's a sign of successful adaptation. It's a good thing... especially if you find your life more fulfilling as a result.

[It sounds like something a psychologist would say, right? L's sure he's heard it somewhere before.]

Edited 2019-09-27 21:39 (UTC)

[Connor hasn’t forgotten as such, and he looks at L thoughtfully.]

Maybe. I admittedly don’t know if my life would have been as fulfilling back home... I never had the chance to live free before this.

[And then—]

What is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? I’ve never heard of it before.

[It's another hard "same" for L; he lived his life exactly as he wanted to, of course, solving his cases his way and rarely compromising. He didn't want for entertainment, money, comfort, or much at all... and the fact that it was a lonely and dangerous life was, most days, just an afterthought. He spent most of his time at a computer, but it was a full and rich enough existence.]

Oh, it's...

[Difficult to explain, without prior knowledge. L resists the urge to reach up and pull at his hair again, or nibble at his nails, just focusing on that coin and the fact that it brings some mental relief, but not really adequate physical relief.]

T.S. Eliot was a famous poet in my world. It's one of his most studied works. Ordinarily I find poetry to be trite, and really more effort than the final result... but...

[The experience of feeling like someone he has never met, who died well before his birth, could empathize with the humanity he keeps at arm's length continues to astonish him so much that he struggles to find the words for it. He's not a poet, unlike Mr. Eliot.]

It's not really a love song. He also wrote about Hollow Men, and a Waste Land, and it really sounds more like those than anything remotely like love.

[Or what it's supposed to be, what it could be. He doesn't know much about it.]

It's about someone who admires something he can't touch.

I’ve never had the chance to explore poetry.

[He doesn’t know if it would be something he’d try to take too literally, or think too logically about.]

Do you know the poem well enough to recite it? I’d like to hear it.

[If it’s important to someone like L, it’s worth hearing.]

I do...

[Absolutely, he does. L knows it by memory, because even the first time he read it, he couldn't forget it.]

It's long, though. And wandering, and tangent-ridden. I don't want to keep you, if you've somewhere to be.

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