Original: La Belle Langue
Title: La Belle Langue
Series: Original (L'oiseau du Bonheur)
Characters/Pairings: Tristan/Eleanor
Rating: G
Warnings: I wrote it. ???
Summary: Second language stuff. I just wanted to write them talking and being happy.
It takes almost an hour longer than usual to slog painfully through another whole chapter of the wretched history textbook, as Tristan keeps spacing out and having to look up words in the dictionary. In his mind, there is nothing more astoundingly boring than reading about wars and geographical nonsense. At one point he spends an entire ten minutes staring at the page, watching the English text blur into indecipherable jibberish (as if often does when he isn't paying attention) until Isaac clears his throat.
Awful. As if studying wasn't dull enough, they have to force him to do it in English, too.
Finally, finally he escapes the room by writing out his chapter summary as furiously as possible and practically running out the door. He can do his math when he gets back. It's not like that's quite as soul-sucking.
Tristan is grateful to find that Eleanor's extraordinary patience is not limited to dealing with her brother. She is still waiting quietly for him and does not look even remotely annoyed at his tardiness, even though it really is entirely his own fault. She has brought books today--a couple of novels that he knows by now are her favorites. They're stacked neatly next to her knees. She looks up from a small open book as he approaches.
"There you are! I was starting to think you got lost or something." Ah, what a pretty smile! He can just barely see her fangs through it, but somehow that makes it a little more endearing.
"I did," he says, sinking to the grass next to her. "I was lost in a very boring lesson. I'm sorry--thank you for waiting anyway." He looks down at her book. "What are you reading?"
The girl immediately looks self-conscious and fans her hand out over the text to try to cover it. She would probably be blushing were it still possible, but even without that, she's given away her embarrassment. "O-oh, um, nothing. I'll show you another time, maybe..."
"It will still be the same book tomorrow," Tristan says, amused.
"But I might not be so bad at reading it later." She closes it reluctantly, revealing a single word in very square typeface: FRENCH.
"Ah!" He spends so much time around people trying to flee from it that Tristan finds the prospect of someone trying to learn French absolutely astounding in the best imaginable way. He loves his first language very deeply, after all, and even though he wouldn't admit it, it wounds him somewhat that the people he loves put so much effort into keeping him away from it. "That's..."
He locks eyes with Eleanor and she immediately looks embarrassed again. "Don't get too excited. You're making me feel bad!" She laughs a little. "I was studying it all night and I still don't think I can say anything right."
"All night!" He grabs both her hands in his and kisses her cheek with great enthusiasm. "You are the most wonderful girl in the world! Thank you!!"
His joy is encouraging, though, and Eleanor thinks that if it will make him happy, maybe it's worth being embarrassed for a few seconds as she verbally butchers a foreign language. "I'll try as long as you say it first and I can just copy you."
"Of course!" Tristan looks completely elated at the whole idea. He's practically radiating happiness. "Of course. What do you want to say?"
She takes a deep breath she doesn't actually need. She briefly considers a number of things, like asking for a kiss, but she's still too shy to be that forward about anything. "Um, I'm not sure. Do you want to pick?"
"'I love you'?"
"Okay."
"'Je t'aime.'" There is an extra level of warmth when he says things in French, not only because he loves his own language so much, but because he feels he can mean them so much more.
"Je... t'aime?"
"Ahaha! Je t'aime aussi, ma chere!" He kisses her again--her lips this time--in a quick motion. "To think, this day started out terribly. Ah, I'm so happy!"
"Do you think you can teach me some things sometime? I- I mean, we don't have to do a lot or anything, but I feel kind of bad sometimes that you have to work hard to be able to talk to me and I don't have to do the same thing."
"No, no, don't be sorry." Tristan moves to a spot to one side of her and pulls her up onto his lap. "Remember, I was doomed to learn English anyway. I thought it was stupid, but if it means I was able to talk with you and do all of the things we do, it was worth all those terrible hours!"
She smiles a little at this.
"But I would be overjoyed to teach you some French anyway."
"And if it makes you happy, it makes me happy, too." Eleanor puts a hand on his shoulder and kisses his cheek. "Then you can make fun of my accent."
"Ah, not you too!" Tristan puts on a mock wounded expression. Adel already spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing his consonant sounds, trying (probably pretty hopelessly) to correct them. "My accent isn't so bad, is it?"
"Well, you can't say 'house' or 'church'." She covers a giggle at the thought. Tristan gives her a playful backhanded whap in the arm.
"Be nice," he laughs. "I can say it if I break it up. Ch - ur - ch."
"Don't forget 'ouse."
"You won't be laughing when you roll all your Rs like an anglophone and I make fun of you." He smooshes her against him from behind in kind of an awkward hug, then rests his chin on her shoulder for a moment. "It will be cute, though. I'm excited!"
"That's how I feel about it, too. Your accent, I mean."
"It's cute?" Tristan sounds vaguely surprised, as though the possibility had never actually occurred to him.
"Yeah! I like it." Eleanor settles back against him. It's kind of strange how when he speaks entirely in French, she can hear what he'd sound like if he spoke unaccented English. "It suits you."
"Good, because I probably can't get rid of it." They sit in a pleasant silence for a few minutes, just enjoying being together in the clean air. "I want to hear yours, though. Say rossignol."
"Rossignol."
"It's the French word for nightingale, by the way. Roll your R!"
"Rrrrrr."
They both laugh.
Eleanor reaches over one of his arms, still wrapped around her, and picks up her French book. "What if we start where the book starts so I can follow it a little bit by myself, too? How did you learn?"
Her boyfriend gives a looong sigh. "I learned a little bit with my other lessons, and then Adel made me stop speaking French and fixed my mistakes when I made them. There were a lot! This way--" he says, referring to the book, "--is a lot less mean! But Adel is a good teacher. He never stops."
"And since you learned from him, you'll be a good teacher, too." She feels quite confident about this; after all, anything Tristan feels strongly about, he can put lots of love and effort into, and French is obviously one of those things. Hopefully that love extends to teaching it, if not for the sake of the language itself, for the time he gets to spend trying to speak it with her. "We'll just do a little bit now and then, though. I'm not very ambitious with memorizing things."
"Neither am I!" Tristan feels as though at the very least he should be adept enough to teach someone the very basics of his own language. The fact that she cares enough to want to try is good enough for him, even if they never get anywhere with it. "We'll just do what we can, right?"
"Right. So let's start at the beginning." Eleanor shifts her weight forward and sits up straight again.
"Le depart. ...I'm joking, I'm joking. We start with hello. Bonjour."
The girl pauses for a moment, then gets up and offers her hand to him. "Bonjour! Do you wanna finish this at my house? I should probably write things down."
"Avec plaisir." He passes over her stuff and pulls himself up with her hand. "Haha, and I promise to only teach you useful verbs!"
She smiles at him. "I'm going to hold you to that, Tristan," she says, and laces their fingers together for the walk back.
Series: Original (L'oiseau du Bonheur)
Characters/Pairings: Tristan/Eleanor
Rating: G
Warnings: I wrote it. ???
Summary: Second language stuff. I just wanted to write them talking and being happy.
It takes almost an hour longer than usual to slog painfully through another whole chapter of the wretched history textbook, as Tristan keeps spacing out and having to look up words in the dictionary. In his mind, there is nothing more astoundingly boring than reading about wars and geographical nonsense. At one point he spends an entire ten minutes staring at the page, watching the English text blur into indecipherable jibberish (as if often does when he isn't paying attention) until Isaac clears his throat.
Awful. As if studying wasn't dull enough, they have to force him to do it in English, too.
Finally, finally he escapes the room by writing out his chapter summary as furiously as possible and practically running out the door. He can do his math when he gets back. It's not like that's quite as soul-sucking.
Tristan is grateful to find that Eleanor's extraordinary patience is not limited to dealing with her brother. She is still waiting quietly for him and does not look even remotely annoyed at his tardiness, even though it really is entirely his own fault. She has brought books today--a couple of novels that he knows by now are her favorites. They're stacked neatly next to her knees. She looks up from a small open book as he approaches.
"There you are! I was starting to think you got lost or something." Ah, what a pretty smile! He can just barely see her fangs through it, but somehow that makes it a little more endearing.
"I did," he says, sinking to the grass next to her. "I was lost in a very boring lesson. I'm sorry--thank you for waiting anyway." He looks down at her book. "What are you reading?"
The girl immediately looks self-conscious and fans her hand out over the text to try to cover it. She would probably be blushing were it still possible, but even without that, she's given away her embarrassment. "O-oh, um, nothing. I'll show you another time, maybe..."
"It will still be the same book tomorrow," Tristan says, amused.
"But I might not be so bad at reading it later." She closes it reluctantly, revealing a single word in very square typeface: FRENCH.
"Ah!" He spends so much time around people trying to flee from it that Tristan finds the prospect of someone trying to learn French absolutely astounding in the best imaginable way. He loves his first language very deeply, after all, and even though he wouldn't admit it, it wounds him somewhat that the people he loves put so much effort into keeping him away from it. "That's..."
He locks eyes with Eleanor and she immediately looks embarrassed again. "Don't get too excited. You're making me feel bad!" She laughs a little. "I was studying it all night and I still don't think I can say anything right."
"All night!" He grabs both her hands in his and kisses her cheek with great enthusiasm. "You are the most wonderful girl in the world! Thank you!!"
His joy is encouraging, though, and Eleanor thinks that if it will make him happy, maybe it's worth being embarrassed for a few seconds as she verbally butchers a foreign language. "I'll try as long as you say it first and I can just copy you."
"Of course!" Tristan looks completely elated at the whole idea. He's practically radiating happiness. "Of course. What do you want to say?"
She takes a deep breath she doesn't actually need. She briefly considers a number of things, like asking for a kiss, but she's still too shy to be that forward about anything. "Um, I'm not sure. Do you want to pick?"
"'I love you'?"
"Okay."
"'Je t'aime.'" There is an extra level of warmth when he says things in French, not only because he loves his own language so much, but because he feels he can mean them so much more.
"Je... t'aime?"
"Ahaha! Je t'aime aussi, ma chere!" He kisses her again--her lips this time--in a quick motion. "To think, this day started out terribly. Ah, I'm so happy!"
"Do you think you can teach me some things sometime? I- I mean, we don't have to do a lot or anything, but I feel kind of bad sometimes that you have to work hard to be able to talk to me and I don't have to do the same thing."
"No, no, don't be sorry." Tristan moves to a spot to one side of her and pulls her up onto his lap. "Remember, I was doomed to learn English anyway. I thought it was stupid, but if it means I was able to talk with you and do all of the things we do, it was worth all those terrible hours!"
She smiles a little at this.
"But I would be overjoyed to teach you some French anyway."
"And if it makes you happy, it makes me happy, too." Eleanor puts a hand on his shoulder and kisses his cheek. "Then you can make fun of my accent."
"Ah, not you too!" Tristan puts on a mock wounded expression. Adel already spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing his consonant sounds, trying (probably pretty hopelessly) to correct them. "My accent isn't so bad, is it?"
"Well, you can't say 'house' or 'church'." She covers a giggle at the thought. Tristan gives her a playful backhanded whap in the arm.
"Be nice," he laughs. "I can say it if I break it up. Ch - ur - ch."
"Don't forget 'ouse."
"You won't be laughing when you roll all your Rs like an anglophone and I make fun of you." He smooshes her against him from behind in kind of an awkward hug, then rests his chin on her shoulder for a moment. "It will be cute, though. I'm excited!"
"That's how I feel about it, too. Your accent, I mean."
"It's cute?" Tristan sounds vaguely surprised, as though the possibility had never actually occurred to him.
"Yeah! I like it." Eleanor settles back against him. It's kind of strange how when he speaks entirely in French, she can hear what he'd sound like if he spoke unaccented English. "It suits you."
"Good, because I probably can't get rid of it." They sit in a pleasant silence for a few minutes, just enjoying being together in the clean air. "I want to hear yours, though. Say rossignol."
"Rossignol."
"It's the French word for nightingale, by the way. Roll your R!"
"Rrrrrr."
They both laugh.
Eleanor reaches over one of his arms, still wrapped around her, and picks up her French book. "What if we start where the book starts so I can follow it a little bit by myself, too? How did you learn?"
Her boyfriend gives a looong sigh. "I learned a little bit with my other lessons, and then Adel made me stop speaking French and fixed my mistakes when I made them. There were a lot! This way--" he says, referring to the book, "--is a lot less mean! But Adel is a good teacher. He never stops."
"And since you learned from him, you'll be a good teacher, too." She feels quite confident about this; after all, anything Tristan feels strongly about, he can put lots of love and effort into, and French is obviously one of those things. Hopefully that love extends to teaching it, if not for the sake of the language itself, for the time he gets to spend trying to speak it with her. "We'll just do a little bit now and then, though. I'm not very ambitious with memorizing things."
"Neither am I!" Tristan feels as though at the very least he should be adept enough to teach someone the very basics of his own language. The fact that she cares enough to want to try is good enough for him, even if they never get anywhere with it. "We'll just do what we can, right?"
"Right. So let's start at the beginning." Eleanor shifts her weight forward and sits up straight again.
"Le depart. ...I'm joking, I'm joking. We start with hello. Bonjour."
The girl pauses for a moment, then gets up and offers her hand to him. "Bonjour! Do you wanna finish this at my house? I should probably write things down."
"Avec plaisir." He passes over her stuff and pulls himself up with her hand. "Haha, and I promise to only teach you useful verbs!"
She smiles at him. "I'm going to hold you to that, Tristan," she says, and laces their fingers together for the walk back.