[Ortus has been more ill-treated for far longer by those more dear to him than Augustine. It has been little obstacle to his affections for them. It poses little obstacle to his consideration of Augustine, whatever discomfort has arisen at the Saint's overfamiliarity and innuendo.
There is more than one way to construct a barrier between oneself and the world. Ortus attempts to imagine the Saint as a child, all those thousands of years ago, and finds that he may not, because the image that comes to him of a child is one that is small and knobby kneed and skull-painted, with wide eyes of indeterminate color and a muss of pale hair.
The gift of translation in this world smooths the edges of the foreign words, this language that the Saint once spoke, a language as long dead as that imagined child, and Ortus comprehends.
He thinks that over a myriad, one must say goodbye many times, and always knowing that one such time will be the last.]
Au revoir.
[He echoes the words with utmost gravity, which ought to be unsuited to their lightness, but he finds a way to make them suit. He did not aspire to the title of bone skald unready for it.]
I will see to the well-being of my charges, in the meanwhile. [Not quite what Augustine has said; not quite implied, but perhaps meant.] May you find your own such duty not so onerous.
no subject
There is more than one way to construct a barrier between oneself and the world. Ortus attempts to imagine the Saint as a child, all those thousands of years ago, and finds that he may not, because the image that comes to him of a child is one that is small and knobby kneed and skull-painted, with wide eyes of indeterminate color and a muss of pale hair.
The gift of translation in this world smooths the edges of the foreign words, this language that the Saint once spoke, a language as long dead as that imagined child, and Ortus comprehends.
He thinks that over a myriad, one must say goodbye many times, and always knowing that one such time will be the last.]
Au revoir.
[He echoes the words with utmost gravity, which ought to be unsuited to their lightness, but he finds a way to make them suit. He did not aspire to the title of bone skald unready for it.]
I will see to the well-being of my charges, in the meanwhile. [Not quite what Augustine has said; not quite implied, but perhaps meant.] May you find your own such duty not so onerous.