[The corner of the library that Gilbert's set his laptop's webcam up to capture is very pretty. Cozy, almost. There's a cushioned seat tucked away into a corner, flanked by tall bookshelves and a table with a reading lamp atop it. The lengthy windows behind it all give a good view of the sun setting over campus, bathing the entire scene with a warm light.
Gilbert is curled up in the seat, his legs tucked underneath him, shoes off on the floor beside him. His book-bag is at the foot of the chair, and a few textbooks sit ready at hand on the adjacent desk. Truly, he's found the most comfortable spot in the school to get some studying in for the evening. Inclining his head towards the camera, he smiles gamely.]
Math homework is so much duller than I would've thought. How much do you think I would have to pay to have someone do it for me?
Twenty sounds fine, don't you think?
[No, he doesn't know enough about computers to filter this from any staff who might be watching. Then again, he doesn't especially care if they see it. It's not as if he actually has the money for a bribe in any case.]
[Action - Outdoors]
There is not, at least so far as Gilbert has been able to find in his (admittedly rather limited) exploration of the Institute grounds, a chapel on campus. This comes as something of a surprise. Not that church-going had been anything near universal, back in Paris...but in the small village near Marseilles that he'd been raised in, attendance at least at Sunday mass had been a point of broad devotion. There'd been ill-rumors when Auguste had refused to force him to attend, then far worse ones when it had gotten out that he'd forbade the manor's attendants to take him along at the start of each week, as well.
But on a Sunday morning here, there's only a lazy beginning to the day, students sleeping in and the slow, unmotivated lull of a weekend crawling towards its end. It is disorienting, most of all for an empath: the emotional colors along every hall he ducks down in the school or the dorms are restful and dim and undisturbed. It makes Gilbert want to shriek. People here don't have to care about anything, do they? Besides made-up, heartless tripe about grades and teams and what a gang of humans in Washington is going to say is the law --
Even if Auguste says it's all myth, he'd almost rather they were all fretting over devils and hellfire this morning. They would have a little color to them, then. A little emotion.
In the end, he can't stand how drab the dining hall reads to his empathic senses at breakfast and has to flee out-of-doors. The front courtyard is a good spot at this hour, still lightly coated with snow. Gilbert crouches in front of the statue of Jean Gray with a bible stolen from the library and no coat, shivering as he reads. He hardly knows any of the stories, and the words don't have any of the gravity in translation that they'd always seemed to in Latin or his native French...but that's all unfamiliar in a way he's used to by now, at least. It's bearable in comparison to the rest.
And that's why there's a blond boy sitting out in the cold, probably catching his death and letting his breath puff out in little clouds as he murmurs through lines of Genesis, when the clock strikes ten for the morning. He'll sit out there just like that until he's on the verge of passing out, if anyone lets him.
Gilbert Cocteau | Kaze to Ki no Uta | Grade 9
[The corner of the library that Gilbert's set his laptop's webcam up to capture is very pretty. Cozy, almost. There's a cushioned seat tucked away into a corner, flanked by tall bookshelves and a table with a reading lamp atop it. The lengthy windows behind it all give a good view of the sun setting over campus, bathing the entire scene with a warm light.
Gilbert is curled up in the seat, his legs tucked underneath him, shoes off on the floor beside him. His book-bag is at the foot of the chair, and a few textbooks sit ready at hand on the adjacent desk. Truly, he's found the most comfortable spot in the school to get some studying in for the evening. Inclining his head towards the camera, he smiles gamely.]
Math homework is so much duller than I would've thought. How much do you think I would have to pay to have someone do it for me?
Twenty sounds fine, don't you think?
[No, he doesn't know enough about computers to filter this from any staff who might be watching. Then again, he doesn't especially care if they see it. It's not as if he actually has the money for a bribe in any case.]
[Action - Outdoors]
There is not, at least so far as Gilbert has been able to find in his (admittedly rather limited) exploration of the Institute grounds, a chapel on campus. This comes as something of a surprise. Not that church-going had been anything near universal, back in Paris...but in the small village near Marseilles that he'd been raised in, attendance at least at Sunday mass had been a point of broad devotion. There'd been ill-rumors when Auguste had refused to force him to attend, then far worse ones when it had gotten out that he'd forbade the manor's attendants to take him along at the start of each week, as well.
But on a Sunday morning here, there's only a lazy beginning to the day, students sleeping in and the slow, unmotivated lull of a weekend crawling towards its end. It is disorienting, most of all for an empath: the emotional colors along every hall he ducks down in the school or the dorms are restful and dim and undisturbed. It makes Gilbert want to shriek. People here don't have to care about anything, do they? Besides made-up, heartless tripe about grades and teams and what a gang of humans in Washington is going to say is the law --
Even if Auguste says it's all myth, he'd almost rather they were all fretting over devils and hellfire this morning. They would have a little color to them, then. A little emotion.
In the end, he can't stand how drab the dining hall reads to his empathic senses at breakfast and has to flee out-of-doors. The front courtyard is a good spot at this hour, still lightly coated with snow. Gilbert crouches in front of the statue of Jean Gray with a bible stolen from the library and no coat, shivering as he reads. He hardly knows any of the stories, and the words don't have any of the gravity in translation that they'd always seemed to in Latin or his native French...but that's all unfamiliar in a way he's used to by now, at least. It's bearable in comparison to the rest.
And that's why there's a blond boy sitting out in the cold, probably catching his death and letting his breath puff out in little clouds as he murmurs through lines of Genesis, when the clock strikes ten for the morning. He'll sit out there just like that until he's on the verge of passing out, if anyone lets him.