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| Details |
| Author: | Luridel |
| Summary: | Cecil and Ozzy discuss poetry and mobile home ownership. ~2.3k words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
A gloomy air hangs over the town of Surwich. Sunny days are few and far between, and cloudy days are common. Today, a cloudy day has become a rainy day — and a harsh one. Rain beats down on the sloped roof of the inn, drumming loud and relentless, almost drowning out the sound of a crackling fireplace inside Cecil's rented room at the inn.
The room is on the top floor, meaning that the roof is slanted, although elevated high enough that the room's primary resident does not need to duck to avoid hitting his head.
The room is fairly small: a fireplace with a woven rug in front of it, a bed, a chest to store one's belongings in, and in front of the room's only window is a narrow desk at which Cecil sits.
Cecil is barefoot and dressed in a loose white shirt half-tucked into brown pants. He has in front of him a journal, which he is writing in very slowly.
A few raps on the door precede the turning of the key, and a dry but cranky looking Ozzy enters in human form.
"Got caught out in that mess," she says grumpily. To illustrate, she turns briefly back to worgen form. Her worgen form is drenched, mane plastered comically to her head. She switches back to human form before she can drip too much on the floor. "You know," she says, "I almost get why I'm dry when I switch forms, but if I fink too hard about why my worgen form is still wet when I go back my brain breaks, Even weirder, I know another worgen druid where it don't work like that for 'im at all. 'E jumps in a lake an' all 'is forms get wet. Nature magic ain't orderly at all. Also, 'ello, I forgot that bit."
Cecil closes the journal right away at the knock, leaving it on the desk while he gets to his feet. He smiles to see Ozzy, but when she launches into her explanation of personal worgen logistics he looks fascinated. Curses are strange.
It's only a couple of steps from the desk to the door, where Cecil holds his arms out for a hug and uses the opportunity to confirm that yes, human Ozzy is actually dry.
Ozzy gives him a long, warm hug. "Wotcha writin' about?" she says. "How amazin' I am, I hope." She pulls back and grins.
Cecil smiles warmly and signs one letter at a time, "P-O-E-T-R-Y." He waits to see if she remembers her alphabet and can piece that together.
Ozzy squints at his hand. "… Pot-ter-y?" she guesses. Being semiliterate is not helping the situation.
Cecil chuckles and shakes his head. "Almost," he signs, cupping his hands slightly and raising one up to pass the other. "You want read?"
Ozzy seems a bit better at recognizing the meaning-signs she's been actively learning and watching him use than the letter-signs. She blushes a little, and then nods.
"Poetry," she infers. "'Course. You said you write poems before. Pottery? Come on, Ozzy. Stupid, stupid. I guess I was finkin' you was Brann Bronzebeard, keepin' some adventure journal about old artifacts or somefing, I dunno." She laughs awkwardly.
"Cute," Cecil signs, shaking his head firmly as Ozzy calls herself stupid. "You want read," and then he signs what can only be 'poetry' in this context, a fist close to his chest opening up, eyebrows raised to indicate a question.
"Yeah, yeah, of course I do," she says on an enthusiastic rush of breath, her eyes sparkling.
Cecil takes Ozzy by the hand and leads her over to the desk, where he flips the journal to its most recent page.
Ozzy parks herself in the chair without asking and settles in to read.
Today's date is in the top right corner of the page, which currently reads:
I am learning to speak her language:
to lay the fragile workings of my heart in open air;
to trust her hands the way I trust my own.She is learning to speak my language:
to count the rapid beating of my heart;
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Below that, lower down on the page, is the clear beginning of an acrostic poem:
On days when rain bombards the windowpanes
She
L
Y
N
N
It seems that this is what he was interrupted from when she entered.
Ozzy's eyes slowly fill with tears as she reads; she drags the back of one hand across her eyes and focuses back on the page.
She sits quietly for a moment, sniffles once, and then says, "You wanna keep workin on it? Sorry to innerupt."
Cecil rests a hand on the back of her chair and leans down to press a kiss to the top of her head, then offers her a handkerchief. "Later," he signs. He snags the pen from the desk and writes in his notepad, 'If you're here, I'd rather spend time with you.'
She twists in the chair to look up at him. "You really like me, don't you," she says in quiet disbelief. "Like I was some… for real princess, or a maiden in a story. You seem so smart and reasonable, though. Like, ain't nuffing wrong wif how you work through problems or come up wif ideas. So bein' snowed over me is like, your one bit of crazy. I guess it's a kind of crazy I like." She gives him a slightly wobbly smile.
Cecil smiles warmly and touches his pointer finger to his lips, then points forward.
He scribbles, 'That means "really" like you're confirming something's true.'
Ozzy giggles. "Oh," she says. "For a second I thought you was askin' me to kiss you."
Cecil laughs quietly, then signs 'kiss' for her instead: two hands meeting with their fingers bunched together and deliberately puckered lips. In context, it's pretty obvious. "I kiss you?" he signs next, leaning down towards her.
Ozzy smiles and leans in, slipping a hand behind his head to smooth his hair down toward the nape of his neck as she kisses him. Since it wouldn't be fair play to use tongue, she expresses herself with her hands instead; the fingertips of one hand dance lightly through his hair as she presses close to him and brings her other hand up to his cheek, thumb stroking the corner of his mouth.
Her breath smells decidedly like cinnamon; she must have had something like this in mind before she came over.
Cecil bends to her level, cradling her face in careful hands as he kisses her back. His lips are a little dry, because he was not prepared, but there's nothing he can do about that in the moment. It is perhaps not the most interesting kiss Ozzy has ever had, but Cecil looks at her as though she is someone rare and precious.
Ozzy pulls back to look at him, her eyes all soft and starry. She gazes at him for a moment, then giggles and boops his nose gently.
"So how are you likin' havin' a cuddle buddy so far?" she says. "Am I sufficiently cuddly? Or painful like a porcupine?"
It's possible she might have accidentally lightly bonked him with an elbow once or twice when drowsy, but she has inflicted no bruises, at least.
Cecil nuzzles her cheek affectionately and then turns to lean back against the desk. "Good," he signs to her, the warmth of his smile indicating the extent of the understatement. He's a big fan.
Ozzy grins back at him. "It's nice bein' able to show you new fings. Mostly you know a lot more about the world than I do. But when it comes to cuddles an' such, I'm like one o' them pandaren masters." She makes vaguely martial-arts like gestures with her arms.
Cecil laughs and gives her a little bow, pandaren-style, before resuming his previous casual lean against the desk. "I really like you," he signs.
She signs the same back to him, eyes soft. Then she says, "How do I put 'too' on that, like, I really like you too? I feel like you showed me before, but I forgot." She wrinkles her nose self-reproachfully.
Cecil forms his hands into loose fists, pointer fingers extended, and taps them against each other as he moves his hands to the side.
Then he reaches for his notepad to clarify: 'You can use that for "also" as well. There's a few variants. If you just put your fingers together without the movement, that means that two things are identical.'
Ozzy tries it both ways, muttering to herself as she repeats the similar signs, trying to connect them with the concepts. Then she straddles the back of the chair and leans back with her elbows on the desk, looking at Cecil with a tilted head. One of her elbows is precariously near his poetry.
"So I was finkin about the wagon idea in your letter. You fink we could do that? Get a wagon, or build one, and I could just live in it and go all over?"
Cecil's eyes brighten, and he writes, 'Yes!' with enthusiasm, nodding. 'We could park it in Redridge when I want to visit Hubert, or Stormwind when you want to see Merry.' It's the first time he's used Ozzy's nickname for Lady Merelda, and he doesn't seem to have noticed. 'I liked the trip here. But I suppose we'd need to drive it ourselves.'
When he uses we, Ozzy's cheeks go a little pink, but she fights it off.
"No worries," she says. "I been drivin' wagons since I was a kid. I mean, never me own, and sometimes real reckless-like… Anyway, it's easy enough to learn. I could teach you, and we could take turns."
Cecil nods eagerly and doodles a bear sitting in the driver's seat of a covered wagon, the horse running at maximum speed away from its driver, with speed lines to indicate motion.
Ozzy leans over to watch as he draws, and as it becomes clear what he's depicting, she bursts into one of her unruly guffaws.
"You know, I never tried to drive one as a bear," she says in a dangerous tone that suggests she might be considering it as an experiment.
Cecil laughs and writes, 'Bears are heavy.' He doesn't tell her not to try it, though.
"How much you fink a wagon costs?" Ozzy ponders. "I'm gettin' a bit of reputation in Cobalt Company, so that means coin. Bet I can save up, an' I'd feel better if I could buy it meself. But I ain't got much experience buyin' anyfing other than veggies at a farmer's market, or hair ribbons, the kind o' fing they just trade a few coins for wifout fuss. I know it's different wif stuff like 'ouses an' carriages an' 'orses."
Cecil writes, 'Less than a house. Probably less than a horse.' He writes down a couple of numbers - his estimates for the cost of a wagon, then the cost of a horse. He doesn't have any objections to Ozzy wanting to buy her own.
Ozzy frowns. "Looks like I'm gonna have to find a way to make more money," she says. "Preferably wifout doin' crimes. I'm sure we'll fink of somefing. It'd feel pretty nice to ride around in a wagon and know it's really, really mine." She then glances up at Cecil and says, with a strange mixture of coquettishness and shyness, "I didn't have to pay nuffing to feel like that about you." She then seems to immediately regret the impulsive comment, turning deeply red. She clears her throat. "Um so, your poems are real good. Sorry I interrupted. I hope I didn't kill the muse or nuffing."
"Cute," Cecil signs. He blushes faintly at the compliment, quickly signing a, "Thank you," followed by a less easily-translated sentence given the signs which Ozzy knows. "You," and then a two-handed upwards motion where his hands end up spread out near his shoulders, and then he brings them back down in the flat lines that indicate 'person', which she might remember.
Ozzy scrunches her face up a little, tilting her head. "Wot's'at mean, then," she says, her flush still lingering.
Cecil writes, 'You're my muse. The word muse doesn't translate so literally though. Technically that was a combination of the signs inspire and person.' He demonstrates first inspire and then person for her.
Ozzy's color deepens again. "Oh I see," she says, and dutifully copies the signs as best she can, to better learn them. "I'm a muse." She giggles. "I feel like that means I oughta pose naked for you or somefing. Maybe one sparkly bracelet. Or… wings. Sparkly bracelet and wings. Hair blowin' like there's a wind. Which, come to fink of it, seems uncomfortable if I got no clothes on." Ozzy babbles nervously.
Cecil laughs warmly and picks up a portion of Oslynn's hair to hold it behind her in midair. He makes a noise like the wind whistling.
Ozzy giggles, and then just sort of falls against him in a hug. Type thing. Only one arm, and mostly just sort of leaning heavily on him.
"You're the best," she says. "You wanna keep workin on your writin'? I can be quiet so you can concentrate… maybe take a nap or somefing."
Cecil nods agreeably and gestures to the bed. It's free nap real estate.
Ozzy smiles and beelines to flop on the bed, almost pandaren style, face down. Sploot. Her brassy curls explode across the pillow. Cecil has likely been finding these spiraling strands kind of… everywhere lately.
Cecil reclaims his chair and signs, "You sleep good," to her, even if she can't see it. He reaches for his journal once again. Time to try and concentrate.