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Post by Valmont on Mar 9, 2009 17:34:31 GMT -5
It was a few days before Valmont checked his little black book and saw the note he'd scrawled there. And his brow had furrowed in confusion when he'd read it, for he could not immediately place its origins. "Mademoiselle" Notre Dame? It made no sense, really. But as he thought about it, and re-read the scribbled description--and the reminder that she'd assumed he'd forget--some of it came back to him.
Enough to be intrigued, that is, and send him to the cathedral. It wasn't the first time he'd entered it, but like the others, he was once again chasing a girl.
He smiled fondly--which was to say with some degree of sinister glee--when he recalled Sister Genevieve. Former Sister Genevieve, that was.
His little book had been plain enough. His eyes adjusting to the gloom--it was like God, wasn't it, to live in such a tomb--he circled the pews around the side, passing old women lighting candles and muttering to themselves. Not that he was silent.
"Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Notre Dame," he murmured, feeling decidedly foolish but consoling himself that if this worked, his words, of all those in the cathedral, would be the only plea heard.
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 9, 2009 17:42:15 GMT -5
A bit of a delay, and then there was a girl leaning over the back of one of the pews closest to him, head tilted in the most curious manner. Notre Dame, of course, identical to the other day, except her eyes were dark now. And somehow, here, with the light falling through the grand windows in the distance, and the dim gray atmosphere, the silence, and the pungent smoke, she was solid and fixed in a way which, on the street, she was not.
"Who're you?" she asked, and, almost immediately after, "...Oh. Le Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont- you remembered."
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Post by Valmont on Mar 9, 2009 17:53:46 GMT -5
In point of fact, he hadn't--not entirely, and not until this moment. Now that she was here, the entire encounter flooded back to him, and he wondered how he could have forgotten. How his brain could have pushed it to corners too dim to see into and yet close enough to come snapping back. She seemed less "shifty" than the other day, more fixed, but then again that might have been merely his memory playing tricks on him.
He bowed. "How could I forget, mademoiselle?" he asked, not mentioning his little book. She had seemed to come from nowhere; there was no possible way she could have approached without being seen unless she'd slunk behind the pews themselves. "I see I am recalled as well."
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 9, 2009 18:03:13 GMT -5
"Oh, yes." Notre Dame hooked an arm over the back of the pew she was kneeling on, one leg folded on the hard wood, the other stretched out behind her to the floor. Her head turned to the side, looking at the other people- the very few that there were, this was not a busy time in the cathedral- scattered about. There were more people, of course, in her nooks and crannies, reading praying sleeping, she could feel them.
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Post by Valmont on Mar 9, 2009 18:10:10 GMT -5
The response was factual, but not very telling. With pleasure, distaste, or indifference was he remembered? It was always best to assume the first, in his opinion, so he smiled.
"I am happy to find you at home," he said. "I was afraid you might be out walking."
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 9, 2009 18:14:40 GMT -5
"I don't go out that much. You and I were a fortunate meeting. My real home is- " Absently, she pointed a slim finger towards the floor. "Down there."
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Post by Valmont on Mar 9, 2009 18:19:18 GMT -5
Valmont's gaze followed the trajectory of her finger.
"Indeed?" he said, coming back around to his initial vagrant backstory for the girl. "Don't you find it, among other things, somewhat damp?"
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 9, 2009 18:24:24 GMT -5
Notre Dame considered this. "I suppose so, but the water is very pretty on the marble so it's all right. Where you live is very dry and lavish, is it not, monsieur? I would think you would be more bothered by the damp than I."
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Post by Valmont on Mar 9, 2009 18:29:43 GMT -5
"No drier than other such houses, I should think," Valmont said. "But then again, I don't suppose you catch cold."
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 9, 2009 18:45:53 GMT -5
"No." Notre Dame extended a pale hand. "Will you take a seat? I have no intentions towards leaving, nor to moving anywhere else, unless you want to walk and wander my halls. It's been a while since you've been here." Her head tilted to the side again, very far this time, so that she was resting her cheek on her arm as she watched him. "Do you? You might have forgotten what they look like."
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Post by Valmont on Mar 10, 2009 10:23:55 GMT -5
Valmont chuckled, then pursed his lips in amusement.
"It has been awhile," he agreed, the joke of it of course that no holy man wanted him within a hundred meters of a place of worship. "But I came here to see you." Still, he would walk if she suggested it again; he cared little, and was content to let her set things for now, as he worked her out.
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 10, 2009 10:55:32 GMT -5
“Then sit,” she said, pointing again, curled up against the back of the hard pew. She’d be surprised should anyone ever point out to her that there were more comfortable seats.
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Post by Valmont on Mar 10, 2009 11:15:43 GMT -5
While Valmont was often given to an all-out offensive, he thought this was not the time, and took the pew indicated. He shifted slightly to achieve something a little less uncomfortable, though his problem may have been spiritual as much as physical. He wondered why churches were always such hard, drafty places. Surely God wouldn't mind being worshiped someplace warm and well-cushioned. Like bed.
"Thank you," he said. "You seem to know a lot about me, mademoiselle, but I know next to nothing about you; other than where you live."
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Post by Notre Dame on Mar 10, 2009 11:19:35 GMT -5
“Well, ask me. I’ll tell you if I can.”
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Post by Valmont on Mar 10, 2009 11:25:34 GMT -5
Well. That was open, anyway, and now that it was on the table he had no idea. He was used to girls dissembling, wanting him to pry their few, paltry secrets from them. Or girls who immediately spilled the most intimate particulars of life with mama and their little friends.
"Very well," he said, sliding one arm along the back of the pew, for Valmont could lounge anywhere. "Why Notre Dame?"
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