It's Gisa's back room again, and Daisy pops in like it ain't no thang. She's got a box of Very Good Doughnuts and some milk to go with them. "Hey, Gisa!" says the Very Cheerful Unicorn. "I brought doughnuts! Got any good gossip to share for them?"
She squints her eyes thoughtfully, putting her book aside and going to get glasses. "I am not certain if I do. Billy Ray might make armor for Paige? CJ and I are trying to fight the issue with the people who cannot keep their mouths shut in Hazel's? Come in, sit down." What, like Gisa's going to say 'by the way I had dinner with the hot Spaniard' on the first go? Come on.
Dielle tilts her head as she takes a seat and puts the doughnuts down where they can both reach them. Half are glazed, the other half are various flavors. Surprisingly, she goes straight for the glazed, pulling one out. The milk goes down next to the doughnuts. "Who was it who've been spilling their guts at Hazel's? And how fuckin' dumb is that?"
A shake of her head, and Gisa pours the milk into two light-blue glasses. Easy enough to remember which ones are for milk if they make your milk look like Star Wars milk, right? "I don't know. All I know is that the gossip column that Enid person writes was saying that someone was talking about queens in Hazel's place. Doesn't take a mathematician to add two and two that it was one of us. So CJ and I decided we would sit in the front room and read a book about English Queens and discuss it." Beat. "Well, that part was my idea," she admits. "And it is pretty fucking dumb." Good golly Miss Gisa can curse. But really it is pretty fucking dumb.
Dielle says, "Better than talkin' about freehold matters in a fucking /diner/," replies Dielle, who would NEVER do anything like that. Well, not in a long time, anyhow.
Dielle says, "Better than talkin' about freehold matters in a fucking /diner/," replies Dielle, who would NEVER do anything like that. Well, not in a long time, anyhow. "Well, I joined the Harvestmen as a recruit!"
"Well, if you cannot talk about it in appropriately couched tones, you should not talk about it at all. I was dumb once with texts, then realized I should be more circumspect." Gisa takes a traditional cake donut for her pick, and settles back in her favorite chair with it. A big bite gets crumbs all over her shirt and for once she doesn't seem to mind. "Really? Mazel tov! What made you decide to do that?"
"Been thinkin' about it for a while. But Jon started talkin' about joining the Wayfinders and that's /so/ not for me. I mean, good for him for wantin' to join them, but that's kind of our thing: he's the more thinky one and I'm the more fighty one. Most people don't realize that when he's tryin' to calm them down, it's not so that he won't hit them. It's so that I won't." Dielle grins at Gisa, and says, "I hope whoever's stupid enough to discuss freehold stuff in the cafe gets caught. That shit ain't ok."
Her head slowly nods, once, twice, three times. "Jon is well-suited to that. It is going to help him do his project with the GEDs, that he was talking about with CJ all that time ago, yes?" Gisa takes another bite of donut, paired with milk. "Well, Mazel tov once more, my friend. It is well suited to you. I was very impressed by you yesterday when we were in the Hedge with Lulu." A little nod. "I am in agreement with you."
Dielle nods. "I think it will." She blushes a bit and says, matter-of-factly, "I do better with people to protect. It's a Dawn thing, I know, but there it is. If I'm gonna fight, I like to have a good reason. And Jon hates fightin'. He had to do too much of it. I'm glad he stopped bein' Summer, he was one of the angriest people I've ever met, with a lot of reason why. He's happier, not wallowin' in all that anger all the time."
"Yes. I do better with people to protect, too. I understand. When Lulu was threatened, I felt -- not better, because I do not want her to be threatened, but all the colors come into sharper focus." Gisa shakes her head slightly. "I cannot truly imagine Jon as a Summer. I know you have told me the story about how that changed, but I still cannot truly imagine it." She clicks her ceramic tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Good. I am glad for him." A moment later, she says, "I have been having dinner with Alonso." Beat. "Even when there are other people not there."
Dielle is about to start talking about Jon, it's her favorite subject, but she's entirely distracted. She sips her milk, then says, "Was it...a date?" She just bit and hard!
"I... I don't know." Gisa scuffs her feet across the carpet and looks down into her milk. She looks vaguely guilty, because she knows Dielle was about to start talking about Jon and that it is her favorite subject. "I make dinner in the oven or when the shop is closing I go up and put something in the oven, and then we go out onto the roof above this room -- there is a window that opens onto the roof from my loft -- and we eat dinner and we have wine." Scuff scuff. "I made salmon yesterday."
Dielle is entirely aware that she can bore the shit out of people with how much she talks about on. It's better that she gets distracted. "Well, my rule has been "if the word date isn't said, it's not a date. Even if there's sex." So there's that. But that doesn't have to be your rule. It could be friendship, or just getting to know each other, leading to friendship. Which is how jon and I were, just friends until suddenly we were a lot more than that. Both sleeping with other people, too."
She just kind of looks at Dielle at that, rather helplessly. "No, the word date was not said. We just sort of ... eat dinner together." Gisa frowns a little bit. "I... have not... " Whatever she was about to confess, she stops just short of it for now and takes a hard left into another conversation entirely. "So it was not a date. He is helping me to join an Entitlement."
Dielle says, knowledgeably, "Give it time. If it's going to be good, it takes time. One night stands can be fun, but they're not the end-all and be-all of much, really." Sometimes, it's just fun to be the knowledgeable one: people come to you for advice. "And it's always better to have friends and then figure shit out." She shakes her head and says, "Which Entitlement?"
"I have literally dated one person in the last sixty years. And it ended very poorly." Gisa finishes her first donut and reaches for another one, this one with chocolate glaze and sprinkles. "She broke my heart on purpose." Her nose wrinkles up, and then she turns her gaze toward Dielle. Her eyes do focus now; Dielle can see the eyeflames move. "The Pilgrims of the Endless Road."
"That's fair. I've dated one person in all the time I can remember. Which is Jon. Everyone else was just a case of "Ok, I'm done, go home now." Dielle shakes her head, and says, "I'm sorry she hurt you. Worse that she did it on purpose." She finishes her glazed donut and drinks a good glug of milk or five. Half the cup is empty when she lowers it. "I don't remember what the Pilgrims do. What do they do?"
She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I haven't done that, either." Gisa clears her throat. "They make themselves better. You know how he is all... you know. Kind of... perfect? All his scruff is even? His moustache is perfect? Almost kind of... strangely so?" She looks down into her milk. "That happens to Pilgrims. But it is because they work to be better all the time."
"Haven't done what?" says a very confused Dielle. You'd think a unicorn would pick up on that kind of thing. Well, she's broken. "So that's the entitlement is self-improvement?"
Her mouth opens and closes with a clack-clack-clack sound. "Had... sex. No one. Has." Gisa clears her throat, that sound like pebbles rolling down a tin roof, and takes another bite of her donut, cramming most of it into her mouth this time. I mean who can resist this sex machine? PFF. "Yes," she finally says. "Very much. Beyond what most of us do. And for me that fits, I think."
"Oh," says Dielle, not sounding surprised. "Maybe that's why I like you so much. Although, sometimes I think it's some state of innocence and not actual virginity that's the thing because Jon ain't a virgin and hasn't been for a real long damn time." He considers Gisa and then says, "I think that entitlement would suit you down to the ground. Very you."
Her chin tips up a little bit at that, and at least, then, Gisa can laugh. A rarity, and this one is all for Dielle. "Perhaps that is why. I thought it was my very charming and gregarious personality, Dielle." Finishing her donut, Gisa polishes off her milk and brushes off her shirt, dusts off her fingers. "I think so, too. I hope so. He has set a difficult task before me. I'm not sure that it will be -- I know I can do it, but."
"What's your task? I mean, I'm sure you can do it, too, but..." Dielle grins at Gisa and says, "It was the charm and extroversion, of course. And the innocence. But not necessarily the virginity. By the way, if you have any questions, I'm a good shoulder and don't judge. I don't have room to judge."
She gives Dielle a sort of awkward look aside. "I am not permitted to pray for a week. He says I am not just faithful but dependent upon my faith. Like a crutch. And that if I had to be silent, when I was helping someone else... " Gisa's shoulders crunch up, hunching up toward her ears. "Thanks. I ... I don't know that I think ... I'm sure I am reading into things. He is very polite. And I cannot tell if someone is nice or if it means a thing. Like CJ brings gifts when he visits but CJ is very ... dapper. That is is His Way." A helpless little sigh. "It is not easy, to be a golem. I do not understand people. Or, apparently, sex. Which is why a unicorn likes me." Ha.
"CJ brings gifts because it's the done thing. It's polite. But I can't tell who he likes. Sometimes, it's not you not able to read things. I can generally read emotions pretty well but I can't tell. And I like you just because, not because you're a virgin. Although I'm sure it helps." Dielle considers Gisa and says, "Do you think you use your faith as a crutch?"
"Yes, you see. It is His Way. At first I was actually uncertain if it was a Thing, you know? And then I would not have known how to deal with it. But I am all right with it being that it is CJ's Way, and it does not make me uncertain." Over time, one gets to hear the capital letters in Gisa's speech, and Dielle has certainly listened to her speak often enough to know when those capital letters are sneaking in to her speech. She smiles a little bit then, when Dielle reassures her. "I may not be. But at least since my Durance. I guess there is no difference, because The Desert tore me apart, so." One hand waves, then. No more virginity talk. "I... I don't know. I don't feel good when I don't pray in the morning. I feel very off-balance all day. Worse than if I did not have any coffee. I know that it helps me to feel -- anchored -- to the world. To people, rather than to Fae."
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