Daedalus

Loire is the reason I live

After a flight consuming most of our day and most of our energy (including a minor brawl with a man on the airplane who wouldn't refrain from kicking my seat during the length of the trip), we are finally in Paris, France, arguably one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world, and Lent's jubilance has never been more profound.

It's a slight bit alarming to see Lent so bubbly, as I feel that he could crash into all of his surroundings without realizing that they were there before, and potentially injure himself in the process, and I don't wish that to happen. Lent's ebullience should not bring him disaster when it is such a positive emotion, but I suppose a disproportionate dose of anything is a sign of danger.

"This is so exciting, Basil!" Lent squeals, latched onto my arm as he bounces up and down like a child asking for a parent's permission to join the other kids of their age.

"I know, Lent, but you need to calm down for a minute. Fleming said we should find someone named Loire at her wine shop down the road."

Fleming assigned us two people to look out for in our travels, one in Paris and one in Prague. These people have been tasked with helping us around the unfamiliar cities, teaching us about the culture, guiding us through how society functions in different countries, helping us avoid shameful faux pas, all the lessons we could ever ask for. In the Czech Republic, our confidante is a college student named Josef Biskup, and in France, our confidante is a shop owner named Loire Babinot, both of whom Fleming knows very well, both of whom she trusts dearly with herself and with her best friends.

Surely it is an awkward occurrence when you're supposed to trust someone you've never met, solely doting on the word of someone else. Yes, I trust Fleming with all that I have, but I do not know the people she trusts, yet I'm nevertheless stuck with them for two weeks per person. I have faith that Fleming didn't place me in the same city as an axe murderer intentionally, but I assume the last time she visited Europe was ten years ago, so any communication with Loire and Josef could've been strategically devised by the confidantes to make it seem as though they're completely normal human beings, always ready to serve. Maybe I'm looking into this too much. Fleming only wants what's best for me and Lent, and she wouldn't put us in the hands of serial killers. Besides, Loire seems like a nice enough woman if, from what I've seen of her shop as we passed it by on our way to the new apartment, all of the schoolchildren adorn her wine store in colors of all varieties.

"Ah, yes," Lent recalls with a smile, as if he knows this Loire woman as a best friend. "Loire Babinot, if I remember correctly."

I nod. "That's the one."

"I saw a wine shop over here." Lent points towards a friendly looking structure at the end of the block, the one, true enough, decorated by the variegated flowers the schoolchildren deposit occasionally after school hours. "Le Vin de Sang. Blood wine."

I could just be interpreting every little nuance in the air as some sort of danger warning, but blood wine seems like an eerie name for a wine shop. I was paranoid about traveling to a foreign country even when I was in Milwaukee, but now that I'm here, my paranoia has increased tenfold. Lent is doing fine — he's reveling in these blessings, actually — but Lent is always fine, and I'm not Lent. I'm the anxious writer who holes up inside all day because human interaction drains the life out of me, and now I'm outside. To top things off, I'm outside in a place I've never been before, and suddenly even the names of fucking wine shops wind me up. I need to stop thinking.

"I hope she's nice," Lent comments, such a childish thing to think, but it's an important thing nevertheless. What he's done is phrase it and punctuate it in a way that screams of prepubescent tenderness, in a way that may prompt people who deem themselves superior to disregard it, but maybe if they examine it they will comprehend that it isn't a worthless question shaped by the stupidity of a newborn, that it's actually my paranoia vocalized into something able to be swallowed, and he's unafraid to say it.

As I see it, it's quite amazing how Lent retains such simplicity in his life. While the rest of us, demonic slaves to the hell that is college, are wasting away over schoolwork and stress and heavy chains of purple under our eyes, Lent calls to the sun for advice instead of the grave, and I suppose that makes all of the difference. He's free in that sense, an Icarus flying wherever he pleases, the poster boy of liberty.

"I don't want to be stuck with a villain for two weeks," Lent adds, along with a chaste giggle as we near the wine shop.

Attempting to lighten the mood (but mostly mine), I offer, "You'll always have me, unless I'm the villain you're referring to."

Lent turns to me, nailing those cobalt eyes to me. "I don't think you could ever be a villain, even if you're as brooding as one." A smirk pinches his face, and he dashes away from me before I can retaliate, reaching the door of Le Vin de Sang, and pausing there to wait for my laughing figure to compare to his youthful exuberance.

Once he is satisfied by how close I am to the door, Lent swings it open to reveal the lively interior of the wine shop. About thirteen customers dine at the round tables dotting the room, and it is here that I realize that this doubles as a cheese and cracker restaurant as well as a wine store. Amongst the chatter of the guests, a speaker hanging in the eaves of the building produces noises of violins and pianos, calming lullabies for the mid-afternoon. There is a single worker tending to the customers here, a worker that must be our Parisian confidante, and Lent boldly approaches her.

"Are you Loire Babinot?" he asks while the woman is still facing the side of the customers, but once his sentence is wrapped up, she spins on her heel to address us, and it is then that I behold the entirety of her appearance, an appearance like no other.

A curly halo of ebony rests in a sphere upon her head, a characteristic kissed by the culture of Africa, and it is obvious that she maintains it well, as every tiny kink seems to shine with the light of the heaven from which she hails. Perfectly groomed brows in the shade of onyx curl towards the base of an elegant nose, which then pans to a set of lips plumped by rose. A night sky of freckles blooms across her nose and cheeks, across skin tinted a glowing bronze at birth, across a complexion as clear as glass. Her gaze is slashed by the wildness of liberty, but it possesses a certain responsibility to it, too. It is evident that she is comfortable in herself, in who the world shaped her to be, that she soaks up life with a filter on its inexorable pessimism. Through all of this, she invites an unavoidable radiance to her demeanor, and I would have to say that she is absolutely gorgeous.

"Qui demande?" the woman responds, somewhat suspicious, until that sentiment is replaced by one of embarrassment for replying in French to a question posed in English, and she corrects herself. "Who's asking?"

Despite being fluent in French, Lent was a bit thrown off by the inquiry, but he soon recovers. "Oh, yeah, of course. I'm Lent Rosella, and this is Basil Eads. We're the Americans about whom Fleming Konecky told you."

It looks as though Loire is struck by an epiphany greater than any epiphany she's ever experienced before, and the memories of us soon flood back to her. "Lent and Basil! Of course! Who else would it be?" The woman's arms engulf us in an embrace while she drops kisses onto our cheeks, as is customary in France, although Lent is the only one who picks up on this and reciprocates the action. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Okay, this Loire woman seems kind enough. She's definitely not the villain of whom I was so afraid, and it actually seems as though she has much more than just potential. She already comes across as the sweetest person I will ever encounter in my lifetime, and all of the sudden I'm elated to be spending two weeks with her. Maybe this trip will be better than I had once anticipated.

~~~~~

A/N: Loire is so precious and must be protected so sweet so pure but she could also kick my ass so

I just love Loire okay

~Dicknoodle