Daedalus

the investiGAYtion begins

As I have mentioned countless times before, Loire goes above and beyond her call of duty, always arranging more and more activities for us in such a compact span of time, and really neither Lent nor I know how she does it, but I think we should just both agree that Loire is some kind of super hero or something.

Superheroes complete good deeds, and as an effect draw in a fan base for themselves, and it appears that Lent and I are the main members of Loire's own fan base. Lent is so avid, in fact, that he has volunteered to assist Loire in her duties in Le Vin de Sang this afternoon, when business is booming.

It's very considerate of him to offer such a thing, and I'm sure Loire appreciates it more than she can say. Around this time of day, loads of customers flood in, despite her wine shop resting on the edge of the city where tourists stay away from, but I suppose the locals are familiar with it, and enjoy the shop nonetheless. Who knows? Maybe the lack of tourists around here is a blessing to them, and it's probably a blessing to Loire as well, as she is most often serving customers on her own, but now that Lent has stepped up to aid her, some of the weight has been lifted off of her sturdy shoulders.

I really have nothing to do while Lent serves, so I tag along with him to the wine shop to hang around until Loire asks me to help a customer slice their cheese or something equally as mundane. I don't have a problem with serving customers, as that's what both of my best friends are doing, but I don't know shit about cheese or wine, whereas Lent and Loire have studied France and its culture for a while, and I opted to study German in school instead. I'll do my best to assist customers in honor of the lovely Loire Babinot, but I'm not saying that I'll do a great job of it. There are some occasions where the thought is the thing that counts, and while I'm sure that Loire would appreciate the thought in these circumstances, this is not one of those occasions, but I've surfed the internet long enough to understand that you only live once, and I can't really refuse the woman who has given me so much in the concise span of only a few days.

For now, I don't have to worry about sparking the next apocalypse by messing up something so mundane that grief is subdued by a shipload of confusion first. I can lounge at the bar as I twiddle a glass of water between my hands, and gaze out into the specks of color called humans while Lent serves them faithfully.

Lent, being fluent in French, converses with the customers in their own native language, finding it to be courteous to refrain from impinging on their country's culture by dominating the discussion with their second language, and most of them have not noticed that he is American unless they heard him murmuring hasty phrases to me every now and then. He is nothing short of polite to the customers, always ensuring that their service is adequate, that they know exactly how to sample cheese and wine, that they experience the best of the best during their stay at Le Vin de Sang. A perpetual grin is the crux of his package, and it walks with him throughout the store, and stays in the customers' minds after they depart. He is naturally graceful, as if elegance is his mother tongue. In certain species, beauty is delicate, and I think humans are one of them, yet as a human Lent never falters. What a treat it would be to know this charm as a quality of myself as Lent so confidently does.

I oftentimes find myself staring at Lent at random times, and I have been doing so for as long as I can remember. This is one of those random times, but who wouldn't want to behold such a tenderness of character? He is so at home in himself, in the people around him, in the world. I have always described myself as cynical by default, but maybe cynicism is a prisoner's chain when you can observe someone's continuously radiant joy as I can, when you can see that it is both a latent desire and a plausibly achievable prize for myself. Cynicism kills people like Icarus, but Icarus saves the cynical. Icarus saves me.