There was something so good in this game that it almost felt dangerous. It would be when the light cut back through the glass and the future they’d stacked up in the clouds came tumbling down again. But in the still of the moment - as long as they didn’t move too much - it had such a contenting quality that he was half-convinced anything they built up now would last forever.
And it wasn’t as though they were asking for the world, was it? Just one cottage! Just a little space to be! His smile grew as Elsie had a turn at it, the picture she painted vibrant enough before his own imagination leaped in to fill the blanks. “- one of those gardens with a little stream at the end of it, and maybe an apple tree -” he cut in, thinking of how the London townhouse he’d grown up in, with too many stairs and high ceilings and a cold austerity he had always been programmed to demolish, as a child, as if he could remake or destroy it.
And then Elsie mentioned a swing, and Tyb let out a laugh aloud. “A swing!” He echoed delightedly, almost despairing that he’d overlooked the idea. “Oh I see, so that’s for you and not the kids?” (He had a picture of her on it perched on it with a book and so faraway from the world she kept forgetting to swing it.)
His smile twisted wryly suddenly, the words coming back to him out of nowhere. “Curly-haired Gryffindors,” he remembered with a bemused shake of his head, now that he was attempting to picture children tearing through that cottage and that garden. As Tybalt said the words, he realised they might not ring a bell for her, and he snorted softly. “That’s what your cousin Lucinda called them.”
And it wasn’t as though they were asking for the world, was it? Just one cottage! Just a little space to be! His smile grew as Elsie had a turn at it, the picture she painted vibrant enough before his own imagination leaped in to fill the blanks. “- one of those gardens with a little stream at the end of it, and maybe an apple tree -” he cut in, thinking of how the London townhouse he’d grown up in, with too many stairs and high ceilings and a cold austerity he had always been programmed to demolish, as a child, as if he could remake or destroy it.
And then Elsie mentioned a swing, and Tyb let out a laugh aloud. “A swing!” He echoed delightedly, almost despairing that he’d overlooked the idea. “Oh I see, so that’s for you and not the kids?” (He had a picture of her on it perched on it with a book and so faraway from the world she kept forgetting to swing it.)
His smile twisted wryly suddenly, the words coming back to him out of nowhere. “Curly-haired Gryffindors,” he remembered with a bemused shake of his head, now that he was attempting to picture children tearing through that cottage and that garden. As Tybalt said the words, he realised they might not ring a bell for her, and he snorted softly. “That’s what your cousin Lucinda called them.”
