vive le français /river/

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

"Oui, maman, je suis bien ici. C'est un peu gentil, effectivement. Donner mon amour pour Alice, Colette et Odile. Oui, maman. Au revoir."

He hangs up without hearing her goodbyes. He loathes it when they call, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, pretending that they care about him, the freak of nature, stranded in the United States? Won't you come visit? they ask time and again, as a gesture of goodwill, but no, don't go to dad's house, don't go to mom's house, don't go to his house, don't go anywhere, just meet us for coffee one day? They don't expect him to say yes, so he never does.

Pierre sighs, sticking his phone back into his back pocket. It's so warm in this province -state, he corrects himself, it's different here- and he finds that the veranda is the only place he can be outside and not die of the humidity. Thank the lord for ceiling fans.

He sits on the seat swing and rocks back and forth, trying to remember a day when he had talked in his mother tongue to somebody else besides his family. There was no time recently, at any rate.

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

River, sitting in the Front Parlor daydreaming, hears the tell-tale sound of another language. Cool. Time to go bother French Guy! Hopefully he won’t be too cross with her. She hears the sigh, and decides to go talk to him. Nothing better to do, anyway. She gets to her feet, leaving her empty coffee mug on the table next to her chair, and walks out onto the veranda.

“Bonjour. Je m’appelle River. Et vous, monsieur? Comment t’appelle tu?” She perches on the edge of a chair, crossing her bare feet around the leg of the chair. She crosses her arms behind her head and leans backward, exuding a sense of serenity. She likes talking in languages other than English, and though human languages are good and fine, the girl really prefers secret codes and the language of the trees, though trees can be a bit annoying to talk to, not to mention how freakish you look standing there and speaking to a tree. Oh, well. It’s not the oddest thing she’s done, and definitely not the weirdest she will do in the future.

River looks at the older boy through dark brown eyes, lids at half mast, as a gentle breeze blows a lock of hair in front of her face. She doesn’t bother to push it away, knowing it’ll just come back again. She smiles crookedly, the left corner of her mouth tilting up just a tad.

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

“Bonjour. Je m’appelle River. Et vous, monsieur? Comment t’appelle tu?”

He looks up at the sound- Parisian French, it sounded like, with a slight British accent and a high, childlike voice. Pierre looks up, pushing his bangs out of the way as he looks at the new arrival. A girl. He didn't remember seeing her last year- new kid, then. At least a year younger than him, maybe a sophomore. Pale. Bare foot. Cocky sounding. Hm.

"Euh, je suis Pierre, mais je vais par Antoine." Um. Damn, this girl had caught him off guard. Um... "Vous sommes anglais, n'est pas? Votre accent est très bonne, mademoiselle." His lips twitches upwards in the semblance of a smile. "Avez-vous étudier en France?" Although it was probable that the girl, River, had learned at home, where ever that was, she was really good- immersion would be the best explanation.

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

“Enchante, Monsuier Antione.” she says in a playfully mocking tone. “Je suis de London. Et vous…” She thinks for a moment, going over the different accents stored in her mind. “Vous etes de Quebec, non?” Oh, now a compliment. On her accent, no less. Well.

Did she study in France? No. Did she study, period. No. She laughs, a light sound that vaguely resembles wind chimes. “Je n’etudie pas le francais, ou l’autres langues. Je suis un ‘omnilinguist’. Ecoute-- Je m’appelle River. Je jsem volal River. (Czech) Ja zwany River. (Polish) Em dic River. (Catalan) Minut on kutsuttu River. (Finnish) Ik heet River. (Dutch). Je sais beaucoup de langues. Tout le langues. Je parle avec des arbres, d’ordinateurs. Je sais tout le codes secrets aussi.” She stops abruptly, unsure where all the words came from. That was one of the longest speeches she had given in who knows how long.

“Qu’est-ce vous pouvez faire?”

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

He chuckles at her tone despite himself. London, huh? He has always wanted to see that city, but the closest he has every been is London, Ontario- which, really, isn't close at all. "Oui, je suis quebecois. Je suis de Montreal."

And then... then, THEN Pierre remembers what 'gifted' means at this school, THEN he remembers why he is here, because he has a gift, just like this girl, only not like River at all, because he couldn't pour out a wave of language like her, not if he studied for the rest of his life. He didn't recognize any except the last- Dutch, probably.

"Les fleurs, aussi?" he asks, half serious. Her gift was more useful than his, at any rate. "Euh...moi? J'ai ouvrir... j'ai ouvrir les choses." Pierre shrugs. "Ce n'est pas spéciale."

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

“Oui, les fleurs aussi.” she says, her tone slightly sarcastic. Flowers are so perky. Kind of like cheerleaders, so bright and happy, not a care in the world. It makes her sick.

‘I open things’? What does that even mean? Doors? Books? Locks? Boxes? Hopefully not heads. She doesn’t really fancy her skull getting cut in half… again. The first time was horrid enough, and having it done again? Shudder.

“Alors, vous pouves ouvrir les choses. Quelles choses?”

Maybe it’s special. Who knows? Depends on what he can open. At any rate, as long as River gets to keep talking in French, she’s happy.

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

What things? Um. His ability, he realized, was only cool when nobody else can do better. Er. "Euh..." he began, "Je ouvrir les serrures, principalement, et aussi, je peux mots de passe de dérivation, et...." He shrugged. "C'est difficile à expliquer. "

She seemed genuinely curious, though, and he knew his answer was far from satisfying. He stood up and walked over to the girl, leaning on the porch next to her. Her hair looked soft, felt sot against his palm as he brushed past. Pierre stared at the floor a minute, brushing his bangs up for a moment while he though of a better way to explain it. "Euh... verrouiller le téléphone et me le donner. Je vais vous afficher." He held out his hand, tilted his head down, and smiled. "Je promets de ne pas lire vos textes."

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

River looks down at her lap, biting the corner of her lip. “Euh… Je n’ai pas un portable…” She’d never had the need for a cell phone. She couldn’t contact her parents, and didn’t really have any friends, so she didn’t have any need for one. Besides, she doesn’t have the money to pay for one, anyway.

“Porquoi avez-vous besoin mon portable? Tu peux ouvrir les portables?” she teases, truly wondering what he would be doing with a phone anyway.

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

"Désolé," he mutters, embarrassed, bringing his hand down. "Je peux ouvrir les choses verrouillé par mot de passe, aussi, comme les téléphones portables et les ordinateurs. Je voulais vous montrer." He feels stupid now- not everyone has a phone, he should know that. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

To cover his embarassment, and to try to avoid any more awkwardness on either of their parts, he changes the subject. "Il fait beau aujourd'hui, n'est pas?" The breeze billows through the veranda, sweeping his bangs back across his forehead. "C'est beaucoup plus chaud que le Canada." Not that that is a bad thing- just different. A nice different. He takes his tie off and drapes it over the chair River is sitting on, and undoes the top two buttons of his shirt.

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

“C’est bien.” she says, disregarding his assumption with a wave of the hand. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of, really. Most people her age have a cell phone, and friends to call from said phone.

River nods. “C’est plus bon que London. Dans Angleterre, il est friod et il pleut beaucoup. La meteo de London n’est pas bon. C’est gris dans l’ete, le printemps, l’hiver, est l’automne. Est-ce la meteo dans Canada bon?” Hm. Weather. An odd topic choice, but for Antione’s hurried scramble, she thinks he could have done much worse.

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

Well, yes, it did rain often in Britain, now that he thought about it. But the countryside must be beautiful from the rain. One of Pierre's life goals was to paint the British countryside one day. "Vous parlez comme si vous détestez l'Angleterre," he remarks lightly, though he knows, considering his own love-hate relationship with his home province, it's perfectly probable that she does.

"Euh, ça dépend où vous êtes au Canada. Dans le nord et l'est, il fait froid à partir de octobre à mai, mais dans le sud c'est un peu plus chaud que le nord. Il neige partout sauf en Colombie-Britannique en hiver. Dans Colombie-Britannique, il pleut beaucoup du temps." As he recalled, it had been really weird not seeing snow on the ground until January when he first started school at Williams, his boarding school in BC. He wondered briefly if it ever did snow in South Carolina. Probably not.

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

“Non, j’adore l’Angleterre beaucoup, mais je détéste la pluie, alors je n’aime pas la météo la.” It’s not exactly the rain that she hates, more of the fact that there’s water falling from the sky, which, for River, means certain death. In her mind, water in any form is bad. Trés mal.

“Et vous? Qu’est-ce vouz pensez que votre pays, que Canada? Vous aimez Canada? Ou vous détéste ça?” Quite a long way to ask a simple question, but River’s got all the time in the world. No obligations, no work, nothing to do but sit here and talk. In French, no less.

(Woo! I figured out the accents!)

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

"Je déteste le pluie aussi." Rain was alright, he supposed, but he preferred the air dry and the sun shining down, not the humidity that followed after a storm. Rain was like... rain was like milk. It was necessary, but not altogether pleasant.

"Euh... j'aime le Canada, plus de temps- j'adore le Quebec dans l'été, mais je détéste l'hiver- il fait plus froid pour moi. Les provinces maritimes sont trés beau dans l'automne, et la Colombie-Britannique est gentil dans l'hiver."

That wasn't really a good answer, though. "Les personnes du Canada sont très gentils, la plupart du temps," he paused a second, then chuckled to himself, "Sauf les de Toronto. Ils sont tous les coups."

[River Tam]

**follow the voices**

Sigh. This topic is growing old. There’s only so much she can learn about weather in different places. So, she remains silent for a minute, just thinking. Absorbing the new information like a sponge, labeling it and sliding it into little mental slots. And then comes the new topic, as if out of nowhere.

“Qu’est-ce tu aimes faire?” Now, instead of learning about the weather of Antione’s hometown, she can learn about the boy himself. People, always puzzling things for River, hold a bit of interest-- well, at least more than the weather does. Things that she doesn’t understand warrant research, and research means learning, and that, for River, is good.

[Pierre Antoine Giroux]

I’m told that people like to call us dreamers
Because we won’t ever stop until we’ve done all we can do
There are so many things I haven’t seen
So I’ll look ’till I just can’t look no more

He was rolling along, not really care what he was talking about, or to whom- it was so, so very nice to talk in his mother tongue again without escalating into screamfest 2011, like it had nearly every other time these past seven years. It reminded him why he was proud to be Canadian, proud to be Quebecois, proud to be a Francophone. Just... proud.

"Hm..." he mused, rolling his thoughts around. "Euh, j'aime peindre des paysages, surtout, mais j'aime toutes les sortes d'art. Je dessine beaucoup. Aussi, j'adore la musique- je joue du hautbois, le piano, et je suis en train d'apprendre à jouer de la guitare." He wondered briefly if it would sound like boasting to the kid's ears. "Et toi? Est-que tu aime faire, River?"