( video, un: lavieenrose )

[affectueux]

[ maybe it’s insanity. more likely, it’s the combination of the sanguis cycle and his upcoming birthday making him restless and impulsive. he can usually tamp down those urges when things are normal, but he also can’t recall a moment when things have ever been normal in lunatia.

maybe that’s a contributing factor, too. either way, here’s a video of serge—like the cycles before, he’s got little bear features. paws included, even if his hands are off-screen. ]

Er, bonjour. My name is Serge… I’ve cleaned many of your tables at Salon de Marie. [ it gets harder when he’s a bear, but that’s neither here nor there. ] My birthday will be coming up soon, and I—it—

[ he frowns, searching for the words. he should have planned this better, but again. the haste. ]

In my world, I’m set to inherit my family’s estate on my 18th birthday. I’ll be expected to get married and carry on the family name, as I’m the only child of my late father. [ he realizes something, and holds up a hand in brief fluster. ] I’m not saying this to brag! It’s relevant, I promise. I bring it up because there’s—a person. Someone I love. Someone I can neither marry nor produce a child with.

…this is quite heavy, isn’t it? I’ll try to get to the point. When your heart is in conflict with both duty and the expectations of society, what are you supposed to do? What can you do?

Merci, everyone. For your attention.

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video » un: mcarter

[mucked]

[ —somehow, serge's question makes her heart ache. he's a stranger to her. equally...she's something of an iron lady, adept at keeping her emotions at bay. but she finds herself drawn to answer.

even when she knows her answer won't hardly be helpful. ]

I think you have to do what's right. [ she sighs, acknowledging with a touch of exasperation that she understands that her advice is hardly actionable. ] Whether that's doing right by your family or doing right by your heart.

[ however... ]

Some of us hardly have the constitution for marriage. There's no shame in that.

[affectueux]

[ it may not be actionable, but something about her phrasing soothes him. it’s the first time he’s been told that what he feels might be what’s right, after all—not simply that he should attempt it in spite of being wrong.

it gives him pause. ]

I’d like to get married. I think it sounds wonderful, with the right person. But that’s an impossible dream with the person I love, and it feels… it feels like no one else will do.

[ even patricia. she deserves more than being second-best. ]

[mucked]

[ marriage, she knows, is a truly sacred and beautiful vow. for some. for the jarvises, certainly. and she likes to think it must have been for her parents, too. for peggy...

well, at nineteen she broke off her engagement at the first whiff of something else. it wasn't another person (not yet, at any rate) but it troubled her long-suffering mother all the same. ]

If it feels as if no one else will ever do, Serge—[ she picks up his name from his introduction and wields it tactically now ]—then it's likely that no one ever will. Tradition only takes us so far. And duty—well, sometimes duty looks different than we expect.

[ once upon a time she might have thought that to be dutiful she needed to be a fashionable london wife to a boring whitehall officer. but duty comes in many shapes and flavours—and hers has grown, shifted, changed with the years. ]

...Do you get along with your family?

[ will they support you no matter your choice? ]

[affectueux]

[ already, serge can tell that he’s never met a woman like her. she’s strong and certain, and for a moment, he thinks she might be a little like the version of his mother that his father wrote about in his diaries.

relevant, then, that she asks about his family. ]

…my father and mother are both dead. But I think…

[ he pauses. it’s strange to put words in the mouths of the deceased. ]

I think they would want me to be happy. I’m certain of that. Still, my aunts… they’ve hated me since the moment they met me. [ he reveals this easily, perhaps because this woman seems so assured. ] And my aunts are the ones who are alive.

[mucked]

[ she understands. she doesn't say so—it hardly seems fair to steal a man's grief for herself—but she understands. she wants to believe that her brother would have (eventually) approved of her career path. certainly, he hadn't approved of the stuffed shirt she'd otherwise been about to marry... ]

Can they hurt you? Your chances? [ wait, no, that's not the most important question. ] Would they hurt the person you love?

[ she asks for his stakes. his gambling cards. his skin in the game. his initial post asked a very big question—and while she's not certain it can be answered, she knows it won't be answered without these painful bits of intel revealed. ]

[affectueux]

[ that’s the trick.

it’s not serge’s own aunts he’s worried about in the end at all. he gasps, like he’s forgotten something very important even if it’s never left his mind at all, and he covers his face with his hand—paw, unfortunately—as he tries to compose himself in front of this woman. ]

Non. There’s nothing they could do to him. But if I were to go back to my family…

[ he’s so stupid. he’s so selfish for forgetting why he’s done all this in the first place. ]

…I can’t paint myself as a saint, in this situation. I’ve done terrible things to him, too. But if I were to go back to my family and leave him on his own, he would suffer a fate worse than death.

[ all this, from a boy less than 18 years old. ]

[mucked]

[ she watches the moment unravel. all the while, her expression hardly flickers—and while it isn’t cold, it’s not exactly warm either. rather, she’s focused. she remains attentive, without editorializing.

except, except, except a slight softening in her shoulders. something in her posture gives way to sympathy. notably, she does not bat so much as an eyelash when his use of pronouns offers a glimpse (a hint!) of where a piece of the conflict might begin. ]

It sounds awfully complex [ there’s something more to learn here, she thinks, but… ] Is this a problem here, on the planet, or back home in your world?

[affectueux]

[ serge only realizes he’s let the secret slip after all that, but she successfully doesn’t make him feel judged. he lowers his hand, tentative—comforted, even if she isn’t trying to be comforting. her objective approach, softened by sympathy, is exactly what he needs.

he’ll properly thank her later. ]

…everything would be different if he were here.

[ he says this quietly. ]

If we could live in a world of our own, he would be safe. All I want is for him to be safe, Madame. That must be what’s “right,” but…

[ his voice softens even further. ]

I can’t do it.

[mucked]

[ she knows a little of what that’s like—wanting, with every fibre of your being, to protect someone so dear to you. some might think steve rogers didn’t need protecting; peggy knows better. ]

I’m sorry. [ not for his troubles, exactly, but because he’s separated from someone he cares for so deeply. she knows a little of what that’s like, too. ] I do find that in times of crisis we mistakenly belief we only have the two options. In this case, yours might be either to keep him safe or to rejoin your family.

[ she pauses. ]

Mightn’t there be a third option?

[ something less romantic, maybe. something less satisfying. she doesn’t dare to know what it might be—he knows his life better than she, a stranger, ever could. ]

[affectueux]

[ the third option for him is something that he would rather not admit to. not when they just met, after all—as much as he’s revealed already, there are some things that he thinks would taint her impression of him.

it’s not quite fair, but it’s what he chooses. ]

Oui. There are other options, and I know this…

[ but he doesn’t want to follow through with any of them. it’s unspoken, yet audible in his sigh. ]

Is it cowardly, Madame?

[mucked]

Peggy. Peggy Carter.

[ —she gives her name in that quick, thoughtless way that makes it sound more like an aside than a correction. he’s free to continue calling her madame if he likes, she won’t force the issue, but the inequality of the conversation just now occurred to her. he’d given his name; she’d but barely given hers.

there’s no time to sit and rest on the laurels of a lovely introduction, however, given the question at hand. ]

And I won’t lie to you, Serge. You can find a great deal of bravery in choice. In choosing. [ a half-shrug. ] But I’m not convinced that an absence of bravery must always result in cowardice.

[ she inhales. ]

This is especially true for all of us kept here—lightyears or millennia or worlds away from the choices we ought to be making back home.

[ that’s the tricky thing about being captures in a place like this: the rules of engagement have all changed. ]

[affectueux]

[ she lands upon something interesting for him, in her lines about bravery and cowardice. it sounds like something karl might say, and how serge does miss karl’s even-handed responses even when he didn’t agree with something serge did. he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, however, since he’s on camera.

he nods. ]

I suppose that’s the hardest part of all. I keep tormenting myself with what I could do, and then I regret the things I should have done to find success on my path in the future. But I hate regret! It does no one any good.

[ he sighs, but it’s a little more annoyed than despairing—he clearly doesn’t want to look back. ]

I think if I could choose, I would choose. But I can’t. I only have dreams and nightmares.

[mucked]

—Is there any particular reason why you’re so convinced that your future path won’t be successful?

[ it sounds like a lofty question. or a vain one. in reality, peggy is acutely aware that some futures are more set in stone than others. just since arriving, she’s been introduced to a handful of errors that she hasn’t yet made (but will likely make in future) that she can’t even begin to fathom how to fix.

there are decades and decades of history stretching out before her. sometimes, it’s hard to believe her choices ever mattered. ]

[affectueux]

Ah, well…

[ serge doesn’t have an immediate answer, but that doesn’t mean he has no answer. this distracts him from working himself up too much; he takes her words to heart, weighing this and that until he comes to a conclusion that he hopes doesn’t make him sound like a brat. ]

…it depends on “success,” doesn’t it? Someone will lose, no matter what. [ what seems like a loss could eventually turn into a boon down the line, but serge won’t be there to witness it. that’s the nature of the choices he faces now. ] I don’t care about my aunts, or his family. But I care about the innocent people between us, caught up in it all. My cousin, our friends…

[ now he’s getting into embarrassing personal territory, and he shakes his head. he doesn’t want to gossip. she’s nice, but he can’t push his luck. ]

Non. I’m taking advantage of your willingness to listen. The story is too long, and it’s not entirely mine to tell.

[mucked]

[ he’s describing something of a zero sum game—something to which peg’s no stranger. but she doesn’t push for further details. serge is waking up to his own openness throughout this conversation. and, naturally, it wouldn’t do to emphasize too much or too strongly how much satisfaction she takes from listening.

from pulling out the little, complicated threads of someone else’s life. ]

I understand.

[ —in so much as that so many of her own stories are similarly shared. there are whole parts of her life that she couldn’t explain without also explaining steve’s. happy, painful tangles. ]

But you’ve got my number, now. [ or handle or username or whatever they call it in this strange, new world tech. ] Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you feel like telling more of it.

[ polite and simple. she doesn’t stretch—she doesn’t offer any stories of her own. she wouldn’t rebuff a question, maybe, but she wouldn’t invite one either. ]

[affectueux]

[ it’s not that he’s ashamed of the reality of their past together. the world knew it before serge did—it was he who fell into a web of relationships and histories that his confidence tricked him into taking on headfirst. it’s just that there’s so much to it, and truthfully, describing gilbert to anyone takes careful planning to make sure he doesn’t come out of the illustration completely hated.

gilbert cocteau is both a marvel and a devil. ]

Madame Carter… [ but he seems a little relieved; he smiles, however tired it may be. ] Allow me to take you out sometime, when I look more… presentable. It’s the least I can do.

[ he’s a little noble, with little noble inclinations. the offer to take her to a restaurant is totally innocent. ]

[mucked]

Of course. I’ll be glad to accept the invitation—whenever it comes.

[ given the tempest inside this teacup, she’d expect nothing less than innocence in his offer. he’s young; he’s got parts of his heart strung on his sleeve. the only threat peggy imagines he might pose to her is to her own sentimentality.

to that end, in a softer tone but in perfectly accented french, she adds: ]

À bientôt.

[ it’s nice—pushing past the planet’s common tongue and exercising an old muscle. ]

[affectueux]

[ oh!

serge visibly lights up at her usage of the language. he’s insistent about making sure he doesn’t lose his french here, since he knows when he isn’t speaking it, no matter how easy the native tongue of the prismals seems to come. even if peppering in french, or even the occasional german, sounds unnatural in certain places where habit would make it smooth, he wants to be heard. ]

À bientôt!

[ it’s a happy note to end on, and finally, peggy might get a glimpse of the boy he is when he isn’t being crushed under his own future: joyful and in love. ]