“Why are you not dating?” The Statuesque Young Woman (SYW), imperious in body and language, wanted to know.
“Ummm...” replied Uncle Old Guy (UOG), “The spirit is willing but...” his voice trailing off as he contemplated the end of that aphorism and its implications. He needn’t have bothered. SYM was not listening.
She was scanning him, silvered head to well shod, if a touch weary, toes. Her brow delicately furrowed, but imperial for all of that. Her gaze evaluating and...”You present well” she said. “We...that is to say, I, fail to comprehend why W...I, never see you in the company of an Other” SYM’s commitment to gender equality and choice unmarked by the momentary pronoun slip.
“I”, SYW said, firmly taking control of her hoi polloi mingling persona, “find you an interesting person. You are, by all accounts, well travelled and adequately educated. I’m given to understand you speak more than one language. Further, your presence in this place and time suggests a degree of discretionary income which in addition to your lack of encumbrances such as family or spouse should, in and ordered and rational universe, which, I assure you it will be when I...but...that’s the not the point. Why are you alone?” Her tone suggesting that if the reports she had received were somehow inaccurate, heads would, if not roll, at the very least they’d rock. The tangential implication that the fault is intrinsic with UOG remained unsaid but loud in the arch of the imperial eyebrow.
“I...” UOG started to reply.
He needn’t have bothered.
“Such must not be allowed to endure”, SYW said, her look pinning UOG to the barroom floor, “I saw you in the company of some chick, if I have the phrase right, earlier. Go and find her and see to it.”
The Statuesque Young Woman turned away from UOG to lend her attention to the presence of another courtier, not unkindly, but definitely.
UOG sagged with relief, his incompetence at ‘seeing to it’ a well established truth and the royal attention being notoriously, ummm, peripatetic.
“Ummm...” replied Uncle Old Guy (UOG), “The spirit is willing but...” his voice trailing off as he contemplated the end of that aphorism and its implications. He needn’t have bothered. SYM was not listening.
She was scanning him, silvered head to well shod, if a touch weary, toes. Her brow delicately furrowed, but imperial for all of that. Her gaze evaluating and...”You present well” she said. “We...that is to say, I, fail to comprehend why W...I, never see you in the company of an Other” SYM’s commitment to gender equality and choice unmarked by the momentary pronoun slip.
“I”, SYW said, firmly taking control of her hoi polloi mingling persona, “find you an interesting person. You are, by all accounts, well travelled and adequately educated. I’m given to understand you speak more than one language. Further, your presence in this place and time suggests a degree of discretionary income which in addition to your lack of encumbrances such as family or spouse should, in and ordered and rational universe, which, I assure you it will be when I...but...that’s the not the point. Why are you alone?” Her tone suggesting that if the reports she had received were somehow inaccurate, heads would, if not roll, at the very least they’d rock. The tangential implication that the fault is intrinsic with UOG remained unsaid but loud in the arch of the imperial eyebrow.
“I...” UOG started to reply.
He needn’t have bothered.
“Such must not be allowed to endure”, SYW said, her look pinning UOG to the barroom floor, “I saw you in the company of some chick, if I have the phrase right, earlier. Go and find her and see to it.”
The Statuesque Young Woman turned away from UOG to lend her attention to the presence of another courtier, not unkindly, but definitely.
UOG sagged with relief, his incompetence at ‘seeing to it’ a well established truth and the royal attention being notoriously, ummm, peripatetic.
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