[There's a way this conversation goes, and it's usually as follows:
Gepard mentions what happened, and people make sympathetic noises. They ask him questions about what she was like, and he describes her in detail. Increasingly, excruciating detail, going over every last moment of the relationship, forced to figure out where their flaws where, how utterly incompatible the two of them were. In fact, Gepard suspected that if he hadn't once been Belobog's indestructible shield, people would have blamed him more often than they had, even if it had been his fault. Always his fault.
And this usually segues to The Accident, what drove him to retire, and he gets more sympathy, and he comforts the people upset on his behalf (and he's gotten so tired of it) and they go back and forth a bit more, they commend him for selling fucking books, and then they go, feeling better for having cheered him up, and Gepard feels just a little bit more drained for enduring it.
That's how it usually goes.
But then, of all the fucking people. Here's Sampo, unexpectedly taking the script and flipping it and throwing it aside. A throwaway comment about her lack of taste, no questions about who she had been, and then immediately focusing on his daughter, and Gepard finds himself...smiling back? Is he smiling?
Yes he is.]
Why...yes. [Yes he had.] I wanted to give her a hopeful name.
[They've reached his bookshop. He's reaching for his keys.] I went to Eversummer Florist for inspiration, but decided an offworld flower suited her better. After all, imagine me naming my daughter something like 'Summershade Bamboo Landau.'
no subject
Gepard mentions what happened, and people make sympathetic noises. They ask him questions about what she was like, and he describes her in detail. Increasingly, excruciating detail, going over every last moment of the relationship, forced to figure out where their flaws where, how utterly incompatible the two of them were. In fact, Gepard suspected that if he hadn't once been Belobog's indestructible shield, people would have blamed him more often than they had, even if it had been his fault. Always his fault.
And this usually segues to The Accident, what drove him to retire, and he gets more sympathy, and he comforts the people upset on his behalf (and he's gotten so tired of it) and they go back and forth a bit more, they commend him for selling fucking books, and then they go, feeling better for having cheered him up, and Gepard feels just a little bit more drained for enduring it.
That's how it usually goes.
But then, of all the fucking people. Here's Sampo, unexpectedly taking the script and flipping it and throwing it aside. A throwaway comment about her lack of taste, no questions about who she had been, and then immediately focusing on his daughter, and Gepard finds himself...smiling back? Is he smiling?
Yes he is.]
Why...yes. [Yes he had.] I wanted to give her a hopeful name.
[They've reached his bookshop. He's reaching for his keys.] I went to Eversummer Florist for inspiration, but decided an offworld flower suited her better. After all, imagine me naming my daughter something like 'Summershade Bamboo Landau.'