betterthanaplan | The deck of the Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Friday afternoon

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The deck of the Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Friday afternoon

So. Duke had been in Fandom for two weeks now. And while he'd absolutely never say out loud that he felt like he had a handle on things . . . he felt a bit like he had a handle on things.

Case in point: he was lounging on the deck of his boat, sipping bourbon and pondering whether or not he could sail to 2008 Baltimore, stash an inexpensive bottle somewhere, then walk across the causeway to 2019 Baltimore, pick it up, and sell it all nicely aged. He was pretty sure he could get away with something like that without breaking time. So long as he didn't manage to run into his older self or something. But wouldn't his older self know to just avoid Baltimore in 2019?

He was not so lost in such thoughts as to not notice the small green thing creeping around his crates, though. He dropped his hand down to the butt of the gun taped under his chair.

"Pretty sure biting your subjects is a big reporter no-no."

The gremlin made a sort of grumbling, snarling noise, and scuttled off. Duke nodded to himself and sipped his bourbon.

Yeah. He was getting a handle on things.

[open boat deck is open!]

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"This island is certainly blessed with a population of good-looking people," Hernando agreed readily, "I've only met one ugly one though that is more a cancer of the soul than appearance. At the moment, I have no current needs, although that could change if someone wanted a particular import of tea or treat that I don't currently stock. Do you have a quantity requirement?"

He was more making conversation than anything. The shop supplied anything people asked for in a manner that still surprised Hernando. It was a very good shop and he adored it.

"Wow." Duke nodded. "'Cancer of the soul.' Judgey." He shrugged. "No quantity requirements, so long as the price is right. We'd have to work around my class schedule, though."

Which was weird. Duke had never been the type of person who worried about showing up on time for school.

Hernando inclined his head a little, accepting the - heh - judgment. "In this particular instance, yes; my charity for the person is very small. Though it also says something of the general population of the place that there has been only one person to be even the slightest bit unpleasant. For the most part, people here are pleasant."

He lifted a palm in a shrug, "I have no requirements at this time nor would any likely be immediate. The only demand I've had lately has been from my partner demanding Canadian junk food, which I can readily supply him with." Smiling, he tilted his head a little, "Ah, one of the new teachers? How are you finding it? I've considered submitting a proposal for an art class but it will have to wait until my lecture series is over."

Until Sparkle's legal issues were settled, one way or the other.

Duke smiled at the 'partner' comment, and let it grow a bit when the pronouns were mentioned. It was good to know that was something people felt comfortable just casually tossing around to strangers on the island.

"Teaching's not bad. There's some good kids around here. Still not sure how being a pirate fits into a high school curriculum, though."

Technically it was 'partners' and that pronoun was subject to change. Right now, that wasn't something Hernando would discuss openly with anyone.

"I've had very little interaction with the students," Hernando told him, "Usually only if they come in for tea. I've heard them talking about their classes at the welcome picnic for a few terms now and the class rosters seem to be a little more eclectic than I am accustomed to." He smiled wryly and gestured with a hand, "It's one reason I haven't submitted a class proposal, to be honest. It's almost intimidating to consider a simple art class against something like being a pirate. I would probably have chosen the art class as a child but by the time I reached high school I was already heavily invested in art."

Duke chuckled. "I didn't actually choose any of it. You'd probably end up with at least a few students just because the Moose decided they should be there. I should swing by your shop sometime, though. I like to collect a piece or two wherever I go. It'll be interesting to see what kinds of things people around here make."

Hernando examined the sky for a moment. "The shop is on a classics kick lately. It hasn't presented anything local but it has come up with some quite good works by Titian, Rembrandt, and Lotto, though. If they are reproductions, they are quite good."

He wasn't certain. Though he hadn't heard of any galleries reporting a theft or even a missing exhibit. Not in this reality, anyway.

"Right, sorry, your curator is the shop itself?"

"Oh no, not always. Sometimes it allows me to curate but it definitely has opinions," Hernando answered with a soft laugh, "It doesn't care for modern art any more than I do, which is nice. I don't know what I'd do if Pollack showed up one day. Twitch, quite probably."

Okay, but the shop still seemed to have opinions. Which was weird.

"Sell it and use the money to buy something better?" Duke suggested. "I tend more towards folk art, myself." The number of masks this man had below decks. . . .

"Who'd buy it?" Hernando shrugged, "Though I suppose there must be people out there who find his work interesting. He didn't get famous in a vacuum." Though one could wish. "Folk art? Any specific medium?"

"Wood, metal, shells. . . . Whatever the local folk are using. Well, the stuff that'll hold up to damp, anyway. I don't go for papier mache much."

"Metal," Hernando mused, "There's a blacksmith in town. She might do some. I wouldn't imagine paper mache would survive well on a boat environment, no. Sparkle takes quite nice photographs but getting him to show them off depends on his mood. Though his mood is usually quite good." Except lately when he was doing a limpet impression. "I don't know if we have any residents who show their work to be quite honest. Peter Octavian admitted to painting but I haven't seen his art."

"Right, the uh. 'Shadow' guy. I met him. Haven't had the pleasure of the blacksmith yet. I'll have to see if I can find her."

If nothing else, a blacksmith seemed like a very useful person to know.

Hernando's smile went a little strained and fixed. He had no idea that was what Peter was called but 'the Shadow guy' was a valid reference for him and brought to mind the awful moment at the shadow wall. Watching Peter hurl magic at it, speaking words that chilled the blood and shook the mind in a language that didn't sound like it should have been spoken by a human throat. Watching the wall simply.. eat everything poured into it.

The snap-hiss of Kanan's lightsaber coming to life, stabbing the shadow, burning a hole in it that simply oozed closed behind the glowing blade as it was withdrawn. The look on Kanan's face. The concentration, determination, and anger.

He swallowed through a throat gone suddenly tight, trying not to show the way he was - very silently - panicking. Concentrating on his breathing. Reminding himself that it was over. It was over and his friend was safe and the terrifying way he was introduced to the island's power-throwers had simply been unfortunate. Peter and Kanan were good men. He knew that now, he'd gotten to know them.

But he couldn't forget the way Peter had bounced a glowing magic light from hand to hand like some sort of eldritch Slinky. Peter had meant it to be reassuring.

It had been terrifying.

It took him a moment to get past the adrenaline response. Until he could breathe freely again even though his chest still felt a little too tight. He nodded and then said quietly, "Peter is a good man. Whatever else he may be."

Well. That was interesting.

Duke made sure to look away while Hernando put himself back together -- no one needed an audience for that sort of thing -- but was careful not to make any sort of deal about it.

"Good to know," he said, then held up the bourbon bottle. "Can I get you a drink or something?"

Hernando smiled and shook his head, "No, but thank you for the offer. I'm giving a lecture tonight on the history of art in the Renaissance and will save my drinking for after. I have quite a nice bottle of wine waiting. For some reason, the Renaissance discussions always bring out the most terrible questions from students."

"As opposed to the simply amazing ones about, say, Fauvism?" Duke asked, teasing. "Can't say I've ever been to an art lecture. Always been more of a 'learn on the go' kind of guy." And yet, he could casually toss out the term 'Fauvism'.

"Ah, but for all that is modern art, without Fauvism you have no Van Gogh," Hernando smiled - pronouncing the name correctly, "He is the modern artist many students are most familiar with thanks to the internet and the popularity of Starry Night. He and Edvard Munch are two artists whom can be drawn upon to engage a class that might otherwise feel no way to relate to art at all, when Matisse and his movement may have been previously unknown to them. Once the connection is made and the class is more engaged, they're more receptive to learning about art through the ages to see where they can make other such connections. A working knowledge of art is seen, improperly, as a bastion of a higher class, though art appreciation is available to everyone if they can be enticed to take an interest."

And then he laughed and shook his head, casting Duke a mildly rueful look, "And now you can never again say you haven't been to an art lecture before. My apologies. You can take the professor out of the classroom but never the reverse."

"Eh, my own fault for encouraging you," Duke said easily. Getting people to talk about what they were passionate about was pretty much how 'learning on the go' tended to work, after all. "So who's your favorite artist, then?"

"Any of the Dutch Masters really," Hernando answered with a smile, "If I had to pick one, I couldn't. It would be a tie between Vermeer and van der Weyden. Their use of light is enrapturing."

Yes he really said that word with his own mouth.

"Vermeer's the Pearl Earring guy, right?" Duke asked. "Yeah, I like his stuff. Lots of regular people. I could never get into the church-y stuff."

The Reverend Driscoll back in Haven had rather put Duke off "church-y" stuff.

"That is, as you say, the 'Pearl Earring' guy," Hernando chuckled, "Though personally I like 'Study of a Young Woman' more. She too wears a pearl drop earring but her face is more real, less studied. She seems more warm somehow. Perhaps it is simply the softening of the light between the two portraits. van der Weyden did many portraits also, though of course he is most known for his religious iconography. His use of bright pigments, though.." Hernando pinched his fingers together, kissed his fingertips and released it skyward as though setting the kiss free to the world. "Stunning."

"I'll have to look that up," Duke said. "I do love good use of color. So do you specialize in Western art, then?"

"Specialize? No. It was the first art I fell in love with and the reason I pursued a degree in art history, but it cannot really be said I have a specialty," Hernando mused, "I've taught art from all areas of the world as well as the history of expression and art appreciation. My understanding of Western art might be better than Pan-Asian arts or African or Russian but that would be like saying my understanding of Aztec and Mayan art is better than my understanding of European art." He laughed softly, "I love beauty in most forms, though this, of course, is subjective to my own definition of 'beautiful'."

Which was.. broad.

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