A Matter of Appearances

That was what he had been by trade, after all, back in the far distant past when he, like everyone else, had expected that his life would end like everyone else's. Sickness, perhaps, or starvation, or old injuries never healed. It had not been a time that had been kind to anyone, not just a time that had been unkind to infants. He still worked the trade in the old ways, with iron planes and hand lathes and rough dogskin from the sea for sanding. There were few left in this era who could do such anachronistic things, and somehow they had become a curiosity. A piece made in those ways could be worth tens of thousands, if Gawain had any need of money whatsoever. Instead, he worked simply for the enjoyment of it, or because it was what he had always done.


Other times, he didn't bother. It depended on the person in question, after all. Sometimes, knowing a man was their many-times-great-grandfather changed them. Sometimes, that was desirable. Other times, it was of more interest to let such things fade into obscurity.

It was one of the great benefits of not requiring finances, in Gawain's opinion. Much of his youth had been spent turning interminable spokes for endless chairs. It was not that he minded the work, particularly, but that he had reached a point in his life where he worked for himself and not for others. If he did something for someone else - like the period-proper repair work he had done on the table in the abbey's great hall - it would be as a gift, not because it had been requested or remunerated.

He rather wondered if Alvis would ever reach a similar point with his paintings, but it seemed that he remained far too enamored of psychiatry. The human mind, as it were. An interesting choice, but Gawain found there were many other traits of humankind that were preferential for being enamored of. The man asked about fulfillment, with the air of someone who had not yet rediscovered an appreciation for mystery. He shrugged, with one of those lingering smiles, displaced from the conversation.


By his tone, it mattered very little to him whether or not the matter of tyranny was actually fulfilling. There was another of those ripples between his broad shoulders, a rolling of the ocean, unconquered and uncaring in the slightest.

Gawain raised an eyebrow at the accusations of boredom, of weariness. But Alvis was young, in the grand scheme of things. He returned the empty smile with one of his own - slight, to be sure, but hinting at meaningfulness rather than at nothing at all.


He wondered if Alvis even knew the meaning of the word. So few people did, these days. They sought more and more and more, or sought endless something elses, never mastering the art of being at peace with themselves and what they held. It was not a matter of boredom at all, it was simply a matter of enough.