sixwordstories | (no subject)

He's fairly well known to do so, yes.

Tell me you are not just now realizing this, because I had thought we went over this one a few hundred times before.

So add this one to the list.

He makes me tired sometimes, Ty.

He makes me tired all the time, but you have to endure him more often than I do.

If it would help at all, I found a book on your shelves I might be unopposed to reading to you for a while. You can lay back and close your eyes for a time and rest your thoughts of foxes.

A good thing you like me or I'd be worried about you knowing all my weak spots like that.

It'd be lovely if you did that, my friend.

Me, use an unfair advantage like that against someone? Never.

[He thumbs through the pages of the book with a slight upward quirk of a grin, before settling into one of Robin's chairs, shifting a while before he settles.]

You really aught to learn to speak cat some day. Perhaps I will teach you. Then I can read to you more comfortably

[ Robin for his part stretches out on the floor at Tybalt's feet. ]

I don't know, I rather enjoy your voice when you speak the languages of humans.

A feat that took me quite a time to master. But I suppose I will settle for that.

[He cleared his throat, smoothing the page and starting in a low, soft voice, reading the words slow and precise.]

Methought I walked a dismal place
Dim horrors all around,
The air was thick with many a face
And black as night the ground.

I saw a monster come with speed,
It's face of grimmliest green,
On human beings used to feed,
Most dreadful to be seen.

I could not speak, I could not fly,
I fell down in that place,
I saw the monster's horrid eye
Come leering in my face!

Amidst my scarcely stifled groans,
Amidst my moaning deep,
I heard a voice, "Wake! Mr. Jones.
You're screaming in your sleep."

[ Robin smiles, lying flat on his back and listening, emptying his head of everything but the pleasant rumble of Tybalt's voice. ]

Believe me, King of Cats, it isn't settling.

[Tybalt was leafing quietly through pages again, and the King of Cats comment drew another slight smile from the fable cat before he paused on another poem, scanning it briefly before continuing.]

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Ah, that one takes me back.

[ He laughs softly, eyes closed. ]

There are many a poem or tale that would take either of us back, Bran.

[There's soft amusement in his tone that so few have ever heard the cat use, few could believe it might exist. They were old, after all. Very old. And time moved on whether they did or not.]

Poetry. Makes me feel a bit foolish, really.

[Like he was trying to sing for Robin like Robin might for him, but with no music to his voice, just the steady rhythm of his voice and nothing more. It was pale in the face of that thought, because nothing could compete with the fairly magical quality of Robin's voice. Something Tybalt imagined could calm even the bristling of Ise's fur at the mention of a certain Fox.]

Why? It's just pretty words arranged in a way that pleases the mind.

[ Robin adores poetry, having the soul of a bard no matter what he tells himself or the world.

No matter what else he tries to be. ]

Words may be pretty to your ears and eyes, but it is sound that captures mine.

[He makes a slight face and slides his thumb over the page.] For me they are clumsy and complicate the meanings trying to be conveyed.

[A problem cats did not have, when they spoke with body language and sounds rather than compartmentalizing meaning into specifically structured and criss-crossed words]

But sometimes it is the very complication of things that creates beauty, old friend.

Surely a cat knows how to appreciate mystery?

[ Or maybe that is a characteristic merely ascribed to them by those who cannot possibly understand them, and thus think them mysterious. ]

I may appreciate mystery in other things, but there it seems only to cloud and confuse.

But in such a beautiful way.