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for: practicality (modern!au)
Aug. 2nd, 2012 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thirtycoins[ The barista looks askance at Edmund when he empties the entire receptacle of sugar into his mug, but he pays her no mind. It's only after he has gulped his way halfway to a caffeine-buzz that he leaves the counter and meanders through the chattering crowd of twenty-somethings, looking for a table.
He finds one at the back of the cafe, shielded from the rest of patrons by a well-placed potted tree. His hands are shaking from the caffeine; he nearly drops his laptop bag in his attempt to sling it across the back of his chair.
It's not that he's nervous. Susan Pevensie is an imposing figure in her own right, competent and lovely to a fault, but Edmund — unlike the majority of his batchmates — had never looked at her and seen a conquest. He'd respected her, yes, and he'd toyed briefly with the idea of asking for further coaching on the training grounds, but that's where his acknowledgment had ended. She was to be yet another figure at the periphery of Edmund's life, a name to be forgotten once time brushed her memory aside.
Edmund takes another long sip of his coffee, feeling the thrum of a headache beginning to settle in. And then he'd gone and nearly killed her.
It's not that he's nervous. If she wanted to boot him from the club, he could handle that. He'd come to enjoy being a part of the team, of course, but losing his club privileges would be a small price to pay for what he'd done. After all, if his arrow had listed even a hairsbreadth to the right, even the blunted point of the training arrow could have caused grievous harm. A nick to the femoral artery, that's all it would have taken.
He taps out an idle beat on the surface of the table, his patience unraveling into restless energy, made all the worse by the necessity to contain it. ]
He finds one at the back of the cafe, shielded from the rest of patrons by a well-placed potted tree. His hands are shaking from the caffeine; he nearly drops his laptop bag in his attempt to sling it across the back of his chair.
It's not that he's nervous. Susan Pevensie is an imposing figure in her own right, competent and lovely to a fault, but Edmund — unlike the majority of his batchmates — had never looked at her and seen a conquest. He'd respected her, yes, and he'd toyed briefly with the idea of asking for further coaching on the training grounds, but that's where his acknowledgment had ended. She was to be yet another figure at the periphery of Edmund's life, a name to be forgotten once time brushed her memory aside.
Edmund takes another long sip of his coffee, feeling the thrum of a headache beginning to settle in. And then he'd gone and nearly killed her.
It's not that he's nervous. If she wanted to boot him from the club, he could handle that. He'd come to enjoy being a part of the team, of course, but losing his club privileges would be a small price to pay for what he'd done. After all, if his arrow had listed even a hairsbreadth to the right, even the blunted point of the training arrow could have caused grievous harm. A nick to the femoral artery, that's all it would have taken.
He taps out an idle beat on the surface of the table, his patience unraveling into restless energy, made all the worse by the necessity to contain it. ]
