"Just him, by us," says Lev, and then bites his lower lip. He wants to tell Hawk about his husband, about what he did, and what he didn't do, about the price of kindness, the value of life, about the pursuer coming to kill and the brutal calculus of survival. He says none of it; not the time now.
He takes the mug and perches on the edge of the examination table, not self-conscious in the slightest. He sips the hot chocolate, smiles his thanks at Hawk and only then begins to answer his question.
"She's ... nu, is hard to talk about one I've known all my life," he says. "She and I were the youngest in zal. Uh. Study-hall. She came to study by my uncle, and there was a thing about it, nu? Because my family's Ashkenazi and mine uncle's a bit of a khosid, but he follows Nusakh Polin, and even if we followed Sfarad, that's an Ostyiddish shtik, not—" he stops abruptly and bites his lip, a little embarrassed. "Um, should've said. Gigi's Sfardi. If I came to study by her uncle, with her, it'd be no trouble, nu? But her uncle said mine uncle is the better teacher, being older. But ..." he pauses, thoughtfully. "I heard the word androgynos the first time, eavesdropping that conversation, and then mine uncle said, saris odom and Gigi's bubbeh said, copper rose girl, thou meanst." He shrugs. "Neither of us knew what we were then. We'd been told, we were both so much younger than the other bokhurim, and Gigi's uncle said, I was so clever and sensitive, I needed to learn with someone who could match me." He pauses again, and takes a long draught of the hot chocolate. "Decades later, mine uncle said it had felt inappropriate, to make me sequester for study with a man. He said he knows how I see myself, and he knows it's not as straightforward for me as it were for Gigi, but ..." another shrug. "But that tells thee little about her, nu? But it tells you how others saw the two of us."
no subject
"Just him, by us," says Lev, and then bites his lower lip. He wants to tell Hawk about his husband, about what he did, and what he didn't do, about the price of kindness, the value of life, about the pursuer coming to kill and the brutal calculus of survival. He says none of it; not the time now.
He takes the mug and perches on the edge of the examination table, not self-conscious in the slightest. He sips the hot chocolate, smiles his thanks at Hawk and only then begins to answer his question.
"She's ... nu, is hard to talk about one I've known all my life," he says. "She and I were the youngest in zal. Uh. Study-hall. She came to study by my uncle, and there was a thing about it, nu? Because my family's Ashkenazi and mine uncle's a bit of a khosid, but he follows Nusakh Polin, and even if we followed Sfarad, that's an Ostyiddish shtik, not—" he stops abruptly and bites his lip, a little embarrassed. "Um, should've said. Gigi's Sfardi. If I came to study by her uncle, with her, it'd be no trouble, nu? But her uncle said mine uncle is the better teacher, being older. But ..." he pauses, thoughtfully. "I heard the word androgynos the first time, eavesdropping that conversation, and then mine uncle said, saris odom and Gigi's bubbeh said, copper rose girl, thou meanst." He shrugs. "Neither of us knew what we were then. We'd been told, we were both so much younger than the other bokhurim, and Gigi's uncle said, I was so clever and sensitive, I needed to learn with someone who could match me." He pauses again, and takes a long draught of the hot chocolate. "Decades later, mine uncle said it had felt inappropriate, to make me sequester for study with a man. He said he knows how I see myself, and he knows it's not as straightforward for me as it were for Gigi, but ..." another shrug. "But that tells thee little about her, nu? But it tells you how others saw the two of us."