Breaking the ice

[nora_fries]

Summer was just starting, there were weeks of classes yet and the dreaded finals to come. Most students around this time could use a little break to blow off steam. They also were students by nature which general meant they didn't have pockets overflowing with cash.

Such was the reason for events throughout the year. To allow everyone to have some fun, get some food they might not otherwise afford and be social. Like, say an ice cream social.

The warm sun, the laughter and small crowds that formed to spill out onto blankets on the lawn were signs of a good day. The ice cream was moving fast and there were so many smiling faces that the little get together was getting some praise. Much of which was lauded on the lithe, willowy blond young woman who was heading the whole thing up. She might have only been in her second year but she was already becoming known as a sweetheart.

Her bright eyes and easy smile suited her fine for these sorts of gatherings, her charming and accepting nature made most people trust her easily. Truth was she was smart and sophisticated but she never put on airs about it. Nora Teply was just simply a joy to be around.

Though apparently not everyone had gotten the memo about the day's festivities. As she looked across the crowd of smiling faces there was one, very distinctly scowling man. He was hunched over a book and staring at it as if it insulted his mother.

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" She said to herself and scooped up a double scoop of vanilla, grabbed a couple napkins and marched over to where he sat.

"That won't do at all." She said suddenly in front of the man. "I'm sorry, but it'll simply have to go."

Comments

[a_cruel_chill]

The book may well have insulted his whole family line, that's how unhappy he was with the thing. He was studying to be a cryogenist, and yet here he was having to read over dry literature from the likes of Byron and Shelley. These men were supposedly the cream of their crop, but trying to decipher their words was akin to explaining below-zero physics to a child.

Add in the horrendously condescending manner in which the whole class had been controlled by his oaf of a professor, and he would be so lucky as to pass by the minimum. At least he would keep his scholarship...

He almost didn't notice when someone came to the other side of him. He thought at first it was another student finding a location to sit for finals, but once he realized the works spoken were for him, he looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

[nora_fries]

She'd caught him, as intended, by surprise.

"That frown, it'll just have to go. They are allowed here when the day is his beautiful, and you have free ice cream." Nora took his book and sat it aside, she also tucked one of the napkins into the neck of his shirt and smoothed it down. Once he was free of distraction and properly prepared she handed him the double scoop cone and smiled.

[a_cruel_chill]

"But...I...what?" Victor manages to get out before the napkin is tucked and an ice cream is shoved into his hand. It was nice, a cool treat on a hot day, but it was also stressful and odd and this odd woman just shoved an ice cream into his hand.

"I...don't quite understand. It's finals, miss. I'm just trying to study," Victor said, waving the literature book for emphasis. "Damned Byron and his ridiculous prose..."

[nora_fries]

"Nora, Nora Teply." She introduced herself without waiting for the invitation. In much the same manner she took a seat and picked up his book.

"Yes, finals are upon us! Which is all the more reason to stop an enjoy the moments life offers. Which is by the way one of Byron's running ideas." She thumbed through the passages.

"Do you really not like it?" SHe sounded genuinely surprised. SHe flipped pages to one poem and laid the book open, hardly needing it to recite the passage.

"My soul is dark – Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o’er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
‘Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence, long;
And now ’tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once – or yield to song."

Her words carried the piece, and when she spoke there was a transportation of spirit. The longing and overwhelming emotion of the piece spoke through her tone. When she finished she looked at him, her eyes seemed a bit heavy as if laden with all that those words entailed. "Frankly I think the work is beautiful."

[a_cruel_chill]

Victor stared for a moment. And stared a bit more. When he had read that passage, he read it in the nasal whine of his professor, and found it just as irritable as the man. He pictured Lord Byron, a man of wealth and means, as another foolish person who would recommend dropping it all for a vacation none but the wealthy could afford.

But this woman, this Nora, in not even two minute, made Byron sound vibrant.

"...you make it sound a good deal better than Professor Smythe managed to."

[nora_fries]

"Oh, is he still reading like it's a chore? I had him last year." She shrugged it off and flipped pages in the book. "He gets the history but I don't think he has the heart. Or maybe I'm biased, English Lit major." She grinned and thumped the cover.

"Byron is all about passion, I know it can read as self indulgent and decadent, but beyond that there is longing. All of us want and need, he just puts it into words. We all have dark side and thoughts which make us cringe, but he embraced this and put it to words." She spoke with the passion of someone who truly believed what they said.

"I don't think here is a soul in the world that can go untouched by the right words."

[a_cruel_chill]

"I...can see that, yes."

Victor was...a bit taken with this. Yes, Smythe was impeccable historically, with details, but that hadn't make the subject any less dry and bereft of interest for the cryonist-in-training. And yet with only a few words, this woman had driven him to distraction. To the point that he almost missed his ice-cream threatening to drip off his cone and onto some of his clothes.

However, with a twitch of recognition, he brought the half-melted mess to his mouth and got it before he was dripped on.

He, however, didn't seem to acknowledge that a bit of the vanilla cream was now on his nose.

[nora_fries]

She laughed and nodded. "See, there is so much more to literature. Words are a sort of magic of their own. They weave tapestries of beauty, they crave out light in the darkness of ignorance, they convey the ideas that change how we view the world."

She took one the napkins from her pocket and dabbed at his nose, no words spoken, nor a joke made at his expense. Simply a kindness that ended with her warm touch on his cheek.

"So, since you are clearly not a Lit major, what is your major?"

[a_cruel_chill]

"Never thought of words having magic to them, but I suppose in the right hands," Victor replied, trying very hard to ignore the warmth in his cheek where she had touched him. It lingered in a way that he couldn't quite place.

"My major is Physics. It explains a lot about my predicament, doesn't it?"

[nora_fries]

"Yet you will allow that there is a beauty or elegance in numbers and formulae, right?" There was some art in it, she could acknowledge but hard sciences were not her forte.

"Words create just as values do. They balance and enhance, they change fundamental structures. You might be surprised how the two lines of thought can parallel."

[a_cruel_chill]

"I had never thought of it that way. And the professor hadn't been helping me in that assumption."

There is some uncomfortable shifting from Victor.

"Uhhh...Nora, since you seem to be the right person for it, would, ah, would you be available to help me with this? I have a few hours before my final and I would rather not have Smythe again next semester."

[nora_fries]

"It's part pf not only knowing the literature, but feeling it. There is as much truth there as in science."

She noticed the shift and frowned slightly, was he nervous? Not about her surely.

Ahh, there was the rub. He needed help to ace a final.She gave it serious consideration before she answered. "I will, under one condition."

[a_cruel_chill]

"Oh?"

Victor was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the "one condition" came up. He started to get uncertain. Was this woman, who had been pleasant and kind enough, about to ask of him something that he would be uncomfortable with?

"What is the condition?"

[nora_fries]

She smiled and nodded, remaining silent a few moments more while she regarded him. "My condition, my mysterious unnamed student, is that if you pass you continue to let me show you why these books are important."

She let her fingers slide over the cover like an old friend. "And of course tell me your name, but that is more good manners than a condition."

[a_cruel_chill]

"To be fair, you did ambush me with this...freezing concoction before I could implement proper manners," Victor said with a smile as he motioned to the ice cream. He licked it, enjoying the cool flavor before speaking again. "Victor. Victor Fries is my name. And I accept that condition."

[nora_fries]

"Well Victor Fries, I had to take drastic and immediate action. You were so dour." So she'd waylaid him with a treat and some company.


"You're also in luck, the good Professor hasn't changed his finals in ages so I am pretty sure you can not bother with Byron for the time being. He'll be asking for an essay on one of three authors and I suggest for you," She looked him over critically as if appraising him. "Shelly. Of the Mery variety. Science, gothic sensibilities, drama and poetry all rolled into one with her. And I can help you frame the blue book if you like. BUt the writing will have to be your own."