aungier | (no subject)

Date: November 2, 1888
Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: Various locations around the house.
Characters: Shirogane (

anachronisticbilliards) and YOU! [OPEN/~~CLOSED~~]
Summary: Shirogane's just trying to do his job and is available to be bothered.
Warnings: Moving furniture. The horror.

What with all of the people constantly coming and going at Aungier House, furniture needed to be moved around quite often. Rooms needed to be prepared. Some rooms didn't have enough furniture. Others had too much. Other rooms had the appropriate amounts of furniture and were well-used, but the furniture still needed to be moved so that the maids could clean.

That's where the footmen came in. Today, Shirogane found himself doing just that--moving furniture. For the most part, he didn't mind the work. It could be physically demanding, true, but at least there was a point to it. A purpose other than that someone somewhere thought criminals needed to walk on treadmills or turn pointless cranks for hours on end. For a few hours in the afternoon, he could be found moving furniture between rooms as he'd been directed. If he needed to be bothered or pulled away for some other task, well, he was just a footman. He didn't quite have as much governance over his own time as he would have liked.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ivan's smile falters for a moment; he is trying to cultivate it into a permanent thing at least around strangers or near-strangers, because people tend to be nicer when you smile, but emotions still overrun it fairly easily. I would allow that if he thought himself to be strong, but as it is he always hopes that it will stop eventually.

The thing is, his father wasn't with him for the past six years, so for all his life safe for the last couple of hours. He didn't even know him. And he's still not sure what to think of him. Yet, he nods, watching with slight confusion at the show that the man puts up. "I'll stay with my father now, I was told. Your name is unusual." He could probably have said it more elegantly, but the words wouldn't quite come.

Shirogane had to chuckle at that. He'd expected it to be a problem, really, but so far, the child had been the only one to say something. Perhaps he should have taken on a more suitable name whenever he'd changed, but this one just felt right. "Ah, that's because I'm Japanese...you can call me Silver, if that's a bit easier for you to pronounce." It was an old nickname, but serviceable enough.

Both words are ones that hold no meaning to him, so one is as good as the other. He shakes his head. "Shirogane." He'll repeat it a couple times more in his head, trying to memorize the name. "Japanese?" That is probably a nationality, but where is it?

Shirogane seems pleased when the child goes for the more proper name instead of the nickname, and he will offer an encouraging nod. And at that question, he'll answer, "My father was from a place called Japan. It's very far away...I suppose many of the names from over there would be strange here."