xp_logs | Forge & Yvette: The Ends and Means of Love (Wednesday Evening)

After dinner on Wednesday, Yvette finds Forge in his office with an unusual question. Forge does his best to answer, although he's probably the last person who should be advising ANYONE on the topic...

"Mr. Forge? May I be asking you a question?"

The voice followed a soft tapping at Forge's office door and the summons to come in. Yvette had scrabbled a little at the doorhandle, her shortening talons making things much easier than before, but when the door was open, had hesitated, unsure of herself. Today she was wearing a dark green pinafore over the leotard, and she looked rather Christmas-like, green and dark red. There was a bow made of Forge's material in her hair, which was now a mass of razor-edged curls, as opposed to the spikes of when she had arrived.

Forge looked over his desk at Yvette and nodded as he closed his laptop. "Sure thing, Yvette. Something on your mind?" While Forge was still trying to get used to the idea of thinking of himself as a member of the school's staff rather than a student, Yvette had treated him like any of the other adults since she'd arrived. He'd found that he actually liked the politeness of the young Albanian, and wasn't about to disabuse her of the notion.

Yvette came in properly, closing the door behind her and climbing up onto one of the chairs on the other side of his desk. She still had a tendency to crouch rather than sit, and she tucked her dress demurely over her knees as she did so. "I am being reading the journals," she began, a little unsure now that this was something she ought to ask about. "And I am seeing you are being, how you say? Making the date? With Miss Colbert?"

A small laugh eas Forge's initial response. "We went on a few dates, yes. We're not 'dating', per se... I mean, we weren't. And we aren't. There was... it was complicated."

"Because she is being... dating Mr Ramsey now, yes?" Yvette frowned a little. "Are you being sad now, Mr. Forge?"

"Sad? Me?" Forge was genuinely surprised. "Not at all. That was the intention all along, I mean..." He suddenly realized how absolutely absurd this must sound to a girl who probably still put boys her age in the same classification as mud toads. He folded his hands together and sighed before looking over to Yvette.

"Mr. Ramsey - Doug - and Miss Colbert, that's Marie-Ange, they used to be dating. They were for a long time, until... well, they stopped. And that was kind of my fault, I said some mean things, because I suppose I was jealous. Not of them, mind you, just... what they had. And so when I found out that Doug still loved her, but he was too shy to do anything about it - that's why I went out on dates with Miss Colbert, to try and get him to tell her how he felt. The funny thing is, she wanted him to do the same thing."

He smirked briefly, then just shook his head. "Love is apparently sometimes a complicated thing, Yvette. Let me warn you now."

"You are being... making the trick? To be making Mr. Ramsey to be saying what he is feeling?" Yvette frowned a little more. It sounded so very confusing. "This is being very strange to me, Mr. Forge. It is seeming... a little mean, I think?"

Forge nodded in agreement. "In a way, it was. Sometimes, you have to choose to risk something in order to achieve something. You might hear some of your teachers talk about ends justifying the means. What that means is that sometimes to accomplish something good, you have to do something... questionable." He spread his fingers wide, looking down at his hands for a moment. "A lot of them will say that the ends don't ever justify the means. I prefer to think that's up to everyone to decide for themselves."

She considered his words for a long moment, small, pointed face solemn. "Mr. Ramsey and Miss Colbert are being happy, I think. But if it is not working, then this would be a bad thing," she mused. Then she shook her head. "I am not understanding the love. Boys... they are being..." She waved her hands a little helplessly, searching for the words. "Boys," she settled for. "Angel is being only a little older than me, but she is having the boyfriend. I am thinking maybe this is being the complicated I am not wanting for the long time."

"Smart girl," Forge agreed. "I am much of the same opinion myself. Can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be a lot more trouble than it's worth. Far too many variables, too much instability," he paused, realizing how negative he was sounding. Switching gears, he leaned forward with a smile. "One day, though. It'll hit you, and you'll change your mind when you least expect it. It's inevitable around here."

"Has it been hitting you, Mr.Forge?" Yvette asked, completely disingenously. "Mr. Angelo is having the girlfriend, and Mr. Ramsey and Miss Colbert, and I am being hearing Miss Munroe is also... There is, how you say? Something in the air?"

"Not for a long time, Yvette," Forge said without any trace of regret. "Maybe once. But for the moment, I'm content." He cocked his head, eyeing Yvette carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"I am just being the curious," she replied, meeting his look with a slight flaring of her eyes. The unnatural blue glow tended to make her expression a little hard to read sometimes. "And it is, as you are being saying, inevitable, yes?"

"Touché," Forge replied. "Wise beyond your years, you are."

She smiled at him then, pleased. "It is, how you say, easy to be underestimating me? Because I am being small, the people they are thinking I am being a little girl." She shrugged, the movement setting her hair to bouncing stiffly. "If it is not being happening yet, then one day you are being falling in the love before I am being. Because you are being the grown up and I am being very much younger than you."

"I wouldn't place bets on it," Forge said with a sigh, then stood up and walked around his desk to lean on the side by Yvette. "But one thing's for sure. This 'older man' feels pretty darn hungry, and happened to miss dinner. Feel up to showing me what we've got for leftovers?"

Yvette slipped from the chair, landing lightly in a slight crouch before straightening and taking Forge's hand. "There is being lots," she said emphatically, beginning to tug him towards the door. "And Mr. Forge is being a silly man for not eating the dinner." She grinned. "Maybe you are being needing the Army of the Small Girls, while Mr. Angelo is on the holiday?"

"See, I knew being Angelo's suitemate would pay off in benefits one of these days. And all those extra benefits appear to be food..."