xp_logs | Nathan and Sooraya

Sooraya shows up in the boathouse to ask Nathan a question. The answer isn't exactly up her alley, but an alternative is soon found.

During her months spent at the mansion Sooraya had learned that asking questions was a very good way to learn new information and to address anything that might be puzzling her. It had been hard at first for her to gather up the courage to do so, but slowly it had gotten easier until she barely felt a qualm about voicing a question. It didn't hurt that most everybody was quite happy to answer them, usually, and most helpful of all was Nathan. Which was why she was going to him with the most pressing question on her mind, even if she didn't know if he
could help her with it.

As usual she found him at his desk in the boathouse, and smiled at him nervously as she entered the office. "Hello," she said, glancing around to see if anyone else was within hearing distance. "May I ask a question, please?"

Nathan smiled back at her. "I'm not liable to ever say no, you realize," he said, setting down his pen. "What is it?"

Sooraya stepped towards the desk, plucking at the edges of her sleeves. "Do you know a thing called prom?" The word was strange to her; though she had heard her classmates talk of little else in the past week, she still wasn't exactly sure what it was. A gathering of some sort, she had gotten that much.

One of these days she was going to ask him something that had him flummoxed; not today, though, thankfully. "Prom is a... formal evening," he said after a moment, thoughtful. "To celebrate the end of the school year. I think it's short for promenade?" He shrugged a bit uncertainly. "Students dress up, have a dinner and dancing..."

"Dancing?" Sooraya's face, which had held a hopeful expression when he began his explaination, now fell. "Oh." Though she had never been to a prom, she was almost certain that the type of dancing they did there wouldn't be what she was used to. "Thank you. I understand this now."

He hated it when she looked crestfallen like that. "Did you want to go?" Nathan asked gently. "You don't have to dance. You could be around your friends, have dinner and sit and talk..."

And watch everyone else dance while she stood back? Sooraya didn't know what would be worse; not going, or that. "I think," she said, putting on a happier expression for Nathan's sake, "I will like to not go. It is for the better." She didn't know how exactly to explain it to him, but the prospect of an evening standing awkwardly by while the rest of her classmates enjoyed themselves filled her with fear. It was one thing to look different or talk different, but she didn't need to illustrate her strangeness in yet another way.

Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it a bit helplessly. "Would you like to - I don't know, maybe do something else that night? We could go to the Afghani restaurant, maybe somewhere else in the city too..." His smile was a little sad. "I hate to think of you sitting home in your room while your friends have fun..."

"It is not bad," Sooraya said with a small shake of her head. "It is only one night. But I will like to eat at the restaurant with you. It will be nice, I think." She smiled at him again, more convincingly this time.

"We never got you to any of the places in New York where you could have celebrated Nawroz," Nathan said. He'd meant to do that, but late March had been... well, kind of busy, Afghan New Year or not. "Why don't we do a ~picnic~?" he said, using the Dari word. "Take food out from the restaurant, have it in Central Park that afternoon..."

"We will be allowed to do this?" came the surprised response.

"Of course. And maybe that evening, we can go to the Met - I keep meaning to take you to that museum, to see the exhibits from your part of the world," Nathan said with a chuckle. "I know it's been busy lately, but that's no excuse. What we were talking about in Hungary... your country has lots of its own history, too."

By now Sooraya was genuinely smiling; she hadn't forgotten about the prom, but this was a far more interesting and welcome alternative than sitting in her room by herself. "I will like that very much... if it is not trouble for you," she added bashfully.

"I have a hard, hard time," Nathan said gently, his eyes warm, "ever imagining you being trouble for me, Sooraya." I say that now, but wait until she discovers boys. Or boys discover her.