[Volterra] Liberté (Émilie)

Émilie hastily handed over the money to her friend, perfectly content with letting her take care of everything. She didn’t have enough money in the first place to really worry about her doing anything unsavory with it, and if she ran out before they left, she was fairly confident that she would be able to find someone to buy her another glass of wine. She offered a smile to the waitress as she brought them their bill, already forgetting how to say ‘thank you’ properly. It looked like Ségolène had things handled, anyway, which was good enough for this particular French girl.

She decided against asking her friend if she thought they had wine take away, instead popping an actual final piece of cheese into her mouth as she waited for her to finish up with the bill. "I'm good if you're good," she said, her mouth still half full with her last bite. She picked up her wine glass one last time, though she had already drained it, and tipped it into her mouth, just in case she had missed any. She stood up, gave a final little wave of her fingers to the man she hoped had been admiring her, and followed Ségolène back out into the square.

Ségolène led the way, as she was still the only half of the pair who understood how to read a map or follow directions, and it didn't take long for Émilie to lag behind. Now that she had eaten and had a little vin-oh, she was noticing more and more all the things that there were to look at. Not the buildings; those were pretty boring. But there were souvenir stands, food stands, magazine stands, clothing boutiques, shoe shops, and they were headed to.. the art museum. A few times she had to remind herself that she was on board with the plan to see the landscapes, but after passing her second window full of cannoli, she couldn't do anything to convince herself not to stop.

"Ségolène," she said, already stopped, her hand upon the window glass. "I'm going to get one of these," she pointed with her other hand to the contents just beyond the glass. "I'll get it," she looked up and reassured her friend that she could handle everything, before pushing through the door into the shop. The transaction was tricky, but after she pointed enough times at the plain cannoli while holding up two fingers and getting the baker to write down how many lira she owed him, she was back outside, both hands holding out a pastry on a napkin each. "I got you one," she offered, hoping it would make up for the lost five minutes Ségolène could have spent looking at trees or grass, or whatever was in the paintings.

She munched on her treat as they continued walking, and as she ate she regretted her decision to stop for it less and less. If she knew how to make mental notes, she would make one to come back for more later.

"Yes, I'm ready to go," Ségolène said, eager to get to the Palazzo. The young witch was already fearing to run out of time to really see all the historic places she wanted to visit. She got to her feet quickly, grabbing her bag and already stepping away from the table. When Émilie stood up, Ségolène walked out into the square. Her gaze wandered up to the clock on the tower of the Palazzo which reached into the blue sky and she sighed happily. Now this was a beautiful sight.

The way towards the entrance of the Palazzo wasn't exceptionally long and yet they didn't manage it without an interruption. Ségolène frowned briefly but decided against commenting on the delay. They were on holidays. If Émilie wanted more food before entering the museum that was okay even if the clairvoyant would rather starve than lose any more time before starting the actual sightseeing.

Ségolène stayed outside, a thoughtful smile on her face. It was all good. Even if Émilie did not quite have the same goals when it came to their stay in Italy they'd have a good time. If they didn't get to the museum anymore today then they could always separate for a day and both of them could do the things they wanted to do. However, even Émilie had to be eager to see at least the main sights of the town - the Palazzo dei Priori, the Roman Theatre, the Etruscan Acopoli, the Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, the Ecomuseo dell'Alabastro, Museo della Geotermia di Larderello... There were just so many interesting things to see...

Being busy thinking about all the sights she wanted to see and trying to figure out the perfect order in which she'd want to see them, Ségolène did not notice that Émilie spent more time in the shop than necessary. Had she noticed it she would have gone into the shop to check if her friend needed help. However, it seemed like even if it took her a little longer Émilie had managed what she wanted as she soon appeared with two cannoli.

"Oh..." Ségolène said, looking a little confused. "Thank you." She took the pastry and hesitantly took a bite. The treat turned out to be better than expected and she smiled a little. Maybe it was not the worst idea to enjoy the culinary side of Italy as well. The cannoli at least were delicious and worth a try. Nevertheless Ségolène wanted to get into the Palazzo dei Priori now and see the exhibition. In fact the exhibition was not really what she wanted to see. The thing that really was of interest to her was actually the place itself. The ancient building and furniture. The were just a few steps away from it now. Ségolène walked closer and stopped right in front of the entrance, eating the rest of her cannolo quite quickly.

"When you're ready, shall we go in?" she asked hopefully. Maybe Émilie was ready for some sightseeing now.

Émilie looked at Ségolène out of the corner of her eye, watching her take her time to eat her dessert. She had finished her own in under a minute and was regretting sharing in the first place. Why did she have to be so friendly and not keep all the snacks for herself? She pouted as they finished their walk; thankfully, they were there quite soon, though from the looks of the building, she wasn’t too thrilled with her prospects.

Still, she was more than ready to go inside. “Yes, absolutely ready.” There really wasn’t anything to look at outside anyway; the people in the immediate vicinity were much less fun to look at than those at the cafe they had just left. Namely the one particular Italian. Still, she nodded excitedly, happy that Ségolène would soon be happy. She reached in her bag to pull out another handful of Italian money, staring down at the small numbers to get a head start on this transaction that was about to happen.

She followed her friend to the ticket counter and let her ask for two tickets, smiling and offering a wave to the cashier as she looked at her for confirmation. She set the bills on the counter and pushed them across, shrugging and hoping the woman would just take what she needed and give the rest back. Either way, Émilie had no idea what was happening. She happily took her change and her ticket and followed the other French woman into the museum. There was a small gift shop and an even smaller cafe, but even the smallest cafe in Italy served wine.

There were a few different rooms leading off of the lobby, but all the signs were either in Italian or English and neither was telling her anything. “Why don’t you find your exhibit and I’ll meet you there?” She smiled, trying to look as supportive as possible. “I’m just going to use the little girls’ room,” she pointed at a sign, only knowing it was the right one due to the helpful picture. She smiled again, this time more reassuringly, and waved off her friend.

Émilie headed in the direction she said she was going and looked over her shoulder to ensure Ségolène had found where she wanted to go before making a beeline to the cafe. Clearly she hadn’t had enough wine at their last stop to prepare her to look at Italian art.

Émilie was quick to eat her pastry. Ségolène on the other hand enjoyed her treat slowly, wondering why her friend ate so fast. She could hardly be starving after having eaten cheese mere minutes ago. However, this was just something to quietly think about, nothing the librarian would ever voice under any circumstances.

Although Émilie stated that she was ready and even looked more or less enthusiastic, Ségolène was sceptical. She did not trust her friend to be genuinely interested in visiting the Palazzo and the exhibition that she'd see inside. She frowned briefly but decided to avoid any potential conflict and just take it as it was.

They stepped inside and Ségolène looked around, her mouth slightly ajar and her eyes widened. This really was an ancient place. She slowly turned around to take a look at all walls of the entrance hall and looked up to the ceiling. It was beautiful! What confused her though was that there was no ticket counter in the entrance area and so she followed a group of people upstairs, still examining everything with great interest and almost forgetting about her companion.

As they reached the ticket counter, Ségolène asked for two tickets. Émilie was quick to put bills onto the counter, obviously oblivious to their worth and the amount of money they charged for tickets. However, once again Ségolène decided not to comment. Instead she just offered an excited smile. Her heart was beating quicker now. She had her ticket and she would soon explore the Palazzo dei Priori.

When Émilie asked her to go ahead and find the exhibition while she'd use the restroom, Ségolène nodded. "Okay, that's fine. Unless you'd rather want me to wait?!" She looked at her friend, decided that Émilie really wanted her to go in and leave her behind and then nodded again.

"Alright. If we don't find each other inside again we'll meet in front of the entrance door later, okay?" Having said that she headed into the first room. Soon enough she had forgotten that she had not come here alone. There was just too much to see. The old furniture seemed to speak of ancient times and Ségolène took her time to examine the pieces before moving on to the art exhibition.

“Perfect!” Émilie waved, though it was pointless as the other woman had already turned to venture out into the gallery, which was fine with her. The cafe was small but it was cozy, a few tables clustered around a counter with a few snacks and even more beverages. Plenty of espresso (no, thanks) and even more wine. She placed her order, only butchering it as “vino blanco” this time, and settled into one of the tables, giving herself a good spot to people watch while she drank.

She took large sips of her wine, sitting and watching people milling around long enough to finish her glass and need to order another one. After repeating her ordering and drinking process one more time, Émilie started in on her third glass in under an hour. She had, by now, just assumed that Ségolène would think she was just in some other part of the gallery, so enthralled by the art that she had fallen behind and never caught up to her. Totally plausible.

Doing her best not to act surprised, Émilie smiled and nodded when her new favorite Italian man started talking to her. He sat down next to her before she could say “no Italiano” but that only made him smile and talk slower, like that could actually help her. He was nice to look at though. She kept nodding and sipping her wine until her glass was empty, putting a pout on her face both for the lack of wine and for the realization that she should probably go find Ségolène. He kept talking even as she stood up, not letting her leave until he had handed her a piece of paper and kissed her cheek. Yes, Italy was great.

Émilie bit her lip as she walked away, looking down at the paper. It only took a few minutes to find her friend and she wasted no time filling her in, leaving out the small tidbit of her three glass of wine. “I think his name was Paolo! He gave me his phone number,” Émilie waved the little piece of paper around in front of her, still so proud that she had made some progress despite her extremely limited Italian. She slowed her hand down and peered down at the numbers. There were six, maybe seven numbers there. “Is this,” the girl held out the paper for Ségolène to see. “Is this enough numbers?” She pouted, all the excitement from the previous moment evaporated. Émilie would have been the last person to figure out that Italian phone numbers didn’t necessarily have the same amount of numbers as a French one, especially since she didn’t exactly use the phone that often.

Émilie shrugged, happy to have found her friend anyway. “How is it going?” She peered around Ségolène to take a look behind her, only reaffirming her decision to skip most of the art in favor of more wine. “If you wanted to keep looking around, I don’t mind waiting for you in the cafe,” her voice trailed off and she smiled.

The ancient rooms had been a lot more interesting than the actual art exhibition. Ségolène realised that upon stepping into the first room with paintings. The landscapes were painted well enough, the colours were vibrant and the scenes clearly showed the atmosphere at sunrise or sunset but even though the librarian did take a proper look at every painting she found them all to be similar and little inspiring. Naturally the Bellefeuille graduate would never say so bluntly. The artist had most definitely taken a long route to get as far with their painting. However, this was not a groundbreaking exhibition. This was not the work of a painter who'd become famous during their lifetime or afterwards.

Nevertheless Ségolène did not regret the visit. The hall with the old chairs had impressed her enough to make up for the little interesting art on the second floor. As she stood in front of a picture of a pine tree alley, she felt that someone was approaching her. The young woman thought it must be Émilie but as she turned around, ready to offer a smile and pretend to like the exhibition, she saw a young man there. Immediately the French woman froze and the smile faded. She shrugged apologetically and when the young man opened his mouth to address her she quickly walked over to the next painting, staring at it without really seeing what was on it and just hoping the man would not follow her.

She was taken out of her train of thought when Émilie approached her. With a sigh of relief Ségolène turned to her friend and listened to her speak about a man she had met. This woman was a miracle. How did Émilie always get in touch with young man was beyond the clairvoyant who did not realise that she could just have made a new acquaintance herself. She found it impressive that Émilie found admirers everywhere and managed to communicate with them without even speaking the same language.

"I don't know much about Italian phone numbers," Ségolène confessed, looking at the piece of paper. "Did you intend to call him anyway?"

Émilie didn't seem interested in the exhibition at all and now that she had seen most of it, Ségolène didn't blame her. She had taken her time with most paintings, leaving out only about five more pictures. Taking a glance over her shoulder she realised that the man who had almost spoken to her earlier was now looking at the first of the five paintings which she had not yet looked at properly. Their gaze met briefly and a startled Ségolène looked back at her friend. Her cheeks ever so slightly reddened, the young woman smiled at her friend.

"Oh, I've seen pretty much everything," she whispered, "I don't mind leaving if you do not want to see the exhibition yourself."

"I don't know," the woman answered Ségolène honestly, looking back down at the half crumpled piece of paper in her hand. "I don't even know if we have a phone." It wasn't exactly like it was the first thing she had looked for when they were at their hotel. "Oh well," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, stuffing the paper into her bag as she looked back up at her friend, just in time to see her not paying attention to her anymore.

Émilie looked behind her, trying to be ever so casual about it, but the four glasses of wine were not aiding her in her efforts at all. She turned back to her friend and met her smile with a grin, raising her eyebrows at her as she said something about being ready to leave. "Nonsense," she attempted a whisper. "In fact," she continued, "I am suddenly very interested in those paintings over there," she jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. "Let's go look at them."

She was marching away before Ségolène could protest, a half formed plan taking shape in her mind. But whatever she had planned, it certainly wasn't to trip on the hem of her own dress and nearly collide with the man standing in front of the painting, the man that she had caught the other woman looking at. She grabbed at his arm as she steadied herself, apologizing in rapid French, not taking the time to check that he spoke the language before launching into her next sentence, her new brilliant idea fully formed. "I'm so clumsy, so sorry, my friend was just talking about how lovely this painting was and she really knows what she's talking about so I had to come look." She gestured to Ségolène as she was talking, smiling as she did so. "She's much less clumsy than I am," she added with a giggle.

As soon as Ségolène had joined them, Émilie turned around and leaned into her to successfully whisper, "Now apologize and make up for my behavior." She gave a small wave to the two and hurried away, not sure of her destination, but sure enough that was going to involve wine.

[émilie out]

"Oh..." Ségolène said, trying to remember the details of their hotel room. She wasn't sure if there had been a phone on the bedside table but she thought that there had been something, not just the empty table anyway. She watched as Émilie put the paper back into her bag and wondered if her friend was really still considering to dial the number and see if she could get a date with the man.

After having had brief eye contact with the man in front of the painting, Ségolène had quickly turned to Émilie again only to see a strange grin on her face, the sort of grin that meant more than just amusement. Her friend had a plan and Ségolène could not deny that she feared the plans that made Émilie grin like that. It would most likely end in a terribly awkward scene.

"No... don't..." Ségolène whined when her friend announced which picture she wanted to look at all of a sudden but before she could bring up a good reason as to why they should not go over to the man, Émilie had already left her. She hesitated, closed her eyes briefly and sighed. Then she turned around, following Émilie although she really didn't want to do that.

The clairvoyant gasped when she saw her friend stumbling into the man, feeling somewhat disappointed with herself that she was unable to approach people like that. She did not want to risk touching a stranger, knowing that it might trigger a vision but at the same time she admired Émilie. The other witch could start a conversation with everybody she wanted to get to know. She watched from a few steps away how her friend interacted with the man and listened how she spoke to him in quick French.

When Émilie mentioned her, she stepped closer, an apologetic and shy little smile spreading across her face. "Émilie..." she whispered pleadingly, but her friend already hurried away. "Scusi," she said to the man and briefly considered to follow her friend. However, the man smiled at her and began to speak in accented French. His voice was soft and intriguing and Ségolène felt that she could not run away just now. She'd find her friend again at the hotel later anyway.

[end]