small things about Meligot

Sat, 30 Jul 2005 22:06:18 GMT

Meligot Moncrief loves being a sort of quiet enigma to everyone. She might have been born Margot Elisabeth Taylor, but then again she might have always been a contradiction in terms, a faux-French absurdity with a suggestion of Bumbrying thrown in. in any case she is content being Mabit.

Meligot is an only child who grew up in a nice residential neighbourhood in the Minneapolis suburbs. It was a Catholic neighbourhood, though her parents were both lapsed. Meligot was the only one of her friends to never receive First Communion or Confirmation or anything of the sort, and she grew up with a sort of cheerful scepticism of God, accepting Him as a sort of playact to fit in with the neighbourhood children, and privately thought that it was very presumptuous of humans to say they understand the Infinite, and that in any case humans are rather more interesting than any old Infinite.

From an early age well into her teens, Meligot used babysitting around the neighbourhood as her primary source of income. In this way she learned to act as mother and sister and friend, disciplinarian and accomplice, all things for all people on a very small scale.

Meligot, as a general rule, adores all literature. She especially likes utopian writers of all sorts, from Moore to Orwell to Huxley, because they are unabashed commentaries on facets of human nature. Meligot regards herself to be above all else a student of human nature. She adores Shakespeare and Wilde; she has a passing love for Austin, and a closeted one for Tolkien; Juilliard is one of the few people who know that her very favourite book in the world is The Princess Bride. (In fact, she has an ongoing moral battle about whether or not to say ‘as you wish’ to Juilliard. She desperately wants to see the look on his face.)

Her literary curiosities are not limited to fiction. Science fascinates her, as does mathematics and all sorts of useful things like architecture and agriculture, as well as less useful things like the stars and how to categorise animals. She also loves reading history, biographies especially. The first Queen Elizabeth of England is one of Meligot’s favourites; indeed, comes almost under the category of an idol. She thinks that Elizabeth had the right idea about a good number of things given the situation, especially concerning the distractions of love. (Here now, though, Meligot is not entirely ready to follow the queen’s example to the letter. She would so hate to execute Juilliard.)

Meligot tries to be all things for all people. Often what the need most is a precocious younger sister to encourage and give advice and allow them to rage at her If is needed. Sometimes they only need a friend; indeed sometimes only a boss to give them direction and approval without affection. Meligot can do all these things with varying degrees of ease, and it is a challenge so it does not become tiring.

Meligot does not think of herself as an actor. She is, quite simply, many facets of genuine.

She likes theatre. In fact she likes all the arts, though she professes no skill at any of them. It is at least true that her talent at drawing does not go beyond that of stick figures, and she plays no musical instruments, but she can sing decently, her voice enthusiastic and untrained.

Her favourite city in all the worlds is Paris. She suspects that Alden would have had a very fast time of recruiting her indeed if only he had said, every Paris in every world. She would have agreed in a heartbeat.

Meligot is most herself around Juilliard. Perhaps it is because the part of her that is little-girl braids and skinned knees and shiny braces and awkward elbows and too-big books, the part that is Margot Elisabeth Taylor, is comfortable around a man who is somewhere pretentious and unsure and wearing all black and painting badly and from Islington and named Thomas Edgar Moore. Perhaps it is because a girl who calls herself Meligot Moncrief cannot help but like a man self-made Juilliard Vichy. Perhaps it is because she found him. Perhaps it is their love of Paris. Meligot is unsure of the reason, though she suspects it is a bit of all.

Meligot loves Juilliard. She shall not venture so far as to suggest that she is also in love with him, because that would be supremely stupid. It outsteps her careful professional boundaries. All the same, she finds it beneficial to remind herself that the man is amazingly promiscuous, which she finds a singularly unattractive feature, not to mention flamingly gay, which effectively rules out all chances of any such affections being returned. Despite these reminders, though, Meligot finds herself giving him ample opportunity to kiss her. She is too practical to do anything so silly as pine, however, and mostly confines herself to simply wishing Juilliard happy.

your day will come indeed

small things about Meligot