‘I used to be a detective down at the Ystad precinct. Nowadays, I’m living the good life, and have been taking quite a few day trips up north.’ The ex-detective’s brow lowered in thought as he voiced his query. ‘I hope I’m not coming off as ‘intrusive’, but what do you mean by ‘own me’?’
“Oh, whoops. You speak English so well, I forgot it must not be your first language!” Summer laughed again, this time at herself. “I mean, accept me as part of the family, however distant. It’s an old usage. It’s a bad habit of mine, finding old forms of the language and then confusing people with them.”
‘English’ was my best subject whilst at school, though I am always observant on my inappropriate grammar which can slip sometimes.’ His expression softened into its usual calm demeanour at her answer. ‘Ah, I see. I take it you’re interested in the old languages then? Have you learnt Latin at all?’
“Oh, no! And English, well, English only has Latin by virtue of the Norman invasion a thousand years ago, you know, Norman French, and the /stupid/ impositions of the churchmen, rules that didn’t even belong. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like, maybe this is the same as in Swedish, but you know how in English there’s a rule, no split infinitives? Infinitive is the base form of the verb, like ‘to be,’ except English is one of the few languages where it’s actually two words at all. In Latin an infinitive is a single word and then you conjugate it, so of /course/ you can’t split it. But the rule doesn’t make any sense in English!” This whole fast, passionate spill of speech was accompanied by hands flailing in the air, until Summer caught sight of Magnus’ face and wound to a stop, turning red.
“Oh, gods, I’m /so/ sorry.”
Magnus wanted to converse on one of the woman’s first comments, yet his parted mouth morphed into that of an easy smile as he thought not to disturb her continual ramble, eyes watching the way the woman moved her hands with enthusiasm to emphasise her speech. The human assumed the other had paused to regain her breath before he caught the flush of her cheeks and the mortification in her eyes.
‘No, no. It’s alright.’ The ex-detective responded with a light chuckle, ‘I can see where your passions lay. You express the same ecstatic behaviour with linguistics as that of my old literary teacher. It’s quite amusing. Go on if you want, I do not mind.’“The problem is, if you let me go on like that, I’ll just never ever shut up. You have to actually interrupt me or muffle me or something. I’m really horrible that way. Here, um, how about you tell me how you managed to go from detective to … whatever you are now, with all this free time and chances to travel.”
‘Uhoh’, she thought to herself. ‘I’m already relaxed enough to ramble at him. Danger, girl, danger!’
‘I’m unemployed at the moment, actually.’ Magnus shrugged, yet his eyes downcast to the ground with a drawn brow for a fleeting second before it smoothed once more. He supposed lying was the easiest option to go for if he wanted to avoid the continuation on such a sensitive topic. ‘Detective work was too taxing. I found myself aging, and never had any decent amount fo time to myself, so I decided to let it up.’ The human felt disconcerted about lying through his teeth, so instead, he responded on a truthful subject. ‘I’m not that great a flyer…I get motion sickness, and can be quite nervous on going on jets. I’ve never been out of the country. I do however, take trips to see my cousins up North with every chance I get. I drive there, of course.’
Smiling, the human dropped his eyes to hers again, tone light and a little teasing. ‘Ah, you see? You’ve caught me rambling too. Now tell me, do you have any favourite pastimes when you’re not actively involved in literary studies? I’ve still got my ‘twenty questions’ that need to be answered.’
“Oh, lots. I love to read. I tear through books like you would not believe. I was so happy when ereaders finally became reasonably priced. I also study martial arts, and actually spend a lot of time researching my family history.” Summer chuckled. “I do a lot of things for fun that I’m probably not actually very good at, like singing and dancing, and I write a little too.” Twining her hands before her, she smiled up at Magnus, shaking her hair back. “Next?”