milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Every morning in Goldkrone, the clockwork prince and princess, swan and knight, spin out from the window of the great clock tower. Every morning, the dance students meet in the salle, stretching their legs, practicing their steps. Every morning, Mr. Cat gives the same lecture, yells at the same probationary class, proposes marriage to the same --

That isn't the same lecture, Fakir thinks, listening to Mr. Cat describe his great teacher Meowzinsky, and watching as Mr. Cat shows the precious shoes his teacher gave him. It's a new day.

...where's Mytho?

But when Fakir hurries out of the salle to find his roommate, the door opens on Milliways instead of on the Academy campus.

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And the first thing he'll have to deal with is Autor nearly tackling him, scrambling for the door.

If Fakir is quick, he'll be able to avoid the splash of tea as the cup Autor was holding shatters on the floor.

Fakir has been practicing sword and ballet eight hours a day for each of the last (how many?) identical days.

The training helps when he needs to jump sideways to avoid incoming tea.

"You could say excuse me"--

Only then does Fakir realize he recognizes the other boy's uniform. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

Edited 2013-03-03 03:15 (UTC)

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Autor cries, fuming. "It shut!"

He's tempted to kick the wall in a manner most undignified, but Fakir's demands halt the progress of his foot. "Oh," Autor says, tilting his chin up. "It's you. That figures."

He raises a brow, and without further comment, pulls out his journal and begins taking notes.

"I have no idea what you--"

Oh. That first week in the Bar, when the door was missing...

Fakir pivots to check the door. It's still, thankfully, there.

If he's from my world, could he use my door?

"...and I don't know who you are," Fakir finishes a different sentence than the one he started.

Autor blinks, and adjusts his glasses.

"Are you always this disoriented when you come here?" he asks lightly, and there's just the barest hint of smugness, like a bad smell.

"Are you always this obnoxious?" Fakir replies, almost automatically. He's trying to remember something. Glasses, glasses, glasses-- I've seen you before, and I don't know when or why.

"Are you always this demanding?" Autor replies cheerfully, and taps the quill against his own pale lips. "Why, yes, I do believe you are!"

Edited 2013-03-03 03:40 (UTC)

"If you're looking for a door, I have one." Fakir extends his arm, pointing towards it. "But stop asking these ridiculous questions."

Autor is fairly certain that he door will hang around, but he checks to see if it opens. Relieved, he shuts it again; looks like the new old arrival will be his ticket out of here after all.

"Whatever you say, Fakir," he says coolly, shrugging.

...

Fakir lowers his eyebrows.

"I didn't tell you my name."

Autor's smile is light, but sharp. More an epee than a broadsword, really. "Would you believe a little bird told me?"

She didn't.

If she did, did she tell him that she's a duck, too?

Is this idiot a friend of Duck's?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fakir says, but there's a noticeable pause before he says it.

That... Was not the reaction Autor expected to garner from a relatively harmless expression. He blinks owlishly, and makes a note in his journal.

Then he's all sharp angles again. "Oh, I thought you were brighter than that, Fakir," he says, and smugness covers his face like a blush. "Disappointing, really."

And it is.

He adjusts his glasses again. "Are you aware that publicly slapping the most popular boy in our school nets you a certain amount of notoriety? Do you even think before you act?"

Edited 2013-03-03 20:28 (UTC)

Fakir inhales sharply.

This stranger just brought up, in casual, if malicious, conversation, the most shameful moment Fakir can remember.

Yes. I hit him. And Mytho can't hit back.

"You know nothing at all," Fakir snaps.

"Really!" Autor says, shrugging into a smirk. "Your face says my 'nothing' matters quite a bit."

Oh, don't you dare.

Fakir turns back to the door and roughly pulls it open.

"Get out," he snarls.

"Hm!" Autor hums appreciatively, taking down another note. "You've got just as much of a temper as everyone says you do."

What is he writing?

Fakir grits his teeth. "Let me see that."

He lets the door shut, and makes a grab for the journal. If Autor doesn't stop him in time, he'll seize it from Autor's hands.

[ooc: probably a good idea if Autor doesn't let him. Spoilers, y'know.]

Autor cackles and scampers just out of reach.

"Ah, finally, some initiative," he says. "I was wondering when you'd stop talking and start moving; so many words are unlike you."

He snaps the journal shut.

[ooc: He wouldn't let him see it even if he were drawing a picture of a giraffe.]

Fakir is going to start moving, yes: away from this idiot. He can find his own damned door back to Goldkrone.

Actually, no he probably can't. Autor bites his lip. The game is gone, his opponent has tossed the table and stalked off.

And the door is blurring.

"Fakir," he says, without even a hint of snark, "open the door, would you?" He can't look at the boy. "Please."

Fakir freezes mid-step.

Please.

Fakir remembers the formless Milliways wall where the door should have been. There were days or weeks of eating his meals at the bar, practicing ballet upstairs and sword out by the lake, waiting and waiting to escape back home.

Even this jerk doesn't deserve that.

Fakir pivots on one foot, with easy, unthinking grace, and returns to open the door.

"Get out, and stay out," Fakir says, by way of making it clear that he hasn't forgiven the other boy yet.

(The doorway opens on the ballet salle, where Mr. Cat is still in the middle of a lesson. If this boy has to face Mr. Cat, well, that's his problem, isn't it?)

Ah, he thinks, a little surprised. His shoulders droop with his relief. Back to blessed monotony. He passes through the door with more than a bit of wonder, trailing his fingers against the grain of the trim.

But, because he's Autor, he can't help taking a parting shot. "I'll call on you when I need you, Fakir," he says, smiling cheerfully. "But you're not ready, yet."

Then he bolts through the door before the other boy can slam it shut, overjoyed to hear the strains of Mendelssohn's "Spinnerlied" in his head as soon as he sets foot in the salle.

...

What was that?

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