milliways_bar | First entrance

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ysalwen surana

First entrance

"Francis?"

The new arrival, who just crawled out from under one of the tables, looks into the bottom of his tankard, turns it up to try to eke out a few more drops, then sets it down, spits discreetly on the floor, and gives himself a loose-limbed shake all over. Oh, ah--bad idea--Christ's wounds, his head feels fit to split in two, and there's the foulest taste in his mouth.

"Francis! Francis? What, no more sack?"

...No more sack? Possibly no more Francis? Heigh-ho, he does remember this room. From last night! He'd stepped into a closet to find the jordan, he'd found himself in a bright-lit but empty place, desperate to relieve himself; a giant rat had hustled him away from the fireplace and sent him to a room with fine white pottery fixtures to serve the necessary purpose, and had left him with a letter on some brilliantly-white paper; he'd gone to a table and missed his seating, and...

Harry fumbles the Milliways Guide out of the front of his stained doublet and sets to reading it, swaying a little on his feet. Now and then he glances up to survey the room.

((And it's ~~bedtime for me, but I'll be back in the~~ morning, thread's still open to new tags and all! :D))

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Another Henry makes his way towards the stables.

Harry Percy is in a good mood, relatively speaking. As good as his mood can be in light of recent realizations, given that he is still stuck in a place with no wars to fight, and not even the occasional tournament in which to run off steam.

But other things are good! He has been sleeping better. Last night, for example, he did not exactly sleep alone. The sum total being, it's a bright fall day, and Hotspur does not look nearly as belligerent as he sometimes does as he steps into the stable and makes a beeline for Duncan's stall.

Edited 2015-09-16 18:59 (UTC)

Speaking of sleep: Harry had stolen himself a cat-nap in the library after Cesario had left, stolen himself a cat-nap and then washed his face and his teeth in one of the fine privy closets; and in all he's feeling considerably fresher and brighter than he had been before.

And outside, it seems to be a crisp autumn day, clean the way London isn't. He's had a song in his head that he can't quite place, just a fragment, a line or two, and now in the stables, as he inspects them at his ease, he's singing it under his breath. Ye lie, ye lie, ye liar loud, so loud I hear ye lie...

Some of the horses are very fine. And although two stalls have been locked--why?--all the beasts look to be healthy and well-groomed. They wouldn't do his father's stable shame, many of them. In fact, there are some he wouldn't mind taking out on a fine day. He stops to look over a tall mare. A long back, to be sure, but well-built overall. Ye lie, ye lie, ye liar loud, and what's the rest of the foolish song?

From behind, Percy doesn't recognize this tall, lean fellow-- and he thinks he would remember meeting someone whose clothes suggest he is from a time and place near to Percy's own.

"Any may ride her," he says of the mare the man seems to be looking at. "Rachat, she is called-- a strange name, to my mind, but so it is."

"Rachat? Ransom? Art worth a fair ransom, thou long-backed jade? And proud of it, too, thou great tall wench? --And thou, art thou--" The ostler, he was going to say, but the words die as he turns and sees the man. For a moment he looks as though he might die himself: the blood drains from his face. What figure is this?

Harry Percy does not possess the ability to arrange his face: everything he thinks is perfectly legible there. Except now. None of his thousand scattering thoughts can quite cohere into anything, and so he just stares, his face blank and pale. And he doesn't think he can move, and he isn't sure that he's breathing, and he's least of all convinced that this is really, actually happening.

"I am Harry Percy," he says. (And even he can't quite believe how perfectly steady the words come out.)

"...Nay. Nay, not so, if thou art Harry Percy--"

Eh. Hhh. Heh. Hal does possess the ability to arrange his face, generally, but just now all it can do is take on a pale imitation of a smile, a gallows grin. "If thou art Harry Percy-- I saw thee cold, though lying in hot blood, I offered thee--"

Fair rites of tenderness. God, no, he won't say it aloud. He closes his mouth and finds a better smile. "How many Percys must I kill? One resurrection was enough!"

Two, when he thinks of it; they'd dug Percy up to show.

"I am dead indeed, I do assure thee." Funny, the words have never come that easily. "I only pray thou'rt brought here for the same cause. A poisoned pot of ale, was't? Did thy father and brothers think at last 'twas time to rid them of the fear thou wouldst sit upon England's throne?"

"No," he says simply.

He's not, is he? His heart still beats; he can feel it. He can smell stable smells, he can see the motes of dust in the bar of sunlight that comes through the door; he can taste something sour in his mouth--

"No," he says again, and suddenly he's angry. Furious. "I am not dead nor should I be! What claim hast thou on me? What claim beyond thy funeral rites? I used thee no worse--no worse than thou wouldst do-- How many Percys must I kill?"

"Why, kill them all!" He laughs-- there is a wild edge to the sound. Is this happening? "Thou'rt turned from wastrel to warrior, why, thou wilt surely joy in the work! Water the north with Percy blood-- it shall but sprout forth men to fight against thy father and thee."

"The north? The north be damned--save that it will be mine! I did not seek the crown; those politics were thine; but by the mass when it is mine I’ll keep it, keep it and England too!"

Because--no. No, he won't be called to war and perform his work, without much joy, and then be told it must all be done again. Not by a man to whom he owes nothing, nothing, he'd covered Percy's face and grieved--

"The dead, they have no right!"

There's a knife in his hand. He's here from Eastcheap and of course he doesn't walk in Eastcheap without a dagger: he values his hide, at least so much as it belongs in one piece and on him.

Edited 2015-09-16 22:22 (UTC)

Percy does not flinch.

"I am unarmed." He spreads his hands to prove it. "But come: I fear thee not."

He's almost positive he can't be killed a second time. But even if he learned for certain that he could, he wouldn't turn away.

Well--no.

No, he won't give that satisfaction, and some kinds of training are hard to shake no matter how much you try. He tosses the dagger down--and kicks it well back of him, and listens for where it stops, the general area, he's no fool--

"Come, Percy, come, Hotspur, come try again!"

That satisfaction he'll give.

Who could resist punching that face?

There is a part of him that thinks, of course, of the same of being caught brawling again-- but that little part is no match for the wave of fury that courses through him and propels him forward, charging towards Harry's center in hopes of tackling him to the ground.

It works. Hal does know better; the part of him that had pulled out his dagger knows to dodge the clumsy obvious attack. The part of him that doesn't know how Harry Percy can still be fighting, that part stands foolishly still, and the part of him that wants to grind Harry Percy's face into the ground, that stands to meet the charge.

Percy's shorter than him. He remembers that instinctively. Shorter, stronger, about as quick. It's different fighting without the armor but they'd ended up on the ground before--

Remembering how this had gone before, he pulls up a sharp knee, tries to roll them over so he's on top.

((Never fear, we have contacted brave good Security to clean up these jerks' drama))

Edited 2015-09-16 23:24 (UTC)

It works-- Hal's longer limbs give him the advantage there-- but Percy takes a swing for Hal's face in the struggle.

That's fine, he can take a blow to the face. The angle's not good enough for it to do anything important. He's trying now to pin Percy down, or just to get his hands around his throat.

(He has a dim awareness that the horses are stamping, uneasy, in their stalls; the tall mare he'd been looking over neighs wildly and so do her neighbors.)

Percy will not allow himself to be easily pinned. He aims a kick at Hal's knee and tries to twist away from his grip.

(He really wishes he'd gotten Bahorel to teach him about brawling.)

The kick lands, and his leg goes sliding, landing him hard on his side. It's enough to change the balance of the fight for a moment; it's also enough to remind him that he does know how this kind of fight goes. It's not a battlefield, it's a scuffle on a stable floor.

"Jesus, Harry--" he starts to say, but the words probably don't come out as anything comprehensible.

But the fact that he is speaking at all is enough to make Percy, poised to spring again, momentarily pause.

"What?" he barks.

Edited 2015-09-17 00:49 (UTC)

This is the point at which a large and rather shiny man looms up into the doorway, blocking the sunlight very handily.

He's tall, and brawny, and very blond, and his very blond eyebrows are saying skeptical things about both their life choices.

(Totally hypocritically. But they don't have to know that!)

What indeed? He's not sure himself; but he takes the time to find his balance, probe the split lip from the blow Percy had landed.

"--In the stable?"

It's not really what he meant to say, but he doesn't know what he meant to say. And is this what it comes to? From warhorses kicking among corpses, to rolling on a stable floor and frightening peaceable saddle-horses in their stalls?

(From fare thee well, great heart to Falstaff lugging Percy's body on his back?)

It's only now that the new arrival registers. Hal wipes his lip again and smiles without taking his eyes off Harry, or falling out of fighting balance. "Give you good morrow, sir!"

--oh, hell.

Percy, also crouched at the ready, can't quite bring himself to meet Thor's gaze.

"Good morrow to you both," says Thor, genially enough.

"What do you here?"

It's a little pointed.

Friendly-like! But.

"We speak of tidings from England," Percy says. He is feeling distinctly like a guilty schoolboy, but figures maybe if he keeps his eyes on Hal (as if he trusts him enough to look away), that might not show.

Edited 2015-09-17 01:47 (UTC)

All right, he'll take that lead. "I would remind this Percy England is no longer his concern. If pride grows past the grave, ambition still cannot."

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