milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Ramon's in the bar early, despite wishing he was still upstairs. But, things to do, and there are reasons why it's not a good idea to have weapons in his room right now. Something to do with the company.

Anyway, he's cleaning three pistols, a rifle and his sword. Bit tricky when one arm is virtually out of action but hey, he's got time and nothing else to do right now. Distractions would be welcome though.

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Melou lets go and sits back against the booth seat. "She's going to join him when she dies." Not that he likes to think about that.

"I just turned fourteen."

'You think she wants to?'

It's more a rhetorical question than anything else, he doesn't expect the boy to actually think about the answer.

'I think I've got a son your age. He's probably not so sure of black and white as you are though. Maybe you're smarter than he is. Or stupider, I don't know.'

"I'm not stupid." And lo, Ramon has hit a sore spot.

"Of course she does. She's his wife." He looks at Ramon more closely. "You have a lot of kids?"

'Was his wife,' he corrects mildly, just to be a bastard. Mainly because defenses are going up at getting questioned on his kids.

'Depends what you mean. Counting the dead ones, then yeah, I suppose so. By modern standards.'

"She'll always be Mordred Pendragon's wife." He insists.

Melou doesn't flinch or show any emotion about some of Ramon's children being dead. It's certainly not uncommon in his time for there to be big families just to make sure there were some children who survived.

"How many?"

'Yes. My point is, does she want to be.'

Maybe fourteen is too young to get the concept of 'moving on' across to, especially if Melou's disposition and the times he lives in are against the idea. Still, it might be entertaining to try.

'Seven. Three left.'

Something else he doesn't paricularly care about.

"It doesn't matter if she wants to. She is." It's also a matter of Melou being a bit overprotective himself.

"There's just the two of us. Do you get along with them?"

Ramon stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. 'I'd feel sorry for her if I was that type of guy. You must be a real pain in the ass to live with.'

He lights another smoke off the end of his last one and shakes his head.

'I don't see them.'

"Pretty much." He agrees with a smile. "Drive her and my brother up the walls."

Then he shrugs and watches the smoke. "That's like a pipe, I guess, without the pipe?"

'Nothing to be proud of, kid.'

He looks at the cigarette, then smirks and pulls the pack out. 'Kind of. Want to try one?'

"Probably not, they're both easy to rile up."

Melou eyes the pack and then takes one. "Sure."

Ramon suppresses a grin as he lights the boy's cigarette. One won't get him hooked but hey, it's a start.

'What's your brother like then? Nosy as you?'

"Nah. He's quiet. Likes to read." He puffs on the cigarette and promptly starts to cough.

He laughs and pulls easily on his own smoke.

'Never smoked before then? Not even pipes?'

Melou makes a face.

"No. Now I know it was a good idea not to."

Ramon smiles. 'You get used to it. It's not so bad - of course, if you want kicks, there's things with more point to them than smoking.'

He's just making an observation here, not implying anything else. Education in what the twenty first century has to offer, as it were.

"Yeah. Alcohol, herbs and things that make you hallucinate." It's possible he might be talking from personal experience.

'Sounds like you know what you're talking about,' Ramon observes casually. 'Where'd you learn about things like that?'

Beat.

'Your mother know what you get up to?'

He was right, he does like this kid.

"Mostly from my Aunt Morgause." Melou shrugs.

"Nah, she doesn't know. Our visions and stuff scare her enough. She doesn't need to know about this."

'And you tried these things out?'

Healthy teenage experimentation with drugs. Ramon loves it. He's curious though because visions haven't come up in conversation before.

'Visions?'

Melou nods.

"Mostly because of them, I tried it. I get dreams, my brother gets waking visions. Our Father had it. They don't make a lot of sense, but they're pretty bloody."

Even more curious. Ramon leans his uninjured arm on the table, resting his chin in his palm and regarding Melou closely.

'Like - premonitions? Or just random things that never happen.'

Like regular dreams.

"That's the word." He rests his chin on his knees again. "Our Father's came true and as far as I've got mine figured out, my future is either really bad for me, or I'm making it really bad for someone else. Melehan, too."

'You want to hope it's the latter. Or if it's the former, you should do what you can to change it. Doesn't it worry you?'

He certainly seems calm enough about it.

The boy shrugs again. "It's fate. Whatever I do, that's what I'm supposed to."

He's learned that from his mother.