milliways_bar | (no subject)

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If there are any lingering effects from being bitten by his horse the other day, Quinn doesn't show them; oh, sure, there's probably still a monster bruise involved, but it's well out of sight. Not like he's the sort to wear a T-shirt, after all.

.... well, no, he is, but the only one he has was used for working in the stables and with the horse today. It fairly reeked when he was done, so he changed clothes when he came back in.

Won't be long before he has what he came for, he's thinking; might as well get some reading in by the fire while he can.

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Reading by the fire seems popular tonight, though one imagines that Quinn and Fuchsia are likely not reading even remotely the same thing.

Still, Fuchsia's glad she looks like she might finally be fitting in, and offers him a shy smile.

Probably not; Quinn's got his hands on a copy of Wind Energy Basics (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890132071/ref=cm_bg_d/102-2469879-4347316?v=glance&n=283155) today, with Horse, Follow Closely (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1889540226/qid=1147912533/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-2469879-4347316?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) next in the stack. At the sight of movement, though, he looks up and smiles back. "Evening, miss," he says.

She looks back up again, a little startled that he spoke to her, and replies softly, "Good evening."

There's a little of the startled look still about her; Quinn glances to the book she was reading. "Ah, sorry- didn't mean to interrupt. Just couldn't figure if I'd seen you around here before or not. I'm thinkin' not."

"No, you didn't. I've read it before." Fuchsia fidgets with the half-closed book as she speaks. "I don't come downstairs very often."

Quinn nods. "Fair enough," he says. "I spend most of the day outside when I get half the chance, so I wouldn't've seen you anyways. My name's Quinn."

"I'm Fuchsia." She glances up again with another quick smile. "Do you go walking in the woods?"

"Not as much as I used to," QUinn answers ruefully. "It returned me home once without my meaning to. Damn near scared the life out of me. I'm more around the lake when I can manage it. You?"

"Oh, I love walking in the woods." Fuchsia's eyes brighten. "Picking wildflowers, counting the clouds. It reminds me of home."

"Yeah?" Quinn glances to the back door. "Home must be something to see, then. Where is it, if I can ask?"

"Gormenghast. There's a great wood and mountains and a lake. Not quite as big as the one here but big enough." She smiles wistfully and looks down at her lap. "It's beautiful."

Quinn gives this some thought. "Can't say I've ever been there," he says, "but that's no real surprise. I've been mostly living in Northumbria for years now. Don't get to do much traveling. Gormenghast the name of the country, or just the bit near where you live?"

Fuchsia frowns at the question. She's been asked it before and there's really only one way to answer it, as far as she's concerned.

"Gormenghast is all there is." She pauses briefly. "What's Northumbria?"

Eh. After some of what he's seen and who he's met, he's prepared to accept that.

"It's a bit of the island I grew up on," he says. "Away up north from where I was born. As good as any other place to live, I suppose- bit on the desolate side, but you can't have everything."

"Desolate? Why would you want to live somplace like that?"

"Safer than anywhere else, really," says Quinn. "We've got a bit of a dragon problem."

That's generally the simplest way to put it.

"Dragons? Real dragons?" Fuchsia's eyes light up again. Hey, to her, dragons are all about the romantic saving of damsels from them by charming princes.

Huh, boy, does Quinn ever know that look.

"Afraid so," he says. "Hundreds of thousands of them. To the point where there's hardly room for the humans to turn around any more."

Best to let her down easy. It's one thing to knock the wind out of a guy's dreams, but...

"So many." Fuchsia murmurs. "They're friendly dragons?"

Quinn can't help but make a small choking noise at that.

"Nah, miss. Rather the opposite, in fact."

"Then how do you live with them?"

"Actually, we don't. Not really." Quinn grimaces. "The things've been swarming over the world like a plague of locusts for the past twenty years. Human civilisation more or less fell and never got back up. We're living in Northumbria 'cos it's remote, it's got fortresses in, and there's nowhere else left to run."

"That's terrible!" She exclaims.

"Do they breathe fire?"

"Oh, yes," Quinn says immediately. "They're famous for it, in fact. It's what they do best."

Fuchsia looks rather disappointed. "They don't sound very romantic."

"I'm afraid there's not very much romantic at all about my world any more, miss," Quinn says. "Sorry."

He can forgive an attractive girl a lot, but... well, even he has his limits, and they're getting close.

"Not very much about mine, either." There is a reason, after all, she spends so much time reading about it.

"Yeah, but at least yours is green," he points out. "Did it used to be?"

"Romantic?" She glances at him and shrugs. "Generations ago, maybe. It's all ritual and ceremony now."

"Ah," says Quinn. "Bit more than we've got going, then. We've got stories and such, but we haven't been where we are long enough to even develop real tradition, let alone any sort of ceremony."

"My family's ruled Gormenghast for centuries. Tradition is all we have."

Fuchsia frowns again and stands, rather ungracefully.

"I think I'm going to go back upstairs now. It's nice to have met you."

Quinn blinks; he hadn't thought he'd spoken that offensively... oh, well.

"Take care, then, miss," he says. "Good to have met you too."

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