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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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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