milliways_bar | (no subject)

"What's it like? History, I mean?"

To Steph, there's Her Time, and then there's History.

...yeah, the humanities weren't a strong point at school. Not that she finished school, but y'know.

Blink.

"...could you narrow that down a little?"

"...probably, yeah," Steph admits, with a grin. "Um. So, this book's all about, like, who lives where and who hates who. Is it like that really?"

Mmm, clarity. Sparkles, dunnit?

"I haven't read the book", Ulfin points out. "So I don't know. Probably?"

Steph giggles. "Cool. I guess. So what do you do when you're not at the Bar, then? Like, are you a - lord, or a knight or something?"

"Oh, no." He smiles. "Just a servant. The king's chamberlain."

"Cool! - what does a chamberlain actually do, then?"

"Whatever I'm told. Mostly I'm his personal servant, but I carry messages he won't trust to the courier, and anything else he needs me to do."

"That's pretty awesome. Must be a lot of responsibility."

Of course, Steph's idea of 'carrying messages' translates a lot more to 'drops a letter in the postbox' or possibly 'emails' than what Ulfin is thinking of, so she's understating a little.

Ulfin nods.

"I try to live up to his trust."

She nods. "That's totally cool. Does he, like, wear a crown all the time and stuff? And are there, like, girls in pretty dresses around and stuff?"

"Not all the time", Ulfin says, amused. "Only on state occasions. And yes, the ladies of the court dress well."

"I'd like to visit," Steph says, thoughtfully, "but not to live there. Melou was totally a jerk about how girls are treated there. I'd have to beat people up all the time."

"...I wouldn't advise it. There are better means to get your way."

"Yeah, but hitting people's just easier," she says, with a grin.

"And likely to get you beaten, in most cases."

"Nah." She grins, just a wee bit cocky. "I was Robin before I died. It'd take a fair bit to beat me."

Ulfin eyes her dubiously.

"There's hardly a man in my world who isn't trained from boyhood in the fist and the sword."

Well. In the circles he means, anyway.

"Bet they weren't trained by Batman, though," Steph says. Steph, overconfident? Never. "I'm pretty good. I mean, I beat up a whole gang once, during the war."

She did, too! She was very proud of herself. And then she died, because DC sucks like that.

"Hm. Perhaps."

It's not like he has any experience at all with women like this. Those women who did fight back in his world, chose different methods.

Steph grins at him.

"Melou didn't believe me either. He was all 'who looks after you, then?' I look after myself."

"But what do you live on?"

He's just about come to terms with the idea of a woman knight. But even Alanna lives within the kind of structure he's used to.

"The Bar, at the moment. I work for Security." She runs a hand through her hair, grinning. "When I was alive my mom worked at a hospital, and when she didn't spend the money on drugs I used that for groceries."

"Your father abandoned your mother?" he asks sympathetically. "Or died?"

It should be noted that a 'hospital' for him, would be run by monks or nuns if it existed at all.

"Abandoned us, and then died," Steph says, and shrugs. "He was a criminal. It was no great loss."