milliways_bar | (no subject)

Melpomene can be found there as well, already established and drinking black tea.

She looks over. "Why, hello again."

"Oh, hello," Cora replies with a smile, after ordering from the nearest waitrat. "It's Melpomene, isn't it?"

"It is."

Here comes the hard part. There's a pause, and then:

"I apologize. I do not remember your name."

"Oh, that's fine, it's Cora." She informs with a distinct lack of eloquence. "Have you been doing well?"

"As well as any goddess can do, I should think."

She smiles vaguely.

The icon says everything, really.

"...I'm sorry?" Cora asks faintly.

Oh. Whoops.

"Um, yes. I do think of myself very highly."

Melpomene's eyebrows lift, hopeful.

Cora blinks, again, before smiling.

"I think we all do," she agrees. "It's--just with Milliways, and all, I almost thought you meant--well."

"Yes, Milliways is pretty extraordinary."

Melpomene doesn't like sharing those secrets that she can keep. Just call it sadism.

"Just--oh, it must have been a week ago now, my friend Amy showed me this strange device that can project music for a whole party!" Cora says, obviously thinking this almost as wondrous as the view outside. "Every time I come, something new happens. It's a bit of a relief from Chipstede."

"Yes, that is amazing." Melpomene is certainly not smirking. In the least. Because that would just be mean.

"Chipstede? Where is that?"

"In Narnia--it could be another world from yours, though I know there are quite a few Narnians around here. Where are you from?"

Her tea arrives and she thanks the waitrat, paying him and accepting it with a smile.

"I live on Earth. Year 2006."

She doesn't know exactly how much Cora knows, but: "New York City. Upper West Side."

"Oh! Earth. Most people seem to be from there, you know--is your New York City near London or Paris? Or...Normandy?"

This exhausts the list of cities she knows on Earth.

Melpomene smiles, nicely this time.

"Not particularly close, though it seems distance is relative here."

"Other worlds," Cora says speculatively, "really have no right being closer than a neighboring country."

"Although it is just one step through the door, just as it was for me," says Melpomene, sensibly.

"Exactly! It doesn't seem right, when you think about it." Cora shakes her head with a laugh.

"I'm sorry--I'm in a bit of an odd mood, tonight."

"I always am. So I forgive you."

Cora laughs. "You're most generous, kind Melpomene."

She loves that name. In all the craziness of Milliways, it at least sounds a bit like home.

Well, it's not like Melpomene had a choice in her name. But okay.

"I enjoy being told so." She nods her head, solemnly.

Not many people do, say true (slang courtesy of the mun, as Cora has not yet been infected).

Cora shrugs amiably.

Melpomene shrugs back. This could totally turn into a shrugging war

She sits back, looking at her empty teacup with only the leaves left on the bottom, and waves at a passing waitrat.

Cora gives her a sideways smile, and takes a sip from her own cup.

The undercover muse and school teacher sit in companionable silence for some time, contemplating their most wondrous drinks.

Zechs is around, as well. He's also another of the bar's tea-drinkers (also one of its scotch drinkers), but right now the cup of fragrant Earl Grey sitting on his table has gone cold.

The reason may very well be the stacks of paperwork sitting before him on the coffee table, mostly completed, but not entirely. However, unlike the mun's other paper-pushing pup, Roy Mustang, Zechs is not given to procrastination.

It's just that the position of Vice Commander of Preventer is decidedly not as glamourous as some would believe it to be, at least not all the time.

Someone should probably scold him for not drinking that tea, as to let such a wonderful brew go to waste is likely a crime.

As Cora is in the middle of requesting more tea from the waitrat, she notices his neglected cup.

"Excuse me, sir, but would you like another cup as well?"

His extremely long hair doesn't even get a second glance (or, at least, not a third). She's growing used to Milliways, huzzah!

Zechs first looks up, then looks surprised. Then he smiles, wearily but gratefully.

'That would be lovely, thank you. I fear I've neglected mine.'

He's found it remarkable how much more readily people approach him when they don't actually know him (or of him).

"And a cup of tea for the gentleman, thank you," she finishes telling the waitrat.

"I can never keep my mind on such trivial matters as tea--if tea is ever trivial--when there's work to be done." She agrees, though a bit wise to his high-up status because of all that paper.

...paper is expensive in Narnia!

Zechs gestures to a nearby chair, inviting her to sit.

'My work never ends, it seems. People suspect that my job is soft and plush simply because it's at the top of the chain of command. I don't think they realise just how much work it takes, to keep things running.'

Paper on Earth in AC 198, well. It's dirt cheap. And, of course, a great deal of stuff is done digitally. But paperwork, literal paperwork, will always have a place.

At work, Zechs takes out his anger on his daily dose of it with a cactus.

No, really! As it is, he's now quite happy to take a break from it.

As a resident of the desert, Cora's mun is rather wary of messing with cacti. Even so...

Cora moves seats, "I think most things are more complicated than most people think." Take wood, for example. Or--water! "I'm Cora, by the way--from Chipstede, in Narnia. It's good to meet you."

In Narnia, where students aren't trusted with paper because it's too expensive.

Of course, the Inspector doesn't trust her with paper, either, but that's just because he's a jerk.

'Exceedingly so, sometimes.' Zechs smiles and takes her hand, kissing the back of it. He is, after all, a prince. He was raised to have good manners, and in his mind, this is how you're supposed to greet a lady in a casual situation.

'Zechs Merquise, of Earth, year AC 198.'

He gives the year and colonial designation automatically, by now. Having met a great number of others from the third planet away from the sun, he's found that it helps.

After her earlier encounter with Roy, she may be happy that he's not automatically giving her his other name to remember, as well.

She ducks her head with a smile at the courtly gesture.

"It seems," she says consideringly, "that the great majority of people are from Earth. Narnia isn't--or, at least, no one told me our planet was called Earth, and I've never heard of its cities."

Cora prides herself on her knowledge of geography.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting your work."

'I, too, have noticed that it seems to be a popular place of origin,' Zechs replies. 'However, the fact that people come from so many different times has taken a bit of getting used to. Things that I take for granted, such as space travel, are mind-boggling to those who have not yet achieved that point in history.'

He casts a baleful eye over the sprawl of papers and folders. 'Interrupting? No, don't be concerned. A break at this point is quite welcome.'

"To all the worlds, squished between the stars, you mean? We've no such thing in my world. Though," she adds with a wry smile, "it seems we've very few things in my world, compared to most here.

"Time differences are, however, known to me--Prince Caspian is only twelve in my world, but is apparently full-grown here, though we've not met in either place. There are also figures I thought but myths, from how long ago they were in my world." Wonder replaces cynicism as she explains.

Cora smiles at him. "I'm glad to have provided one, then, Mr. Merquise--if I may ask, what is it that you do?"