milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

The be-masked hero was back, and once again out by the lake practicing with the blades. He only had one of the pair at the moment and was apparently working more on acrobatics than actual fighting.

Though, really, upon closer inspection, even the acrobatics were defensive, even dangerous.

Just make sure not to startle him and you'll be fine.

(at work, same goes for Clive below, typing project, may be able to get posts in depending on how closely I'm being watched)

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He smiled, shaking out the blanket and spreading it across the grass before he settled as well, opening the basket and taking out bunches of grapes, "I think there are sandwiches under the grapes, but it's mostly grapes."

And a variety of them at that, almost black purple ones that were as big as walnuts, smaller green ones that were like clusters of peas, varigated red and green ones that were a bit bigger, yellow ones that looked like frosted glass and oblong red ones that looked oddly like grubs.

"All of these are grapes?"

She looks at them, turning them over.

He nodded, tugging one of the purple ones off the stem, chewing it carefully so he could spit out the seeds, since they were bitter and crunchy and not at all palatable, "Yes, different kinds."

She tries one cautiously, making sure she spits out the seed too.

"They're nice. How do they make wine?"

He shrugged, "Crush a lot of them up to get the juice, and then let it ferment in casks for a number of months, sometimes even years, then bottle it and sell it."

He smiled, "Unless you're my mother, in which case you give most of it away to charity." Which might have sounded harsh in another light, but it was quite clear that he was a momma's boy through and through.

She nods, squashing a grape in her hand and licking her fingers.

"Who's Charity?"

He chuckled softly at that, shaking his head, "Convents and things, safehouses, it isn't one single person."

"But I thought nuns didn't tend to drink?"

He smiled, "Not usually no, but they sell it to raise money for the boarders and the girls and their kids."

The entire brothel called Casa del Oro had been converted into a safehouse for the former prostitutes.

She doesn't really understand. Nuns are pretty different back home.

"What happens to the girls?"

He blinked, "Ah, they live in the safehouse. Until they can find a way to support themselves."

"So where you come from girls aren't punished for getting pregnant out of marriage?"

He drummed his fingers against the edge of the basket a moment, "Well, it's a fine line. Most would shun them, and do, just because of their line of work, so, having kids isn't really going to make that worse for them. But the nuns, and my mother, try to help everyone, especially those who need it most."

"They sound nice."

She smiles. "I wish we had nuns like that back home."

His brow creased slightly then, pausing mid-chew, swallowing a moment later so he could ask, "What are yours like then?"

"We don't have many in Borogravia. Some of them used to teach boys the ways of the church. Girls were sent to Working Schools if they were bad or got pregnant."

"Hm." He shook his head, "Some of the ones back home teach, but they teach everyone the same."

"Nuggan liked girls to read, but he didn't approve of them writing or knowing numbers. And things take a while to change."

His brow furrowed slightly further at that, "That seems... strange, knowing one but not the rest."

"Is it? If you can read then you can know what Nuggan wants you to do. If you can write then you can challenge it."

He had no idea who Nuggan was, but he was envisioning some sort of haggard demanding king from a fairy story, "Suppose so."

He smiled a moment later then, "And to be honest sometimes I still have trouble with the numbers."

"I can count on my fingers up to ten, and put them down again up to twenty. But I can't do sums, and I don't know numbers as well when they're bigger."

He nodded, "That's better than a lot of the girls back home."

He smiled crookedly then, "And then there's my mother who keeps everyone's salaries in the right collumns and tracks expenses and income and everything for the entire vineyard."

"We don't have that problem much. The rich people have the money, and the poor people don't. And the people in the middle with businesses that haven't gone out of business have to worry about things like money coming in and out."

He nodded, leaning back on his hands, "I don't tend to worry about it much myself, though I should, she won't be around forever after all."

Though sometimes he still liked to think she would be.