milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Bran's changed his clothes since this afternoon, when he and his dog Lluchddu herded sheep in the light rain, but his hair is still damp and sticking to his face.

Now he sits on a chair near the fire, with his harp, a small book and a pot of tea.

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Mary's booth isn't too far away, but she's not looking around; she's too busy staring moodily at her book, and occasionally turning a page.

Bran has been sitting near the hearth, engrossed in his own book, for long enough that his hair has dried in wild unruly tangles. He turns the last page and closes the book softly. Seeing Mary, he collects his things and approaches her table. "Noswaith dda, bachgennes."

Mary looks up.

Carefully: "Noswathe tha, Bran."

Bran smiles at the girl. "Not bad at all, Mary, but the dda sound is like the one at the beginning of 'then,' not like 'thanks.' How are you, my dear?"

A small shrug.

"I am all right," she says; though her face and voice don't necessarily agree with this statement.

"I am only reading."

"I see." Bran sits without waiting for an invitation. "Chocolate biscuits, please," he says to a waitrat. Turning back to Mary, "Do you want to tell me what it is that is wrong, bachgennes"

"It is not," Mary says, automatically defensive, "that anything is wrong."

A beat.

Reluctantly: "It is only that Oats has left - but he had to go; his donkey had been standing there months. So it is not wrong."

"Ah, Mary. A hard thing, friends leaving, for those of us who stay." He pays the waitrat and sets the biscuits in the center of the table, near Mary's hand.

"He promised he would come back."

For lack of a better target, Mary's glare fixes on the relatively inoffensive biscuits.

"It may be ages but he promised."

Bran has been a Milliways regular for long enough to know what the door may do.

"Then he cares for you and he wants to see you again," he says, hoping to comfort her.

Mary nods, though she doesn't look especially comforted.

"Yes - he does. I did not know that before, and it is a good thing to know."

A long pause.

"He looked awfully happy to be home before the door closed," she adds, and her voice is sad.

Bran looks at her for a long time.

"Have you a home, Mary?"

"Yes," Mary says, with a hint of sullenness.

"You do not have to tell me; if I could not get back there it would be awful. And I should rather be there all the time than here all the time. I know."

"His home did not look as nice as Yorkshire, though."

"Of course it isn't."

Bran eats a biscuit, hoping to inspire Mary to take one. "You know, Mary, there is nowhere in the world I would rather be living than the town where I grew up. And yet I am leaving it in a few weeks, because I must."

Mary's gaze focuses on Bran.

"Why?"

"I am going to university," Bran answers her, meeting her gaze clearly. "If I stayed, I could only do what I am doing now, working with the animals, fixing the machinery on the farm. Not a bad job that, it is what my da does, and yet-- There is more work for me to do, that I cannot do until I have learned more. I will go to Cardiff and study, and then in five years I will come back home to live and work."

"- to school?"

Mary's expression shifts to a combination of respect and pity.

"They were going to send me to school, but I am going to be tutored here instead - I do not wish to go. I shall learn more in Yorkshire than I could away."

"For a time, that is good," Bran says.

(Bran has noticed that Mary is not talking about her friend who is gone any more, and is pleased. He will not mention this, of course.)

"But after a while... I am going to be a doctor, you see, and take care of the people where I live, and I cannot do that if I have not gotten the training."

Mary's eyes widen.

". . . you are going to be a doctor?" she repeats, her voice taking on animation.

"I did not know that. Do you know about fixing people? I expect you must; you must be a good deal better than the doctors who cared for Colin, at least. They were only stupid. That is why I thought I might be a doctor; because they need doctors who are not stupid, and there are so many that are."

Bran's smile widens. "I know a little. First aid, mostly. How to put a bandage on an injury, that sort of thing. The rest I am going away to learn.

"I am sorry that your Colin had to do with stupid doctors, though. A shame, that is."

"If it were up to the doctors there, he should never have walked," Mary says, scornfully.

"It does not take much to be smarter than them."

She pauses, before adding, with some reluctance, "If I am to be a doctor I expect I shall have to go away eventually - but I do not think I ought yet."

"Not yet," Bran answers gently. "You have years yet to learn what Yorkshire will teach you. Would you like to be a doctor, bachgennes?"

Earnestly: "I think it is important that there are good doctors in my time.

"I should like to be a good doctor. So the stupid ones do not hurt people."

"Good," says Bran. "Important work, medicine, and it is better not to take it up at all than to take it up the wrong way."

"If I thought I was going to hurt people," Mary says, firmly, "I should not do it."

Mary's seen enough of the results of bad doctors.

"I am glad to hear that, Mary."

Bran considers the sadly ignored plate of biscuits. "Are you sure you would not like one? Very good, they are."

Mary considers the biscuits for a while.

"I expect I may as well try one," she says, finally, with the air of one conferring a great favor.

One can't stop after a single biscuit, of course, so Bran and Mary talk until the plate is empty.

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