milliways_bar | (no subject)

Fate is as the Spinners spin it, and if one's life-thread turns for a time away from certain doors, there is not much to be done about that. Days may spin out into weeks, months; years, even, and at the end of that much time one may perhaps be forgiven for forgetting that merely because a door has opened onto one place for all the time you have known it, it may not necessarily always open so.

The lad who opens the door is not quite the height of a man yet, and moves with the odd grace of a young man striving to overcome the awkwardness that comes of shooting up a hand or two in height without warning. He wears dark kidskin breeches and a leather jerkin that might have been blue once. That was some time ago, by the sight of him. One does not end up covered in the grime of a roadside struggle, red to the elbows, without it leaving some mark on one's clothes. And one's weapons; while the bronze spear he bears looks as if he tried to wipe it clean, it could do with almost as much cleaning as he.

He stands a little inside the doorway, staring around him in something like wonder as very old memories come back to him. "Oh," he says. "This place again." The spear is shifted to his left hand as he awkwardly touches still-wet knuckles to his brow and bows deeply to the Bar.

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George blinks a few times, eyes narrowing in thought before something snaps a thought into his head. "Sorta like New York! But..without the horses and stuff!" See- he can be half smart when he wants to be.

"We don't have any horses where I'm from unless you go out into the country. They mostly have cows and sheep there though." Another thought seems to hit the younger kid giving him a chance to cross his arms. "They let you have horses in the city?"

"It's that or go on foot," says Hektor. "Only the women, and some of the foreigners, have men to carry them about in litters. An ox-cart would only do for a peasant hauling this or that to market."

"No cars?" That...that's like the most awful of things in the whole entire world! Luz and his friends would watch all the different cars drive by in the town outside of the movie theater.

"People have to walk everywhere where I'm from- it's not that bad I guess. Pa says if everything gets better we may get one."

"What are those, please?" says Hektor. "We have chariots, of course; mostly that is what horses do, they pull chariots. Only the Thessalian breed in the Greek lands, and the horses of the eastern tribes, carry people on their backs."

"They are kinda like chariots I guess- but no horses. It runs on an engine and gas and can take people anywhere they want to." Pausing again the kid laughs a little, raising a hand to scrub at the back of his neck.

"Well not across water or anything."

"Oh! Like the things that look like birds, but carry men in their bellies?" Hektor says. "I was shown one of those, once, a little toy version- although I don't know how such a thing could fly, even with a fire burning inside."

George blinks. "Oh! You mean a plane! But..I don't know of many that do that.." Frowning a little the youth racks his brain trying to figure out what kind it could be.

Of course..there was a lot of things like that he didnt know. "Cars are swell though. They can go faster than a horse and everything."

Hektor frowns a little, chewing at the inside of his cheek. "What are they made of?" he asks. "It must be strong stuff, to hold together at such speeds."

"Oh lots of things- metal and rubber mostly." Holding his hands up he acts like he's driving a car moving his hands left and right like they were on a steering wheel. George even makes the noises of a car going rather fast. "They are so neat- I want one when I get older too."

Rubber is no word Hektor knows, but he nods anyway. "I'll keep to my horses, I think," he says. "There are none finer anywhere in the country, nor in the land my two came from, either. A car might be fast, but it won't know your mind as easily as if it were your brother, I don't think."

George laughs a little, "I don't have any brothers so I don't know. I just got an older sister and you're more than welcome to her if you want her." Yes..let someone suffer under the constant squeaking of the older Luz. "Of course we don't know what Ma is going to have this time- but if it's a girl I swear I'm gonna run away."

Not really or anything, but the idea of being out numbered in the household is just scarey to the 10-year-old.

"Well I probably better go see about getting home before Ma notices I'm not there. Can't afford to be in trouble again."

"I have three older half-brothers, and plenty of younger brothers and sisters," says Hektor, wrinkling his nose. "I have no need of further sisters. But be well on your island."