milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Mary Anne comes downstairs with a piece of paper in hand.

"Bar darling, you mind delivering this to Random for me?"

The note vanishes into Bar's surface and Mary Anne heads out the front door.

~~~

Several hours later, she comes back in looking a little sunburned, but content. She takes a seat at the bar, orders something cool, colorful and alcoholic, then spins around on her barstool to look around the room.

[ooc: As of 1:45 AM eastern time, this post is open for tagging.]

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For a moment, he just watches her (in a fashion, it should be said, somewhat akin to a blackbird watching a worm).

"Kit Marlowe."

She has been watched in many ways, but this is a first.

She tilts her head, watching him back.

"A pleasure to meet you, Kit. I'm Mary Anne Bell."

"A pleasure, I'm sure."

She takes another sip of the glaringly pink drink, eying him over the rim of her glass.

"Have you been coming here long?"

Round-face, wide left eye, a trimmed beard and jaw-length hair. Once, he had been pretty. Young and lively, but there are still traces of that young man in his face.

"Since last night."

"Ah."

She smiles. "Welcome to the bar, then. Any questions about the place?"

"Many. The main one is, can you answer them? Of course, then the second is, will I understand it?"

She catches her lower lip between her teeth.

"To your first, I most likely can and will certainly try. To your second, I will endeavor to see that you do."

"Yonder window, my dear."

"Excellent place to start."

She shifts a little on her stool so she can see both Kit and the window better. "Beyond the window is the end of the universe. There's a kind of magic to it, so that the event repeats every half hour or so. The glass is another kind of magic that keeps the destruction out there from touching us in here."

Though in her more morbid moments, she's wondered how long that particular phenomenon will last.

"For how long?"

Great minds think alike.

She shrugs.

"I'm honestly not sure. This place has been here for quite some time, and I suspect it will be here for ages longer." She half-smiles. "I don't think we've got anything to worry about."

Not unless another earthquake-causing clock shows up.

He inclines his head slightly, and files the question under 'ask another person'.

"Why does the door appear?"

"You mean when it lets people in from somewhere?"

She shakes her head. "Again, I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does. The only person I've ever heard of that might know is someone called the Landlord. They supposedly are in charge here. Of course, we're not sure they actually exist."

"So, it just decides to...appear."

She nods.

"As near as we can tell."

He looks at her and taps his fingers on the table.

She smiles.

"I told you I would try."

"So you did," he agrees easily enough.

"Are there any other things I could attempt to answer for you?" she asks.

His fingers pause and he bows his head slightly to one side, still watching her with his dark-bright eye.

"Why are your eyes so blue?" His soft voice is as matter-of-fact as when he asked about the Bar.

"Ah."

She looks down at her hands, folded in front of her, and smiles very softly.

"That's because of who I am."

A moment's pause. "Do you know anything about the tarot, Kit?"

"Very little, I am afraid."

"Then I have a little explaining to do."

She slips one hand off the table (presumably into her pocket, but you can't be quite sure), then sets a deck of cards on the surface.

"I don't know if anyone's told you," she begins, dealing cards off the top one at a time,

"but there are all kinds of people that come here. Some are perfectly normal, some are dead, some are gods, and some are other things entirely. Some are personifications of things, like the tarot."

She taps three face up cards in turn--Ten of Swords, The Moon, Queen of Swords. "These are some of the ones that frequent this place. And these two...made me an offer. To become like them." She picks up the third card. "And so this is who I am now. Among other things."

"Not human," and his voice is a velvet whisper.