milliways_bar | First Entrance

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First Entrance

[Immediately Pre-Milliways.]

This? Is not her room.

Sandry hovers uncertainly in the doorway. She knows that Winding Circle is a center of magic, but she has a feeling that the sudden appearance of a tavern is strange, even for the temple city.

Still, being a curious and not particularly timid child, she doesn't hover for long. Sandry steps away from the door, looking around at this odd new place. She is a rather incongruous sight--and eleven year old girl dressed entirely in black, from her neat kid slippers to her long finely-worked dress to the sheer veil pinned over her light brown hair.

In addition, she is wearing a bewildered expression. And explanation of where she is would not go amiss.

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Jamie's sitting at a table staring thoughtfully at a blank piece of paper; he looks up, as he usually does, when he sees the door open.

Well, it never hurts to be friendly.

- hardly ever, anyways. At least, generally not with little lost girls.

"You lost?" he calls over, with a friendly smile.

Sandry returns the friendly smile, albeit with some hesitation.

"I shouldn't be," she replies. "I was just walking into my bedroom. At least, I thought I was."

"This isn't it," she adds after a moment's pause.

"I didn't reckon so." Jamie grins. "Not unless you were planning on having some party, anyways."

He stands up, and makes a grand, clownish gesture around the bar. "No, you're one in a lucky million or billion or possibly squadrillion; you've found your own private Bound - that's a way to get to a different world. In this case, one that happens to be a -"

It's hard to tell world-to-world, customs change, but the girl's clothes certainly look well-made. Posh. Jamie amends the usual 'pub' to "- a kind of inn."

"A...different world?"

Sandry knows something about magic. It is an everyday fact of life in her own world. But she has never heard of something like this.

"Does that mean I'm not at Winding Circle anymore?"

At bit troubling, that.

"No - but you should be able to get back," Jamie says immediately, and points back to the front door.

"As long as you can see that door, you're fine. Everyone gets back where they came from."

"That's good to know, I suppose."

Sandry glances back over her shoulder.

One door--present and accounted for. As long as her way back is clearly in evidence, Sandry's usual self-contained personality quickly comes to the forefront.

She turns back to the boy. "My name's Sandry. What's yours?"

Light: "Most people figure it's pretty crucial. Though of places to get stuck, there are worse."

He sticks out a hand; grubby nails, skinny wrist.

"I'm Jamie."

If Sandry notices the state of his nails, it's not apparent on her face. She clasps his hand with a small one of her own.

"Hello Jamie."

Thus far, he's a much nicer boy than the one she's currently sharing a house with.

"Do you live here? Or are you like me? Visiting?"

Jamie shakes the hand briskly before reclaiming his.

"Call it visiting longer-term. I've been here a few weeks now and haven't seen much need to leave as yet."

His grin is quick and conspiratorial. "Not until they call in the tabs, at any rate."

Sandry raises her eyebrows.

"Weeks? But won't people at home be worried about you?"

Her great-uncle would likely call out the army if she was missing for weeks.

"And...tabs?" Sandry looks confused.

She's been learning a lot of new words from Briar--words that a properly (if somewhat unconventionally) brought up noble girl does not ordinarily pick up. She suspects that this is something similar to the boy's street slang.

Jamie's eyes dart briefly to the side.

"I've, ah - been gone from my Home for a while. I'm trying to find my way back," he adds, which is the perfect truth, if severely simplified, "but it doesn't hurt to stay somewhere safe for a bit with good food - which is where the tabs come in, that's how you pay. Or don't pay, as the case may be. You order what you like and they keep track of what you owe, and sooner or later you're meant to pay up."

"Like an account." Sandry nods to show that she understands.

At least, she understands that part.

"You mean you can't go home?" Blue eyes have gone wide and mildly horrified.

"I can," Jamie says, and there's an old, fierce determination under the words. "If I can find it, and I'm going to. I just got - sent far away, I mean worlds and worlds, so it's taking a while, is all."

He pulls out a smile; that's old, too. "Walking the Bounds isn't a piece of cake."

"I'm sorry." Sandry looks sympathetic. "I hope you find your way back."

She doesn't quite understand the phrase 'piece of cake' but she can hazard a guess based on his tone.

"What's your home like?"

"It's a city. With canals, and trains, and lots of people - always talking and arguing and doing things."

Talking about Home brings up what he thinks of as the familiar cold foot ache in his chest; he changes the subject quickly, searching for a joke and a smile. "What about yours? I'm going to make a guess that it's got circles and there's some winding involved, but of course that's just a guess."

Sandry wrinkles her nose at him. But it's only mock annoyance.

"It's a temple city," she replies, "near Summersea, the capital of the realm of Emelan. There's a tower at its center, and the road winds out from it in a spiral. There are temples and dormitories, libraries, crafthouses. There's a wonderful big loom house."

Sandry is very fond of her adopted home, and it shows.

It does show.

And Jamie's smile is only a little wistful, as he says, "Sounds nice."

Beat.

"And this Summersea's in a desert, then, right?"

"Oh no," Sandry says with some surprise. "No it's not a desert at all."

"It's on the shore of the Pebbled Sea. It never really gets cold there--not enough to snow. And it's very warm in the summer. But there's plenty of rain."

"Joke," Jamie explains, with a laugh. "I figured - seeing as there's sea in the name of the city."

He tilts his head. "So are you just at school there, or are you a real novice? Religious-like, I mean."

"Oh." Sandry blushes, feeling just a tiny bit foolish.

But with Sandry, embarrassment generally doesn't last long.

"I'm just at school," she confirms. "My great-uncle is responsible for me, and he thought I'd be happier being educated with other children."

Sandry is very fond of her uncle, but she has to agree with him that Winding Circle was a livelier place to live.

Great-uncle?

Jamie's eyebrows go up, a very little, but he doesn't ask.

"That's generally the right idea," he agrees, instead. "Depending on the other kids, of course - but it seems to've worked out for you all right."

"I think it will," Sandry replies thoughtfully.

"I didn't care much for the girls in my old dormitory. They talked all the time, and always about fashions and marriages--never anything interesting."

"They've just moved me to a cottage on the temple grounds though." At the insistence of the dedicate in charge of her former dormitory who had deemed Sandry a disruptive influence. "I think I'm going to like it much better. My friend Daja is living there too. And two other children."

Granted, Briar and Tris have so far firmly rebuffed any overtures of friendship, but Sandry is not one to give up easily when she sets her mind to something.

"Just the four of you in the house? Definitely a cut above a dormitory, then."

Friendly, teasing: "What did you do to earn special privileges? Top marks in the class?"

Sandry nods. "And Lark and Rosethorn--the dedicates in charge of the cottage."

She grins impishly.

"The dedicate in charge of my old dormitory wanted me to not be her problem any more."

That earns an answering grin, and a rather approving one.

Jamie was never much of one for school, anyways.

"Top marks in something else, then."

"Sewing, maybe." Not that anyone has ever graded her sewing, but if they did, Sandry would probably be first in her class.

"Certainly not deportment, I'm afraid."

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First Entrance

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