milliways_bar | (no subject)

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will scarlett

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When Horatio walks through the Bar door, he thinks that he's heading for his bed. He thinks that he's just left Elsinore's ramparts and that he's just seen a ghost and that he desperately needs to collapse somewhere and either sleep or think quietly about what has just passed.

The world seems to have other ideas, and, instead, he finds himself standing in what he takes to be either a strange restaurant or a similarly strange tavern. And, though the world has turned upside down, tonight, he's quite certain that there isn't one of those on the way back to the cottage that he is staying at while he plays truant from Wittenburg.

"...Well, I suppose it wasn't a ghost, and I'm just going mad." Horatio muses, standing in the doorway and rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"That may be better in the long run, perhaps."

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Will is less drunk then he was before but still tipsy and blinks at the man who could have come from his time.

The bow he gives to Horatio is wobbly but there since the Templar scared Will quite a bit,

"Eve, sir, ye 'ave come to Milliways."

"What?" Horatio spins around a little, giving a a return bow to the obviously not-quite-sober gentleman.

"Ah, greetings, sir. What, exactly, is a Milliways? And why is it in such strange proximity to the palace at Elsinore?"

"Bar at the End o'the Universe, sir."

The next bow is more of a gesture to the Window.

Horatio is about to repeat his inquiry when he looks over past Will at the window.

The sight requires a rather long period of staring.

"So many lights - what are they all from?"

"Tis the End o'the Universe, sir, goes on a loop but tis safe 'ere."

"End of the universe?" The staring is promptly shifted around to Will. He's both easier to look at and the latest source of puzzling information.

"I wouldn't think you could fit that behind a window."

"Window just looks out on it, sir, dinna understand it completely. First drinks free an tis rules to keep ye safe. My name's Will Scarlett."

Horatio's seriousness is sobering Will up and he's doing his best to look more respectable.

"Well. I suppose, in circumstances such as these, a man can be forgiven a drink." Horatio sighs, shuffling over to the bar and settling carefully on a stool, as if it might eat him. He glances back over it to look at Will.

"I'm Horatio - a student, at the moment."

"Student, sir, grand thing that, just serve Robin o'Locksley myself."

(OOC: Sorry for being so spotty.)

"Locksley?" Horatio asks, swivelling a little more to face him.

"That's in England, is it?"

"Aye, sir, in Nottinghamshire."

The swivelling makes Will blink and hold onto a chair for a moment, that penetrating gaze is not comforting.

"Ah. I know only so much about the country, myself. It's relations with the Dane were well, last I heard, but it is not a place I've chanced to visit."

"Oh aye, sir, dinna know much myself either. Would ye 'appen to know who rules England in yer time?"

Will's learned that's a good way to find out years.

"That is the sort of thing I ought to know," Horatio admits, biting his lip in thought.

"Especially seeing as how recently Denmark has been engaged with England in tribute, but...he's a Henry of some sort. The number escapes me, I'm afraid."

"Aye, sir, then ye're probably from farther in the future then me, was just wonderin' since tis few folks near my time is all."

"Well, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help in that area." Horatio shakes his head, drawn between amusement and bafflement.

"Though I wouldn't necessarily mind a change of time - my world is strange enough, without magic taverns."

"Aye, sir, 'ow is it strange?"

"We're going through a rather grim changing of the guard. Denmark's last king was killed by snakebite, and now his brother has wed his sister and taken the throne."

That, frankly, is an interesting enough development to count as "strange" in Horatio's book.

"And, now, just before happening across this place, I saw a ghost in the old king's likeness, marching along the palace battlements, fully attired for war."

"Not mad," says the man on the nearby seat, who couldn't help but overhear. "Merely lost."

"There is an explanation. It is not a complete one, or comforting, but it seems to be true."

"Mm?" Horatio turns promptly on heel, facing Edmund and looking at him with a purely baffled expression. In his brief reverie, he'd almost forgotten the possibility of being noticed by other patrons.

"Well, greetings, then. And what might explain a pub appearing so near the king's palace? I've heard he's quite given to carousing, but I hardly think..."

He trails off, just arching an eyebrow at Edmund.

"If there is a king here, I have not heard tell of him. This is a place whose doors appear where it feels there need be doors. It's patrons are who it so chooses. I had thought there was nothing like this in the world, until it found me."

He leaves out the death for now.

"Excuse me?" Horatio just stares at Edmund, shaking his head.

"This is more strange than the spirits of the dead walking the earth - at least they have the sense to plainly seem as they are."

Edmund can't help but laugh.

"Not always, friend."

"Hm?" Usually, Horatio is pretty quick on the uptake. Tonight, though, you'll just have to forgive him - it's been a long day.

"What, you're familiar with such spirits?"

"I took a sword in the side not two weeks ago," he says, sounding cheerful, but like maybe there's knives under all the silk. "I awoke here."

"You mean to say that you're dead, too?" Had he more energy, this would be a revelation worthy of hysterics. As it is, he can only muster the strength to slump his shoulders and quell to urge to poke Edmund, just to be certain.

"You're certainly the more lively of the two spirits I've met tonight."

"I do not know if I am a spirit. My hands are warm to the touch, I eat and sleep, as any man does, I imagine I bleed, I speak plain English..."

It was believed that ghosts only spoke Latin, once. That only an educated man could approach a ghost.

"Well, you are either a spirit dispossessed of body, in which case you are dead though a fair facsimile of life, or you are body with spirit and yet very much alive."

He shrugs at Edmund weakly. He doesn't even have the strength to point out that, to his ears, the man is speaking very good Danish.

"For the moment, you'll forgive me if I assume the latter. One dead man in a night is quite enough."

"All I know is that my brother killed me. Honourably, and in a duel of my choosing," he hurries to add this, he's not really angry. Well, he is, but just off and on.

"It is a strange place, this."

"Obviously." Horatio gawks, shaking his head and giving a small sigh.

"I suppose it's better to fit all the strangeness into one night, though, than take it in doses, day to day. Does this tavern serve its patrons, at least?"

He doesn't see anyone at the Bar, after all.

"Words will summon the food. I would have wine, Lady Bar," he demonstrates, and it appears. "And your first drink is on the house, to help with the shock, I do believe."

"A humane tavern, at least." The student chuckles, more at the insanity of it all than at his own quip. Nevertheless, he promptly orders a glass of wine for himself, something finer and more expensive than he could hope to afford on his meager budget, back home.

"Not everyone is dead, at least? It would be a pity if the afterlife turned out to be a pub."

Also? He'd be dead, in that case. Which would be depressing.

"Not everyone is dead. Some are living, and some are Gods and some are other creatures. Fey, and the like."

It makes him a little nervous. Never knowing who anyone might be.

"Gods and fey?" It isn't a coincidence that Horatio takes a long drink from his glass as soon as the words are out of this mouth.

"You'll start making me think that I've gone mad again, talking like that."

"I thought I had." For the longest time. "But it's better than what the priests promised me."

"It is certainly a much less threatening afterlife than some of the alternatives." Horatio manages a small laugh, the quandry of Edmund's circumstances striking him suddenly, out of the blue.

This man, as far as he knows, is from a world just like his. And yet, after death, he is decidedly not in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.

It's distressing, and his laughter is promptly reduced to a tiny frown.

"More alcohol than any of them, as well, I'd expect."

"Oh, most definitely, though perhaps that's what fuels the fires." He gestures at the ground, and smirks. He always had a fairly sacriligeous streak to him, Edmund did.

"One never knows. I certainly won't now, it seems."

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