First entrance.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

The door opens to admit a young Asian-looking woman dressed in black, with a red band wrapped around her neck. Something woven into her dark hair shimmers and sparkles as she looks around with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

"This is new." She blinks. "This is completely new. How did this place even get built without Mars's knowledge?"

She glides into the bar, looking with equal fascination at the patrons, the fixtures, and the Window.

Her feet never quite touch the ground.

[tinytag: Caprice Quevillion]

Comments

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

Mars? Did Knox hear her say Mars? She certainly doesn't look like a Martian. (Not that he knows what a Martian looks like, unless you believe the tabloid that claims Martians are green, bald, seven feet tall and beetle-browed.) "Er, I hate to tell you this, but you're not on Mars anymore."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

He's not Martian, that's clear enough. None of these people are. And that's so utterly improbable that the man's statement almost makes logical sense.

"Oh? Then where am I, and how did I get here?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"You are in a place called Milliways. It's a bar at the end of time. And how you got here...magic. Really." He pauses. "You really from Mars?"

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Magic." She looks more than a little skeptical. "How did I really get here? You don't need to dumb it down for me."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Magic. Really. The bar is magic. Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But it's real. The bar grabs you from wherever and whenever you are. You open a door and walk in and then you're here. And usually - not always - you can walk back through that door to home. Don't ask me how any of it works, but it's magic." It's only now that he notices she's floating. "And how do you hover like that?"

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

She blinks and looks down. "Oh, I'm still hovering, aren't I?" She drops a few inches to stand on the ground properly. "I'm sorry, I know that tends to alarm offworlders. I wasn't thinking."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"It's not alarming. Not around here. This place is...I think weird begins to cover it. And I bet that's perfectly normal for a Martian. Though I gotta say, I always thought that Martians would look more...not human?" At least on the rare occasions he thought about it.

"I'm Alex Knox, from Gotham City, Earth, 1991 Earth time."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Caprice Quevillion, Alanschar, Mars, year 2148 of the Common Era," she replies. "And I am human. We colonized Mars from Earth more than a century ago."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Wow. We make it there. Cool. In my day, it didn't look like we'd make it back to the Moon, even." Yes, he's met other people from the future, some of whom have travelled in space, but Mars is something that is pure sci-fi. "Nice to meet you."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Likewise, I'm sure," says Caprice. "So... the entrance to this place is some sort of portal gate which appears at random times and places?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"That sounds like it." If she doesn't believe in magic, so be it. "It pretty much shows up when I want it to these days. I think that the longer you come here, the more it lets you come here. When it lets you come and go. My lady is stuck here, but there are worse places to be stuck."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Stuck here?" echoes Caprice. "How so?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"The door vanishes. Let me ask...can you see the door?" He hopes she can, but is never surprised when it's gone.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

She looks back toward the front door. "Yes..."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"OK, good. That means you can leave whenever you want. But since you are here, it probably means you should learn about the place since you'll be back. Everyone usually is." A generalization but not an unfair one.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

Caprice walks over to the door and opens it a few inches. Through the crack can be seen a cozy brown-walled room and a patch of purple sky through a window.

She closes the door, waits a few seconds, then opens it again.

"...that is weird. It only works from this side. Is that normal?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"About as normal as anything here.

"I bet you could use a drink. Let me should you how that works. First one's on the house." He points at the bar.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Alright." She walks/glides over to the bar and looks over it curiously. "Is it voice-activated or...?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Ask for anything, and bar will make it for you." He loves this part, despite knowing better.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

Caprice clears her throat. "A glass of hard cider, please."

Her eyebrows go up when it appears.

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"See. Magic. Bar serves anything. But after the first drink, you have to pay, or run up a tab.

"And interesting choice. I go for beer usually." In fact, he's never had hard cider.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

Caprice is still staring at the glass on the countertop.

"It just... appeared," she murmurs. "No nanotech, no spacial displacement... that shouldn't be possible."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"You never saw magic before, did you?" He is enjoying this too much, and forces that smile to diminish a bit. "OK, neither did I. But it's all over the place here. Werewolves, witches, dead people, and even fairy tale princesses." Especially his very own fairy tale princess.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

Caprice comes from a world where everyone has abilities that outsiders might consider 'magical.' Her, and Mars's, experience suggest that 'magic' is simply another word for 'we don't know how it works.' But she won't press the issue. Yet.

She picks up the glass and takes a cautious sip. "Well, it tastes real enough."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Best drinks in reality, Caprice.

"Want me to give you the rundown about the place?"

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"If you would be so kind.."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"OK. This is essentially a weird bar and hotel. With some permanent guests. Including the dead, though in a not-creepy way.

"It's big enough, though, that it has a security staff, and an infirmary. And there are three rules that you can't break. No fighting. No outside business can follow you. And no lewd behavior in the public areas. You want lewd, there are rooms for a reason."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"What does 'outside business' mean, exactly?" asks Caprice as she takes another sip of cider.

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"I think it means that if you have an enemy or a rival, you can't bring that with you here. It could also mean you can't conduct business here, but that doesn't make as much sense." Or so he's concluded after two years. He's still not really sure.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

"Well, the owners might not like the competition," Caprice points out. "Who are the owners, anyway?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

Knox chuckles a little. "That is the big question. No one knows. There's gossip about some mysterious all-powerful Landlord who runs everything. Some say the place is alive. The bar - what you ordered your drink from - is, so why not the whole place. I try not to think about it myself."

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

Caprice, on the other hand, is thinking about it. So is Mars. It's... challenging.

"Hmm." Another sip of cider. "Is there anything else I should know going in?"

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Those are the basics. The rest you can learn as you go. The place is pretty friendly. That is, the people are." He won't go into the details of the weirdness.

[marslikesyou.livejournal.com]

She finishes off the last of the cider. (It was a small glass.) "I think I'll go look around a bit. Thanks, Alex."

[gotham-knocking.livejournal.com]

"Have fun," he replies with a smile.