Enter the SCENT agent

[unhingedwarlock.livejournal.com]

A man and his not-actually-a-horse walk into a bar.

Badum-CHING.

...if you were wondering, that noise was actually the sound of Fess's hooves on the floor. No, really.

Rod had been in the middle of asking his faithful steed about the world they'd just landed on when he realized they'd left it. The first clue was the complete change in venue. The second, the aforementioned 'ching'. The third?

The click right behind his ear.

"Dammit, Fess."

Apparently, the standing order not to try and figure out how they'd come to the end of the Universe (or the logistics at the end of the Universe, or really anything to do with the end of the Universe) had been overwritten at some point. Or burned out. Or reconfigured due to new experiences. It had, after all, been over ten years since the last time they'd come.

That didn't mean it wasn't fricking annoying.

[tinytag: rod gallowglass]

Comments

[yinyangwizard.livejournal.com]

"Hm. Should I ask if you're having trouble with your horse, or trouble with your computer?" This inquiry comes from a man sitting at a table near the door.

[unhingedwarlock.livejournal.com]

He turned and gave the guy he'd never met before a faint grin that was somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

"Not so much trouble as inconvenience."

He reached down and pressed the restart switch on Fess's body. The horse head lifted back up from where it'd swung between its own front legs.

"Sorry, Rod." said the voice just behind his ear. He knew it should be impossible, but the robot really did sound incredibly apologetic.

"No trouble, trusty steed. Just remember the rules about this place."

"Understood."

[yinyangwizard.livejournal.com]

"Ah. Coming in here has odd effects on some people, but I've never seen it happen with a machine." His hand moves involuntarily to touch the iPhone laying on the table near his half-empty pint glass. "Fortunately."

[unhingedwarlock.livejournal.com]

"He tries to give me information," he told him as his hand smoothed up and down the 'horse's shoulder. "And when his processors tell him that what he's getting should be impossible...

"I think the medical term is 'blue screen of death'?"

[yinyangwizard.livejournal.com]

"Ah. He must be running Windows."

[unhingedwarlock.livejournal.com]

That got a bark of a laugh.

"Nothing that archaic. He's an antique, not a fossil."

[yinyangwizard.livejournal.com]

"My apologies," Seimei says, addressing the horse. "There are times when I can't resist a bad joke."

Back to Rod. "Do you do re-enactments or something of that nature? I mean your clothes," he explains, "really don't look to be contemporary with your mechanical marvel of a horse."

Of course, Seimei sometimes wears archaic clothes, but in Japan wearing traditional dress is acceptable in everyday life and, in some situations, obligatory.

[unhingedwarlock.livejournal.com]

"I'm traveling," he said without missing a beat.

[yinyangwizard.livejournal.com]

Seimei doesn't miss a beat either. "Ah. On a post-apocalyptic Earth or among the backwater colony worlds of space?"

Yes, he reads a lot of science fiction.