milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Teja is sitting in a booth, having waffles for breakfast.

Somebody had been killed last night, in the woods; Teja had been out there, and seen it in passing: upset people, security, blood, the like. It was an unpleasant somebody, and it had not been the night of the full moon. So, Teja ponders, the somebody had, most likely, been murdered and butchered by one that was extremely angry.

If someone was going around killing those that were unpleasant in a bloody manner, could they not have tried their luck on Ramon Salazar?

Also, he is keeping an eye on the door, wondering if the influx of people from Jason's world will continue. Perhaps some barrier has broken, and they all can come in now? Hopefully, Milliways will at least be spared the unpleasant woman that some of them have spoken about. But if someone is going around killing those that are unpleasant...

"You don't like waffles!" Teja says, startled out of his thoughts by a pink feline nose sniffing his breakfast. Count looks at him, innocent as only a cat may look.

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"Dead?" It seems nobody told her about the dead of Milliways.

"Dead," Teja says. "It means 'No longer alive, as one's body was damaged in a way that does not support life'," he adds, helpfully. "In my case, it happened in battle; it was a spear that pierced my lung, so I was drowned in my own blood."

And there go those brows up again. "I know what dead is. Just... you do not seem dead. Or a zombie, or a vampire."

"This is the after-life for me," Teja says. "And for little Count here, as well. We live again, but cannot ever go back to the worlds we came from; and should we leave for another for too long, more than five days, we would fade, turn into ghosts, and finally come back to this place."

"He looks very well for a dead cat..."

"Indeed, he does," Teja says. "I doubt he knows; I shall, eventually, need Yrael to explain to him, if I take him to a world where I may go, for a longer time."

Pause.

"He was entrusted to me by Death personified, from the world where he was born, and lived for a week, before he and his siblings were drowned in a sack, in a stinking river named Ankh."

She frowns at the 'drowning in a sack' part, nodding...

"And... who is this Yrael who talks to cats?"

"A not!cat," Teja says. "If you stay here for some time, you will see."

"I will think about that. A bar outside time and space has its advantages." Jordan stretches, closing eyes a moment. Her 'gauntlet' looks very much like something heavy and bulky.

"Why are you wearing that thing?" Teja asks. "When I first came, I kept wearing armour, also, as I had done most of my life: but that was full armour, not merely a gauntlet."

She could give a long explanation.

She could evade the question.

Jordan decided for option 'C': sliding open a panel, pressing a few buttons, and disconnecting the prosthesis, revealing the connector 'cap' over the stump of her forearm.

No clearer answer.

"Oh," Teja says. "How did that happen?"

Jordan looks down. "Accident. Car accident." She rolls her left shoulder, taking the chance to rest from lugging that 25-pound weight around.

"Cars can be dangerous," Teja says. "In old times, it was wars -- in yours, cars!"

It was a war, in a sense.

But she will not talk about it with a stranger: after a moment of relaxing, Jordan reconnects her prosthesis, flexing the artificial hand. "The world is dangerous."

"Life is very dangerous," Teja says. "For most that are alive, it ends deadly!"

And Jordan just blinks at him.

If that was a joke, the man surely has an odd sense of humor, and if it was not a joke, he is just odd.

Puzzled mad scientist is puzzled.

"There are those that are immortal, or claim to be," Teja says, helpfully.

"Ah. Those." Jordan shakes head. "Those just did not meet what will kill them yet." She gestures to the Window. "Nothing is really forever."

"Indeed," Teja says, "I think so, also!"

Pause.

"The universe is infinitely large, and any being in it must be small -- in both time, and space."

Jordan glances at the door, nodding slowly: she is thinking about possibilities, and futures, and things.

And the benefits of a dimensional pocket. "So... you are dead and you live here."

"You might say so," Teja says, somewhat amused.

"Yeah, you understood what I mean." Live not from alive but from making a living. "Never imagined anyone's afterlife would be a Bar."

"Imagine what I thought," Teja says. "And how offended I was when I found I would have to pay. The afterlife, if there had to be one, ought to be on the gods!"

"Oh yes... no heaven or hell, but a Bar and having to run a tab and pay for bed and board." Jordan smirks a bit. "The Gods sure have a weird sense of humor."