milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There is a skeleton at the Bar, clothed in a robe of Absolute Dark and accompanying by a scythe so sharp it glows blue where the very atoms of the air are being split - if it were open.

The scythe is folded shut and leans against the Bar. The robe's hood is pushed back and the shiny white cranium shines under the bar's lighting.

He's eating a curry.

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None taken, Death says, and clarifies with I'm not a God. They will come to me.

Gibbs stares again. It's something he's good at. "The gods...die." He tries to think about it. But theology and mythology are just not things he can think about clearly. "And what do you do with them? With their souls?"

I collect them, Death says. What happens next is not up to me.

"So you don't escort them to Heaven or Hell or the Locker." Gibbs orders a rum. He could use one.

No, says Death. I am just the process, not the destination.

"Not unlike Captain Turner, I suppose." He takes a big swig of rum. "You're never tempted to keep the souls and start your own crew of malcontents and wretched creatures of the mists and wreak havoc on the seas, are you?"

um...

I have a manservant, Death offers. And I had a daughter, once.

Somehow, a daughter seems less weird than many other things. Gods and godlike creatures do have a way of getting around, after all. "What would a manservant do for you?"

Breakfast, Death says. Albert fries a great egg.

"So you eat." Obviously. "Do you need food?"

I don't need it, Death says, taking another forkful of curry. But I like it.

"And what about drink?" Drink being much more important, after all.

The same, says Death.

I like the one with the worm.

"The one with the worm?" Were Gibbs from the present day, he might have looked up the drink in question on a database of some sort. And found that the worm is a recent arrival. As it is, he can barely read.

There's a worm in it to show it's fresh, says Death, who doesn't quite understand the principle.

I think it's called Mexical.

"No one has ever put a worm in anything on purpose. Worms usually indicate that the foodstuff or drink you have is about as a fresh as a corpse." Pause. "No offense.

"You should stick with rum."

None taken, Death says. The corpses I deal with are all very very fresh.

Beat.

Rum?

"You've never had rum? That should be rectified." Gibbs figures that maybe if you buy Death a drink, he'll owe you a favor. Though what sort of favor is unclear.

I have had rum, Death assures him. I just didn't think it was different from other drinks.

"But it's rum. The drink of the Caribbean. A drink unlike any other."

He has no idea what makes it different from other drinks.

In what way? Death asks politely.

Gibbs is doing a lot of staring today, isn't he.

He finally finds some words. "It's made from molasses, so it can sustain you when you haven't got anything to eat. And it's not whiskey, so you can avoid the influence of the Scottish and the Irish. And it's not wine, which is foul stuff."

Avoid the influences of the Scottish and Irish, Death repeats. Am I right in surmising that these are influences which I would wish to avoid?

"Oh, yes. I mean, some of them are fine people and all, but on the whole neither is English. If you get my meaning." The narration apologizes for Gibbs' petty bigotries. (And for his not-so-petty bigotries, which he saves for the French.)

I think so, Death says, grasping the basics of day to day xenophobia.

And you are English, I take it?

Little known fact: English whiskey was great. Until they stopped making in the 19th century, not to restart until the 21st.