milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Here's a guy who's not around much.

Or... yes, actually he is. But mostly he's outside, being depressingly healthy, upstairs being depressingly intellectual, or lurking creepily about in the shadows.

Today he's sitting at the bar with a notepad, a pencil, and a calculating expression.

It's probably not worth asking him what he's up to.

But it can't hurt to ask?

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"What about you? Are you two really good friends?" asks Duck.

Unlike several of the other children in bar, Duck at least does not know the specifics of Puck and Havelock's relationship . . .

Duck can count herself one of a privileged few!

"Yes," Havelock agrees, with perfect truth. "I have known him for many years now."

It bears mentioning that Havelock wouldn't be explaining the details of their relationship no matter who Duck was, or what age. He's reserved by nature.

One of them had to be.

"Years is a really long time!"

Duck hasn't known anybody that long. It's sort of hard for her even to conceive.

"You've gotta get to know someone really really well after years!"

"Yes, if you see them a lot," Havelock says.

"Sometimes you meet people that you want to know that well."

"There's lots of people I want to know that well!" Duck says earnestly.

Mytho, of course, being the first to spring to mind. But not just Mytho! Rue, too - and Pique and Lilie, and Meg and Mia and Andrew and Sunshine and all the people she's met in Milliways, and maybe even Fakir.

"But I dunno if I'll even be here or at school or anything still in years . . ."

Maybe she'll be a prima ballerina!

Or maybe she'll be a duck again.

Or . . . maybe she'll be vanished into a speck of light.

Some of these options don't really provide the potential for long-term relationships.

Havelock shrugs.

"You can plan ahead, but only so far," he says, as if he has a long-term relationship planner mapped out and tacked to his wall upstairs.

"Just stay with the ones that feel right."

"Do you have to pick?" Duck says, scratching her head.

"I mean - can't you be friends with lots of people, like that?"

If she gets to stick around, Duck wants to stay friends with everyone!

Havelock appears to consider this.

He is possible hat he is not quite so outgoing as Duck.

(It is also possible that nobody is.)

"If you like," he says. "That can be more time-consuming, but if you want to stay friends with them, that is worth it."

This is all theoretical on his part.

"I don't think it takes up so much time to be friends with -"

Duck trails off into guilty silence, as she abruptly remembers all the times she's been late to class because of Mytho-, Pique-and-Lilie-, Fakir-, or Miss Edel-related incidents.

"But other people don't have problems getting to class on time bedcause of that!" she protests, forgetting that the segue there occurred mostly inside her own head.

Havelock was fairly used to following disjointed thought processes even before Milliways.

He's learned to use it as a kind of mental exercise.

"Perhaps they prioritise their time when they must have lessons," he suggests. "And socialise afterwards."

This is assuming that they can keep time, of course.

"Sometimes stuff that's really important happens, though! And if it happens during the time when I'm supposed to be in class, then I can't help that . . ."

It's tough to be a magical girl with a class schedule! Just ask Buffy.

"Does that happen very often?" Havelock asks.

For the record, he's envisioning something close to, but at the same time nowhere near the truth.

It's Milliways. There's a lot it could be.

"Yeah, a lot!"

. . . Duck wilts, and confesses, "Um, not so much as I just get distracted and stuff, though."

Havelock looks blankly sympathetic.

...That's probably it.

That or mildly entertained.

"I see," he says gravely. "Well, I understand that happens. Perhaps you can can catch up on your work later?"

"I'm gonna! I'm definitely gonna! If Mr. Cat doesn't send me down to probation or make me marry him first . . ."

The risks of being a ballet student in Gold Crown Town Academy are manifold.

Havelock... frowns.

"Is that... normal?" he asks, as if the question is being dragged from him.

The Assassin's Guild considers corporal punishment to be soft of students. But they never threaten them with marriage.

Duck hangs her head, misinterpreting the question a little.

"Well, he doesn't tell anyone else he's gonna send them down to probation or marry them so often as he does me, but . . . uh, no one else is late as much as me either."

...Presumably it is, then.

Hm.

"He uses the threat of marriage to himself as a punishment," he says, mostly to confirm what he's hearing, and considers it as he does.

That is either very inappropriate behaviour for an authority figure, or displays a staggering lack of self-esteem.

Both, perhaps.

"Yeah! Though . . ."

Duck scratches her head. "Sometimes it's like a punishment and sometimes it's like a reward nobody wants to win, like with second place in festivals and stuff . . . I guess that's kinda weird."

But not the actual proposals! Those are TOTALLY NORMAL.

"Yes," says Havelock blandly. "A little."

Inconsistency? This person sounds like some of his teachers in that respect.

Just not in the threats-of-marriage sense.

"What are your other teachers like?"

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