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There is some fumbling and thumping at the Milliways door before it finally swings open to reveal a woman bundled in a winter coat, carrying a flashlight.

Parker blinks for a second, then grins with something like relief.

“Oh, thank you, God. POWER.” She looks over her shoulder into the darkness. “Hoss! Get in here where it’s warm.”

Without need for further invitation, a large, floppy-looking, half grown cat streaks around Parker’s ankles and into the bar. Parker follows, pulling the door closed behind her, and begins to undo her coat.

Like most of north Texas, Coiner is dealing with rolling blackouts. And no power plus a sub-zero wind chill factor is not a fun mix.

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A pair of slightly less expecting ankles are unfortunately in the way of the grey streak of fur. Kate sidesteps quickly.

"Ho there, sweetheart! Where'd you come from?"

"Kate? Oh, hey. Sorry about him."

Parker is trying to catch up with Hoss while simultaneously trying to wriggle out of her heavy cat and juggling her flashlight.

"I swear, he likes to play chicken with people. Hoss, come here."

Hoss stops, but his expression seems to make clear that coming on cue is for dogs, thank you.

"Miss Parker?"

Kate smiles when she recognizes the friendly face.

"Howdy! S'been a while."

She steps closer to help with the juggling, but -- what in god's name is that, a little lantern?

Parker grins.

"Yeah, it has," she agrees. "I don't know if I've seen you since the Vampire Prom." Really, how often do you get the opportunity to say that to someone. "How've you been?"

For the moment, it looks like the coat is winning the battle to keep Parker in it's synthetic-down clutches. Parker stops flailing for a moment and holds her flashlight out to Kate.

"Would you mind holding this for a sec?"

"'Course."

She takes the flashlight, examining it like it's the Holy Grail.

"I've been well 'nough. Haven't been here much since the shindig, if we're bein' honest. Took a trip t'France with Jasper an' Alice."

Vampire Prom, and a Very Vampire Holiday in Paris.

Only in Milliways.

"How've you, um--"

Been? is the question she was going for. Before she inadvertently blinded herself with the flashlight.

Parker tries not to giggle. She doesn't quite succeed, but she tries.

"Yeah, careful. You could wave planes in for a landing with that thing. J.R. loaned it to me. It's one of the ones they use when they're looking for...cows giving birth in the wilderness, or something."

It is a Serious Flashlight.

"Oh, France is gorgeous. Did you get to hit Paris?"

"I'm guessing if you went with Jasper and Alice, you didn't travel by steamship?"

She has a few colorful comments to make regarding the flashlight, but most of them are half-audible cusses and the names of a few deities.

"Lord have mercy, what's in this thing?"

She shakes it, half expecting there are candles inside she can extinguish. Serious Flashlight doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Um. Steamship, no. Jasper arranged for the door here t'open out on Provence, so I guess y'could say I cheated my way out of travelin'. We did get a chance t'explore Paris."

She smiles brightly.

"S'quite a city. Have you ever been?"

"A halogen bulb, I think."

Parker finally divests herself of her coat, drapes it over a chair, and begins unwinding the scarf from around her neck.

"It was a few years ago, but yeah. I did a year of college abroad in Spain, and made it up into France during the summer before I went home. It was beautiful. And warm."

Parker's not sure if she's ever going to thaw out at the moment.

"Halogen."

Interesting.

(It'll be a few decades yet before halogen lamps like this are in use out in Kate's world; the patent for carbon filaments using chlorine is still brand new. But it gives her something to read about while she's biding her time here.)

"I don't think I've seen country quite so pretty in all my life. It was a good deal warmer than it is here. C'mon -- y'look like a drowned rat -- I'll getcha somethin' warm to drink.

"Something warm would be heaven."

Parker drapes her coat over one arm and reaches down to pick up Hoss with the other. The cat responds by butting his head up under her chin and purring.

"I don't know why I'm so shocked that it's this cold in north Texas. I mean, it's north Texas. It's not like it's down on the border."

"Not down where I'm from, at least."

Kate tosses a grin over her shoulder as she approaches the Bar.

"First time I ever saw snow up close was here. Though, the mountains up your way can get awful pretty."

She orders two hot chocolates, and a little saucer of heavy cream for Hoss.

"It's not even so much the snow. It's the wind."

Up where Parker is, there's not a whole lot to stop the wind.

"And the power is out practically everywhere, so that knocks out a lot of our heating options. The main lodge has a generator, so the guests are okay."

The ones who had been able to make it in before the weather hit, and now are hard pressed to get out again.

"The employee house where Aurelia and Janelle and I live only has electric heat. But the guys' bunkhouse has a wood burning stove, so we're going to crash over there with them tonight."

"Thanks," Parker adds, smiling at the sight of the hot chocolate. "Hoss, you should say thank you to Miss Kate."

Verbalization does not occur, but the purring is reaching weed-whacker volume.

"Power? Oh, electricity."

It strikes her as odd that they wouldn't have a way to keep themselves warm out in Parker's world without electricity. Her knowledge on the subject is still rather narrow. Light bulbs use electricity. But heat? Comes from fire.

Now she begins to wonder more about the way Milliways is warmed.

"Sounds awful. You only got one stove on all that property?"

Shocking!

Hoss gets light skritches behind his ears, and Kate smiles.

"You're welcome."

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parkerlee - 2011-02-06 23:23 (UTC) - Expand

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ikissdhimbck - 2011-02-08 07:04 (UTC) - Expand

Hey, a cat! Rachel's growing quite fond of cats, here in Milliways. So when the cat streaks in and slows near her chair, the teenager drops the book in her lap and arches over the armrest to reach for him.

Hopefully, Hoss likes ear-scritches. Rachel would rather not get scratched.

No need to worry. Hoss is a cat who likes attention. Parker would classify him as a boy-whore among felines.

"That's right, Hoss," Parker calls dryly from the area by the door where she is trying to wrestle her way out of her winter coat. "Go flirt. Don't worry about the person who saved you from an early and certain death, hand-fed you every two hours, flew you home to Denver for Christmas, has given up half her bed because you won't sleep in the cat basket I bought you..."

She's not really mad at Hoss. Or anyone at all. She's just cold. And, dammit, why does cold-weather gear seem to come equipped with recalcitrant zippers?

Still. Lassie would have brought back the Mounties by now.

Cats aren't much in the way of servitude and everyday devotionals, sadly. Though if they were, Rachel probably wouldn't like them as much.

She looks up from petting the cat and grins. "Will a cup of coffee make up for his betrayal?"

Parker breaks down and smiles.

"So long as it's hot? A cup of bilge water would probably make up for it."

The zipper finally comes free with an all-mighty tug.

"But that cup is coming out of your Fancy Feast budget, Hoss. You hear me?"

Hoss blinks large orange eyes, indicating that he hears, he just forgot to be impressed. Mostly because he knows that his person is, at the end of the day, an utter pushover.

Cats seem to have a radar for that sort of thing. Grinning, Rachel gives Hoss a final stroke down his neck and pushes out of the chair to approach the bar. There are waitrats around, of course, and one that passed close by her chair. She still prefers the magic bar, whenever possible.

A mug is procured and is, of course, steaming hot. Rachel brings it back to offer to Parker, smirking a little. "It's on my tab, but you could follow it up with something else if you still want to deny the cat."

By the time she gets back, Parker has gotten out of her coat and taken a seat, Hoss curled in her lap. He is a one-cat heat generator, she'll give him that.

She smiles sheepishly as she takes the mug.

"Thanks. You'll have to let me return the favor sometime."

"I'm Parker," she adds. "Parker Lee."

"Rachel," she says, leaving the name at that but grinning again, gesturing with a second mug, "and don't worry about it. I got one for me, too."

Also, she does not technically have to pay so putting it on her 'tab' does little.

The teenager hesitates for a moment, concerned about being unwelcome, then takes a seat in a nearby chair anyway. She'll figure it out quickly if company isn't wanted. "Did you come in from a blizzard or something?"

Parker doesn't mind company in the slightest.

"No. I mean, not so much in the snow department. Just cold. And wind."

You haven't experienced wind until you've been on the prairie where there's nothing to block it.

"The last radio report we got said the county was down to something like two degrees, with a wind chill of minus eight."

"And thanks to the wind, we don't have power."

Rachel stares for a moment.

"Jeez. I'll buy you a few more cups of coffee if you want them. That sucks."

Parker laughs at this succinct summing up of the situation.

"Yes. Yes, it does."

Sucks coldly.

"I ought to see if Bar would rent me some sort of alien atomic space-age space heater, or something. But I'd have a really hard time explaining that to the girls I share a house with."

Normally, Parker, Aurelia, and Janelle are quite happy living in Summer House, which is one of the ranch's newer buildings. The downside, they have come to find, is that it has neither a fireplace nor a woodstove, like some of the other ranch buildings.

"You could probably score a regular human space heater," Rachel points out, smirking. "It'd be a little easier to explain."

Parker waggles her eyebrows and grins evilly.

"'Girls, this is Bruno. He's going to by my hypothermia shield for the duration of the black out.'"

Efficient and eco-friendly.

"He'd have to have two friends, so that I could bring them each back one, too."

Parker sips her (wonderfully hot) coffee.

"Fortunately, the guys in the bunkhouse have a woodstove, so we'll be kicking a few of them out of their beds tonight."

For to not freeze to death.