milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

The door opens and Ellen slips in from the Capital Wasteland, a battered leather duster thrown over her old Vault suit. She's got a rolled-up sheaf of blueprint paper in hand. "Hey, Bar?" she says. "I could really use a beer, we had trouble with raiders coming after the water caravan today... oh, and if Dean Winchester's here somewhere, could you let him know I'm looking for him? Thanks."

There's a bark- the door didn't close immediately behind her.

"Oh, and some water and food for Dogmeat, please? Thanks."

She's looking for Dean specifically, but this is Ellen; she'd be just as happy to meet up with anybody else tonight. She made it to the end of a very long day, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I've been havin' other soups at home. Ma's really good at makin' a cut of beef last."

"Oh, that makes sense," Ellen says. "In that case I hope you get back on solid food soon. Soup can't go on forever."

"I have been eatin' some, it's just when Ma worries, she makes us drink lots of beef broth."

"Dad used to swear by tea," Ellen says, "although the tea he used was made from powder stored before the War, so it's probably different from whatever you get here. Broth in the Vault was either made from powdered flavor base, or from mushrooms, since we could grow those. Or vegetable broth, sometimes we made that up too."

"I keep tryin' lots of teas here but it's hard to tell the difference with all of them. Usually all I taste is the honey in them."

"I can't really tell most of them apart either," Ellen admits. "It's all just a lot of boiled leaves as far as I can tell."

"I know what I'm doin' with coffee but even with that folks know how to do things to it."

"I've had coffee here a couple of times," Ellen says. "It's not bad. Did you know there's a kind of alcohol that tastes like coffee? Or it's made from coffee, I'm not sure which. Strangest thing."

"The coffee here tastes different from what I usually have, sometimes it's nice. That sounds like it could be nice, but folks'll make alcohol from anything."

"That's true. In Megaton they've been distilling vodka from all kinds of scraps. It's kind of nasty, but vodka's always kind of nasty."

"Yeah, if it goes in a still, someone'll drink it. One time after school one of the boys had some shine his father'd brewed. It was strong and horrible."

"I can imagine," Ellen says. "Stuff like that usually is."

"I'm used to drinkin' whiskey and sometimes that can be pretty smooth."

"I meant the homemade stuff," Ellen says. "Some of the whiskey from before the War's really good. I bring it here to sell people sometimes- they get all excited about two hundred year old whiskey even though it's been aging in glass bottles instead of the original barrels."

"Yeah, I know but sometimes even stuff you buy can be near as bad. Two hundred years for you so I think that's still before me.""

"No, it's after you," Ellen says. "It's 2278 at home. The Great War was in 2077. You won't have seen our whiskey yet."

"And that's two hundred years or so after me, hell of a lot of time."

Ellen nods. "There's three world wars, a whole bunch of extra states, men landing on the Moon, and all kinds of other things between your time and mine," she says, "even if we were from the same world, which I'm not sure we are."

"Yeah, it gets confusin' with all the various futures and what changes and what hasn't."

"I've found a few things I can ask about," Ellen says. "To see who's from my history and who's not. But those don't always work."

"I haven't thought too much about that. Usually it's a matter of folks not tellin' me about things."

"Well," says Ellen, "I can tell you this. When I was going through the ruins of the Museum of History, I once found a recording of President Lincoln's voice. It was a little wax cylinder that you played on an Edison phonograph. I've told some people here about it, and they've told me that in their worlds nobody ever got a recording of President Lincoln's voice. So I know there's places where that's different. If nobody ever recorded the President's voice like that, then your world isn't the one that ends up becoming mine."

"I'll remember that though I don't know if that's true in mine or not."

Ellen nods. "I don't have a whole lot else from your time that I know is different," she says apologetically. "The next big thing isn't until 1945 or so, I don't think. Or possibly 1969."

"I'll see if I can find out if it's there in mine."