milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Dakin has been reading through his vacation, with a vague feeling that he had to catch up to his peers by the time he got to Oxford. Milliways has helped with that--the extra time has made his long reading list much easier to deal with.

Right now, though, he's bored with books, and is just smoking and people-watching.

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One of the people he might be watching -- or at least seeing while watching others -- is a tall blond Scotsman leaning on a pillar, eating dates with strong white teeth, and seemingly ignoring everybody.

He might be. He might even be feeling friendly enough to say, "Hullo, Mr. Urquart."

Which he does.

Urquhart turns his head, and spits the date pit straight into the fire.

Then, he turns his head the other way and smiles at Dakin.

"Hullo, Mr. Dakin."

"Beautiful weather we're having."

"Oh, are you?" Urquhart asks, grinning.

"Where I come from it's a polite way of starting conversation if you don't know what else to say.

"It's actually raining at home, but it often does."

"Where I come from," Urquhart says, "or rather, where I was at my best, the most obvious way of starting a conversation was books."

"Read any good books lately?"

"Oh yes," Urquhart says. "There's one with politics, murders, and dragons I quite like."

"Sounds intriguing. What's it called?"

"Game of Thrones," Urquhart says.

"Never heard of it," Dakin says, "but that's not surprising. It might not even have been published in my world."

"Or not yet," Urquhart says. "Very intriguing in an utterly cynical way."

"Sorry?"

"That's what the book is like," Urquhart says.

"Oh," Dakin says. "Cynical but with dragons. Must not be a fairy tale."

"Exactly," Urquhart grins.

"So how do the dragons fit in, exactly?"

"I don't know yet," Urquhart says. "So far, they just turned up as old skulls, ancient eggs, and tiny hatchlings. I have to read the next book to find out, I guess."

"It sounds intriguing," says Dakin thoughtfully. "I'm more interested in nonfiction than fiction but a good novel or two never hurts."

"No, and that one's quite worth reading, if alone for the inventive bloodshed," Urquhart says.

Dakin laughs. "Inventive bloodshed? A war novel, is it?"

"The war didn't even start properly at the end of that book, but I guess it will be, guessing from the titles of the sequels," Urquhart says. "But the bloodshed was already very inventive. I especially liked the barbarian chieftain pouring molten gold over the head of an obnoxious little squealer who whined for his promised reward."

Dakin winces. "That's very inventive," he admits, still grimacing.

"I guess that's barbarian chieftains are like, even in worlds without dragons," Urquhart muses.

"Hm. That's why they call them 'barbarians.'"

"No," Urquhart says. "That's because the ancient Greeks thought, in their very Greek-centric worldview, that every language that was not Greek sounded like 'bar bar bar bar', so everybody not Greek was called a 'barbaros'."

"Yes," Dakin says slowly, "but the term is applied to people who do barbaric things."

"Barbaric meaning exactly what, by definition?" Urquhart smirks.

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