milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Katya has not been allowed to go shopping, properly, in a long time. Sure she can get what she needs from Bar, but... shopping. It is different. So, in consequence, she hasn't been able to change her look in a while.

It's irksome to a young Other.

That'd be why there's a gal in jeans and as much silver bling as one person can possibly get away with lounging on the couch, examining a lock of hair between her fingers as it changes color. Maybe ginger?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Katya has the eerie feeling that she's just found the elven version of Gesar.

She decides, right then, to not tell Olya. No one needs a paranoid Grand Sorceress.

"Ah - we had those, when I was a little girl. But after the revolution, it is not so popular."

"The revolution?" he asks, curious. "Like an uprising or a revolt?"

He has clear associations when it comes to both of those terms, though whether they match hers are a different matter.

"Da, a revolt. The czars pushed too far, too heavily, and the people created a new government, based on equality." It should have worked. It should have been a grand coup for the Light.

Katya still gets a little sulky about it. Humans just don't know how to appreciate a good thing.

"So the czars were the nobles? Were the people not free to choose whether to follow them or not?"

He cannot really get a hold of what she is saying, the concepts move like slippery, silver fish. Close to what he knows and yet removed and distant.

"Of course, they have that choice. You may also be choosing not to live, when you make it, but there is that choice." Some people made it. Most, however, didn't.

"Ah yes," he says. "Choices might not truly be choices. Where I am from -" He pauses. "Those who followed my king, Gil-Galad, did so out of loyalty and respect. I do not think that any one would have been prevented from leaving his city or his land. But there have been times when rifts have been created between one line and another. Of course, when we speak of rebellions, we tend to think of the betrayal of Melkor, he whom we call Morgoth."

You can clearly hear the disgust in his voice. The Enemy, The Liar, The Deciever. The Dark One.

She makes a warding gesture, ignoring the wash of cold that accompanies it, a movement that's entirely reflex at this point. In her world, words and tone have enormous amounts of power - even the most bitter enemies tend to be very careful with what they say about each other. The Twilight's chill sneaks into her bones when she pulls on its power, but it's a familiar bite.

"Not a close friend, I take it."

"It was he, who killed the Two Trees that lit the world, before the sun and moon. He brought betrayal into my world. And his lieutenant, Sauron, has kept up his work, after he himself was cast out."

He can feel a shift in her and around her. A chill.

And she can taste his hatred, the feel of it through the Twilight raising gooseflesh. The Others are defined and powered through the emotions of humans... or here, through the inhabitants.

You won't find too many Light Others enjoying an angry mob.

"It is so odd, to me, stories of worlds where the gods are real."

"Others have used that word, but that is not what we call them. For all his power, Melkor was one of the Valar, servants of Ilúvatar, whom we call The One. With Him all things began, but he is distant and does not interfere. The fifteen Valar served and serves him and they have in turn in their service the Maia and various other beings. The Valar and the Maia, one might converse with, should one meet them, but I have gotten the impression that this might not hold true for what others call gods."

"I would not know - as far as I've ever seen, my world does not have any gods, or beings as you describe. There are only the Others, but we are what humans have made us." She shrugs - hers is not truly a philosophical soul, after all. She's never really been given towards trying to figure out a deeper meaning for her existance. She is, and that is enough.

And for a while, Freddy Mercury was as well, and that was even better.

>.>

He nods. "And it makes sense that there would be many differences. After all, I have been told that the sun is a ball of fiery gas elsewhere and the stars are alike it, just farther away, and if the differences can be so great when it comes to such a thing, how great can they not be in regards to other aspects of our existence?"

"The scientists do say many things." The scientific revolution was nearly the end of the Others altogether, so she considers scientists as a whole to be a bit bothersome... though antibiotics? Those are cool. Little pills that make you better - what could be more awesome than that?

"I wouldn't say they have everything figured out."

"I doubt anyone ever will," he says, philosophically. "There will always be mysteries beyond our understanding."

And that is a good thing.

She snickers - at least one of those mysteries is her boss, and thus she knows that particular fact entirely too well.

"And sometimes they call you up at five in the morning." No one ever gave Gesar their phone number.

No one ever had to.

No phone would ever be so stupid as to not call the right number, when asked.

Strange turn of phrase, that. "Calls up?" he asks. Curious.

"It is..." She scrunches her nose, trying to think of a suitable explanation. "It is like suddenly showing up to talk, da? But imagine instead of having to be there in the room, there are devices which can carry the sound of that person's voice from where-ever they are to where-ever you are."

...

We said Katya isn't a scientist, right?

"So, like beacons in a way, but casting voices and not just a single message?" War. Danger.

"That sounds very useful. Especially, perhaps for smaller communities of Men. they quickly get very isolated."

Elves, of course, have ways of getting messages across.

"It can be very useful... it can also be very annoying." She and Bear have a long-standing history of 'losing' their cell phones. At first, they'd 'forget' to pick them up when leaving the subway. They'd 'accidentally' drop them off rooftops in the middle of fights.

Then things escalated.

Somehow they'd end up under the wheels of Gesar's car. They sank to the bottom the river. They'd somehow make it into the pile of objects new Others could use when practicing destructive spells.

The technology team began to grumble every time they showed up for a new cell phone. So they obliged, and made sure the stories of the previous equipment's demise became more and more outrageous each time they were sent down.

"It can be very hard to get away." Of course, sometimes your boss just gave up on calling you and hauled you into his office in your dreams, and that wasn't very pleasant either.

"No hiding in the forests?" His eyes crinkle in a smile.

"It's a good thing one might go here to hide then."

As he is doing. Playijng truant because it is easier than to really face the reality that his time in Middle-earth in drawing to an end.

Her smile doesn't dim, but yes, that hurt. Unintentionally, she knows, but...

Oh, but she misses Moscow.

"If word got out, most of the Nightwatch would be here, and then there would be no vodka."

She still smiles, but there is something ...

He cants his head a little. "Yekaterina?"

"Da?" She blinks back at him, innocently.

"Is something wrong?" His voice is gentle, with a hint of concern - and he clearly expects an honest answer.

It may very well be his paternal voice.

He may well expect an honest answer, but there are only three people who will reliably get one... and only one of those people visit Milliways. Her grin turns a little wry, and a little twisted, when she answers.
"Vampires walk the corridors without guard and mermaids stalk the unwary and you ask if something is wrong?"