milliways_bar | (no subject)

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OOM: This is something she really can't handle before coffee.

"--is no way there is a bar in the backyard, Emma. Are you sure you haven't been spending too much time with Hen--"

The voice had drifted closer and closer until a young woman, with short black hair, appeared in the doorway, looking from over her shoulder to the wide expanse of the room in front of her.

"Emma," Mary Margaret hissed. A completely failed stage whisper. "There's a bar in my backyard."

[Two pups, two muns. One semi-new, one brand new.
Tiny Tags: Emma Swan, Mary Margaret Blanchard]

Sadly, we must call slows for sleep after this last round of tags. We might be back for an hour tomorrow night, but definitely on Wednesday night to pick right up where we left off. Thank you, one and all, for your very Once Upon A Warm Welcome. This night has been full of magic and delight.

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Mia wouldn't quite call herself that. But only because she's not too antsy for the baby to be here yet.

"Adventure is a good way to put it. It gets even more adventurous when you start making friends from other places and going to visit."

She pours a cup of tea for Mary Margaret.

"I remember what it was like when I took my first leisurely visit to Earth. It was so strange at times, especially when night fell and the sky was so different than it is at home. But it was still so beautiful."

Mia might be a little wistful now, one of her arms folding over the top of her bulging abdomen.

She'd barely begun to wrap her thoughts about the whole adventure concept. Somewhere not in her grey, endless, days, dotted with the brilliance of her students. She'd never ventured outside of Storybrooke.

"Wait. You went to Earth?" Mary Margaret leaned only her elbows on the very edge of the table. "So, you're one of the people not from it?"

You could go places that weren't your own?

Emma's pretty interested, too; she's pushed her chair onto its back two legs, but her attention's on Mia.

"I thought this door just led back to where everyone started from."

Edited 2012-03-20 03:13 (UTC)

"No, I'm not from Earth, or the Blue Star as we call it at home," Mia answers Mary Margaret. "But I'm not far from it. My world is Lunar, which, if the legends and what I know from here are right, is the Blue Star's Moon made habitable."

She then addresses Emma while sitting herself down again.

"It depends on who opens it, I think. If I open the door, it will open to the hallway outside of my apartment. At that point, anyone who comes through the door with me will end up there."

A beat.

"Oh goodness. A number of couples here would be in trouble if we couldn't go from one world to another. My husband and I would literally be star-crossed lovers."

There is no reason that last set of words should make her think of John Doe. David. David Nolan. David Nolan who has a very affectionate, overjoyed, frequently red-eyed, wife. There isn't. So she's not. Okay?

"That's certainly a vacation, isn't it?"

Other worlds. Even if her voice is rather softer.

Emma doesn't glance at her, either, and there's nothing like a mixture of amusement and sympathy in her face, either, so it works out for everyone, really.

"People from different universes hooking up? Seems complicated."

Emma likes to keep it simple. No drama, no commitments, and definitely no cross-universe dating.

It's easier that way.

Mia nods before picking up her sandwich again.

"It's one of those things that just happens sometimes here. I know I wasn't looking for it."

Especially since it was her sort-of boyfriend who got her into Milliways in the first place.

She takes a moment to have some of her sandwich. Pregnant ladies get hungry, doncha know?

"Would either of you like anything to eat?" she asks, feeling self-conscious about her meal. "I was thinking of getting another gunfoot steak sandwich."

Which would explain why they might not have been able to identify the meat in Mia's sandwich.

She takes a moment to reassure them with, "There's Earth food here, too. I won't be offended if you're not interested in gunfoot steak."

"What is it?" Mary Margaret asked, leaning over the table some, not quite abashed enough not to let her curiosity rather than a safe answer lead her.

"Gunfoot?" says Emma. She leans, too.

"They've got normal food here, right?"

She takes the half of her sandwich that she hasn't eaten yet and opens it up for them to see better. The contents inside do look like steak, if a bit darker. It smells a bit like traditional bovine steak but earthier and with a definite hint of mushroom.

Mia rolls her eyes just a little at Emma's question.

"Gunfoot steak is normal food. At home, anyway. But yes, there are foods here that you won't find alien.

"Gunfoots are creatures found in the caves below Vane, the city I live in. They're often harvested with the local truffles, making them more of a delicacy than the name would imply. If you like flank steak and mushrooms, you'll probably like it."

Mary Margaret noted that down with some relish. Things that sounded entirely foreign might be relatively close to being the same things that she'd be used to with other names. That wasn't so bad.

Maybe a little embolden by that whole idea, she said. "I'll try it?"

Emma looks a little abashed, but she grins at Mary Margaret's agreement.

"Sure," she says, "what the hell? I like steak and mushrooms. Hey, so, you guys are both teachers. That's kinda .... neat, right?"

She gives Mia a curious look.

"How'd that work go for you last time?"

"Oh? You teach as well, Mary Margaret?" Mia asks, her face lighting up with enthusiasm.

She waves over a waitrat and places an order for three gunfoot steak sandwiches, as well as a fresh pot of tea and anything else Mary Margaret and Emma might want.

"It went well. My students' research projects were interesting and well fleshed out on the whole. They had to pick prominent historical figures and how their use of magic contributed to modern spellwork. There was a good variety, even considering those few brown-nosers who researched members of my family."

"I do. I teach elementary, back home. My classes are usually the ten-year-olds." Unless people need coverage or help, and then she's quite willing to step in anywhere with a well made plan for the day.

Mary Margaret's smile widened, and deepened some listening to Mia talk about her students. This part at least sounded very much at home to her.

Emma laughs.

"Anything for a good grade, right?"

But she doesn't really know much about teaching or what goes into it; she'd bounced from school to school and it's not like she'd stayed long enough to befriend any teachers. Which was fine, just...it's not exactly up her alley.

It's great for Mary Margaret, though, and Emma can't help smiling at the bright interest on her face.

"You'd think they would know by now that it doesn't work. With me, anyway. My friend Nash lets them get away with that.

"I'm thinking about moving to work with the younger students next year. Or rather, when I resume teaching after I have this baby."

And then a thought comes to Mia. One she's never really had before.

"Mary Margaret, if you don't mind my asking, how did you decide upon teaching as your career?"

She smiles, easy and fast, and somewhere at the furthest edge of the edge a touch blankly, even in there with that peerless warmth that flood her entire face. That causes her shoulders to widen, and posture to ease more gracefully. "I love the children. Getting to watch them grow and learn. To see their imaginations burst into light, watch them take their dreams and hopes and turn them into realities."

This will never not be true. This is, also, not exactly the answer to the question.

There's no doubt that Mary Margaret loves what she does, and there's even less that she's good at it: Emma can't imagine being surrounded by ten year olds all day.

(Henry's different, it's not the same thing.)

She's never really had that kind of pride in anything she's done, but listening to Mary Margaret is kind of like sitting in a pool of reflected sunlight, like she can feel that way, too.

It makes Mia feel a bit warmer, too. And a bit ashamed that, if asked the same question, Mary Margaret's answer wouldn't be Mia's answer.

As it is, it's about here that the waitrat returns with the sandwiches, the ice cream soda, and anything else for the table. And a jar of pickled cactus (needles not included).

"Well, time to see how Vanetian cuisine suits you," she says, passing the sandwiches to her two companions. "And Salyan pickled cactus, if you're interested. I think they know me, or at least my pregnancy cravings, a little too well here."

"I like trying new things," Mary Margaret offered, looking over the sandwich and toward the small jar. "But I've never heard of anyone eating a cactus. At least not the ones where we're from."

You don't need to ask Emma twice; she takes her sandwich and digs in, makes a pleased face, chews, swallows.

"Definitely not bad."

The jar gets eyed a little warily. "I guess pretty much anything pickled just tastes ... pickled."

"Pretty much," Mia agrees. "Cacti make for a sweeter pickle. It's a popular import at the neighboring harbor city."

She opens the jar and takes a spear for herself, taking a bite before returning to her sandwich.

"You know," she says, thinking. "I traveled much of Lunar as a teenager, pretty much all over the world. And yet I've never been to the Salyan Desert."

Perhaps that will be something to remedy when the children are older...

Mary Margaret reached out and took a cacti for herself. Starting with the smaller of the two things. She didn't seem to mind it. Sweet. It wasn't hot chocolate with cinnamon, but then nothing but hot chocolate with cinnamon was. But it definitely wasn't bad and she nodded, smiling as she continued eating it.

Edited 2012-03-24 00:06 (UTC)

"I've been to the desert. Probably nothing like yours, but yeah. It was big and blank."

It also had an empty, wanting wideness to it that had made her feel tiny and victorious all at the same time.

She pops a pickled cacti into her mouth, nods.

"So why were you all over the place?"

"I've been to an Earth desert before. I imagine the Salyan Desert is quite the same, though with slight differences in what scant flora and fauna it has."

Mia briefly wonders if Emma got to see a sandshark...

"Well, when I said I was a teacher, that was both true and not the entire truth of the matter. My actual title is Guildmaster of Vane. It is not unlike being a monarch; my family founded Vane and has been in charge of the city-state and its Magic Guild for over a millennium. When I was sixteen, our premier betrayed the city and began a war. Mother, naturally, was one of the first targets and quickly incapacitated by her former comrade. So I fought in her place and have served Vane as Guildmaster ever since."

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the_fairest - 2012-03-24 15:58 (UTC) - Expand

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