Breakfast!

[realmrsreynolds]

Come and help yourself!
Scrambled Eggs
Bacon/Turkey Bacon
Watermelon/Cantaloupe
Pancakes
Pork Sausage
Bagels
Oatmeal

Sallie sets out the last serving tray along the bartop next to the dishes and silverware.

What? Sallie had a few hours' time on her hands. Come take advantage.

[ooc: Come have breakfast. Threadhopping encouraged, but Sallie will tag all comers if wanted.]

Comments

[realmrsreynolds]

"Do you like him?"

[missmarybennet]

Mary looks rather perplexed by the question.

"Of course," she says. "He's extremely amiable. And he has a brain in his head, which is more than can be said for many young men."

He also possesses the unusual quality of liking Mary Bennet's company.

"He's American, so he has odd ideas about some things, but overall he's a welcome guest."

[realmrsreynolds]

Oh this she has to figure out now.

"What's wrong with Americans? I'm still learnin' about Earth-that-Was, so you have to explain some things to me at times."

[missmarybennet]

"I wouldn't call it wrong, exactly," Mary says.

"You see, the American colonies used to be a part of England, which is my country. About twenty years ago, they decided that they no longer wished to live under English rule and rebelled. And won."

It had been something of a blow to British pride.

"So, they tend to be very militant about things like liberty and equality and have little to no respect for the class system."

"It's just rather different from the English outlook."

[realmrsreynolds]

"Mmm-hmm."

Sallie doesn't add anything about her own proclivities about how much of a lack of respect she also has for anything called a 'class system'.

Such is the life of a bartender.

"But y'all are still able to play nice, so that's helpful."

[missmarybennet]

"We are now. America and England came to an accord within the last few years. Now we both just hate the French."

Eventually, the French just seem to get on everyone's nerves.

"Mr. Lowell is from what used to be the Massachusetts Colony, which is where the rebellion started. I confess, we did have an argument at one point about the fact that a field full of dead English soldiers was not the subject for a pleasant story."

[realmrsreynolds]

"I would have to agree. Your Mr. Lowell was a soldier, or a bystander?"

[missmarybennet]

"Oh, very much a bystander," Mary says. "I think he was only four or five years old when it began."

He may not even have been in breeches.

"Possibly that contributes to his outlook. He grew up during the Revolution, and doesn't really recall a world before it."

"His man servant, Gibson, was a soldier, though. He says it was all quite bloody."

[realmrsreynolds]

"I don't really think you get to have a bloodless revolution ever, Mary."

[missmarybennet]

"No, I suppose not," Mary agrees.

"I confess, I still don't entirely understand why it was so important to them to become an autonomous country. But it was evidently very important."

"I do understand, in speaking with Mr. Lowell, that the colonists were perhaps not treated well at all times by the English. But rebellion is a rather extreme reaction."

[realmrsreynolds]

"In my where and when, we had somethin' of a revolution as well." And this is where it become so important to choose words, and choose them carefully.

"It's really hard sometimes for the Core to see what life's like for the folk on the Rim, baobei."

[missmarybennet]

Mary slowly stirs her spoon through her oatmeal as she thinks that over.

"That's probably quite true," she concedes. "I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a colony."

"And the people who settled in America had to carve out and build up lives out of a howling wilderness. It's possible that that same sort of character just lends itself to rebellion?"

Especially when you gather so many in one place.

"What was the rebellion in your world over?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"It was the whole galaxy - bunches o' worlds. And the Core...just assumed they knew how to run us about, even with the different requirements on life out in the black."

[missmarybennet]

"That must have been a hard fought war indeed, with whole worlds involved."

War is messy enough when it's just a dispute between countries.

"What did the Core do? Were they truly always in the wrong?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"You'd have to ask someone impartial that question, and there isn't one."

[missmarybennet]

Impartiality is indeed difficult, even on more minor matters.

"But you were on the side of the rebellion?"

[realmrsreynolds]

For the turn that the conversation has taken, Sallie's been mostly neutral in expression. Except for now. It's wearying to remember.

"I just wanted my boy to come home. I wanted the Independents to win, but the first part was more important."

[missmarybennet]

Mary looks troubled.

When people--mostly men--talk of war, this seems to be the part they always forget. The people involved.

"I sincerely hope that he did," she says.

[realmrsreynolds]

"He did."

Eventually. Not in the way Sallie wanted.

But he did.

[missmarybennet]

At this, she smiles.

"I'm very glad to hear so."

"Also, please forgive me," she adds. "I fear I've intruded into topics that are unpleasant for you."

"Not that his coming back was unpleasant." Hastily. "But that he had to go at all."

[realmrsreynolds]

"It's alright, Mary. Promise. As we get to know one another - if I didn't like talkin' about somethin', I just wouldn't."

[missmarybennet]

Mary nods.

"I can be difficult here, knowing what is off limits and what is not."

At home, conversation is bound by stricter rules.

[realmrsreynolds]

"You've got fronts to keep up with at home that don't exist here - if anything I'd think you'd find Milliways to be easier."

[missmarybennet]

"One might think so, but it's not always the case, I find," Mary says.

"I know the rules at home. When you grow up with the rules and know them so well, it's harder to misstep."

Which is not to say that she doesn't sometimes. Knowing the rules does not equal perfection in following them.

"Milliways is not as bound by rules, but that can make the boundaries harder to see. And I have to take care that habits formed here don't carry over too much at home."

[realmrsreynolds]

"Is it so hard to speak freely in your world?"