milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

[OOM: Practice talking to girls]

Trapped. That's what Harry's been these many weeks past, and of his own doing too -- that's not to be denied. The more he must smile and bow and expend his manners, the more he wishes for a horse and a sword and a Scottish border raid. When a door in Philippa de Coucy's house opens into Milliways instead of yet another solar full of nursemaids and noble daughters, to say his relief is palpable is only to concede to the limits of language.

So, though his hair is combed and he's trussed up in his finest visiting suit, it's a pretty good time to meet young Harry Percy. He's making a beeline for the Bar, intent on trying some new food or drink that's beyond the scope of his era. Go on. Ask him how his quest for a wife is going.

11 PM CST Oh no, guys! You're wonderful; I have to go to sleep. Will tag up tomorrow!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Hotspur of the North seems to have a smear of icing across most of his nose and cheeks. Also, the sweet-buttery-warm-gooey glory seems to have shorted him out for the moment. He's pretty much capable of noises and not much else at this point. Oops?

The Scottish luckily haven't found Harry Percy's weakness. Cinnamon might be difficult to procure, anyway.

Rae doesn't mind at all the occasional noise. It shows genuine enthusiasm, and that's never a bad thing. She's grinning as she tears off pieces of her own cinnamon roll and eats them.

"Genuine" and "enthusiasm" are two of Harry's favorite words!

Watch his face as he discovers that the buns are warmer, squishier and generally better in every way as you get toward the middle.

"Oh heaven," he mumbles. (And pauses to scrub some icing off.)

"Remember to breathe once in a while," she remarks with a grin.

He gives her a rueful smile. "Advice that's been given me my entire life."

Rae has to chew and swallow before she can answer. "Do you often forget to breathe?"

"I often forget myself, when I am caught up in a passion." He considers the center of the bun. "And I am often so ensnared, in most any undertaking."

They don't call this dude Hotspur for nothing.

The center is the best part. It's true. Sunshine continues to peel away pieces of her own cinnamon roll, slowly following the spiral.

"What are you passionate about, then?"

Apart from tasty cinnamon rolls, that is.

Honor. Fighting. Honor. War. Honor. Some more honor. Horses and hounds.

"Grieving my family, in large part. And, I hope, what Scots may come intrude. And yourself?"

This pastry that's almost obscene in its perfection aside.

Rae snickers into her cinnamon roll. "Grieving one's family is a time-honored tradition that I can proudly say I've participated in. Well, giving grief to my mother. Charlie's too mild to really give much grief to."

"Scots?"

"My home is Northumberland, and it is 1387. We've little else to do but keep Scotland from troubling England."

Well, and occasionally go into Scotland to trouble the Scots, depending on how bored/motivated everyone is that month.

"Is Charlie your father?" He snorts. "I cannot think what it must be like to live among mild folk."

She has never heard of Northumberland, but she can guess whereabouts it'd be, and she can parse the year easily enough.

"Thirteen eighty-seven," she breathes, eyebrows up in surprise. "Wow. That's... that's a long time before I show up. I'm in late 2003, myself. Charlie's my stepfather - he owns and runs the coffeehouse where I work as Head Baker."

"He's... calming to be around. Very grounded. Doesn't get upset easily. If you want upset easily, you talk to my mom," she says, wryly. "Which is why I don't, very often. If my mother's ire is the lightning, I'm the tallest tree on the plain."

Is he ever going to not get a kick out of people's reactions when they learn the year on his side of the door? Apparently not.

Harry laughs a little. "My father, why -- I know just how I will look when I am old. He is more canny and thoughtful, though. He and my mother are just alike. Whence my hot humors came, I cannot say, but we are all good roarers when we are roused."

"I know where I get mine," she grins, wryly. "Plenty of stubbornness and pride and temper from both sides. I don't remember much of my father, but I do remember the fights between him and mom."

"If I am too like a man, we will cross each other," Harry agrees. "Though, if I am honest, I am as like to cross anyone, man or woman, as I am to look at them. My nature is none so easy."

"You seem to be doing all right, to me," Rae replies, tearing off another bit of cinnamon roll and devouring it with gusto.

Yum.

"I'm one of the lucky few, I suppose."

We few, we happy few? Oh wait.

He shrugs, a glint in his eye. "I am young yet. I may grow out of it."

Sunshine glances at him speculatively, tilting her head.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen in May, though I am a trifle loathe to tell you -- for most folk I meet here, that marks me as a child still."

He is, but he's also really, really not.

He certainly doesn't seem like any teen she's talked to before. Perhaps that explains the surprise on her face.

"You're... only as old as the elder of my two half-brothers. I had thought you at least three or four years older than that."

Not to say that he acts all grown up, but that he doesn't behave in ways the teens she knows do.

To be fair, he's been enjoying that cinnamon roll very vocally. And sloppily.

He's all business now, though, if casually and with a shrug. "My father is Earl of the northern marches. I have been on campaigns since I was 14."

He could show you some great scars if he was that kind of man.

Grizzled vets, cops, and grumpy old men also enjoy cinnamon rolls made by Sunshine very sloppily. Some have been known to lick their plates afterward.

Harry's in good company.

"Wow. Fourteen? I'm still just trying to get Kenny through school without him doing something fatally stupid - and trying to get him to change his mind about becoming a lawyer. My younger brother's thirteen, Billy, and he's... gods, he's still just a little kid."

Rae and Hotspur could compare scars.

"And how old are you?" Harry leans on his elbows. "I cannot fathom how young we are kept in other worlds. Forsooth, I am not the same man I was at thirteen, but at thirteen I was already capable."

"Twenty-six," she says with a slight smirk. "I've been the Head Baker at my step-father's coffeehouse for the past eight years, since I graduated high school."

By the skin of her teeth.

"By God!" He grins and nods at her left hand. "And not yet married off? I should cry thanks for a year to wait so long!"