EP: Kate Barlow | Main Bar, Library (age spell plot)

[ikissdhimbck]

It had been a quiet day for Kate when the loud BWA-BOOOOOOOM shook the bar. She'd just settled down after her nightly chores in the stables, easing the tension out of her back in an armchair by the fire, sipping on a hot tea with bourbon in.

(It's getting close to All Hallows' Eve, and that's making her anxious.)

However, she didn't have all that long to think about the approaching holiday before she was seeing the room from an even lower vantage point, face scrunched in distaste at the liquor on her tongue. She blinked at the teacup and quickly set it down, jumped to her feet, and looked around the strange room.

" ... Daddy?"

Kate Barlow, aged twelve, was off in search of her father.

What she found instead were the libraries.


Now, far calmer, a young Kate sits amid a pile of books, occasionally sweeping cautious glances around the room. She's finding the words of Jules Verne to be a comfort at present. Clearly she slipped and bumped her head during chores, or stumbled onto a glorious vessel somewhere in deep space. She isn't quite sure what to make of it right now, but anywhere with an endless supply of science fiction can't be all that bad.


[ooc: open forever! you may find Kate in the library or the main bar. if your character wants to be in on a heist, they can take this opportunity to meet Kate. the actual heist will happen in a later post, so it's not required you tag this one (I'll update all interested parties once it's all in place). if you'd like me to send Kate round to one of your posts, just let me know!

tiny!tag: age spell plot]

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

There's an older boy of seventeen or so in the library, taking books of shelves and looking at them and putting them back.

[ikissdhimbck]

"What good will they do if y'don't open them up?"

A pair of judgmental blue eyes peer at him over the cover of From the Earth to the Moon. Kate's in a simple white dress with blue embroidery, hair braided over her shoulder.

[cook_the_rude]

"I look at the blurb," the boy says. "But they sound very odd."

[ikissdhimbck]

"You can't expect t'learn anything from a blurb."

Honestly.

"Their oddness is half'a the fun. There's books about spacemen, an' travel, an' adventure, an' talking animals, and more nickel books than I've ever seen."

[cook_the_rude]

"Books about naughty things, and about fighting," he says. "And about science and anatomy and dragons. They think dragons are real. That's really odd."

[ikissdhimbck]

"They might be, over in China."

She speaks with all authority on this matter. The boy is getting a very stern once-over.

"Since my daddy ain't here I can read what I please, an' I'd ask you not to tell. There's nothing more rotten than a tattletale."

[cook_the_rude]

"I don't know your father," the boy says, taken aback. "I couldn't tell him if I wanted to."

[ikissdhimbck]

"Good."

She casts another icy look at him before tipping her head to one shoulder, narrowing her eyes.

"What do you read, then?"

[cook_the_rude]

"The set books for school," he says. "The books in my uncle's library. Especially the old and weird ones."

[ikissdhimbck]

"You like weird ones but not odd ones?"

She arches an eyebrow.

[cook_the_rude]

"I like them," he says. "But I don't want to read them right away. I'm looking for the best one to read. The perfect book."

[ikissdhimbck]

She considers this very seriously for a moment.

"Then you should read this one."

She digs through her pile of books, and pulls out Jesse James: The Outlaw.

"You must know who Jesse James is."

[cook_the_rude]

"An outlaw," he says. "In the Old West, I guess."

[ikissdhimbck]

"You could guess that just from the cover."

Tiny Kate judges you, Mr. Hannibal.

"He's the greatest outlaw there ever was! I intend t'have adventures like his someday."

[cook_the_rude]

"I did guess that from the cover," he says. "I don't like Westerns. And you can't have adventures like that any more. The Wild West is gone. Apparently, it's all terribly boring and lawful now."

[ikissdhimbck]

Her shoulders straighten and her chest puffs out.

"I beg your pardon, it is not! You can too have adventures!"

Her brow beetles. She doesn't like this strange boy. He's obviously not from Texas.

"Where are you from?"

[cook_the_rude]

"From Lithuania," he says, "but I live in France now. I was in Paris with my uncle and -- we were in Paris, and then I was here."

[ikissdhimbck]

He might take note of the awe she struggles to keep out of her eyes. She's never heard of Lithuania, but he must be well off to travel from place to place like that.

She keeps her expression stern.

"Then they must be awfully boring places, where you can't have any fun! Someday I'll travel to Tombstone, an' Deadwood, an' Dodge City. An' they'll all still be there, and as rotten as they ever were!"

She lifts her chin proudly.

[cook_the_rude]

"That's the Wild West," he says. "I think the places aren't there any more, or if they are, they got all boring. No outlaws and sheriffs and posses and Indians any more."

Beat.

"Paris isn't boring, and I have a lot of fun. We were going to the opera when I came here!"

So, there.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Well, where I'm from they is too there, an' we have all those things, an' I am much less borin' than you!"

Her daddy would have himself a fit if he heard the way she was talking right now.

Hell hath no fury like a young Katherine Barlow.

[cook_the_rude]

"Well, it would not be fair to compete," he says. "You're much younger than I am, and apparently from some barbarous place."

[ikissdhimbck]

"How dare you!"

She bristles. Did he just call her a barbarian?

"I'm a whole twelve years of age, an' I live outside one of the finest towns in East Texas! That's in the New World."

[cook_the_rude]

"So I gathered," he says. "And a contrary little thing you are. Well, Texas, what would you expect."

[ikissdhimbck]

"I'd have less call to be contrary if y'weren't so rude. You'd think, traveling an' seein' operas an' all, you might have some manners. Y'can polish a pig up till he shines, but he'll still be swine."

So there.

[cook_the_rude]

"You don't have to be anything, little one," he says. "Except learn more. Then you won't have to be an outlaw but can instead be, I don't know, a travelling librarian? With donkeys? Did they have that where you're from?"