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

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

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]

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"Ow, dammit," he grunts as he's unable to keep from landing on top of her, but once they stop rolling, he shoves himself off and breathlessly flops back on his rear end.

"Sorry. 'M okay, are y- hey, I ain't a big oaf!"

He examines his elbows, red and raw and stained green, and brushes grass and dirt from his skin.

"Mind your tongue."

It lacks the force of earlier. She's on her back staring up at the big blue sky, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She pushes herself up on her elbows and examines her knees.

"I ain't the one who tripped, so it stands t'reason."

"Sorry," he mumbles.

So maybe he is a bit clumsy like a colt that hasn't mastered the use of its gangly limbs yet. A sudden prepubescent growth spurt will do that to ya.

Ignoring his scrapes and bumps, he gets up and walks off a few yards to where Kate dropped the comic book and picks it up. Some pages are bent and there's a small tear in the cover. He bites his lip. He might have to pay for this out of his allowance.

Returning to Kate, he sees that her knees are looking a lot like his elbows. He drops down onto the grass and sits Indian style, the comic book in his lap.

"You alright?"

Her brows knit together when she sees the comic book. Judging by the way she's worrying at her bottom lip, she's thinking something similar to what he is.

"I've taken worse spills before. Jus' a li'l scuffed up is all."

But she winces when she sits up straight, carefully arranging her sullied skirts so she can still see her knees but feel a little more decent. She sniffles softly.

"I think it's only fair t'say I won our race."

"Oh yeah? Well--"

He did trip.

In fact now he can recall the exact moment his feet went out from under him.

"Mmkayfine."

A beat.

"But we'll hafta have a rematch some time. Where there ain't no hills."

"Fine."

Her eyes, though glassy, are all defiance and hellfire. She'll win that challenge, too.

She rubs the corner of her eye, looking at the comic book in his lap.

"Perhaps — we could rest a spell an' read together?"

Sit with a girl? To read a comic book?

Now that's a thing he's never done before. But maybe it doesn't count because she's not from his time. Maybe cooties don't exist.

(They do.)

"Um-- sure."

He gives her the comic book and scoots over to her, and they sit side-by-side, facing the lake.

She'd never admit to how relieved she is. Her ankle is throbbing and her knees are sore and itchy, she bumped her elbow and it's doing that funny thing, and she needs to catch her breath.

But she would get up and run in an instant if he asked her to. A Barlow never stays down.

However, he isn't asking her to. So she smiles as she opens the comic to the first page, keeping a little distance between them while holding it to his side. She'll periodically remark on something she likes, or listen to him enthuse about something, chattering and giggling over the story.

It's a much needed respite.

And he would never admit that his elbows are beginning to really smart and he's probably going to find a knot on his knee in the morning. But it doesn't matter, because a Gavin can take his bumps and bruises.

As they grow more comfortable in each other's company, finding the same things funny or interesting or exciting, Tommy leans in closer as his enthusiasm grows, their shoulders brushing lightly against one another. Sometimes he answers her questions about the advertisements for model cars and airplanes, or the mail orders for creatures called sea monkeys. It's kind of fun explaining stuff. She makes him think and see everyday things-- everyday for him, at least-- in different ways.

Plus, she keeps him focused. For once he doesn't feel as if a million things need his attention. He isn't bored or anxious to get to the next topic, and is perfectly content to sit there.

(With a girl. His cousins and pals at school would never let this go if they ever found out.)

(Whatever, he doesn't care. She's a cowgirl.)

"I wonder if there's a horse like Silver in the stables."

Edited 2013-10-22 05:08 (UTC)

Katherine doesn't know much — she's only twelve, after all — but she knows one thing for absolute certain.

She desperately needs pet sea monkeys.

"I bet there is!"

There's rarely a moment she isn't acutely aware of how close she is to a boy, but it isn't always uncomfortable. He's an honest to goodness New York City boy, and he knows so many interesting things about the future. So what if his arm occasionally brushes hers, or their knees sometimes touch?

"They got all sorts of horses in the stables here, I already checked. C'mon, I'll show you."

His eyes widen a little. During that visit to the petting zoo, he'd been wary of the ponies despite his excitement of seeing real live ones for the first time, even though they were tethered and docile to the point of drowsiness. His little sister rode one (well, sat on one while a staff member led it around in a circle with a rope), but he insisted that he'd rather just watch.

He didn't expect he'd ever get close to anything resembling horses again after that.

Shaking off the residual skittishness (it was a long time ago when he was little, okay?), he grins and nods.

"'Kay!"

He gets to his feet, rubbing his knee when it reminds him that he'd bumped it, and offers Kate a hand to help her up.

She's so excited she doesn't even think about taking his hand again, or the burn of raw skin when she flexes her joints.

She just hopes she can get the stains out of her dress.

"This way!"

She skips off, setting a quick pace back up the embankment toward the stables. It's a huge building, but she already feels like she knows it like the back of her hand.

Tommy doesn't skip.

He lopes.

And somehow he feels as if he's been along this path before. That sense of déjà vu again, that all of this should be familiar to him already, which is odd, because he's totally a city boy.

In any case, it's not often that he just gets to run through an open, nearly endless field.

Kate, though, looks as if she belongs out here.

She's fearless with the stock, too. Even the unusual ones. She strolls right on up to random stalls as they walk, rubbing the nose of any curious beast that pokes its head out.

"Isn't this marvelous? My daddy has a wonderful barn, don't mistake me, but this is jus' — somethin' else!"

She turns a circle, looking from beam to bow, and continues down the aisle.

Tommy is less adventurous when it comes to petting the animals, preferring to keep his hands jammed down his jeans pockets as he walks a couple of steps behind Kate. He likes animals just fine, but the most experience he has with them are with the family dogs.

"It's huge," he marvels, following her gaze as she takes it all in.

"So, is your dad a cowboy?"

"Oh, no. He don't work with cattle."

It'll be some time before 'cowboy' takes on its more fanciful definition, and a few years yet before Kate's used to hearing it that way.

"He breeds horses, breaks 'em, too. He's got a fine eye for it. An' we've got pigs and goats to sell, some chickens, and a few crops. He grew up in Georgia, after spendin' his boyhood in New York, like you. But he was born in England."

"Oh," he muses thoughtfully. Recalling some characters from those old Westerns, Kate's father sounds more like a rancher type, although in Tommy's mind, anybody who rides a horse is a cowboy. (Being from Texas is optional, but ideal.)

"Huh. That's cool. Are you gonna be a-- well, are you gonna do what your dad does when you grow up?"

She stops and blinks at him.

Nobody ever asks her that. She's a lady, after all. The most folk wonder is whether she'll marry well, and how she'll handle a household. So Tommy gets a broad smile for his trouble.

"Perhaps! Oh, I do want to live on a ranch with horses and dogs and all sorts of animals. I want to have adventures, too. Like Billy the Kid and the Regulators, or the James-Younger boys."

She plays with her skirts, letting her eyes drift over the horses in search of one who looks like Silver.

"I'll likely be a schoolteacher, though. I wanna go to university, an' do it proper."

Tommy doesn't think much of his question -- every kid wants to be something when they grow up, don't they? His dad told him he could be anything he wanted if he worked hard enough. (Except the President of the United States. He laughed in his face when he asked if he could be the President.)

"Adventures?" He grins at that.

"I'd rather go on adventures than be a teacher. What d'you wanna be a teacher for? You like school so much you wanna work in one?"

"I like learnin' new things."

Once more she throws her shoulders back, all pride and stern expression.

"I'd rather teach than be somebody's missus, stuck at home all day mendin' clothes and cleaning up other people's messes. If I go off to university an' learn somethin', I can have my own school and my own home, an' choose my own husband."

It's not as exciting as going on adventures, but it's more practical. Her daddy says she can be anything she dreams, but he don't like her reading nickel books.

Some kids like actively learning new things, others take lessons as they come. Tommy is the latter.

Hands still in his pockets, he shrugs, not expecting her to give such a proud answer, but she sounds like she already has a pretty solid idea of what she wants.

To be honest, it makes him a little self-conscious. He is only ten, so being able to choose a wife is the furthest thing from his mind right now.

"I dunno what I wanna be yet."

"Well, lucky for you you've got some choice in the matter."

It's glib, but she's a very old twelve year old. You grow up fast on the frontier.

"What sorts of things d'you like?"

He gives her a questioning look.

"Don't everybody got a choice?"

He's heard of something called 'women's lib' from one of his older cousins. Tommy's dad would usually tell her to put a bra on and stop spouting her radical hippie ideas in his house.

Shrugging again, he plods on, eyeing every horse that sticks its head out of its stall to sniff at them.

"I like playin' baseball. I'm on the Little League team and my coach says I'm good. I think it'd be really cool if I could go pro, y'know, play for the New York Yankees some day."

"Not like boys do. Y'can do anything you like, go to any school you like, be a big fancy businessman or own your own land — anythin'. Not girls. We gotta marry t'do all those things."

And even then, sometimes they're still not allowed.

"You mean you want to play baseball for a living?"

Now, that's just odd.

That kinda sounds like what his cousin's been 'spouting.'

He scrunches his face up a bit. "Well, that ain't fair if you gotta get married to do what you want. What if you don't wanna get married? Then you're stuck. Unless you get married to a jerk or something. But then you're stuck married to a jerk. ...I think you should just go ahead and go on adventures."

Tommy Gavin, latent feminist.

"Baseball is a profession in the future," he confirms. "Sometimes baseball players become really famous, too. They get lots of money and fancy cars and get on TV and fans go crazy for 'em and collect their baseball cards with their pictures on 'em. And if they're really, really great, they go in the Baseball Hall of Fame."

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