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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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."

She gives him an expression which, when roughly translated, says 'Now you're getting it, slowpoke.'

"I won't abide marryin' somebody I don't care for. I don't care how rich he is."

There's a lovely mare across the aisle that catches her eye. Dark bay, with a white star, just like her Beaut. But she's much older than her Beaut is, of course. Still, she leans into Katherine's hand when she walks up to stroke her, whuffling pleasantly.

"How come they get all those nice things jus' for swinging a stick about? An' how do you mean the 'Baseball Hall of Fame'? Is that like being invited to court?"

"My folks fight like cats and dogs, but I dunno-- I actually think that's how they get along."

Little does anyone realize, but Ma and Pa Gavin have already laid the blueprint for Tommy's future marriage.

He stops when the mare catches Kate's eye, and he stands about an arm's length from the animal's nose. Not that he's still skittish or anything. Of course not.

"There's skill involved in baseball, y'know, it ain't just swinging a stick around. Have you ever seen a real game? And the Baseball Hall of Fame is-- well, imagine like, the honor roll at school, 'cept more important. There's a big induction ceremony and everything. The Hall of Fame itself is like a museum where you can see all greatest baseball players in history, all their achievements, the uniforms they wore or the baseballs that won big games and stuff like that. I never been there but I read all about it and some day I'm gonna visit."

It should be noted that Tommy talks a lot (and fast) when it's about something he's really interested in.

Kate's noticed that about him, along with how half of the things that come out of his mouth don't make any sense. They could go on for days, him talking and her asking questions about what he said.

"I don't think my mama and daddy ever fought. They found each other durin' the war. I wouldn't mind that so much, meetin' somebody I had affection for. That's why I wanna go to university."

She glances over her shoulder.

"How come you're standing way over there?"

"So you wanna marry a teacher?"

Tommy's pretty sure his parents have some affection for each other. He just never manages to get lasting proof of it.

Self-conscious again, he casually takes a half-step closer.

"I-- what?"

He was so totally not standing way over there.

She blinks once, twice.

"No! I jus' don't wanna marry Harvey Baker from church."

Hasn't he been listening to a word she said?

"Why're you all the way over there for? Don't you wanna pet somma the horses?"

"Oh."

Harvey Baker must be a jerk, then. Maybe there are less jerks at college? He won't press the issue further because matters of the heart are way above his head.

His hands are still in his pockets, and he shrugs, shyly looking up at the huge beast. A full-grown horse is bigger than he expected.

"Uh-- I guess? I just never--"

He bites his lip and hesitantly slips a hand out of a pocket, daring himself to reach for the horse's long, broad muzzle.

"It's all right. She's friendly."

Harvey Baker isn't so bad for a thirty-two-year-old butcher with a decent business, who Katherine's barely spoken two words to herself. He's asked her daddy for her hand in marriage.

(She wants to go to university as a means to say 'no'. She could get married off real quick, but she wants to be independent and choose her own partner. That means having goals that will get her there.)

The mare blinks at the tentative hand, holding perfectly steady. She's an old hat at beginners, just as pleasant as you please.

Kate's talking about the horse as if she already knows her well. Her confidence reassures him, and he takes another step closer, this time venturing to lay his palm on the horse's nose, stroking it carefully. When the placid mare reacts with not much more than a blink of her long lashes and a flick of her ears, a smile eventually lights up Tommy's face. He continues to pet her as long as she'll let him.

"I wonder what her name is."

When he lights up, so does Kate. She giggles softly, stroking the mare's cheek.

"I dunno, but she sure is a beauty. She reminds me of my horse."

Beaut whickers quietly, nosing into Tommy's palm to see if there are any treats. She seems to detect something, but children's hands are good for delicious food residue.

"To answer your question, no, I've never seen a baseball game. However, I–I'd like to."

The horse's breath tickles his palm and he reactively pulls away with a giggle, but brings his hand close again, reaching further up to stroke her other cheek.

He grows a bit quiet at her statement, brow furrowed, thoughtful. It feels as if she'd told him that before-- while in the company of horses, no less. He quickly debates over whether he should tell her about these moments of déjà vu he's been having ever since he toppled her book fort.

"I wish I could take you to see a game. We could probably watch one on TV, but it ain't the same as watching it for real-- and plus the bar pretty much told us to stop watching TV. But we could go look up some books about it in the library later. If you want."

She stifles a laugh.

"I'd like that."

She'd like to go for a ride on one of these fine horses, too. She noticed there's all sorts of tack, and the thought of stealing a horse—just for a little while!—is awful tempting. She looks down the rows of stalls.

And blinks.

"Ah, look!"

She points a few stalls down to a white stallion.

"He's jus' like Silver!"

Given that this is Milliways, chances are that it could very well be Silver himself. Of course, the children don't know this is a possibility, and the horse isn't able to tell them if he is or not.

Tommy gives the mare a 'see you later' kind of pat to her cheek, and heads off down the aisle toward the stallion. He's huge, standing tall and proud, with an intelligent look in his dark eyes as he peers down at the approaching boy and girl, as if wondering what these little creatures are.

Tommy might have been okay with petting that mare, but he's not too sure about this one.

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