milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Ichabod comes in, sits at the Bar, and is promptly presented with a complete Thanksgiving dinner and explanatory note concerning what date it is.

After murmuring a polite and mostly automatic word of thanks, he sits and stares at it.

He... can't think of a lot to be thankful for in his own life, right now.

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"Is your dinner not to your liking?" asks the lady who is sitting at the next table, drinking tea.

"The dinner is perfectly good", he answers with a sort of seated bow in her direction. "The occasion is not to my liking."

"What is the occasion?" the lady asks.

"One referred to as 'Thanksgiving'."

"Some kind of harvest festival?" the lady asks.

"More general. The idea is to be thankful for all good things in your life."

He stares at his plate, stirring the potato idly with his fork.

"I suppose you think you don't have any?" the lady guesses.

"Very few."

"Not even that very nice meal?" the lady asks.

"Enjoyment for a few minutes, satisfaction for a few hours." He studies it, and forks up a mouthful to eat. "It is what it is, and small consolation."

"I'm sorry to hear your life is that bad," the lady says, gently.

"It could be worse, I suppose."

He could be in ill health as well as desperately lonely and out of time.

"What is the best part, though?" she asks.

"...the existence of the one person who might be said to be my ally?" he says after a moment. "Or perhaps not being dead yet."

"That sounds like something to be thankful for," the lady says. "It's much more than nothing."

"But a great deal more is lost to me."

"I am sorry to hear that," the lady says. "What did you lose?"

"You have a great many questions, considering I don't even know your name. And what did I lose... everything I ever knew."

"I'm Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Überwald," she says, "but you can call me Lady Margolotta."

"Lady Margolotta." He bows in her direction again, this time with more respect. "I am Ichabod Crane."

"It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Crane," Lady Margolotta says. "I'd assume you're from the Roundworld?"

"...that isn't what we call it, but it certainly is a round world."

"Mine is not," Lady Margolotta says. "It's considered strange, of not ridiculous, by many of the other patrons here."

"...I admit to not understanding how that could be, but far be it from me to question what is plain reality to you. What is its shape, if not round?"

"It is flat, and rides through space on the backs of four gigantic elephants, which in turn stand on a huge turtle," Lady Margolotta says.