milliways_bar | (no subject)

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the...stable? There was...not much of anything going on, really. Javert has been sleeping out here for the last couple of weeks, and tonight will be no different. Cheval has been nosing around for his next bottle, so he fetches it from Bar, trying not to yawn too obviously where anyone can see. He also considers another blanket, but it seems indulgent, so does not.

Bar also produces a gift, which he stares at for a moment. This again? But then, he supposes it is the season. He asks the bar to keep them for now, and walks back through the snow to the foal. It may be Christmas night, but it the same as any other to him and he is sure it will stay that way.

Valjean, watching this exchange, follows him out.

[OOC: Merry Christmas, everyone! This post open through New Year. If you want to chuck random animals etc in, go ahead. The more cracktastic the better, say I. If not, no worries - he's taggable at the bar too. Also, I will be tagging up everything I owe as soon as I've wrapped the last few presents over here. <3333 you all!

ETA: I completely forgot to set this up the way I planned. Ah well. Valjean, when I tag him in, is also entirely taggable by anyone. And will probably be in a far more festive mood, lets be honest. Also, feel free to tag each other if you want to be all 'wtf I'm in a stable' to someone else! I'm allgood with that. <3]

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"Look at you, puppy, all tall up there--I bet you can see the whole world."

The whole outside-bar environs, anyway, as she starts outside. A good vantage-point for a small baby, and one who enjoys his current position.

"You could look a horse in the eye," Teja says, not even minding that Egil is gripping his hair.

He does the same thing to Skaði, when he's riding around on her back, only there he's biting her fur. At least he's not chewing on Teja's hair.

"Will you teach him to ride horses, when he's older? If he wants to, I mean."

"Of course I will," Teja says. "We Goths have always treasured our horses, and I am no exception. You have seen the foal that Javert is raising? It came from my people, and was born out of season. One can already see that it shall grow to be a beautiful horse. Also, I have Bramble -- there shall be no lack for horses that Egil can grow up with, and learn to ride."

"Weyland's breeding his horses," she says. "I have no idea how that works exactly--well, I mean, I get the mechanics of horse reproduction, but he built one of them. So there's that too."

And the best horse in the world is in Egil's family. He'll do just fine, learning to ride.

"That sounds mysterious," Teja says. "I knew of the mechanical horse, but to build one such so that it may truly breed? Is not reproduction of living things effected with those tiny scrolls of infinite complexity that tell our bodies what to build?"

Teja does not truly know about genetics, but he does suspect that it does not mix well with clockwork. Or magic.

"You would think," she says. "But he said he used to make animals, so maybe the one he built somehow became a real live horse or... something. Or maybe some other horse got in there. All I know is, there's gonna be a foal."

Loki had nothing to do with this. This is all Weyland.

"Well, which horse will do the bearing: the mechanical one, or the flesh one?" Teja asks.

"The flesh one's the girl," she says. "I saw them once--they're both normal-looking, like, if someone asked me which one he'd built I wouldn't know. Maybe you could tell; I don't really know horses."

"So it is to be hoped that she will know by instinct how to rear her foal, even a half-mechanical one," Teja says.

He smiles a little as he imagines bringing such a creature to Javert and asking him to rear yet another one, but this one happens to drink motor oil...

"She'll probably do fine. And hey, if she needs help, it's better Weyland involve himself in that than in taking care of Egil. He seems to like mechanical things better."

Teja reaches up to touch Egil as he walks, as if to reassure himself yet again the baby is safe and well with him -- even though he had been holding on to Egil's feet the entire time, of course.

"Yes," he says.

"And horses better than people," she says. "Animals in general, same as Skaði."

But not fox-form Egil. He's amused by the boy's presence, but still doesn't know what to do with him.

Teja reaches up to hold Egil secure and opens the back door. "Where shall we cook?" he says.

"Your room, if we can," she says. "I've got the pudding in the fridge in mine, but I can just pop in and get that. And your presents."

The better to stay out of the way of Fina's clients, or whatever she's got going on.

"I will have to go past the bar and ask them to connect a kitchen," Teja says, the ease with which the sentence comes from his lips a sign for the many years he has already spent in Milliways.

"And a door to Egil's room," she says. "And... and I got a shopping list for the ingredients."

She produces a slip of paper from her jacket pocket.

"Not too much stuff."

He orders these things at the bar, gets a bag, and then leads them quickly upstairs.