milliways_bar | (no subject)

Current Mood: contemplative

Entry tags:

teja,
yrael

(no subject)

The day has hardly begun and already there is tension in the air. Gnawing anxiety and unheeded compassion, stifling isolation and breaking panic. Missed opportunities and lingering regret.

The Bright Shiner's pale fingers move deftly upon the piano's keys, toying with a theme. It isn't a known work - or at least, not a known arrangement of a work. An ephemeral, anachronistic re-working of a piece of music Yrael felt was appropriate for the atmosphere in the bar today. The influences of the late Classical period are clear, but they are shaded with turns and phrases that harken to the early Romantics.

Yrael smiles slightly as he plays. It's going to be one of those days.

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Teja has seen what happened; he was by the fireplace and saw first Javert, then Valjean, leave.

He is still sitting there when Yrael starts his music, and for a while, he simply listens; then, he takes up his harp to play along.

Eleanor Rigby seems an oddly fitting song to play as a (temporary?) dirge for Javert.

It is a song that benefits from the addition of strings, especially strings played with such feeling and skill. Yrael smiles as he hears the familiar sound of his friend's harp.

All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?

It is fitting. There is such a feeling of isolation in the bar today. While there is no lack of compassion, there is a lingering disconnect, still. Miscommunication, misunderstanding, distressed action and the resulting apprehensive waiting, at a loss of what to do. The keys and strings sing that tension to the room at large, offering no answers.

All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?

Ahh, look at all the lonely people...

Hands upon the harp-strings, Teja wonders how Javert had managed to remain so lonely, so devoid of all human connection and care, that he finally threw himself back into the cold, cruel arms of the Seine.

People had cared about him; some people may even have loved him. He had been tasked to make connections -- but in the end, it seems, the man had abjectly failed.

Eleanor Rigby
died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.

Yrael knows the eternal problem of Milliways. Once the door closes, there is no way of knowing what happens on the other side, until someone comes back. If someone comes back.

Sometimes they don't.

Stay in Milliways long enough, and you will lose people to the door. You will lose them and often never know what happened to them. They may die and their grave will go unvisited by the friends they made at the end of the universe. They may live and yet they are still lost. Yrael has lost many. He does not wait for them, does not find himself watching the door.

Though, he reflects, Milliways has given him the rare opportunity to see for himself that a friend lost to the door had died, even to visit his grave.

And yet, the bar gave him back to Yrael anyway.

Funny how the universe works, sometimes.

Edited 2014-05-15 15:52 (UTC)

Father McKenzie
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No-one was saved.

There is some ill wind, indeed, that takes friends and loved ones from this place and does seem to have it out for Teja's forge helpers; Eric the huntsman never returned after the great upset with Orpheus, either.

No-one was saved.

A line to throw into that priest's face, if he proves unhelpful. Javert most certainly was not saved in the manner that those Christians call salvation; he threw himself back into the despair of his soul.

Rarely does any in this place have the luck of finding closure, as Yrael did with his friend whose grave they visited in Florence once, and who then returned in another shape to be Yrael's friend again.

Playing, Teja wonders if there might be other Javerts, that might have another fate, and that might yet come through that door knowing of nothing, much as there are other versions of Will Scarlett's world.

Edited 2014-05-15 16:04 (UTC)

All the lonely people... (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?

Perhaps it is the bar's way of keeping balance, Yrael muses as he plays. Taking away those with whom one bonded, that one would have otherwise never had the opportunity to meet. Paying dearly for the growth and wisdom that would not have otherwise been granted. A chance to change, and a risk of being changed.

He sometimes finds it strange - though beautiful, in its way - the connections formed so far from home, in the light of the dying universe. Individuals step out of their worlds into this place, this shared secret. So few from so many worlds. Some know each other, true, but there are never more than a handful from any one world. Or there are some from different versions of the same world - familiar and yet alien to each other in ways that warn of how even small changes can radically alter the progress of a person's life. And if small changes in their world can make such a difference, none dare think of what influence the very existence of Milliways must have on their fate, how it changes them even before they step foot back into their home world.

It draws them away from the influence of their homes, their lives interrupted. And leaves them no longer the same. In their isolation they find attachment to those who are literally worlds apart, while they are settled with the knowledge that they mustn't tell those closest to them in their own worlds; they must keep it secret, because who would believe them, anyway?

Supplying its own paradoxes, Milliways forges isolation from connection, and connection from isolation. They come from everywhere, but they all come to the same place. And then go, irrevocably altered, never again truly belonging to the world that bore them.

All the lonely people... (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

Teja's hands go still on the harp-strings when the song ends.

Yes, Milliways will do that to any of its denizens; not even Javert was completely immune to it, despite his formidable stubbornness. Instead of bending, he broke.

When Yrael finishes playing, he picks up his harp and wanders over to the piano and Yrael.

"Greetings," Teja says.

Yrael's fingers linger above the keys, letting the last notes ring and fade, waiting until they gently slips back under the sounds of the bar room, and disappear.

He smiles warmly at his friend, welcoming him. "Greetings, Teja. Thank you for lending your music to the song."

Fewer musicians find the door to Milliways than the Bright Shiner would like.

"How have you been, my friend?"

"I was well, but now I am worried," Teja says, quietly. "I shall never get used to the way one loses people, here; even if Javert is a far cry from losing those like Charlie, or Asher, or even Xaldin, or Rebecca of York."

Pause, while he tries not to ponder the advantages of not having to put up with Javert any more.

"But Valjean is one of the best people I ever met."

"Nor I," Yrael replies, to the comment about the way Milliways takes ones friends. "The bar is my home, and I accept its qualities both good and bad, but it requires relinquishing reasonable security of knowing you will see your friends again. The door is fickle."

"What is the matter, between Javert and Valjean? I do not know them, apart from what I have heard from you."

"The door is fickle," Teja says. "And Javert and Valjean are from the same world and have a long, complicated history of enmity with each other; when Javert realised that Valjean is a good person, he suffered the breakdown that brought him here. Something must have gone wrong now, and Javert fled through his door even though danger awaits on the other side. Valjean went immediately after him, to aid him in that danger, one would assume."

"They were kidnapped by the demon at wintertime and forced to make their way through the labyrinth together, were they not?" Yrael remarks. "Hopefully their current endeavor will be as successful, though their passing has left a heavy sense of lingering anxiety in the bar. What is the danger they now go to face?"

"A raging river," Teja says, grimly.

Pause.

"And yes, they were able to work together then; and they worked together at the church, also. I have hope that together, they will conquer the physical danger. That what is wrong with Javert? I know not."

Yrael listens. "What would have gone wrong to make Javert seek out this river with purpose? Valjean may have the answer - he is following Javert with the intent to save him from the raging river, and to preserve him from the River that lies beyond it."

Suicide is not unheard of in the Old Kingdom, but it is mercifully rare. It is not a circumstance which lends itself to a spirit having a quiet journey down the River of Death.

"If they both survive, only the immediate physical danger will have passed." That's the easy part.

"Indeed," Teja says. "Then, the harder of what Valjean has undertaken will only begin."

Pause.

"He sought the river before he came here; his only way back was through the river. But what made him take it, rather than stay here any longer, I know not."

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