milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Things are busy in the Capital Wasteland; Ellen is exhausted. Wadsworth, her robot, is in Canterbury for maintenance, which leaves either her or Jerald with the option of cooking tonight.

Yeah, no. not when Milliways is on hand.

Her plan of getting take-out is thwarted when instead of her request, she receives a skewered, roasted, skinless lizard- one that smells of the seasoning packet that comes with certain kinds of pre-War noodles, but also of sweetener and of seventeen different fruits. She's encountered the combination before- people call it 'Wasteland teriyaki'- but she's never seen it done with Quantum... the iguana-on-a-stick is glowing. Just a little.

Oh, and despite being dead and roasted, it's wearing a tiny but festive paper hat.

After some trepidation Ellen picks up the business end of the stick and examines the hat. A folded piece of paper falls out from inside; unfolded, it reads You may have forgotten, but I didn't. Happy belated birthday.

One quick check of the nearest calendar later, and Ellen hops up on a stool. "I seem to have overlooked my twenty-first birthday," she calls out. "As a celebration, I'd like to buy everybody who's here at the moment one-"

She pauses, remembering a particularly fragmentary but nonetheless impressive Grognak the Barbarian story. "One normal-human-serving-sized or smaller drink each," she concludes, and smiles.

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"I wonder what I would get if I just asked Bar to surprise me," says the gentleman three stools down, "but not quite enough to try it. Something from the pilsner continuum, I think, and a very happy birthday to you."

Ellen grins. "Thank you," she says. "It's probably wise not to take that chance, yeah. The Bar has an awfully big selection and I'm pretty sure I saw someone order a drink once that teleported out of her glass."

"And the other day I saw someone ordering drinks who appeared to be made of stone," Sasha adds. "Silicon-based life forms' intoxicants probably don't do good things to humans."

"I was locked out for a couple months; how have you been?"

"... wow. That's got to have been unusual," Ellen says, blinking. "Huh."

"Oh- I've been all right, actually. Possibly better than that." She smiles. "I should probably start by saying I got married, for one thing."

"Congratulations again, then." This is as much smile as Sasha ever shows anyone (with the possible exception of Milla). "I don't think you mentioned a fiancé last time we spoke...?"

"I didn't have one at that point," Ellen says. "We don't really do very long engagements in the Capital Wasteland, when people bother to get formally married at all. His name's Jerald, and he's a Brotherhood of Steel Scribe- he does weapons research and design, mostly."

Sasha nods. "Engagements aside, how did you come to meet him?"

"He was one of the Scribes assigned to my first field tech project," Ellen says. "We had to build electrical generation wind turbines and a radio mast at an old pre-War factory, and if we could get enough electricity from the turbines and the factory's own emergency backup solar panels, try to get the factory back to working condition. His job was to look after our weapons and automated defense systems while other people did research or guard duty."

"I'm not accustomed to thinking of wind farms or factories as things that need automated defense systems," Sasha says after a moment. "But of course your situation is rather different. What kinds of threats do you most frequently run into with this sort of project?"

ooc: I'm really sorry I keep dropping this thread! Are you going to be around tomorrow at all? If not, unfortunately, I'm about to disappear for a week. Again. :-(

"Carnivorous wildlife, in some areas," Ellen says. "Mutant scorpions longer than I am tall, deathclaws- those are bipedal reptiles about ten feet long with claws that'll rip through nearly anything- things like that. But you also get raiders a lot of the time, people who just gave up on trying to live as part of any kind of society and prefer to get whatever they can take from whoever they can kill or rob, and they're not always above trying to steal metal or sneak into buildings to take supplies."

OOC: It's cool! I know how it goes. I'm going to be traveling tomorrow but I'll have my phone and possibly wifi, so I should be able to tag back for a good portion of the day. Otherwise we can pick it up in a week if you still want.

"I don't imagine an organization descended from the U.S. Army would have a great deal of patience with raiders."

Edited 2014-07-26 15:24 (UTC)

"Given that one of our directives is to keep excessively dangerous technology out of the hands of people who can't be trusted, no, we don't," Ellen says dryly. "And even material that doesn't constitute dangerous technology is material we don't generally give up without a fight. A laser turret, or even an ordinary bullet turret rated for use against adult deathclaws, usually works pretty well as a deterrent. And when it doesn't, we've got a couple of Knights on guard duty and a few spare robots. People who get farther than the turrets on the external fences don't make it back out again."

!

"Coffee!" croaks a hopeful voice several stools down. Stitch gives the Bar a winning smile while jabbing a claw helpfully in Ellen's direction.

He receives a root beer float.

"Grrrrr..."

"Hi, Stitch," says Ellen. "Bar's really being strict about the coffee, huh? Sorry to hear that."

Ellen's never heard of decaf, so recommending it doesn't even come to mind.

Stitch throws both hands in the air at that.

"Ih!Naga bootifa, gaba ika tasoopa?! Yu porma dissy!" This last is directed at the counter rather than Ellen. The effect is somewhat dampened immediately afterwards though. It's kind of hard to maintain a good glower whilst drinking through a curly straw.

Oh, right.

"Heh-hah-Hiiiiiieeeeeee."

Ellen smiles. "Good to see you too," she says, and considers her iguana on a stick. She's heard things about Quantum consumption and she's not sure if they carry over to this form or not.

Stitch likewise eyes the glowing lizard, eyes bright, nose working furiously.

"Whassat?"

He knows full well what it is, it's interesting and potentially delicious. Maybe she'll share!

"Birthday dinner," Ellen says. "I've never had iguana roasted quite like this before, though."

She sets it down on the plate it came with and reaches for a knife.

"Want to try some? It's not cake, but..."

"Ih!"

For some inconceivable reason, they never eat glowy, roasted lizard at home!

Edited 2014-07-25 00:25 (UTC)

"All right. Normally I'd just eat it straight off the bone, but..." She considers, then sets to the task of cutting the first third or so of the iguana away from the rest, stick and all. "Why mess with a good thing? This isn't really fork food."

She may regret this soon.

Nonsense! Stitch closes the distance between them, pattering down the Bar. He accepts his helping with a happy grin and, after a moment's recollection, a gracious "Thank you." before settling into a sitting position.

Sadly, the noise produced by Stitch's jaws closing over the iguana segment (stick and all) is not actually 'NOM'. It's more like "GRAUMPH!" This repeated several more times with considerable enthusiasm. Those teeth aren't really meant for chewing, after all. Ellen may want to duck any stray bits that fly her way.

Blink blink. Blink blink blink.

That's actually kind of awe-inspiring to watch.

"So," she finally says, "what, ah... what do you think? Is it good?"

Stitch nods enthusiastically to the affirmative. Who needs coffee when you've got a Nuka Cola Quantum marinade? He blinks stickily up at her.

"eh..eh...Happy Birthday! Merry Christmas!"

Here, Ellen, have most of a half-melted root beer float!

... well, best to be polite. "Thank you," she says, accepting the float glass and trying very hard not to get her hand any stickier than it already is. "This is- hm. Can I have a straw or something for this? That's traditional, right?"

Stitch headtilts at her. What's wrong with the one he was using?

Bar comes to Ellen's rescue, providing a fresh straw and a glass of water as a chaser. At least somone present's aware of Ellen's palate.

Edited 2014-07-26 04:18 (UTC)