milliways_bar | (no subject)

[OOC: If this isn't open any longer, no worries at all! But I thought I'd see, because I am easily amused.]

Enjolras was walking by the lake, not within immediate sight of the firing range; his aim was merely to stretch his legs and see something different than the same walls he sees every day.

(He would much prefer a city's streets, or at least more territory than a single peculiar park, but what can you do.)

His attention is caught by the sound of someone yelling about... sacraments?

Bemused, he turns his steps in that direction.

[OOC: Nope, still open! Thanks for the interest!]

"Osti d'kalisse de pourris-" Shephard kicks at the chunk of scorched earth nearest him and shakes his head. "Shitfuckin' assholes, you couldn't even try patchin' up the turf? Tabarnak-"

Hey, wait, was that footfalls? He turns in the direction of the approaching newcomer, bow in hand.

(Given that he's wearing his usual civilian summer outfit of gray T-shirt and dark olive-grey trousers, and one black glove all the way up to his right elbow, he probably doesn't look all that much like someone who might be expected to be toting a longbow around with him. Oh well.)

Enjolras has, for the moment, been diverted by the scene of destruction before him.

"What happened here?"

He didn't hear anything. How could something like this happen silently? And what happened, and why, and how? (It didn't happen silently, of course. The answer is that Milliways has much better soundproofing than Enjolras would believe possible for a building that has windows and visibly thin walls.)

The question of why this fellow is reacting by yelling about chalices and tabernacles is a less pressing one.

"Some pokkelijder son of a fuck came out here'n tested explosives 'stead of guns," says Shephard. "Jesus, half the range's fuckin' gone. That was some serious boom that asshole set off. I ain't seen it this bad since home."

It suspiciously resembles the kind of crater left by testing those weird-ass strontium dirtybombs Ms. Vance had them using during the Combine war. When he gets inside Shephard is going to get out his personal dosimeter, just to be on the safe side.

Enjolras's outfit is decidedly 19th century, though whether Shephard's eye is calibrated for that is another question. Suffice it to say: he's from an era of cannons and black powder weaponry, and most of his learning about later developments in Milliways has been from history books and occasional conversations.

(What he can't help but think: what explosives like this would have done to a barricade of omnibuses and paving stones.)

Since home gets a sharp flicker of a look. But Enjolras doesn't pursue that immediately. Instead, he takes a few careful steps forward, to get a better look at the damage.

It's awful. Not so much for the firing range itself -- that's a pity, but it can be fixed -- as for the possibilities of craters like this in other targets. You use terrible weapons if you have to, Enjolras knows as well as anyone, but they remain awful.

Shephard runs one hand over his hair, a gesture that would probably mean more if it weren't cut in a high-and-tight, and blows an irritated breath between his teeth. Well, he didn't do it, so they can't make him pay for it or fix it. And it's just the firing range, at least. Could've been worse. If whoever this asshole was blew their wad in the forest instead-

"You gonna be all right there, mister?" he says to the stranger. The man looks a little gobsmacked to Shephard's eye.

Enjolras parses it for a moment as a question of danger -- he's hanging back from the real structural damage, and in any case sure of his balance -- and glances back inquisitively. Then he understands.

"Yes, thank you. I've only never seen damage quite like this."

Maybe if Marius truly had set off that keg of powder as he'd threatened. Neither Enjolras nor any of the nearby guard would likely have lived to see the results, though.

"Whoever used it here was unforgivably irresponsible."

Enjolras is a leader by nature. Not by philosophy -- his commitment to democracy and the general will is unshakeable, and he would never account himself a leader for any longer than others chose freely to heed his suggestions -- but by nature a battle-leader and a judge, and that shows in this moment.

That gets a grunt. "I dunno. Least they made a point of takin' it out to the gun range," Shephard says. "You come into this part of the grounds, you know shit's gonna be goin' down. Sure does look like a fuck of a lot of overkill, though. Didn't think nobody here was testing this kind of ordnance."

Maybe there's somewhere farther out along the lake that would do better for setting off satchel charges or testing grenade designs. He'll have to ask about that.

"Gonna be a while before this shit gits fixed, though. I ain't seen nobody here doin' landscapin' work that I c'n think of."

Enjolras makes a noncommittal sound: not disagreement, just thought.

"Nor I."

Not that he's exactly been looking. Or would necessarily notice if he did see it, unless it were either dramatic or somebody he knew. (Bossuet's grand and half-joking plans for a bourle court don't really count.)

He steps back a little. There's nothing to be done to fix it now, and the man might actually want to employ his longbow. A somewhat strange choice of weapon, but Milliways has plentiful strangeness.

"I'm Jean-Sébastien Enjolras, by the way. Late of Paris, 1832."

"Sergeant-Major Adrian Shephard, United States Marine Corps, currently serving in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia," Shephard answers promptly. "Year of our Lord 2024. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Enjolras. Craters like this aside I sure do hope the Bar's treatin' you well."

Come to think of it-

"Say, uh, you don't by any chance know a fella goes by the name of Bossuet, do you? Met him here a couple times so far."

Adrian Shephard, he knows that name, doesn't he? The subject of several rather confusing stories of Bossuet's...

But then Shephard asks, before Enjolras can. Enjolras's smile is small but extremely genuine; it transforms his sober, reserved face.

"He's one of my very dearest friends." Ask him about Bossuet's good points, and Enjolras will HAPPILY HOLD FORTH on them. But there's a certain wry humor when he adds, "You must be the Shephard with the pack of dogs."

And drums. And... troll's horns for an occasional joke, apparently, somehow.

"That's me," Shephard says with a crooked grin. "They're back home just at the moment, though. Little fuckers chased him up a tree when he was out walkin' while I was shootin', unfortunately. Hope they didn't put too much of a stain on my reputation. They were just tryin' to keep folks safe, is all."

Enjolras waves that concern away with a small gesture. "Bossuet's bad luck is legendary. If there's a pack of dogs feeling protective, he'll be the one to run afoul of them."

Some might wonder what reputation concerns remain for anyone who runs around wearing devil's horns and raising collections of indescribable creatures with too many eyes and playing drums the Jeune France crowd apparently found inspirational even secondhand. But Enjolras is acquainted with enough of that crowd to be quite familiar with the concept of extremely individual priorities about what does or doesn't matter for a reputation.

"Besides that, you've given him some new colorful stories."

Also some less colorful ones, about scientific experiments gone horribly awry -- over in America, in the 21st century, far beyond anything we can alter, Enjolras, so we'll just have to hope it's a different world -- but that's not really a subject for the introductions portion of a first conversation.

"Glad to know he got at least somethin' out of it," Shephard says. "I'll have to take him fishin' sometime'n make it up to him proper. 'Course, that's assuming he don't hook one of the real big flatheads or the salmon they got in the streams here'n git pulled in."

Bossuet told him a little bit about his bad luck. Shephard is familiar with the many things that can go wrong fishing.

"Far as I recall, he was still a mite new to the place first time we met. You been comin' here long yourself?"

Enjolras is only hazily familiar with how big fish in streams can get -- Combeferre would know, he thinks with a brief pang -- but it certainly sounds like the kind of thing that would happen to Bossuet on a placid fishing jaunt.

"I've been here some months, yes. The better part of a year, though certain eccentricities of Milliways make it difficult to count -- a friend and I lost most of the winter in what seemed to us to be a simple evening's walk in the forest."

The Dreaming does complicate matters. Enjolras brings up this anecdote with new acquaintances partly since it seems a worthwhile warning, and partly because he still would really rather like to have a clearer understanding of how to predict and avoid that kind of thing.

"Huh." Shephard glances over his shoulder towards the tree line. "Never did have that happen to me there, but I'll tell you, there's been a time or two I've gone upstairs for somethin' and by the time I got back down, a day or a week or such'd gone by. You got my sympathies if you lost that long, though. That don't sound fair at all, to me."

"It was quite disconcerting."

It would have been a good deal worse, if he'd had more friends here at that point. Friends to worry; friends to feel guilty for abandoning. But at that point it was only himself, and Grantaire (who was along), and Gavroche (who can fend for himself, and has had ten or so years at Milliways to do so), and arguably Valjean.

"I've noticed that as well. Time here seems peculiarly imprecise." Enjolras is not much in favor of that, but there's no point in dwelling on something you can't affect. "I wouldn't have expected the afterlife to function exactly as the living world does, but many aspects of Milliways are unexpected even given that -- and I know that for many here it's only another living world, as well. I hope you haven't been too seriously inconvenienced."

Very possibly Shepherd is one of those living souls, with his talk of coming and going.

(The whole living-and-dead-people-together thing: still weird. But after Bossuet's arrival, also something to be fiercely grateful for.)

"Well, tell you the truth, I been annoyed as shit a time or two," Shephard says. "And I damn near got my ass handed to me that one time we thought the whole place was finally throwin' in the towel. But that's as bad as it ever got, and I've had way too much good shit happen here or because of here to really be pissed off for long. When I finally do git around to dyin', I hope the good Lord looks on me kindly enough to send me somewhere at least as nice as here."

(For all that he is a Christian and has been one his entire life, he has a sneaking suspicion that the weird mythic shit is going to catch up to him in the end, and that when he finally bites it there's going to be an armored woman on horseback pulling him out of the wreckage instead of an escort to the Pearly Gates.)

"You been here for any of the really weird shit yet? Seems to happen in waves. Holidays and such, especially."

Enjolras grimaces a little, wry rather than upset.

He has yet to really get used to Milliways's level of weirdness, but he's gotten better at rolling with it. (He still looks for rational patterns, though.)

"I would say so, but perhaps I'm naive." There's a certain self-deprecating humor in this. He's been here long enough to learn that Milliways always has more weird available. "I have yet to cease being surprised."

"Wait until the next big holiday comes up," Shephard advises. "Reckon that'll be Halloween, last day of October. Folks'll git their clothes changed whether they like it or not 'bout half the time. Some of 'em might even git changed into somethin' else for a day or so. Fuck knows I have. It passes, but it's still weird as shit."

"I've been spared involuntary transformations thus far, but I've seen them occur."

He's been spared sometimes because his mun is kind, and sometimes just because she's been busy or uninspired. This fortunate immunity may not last indefinitely, Enjolras.

"Is that the source of your -- horns?"

Bossuet's story was one of those where the storyteller is trusted, sincere, and clear, but the underlying logic of events is extremely... Milliways.

"Yes'n no," says Shephard. "It was a holiday, sure, but it weren't involuntary or nothin'. Once a year there's a holiday they call Cubefall. Comes from some kinda alien race from another world or somethin'. You git asked on the first day if you wanna try bein' another shape or creature or person or somethin', and then you c'n spend three days turned into something or someone else. Some folks decide to stick with it on the third day."

He indicates himself with a wave of one hand.

"Ain't planning on changin' out of bein' me any time soon, but fuck, three days of tryin' on what it's like to be a troll sounded like somethin' I could handle."

Ah yes. He did get a viewscreen; he found the entire concept bewildering. The only delay before he selected 'no' was to make sure he really understood what he was, bafflingly, being offered. (There are many, many frivolous things which Enjolras is cordially baffled by the appeal of. He knows and accepts this about himself.)

All the same, Shepherd's cheerfully vulgar explanation makes him smile a little.

"You're adventurous." This is meant as neither compliment nor insult, just fact. "If I may ask, was it different?"

He's curious.

"Sure," says Shephard. "They ain't real fond of sunlight- they c'n handle it but it gives 'em problems- so I slept durin' the day, mostly. Got up early to go shootin'. Had to be extra careful, seein' how your average adult troll's on the stronger side than me and that kind of thing c'n throw a man's weapon handling off. They're a fair little bit worse-tempered than humans, too, just by bein' what they are, so I had to keep that in mind. I ain't about to let bein' grey-skinned'n blue blooded make me an asshole."

This sounds something like being an suddenly strong man with a moderate hangover. Enjolras doesn't say that.

(Enjolras has never had a hangover, but he has plenty of friends who experience them regularly.)

He listens thoughtfully. And he respects Shephard for that last sentence -- whether the sentiment is 'I don't want to be an asshole' or 'if I'm going to be an asshole, it'll be deliberate, dammit', it's a worthy one.

"I see."

"Are trolls native to your home?"

He's quite sure they're not native to his own world's Americas, but Milliways means that's not a guarantee of much.

"Naw. Met 'em here," says Shephard. "We got a lot of weird shit in my neck of the woods, but trolls ain't on the list. You ever run into a kid here about yea high, grey skin, yellow eyes, shouts a lot and cusses near as much as me, that's Karkat. There's two girl trolls here, too, Nepeta and Kanaya. Ain't seen Terezi in a dog's age."

It wouldn't really bother him much at all if the trolls did live in his neck of the woods, but that's not how things stand at the moment. They've got a meteor to deal with and a whole lot of other matters on their minds before a question like 'where's home' is gonna come up.

"I'mma go out on a limb and guess y'all ain't got trolls or weird shit back in your France, am I right?"

Enjolras hasn't run into such a kid, but he makes a mental note of it.

"Not like this," he says, rueful.

"No. I have always believed in a rational universe."

It's still present tense mostly because Enjolras is really, really stubborn. And really, really bad at absurdism or cynicism.

Shephard winces. "Fuck. Place like this must be drivin' you to drink, then," he says. "Shit, you got my sympathies."

His head still throbs a little if he thinks about the weird mythic shit in his life too hard. And that's coming from a man who saw several dozen of his brother Marines devoured by alien beings from another dimension.

Nope, because he also doesn't drink!

Whether that makes things better or worse is, of course, an open question.

Enjolras, in any case, just shrugs. "It is what it is."

You do what you can with what you have, for the best ends you can find. That's all.

"What of your world and its weirdness, if I may ask? Bossuet said a little, but I confess I don't fully understand. I know little of the Americas of my world -- I've never been outside France -- but yours sounds quite different."

He doesn't- damn. Damn, that poor son of a bitch.

*ahem*

"Long story, friend," says Shephard. "I c'n tell you this much for starters, though. Time was, shit was pretty much normal in my world. No magic, no ghosts, no fuckery from other worlds, none of the shit you see 'round here. And we had some damn fine scientists doin' things you would not possibly believe, but far as I c'n tell most of that made sense if you sat down and read about it proper."

It's a little hard to be critical of science not making sense once you've spent as long as Shephard has teaching yourself the physics and math needed to command a ship like Borealis.

"Thing is, some of our eggheads reckoned they could use some kind of machine, fuck me if I know just what, to do some seriously ass-fuckin' weird shit and let a body pass from point A-" He holds his left arm out and wiggles one finger. "-to point B-" He hooks the bow over his shoulder and holds his right arm out instead, wiggling another gloved finger. "-without goin' through all the space between the two. And they made it work, too, only some kind of shit happened when they tried extra hard. I dunno what they did. Maybe they used the wrong equipment, maybe they gave it too much power, maybe somebody fucked with their shit. I dunno. All's I know is, they tried to do it one day and they up and ripped a hole in the world instead, and a whole lot of things that God never intended for His good green earth came through from the other side of that hole."

It sounds... unbelievable. Like something out of an extremely fanciful story of horrors. But it's Shephard's world, and he's not telling it like a story or an exaggeration. He's telling it straightforwardly and clearly (insofar as Enjolras can wade through his American dialect), and with visible sincerity.

"That must have been hellish."

Enjolras, in his turn, speaks with quiet sincerity. He's an earnest man anyway, and he's from a time and place when open emotion had not yet fallen out of fashion.

"'Bout the size of it," says Shephard. "Shit got worse from there for about twenty years, but it's lookin' up now. Ain't a whole lot less weird, but better, at least."

Twenty years?

Small enough in the scope of things, perhaps, but not for the individuals living it -- and not for an invasion of otherworldly monsters.

"Thank God for that, at least. I'm glad to hear it."

Enjolras is somewhere between an agnostic and a Deist, but he's from a society with a great deal of background Catholicism. (The relationship between radical republicans and the church is tangled and more than a little fraught, but never mind; on this particular question, Enjolras's inclination is to be a peacemaker.)

Shephard nods. "Anyways, that's where the critters your buddy mistook for hellhounds came from. I ain't seen a real dog alive in longer'n I can remember, except the ones up on Svalbard, and those're just this side of bein' wolves anyway so they ain't too amenable to comin' down with humans again. Reckoned if I wanted a hand on the hunt or guarding the homestead I'd need some help. You get those things when they're still little pups and they ain't too hard to tame."

For just a moment, with startling intensity, he wants Bahorel here to meet this man. They'd get along, he thinks. Bahorel with his brash cheer and his pride in his peasant roots.

He pushes it down, as he pushes down every public moment when he's ambushed by how deeply he misses absent friends.

"I don't know much about training dogs, I confess." Enjolras is not much of an animal person, although they tend to like him. (Especially cats, which naturally gravitate to the least interested person in a room.) "But yes, I can see that that would be necessary."

"It ain't for everyone," says Shephard. "But they make life easier."

At least, in his estimation they do.

"Anyways, that's how I know your buddy and all. Mind if I ask what brings you out here today? I'm out back fair often and I don't recollect seeing you around."

"Just a walk."

Hence the walking stick, which the mun forgot to mention, but which Enjolras tends to habitually carry when he goes for a walk. In his era, it's a standard fashion accessory for men -- but also a potential weapon, which is most of why Enjolras got in the habit of carrying one years ago.

"One tires of the same walls, even when they're filled with marvels." He says it easily, amicably. If he chafes at the confinement of Milliways -- and he does -- it doesn't show in this moment. "I hadn't thought to come to the firing range specifically, till I heard you."

He'd say swearing, from the tone, but the content confuses that for him.

"Fair 'nough," says Shephard amiably. "Lord knows I can't stay in there too long myself, even when I'm supposed t'be catchin' up on sleep or shit like that. I ain't normally all that loud when I'm goin' off on a tear, but shit, the whole fuckin' mess caught me by surprise."

"I can understand why."

He glances at the man's longbow.

"Am I keeping you from your practice? I don't mean to impose, if so."

He'd be happy to keep talking to Shephard, who's an interesting fellow, but not if the man would rather be about his own business.

"No big. Time don't mean as much here as it does back home," Shephard says. "Wouldn't mind getting a few rounds in while the light's still good and the wind's still calm, though."

"Then I'll leave you to it. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sergeant Shephard."

Shephard reaches over his shoulder for the bow. "Same here, Enjolras," he says. "You take care out there, now."