(no subject)

[witchfinder_general]

People have been returning lately that Father Harman had been worried about; and to encourage Athelstan (in particular, but everybody else out there in danger in their worlds), his sermon today had been about Psalm 91.

And for once, after the service, he is sitting downstairs and having a rather ordinary Sunday lunch of meat and two veg, complete with Yorskhire pudding and gravy. For once, he does have something of an appetite.

Of course, he'll welcome anybody to his table and offer them lunch as well, if they're content with this less than sophisticated fare.

Comments

[gredya]

It smells like it could be good, but it also smells very...cooked. Gredya watches from a distance, shaking her head, before coming up to Father Harman's table. "I should come back, when you are done?"

[witchfinder_general]

"I'll be done in a moment," Father Harman says. His plate is already mostly empty at this point. "Did I just spot you outside with your children?"

[gredya]

Gredya nods cautiously. "They should see people. Not just me. They should hear how more people talk."

[witchfinder_general]

"Would you like them to come and listen?" Father Harman asks.

[gredya]

"They are very busy with that foot ball, soccer ball, thing," she says drily. Kids these days, with their newfangled toys. Back in Gredya's day she and her littermates played with sticks and bones and they liked it. (Also, you had to chase deer uphill both ways in the snow, even in August.) "But I will call them. They still listen."

[witchfinder_general]

"Why should they stop listening?" Father Harman says. "Once they no longer obey their mother blindly, they will listen to reason."

[gredya]

She gives him an even dryer look. "You know many children?" But it's a welcome thought. She nods to him briefly and heads to the door to call them, a series of quick yelping cries. In a few minutes they come jostling through the door, panting and laughing--and quieting down considerably once they're inside. They stay very close together until their mother herds them over to the table and lines them up.

"Aksana, Masha, Bozhana." Three girls, and then the two boys: "Karel, Franchek. Franchek, like Francis. Your saint." They all look to be about eight or nine years old, all barefoot, all looking like they were dressed from a 90s university-town second-hand shop.

They stare at Father Harman.

[witchfinder_general]

"I taught at a school, at one point in my Formation, as we all must," Father Harman says. "Hello, you five. You're quintuplets?"

Amazing. He hadn't expected Gredya's children to all be the same age.

[gredya]

Are they? Even with Milliways translation the word seems odd; the children look at one another. "They are my five," Gredya says uncertainly. "Five or six is the usual number."

[witchfinder_general]

"Among your people?" Father Harman asks.

Definitely not human. He'd suspected something like that; now the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

"The wyr?"

Pause.

"How old are you, children?"

[gredya]

"They are this spring's." She gives the row of dark heads a complacent nod, brushing a wisp of grass from Karel's shoulder. "You can talk to him, children. --I told them, be careful here." Not that she expects they've kept it in mind, really.

[witchfinder_general]

"This spring," Father Harman says.

Pieces fall into place, slowly. The story about Dracula, the wolves and the wyr...

"You are shape-shifters, are you?"

[gredya]

"We are Wyr." She lifts her chin and looks at him steadily. It was never a secret. But it has struck her that he might not know.

One of the little boys makes a small anxious noise, looking back and forth between the grown-ups and Gredya smooths down his hair. "They are learning to change now, from four feet."

[electro_kinetic]

There is a small head that appears over the far edge of Father Harman's table, with long black hair--today worn loose and long and pinned up on one side with a pretty silk flower pin. She's holding a doll with long blue hair, tucked in the crook of her arm.

"Do you want a cookie with your lunch?"

[witchfinder_general]

"I would love one, as dessert," Father Harman says. "Thank you very much, young lady."

[electro_kinetic]

She holds up one of the oat cookies for him, sliding it across the table with a smile. "They're supposed to be Swedish Oat Cookies. They taste good though, somebody gave them to me."

[witchfinder_general]

"I suppose it was Rae Seddon?" Father Harman says.

[electro_kinetic]

"Nope," she says. "It was a man. He said his name was Hannibal. And he makes really good cookies."

She may have eaten several by this point.

[witchfinder_general]

Father Harman takes a deep breath, but he keeps smiling. Going around warning people off Dr. Lecter would be both un-Christian, and very likely against the rules of the bar.

"I heard he's a very good cook," he says, instead.

And reputedly never uses people meat in Milliways, just at home, and otherwise is almost, but not quite, as bad as a vampire.

This place is so weird sometimes.

[electro_kinetic]

"Uh-huh," she says. "He is! And he's nice. I like him."

He gives her free cookies and she's nine, what did you want?

[witchfinder_general]

Father Harman tries the cookie, despite not quite having finished the main course.

"It's an excellent cookie," he says.

[electro_kinetic]

Nori practically beams. "Yep! And oatmeal cookies are my favorite."

[witchfinder_general]

"How did he know that?" Father Harman asks. "Mind you, they are excellent cookies!"

[electro_kinetic]

"I told him," she says. "When he asked if I wanted one I told him oatmeal was my favorite."

[witchfinder_general]

"So he baked them just for you?" Father Harman asks. "Yes, they're very nice."