Absolutely everybody -- at or near the fireplace

[cook_the_rude]

This evening, there are several people relaxing by or near the fireplace the fireplace, doing slightly unexpected things. Among them are:

• Katrina Crane, seated in a comfortable chair, reading -- a romance novel?
• Pearse Harman, scribbling down bullet points for tomorrow's sermon while at a table with a glass of -- beer?
• Teja, in his usual chair by the trilobite tank, with all four cats and a soundly sleeping Egil, playing his -- guitar?
• Lady Margolotta, at a table drinking cocoa and cuddling a cute, pink-nosed -- rat?
• Dr. Hannibal Lecter, lounging on a sofa with his feet up, reading a book on -- demonology?
• Dorian Gray, sitting cross-legged in from of a coffee table, sensuously enjoying several different -- cupcakes?
• Madame Thénardier, hunched on an ottoman right by the fire, voraciously reading a book by -- Hilary Mantel?

[[OOC: Say in your tag whom you want -- open until it scrolls! Not trying to emulate the sheer numbers on the last one, though...]]

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"I never expected any other thing," Teja says, smiling.

He gets up, and gathers Myrrh, who protests, and flails a little.

"Now you may leave safely, to keep your solemn promise to Mademoiselle here."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

He bows over the top of his tray and heads off, disaster-free--and does indeed come back, as promised, carrying a little dish of tuna with a single fresh catnip leaf on top for a garnish. "There, you see I'm an honest fellow."

[ostro_goth]

Teja lets Myrrh go, and she rushes toward Lesgle, making rather undignified little sounds of feline enthusiasm.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle crouches down to place the dish for her, and stays on the floor for a bit, rubbing her ears. (Yes, yes, what she really wants is the tuna and not the fussing, but he's going to sneak a pat anyway.) "And do you keep yourself out of trouble, Minette?"

[ostro_goth]

Myrrh does rub herself against his hand; food is good, but attention is good as well!

"There is enough good trouble for them to get into, in the stables and grounds," Teja says. "They need not throw over things in the forge. At least not very often."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"A stable realm, the forge, then; untouched by riot or feline rebellion. I congratulate you, sir."

Good cat. Lesgle wipes his hands on his bar apron and rises carefully to his feet again. "Anything else I can get you?"

[ostro_goth]

"Would you share some wine with me and tell me of your revolution?" Teja says. "What sparked it off, and what went wrong?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

He scratches his beard, studying Teja's face. "In Paris, you know, that question would mark you for a police agent fishing to make an arrest, snapping up me and as many of my friends and connections as you could. You aren't, of course, a Paris police agent."

[ostro_goth]

Teja chuckles. "I was asking for the bigger picture, the political grievance, the injustice of your time," he says. "From what I learned so far, you were fully justified -- at least as I, a free Goth, would have seen things. We deposed our kings, lawfully, by decision of all fighting men in Thing, when they failed us."

Pause.

"Just so you know: - the traitor king Theodahad died by my very hand."

He sounds proud of it.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I understand--and felicitations on the regicide, by the way--but I thought it might be useful to you to understand that when I see a policeman I don't generally see a friend. When some officer leans over my dinner to ask why I don't like police, and what have I done, I don't take it as a harmless inquiry." He scratches his chin again, then pulls over a chair.

"Well--if you go back to 1789--or, for you, forward--you'll see that the French people--ah, deposed the Bourbon king. Some people were satisfied to make him nod politely in the direction of a Constitution. Others saw that a king and the people's sovereignty could never co-exist. That king was executed. Europe was set against the tender new-hatched French Republic, and a fair portion of France was set against itself as well. In the interests of concise reporting: a military man, Bonaparte, found the opportunity to put on an emperor's crown. Goodbye again, Republic!"

Bossuet winces. Yes, this is the very, very short version. "Of course, you may know all that already. Well! Bonapartes don't last forever, even an eagle is short-lived. His military glory waned, and the Bourbon family returned to the throne. This was Louis XVIII, brother to the Louis who lost his head. He mollified the wealthiest few with a Charter, granting a Constitution and the vote for some 1% of the population. The king held the sole power to propose and sanction laws, and to appoint or recall ministers. That Charter! It looked enough like a concession to justice to keep people quiet. But when his brother Charles came to the throne, he made himself unpopular enough that even men who had smiled at his coronation began to complain. --Charles, we overthrew in 1830, two years ago for me. We were in reach of a Republic again, it was so close that you could see it, and then--oh, men like Lafayette talked behind closed doors, and we had another king."

He knows he's been going on for a long time, and looks apologetic. "You may regret asking for the bigger picture."

[ostro_goth]

"I do not," Teja says. "It seems that you freed yourselves from tyranny, only to have it come back again and again from dark corners, like an especially persistent zombie."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"That's what power does, without a watch kept on it." Lesgle folds his hands over his knees and looks down at the floor. "Well, you've had the short version of the long view; without the history, the immediate grievances seem small, but without the thousand small grievances the history loses its meaning. All the little things: the muzzled press, the hungry workers. The cholera that came in the spring. Thousands dying of it in Paris, and of course the poor hit hardest. Algeria, good God! And every complaint stamped down into silence by police and soldiers, and this called 'peace.' That lie, and plastered all over it, the lie that we had fought and died in 1830 to put this fat king in place."

[ostro_goth]

"If that is peace, then it is the peace of the graveyard," Teja says, grimly. "And suppression is rarely the one big massacre -- it is the countless small cruelties over the years, slowly worsening."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Yes. And so they bear watching, even the small cruelties." He passes a hand over the top of his head, still staring down at the floor. "'The peace of the graveyard.' Well, this is a graveyard."

[ostro_goth]

"It is not," Teja says. "Some of us may be dead, but we are not lying within the ground, slowly putrefying. This is a place of second chances, of paths not taken."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Mmmm. But policemen still act like policemen, and the same privileges and prejudices apply, if in smaller ways."

[ostro_goth]

Teja raises an eyebrow at him. "There is a fine line between persistence and peskiness," he says, "and you are dancing quite elegantly upon it."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"It's how I would speak to a friend."

[ostro_goth]

"With witty barbs, elegantly dancing on lines, poking while amusing?" Teja says, quite amused himself.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"About things that matter to me."

[ostro_goth]

"You should join Security, then," Teja says.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I shouldn't have to, just so that someone like Gene Hunt won't look at my friends with contempt. At Enjolras and Joly--Joly, of all people! Does that seem right to you? You said you were bouncers in a bar; but this isn't simply a café that you can leave if you don't get along with the staff. Or if the staff doesn't like your politics or your nationality or your color or your friendships."

Hell, he hadn't been going to take the conversation there. Lesgle scrubs his face with his hands and changes the subject. "I ought to get back to work. But, by the way, Shephard is looking to barter for some livestock. I thought of your Gotlanders, of course, and told him I'd ask around, though I don't know if you can arrange any trade. I'm no farmer, it might be the wrong season to sell pigs or cows, but-- They are in a bad way, over there where he lives." There's not much Lesgle can do about it, but he's come to care quite a bit about Shephard's earth.

[ostro_goth]

"I suggest it because then, you may change it from the inside," Teja says. "It is the same challenge that I gave Gene Hunt, back when he kept complaining we were too lenient."

Pause.

"I saw the note, and I have been thinking of it -- it is good of you to remind me. I can arrange a trade -- it was a good year, they may have some surplus that they would slaughter around now, as to save on fodder for the ones they wish to breed. It would be a few sheep."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"A power structure should be changeable from without. If it's not, if it's only answerable to itself, it begins to tip towards injustice and corruptions--maybe small, maybe not. Come now, Teja, you said yourself--"

He takes a breath and shakes his head. It wouldn't be the first time someone with power has said pretty words about what's right and done nothing that might inconvenience him.

"--I'll go back to work now. But do see Shephard. I think even one cow or pig would make a difference."

[ostro_goth]

"I shall seek him out," Teja says.

Pause.

"We disposed Theodahad by Thing -- the assembly of all fighting men," he then says. "I joined Security because I saw -- and still see -- that as the best way to be a fighting man again that may have his say. If one shares in the burden, one may share in the decisions. That is what I challenged Gene Hunt to, and that is what I now challenge you to, now."

He will not leave well alone: - he is Teja, he never leaves well alone.