Ye Olde Everybody EP on a Sunday

[ostro_goth]

The door opens, and Ragnar Lothbrok wanders in from a place that looks like a camp-site in hilly country, with cooking fires, and people laugh. Not all of these voices are male. Ragnar looks a bit astonished -- he closes the door with an odd gesture, as if letting go of a branch. Then, he quickly walks to the back of the room and vanishes into a door there; after a few minutes, he comes out again and walks towards the bar to order a horn cup of good spring water. What, did you think Vikings live on mead alone?

Dorian Gray comes wandering in from his house; as the door closes, there's a brief glance of a huge room with marble floors, the walls covered in portraits from all eras of art history, even some that ought not to exist yet. He's reading as he walks, his nose deep in 'The Count of Monte Cristo', chuckling as he walks. He only notices that he's in Milliways when he almost hits a pillar; then, he smiles, slouches on a sofa by the fireplace and orders coffee. He keeps reading.

Father Pearse Harman comes downstairs after the Sunday service, in order to eat a proper Sunday dinner (despite this being Lent -- Sundays are traditionally non-fast-days) of a very British kind -- it features a roast leg of chicken, Yorkshire pudding, two kinds of vegetables, and gravy. There will even be pudding afterwards, 'pudding' being a generic word for 'dessert', and this particular pudding being apple crumble with custard. For once, the priest seems to actually have an appetite.

Madame Thénardier has actually been to mass as well, simply to try and look like a good solid bourgeoise who does what she's supposed to; she is actually wearing a lace scarf in her usual generous cleavage. But now, having made the effort, she gets a basket of chicken wings from the bar, orders a new book that seems to delight her, and retires to her usual nook behind the fireplace to read and eat. She occasionally wipes her hand on her apron, but the new book nevertheless soon acquires greasy smudges.

Katrina Crane comes in from the back, bringing with her two baskets full of assorted seed packages that are all open, and possibly mislabelled, as well as her copy of Culpeper's and one or two other herbal books. She sits at a table, orders tea, and then proceeds to identify, consolidate, re-label and generally sort all the seeds for the herb garden.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter enters from the kitchen, carrying what looks like a breakfast tray -- coffee and fresh juice, mushroom and eggs on toast, an elegant salad with fruit, and a plate of crisply fried black pudding garnished with radishes. It may be a bit late for breakfast, but Dr. Lecter is known for the unorthodoxy of his meals, after all; so he wears the face of a man who expects no comments.

Teja enters from the back door as well, carrying a laughing toddler and followed by four cats who very casually slink in before the door happens to close. They secure a table near the stairs, and some waitrats bring over a high chair, which the toddler (almost two years old now) is put into. A plate of fruit for the child soon follows, and tuna for the cats. Two places are set at the table, Teja is served a clay cup of well-watered red wine, and then, he leans back, content like a man who has done his work.

Lady Margolotta enters from a drawing room the sombre and elegant lines of which are disturbed by posters, scattered papers, floofy poufs, empty mugs of cocoa, and an iconograph on a tripod. Apparently, some meeting of the Überwald League of Temperance just ended. Margolotta is carrying a tattered pamphlet that, however, says TRAIN SCHEDULE on the first page. She notices immediately that there is light coming from the windows, and finds herself a table in the darkest corner of the bar, as far away from the windows as possible.


[[OOC: Everybody is here for your tagging pleasure! Say in your comment whom you want for your charrie, or they might get just anybody...]]

Comments

[the_cupbearer]

When he stops, Ganymede takes the flute from his lips and sits back with a little laugh. "You don't think that sounded Greek, do you?"

[capture_eternity]

"It generally sounded archaic," Dorian says, smiling. "I can't properly say where it's from. I wasn't around that early in music history to tell with any certainty."

[the_cupbearer]

"It's Danish, actually," he says. "Very old Danish, but still."

[capture_eternity]

"Old Danish?" Dorian says. "That would be Viking music?"

[the_cupbearer]

"It's a bit far south to be really Viking music," he says. "You're close, though."

[capture_eternity]

"I've been to see real Vikings with Athelstan," Dorian says. "That was quite the party."

[the_cupbearer]

"Uppsala?" he asks. "It is one hell of a party, I will grant you that," Ganymede says, considering. "Save for a few parts."

[capture_eternity]

"Yes, Uppsala," Dorian says. "The human sacrifice was quite gruesome, of course. All the sacrifice, actually. So much blood."

[the_cupbearer]

"You say that like blood is a bad thing," he chuckles, gesturing with the knife. "We all have it in us. Sometimes it spills, that's all," Ganymede says, reaching for the ink pad and scrap of cloth to darken the cuts he's made.

"I take it you don't like sacrifice."

[capture_eternity]

"Not human sacrifice," Dorian says. "People are far to interesting to just kill them for the blood inside them, and to please some gods who presumably want that sort of thing."

[the_cupbearer]

"Clearly you've met more worthwhile people than I have," he says. "Blood isn't altogether a bad result, though."

[capture_eternity]

"You have met people who were so awful, boring, or both," Dorian says, "that the most worthwhile thing about them was the blood they had inside?"

[the_cupbearer]

"His name is Zeus," he says dryly. "I'm sure you've heard of him."

[capture_eternity]

"That's a god," Dorian points out. "He gets the sacrifice, he doesn't become one."

[the_cupbearer]

"Doesn't stop me wishing he could be one," Ganymede says with a quiet but thin smile.

[capture_eternity]

"I wonder what would happen if you tried?" Dorian wonders.

[the_cupbearer]

"To kill him?" Ganymede asks. "Not much, really. He's resilient."

[capture_eternity]

"What a crapsack world you live in where you can't get rid of a cad like that," Dorian says, mingling old idiom with new, thanks to Milliways.

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede just laugh at the mixed metaphor, shaking his head. "Well, don't worry too much about my crapsack world, you can still come visit and you'll be fine. He doesn't visit much anymore."

[capture_eternity]

"I'd love to come visit," Dorian says, "see the future and bask in its liberty. We should go to a place where we can freely snog in public. I heard that exists."

[the_cupbearer]

"Oh, most places you can do that," he says. "You could do it where I am now, though it may not be the most advisable."

[capture_eternity]

"Why? Are there people who would still take offence?"

[the_cupbearer]

"Oh, quite a few places, yes. It's alright for us, though, I doubt anyone would be too outraged," Ganymede chuckles.

[capture_eternity]

"Why us, though -- what about us wouldn't they mind?"

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede just smiles. "Oh, I know quite a few people that don't see much wrong with my being gay as springtime as long as I'm still paying a salary to people they know."