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

[jonathanparagon]

Jonathan steps in through the front door, looking a little run ragged but nothing particularly unusual for him - it happens when you live on a night-time schedule in a city, even if you can do soundproofing spells - and makes his way to a comfortable seat to get some reading in.

[margolotta]

Margolotta happens to sit nearby with her train schedule, and looks up as Jonathan settles into his chair.

"Good -- evening, is it?" she says.

[jonathanparagon]

"Evening", he confirms with an amiable smile. "Though it counts as morning for me."

[margolotta]

"I think that plaid man is eating breakfast, and the priest over there lunch," Margolotta says, looking around the room. "The windows to the outside seem to announce some sort of daytime. Time can be confusing in Milliways. What are you reading?"

It's a polite, conversational enquiry.

[jonathanparagon]

"Demonology", Jonathan says matter-of-factly. "Just when you think you've heard of them all... plaid man?" He peers in that direction. "Oh, right."

[margolotta]

"Oh yes, the wizards in our world sometimes use demons," Margolotta nods. "But they're really pesky things and, I gather, not really worth the bother. Smaller things like imps are, of course, immensely useful."

[jonathanparagon]

"They're tricky to control, the bigger they get", he agrees. "And then there's the physical demons, they're something different again."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

After having vanished for a month, Lesgle is hopelessly behind on busboy shifts. Not that he's been struck with a burning case of work ethic, or anything like that--but he's certainly back on duty today, wiping down tables, picking up dirty dishes, offering to freshen up a cup of coffee now and then.

((Up for grabs if anyone wants him!))

[margolotta]

"What are physical demons?" Margolotta asks.

[jonathanparagon]

"They have bodies same as anything else physical", he explains. "And they can die, a spirit can't really. Sorry - I'm Jonathan."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"I was told nobody works here, just rats, and the occasional patron stepping in so the bar can sleep," Ragnar says, grinning over his horn cup of water as Lesgle comes near him. "Are you a slave, or is this meant as a punishment?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Laigle looks him over, continuing to polish the bartop with a not-too-clean towel. "Neither," he answers. "I woke one morning thinking that as I will be here for quite a long time, running up a tab of unthinkable proportions, it would be a sign of goodwill to make myself useful to the place; such as my talents are, they lend themselves much more to picking up broken glasses than to wearing a Security badge. Though that might serve to entertain the customers, too. --New here, sir?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"This is my second visit," Ragnar says, "so you don't have to tell me about no sex by the fireplace. Why are you stuck here?"

[margolotta]

"I'm Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Überwald -- Lady Margolotta, for short," she says. "What makes these mortals so demonic, then?"

It sounds like some othering ideology to her.

[jonathanparagon]

In some cases, that's basically what it is.

"Pleasure to meet you, Lady Margolotta. And to be honest, some of them aren't really - but because some of them worship evil and kill, or sometimes eat people, at some point it turned into a catch-all word. There's a whole variance, some types are basically animals on two legs and it's mostly those that eat people - vampires aside, who don't have to kill - but a lot are human-smart or more. I'm even friends with some, and I protect the friendly ones where I can from the people that don't understand that not all demons are bad."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Not by that fireplace, anyway. I don't imagine every fireplace in the building is prohibited! --Well, hm, it's always awkward to bring up in conversation, but I'm here because I died and Milliways seems to be the next stop on the celestial omnibus from Paris."

Whichever works best: Ragnar or Dorian!

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede is settled on a chair this afternoon comfortably, a pair of two hollow long bones in his lap; he's plainly carving at them, though not boring straight through for simple designs. Periodically he'll hold the two together to see how his design is coming along, and whether he'll be able to fit the dark stained wood and paua shell inlays in place. The shell's blue and greenish stripes, meandering like ocean tidewaves, stand out beautifully from the bleached bone.

When he's done, he may well play you a tune.

Hannibal

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko, on the other hand, is folded into a chair backwards, head tilted so that her newly-redone mohawk is flipped to one side as she puts the finishing bead-branches on her wire tree. All the ends are bare wire on the other side; she has yet to fasten it to the block of crystal sitting by her elbow, and really yet to figure out how she's going to do it, too.

Even though she's got earbuds in her ears, the cord trailing over her shoulder, she watches Hannibal and says with a surprisingly quiet and even tone, "Little late for breakfast, isn't it?"

[margolotta]

"So you think that vampires are demons, and should be killed?" Lady Margolotta says.

Apparently, the situation in that world is very bad.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"So you're one of those for whim this is the afterlife?" Ragnar says. "Do you enjoy it?"

[capture_eternity]

"Ganymede!" Dorian says when he finally looks up from his book. "That is going to be a diaulos, right? How amazing!"

[jonathanparagon]

"If they go out killing humans every night, yes, they should be killed", he says matter-of-factly. "There are exceptions. Some find willing donors and stop short of killing them, or buy pre-drawn blood, or feed only from animals. I know two who've given up living human blood almost completely. But as for whether they're demons, they are in my world - or at least they have a demon in them, that's a fact."

[cook_the_rude]

"Hello, Noriko," Hannibal says, putting the tray down nearby. "If you think it's too late for breakfast, we'll call it brunch, even though that's a dreadful word. Would you like to join me?"

[margolotta]

"If they go out killing humans," she says, "they should be reasoned with first, and asked to mend their ways. And then maybe killed, if they don't. Anybody is, of course, entitled to defend themselves."

[jonathanparagon]

"I'm not sure they can, unless they're given a way to get the upper hand over their demon first. Those two I mentioned? The only known two in the world who've had their human souls given back."