milliways_bar | EP: post-AU week

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EP: post-AU week

Hotspur had a weird night-- but that will happen when you temporarily have two overlapping lifetimes' worth of strange dreams, instead of just the one. Actually, he had a weird morning as well. His memory of the last-- day? few days?-- is oddly hazy, in a way that makes him wonder if perhaps he was ill, though he feels perfectly well and normal now.

Plus there were two dogs in his room. Which is fantastic, of course. But they're not his dogs, they're dogs he's never seen before. Not that this stops him from bringing them down to the bar with him; one of them, the older, curls up beneath his chair, while the younger one sniffs around just in case anyone dropped anything on the ground that even remotely resembles food.

Hotspur himself sits at a table, making his way through a plate of eggs. He gives off a different kind of air than usual, somehow simultaneously more settled and more confident. This might be because of the other unexpected thing he found in his room this morning, which of course he strapped on and brought downstairs with him, because etiquette be damned.

Yes, at long last, Harry Hotspur has a sword. (But don't worry, he's not looking particularly inclined to use it.)

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"We are new companions yet," Harry says, because that seems easier than 'I think I was maybe a different version of myself for about a week and I think this is his dog.'

Eagerly, he asks, "Why, is there hunting to be had here?"

He's not deeply passionate about hunting in general, but if there's no actual combat to be had, it's certainly an acceptable second choice.

This guy's human, right? Milliways can confuse the usual tells, but he's, like, 95% sure. Well, maybe 90%.

(This is relevant because good sport for an Asgardian is kinda different. Thor thinks going toe-to-toe with the Hulk is a great friendly bout.)

He makes an enh, so-so kind of gesture with one hand. "Rabbits that breathe fire, and deer and the like. In the deeper forest and the mountains. So long as you make certain not to give chase to a patron, you can hunt as you like. Besides that there seems to be a new section of the forest, and greater game might lurk within."

Definitely do, says the mun, but some of them might turn you into a frog for trying.

"Or you could accompany another to their realm. Some do ask for aid in a battle or a quest, or would offer diversion to a friend."

"You are a huntsman, then," Harry says. "Or if not, you know the forest well even so."

"A warrior," says Thor, stating what he considers to be the obvious, "but I've flown over the grounds. And wandered them somewhat."

And he's from enough of a hunting culture -- and accustomed enough to non-humanoid sentients -- to notice what the game around here is.

"Are you newly come?"

"And who could doubt it?" Harry laughs. "You could be naught else, if I am any judge."

It seems odd to be sitting while Thor stands, so he stands up-- not that it will do very much to bridge the difference in their size.

"Not so newly now. I have learned the way of this place-- that one cannot leave, cannot fight, can come by some good company and much tedious, and that it is, in brief, heaven itself for men of a scholarly bent, and elsewhere to men of more active spirit."

Thor grimaces in sympathy. It's not heartfelt in the way it would be if he'd ever been stuck in the same situation, but all the same it's genuine, because that sounds pretty godawful to him.

"I've been Bound but once, and for a briefer span. I had good company and thoughts enough to occupy me then. I'm sorry you've had a harder time of it."

For thoughts, read: brooding, self-recrimination, and adjusting to the weirdness of a mostly-human body with no lightning powers or magic hammer. (Also, it helps that Asgardians live thousands of years, and thus have a somewhat different sense of time's passage.)

"Impatience makes me ungrateful for the good I do have," he admits. "In truth, there is much good company, and I am not all without occupation. But-- why, y'are a warrior, you know what 'tis, to be ill-made for peace and quiet."

"Aye," he admits, with a bit of a grin.

You'd maybe get the impression that Thor's been chided on that very score, or something!

"Well. I'm not free to bring you to Asgard, but we could find some diversion outside, if you wish to seek what adventure Milliways will hold."

He could bring him to Asgard, technically. But with the Bifrost broken, somebody clearly from another realm and not already living there would be immediately remarked. He'd do it for a compelling reason, but not to relieve the boredom of a guy he's only just met.

"That is your country? Asgard?" he asks. He's never heard of it, so he doesn't bother to add that he is from England, as he assumes Thor will, in turn, not have heard of that.

Enh, 'country' is close enough.

"It is."

"It is a kindly offer, sir, and I will not say no," Harry says. "I may gather by it you have been some time in this place?"

"Some time," he agrees. "I cannot say how much -- time runs uneven between my realm and this. I'm here less than elsewhere, but by the seasons here it was full three years ago I first came, I think. As Asgard reckons... less than a year, but little less."

He has no idea how the length of the years matches up even aside from the front door's weirdness, but he can track the number of season changes he's seen, anyway.

"I have heard it said so-- that whiles one is here, naught changes in the place he has left."

Probably most people would come up with some kind of polite preface for his next question, but this is Hotspur. So he just says, "Wherefore come you here? Sure I would find little cause to come, were I in England with wars left unwon."

Lady wriggles and shoves her head into Thor's hands: she is not being petted enough, and that's a horrible tragedy that ONLY HE can remedy. Obediently, he rubs at her ears, but he doesn't glance down; he's cocking a sidelong, curious look at Hotspur instead.

"Would you not? For good company?"

Hotspur looks almost offended that he would suggest it.

"To leave the time disordered, the border undefended, the wars unfinished, to come idle endless time in drink and chat?" He scoffs. "I thought you said y'are a warrior."

"Who said endless time?"

Thor is mild, in return. He'd be offended if he thought Hotspur were deliberately and aggressively insulting his sense of duty, but the misunderstanding here is enough that he's just amused instead.

"Of course not from battle, except perhaps to gather comrades for aid. But there's always idle time. Or if not, then to take the chance of rest may befit a warrior better to resume his duty."

"Then your wars are not as ours," Hotspur replies. "We guard the border from a restless foe. I could not gladly spend time in idleness here, no matter how oft I was assured no time would be lost on t'other side."

Whether the border skirmishes are really as pressing as he makes them sound, or he just manages to convince himself they are is a question for another day. Or, even better, another person.

Thor, admittedly, is thinking several things in response to this. Like: okay yes, but humans have to sleep sometimes, I know that for a fact. And: do your warriors seriously never carouse in company, and strengthen their comradeship thereby? And: how beset must your borders be, that if a warrior turns their thoughts from them for a moment they're derelict in their duty?

He doesn't say any of them. It's not for him to argue with another realm's warrior about how to do his duty on five minutes' acquaintance.

But he's kind of judging either Hotspur or his society's expectations, a little.

What he does do is slant a slightly ironic look at Hotspur, and says, "You have a strange way of courtesy, Harry Percy."

"But I'll own that our borders are secure right now." This has a certain weight of dimensions unsaid; as a matter of fact with the Bifrost down their border is much more impermeable than anyone would like, and it's causing all kinds of problems. "And my people live long."

Hotspur has some strengths, but none of them are the ability to separate what he wants to do because he is impatient and bored and anxious for glory from what actually needs doing.

"Seek you courtesy? Well, I am no courtier," he says. His tone is... less than courteous. "I speak only what I know of my country-- I will not seek to guess at the ways of yours."

Thor straightens, much to Lady's disappointment, though he gives her one final consolatory ear-scratch.

He has no real quarrel with Hotspur at the moment. Everything so far is mild enough to ignore. But all the same, it's not for a young pup to slant disparaging comments at Odin's son and imply weakness of Asgard and its court.

"I offer courtesy," he says, still mild, but now it's kind of pointedly so. "As is honorable for one warrior meeting another."

"Well, I cannot say I have found honorable deeds and mincing speech to keep close company," says Harry, whose own version of deliberate mildness mostly sounds like sarcasm. But it's calm enough, that a gentleman of honor would not be entirely compelled to take it as an insult. "But belike it may be so in Asgard."

If this were another Asgardian or similar, Thor would be replying with something genially irked about taking this out back to demonstrate who's a mincing courtier. But unless Harry Percy is actually like X or something, he's completely outmatched here. It would be like a human challenging a mouse to fisticuffs; there's no way to satisfy honor or pride or boredom for either participant in that.

Instead, the ridiculousness of the insult is abruptly overwhelming. Thor throws back his head and laughs.

There is a moment in which Harry teeters between offense and laughing back-- and falls on the side of the latter.

"Why, call you this courtesy?" he asks. "Why, sir, a poor warrior by your own example. But under such terms I can claim to be no better."

"Your pardon for that."

He means it, but there's still some laughter in his voice. (Although he is specifically saying for that -- he's not gonna go asking pardon without fault, here!)

"I think that's the first time anyone's called me a courtier of mincing speech. My friends would fall over laughing to hear it."

My brother, he nearly said. He can push that away enough to not fall into the loss again, but only by not letting himself think about it for now.

"Then we are of a mind," Harry says, breaking into a grin. "O, my uncle would school me in any number of niceties, but in that I have proved a poor pupil."

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