(no subject)

[astrangebell]

As the door opens into Milliways, music can be heard from the other side of the doorway, otherworldly music and the faint tolling of discordant bells, which bring to the hearer's mind indistinct memories of sadness and loss.

But when Arabella Strange steps into the bar and shuts the door behind her, the sounds of the music and the bells are cut off. This is a perfectly natural thing to happen, for distant music to be silenced by the closing of a door, but her expression of relief is profound.

Though Mrs Strange herself is a perfectly average Englishwoman of about thirty, she is dressed in an evening gown that looks like the fashions of the early nineteenth century by way of a fever dream. It is like the reflection of a sunset on still water... but not just the color. The fabric itself shifts and ripples like no cloth made by human hands. Threaded through her hair are ribbons like scraps of sun-stained clouds.

It is not her first time here, but she still feels tentative as she moves towards the bar. This place is no less bizarre than the one she came from, after all, though certainly seems safer.

But of course, there can be only one aim for an Englishwoman who is generally cut off from proper English-- indeed, proper mortal-- food and drink, and she addresses it to the bar: "Might I have some tea, if you please?"

[ooc: i'm back! and here is an actual post for arabella at last.]

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

"She does a good tea." Guppy says, from down the bar where he has his own.

[astrangebell]

"Yes, it-- she, forgive me-- does," Arabella agrees. "It is like none I have ever tasted, but then, why should it be, in such a place?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"If you want the one that you normally taste I'm sure she could manage that too."

[astrangebell]

"Oh, I don't doubt it, but I can't help but fear if I grow too demanding, she will become irritated with me. Do you not find, sir, magical beings to be capricious in that way?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Nah, Bar's okay." Guppy says. "Usually after a while she gets to know what you like and just produces it automatically."

[street_sparrow]

Gavroche has been adjusting to newly acquired and dreamlike memories of another life, all of them coloured with sadness and loss anyway, and the bells make him look up and briefly gain a thousand-yard stare in the direction of the door.

Then he comes back to himself and smiles at the woman, with only a single curious glance at her dress.

"You've been here before, that you know about Bar?"

[astrangebell]

"Once or twice," Arabella says, returning the smile. "But I think I am finding the way of it at last-- though the door never seems to appear in the same place. Is that usual?"

[street_sparrow]

"As usual as anything is around here", he says easily. "Some people find it's always in the same place, but some don't, and some people don't even come here through the door at all."

[astrangebell]

She nods with polite interest-- she's ready to believe anything, really, about what is so clearly (to her mind, anyway) a fairy realm of some kind. "You are well-versed in the ways of this place, it seems."

[hasthehighground]

[ooc: Hey will you be around tomorrow evening? I want to work on apps and I am very silly. :). And probably tag in here! But not with Clint >.>]

[astrangebell]

[ooc: I shall be! :D]

[hasthehighground]

[ooc: \o/! Hope your trip was great!]

[astrangebell]

[:D! Thanks!]

[wings_of_a_swan]

Fever dream clothes or no, the woman asking Bar for tea looks--and sounds--very much like a proper lady of his time. There are differences--she's obviously not a Frenchwoman, for one thing, and the fashions are different--but enough similarities to elicit a certain set of manners. So Combeferre will not speak to her without an introduction, unless she speaks first.

He does, however, look at her long enough to mark something odd about her appearance before returning to the "Carmen Sandiego" episode playing on his tablet, which he is listening to with headphones.

[astrangebell]

Arabella happens to glance in Combeferre's direction just as he is looking at her, and her thoughts are much the same: what splendidly familiar clothes (though in a slightly odd fashion, but at least all the right pieces are there) and manners. And odd-- things in his ears, but for him to be perfectly ordinary would perhaps be even stranger.

Not knowing what headphones are, she does not realize that perhaps Combeferre cannot hear her when she says, "I think I will not ever grow accustomed to just speaking to people I have never met-- but it does seem to be the fashion here, doesn't it?"

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre is not in the habit of keeping the volume high when he uses his headphones. It's alarming enough to have sound play right in his ear like that, without it being a loud sound. So he hears Arabella perfectly.

He hits "pause" on "Carmen Sandiego," pulls off his headphones, and rises. "It does, mademoiselle," he says. "I've grown more accustomed to it, especially when speaking with those from other times and places, but even so, I still feel very rude and forward."

[astrangebell]

"You will forgive the forwardness in me, I hope, sir," she says, coming a little closer. "I think perhaps forwardness is a lesser evil to the foolishness of waiting eternally for introductions that will never come. And it is a relief, to encounter people who seem so-- well, ordinary. If it is not considered rude to suggest that you seem so."

[52_dropoff]

"Not many tea drinkers here," says a man three stools down wearing a gray t-shirt and slacks.

[astrangebell]

"Are there not?" she asks. "Then again, I suppose it is more surprising that there should be any at all in such a place."

[52_dropoff]

"In Milliways? Nothing is strange here, after a while. Even your clothes." Not entirely. Charlie would have to say they seem strange. But in comparison with so much else here, it's a mild strangeness.

[astrangebell]

"They are strange to my eyes as well," Arabella says. "The dress is-- it is of some fairy make. The easiest thing in the world for such as them to fashion, or so I am told."

[tased_lightning]

Darcy's at the bar, with a Milliways-brand mocha frappucino with like weird alien plant species milk (because she was curious). It's pretty stellar.

She glances over when the woman sits down, and pulls her headphones down so they're resting around her neck.

"That is an awesome dress."

She's like a punk rock Jane Austen. And Darcy's met Jane Austen, here.

[astrangebell]

"Oh-- thank you, how kind" Arabella says, slightly taken aback. The 'thank you' is mostly by instinct; she doesn't feel particularly able to take credit for anything about her appearance. It all sort of-- happened.

[tased_lightning]

"Sorry," Darcy says, and extends a hand. "Darcy Lewis. Earth, America, early 21st century, Millennial-- you know. Rude."

She grins.

[astrangebell]

Arabella takes it (though a bit awkwardly, her knowledge of handshakes is mostly theoretical).

"No, no, not rude at all, I-- am still growing accustomed to the manners here. Arabella Strange, formerly of England in the, the early nineteenth century-- I'm so sorry--" She's started laughing before she can quite finish the sentence. "This place demands rather lengthy introductions, does it not?"