milliways_bar | First entrance

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First entrance

"Francis?"

The new arrival, who just crawled out from under one of the tables, looks into the bottom of his tankard, turns it up to try to eke out a few more drops, then sets it down, spits discreetly on the floor, and gives himself a loose-limbed shake all over. Oh, ah--bad idea--Christ's wounds, his head feels fit to split in two, and there's the foulest taste in his mouth.

"Francis! Francis? What, no more sack?"

...No more sack? Possibly no more Francis? Heigh-ho, he does remember this room. From last night! He'd stepped into a closet to find the jordan, he'd found himself in a bright-lit but empty place, desperate to relieve himself; a giant rat had hustled him away from the fireplace and sent him to a room with fine white pottery fixtures to serve the necessary purpose, and had left him with a letter on some brilliantly-white paper; he'd gone to a table and missed his seating, and...

Harry fumbles the Milliways Guide out of the front of his stained doublet and sets to reading it, swaying a little on his feet. Now and then he glances up to survey the room.

((And it's ~~bedtime for me, but I'll be back in the~~ morning, thread's still open to new tags and all! :D))

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"Thou shouldst know this speech for a great honor, friend Thor," Harry says. He realizes he's doing himself no favors by being snide but augh. "He speaks not to the king his father with such respect."

"They wrong me who think so," he says between his teeth, finally looking away from Thor and back to Hotspur.

Edited 2015-09-17 16:55 (UTC)

Thor nods once, seriously: as a diplomatic table. Yes, exactly.

And then he snorts a little. (Over the hurting in his heart: that moment of calculated innocence was like a shadow of Loki, cast again over Harry Monmouth's mortal features. He wants to grasp after it, and there's nothing at all to grasp.)

"You both have my mercy and none of my anger. But if this be a diplomatic table, there's no accord in sight, and courtesy's reached its end for the moment."

"There are cells, though comfortable, for those who break the guest-rules of Milliways. I don't think they're needed here. This is my sentence for you both: two days' service in the kitchens to wash dishes and fetch and carry as needed. To be served separately. One of you for mornings, the other afternoons. Harry Monmouth, you'll learn more of Milliways and its ways in such service, and mayhap both of you can cool your heads with dishwater."

Somewhere, Frigga is laughing. Mmph. He probably owes her an apology for his entire childhood or something.

Then, wry and friendly, "I have sympathy for this. I have no authority to prescribe that you avoid each other, but for amity's sake I would suggest it."

Percy's relieved to escape the cells, but hardly proud of having run afoul of security twice in such quick succession.

"You need not speak of this to--" Mm, no, that's more information than he'd like Hal to have. But he's started the sentence, so he has to finish it somehow: "--anyone?"

...Teja? His friends? Thor's not sure.

"It's Security's custom to make note of our actions for our fellows, so all are informed. But I do not spread tales beyond that."

Now that's interesting. Who else could be here whose opinion Harry Percy cares about? Not his uncle, surely?

...also, washing dishes? He knows how to play a drawer's part, knows their language and their habits, but... "Where are the kitchens?"

Harry nods agreement to Thor's statement: Teja's respect for him is, as far as he can see, irrevocably lost, so he isn't particularly troubled by the thought of further damage. After such sincere protestations to Feuilly, on the other hand, that he would try to do better--

...where are the kitchens? He thinks maybe he went once?

Thor's been to the kitchens! He's grabbed stuff marked FREE FOR THE TAKING out of the fridges when bartending! And he got set to scrub pots a few times in his youth ~~although probably not as often as would've been good for him~~ so -- probably the weird kitchens here can't be too different? Anyway the rats will show them what to do! IT'S FINE.

"Do you, Harry Monmouth, come with me now, and I'll show you. And do you, Harry Percy, find me here by the stable or paddock in an hour or two, and we'll do the same. Both your two days' service begins tomorrow."

Monmouth could probably use the supervision if he's that new to Milliways, and Percy could probably stand the time to dunk his face in a lake and kick rocks and fume at the sky.

Harry can't resist raising his eyebrows a little, amused. What, Thor doesn't trust them to both come quietly into the kitchen at the same time?

...All right, Thor might have a point.

"Very good. Just one moment--" He has something to retrieve: the knife he'd tossed away before. He steps lightly past Percy and over to a small table, and picks up the dagger with deliberate care. See, no sudden motions? He flips it once, then tucks it away again in its discreet little sheath.

Percy's eyes don't leave the knife for a second (no, he doesn't trust Hal even a little, why do you ask?), but once it is sheathed he turns abruptly to Thor. "For an hour I will leave you. I- I thank you for your-- understanding."

Thor one hundred percent does not trust them to both come quietly into the kitchen at the same time.

(And that dagger, flipped and tucked away into hiding -- he's not much like Loki, he doesn't even look so strikingly like him really, but there are so many little superficial reminders, and each one strikes him like that knife shoved home. His jaw tightens and eyes drop at the gesture, just for the slightest moment; he's shoved the thought away again immediately after.)

Percy gets a lopsided shadow of a grin. "I'll tell thee sometime of my temper as a youth."

Nnnnot just as a youth, Thor.

"Come you, Harry Monmouth. If you have questions about Milliways, I'll answer them too."

A gesture of pointed trust: he turns his back on both of them to lead the way out of the stables. Nobody punch each other!

Hal's not punching anyone. It's not just politic restraint; he has no desire to. He avoids eye contact as he steps past Percy, as he might avoid antagonizing some fierce dog. But he can still feel-- "He looks at me as though I'd stab him in the back," he mutters, as they leave. "He does not know me half so well as he imagines--"

He breaks off, rubbing his chin, and finds a laugh. "I can only ask your pardon, sir, for the trouble you have been put to; and I can only thank you, sir, for your forbearance. But my thanks you have. And--Harry Monmouth, you did call me now, and may I beg you one more forbearance? Let the name be Harry Monmouth on your report? I did not come here to be Prince of Wales. --Well. I did not come here with any meaning at all, here came to me. But--"

But Harry Percy, that Hotspur of the north, all work and no play, has once again forced him into leaving his role as wastrel before he's ready for it. "I would be happy here to drink and jest, to find such friends as suit my tastes, to pass the time--"

He glances over at Thor, with the question in his face: can he be private Harry Monmouth here?

Percy does want to punch a particular someone, but even he can't bring himself to so ostentatiously betray Thor's show of trust. So he turns away, back towards the horses, making his way down the line to soothe them from the commotion.

(Good job, Percy! Thor was hoping he'd step up to soothe the horses, and is glad he did so.)

And so -- hmm. There are good reasons for a king's son to set his rank aside and pretend to be only a private man, and there are shameful ones.

But either way, it's not Thor's place here to pass judgment on that. What he thinks of Harry Monmouth of Wales -- which is largely yet to be determined -- can only affect certain of Thor's actions, no more. He's always Odin's son, but Asgard holds no sway here, and Security's sphere is a limited one.

"We are all guests here alike," is what he says, and means it. "I've no sway over what others may say or conceal, but no one's rank holds here, save what's in their heart and their honor. Harry Monmouth you'll be."

"I thank you. --It is my name," he adds, with a rueful smile. "I do not mean to be disguised." At least, not if Percy's here, unfortunately. "But I have no desire-- a prince in a foreign land, if he is known, must always be an image of the king--"

He toes up a rock from the path as they walk, and bounces it once or twice on his foot with unthinking ease before sending it off to the side. What does he want to be here? There's neither popular opinion nor court opinion to influence.

Thor glances at him sidelong.

And... there's some understanding, there.

"A prince carries that always. In himself, known or not. But neither is the king here."

"God keep his Grace from it!" There is absolutely nothing of his day here that Harry wants to share with his father. "I would there were no man from England here, no one at all. But Harry Percy! How! And then to task me-- O, the dead will have their claim beyond the grave."

If his father came here, would he find King Richard?

"Forgive me. My talk is all unjointed."

Edited 2015-09-17 21:03 (UTC)

"I said," Thor says thoughtfully, "that folk come from many realms, and many worlds. As you've seen, some come also from death."

"They're guests as any other. Not shades nor hauntings. If their souls differ from living souls, 'tis too subtle for my eyes to see." Which is entirely possible, honestly. Thor is not exactly the best at perceiving really subtle metaphysical and magical stuff. "If he tasks you, it's as one human may another."

So presumably without magic or binding curses and stuff, from what he's seen of Harry Percy.

"Nay, but..." Hal toes up another rock to kick. "His rebel's cause can he argue, and I can counter. Drunkard can he call me, and idle, loose and lewd and riotous, and that can I counter too, when I choose my time. But he has that one charge against me that none can counter, that I did kill him. That's not 'as one human may another.' --Out on it! If he's here, I shall offend him, or he will learn to look the other way."

Thor shrugs -- not dismissively.

"Then you did kill him, and that will always be between you."

"All else that was between you, and your families, remains as well. The consequences may be different here where he walks and speaks to charge you with it than in your own world, but that heart remains. Here it's as any other wrong that one may do another. With cause, or without. You'll both move forward as you may."

Ooooor you'll get clapped in the cells a lot. But Thor is operating on faith here.

(He isn't thinking, now, of what it might be if one particular person who could say you did kill me with at least half-truth came to Milliways. That's for many reasons -- it would only be half-truth; it wouldn't be Loki's first choice of accusation; the two Harries don't seem to have much of any prior love between them -- but part of it is that thoughts like that are a chasm of their own. If he thinks on that, it will be in private, and not by answering another's need with his own personal grief.)

"It was in fair fight, in combat on the field--and he the better swordsman far, I would never deny it. Some luck, or else the will of God, turned the end my way. But it was the chance of war. --Your pardon, sir. Coming on us as you did you made yourself in some sort a confidential listener, but I doubt you wanted it. I will not force you to endure any more the affairs of England, if you prefer your peace."

They're close now to the building. Harry shrugs, and smiles, and holds himself more loosely--and visibly dismisses the subject from conversation. "And so--heigh-ho, a potboy I must become. The kitchen here, has it the same wondrous fountains and waterfalls as the privy chambers?"

"I don't object."

But he's also not going to press. I will not force you to endure any more this talk means I've just realized I'm telling a stranger more than I want to, often enough, and he suspects this is one of those times.

And -- oh geez, right, Midgard of back in the day.

"It doth," he says, with a grin that says, and a whole lot more besides.

Prepare to have your mind blown by sinks and refrigerators, Harry. (And sentient rats.)

Harry...isn't sure if he's telling more than he wants to, or less. He hasn't settled in his mind yet what to be here, who; but talking privately to a prince, he'll be a prince.

And inside a tavern he'll be something else--for now. "Such crockery-ware and such spouts of pure water did astonish me. But see, I am easily astonished, for I am Harry Wash-water, Harry Under-skinker, Harry Grease-gobbet, Harry o'the Apron, Harry o' the Scullery for the next two days, naught but a pair of hands and an empty head: show me your domestic wonders."

...Uh huh.

Thor's not reminded of Loki now. If anyone, maybe Fandral, with his winking wit, but all of Thor's friends are too aware of dignity to utter sentences like that.

"What's the custom for names in your land? Are you by custom Harry or Monmouth or both, or something else again?"

If he's really supposed to call them both Harry he totally can, but it seems a little confusing under the circumstances.

He's asked this kind of question occasionally in Milliways, but more often he's been assuming and waited for corrections or weird looks. He's not sure which way is the better, really.

"I am by custom in a tavern, and there they call me Harry or Hal, whatever suits their meter or their humor. Why, has that Harry Percy, that Hotspur, has he tried to establish sole claim on the name?"

First entrance

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