milliways_bar | 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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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?"

Yeah, Thor's not touching that one, and he gives Harry-or-Hal an amused I see what you're trying to do look in consequence. Come on, kid, he grew up with a bratty brother and daddy issues too.

"Your land's customs aren't mine. And people differ besides. I thought me it better to ask than to assume wrong."

Oh, all right. Harry finds his serious-face again. "Then I thank you, sir, and Hal or Harry will serve, as it please you. And may I ask the same of you? Is there title or name that you prefer?"

"Thor will serve. I am Thor to all here -- Odinson only to those who desire formality of their own accord."

It's a meadhall, and Thor's a chill guy, and nobody here is his subject.

He has other titles, of course, both official and kennings. But Odinson is the heart of any formality or rank; the others are just details.

First entrance

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