milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Well, this is new. And that's OK! New is good. Unexpected is not, particularly, and that's why this particular young man's surprise at finding himself wandering strange corridors has quickly melted to suspicion, and then anger.

He schools himself out of it by the time he finds the stairs. He waits at the bottom of them, perfectly still apart from large, dark eyes that flit over the whole place, taking it all in with no expression on his face. Only the Window gets a second look, and when he's finished his surveillance he walks over to it and stands there, staring in mute wonder, one hand pressed to the glass.

He can investigate the room later. This is more interesting for now.

[OOC: Open all weekend! <3]

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'Yes.'

This from a very pale young boy, with eyes too big for his face.

'But the colours don't matter.'

"The pattern and the movement does," she nods. "And the way things explode. Are they stars?"

The destruction is what matters to him. The satisfaction of finality. Closure is something he instinctively relates to.

'Some of them. But there are planets as well, and asteroids. And everything else.'

The end of everything, he's sure of it. And it's a heck of a show.

"Have you seen any star-turtles?" she asks.

Because that is what her world rides on.

'Of course not. There's no such thing.'

His does not, so of course there isn't.

"Of course there is," she says. "Because of there wasn't, how could the world go anywhere? And where would the elephant come from?"

'What are you talking about?'

He shoots her an impatient look. She sounds like an idiot, and he doesn't like idiots.

Nor does she. Idiots can be useful sometimes, though.

"Haven't you heard that the world is going through space on the back of a giant star turtle named Great A-tuin?" she says. "Kept steady on the backs of four huge elephants on its shell that dampen the motions of the swimming turtle? There used to be five, in old times, but one crashed in the place which is now our mountains, and the dwarves are still mining its remains. Where are you going to school that you don't know that? Omnia?"

That they can. They're useful for taking the blame for things, for a start.

'The world doesn't...where are you going to school? The Earth goes around the sun. It's the third planet in the solar system. There aren't any dwarves mining anything.'

Though there could be, he supposes. There's still a lot of things he doesn't know yet.

'But there are definitely no such thing as star turtles. And how would elephants survive in space?'

"I am going to school in Bad Schüschein at Madam Blapsky's, and when I don't, I am being privately tutored," she says, proudly and primly. "And the elephants survive just as the turtle does, on everything that goes over the Rim."

She smiles sweetly.

"I haven't seen any of that, of course. You don't have to see everything when you have books and teachers. I have seen dwarves very often, though, and the treasures they bring up from the dark."

Edited 2016-04-09 15:45 (UTC)

Bad shoeshine?

'Dwarves are just short people. They only go down mines in stories.'

What is it with this place and stories? He's starting to get very suspicious about it, and he hasn't been here long.

'Why have you got a private tutor? Can you not keep up at school?'

"Dwarves are different people," she says. "Like humans, vampires, werewolves, trolls and so on. And they own the mines, of course. Ruled by the Low King, in his halls below Bonk where we live in our castle. My parents sometimes go down there, but they say I need to wait until I am a little older."

Pause.

"I have a private tutor because there is a lot to learn, and you can't learn even half of it at Madame Blapsky's."

There's a sharp stab of jealousy at this. He doesn't have a private tutor, but he'd like one as long as they weren't useless and actually knew stuff. The chances of him actually getting one are low. It's probably for the best but yeah, still jealous.

'There's no such thing as vampires and werewolves either. Not where I'm from. You're the second person to talk rubbish like that to me today.'

His face, on the side away from her, shows signs of imminent bruising, which is the result of that conversation.

She smiles a little. Her teeth are fine and slightly pointy. "There are, where I am from."

Beat.

"Bonk, Überwald, the Disc."

'That's not a real place.'

Not to him. The books haven't been written yet.

'Who are you, anyway?'

"I'm Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Überwald," she says. "That's the short form; the long one takes four pages of writing."

...

...whatever. James turns back to the window.

'What were you doing before you came here?'

"Studying werewolf genealogy," she says. "There will be a test on it."

'What about werewolf genealogy? You learn about how werewolves breed?'

He would have guessed they do it just like any other animal, and can't see why that's worthy of study.

"Not how they -- oh dear," she says, and giggles. "I guess they do that on the nights of the full moon, howling a lot, like they do everything."

She shakes her head.

"No, who is related to whom. That's genealogy."

His expression turns dark. Did she just laugh at him?

'How do they get related to each other? By breeding.'

Duh.

'Who cares how dogs are related to each other? Unless you're in the business.'

There are people who do that apparently, and think it's a real job.

"They are not dogs, they are our neighbours," she says. "And while they are certainly very annoying and dog-like at times, we of course need to treat them politely and properly."

James is not exactly sure why anyone needs to be treated politely and properly, except to get what you want out of them. He'll admit it's often more effective than other methods, at least on some people.

'It sounds stupid.'

The Window is far more interesting, so he goes back to staring out of it.

"No, it takes a a lot of thinking," Margolotta says. "People are complicated, and dealing with them is a kind of art form."

'People aren't complicated.'

Not even a little bit. They are distressingly, horribly, transparent. He is sometimes a little scared of how much he despises them, and their simplicity.

'If you have to think a lot about it, you're doing it wrong.'