milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Bahorel had begun the night with a drink, and gone over to a table in a far corner, with a good view of the room, to sketch the Bar and her surroundings in their altered state.

That had been some time ago.

His table is currently covered and spilling over in pages spliced together and folded into each other, sketches of landscapes and buildings twisting across them in a style that's rather more shadowed and symbolic than representative. At some point, he thought to ask for ink, though he hasn't really noticed-- and if Madame Bar's her usual self again, he hasn't noticed that either.

Possibly startleable , if you catch him before his pencils run out.

((OOC: here for an hour or so maybe, or until storms sideline me again!))

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Marius smiles. "No, it was not Bossuet. Well, he made some jokes about it, but-- the conversation I refer to was with an Englishman. Jim was his name, I believe."

"Jim?" Bahorel raises an eyebrow. "Says he's from a couple centuries ahead of us, seedy English sort, about--" he lifts his hand in the air "--so high, nothing about him you wouldn't lose in a crowd?"

Well, Marius probably wouldn't have thought to describe him quite like that, but...

"Yes, that sounds like him."

"Ah, you are keeping dangerous company, then-- that's the fellow who set fire to our stables here not long ago." See, Marius, this is why you talk to your friends! Important Gossip!

"What!" he cries, quite alarmed. "I had no idea!"

"Ah, well, you've very rightly had your thoughts elsewhere." Really, Marius. It's all right. "But it's no secret; the news was posted on the main notice-board, by the head of Security. And I've never met her, that I could rely on her word alone, but Feuilly confirms it, too." And Bahorel has risked his life and interests on Feuilly's word before, and would again.

"I had no notion such things happened here," Marius says. He hardly liked to think of Cosette here alone before, but now...

"They mostly don't-- it's amazing how much they don't, with everyone who comes through. You're safer here than the streets of Paris." And oh how it drives him mad.

"But that fellow seems to have taken a dislike to some of the other patrons, and set about to strike at them without any concern for anyone else who'd get caught in the way." If it weren't for that carelessness, Bahorel wouldn't think terribly of Jim--Harry and Hal are grown men and skilled fighters, and they have a right to their enemies. But the poor panicked animals in the stable, anyone else who might have been injured in the effort to put it out-- that was rotten. "--And he's happy to use other people to do his dirty work for him, without their knowing." Which makes him no better than any prosecutor or policeman,to Bahorel's thinking.

"Well! Then I shall give no more thought to anything he said, and will avoid him if I can." He frowns. "Is there anyone else-- or anything else-- I ought to know about?"

Actually asking for more information, Marius? Good for you! "There's a fellow named Hannibal Lecter who it seems used to be a doctor in his world-- Joly will tell you more about that if you ask him, I'm sure, but it seems he was responsible for some rather lurid horrors. There's Security--they're less trouble than our officers back home, and the cells would rent for more than any honest man could pay as a Paris apartment, but do look out for a weaselly Englishman in a bad coat--that's Gene Hunt, and he's free with his fists. And he doesn't llike Frenchmen." This obviously amuses Bahorel a good deal.

"And oh, there's magic and what not--There's a fellow who calls himself Death-- I don't believe him, but he does have a bit in the way of flashy powers. There are quite a few of those here-- people with powers or magic or what have you. They're mostly no trouble." He grins. "And I could tell you of enough of them that you'd think I had lost my senses, or was inventing stories like any fireside talespinner; but ask Courfeyrac, or Enjolras--you know he's not given to fancies--there's very little of our storybook creatures you won't find here. Leave them to be themselves,and they leave you to be yourself, in the main, and that's all anyone has business asking of a stranger."

Marius nods, his brow working its way into a deeper frown. He's tempted to take notes, though of course he doesn't: Jim, Hannibal Lecter, Gene Hunt. Well, he can remember three names well enough.

"I little like the thought of Cosette having been here alone amongst such things-- though I know it is too late now."

"Alone!" Bahorel laughs. "I like that! Her father's here, as often as not; her mother's here, now, and has been for months. What better company do you want for her? For that matter, we're all here, and do you think we'd let anything happen to her that could be prevented? How many legions do you think she needs?"

He looks at Marius a little more seriously. "It is safer than Paris, you know. There's less chance of attack--and less chance of gossip, too. No one here would speak against her--or if they have poison enough that they would , they can't, not to anyone who can possibly matter on your side of the Door. There's only us--and that spy, and he's less threat here than there."

Marius ducks his head, blushing.

"Yes-- yes, of course. Only you make it all sound so-- strange, and dangerous. And I suppose it is, in its way. And yet, safer than Paris. Yes, I do believe that."

"Fair! Fair enough! It's strange, I can hardly deny that; and I'd hardly be here if it weren't, would I?"

He looks at Marius a little more seriously. "It's strange, and no one could expect you to trust the place entirely. And I wouldn't be pinned here for choice. But if I could live in our world, and come and go here of my own will--damn! Ask Joly what it could mean; ask Combeferre! It's not a place to be dismissed."

"No. I suppose it is not."

But all he can think of how it all could be explained. What can you learn, what take back, that people will not ask questions about? Will not lead them to thinking you're mad?

"I will not dismiss it," he says.

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