milliways_bar | (no subject)

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ursula

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It's turning over into autumn in Ursula's woods. Not quite yet time for big splashes of color among the trees, but the end-of-summer flowers are blooming and the nights are getting cold. Time to be stocking up on firewood and canned food, time to pull blankets and woolens out of the cedar chest.

Aaaand it's the time of year when nights are cold but days might suddenly veer into full summer heat, dammit. So when Ursula steps through her Door the first thing she does is pull off an enormous woolen sweater and start fanning herself desperately with one hand. Yech! Sweat! Blugh!

"Hey Bar, do you serve hard cider?"

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Jamie's just wandering through, not up to anything particularly, as ever. He pauses at the bar and contemplates ordering-- he's going to have to at some point, he can't just always make William do it-- but is prevented from actually having to follow through with this resolution by Ursula's entrance.

"What, is it winter off on your side?"

"Just September, but it was cold when I dressed to leave the house this morning." She's busy tying the arms of the sweater around one of her backpack's shoulder straps so it doesn't get lost, and answers without looking; but now she looks up and grins. "Oh, hey! I remember you from the fair. It's--James, right?"

"Right. And you're, um-- Ursula, was it?"

"Yep, that's me." Now that the sweater is settled, she can kick the backpack under the bar and hop up onto a stool--and collect her cider, crisp and cool. "Nice. Thanks, Bar. You want one too?"

"Oh, uh-- right, go on, then." And only once it has arrived: "What is it?"

"Hard cider." She takes another good pull and considers it for a moment before going on. "Not too hard. Just about right. Not too sweet, either," she adds approvingly.

"Oh right, we have that." He takes a sip, and-- yes, more or less what he would have expected it to be. "Why do you call it hard?"

"Oh, uh--you know, alcoholic. Instead of just apple juice for kids. Which, right, you're--I'm guessing where you're from people don't worry much about kids having wine and beer?"

"Well, you wouldny get a wee bairn drunk!" he laughs. But, uh, other than that?

Ursula laughs too. "Well, right. So--where I live there's laws against selling alcohol to kids..." Shrug. ~~Also the mun is just so American that she forgot other people don't call it hard cider.~~ "So how have you been? Good summer?"

"And what do they call a kid where you're from?" Even in his own era he's teetering uncertainly on the edge: boys his age have been to war, have wives, but he's not of age yet even so.

She smiles a little crookedly. "Well...for buying wine, you have to be eighteen or twenty. But I'm old enough for that and sometimes I'm pretty sure I won't ever be a grown-up."

"Eighteen!" That old to drink wine! "What about beer?"

"Same thing, eighteen. --Why, how old are you? Don't worry, I'm not going to try to take your cider!"

"I'm seventeen," he says, and then somewhat guiltily amends, "Well, nearly."

"See, if I were really worried about policing the morals of youth I'd say something like Shouldn't you be in school, young man! --But you said you live at court, didn't you?"

"Oh, uh, yeah." He looks faintly embarrassed again, for all that it's not really a lie. "And I've had plenty of schooling, promise."

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