milliways_bar | Milli-timed to Tuesday the 28th

Entry tags:

Milli-timed to Tuesday the 28th - New Orleans Mardi Gras

The bar room of Milliways is always full of sound - the clatter of dishes and clink of glasses, chairs being scooted back or further in, footsteps upon the floor, rats squeaking, the background murmur of conversations overlapping one another.

But tonight the main door to the bar opens to the mouth of an city alleyway, to a caucophony of noise and music, full of seething crowds and colorful parade floats, the smells of food and sweat and smoke and beer and those colorful fruity drinks sold in yard-long plastic glasses with umbrellas in them. Mardi Gras is in full swing and New Orleans has outdone itself this time.

Yrael enters, trailing laughter from a section of the crowd on the other side. His white hair is decorated with purple, gold and green feathers, his pale face partially hidden by a sharp, glittery cat mask of gold, behind which his green eyes are bright. Over his white shirt this evening he wears a shiny waistcoat of purple, gold, green, and black. It's clearly party time, big time, show time -

"And then some!" he grins, seeing Milliways. "Fat Tuesday is upon us, Milliways! Welcome to Mardi Gras! Come, dance, explore! Laissez les bons temps rouler!"

Yrael will make sure the door stays open for any party-goer who would like to partake in the joie de vivre, and the Bar can certainly provide a change of costume...

(ooc: The post will be open all weekend and into next week as needed! Usual party-thread guidelines apply! Tag in! Threadhop! Meet new people and get into trouble! :D Yrael will be around, but his mun will not be able to tag much until Monday evening. <333333)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Combeferre had not realized how desperate he was for a city.

There is so much to learn, in Milliways, and Marius Pontmercy offers the prospect of Combeferre's new knowledge helping people in his Paris, but Milliways is not a city. Milliways is a café with an inn attached and some grounds. Milliways does not have bustle and noise, shadowy shops, art galleries, people hurrying past him on streets, alleyways, winding roads, strange little restaurants popping up here and there, bookshops dedicated to odd specialty subjects...

New Orleans not like home, it's too much a modern city for that, but it has bustle and curiosities and the ambient noise of French-speakers, and he'll take it. He's wearing jeans (which feel distinctly odd) and what Bar informed him was a sweatshirt, and he has an obvious Curious Tourist look on his face as he stares at everything.

"Comebeferre!" Joly has to shout to be heard! He could actually get lost in the crowd! There's a crowd! He loves everyone and everything here, especially this three-foot plastic cup of amazingly pink drink with the long curly straw!

But he still loves his friends the bestest, and manages to stumble-hug Combeferre with his free arm before pulling away again and getting a good look at what Combeferre's wearing. It takes him a moment or two to read the sweatshirt, but then he grins. Periodic table humor! Wonderful! "Have you been here long?"

Combeferre hugs back, laughing. He had hoped his friends would come out here, even if they didn't cross paths, and he's delighted to see Joly in particular enjoying all this. Joly is very well suited for for cheer and alcoholic beverages with bizarre-looking straws.

"I...don't know," he confesses, with a sheepish grin. "It can't have been more than half an hour, I think? I've been drifting aimlessly like a fool, staring at everything."

Joly laughs. "There's plenty to stare at!" And Joly is looking around cheerfully wide-eyed, too. "Did you get to see some of those floats? Oh, I know it's nothing next to what anyone could do in Milliways, but it's different, knowing they're just things people made." He offers the drink over to Combeferre. "It's very good-tastes mostly like strawberry and pineapple, and oh, something else, I don't know what!"

...Oh, but he knows that smell. "Coffee! Oh, someone's selling coffee. Let's find them!" It's medicinal, for sure!

Combeferre sips cautiously at the drink. "Very sweet," he says, but he's not complaining.

At the mention of coffee, he grins. "I believe it's from over there--and they have beignets, too. And I saw some of the floats, oh, yes. Did anyone try to give you those shiny beads?"

Joly takes Combeferre's arm, and sets off in the direction indicated. "I haven't tried any beignets yet!-- Yes, someone on one of the floats was throwing beads, but I had my hands full, they just sort of landed in my drink. How about you, any trophies of the fair yet?"

Combeferre pulls out a pink sparkly strand from the pocket of his sweatshirt. "Oh yes, these fell on me somehow. Perhaps I'll give them to Prouvaire.--but you'll like the beignets, I think, they come with jam and melted chocolate--"

"--there's some!" He tugs Combeferre along with him to a food cart. Where there's a line, but there's a line everywhere.

While they're waiting, Joly is bouncing, lookng around at the buildings, the ground, everything. "Isn't it wonderful? This whole city I mean--well, what we can see of it! Those huge buildings over there!" He waves enthusiastically at skyscrapers in the distance. " How do they get power to them--and over here, too? And these roads! They're so smooth! Hah,I'd hate to have to tear them up! And even with this crowd, it's so clean!"

...That may be the 1830s talking. But New Orleans, even at Carnival, has a distinct lack of sewage running down the middle of the street, of garbage days old piling behind buildings and on curbs. To Joly, at least , it's a wonder, one that all the litter of the carnival can't hide.

"It's considered dirty by modern standards," Combeferre says, with the wonder and awe of a man who witnessed a cholera epidemic. "Well--in the so-called developed world, anyway. But can you believe it? This, right here, is dirty--people take such a standard of public health for granted."

If Joly were of a more melancholic disposition, that thought, the sheer contrast, might send him into a reverie.

Instead, he laughs. "They'd have nightmares if they saw our poor Paris!--oh, but it must be amazing to be here when it's not so crowded. I would love to know how they do it! I mean, we can read about it in Milliways, of course, but I want to see. It's always different in person-like a real operation after studying diagrams."

"What, you mean the infrastructure? The sewers, the garbage collection systems, the recycling, all of it?" Combeferre's eyes light up with keen interest. "Those would be marvelous to see, in motion--the coordination and the planning involved is wonderful."

Enjolras loves all his friends extremely dearly. He can think of no better men to stand with, and fight beside, and die beside, and spend an afterlife with.

But. Milliways is a café with an inn and some grounds attached, and he's been seeing all of these very dear friends on a frequent basis for a very long time. And they do have the watches Joly made, which presumably will still work for keeping in contact at real need. So he isn't really making a great effort to stay near any of his friends. He'll see them again soon enough, and be glad to do so.

He's certainly not avoiding them, though. So when he rounds a corner and sees Combeferre staring around like a country lad who just got off the Paris coach (which is an expression Enjolras knows full well he's been wearing, too) he smiles affectionately, and comes up beside his friend.

It takes Combeferre a few moments to notice Enjolras, since the street is crowded enough that many people have walked close by him.

He does notice eventually, though, and reacts with a smile of his own, half-embarrassment, half-greeting.

At that point, Enjolras is very nearly close enough to clasp Combeferre's shoulder in silent greeting, which is what he does a moment later.

He leaves his hand there a moment. He doesn't need to say anything; greetings are superfluous, right now.

It's not home. It's full of flashing lights and garish color and sharp strange smells and futuristic growling vehicles, with smooth pavement and wide boulevards, and a Carnival crowd everywhere. Nothing is quite the same as Paris.

But it doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be; this isn't Paris, and this isn't 1832. It's a city, and it's alive, and for a short and precious while, here they are.

It is so familiar and unfamiliar at once. On the one hand, the weight of Enjolras's hand on his shoulder as they stand quietly together amidst a rushing crowd; on the other, the cars and noise and clothes and plastics and colors.

What does Paris look like in this time, with this technology? Combeferre has seen pictures. But what would it feel like, to stand there with his friends? That he will never know.

His gaze has gone distant, like his thoughts, even as he sidles over a step to stand closer to Enjolras.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Milli-timed to Tuesday the 28th - New Orleans Mardi Gras

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter

Re: Exploring the French Quarter