milliways_bar | Milli-timed to Tuesday the 28th

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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)

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Goodbye shirt, and--hello drinks? Is that the gist of it? Hey, they're getting along fine without magical translation!

"Jamie'll fucking laugh his arse off, he says I'll do anything for a drink! But it's not a bad principle." Has he got anything he can get rid of to barter? Well, there's this fucking jacket for one thing, he's roasting. Sorry-not-sorry, Bahorel, you've inspired a general stripping movement.

Bahorel is always proud to be an Inspiration to innovative thinkers! He applauds, and points over William's shoulder to where a young--person? -- in an impressive array of feathers and not much else, is gesturing to him now, and trying to get to them past a couple of other obvious tourist. See how fast this works!

Eh? Oh! Alright!

William frees himself from the oppressive wool coat and wriggles through the crowd over to Feather Person. The negotiations are complicated by mutually unintelligible dialects of English, but eventually he comes back to Bahorel with no coat, a red face, a brown-paper bag with a heavy bottle in it, and a baggie of some kind of crushed leaves. "Christ, he kept asking if I was a true Scotsman or something like that!"

Whatever. There's drinks.

Ahahah. Bahorel has heard some Songs about that. "He was asking if you're wearing anything under the kilt!" he says, with a helpful swat at William's backside to make himself clear.

"Get tae fuck, what would I be wearing?" He punches Bahorel's arm--cheerfully--and jostles up against him as he offers him a swig of whatever's in the bottle. "So this is America, is it? Is that meant to be their king? Or are they the ones that don't have a king?"

He nods to an approaching float, a massive white-haired man with a crown.

Edited 2017-03-01 01:05 (UTC)

"They threw him out!" Bahorel shouts happily. "The King and the whole damn English army, and well done!"

...And then they kept keeping slaves,until the inevitable war about THAT, and Bahorel is vaguely aware this festival has some roots in that somehow too, but sorry, America, he's mostly been reading up on Europe.

He frowns at the white-haired man, then, in absence of any story forthcoming, finds his own. "--Must be the King of Misrule; it is Carnival!"

There, mystery solved until a more interesting answer happens. He takes a swig off the new Mystery bottle. Pungent! But weirdly sweet, too.

"What?" Something about the English army, which sounds like a good story. "Was it the English they were fighting? They won? Well alright then, I like these Americans!" The whole Carnival connection doesn't especially click for him; it's not what they do at home. But he likes it too here, the mad bustle. It's as good as the Christmas-season feasts.

If Bahorel is going to drink from the new bottle, he's going to snag back Bahorel's bottle and drink from that, so there. "Do they do like this in France?"

Throwing out the English: a game everyone can enjoy! Even if the Americans went all strange about the whole affair and tried to have trade or whatever, and there was something about Canada, well, what are you gonna do.

"It's something like this in France!--Ah, or did!" Bahorel's grin softens into something else for a moment, and his voice drops to its usual conversational roar. "That's long ago from this."

There's a sudden sense of time, not exactly unpleasant but dizzying, the centuries between his life and this one, greater than the distance or the language barriers. But it's Carnival, it is Canrival no matter what they're calling it now, and if he closes his eyes he can hear that, the voice of every revel eternal--

--And also, he'll get knocked over and miss the floats. He opens his eyes at another shout for throws, and laughs, and takes another swig from the bottle before handing it back to William.

He gestures at the little bag William got in trade. "Did you see if it's good?"

William laughs and gives him a little push when he closes his eyes. "Don't do that in this crowd!" And oh, hey, bottle swap. The brown-bagged bottle is...kind of nasty, really, William's not sure what it might be, other than Things Mixed Together. He takes another long pull and then squints at Bahorel's gesture. "Good? I don't know what it is. D'you reckon you smoke it?"

He's expanded his horizons in Milliways.

Bahorel laughs, and tugs William's arm towards the general direction of Away From the Street and the parade and the worst of the crowd. "Here, let's get to where we've got some room to move.--I'm sure it is, or else they just gave you their dear mother's secret spice blend."

"To hell with their dear mother," he answers hopefully, letting himself be tugged. "And her whole kitchen. Do you have any of those..." He rubs his fingers together, not quite knowing the exact word. "Paper things, for wrapping it?"

William , you are talking to the right dead revolutionary!

As soon as they find a spot with some slight seclusion--which is to say the crowd around them are a whole elbow-length away instead of falling over their backs--Bahorel produces a neatly-packed little box of rolling papers. And a lighter. You'd almost think he'd done this before! Often!

He rolls a neat little joint and offers it over to William. "Here, we can see what it does and figure out what it is from there."

"Aye, right. Good man."

He even knows how to use a lighter now. Getting good at it, in fact. William's soon leaning back against the wall, looking pleased with himself--but don't worry, he hasn't forgotten to share. He passes the joint. "Can't tell yet if it's any good. Christ, I wish we had that at home. I wish we had--" He's not sure what.

Well, someone's been practicing, if this isn't something he has at home. A commendable spirit of curiosity, there!

Bahorel takes his own drag and lets it settle, giving William time to say whatever is it he's trying to say-- or to give it up until inspiration or possibly medication takes effect.

(The stuff at least isn't obviously terrible! Score one for the barter system!)

Yeah, William doesn't know what he's trying to say, doesn't know how to put it into words. All these new luxuries and vices in Milliways. Drinks no one in Scotland has ever heard of. People doing whatever they want. That's freedom. His eyes track a couple nearby, both women he thinks, kissing deeply.

He drinks from whichever bottle he's holding. "I fucking love Scotland. Don't doubt that for a single fucking moment. I fucking love my home and I'll fucking die for it any day, any minute. Happily. But there's so much else in the world and I fucking want..."

"Everything." Bahorel knows that feeling. His smile turns intent-not on William,exactly, but at the world, all the worlds! That should and might be. "Everything, and to bring it home too." He lets out a breath of smoke, and thinks of dragons and adventures and the glitter of a picture-book..."And to be a thousand miles away at the same time.Everything, all at once. And why not, by all the devils! Why want anything less?"

"That's right. Everything. Everything I've no been let at." He can't quite catch all of what Bahorel's saying, even in this slightly quieter space, but it doesn't matter. Bahorel looks hungry, the same way William feels hungry.

He takes another drink and abruptly turns and presses his face into Bahorel's shoulder, leaning hard against him. "I'm so fucking drunk," he mumbles into the cloth of Bahorel's jacket, "I'm so fucking drunk and I want--everything. Everything I can't have."

--Bahorel has never been particularly unattainable, as these things go.

Hm, is William a kisser or a this-is-like-wrestling-don't-make-it-weird sort? They've largely been relying on gestures and nonverbal cues for their conversation here, and this is exactly the sort of question where that's useful! Moreso because the activity of the moment rather interferes with talking.

At the moment he appears to be the inarticulate-and-vaguely-angry-twenty-year-old-with-a-lot-of-very-important-feelings sort, which doesn't really answer the immediate question. But he's grabbed hold of Bahorel's lapel with one hand and is wrapping his fingers into it in a way that will certainly crush the fabric if he's not distracted, so something should probably be done.

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