resizing plot

[merryeccentricities]

If Joly absolutely had to be affected by the odd shrinking magic going through Milliways right now, it's probably for the best that it hit him while he was only playing with the cats and not, say, trying out one of his more experimental gadgets, or on duty in the Infirmary. It would have been even better if it had also been kind enough to resize his clothes, but one can't have everything.

One probably could have a set of fitting clothes, but it would mean having Witnesses to his current state.. He is not ready to deal with that , not just now, not if it's going to blow over in a day or two as these things mostly seem to do.
So instead he sneaks to the library. He settles in at one of the tables to read until this stops, swinging his legs off the edge of the chair.
But there must be something about this body. The age. Mental states affected by hormones, or something. Because he's not reading for ten minutes before he feels compelled to stop, and start pulling some of the chairs and tables into a Fort to Hide In, Secretly.

Enjolras, meanwhile, was in his room considering going for a walk, when the magic hit. After a moment's existential bafflement and exasperation -- and a look in the mirror, which requires standing on the edge of the bathtub so he can see himself -- he revises his plans instantly. It's irksome enough to look like he normally does; he has no desire to wander around looking like this.

('Like this' is like a small and adorable cherub, though Enjolras would never phrase it that way. His current expression of vast irritation would look to others' eyes like a cherubic pout straight out of a Renaissance painting.)

So: the library. If this doesn't wear off in a few hours, he'll wrap himself in as much straight-backed dignity as he can summon, and go on a mission for food and properly fitting clothes. But he's going to wait a bit, first, to see if he can skip that part.

[OOC: You can catch Enjolras and Joly together holing up in the library, or you can catch either one of them singly making an expedition to the bar for food! If Enjolras is making the expedition, he will be walking in plain sight with an I dare you to comment or tease me kind of expression. If Joly is making the expedition, he will be unashamedly lurking under tables.]

Comments

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Of course there's someone else in the library. The fact that it's another person transformed into childhood doesn't really affect Enjolras's reaction, except that he's a little more exasperated by this evidence that the problem is widespread. (Mostly, his reaction is deep irritation that the situation exists and he has to be caught up in it.)

The other person is pulling together a collection of furniture that's -- well, not really an effective fortification at all, but a sort of blind for concealment. Sure, if they w--

hmm, actually, he's pretty sure he knows exactly who that is.

(He's never seen Joly as a child, of course, nor pictures of him. Still. There are a limited number of dark-skinned boys wearing clothes that look distinctly like an outfit of Joly's with the cuffs rolled up.)

Well, there are far worse choices for running into in the middle of an inconvenient Milliways peculiarity.

[merryeccentricities]

Oh no there's another kid watching him--

wait, he knows that particular kid! Although it's somehow clear in the way he carries himself that this time, Enjolras isn't actually a kid, just stuck the same way Joly is. An odd thing, but good to know!

Joly smiles, a little ruefully. "I really thought I'd dodged this one." It's been going on a while, now! He thought he was safe.

At least , of all people, Enjolras is about the least likely to think this is funny.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras, indeed, grimaces wry agreement without the slightest trace of amusement.

Humor, maybe a little bit, but it's all directed at himself and the situation. Certainly not at Joly.

"I would rather have done so."

Oh well. Milliways remains Milliways, with all the oddities that entails.

"I don't suppose you know how long it'll last?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly shakes his head, feeling the absence of curls that haven't had long enough to grow yet. "I don't think anyone's changed back yet. But these things never last terribly long, do they? Even that odd flu never takes anyone for more than a week or so. We must be reaching the end of its time--though I don't know how long it will last, if we're in for the full run now we've been infected, or if it's going to change back everyone at once." He laughs, mostly because he doesn't know what else to do. "I'm hoping it won't last until my next shift. I can't exactly call off sick, but--!" Well.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

"I hadn't thought of that. How much of a difficulty will it be? I suppose height will be a problem."

He doesn't really know how the infirmary's miraculous equipment works, in terms of the detail of the interfaces and whether being child-shaped will affect Joly's ability to work them.

...Also there's embarrassment, but that part hasn't occurred to Enjolras. (Enjolras is largely immune to embarrassment.) Yes, he's hiding in the library, but if he has reason to go out in public he'll brazen it grimly out.

[merryeccentricities]

"Less than in our time, but still a bit-- if anyone needs help moving,or any of the other things that take a bit of strength, it'll be a problem. And then,well, anyone who doesn't know how things work here may not like taking medical advice from a ten year old, after all!" ...And he looks like an eight year old. "It's not a very plausible age to have medical training."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

"I'm sure you could convince them if you needed."

He is sure, too. Enjolras's faith in his friends and their ability to rise to an occasion is a constant, even when that earnest certainty is shining forth from a face that... also looks about eight.

(He's probably 10 or so, but he doesn't look it either.)

"Especially with it a widespread issue. But yes, it's a complication."

Either :)

[wayward_sun]

There's an infestation in Milliways.

Children!

It's absolutely horrid. They're everywhere.

Lucifer has seated himself at the bar and is looking at the small army of rugrats with badly concealed disgust.

Ugh.
Kids.

Re: Either :)

[pro_patria_mortuus]

[OOC: I figure if Joly-mun wants in too, you can have two separate threads! :D]

The blond, rosy-cheeked, ridiculously cherubic-looking child crossing the room with stiff dignity catches the badly concealed disgust. He returns the stare coolly.

It might achieve a look of icily unruffled disdain, which is what he's feeling and what his adult self would answer with. Oooor it might end up looking like an overly serious and slightly petulant child, because these are the hazards of being currently enchanted to be about ten (and look maybe eight).

[wayward_sun]

"What?" Lucifer says.

Because the child is clearly trying to communicate by looks.

Maybe it's hungry?
In that case, its caretaker really ought to come and do something about it.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

"I might ask you the same, monsieur."

His voice is so high right now. Ugh.

(He sounds rather as if he ought to be singing in the soprano section of the church choir, though in fact he never did.)

[wayward_sun]

"Yes, but I'm an adult and you're a -"
He makes a vague hand gesture.
"Spawn. Whatever. So I ask the questions and you answer them."

Or not.
He is not terribly invested but principles!

[pro_patria_mortuus]

...Spawn? Seriously? Enjolras will be the first to admit that he's not a kid person, but this fellow's antipathy to the very concept strikes him as absurd.

"What admirably hierarchical principles you live by, citizen," he says, with a certain amused irony.

"As it happens, I'm not. Nor are most of those here who look it just now. But if that's how you feel, I'll leave you to your business."

[wayward_sun]

Lucifer seems about to say something and then he stops , canting his head a little.

"So you're saying that people have been turned into children? That's some kind of punishment."
He sounds vaguely horrified.
And a little bit admiring.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Hierarchies and instantly assuming punishment (for sins, one assumes). What a charming man!

"Unlikely, citizen."

That coolness has not gone away. And citizen is, in this case, quite a pointed form of address.

All of this is still coming from a young child with a piping voice and the look of a Renaissance cherub, though, so there's that.

"Milliways contains the occasional widespread peculiarity like this. It'll wear off in a few days."

Or so all history suggests.

[wayward_sun]

Aw.
It's pissy.

On the other hand, Lucifer can only imagine how upset he'd be if it'd happened to him.

So he lifts his glass and says, pleasantly and with a bright smile, "Well, in that case, to a speedy recovery. "

Also, of course sins. But they're not really his concern.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras nods slightly, in somewhat icy answer.

And turns away, to start moving pissily with stiff dignity towards Bar again.

[OOC: Hahahaha thank you for the thread!]

[wayward_sun]

{ooc: heh, thank you }

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre is studying magic in the library when he hears a scuffle of what sounds like chairs. He stands and cranes his neck, and sees two small children. One of them looks vaguely familiar; the other he knows he’s seen before.

“Oh, no,” he says aloud. “But—I didn’t do any spell this time.”

[pro_patria_mortuus]

He gets a look of resigned exasperation back from at least one child. It's an expression Combeferre should be well accustomed to, and the kind of look that's very much directed at the situation at hand rather than Combeferre himself. But it's definitely significantly more... adorable than usual. And from a lot lower down.

"We seem to be mentally our usual selves. So it may be a different mechanism."

At least mostly their usual selves. He's still not 100% sure why Joly's making a furniture blind. But presumably he has a good reason! It's probably something scientific or humor-related or something!

[merryeccentricities]

Yes, indeed, he was working on the scientific principle that it's always better to hide in a chair fort than get spotted by everyone who knows him and have things be weird. Joly drops his face into his hands and groans for a moment. And then starts laughing because his groan sounds, inevitably, so childish.

"Oh, no-- oh, well-- Hello, Combeferre!" he waves gamely from the chair fort. He raises himself up to kneeling and leans on the seat of one of the chairs, his chin propped in his hands. "People have been having this happen all week, you know? It never occurred to me it was you, you would have told us about it if it were. It's just --one of those strange things, I suppose." He sighs again. "I hope it's the sort of thing that's going to clear up all at once, and not leave us like this for its full course of days." Milliways problems!

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre frowns. Joly and Enjolras clearly do have all their adult mental faculties, though he's not sure how that's possible, as the mind is not a wholly separate thing from the body. But that's a perennial philosophical difficulty with Milliways.

He looks from small-Joly to small-Enjolras. He's seen small-Enjolras before, of course, but...Combeferre himself had been a small, overly serious boy at the time.

Now he's a grown man looking his friends as small boys--one overly serious, the other in a chair fort.

He's not going to laugh. He's not going to laugh, because he's a better friend than that and possesses some self-control.

He does not, in fact, laugh, but his mouth opens and closes and twists with the effort of not laughing.

"Someone may have posted some information in the Bar," he manages to say.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

(One might delicately point out, Joly, that the library is about the worst place to hide from every single one of your friends, chair fort or no.)

Meanwhile: oh look! Combeferre's getting an Abyssal Glare™!

It's... rather less forceful and more adorable than usual.

[merryeccentricities]

(...he panicked, okay.)

Joly is just trying not to giggle. He tends to giggles, anyway; that he sounds entirely ridiculous now isn't helping him stop. He's very offended though! Definitely!

"That's --aha- that's not something I wanted to go looking for right now, but you could! --Oh!" Science Beckons! "Since it's you here anyway, what would you think about taking some basic physical readings? I think you could get a kit from the Infirmary--? I have baseline readings on all of us, so we could do a comparison!" There could be Data!

[wings_of_a_swan]

Oh, a glare. A tiny glare. And a definitely-not-giggling Joly.

Combeferre bites his lip.

"Yes, a good idea," he says, when he's regained some self-mastery. "I'll--go get a tricorder."

Once he's out of the Library, he allows himself to guffaw.

He comes back brandishing the tricorder. "All right, come here." Unconsciously his tone of voice has become just slightly more adult-to-child than usual, though Combeferre regrettably often sounds like that anyway.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

ugh Combeferre he loves you dearly but UGH

(That's to the guffawing. And the expression which preceded it. And a little bit to the tone with which he's come back, but mostly the rest.)

Enjolras has no actual objection to being scanned with a tricorder For Science, either in general or in the middle of any Milliways weirdness. But all the same, he stays in his chair, looking cherubically petulant quietly irritated, and turns a page in his book.

(His legs dangle off the chair, not touching the floor.)

He's perfectly willing to be scanned, but you get first go at this one, Joly.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly scrambles out of his chair fort without much grace, looks up at Combeferre, sighs, and climbs onto one of the chairs. There. At least they're...sort of closer to the general department of eye level. " I can tell already, this is really my body and not just how I'd look-- it's my leg, for certain." In pants that drag on the ground even cuffed, it's not obvious, but he pulls up the left leg of his trousers to show his foot turned inward a bit. "I wore a brace for a little while, back-well, when I was this age. Not as bad as it could have been, I can walk without it if I'm careful. But I remember it." If he's going to be stuck like this for days, he'll probably have to wear one again. Ugh.

Anyway! "Might as well get the scans now, before we eat anything." Yes! Focus!

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre does not laugh at Enjolras's quiet noncompliance, but he does inwardly smile.

"That is good to know," Combeferre says, to Joly. He scans Joly with the tricorder. Various ailments, nothing surprising--he knows Joly had been a sickly child. "Nothing to be alarmed about, as you can see for yourself, but do let me know if it feels different from what you remember, or if you're experiencing any pain?"

To Enjolras, he says, "Whenever you're ready."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras, resignedly, slides out of his chair.

At any age, he's graceful and self-contained, but there's more care than usual involved right now, and a certain hesitation now and then betrays that fact. He's not used to being this size. His muscle memory only works right when he doesn't overthink it and get in his own way.

"I feel fine," he volunteers, as he comes over to be scanned. "Just small. I didn't notice anything but the change, when it happened."

And, like Joly, he's in pants and shirtsleeves he's had to cuff a great deal. His waistcoat hangs loose and oversized. He wasn't wearing a jacket anyway, when he transformed, but trying to keep it would have been a lost cause if he had been.