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Wilson comes into the bar through the same gross mouth-like Door as last time, making an ungainly landing as it spits out him and Chester. While he's trying to wipe off the slime and re-orient himself, a third creature emerges from the wormhole; it looks sort of like a seagull-sized black bird, if most of its body was taken up by a giant eyeball. It bounces on its feet, looks around at its surroundings, then immediately tries to eat a French fry off the floor.

Wilson watches this happen with an expression of mildly offended bemusement. "You'll eat garbage but not carrots?" he mutters to the creature, which looks back innocently. In fairness, he'd probably make the same choice if the alternative was a mushy roasted carrot.

He heads over to the Bar to get something to eat, deciding on popovers and a chicken salad sandwich. How to pay for it puzzles him for a moment, then he pulls out a fist-sized purple gemstone with which to settle several meals' worth of his tab in advance. It disappears on the bartop, so apparently it's been accepted. That settled, he takes his basket of finger foods and heads out the back door to check out the grounds. The guide said there was a whole lake and a forest and a mountain range out there, which has gotta be something to see. The fuzzy walking box and the eyeball bird follow him out.

Milliways' backyard turns out to be everything that was advertised and more; the landscape is covered with cherry trees in full pink and white bloom. Wilson takes a moment to lean against the exterior wall of the bar and admire them while munching on popovers. It's been a while since he saw a flowering tree that wasn't spewing out nasty little chestnut creatures trying to bite him on the shins.

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Wilson isn't alone outside. Not just because of his pets, but there's a man leaning against the wall, lazily smoking a cigarette. He looks tired, and maybe a little ill. His hair is a mess, and his usually manicured pink moustache probably hasn't seen a pot of forming cream in a week.

"I don't envy the bastard who has to clean up all the grey sludge later," he says.

He looks down at Wilson's weird pets from a place halfway between curiosity and wariness.

Chester either doesn't care or hasn't noticed Wilford's attention, possibly because he has no visible eyes to look back with. The bird fixes its eye on the new human, tilts its head/entire body at him, then loses interest in favour of hopping up and down.

"What, the flower petals?" Wilson asks, puzzled by the concept. "Why can't they just fall off and rot? That's how you get fresh dirt."

Are there gardeners here? The newcomers' pamphlet didn't mention any, and while it's tidier immediately behind the bar than, say, in the middle of the woods on the island, it still doesn't look immaculately gardened.

"Kills the grass," Wilford says. "Either by suffocating it, or because it turns to slime and floods the place."

He takes a drag of his cigarette.

"They had these all over the place where I grew up." He never had to deal with the trees directly, beyond having to put up with all the grey muck everywhere.

Wilson makes a face at the thought. Grey rotten muck is not unfamiliar to him lately, but not in those quantities. "Sounds pretty gross. The brochure didn't say anything about gardeners, so I wonder if they've got some sort of scientific solution for it. Like a flower-collecting machine, maybe."

He refuses to admit that magic exists if he can help it. Even when it's what he's doing.

"I've never seen this many before. Where are you from?"

"Oh, who knows," Wilford says. "They probably make the rats do it. That or some witch comes out and magicks it all away."

He's not met the oompa loompas yet, or else he'd wager that someone makes them do it, if not the witch. But he's banking on the witch.

"Grew up in DC. People go nuts over them."

He's never seen the point. It's a tree and it makes a big mess.

Witches are very unscientific.

"I guess if rats can carry food they can probably rake flower petals," Wilson allows, not dignifying the witch suggestion with a response.

"I'm from Vermont, at least until recently. Uh, 1921." The year is an awkward afterthought.

Wilford makes a noise that's almost a laugh. "There's nothing to do in Vermont now. What was there in 1921?"

He looks over at Wilson, taking in what someone from 1921 looks like. He looks like one of those people who go around gluing gears to everything and calling it fashion.

"It's great if you want to avoid people," Wilson says, eyeing Wilford with a frowny mixture of distrust and annoyance as he gives him that look-over. "I hardly ever had to talk to my neighbors."

His outfit isn't as elaborate as steampunk fans tend to go; he's not even wearing a top hat. (Because of a spider silk shortage, but that's not the point.) He has a slightly wilted flower garland on his head instead, setting off his weird pointy hairstyle.

Edited 2019-04-21 19:40 (UTC)

"I guess it is," Wilford agrees. He snubs out his cigarette and tosses it into the lawn.

Wilford is wearing nothing special. A dark t-shirt, blue jeans, and black and red skateboard shoes. Aside from his pink moustache, he might not stand out at all.

"So what do you do when you're avoiding your neighbours?" he asks.

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i'm so sorry i didn't get the notif and then con crunch fell on my head

Re: i'm so sorry i didn't get the notif and then con crunch fell on my head

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