13th Milliversary

[ostro_goth]

 [[13 years to the day, a Goth walked into a bar]]

When Teja comes in on his break from the forge-work today and orders his usual lunch of well-watered red wine, cured meat, and coarse Roman bread, he gets a basket of honeyed seedcakes with it, the kind Gotho or Liuta would bake in Gotland, and a message from the Bar on the habitual yellow napkin:

SHARE THESE WITH YOUR FRIENDS -- IT'S BEEN 13 YEARS!

Teja takes the basket with him to his usual place near the fire, and just waits whom he might see to offer them a seedcake. He thinks of that day when he first set foot inside this place, grim and disoriented from his last battled and the wholly unexpected victory-in-defeat with which he went to his death. He thinks about the people who had greeted him then -- only one of them still sometimes comes here. Teja has outlasted so many -- friends, lovers, enemies; weirdness, adventures and great dangers to all of them.

The forge is a constant, his music, and the cats -- who now cluster around him, hoping for shreds of cured meat.

As for Security work -- Teja hasn't had to arrest anybody in years. No more Ramon Salazar, no more Urquhart. The priest hasn't tried killing vampires in ages, and no thieves plied their trade* here recently. Teja almost hopes that one of the newcomers, Lupin or Zenigata, or maybe one of the more excitable mages from the silk-lands, or  the broken-minded superheroes will give him a chance to pick up that duty again. The man-made fighters, on the other hand, be they vat-grown flesh or machine, are more likely to just want down-time and a moment's peace, and will not very likely make trouble.

His afterlife remains interesting and promising, even after 13 years.




* No, there is no separate rule against stealing -- but for any professional criminal, it's definitely business from home, and unlike a useful trade like baking or metalwork, this will not be tolerated, so there.

Comments

[mogget_cat]

"Good afternoon, my friends," Yrael is not here to mooch shreds of cured meat, oh no. Not at all. The cats, of course, get proper greetings of scritches and ear-rubs.

[ostro_goth]

The cats cluster around him; they know their friend in any shape. To be quite frank, they're not even afraid of the bright white burning one.

"Greetings," Teja says. "Would you like a seedcake? It has been 13 years for me, the bar told me."

[mogget_cat]

Ordinary wisdom would sa it is unwise to not fear a Free Magic creature. The cats of Milliways have extraordinary wisdom, and know they have nothing to fear from Yrael.

"I would gladly try a seedcake," he replies, smiling. "Thirteen years? It seems simultaneously much longer and barely as many days."

[ostro_goth]

Teja offers him the basket.

"It must have been more than ten years ago when we went to New Orleans with two coins of my realm, and returned with my guitar," he says. "And it has been far too long since we made music together."

[mogget_cat]

"It has," Yrael agrees, accepting a seedcake and the censure of his friends now that one of his hands is occupied and cannot continue doling out scritches. "We should make music together again."

Mwrr.

"Milliways has been regrettably lacking in music, lately. Perhaps we should make an event of it."

[ostro_goth]

"Yes," Teja says. "Those wizards of the silk-lands make music, too -- I saw and heard them in passing. I am sure the one in black with the flute, Wen Ning's friend whom Kitty and Ferdinand chased onto the roof, and the one in white with the long lyre, would make beautiful music together. We must invite them to the event."

Pause.

"And Dr. Lecter, of course. He has been behaving recently, has not picked upon any as he used to on poor Javert, or in turn been shot for the many bizarre wrongs he is said to have done in his own world. He should have his moment to shine at the harpsichord."

[mogget_cat]

"Any who wish to play should be welcome," Yrael agrees, smiling. "Though is that regret for no one misbehaving lately I hear?"

Does he need to step in? You know he'd happily volunteer for mischief, Teja.

[ostro_goth]

"Misbehaving patrons do make the place more interesting," Teja says, "but please, tell no-one I said so."

He gives a brief, genuine smile.

"Or they all start misbehaving and then claim they were doing me a favour."

[mogget_cat]

"I will tell no one," Yrael promises, grinning. "Though you know I would happily do such a favor for you. If you need."

"I would, of course, make it look like someone else's doing."

Yrael, it goes without saying, would commit atrocities for the sake of Teja's friendship. And has.

[ostro_goth]

"That would be called entrapment," Teja says, "and there is a fine line between that and handing them rope to hang themselves. We might have to do the latter with the sleek young man who came here to pronounce the rules boring. There would be ways to spice up his life, in this place."

[5ame_heart]

Oooooh new food Fives hasn't had before!

He's in his hoodie nearly permanently now, but he's modified it - it's got an eel appliqued over the hood and his pronouns on his chest in both English and Aurabesh.

"Are you sharing?"

Because it looks like sharing food, but he likes to ask.

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed, I am," Teja says, proffering the basket.

"It seems it is 13 years today, as time passes within this place, that I first entered, from my first death. Please, take a seat, if you wish."

[5ame_heart]

Fives shakes his head. He remembers how long Teja said he had been here for - that's longer than he's been alive and it still feels strange.

He sits down, grabbing a cake and biting into it before saying: "Well, happy - whatever you call a day like this."

[ostro_goth]

"I have heard people call it 'Milliversary', but that is one of the semi-serious terms people here find for anything specific to this place," Teja says. "Once, this place was nearly destroyed by many disasters at once -- so they called it an 'All-pocalypse'."

[5ame_heart]

"And people say clones have a dark sense of humour."

Maybe it's universal to soldiers everywhere. "You don't get bored, your entire afterlife in this one place?"

Fives' world is a galaxy, this place is smaller than a moon.

[ostro_goth]

"Many worlds come here," Teja says. "There is ever new drama. Also, I have been to many worlds and fought some fights that weren't mine but that I found worth fighting. Also, the door will open for me to two places inn my future whenever I wish for it."

[5ame_heart]

"Right, you mentioned," Fives remembers. And also offered Fives visiting rights, which he'd take him up on if he was sure that he wouldn't be accumulating more favours he doesn't know how to pay back yet.

"How do you know which fights are worth it?"

[ostro_goth]

"I judge by those that fight them," Teja says. "And what they speak of, regarding their worlds. Sometimes, I simply go to fight, inn worlds that have no meaning, no good and evil."

Pause.

"Once, a gate was opened to a battlefield world where the two parties were BLU and RED, and one fought merely to fight, and if one died, one came back through a gate at the beginning and could try again, if one wished to. I know, to some it might sound like purgatory; but to me, it contained elements of what my people thought to afterlife would be like: Valhalla, where the fallen heroes fight all day, and feast all night."

Pause.

"I still have my rocket-launcher from when I was a BLU soldier."

[5ame_heart]

Fives exhales slowly.

"That doesn't sound like the kind of afterlife I'd like," he says finally. "Too much like my actual life. I think I'd prefer," he gestures with his seedcake to the entire bar, "yours."

[ostro_goth]

"I do like my afterlife as it is," Teja says. "Feasting all night is not what I would wish to do. Also, I would not wish to fight all day, every day; but sometimes I do wish I could return to the battlefield world for a day and blast things to bits for a while, and slay enemies that will rise again, just as I will."

[lupintrois]

Lupin is kinda hoping to find Zenigata when he walks in, wearing a pink jacket this time. His dogged admirer/rival/nemesis has been a little scarce on the ground recently, and very distracted on the rare chances they've caught his eye. Lupin would hate for Pops to think that Lupin was cheating on him with other Interpol officers but he's gotta steal something soon or he'll lose his edge.

But no, just the necromancied security guard that thinks it's a dead Goth. He really does need to introduce this guy to Goemon eventually. Rather than wait to be given a cake, he casually saunters around behind Teja and tries to pocket a cake illicitly.

He didn't have to. But he wants to.

[ostro_goth]

Teja gives him a look, but says nothing. Who is so stupid as to steal a cake that would have been given freely?

One of the cats seems to think differently. It's the small grey one who gets up from the pile near Teja's feet, stretches -- and then suddenly pounces Lupin's left ankle. With claws out.

[lupintrois]

Lupin yelps and goes sprawling backwards, smacking a table as the cake that he had just barely gotten into his hand goes flying upwards. It hits him in the head on the way down, bouncing off his nose as he sprawls over the table.

"Oh, hey, happy anniversary," he mutters dizzily. "Should there be cats here? I think that's a health code violation..."

[ostro_goth]

"That is Count," Teja says, gesturing to the grey cat that's sitting triumphantly on Lupin's leg now, claws sunk into the fabric of his trousers. "He has been here almost as long as I have. Cats should absolutely be here."

He looks down at Lupin.

"The cats have been making new patrons their prey, recently. The other week, Kitty and Ferdinand trapped a necromancer on the roof of the forge."

[yinyangwizard]

The next time Teja comes to the Bar, he will get a package wrapped in a furoshiki cloth, with neatly penned note.

Teja-san, I congratulate you on this momentous occasion, and I thank you for the delicious honey cake.

I hope you will accept my humble gifts: a box of mochi and a manual for forging a Japanese katana. Making a katana will be a test of the metalworking skills you have been refining for all this time!

安倍 晴明