milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Alain's in the bar. With coffee, shockingly enough.

Come talk to him. He's friendly, despite the giant scary guns and the lifetime friendship with Roland. Really.

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Oh, look, someone Sara hasn't met yet. She smiles. "Hi."

He returns the smile. "Hi." He's gotten this greeting often enough that he's started to pick it up, though it doesn't sound quite normal to him yet.

"How are you this evening?" Sara notes the hesitation on the phrase, but doesn't comment.

"Well, thankee. And you?"

He offers a hand. "Alain Johns."

She shakes his hand. "Sara Sidle. And...well enough." She shrugs slightly. "Got fired from my job."

He winces sympathetically. "Sorry to hear it, sai."

She shrugs again. "It happens. And it's their loss." She smiles at him again. "So where're you from?"

He leans against the bar. "Gilead, of Mid-world. Which probably means nothing to you -- most people here seem to be from different worlds than mine."

"You're right about that. I'm afraid I've never heard of your world." She smiles apologetically. "I'm from Earth."

"If you know Cuthbert Allgood or Roland Deschain, or Susan Delgado, they are from the same world," he offers, and touches a gun lightly. "Or any with guns like these."

He frowns a little, thinking. "Earth I know not... is it the same world as America? Or New York?"

"America--and New York City, are on the planet Earth. But I don't beleive I've met the people you've mentioned."

"Ah. I see." He'll develop a mental geography for this place yet.

Well, insofar as anyone can. Which really means that he may eventually acquire a few more reference points to be periodically confused about.

"Are you from one of them, or from some place else entirely?"

"I'm from America--well, part of America, known as the United States. Specifically, Las Vegas, Nevada. Confused yet?"

Sara's grinning.

Cheerfully, "Oh, aye. But that helps, too. Las Vegas is your city, I'd guess? In the... I'd say Barony, but mayhaps that's not the proper word. In Nevada, at least."

"Barony?" Now Sara looks confused. "I'm afraid I don't understand that."

"A region, you might call it. With a seat of government in a city. Though it may be ruled as well by a higher law -- in my world the Baronies were united under the Affiliation, and by common law."

Until the Affiliation fractured and fell. His voice stays calm and matter-of-fact, but his eyes darken.

She notices his eyes changing, and understands that he speaks of past, not current conditions. She nods, eyes sympathetic. "We have local governments--each town or city has its own, which answers to the state. And the state answers to the national government."

"Not so different, then."

"Indeed. Just the terminology."

Cheerfully, "All right. So you are from Las Vegas, in the state of Nevada. In America, called the United States, of the world Earth. And I am from Gilead in the Barony of New Canaan, in In-World, called All-World. Do I have it?"

All-World-That-Was, nowadays. The Affiliation is gone, and the unity that Arthur Eld forged thirty generations ago is gone with it. But Alain has not quite adjusted to saying that, not yet.

OOC: S'alright. It's easier than some other's I've seen. :)

"Got it in one!" She smiles at him.

He lifts his coffee mug to her in amiable salute.

"My tutors thought they'd drilled all geography important to a gunslinger into our poor heads. This place proves many such things wrong, I think."

"Indeed. This place has a nasty habit of taking everything you think you know about reality, and turning it inside out," Sara agrees.

He shakes his head in rueful agreement.

"You say true. Keeps our lives here interesting, I suppose."

"We certainly would not want to be bored."

"Aye, gods save us from that."

It's a little bit dry. Boredom would make a nice change, now and then.

"Something tells me you do not agree." Sara privately does. So much has happened in the past week. Then again, after Vegas anything is boring.

He shrugs and smiles.

"I'd prefer boredom to trouble, and the good sort of interesting times to both."

"As long as there is an equal balance, I'm happy. Otherwise I either get into trouble due to excess boredom, or give into depression with too much trouble. At least if the trouble isn't the fun kind."

"We can agree on that, sai," he says amiably. "I'd have wished for less trouble sometimes, say true" -- like in recent days, and in most of the last several years of his life -- "but I wot I wouldn't know what to do with myself with none. Feel useless, I would."

"And we can also agree on that. I hate feeling useless."

ooc: And I'm afraid I must leave for the evening. It's been fun!

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