milliways_bar | (no subject)

Duo blinks for a few moments at the centaur. His recovery time is getting better, though!

Foaly, noticing yet ANOTHER pair of eyes on him, tosses his head and catches Duo with a shower of lakewater.

"Yes?" he asks charmingly.

Duo blinks the water out of his eyes. "Oh, nothing," he says lightly. "I was just wondering when punting miniature horses into the lake became a popular pastime."

"I was not PUNTED. I was CHASED. And for your information, I damn well deserved it. In fact," he grins, "I think I got off pretty easy, considering I stole Puck's pants."

Duo raises an eyebrow. Puck always seems to be around when people are being chucked into the lake.

"You. Stole his pants. ...any particluar reason for this?"

"Yes. The situation needed significant lightening. You see, Oberon is coming and everybody is going to die. That is, unless I decide to save you all." He shines his fingernails smugly. "Oh, and he doesn't look half bad with no pants..."

"Who's Oberon?" Duo grins at the arrogance, because sometimes, well. It's more amusing than insulting.

And now, Duo's face looks like this: >_<

Please don't do that to him.

"He's a deranged mass-mailer who is going to flood E-Mails and mailboxes with adverts for large breasts and unusual male undergarments." Oh, but he LIKES doing that to people!

Duo stares flatly at Foaly. "I see. He must be a very advanced spammer then, if Puck is so worried. Considering he doesn't have a computer. Or a mailing address."

"You obviously know nothing about fairy technology, mortal."

He whips out something that looks suspiciously like a Star Trek phaser and points it at Duo. "Zap!" he announces, and pulls the trigger.

A boquet of flowers that could not POSSIBLY have fit inside that thing (it coldn't have! could it??) pops out, shaking petals at Duo.

Duo flinches back at the appearance of the 'weapon', but manages to keep the other instincts under control.

"Fairy? You classify centaurs as fairies?" The eyebrow goes up again.
"Also, very nice." Duo sticks out a hand to shake. It has a joy buzzer on it.

"Of course. 'Fairy' is a general term, including elves, pixies, sprites, centaurs, goblins, dwarfs, etc. Sort of how 'human' somehow manages to include the inhabitants of New York City.

"I'm Foaly." He takes the hand and is BUZZED, leaps back with a startled whinny, but realized a moment later what that was and grins. "Nice. Where'd you get that?"

Ha! Duo likes it when people (fairies?) take jokes as well as they dish them out.

"I'm Duo Maxwell, and I made it, actually." He smirks in return.

Oh, that was it. He approved of this Mud Man. "REALLY. Do you make things like this... often?" He gave a little hop to grab at Duo's hand, trying to get a closer look at the gadget.

Duo pulls it off his finger and hands it to Foaly so he doesn't have to jump. He feels the pain of being short.

"Oh, sure. I make things go boom for a living. Or stop other people from making things go boom. I'm pretty good with silly small scale stuff like this."

Big, big grin. A kindred spirit! "Boom," he giggles softly, playing with the gadget. That was more or less his job, too. And he was damn good at it. Mmmmmm, nuclear-powered DNA-focused fairy plasma blasters. "Not bad, for human work. Not bad at ALL."

Duo snorts, and leans against the bar. "I'm glad you approve. Humanity thanks you."

He sort of agrees, though. Most of humanity sucks, but that's no reason to discriminate.

Actually the People have PLENTY of reason to discriminate, but he'd rather not go into it. He'd rather play with GADGETS. He leans on a stool and prods it. "Can I take it apart?"

...to be honest, Duo has plenty of reason to discriminate against the human race as well.

He grins. "Sure, if you have the tools. But if you aren't going to give it back in working order, don't we need to have an equivalent trade?"

[ooc: Slowtime is fine - but Molly can't resist!]

"Oh look at you, you poor thing!"

Molly might be speaking like a mother hen, because the wee baby centaur is all soaking wet, and obviously separated from his herd.

"Here, let me help you get dried off!" She conjures a thick fluffly towel and advances cautiously. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you!"

He was not a BABY centaur, thank you. But he had no objections to attention from lovely women. He pawed at the ground nervously for effect, though. No reason to make it TOO easy.... "Who are you, then?"

"Oh! You're old enough to speak!" Molly is delighted - she's never seen a centaur foal before!

She kneels down beside him and begins softly rubbing him down with the towel.

"My name is Molly. What do they call you?"

He whinnies happily. He's not used to this kind of pampering. "I'm called Foaly. Not quite as much a foal as you seem to think, though. I've been told there are those of us who have managed to continue a hidden existence aboveground, but my people have mostly been forced under the earth for generations..."

Molly is careful to make sure his hair isn't dripping while she listens to him. She pauses in her ministrations and takes a good look at the "baby centaur", and sits back on her heels.

"Oops?"

She's blushing a bit.

"I'm sorry for my presumption... You're not from the wizarding world, then?"

"Apparently not the same one you hail from. Am I correct in guessing you refer to certain shielded places in the Scottish highlands? It's possible the magic of our two worlds diverted long ago and simply lost track of each other." This centaur, by the sound of his voice, was quite Irish.

"Yes, that sounds like the place. I'm from 1967, and I go to a school for Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland. How is it you came to live underground? All of centaurs I've seen live in a huge herd in the Forbidden Forest. They aren't very fond of humans, but they tolerate us well enough."

Molly uses her wand to vanish the towel, then mutters a spell and uses her wand it to blow warm, dry air on her new aquaintance, not at all sure it's proper to keep drying him with a towel now that she knows he's not a foal.

He kneels on the floor, loving the grooming thing shamelessly. "Humans forced the fairy folk underground long ago, by our history. We've changed. There's actually no history that tells for sure whether centaurs were once larger. There's only stipulation, like the theory that other humanoid fairies once had wings besides the sprites."

"Well the centaurs I've seen are huge," Molly says, reaching for her school bag. She pulls out a History Of Magic textbook. "I don't take Care of Magical Creatures, so the best I can do is show you a picture from my History book."

She riffles through the pages until she finds the section she wants, and turns the page to show Foaly a group of three Centaurs with their arms folded across broad chests and scowls on their faces. It's a wizarding photo, so they stamp their forelegs every so often and generally posture to look intimidating.

"This is from a few years ago when the arguement over which magical creatures qualified for status where in the lawbooks. Centaurs requested to be left out of things, and to retain a designation of 'beast' status instead of 'being'status. It's all in there if you'd like to read about it."

"They did WHAT?!" Foaly grabs the book and stares at it in disbelief. "Well no WONDER we must have disowned them." He's intrigued by the moving pictures. "Tell me... do centaurs in that world... have magic?" Where he came from, the centaurs were along among the People in having no inherent magical powers of their own -- only the gift of tongues which was not magic to them.

Molly startled and blinked at the sudden outburst.

"I'm not sure, to be honest. I know they don't use wands. They're diviners, and astrologers, for the most part. I don't know how much of that is inherent magic, or if it's a learned skill. They're very proud, and pretty much think that humans are barbarians."

Molly's not really offended by this, but doesn't necessarily subscribe to that belief, herself.

"The Merpeople did the same - they decided to forgo 'Being' status and are classified as 'Beasts' by our government. There's probably a list in there of where each of the Magical races falls, and why."