milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

The front door of Milliways shimmers and not so much opens as unfolds. Beyond, a ragged crowd boiling in the Arrakeen sunlight. A cloaked figure groans and staggers backward, clutching his chest, as another buries a crysknife in it. As the hooded one reaches the doorway, he seems to divide in half, with one part slumping to the dusty ground and another taking a teetering step across the threshhold. The door shimmers again and is closed. Another dead messiah has walked into the bar.

Rather than falling like his vanished twin, the cloaked man turns, revealing that the crysknife has also disappeared. Realizing that he isn't injured after all, he finds with a shock that he's no longer blind, either. Searching the room with his blue-in-blue eyes, he mutters, "I don't know this place." Its smell is too clean, too wet, and completely devoid of the Spice. He instinctively searches within for the future pathways that he knows shouldn't be there, and sees no future. Pathways abound, but all of them end beyond these walls or curve upon themselves into the past. For a minute that stretches into several, he marvels at this.

Utterly lost, Paul Atreides goes to the nearest empty table and sits, staring at the menagerie around him with a measured awe. Somebody buy this man a spiced beer.

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A small, thin teenage girl blinks at him.

"Um...hi."

His doubly blue eyes blink in reply.

"Hello." He stands and nods slowly. "Do you know me?"

She shakes her head.

"No, I don't. Are you new here?"

She holds out a hand.

"I'm Gretchen."

"New? Yes."

He takes her hand and kisses it. Skin rich with water. He smiles faintly.

"And I believe that I am dead."

She grins and blushes at the kiss and then nods to his statement.

"Yeah, I sort of figured that by the dagger that was in your chest. I'm dead too, a lot of us here are. Welcome to Milliways."

He has to force his hand not to go to the place where the crysknife had torn at his heart. Instead, he beckons her to the chair opposite where the Mistress had sat.

"Thank you, miss. I hope your death was painless. Please sit if you would. I'm Paul." Absurd though the situation is, there's no reason to be rude.

She smiles and sits.

"Nice to meet you, Paul, and yes, it was. I was hit by a car. It was very quick. Where are you from?"

A car. A ground carriage accident then. A common death and a simple one. She was lucky.

"I am from a planet called Caladan. Where the sea spray coated every stone with jewels. And you?"

She grins. Paul is shaping up to be a wonderful story-teller.

"I'm from Earth. I lived in California right by the ocean. I used to go swimming nearly every day."

"Earth?" The second time he's heard the name here.

"That is just a legend in my time. Said to be the origin of all mankind. If you lived there, then you must have lived long before me."

"Well, the legend is true. Earth is where I'm from, and the year was 1988 when I left, but I'm told it's about 2005 now."

{ooc: I'm afraid I must run to work now. I'll be back in a few hours if you'd like to keep playing. It's been fun! ^_^}

"When I was born, the years had passed 10,000, though our numbering systems may have been different. You must have lived in a very interesting time."

[OOC: Slowtime, then? I will nap out and try to get back in a few hours.]

"I suppose it was. A little too interesting on a personal level in some ways, but there was a lot going on and we were about to have a presidential election."

"A President. A democratic world, then? It is said to have been a paradise. Tell me, was your world as green with life as it was blue with seas?"

She nods and smiles.

"Yes it is. The oceans take up seventy percent and there are several large cities, but there were always lots of trees and grass and gardens where I lived."

"I'm glad. Fashioners of legends often exaggerate. And a young woman like you deserves to grow up in a place of beauty equal to herself. If I may ask, how long have you been here?"

Gretchen blushes scarlet and ducks her head a little.

"A little over eight months now. I died on Halloween Night."

"Halloween? Is that a holy day?" Smalltalk gives time for concentration.

"Eight months? Can you not leave?" Am I trapped here as well?

"I think it was a long time ago, but now it's just an excuse to have parties and sweets and wear costumes."

She shakes her head.

"I can leave and go with other people to their worlds, I just can't go back to my own. And everyone can go outside on Milliways grounds."

She points to the back door.

Ah, his nose takes in more moistness. A lake, then. He can almost see it already. First things first.

"Do you have accomodations here? If I am meant to stay, I'll need to find a room of my own." The unkempt stilsuit under his cloak wasn't designed to be worn in this kind of environment, either. If he had to live out of doors, however, that would suffice.

"Yes, there are guest rooms. I used to live in the attic, and Raph stays in a tent on the roof. Just go tell Bar what you'd like and she'll give you a key."

She blinks.

"Oh, yeah, you probably don't know that yet. The bar is sentient. So are the rats."

Jeremy the wait-rat skitters by and waves at them.

Curiouser and curiouser. The Mouse salutes his cousin.

"I have heard that the Bar is her own master. There is so much here that's strange to me. Pardon me if I am too familiar; but you remind me of the young women of my home." Soft, yet not the schemers who seek the gifts of Emperors.

She smiles softly.

"You're not too familiar, Paul. Do I? What are your people like?"

He imagines a youth in training and discipline, with no understanding of its bitter fruits.

"The people of Caladan were happy. Most were content to have families and farms. Those who lived on the seas had no greater loyalty than to their mates. My family was of the ruling class, but I often wished that I could have been born a poor fisherman's son."

"It sounds beautiful."

Her smile is a little sad now.

"I always try to remember how beautiful life can be."