milliways_bar | (no subject)

And suddenly, there is a fairy glancing down at them as well.

"What a dreadful-looking assembly of scrip and scrippage."

Val looks up and chuckles a bit. "Hey, Puck. Some of it is rather dreadful, and some boring." She shakes her head. "Political papers are horrible."

He rolls his eyes dramatically. "You ought to burn the lot."

He is ... probably kidding.

"I should. But unfortunately, these are Important Papers, which things actually have to be done about. I'm working for the King of Antar, and some of these actually have to be signed by him and stuff." A shrug. "But burning them in effigy would be amusing."

He tilts his head to one side. "Not young Max?"

"Oh, of course Max." Val headdesks. "You were there. Duh. Sorry, I have a tendancy to get my head stuck in my writing and not think, or not notice anything else."

"Was I there?" Puck says absently, before chuckling. "Quite all right. One of the reasons that I myself have chosen not to take up writing. Ink seems to have a habit of seeping into the blood."

Val just shakes her head and chuckles a bit to herself. "Well, if ink seeps into the blood, I probably bleed green ink by now. Now that's a strange mental image."

He looks a little too curious about this.

Val raises an eyebrow. She should know by now not to give in to curious Fae. But somehow she has a soft spot for Puck.

"... There is a way to find out."

Look at the innocence.

Innocent? Ha. Val shakes her head. "There is. But that would be slightly messy, wouldn't it?"

Pout.

"It needn't be. Not if we're careful." A little prick ought to do it.

Damnit. If there's something that Val can't give in to, it's a pout. "Alright. I have to have a pin in here somewhere." She rummages in her apron for a few moments.

Puck beams.

"You're a marvel of a woman, dear Val."

She looks up and gives him an odd look. "If you say so, Puck, dear." Eventually, she comes up with a needle, and in a moment, has her finger pricked, and a bit of blood on a random paper. It's typcal red. "Well, I guess that's that. Boring, really."

He snatches up the paper deftly and laps at the blood experimentally.

"Hm. Tastes the same as well."

Val blinks as well and then just facepalms. "If you say so, Puck. I'll leave that one to you."

He smiles sweetly.

"Probably for the best.

"Aside from the usual papering about, what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Um, not much, really. Just writing, and riding my horse, and some martial arts training." In what universe is that 'not much', Val?

"You've a horse?"

How Freudian.

"A black winged horse, actually." She grins. "He's amazing. His name's Solon, lives in the stables out back." All Freudian implications go over Val's head. Whoops?

He grins.

"A pegasus ... wherever did you acquire one of those?"

"Deal with Bar. I think it was a one-time thing. But he's lovely. He'd probably like you if you tried to take him out sometime. He loves flying." She smiles a bit. "He's rather protective of me, though."

Puck considers this.

"I'm not in the habit of using creatures for their labor. Though your Solon does right to protect you."

Val smiles. "I think he likes flying. If he was bothered by it, I wouldn't make him do anything." She means that. "And, well, I keep him as free as possible. It doesn't feel right to me to keep him on a rope all the time."

"Well ... it's still slightly different for one of my kind," Puck explains. "We're a good deal closer to bird and beast than are mortals."

For example, would you ask your cousin to pull a carriage? Even your second cousin? The one you only see on Christmas and Easter? Well, then.

"True. I can understand that." She pauses, obviously processing a few things, lost in thought for a long moment.

Puck just tilts his head, watching her come to whatever conclusion she'll come to.

After a moment, she shrugs it off. "This place has really made me think a lot about the lines between sentient beings and non-sentient ones. Mortals and humans have a vastsuperiority complex. Especially over things which they can't communicate with."

Puck grins. One might say that he is delighted.

"What mindset should replace it?"

"Everyone should respect all species, and not treat anything as a lesser being." She bites her lip a bit. "Because, really, all species have some degree of sentience. And somewhere, all can communicate."

"So I've been told," he says, thinking of Nita Callahan.

"Well, it makes sense. There's no real theories of it in my world, but it just seems to make sense. If a creature has life, it communicates with other creatures of its own type." She pauses, but doesn't go on.

"Except when there is miscommunication, of course," he puts in cheerfully.

Val laughs. "Of course. Humans are notorious for that one. I rather think humans miscommunicate more than they communicate, really."

"You may just be right," he says with a laugh of his own.

What? No, of course he will not admit to a similar failing among his own kind.

Val smirks. "Hey, I'm usually right. And when I'm not, I'm spectacularly wrong." Her eyes twinkle. It makes sense in some universe.

He nods thoughtfully.

"That seems logical."

Val laughs and shakes her head. "If you say so, Puck. At least you understand me. I generally don't understand myself."

A curious pause.

"Does anyone understand himself-- or herself, as the case may be?"

"Well, true. Some philosopher went on and on for a few too many pages on the statement 'know thyself', but you really can't, can you? People are... people. And beings are beings. They can't be really understood."

A snort. "Not even by their creators, it seems."