(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

Ray meant to go home to sleep last night, for various reasons, but when Egon saw how pale and wobbly Ray was, he essentially pushed Ray right back into Milliways. It's not a good time of year to expect a full night's sleep and Ray's not recovered enough from the battle yet to make that worthwhile. Soon, but not just yet.

So the short version is that he comes down from upstairs instead of in from the front door. He's back to the cargoes- his leg's not hurting him any more- but the black T-shirt is still the loose, easy-fitting one, as his shoulder's a little cranky yet. Doesn't stop him from getting a decent bowl of oatmeal and a cup of hot chocolate that smells like it wants to leap out of the mug and set someone on fire, though.

Now to find somewhere to eat breakfast. There's a nice table over there. That'll do.

Comments

[so-very-mad.livejournal.com]

There's a cat sprawled on the rafters. A grinning cat. It definitely wasn't there a second ago.

"Are you acquainted, I wonder, with any travelling bands of mice?" Cheshire calls down.

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks up at the sound of the voice, trying to place its source. "Not to my knowledge," he calls back. "Although around here you can never really tell. Were you looking for one in particular?"

[so-very-mad.livejournal.com]

"Not particularly," Cheshire yawns. "Just some lunch."

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, that?" Ray glances over at the Bar. "You can probably get dead ones from the Bar without much trouble. If you want live prey you're going to have to kill something outside, though. I don't think it can make living things. And the critters outside occasionally breathe fire."

[so-very-mad.livejournal.com]

"Dead mice are often cold, and I don't have a microwave on hand," Cheshire says lazily. "I suppose that can wait. Tea?" He appears on the table, placing a long glass of something thick, frothing and bright green, giving of steam and smelling absolutely foul. "It's green tea."

[gone_byebye]

"True. They tend to come from the store frozen, and then you have to thaw them out, which just takes forever."

He blinks a little at the appearance, but eh, these things happen. The glass gets a closer, more interested look. "Really? Earth green tea, or someone else's green tea?"

[so-very-mad.livejournal.com]

"It's tea that's green. Very simple. Drink and be merry, until the coma sets in, anyway."

[shaped-jeedai.livejournal.com]

There's a Jedi wandering around in slippers with her own mug of hot chocolate when she spots Ray.

Tahiri has noticed that several people around the Bar have been nursing wounds lately, so she figures they must've been the group that was supposed to go demon killing.

"Hey Ray. How you feelin'?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray looks up from his cup. "Doing okay. Hi, Tahiri-"

Two things collide in his head in an effort to reach the speech queue first. The lesser of the two wins. "Nice slippers. Bar give them to you?"

[shaped-jeedai.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I was tired of having cold feet," she grins. Look! Wampa legs!

"So how'd the demon thing go?"

[gone_byebye]

"They're very cute. She usually gives me these green things with tentacles on them. On the other hand, they're warm, so as long as I don't look too closely the green things are okay by me." It's not like she's giving him Mr. Stay-Puft slippers, after all.

"Pretty well, actually. Michael Guerin lost some people- he had a detachment of fighters from his home planet- but we saved the people we were supposed to, and no one from Milliways died. I've got some shiny new scars that were patched up by a couple of different healers, so all I really have to do now is let the swelling go down and make up for the blood I lost." He reaches over to roll up his left sleeve- there are claw marks on his shoulder, scars of something with very large, very angry claws that raked him with intent to rip. They're losing their red, inflamed tone, though.

"It all worked out for the best in the end, I think," Ray says, and takes a deep breath. This is the first person he's goign to say this to other than Peter...

"Master Qui-Gon said he considered it my Trial."

[shaped-jeedai.livejournal.com]

"Thanks," she says with a smile. "They're really toasty."

When he pulls up his sleeve to show the scars, Tahiri's eyes go wide. "Woah," she breathes, and reaches out almost as if to touch them, but pulls back before she starts invading personal space. The speed at which he's collecting scars is enough to make a Yuuzhan Vong warrior jealous. "That was a big nasty one, I take it? Definately something to tell your grandkids about."

Absorbed as she is by the scars, Tahiri almost misses the last thing Ray said. When it filters through, her face lights up in a huge grin. "Oh Ray, that's fantastic! Congratulations!"

[gone_byebye]

Ray grins. "It was about... mmm, a head taller than me, I think- but there were five others the same size along with it, and I'd gotten separated from the rest of my group. Between those and the bite marks on my leg, it's almost enough to make up for the fact that my hands were set back to original condition a while ago." It's true- there's no scar tissue across his palms any more. hasn't been since he came back from the world of the Men in Black. "But the bite mark's a doozy. Double row of teeth. I really gotta work on my lower guard."

And then he grins, relieved. It is a very big grin. "Thank you," he says. "I'm a little surprised I didn't break any glasses the night he said it, with the noise I let out. Never thought I'd actually qualify...."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Hullo Ray." She's got bits of timer spread out over a good portion of the table she's commandeered, but surely there's enough room for a ghostbuster and his breakfast.
"How goes?"

[gone_byebye]

"Fairly well, I think," Ray says. "I'm getting better hematocrit readings, so I figure two or three more days of enforced recovery and I'll be up and around again. Egon says not to come back to Manhattan until I'm completely better, because it's scaring Ecto to see me all wobbly and pale. Master Qui-Gon told me the other day that I passed my Jedi Trials, which is really pretty incredible... um, other than that there's a few things that sort of need handling but they're going to have to wait. How about you?"

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

There is staring.

"This all from that demon battle thing you were tellin' me about? Geeze Ray, I should've given you, not Faith, the nitro." Well. She'll know better next time.

[gone_byebye]

Ray thinks for a bit.

"Yeah, that all pretty much grows out of the demon battle," he decides at last. "Master Qui-Gon said that the Jedi trial usually involves sending an apprentice into a combat situation against nearly impossible odds. If they survive without going completely bugnuts Dark Side, they pass. I'm pretty sure there are other aspects, too, but I'm not going to argue with a Jedi Master about whether I qualify or not... Anyway, now the battle's over, I have time to learn to use explosives properly. Which I seem to recall was my primary argument against asking for them in the first place."

He smiles beatifically and sips his hot chocolate.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

Ace grins.
"Well, if you're gonna be so attached t'your fingers as all that..." It's teasing, but she lets up pretty quick. "Congrats, Ray. Y'goin'ta go 'round in a robe an' hand-wave us all into submission now?"

Okay, so maybe the teasing isn't over yet.

[gone_byebye]

"I can live without a finger or two," Ray says. "I'm not a hobbit, but I can manage without a few fingers. It's the legs and arms I wanna keep." He bends over and rolls up his right trouser leg. Something with a very large dental arcade bit him in such a manner as to leave a double row of tooth scars; the outer is relatively even and was once many quite deep wounds, but the inner is the marks of snaggled, crooked, generally horrible teeth. "And no. I've got the robes and I'll wear them at some point, but I haven't got any Force sensibility now, any more than I did when I started. I'm as head-blind as a cantaloupe."

[scapepig]

Someone, or something crashes into the back of Ray's booth. With quite a lot of force.

[gone_byebye]

Ray sits up with a start, what's left of his hot chocolate sloshing around in the bottom of his cup. "What the-"

He stands up and peers over the back of the booth.

"Snowball?"

[scapepig]

Snowball shakes off the mass of cushions and looks rather dazed. He looks up.

"Sorry Comrade Ray. Miscalculated my terminal velocity."

[gone_byebye]

"... we have got to get your sledge set up," Ray mutters, shaking his head. "You all right there?"

[scapepig]

Snowball shakes his head as if trying to get water out of his ears.

"I think so. My head feels a bit funny though."

[gone_byebye]

"Mm. Well, I don't know much about medicine for pigs, but you'd probably better avoid lying down for a bit. Can I get you anything in the meantime?"