milliways_bar | Entries tagged with fantine

The cherry blossoms, and the sunny weather, draw Fantine out of her room, with a wide-brimmed hat, a light, flowered dress, a sketch-pad, and a large bird-cage containing a skylark.

She's been practicing drawing. Like many of the others who are dead in Milliways, she's found herself in need of ways to occupy herself--a dilemma she's thoroughly enjoyed. So much time, and all of it hers!

Learning how to read is her first priority, but she can't do that all the time. She has tried sewing, which she had done for a living while she was alive. She's done pretty lacework and embroidery she never had much time for in life, when she was occupied with sewing shirts and mending and other dull but useful tasks. But even the pretty, fanciful sewing isn't enjoyable enough for her to spend many hours with it. A new hobby, then: drawing, which allows her to make things without squinting at a needle or pricking her fingers.

She sits now underneath a tree, watching the blossoms over her head, her pencil and pad propped on her leg and the cage on the grass beside her. She looks like she's immersed in a pleasant daydream. But she wouldn't mind an interruption for conversation, if it comes her way.

nolittlevoice

In the early morning, a new door appears and instantly flies open, letting in a burst of noise, a flash of Mediterranean sunlight, a bit of dust, and two men, who fly through the door and hit the ground in a tangled heap. Much muttering and grumbling ensues, and as they rise and begin to walk they are so wrapped up in a volley of if you had just listened and if you'd only said that it takes colliding with the bar to draw their attention to their surroundings.

"Uh..." says one, and "Where...?" says the other-- and their heads snap in unison back towards the bar as a copy of the welcome pamphlet appears. They seize upon it and huddle over it, and quickly fall to close and quiet conversation* about its contents, and what to make of them. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? The murmuring goes on for quiet a while. (* so close and quiet, in fact, and in such a dark Secret-Plotty-Plotting corner, that no one can see or hear them as they scheme.)

And then it stops.

"We'll need some supplies," says one.

"Leave that to me," says the other. "You work on distracting the...uh...furniture."

Distracting the furniture seems to mean cosying up to the Bar with a guitar (lute? guitarlute? luitar? highly authentic sixteenth-century stringed instrument?) and setting in to sing her praises. Supplies seems to mean pulling a Somber Black Robe from a bag, making a scramble-and-flourish with a sheet of parchment and a pot of paint--it's amazing what all you can fit into a good bag--and the appearance of the following sign:

BILLS DUE

There's a lot of fine print after that, but a few phrases stand out large and underlined: As per the orders of the Landlord, due immediately, collections officers. And...no exceptions.

The man in the Somber Black Robe sets himself up with his Very Official Sign at a table.

Looks like it's time to pay up, folks.

((Wait what are tabs actually due? Absolutely not! If it's not fun to play with this plot, ignore it and it'll be gone in a couple of days. But we hope you will enjoy a little light mayhem. Try cutting a deal!

One note - with mod approval, Bar is sufficiently beguiled by these two that she won't tell on them. If your character asks Bar whether they're really from the Landlord, she either won't answer or will give you something non-committal. Security will be onto these guys in a couple of days.))

((oof, sorry if i'm slow today, the plague that's been trashing my house is still kicking my butt))

lark_in_flight

You -- yes, you, whoever you are -- got an invitation to the party. All of Milliways is welcome!

If you choose to come, you'll find Bar directing you to a big round tent that went up this afternoon on the lawn outside the bar. Marius and Cosette and various friends spent a lot of time this morning ferrying decorations in, and the waitrats spent a lot of time in the afternoon ferrying food in, but the doors won't officially open until close to sunset.

But this isn't a cheap white plastic tent, oh no. It's warm and domed and made of thick fabric, something like a very large yurt. A bit of magic keeps out the drafts, making everything extra cozy.

There's a fire in the middle of the floor, with a low screen encircling it but also magic meaning that this fire puts of warmth but will not actually burn anything, even if you step right into it. The floor is wood -- great for dancing, if you feel like it! There's a piano over against the wall for anyone who wants to make some music.

Everywhere there are garlands of European evergreen branches and herbs, studded with bright dried fruit and sparkling ornaments. (Mistletoe might very well be among them, though the Pontmercies haven't thought to supply that as an intentional party game.) There are candles and lanterns everywhere, and a big chandelier. There are no electric lights at all -- it's all fire -- but a good number of them are magical, so that nothing's going to get set on fire or covered with smoke. The general intended impression is of genteel, welcoming festivity, in a very French and very early 19th century European way.

There are food and drinks galore. Come in and enjoy the party!

[OOC: Party-style post! Subthreads for various categories and activities, etc. Open from now until whenever!

Edit: As of Joly's arrival, Cosette now has a mini-polaroid camera. Fear, Milliways. Feel free to assume that she's popped up to take a candid picture of your character(s) at any point, as long as they're not doing or wearing anything scandalous! She will happily give the resulting picture to your character if they want; it probably won't be a very good picture, in terms of composition or focus, but it will be cheerfully enthusiastic.]

lark_in_flight

Cosette is settled down at a table right by Bar, scribbling intently in a notebook. She's working on a few things by turns: a list, a different list, a paragraph on a separate sheet that occasionally she picks up to consider.

Every so often she hops up to consult with Bar in an enthusiastic undertone. She seems pretty consistently pleased by the answers, although she also seems to be in a bustling happy mood about all of this.

Cosette, in fact, is party planning.

gredya

[elfwarning]

"A book. A Saint Claws book." As soon as the bar produces it, Gredya takes it and one of the dolls over to a corner table and begins on her mission. But before long she's sighing. Back to the bar. "...and a dictionary."

Ugh. What even are some of these words? N-A-U-G-H-T-Y. Noggity?

rudderless

Here's a face that hasn't been seen in awhile.

A face that is, in fact, partially hidden among the shadows of the rafters. She's got some thinking to do, about events she'll reluctantly speak of if asked.

There is one easy way to detect Eponine's presence; an occasional sprinkling of peanut shells upon the unfortunate heads of those beneath her. There's no reason for her to be hungry and thoughtful at the same time.

She knows her way around, after all.

Eminently botherable.

harryhotspur

Positioned behind the bar, Harry does look a touch uncertain (and thus, irritated) about what exactly he's supposed to be doing. But he has followed the instructions Bar gave him. He's put up a sign (handily translated from the mostly unintelligible mess that the mix of his poor handwriting and medieval script styles creates):

Specials
Ale
Sack
Malmsey
Green one

(This last refers to a strange bottle he found while poking around the shelves.)

And, of course, he is presently following the rest of Bar's commands: he is standing, ready to help anyone who happens to pass by.

[ooc: open through the weekend!]

clayforthedevil

Bahorel had begun the night with a drink, and gone over to a table in a far corner, with a good view of the room, to sketch the Bar and her surroundings in their altered state.

That had been some time ago.

His table is currently covered and spilling over in pages spliced together and folded into each other, sketches of landscapes and buildings twisting across them in a style that's rather more shadowed and symbolic than representative. At some point, he thought to ask for ink, though he hasn't really noticed-- and if Madame Bar's her usual self again, he hasn't noticed that either.

Possibly startleable , if you catch him before his pencils run out.

((OOC: here for an hour or so maybe, or until storms sideline me again!))

farouche_bravoure

[After Valjean's visit to the infirmary, Cosette visits her mother.]

herr_bookman

Evening mist rises off the lake as a bonfire roars on the beach near the Caribbean inlet. A portable dance floor is set up near it, shined to perfection. A food table groans with the weight of various finger-foods, and music from a stereo system set off to the side blares through the night with a musical selection so varied that--as ever, in Milliways--you never know what's going to happen next.

[OOC: Millitimed to this evening. Thanks to Saph for helping with the setup. Open forever.]

farouche_bravoure

Fantine comes down to the Bar, with sidelong glances here and there. She'd never thought heaven would be set up like an inn. And the people here look nothing like her idea of the sainted dead. But this must be heaven, because she's dead, and this place can't be hell.

Timidly, she slides into a seat at a table, and asks, "Mme Bar? My daughter, Cosette--where must I go to see her? How can I watch over her?"

A small white square of tissue appears, with the words, Wait here. She'll come here very soon.

"Oh!" Fantine's fingers tighten suddenly around the sides of the table, making it wobble.

A large rat trots up with an enormous tray and places it on her table. It has one plate with an omelet and some bread, a small pot of coffee, another small pot of milk, and a bowl full of some strange berries.

"Thank you," she says, to be polite, but she can't eat, not now. Instead she anxiously looks at the room, searching for any sign of Cosette.

[ooc: pretty much insta-slowtimes, but it's open indefinitely!]

lark_in_flight

"Papa!" The voice which sounds through the opening front door is a young woman's, light and sweet and eager. The voice's owner follows in a billow of skirts, glancing back over her shoulder into a homey little hallway as she calls to someone unseen. "Papa, are you quite ready?"

She turns her head -- and falters in astonishment as she crosses the threshold, and her boots hit the Milliways floorboards.

"Papa...?" Her hand falls away from the doorknob, and it swings delicately closed behind her.

She's a young woman of perhaps sixteen or seventeen, her rosy face framed by delicate ringlets escaping from a silk-covered bonnet. Her dress is of blue wool, sloping down at the shoulders, puffed out wide at the sleeves and gathering again at the wrists, her skirts a bell over layers of petticoats, a warm shawl wrapped about her shoulders, gloves on her small hands, a basket over one arm, small boots just visible -- in other words, the height of dainty femininity for 1832, and doubtless extremely impractical and peculiar to the eyes of most of Milliways' patrons.

Welcome to Milliways, Cosette.

road_to_calvary

Sometime after coming in from his walk, and the conversations held on the way, Valjean leaves a note at the bar.

( Mademoiselle Fantine )

dreamed_a_dream

It has been a long couple of days. Fantine spent the majority of the last few days hiding in her room, away from everything, glad that the rats have been bringing her food.

Today, however, she has just enough courage to come downstairs to the main bar. One look around tells her that her two antagonists are not around, so she claims a table with her basket of sewing and a hot cocoa. That has been one of her few true comforts in the past couple days.

She's approachable, if a bit skittish.

le_sergent

Things are going badly for the Thenardiers. They often have, and have just as often got worse. But on this day they stand perched at the edge of oblivion. The old bourgeois - the one who lied to the world, who dressed as a beggar and spent as a gentleman - had robbed them. Oh, perhaps he did not take the Lark for nothing - or even for cheap - but he did not take her for enough. So much less than she was worth. So much less than he would have been willing to part with. It had covered their debts then - but not the expenses to come. They had owed fifteen hundred francs at the time the old bourgeois absconded with Cosette. Since that time they had incurred debts of over five thousand francs.

The inn would be seized any day now. And some of their creditors were the sort from which a debtor must flee if they wish their limbs to remain intact. Ah! If only Thenardier had remembered to bring his gun when he followed that accursed man! He still thinks of it, often. In the depths of the night, the thought of it still causes him to bolt from his slumber and pace about the bedroom. If only he could get a second chance at that damnable fellow, that rich gentleman! He would carve him to pieces and sell his marrow! He would know the misery he had caused his family!

It is this worry, this anger at all the world that Monsieur Thenardier carries on his face as he walks through the door to the barroom. And it is one that is replaced instantly by puzzlement. This is not the inn of the Sergeant of Waterloo.

"My God! What has happened to my inn?"

His bafflement turns immediately to rage. His bulbous nose, always the first part of his face to turn red during his rare but terrible flurries of rage, flares and wheezes. Fuming, he turns to his wife.

"What the devil have you done, woman? Do we not have enough creditors already!?"

[[OOC: Two muns, two pups. Tag one, get both. PM either one of us if you've got questions.]]

i_am_your_host

Outside it is winter
But in here it is so hot...

When the Master of Ceremonies receives a note from Bar, he politely acquiesces to her desire to sleep. But before he takes on his duties, he brings in from his world a portable Victrola and a collection of jazz records.

One could do with light entertainment whilst partaking of a drink or three.

Happy Hour

Specials:
Gin
Absinthe
Schnaps
(apple, pear, cherry, etc.)

There. Simple enough.

Then, pouring himself a glass of gin, he lights a cigarette, and tightens the belt of his leather trench coat around his waist.

[OOC: It's happy hour somewhere, yes? Early today because I might be busy tonight. Insta-slowtimes please because of work. Also, open forever!]

road_to_calvary

Valjean was warned this sort of thing happened. He cannot say he was not. He had intended to avoid the bar if possible - but he is hungry, and also has to pass through it if he wants his evening walk.

Still. The result...well, it could have been worse? He could be uncovered in some way.

'...good grief.'

He did not know it was possible to make trousers this colour. And sincerely hopes no actual leopards died to make this shirt.

ostro_goth

The bar is suffused with children and youths, this night. Teja is wondering what may have happened, but when he sees one that he recognises regardless, he can guess what must have happened, being an old hand at this Milliways game.

He must ask the magic-users and trace the source; but most likely, all will resolve itself within a week, as it ever does.

Oh, Milliways!

And there are more important things: - he is still looking for the woman, Fantine, to hear about her side of the woeful tale of Valjean, Javert, Gavroche and all those others from 1832.

So, he is sitting at a table, eating breakfast and ignoring all the youthful shenanigans -- as long as none break a rule, or disturb him and his cats, who are sleeping under the table.-

redintheledger

Khabarovsk is still caught between spring and winter, and is thoroughly miserable. Nataliya stomps in, leaving the year 1953 and a fuckton of cold rain behind her. Her co-workers are driving her insane, but there is no way she's walking back to her apartment for lunch. She has the Completed Stories of Sherlock Holmes (German translation) with her (thank you, Alex, and god doesn't she sometimes wonder what happened to him), and carefully puts the book down on a table in a booth. She's just settling herself down when

BWA-BOOOOOOOM

young: uncertain

and suddenly, Natasha, aged nine, is very confused as to where she is.

There's a book, and when she opens it it, there is a note addressed to a Natasha. Too uncertain to try and decipher the German, Natasha clutches the book close. Books are reassuring, and something is telling her that it's hers. And she could hit someone with it. Books are very very very good at being used to hit someone.

tiny!tag: Age Spell

road_to_calvary

Pre-entry:

The door swings open as though the man on the other side has somewhere to be.

Wherever it was, it was not this.

Milliways' latest victim is tall, and broad-shouldered, and old enough that his hair is peppered through with grey. He is dressed well enough, though not in a manner that suggests wealth. Clearly from a time that does not include...anything he can see before him.

'...ah.'

There may be a faint aroma of sewers about him. Apologies, bar denizens. He did his best to rid himself of it, but some things stay with a man long after they should leave.

dreamed_a_dream

The past few weeks have been a struggle. Slowly Fantine has been eating, growing in strength, and above all watching, alwaysin the background, just at the fringe of anything going on.

She has a room now, a room which up until now has been her refuge, her way of quietly building confidence. In that room, she has been building up a stockpile. She has a good eye for fabric, for what size people are on average, and she has been sewing. Tenatively at first, and building in passion and intensity. (Fantine can be just as intense and passionate as her daughter's love's companions.)

However, there's something about the sun coming through her window this morning that gives her confidence. She brings a sewing kit and a huge basket downstairs, and sets up shop at a table. She's wearing a lovely, carefully made new dress, but she herself is still pretty thin, and the threadbare shawl that she came into Bar with is still around her shoulders.

She asks Bar for a sign, which she sets up on the table.

Textiles by Fantine

Pre-made and made-to-order clothes.

She's sewing, but she'd be more than happy to answer questions or have a chat.

[ooc: Calling uncle for the night, everyone. I'll get back to tags tomorrow. Post is still open for new tags, if anyone wants to talk to her.]

dreamed_a_dream

[OOM: Tell Cosette I love her, and I'll see her when I wake.... An end. Warning for character death.]

The door opens and a woman blearily walks into Milliways. She's wearing a torn, dirty, and bedraggled dress and a threadbare shawl around her shoulders. Her hair is cut close to her head, roughly, as if the person who did it either did not care or had no skill.

At the bright lights of the bar, she collapses to the floor, her thin frame shaking almost uncontrollably. "Mon Dieu, is this Heaven, then?"

Please welcome Fantine, Milliways.

[ooc: ~~I might have to slowtime somewhat soon, but she absolutely insisted. All tags will be answered, and this post is open forever.~~ I must bed for now, however the post is still open to new tags!]

tall-dark-and.livejournal.com

Riku's sitting at a table near the front, his boots plopped on the desk, writing furiously in a notebook.

He's concentrating so hard he wouldn't notice if a giant tried to sneak up on him. He's so confused his hands are shaking. He's so pissed off that he wants to punch the wall until either the wall or his fist breaks.

He's just figured out something about his friends and enemies and the bar, and he has no idea what to do about this knowledge at all.

And Ansem's voice, over and over, shooting daggers into his head and heart:

I told you so I told you so I told you so

[OOC: Warning for a not-quite-right Riku, and the possibility of having to deal with Ansem.]

[tiny tags: wanijima akito, billy kaplan, zexion]

Current Mood: aggravated

hungryampersand.livejournal.com

An emaciated figure teleports in, arriving right in front of the door, and walks to the Bar. It looks relatively pleased with itself, as much as any expression can be seen from inside the hood of its robe. When it sits down on a barstool it requests, "A potion of booze, please," and puts a heavy gold coin down almost before the potion-bottle (full of ruby liquid) even appears.

[ooc: This is Famine from Nethack. Looking at it or even touching it will not make anyone hungry, unless the character's the type to see starving children in Africa and go "I should make myself a sandwich!". This post from October has more information about Famine, and the post linked in the first paragraph has Famine's nauseatingly (haha, see what I did there?) complete in-game stats and an explanation of them.

Current Mood: hungry

alorn-bear.livejournal.com

Belar settles down at one of the tables and puts up his usual sign:

ANSWERING PRAYERS
BACK IN 15 MINUTES

SECURITY STAFFER ON DUTY AFTER THAT

and settles back to wait as the counter decrements itself. When you can answer prayers with your eyes closed (and not just in the 'ahahahaha no' sense, either), you can pretty much answer prayers anywhere you like.

[Tinytag: Asakura Yoh]