The Bar at the End of the Universe

Everybody has already seen and believed at least six impossible things today, so here they all are:

1. Teja, sharing his usual coarse bread, moretum and cured meat with little Egil. Teja's own tea is black and strong, though, and Egil's fragrant, honey-sweetened fennel.
2. Galen Erso is setting a breakfast table for two, by the window looking out into the sunny outside at the back, helped by some rats.
3. Father Harman is absent-mindedly drinking tea and eating bran flakes from a bowl while reading a newspaper, all done standing up at the bar.
4. Dr. Hannibal Lecter is carrying a fully laden breakfast tray out from the kitchen. There is probably enough here for three or four people.
5. Dorian Gray is sipping champagne and nibbling battenberg cake while looking extremely chipper and cheerful.
6. Alex Vause, on the other hand, is drinking Starbucks coffee (from a huge permanent cup bearing that green logo, and her name) and munching on assorted donuts in a bright pink basket, because that is what she asked the bar for.
7. Lady Margolotta von Überwald is having cocoa in the furthest, darkest and most hidden corner.

Have at!

The door opens, and Ragnar Lothbrok wanders in from a place that looks like a camp-site in hilly country, with cooking fires, and people laugh. Not all of these voices are male. Ragnar looks a bit astonished -- he closes the door with an odd gesture, as if letting go of a branch. Then, he quickly walks to the back of the room and vanishes into a door there; after a few minutes, he comes out again and walks towards the bar to order a horn cup of good spring water. What, did you think Vikings live on mead alone?

Dorian Gray comes wandering in from his house; as the door closes, there's a brief glance of a huge room with marble floors, the walls covered in portraits from all eras of art history, even some that ought not to exist yet. He's reading as he walks, his nose deep in 'The Count of Monte Cristo', chuckling as he walks. He only notices that he's in Milliways when he almost hits a pillar; then, he smiles, slouches on a sofa by the fireplace and orders coffee. He keeps reading.

Father Pearse Harman comes downstairs after the Sunday service, in order to eat a proper Sunday dinner (despite this being Lent -- Sundays are traditionally non-fast-days) of a very British kind -- it features a roast leg of chicken, Yorkshire pudding, two kinds of vegetables, and gravy. There will even be pudding afterwards, 'pudding' being a generic word for 'dessert', and this particular pudding being apple crumble with custard. For once, the priest seems to actually have an appetite.

Madame Thénardier has actually been to mass as well, simply to try and look like a good solid bourgeoise who does what she's supposed to; she is actually wearing a lace scarf in her usual generous cleavage. But now, having made the effort, she gets a basket of chicken wings from the bar, orders a new book that seems to delight her, and retires to her usual nook behind the fireplace to read and eat. She occasionally wipes her hand on her apron, but the new book nevertheless soon acquires greasy smudges.

Katrina Crane comes in from the back, bringing with her two baskets full of assorted seed packages that are all open, and possibly mislabelled, as well as her copy of Culpeper's and one or two other herbal books. She sits at a table, orders tea, and then proceeds to identify, consolidate, re-label and generally sort all the seeds for the herb garden.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter enters from the kitchen, carrying what looks like a breakfast tray -- coffee and fresh juice, mushroom and eggs on toast, an elegant salad with fruit, and a plate of crisply fried black pudding garnished with radishes. It may be a bit late for breakfast, but Dr. Lecter is known for the unorthodoxy of his meals, after all; so he wears the face of a man who expects no comments.

Teja enters from the back door as well, carrying a laughing toddler and followed by four cats who very casually slink in before the door happens to close. They secure a table near the stairs, and some waitrats bring over a high chair, which the toddler (almost two years old now) is put into. A plate of fruit for the child soon follows, and tuna for the cats. Two places are set at the table, Teja is served a clay cup of well-watered red wine, and then, he leans back, content like a man who has done his work.

Lady Margolotta enters from a drawing room the sombre and elegant lines of which are disturbed by posters, scattered papers, floofy poufs, empty mugs of cocoa, and an iconograph on a tripod. Apparently, some meeting of the Überwald League of Temperance just ended. Margolotta is carrying a tattered pamphlet that, however, says TRAIN SCHEDULE on the first page. She notices immediately that there is light coming from the windows, and finds herself a table in the darkest corner of the bar, as far away from the windows as possible.


[[OOC: Everybody is here for your tagging pleasure! Say in your comment whom you want for your charrie, or they might get just anybody...]]

This Sunday evening, there are many patrons in the bar, having dinner. among them are:

• Teja, having a roast and bread, with greens, and a clay cup of well-watered red wine. Under and around the table, all four of his cats are waiting whether something will happen to fall down for them.
• Madame Thénardier, who is eating brioches with jam in her favourite nook by the fireplace while reading a paperback novel with Egyptian hieroglyphs on the cover.
• Father Pearse Harman, who has a fish pie and a salad, this being a Sunday in Lent. He's not reading anything, for once.
• Lady Margolotta, with her usual tea and knitting. It's not exactly dinner, but she's sipping something while giving people friendly, closed-slipped smiles.
• Dorian Gray, who is watching something on a small device with only one ear-bud plugged in while nibbling on Japanese rice crackers and sipping green tea. More food is, presumably, forthcoming.
• And finally, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who isn't in the bar room itself at the moment, but in the kitchen, most of his formidable attention firmly fixed on the dinner he's cooking for himself. It involves lamb.

[[OOC: Katrina, albeit in the icon, isn't there; everybody else is. Say in your tag whom you want, or you might get any of them, barring Hannibal.]]

It's a cold evening outside, and people are crowding the bar, for food and drink, warmth and company, or perhaps solitude in a crowd. Among them are:

• Katrina Crane, filling dried herbs into small, clean linen bags
• Father Pearse Harman, sitting at the piano and playing some inoffensive tunes
• Teja, cross-legged before the fireplace, reading a book while an exhausted Egil sleeps in his lap in fox shape
• Lady Margolotta, watching the bar over a cup of cocoa and her knitting
• Dr. Hannibal Lecter, consulting a number of elderly cookbooks
• Dorian Gray, lounging on a sofa and reading sheet music
• Madame Thénardier, ensconced in a nook and engrossed in a book

and also,

• outside, there is something like a living potato sack wandering among the trees, humming some jazzy tune in a very deep voice; if you try to come closer, it will be long gone, but you might find some colourful wiggly bug where it had been.