Laigle de Meaux

"Hmm?" Joly's got the other kitten alternately attacking and cuddling the loops of a scarf around his neck; between that and the book he's not thinking about the cherubs at all. For once. But they do come back.

"Oh-- no, you know, I don't think he has. I don't think I've mentioned them, either, it's...not something that comes up with Enjolras, somehow." He grins. "But of course we should have our friends over."

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"We should." He pats the kitten's front paws, which of course prompts it to sink claws into his fingers and try to murder him for a little while. "Shall I send a note by way of a rat?"

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Joly is grinning with the anticipation of extremely benign mischief. "Oh, yes, do. I think we can take a few hours for some friendly conversation."

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"Yes. Are you--?" No, Joly's as trapped by kittens as he is. And Joly is more soft-hearted. Lesgle takes it upon himself to shoo away his own little handful of fur and claws and get over to the desk.

Salut et Fraternité! Citizen Enjolras is invited to take his lunch, or whatever meal seems likely given the eccentric motions of the local clocks, at the home of Citizens Joly and Lègle (de Meaux).

What, he's not above teasing Enjolras. The note is soon sent off via rat.

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Enjolras, in the library, is somewhat bemused when a rat scurries up onto the table and deposits a note upon his commonplace book. He marks his place with a scrap; he reads the note; and, pulled more thoroughly from his thoughts now, he smiles down at it, entirely involuntarily.

Is it lunchtime? It might be, he supposes. (Watches are not overly useful at Milliways.) Well, all right.

"Ah -- thank you. No reply."

A short while later, there's a familiar knock at the door of Citizens Joly and Lègle (de Meaux).

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Besides having the foresight to ask the rat the bring up lunch for three after delivering its message, Lesgle had the foresight not to flop down on the bed again and fall prey to kittens. He's fallen prey to a kitten on the spiral staircase in the middle of the room instead. Untangling himself and reaching the door takes a moment. But he's all smiles when he lets Enjolras in.

"Chez nous," he says with an all-encompassing gesture.

Edited Date: 2014-11-11 08:30 pm (UTC)

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One hopes that either Bossuet is prompt about closing the door, or the kittens are sufficiently distracted to not attempt further exploration just yet. Enjolras can remember to close doors against feline escape if requested to do so, but he hasn't noticed the necessity of it yet. Nor, in fact, noticed the presence of kittens at all.

He regards the room with the polite bafflement of a man who very rarely contemplates décor, but is currently finding himself compelled to do so.

It's very... blue.

As if somebody cross-bred a hotel and a cathedral top, and flung a bucket of paint over the whole thing.

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Bossuet beams at him with a smug serenity. "Isn't it something? No, I've no idea what, but--something?"

He does, in fact, reach past Enjolras to shut the door, in time to prevent kitten escapes. They're still fairly easy to circumvent: the little creature attaches itself to his trouser leg instead. Ouch.

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"It's very... blue," Enjolras agrees, for lack of any better commentary.

If he were a different man, he could make some dumb jokes upon the refrain of Parbleu, but someone else will have to take up that slack. (And probably already has.)

"I'm glad it suits you, my friends."

Décor considered, summed up, and dismissed, he turns his smile to Joly.

(Other things he has not noticed: the kitten attached to Bossuet's trouser leg, which is currently staring up at him with wide eyes and slightly manic fascination. New toy! New toy with a couple of loose threads on its trouser cuffs, just waiting to be attacked!)

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Joly, seated on the floor by the sofa, waves. A kitten on top of his head meeps.

"It's not exactly what we were expecting," he admits, with a look to the cherubs,"But it does have a lot of room-- I have a lab, now, I'll have to show you in a bit-- and the furniture's comfortable, even if it is...a little, ah."

He's still not sure how to describe the furniture. He's a medical student, not an interior designer.

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"It is a little, ah. From another man I would take offense at the insinuation that this room suits us; but from you, Enjolras, I know it's the word of a friend. In fact, I fear that by now it does suit us. I call that cherub Victor, but whether the others ought to be Dupuytren and Talleyrand is a matter of contention..."

They also need to name the cats. Which...Enjolras may not have spotted yet.

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He's seen the kittens. He just hasn't entirely registered their existence as a new and relevant thing.

(In his defense, while he's perfectly capable of this in any mood, he was reading up on European history again, most recently Poland's. It's still on his mind.)

Joly had mentioned the lab before, in passing, but it remains wonderful news. He should have one; he should have all the labs and libraries a world or afterlife has to offer.

He spends a moment or two bemusedly contemplating the cherubs, which he hadn't fully noticed in amongst all the blue and... ceiling. The bright autumn sunlight strikes nearly the same gold from his hair, with nearly the same bright shine.

Well, that's certainly a choice. A choice of some sort. (All political and artistic mockery of nomenclature he leaves to his friends' discretion, of course. Let Bossuet des mots call upon cherubs by name if he likes.)

"...Joly," he says, looking back, with a faint frown. "You have a cat on your head."

Presumably he noticed, but nonetheless.

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"Yes, I do." And Joly is beaming. "Bossuet got us kittens. Aren't they clever? We haven't named them yet."

The one on his head chooses that moment to tumble onto his shoulder, with the standard kittenish meeping noises. It is, suddenly, in a hurry to be mobile. If past experience serves, Joly can guess why, but it's not as though the kitten's making any great haste in any direction.

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Bossuet takes a moment for amused aesthetic appreciation of Enjolras-in-mourning-suit-among-gaudy-ceiling-cherubs. What a world this is.

In fact, it's a world in which kittens detach themselves from one's leg and leap--digging in an impossible number of claws--over to attack the trouser cuffs of said mourning suit.

"They're brigands," Bossuet says, without moving to defend his friend.

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Enjolras had taken a step further into the room and towards Joly. This was, apparently, all the cue the kitten needed to launch itself at his ankle.

Wait. Amend that to kittens, plural, and ankles, plural.

"Evidently," says Enjolras, transparently amused, and now halted.

He doesn't entirely understand the appeal of having small furry creatures eating your food, shredding your furniture and gnawing at your clothing, and getting fleas all over. But kittens make Joly beam besottedly like that, and Lesgle look smugly infatuated like that, and his friends' joy is really all Enjolras needs to approve of something.

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Joly grins. "You know you can pick them up, Enjolras. If you want to walk around without chatssures."

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That's terrible. That's terrible, and Bossuet says so out loud. "But yes, feel free to manhandle the little devils. They're brother and sister, though I'm not quite sure which is which." He'll learn.

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Enjolras will probably not learn which is which, since they're both tabbies, but ah well.

His eyebrows say, Really? to Joly's pun, but he forbears to comment on it. Instead, he only bends to try to shoo them gently away from his ankles.

One immediately turns its attention to his hand instead. The other allows itself to be shooed, but only for an instant, after which it darts around his hand to resume its attack. Well, all right: Enjolras scoops them up, one in each hand, and straightens.

He's holding them with a hand curled underneath their bellies; it isn't going to hurt them, but it's hardly the most secure or comfortable position to carry a cat in. Luckily, these ones are too small to care much about gravity or dignity. They watch the room, bright-eyed, with dangling legs and twitching little tails, while Enjolras crosses to the sofa; one kitten manages to twist around enough to lick his wrist before it gets distracted by a dust mote. (Enjolras gives the kitten a bemused look.)

He sits down, leans over, and deposits both cats in Joly's lap. Have fun, friend.

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Not that watching cats baffle Enjolras isn't fun in its own right, but yes, Joly's quite happy to have the kittens back in petting range. He has them lost in the Mysteries of Knitwear within moments.

"It's a good season to have them here, of course. There won't be much use going out mapping for a while. I'm quite excited to see how that goes once we've got some snow-- you said there is snow here, in winter? Today's results were very interesting, though."

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Enjolras will probably be entertainingly baffled by cats again over the course of this luncheon. It seems likely, somehow.

"Snow, yes. It's quite cold for much of winter."

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"Excellent, it'll give me another point to measure against. You know you said you and Grantaire got turned around in the forest last winter? So did we, this afternoon. But in full sunlight--well, drizzle, but there was enough light-- and almost in sight of our starting point."

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That gets his attention more sharply.

They're both here, and he saw them yesterday as well, so it's not the same situation. All the same: "How so?"

(At the time, losing four months was disconcerting, disorienting, frustratingly inexplicable. But it caused no greater problems than that. There was nothing to interrupt, no friends to panic over their disappearance besides the phlegmatic Milliways veteran Gavroche. Now, the situation is different.)

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Joly pulls one hand away from the kittens to draw general outlines in the air. "You know I've been starting to map the area? And that woman I told you about-- I think her name is Gredya? -- she was helping me, the other day, right after I'd sprained my leg. Took some of my marker-ties into the forest, to set them up for later. I mean, she seemed very sure about it.

"So we went there today to check them before the rain or snow covered things, and she'd done really well-- straight line, you could see them, 15 ties, ping ping ping." He draws a quick horizontal line in the air. "Not all at once, trees in the way and such. But a few at a time, and I had my measuring kit,they all lined up. And we checked each of them-" another straight line -- "and then we were back at the first one." He looks at Enjolras with some excitement. The forest is baffling, hurrah!

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"Yes, I met her."

This is said under Joly's words; he's listening.

And frowning, thoughtfully. "Strange."

Not bad, nor dangerous, and not out of keeping with the rest of this place, but -- strange. Like so much at Milliways.

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"You met her!" Joly grins. "I was starting to wonder if she was some sort of phantom." He's not joking;Gredya's very stealthy and he's beginning to expect strangeness from Milliways patrons. "Did she speak with you much?"

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"Somewhat, yes."

He suspects that it was a great deal of speech from Gredya, based on her manner.

"Her society is quite primitive. There was a language barrier of some sort -- I don't know why the usual translation fails, but it seemed to me that it had -- at any rate, she said several times that she isn't human. We spoke of free access to information and the abuses of power in an unequal society. She seemed quite unused to discussions of philosophy, but interested in it. As well as your maps, and learning to read."

Who's surprised that Enjolras met a wary, grouchy werewolf and started talking social theory?

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Not human after all? Well that...actually makes things a lot more understandable, in some ways.He nods. "If she's not used to discussions of philosophy, it may just be the difficulty of a new subject,and not the translator failing."

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"Maybe," he agrees. "We didn't speak of languages."

Some of her sentences were pretty halting, and not just because of complex terms, but who knows.

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Bossuet has been out in the hall, keeping an eye out for rats with lunch: he'd just as soon protect them and the food from kitten attacks. He comes in now with a densely-packed tray, but quietly, not wanting to interrupt any conversation that might have started up.

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Joly smiles. "Did you hear? Enjolras has met my mysterious map-making assistant!"

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"I thought we agreed to try Coufeyrac on her first." He looks at them over his shoulder while he puts down the lunch tray. "Well? Enjolras, you seem unharmed, has Joly been exaggerating her terrors?"

Edited Date: 2014-11-12 07:50 pm (UTC)

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Based on that, there's likely some kind of innuendo in a previous conversation they're alluding to, but as per usual Enjolras elects to ignore that entirely. He shrugs.

"Awkward, certainly, and abrupt. But I think sincere. She's not accustomed to discussing philosophy and education, perhaps not to conversation at all. But interested. Her society sounds like it's only a step or two beyond a state of nature. She said they're free, in their way -- that is, without states or the machinery of tyranny, and firm upon maintaining that, but each man with only the rights and freedom his strength can ensure."

"According to her, she's not human. What a Wyr is she didn't explain, though."

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Joly frowns for a moment. "I hope she isn't, if she says she's not. That she's one of Milliways' other peoples and not.. ah!" He pauses to untangle tiny claws from the dire traps of knitwear. "Well, I'll ask her if I see her again. If she talks to me; I've never managed to get her talking as much as is seems you did, Enjolras." He smiles a little wryly. "She certainly does seem sincere, though I've never been sure what she's being sincere about, when we've met."

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There. Lesgle pulls over one of the room's hideous small tables and spreads out lunch. Sandwiches, cheese, a bottle of wine, a salad, napkins and utensils and everything you'd want.

"If she went to the trouble of putting up your markers, I dare say she'll find you again. And you'll have to ask her how the markers behaved at the time. --Another fine meal from our Bar."

((Hey now! Gredya has said at least 185 words to Joly. I just counted. She's downright chatty with him! He just needs to slow down a little so she can get a few more words in.))

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