(no subject)

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Evening: two dark figures appear at the edge of the woods, deep in consultation, heads bent close together. As they pass from woods to meadow, their voices carry through the gathering dusk: but what are they saying?

"Are there any more of those left?" Lesgle leans over and plucks the bag from Joly's hands and fumbles about with it a bit. "I think we might have finished them...oh, hullo, look! It's Milliways again! We're home! And...'oh, hullo, look' again, it's Feuilly, out walking his dogs! Harry Percy's dogs? Whose dogs would you say they are, Jolllly my dear? At any rate, a lovely welcoming sight, for two heroes returned to their almost-but-not-really-at-all-native soil! Say! SAY! FEUILLY! GUESS WHERE WE'VE BEEN! --He'll never guess, poor fellow; we'll have to tell him about it. Come, my dear, let's catch up to him. Oh, mind your step in the dark--"

Comments

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Yes, just so, and I wrapped up some smoked herring-looking things in a handkerchief to take along in case we needed more for the cat--" Oh, dear. Oh, dear. He breaks off to fumble in one of his coat pockets, and removes a stained and odiferous package. Lady is thrilled; and even Hector lifts his head and starts nosing and tugging his way over. "Can the dogs have it--? Of course they can, thanks Feuilly, there you go, faithful hounds, it's tasty smoked fish!"

Feuilly is such a nice person. Always ready to let you feed his dogs treats! Laigle gives Joly an affectionate look intended to convey this opinion, before picking up the story again. "Quite a lot of ladies, really. Some of them were on white horses, er--I think at one point there was a trio of ladies? On a white horse, a chestnut horse, and a black horse? Or was that just my imagination? I think it came in before the burning sword?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles back. Feuilly is the nicest! Except that Bossuet is the nicest. Very tall. Nice to lean on when everything's funny and wobbly.

Things go wobbly now, as Joly waves an arm in excitement. "Three ladies! So many ladies! I told you, didn't I? So many, in the forest. And --and they were naked? I wasn't sure, they had very very long hair, all--"he gestures in a way that might indicate very long flowing tresses covering much of a person's skin, or might indicate a desperate attempt to regain balance. "--but their arms and legs were bare? It doesn't seem a comfortable way to ride horses. But the three of them, yes. They asked us, they said choose between them? Well, we couldn't do that! That was rude! I asked if they'd seen the cat. The , the white one. With the hair. The woman, I mean. She wasn't a cat, the woman who was a cat was later. The woman on the white horse, she showed us the burning sword, Bossuet, that's where you're getting confused. We said, oh you're all very lovely-they were all very lovely-- and then there was this burning sword, and she said if we thought ourselves worthy to take it we ...something something." Oddly enough, Joly might not have been paying attention to the exact words of the naked woman with a burning skysword.

"She didn't like our answer. Well of course it was fascinating, just burning in midair like that, but we're not going to try and grab something that's on fire!" Come on, weird naked ladies! "--Bossuet asked if they wanted wine, Ithought that was very appropriate. In the circumstances."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Oh!" says Bossuet suddenly. "I had forgotten about the woman who was a cat." Hmm. Yes. That had been odd. He scratches his beard. He'll have to think that one over. "Astonishing, really. Something very...allegorical about it, I suppose you could say. Inasmuch as allegories tend to involve naked ladies. Have you noticed that?"

Feuilly had begun to look (more) uncomfortable; now he's making noises about burning swords. As in, Do tell me more about the burning sword, with an implied and less about your adventures with naked ladies.

"Yes--yes, that's right, it was something about being worthy. Greatest knight in the land, was that it? Well! I know I'm not the greatest knight in the land! And--no offense, Joly, my dear fellow, I don't think you are either. --Feuilly, do you suppose this sort of thing happens to Harry Percy regularly? No? Well, we'll have to ask him; now I'm curious."

Everyone involved besides himself and Joly seemed to think it was all very ordinary. Burning swords. Pavilions spread with feasts.

"--Really, though, it turned out to be awfully lucky, didn't it, Joly? Having that feast? We were out overnight, and I hadn't had lunch yet, and I know I would have been getting hungry. Oh, but--I don't mean we had to camp overnight, no midnight dew-damps for us this time. We found quite a nice little castle, didn't we! Lovely people."

[merryeccentricities]

"Yes, I mean-- I think it was a castle. It seemed like a castle? This was after the lion, and the thing with the priest. And the lake of fire, it had this whole bridge, all sorts of warnings, well, you don't need to tell us not to walk on a bridge across a lake that's on fire! Er, and the other priest. And the other naked lady. Yes! And the bit with the one who turned into a cat! You know, I think I've gotten used to things here, and then a young lady is--is a cat in the most inappropriate time." It had been unpleasant and startling. Joly shakes his head.

But--"Right! But the castle! It was dark. That's what I mean. It was night then. Everything looked very, very--well, you know, how things get when it's dark." A wasteland. It had looked like a wasteland. "Well, but then there was this very nice castle-- they had a great big light up over it for people to see! Very friendly, and somewhere I think they had a choir, there was singing. And, and a lady at the door. Not naked at all,really, sort of a relief."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Yeah, I'm sure it was," Feuilly says. Rather firmly, over what Bossuet is (still) saying about women turning into cats (so awkward--of course one makes jokes but having it literally happen to one is so unnerving). "I'm sure that was a relief. So, uh. There was a castle?"

"Yes! With a choir--absolutely lovely, I have to say. Made me wish I had more of a voice myself, you know? Sort of wanted to join in. And they had some excellent pageantry in general, just the thing you want to see at a church festival--lots of incense, lights, music. Carrying around a spear and a cup and all that, which of course made a person think Oh, ha! When did I turn into Perceval, they'll be awfully disappointed that it's just us two."

[merryeccentricities]

" Oh! Cups!" Joly snaps his fingers. "You know, I forgot, that was quite the thing-- the ship, the one that got us across the lake of fire? There was a lady there too--she wasn't naked, remarkable, that-- she wanted cups of our blood, it was very alarming at first, but then she only wanted a little, you know, to help a sick friend. Well, of course! I should organize blood draws here, if we weren't so well stocked as it is. Very useful! But a tricky thing, typing and all, oh, I'm sure I've bored you with it before, anyway, I started asking her about her friend's health, and how the transfusions were to be done, and all."

Joly frowns, rubbing his nose for a moment. "She was very upset when she learned we weren't virgins. And surprised,which I call unkind. Well, I understand, one wants to minimize vectors, but I did try to tell her we'd both been thoroughly tested and there was nothing to be concerned about; still, she refused our contribution in the end. In that sense. She did seem very interested in bit about Rh factors, she kept taking down notes."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I suppose it must have been for magical purposes," Lesgle provides. "You know how witchcraft sorts of things are, the blood of a virgin, dew gathered from fresh rosebuds by moonlight, eye of newt, toe of frog, all that. I wasn't offended." Really, he wasn't. "But anyway, if she gathered it in cups, wouldn't that have been, what-do-you-call-it, you know, not sterile? With the microbes and all."

It had been an odd thing, the ship and the lake of fire. He ruminates on it for a little while, rubbing the ears of one of Feuilly's dogs. "--There weren't any sails. Did you notice any sails, Joly?"

[merryeccentricities]

"No, and no rowers." Joly pouts, a little. "And I kept looking for the engines, and then they weren't there, just these rooms of strange men telling me not to strive for vainglory and things. I kept telling them I wasn't, I was looking for the engines!" Whatever, old men lecturing young men. "Oh, also there was that big dinner table, you remember? Looked a bit sparse, but lots of wine, probably just the first course. I don't remember it really well, they made us get off the boat a little after that."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I remember the wine!" And something about people going on about vainglory. Which seemed rather misplaced, really. "I definitely remember the wine. And, ah--yes, they put us off the boat--I was a bit concerned at that, you know, were we going to have to find another boat to get back, and was that boat going to want blood and ask personal questions--"

Hmm. They seem to be losing Feuilly's attention.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly frowns. "You know, I'm still not entirely sure how that worked? Feuilly! Feuilly, listen, you're good with maps. There was the lake, right? And then the castle, we were telling you about the castle. The cup and the spear and all, very--who's Perceval?" That's directed to Bossuet, though only distractedly. Joly did not really read at all the right books growing up.

"--Anyway, the old man running the place--everyone called him a king, you know, but I think he was out fishing when we got there, he didn't--he didn't look like a king? I think it was a little like,like when old soldiers have their families calling them General, you know? Bit of flattery? But it was a castle, so who can say. But Kings usually have their own physicians! And this old fellow, he had a horrible wound right in a very, er, delicate place, you know? Why, no one had even bound it up, it was bleeding like anything. Of course I talked to him, patched it up as best I could with what we had there. I told them, if they'd wait until morning, I'd try to come back here and get more supplies, and I would have, of course!-- Except, well. Er."

Now that he comes to think of it "But in the evening the entire household left, with the house" sounds a bit ridiculous. But how else to say it?

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"His thigh," Bossuet supplies sagely, on the off chance that Feuilly had somehow missed the general area of the injury. "--And he did have a castle, true, but there seemed to be quite a few castles to go around. Like the one with the maidens."

Ah, the castle with the maidens.

"But yes, right, we weren't really able to do very much else, what with the castle sort of disappearing in the morning. Or the middle of the night. At any rate, it was gone when we woke up. All the people too, and their lance and grail and all of that. --Oh, you would have liked that, Feuilly, charming local custom: before every course of the meal, they had a little procession, carrying around a lance and a candle-holder and a sort of a thing they said was a grail. Of course you couldn't quite pin anyone down--I asked my neighbors at the table, you know--and it was either all incredibly Christian or shockingly pagan, or both at once. At any rate, it was what a travel writer might call quaint, you know?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly laughs, a little less tipsy than he had been when they started talking; the effort of actually thinking about the whole thing is sobering him up a little.

A very little.

"I didn't see it! I mean, not really,because of, yes. The thigh." The thigh! Right! Thigh-adjacent, anyway. "Apparently that was a mistake. The lady-- oh! We didn't tell you. After the castle left! Well it was a very nice morning then, you know, and there we both were, so, well, it might have been worse. And the whole place-- the landscape, you know-- it was much nicer than it had looked in the dark. Very pretty place, looked like sprin, flowers everywhere. So we walked to the lake, thinking maybe it wouldn't be so very deep after all. Ah, it was!" Joly couldn't quite explain why he finds this so funny, but he has to laugh about it.

He recovers himself and adds "But there was the boat! But also there was that one woman, the one from the boat. And the one from the castle. The ones who weren't naked, you know!" That had been an unexepectdly rare qualifier in their trip. "And I suppose they'd been talking about us? Well, that's always an awkward moment, isn't it?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle pats his shoulder when he starts to laugh. Dear wonderful Joly. Best person in the world to go on an adventure with. Best person in the world in general. "Yes, they'd been having a little chat, and they seemed a bit confused about us. Which I call a nice thing--we weren't the ones with disappearing castles and boats with no visible means of propulsion! But at any rate, they were very sorry to tell us that we were not the most worthy knights in the land."

He manages to keep a straight face for two or three seconds before he buries his face in Joly's shoulder and has a good laugh.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly contracts a fresh round of giggles at that. "Yes, can you imagine, us not the worth--worthiest--ahahaha--Ah!" He flails his hands for a moment before patting his waiscoat. "They--the lady, she actually--ahaha, here, oh here, look, Feuilly-- they gave us a report card." He pulls out a folded piece of what looks like manila paper, which, unfolded, does indeed prove to be a report card, of sorts, listing Joly's marks in all the knightly virtues. "Legle--Leeeegllleee--Laigle-Lasgles-Bossuet, my dear, give Feuilly yours too! The comments, read the comments!"

Joly is still very drunk. But even more than that, he's cracking up,trapped in a loop of every new thing being funny because everything else is funny. Especially a card from strange women rating him on Valor and Chastity and other knightly virtues that Joly has always totally pursued and will in no way have to look up in a dictionary later!

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly has been looking at them with the thinning patience of someone who assumes this is a joke, takes the papers and looks them over.

"...Valor...Vainglory...Piety?" He raises his eyebrows at the two of them. "Charity...Deportment. Temperance... low marks for gambling?"

He tries to hand the cards back, but Lesgle seems to be laughing too hard to take them.

[merryeccentricities]

"Oh! Yes! Oh, Bossuet--" Joly tries for a scolding expression, with a notable lack of success. "We had found some rather nice baubles, you know, but then there was this priest, and if we aren't saintly I don't know what he was, and--well, anyway. Yes. Gambling."

Joly may be drunk, and he may be having a fit of the giggles, but he still catches some of Feuilly's mood, enough to sober a little. "We're not teasing you, Feuilly, really we aren't. It happened, I swear. I know it's absurd, something like that, but--I mean really it's even more absurd than we're saying-- oh, of course you don't believe us...hmm..." Joly frowns. They have the report cards, true, but apparently that's not very persuasive. Bossuet lost the little bits of treasure, is there anything else to convince even themselves the whole thing wasn't a bit of joke, when they sober up?

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Perhaps this will convince you!" It's Bossuet's best lawyer-in-court voice, spoiled by laughter at the end. But he's waving around a flask, which he then uncorks and pours from--a flow that doesn't ever diminish. "There, see, it's magic. Never empties. Full of anything you like. Brandy, champagne, absinthe...coffee...what do they drink in Poland, vodka? Have some Polish vodka, Feuilly! As much as you like!"

Oddly enough, Feuilly doesn't take the flask. But he's shaking his head with the kind of doubt that's nearly all the way to belief.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly looks at the report cards again. "I think it was rather unfair of them to judge our temperance, don't you, my dear? When everyone kept offering us drinks! Well, is a fellow supposed to be rude? Even, even, very serious fellows--even Enjolras drinks! Takes a glass, anyway. When there's a toast going around." So there, oddly judgy ladies with incorrect blood-donation procedures!

...On the other hand mayyybe they had a point, because the world goes a bit wobbly when Joly tries to make a defiant gesture. And wasn't there something... "Oh! The cat! Feuilly, we never did find that little creature-- Oh! our cats!" Pet Owner Guilt sobers him up a little. "Have we been gone only two days? Did anyone go to check on them? How long since--since anyone noticed we were missing?"

It can't have been that long--yes? no?

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I--um. Hate to tell you, but I didn't know you were missing at all." Feuilly laughs a little. Sorry, guys! The world didn't fall apart without you! (No, but really, that's good. Feuilly would feel awful if anything had happened to their beloved cats.) "It must make me a terrible friend. But really--you can't have been gone long. Maybe overnight?"

Oh, all right, he'll take the flask, since Lesgle is still nudging it hopefully in his direction. He gives it a sniff and a tentative sip. "--Yes, that's wódka all right."

[merryeccentricities]

It's all right, Feuilly, Joly's much too busy being relieved to even pretend to offense. "That's a first then, that it took less time--! It's so easy to lose months and months here, you know?--and I am so sorry about that." The last is said with a brief, somewhat guilty look to Bossuet. "But that's good! Good! And I haven't missed my shift this weekend , then. Ah--and I guess there's no point asking if anything happened while we were away!" He laughs, still relieved. Time does so get away here.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Um." Feuilly's laughter finally catches up. Oh, Joly; oh Lesgle. He reaches out and gives each of them a pat on the shoulder. "No, nothing happened. Just the usual, you know. Gods, vampires, that kind of thing. I'm glad you're back, even if I didn't know you were gone! And, um. Congratulations on your, um. Your...ordeal?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly grins, and toasts that, and then frowns at his flask. "You know, it's very good, but we haven't had anything to eat with it since--oh, since we woke." All those weird pavilions had suddenly stopped appearing! So strange! "That's bad, it's not healthy!--not balanced." Neither is Joly, especially, although he's managing to stay upright between his cane and Legle's shoulder.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Right! Precisely right! It's not balanced, it's not--ah--you know, Greek philosophers--humors--magnetic fields--"

It occurs to Lesgle, as they amble back to the main building, with Feuilly's dogs bouncing around them in circles, that Feuilly is unobtrusively setting a gentle pace and positioning himself to offer a supporting arm if anyone needs it. "--you know, you should go on a quest some time. Don't you think, Joly? That Feuilly should go on a quest? Everyone should, hey? Quests all around: wonderful fun, don't you think? Wonderful fun!"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly is aware of a thought that, in some way, their quest was perhaps not what it was meant to be; that for Feuilly, or Courfeyrac, or many of their friends, it might have been a very different matter. But that thought promptly goes to nap in the same secret room that's currently holding his sobriety.

And it was fun! And they have parting gifts! Yes!

So Joly nods, and says with a terrible attempt to sound calm and reserved, "Yes, indeed! Quests for all!--Provided they end with everyone home for dinner-time, I'm quite for it."

Well, dinner time is important. Of this Joly's entirely certain, and the cats will vote his opinion. He says something to that effect, as they stroll back home, and a great deal else he won't remember in the morning, occupied now with the epic task of keeping his feet and gesturing illustratively about parts of their trip that totally happened, Feuilly, you should have seen it.