(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

[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.