shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Toby slept most of the way from wherever it was Mr Venom picked him up until they reached the farm, and even then, he was still pretty groggy. The washroom was pointed out to him (and what a wonder that is, all shining and clean and good clean hot water right there without having to pump it or heat it on the fire or anything), and Toby did manage to scrub the mud off his face and shuck the outermost, muddiest layers of his clothes.

The kitchen seems like the best place for him, but when he finds it, he decides that it, like the washroom, is too posh for him to use much unless he has to or he's told to. Besides, there's not a proper fire going anywhere in the kitchen, and if there's one thing Toby really wants to find, it's someplace warm. A lot has happened lately-- too much to really, really take in, even-- and if he could just find somewhere warm and easy to sit for a while, to think things through... well, it can't hurt and might help.

He figures, though, that nobody's going to miss just one apple from the bowl, not if what Mr Venom told him about how many people live here is true.

If someone should wander in to tell the lad otherwise, he'll be most appropriately shamefaced-- especially since he's already taken a great big bite out of it.

((The usual note about spoilers applies-- let me know whether you want them or not or don't care.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes, miss. Mr Venom says that's usual."

Toby's well aware Venom is an unusual name, but Venom is an unusual person, so it sort of suits him.

Now, as to whether or not it was a good idea to ride in an enclosed carriage with someone who calls himself Venom, that's another story.

Speaking as someone who's ridden on the back of a gigantic smelly furball, Jona could say with confidence that there are more perilous modes of transport. Well, perhaps.

Right then! "All-a this is not the world you're from. Not any evil fairy world neither, from what I'm told, but most of the people in it weren't born here."

You can tell this is an important speech, because she's paused in her sandwich-making to give it.

Jona has not seen Mr Venom's teeth, then. Granted, he didn't eat Toby, but teeth like that have to eat something besides chocolate.

... Mr Venom is very confusing, really. Perhaps it's no small wonder Toby is more than happy to be distracted by appliances and explanations.

"S'cleaner than where I'm from, all right," Toby agrees, looking thoughtful. "I'm told there's fairies, just a long way off from here, but it don't sound like it's their world, either."

There's an important question Toby's missing. "How'd we get brung to a whole nother world, miss?"

...Jona hadn't heard about the fairies. Her expression is approximate to someone being trodden on. "...how far a way?"

Jona's world has nothing good to say about fairies.

As to the question:

"...I don't know," she admits reluctantly. "Some people round here are trying to work it out, I hear, but that stuff's all over my head." She makes an apologetic face, then adds encouragingly: "Ain't nothing bad, though. Lot better here than where I came from, at least."

"Don't recall how far away he said, but far enough Mr Venom wasn't worried about it, and he had this mechanical carriage thing that went faster than anything really ought to be able to go. So probably a real long way off."

As for the rest, Toby just nods. "So far it's an improvement on my situation, too." 'Situation' may have been slightly mispronounced.

Jona grew up in the slums. She's far from nitpicky about pronounciation.

She looks somewhat reassured by the fact that they're a long way off, and resolves not to press the subject. No-one (in her limited experience) likes to talk about fairies too much, in case they take it as an invitation to pop by.

"You not got family?" she asks sympathetically, her hands returning to the sandwich.

A few of its people are the only reason she ever misses her world.

"Grew up in the workhouse," Toby says with a shrug.

He's twelve, so this may be a subjective value of 'grew up.' He also assumes Jona will know what a workhouse is, because clearly London is the whole world even if he already knows it's not even this world.

"Got apprenticed out, but... well. Mrs Lovett... passed on." Toby wins understatement of the year.

Funny, that's exactly the same assumption that Jona had about Tryst. Fortunately, that city also has workhouses.

...well, when the narration says 'fortunately'...

Jona ruffles his hair in an it's-all-right, sorry-about-that kind of way. (Her parents were both alive when she last checked, amazingly enough, but when you're in prison with the sentence she had you tend to force yourself to accept that you're never going to see them again. It's helped.)

"That a recent thing?" She's tactful enough to keep her tone gentle.

He takes the hair-ruffling in good grace, smiling a bit even if Jona has unusual hands. Ain't polite to comment on such things, and it doesn't seem to slow her down any.

"Not long before I, uh, come here." Then bang, crash, the lightning flashed and well that's another musical, never mind, anyway-- "I was leaving-- that's my things, there--" he nods towards a sailor's rucksack, which was not his but is now probably by some obscure rite of inheritance-- "so it's... not like I had plans or anything."

Come to think of it, he hasn't stared in shock at her various appendages at all, much less commented on them. Congratulations, Toby, you're Jona's new favourite farm resident!

"Found a good waystation, then," she smiles encouragingly. "You don't get charged or nothing. Lots of really foreign people, but you can't blame them for being from other worlds." Isn't she open-minded? "You want some grilled cheese?"

Well, she's finished putting hers together and there's still this whole great chunk of cheddar and a pile of bread left over.

...She can't wait to show him the grilling part.

"Miss, this apple?" Toby holds it up, half-eaten. "Is the first thing I've had to eat since I come here. I'll eat almost anything you want to put in front of me, honest."

And he knows what's in cheese, even! Offers Jona a smile, too.

Jona beams.

The boy's happy! And she gets to show him grilled cheese sandwiches! Life is good!

"My name's Hibym a Jona," she offers, ~~for the sake of the narration~~ because his 'miss' has reminded her suddenly that they haven't swapped formal greetings.

Oh, and she's quite adept by now at this sandwich-making lark, so when she gives it her attention she can put one together in no time at all. Ta-da!

Isn't she just skilled as anything? "Tobias Ragg, Miss Jona, but called Toby more often than anything."

She's got a foreign name, so he hopes he's got the 'miss' in the right place. Maybe it's supposed to go before the a. (Jona looks pretty foreign, too, but she's from a whole different world, so that explains it, and anyway she's being awful nice and feeding him from the fancy ice-box and everything, so he's not going to let a little thing like that bother him.)

He does totally watch her at the stove, however. He was a baker's apprentice-- it's professional curiosity.

She is! Lookit!

He did put the 'miss' in just the right place, incidentally, at least so far as there is a proper place for a culture that's only spent a couple of generations in a country where 'miss' is even used. 'Jona' is technically her family name, but it's also the one she's called by: 'Hibym' is more of a title or perhaps a handy description. ...The Swaranese naming traditions would smash your brain out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. Please don't ask.

"Gods rain, Toby," is the polite thing to say in such an introductory situation.

And then there is GRILLING OF CHEESE.

"Er," Toby says, and reminds himself that more than one God might reign in foreign parts, even if you're not supposed to have any gods before God (although nothing says anything, least that he's been told, about having other gods after God, but we'll just repeat that the workhouse chaplain tended to get about halfway through the Sunday lessons before the gin started to get to him and he dozed off). "All right. Lovely to meet you.

"Cor that smells good."

Actually, it's a god named Gods. ...There was some confusion with the absorption of Swaran culture into that of the archipelagoes. That and the god/s in question is batshit insane. Moving on.

"Doesn't it, though?"

See Jona glee! Glee, Jona, glee!

"...don't touch it," she adds after a second. Um, totally not speaking at all from personal experience, there. Not one jot. Uhm.

Well, isn't that a fun time.

Toby grins up at her. "Hot yet?" It's only sort-of a question, and similarly sort-of innocently posed. "Mrs Lovett had a meat pie shop. Burnt my mouth a time or two on hot filling."

What was in the filling, he decides not to think about-- he really is hungry, and it's not like he can sick up the past two months of meals anyway.

Toby gets EVIL EYES. EEEEEVIL.

Slightly spoiled by the embarrassed grin, but nonetheless.

"Don't have meat much here." Well, she doesn't. She can't speak for the household as a whole. "Think it all goes to the thing in the pond down behind the house." Vague gesture in a Spotsward direction.

"There's a pond?" Hey, wait. "There's a thing in the pond? What kind of thing?"

Expressive shrug, with half an eye on the bubbling cheese.

"Sort of..." She wriggles her fingers at him: could be spooky hands, could be an example. Could be both! "...tentacle-thing."

She's never seen an octopus, alas, or this would be easier.

"... Like a sea monster?" Toby's never seen a squid, either, but he's heard stories from here and there. "Must be a small sea monster..."

"It's a tiny little sea monster!"

And from her tone, it's absolutely adorable.

Well, by the standards of a species that flirts with its tongues, anyway.

Not that she's ever quite gotten a good look at it. She can't swim, so going to the edge of a pond with a creature in it -- even a cute and elusive little creature -- is not generally seen as a good idea.

And certainly not in this weather. "I'll keep my eye out for it," Toby says. Tiny little sea monster. What'll they think of next? "Could make some paper boats or smething and see if it wants to chase those."

It's a silly suggestion, sure, but Toby is waiting for his breakfast to cool off enough to eat. Silly suggestions seem appropriate.

Speaking of breakfast! Oven glove on (let's just say that she learned about oven gloves the hard way) and whipping it out of the oven, stat!

Doesn't it smell gorgeous?

...if you want to eat off of a plate, my boy, then you're going to have to be the one to suggest it. Jona's put the grill down on a heat pad, and all the fancy accoutrements she needs are something with which to bat the sandwiches into a position from which they can be safely retrieved.

"Probably they've got paper," she muses. "They got everything here."

"S'useful for wrapping things up," Toby agrees. Perhaps paper's a bit more common where he's from, but Jona's been here long enough to know how to Do Things, and that's impressive.

And anyway, it's a sandwich. Part of the point of things like sandwiches and meat pies is that you don't need anything like a plate or a fork or anything to eat them, and Toby... well, he eats like somebody who hasn't had anything to eat but an apple in the better part of a day; almost as grateful as a starving man, if more willing to stop for conversation.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(For those avoiding spoilers, there's a rather big one here.)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject