shatterverse | (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.))

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He's twelve, a boy, was recently traumatized, and has more recently looked at the world around him and discovered that all bets are off. And hey, Mr Venom is a great black toothsome man-beast too, and he was polite as anything.

Maybe it's the ones who don't look monstrous you have to watch out for. Maybe it's just that the teeth are right there so you know where you stand, instead.

Maybe it's just nice to have his life not being actively threatened by someone with ready means to take it and dispose of the body.

"Cor. That's somethin', ain't it?"

"A bit."

Beam! (With utterly normal teeth, thank you. At the moment.)

"And you fly and everything?" Okay, so he hadn't taken in much besides Miss Lucy IS the dragon, she does not HAVE the dragon, but Miss Jona said there was flying involved, and it'd be nice if Miss Jona weren't wrong about that. Maybe she just misheard somebody.

... ooh! Maybe she saw Lucy flying! Toby's gonna ask so hard the next time he sees her.

"Yep."

Slightly smug, that. Flying is fun!

"That's just..." Cool is not in the lexicon, in 1846. Toby has to resort to, "Blimey.

"D'you breathe fire? Notice nothin' smells like smoke, though..."

So maybe not. Or maybe the washrooms are that awesome. Who knows? Maybe it's both!

"No fire."

Nope, she just eats people. (But not often. None since the world ended, in fact.)

Good for her. (Not that they aren't tasty, least if you're careful with your seasonings.)

"Can't have everything, I s'pose," but he's smiling as he says it.

"Quite."

Hey. Lucy can fly. What's she need with fire? Nothin', that's what.

She could light the oven, but she does not need to because she has the magic oven of win.

Pfft, fire.

Toby grins up at her.

He works for the most awesome lady ever.

Lucy grins right back!

Toby, your enthusiasm is catching.

"Don't mind sayin', Miss-- this place is a lot better than London, least the London I came from."

For one thing, the colors aren't forty to sixty percent desaturated.

...*snork*

"Good."

Lucy is happy when family is happy, even family she only met today.

Toby considers himself hired help-- which should at least keep him from presuming too much. "Anything you need done, Miss, you let me know and I'll be at it. Miss... Hana's mother, Mel, she thinks she ought to set me to cooking for people, an' I can do that, all right."

Once he figures things out in the kitchen. Which he will!

"All right."

Really, Lucy doesn't need much done. The house takes care of itself, or more accurately is taken care of by what remains of Anne's little songs.

Toby smiles up at her, if not really far up (he's had a growth spurt, the last month or so).

It's good to have a place again.

That it is.