A door once opened may be stepped through in either direction.

[jaeresteade]

Saturday Midday
February 27th, Day 272
Town Market

I’ve been thinking seriously of moving out of my room at the Inn ever since I started working at the ‘Boy, but finding time to go look at places has been hard. I got up late this morning to find snow coming down. Took a moment to watch it before I started swearing at it, and it does look to be the

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[jaeresteade]

Well, I don’t have an angry milkmaid on my hands, at least, though she still looks unhappy at the cold. Looks like there’s not going to be cheese, either, at least not today. “Winter’s a good time to dry out cows. Although, if you do any kind of good, soft white cheese, I might be persuaded to become one of those prepaid regulars.” That’s probably how she makes most of her money, same as me, and it would be nice to have cheese to put on bread in the mornings. Well, afternoons, knowing me.

“Today, though, yeah, I’ll take a pint.” I shift my packages to one arm so I can fish in my coat pocket for the money. I’d be glad to pay her, but if we can work out some kind of barter, that would be even better. “Do you usually make the milk run by yourself?” I haven’t seen her here before, but she doesn’t need to know that. Could be she’s put out at a brother or boyfriend who left her to make all the deliveries alone in the snow. Could also be that for some help with those deliveries, she’d let me have a pint of milk or two without any cash changing hands.

[elanna_bailey]

He's already reaching for his pocket as I'm reaching into the back for a bottle, when I hear his second question. Which answers a few questions, and raises a bunch more. If he doesn't recognize me as Old Bailey's daughter, then he's only come to town after I left. And it also means he probably never got milk delivered, 'cause then he'd have recognized my Pa, or at least the wagon. So either he's oblivious or he lives somewhere off the beaten path. And if he hasn't heard the rumours that Old Bailey's passed on to the other side, there's not much point in bringing it up now.

"Yeah," I say, passing over a pint bottle. "All by my lonesome. You payin' cash or barter?" I learned real quick that while Pa theoretically insisted on cash payments every month from the regulars, he'd apparently worked out all sorts of "equivalent" deals that he hadn't thought to note down, but that customers have been anxiously trying to confirm all week. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to bring them all back to the farmstead come Monday, frankly. But at least I've learned better than to assume everyone around here's got cold, hard cash to pay with.

[jaeresteade]

She is doing it alone, poor girl, and sounds none too happy about it. I bring out my wallet but don’t open it just yet. “I can give you cash for it, but… do you want some help making the deliveries? It goes faster with two people.” I know that from experience, and as long as I don’t have to deal with any actual cows I wouldn’t mind helping her.

Leave her holding the bottle, don’t want to take it until she knows I’m good for it, one way or another, and she’s looking at me like she doesn’t know what to do with me. “Sorry, here I am telling you how to do your work, and you don’t know me from Adam.” I set my wallet on top of the packages and hold my hand up to her. “I’m Jarmyn.”

[elanna_bailey]

I shuffle the bottle over to my other hand and reach down. "Elanna."

I think about his offer for a minute. On the one hand, having help running the deliveries could be damned useful. On the other, I've heard enough stories about crazies in this town in the last week to turn your hair white. Didn't they just have a hanging last week for a guy who tried to eat someone?

But, hell, I didn't get this far by being over-cautious. And Jarmyn seems like a nice enough guy. "Sure," I say after a minute, "help with the deliveries today, I'll toss in the pint for free. Seems only fair. You ready to leave now, or you in the middle of something?"

[jaeresteade]

She shakes my hand, a nice firm grip, but not out to prove anything. I can tell she works with that hand, and she seems pretty level. I can also see her thinking over my offer, which she’s right to take time over, even in a small town like this. Going to have to make sure I don’t give her any reason to shove me off the wagon, because I think she might if she thought she had cause.

I privately think that helping her unload all that milk in the back is worth more than a pint, but we’ll see. It’d be worth getting to know her, I guess, and there is also the thought of that cheese. “Not busy at all,” I say, when she asks if I’m in the middle of something. Tempted to add a ‘sweetheart’ onto the end of that, but I’ll have to get her measure better before I know how much flirting she’ll put up with.

I put my parcels under the wagon seat, since there’s nothing that’ll break, and climb up beside her. It’s been a while, but a wagon is a wagon, and I’ve certainly spent enough time in ones just like this. Those green eyes look even better up close. Elanna… I shouldn’t know this girl, but I think I do, and it’s killing me that I can’t remember how. I have a good memory for faces and names, and the details that go with them; you can’t make it tending bar if you don’t. And I cannot place this girl.

Need to stop staring at her, though, or I will get pushed off the wagon. I shake my head a little. “Sorry, you look…. Never mind.” I reach up and push the snow out of my hair again, holding out my other hand for the reins. “I can drive, if you like. Unless he’s partial to you?” The old horse looks anything but, but it’s a way to get the conversation off on something that’s not how we might or might not know each other, and I hope she takes it.

[elanna_bailey]

I shuffle over to make room and pass over the pint bottle. He didn't even try to haggle the price, but maybe he'll do that later. Maybe he's tryin' to size me up first, which would be pretty smart, all things considered. I hand over the reins; he seems like he knows what he's doing with 'em. "Nah, Lucky's been doing this a long time. He's pretty impartial."

I catch him staring, about to say something, and then stop himself. Doesn't matter. So long as he doesn't stare so long to make it weird, I'll live. God knows I've dealt with worse, and we're still pretty public, what with us being in the middle of the market. Something about him seems damned familiar; wish I could figure out what the hell it was.

Another thought catches me. If he didn't know who Pa was, and he doesn't know who I am, he might be new. Really new. "How well you know the city?" I ask tentatively. Either way, I'm gonna have to tell him which houses we're stopping at, given that I'm the one with the list, but I guess I should double-check that he at least knows where all the streets are.

[jaeresteade]

She hands me the bottle, which I put under the seat with the rest of my things, and then the reins. I slap them a little, click my tongue at the horse, and we start moving slowly. The smell of milk and hay is pretty strong now, but I try to concentrate on who I am now and why I’m doing this. Because I want to, not because I have to, and tonight, tonight I’ll be tending bar, not shoveling manure. And sleeping in my own bed after.

I’m thinking about this so much that I almost miss what she asks me. “Wouldn’t exactly call it a city. I’ve been here since the new year,” I tell her. “Know the streets and where some people live. How about you?” It’s a simple enough question. If she’s lived here her whole life, though, then I can put it out of my head how familiar she looks.

[elanna_bailey]

Ah. That'd explain it, then. I catch a sidelong glance as I watch the stalls of the market slip past. I've strangely gotten better at this particular conversation in the last week, so much so that I barely wince when he asks. "Pretty well, actually. Lived here my whole life until a few years ago. Just got back, though, and it looks like everything exploded while I was away. Excolo's probably twice as big as I remember. Maybe more."

The last of the stalls falls behind us and I signal him to take a left as we go into the more residential streets where most of my customers live. "What have you been up to since you got here? You got a job, or you just drifting?" I hope he doesn't take the question the wrong way. Heck, I've done my share of drifting; ain't nothing wrong with it, though some of the busybodies might thing different. I grin, just to show I don't mean nothin' offensive.

[jaeresteade]

I’m not sure she wanted to be asked that question, but she shrugs it off and answers easily enough. If she’s been gone a few years, though-damn, now I have to start thinking fast while I figure out a good way to answer the question she asked me in return.

I hate the word drifter, and hobo, and bum, and other nastier words that mean the same thing. Been called most of them, haven’t actually been any of them, I think. Have seen plenty of them, though. I work for my living, and I don’t drift. I decide where I go. I don’t think she meant anything by it, though, so unless she starts in on me, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. “I’m working. Nights I’m not at the Whitechapel, I’m at the ‘Boy.” I tip my head in the general direction of the brothel and slap the reins again, just hard enough to keep the horse moving after we make the turn.

And God, now I have to make sure she doesn’t assume I’m a prostitute without making it look like I thought that she might. “I’m working security there, although I like tending bar better.” There, that should settle her on my occupation. “Are you doing this cause you love cows, or is it a family business, or both?” I lean over a little, trying to get a look at her list to know where we should stop next.

[elanna_bailey]

I catch him leaning in a bit, but it's only to check Pa's list, and I point out a house a bit further down the block. Mostly that's just a way to stall on answering his question, but I decide to take the easy answer. "Family business," I say. "My Pa passed away a little while back, and I've taken over." No need for him to know that 'a little while back' was really less than two weeks. It's the general idea that's important.

I pull up Lucky to the first house, where the order calls for three bottles of milk and one of cream. I pull them out from the back of the wagon and grin. "So, you bein' my runner, or are you watching the cart?"

[jaeresteade]

“Sorry for your loss,” seems the thing to say when she mentions her father. Wish it’d been mine and not yours doesn’t seem like it’d go over too well, and that’d leave me with a lot of explaining to do, besides. Still she doesn’t go on about how happy she is to be doing this, so I’m thinking it’s because she has to and not our of any particular love for it. Need to ask her about that later.

She stops the wagon, and I jump down, more out of habit than anything else. Moving helps keep the cold away, in any case. “I’ll run, unless they’re expecting you to be the one who knocks on the door. People start seeing me instead of the pretty girl they expect, you might loose some customers.” Have to grin at her as I take the bottles and set them on the stoop. That’s all Joshua and I used to do, and it gets the run finished quicker, but some people might like to be more personal about it, I guess.

[elanna_bailey]

He's out running before I finish speaking, which is fine by me. I hunker down into my jacket as he runs the bottles over to the door. "Don't forget to pick up the empties," I call after him. He seems to know what he's doing, but a lot of people forget that what goes out needs to come back. Milk is a renewable resource; bottles, not so much.

When he's back on the wagon and settled in, I flick the reins. "Have at," I say. "Frankly, I'm not sure how many of them have gotten used to my pretty little face anyway. Though they may take you for my brother."

Now that I think about it, there's something damned familiar about him, and I wish I could place it. "You ain't not my long-lost brother, are you?" I say with a grin, trying to get the odd feeling out of my system.

[jaeresteade]

She reminds me to pick up the empty bottles, which I guess some people might forget. This girl needs to figure out I know what I’m doing, though. I set them in the back and climb back up beside her. This isn’t how I planned to spend my Saturday, but there are worse ways, I guess, than with a pretty girl getting some free milk out of it. There is cheese in the back, too, I saw, and I’m hoping she might have some of that left over.

If she’s talking about how people might not have gotten used to her face, then maybe he dad isn’t long in the grave, or something else is going on here I don’t know about. Going to have to figure that out, too. She says people might take me for her brother, which I guess they might, yeah. Her eyes are a lot greener, and her hair’s lighter, but I can see the similarities. And then she’s asking if I might be her brother, which I think is mostly a joke, more of one than she knows.

“I’ve got six sisters,” I tell her with a grin, “and I’m pretty sure you’re not one of them. Not that you don’t remind me of them: I’ve made milk runs with every one of them.” Sometimes the little ones liked to ride along to get out of the house, and the older ones could all handle a wagon as well as I ever could. Liked doing it with Joshua better, though.

“My family kept pretty much to themselves, long ways from here.” She looks like the same kind of girl, but less pinched than Jocasta and shorter than Judith, the only two she might be of age with. “No, I’ve seen you somewhere, sweetheart, but it wasn’t at home. You want to tell me where it might have been?”

[elanna_bailey]

Huh. So he's done this before. I wonder where he's from, 'cause Old Bailey ran the only dairy in a 10-mile radius around Excolo, as far as I know. Doesn't matter, not really.

The last statement catches me a bit. Maybe I'm not crazy, maybe I *have* seen him somewhere before. Damned if I know where, though. I brush off the sweetheart line. I ain't anybody's sweetheart, but I've been called worse than that, and if you get your panties in a bunch over terms of endearment, you're never gonna stop. Maybe he's from down south somewhere. They use "sweetheart" like it's goin' out of style.

"No idea," I say. "I've been all over for the last few years, and never in one place longer'n a couple of months. What about you? I might have seen you somewhere around?"

[jaeresteade]

“You wouldn’t have seen me around here,” I tell her. I’m not sure if she really doesn’t remember, or if she does but won’t say. “I’ve been all over too, past ten years. Grew up a ways from here, like I said.” Not exactly sure how far, cause I’ve covered most of it on foot, and that makes it feel farther away, which is just fine with me.

I get down to set out the next order, and have to stop talking, because this family has a lot of milk, and if I drop a bottle I’m sure she won’t thank me for it. Sounds like she’s been drifting: grew up here, left for a while for whatever reason, maybe just to leave, not really going to any particular place, but now she’s back. Why is that, I wonder?

Nothing in hell would make me go back home and start milking cows after being free of it. I’d shoot myself in the head first, and not hesitate on the trigger, but maybe she feels differently. I get back onto the wagon, thinking this over. “If you’ve seen me, it was probably behind a bar. What do you drink, usually?” Because I can usually put a face with a drink order. I’m thinking she might have been in with a boy, or a couple of them. Looking a lot less cold than this, too, but not a whole lot happier. Damn, I should be able to figure this out.

[elanna_bailey]

I think over the question as Lucky turns a corner and proceeds down the next sleepy Saturday morning street. "Whatever's cheap," I say at last. "Or whatever I can convince someone to buy me." Money on the road never came easy, so usually I was just buying whatever was around.

Now that he's mentioned he was a bartender, I try to place him a little closer. Shoulder-length hair, wolfish grin... nope. It slips away again. I've seen too many bartenders in too many bars. "Sorry. Wish I could be more helpful."